Posted on 01/07/2018 9:32:36 AM PST by JP1201
It’s when police officers mistakenly harm their fellow officers that we really see the problems with law enforcement narratives. Last September, St. Louis police reportedly beat and arrested a fellow police officer who had gone undercover during a series of protests. The police claimed that their fellow officer, who was black, was resisting arrest. That seems implausible. By the time the officer is getting arrested, there would be little reason for him to resist to maintain his cover. He undoubtedly knew how the police operate. He undoubtedly knew that resisting would bring a beating and an arrest. That both happened anyway strongly suggests that the police account of the incident was false.
The city of Albuquerque recently paid more than $6 million to a police officer who was shot eight times by a fellow officer while working undercover during a drug sting. The shooting officer claimed that the undercover officer put him in fear of his life. This again seems unlikely.
Albuquerque has a long history of questionable police shootings. Its officers are taught at the state academy, which was recently put under the command of a law enforcement official who teaches a much more aggressive style of policing, thinks we live in “a more dangerous world” (we don’t)....
The common denominator in these stories is that the police perceived a threat and used potentially lethal force against someone who we can safely say was innocent — someone who either had no gun, was wrongly suspected due to police error, or was himself a police officer. The police saw danger where there was none. We have scared the police into seeing threats that don’t exist, then given them near carte blanche to use lethal force whenever a threat is perceived. The threat needn’t be real. Only perceived.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
“If Black and White would realize we both have the same problem with the Cop and it’s not about race, we could make some headway.”
Right you are. We must concede though that the bulk of police are ok. But there is a fatal flaw in the system and it must be fixed ...or else! It’s like a new fabulous aircraft that performs superbly...except that every fifth one mysteriously explodes in mid-flight.
Murdering an Australian woman or a fatal SWAT error should be executable offenses in a just world.
“First, slash cop wages,”
You’d just get more of the ones who are in it pretty much for the power trip and ability to make life miserable for normal people.
“I have thought that beat cops need to return.”
It’d be a start. Maybe help out at a shelter, food bank or anything that helps remove this “us vs them” mentality.
That’s a great idea.
“... You’ll notice “police officer” isn’t on the list. “
Fireman is more dangerous then police. A lot.
So why do so many Freepers carry guns?
They militarized many agencies without providing the right kind of training to teach them to deal with situations. The military has very restrictive rules of engagement, they have to determine and identify an actual combatant/threat before engaging. Most law enforcement agencies are still using the “I felt threatened” as a basis for shooting dogs and people.
President O sided with BLM in making law enforcement the enemy, and that encouraged BLM and others to feel they could disrespect LE, and even set up ambushes for them. This article brushes by that but it has been happening more and more over the last 2 years. I have no doubt hearing about police being ambushed and murdered puts an extra element of fear in everyone wearing an LE uniform.
With the militarization of LE without proper training, along with the attitude of the previous administration toward LE- it was like pouring gas on a smouldering fire.
Add swatting pranks and we now have a recipe for disaster. I would think LE would be thoroughly trained to first confirm a situation before going in guns blazing. That would seem common sense if there were no swatting going on. With the swatting becoming more common I would think it would have immediately brought about a difference in training.
I don’t know what the solution is, but we do have to find one. I don’t want LE being killed left and right because they don’t react when there is a real threat. I also don’t want them killing innocent people because they perceive a threat where there is none.
A rookie BP once aimed an AR at my daughter and her 3 children from age 3 months to three years of age. He did a traffic stop on her in the dark on a deserted road in the middle of nowhere near the border. It is a state highway and she was coming to our house but to him the situation may have seemed scary. The thing is there was no threat to him, my daughter weighs 100 pound soaking wet. My husband talked to his supervisor about the situation and how easy it would have been for that to go wrong. The BP’s excuse was he thought he saw several heads in the car but he was actually seeing the top portion of car seats. If there had been adult passengers I still don’t understand the idea of aiming a rifle at them without any other cause. The BP said he was in fear of the situation. It was his first week on patrol out here by himself. Why he didn’t call for backup or any of a million other options- including a helicopter at his disposal- we still don’t know.
