Posted on 09/23/2016 7:57:08 AM PDT by Kaslin
It's time for all the cop bashers out there to learn the truth about police work. The short explanation is that while forensics and science play a large part in modern criminal investigations, being a police officer itself is not a science.
It's imperfect people doing their best to enforce imperfect laws, in an often times very difficult environment, and being forced to make split second, sometimes life and death decisions, most of the time with little if any information to base their decisions on.
You want perfection, it only exists in the movies. Try 'Robocop', it's entertaining, but it's not reality.
After every police shooting we hear the drumbeat from the media, the self-appointed law enforcement experts, and sociologists who cry for more police training. The reality is that in America today's police officer in most major metropolitan areas is the most well trained in history. And in anywhere in the world, that’s why most other countries look to American law enforcement for help and training. During their career police officers are constantly attending 'in-service training' following their initial police academy training.
Is there room for more training ? Absolutely, and all training officers for police departments are always looking for ways they can improve on or Officers also spend a great deal of time attending firearms training, including "Shoot-Don't Shoot" training, and role playing scenarios regularly. Sadly no amount of training can recreate everything that officers might experience on the street. Every possible ‘shoot-don’t shoot’ scenario simply cannot be covered or recreated in a training session.
It’s also been expressed by some in the minority community that all white cops are racist. Curiously you don't normally hear that same accusation being made by their black fellow officers who work the same streets, and witness firsthand the seamier side of life that white officers also operate in.
Black officers themselves know far too well the reality of life in the inner cities. Often times they are on the receiving end of an extra level of abuse from many in the black neighborhoods, called ‘Uncle Toms’ and all other manner of insulting names.
Does a coarseness and a ‘gallows humor’ sometimes set in among police officers ? Absolutely, that is a sad reality of police work. When you deal with the same societal problems day in and day out, when people lie to your face repeatedly over traffic violations or some other trivial matter, it's often difficult to remain optimistic and positive about the people you encounter. It often also carries over into a police officer’s personal life as well, since they suffer a high divorce rate, alcohol abuse, and any number of health problems and a shortened life expectancy due to stress-related heart attacks.
Sadly the statistics bear out that members of the black community commit a disproportionate amount of crime compared to their percentage of the population. So they have more police encounters. One can argue that discrimination and residual racism, and a lack of education and opportunities contribute to that. Maybe so, but you need to discuss that with sociologists. That's their specialty.
Police Officers aren't sociologists. It's not their specialty or their job, though they are called upon to be the 'father confessor', or the 'shoulder to lean on', and the 'arbiter of domestic battles' on a regular basis. Police Officers simply have to deal with the failures of all the sociologists and social planners out there. Have a problem ? Call the cops. Mad at your neighbor ? Call the cops. Got the wrong sack of fast food from the drive-in restaurant ? Call the cops.
After the charges being filed against the Tulsa Police Officer for the recent shooting of an unarmed black man it begs the question, just what kind of a message are we sending to female police officers ? If they find themselves facing a potentially violent encounter with a much larger individual, are we telling them that they have just been stripped of deadly force as an option ?
What if there are no backup officers nearby and she finds herself thrust into the middle of a violent confrontation with a very large and unarmed male, perhaps under the effects of some mind-altering substance ? Does she take a beating, and perhaps be knocked unconscious and be disarmed, and then have the weapon used against her ?
Are female officers now going to be less likely to step into the middle of a domestic dispute where the wife is being attacked physically by her husband ? After all, it could escalate into a fight for her own life, yet the man is unarmed. Will her using deadly force be viewed as justified ?
Could one blame a female officer if she decide to stay back and take her time instead of rushing to a "crime in progress" radio call, not knowing whether or not she might become involved in a violent physical encounter ? Not all female officers are black belts in Karate, or are able to go toe-to-toe with a large, violent male.
Finally, Police Officers have the right to be obeyed when they are giving lawful instructions or orders. They have the right to be respected and even admired for being committed to doing a difficult job that most people don't even want to think about, much less do themselves.
And Police Officers have the right to go home safely to their loved ones at the end of their shift.offer more training to police officers with their particular agency. But police officers can't spend all their time in the classroom environments and training sessions, they have to spend some time out on the streets actually doing the job of being a police officer !
I agree with much of this. I have a number of police officers I count as friends. There is one caveat though to this article; just as not all doctors are good doctors, and not all plumbers are good plumbers, not all cops are good cops. There are a number of bad cops out there, that range from lazy, corrupt, to those using a gun and badge to live out revenge fantasies. They are not the majority, but they do exist. For example, there is a local officer who profiles and pulls over people just based on their looks, and is known to lie about having probable cause. The other cops say they don’t like doing back up for him because they know what he’s doing is wrong.
