The continuing militarization of police
- Thread starter jimpeel
- Start date
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TheeBadOne
Moderator
Americanpie
Inactive
I gotta take that back. We did have a crime about six months ago. 'Ol man Harmon got mad and shot holes in the soda machine down at the bait shop one night.
Now everybody calls his place Ruby Ridge, cause that's what it looked like for a while.
Now everybody calls his place Ruby Ridge, cause that's what it looked like for a while.
TheeBadOne
Moderator
Howdy all,
I'm not usually very active on message boards but this here thread has hit a nerve with me.
I'm 46, an Air Force veteran, married, employed, living in a little six foot town in liberal occupied Illinois.
I've always had respect for the law and it's enforcers, and have no criminal record.
But a few things have happened over the last couple years that have caused my respect for LEO's to waiver a little.
About a year ago, I went out of town to visit my folks for the weekend. My wife decides to go out and have a few drinks with her girlfriends. She leaves her friends at the bar about 2300 and proceeds to drive the 1.2 miles home. A police officer pulls her over and tells her the reason she was pulled over was because she had no headlights on. (I find this difficult to believe because they come on automatically when you start the car (but is not relevant to her driving drunk, unless you count the part about forgetting to active the headlights or accidentally deactivating the automatic mode). He smells alchohol on her breath, so she is ultimately arrested for DUI. (which is a criminal offense and a danger to the public) They take her to another town twenty miles away to book her (Um, yeah, there's not a jail in every town...). Then they let her bond herself out (actually, pretty nice of them), taking every last penny she had (don't like it, stay in jail. Bail is set by the courts and nobody forces anyone to pay it). She asked them how was she supposed to get home. They said, "that's your problem" (meaning "you're a responsible grown adult and can decide for yourselfL: Call a friend, call a cab, hitch hike, ask someone for a lift). So she left the station and started walking down the highway(Looks like she made her decision). Well since neither of us are from this area, and now it's about 0130, she got confused and walked down the wrong highway (yup, another poor decision). She tried calling me on her cell phone twenty or thirty times (so she has a phone the entire time, and could have called her own cab herself....), but where I was, there was no signal. She walks and walks down this dark two lane country highway, and finally realizes she was going the wrong way. She gets scared and her only option left was to call 911, so she calls. A patrol car finds her, and finally gives her a ride back to our house. Funny, they managed to call a tow truck for her car, but couldn't handle calling a cab for her. (everybody's fault but hers, eh? How about placing a little responsibility where it belongs, the person who went out and drank until intoxicated and then drove. I won't even go into the below comments, not worthy of a response.....)
Fine, give her a DUI, but the last time I checked, kidnapping, robbery, and wreckless endangerment were illegal too.
More recently, a fishing and hunting buddy of mine, who lives in another little hick town, has a wonderful law enforcement experience himself: He's been having problems with his teenage daughter. She's been hangin with the wrong crowd and experimenting with drugs. One time she comes home late and when my buddy confronts her, she becomes belligerent. He decides to call the police to have them come over and put a scare into her. (so why do you think it's the job of "The Police" to "scare" someone ?)Mind you, this girl is only 17 and weighs about 85-90 lbs. When the officers get there, one of the big bad officers grabs her and violently slams her down, twists her arm into a wrist lock, knees her hard in the neck and cuffs her. So my buddy tries to stop mister macho man from beating up his daughter, so the other officer beats on him with a baton, and throws him to the ground and cuffs him. After that, he gets shot with a taser. Ultimately he was arrested for interferring with an officer, and later told by his local DA that the officers acted appropriately. I don't think he had that in mind when he called for their help. (so you're saying your friend called 911 requesting Police because he was unable to control his daugher and then complained when they showed up and did just that.......
Things are definately different now. Looks to me like they'll let just about any dirtbag wear a badge these days. (no, you and your buddy don't wear them)
TheeBadOne
Moderator
Close enough
You know I got to agree with the above and the experience that your wife went through is unfortunate but not uncommon. I would never call the police to discipline my daughter since that is my job, not the police. If you call them to your house don’t interfere or have contraband strewn all over the place and not expect a reaction. I can find countless other examples of LE abuses but as I said they are an exception not the rule. (and over the years LE has amassed a lot). I was hoping this would not turn into a LE bashing thread but these threads usually do.
