Mock crimes are a tragedy in waiting

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divemedic

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This article details what I think is a bad idea. What if an off duty cop or CCW confronts the cop doing this? I can easily see where a citizen of cop could get shot.

That brings me to my second question: You see a man wearing gloves and a mask breaking into your neighbor's house, or into a car at the mall. You confront him and he produces a weapon. You shoot him. his backup shoots you. It seems to me the backup team is now guilty of at least one (possibly both) homicide.
 
I'm thinking that should an exercise like this be done in certain parts of this country, it could have disastrous results. For all involved.

Maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part. Complacency and apathy seem to dominate most of America.
 
Further conditioning...

This might be a stretch, but what if this is to program people to be even more afraid of crime even if it's not as big of a problem in their area. Or even be more accommodating to a police state. RealID is on the way, and at this point we as a country better do something about it.


Epyon
 
I agree that it's a bad idea..

The idea, which was first inspired by Police Chief Fran Iwanski, was meant to emphasize the idea that the citizen’s input into law enforcement is important.

“I want to know how many people would allow a crime to happen and not call 911,” Iwanski said when the planning of the demonstration first began several months ago.
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While she's most certainly correct in saying that the citizen's input into law enforcement is important, I don't think that she's fully thinking through the possibility that said citizens' "input" may be the infusion of lead into the suspect... esp. in Florida. This is not only bad for the recipient of the lead - the LEO actor - I suspect that it wouldn't go particularly well for the good samaritan intervenor either - he'd either be shot by the LEO acting as a perpetrator, another LEO witnessing the event, or prosecuted as not being justified self-defense (the latter may or may not be appropriate, depending on the circumstances).
 
The second mock crime was less successful. In the Wal-Mart parking lot at 4444 W. Vine St., Napier biked up to a car and spent a considerable amount of time trying to unlock it with a vehicle lockout tool. He repeated the exercise three times.

In a busy parking lot on that early Friday afternoon, several people walked by and noticed Napier, who had donned bright orange gloves and sunglasses and left the bike resting against the car’s trunk. A few were leaving and getting into cars right next to the assaulted vehicle.

No one called the police.
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"Oh, look. This poor guy locked his keys in the car and had to go home to get the tools to get into it because he doesn't have another key. Lucky he had his bicycle at home to get back here to get into his car."

Or maybe this works.

"Well, if nothing else, he can ride that bike he just bought at Wal-Mart home to get his extra key."
 
I question the intentions of the Dept.
It may have been done with good intentions, or to further solidify the dependence on someone else for personal safety.

Copy Cats and False Security:
We already have folks getting "uniforms" from Thrift Stores to pose as UPS, FedEx, Meter Readers, Utility Workers, just add a clipboard and "badge" and folks are "more secure".
Great, now get that Police Car with exterior light from the Auction and "oh look Mildred, they are doing a Mock Crime at Edna's house, how sweet".

Do away with 911.

I did not grow up with 911, and we shared a Party Line for our telephone for years.
Folks were more responsible for themselves before Gov't started meddling with personal safety.
We kept a shotgun behind the door and most often adults were carrying concealed, even before "permission papers" were even heard of.
We knew how to dial direct to City, County, State Police, Get an Ambulance, call Fire Dept...
We knew our neighbors.

True. I overheard on my college campus a person dial 911 to ask how long to set the timer to nuke a baked potato.

Just me, do away with 911, I really am tired of some folks breathing my air...
 
I work at Wal-Mart and I tell women who have wandered away from their cart, leaving their purse exposed to pilferage, to "mind their purse". They will have money exposed in some cases which opens them up to being "dipped" and the perp wouldn't even have top break stride. If the cops went on a campaign to educate shoppers to this simple fact they could reduce opportunity crimes.
 
Jim,
Gubmit has convinced folks them surveillance cameras are gonna take care of them purses left in shopping carts.

Did you miss the last meeting or something? ;)
 
The idea, which was first inspired by Police Chief Fran Iwanski, was meant to emphasize the idea that the citizen’s input into law enforcement is important.
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Must have been smoking something from the evidence room ...

The second mock crime was less successful. In the Wal-Mart parking lot at 4444 W. Vine St., Napier biked up to a car and spent a considerable amount of time trying to unlock it with a vehicle lockout tool. He repeated the exercise three times.

In a busy parking lot on that early Friday afternoon, several people walked by and noticed Napier, who had donned bright orange gloves and sunglasses and left the bike resting against the car’s trunk. A few were leaving and getting into cars right next to the assaulted vehicle.

No one called the police.

