Armed civilians shoot and kill more bad guys than police do. That said, police are civilians too. As washingtonpost.com reports – with malice aforethought – police shoot and kill plenty of bad guys. And, sometimes, not-so-bad guys. And bad guys that, perhaps, could’ve been apprehended without ballistic perforation. As a journalist, skepticism is my middle name. But I know that . . .
most officer-involved shootings (OIS) are “good shoots.” A good percentage of the “bad ones” are excusable, given exigent circumstances and human nature. All I ask for is transparency and accountability.
Anyway, it’s clear that the public and media view of OIS has changed radically in the last few months. Post-Ferguson, post-Balitimore, every police shooting of a minority is now a potential powder keg. The “people” are antagonistic, the media is atavistic and the cops are solipsistic.
In other words, there’s a war between the police and the public. Isn’t there?
It’s not a war on police.. it’s a war on their tactics….
This is also about their budget and their tendency to ignore people’s civil rights, whether we’re talking 2A, 4A, etc.
If we have to start paying for their housing, it’ll be a 3A issue.
As the saying goes, dress like Halloween and ghouls will try to get in your pants, so dress like a soldier and wars will come looking for you.
+1 solid face/off reference.
No, Democrat Pro Crime Policies Work!
Proof here:
http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2015/05/pro-crime-policies-work.html
Only read the URL…seems legit.
There is a police war on civilians and their pet dogs.
Wanted to point out the same. There is a war on police, but it was initiated by them. The general populace is simply responded to the war that has been declared on them.
Its a media war on duck watchers, and the police are just in the cross-fire.
Looks like a duck, waddles like a duck, quacks like a duck….it must be…thugz?
OPEN FIRE!
Says the Reliable Party Organs.
In other news, from the State Run Mediaemocrats Pro Crim Policy Works!
http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2015/05/pro-crime-policies-work.html
Is there a war on police?
Quite the opposite, actually. There is a police war on us. It started with the civil rights movement, escalated with the War on Drugs and will end in…?
This. Always remember that the police are just another branch of government. They are the iron fist of the government. The government has declared war on the American people and the police are their soldiers.
Yep. My take exactly. The police have become increasingly militarized and, with that militarization, increasingly isolated from the rest of society. They give every appearance of making war on us. I’ve never been in trouble in my entire life but I no longer trust the police nor do I feel safe in their presence. If anything happened I’d be very reluctant to even talk to the police. I often wonder if I represent a wider and growing demographic trend. If I do, there will be some striking political consequences coming in the near future. What will the police do—what will police work look like?—when they lose the support of their primary advocates?
Militarized? Have you considered that the police are only responding to the increased threats that they face every day? As for being separated from society, can you blame them? Just read through the comments on here. How many of these people do you think have ever had a personal negative dealing with the police? I mean apart from being arrested for a legitimate cause or getting a speeding ticket. I have exchanged messages with a lot of cop haters, and about 90% of the time, there opinions are formed by what they see on the internet. I thought we were smarter than that. Iron fist of the government? Let’s think about that. They are hired to enforce the laws enacted by the government who we elected. So… who is responsible? We are. Don’t like the laws? Get off your ass and work to change them. How many of you are doing that vs. just coming on to this site to whine and complain about the mean police?
Increased threats? From what, IEDs? That’s why they need MRAPs? Are you even in reality? Cops are more likely to die from a heart attack or car crash than anything else.
I hope you keep making excuses when it’s your toddler that gets burned by a flashbang or your 7 year old daughter that gets shot in the head or your wife that gets road-side finger-banged by a cop.
Statists like you are why we have the 2A.
Studies have shown the preferred firearm of “criminals” is an easily concealable handgun. That has been true for a century, and hasn’t changed even as the state and their police thugs ramp up the rhetoric against whatever heavily-armed bogeyman is supposedly out there.
There is no threat to justify police militarization, there is only greed, malfeasance and contempt for those who pay their pensions.
Very smart of you to avoid the police if at all possible. All to often they arrive looking to escalate and make arrests without any regard for reasonableness, fairness or justice.
I don’t know if war is the right word, but I was talking to my beat guys Saturday night and I was fairly bummed out hearing how they are being treated on a daily basis. I think the cops are being cast as the Israelis and the minorities as the Palestinians in our American kabuki theater. The problem is the anti police alliance between what is passing for the media and government.
Boo f’ing hoo.
Stop playing balaclava wearing Army men, kicking in the wrong door on a pot warrent then killing the family Chihuahua for looking at you funny then shooting the wrong and/or innocent person while tossing flash/bangs in to a toddler’s cribs and we’ll start to talk.
How about don’t sell drugs when you have a baby in the house?
How about we stop accepting fiat felonies that destroy not only the lives of individuals but entire communities?
Drugs were not “illegal” for thousands of years and have not once in recorded history been the cause of collapse of civilization.
The “War on Drugs” is a colossal failure in every respect, so defending it just because some government utopist sold the idea as “for our own good” falls pretty flat.
And oh yeah…was the parent of that baby (the flash bang recipient) actually GUILTY of anything? Or even suspected?
Jim, I don’t think that addresses raiding the wrong homes.
You have to know that the kid who got blown up, and everybody who knew him, had nothing to do with drug sales. There was zero evidence against anybody living in that house at the time of, or any time reasonably near the month of the raid. The only way to keep cops from breaking your door down in that kid’s situation is to kill them while they’re still in the front yard.
I read all the comments on here and they really disturb me. Everyone blames the police for the “war on drugs” and pretty much every problem on earth. We pay the police to enforce the laws. These laws are passed by the government that WE elected. You don’t like them? Then get off your lazy ass and do something to change them. Quit blaming other people for doing what WE pay them to do.
I think you underestimate the work it takes to fight bad legislation…especially that legislation that has already passed, is culturally ‘accepted’ and has worked through the courts for decades or more.
What makes you think we are NOT fighting the crap we complain about? That assumption is a total logic fail and is typical of people with your incorrect worldview…that laws somehow define “right.”
Complaining about bad laws is one step in the process…raising awareness and persuading others to open their eyes and think about the consequences of those bad laws.
But hey, it’s cheap to criticize, right? Cost you absolutely NOTHING to come off like the back end of a north bound horse, did it.
How much can we afford to pay our representatives at all levels of government to change the law and end the drug war? As much as the cartels can pay to keep it going? Don’t think so. Those guys now have an income that exceeds that of most small countries. Mexico is a good example of how rich and strong they are. Colombia has been an example for decades.
Prohibition should have taught us just how futile and ineffective such bans are…and it did. Thinking people have rejected the principal memes of the “war on drugs” since it started, and many more have discovered the paucity of logic in them and come over to the other side. The problem is that the drug cartels, makers and pushers figured it out first. They’ve been subverting and corrupting everybody in the prohibition enforcement chain practically since day one. Seen all the stories here and there about cops being busted for aiding drug shipments or drugs sellers in their territories? How many lawmakers, lawyers and judges are guilty of taking bribes to sabotage reversal efforts in drug laws or to aid drug-making or -dealing people temporarily enmeshed in the LEO system? (Or fold on any drug law reversals after they’re told, “Knock it off or we’ll kill your family”.) Ever wonder why it’s so difficult to get pro-marijuana laws passed, or why there’s still a total federal prohibition in place against something that’s never killed anybody? To the point that a valuable resource like hemp, which has no drug effects, is also banned?