Thebadone: Must have missed that one
Thebadone: Must have missed that one
Can't help it if some people see you that way. I would want to take a closer look why. Everybody loves firefighters...
Officially 1845 like they said. Maybe you need a refund.
http://www.nyhistory.org/previous/police/ptimeline.html
Officially 1845 like they said. Maybe you need a refund.
http://www.nyhistory.org/previous/police/ptimeline.html
Wildalaska
Moderator
Bad One
+1
WildblameveryonebutthebadguysAlaska
+1
WildblameveryonebutthebadguysAlaska
TheeBadOne
Moderator
You see, this is the great part, and shows how totally shallow and lacking your argument is. You don't want "The Police" to have sub-guns because "they might get misused".
Sound familiar......?
Americanpie
Inactive
Well, she was aproximately 150 yards from our house when she was pulled over. They could've just taken her there. Her headlights were still on auto-on when I checked the next day. He didn't write anything on the ticket indicating she was driving eradically. The only probable cause he had was maybe seeing her car at the tavern. She blew a 0.06 (I don't know what the limit is, but that seems pretty low to me). In reality, the nearest town with a taxi is forty miles away, and she wouldn't know the number, and she had no more money anyway 'cause the cops took it. There was no one for her to call. Sure, it's her fault, and I've given her hell about it. But if she was SO drunk, what the hell are they doing letting her bond out an hour and a half later? I'd definately call that wreckless endangerment. I would have preferred they kept her overnight.
So yeah! Instead of acting like decent neighbors do and taking her home safely, they kidnapped her, robbed her, and abandoned her on a dark two lane highway, exactly like DIRTBAGS do.
Not to mention that I see these same cops in the taverns, drinking and driving (off duty), and getting away with it. Dirtbags.
And no, I doubt that two full grown officers really need to body slam 85lb girls, and give them black eyes, bruises and torn ligaments. The father was just hoping to get a little show of support from a "respected" authority figure, that's all. Instead, he and his daughter got beat up. Anyway, he says he's totally cured from ever calling the police again for anything.
The thing is, I moved out of the city to get away from the crackheads, but in retrospect, I felt MUCH safer with them.
So yeah! Instead of acting like decent neighbors do and taking her home safely, they kidnapped her, robbed her, and abandoned her on a dark two lane highway, exactly like DIRTBAGS do.
Not to mention that I see these same cops in the taverns, drinking and driving (off duty), and getting away with it. Dirtbags.
And no, I doubt that two full grown officers really need to body slam 85lb girls, and give them black eyes, bruises and torn ligaments. The father was just hoping to get a little show of support from a "respected" authority figure, that's all. Instead, he and his daughter got beat up. Anyway, he says he's totally cured from ever calling the police again for anything.
The thing is, I moved out of the city to get away from the crackheads, but in retrospect, I felt MUCH safer with them.
TheeBadOne
Moderator
Well, she was aproximately 150 yards from our house when she was pulled over. They could've just taken her there.(and just how did she get there? Oh, that's right, she drove DRUNK all the way there! I guess you think people should only be arrested for DWI AFTER they kill someone....) Her headlights were still on auto-on when I checked the next day. He didn't write anything on the ticket indicating she was driving eradically (It wouldn't be on the "ticket", it would be on the "report".....
So yeah! Instead of acting like decent neighbors do and taking her home safely, they kidnapped her (arrested her), robbed her (she "robbed" herself, by deciding to post bail after DRIVING DRUNK and getting ARRESTED for DRUNK DRIVING), and abandoned her on a dark two lane highway (she walked out of the front door on her own two feet and decided to walk down the road....), exactly like DIRTBAGS do.
Not to mention that I see these same cops in the taverns, drinking and driving (off duty), and getting away with it. Dirtbags. (For God's sake, just come out and say, "I'd have gotten farther in life it people hadn't had it out for me!"
And no, I doubt that two full grown officers really need to body slam 85lb girls, and give them black eyes, bruises and torn ligaments. The father was just hoping to get a little show of support from a "respected" authority figure, that's all. Instead, he and his daughter got beat up. Anyway, he says he's totally cured from ever calling the police again for anything. (yeah, right.....)
