I don’t know much about the use of SWAT teams by police departments, just what Radley Balko, ED Kain and others have been writing about their misuse and the tragic deaths involved.
This may just be ignorance on my part, but there seems to be a fair amount of variation in the way these teams are used. For example, last week was the 30 year anniversary of a terrible hostage situation in Rochester. A deranged man shot his parents and another man at his home and then walked down the street to a local bank and took hostages. Here’s how it ended:
“Our sniper who took this guy out,” John Strong a now retired veteran of the Rochester Police SWAT Team said. “He saved more innocent lives that day than you’ll ever know.”
The incident ended when a sharpshooter fired through a bank window from his position across the street in a church window. He struck and killed Griffin moments after Griffin shot and killed a hostage in front of the bank’s side door.
To this day Faggiano [another policeman] and Strong say that one shot represents the only bullet the Rochester SWAT team has ever fired in a combat situation.
There are plenty of drug arrests in Rochester, and there have been incidents of questionable shootings during those arrests. But apparently the SWAT teams at least have kept their powder dry, if they were involved at all, if they’ve only fired one shot in 30 years. Yet other jurisdictions deploy paramilitary police regularly for what sound like fairly routine raids and warrants, and those cops tend to fire their weapons with terrible results. Do any of you guys know if the standards for deploying paramilitary police are really this scattershot, or am I just drawing conclusions from a few anecdotes?
bkny
take a close look at these goons when one of their raids inevitably goes wrong, and some 80yo grandma gets shot to pieces.
are these boyz checked for steroid abuse before they’re issued their shiny new killer toys?
alwhite
Part of it is the macho thing, they get to wear those cool outfits & go all Rambo. And what’s the point of all that coolness & all that training if you don’t get to try it out once in a while?
But there is also the fact that the bad guys have a lot more and a lot better guns today than they did 40 – 50 years ago. The ratcheting up of the gun paranoia has led to a lot more guns on the street that criminals end up with – which helps ratchet up the gun paranoia so their are better guns with bigger clips – rinse and repeat.
Linda Featheringill
I did a superficial google search on swat teams and shootings and was rewarded with mixed results. Maybe it all depends on which team and where.
Apparently the swat division in your area is very well disciplined. A team in Arizona seems to have shot a suspect 60 times earlier this year. That was totally irrational and undisciplined.
Maybe they all belong to an amateur theater group and thought they were reenacting Bonnie and Clyde.
Ghanima Atreides
Another Libertarian Reacharound mistermix? You never get tired of it, do you?
EDK and Balko are just diddling you from the front on SWAT and no-knock raids while they fist you with the invisible hand from behind, and ream you with the pen1s of Distributed Jesusland
They are both useful idiots for the conservative hivemind.
As are you.
Why is Sully in the mock column and not the LoOG? At least Sully says something semi-rational once in a while.
The LoOG is a vomitorium for libertarian ideology, no matter what EDK’s name generator comes up with.
soonergrunt
You asked if SWAT standards are really that scattershot.
There are no national standards for the manning, equipping, training, or use of SWAT units or other similar in the
dpcap
Ed from Gin and Tacos addressed this a few weeks ago:
/
Chris
LOOG is to Ghanima Atreides as Vietnam is to Walter Sobchak.
“Mistermix, have you ever heard of a place called the League of Ordinary Gentlemen? Is this your homework, Mistermix?”
“I don’t see the connection to the LoOG, Walter.”
“Well, there isn’t a literal connection, Dude.”
“Walter, face it, there isn’t any connection!”
John X.
The SWAT teams are a result of Clinton-era initiatives where police departments across the country were given tons of grants and cut-rate discounts on used military hardware. Small towns and cities across the country got the gear to play SWAT and started their own teams.
With no guidelines, oversight or standardized training, these teams basically became a way for the most “macho” officers to get their gun on. A lot of them were put on the front-lines of the drug war, used primarily as the assault forces in “no-knock” warrants.
Add to this, police departments have a way of hiring a ton of military personnel. Without retraining – and psychological help – we ended up with a ton of combat-trained veterans running around the streets with military-grade equipment and using warzone rules of engagement on the general public.
arguingwithsignposts
@Chris – mistermix just throws in EDK’s name to watch matoko-loco-whateverhernymisthisweek have a butthurt explosion. He does it for the lulz.
Chris
@ John X –
The funny thing is, the voters who spent the 1970s and 1980s demanding that our police departments be turned into small special ops units and our inner cities into free-fire zones, are the same ones who flipped out after Waco and Ruby Ridge that the government was turning fascist and totalitarian and anti-freedom.
No one could have predicted… etc.
Lee
I’ve read a lot of Radley’s work on SWAT teams. There is a HUGE difference in SWAT teams of 30 years ago and today’s SWAT teams.
Whiskey Screams from a Guy With No Short-Term Memory
There are no standards, not even within a county, much less a state and certain nothing like a federal set of standards these guys are held to. There is your problem.
My way of looking at it, if these guys are going to be armed like soldiers and get put into what is essentially a run-around of Posse Comitatus, then we should drop the bullshit, get rid of Posse Coomitatus, and let the military operate as a police force within US borders. I would frankly feel a lot safer with them doing it – they have both a system of training and a system of discipline, neither of which is present in most police departments in this country.
Oh yeah, and I remember that Rochester incident. Notable in that the bad guy was shot through a window. This is a lot harder to do than it might seem – glass is hard, and is a great deflector of bullets. You don’t really know where that bullet’s going to go when it goes through a sheet of glass, so you’ve got to be careful and get the guy when he’s standing as close to the window as possible.
Cassidy
Yeah, gonna need some facts to back that one up.
Wow! I think you just surpassed matoko loco Hermionne reacharound and his/her gay porn fetish in the dumbass department.
Bill H.
On the face of it, saying that “Yet other jurisdictions deploy paramilitary police regularly for what sound like fairly routine raids and warrants, and those cops tend to fire their weapons,” you are drawing conclusions from a few anecdotes. Why do you even need to ask?
Cassidy
So essentially, from what I gather, you all would rather have untrained and outgunned cops doing their job? Only good cop is a dead one? You do realize these guys are getting shot and killed during routine traffic stops right?
Seriously, wtf? This goes back to, if you ain’t a part of that world then you should probably not speak so you don’t look like an ignorant fool.
arguingwithsignposts
@Cassidy:
Strawman much?
And you just surpassed mm in record time!
mistermix
@Bill H: Well, I teed it up for you to present some facts that show the opposite. Instead, you provide more of your usual trolling. Another swing and a miss for Bill H.
Douglas
Yeah, all those SWAT guys are getting shot and killed during traffic stops. And we want to see all cops dead. Which is why we want to see them have proper training and RoE, so that they don’t put bullets into grandmothers during no-knock raids.