But we’re supposed to win by just “getting off our butts and voting”? Oh, you poor, naive child.
Wahhhh, the Einsatzgruppen are getting dirty looks. WAHHHHHH.
Just like not all citizens are criminals not all cops are rouges. You are painting with far too broad a brush. You don’t see how some of the posted statements and opinions verge on stereotyping?
And why is the venom necessary?
The police dispense violence for politicians. That is their literal job description, not some stereotype.
Physician, heal thyself.
I’m sure you’re a great guy, but they’re your rogues. Bring them to heel.
Pretty sure they aren’t going to listen to me.
Sorry, but the discourse on topics like this is, with some exceptions, commendably civil and thoughtful here on TTAG. Claiming that this discussion is venomous is a poor characterization of what’s occurring here. The police are not, nor should they be thought of as being, sacred. To do so is a decidedly unhealthy state of affairs.
every efin ‘good’ cop has seen bad cop be bad and kept quiet. now ‘good’ cop bad cop. off the pigs. rotten blue menace. your sickening behavior regulates this society and it musters all the sickness and hatred inside of me. there’s a thin blue line between the love and the hate and if you so choose to cross it you’re a nazi for the state. your injustice will crush us the precious the few so you wanna be a killer for the red white and blue. you’re a bitch to crown beat your own people down.
Maybe they should find another line of work, then?
Yes, and it was the police who started it with their pervasive “us vs them” attitude.
This. And I know. I’ve worn the badge as a reserve. Those who say the “us vs them” doesn’t exist, should listen to the conversations that take place in a patrol car during a 12 hour shift.
Their actions speak louder than their words..
The “us vs. them” attitude that was doubly reinforced with military armored vehicles with battering rams, mounted machine guns, and camo uniforms that look more at home in Afghanistan than on main street USA. When the police LOOK like an army, are WEAPONIZED like an army, and use rules of engagement of an army, then why are they surprised that the media and civilian population react and treat them as an invading army?
I’ll acknowledge the “us versus them” attitude. Much of that comes from an institutional sense of elitism and authority, but also from the quite often distrusting, hostile, and dangerous, working conditions that exist on the job from the working environment…meaning the community. The perceptions go both ways; it’s a vicious circle because both the public, and most police, see each other as the…’other’.
Actually, it runs deeper than this. All governments are based on authoritarianism. Authority is only needed in a political context to do harm to someone. If you don’t aim to harm someone you don’t need any authority, all you need is voluntary cooperation and non-coercive persuasion. If it really is good for us then you don’t need to force it on us.
So with authoritarianism we will always have one class of people (those with authority) harming (at war with) others.
Here’s proof that political authority is illegitimate. See if you can provide consistent answers to the below without contradicting yourself:
1) Is there any means by which any number of individuals can delegate to someone else the moral right to do something which none of the individuals have the moral right to do themselves?
2) Do those who wield political power (presidents, legislators, etc.) have the moral right to do things which other people do not have the moral right to do? If so, from whom and how did they acquire such a right?
3) Is there any process (e.g., constitutions, elections, legislation) by which human beings can transform an immoral act into a moral act (without changing the act itself)?
4) When law-makers and law-enforcers use coercion and force in the name of law and government, do they bear the same responsibility for their actions that anyone else would who did the same thing on his own?
5) When there is a conflict between an individual’s own moral conscience, and the commands of a political authority, is the individual morally obligated to do what he personally views as wrong in order to “obey the law”?
From (link)
The wonders of National Socialism is that all is possible in reference to your questions.
It’d be nice if the police would start eliminating the us-versus-them attitude by opposing all legislative “carve outs” for themselves.
As long as that continues (among other things) they will always view themselves as superior to “us”.
O2
My dream is that we get a president and congress that will eliminate all LE-carveouts. If other civilians can’t get it, then the police don’t need it. Not only could it help stem the ‘us vs them’ police superiority complex, just image the outcry from elected police officials in California, NY State, Illinois, Connecticut and New Jersey. It’s like music. Want your rifles and standard cap mags? Then citizens get them too. Enjoy your 10 round nanny-mags till then.
It will never happen, of course.
+1
But some animals are more equal than others.
love the reference there. love it.
The Democratic machine that runs the inner cities in this country is scared that blacks and Hispanics are on the verge of defecting (i.e. booting them to the curb). All the racial division they’ve sown over the last 40 years has not made the lives of minorities any better, it’s made them worse. You can only keep up a ruse like that for so long. So now in a desperate attempt to galvanize their support from minorities, they’re ginning up racial animosity between their minority constituents who keep voting them into office and the police departments that they themselves are in total control of. As if it’s the Republicans’ fault the inner city police are shooting young black men. I guess because there just aren’t enough taxpayer funded handouts to able bodied men and women who just don’t want to work. The Washington Post is part of this Democratic machine and are all too happy to help out.
The police are not without their sins, but what we also have is a political class full of greivance mongers, racialists and social justice warriors. And so a thug criminal like Michael Brown gets beatified, and yet nobody gives a sh*t about Erik Scott.
Obama, DeBlasio and Holder have framed the problem in a way guaranteed to make even good police defensive, and to make them close ranks with the bad ones. Of course, the Obama Admin are masters at “othering” their opponents for fun and political profit.
Is Ferguson, MO using fines from petty infractions to fund its municipal government? If so, the police are the agents of a terrible policy, but why isn’t someone torching the mayor’s car instead of cop cars (and random businesses)? Same with New York and the “war on loosies” – that’s a tax policy problem that is above the NYPD’s paygrade.
http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/slaying-army-veteran-shocks-friends
Good point. Why aren’t rural, suburban, and mountain folk asking where their jobs went, where are their 401ks, where did their house values go, & why toxic chemicals pollute their water? Why aren’t they telling their elected officials that blaming Jews, Asians, Blacks, Gays, & Other religions isn’t going to work anymore. Our leaders take their handouts from big Corp and give us distractions. It was the Kardassians now Cops.
It’s just the media conflict de jour. I would venture to say the vast majority of law abiding public support the police mission, even if they do not like police or an individual police officer. Most reasonable people can recognize the value of local law enforcement. Hopefully all this extra attention will weed out some bad apples and the hype will die down in a year or so.
I work in a poor, predominately black community. The other 2 officers and I that work in this area of our jurisdiction on my shift are white. The three of us have never been accused of impartial, unfair, cruel, or unconstitutional treatment of minorities or any other individual because we strive to treat citizens as they deserve. On the flip side my marked unit broke down the other day on one of the main streets. No fewer than 30 people stopped to see if I was ok and see if I needed help in the half hour it took to get the to truck there. I don’t feel like a war is being waged against me.
