Police cadets BRAGGING about traumatizing citizens

Thanks 38splfan and scottz0369, you raise some concerns that I knew nothing about. It is unfortunate that many so-called liberals are really just bigots in a p.c. kind of way. :barf:

I suppose I simply cling to the hope that the true meaning of liberal will re-emerge, but I understand that much intolerance today masquerades as liberalism. Sadly all vocations should seek to serve the public good and people judged not by title or salary, but instead by what they do and how they do it.

The irony is that many of the problems within the education system convince capable people to avoid careers in education. This in effect exacerbates the problems and leads to a spiraling decline. Higher education has become little more than a lucrative business that creates less return every day. :(
 
It is unfortunate that many so-called liberals are really just bigots in a p.c. kind of way.
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I find that bigotry exists more in liberals than any other group. As a black man that I grew up with told me, growing up in the South he knew all about segregation and racism but he never knew bigotry until he moved north. He gave me a new understanding of it all.
 
much intolerance today masquerades as...
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...Conservativeness
...Religion
...Homeland Security
...Patriotism

Take your pick. Intolerance can masquerade as many things. That doesn't make those things bad or wrong.

Hector
 
don't forget the intolerance disguised as

... liberalism
... racial pride
... affirmative action
... United Negro College Fund
... La MEcha
... zero tolerance policies
 
Doesn't surprise me a bit. I could tell some stories concerning law enforcement that are totally out of line. These stories were fully backed up by multiple eyewitnesses. Total abuses of power yet nothing was ever done and in two cases people were charged. Some really bad eggs out there. The military mindset has no place whatsoever in law enforcement. It is a completely different situation. Whatever became of protect and serve?
 
Vermont - I hate to sidetrack this thread but being that the Viet Nam war ended one month after I graduated from college and about one month before I was scheduled to be drafted I saw too much similarity in going into Iraq. That does not keep me from supporting our troops or our great nation. I will not judge the cost benefit of the Iraq invasion as I do not know enough about it to make that judgement and it will do no good either way. I can only do my part. Someone once asked me if I was worried about something and I replied that to worry about something infers that I have some control over it.

My only control is in voting for my preferred cantidate and working for him and to get laws passed or changed. I have no direct control. But when I see a soldier I do have control to thank him for his service to us. I will never treat our soldiers like many treated them after returning from Viet Nam.
 
Vermont, your original statement, the one I quoted was a generalization. As was the poll you referenced. Generalizations always fail when you get to the specifics, which was what I had intended to convey.

Has anyone seen the page photocopied and sent to several newspaper?

20071224_sufferptsd.jpg


The last name that can be seen is an officer from my city. I know the guy, he isn't some gung-ho jar head. I tend to agree with what 209 wrote earlier...
 
Snakebuster, you may repeat your question as many times as you want.

Since I don't see a problem, I don't understand your question... Regardless of how much you "shout" it.
 
A person needs to wonder about the claim there is a strong “us vs them” mentality in law enforcement. In some areas of the country, there just may be; in other areas I'm not so sure. But there is clearly a perception it exists.

We could always argue about it using the “chicken or the egg” test. Did law enforcement develop that attitude and swing away from the public or did the public adopt the attitude and apply it to law enforcement thusly pushing them away? There has to be a cause and effect if there truly is a problem.

Let the argument begin. I have popcorn if anyone wants sit and watch.
 
The Tourist wrote:
Imagine a toothless townie, crazed by meth, bursting out of a double-wide as he racks a 12-gauge.

Yeah, do your "inflict PTSD" on that guy...
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Applying the motto, the response would be to pop a couple of rounds into the methhead’s x ring. Then, knowing your actions were the right thing to have done, chalk it up as another life lesson and move on. Thus, you would not be dealing with PTSD, but the methhead sure may be.

The Tourist wrote:
Sounds like he needs a new line of work, something he's qualified at doing. Perhaps selling shoes.
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Have you ever heard the man? Or maybe read one of his books? Just curious.
 
209, my comments were more directed to the basic postulates of "police" versus "army."

Police departments are not in existence to win hearts and minds, or influence the populace at any level.

They are there to secure order and enforce the law.

To my knowledge, infecting the general public with PTSD has never been a end goal for any law enforcement agency. Well, perhaps during the bubba-era when LEOs were an arm of the Klan.

As for the doofus author, just because he sells a lot of books or sells out seminars does not make his philosophies moral or even astute. Remember that the early posts here mentioned "cadets."

This type of baloney logic is going to instill false premises into the minds of newbie officers who don't know any better. As I mentioned, what happens to the young officer when he meets up with a group of Mongols or Crips who just don't feel like being arrested?