So mistermix posted about a SWAT team that apparently has only ever fired a single bullet in a combat situation (and in justified one). And asked if there are different standards which about training, RoE, on what missions they’re send etc. and if that’s maybe the cause of it. Which… ok, gotta stop before my heads explodes.
Anyway, KEEP TROLLING ON!
Ghanima Atreides
Look juicers. Im fucking sick of Cole and mistermix carrying water for the libertarian brigade. Libertarians are pure fucking evil, or they would be liberals by now.
EDK tried his shrivelled little ‘freed’ market heart out, and even with you retards coaching him 24/7 he FAILED to pass the bar.
enough already.
/spit
libertarianism is a fucking waste of spacetime.
Chris
I’ve heard the argument a million times that “if you’re not a cop/soldier you’ve got no right to be talking about them.” Excuse me for pointing this out, but the military/police doesn’t live in a circumcised, walled-off, alternate universe. Those ignorant foolish civilians live in the same world as the cops and soldiers do and are affected by the cops and soldiers’ actions all the time, and that gives them the right to “speak” even if we’ve spent the forty years since Vietnam being told otherwise.
Whether these complaints are right or not’s another argument and as an ignorant civilian, I’m happy to listen (really) to any criticism or correction of what Mistermix or John X or anyone else have to say. But as for the “no cop/soldier record = you don’t get to talk about it,” line not buying it. It’s like saying you don’t get to bitch about medical malpractice unless you’ve been a doctor.
(I further apologize if I misunderstood what you were saying, but the “shut up cause you’re not a cop/soldier” argument is one that’s been made from the other side of the aisle for long enough, often in defense of things like Abu Ghraib, to rub me the wrong way).
stuckinred
bkny
I think you are talking about the case in Atlanta and that was a drug task force not a swat team.
d. john
“Look juicers. Im fucking sick of Cole and mistermix carrying water for the libertarian brigade.”
And yet you keep showing up here.
I think you like to get all butt hurt or you wouldn’t be here.
Did you get raped by Rand Paul or something?
You bring up libertarianism when it has nothing to do with the thread.
If you are so sick of libertarianism, then how about curling your fist around a tall refreshing glass of STFU.? Eh? Move on already. Nothing libertarian was even alluded to on this thread.
Anyway, because you are a complete tard, and admittedly amoral, I won’t respond to you anymore.
And I’m not gonna engage in the thread hijack we did the other day.
You are a jackass, and that was pretty much already exhaustively explored the other day on the other thread. There’s nothing to add.
PurpleGirl
Number one reason the “War on (Some) Drugs” will not be ended: Police forces like all the military goodies they get and wouldn’t otherwise be able to justify or have the money for. Let’s also throw in the various confiscation laws which allow police/state agencies to keep the stuff they claim in raids and such — the houses, the cars, the cash.
John X.
@Cassidy
If you are not just being an asshole, Google “Community Oriented Policing” for the grants and “National Defense Authorization Act of 1996, Section 1033” for the military surplus.
As for the link between police and the military, veterans get priority hire for law enforcement jobs – by law in most states – and a ton of departments actively recruit veterans.
lankyloo
I think you are probably right MM, and my guess would be that the problem is in SWAT teams tied to county governments or in smaller cities. I never hear about the Chicago SWAT team fucking things up, and they do high risk warrants and a lot of drug searches, so they seem to be pretty professional. It seems that in most of the stories I hear, it is not in the larger cities, but the smaller cities where the SWAT teams seem to be a real problem.
Also, Ghanima Atreides, I have info on support groups for rageaholics anonymous. I hear your cry for help.
Whiskey Screams from a Guy With No Short-Term Memory
Chris: I don’t think you misunderstood anything, that’s exactly the argument that was being made. And yes, that argument is bullshit.
I live in an area that is well know for cops that routinely shoot unarmed people, and – how’s this for a combo – home invasion robberies/rapes/murders where the perps dress as police! And now that I’m married it’s something that I think about pretty much very night – what do I do if I hear someone in the house? I don’t want to bleed out on my living room floor because some jumpy cop decides to shoot without warning when I come out to see what’s going on, and I don’t want to cower in bed hoping that whoever’s in my house is a good guy who came in the wrong door, instead of some thug who wants my shit and possibly my life.
d. john
mistermix,
anytime you create a job where people get to have guns and go after bad guys, you are gonna get macho assholes who don’t think before shooting. Par for the course, IMO.
That’s not a blanket assessment, it’s simply an observation about a component of the staff makeup of teams like this. Applies to the military too, IMO.
It *does* sound like the SWAT team you are posting about is doing *something* right. I’m just not sure what that is.
I’d be interested in contrasting their training procedures with those of say, LAPD and other police departments.
Of course, it would also be interesting to look at the statistics on violent crime in the area where this SWAT team operates.
Erik Vanderhoff
@19. Ghanima Atreides:
THEN GO AWAY.
Ghanima Atreides
Erik
make meh.
I think you should mail Cole and request I be banned. Others here have had success with that.
/wicked grin
;)
ericblair
Entirely predictable, since the suspects involved in Waco and Ruby Ridge were white. Military force is only supposed to be used against drug suspects. You know, not-white people.
arguingwithsignposts
m_c/HG/GA
Hmmm. I seem to recall you actually being banned for a while because of your EDK butthurt/stalker behavior.
and @Erik V. – she doesn’t go away, and she’ll never admit she’s wrong about anything. She’s like herpes that way.
Ghanima Atreides
/yawn
mistermix approvingly links Balko and EDK. Its no different than linking Douthat and McMegan.
they are all libertarians, useful idiots for the conservative cause.
anti-police raids is just one version of the libertarian reacharound.
and you too, d. John should mail Cole and tell how awful I am.
;)
d. john
arguingwithsignposts,
WTF is EDK? it keeps being mentioned in response (and from) GH…
I *did* do a google search…
EDK Embedded Development Kit
EDK Emotiv Development Kit
EDK European Death Knot (rock climbing)
EDK Evil Dragon King (Final Fantasy VII; video game)
EDK External Drift Kriging
EDK Effective Date of Key (cryptography)
EDK Electric Dynamic Katathermometer
EDK Evil Dark Knights (gaming clan)
I’m missing something. What’s the deal here? whatsit mean?
Is it somebody’s initials?
— Update? I guess it’s somebodies initials.
I imagine it’s some “prominent” libertarian.
Despite GH’s insistence, I don’t follow libertarianism … therefore I have no idea who EDK is… I guess I’ll regoogle w/ teh word libertarian in the search…
thanks anyway
found it – Ed Kain… i think
Ghanima Atreides
@aws
you should mail Cole too.
He luffs that.
NobodySpecial
Why do you all worry about Matoko? I mean, smart creatures learn when something makes them uncomfortable to stop doing it, right?
