The Law Enforcement Officer Thread

Cross-posting from the US Politics thread: Kansas 'retaliation' bill would allow police to arrest people who complain about officers.

Any other informative source covering this then RAW story? If that is entirely accurate that is certainly a rather ugly bill.

WaPo

Thanks Achae.

That is a pretty damn shady law that pretty much guarantees further LEO abuse.

custodiet ipsos custodes?

edited 20th Mar '14 5:10:52 PM by joeyjojo

What?

Who watches the watchmen, I think.

Who watches the watchmen?

EDIT:

edited 20th Mar '14 5:25:56 PM by RadicalTaoist

Yes it is who watches the watchmen. I have the English version as my sig line :P

Oh. I thought he'd left out the "Quis" as some kind of attempt at Latin wit, but evidently not. "Custodiet ipsos custodes" is incorrect without it.

edited 20th Mar '14 5:42:37 PM by Achaemenid

See this is why I generally use English.

Communities grow weary of militarized police

Shoulda listened to Barkey and spent that money on training instead.

RT? Seriously?

If I'm not mistaken, the rep. they're quoting is one of those "armed uprising against the government" types. Ironically, his ilk kinda justifies the purchase of armored vehicles.

I won't deny that this story is being published with awfully suspicious timing given world events. However, RT tends to have better reporting the further away from Russia you get.

(*raises eyebrow)

Okay, lemme rephrase. RT can be a better source for news on America than domestic American news agencies.

Seriously though, do police departments need armoured personnel carriers?

Well being better than domestic American news sources at reporting American news is ridiculously easy but still.

And APCs I don't think they'd really need it.

Not complaining honestly cause it's neat as shit seeing those things around but eh.

Never know when another one of those nasty bank robberies would happen though.

Better to have it and not need it then need it and not have is the general philosophy. But the police are better off focusing on community outreach then being the best professional shit kickers they can be.

As cool as it is seeing police driving around in an armour cars it does seem to negatively affect community trust in the police, misuse of taxpayer money aside and as mentioned before you can't give people you can't give people a swat gear and as helicopter and not expecting people leap at the first chance they get to use it.

edited 24th Mar '14 5:57:32 PM by joeyjojo

There is only one section of the police that can feasibly need a APC. The SWAT team. Even then they only need one or two tops. SWAT should also be used sparingly and not for things that can be handled by a handful well trained officers like barkey has mentioned in the past.

SWAT is for shit like the LA Bank Robbers armed to the teeth and covered in adhoc body armor. Or taking out guys like Charles Whitman on a rampage.

edited 24th Mar '14 8:35:56 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Yeah, the Sheriff's office doesn't need to roll in like it's Fallujah.

In some areas, SWAT is also your bomb squad.

Usually that is wrangling for money for SWAT when they could have small separate bomb squad team. But it also makes some sense as they are also the uber danger crew.

Eh, the militarization of police thing.

As much as I love seeing cool APCs and kitted out guys I think it's sort of a bad attitude to go about policing.

You need to curb crime and solve the issues that cause it in the first place, not just punish criminals.

Not everyone has the same resources or the same sort of crime.

For example, Little Rock SWAT was the only bomb squad in the civilian forces in Arkansas for a very long time for several reasons: Arkansas is poor and LRPD was already our elite trained due to being the gang capital of America for a bit. These were the most educated so they got the new toys. Which ties in with most of the SWAT guys at the time were military or might as well be for all they did.

Now our state police has the main bomb squad duties because of jurisdiction issues, but LRPD is often called in to advise. Most of what our guys deal with is meth labs.

Now we don't have much use for a light tank. But we have more helicopters than most states decked out with all sorts of goodies. This is because helicopters are the best tool we have when dealing with criminal activities buried in the Ozarks. We also keep mounted officers for that reason as well as some of the best dogs.

You want a standoff with a gangbanger to quit in Little Rock, Conway, or god forbid Pine Bluff, just threaten to send in the dogs. It works 90% of the time.

edited 25th Mar '14 1:46:30 PM by Gabrael