The Law Enforcement Officer Thread

I'm with Angelus Nox here. Didn't see any of those.

Apologies though.

For some reason uBlock Origin blocked all ads even with it nominally disabled. There was a prominent ass shot on the front page, though.

Journalist references joke about vote tampering that was picked up by the Right Wing Bullshitosphere as fact, winds up getting phoned by the FBI. I wonder what would happen if you mailed them a copy of the text of the Hatch Act?

edited 6th Dec '16 8:05:01 PM by Krieger22

...you have to be kidding me. They chose one guy out of how many and there is no motive that they are getting back at him for writing so many article son the FBI several I can imagine are less then glowing praise of the organization. Especially when damn near everyone else who has said the same things, likely had complaints about them, are mysteriously not getting looked into.

edited 6th Dec '16 9:51:09 PM by TuefelHundenIV

It's not like our intelligence agencies might have anything better to do with their time. Like investigating the possibility that our next president is a Russian puppet. Gotta harass journalists over random tweets.

Is anyone else concerned that this is a sign of worse things to come? Crackdown on freedom of speech and freedom of the press is always an inevitable step in the rise of authoritarianism.

https://sg.news.yahoo.com/pnp-ias-wants-fast-track-094621977.html

In Philippine LEO news, the head of the country's CIDG in Region 8 is getting into trouble with much strong allegations that his officers executed a local mayor accused of being in the drug trade after being killed in his prison cell despite the unit saying that he posed a threat.

Problem is that CCTV footage was "lost" afterwards. Everyone's waiting to see if Duterte will protect them.

Cops expect Trump to lift the limits on military gear

Fascism approaches

Not fascism, that word has lost all meaning. No it's the over-reaction and the self licking ice cream cone of "we need to be heavily armed because The War On Terror" before it was the War on Drugs and before that it was the unrest of the sixties.

The "Good Ole Days":

An aunt of mine got raided by the El Paso PD back in '81 on the mere suspicion that she was hiding a fugitive. Cops turned the place upside down and scared the hell out of her - with flashlights and handguns.

The objection is the attitude of dumb fear mongering DA's, police chiefs and the city councils who let them get away with it. Most the the gear is a white elephant. MRAP's, LAV's and tracked vehicles drink fuel by the gallon and eat spares like candy. Sure the truck is free but the diesel sure isn't. Night vision goggles, surplus M-14 and M-16/M-4 rifles will sit on shelves or just end up taking space.

After the last bits of civil rights legal tussels, the El Paso PD has reformed and even at the height of the violence south of the border not once did they ask for MRAP's or other military gear. They did buy semi-auto M-4 clones but that was it. Most sit in the back of squad cars.

It's not facism, it's fear and voters who don't say "NO". Want to fix this? Congress should end the 1033 program something the writers of National Review and John Oilver agree on.

There are no jackboots. We don't need them when most police cheifs will get reckless and the local DA will rubber stamp civil asset forfeiture and SWAT raids on citizens. They'll do this with or without the gear.

But let's not make it easier for the idiots who want to play "Mall Ninja Team 6".

It's also been brought to my attention that many law enforcement professionals are actually among the most vocal critics of more militarized equipment procurement programs. The particular concern is the long-term effect a militarized persona has had on police-community relations.

A decline in overall violent crimes does not excuse the fact that those below the poverty line and people of color, particularly, blacks, still face a higher likelihood of being slain during a police encounter or facing harsher sentencing during criminal proceedings. Explicit military force on behalf of the state is not a de jure feature of fascism, and it can manifest itself in a variety of subtle ways up to and including the use of second-tier military-like behaviors (e.g. applying combat zone rules of engagement and military jargon to a hostile civilian population, the use of semi-automatic weapons that increasingly resemble their full-auto counterparts, etc.).

An LRPD officer recently made an off-hand comment to me that one of the problems with these procurements is that poorer departments don't even have a secure budget for facilitating and maintaining a lot of the equipment being authorized. For example, some departments have a strict square footage and fuel allotment for city vehicles, and many armored personnel carriers and tactical vans are not within that limit.

It all appears to me that the line between the SWAT-type units and the regular patrol officers is only going to get blurrier into the future.

Which is pretty bad since not every disturbance requires a SWAT team.

It really makes Batman The Telltale Series quite captivating when you think of Gotham City as being in Trump's USA. A major plot point is that Mayor Harvey Dent deploys roving patrols of Oathkeepers Enforcers armed in SWAT gear as part of his war on the Children of Arkham, a terrorist group that perpetuates to defend the poor, disabled, and mentally ill.