Matoko will tell ALL about her Mensa brains and how she’s SO much better than the rest of us. Then she’ll go back to doing the same thing she claims she hates, because she’s not bright enough in reality to stop.
Douglas
@arguingwithsignposts
EDK = E. D. Kain = the libertarian who posted here for a while, and whose other blogs is linked in the post.
regarding GH… to steal from Brad Delong, Why oh why can’t we have a better troll corps? Go think up something new please, this routine is getting old.
Ghanima Atreides
wallah….EDK was the BJ fake-conversion narrative reality show.
Alas, it turns out he was a libertarian free market fucktard all along, and just in it for the clicks.
He got a paying job as a libertarian bulshytt talker at Forbes and quit BJ.
The juicers dont liek me bringing up how they all got spoofed.
;)
Moonbatman
How dare you link to E.D. Kain’s swiftboarding of the great Sheriff Dupnik who proved that Palin and her wingnut allies caused the Tucson shootings.
It just repeats Kochwhore Radley Balko slurs about the Jose Guerena Hoax.
It is just a load of the Chickenhawk butthurt whining about how the police who were following proper procedure denying treatment to the man they shot until he died, sealing the search warrant and correcting their story multiple times.
The guy that they killed was part of a home invasion crew which was proven because he owned a border patrol ballcap. A criminal just like James O’Keefe and Andrew Breitbart.
Peace Out. The Power is Yours. Free Crystal Mangum
PurpleGirl
d. john @ 33: EDK is Eric D. Kain (did I spell that correctly?). He writes at several places, she stalks him and complains about him incessantly. (I make no comment on EDK’s agenda or philosophy, on purpose.)
Ghanima Atreides
@NobodySpecial
BJ has an opening for a hall monitor i hear– why dont you mail Cole and tell him you seek the position?
celticdragonchick
Nice to know that when you go skiing in Colorado, you will have these cammi clad folks with kevlar helmets and sniper rifles there to make sure you don;t get any pot…
(scroll to bottom of page)
I can’t find the picture anymore(I believe it has been taken down), but awhile back there was a monumentally fucked up snapshot of the Charleston SC SWAT team posing with their submachineguns in front of an M113 armored personnel carrier…and it had a cupola mounted .50 cal machine gun.
A fucking .50 cal machine gun.
d. john
NS, I don’t worry. Sometimes I engage in tard-wrangling for the cheap entertainment value.
I’m well aware that GH is impervious to learning from her prior bad behavior. I’m aware that she suffers from illusory superiority, and Dunning-Kruger effect (google it)
I think you misunderstood my intentions.
I’d never attempt to change her tiny mind.
It’s not worth it.
I’ve already poked at it (her mind), and it curled up in the corner like a frightened puppy… predictably.
So my work here is done, WRT to GH…
@#36:
But yeah, where’s the “high-quality” trolls?
Can’t we afford something a little better here at B J than the likes of GH? heh =). Low caliber, low rent trolls get old after a thread or two. I hear you there.
Ghanima Atreides
@Purplegrrl
well, i cant stalk him at LoOG because im banned there for deconstructing his “freed” market fantasy posts.
mistermix knows the game. he links EDK and i make fun of Cole and the juicers for falling for EDK’s reacharound.
im sure its deliberate.
;)
still….why is Sully in the mock column and not the LoOG?
The LoOG is just a vomitorium for libertarian bulshytt.
Ghanima Atreides
d. John, I feel you would be truly excellent in the BJ hall monitor position.
you should mail Cole about it.
Whiskey Screams from a Guy With No Short-Term Memory
What the fuck does any police department in this country need with a goddamned Ma Deuce? Let me guess. Did they have 40mm grenade launchers on their M16s as well?
Fucking South Carolina. Most damned backward state in the Union.
celticdragonchick
My bad. It was SC sheriff Lott in Richland County. Picture here at Reason magazine…complete with M113 and cupola anti aircraft machine gun.
Seriously. Click on the link and take a good look. This is what we are getting for policing of America. (Except you, Matoka whatever. Please do not click on the link. I don’t want anything from Reason Magazine polluting your purity of thought.)
Quote from Reason:
Like most of these military toys obtained by local police departments, the Peacemaker will inevitably be used on drug and gambling raids—that is, to enforce laws against consensual activities. Or, as we’re now seeing in Minnesota, perhaps on raids against leftist political activists.
d. john
meh.. back to the topic @ hand:
@Cassidy,
forgive me for saying this, but your position seems a bit ham-fisted and facile. As I read it.
Cops are not bad people, by and large.
Maybe you’ve had some bad experiences – and there are certainly bad cops.
Just seems that you are making a blanket statement about anybody that wears that badge.
I assert that bad cops are an exception, not the rule.
But I’ll concede you may find more assholes in a police force than the general population. I think it has to do with the nature of the job. I’d think that assholes would naturally find the position of power and authority appealing to their inner bully.
I still think they are a minority though based on my experiences – then again maybe I’m just lucky.
d. john
@46:
Yeah – I agree… I’ll add that in my view, it seems that by providing military hardware and training to police, you ARE in fact turning them into a military outfit, which begs Posse Comitatus questions.
I blame the “tough on crime” meme that politicians used to love to push (and still often do)…
More though, I blame the gated community low-info voters that support this kind of rhetorical BS.
Cain
@celticdragonchick oh yeah, I seem to recall that. They didn’t like take the picture with a waitress or something at some bar? It was really crazy.
We haven’t had any SWAT trouble here in Portland, but we have had cop brutality. Those get a lot of coverage here. Thanks to shows like OPB’s “Think Out Loud” you really get a good idea of what is going on in both sides (cops and community) and even have a discussion that is pretty real. Best show ever.
I think I’ve read some places like Arizona seem to have a fucked up SWAT team. They really shouldn’t be breaking out heavy caliber machine guns. This is not the zomebie apocalypse.
d. john
@45
“Fucking South Carolina. Most damned backward state in the Union.”
That’s a bold statement.
After all, there is AZ, MI, etc… they are in very good company. Sheriff Joe anyone? remember the Steven Segal publicity stunt in AZ?
I mean, wow. SC has some catching up to do I think. AZ is trying very hard to out do them WRT to police statism
celticdragonchick
@ d John
This.
Interesting that some of the folks on gun owners websites are making the same observation that this looks more and more like an end run around Posse Comitatus.
Mnemosyne
I think a SWAT team in a small city that kills five people per month is pretty much the definition of “untrained.” The only reason you end up having to use lethal force so often is because of incredibly crappy training and trigger-happy cops who don’t understand what the purpose of a SWAT team is.
Believe it or not, well-trained, well-disciplined cops will actually use deadly force less often than scared, ill-trained ones because they know other ways to de-escalate the situation.