He's going to wade into a bunch of folks with the mistaken idea that he's impressing everyone.

In point of fact, this puddle of tripe doesn't even impress me, and I'm obviously a singular individual.

Again, young officers need quality training. It would be interesting to track the careers of the LEOs who actually apply this silly concept.

Over a stint of ten years it would revealing to see how many of these guys had been disciplined, sued, injured or killed.

In Madison, we have the concept of community based law enforcement. In short, the "invading army" approach might work on Monday, but that small victory is worthless if there's a big riot on Tuesday.

And in a very real sense, these PTSD-trained officers couldn't even get a job here.
 
Boy was that a wrong.

Hey Tourist
Police departments are not in existence to win hearts and minds, or influence the populace at any level.
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Every cop on a beat is out to influence the populace, to win the hearts of the shopkeepers and help them out, to change the mind of a parent so that if the kid is getting into minor trouble and the cop brings the kid home without arresting them, maybe the parents will think twice about letting thier kids run amuck.

Police departments in every jurisdiction I have ever worked with or been associated with influence the populace.

As for the motto, well that was kinda stupid, it didn't flow off the tongue. Besides does anyone think the Cadets were refering to anyone other than the bad guys. Not the "citizens". I work inner city Philadelphia Parole, felonies only on my case load. There are three types of people in my working life. Me and my comrades (Us), Citizens (those guys walking down the street paying thier bills and minding thier own business) and the 'bad guys', (people who will do whatever to make sure he comes out on top weather it be stealing, beating up his wife, or selling drugs) them.

My job is a little more personallity instensive than most, I go into the bad guys home, deal with thier families and together hopefully we can turn one of the bad guys into a citizen.

I truelly believe thier are three kinds of people: sheep, wolves and sheep dogs. Which is a long story.

Actually there are two type of people, people who bring joy by coming and those who bring joy by leaving.
 
the "us" vs. "them" mentality

Academy training staff, field training officers, and first line supervisors should make great efforts to prevent the development of the "us" vs. "them" mentality in their police recruits.

(I instructed at the local regional police academy for 10 years, and have been a field training officer for nearly 20 years, so I have some personal familiarity with this issue)

So why do rookie cops develop this attitude?
--Sometimes they think they're "supposed" to act that way. The more immature cadets try really hard to "fit in" to their new environment, and often times pick inappropriate ways to do so.
--Often rookies are overly conscious of their own status as the "new guy" and to compensate will act all bitter and cynical so that they seem "worldly". Often they will model their behavior after some burned out veteran officer, heedless of the fact that they have just selected a very inappropriate role model for themselves. (this just drives me crazy!)
--Rookies want to go out and do exciting stuff, and be in high speed chases and gunfights and arrest drug dealers and gang members and all that. They don't realize that 90+% of their job is order maintenence and public service and about 10% is actual law enforcement & "crime fighting". (You can adjust the percentages to reflect the actual activity level of any particular jurisdiction) As FTOs we have to train then NOT to over-react, NOT to over-enforce when it isn't necessary or productive and NOT to act like an occupying army. (In truth, it's only a small percentage of recruits who are hyper-aggressive -- at least in my experience)
--Sometimes you get police recruits who look to the job as a cop to give them self-definition and identity. Those who aren't well grounded in other aspects of life or are very young and don't have much life experience loose perspective easily.
--Sometimes you end up with a recruit who is basically a bully with a badge. It happens, and I get the impression that in some places it happens a lot. I've found that properly designed role playing scenarios at the police academy level can identify and eliminate candidates like that, at least sometimes, as long as the administration of the police department is willing to be proactive and fire the unsuitable. Which, sometimes, for a wide variety of reasons, they may not be.
--And sometimes you get a police recruit who can't read people or situations very well, and so is over aggressive when they don't need to be, or (more commonly in my experience) under aggressive in controlling situations. Sometimes you train somebody for a while and then suddenly realize that they're scared to death every minute they're out there, which either causes them to over-react or to be passive and try to hide.

Not everybody has the proper skill-set to be a cop.

Fortunately, at least in my experience, once you get them out of the academy and into a 12 week field training program, they get exposed to the way things "really work" in the "real world" and most of them mellow out and become at least adequate cops. However, I have worked in jurisdictions of "average" activity my whole career -- my observations probably aren't accurate for LAPD or NYPD or Chicago PD or agencies like that, with a very high violent crime rate. (I don't know what it's like to work in a place like that)

We may want to develop an aggressive attitude in soldiers, because their mission is combat performed as part of a team. A police officer needs a certain degree of controlled aggressiveness to be a good cop, but their mission is quite different -- they are NOT at war with the citizens, they ARE the citizens, and they usually operate with a high degree of individual discretion.

