The Law Enforcement Officer Thread

Only about 30 total rifles. 7.62 and 5.56mm. Not a huge number. Some mixed gear and a shit load of optics gear. Like roughly 10 pages of optics gear. That is for my county.

edited 21st Aug '14 1:19:45 AM by TuefelHundenIV

Who watches the watchmen?

And statistically speaking, rifles are used far less often in crime than handguns, so I wouldn't worry about the proliferation of them.

As in the police have purchased from the military.

Who watches the watchmen?

Oh, I'd be less worried about that then. Recent news coverage notwithstanding, I'm pretty sure police rifles are used in even less crime than civilian rifles. Anyways, in some police departments, they keep a rifle and/or shotgun in the trunk of the police car as a "just in case" provision. I can't say I've ever heard of them being used.

Two rifles in 5.56, five rifles in 7.62 and seven 12 gauge riot shotguns. That's it for my county.

Not too bad actually, I can't say I've got any problems with that. Most of it is just cops keeping a shotgun in the trunk like that

Now the county were I attend college has a full page of helicopter and MRAP parts, a page and a half full of .45 caliber pistols, two and a half pages of 5.56 rifles and half a page of 7.62 rifles. Last page is more helicopter parts.

And one bipod.

edited 21st Aug '14 3:16:50 AM by LeGarcon

Oh really when?

Mine seems to be a load of electronic equipment and parts, a few pistols, and helicopters (likely for scoping out drug operations).

Right, there's probably something going on that causes one area to report things less than the others.

I'd imagine every district would have tons of electronic parts listed but mine does.

Also carrying over from politics thread, no one likes itw hen cops use lethal force, but in this case, lethal force was met with lethal force.

Had the man just walked around brandishing a knife but not actually go AFTER someone with the knife, cops probably would have called backup and surrounded him, but what happened was a 10 second quick thing.

Check this out.

Who watches the watchmen?

Interesting. Seems using a gun is usually impractical when it it is holstered against a knife attacker, you'd have a better chance of survival by using CQC to either bring down the attacker or disarm them.

No objection from me. That was really informative.

Given that, and given in the video:

the about 20+ seconds between police arriving @ 1:20 and when they opened fire, I'm not convinced that they couldn't have doused him in pepper spray or used a taser or something. I'm not sure about the purpose of handcuffing a corpse, either. I guess a leisurely walk is "charging" in police lingo.

edited 21st Aug '14 11:17:45 AM by Cyran

"That wizard came from the moon!"

EDIT: Relating to Tuefel's Video

1) How old is that video? Just curious.

2) That is an expert martial artist. Most cops aren't going up against someone that good. They're going up against hood rats. This makes things easier in some ways and harder in others. First, you can probably spot the behavior better. Most people aren't so calm they can just keep their cool and not give away any signs. Cops are trained to look for these.

3) I ask how old because those cops have absolutely no distance discipline. You don't let someone within that 5 feet of you. If they walk in you walk out. I also noticed those officers didn't have even one piece of gear the average cop carries now. They weren't even carrying belts.

No cop would go by himself in a warehouse situation, let alone without his gear. We actually had several classes on how to use our maglights if needed. (Flashlights that are really strong). I have an extended maglight that has an extra four inches then what most cops carry just because I'm shorter. You don't have to have a gun out to have something protective.

4) Most cops would have them lay their id on the chair then back against the wall. If they didn't, then they would be allowed to act as if that person meant to harm them. That could mean drawing their gun and forcing the person on the wall or it may not. All are situation specific.

The reason why cops will handcuff first or tell you to get back/down first then question you is mainly to prevent something like this. It's much safer for the suspect and the cop to just assume and detain and let them go then it is to act as if they are in a perfectly normal situation and get hurt.

Technically, you only have to ask about three times before you can assume malicious intent. Jurisdictions vary.

My dad's vest could stop a three to four inch blade, but it didn't have a neck guard. Cops also don't always carry just one gun. My dad carried about three and practiced drawing from various positions as needed. A dedicated cop is much faster than that video showed. That's another reason why I am curious over the age, most of those guys were carrying revolvers from what I could tell.

I'm not saying that video didn't have merit, it's just dated against both the weapons and the tactics most patrolmen will probably be doing as well as what most people will be carrying.

Now a days you're more likely to come across a banger with a throw-away-gun than a knife.

Most recent (2012) FBI breakdown for officers, federal and otherwise, killed or assaulted in the line of duty and what conditions.

This is pretty interesting data. Violent crimes in general have been going down, but according to this 44 of the 48 officers who died as a result of injuries sustained in a felonious encounter were killed by firearms, 33 were handguns.