Chris
Not sure where Posse Commitatus comes in. It’s OK to use the National Guard in emergencies, and that’s not considered a violation of PC – why are overzealous police departments any different?
arguingwithsignposts
Ok, I’ve gotten enough of m_c/HGW/GA’s retread trollery down that I can update the local cleek’s BJ pie filter – at least until she changes her nym again. Ahh, the sweet, sweet artistry of “REDACTED”
celticdragonchick
@ Chris
Nobody is sure…but we are getting police forces that are indistinguishable from military forces in terms of uniforms, weaponry and mode of operating.(best comment so far from the article at Reason I linked above:
That is about right)
Moreover, these same police units are increasingly treating civilians as enemy forces instead of citizens with rights. Balko covers this daily.
chopper
@d. john:
this is the way the whole thing works.
1. cole or some other FPer links to EDK. doesn’t matter what it is, could be EDK’s recipe for tangy chocolate pudding, whatever.
2. matardo_chan starts flipping out about the guy cause she’s all nuts and shit.
3. people tell her to shut the hell up.
4. she posts about 30 times some stupid shit about ‘well why don’t you email cole and ask him to ban me? ;^)’
basically, the whole thing reminds me of eternal september.
Whiskey Screams from a Guy With No Short-Term Memory
celticdragonchick: Thanks for that link. Very educational. That’s not a police department, that’s soldiers. With a tank.
arguingwithsignposts
Also, too I should mention MikeJ’s Chrome port of the pie filter for those so inclined.
d. john
@chopper,
Yeah chopper, I’m getting that – I just ran into GH for the first time yesterday – but yeah – you obviously nailed it
lulz.
You seem to have just described the entire life of GH in 4 simple points.
hehehe =)
d. john
@arguingwithsignposts
Thanks for the pie filter link..
@cleek, thanks for the pie filter script.
Buh Bye GH =)
Good riddance to cheap trolls
Lee
@Cassidy
Go back and look at the occupations with the highest death on the job rates.
Cops typically don’t even make it into the top 10.
AAA Bonds
Yeah, I don’t trust libertarians when it comes to criticism of the “police state”.
Just imagine if those cops were a private security force and who would be running defense if that were the case.
themann1086
I’m from Philly, so we’ve been dealing with this for a few decades now. Frank Rizzo was a brute. Actual quote: “When I’m finished with them [anti-police demonstrators], I’ll make Attila the Hun look like a fag.”
d. john
@Lee,
your response failed to address the thrust of Cassidy’s post.
What are you *actually* saying?
Cops don’t die enough?
I ask merely for information ;)
Lee
I did not realize there was a pie filter for Chrome.
Thank you so very much for the port!!!
Lee
@d.john
LOL yep that’s it! You caught me!
And the answer to keeping cops safe is to make them more heavily armed because the bad guys will always just give up on an arms race.
Whiskey Screams from a Guy With No Short-Term Memory
Please in the name of all that’s good, someone make one for Opera.
Lee
@Whiskey Screams from a Guy With No Short-Term Memory
I am a programmer and I use Opera. I should probably make one for Opera.
I’ll check around for the source and see what I can do
d. john
themann1086,
have you checked out this blogger?
http://field-negro.blogspot.com/
He’s from “killadelphia” and writes plenty about police violence and the murder epidemic in philly.
I really like his blog – and I’m not even from PA, heh.
You may like it. Local blogging is a huge win, IMO. (Well, local for u in this case =) )
d. john
@Lee,
Opera, really?
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp
2.x%
You’ll have exactly 3 users of your script, including yourself.
Just sayin’
FF or Webkit – it’s what’s for dinner
DanielX
Ehhhh…standards for deployment of SWAT teams….there aren’t any. Some departments deploy them for routine serving of warrants, some only for known high risk situations. However, they are deployed a lot more frequently than was originally envisaged back in the day. Ongoing/increasing militarization of police forces in the US is something that’s been going on for a while, with SWAT teams the most visible sign of the tendency – thanks to the War on Drugs first (haven’t won that yet) and the War on Terror more recently (nope, haven’t won that either). (Lots of articles about this.) Equipment is only part of the package, since the feds practically give it away for free. Training is expensive if a given department is doing it right with ongoing training all the time, marksmanship, urban operations, etc etc etc. There does seem to be a tendency for high testosterone types to gravitate towards these operations – wish I could remember the source, but a quote I read recently from a long time police officer said roughly that the way to pick SWAT team members was to ask “who wants to be in SWAT” and then NOT to pick the guys who raised their hands.
There are three kinds of police officers – those who join up to protect and serve, those who get into it because it’s a stable civil service position with decent bennies, and those who get into it because they get to carry a badge and a gun and push people around. Or a mix of the three…cops are good, bad and indifferent just like everybody else, the difference being that they have weapons and the full majesty of the law with which to be good, bad or indifferent. Their behavior varies according to the community, the culture of the community and department, and other factors, including what they think they can get away with.
Head Bulshytt Talker in Chief of the Temple of Libertarianism(superluminar)
I thought we did this the other week, and after running the numbers I showed that fatalities from SWAT raids were about 0.02% of total raids or something. Obviously there are some juridictions that could do with Retraining, but by and large the glibertarians are overstating the problem here. Alsotoo, anecdotes about .50 calibre automatic weaponry do not equal data.
DuckMan
cf. rifle w/ taser…
celticdragonchick
@Whiskey
Bit of a problem in my opinion. That is when you start having situations like the massive fuck-up in Berwyn Hts, Maryland when Prince George County SWAT shot up the home of the Berwyn Hts Mayor, killing two labrador retrievers (one of whom was fleeing in terror) and holding him and his mother-in-law in handcuffs and at gunpoint for hours(they were convinced for quite awhile that this was a home invasion and that they were being robbed before being killed, in fact). A box of pot had been mailed to their home by dealers who used this tactic to keep their own address secret…and would swoop in to grab the box off the porch of wherever it was delivered to.
The search warrant was not produced until three days after the raid that destroyed the house…and the warrant did not authorise a no-knock home invasion.
In a press conference later: (read the entire story)
Bonus bit of horror here:
At one point, Cheye recalled, he noticed a familiar uniform in the growing crowd on lawn. Berwyn Heights police officer Pvt. Amir Johnson had been patrolling the neighborhood when he passed the mayor’s house and saw officers dressed in tactical uniforms coming out the front door. He stopped. (Berwyn Heights and Prince George’s police have overlapping jurisdictions within town limits.)
“The guy in there is crazy,” Johnson remembered a Prince George’s County officer telling him when he arrived. “He says he is the mayor of Berwyn Heights.”
“That is the mayor of Berwyn Heights,” Johnson replied.