To be successful, the police academy has to be organized and structured. There has been a big debate in law enforcement since the 1970s about whether or not the police academy should be run like military "boot camp" or in a less militaristic manner. (I spent 20 years as an SP/MP in the National Guard, so I have some familiarity about how basic training and military law enforcement works, compared to the civilian police academy).

My personal opinion is that a civilian police academy needs organization and structure and discipline, and cadets need to be held accountable for their performance, but I don't see that running a high stress course like military basic training actually accomplishes what you want the police academy to accomplish.

A bunch of us are in at the PD right now drinking coffee and catching up on reports, and this thread on TFL generated quite a lively discussion!!

"...police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence." -- Sir Robert Peele (founder of the Metropolitan Police in London)
 
for those unfamiliar with Lt. Col Dave Grossman:

http://www.killology.com/

Dave Grossman is a skilled public speaker. He's controversial in many respects, and I myself haven't decided how I feel about a lot of his research and conclusions.

Those rookies at the police academy took his comment about PTSD somewhat out of context.
 
and,let's not read into this too much and become one of those paranoid conspiracy goofs who think that the government is after them --

this may well be just a case of somebody trying to be funny in a particularly inappropriate and clumsy way. Being in bad taste is not necessarily an indicator that all of these individuals are going to grow up to be brutal fascist cops. But it is very unprofessional and embarassing . . . one wonders how the academy staff missed this.

Most government agencies would benefit from having somebody assigned to pay attention!
 
I have a good friend that ha been a Deputy Sheriff for over 20 years and during that time he has been assigned to a special drug task force, done undercover drug work, gang task force and about every scary violent assingment you can come up with around her. It created some rough times for him including divorce but he remarried the lady that he had divorced and is now back on track. As a "reward" for his service they assigned him probably some would think the best job on the force. He is shte School Resource Officer at the best high school in the county for a LEO. Every High Shool in the county has a full time LEO assigned to it. At this high shool there is lillte to no gang activity, very little violence and a rural community where the parent take an active interest in their children and one of the best administrative staffs in the state.

He doesn't hate the job but misses the action of the regular patrol. :( His wife loves his job :D and other than having to be there for all the ball games and those type activities he has regular hours so he gets to see his son play sports :cool: and his daughter's dance recital. :eek: When cadets graduate their primary knowledge of law enforcement is what they have seen on TV so it takes a while for real life to set in. Some will make it and some won't. A friend of my daughter's got a degree in criminal justice and spent about 6 months as a city policeman. He quit to attend divinity school and is now working with a church.
 
TwoXForr said:
Every cop on a beat is out to influence the populace
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I am referring to enumerated rights. For example, it would be easier to police the populace in the USA if guns were illegal. However, The Bill of Rights underlines rights of people, not of rulers.

As for these "seminar experts," let me tell you about the old canard that I have learned is spot dead on accurate:

"Those who can, do. Those who cannot do, teach. Those who cannot teach are guidance counselors."

Every line of work has its gurus. Each guru has a seminar. And the flaw in each seminar is that each job has many facets--not just the guiding force of the guru. If each cop that was taught by that guru was a 'door kicker' that worked on a gun, gang or drug task force there might be some value.

However--and let me state this again--American LEOs are peace officers. They are not SWAT members onto themselves. They do no not set the tone of people with private property. In fact, a macho cop is probably the driving force in getting his department sued.

Let's point out this error in thinking in another job that reflects the same idea.

In Madison, we used to have a large Oscar Mayer facility that processed pork. Some of these employees had the job title of "boner" and sliced meat off of pig carcasses all day long. They needed sharp knives.

When the operation was shut down, these knives were sold or given away to area collector and families. I see them on a regular basis.

Each person tells me how "perfect" the knife is. All of them have been ruined. Same argument.

Sharpening knives was only a small portion of a boner's job description. His main expertise' was to cut meat. Since he spent less time learning to sharpen, his skills weren't as good.

Again, peace officers are not door kickers all day long. They work in a community. If they have this John Wayne attitude about the people they serve they will not get cooperation. Simply, they will be hated, just like the old bubba cops of our old southern states.

If this guru is the expert you claim, he should have known that. He doesn't.
 
The phrase in question is in bad taste, at least in the context of being printed on an official graduation announcement, but I can see where it could be taken in one of a couple of ways - either *lightly/humorous/ cause PTSD among those that clearly deserve it.* Or the cynical way the OP did.... I dunno. I'm not that overly worked up about it, and I'm generally highly critical of bad police practices.

But, FWIW, the cops I knew boasted about being "CCRVs" - certified civil rights violators.
 
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