“The three of us have never been accused of impartial, unfair, cruel, or unconstitutional treatment of minorities or any other individual because we strive to treat citizens as they deserve. . .”
This is entirely commendable. But, having said that, I also know that police culture protects its own. In many (most? . . . I really don’t know) departments those cops who work hard to maintain high professional standards and work equally hard to keep the respect of the people in their patrol area, are also tacitly expected to accept and cover the behavior of other cops who are dangerously incompetent. I know that if workaday officers attempt to complain about these bad cops, they place their own careers in danger. This is not your fault, but knowing this has robbed me of the trust I once had in police.
I think that’s what they call “community policing”. Also known as “shit that actually works”. Thank you for actually doing it; a lot of your colleagues have forgot why another name for their job is “peace officer”.
I wish you weren’t rare.
Absolutely, many police officers have forgotten, or in many cases I would argue simply never learned, what the role they need to have in the community is.
Honestly most of the people I work with are good guys and gals, it truly is a small, idiotic minority of police that ruin it for the rest of us. The few times I have seen misconduct (pressing “consent” searches, etc) I’ve stopped that shit on the spot and reported it to a supervisor, but honestly it’s very rare that I see it. It’s our there, and it’s more prominent in jurisdiction that emphasize statistics as the only barometer of good police works instead of more community oriented departments, which is why you see the same departments time and time again on the news. My department has a very thorough IA that will not only fire you but criminally prosecute you as well if you do something unethical and illegal.
I guess my point is there are literally hundreds of thousands of us that embrace the role of peace officer and despise those who seek to harm citizens rather than help them, and are truly embarrassed by their behavior.
” . . .It’s our there, and it’s more prominent in jurisdiction that emphasize statistics as the only barometer of good police works instead of more community oriented departments, which is why you see the same departments time and time again on the news. . .” Quoting, The Floor
This hits the nail squarely on it’s head. There is a statistics based management methodology that is unfortunately showing up throughout American public bureaucracies and not only in police forces. When this appears in an organization, regardless of what it is, the first casualty is quality. And when quality disappears the slide toward corruption is inevitable. Because of their inherent devotion to number crunching, quantitative managers are completely ill-equipped to understand, or even see, the need for quality in police work.
This. Exactly so.
Bad statistics, bad results. Worse, most measures you can “manage to” are bad for getting what you want. People who do this for real, and successfully know…
– A “bad” number is a starting point, not a goal. It’s fodder for “What’s going on here?”
– You get what you manage to. Worse, the people being measured are cleverer and more committed than you are to make the numbers better. They’ll do things you never thought of. See Robert D. Austin’s “Managing and Measuring Performance in Organizations.”(*)
– There are multiple effects to anything you try. For example, any pressure you bring on one thing, like pushing “crimes” down or “arrests” up, can influence several ways. (You get less “crimes” reported by reporting less crimes. That’s easier than making less crimes happen. You get more arrests by arresting people more, whether those are “good” arrests or not.)
I happen to work in helping organizations do subtle things better, specifically developing software. It’s hard to get more of what you want vs. encouraging more bad behavior.
(*) The canonical example is managing a call center to “calls taken” per staff / seat / hour / whatever. Turns out, measuring that, just hanging up as soon as a customer is on the line gets you the best numbers. Bad measure & getting exactly what you (in the event, stupidly) measure.
Yes, there is. The #FTP crowd – the ones who “protest” by displaying signs saying things such as “All my favorite people kill the police” – are indeed warring against the police.
How effective or pervasive is that war? That’s debatable; but it certainly exists. Is it increasing in intensity, or merely in media coverage? I don’t know; but it sure appears to me that plenty of George Soros (and similar) money is financing more of it in the past couple years.
Interesting that statists’ money would be going toward funding anti-police protests and resulting civil disobedience.
So statists are the enablers of conflict…to what end?
More statism???
Go figure.
Yes, statists love conflict because they use that conflict to justify an even more powerful state.
Remember, the better description for all of this is the ruling class versus the working and unemployed class. The ruling class embrace anything that increases and solidifies their power. Conflict causes the working class to shout, “Save us!” and the ruling class happily offers to “save us” — in exchange for more of our money and rights of course. In other words the ruling class offers to protect the working class in exchange for a weaker working class.
Remember the proverb, “There is no such thing as a free lunch.” We don’t get “free” protection from the ruling class. We purchase it (knowingly or otherwise) with our money and loss of our rights.
Divide and conquer.
The Washington Post article conveniently left out two important details about the Danny Elrod shooting in Omaha, Nebraska. Elrod repeatedly told police he was armed. He was shot by an officer when he turned toward other officers and reached for his waistband. Although it turned out that Elrod was not armed, he gave a persuasive impression of an armed criminal about to shoot.
Nope, it’s a war on police by both faux Libertarians and the Obama administration. You “lovers of Liberty” who keep looking for the jack booted government stormtrooper have failed to notice that Obama and his cronies are busily outsourcing the stormtrooper role to street gangs. The gangs have taken over Ferguson and large parts of St Louis despite the fact that Missourians have a solid right to bear arms. If you think this is just desserts for the police just put a picture of white Hispanic George Zimmerman on your desk to remind yourself that anybody who defends themselves from the approved stormtrooping thugs will find himself in the crosshairs .
Feds give Ferguson cops 1033 armored vehicles, grenade launchers and machine guns.
But the “gangbangers” are the stormtroopers!
Nice one. 🙂
Guess you don’t own a small business or live in the ghetto. I bet you would see things differently if you did. Just another keyboard commando.
Ah yes, fake sympathy for the ghetto-dwellers even as you support the vile police and politicians that keep the ghettos dangerous and poor. Spoken like a true Progressive.
Do you? I’ve lived in the “ghetto”. Gun shots nearly every night. Even my pizza guy got robbed and Papa John’s stopped delivering to my apartment complex after dark.
I can tell you, a fvcking MRAP isn’t going to change sh!t for the better.
Plus the fact that you uphold Zimmerman as a “good example” shows how far gone you are. Zimmerman was a fool and you are for idolizing him.
You aren’t very bright. If the cops aren’t there to do the job you have to do, just like George Zimmerman. Zimmerman is only a fool because he was doing the policeman’s job. If there are no cops then it’s your job and you get to be Darren Wilson.
Thank you for confirming the job of the police is to instigate confrontations, just like George Zimmerman.
George Zimmerman didn’t instigate a confrontation.
Really? Accosting Trayvon isn’t instigation? That Trayvon overreacted and attacked Zimmerman in response is irrelevant to the fact that Zimmerman started the confrontation (but not the fight).
George Zimmerman didn’t accost Trayvon Martin.
Wrong. Even if Zimmerman had verbally accosted Martin, such verbal accosting would not have constituted a threat of use of unlawful force. Therefore, Martin’s “over-reaction”, which constituted assault and battery, was not justifiable as use of force in self-defense.