The detective looked very surprised, Johnson later recalled: “He had that ‘Oh, crap’ look on his face.”
…
In fact, the officers searching his house were unable to find any evidence of drugs other than the box they’d delivered. They didn’t find gun caches or, aside from the yard sale money, stacks of cash. Cheye and Trinity didn’t have a bong or hookah, not a single rolling paper, stem or seed. Cheye watched their search efforts grow halfhearted, he said.
Nobody seemed to know how to remove the plastic cuffs still binding his and Georgia’s hands behind their backs. The deputies from the SWAT team who had put them on were gone. When Georgia and Cheye complained to detectives that the cuffs were cutting off their circulation, they said the detectives just shrugged. After awhile, the officer moved Cheye into the kitchen. From his new vantage, he could see into the dining room. Chase was lying dead in a pool of blood.
The scene at the house was so terrible and odd to Berwyn Heights officer Johnson that he planted himself in the living room. He couldn’t see a search warrant posted anywhere. The mayor looked so vulnerable that Johnson wanted to make sure nothing even worse happened to him, such as getting shot. “Not that I didn’t trust the police,” Johnson would later say. “But I wanted to personally witness what is going to happen to my mayor, so if they try to say this guy went for a gun — and he didn’t — it’s not going to happen on my watch.”
Keep in mind that a cop is saying that he thought other police could possibly murder the mayor and then say he went for a gun…and that he was watching to make sure that didn’t happen.
celticdragonchick
@head bullsyte
Please enlighten us all on the proper law enforcement use of a godamned .50 cal machine gun, asshat.
Have you ever fired one?
I have. They do not belong in law enforcement. Period. Ever.
The bullet from a Ma Deuce will go through any modern structure that is not a bunker designed to resist that kind of firepower. It will go through an automobile, and the house after that, and very likely continue across the city until reaching the end of the ballistic path. A single bullet can literally tear a human being in half. The weapon cannot even be aimed with any precision from a vehicle, and must be walked into the target with continuous fire.
Explain to us all why a SWAT team needs a goddamned .50 cal machine gun on an M113 APC.
Cassidy
My response was to the comments not the post. The whole “macho” thing and deranged combat vets shtick pisses me off. Are any of you aware that most of these guys were patrol cops for at least 3 years before going swat? That’s just to try out.
Fact is this. Most of the time these guys are entering a house not knowing what’s on the other side. We have a heavily armed populace. They’re SWAT. They serve the warrant. They didn’t do the investigation. That isn’t their part. They are trusting that their fellow officers and the system is working. To denigrate them is bullshit.
As for the whole “community” bit, of course you’re welcome to your opinion. But until you’ve done it, until you know what it’s like to go through a door not knowing what’s their, you don’t get to judge. You haven’t earned that right. You can criticize the war on drugs and the system; I do. But you don’t get to mock, denigrate, and throw your insecure projections on mostly good men and women who have chosen to be public servants.
d. john
@Cassidy,
I think I misdirected my initial response to you on this thread – now I can’t tell who I was responding to at this point (it’s early here, PST) but I must have had your nick on the brain. apologies. please disregard that post. I don’t think it was about what you wrote. Oops.
And a generally directed commented at all the folks here who have brought up the idea of national standards for SWAT training.
This sounds like a *great* idea, if done properly.
I’m a software geek, not a law-enforcement officer (although my father was both local chief of police when I was young, a fed when I was older), my little brother is army. I come from that kind of background. It doesn’t grant me expertise, but maybe a little anecdotal insight. I’ve also been a victim of armed robbery, and my friends got blown away by some random crazy in seattle a few years back
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Hill_massacre
including one of my best friends. The cop was the reason more people didn’t die. I thank God for the SPD and the actions of that officer that day.
I’ve never been a direct victim of police brutality, unless of course you count the lungs full of tear gas I got for daring to shop for groceries during WTO..(it was unintentional to be sure, wind played it’s part, they didn’t fire at ME) – but did they really need to use tear gas in the neighborhood we locals used to lovingly refer to as seattle’s “gay ghetto?”, broadway, of all places? seriously? How much harm do you think you’ll get from a bunch of people whose higher aspiration is to be as “fabulous” as possible, a few college kids, and a couple of homeless heroin addicts?
I also read about old ladies and children being murdered with tasers (I say murdered, but maybe it’s just manslaughter based negligence – I won’t argue legality or lay claim to criminality when I use murder in this sense) due to excessive use of force. Visit dailyrotten.com any day of the week, for this.
I followed the LAPD’s sordid actions, and the court’s even worse response which led to the LA Riots in ’92.
I watched as the war-on-drugs federal dollars leaked into the police departments across our nation and armed our local departments with weapons they didn’t have the first clue about how to effectively employ (like tasers) or even a real need for, like the SWAT “tanks” for municipalities that AREN’T the NYPD or LAPD ;).
And then 9/11 happened.
Seattle police ratched up the arms race to the Nth degree, and started doing “counterterrorism drills” that look more like full scale military excercises?
They have MP5’s armored vehicles, and all kinds of crazy stuff.. Seattle is not exactly known for it’s gang violence either (although in recent years it has become something of an issue – the WA gang problems are in areas such as Tacoma)
When will it finally stop?
arguingwithsignposts
@Cassidy:
Are you Michael Gass in disguise? People “judge” all the freakin’ time. Ever heard of a “jury of your peers”? As well, last I checked, the police department is still an arm of a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” So GTFO with your “you haven’t done it” stuff.
d. john
@Cassidy
I don’t think you’ll ever be able to separate the machismo component from the police force. Like the military, police tends to attract the types you are referring to. (There’s also nothing wrong, and probably some good to have a few cowboys here and there – the ones “willing” to kick down the worst doors in a bad neighborhood)
However, a set of screening standards, and maybe some additional federal baselines for behavior and procedure may be helpful. Particularly, WRT to more training and guidelines on the appropriate use of force…
But also folks here are correct to point out things like TWAT and TWoD as being part of that problem. An arms race mentality in our police departments can only lead to more violence, brutality and death.
See tasers, et al – and the idea that the people are the enemy comes from a soldier mindset that is not appropriate in a police department. That’s why we don’t just use our military for local law enforcement in the first place.
Yutsano
Not…enough…ellipses. And laughing helicopters.
celticdragonchick
@Cassidy
And then when the smoke clears from the flash bangs and we see the dogs that have been shot to pieces (time and time and time and time again) along with the occasional infant or grandmother who has been gunned down, we can be assured that it is necessary and it probably won’t happen to us.
Fuck that.
I have family in law enforcement. I have heard about the sadist guard my Dad worked with at a Riverside County prison in California, and I have personally worked with and met other people who have been on the wrong end of police and SWAT mistakes. A certain type of personality that likes control and violence gets drawn into law enforcement and the psych eval sure as hell doesn’t weed them all out in the selection process (they try to get rid of the worst ones, usually).