Aprilla: That is actually a pretty big deal if they can't secure their stations fire arms. Maintenance of AR-15's and military handguns isn't that big of a deal unless you do a lot of shooting. The majority of that will be user level stuff. Gunsmith's can handle anything more serious for not too hefty a price tag. But more sophisticated kit like the big armored vehicles is a whole other matter.

Speaking of police weapons not being properly secured.

Laster year two Texas LEO had several fire arms stolen from their vehicles. Thieves used tool to pop the locks and break in then steal the weapons. This was late last year.

This year it was discovered a huge number of Police Weapons in the Bay Area, California were either stolen, lost, or misplaced. The bulk of them were handguns of course and most weapons that can be found to be stolen are stolen from vehicles.

So yeah police guns not being properly stored is a big concern.

Fluffy: That is a very real fear given how often SWAT is used when it shouldn't be. I recall it being mentioned or a year or two ago but one of the more common misuses of SWAT is increasingly city code enforcement and seizure or forfeiture of property. Something that is typically handled by relatively few cops or a Sheriff and a couple deputies.

edited 12th Dec '16 10:47:04 PM by TuefelHundenIV

From someone who lives in a country with a militarized police.

You guys really don't want this and aren't nowhere near the levels of violence and lawlessness to award a police that is either dressed to occupy Iraq or occupy Juarez or Rio de Janeiro. Not to mention that what Aprilla said is true, once you start arming and equipping the police as a military force and not like a law enforcement force they are seen a lot less like a part of the community and someone who scare's the living shit out of everyone they interact with.

Well when you have the police driving◊ those◊around◊ like you are in the streets of Fallujah and dress like◊ this. It usually makes people think you're there to keep everyone in line instead of protect and serve.

Besides, the US is hardly violent enough to even need a police force that requires MRA Ps being driven around the place and the police department in the middle of Nowheretown to purchase those.

I hate to burst a bubble but none of those vehicles or personnel are even close to being like anything we fielded in Iraq or Afghanistan. There is a massive world of difference in simply having the kit in the armory and using it. There are regular cop cars with an Ar-15 locked in it and none would know until it came out. That doesn't make the cop with the rifle in his car more militant.

No heavy weapons on pintles when pretty much anything that rolls in those locations sports at least an M2 or a MK-19, no military radios tied into fire support networks, no head to toe body armor that can eat multiple AP rounds from full sized rifles, no weapons teams with the array of weapons that would make a even some of those troops pictured look like a scout troop, no frag grenades, no rocket launchers, no UBGL's with their wide array of lethal rounds.

Frankly they fall short of what the military packs in a combat zone. Only the SWAT really packs that kind of fire power in most police precincts. Even a casual glance at the plethora of military pictures and videos should make that pretty clear. You are right we don't want them decked out like a military patrol rolling through Afghanistan or Iraq in a hot zone but they are not even really there yet.

If anything the desire for them to acquire that equipment is a symptom not the cause. We should be looking to how we are training them and what sort of values and philosophy they are being instilled with. Frankly if what I have been hearing is true they are pretty much being made nasty by combination of rancid old timers and some rather questionable training in academies.

Even if they didn't have the military equipment I would like to point out that the US police in the past have had little trouble acting militantly sans that equipment.

edited 13th Dec '16 3:05:53 PM by TuefelHundenIV

While they're not literally on the level of actual military-grade gear, they look enough like it to create the same PR problems. It doesn't matter that they aren't actually military grade if the people they're supposed to be protecting feel like they are actually military-grade and react as if they were.

Also, one of those was a fucking M113. What does any police department need with an M113? And the last of those vehicles looks much the part of a wheeled version of a classic WWII German half-track like Sdkfz 250 or 251 (yes, I know that it's a fully wheeled vehicle unlike the German vehicles, but such a distinction would likely be lost on 95% of the population, most of whom cannot tell the difference between that M113 and a tank and to whom any large armored (or armored looking) scary-looking or "military-looking" vehicle is a tank).

edited 13th Dec '16 2:26:51 PM by Balmung

That looks like a SWAT or Crisis vehicle. You have someone bunkered up and shooting every vehicle that gets close you roll up in that and deposit your swat at an entrance. You can also use them to extract wounded officers and civilians by rolling up and just simply blocking the attackers ability to shoot from almost any angle. They can also be used to breach heavily re-enforced entry ways like armored doors and heavy gates. M-113's are cheap especially compared to most of the other armored vehicles because of how common they are and are about to get a lot more common when the US military begins to replace them with the AMPV. That and the M-113 has been on the civilian market for quite a while.