The thing is, I moved out of the city to get away from the crackheads, but in retrospect, I felt MUCH safer with them. Go figure!!!
Sheeze!
"Getting hostile are we???"
Not at all, I just want some indication that you arent pulling your opinions out of your butt.
Tell me why M16s have no place in "community law enforcement". Because of incidents like Columbine? Granby? North Hollywood? Miami? Please, dazzle me with your brilliant insights into modern law enforcement operations. I wait, breathless in anticipation.......
Not at all, I just want some indication that you arent pulling your opinions out of your butt.
Tell me why M16s have no place in "community law enforcement". Because of incidents like Columbine? Granby? North Hollywood? Miami? Please, dazzle me with your brilliant insights into modern law enforcement operations. I wait, breathless in anticipation.......
TheeBadOne
Moderator
Active Shooter Response Training: A Modern Police Necessity
With the advent of Active Shooter training that has developed in response to incidents like the Columbine High School shootings, the law enforcement community has come full circle. In response to critical incidents that the "average" cop was once called on to handle, Special Weapons And Tactics (SWAT) teams were developed. Alongside that development, police doctrine and training changed so that the patrol officer wasn't required to handle hostage and barricade situations. "Surround and contain" became the patrol doctrine norm so that SWAT could be called out to work with negotiators in resolving the situation. With regard to incidents like the one at Columbine High School, the law enforcement community has had to evolve again to depend on patrol officers to take aggressive action to resolve deadly situations. Let's take a look at some of the incidents that spawned SWAT teams and then those that have mandated a more aggressive response from patrol officers.
August 1, 1966: In Austin, Texas Charles Whitman, posing as a maintenance worker, rolls a footlocker into the clock tower building on the campus of the University of Texas. Whitman's first victim (at the tower) was a maintenance worker that he murdered before taking up his position near the top of the tower. Trained to shoot by the United States Marine Corps and armed with a small arsenal which contained three rifles, a sawed off shotgun, two handguns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, Whitman had planned a long siege as displayed by his also carrying up a five-gallon container of water and some sandwiches.
Whitman's planning and execution actually started well before his arrival at the tower. He had murdered his mother by shooting her in the back of her head in her house and then he returned to his own residence where he stabbed his wife to death. At the clock tower Whitman showed no mercy as he killed fifteen people, including an unborn child, and wounded another thirty-one, some of which were as far as two blocks away. The incident was resolved by just two officers who entered the building via an underground passage and then climbed to Whitman's position. As they advanced on Whitman he turned and fired at the officers both of which returned fire - one with a handgun, the other with a shotgun - killing Whitman and ending his murderous spree.
The "Texas Tower" incident served as the catalyst that spurred many police departments to begin the development of special teams to deal with these critical "out of the ordinary" incidents. Within a few years, the Watts Riot in Los Angeles would cause the LAPD leadership to realize that they needed a specialized response to uniquely dangerous situations. By 1971, LAPD had officers assigned full time to the SWAT detail. Across the country, agencies with enough personnel were performing similar actions. In the late sixties and early seventies, the police departments had a pool of recently discharged Vietnam Veterans - combat tested troops - that would form the core of some of the most effective SWAT teams as they grew.
The need for SWAT was proven time and again. In 1984 in San Ysidro, California, James Huberty went into a McDonald's restaurant where he killed twenty-one people and injured eleven more. He was neutralized by a police sniper. In 1997 in North Hollywood, California, two suspects working together went on a robbery and shooting spree that wounded thirteen people. One of the suspects committed suicide while the SWAT team neutralized the other.
In April of 1999, two high school students went on a killing rampage in Littleton, Colorado at Columbine High School. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed thirteen people and injured another thirty-five. Using four guns and more than thirty homemade explosive devices, the two students walked the school shooting freely until they committed suicide together. At approximately 12:30, about an hour after they had started, the killers were dead and the SWAT teams outside still didn't even know how many shooters were involved. The patrol officers who had responded did exactly what they were trained to do: they surrounded the building and maintained a perimeter to wait for command authority and SWAT teams to arrive to handle the situation.