We have seen over and over again that high risk entry teams can and do make mistakes that result in serious harm or death in innocent people, and then we are told that “proper procedures were followed” and that “we regret the loss of life, but no officers will be charged”. Generally, the raids are for low level drug offenders and even misdemeanor warrants.
And you wonder why some of us make pissy comments about the police?
Whiskey Screams from a Guy With No Short-Term Memory
Lee: I would appreciate much. Thank you.
d.john: Lee’s a programmer. I’m a network security guy. We both use Opera. That should tell you something.
I’ve used Firefox – and on certain computers made by a company that shall remain nameless, it’s really your only decent browser alternative – but I don’t like it very much. Kinda slow.
Felinious Wench
Houston SWAT teams are not our problem. Ours are the “drug task force” officers. I know they’re legendary in LA as well.
d. john
@celticdragonchick,
Criticizing police is easy to do until you need them. But I don’t see the blanket statements of all cops suck from you… (forgive me if I didn’t read the entire thread) – but what I’ve seen from you is qualified and fair criticism regarding the degree of arms they posses.
@Cassidy is right in bringing up the danger issue, but seems to be overplaying it by using it as a reason to be pissed off at people that are offering relatively fair questioning of the need for such things as .50 cal machine guns in local municipalities. (In some maybe – maybe depends on local violence)…
My 2 cents…
d. john
Lol Whiskey,
I’m a senior developer. 14+ years professionally, +10 before that. Get off of my lawn
You didn’t actually tell me anything other than “trust me I’m a programmer” – I’ve heard that from a lot of n00bs, with bad results. There are a lot of really dumb programmers out there – esp since the bar was lowered back in the 90’s with things like VB and the web. Gas station attendants can script. heh.
I offered a qualified criticism of opera.
I’d expect a decent programmer to be able to respond with a *qualified* reason to use opera. Something technical, or at least relevant.
Whiskey, in short – your post amounted to
XOR AX,AX
Whiskey Screams from a Guy With No Short-Term Memory
Cassidy: I’ve never said anything like this to another commetor here, not ever, but I’ll say this in response to your blustering, “you haven’t earned the right” comment:
Fuck you.
I’m a citizen of the United States of America. I have the right, enshrined in the Constitution, to sit on any jury that may hold alw officers to account under the law, and by God if I am called to do so I will, and if the facts warrant a guilty verdict than by God I will judge them so.
I will also exercise my rights as a citizen fully, and vote against those who would extend the powers of police beyond what is required to keep the peace, I will vote for those who insist that law enforcement be kept on as tight a leash as possible in order to insure that they are accountable to the citizenry that they are hired to serve, and I will lead efforts to remove those from office who excuse, protect, and defend bad cops.
In short, I hire and pay for the cops, I get a say in what they do and how they do it. I judge them ever day. Take your attitude back to Stalinist Russia, where it belongs.
Bill H.
@mistermix
I tried to blow this off, not wanting to get into a flame war, but I’d like to understand what the question was all about. You make a statement which contains no statistics, but rather contains key words (which I highlighted) which are indicate that you did not reasearch to obtain any statistics, and then you ask if you are drawing conclusions from a few anecdotes. What else could you be doing? How are you inviting me to “show the opposite” with that question? You asked a question, “am I doing something” and I answered it, “yes you are.”
If you wanted a discussion of the conclusion that you drew, you should have invited that discussion. “I draw conclusion, do you disagree?” Or “Can you show that the conclusion I drew is inaccurate?”
But that is not what you asked. You asked if you had drawn a conclusion based on an evident lack of facts and, since your statement included no facts upon which you based your conclusion, I answered that your conclusion was, as you yourself suggested, based on anecdotes.
d. john
@Bill H,
Then why didn’t you just address it as “Can you show that the conclusion I drew in inaccurate?”, or choose not to comment.
The thread would be better served, that way – regardless of whether or not mistermix was remiss in not posing it that way – it didn’t stop you from figuring it out, but you chose to address mistermix’s “error” instead.
Why not redirect now and address the question as you interpreted it?
d. john
oops… Whiskey,
i forgot to bring this up in my previous post to you – bad edit:
opera works better on an apple than safari? that’s news to me.
that’s why I mentioned webkit
;)
jrg
The fuck I haven’t. My taxes pay the police. I earned the right the second I cut the check.
I “earned that right” in the clearest possible sense.
I’d like to further echo the sentiments of Whiskey… If you’re comfortable with no-knock raids for nonviolent criminals that wind up killing bystanders, pets, kids, etc… Or if you’re comfortable with the police using a fucking .50 caliber machine gun, move to China. There are governments far better suited to the way you want to live.
d. john
@Lee,
Okay, Lee, peeling back the snark, you questioned the efficacy of whether arms make safer cops.
I happen to agree, but am not finding relevant statics in a cursory google search..
I did however, find this FWIW
http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/arresting-tales/
The blog is no longer active, but it’s still interesting.
Might be worth a click… just sayin
Lee
@d.john
I’ve been programming professionally since ’88.
Safari sucks on Apple. It sucks so bad that I was able to convince my wife (an Apple Fan girl) to switch to another browser.
Chrome and Opera are the two browsers I use. Chrome is most secure followed by Opera. I like Opera because it conforms to the standards.
d. john
oh and this:
LOL worthy… I never thought about this before but it makes sense – cops deserve a raise!
http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/arresting-tales/2010/11/police-work-the-naked-truth.html
and then there’s this, more relevant to this discussion considering some of the comments here…
http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/arresting-tales/2010/10/cops-and-complainants.html
JR in WV
https://balloon-juice.com/2011/06/20/swat/#comment-2638472
Posse Cometatus applies to regular Federal troops. The National Guard technically belongs to the governor on a given state, via the Adjutant General of that state.
This is why you so often see news reports about Governor calling out such and such a unit of the state National Guard to help deal with a flash flood/tornado/etc. and not the President. For the President to get at the National Guard is a whole different animal.
trollhattan
I don’t know a lot of cops, but I know/have known a few, some of whom are combat vets. None has fired their weapon on the job and all would like to retire with that record intact.
As it should be.
There exists an informal sliding scale of professionalism among law enforcement ranks. I know of a couple instances where applicants failed the psych profle to get into the CHP and city police forces (pro tip: when they ask you if you’re attracted to fire, answer, “No”) and ended up as rural county sheriffs. While I’m sure that most rural county sheriffs are fine, professional officers, it does not comfort me to know that they hire the occasional sociopath.
If certain departments are doing the opposite and actively recruiting cowboys hellbent on living out their favorite video games on the job, they really deserve heavy civilian backlash and overhaul. What I see instead are the Joe Arpaios becoming “folk heroes” to lawn-order/gun fetishists and becoming ever more powerful.
d. john
@Lee,
in the web there are standards and then there are standards.