It does look like the gear is too much and given how it is being used it usually is. The thing is the individual officers are not deciding on their own to deploy like that. Someone is directing them to. Throw in the Us vs Them mentality with questionable leadership, overtly crooked police unions run by some of that problematic leadership protecting bad cops, and overt problems in their philosophy and training we shouldn't be surprised they are abusing any of their tools and the public.

I don't have a problem with them having the equipment, I have a problem with how they are using it. Using that kit in the appropriate situations is not a problem. There seems to be almost no limitations on when and where that kind of equipment can be used and when it is misused there is often no punishment for misuse.

edited 13th Dec '16 3:37:25 PM by TuefelHundenIV

The difference between police and military personnel is that when confronting an armed opponent, cops are required to say: "Don't move! Drop your weapon!" before opening fire.

They'll just say "Donmovedropyurwapon" and then press the trigger.

Aren't the military required to determine that the subject is actually armed though? The police have a lot more leeway it determining what counts as a threat or not, even if they're meant to deal with the threat in a less direct manner.

The US military has a different continuum of force layout then most police departments. The preference by default in the case of sentries and MP's is the least amount of force necessary. There are some limited circumstances in which you immediately jump to lethal force. That would be coming on a rape in progress, murder or attempted murder, kidnapping, and theft of certain pieces of government property. Otherwise restraint is generally preferred.

If someone is yelling at you and gesticulating violently you are to use verbal and non-verbal methods to try and end the confrontation before it escalates. If they try and punch you it is still preferred that use the minimal force necessary to protect yourself and interrupt the attack and only escalate if they persist. You basically meet like force with like force. There is room for escalation outside of that but is almost always determined by the situation and how it is changing and you better be damn sure it is warranted. Even pointing a weapon at someone is a serious deal unless it is an overt enemy combatant.

In a war zone though that gets problematic. It works better in areas where the military is more commonly interacting with the civilian populace not insurgents or overt enemies.

The book The Rise of The Warrior Cop highlights the problem of police departments going overboard on the use of force.

It's not the gear, it's the gearheads who insist on acting like idiots. A lot of police departments are doing the right thing: making sure that any surplus gear they need is used for the right things. There are some rural PD's and FD's that need surplus military trucks because nothing else will go out in the harsh terrain in some out of the way places in that "flyover country".

This all started during the "War On Drugs" and just kept snowballing since. 9/11 is just the latest figleaf.

I give you a whiny protest song from 2011:

Calm down Tuffle it's OTT, but the song and Reason do have a valid point: it's the local PD and local DA's that are causing this. The feds are just enabling them.

edited 13th Dec '16 8:36:26 PM by TairaMai

Meh not my kind of song. But the point in general is valid. I would argue that appropriate use of equipment is still an overt issue.

edited 13th Dec '16 8:58:30 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Trump is like the parent who gives that deadbeat kid money: by keeping the 1033 program going there is no incentive to reform policing and every incentive for (pardon the pun) bad cops to drive out the good ones.

Most Police Chiefs are political appointees (some are elected). The problem is that bad "Sorry We Ain't Trained" is very easy to sell. Dramatic "Go Pro" camera footage of mock raids, MRAP's in the streets and officers toting M-14's and M-16's plays well with mayors and voters.

Doing real policing and real programs does not because most people tune out when you talk about social programs.

It took two decades after the reform of The '60s for New Mexico to adopt community based mental health and probation programs instead of locking people up. This was in The '90s when Gary Johnson's company "Big J" was making a bit of money building the private prisons in the Land of Enchantment.

However the success of those community programs did a lot to turn things around. A lot of the "vagrants" got real help instead of bus tickets to another town or stints in the county lockup. There was a murder by two parolees, but the solution was to centralize the records in Santa Fe rather than crack down. And that's part of the reason Johnson is no fan of the War On Drugs despite getting some money (indirectly) from it.

Of course he left office and now the State Police discovered the wonders of Civil Asset Forfeiture.

I used to volunteer for one of those programs. We had some issues and some problem children but even our local GOP overlord was behind us.

But man it was a hard sell to get to state funding.

I think you hit one of the key nails on the head. Funding for the stuff that actually works but isn't the glittery glorious stuff.

A 73 year old dementia patient was shot dead in California by police who mistook his crucifix for a gun.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38309192