The Columbine High School incident, eventually to be called "the Pearl Harbor of Active Shooters" brought to the forefront the fact that police departments could no longer depend on the special skills, weapons and tactics of SWAT teams in resolving some incidents. The emotional and analytical aftermath of the Columbine High School killings has driven police departments across the nation to take a new approach: training patrol officers to specifically and efficiently deal with the Active Shooter scenario.
In the Columbine High School situation, and quite understandably so, some of the victims' parents were upset that the first responding patrol officers waited outside while the shooting continued inside. From the parents' point of view the police officers stood around in relative safety while the children were being killed and one teacher was bleeding to death. The truth was that those officers were doing exactly what they had been trained to do, and most probably exactly what their departmental policies dictated they do. No parent who has lost a child wants to hear about "training and policy". They want to know what the police are going to different; what is going to be changed to stop this from happening again?
The answer is new training and policy sweeping across the nation to deal with "Active Shooters". "Active Shooter" is defined as: Suspect(s) activity is immediately causing death and serious bodily injury. The activity is not contained and there is immediate risk of death or serious injury to potential victims. The Active Shooter scenario is dynamic, evolving very rapidly, and demands an immediate deployment of law enforcement resources to terminate the life threatening situation. "Immediate deployment" doesn't usually apply to SWAT teams unless they are on the scene as the situation unfolds. Immediate deployment is more likely going to involve the first officers on the scene taking aggressive action to find and neutralize the Active Shooter(s).
That is not to say that all Active Shooter situations have to be resolved by the first responding officers. An Active Shooter can decide at any point to take a few hostages and "hole up" to try and negotiate for freedom or even simple survival. Once this transition to a static barricaded situation occurs, then a perimeter can be set up and SWAT deployment awaited. This is exactly what happened in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania in March of 2000. Ronald Taylor began as an Active Shooter in a restaurant, killing three and wounding three more, before he barricaded himself with five hostages in a senior center. At that point the situation became a static hostage situation and it was appropriate for the police on scene to secure a perimeter and let the negotiators and SWAT teams resolve the situation.
So, prior to 1966 and the basic birth of the SWAT concept, all situations were handled by whichever officers got there first and could formulate/execute a plan to deal with the incident. After the era of SWAT began, patrol officers weren't required to be as aggressive and to assume such immediate risks as pursuing armed active gunmen into whatever environment they'd chosen to hunt that day. Almost forty years later we've reached a point where we now have to teach the "average" patrol officer that aggressive high-risk find-and-neutralize mission again. Not taking anything away from the value of SWAT, we've recognized that to wait for their deployment amounts to negligence in some circumstances.
Active Shooter programs have cropped up all over the country. They are being taught to agencies with as few as five members, and by agencies whose sworn members number in the thousands. Commercial training entities offer Active Shooter Instructor programs and they probably can't schedule them often enough. What is making the demand so high for this training? The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. When foreign terrorists declared war on our country and killed thousands of our citizens, a new ugly reality slapped America in the face: there are people in the world willing to come to our shores and kill innocent citizens for reasons we will never understand or comprehend. Who are the most innocent? Our children.
As first responders to virtually every violent 911 call, our patrol officers might very well find themselves facing an Active Shooter who is a foreign terrorist armed with several weapons and more than willing to die for his/her cause. As those responsible to "protect and serve", the first responders won't be able to set up a perimeter and wait for the SWAT teams to arrive and resolve the situation. The first responders will have to aggressively close on the Active Shooter and neutralize him/her by arrest or termination.
While Columbine High School brought the need for Active Shooter training and policies to the forefront of the country's consciousness, we have to recognize that the Active Shooter scenario can occur in any public place: malls, parks, business offices, schools, restaurants, etc. All of these places, where great numbers of people congregate, are targets for the Active Shooter: with that many people walking around, the Active Shooter has plenty to shoot at. Once he starts he's not likely to stop until he is forced to cease by actions of the first responding police officers.