Common usage (like english) is the way of the web.
Therefore, unless a particular browser supports all websites, it’s not standard, regardless of what w3c says…
I’m not saying Opera won’t. I don’t know, because of that troublesome 2% usage thing chances are I never will. And it does not bother me at all that you use opera as long as Opera isn’t the only browser a sites works with. IOW: I assert that a site that only works properly with opera, is by very definition broken. – In conclusion, Opera is not as standard in practice as other browsers unless it can display MORE websites properly than the others. Not because the w3c says they are. Otherwise, you ignore the reality of the web.
The point of all this is browser metrics tend to make a better gauge of “standard” than the W3C does.
d. john
@trollman,
x2
Chris
This.
Soldiers and cops don’t have to be authoritarian assholes, and IMO, don’t attract any more assholes than most jobs. The problem is that right now society encourages and even demands that they behave that way. National security state and all that. Arpaio’s a blatant example.
d. john
@JR in WV,
I agree. I’d like to hear what you have to say if in fact you give military combat training drills, and military weapons how it doesn’t make them military.
Now I understand that you MAY be arguing that regardless of the fact that the PD (even militarized) is still a local agent, the Posse Comitatus act comparison as a fallacious.
You may be right. I’ll concede my Posse Comitatus reference, while still asserting the thrust of my point in comparing them, which I feel is still valid.
We don’t need blanket military operations occurring on domestic soil. We have the NG when we REALLY need them. We don’t need the police to fill that role, they are supposed to serve a different (albeit) related role.
d. john
“Soldiers and cops don’t have to be authoritarian assholes, and IMO, don’t attract any more assholes than most jobs”
I disagree.
In times like these it’s important to remember there have always been times like these.
;)
In any case, I wish I could find stats on the authoritarian assholes qoutent in the rank and file of the PD…heh
daveNYC
So that’s your answer to “Who watches the watchmen?”
Cassidy
There already is a standard. Three(+) years patrol duty, clean record, and additional psych evals, on top of that goven just to get into LE.
You guys are not being honest here. It’s one thing to criticize no-knock warrants. I’m right there with you. It’s one thing to knock the WOD’s. I’m right there with you. I’m even on board with the increasingly para-militarization of our police. I can get behind that. Criticizing departments with records of abuse; absolutely, hold those fuckers accountable. But to sit here, as many of you have, and call SWAT guys nothing more than macho, steroid, deranged combat veteran freaks? Fuck you.
Perfect example. That raid Cole posted a few months back where the guy got double tapped when he came out of the hallway. That was legit kill. The SWAT guy did his job. You can criticize the circumstances around it, but the Officer did his job. I’d have put two in his face, no problem.
I happen to be one of those “deranged combat vets” transitioning to LE after the military. And no, you don’t get to judge. A crime is one thing and a strawman. But to judge a public servant who is doing their best to do their job, piss off. This isn’t fucking McDonalds. Your opinion isn’t worth shit. The most you’ve seen is movies and video games, so fuck off. Criticize the system, but you have not earned the right to criticize the people. Those that are shits and commit crimes are a very small percentage. So fuck off.
Bill H.
@d. john
In other words, I should have responded to what he was thinking instead of what he actually said, because I’m a mind reader. If someone asks a question, I’m not supposed to answer the question, I’m supposed to figure out what the person was thinking and answer what the question was supposed to be rather than what it actually was. And if I can’t do that I’m supposed to keep my big mouth shut, even though I’m not the one that made the mistake, it is the person who asked the question who made the mistake.
As usual, it’s not the one who makes the error who gets the shit, it’s the one who illustrates the mistake.
celticdragonchick
@D John
Thanks. i have never help the opinion that all cops suck, since, of course, many of them certainly do not and they do a job that is needed. I do believe that police are not held sufficuently accountable for incidents that result in needless death (This atrocity of a ruling where a white officer got involuntary mansalughter and three months in jail for shooting and kiling an unarmed and restrained black suspect in the back is an exclamtion point on this. Check out this incident in Fairfax Va where an “accidental discharge” from a SWAT officer killed optometrist Savatore Culosi. The officer was, of course, cleared of wrong doing, and Mr Culosi (who was wanted for running a fucking office sports betting pool. An undercover officer got into the game and started raising the bets. Yes, that’s right…an office betting game required a SWAT response) remained quite dead from being shot by the SWAT team…accidentally.
Great job, officers,
Fairfax settled with his family for 2,000,000.
Porlock Junior
@ 20 Chris
Except in the Middle East, of course, Israel and its Muslim neighbors both.
celticdragonchick
@ cassidy
What county do you think you live in?
Where I’m from, people have every right to critisize things and people they think are wrong.
When people like you can potentially bust into my house, shoot me, and then say anything you fucking like afterwards to justify it even if you got the address wrong, I might have a couple of things to say about you if I manage to survive. This exact scenrio happens all too frequently, and we as citizens of a supposedly free country have a right to our opinion whether you approve or not, and a right to make our opinion known to people like you.
Ruckus
@Cassidy 102
I’ve owned business with employees. I’ve also managed groups of people including in the military. Those people worked for me. I was trusted to have them do their job properly, I trusted them to do their job properly.
The police work for us, we do not work for the police. We can not tell them on an individual basis how to do their job, they have managers/chain of command for that but as their employers we have the right and in fact the duty to tell them how to do and how not to do their job. This is supposed to be a free country. Right now it is not. People who want to suppress all discussion of how our employees do their jobs and to take a subservient role in the process are a huge part of the problem. You don’t like cops being picked upon for doing a crappy job? Get them to do a better job. The standard is not how we fall in line, the standard is how they do their work. If most cops are the good guys, why do we seem to always hear about the bad ones? And why do you not want them to get better? Why don’t the good cops want them to get better?
You talk about legal kill. That is not the first resort it is the very last. And has nothing to do with the case in discussion.
d. john
@Cassidy
You take HALF of my quote – intentionally subverting context, and accuse me of being dishonest?
Pot. Meet Kettle.
First off all,I never supported any of the positions you railed against, and yet you included me in your rant.
In fact if you read me carefully, you’ll realize that I would actually support your position if you applied it even handed manner. Instead all we get is spittle and accusations and bullshit. Your position has *some* merit but you are overplaying your hand – it doesn’t apply to the majority of people you are ranting against. I think you just want to rant for it’s own sake.
So… in recap
you take HALF of a sentence from me and use it to paint me as dishonest.
Finally, you tell me to fuck off.
What kind of shit is that? That’s why I have a problem with your posts here. You aren’t actually considering any other positions. You’ve reached a predetermined conclusion that we all hate cops or something. Take a step back, read the thread carefully, and READ yourself.