But they don’t stop it.
The good, hard working cops know who they are. They need to stop covering for them and get rid of them, in their own interest as well as for society’s.
I’ll take one for the team here.
“Any” job where physical prowess is a basic requirement, unless a woman can handle herself in training that is non-PC, she shouldn’t be in that job. The Tulsa PD, because of PC laws were forced to put this cop on the streets, knowing full well that this would eventually happen. This wasn’t an if, this was a when.
To the last part -- if a female cop feels that she has to revert to deadly force in a situation when male cop wouldn't simply because she is too weak to physically handle a threat, then she SHOULD NOT be a cop. Come to think of it, women really, really shouldn't be cops at all. Obviously there are going to be muscle-bound, drug-addled thugs that practically nobody can subdue, but a male in good physical shape can reasonably be expected to handle most people he might encounter. The opposite is true of females, even those in physical condition much superior to an average female.
Meanwhile, thugs can be thugs.
I think police officers should have a 4y college degree plus one year in training and be paid more money. Less cops, better cops.
Bad guys go to work each day trying to figure out who they are going to rob, scam, mess-up or where they are going to score their next drug fix.
It is beyond coincidence that the black community has far more representation on the bad guy side of this equation. It is also beyond coincidence that most of the crime occurs in cities that have been under democrat party control for generations.
Blue live matter.
“The other cops say they don’t like doing back up for him because they know what he’s doing is wrong.
But they don’t stop it.
The good, hard working cops know who they are. They need to stop covering for them and get rid of them, in their own interest as well as for society’s.”
But isn’t that a big problem? Having a bad plumber may result in a leak, but having a bad cop ( or a doctor for that matter ) may leave you dead!!! And your metaphor is right in that doctors will cover for eachother just like the cops do. I had to change PCP’s a few years ago because the Dr. I had had for probably 25 years, was loosing it. When I switched to one of the other Drs. in the clinic, they made tha change without questioning my decision, but they would not admit that the former Dr. was a problem. A few months later, he “retired,” but everyone praised him right up to the day he left. So too it is with cops. They have a “code of omerta” just like the mobsters to cover for eachother no matter the circumstances. And while it’s fine for them to stand up for one another when there’s an injustice against one of their number, it’s the same game when one of them deserves to be disciplined. As I’ve posted before, just try lodging a formal complaint against a cop as I did once. You will really see how they operate when confronted with a citizen’s complaint and it isn’t a pretty picture.
In two videos, the one in Chicago from 2014 released just last year and one in 2015 in North Carolina, we watched two separate cops murder people. If it weren’t for the cameras we would never have seen it. In these two cases nobody is defending the cops in the press. They clearly just murdered two people who posed no threat, had no weapon, both were facing the other direction.
Yes, police work is hard. Yes, we need people to do it. Yes, the over whelming percentage of cops are great people. Yes, there is lots of danger in police work. Yes, you have to make split decisions that are not always right from an armchair quarterback point of view.
But none of these things happened in these two videos I mention above. These were cold, calculated murders that were obvious. And in both cases someone was trying to hide or minimize the fallout. In one case (North Carolina), the cop tried to put a gun down near the scene. In Chicago, they tried to quietly pay off the family without punishing the cop.
People like me, who defend and appreciate cops, would feel much better if others would not defend every single cop no matter how hideous and obvious the crime. Cops can do wrong. And a small number do.
With great power comes great responsibility. If a cop KNOWS if he screws up, if he short cuts the system, because he can, he will spend the rest of his life in general population, first offense, no appeal, no plea bargaining, no possibility of parole, THEN we will see some small improvement. You will either have better LEOs, or MUCH more clever blue suited political goons.
The Sheriff Of Nottingham had the same men, and they are always men who will cut off ears. Today they wear blue coats.
I go back and forth on this. Of course I want to support the police. I believe in law and order, so I support the police over the criminals.
But sometimes the police are the criminals.
I think that if an officer is proven to have made a mistake which they ought not to have made, then judgment should be made directly against the pension of the police union. All the cops should see their retirement get a little less bright because Officer Skippy got “one of his rages” and threw an old lady to the ground (again).
The police do need to police themselves. Some of the officers are bad and they are known to be bad. The Union needs to get rid of the bad cops before they do something really bad.
That said, I do believe that anyone can make a mistake and I do not believe that we will achieve perfection. Both citizens and officers sometimes make errors in judgment. We need some wisdom on both sides of that equation.