With the advent of Active Shooter training that has developed in response to incidents like the Columbine High School shootings, the law enforcement community has come full circle. In response to critical incidents that the "average" cop was once called on to handle, Special Weapons And Tactics (SWAT) teams were developed. Alongside that development, police doctrine and training changed so that the patrol officer wasn't required to handle hostage and barricade situations. "Surround and contain" became the patrol doctrine norm so that SWAT could be called out to work with negotiators in resolving the situation. With regard to incidents like the one at Columbine High School, the law enforcement community has had to evolve again to depend on patrol officers to take aggressive action to resolve deadly situations. Let's take a look at some of the incidents that spawned SWAT teams and then those that have mandated a more aggressive response from patrol officers.
August 1, 1966: In Austin, Texas Charles Whitman, posing as a maintenance worker, rolls a footlocker into the clock tower building on the campus of the University of Texas. Whitman's first victim (at the tower) was a maintenance worker that he murdered before taking up his position near the top of the tower. Trained to shoot by the United States Marine Corps and armed with a small arsenal which contained three rifles, a sawed off shotgun, two handguns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, Whitman had planned a long siege as displayed by his also carrying up a five-gallon container of water and some sandwiches.
Whitman's planning and execution actually started well before his arrival at the tower. He had murdered his mother by shooting her in the back of her head in her house and then he returned to his own residence where he stabbed his wife to death. At the clock tower Whitman showed no mercy as he killed fifteen people, including an unborn child, and wounded another thirty-one, some of which were as far as two blocks away. The incident was resolved by just two officers who entered the building via an underground passage and then climbed to Whitman's position. As they advanced on Whitman he turned and fired at the officers both of which returned fire - one with a handgun, the other with a shotgun - killing Whitman and ending his murderous spree.
The "Texas Tower" incident served as the catalyst that spurred many police departments to begin the development of special teams to deal with these critical "out of the ordinary" incidents. Within a few years, the Watts Riot in Los Angeles would cause the LAPD leadership to realize that they needed a specialized response to uniquely dangerous situations. By 1971, LAPD had officers assigned full time to the SWAT detail. Across the country, agencies with enough personnel were performing similar actions. In the late sixties and early seventies, the police departments had a pool of recently discharged Vietnam Veterans - combat tested troops - that would form the core of some of the most effective SWAT teams as they grew.
The need for SWAT was proven time and again. In 1984 in San Ysidro, California, James Huberty went into a McDonald's restaurant where he killed twenty-one people and injured eleven more. He was neutralized by a police sniper. In 1997 in North Hollywood, California, two suspects working together went on a robbery and shooting spree that wounded thirteen people. One of the suspects committed suicide while the SWAT team neutralized the other.
In April of 1999, two high school students went on a killing rampage in Littleton, Colorado at Columbine High School. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed thirteen people and injured another thirty-five. Using four guns and more than thirty homemade explosive devices, the two students walked the school shooting freely until they committed suicide together. At approximately 12:30, about an hour after they had started, the killers were dead and the SWAT teams outside still didn't even know how many shooters were involved. The patrol officers who had responded did exactly what they were trained to do: they surrounded the building and maintained a perimeter to wait for command authority and SWAT teams to arrive to handle the situation.
The Columbine High School incident, eventually to be called "the Pearl Harbor of Active Shooters" brought to the forefront the fact that police departments could no longer depend on the special skills, weapons and tactics of SWAT teams in resolving some incidents. The emotional and analytical aftermath of the Columbine High School killings has driven police departments across the nation to take a new approach: training patrol officers to specifically and efficiently deal with the Active Shooter scenario.
In the Columbine High School situation, and quite understandably so, some of the victims' parents were upset that the first responding patrol officers waited outside while the shooting continued inside. From the parents' point of view the police officers stood around in relative safety while the children were being killed and one teacher was bleeding to death. The truth was that those officers were doing exactly what they had been trained to do, and most probably exactly what their departmental policies dictated they do. No parent who has lost a child wants to hear about "training and policy". They want to know what the police are going to different; what is going to be changed to stop this from happening again?
The answer is new training and policy sweeping across the nation to deal with "Active Shooters". "Active Shooter" is defined as: Suspect(s) activity is immediately causing death and serious bodily injury. The activity is not contained and there is immediate risk of death or serious injury to potential victims. The Active Shooter scenario is dynamic, evolving very rapidly, and demands an immediate deployment of law enforcement resources to terminate the life threatening situation. "Immediate deployment" doesn't usually apply to SWAT teams unless they are on the scene as the situation unfolds. Immediate deployment is more likely going to involve the first officers on the scene taking aggressive action to find and neutralize the Active Shooter(s).