Zimmerman didn’t start a confrontation. He called the police to report suspicious activity in an area that had such things. Furthermore, it isn’t illegal to ask someone what the hell they are dong in your area. Tampon could have told him to piss off and went on to the Dad’s girl friends house, but instead he chose to ground and pound.
“Even if”? Zimmerman admitted as much during trial. There is no question that Zimmerman confronted Trayvon Martin for no good reason, much as cops do with civilians. But the cops do it with their guns drawn and ready to murder, since unlike Zimmerman, they are fully protected by government privilege. Whereas Zimmerman had to endure a lengthy trial, the police get a paid vacation and a commendation for “bravery”.
You were apparently watching a different trial. Zimmerman never said that he accosted Martin. Zimmerman claimed that it was Martin who approached and verbally accosted him, not the other way around.
There was no evidence presented at trial that refuted Zimmerman’s account. In fact, even Rachel Jeantel admitted that it was Martin who verbally accosted Zimmerman – just as she admitted that Martin had reached a point right outside Brandi Green’s home, before returning to the sidewalk “T” some 400 feet away to approach and confront Zimmerman.
If the fantasy you describe is true, then the Florida stand your ground defense would have been applied without question. Zimmerman’s lawyers did not use that defense, instead opting for a simple self-defense argument, because the overzealous neighborhood watchman decided to confront Martin.
Zimmerman made no attempt to dispute that particular aspect of the prosecution’s account of the incident. They did dispute whether Zimmerman started the physical altercation, which is a different matter entirely.
And let’s not forget that Rachel Jeantel stated Zimmerman was stalking Martin before the response. How would TTAG state it? It should have been a defensive gun use.
I am speaking from a basis of facts presented as evidence at trial. The only fantasy is the one, apparently, inside your head.
The defense did not invoke Stand Your Ground because it did not apply. At the moment Zimmerman used deadly force in self-defense, he was lying on the ground, straddled by Martin, and thus unable to effect any sort of retreat. It was simple self-defense, because that was Zimmerman’s only option.
The defense didn’t need to dispute that particular aspect of the prosecution’s account, because the prosecution failed to present evidence to support that particular aspect of their account.
That aspect was important to refute, because the invocation of self-defense for use of deadly force requires a different standard for someone who is the initial physical aggressor. It had nothing to do with who approached or accosted whom, because approaching and verbally accosting do not constitute physical aggression in a use-of-force situation.
“Stalking” has a specific, statutory meaning in Florida. Under that specific, statutory meaning, “stalking” did not apply to the incident between Zimmerman and Martin. Thus, anything Rachel Jeantel said in that regard was incorrect.
Further, Rachel Jeantel also claimed that Martin was “right by” Brandi Green’s townhouse, and that it was Martin who refused to go inside, and instead decided to return to confront Zimmerman. The physical altercation happened some 400 feet north of Brandi Green’s townhouse, approximately at the location where Zimmerman traversed a sidewalk to try to see where Martin went. The only possible way for the confrontation to happen, in the time available, was for Martin to have left the vicinity of Brandi Green’s townhouse, to return 400 feet north, and then to confront Zimmerman. It is simply impossible, given the timing involved, that Zimmerman was ever anywhere near Brandi Green’s townhouse.
It should have been, and it was. The victim of an unprovoked assault used his lawfully carried firearm to defend himself.
If the fantasy you describe is true, then the Florida stand your ground defense would have been applied without question.
SYG wasn’t even an issue in this case since there wasn’t opportunity for Zimmerman to retreat. Anyone who actually paid attention to the facts of the case would know this. The only ones still perpetuating lies about SYG in this case are those with an agenda.
Indeed, SYG was a non-issue, because Zimmerman instigated a verbal confrontation and Trayvon Martin escalated it into a physical one. The verbal aspect was presented by the prosecution with a witness and Zimmerman’s lawyer did not contest this. That does not mean it didn’t happen, the defense didn’t consider it relevant to their strategy.
If Trayvon Martin was armed and scared off the prick with his own gun, that would have been the best possible defensive gun outcome. Defensive gun use does not entail following and stalking people you deem suspicious.
Quite simply, you’re wrong. The prosecution presented as evidence Zimnerman’s own testimony, that Martin verbally accosted him. The prosecution put on the stand Rachel Jeantel, who testified that Martin verbally accosted Zimmerman.
There is zero evidence that Zimmerman pursued Martin. Even if he had, such pursuit would not have justified Martin using force in self-defense.
Stop drinking the Narrative kool-aid, and learn the facts.
Also: learn the definition of stalking. Your continued use of the term just makes you look foolish.
Care to show me some facts on those figures? Grenade launchers? If you mean tear gas launchers you are probably correct. Did you see the riots in Ferguson? Machine guns? If you mean select fire AR’s, you are probably correct. Just like the ones that you can buy. Show me the facts that show that they were given all that stuff.
Select-fire rifles *are* machine guns. Not “probably”, but the definition. The grenade launchers given to cops can be used to launch lethal munitions, it’s simply a matter of the cops acquiring the ammunition.
The 1033 program has been running for almost two decades and the insatiable hunger of wannabe cops lusting after military hardware is well-documented. Yours asking for “numbers” is nothing more than deliberate ignorance.
Real sympathy for gangbanging thugs paints you as the Progressive not me.
There you have it, folks. Criticism of police is sympathy for “gangbangers”. As if the police aren’t the most violent, unaccountable gangbangers of all.
I can see the yes man out there with gangbangers. You’d be dead inside of 15 minutes.
That’s longer than Walter Scott lasted with the cops.
The bangers burned the bitch down.
I agree, but if those responsible, gov’t and police, don’t remedy the abuse and inequity of their own creation, any yahoo can frame the situation however they like. The gov’t has no business militarizing the police, the police show themselves for the fools they are by accepting armor and swat assignments. And if they don’t want to accept responsibility for their sense of entitlement and “us vs them” attitude then they’re not just fools, they’re idiots.
But I thought that the AR was the perfect personal defense weapon so why shouldn’t the police have them? Do you think the cops would be less militarized if the road around in used Brinks armored truck? Police militarization is just a faux Libertarian narrative designed to undermine law enforcement and public law. Faux Libertarians seem to believe that the mere existence creates criminals. Abolish the law and crime disappears. What nonsense. Crime originates in the heart of man not from some external force.
The military equipment that the cops have is just an outward sign of their true attitude that they are now the high speed low drag military operators patrolling in Iraq.
” Crime originates in the heart of man not from some external force.”
Your logic is flawed.. traffic laws create the criminal… yes,even you.
A lot of crime originates with stupid laws created by government fiat.
Fugue clearly has SFB. All laws create crimes. Want to end all criminal activity just abolish law. That is what passes for faux Libertarian logic.
When the next wave of gun regulations roll in via executive order, no doubt you will condemn the newly minted criminals. After all, those gun owners are simply in contempt of “public law” (whatever that is).
You say that as if Liberal dems are the cause of the problem.. Need i remind you, and the rest of the partisan sludge, that It’s republicans that shout the loudest for the sustained, and continued growth of the prison industrial complex? thus the incentive for more creative crimes and criminality to feed it?…..
