"Is that the bad guy, Daddy?"

K

Kernel

New member
Watching TV with my four year old son last night. We're flipping thru the channels, and stop on A&E. They're doing a show on the LA County SWAT Dept.

Ten minutes into the program they're talking about the two felons that wigged out and went on the full-auto shooting spree after the bank robbery last year. They were showing the file footage of these robbers with their AKs, dressed and body armor, helmets, goggles, jack boots - the whole Ninja nine yards.

At the same time they were showing footage of the SWAT team, basically dressed the same way. The program was flipping back and forth, showing the cops, then showing the bank robbers.

My son is getting confused. Everyone was wearing the same basic uniform. He kept asking "Is that the bad guy, Daddy?" "No, son. That's a policeman, he's the good guy." "Is that the bad guy, Daddy?" "Yeah he's the bad guy, that's the robber." "Are those the bad guys, Daddy?" "No, those guys are the good guys."

Finally, I just changed the channel.

-- Kernel
 
How ironic...

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"A fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity." - Sigmund Freud
We, the people, are tired of being taxed, penalized, supervised, harassed,
and subjugated by a federal government which exceeds the powers
enumerated in the U.S. Constitution.
 
Kernel,
Hmm. I see your point.

About all you could salvage out of such a scenario would be the lesson that "clothes don't make the man."

Good Guys sometimes dress up "mean", and Bad Guys sometimes dress up "nice".

Later, you might be able to add your values about beards, long hair, tattoos, and (argh!) body piercing! I told my kids that that these things communicate various values to other people - sometimes creating misunderstandings and other difficulties.

(sigh!) Didn't do any good. Danged if all three girls don't have a flower tattoo on the ankle. (sigh!)
 
To consider:

The younger cops (the ones who "do" SWAT teams) grew up in the same atmosphere and with the same movies and TV shows as the BGs. Too many are just waiting for the chance to "legally" blow somebody (anybody) away for the fun of it. They love to play "dress up" in the black clothes with masks and shoot off machine guns. Of course if they hit the wrong people, or raid the wrong house and kill innocent people, that is just too bad. The governmental entity may be sued, but nothing ever happens to the trigger happy cops.

They do not listen to the ever dwindling number of old timers who like to keep the gunfire to a minimum and believe the idea is to make arrests, not increase the body count.

Another problem is the police instructor who is ex-military. The military and the police have (or should have) a different viewpoint. To the military, the goal is to kill as many of the enemy as it takes to conquer the enemy country. Use of deadly force is the first option. Capture of the enemy is secondary. If civilians get hurt, tough luck. They either deserve it as enemy civilians or they have to pay the price for "liberation".

To the police, the goal should be to arrest persons suspected of having committed a crime and not harm others. Use of deadly force should be the last option.

As long as we have police who grew up with TV and movie violence and the Ninja BS, and instructors and advisors who try to persuade the police chief to buy mortars and rocket launchers, we will have runaway cops shooting everything in sight.

Some will say the overboard cop is in "response" to the heavily armed criminal. Not really. Both are in "response" to media violence and want to kill with same impunity the TV and movie "hero" has. And both want to make sure there are no armed, honest people to interfere. So both support gun control laws.

Jim
 
Jim Keenan wrote"

Another problem is the police instructor who is ex-military. The military and the police have (or should have) a different viewpoint. To the military, the goal is to kill as many
of the enemy as it takes to conquer the enemy country. Use of deadly force is the first
option. Capture of the enemy is secondary. If civilians get hurt, tough luck. They either
deserve it as enemy civilians or they have to pay the price for "liberation".
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

This shouldn't be a problem as I served twenty years in the military and had a somewhat overlapping career in law enforcement for seventeen and one-half years. Rules of Engagement are just that and if a former military law enforcement instructor is getting them confused, it's because he is not working under a clearly defined set of rules to begin with. Or, management is not supervising and enforcing the department's rules of engagement.

In the examples of "excessive force" by SWAT teams I have seen recently such as Compton, CA, Denver, CO, etc., the SWAT teams were deployed to serve search warrants that were fabricated on the flimsiest of grounds if a warrant was even obtained. In Compton they hit the house because the defendant often used the house as a mail drop, even though he didn't live there. In Denver, it appears the uncorroborated information of an confidential informant was used to obtain the warrant. It turned out in the Denver case, affidavits in support of warrants were not even reviewed by supervisors before they went to a judge.

