Posted on 12/18/2019 11:25:59 AM PST by karpov
Serving as a cop in America is harder than ever — and it comes down to respect. A deficit of respect for the men and women in blue who daily put their lives on the line for the rest of us is hurting recruitment and retention and placing communities at risk.
This month, Sgt. Christopher Brewster of the Houston Police Department was shot and killed while responding to a domestic-violence call.
Several hours later that same day, Officer Stephen Carr of Arkansas’ Fayetteville Police Department was ambushed and executed while sitting in his patrol vehicle. Last week, Det. Joseph Seals was shot and killed by those who carried out the Jersey City massacre. Seals’ funeral is Tuesday.
There is no tougher job in the country than serving as a law-enforcement officer. Every morning, officers across the country get up, kiss their loved ones and put on their protective vests. They head out on patrol never knowing what threats and trials they will face. And their families endure restless nights, so we can sleep peacefully.
Policing is only getting harder. Police officers are now required to handle the fallout from a vast range of social pathologies that were once the domain of social workers, psychologists and family members, such as mental illness, widespread homelessness and drug abuse.
Even more demoralizing, police officers must look on as the criminals that they have risked their lives to apprehend get turned loose by “social-justice” DAs and “progressive” judges who no longer see their role as protecting the community from predators. Some DAs have even exposed police officers to greater danger by announcing that they will not prosecute those who resist police.
Increasingly, police officers find themselves the subject of physical attacks. Assaults against police jumped 20 percent from 2014 to 2017
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
The local police are our front line. They need everyone’s support.
Uh no, you are your front line. I am my first responder. The police are crime historians, government employees with guns.
“Or murdering some crying man who is laying face down on the floor.”
There are pre-teen children today plotting to kill people and some actually attempt it or do it. These days police can’t simply look at almost anyone and think they aren’t capable of a heinous violent crime.
In the case you’re apparently talking about, that man had brandished a weapon from a hotel balcony, which prompted the frantic call to police from at least one onlooker. I believe it was only a weapon to rid birds out of places like supermarkets, and he pointed it around on the balcony drunkenly in front of friends, but still a person is also accountable if having such a weapon is his responsibility and he negligently brings it out and points it around in a public place like that. Being intoxicated is no excuse.
Police therefore justifiably had to consider that he might want to conduct a mass killing, and while he disobeyed the officer who told him in effect not to make any false moves only to probably pull up his pants, he still did that reaching back to his pants motion, which at the time they couldn’t be sure wasn’t a move to retrieve a weapon to shoot at them. So, it was not at all as simple as you paint the incident.
Guess I’m just sick of criminals getting face time on TV
>>>I’m not sure when it happened, but somehow the public suddenly became “The Enemy” in the eyes of the police.<<<
I’ve long said that urban police departments (and some sheriff’s departments) have become virtual armies of occupation that literally rob, rape, and murder people and who are only held marginally accountable when there is incontrovertible evidence of wrong doing.
Too many police organizations have become exemplars of why we have the Second Amendment. Further, as they morph into an army of occupation that robs, rapes, and murders people they are also morphing more and more people into an insurgency.
And guess what? Insurgencies work.
Remember the NYPD abusing people and then choking the one man to death over a cigarette? The NYPD laughed that off until someone executed two of their officers on Staten Island. Those two retaliatory casualties did far more to stop NYPD abuse than did a truck load of toothless memos and court orders.
Not that I’m saying this should be anyone’s first choice. Not at all.
The first choice is to demand that law enforcement follow three simple rules or else quit their jobs.
1. Uphold and defend the Constitution you swore to uphold and defend.
2. Obey the laws you enforce.
3. Don’t be a dick.
Any cop who can’t manage these three simple rules should be removed from duty preferably by their superiors. Failing action by their superiors then other means MUST be employed lest so-called ‘law enforcement’ someday formalizes themselves as a national army of occupation.
Most of them already look like members of an alien army with their shaved heads, their military gear, and their perverse gang symbol ‘blue line’ flag that they swear allegiance to over and above the flag of the United States of America.
I like my local sheriff’s department and they’re great people.
But you know what’s funny about being around great cops? They make it all that more obvious that the majority of cops especially in urban areas are no more than an army of occupation.
And that army is waging war on the Constitution and the American people.
That's debatable:
Fatal injuries in 2017 per 100,000 workers:
1. Fishers and related fishing workers - 100.0
2. Logging workers - 87.3
3. Aircraft pilots and flight engineers - 51.3
4. Roofers - 45.2
5. Refuse and recyclable material collectors - 34.9
6. Structural iron and steel workers - 33.3
7. Driver/sales workers and truck drivers - 26.9
8. Farmers, ranchers and other agricultural managers - 24.0
9. First-line supervisors of landscaping, lawn service and groundskeeping workers - 21.0
10. Electrical power-line installers and repairers - 18.6
11. Miscellaneous agricultural workers - 17.7
12. First-line supervisors of construction trades and extraction workers - 17.4
13. Helpers, construction trades - 17.3
14. Maintenance and repair workers, general - 16.6
15. Grounds maintenance workers - 15.9
16. Construction laborers - 14.3
17. First-line supervisors of mechanics, installers and repairers - 13.1
18. Police and sheriff's patrol officers - 12.9
19. Operating engineers and other construction equipment operators - 11.8
20. Mining machine operators - 11.7
USA Today Jan 8, 2019
In 2017, roughly the same outright numbers were killed (91 roofers vs 95 cops). However, there aren't as many roofers, so the rates are what you want to compare.
