The Law Enforcement Officer Thread

Ok it was mentioned there is not a thread for Law Enforcement Officers (LEO for short)and other similar jobs for discussion.

This is for discussing the actual jobs, ranks, training, culture, relations to military bodies that exist, and any other variety of topics that can arise pertaining to the World of Policing.

Who watches the watchmen?

Dear Portland:

For the love of God sort your police-related shit out so that everyone can relax and go home instead of facepalming at nightly reports of hobos and mental patients tragically getting shot in the face.

Signed, Charly.

edited 8th Oct '10 10:11:20 PM by Charlatan

Its not as simple as that Charlie.

Who watches the watchmen?

If those folks didn't pull weapons, those cops wouldn't be able to justify shooting them and IA would chew them up and spit them out. Never pull a weapon on a cop. You'll be lucky to survive.

Also, never touch a cop. That's almost as bad.

edited 8th Oct '10 10:26:28 PM by Barkey

@Tuefel: I apologize, I phrased my prior post rather clumsily.

I meant for Portland to sort out its difficulties in police-citizen relations and handling encounters with the mentally disturbed. Or something.

I should probably wait until I'm not sleep-deprived to talk about these sorts of things. My point is that while I was in Portland this sort of thing was in the news all the damn time and given that both sides got fond of shouting it got exasperating after a while. I just learned to tune the issues out because it everything was too clumsy and too impassioned for me to get straight answers.

edited 8th Oct '10 11:25:46 PM by Charlatan

Ok now that makes more sense Charlie.

Who watches the watchmen?

Yeah, here's just ONE problem.

A certain officer gets in hot water over the death of a homeless man who was tackled and held down by officers when he was caught peeing on a streetside. The homeless man died of tackle-related internal injuries and apparently poor police procedure towards getting the homeless man medical care.

Fast forward a few years, to when I'm living there. Same officer gets in hot water AGAIN for shooting a particularly aggressive 14-15 year old girl in the leg at near-point-blank range with a beanbag round for a shotgun (the girl was resisting arrest). Said girl was apparently violating an order not to board Portland's MAX trains due to a prior conviction of some sort, so the girl was a repeat offender. Many Portland citizens go into ragemode at this point. Given that the girl was very aggressive for someone her age and that she was a repeat offender, my dad suspects gang ties, although EnglishIvy thinks that this cannot be the case.

Citizenry enters ragemode and parts of the police department enters blameless-indignant-offended-rage mode.

And Charlatan enters this-shit-is-fucking-stupid mode.

The sad part is that according to one of the local papers as bumbling as some of the Portland cops can get sometimes some of the cops in nearby counties are less "clueless and incompetent about how not to cause PR fiascos" and more "corrupt as fuck and prone to abusing power". Far from all, as far as I can tell, but it's a bit rough around the edges in Oregon.

'course here in Montana is apparently the serial killer retirement home of America. The Unabomber had a hideout here, ya know.

edited 9th Oct '10 12:03:37 AM by Charlatan

That's the hard part of things I guess, despite their reputation(a few high profile incidents can wreck a rep for years) metro(large city) police departments are much less corrupt than the smaller ones more often than not. While most smaller offices don't have these issues, when they do come up it's much harder to prosecute because there are less officers involved, and generally no internal affairs department to look into this sort of thing.

Also, I'll admit, we aren't very nice people compared to your average joe. I have lots of friends who are my civilian counterparts on the police force, and we find it pretty hilarious when the situation calls for a tazing or beanbagging.

The thing is most of these people who get torn up in altercations with the police fucked up, they didn't follow instructions. The cops might have jumped the gun and escalated their use of force faster than they should have, but if you are 100 percent cooperative and don't try to argue, law enforcement tends to be pretty chill.

So with the woman trying to board MAX? She shouldn't have started to argue and struggle with police, then she wouldn't have been hit. Though Portland PD is pretty notorious, even as far down south as where I live, for using way more force than is necessary(mostly in terms of busting smalltime criminal operations with several vans of fully kitted out riot cops, you don't need a 4 square block cordon and several vans full of SWAT to break up a whorehouse, fucks sake.)

LA would have broke that up with like 8 officers and maybe two squadcars watching for people running away from the building.

From what little I've dealt with Police, it's been pleasant. Sure, I've gotten a speeding ticket or whatnot, but the Honolulu PD seems pretty laid back. Well, the whole island is pretty laid back. Say yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir, and they might even let you off with a warning - after hitting 80 in your sports car on Memorial day. ...Or So I Heard.

Happiness is zero-gee with a sinus cold.

Cops are cool as long you don't drive to fast is their country.

Now if you excuse me, Starfleet is about to award the Christopher Pike Medal to my dick. — SF Debris

So I'm kinda curious.

Is there the division between CID/Uniform in the public perception in the states? Here the former are looked on pretty well - seen as sharp and actually caring about what they do, good at their jobs at worst, whilst the latter are at best kinda dopey jobsworths. Which to honest lines up pretty well with my experiance (I've done a fair amount of Security/Warden work).

"When you cut your finger, I do not bleed." Response of a man who lived on the outskirts of a concentration camp.

What do you mean by CID/Uniform?

Sorry, American, never heard the term. In the US CID is the Army Criminal Investigations Division. They basically do detective work on bagging Soldiers who break the law.

Edit: Oh, and for all you Tropers in trouble with the law, here's your tip for the day: If you ever think you might be under police scrutiny for a major felony, and you meet with a detective, never drink anything a detective gives you. Keep all cups and any cigarette butts away from them. It's a common trick to go through the trash after you leave to get a DNA sample off those types of items.

edited 9th Oct '10 10:07:23 AM by Barkey

What do you all make of this?