Example: If an officer has been on the force for 10 years and always done everything by the book, if the day comes when a motorist lunges at the cop with something in his hand, if the cop shoots him, and if the motorist turns out to be unarmed, we can say that this “shouldn’t have happened” but I don’t think we’re necessarily looking at a bad cop who needs to be destroyed by the legal system. They have a very tough job to do.
Cops are like any other para-military organization, conditioned to “just follow orders.” When the orders come down to confiscate guns, they will confiscate guns. When the orders come down to herd people into camps, they will herd people into camps. Don’t think our cops would do that? Don’t think that can happen here?
That’s what the average German of 1927 thought.
Cops live with this daily. They get special privileges from their job.
To simply jack up the risks, commensurate with the rewards, would go a long way to restoring trust in the system.
Personal: I was offered, several times, employment as a LEO, for no other reason than that I would be an asset to a department pistol team. I always said no, since I was always afraid of the unlimited power I could use. I strongly suspect that I would have killed someone, out of annoyance. I wonder how many cops, these days, are that introspective.
Or beat a lying cop in Court and get acquitted. You become marked, because part of being a bad cop is not taking losing very well. They will find a way to get you arrested for something else. Yes, I saw this happen; in fact, when they got their acquittal I told them the bad news was they were going to get harassed. Sure enough, this person, in her 50s with no prior record, was arrested for "Resisting" just a month later.
I think police officers should be paid low wages with extremely minimal advancement. They should be encouraged to enter the work force after a few years. The same with the military (I got out after the Soviet collapse because I practice what I am preaching) and firefighting.
Basically, I disagree with your assertion that there should be a law enforcement class and a military class or any other government and a sheep class. You phrased it in more palatable words, yet at its heart that was what you advocated.
My belief is that all able bodied citizens should serve a period working either military, law enforcement, or fire fighting when they are young - then form a reserve pool that can be recalled to those tasks when needed.
You want an exclusive class set apart for those things then you can pay their pensions. Also when they become no longer held accountable and we have to identify how that came to be well...the problem is the people who were too stupid to understand the checks and balances the framers inserted into government. This was one of them.
Take your elite government class desires (which you want us to pay for) and shove them.
Straw man arguments.
Betty Shelby was not alone nor without back-up. If she were, then these arguments would hold water.
The only bad experience I’ve had with a cop was a state trooper who responded to an accident that I was a witness to. He called me at work later and got a statement about what I had seen. Pretty simple and one driver was very clearly at fault. Shortly after he started pulling me over every chance he got for ridiculous reasons like checking to see if my plates were current. Once he pulled me over on the way to work and said it looked like I was drinking a beer. He finally got me for passing in a no passing zone. I was passing a small tractor and had lots of room. After that he left me alone. I still have no idea what I did that he felt he needed to avenge.
Sure there are bad cops. Most are good guys.
BUT.... Training must be changed and police culture must be changed.
First, they have to stop shooting DOGS. Actually I think this has improved.
2nd, They have to stop “shooting to kill”, PEOPLE, regardless of race.
3rd, More non lethal methods need to be employed.
4th, Cops number one focus is to survive each shift. This is wrong! If they are so afraid of surviving each day at work, they need to get a new job. Protecting the public and arresting (not killing) bad guys should be their main focus.
5th, I hate to say it, but cops seem to be looking too hard for justification to use lethal force. I think this is in their training and it is a big mistake.
The best example of this is assault on a police officer by means of bumping a police car with an officer in it by a suspect in his vehicle.
OMG, the reaction by police is as if the suspect just emptied a 30 round clip at the cops.
I saw a real video once where a suspect (bank robber I think), avoiding a roadblock to stop him, drove off the road to go around the roadblock, literally running over a standing police officer.
THAT was justification for lethal use of force. Denting a police car SHOULD NOT BE.
Several cops emptying their magazines into a suspect who is not shooting at them, is not justified.
“Trigger happy” seems to be a phrase that applies way too often.
On a side note, every time I see an obese cop, I don’t understand how they are allowed to continue on the job. They are obviously incapable of properly performing their job.
Do they not have standards? Do they not have to pass periodical physical fitness tests?
Completely disagree with 4yr college degree. Colleges are nothing more than liberal indoctrination centers any more.
No need for the rudeness Ed. I’m not advocating for anything elitist. You must be suffering from some form of inferiority complex if you feel like the underclass.
I’m for education and training to deal with a far more diverse population than previous generations, that’s all.
This is an opinion board; we all don’t have to agree, but there’s no need for boorish inflammatory comments like your closing sentence.
That being said, I hope we’re still FRiends.
sjb
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