I think it is normal for LE to feel fear in a variety of situations- human nature and they are indeed in danger at times as we all know. There has to be a way to weed out those that cannot control that fear in order to make sound decisions when under stress. Some people are just not cut out for LE work. I don’t know how we fix it, but LE agencies have to recognize what the problems are and we have to get them fixed.
Excellent question.
Police/Community relations used to be a big deal for all LE agencies. The idea was know your community, know the people and be more effective. If the community knows you, they will respect and support you. That seems to have gone by the wayside. Now it is us against them all the way in the minds of many on both sides.
I have for many years lived on very remote ranches on the border. Years ago Border Patrol would make it a point to stop for a few minutes- introduce themselves and ask if we had had any issues. They would leave us a business card with toll free numbers to call if we had problems. The sheriffs department, game and fish, livestock inspectors did the same, especially new people on the job. We knew who they were, they knew who we were.
That all ended many years ago. The BP actually told their new agents that most of the people that live on the border out here are “dirty” and not to interact with them. That is absolutely not true but I would think if you were interacting with people that would be the quickest way to gain information or a suspicion that something was not right with some of them.
LE agencies see “them” everywhere now. Without foot patrols, interaction with people in general- they do not see us as people but as potential threats.
Of course there are real threats. The point is they are not so common that anyone needs to have a hair trigger mentality. If an armed non LE shoots an innocent person on the basis “they felt threatened” and it turns out there was no threat it will certainly not be dealt with the same as if an LE does the same.
That is why we rarely hear of ordinary armed people shooting people without good cause. Ordinary armed people understand they will be held to a different standard.
We need to hold LE to a higher standard, without taking away their ability to deal with actual threats. Not sure how we can do that, but we must.
Eh, if there’s 100% more cops on the street, it balances out the power trips. Stripping immunity means those who go past the line will swiftly have to leave the force as they can’t afford it anymore.
> So why do so many Freepers carry guns? <
That is actually the wrong question to ask. Because this thread is not about whether or not police should carry guns. It’s about their often unnecessary USE of those guns.
Yeah, the world is dangerous. However, being a cop is not even in the top ten most dangerous jobs in America.
I see the problem as the police reacting first whereas they should first reconnoiter, investigate, take a look-see, that what they were told is true, and that the address is correct, too.
The "bulk" of police will cover for their fellow police, no matter what. That is not "ok". If 95% of cops were "ok", the "bad" cops would quickly be weeded out. The problem is systemic and cultural. In their mind, it's "us vs them" and we have to have each others back.
No, when somebody draws a gun, only one person goes home. And the cop wants that person to be him or her. Pretty reasonable, I would think.
They’re not just walking down the street and seeing somebody they decide to shoot. They’re in a crisis situation, where somebody is shooting at them or looks like they’re about to shoot.
Prosecute those cases where there seems to be no threat or no justification, I entirely agree. But in most cases, it’s fully justified.
“The “bulk” of police will cover for their fellow police, no matter what. That is not “ok”. If 95% of cops were “ok”, the “bad” cops would quickly be weeded out. The problem is systemic and cultural. In their mind, it’s “us vs them” and we have to have each others back.”
I agree. By “bulk” i mean policing is just a boring job to them and they aren’t out to throw their weight around and/or hurt people, But the Blue Wall is just as bad as the “snitches get stitches” attitude in the hood that they are always bitching about.
Because a cop is too heavy?
BINGO! Our press is criminally irresponsible. They only report on bad cops when there is a racial angle. So, we get BLM and the backlash against them by people who are ignorant of the fact that more whites are murdered by bad cops.
Exactly. The Blacks never hear about the White cases, like the “crawl towards me” shooting. They don’t even know. Imagine the media THEY listen to!
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