I'm just glad that the whistleblower was there in the first place, and had the conviction to do the right thing. We need more cops like him.

Then again NYC is notorious for having some of the most corrupt officers out there.

Apparently there was an officer on the NYPD who recorded his superiors instructing officers to falsify police reports. It went so far as to downgrade incidents of rape to more minor crimes (that received less investigation).

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/414/right-to-remain-silent

edited 11th Oct '10 2:18:55 PM by DeMarquis

"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."

Here is a list that goes a bit deeper.

Machinima in my color model?!

I just got back from a nighttime awareness course, and some of the officers are preparing groups for physical aptitude tests. We have professional athletes, firefighters, and wildlife conservationists who are doing it just to see where they stand while others are actually preparing for SWAT indoctrination.

The test is actually similar to both the narcotics training program used in many state polices and the PAST test used by the United States Air Force.

Here are some of the requirements. Our tracker element leaders might change them on a whim, but this is the gist:

Water/Land Cardio

1.) 20-meter underwater swim (optional to civilians and seminar trainees. Mandatory to TPD specialists). Sounds out-of-place, but you'd be surprised how many cops run into situations requiring water confidence.

2.) 500-meter surface swim - point-based (subject to change)

3.) 1.5-mile run - points based on time completion. Some of the SWAT candidates are aiming for 8-7 minutes, which is about average for them. Seminar trainees are averaging 10-11:30, which isn't bad, either. One guy almost reached 6 minutes, but he's an Olympic-grade track runner, so that's not too surprising.

Calisthenics

Candidates should be doing about 50 reps for all of these except the pull-ups. It's not unheard of for people to do 50 pull-ups, but they end up washing out because they didn't pace themselves and reserve energy for the next exercise.

1.) Push-ups: minimum of 2 minutes (used to be at least 50 reps, now just points based on how many you can do)

2.) Pull-ups: minimum 1 minute

3.) Sit-ups: 2 minutes

4.) Flutter kicks: 2 minutes

Strength

Firefighters and civilian power lifters tend to dominate this test.

1.) 150 lb dummy drag (distance to completion varies)

2.) pushing a squad car a certain distance

3.) stairwell run with mock rifle and water-soaked SWAT gear

4.) maximum leg press

5.) bench press test (must lift at least 1.6 times your body weight)

6.) staircase 150 lb dummy carry (must use proper form and safely carry dummy without causing injuries)

Pepper spray test

Self-explanatory. 'Nuff said.

Memory/Critical Thinking

1.) With a limited amount of time, observe and memorize the layout of a room. Return to the rearranged room and place all objects in their original positions.

2.) Identify person with a detailed physical description. Points based on accuracy and specificity.

3.) Navigate an urban/woodland course and reach the designated safe zone in the time allotted.

4.) Answer questions based on a story given by two or more people. Points are based on determining the truth and consistency of each story. A true/false test will be integrated into the test.

By the way, the critical thinking is done along with various cardiovascular endurance drills so as to create an atmosphere of emergency and swiftness in judgment. Obviously, fatigue will impact our sense of judgment.

I have more to come if you guys are interested. If not, I'll stop here.

edited 14th Oct '10 6:26:43 PM by Aprilla

I used to hate cops, but I've scaled that back quite a bit. Now my attitude is generally just "Try to stay out of their way".

A lot of cops I've trained with have told me the same thing. There are definitely the schmucks who just got their job through nepotism. Then you've got what I like to call the Batmen and Judge Dredds - the officers who take their job WAY too seriously.

There are good officers out there, and there are some pretty shitty ones, and they all tend to work in the same area, sadly. Down here in Arkansas, for example, Little Rock SWAT is top-notch, but Conway SWAT is of...questionable performance. And as much as I hate to throw the race card, being pulled over because you "look suspicious in that sports car" is still very much a reality for African American men like me. Some cops in Arkansas aren't too bad about it while others in the backwoods areas need an occasional reminder that the Civil War did indeed end in 1865.

edited 14th Oct '10 8:28:03 PM by Aprilla

Id agree to the mixed quality of officers. Locally speaking the city cops In Omaha, NE are much more professional and easy to deal with then the Bellevue, NE cops. The guys in the Bellevue tend to have the negative small town cop attitude.

God help you if your military and they pull you over they like to harass the military guys to no end and get pretty damn snotty about it.

To be honest the two easiest cop groups I have ever dealt with was Waco, TX PD and the Baylor Police. I had to deal with Baylor cops a few times due to some interesting issues with a few students and their buddies.

Who watches the watchmen?

Waco officers are pretty good. Some of the police officers in Lufkin, Texas are just completely badass. They're actually over-trained for a lot of the work they do. As much as I hate Lufkin, they have a well-organized police force.

I certainly don't like some of the one-horse town, good-old-boy cliques around here, but the senior officers and transfer cops from tougher cities do a good job of straightening out those people.

] It's cause they know military men/women are better than they are.

EDIT: To be clear, that's a joke.

edited 14th Oct '10 9:36:36 PM by rumetzen

So, what's the penalty for making a fake ID? Depends on the state and how it was used?

Happiness is zero-gee with a sinus cold.

Not necessarily Rume. To be fair military personnel can be a huge handful of trouble. Anything drinking issues to frequent brawls in additon to the other pleothera of crimes people normally commit. Also there is a reason Military Police are carefully trained they may have to handle people who are combat veterans and more then a match for your average cop.

So when civilian officers run into military guys they have a much more stressful encounter because of how the military is trained to react towards physical force applied at them. Military personnel are by comparison much more dangerous to handle then your common thug. The thugs are dangerous but they weren't trained to fight a war.

Who watches the watchmen?

That makes sense.