Sheesh.
Ruckus
FYWP
Will not let me edit.
Add to my comment at 107.
You talk about legal kill. That is not the first resort it is the very last. And has nothing to do with the case in discussion. This is a military mindset and has no place in a police department. Ever.
shortstop
No one saw that coming.
celticdragonchick
@Ruckus
Cassidy seems to think that civilians at home in bed are required to be able to make life and death decisions about proportionate response to screaming armed strangers breaking down their doors and pointing black German submachineguns at them. Shooting a frightened and confused man with a baseball bat twice in the face is a righteous kill, you see. He would have done it himself. Just following orders like all those other folks in the past with black German submachineguns. We don’t have the right to say bad things about officers who shoot and kill frightened and confused people in their own homes who appear to think they are being attacked. After all, they were just victims of the system.
Sorry to Godwin, but the “just following orders” thing at comment 76 deserves it.
Moonbatman
@celticdragonchick
This part of the story is particularly illuminating.
celticdragonchick
@ ruckus
Before I was injured, I was a sheet metal mechanic and I worked on wide body passenger aircraft. Every day, literally thousands of people bet their lives on the quality of my work and my honesty in reporting.
I imagine Cassidy woujld have a hell of a lot to say about aircraft mechanics if (God forbid :( … )one of us fucked up and caused 300 people to die, and several of his family where on the plane.
I could blow him off and say he doesn’t have the training and experience to know what the fuck he is talking about…and that would be true…but it would still come down to the fact that somebody fucked up and people are dead because of it, and any criticism of the mechanic who fucked up would be deserved.
I am not a cop, but I see police screw ups that result in violence that never needed to happen and people being dead who should be alive, and I will not be silenced by bullshit from cop apologists who insist I “have no right” to criticize people in uniform who fuck up.
d. john
@Cassidy,
I shouldn’t have to point out that the fact that you enlisted to protect that very right you claim we don’t have. The 1st amendment is a pretty important part of the BOR. Including the free speech part. Figured they would have taught you why you serve before they handed you an AR-14. I guess not.
Do you know why military service is service? or do you just enjoy the killing?
chopper
jesus, cassidy, by your logic none of us who weren’t in the military can complain about civilian deaths in the iraq war. fuck off, shitbird. i pay cops’ salaries, you bet your fucking ass i can complain when they pull stupid shit.
Ruckus
@celticdragonchick 111.
Yea I didn’t want to go there. I was trying to be a less an angry citizen (which BTW is very appropriate these days) and maybe a teacher or coach, conveying an actual important idea, rather than my rage at unnecessary ignorance. It’s a new approach for me, not sure I can stomach it yet. YMMV.
celticdragonchick
@ MOONBATMAN
I noticed that too. If I serve on a jury, I will refuse to take the word on any officers over that of anybody else. As far as I can tell, police lie as much as any other average person (look at cop divorce stats and affairs on the side…you know somebody was lieing…)
I will not convict based solely on the word of an officer. Sorry, but that is not good enough for me.
Case in point:
celticdragonchick
More fun with the above mentioned former Officer Pogan.
He was convicted of a felony in falsifying his report…but received no sentence at all.
None. Nada. Zip.
He walked away with a felony after assaulting a bicyclist, falsifying his report and trying to get the guy prosecuted, and didn’t even get probation in return.
Apparently, we are all supposed to feel bad that he didn’t follow in his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps.
I see.
Douglas
Was he losing when he called in the SWAT?
…yeah, I’m drinking, and reading too much Raymond Chandler.
Ruckus
@celticdragonchick 113.
I posted in a ABL thread a few days ago that she should never ever stop
talkingscreaming about bigotry and bigots. I say the same here. We don’t, as a group, work for the government. (Of course some of us do or have actually worked for the government, drawing a paycheck and all that, my self included) The government is supposed to work for us, it is supposed to be us, or at least be our representatives. It is supposed to work for all of us with a majority getting their way. But is is also supposed to work for those who don’t have enough, can’t find work they can do, protect those who can’t protect themselves, and never forget that the people own the government. All of us. Not the richest of us, not the whitest of us, not the loudest of us, not the most violent of us. All of us.Ruckus
@celticdragonchick 118.
OK this is getting fun.
So did someone else.
Bush Jr. Although the idea that he had a thought in his head is ridiculous. And you thought I was going to go there. Goodwin indeed.
TK-421
20 years ago, I was a HS senior in Vermont taking a Public Issues class required for graduation. A day or so after the beating of Rodney King, the chief of police called our high school and asked to speak to the senior class. He walks in and gives everyone a copy of his department’s Use of Force Guidelines. He stressed, repeatedly, how many levels of force escalation have to be gone through before a nightstick comes out, and that regardless what we saw would/should NEVER happen with our police department. He also made a note of how LA’s police chiefly wrongly trains his officers to be a paramilitary group, which results in countless incidents of excessive force.
Flash forward 8 or so years and here I am in Charleston, SC, being subjected to a STATEWIDE PATTERN of police officers accidentally shooting suspects, tasing without arrest, being cited for disciplinary measures, having a history of excessive force, etc.
One final anecdote: Glenn Greenwald covered some border shooting a few years ago, where the cops in question shot a suspect and then retrieved their shells and covered up for that (eventual) murder. One contextual fact was that anytime a border patrol officer discharges his firearm, there is a mandatory debriefing, incident report, additional training, time out from the field, and perhaps other measures to spell out to the officers very clearly that firing their weapon is a BIG F–KING DEAL.
I think the answer to the question is that, yes, the standards for the proper use of force by the police is extremely scattershot. Yes, it really is that bad, and I think it’s going to depend on the chief. Worse, it doesn’t seem like departments collaborate with each other on this or other stuff, so each chief is on his/her own. Worsest, news outlets’ treatment of police force are equally scattershot, so we lose the opportunity to establish and maintain a public conventional wisdom on what is and what is not acceptable.
DPirate
You can have completely diffeent cultures between one workplace and another located right next door. I’d imagine the same is true of police departments.
Still, the quote contains a caveat that may mean everything: “combat situation”. How do we know from this if it covers dog shootings or shootings of unarmed citizens?
dude
I’m late to the party, but wanted to share my thoughts on this.
Through sooper sekrit information gleaned from working and being friends with cops, I’ve learned that there are few national standards that police departments follow, and also few standards shared by PD’s in the same state, and, predictably, few shared between neighboring jurisdictions.
Factor in getting votes by promising to stand on the necks of any poors who might jaywalk, and we’re left with municipalities that have SWAT teams or their equivalents… and not enough supervillains to use them on.
So they wind up using them and their big guns on pathetically minor threats, like student loan defaults and yapping dogs.