You handcuff the suspect dead or alive because you're not always sure if they are dead or not. They're have been incidents were people have gotten up, regained consciousness, whatever and reengaged either the police or medical personnel.

You handcuff as a safety measure.

I can't get that video to play for me for some reason so I will restrict my comments for now to just that explanation until I can watch it in full.

edited 21st Aug '14 11:34:25 AM by Gabrael

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

From what I understand of friends and family in law enforcement, an officer who needs to break leather has already lost control of the situation, and most skilled cops haven't had to break leather once in their career. If this is accurate, I have to wonder what the rate of firearm discharges St. Louis county has given some of the behavior we've been made aware of in the past couple weeks. Several cops I know consider a good Maglite to be more reliable than their pistol.

Weird. Try searching for it on You Tube?

edited 21st Aug '14 11:40:47 AM by Cyran

"That wizard came from the moon!"

Notice the people we keep hearing from when it comes to excessive force are repeat offenders like New York?

I'm willing to bet is is very much a regional problem. Otherwise, the problem seems to be there are just one or two bad apples with an isolated incident, but the administration doesn't properly handle that situation or incident.

I would really like to know how many cops who have been in situations like this were allowed back on the streets outside of the known areas of shit.

That could be it. They just keep covering for the bad apples and letting the force be tainted with them. I wish I could find something more enlightening or conclusive, but I just don't know.

EDIT: It's probably the firewall here at work honestly. I'll try again when I get home.

I love my Maglite. You can bash something, blind someone, use it to aid an arm lock, it's just great.

Also, it is something I recommend to my civilian friends. A maglite is a tool. So you can have it in your car or in your home and should you ever be the one weird stat who has to engage in home defense, a maglite is safer legally and just as effective practically than a baseball bat or whatever.

edited 21st Aug '14 11:47:24 AM by Gabrael

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

Something seems odd that tools like extendable batons or nunchaku in some states are legal for home protection use but illegal to carry publicly—except for Mag Lites, but even they seem to be illegal for public use in certain states (California, I think I'm finding), though there may be a permit of some sort that I'm not aware of.

"That wizard came from the moon!"

Most home defense weapons that are specific weapons only, like asps, batons, or martial arts weapons are gauged on how dangerous they are. When digging around in that FBI database, I noticed that more officers were killed or injured by either guns or alternative weapons. I would assume they mean things like beer bottles, tire irons, things that aren't specifically used for weapons and are fairly common.

Most laws function that if it's only a weapon, then it should be controlled because if you kill someone with it, that implies some sort of intent. Either the intent to hurt or the intent to not judge a situation properly.

But something like a Maglite, different sizes of tools, different grades of pepper spray, something like that, you're not a badass trying to prove a point, you're an average joe who happened to use a tool in an unconventional way.

It has it's flaws, but intent is the basic premise that makes sense to me. Someone carrying around a baton or a cane with a knife in it will be a lot more suspect in an altercation than someone who grabbed the brass lamp by their bed to investigate a noise.

This is also to protect people against excessive force or the temptation to use excessive force.

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

The knife vid is dated but it helps get the point across. You can't be too careless. Also it points out that if you are not cautious the other guy can get the jump on you and it's game over gun or not.

I have one of those nice multi-D Cell mag lights at work. The kind you rest on your shoulder to use. I call it the guard stick. If i ever have to approach a possibly dangerous person at night this thing is coming with me.

edited 21st Aug '14 1:18:03 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Who watches the watchmen?

FBI is taking the lead to investigate the mastermind of Foley's ISIS execution.

Do you have a source for that? FBI can assist but this is technically CIA jurisdiction.

Not impossible, I'm just confused.

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

BBC reports that the FBI got involved in the LEO perspective.

Only heard it from a TV broadcast.

edited 22nd Aug '14 5:08:48 AM by Ominae

FBI is purely domestic (supposedly). They can share info or look into American sides of problems. But the CIA is the international agency. They're notoriously hard to play with though.

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

More specifically, the FBI can and does operate outside of the US to assist federal investigations related to US national security, but they aren't going to covertly supply freedom fighters or anything like that. Because some members of IS are American nationals, it would make sense to pull FBI assets into the investigation.

The CIA are an intelligence agency though, they have no jurisdiction over criminal matters as they are not law enforcement, while the FBI are law enforcement. It's far from the first time this has happened, the FBI were sent to Libya after Benghazi, they tend to get sent to do criminal investigations abroad.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

There's also the "radicalisation may trace back home" effect, too.

http://imgur.com/gallery/l62iF

Great post by a federal MP about the St. Louis shooting and explaining why the cops did exactly what they were trained to do and how the media is just looking for sensationalism over this Suicide By Cop.