The Law Enforcement Officer Thread

It's hard to really be inclusive in what I'll call a "warrior culture" purely for lack of a better word. If you don't suffer in the same ways, you'll never really be able to relate. That's not meant to be patronizing or offensive, but it really is true.

There's a brotherhood that comes from sharing unique experiences like that together, and it'll forever separate you from people who don't have those experiences on some level. Some cops are good at separating those experiences from their inner identity, but most aren't, it really does becomes a huge part of you.

I don't doubt you for a second, I've heard similar sentiments from group home kids and homeless people. Shared suffering builds community, and it's natural that any people would want to work with those who understand their problems. That's especially important in police work given the risks involved.

But...civilian oversight is kind of a necessary thing. We don't like having no means of recompense or protection when a SWAT team hits a toddler with a grenade or when a hate hit like Kenneth Anderson's goes down. And nobody likes it when some pencil-pusher from outside comes in and points how reform is necessary...but every industry and field needs that from time to time, as much as it's hated. And sometimes those hated reforms actually do provide benefits - haven't all those precincts that adopted cameras on LE Os at all times seen considerably lower instances of complaints and fewer lawsuits? It does good to occasionally have someone look at your job from the outside.

So how do we square that circle? How do we make sure that the law enforcement community is treated fairly and still preserve civilian oversight while ensuring that necessary reforms are suggested and implemented? I suggested that LE try being more politically active in discarding/reforming unjust laws and protocols.

It really doesn't, in one of the Met cases it was officers from the police federation[1] who lied to the public so as to bring down a member of the government, he however had tapped the interview and thus later revealed that when they'd said "he didn't answer our questions" they were lying.

edited 29th Jun '14 5:49:18 AM by Silasw

As for why they did that — funding cuts to the Police. Since the Police aren't legally allowed to strike (not since 1919), I guess they wanted to make their dissatisfaction known in a more direct manner.

Anyhow, there are certain Principles that British Police are supposed to follow, chiefly of which is "Police by Consent"^note  Public trust in the British Police has indeed fallen in recent years, in part due to moves by the Police that look like placing themselves above the people.

I work in a mental hospital. I have only been here over a year, so I can only imagine what my experience is compared to Polarstern, but I know this job would be a lot harder had I not graduated from the police academy.

Magically, the training to handle a train accident and move a body is helpful in learning how to handle a patient eating their own limbs or trying to protect an innocent person from an enraged patient twice her size.

Police aren't the only ones who have this cultural dissonance. And yes, it is superficial. This doesn't mean that civilians are stupid or anything, It just means that you're sheltered. Which is what cops are supposed to do.

One thing that will help is stop acting like all the cops are out to get you. Cops and doctors are kinda in the same boat like this, most just do their jobs and everything is fine. But when they fuck up or when their is a bad apple who abuses their position, shit hits the fan.

But of these bad apples, why isn't the administration who ordered the raid being punished or those who gave bad intel?

Nope. Cops are the low man on the totem pole and the first to catch the flack.

Because that's not the only kind of bad incident the police get into, often it is the normal street cop who's done wrong, and his/her fellow officers who've covered it up. Take the Metropolitan Police for example, they had an entire unit devoted to joining protest moments under false identities and trying to incite them to violence, often doing things like starting relationships with other members of the moment. several of the victims of this want to bring charges against the officers involved, but they can't because the Met refuses to confirm or deny the identities of officers involved.

edited 29th Jun '14 7:49:51 AM by Silasw

Very, very rarely does an officer do anything without everyone else knowing it. Especially within department.

These bad apples don't just spontaneously appear like ninjas. Guys aren't just hit with gamma rays and turn.

If anything, the passive support of leadership keeps this cycle going.

O defiantly, but that leadership that grants passive (or even direct) support for such actions is composed of police officers themselves, senior police yes, but police non the less.

Again, not always as I mentioned before.

Also cops cannot hire or fire their own. All of that is decided by the state justice department, the mayors office, or the city counsel depending on jurisdiction.

Now cops can transfer or reassign their own, even remove from duty. But to fire or hire that requires civilian approval.

Again, civilian oversight regardless of how well intended is not being used correctly.

So if you know there is a certain officer being a specific pain, it may not be so easy to just ditch them.

I think this is the point where our discussion becomes pointless, I'm basing my knowledge of the British Police (who can certainly carry out disciplinary action against officers, not to mention can chose to not lie to the public to protect officers who have lied) and you're basing yours (quite logically) of American Police, who seems to have all their power concentrated with political positions.

edited 29th Jun '14 11:04:05 AM by Silasw

Civilian oversight isn't necessarily a good thing. Civilians are reactionary, and make decisions based on sensationalist versions of the stories they hear. God knows, I've had to correct countless people in this very thread when news articles about "HORRIBLE, BRUTAL COPS terrorize the community and brutalize people for no reason!" turned out to be stories about, "Cop does his job properly."