Another piece faux Libertarian foolishness. Want more crime let’s release more criminals. Want more crime abolish the police. I forget that’s wrong because we will abolish law and voila! no more criminals.
You just made the same argument that MDA makes supporting more gun regulations. “If criminals don’t obey gun laws, then why have gun laws?” Literally straight out of the anti-gun playbook.
Congrats, tool.
Just like an MDA type when you lose an argument you go for emotions.
+1
TDI spot on as usual.
It’s not “war,” per se, but you should be apprised that this is how war looks in the early stages. And whether or not the story fits the narrative, you have the 1st Amendment [Press] out there beating the sh_t to a froth.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/oklahoma-bureau-probes-sheriffs-office-shooting-memo-31448711
And. . . [much as I LOATHE Huffington Post (HP is what they can abuse themselves with)].
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/01/nehemiah-fischer-oklahoma-troopers-shoot-pastor_n_7483266.html
The Marine commander in Iraq used to tell his people, “Be polite, be professional and have a plan to kill everyone you meet.” That’s good advice for police, too, as they deal with the general public. The first two reduce the chances that an interaction will go bad while the last takes care of business if it does. Training for concealed carry permits emphasizes not antagonizing others and de-escalating if conflict arises. An officer can be polite and sympathetic toward a suspect without letting down his guard in case the suspect chooses to resist violently.
I deal with the general public, too. Except I don’t get: an issued gun, issued body armor, 100 guys ready to rush in and back me up, special immunity, special legislative carve-outs (especially with gun laws), and paid all the while.
I see you are like most of us. How do we ever survive?
Mainly by avoiding guys with all of the above things, to the best of our ability.
Wars aren’t started by soldiers.
There’s a war between various government authorities and jurisdictions(and their “leadership”) and the citizens they serve. Also, between the same, and various kinds of organized crime.
The individual police and the rest of us are caught in the middle.
Ji-[man]-had
NO…as long as most of them think(rightly so) they are above the law, armor up, spend most of their effort on revenue generation. have armored vehicles, behave AS a standing army and harass legal gunowners-NO. Is every cop bad? No-but it reminds me of the fake “war on women”…and I mentioned on a post yesterday in Chiraq they shoot unarmed folks weekly-as in last night. And I am not a radical left-wing guy at all…
Don’t blindly support the armed agents of the state? Must be a leftist!
Or an extreme Conservative with no sense of balance.. The left calls for more laws.. the right calls for more prisons and punishment….it’s like we cant win for losing…..Nobody ever calls for repealing stupid laws.. and an end to mass incarceration ….
What is this revenue generation thing? Oh yeah, it’s about enforcing traffic laws especially speeding. I was on the road the last two weekends driving between Virginia and Wisconsin. I drove by many cops and yet not one of them decided to generate some revenue out of me. Why was that? Could it be that I was within a reasonable distance of the speed limit? That I stopped at all stop signs? Didn’t run any red lights? If you want do those things then you are voluntarily generating revenue for the convenience of getting to your destination a little bit sooner. I say that is the perfect true Libertarian tax. You are paying for the privilege of that decreased time on the road. The police as tax collectors is just another faux Libertarian narrative designed to undermine the concept of the authority of public law.
Selective enforcement slick-and I am NOT a libertarian. And when did you become a judge of “faux libertarians”.?…You better hope your buddies don’t f##k you out your 2A rights at the show of a badge and a gun…our so-called rights rest on a razor thin edge of the supremes…but you know that.
tdiinva is just a Nixon voter who got stuck in the 70s. 🙂
The old selective enforcement trick. Every go fishin? Ever catch ’em all? There is a solution to selective enforcement. Radar and camera enforcement. Then you will catch them all.
Just because you aren’t a Libertarian doesn’t make you immune to faux Libertarian arguments. FYI: Reason magazine defines faux Libertarianism. They were quite willing to toss Darren Wilson’s constitutional rights and the Mall of America’s property rights to the mob.
You and everybody who complains about about “selective traffic enforcement: are nothing more than whiners who complain when they caught.
lmgtfy.com/?q=civil+forfeiture
Selective enforcement as in poor,black.young and spanglish folks. Or folks with a “less than new” ride. But you already knew that…how’s it feel to be the new Sexual T? Btw camera and radar can and have been FAKED…
Now you are sounding like Eric Holder.
You are also completely clueless. You either catch em all or a catch a few. The only way to catch em all is cameras and photo radar. You are the one arguing for an automatic enforcement mechanism not me. If you want “fairness” then faked or not it is the only way go is photo radar and red light cameras. Man up and take your medicine if you get caught.
Police are not civilians:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/civilian
http://i.word.com/idictionary/civilian
Police are paramilitary organizations sanctioned by the state and authorized by singular judicial entities to perform no-knock raids on your home and perform confiscations under the color of law in order to fund their activities, payrolls, and pensions through civil asset forfeiture.
Dictionaries can print whatever they want, but words still mean things. Those same dictionaries now claim that firefighters are non-civilian, too.
Police are civilians. They operate under the civil law, and not the uniform code of military justice.
We allow that definition to change at our peril.
You’ re wrong. This is just a faux Libertarian talking point. The police have an organized command structure, wear distinctive uniforms or insignia and report to a recognized civil authority. They are even considered lawful combatants under the Geneva Conventions. They are indeed paramilitary organizations.
The concept of paramilitary authorities is unconstitutional. There is the military, and there is civil law enforcement. There is no “paramilitary.” I refuse to legitimize an unconstitutional usurpation of authority.
Yes, the SS Police Divisions truly are a military organization.
You can fail to recognize anything you want including any form of recognized authority but that does”t make it so.
The Constitution says nothing about paramilitary organizations but it does give the executive branch the authority to enforce laws. The US Marshals Service was chartered in 1789 to do just that. The Constitution leaves local law enforcement up to the individual jurisdictions and they can charter who they want. The Texas Rangers were founded as a paramilitary organization. I think you are confused. What the Constitution forbids is the establish of private armies. The militia is an arm of the government. Just to make it clear there is no Constitutional prohibition on using the military to conduct law enforcement operations. There is a statute prohibiting it. Posse Comitatus doesn’t not apply to the State Militias (National Guard) when called to state service. In other words your local National Guard has the power to arrest your ass.
#Indiana:
I suspect that if you lived in Germany in the 1930’s you probably would have joined the SS.
Did you read that Chip-we’re BOTH faux Libertarians! Stand fast in the liberty of Christ…
I get called every name in the book. I must be doing something right. I figure if tdiinva thinks I’m a “faux libertarian” anti-police fringe, and Grindstone thinks I’m a statist boot-licker, I’m probably okay.
What is not there a war on? Police, Blacks, Hispanics, White Men, All Women, LBGT (I think this includes a man/woman trapped inside a woman’s/man’s body) , Illegal Aliens, Washington Redskins, the Poor, the Weak, Capitalists, Communists, Conservatives and the Press. We are a confrontational group but Hillary will fix things when she replaces Andrew Jackson with Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill. Kumbaya y’all.