Roofing is over three times as deadly as policing. See my post 46.
I simply cannot believe you are defending that absolute piece of shit cop. Have you even watched the video? What is wrong with you!?!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ooa7wOKHhg
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8BOGUlt9muQ
It’s tough job killing people.
Truthis.. the patriot act militarized pd. This creates a work sround for posse comitatus. PDs should not have apcs.
Thats not disrespectful, it’s the truth.
No, what is wrong with you?!
I watched the terrible video and read up on the facts of the case.
Another officer told Shaver that if he made a false move, they’d shoot him.
Shaver had a blood alcohol level over 3 times the legal driving limit.
He pointed what others would take to be a gun with a scope out a hotel window. A couple called the police.
The officers didn’t have the benefit of hindsight.
Do you admit that Shaver’s own recklessness in large part brought what happened to him on himself?
An update on a lawsuit over the man’s death:
https://www.courthousenews.com/arizona-officers-dodge-wrongful-death-suit-over-fatal-hotel-shooting/
This contains audio of the 911 call of hotel staff reporting that someone was pointing a rifle out a window, and people were scared.
And this from the Heavy article:
“The woman told police Shaver and the other man were pointing the rifle outside the hotel window before police arrived, and she told them to stop because they were drunk.”
The woman was in the room with them, and became concerned that the two men were pointing a rifle outside the while while drunk.
What’s really morally inexcusable is how so many people have described Shaver’s death as an execution, as if he hadn’t created the situation. In a climate where mass murders with guns take place pretty regularly, pointing a rifle outside your hotel room could indeed get you killed by police. They didn’t come in firing at them, but it’s a dangerous situation still once police arrived.
I just recently witnessed the aftermath of an escooter accident. A heard a crash and saw a young man lying the street unconscious. I called 911 while others stayed with him. Later the police called me and tried to see if I’d see anything of the accident, especially if a car had been involved. I’d never considered that, and reported the accident as a man falling off the scooter, but when asked that question, I realized that I was so focused on the young man lying in the street unconscious that of course I could have missed cars that were pulling away just at that time, as the accident happened right near the entrance to a bridge. There easily could have been cars, and one could have cut him off or bumped him. But I simply don’t know, and never thought of it until questioned by police. In the moment, it can be hard to interpret small things completely accurately, and in very dangerous situations, a little misinterpretation or not having some answers can make all the difference.
Absolutely not. He was in his hotel room, not pointing what looked like a rifle out of his window. People were peeping into his hotel room. Note that at no time did he actually have a rifle.
As for the BAC of over 3 times the driving limit, how is that relevant? Was he driving around inside his hotel room? What exactly is illegal about drinking inside your hotel room?
I watched the video and the officers were shouting at him and made contradictory commands. He was terrified and pleading for his life. How could anyone not realize that, especially trained professionals? If the cops were in fear of this guy, they shouldn’t be cops. They suck at their job.
In my opinion, it was just a matter of time before that hot-head cop with the “you’re fucked” gun engraving was going to murder someone.
In summary, you see a man’s life taken because he had drinks with friends inside his hotel room, had a scary looking object also inside his hotel room which had windows, and was confused and frightened by the police officers shouting contradictory orders as his own fault. Got it. Well, as long as the cops got to go home safely that night, job well done.
He was impaired and had no clue what was going on around him let alone the commands. The kid pulled up his shorts out of pure uncontrollable unconscious habit.
He had done the exact same out of habit a couple times prior as he crawled forward yet did not produce a gun. The officer shot him simply because he defied his orders one too many times and he was not going to have it based on egotistical authoritarianism.
If someone has the unconscious habit of reaching up and adjusting their eye glasses, should they be shot just because they moved to fast to unconsciously adjust their glasses and an officer felt threatened?
True - but perhaps the knowledge that one is a constant target who may be the next to be cut down by the thugs running loose changes one’s thought processes.
That’s exactly how I feel.
Without a doubt. There was no difference between the state this kid was in and someone who is mentally challenged. Is it also justifiable to take out all mentally challenged suspects because they did not understand or immediately comply to a “lawful order” from an authoritarian Kapo with “unquestionable” power of life and death over the public detainees?
Several huge mistakes were made from the very moment of contact with these suspects. Starting with the fact that the officers were not even sure that they had the right suspects when they came around the corner into that hallway. What if it had been the wrong couple with a similar description? Totally acceptable “civilian” collateral damage just in case? Everyone is considered guilty and it is better to be safe than sorry in this state of unquestioned power and authority over the public based on cowardly self preservation?
The cowards should have just made the suspects get on the ground fingers locked, then advanced to the suspects in order to detain them, then what followed would have never happened. But the officer was hell bent on exercising his authority over the lower class citizen detainees with extra unnecessary commands. He just had to make the kid crawl and grovel to his feet of privileged class authoritarianism.
No... Innocence or guilt does not matter anymore. Wrong suspects or not does not matter anymore. Always guilt before innocence and we are all expendable without any question if we hesitate or deviate from the orders of the authoritarian police state. Innocent or guilty just one unconscious mistake in the orders commanded and bang... Totally acceptable “just in case” collateral damage to keep the privilege class Kapo safe.
He, or someone (maybe one of his friends looking at the sights?) in the room did point the air rifle out the window. That has been pretty well established.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.