Case in point, the story we recently discussed regarding a man who had a visit from the police to ask a few questions after his company's IT department reported him as a possible bomb threat in response to his googling of pressure cooker bombs. Regardless of where you stand on whether the IT department overreacted or not, the cops' part of the matter was, "got bomb threat report, investigated, left the matter alone when it was clear there was no real threat here." Even critics of the matter have agreed in this thread that the police were not at fault.

However, that is only after our discussion brought these facts to light. When the issue was first brought into the thread, it was depicted as, "The government is spying on people, and the police are mercilessly persecuting innocent civilians for random google searches." The cops were the bad guys, while the man was an innocent victim of authoritarian police cruelty. That's not the attitude we need overseeing our Law Enforcement Officers. We don't need cops being reprimanded and/or fired because civilians don't actually read the details of the articles they're presented with, and leap immediately to the conclusion that any cop doing his job must be up to something dastardly.

edited 29th Jun '14 12:51:08 PM by TobiasDrake

, I think you're exaggerating the problem with reactionary, if you go back and read though the Privacy Thread (where the issue you mentioned came up) you'll find that it was only one (maybe two) people who had that reaction, the rest of us civilians (myself included) were fully in agreement that it was a silly thing to freak out about.

People in general are very knee jerk against law enforcement.

I don't mind civilians being a part of the systemso long as they are actually trained but law enforcement should have the final say, much like how the military can call in advisors and consultants.

They may have great ideas but they need a cop to help guide the best way to adapt or implement that idea.

That.

Involvement is okay, but not as a final authority. No amount of training will ever be an acceptable substitute for real-world experience.

The problem with the buck stopping within the police force is that a herd mentality develops, a desire to protect other police simply because they are police, and that's fine, but it becomes a problem when they start protecting racists (the Met continues to be branded a "racist organisation", rapists (what else would you categorise a police officer joining a protest movement under a false identity and having sexual relations with members of that group?) and (unlawful) killers (see cases like Iam Tomlinson,[1] where the initial post-mortem was faked so as to avoid trouble).

edited 29th Jun '14 2:54:24 PM by Silasw

And anyone who encouraged or allowed such behavior, civilian or blue, deserves be drawn and quartered.

Though it isn't any coincidence that Internal Affairs is on average, the least supported division.

Sadly our version of internal affairs (the IPCC) is useless, as a parliamentary inquiry said in Jan 2013 "It has neither the powers nor the resources that it needs to get to the truth when the integrity of the police is in doubt."

So, who is the most well-known Internal Affairs officer in pop fiction? I'd be willing to wager Harvey Dent. So Yeah.

edited 29th Jun '14 6:45:34 PM by AFP

No disrespect to the armed forces and police but in any large public organisation you're gonna have outsiders coming in and telling you how to do your job. Nobody likes having to deal with that but it's a fact of life.

I understand resentment to the system but I really don't see how it's any different from any other organisation having to deal with bureaucracy.

edited 29th Jun '14 7:59:07 PM by joeyjojo

To be fair, the Armed Forces are run by the civilians, by design (civilian service and DOD secretaries, who the generals answer to, plus the Commander and Chief himself). One of the many internal checks and balances that our Federal government was designed around.

In theory, the police departments are too, but I don't know how well local governments typically oversee and manage their police departments (when they aren't directly misusing them, as the recent case with the Mayor of Peoria who didn't like being made fun of on the Internet).

edited 29th Jun '14 10:44:38 PM by AFP

Hehe.

I must admit the idea of directly elected judges and Sheriffs seems bizarre to me not coming from the US. It's would seem self-evident to me that matters of law and order be above the populist whims of the political process.

Of course it's arguably an elitist attitude to think the public can't be can't be trusted to decide who interprets and enforces the laws of the land.

Again, well intentioned but horrible in practice

Just like civilian oversight in a mental hospital sounds good, but I can tell which rules we havewere written by ddoctors and which were written by politicians, especially in the allocating of funds.

Civilians are notoriously bad about not getting the concept of cost and realizing what is worth the money and what isn't.

LRPD had an open rebellion one year against a mayor who wanted to be "tough on crime". He wanted to double patrols but not hire more officers. This would mean the patrolmen who were already sleep deprived would be taxed further and they would have to pull detectives to cover patrols too.

The police said that wasn't feasible and offereda new plan. The mayor rejected it. So nothing changed which is better than something changing for the worse.

I find it rather interesting that of all the stories of police needlessly killing suspects in recent months, it took a guy slitting a dog's throat for their police chief to say "Fuck that shit" and arrest the perpetrator and those protecting him. In other recent cases knowing people from Albuquerque, including a woman who used to strip before she got her law degree (true story), and hearing how paranoid people are of the Albuquerque police, I have zero sympathy with that department. And then you have the FBI with their laughable 100% faultless record of justified killings which is just beyond belief.

This is cool: skateboarding activist officer.

Hee. Hee. I got a kick out of what his skateboard has painted on it!