You forgot: Christmas, Marriage, Drugs, The Environment, Choice, Meat, and Toast.
“The police dispense violence for politicians. That is their literal job description, not some stereotype.”
Unbalanced and biased hyperbole like this is part of the problem from the civilian side. While sometimes some of them do this, the majority of them the majority of the time enforce laws we the people elected legislators to enact for the safety of we the people.
You do realize legislatures pass laws all the time without input from, or even knowledge of, the public, right?
Do YOU know everything that is against the law in your state? Have you read “Three Felonies a Day” or at least understand the concept?
For example, in CT, it is a FELONY to fail to fill out a form.
Every single time The People do fight this kind of crap, it takes enormous resources of time and money to succeed, and it costs them (personally) nothing to continue to try it.
And, add on top of that, the tendency for Progressives to push for things like elimination of cop discretion, so when there IS a bad law and the cops don’t want to enforce it, the law may get written in a way that they can’t (see, for example, the mandatory arrest DV laws in SC).
Your statement would hold a lot of water if the laws actually represented the will of The People; however, all bets are off on that idea when the legal system has been usurped as a political tool utilized to enforce behaviors that should never be a concern in a free society.
+1
Gee, laws are for our safety? Who would’ve thought? So that’s why the cops barged into a house looking for pot and shot the homeowner, it was for his safety.
There’s a reason cops now call themselves “law enforcement officer”, not “peace officer”. There is nothing peaceful about the imposition of the law on the people, it is done with the fist, baton and gun.
enforce laws we the people elected legislators to enact for the safety of we the people. Yes, under Scientific Soviet Socialism the Dictatorship Of The Proletariat always is concerned for the safety of the people. The Legislatively ordained two party system always represents the people.
WHY DO YOU HATE OUR BRAVE NOBLE POLICE SO MUCH????????
Police have killed nearly 400 people this year so far
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/fatal-police-shootings-in-2015-approaching-400-nationwide/2015/05/30/d322256a-058e-11e5-a428-c984eb077d4e_story.html)
The number of police killed in the “line of duty”: 54
That includes 11 heart attacks and 15 automobile “accidents”.
https://www.odmp.org/search/year
No. There is no “war on police”. There is, however, a war on citizens.
Cops lie, people die
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/police-shooting-jermaine-mcbean-florida-headphones-n366386
There is the old the side with higher casualties is the righteous side. That’s Progressive thinking!
The police are charged with going after bad guys and more often than not the bad guys lose. Do you think that the cops are shooting Eagle Scouts with the same frequency as gangbangers?
Using kindergarten words like “bad guys” is undoubtedly a sign of mental retardation and human gullibility. Amusingly, that includes 100% of cops. Muh sheep dogs. 🙂
You really lack any sort of critical thinking, don’t you?
Sport, Look in mirror on the critical thinking. Are you claiming that the people killed by the police are randomly distributed throughout the population or are they concentrated in certain groups with high propensity to break the law. There is critical thinking question for you. Are you mentally up to challenge?
There we have it folks, being murdered by the police is now justified because of demographic group association.
It’s a war on law and order in general. They are betting that the glaring incapacity of the state to handle these situations will lead to calls for… more state. And they’re not wrong.
I’m not sure there is anything new. Stumbled across this story from 50years ago.
Time Machine: C.R. patrolman in 1957 killed man wanted for writing bad checks
“Cop said stop, he ran so cop fired warning shots in the air until dead” Apparently no public interest.
http://thegazette.com/subject/news/archive/time-machine/time-machine-cr-patrolman-in-1957-killed-man-wanted-for-writing-bad-checks-20150531
I’m of two minds about this. Most of me says that any time a government agent deprives a citizen of his rights to life, liberty or property, it should be scrutinized carefully and analyzed in such a way that the event does not repeat itself.
On the other hand, as far as I’m aware, most officers never have and never will shoot anyone, regardless of the demographics of the subject and the officer. So I find myself extremely skeptical of the narrative being pushed in the media.
And as you mention, there are ‘excusable’ shootings that happen due to misadvised decisions made under seemingly extreme time constraints that would otherwise have been avoidable, though in those cases perhaps careers should end more frequently than they actually do.
However, the Baltimore incident (not involving a gun) is absolutely inexcusable. When a person is in the custody of the police, they should not be injured unless absolutely necessary to prevent the more severe injury of themself or the injury of another person. All possible care must be taken to prevent this from happening.
I feel more more at war with some comments here than on the street. Usually. Most of my contacts are calm, cool, and professional. I also spend a good amount of time assisting drivers and members of the public. I’d say it’s 1/20 people really dislike me, and about 1/100 or even 1/200 that warrant a use of force (including something minor such as a control hold).
I get most of my actual physical contact from helping out my beat partners when their stops go wrong. Or pursuits, obviously.
However, if I shot a young black man, all of that positive service may well go out the window. Management might throw me to the wolves. Who knows? It’s pretty much business as usual for me.
However, I’m going to independently film any of my use of forces with racial minorites. Also, I’m at the point where I’ll simply absorb a few punches from a black woman before using an sort of force. And I’ll make sure to get that on video. It could be something to post anonymously rather than having the city burn.
I’m more concerned about the mainstream media and angry mobs of idiots than actual suspects.
But I get paid to shoot, have a company car, and can occasionally manage to have fun out on the streets.
“But I get paid to shoot,”
Please expound on this……
I believe he and i think enough alike that I can answer that one.
What other job besides sponsored competition shooter or military has days where your assigned place of duty is the range, where you can improve your skills, joke with your friends, and have a good time, all while on the clock and having your ammo paid for?
It by no means has anything to do with officer involved shootings.
uh, yeah…. “by no means”….cuz we see em turn down their pay after every shoot…
Paid administrative leave can be a thing without being the thing he or I was talking about.
If it is any consolation to you , the typical TTAG commentator does not represent the average Second Amendment absolutist let alone the typical gun owner. What you see here is the segment of the gun owning community that is our own worst enemy. Most the people making anti-police statements are merely the mirror image of Shannon Watts et al.
+1 . I’ve been pointing out for a couple years that as TTAG gets more popular, and influential
(I’d say responsible for at least 50% of the reputation for ridiculous that the faux Mommies Demanding Anything for Attention)
that we would naturally attract trolls of the anti-gun type, whether the typical self-appointed screwballs and attention whores that have been around since the dawn of bbs’, or the “more likely to be paid kind” – social justice warriors for gun grabbing, lets call them.
Now that we know Center for American Progress was funding pay for protest, and OFA tards were spending money left over for various vote buying and IRS was suppressing the get out the vote conservatives, is it any wonder that someone with big bucks, would be paying for deliberate disinformatzia?