That is not to say that all Active Shooter situations have to be resolved by the first responding officers. An Active Shooter can decide at any point to take a few hostages and "hole up" to try and negotiate for freedom or even simple survival. Once this transition to a static barricaded situation occurs, then a perimeter can be set up and SWAT deployment awaited. This is exactly what happened in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania in March of 2000. Ronald Taylor began as an Active Shooter in a restaurant, killing three and wounding three more, before he barricaded himself with five hostages in a senior center. At that point the situation became a static hostage situation and it was appropriate for the police on scene to secure a perimeter and let the negotiators and SWAT teams resolve the situation.
So, prior to 1966 and the basic birth of the SWAT concept, all situations were handled by whichever officers got there first and could formulate/execute a plan to deal with the incident. After the era of SWAT began, patrol officers weren't required to be as aggressive and to assume such immediate risks as pursuing armed active gunmen into whatever environment they'd chosen to hunt that day. Almost forty years later we've reached a point where we now have to teach the "average" patrol officer that aggressive high-risk find-and-neutralize mission again. Not taking anything away from the value of SWAT, we've recognized that to wait for their deployment amounts to negligence in some circumstances.
Active Shooter programs have cropped up all over the country. They are being taught to agencies with as few as five members, and by agencies whose sworn members number in the thousands. Commercial training entities offer Active Shooter Instructor programs and they probably can't schedule them often enough. What is making the demand so high for this training? The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. When foreign terrorists declared war on our country and killed thousands of our citizens, a new ugly reality slapped America in the face: there are people in the world willing to come to our shores and kill innocent citizens for reasons we will never understand or comprehend. Who are the most innocent? Our children.
As first responders to virtually every violent 911 call, our patrol officers might very well find themselves facing an Active Shooter who is a foreign terrorist armed with several weapons and more than willing to die for his/her cause. As those responsible to "protect and serve", the first responders won't be able to set up a perimeter and wait for the SWAT teams to arrive and resolve the situation. The first responders will have to aggressively close on the Active Shooter and neutralize him/her by arrest or termination.
While Columbine High School brought the need for Active Shooter training and policies to the forefront of the country's consciousness, we have to recognize that the Active Shooter scenario can occur in any public place: malls, parks, business offices, schools, restaurants, etc. All of these places, where great numbers of people congregate, are targets for the Active Shooter: with that many people walking around, the Active Shooter has plenty to shoot at. Once he starts he's not likely to stop until he is forced to cease by actions of the first responding police officers.
TheeBadOne
Moderator
For these very reasons, all patrol officers should be receiving Active Shooter Resolution training even in the entrance level police-training curriculum. The training will be applicable to shooting situations such as the one at Columbine and in the event of terrorist attacks that take on this mode of operation. Further, as they play a role in Homeland Security, members of the National Guard and Coast Guard should also be receiving this Active Shooter training. While it's similar to the "shoot and move" concepts taught in basic training to most soldiers, the mindset one must have is entirely different when you consider having to take these actions in public places on our own soil - places you've often visited and always considered relatively safe. It's one thing to be taught to act this way during a war or foreign peacekeeping mission: it's entirely different to think about doing it at your local mall.
So, as was said at the beginning, the law enforcement community has come full circle. The critical skills and special weapons of SWAT teams were developed to address unique challenges and they play a vital roll in crime fighting today. Now, with events such as the Columbine High School shootings and the terrorist attacks of Nine-Eleven part of our history, the police officers who patrol our streets are having to take on a new attitude and be willing to assume even greater risk to protect our citizens, our public places and our homeland.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So, as was said at the beginning, the law enforcement community has come full circle. The critical skills and special weapons of SWAT teams were developed to address unique challenges and they play a vital roll in crime fighting today. Now, with events such as the Columbine High School shootings and the terrorist attacks of Nine-Eleven part of our history, the police officers who patrol our streets are having to take on a new attitude and be willing to assume even greater risk to protect our citizens, our public places and our homeland.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Status