Before railing that SWAT teams should be reined in, I think we should be instead be criticizing the sloppy work that is being done to establish grounds for the issuance of the search warrants. In all the training and exposure I received in search warrants, the most important was to corroborate all your information, especially that provided by confidential informants, snitches, and even good citizens. It is rare you get information from said sources who don't have their own axe to grind or stand to gain if you bust the door down.

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Bruce Stanton
CDR, USN-Ret.
Sgt., Kings Co. Sheriff - Ret.




[This message has been edited by bruels (edited December 09, 1999).]
 
Another problem these days is that the BG is almost always trying to add to the body count and is prepared both mentally and physically (firearms, explosives, body armor, etc...) to do so. Todays cops deal with much more difficult issues than the 'old timers' just like our own kids do at school. The times they are a changin' whether we like it or not.

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Anarchism: The radical notion that I am the sole authority when it comes to deciding what's best for me.
 
Good topic... my 6 yr old daughter Jane, (hence, the name- Dad2Jane) has the same problem understanding WHO a bad guy is, or WHAT a bad guy looks like.

If she sees someone big, shabbily dressed, and "scary" looking, she automatically assumes that the person is a "bad guy".

We are trying to teach her that ones appearance doesn't necessarily mean that they are "bad". We try to show that a person's actions or words indicate if they are "bad"...

I don't want some neatly dressed "Bad guy"
fooling her... thus the lessons begin early...

Bottom line... start teaching the kids the RIGHT way to do the RIGHT thing...

If more parents did that, there would be less school shootings.

By the way... I showed her that guns don't kill by putting a fully loaded .38 on the carpet and yelling at it - the gun - "shoot!"
"shoot me in the finger!", "PLEASE shoot me..." etc...

funny.. the gun never did shoot me... and I thought that guns kill people... hmmm....

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Stand against evil, lest evil have its way...
 
Now lets hold on here about things beeing so different now a days instead of the 'good old days' of law inforcment. If I recal the '60s had some very intersting things going on (or at least that what my dad said - FT Worth PD 68-74 if memory serves) and as for the need for more "assault troops" in our police forces I have some bad news for the SWAT types, hey guys most of the BG's do come OUT of there houses from time to time, maybe a little recon / intel would be on order. Please do not get me wrong I am very supportative of the Law and Order just a bit more scepictal of the methods to impliment it than I used to be.
 
Most SWAT team members that I have come into contact with are true professionals. They train right to the edge but never past it. Save for the idiot's in the ATF (yes, the f-up at WACO) most, if not all municipal and Federal SWAT team members are outstanding law enforcement officers. The attire and equipment of modern SWAT teams only increases their chance of surviving a nasty situation. They train fast and hard so that they won't have to use deadly force. These guys and gals are not baby-killing psychopaths but rather highly trained, well disciplined peace officers who want nothing more than to serve the public at large and most of all, do a good job.
 
Most SWAT team members that I have come into contact with are true professionals. They train right to the edge but never past it. Save for the idiot's in the ATF (yes, the f-up at WACO) most, if not all municipal and Federal SWAT team members are outstanding law enforcement officers. The attire and equipment of modern SWAT teams only increases their chance of surviving a nasty situation. They train fast and hard so that they won't have to use deadly force. These guys and gals are not baby-killing psychopaths but rather highly trained, well disciplined peace officers who want nothing more than to serve the public at large and most of all, do a good job and be the best they can be.
 
Exactly, Pete80. Now someone is going to accuse you of condoning the killing of noncombatants.
What is all this whining about entry teams wearing protective gear and body armor? These passive systems have never hurt anybody. They save the lives of countless LEOs every year.
Well, it makes them look so mean, and sometimes badguys dress like that!
And sometimes badguys disguise themselves in standard patrolman uniforms as well.
Well, sorry, officers. No more kevlar better than class2. The citizens simply think you are too scarry looking. And besides, officers, one time some bank robbers shot up LA, and they kinda looked like SWAT types, so...Would you mind doing a dynamic entry with a basic uniform and a .38 revolver? The people would realy apreciate it. And no speedloaders. People might think they are grenades. And you former military guys...We have to let you go. Apearantly, once you're trained a certain way it is impossible to retrain you to any degree. Yep, you can only be trained once, then you're hard-wired and mindless.
No more MP-5s. The citizens may have them, but you can't.
Barracaded lunatic with highpowered rifles? No go, guys. We have to wait until he runs out of ammunition and gives up.


How many people that you know have been victimized by criminals?
How many people that YOU know have been victimized by a SWAT team?

Hmm...A group of people with firearms has become the target of overgeneralizations and stereotyping. Let us now dissarm them.
See anything funny here?
 
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