Here is that post by Herschel Smith at The Captains Journal, outing our old friend and censor at the NYT, now Bloomturds latest hire at Al-Jizzwad-ehra, trolling for dollars at disqus and on his blog, anonymously, to play the old soviet propaganda games. http://www.captainsjournal.com/
We dont have to prove the Narrative is contrived, its admitted. Read Trust Me I’m Lying, by Ryan Halliday to see the revenue model to generate lies and misdirection at some lower level of the Progtard eco-system, like Rolling Stones, and “trade it up the chain” for credibility at the majors, who are content hungry, and desperate to continue “throwing meat to the dogs” in their shrinking left demographic… having squandered their creds in propagandizing for The One, and other social justice memes, and are finding Nielson ratings, eyeballs, and ad revenue falling off the cliff.
I’m not pointing to any one particular poster- just that we seem to have a greater number of loose screws rolling around on the shop floor here, and whether paid or not, its only to be expected, the price of success.
“There’s people who disagree with me, they must be paid shills!”
At least I don’t say bootlickers are paid to shill for their masters. They do it for free. 🙂
But of course it’s all just trolls. What else could it possibly be? No True Scotsman!
You should make the next step, though, and figure out that TTAG is just one big honeypot. I mean, RF has admitted that he voted for Obama, even. What more proof do you need?
Just to make it clear I don’t think the people I am pointing to are trolls. Their beliefs are sincere but they are on the fringe. People on the fringe think their thoughts on certain issues are mainstream. The kind of anti-police rhetoric we see here on TTAG is a product of the gun rights fringe.
These beliefs are fringe and not mainstream, therefore they must be bad!
It is tiring dealing with an epsilon minus semi-moron. Wrong does not mean bad. It just means wrong.
In your case, both bad *and* wrong.
The “typical” gun owner is a fudd oh clueless one…and I’m equally sure a lot of us regulars now think of you as a troll..
You sir truly seem like one of the 90+ percent of the good cops. I hope your >10% of questionable co workers take after you.
Could we please have a war on the rhetorical cliche “War On [insert topic]”?
Yes but it’s one of their own making. After years of preferential treatment by prosecutors and both questionable to downright obviously corrupt behavior they have lost the benefit of the doubt. Personally I used to read these stories and give the cops the benefit of the doubt, now I wonder about each shooting I read about what the police aren’t telling us.
No, there’s no war on police. There is a campaign against certain police actions in which libertarians, blacks, 2A supporters and some within the Federal government seem to be nervous allies. A couple of random assassinations of police, while reprehensible, do not amount to a “war.”
This campaign will end when police clean up their own mess and start to behave like “To Protect and Serve” is their actual MO and not a cheap marketing slogan. Transparency and accountability would be a good start. De-unionization would accelerate the transformation of police departments, since transparency and accountability are utterly impossible in the cloistered world of police unionization.
Where cops are not part of the community they “protect,” they are little more than an occupying force. When cops are us, there will be no conflict between us and them.
^^^ This
We don’t often agree on many things, but on this we are of the same mind.
No, but…
So long as corrupt cops, from those who plant evidence to those who manufacture it, from those who arrest people based on laws that don’t exist to those who fail to arrest the privileged when laws do exist, from those who make up “evidence” to get convictions to those who destroy it for whatever reasons, and the rest
just move to a different “law enforcement” agency when they’re caught;
and so long as all the rest keep their mouths shut instead of arresting those losers…
there ought to be.
The media and all these loud people don’t care about police tactics. They care when there’s a political angle they can use to stir up division and monetarily gain from it. I guarantee you, no one would be making the slightest bit of noise in the press if Freddie Gray and all these posthumous political tools were white. In fact, they’d probably laud it.
Notice, the biker shooting has all but disappeared from the press.
Here in Oklahoma, a white pastor was shot while being “rescued” by police after his vehicle got stuck in rising water. They claim he got aggressive. I’d like to see the video proving their claims. You bet I’m making the same noise as Freddie Gray. All police abuse against the public is police abuse against all of us.
There is a wave of protests flooding the nation. Some protests are justified, some are just an excuse to riot.
On a positive note, some of these protests and criticism is coming from a desire of increased accountability on law enforcement. Any responsible citizen and citizen with a badge should want more accountability to make LEOs look better.
Boy this is a pleasant read without having to role eyes at every Sexy Tyrannosaurus comment.
This is what you get with a Community Organizer running things for 6 years, based on Alinskyite tactics, race-baiting and dividing Americans into categories like “bitter clingers” because “you didnt build that”. The problem is, after blaming all the easy targets, with no results, you have to double down to push through the resistance, and there is where Lefties learn that when you draw blood, its your own.
We are getting close to the beginning of the End of Progressivism v2.0, as the Left starts chewing on itself.
Center for American Progress paid protesters and molotov throwers, against police unions, and urban mayors and councils.
Who’s got the popcorn?
Don’t like the cops? Vote. You get the government you deserve. You get the police force you deserve.
You get to vote for the police where you live? Neat.
Most places of which I’m aware, the police chief is a political appointment, with no direct accountability to the electorate.
Indirect accountability may take a while longer to work, but it’s better than nothing, which is what people get when they don’t vote. A good mayor or good city council doesn’t have to keep a bad chief on the payroll. I’ve seen it happen, took one election cycle to get the bad mayor out and everything got better from there.
Ironically, in a way we can take heart from the fact our political class is entirely spineless and without moral courage. Yes, they’ll tolerate outlandish abuses by police on one hand, and when the winds shift they’ll join the witch hunt against them. But they will also insist on sober justice and the rule of law, if people insist on it. They don’t just follow popular sentiment (whether well-advised or not), they practically fellate it.
“A good mayor or good city council doesn’t have to keep a bad chief on the payroll. I’ve seen it happen, took one election cycle to get the bad mayor out and everything got better from there.”
This +1000.
Oh Brother.. { eye roll }.. you really think you get that option?
So you voted for Obama then? Nice logic. Or lack thereof.
PS: clearly the cops are demoralized and pulling back, in some key areas like Ferguson, Baltimore, Cleveland, but those were mostly dysfunctional areas under long democratic rule anyway- like Detroit, Chicago, LA.
Whether there is a War On Cops depends on your perspective, I suppose. The media blows everything out of proportion, and goes thru fads, and I suspect this is mostly deflection from what is really going on, which is Democrats have been unable to manage responsibility and ruin what they run, after a few years, and the obvious result is not the war on cops, but the “war on the minorities” the Democrats claim to have served, and have instead damaged for generations particularly in the inner cities.
You are never going to hear that on MSNBC or CNN or NYT or any of the lower orders of the progtard media ecosystem, tho.
PS: clearly the cops are demoralized and pulling back, in some key areas like Ferguson, Baltimore, Cleveland, but those were mostly dysfunctional areas under long democratic rule anyway- like Detroit, Chicago, LA.
Nobody will notice anyway. Move along, nothing to see here.
The liberals have trashed their big inner city domains. Soviet Socialism was a failure, is a failure, and will be a failure.