“Who would be stealing at 12 o’clock in the middle of the day?” said a man who identified himself as simply Carlos. He and his friend stopped to help Napier with the car door unlocking mechanism on his first attempt at car burglary, accepting his story that the car he was trying to get into was his wife’s.
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Many, many years ago, a lady that worked with my mom chained up her bicycle outside the building. During the work shift, some guy came along and managed to talk the security guard into helping him cut the chain because he had lost the key. Needless to say, my mom's friend was more than a little upset about the loss of the bike, not to mention the fact that such a moron was supposed to be guarding the building.
 
Years ago we had shots exchanged between BGs and a UC LEO at a mall.
BGs shot first.

No film in the exterior cameras of the mall...
About a mile down the road...
Uniformed LEOs, in a marked unit assisted BGs changing the flat tire with bent wheel.
"Someone cut into our lane and we bumped into the curb to avoid an accident officers"


More recently - BGs stole a surveillance camera.
Last I heard, the Police still do not who stole the camera, much less recovered the camera.
Just me, I sorta have to give the BGs some points for ingenuity and all.

I mean this is going to be real difficult to explain to the Mayor /Chief of Police the BGs are reporting Cops doing Mock Crimes. :D
 
What if an off duty cop or CCW confronts the cop doing this? I can easily see where a citizen of cop could get shot.

That brings me to my second question: You see a man wearing gloves and a mask breaking into your neighbor's house, or into a car at the mall. You confront him and he produces a weapon. You shoot him. his backup shoots you. It seems to me the backup team is now guilty of at least one (possibly both) homicide.
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Why would you do this? Because you have a CCW does not mean you need to jump into the middle of a property crime. Call the cops first. Hang around, be a good witness. Your CCW is there to protect your life and the life of another. Neither incident involved lives at risk. Unless you know a life is in danger, keep your gun in its holster.
 
Why would you do this? Because you have a CCW does not mean you need to jump into the middle of a property crime. Call the cops first. Hang around, be a good witness. Your CCW is there to protect your life and the life of another. Neither incident involved lives at risk. Unless you know a life is in danger, keep your gun in its holster.
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Why do you assume that the weapon is even out of its holster?

According to this

You confront him and he produces a weapon.
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there is nothing to suggest that the firearm has been produced. He confronts the man and HE produces a weapon whereupon the CCW holder produces his weapon and fires.

The fact that he "jump into the middle of a property crime" has noithing whatsoever to do with his having a CCW. Any citizen might do the same. The difference between this confrontational citizen and any other confrontational citizen is that this confrontational citizen has the means to protect themself. The other confrontational citizen would not and would become a statistic.

I once caught a pair of theives trying to steal a car out of our company parking lot. I knew whose car it was and yelled "Hey!" at which point they fled. If I had simply gone inside and dialed 911 the car would have been gone, the fellow employee seriously inconvenieced, and those who fled at my hailing them would have been just as gone as if I hadn't hailed them at all -- except they would have had the car.
 
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If anyone witnessed a police officer in disguise climbing through a side window of a home Friday, they need to know the officer was just trying to teach neighbors how to help protect their homes.
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That's a good way to get hit in the head with a framing hammer or worse...
 
Why would you do this?
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Because this is my neighborhood and I won't put up with this crap, I would hope my neighbors would do the same if it were my house.

The cops probably wouldn't be there until 3 hours later anyway, if ever.
 
According to this
You confront him and he produces a weapon.
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there is nothing to suggest that the firearm has been produced. He confronts the man and HE produces a weapon whereupon the CCW holder produces his weapon and fires.
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Non Sequitur - A police officer doing a mock crime should not produce a weapon, but identify himself. Unless, of course, you are advancing on him with the aforementioned framing hammer in a rude, angry or threatening manner.

I once caught a pair of theives trying to steal a car out of our company parking lot. I knew whose car it was and yelled "Hey!" at which point they fled. If I had simply gone inside and dialed 911 the car would have been gone, the fellow employee seriously inconvenieced, and those who fled at my hailing them would have been just as gone as if I hadn't hailed them at all -- except they would have had the car.
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It's one thing to shout "hey!" or "What are you doing there?" at someone from a relatively safe distance and quite different to "confront" someone at close range. Confronting someone means to face them in a challenge or face-to-face, which I took to be closer proximity (10 yards or less).

'Tis one thing to challenge from a distance where you can withdraw if things get dicey. If I see what looks like a burglary going down, I'll call the cops. I'm not about to find myself outnumbered 2:1 or 3:1 and without backup.
 
This reminds me of an incident with a former youth minister at my church. He wanted to do something wierd- where the youth group would go "flock" a churchmember's yard by placing pink flamingos and such- wierd ****:rolleyes:

Anyway, I told him that it was a very bad idea that was going to result in somebody getting shot because people down here owned guns and there are a lot that don't check their targets very carefully:eek:

They dropped that idea, and we got rid of that youth minister b/c of his alchoholism...
 
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