Except, legally, if one of us lowly taxpaying peasants were to have a “bad shoot” under the same circumstances, we’d spend decades in a Federal “Pound-me-in-the-Ass” prison. Police should be held to the same standards for self-defense as non-police.
I suggest you look at Gunwatch to see how many private citizens you lethal forces without suffering the consequences that you claim. The data does not support your actions.
What you fail to understand is that a police officer is authorized to take certain action that normally you are not so if you screw up it’s because you went outside your authorities. When you start treating the police just like you and me they are going behave just like you or me and not get involved with the result that crime is going to skyrocket.
Ultimately you have hidden copy envy. You want to go out and chase criminals. (nod to Yes because thinks “the term bad guys” is sophomoric.”
Apropos of this post, Read this linked article and tell me why you think people are tired of cop shenanigans, don’t trust cops. Here’s your answer right here..
http://reason.com/archives/2015/06/01/armed-robbers-with-badges-they-took-ever
We do have a problem with the way that law enforcement is implemented in this country. However, progressives have taken that kernel of truth and wrapped a big lie around it. Similar to as Gov. William J. Le Petomane was commenting above, IMHO the progressive movement has noticed they are in danger of losing their base and this is the only way they’ve found to try to grow it again; as always, through a lie.
Yes, there is a war on cops. There is more and more support for felons and less and less support for law enforcement. I think once the cops completely give up trying, the tide will turn in the other direction.
There you go again with the “only criminals dislike cops” line.
Well, no. I didn’t use that “line”. However, I do think it’s true that the lawless do have the most hatred of law enforcement.
“I didn’t use that exact line, but that was exactly what I was thinking.”
🙂
There are too many laws making people felons and too many cops that just follow orders and enforce those laws.
Well, we can hardly blame the police for the laws. They’re mostly there because most people, unfortunately, really go in for a kind of political theater, law-making as a sort of cathartic performance art.
This.
We should maybe counterbalance with the grandmother test, popularized by Penn of Penn & Teller.
Paraphrasing: “Whey making a law that’ll be enforced on people, consider whether what you are doing is worth sending geared-up enforcers to force your sainted grandmother into doing whatever it is.”
Find the original. He’s funnier than I am.
Lots of possibly good ideas don’t pass the “grandmother test.”
The cops don’t shoulder blame for home-invading grandma willingly and knowingly?
Well, the cops do have a war on dogs.
No, there isn’t a war on police, YET. But if they do not change policies and procedures and remember that a Citizen’s rights are more important than a cop’s safety, then there will be a war and the cops will have fired the first shots.
Friendly reminder to all that cops are merely the executive, and if you don’t want them to overreach, you need to get the legislative to actually repeal the laws that they are enforcing.
The best way to prevent human mistakes is to remove the human from situations that result in those mistakes being made.
Or maybe the cops can actually grow a conscience and stop outsourcing their morality to politicians for a paycheck and pension.
Shocking idea, I know.
That reads like a fancy way of saying that cops are just following orders so change the orders. Unfortunately, it goes deeper than that and is much more difficult to fix.
When they violate 4th amendment with drug dogs the “react” to a hit, especially when they tap their fingers on the trunk to get the dog to jump on it, who, exactly should I vote out of office? There are plenty of constraints on cops. They just violate them and then cover for each other.
If it’s a war on police, they declared it
If you wanted to have a national federal police force in the U.S. – you’d do it by getting the public to want it. How could you do that? Encourage conflict between minorities and police, be ready to respond with DOJ reviews to highlight shortcomings – real or imaginary, use media to message the right spin, wait for diminished local police numbers and/or willpower to be overcome by the criminal element seeing weakness of ability or will – then offer federal over site, mobility of larger numbers of “elite” troopers paid out of federal not state dollars, to control federally determined hot spots, letting any police civil right infringements to be ignored by the DOJ if they wish.
See in USA today 5/4/15
Reynolds: Want a lawless police force? Federalize it.
Many Chiefs are spinning this to ramp up the numbers of officers.
There is no war on Police but there is definitely a pervasive us vs. them attitude that leads one to believe that they are waging war, aka “LAWFARE” on us. The law enforcement system is a factory (shall we call it a pig?) that uses raw materials in the form of arrests as fodder for the end product which is millions(?) of LE/attorney/support jobs and revenue for the state. Truth and justice is not a product of the lawfare process. A byproduct is an exponentially expanding criminal class with arrests and pleas that ruin lives. This even includes white upper income law abiding citizens like me who fear the police because we know the risk of lawfare being waged against any one of us for even a minor infraction or even complete fabrication is very real. The process is the punishment in lawfare. Truth and justice be damned, it is all about production.
My best friend is a cop and another a very good hunting buddy. I count many others as friends and acquaintances. I respect the job they do, but…..
A person very close to me just experienced lawfare being waged upon him by a lying cop with his blue brothers blindly backing him up including a prosecutor who filed bogus charges even with NO EVIDENCE of a crime. They knew full well that the process is the punishment. When it was all said and done, after he had been cuffed, stuffed, and publicly humiliated my completely innocent friend was glad to walk away after 6 months while being $5K poorer (he can afford it) with an arrest annulment and case dismissal due to lack of evidence. He NEVER got his chance to defend himself and was treated like a criminal based upon a complete and demonstrable fabrication. If I told the convoluted true story here no one would believe me. I know it’s true and still can’t believe that it happened.
” . . . The process is the punishment in lawfare. Truth and justice be damned, it is all about production. . .”
Good point. A friend of mine, leaving a rock-concert, was stopped by a moonlighting campus cop who directing traffic and who wanted to administer a sobriety test. My friend explained that he had a crippled leg held together with rods and pins and wasn’t able to walk correctly. Didn’t matter. The cop made him stand one footed on his hurt leg and, when he fell down, had him arrested for DWI. Despite having an obvious disability backed up my medical evidence, and not being drunk, the local DA defended the bogus DWI charge through multiple court visits. Two years later the charge was finally dropped.
An interesting nexus is beginning to appear. The black community, abetted by The Left, is called for wholesale decriminalization of young blacks. Middle class, more affluent, Americans are beginning to question the increasingly aggressive behavior (80k SWAT raids, some even enforcing code violations, last year, asset forfeitire. etc.) of newly militarized local police forces. The narratives coming from these two traditionally disparate groups are strikingly close together.
The narratives coming from these two traditionally disparate groups are strikingly close together.
Yes, they are and it’s making for a broad spectrum push back. Progressives will push towards a federalized police force and the rest will push for a scaling back of policing with accountability. Will it result federalized policing? Accountability in policing? Expand into a full-on push against tyrannical government? Or will nothing at all come of it? Interesting times…
“Is there a War on the Civilian Population?” would be a better title
Wayne LaPierre opines about SWAT teams and “Jack Booted Thugs” in the 90’s and gets pilloried for overreacting. Now we have every Sheriff’s dept taking Federal Grants to go play army men and “win the war on drugs”
“As a journalist, skepticism is my middle name.”
Ha! That’s rich! You mean a website that just regurgitates and adds its two cents on to other people’s news articles?
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