Among other things, regular readers here know that (A) I don’t usually host guest blogs and (B) as sort of the “resident cop” in the Backwoods Home writers’ stable, I frequently visit criminal justice topics in the news as related to guns and use of force.
One of our regular commentators here – “Dave, the liberal non-uncle one” – offered the following and rather than have it run as a thread veer, I thought I’d let it stand on its own as a guest blog. I have some disagreements with it, but I’m really interested in what you reading it have to say. The following are Dave’s words, not mine:
I asked Mas if it was all right to post this as an off-topic comment to one of his blog posts and he instead graciously suggested that he post it as a guest column.
Mas has argued several times in his BHM articles, most notably in the “Understanding a misunderstanding” section of this article that police chiefs and other police administrators often support gun control because, “In the great majority of communities, municipal police chiefs are appointed by the mayor, the city manager, or the city council. If those political entities are anti-gun, you may be sure that they will either appoint an anti-gun candidate, or make it clear to the appointee that he will speak the lines he is given or he will no longer be Chief.” On the other hand, says Mas, county sheriffs are elected and are more likely to be more pro-gun.
We are recently seeing a trend in relation to the Black Lives Matter issue for employers of law enforcement officers and prosecutors (who are usually also elected) to quickly take actions against officers who have shot Black people, especially unarmed young males. It happened in the Tensing/DuBose matter in Cincinnati and in the Miller/Taylor matter in Arlington, Texas. Though not a shooting, it also happened in the Various Officers/Gray case in Baltimore.
I’ve predicted in comments here that the issues raised by the Black Lives Matter campaign aren’t going to go away and that if law enforcement officers refuse to engage in dialog and procedural revisions that they’re going to find those revisions imposed upon them. This trend toward quick action against officers could be just that, and it could be worse than what I predicted. The political will to give officers the benefit of the doubt appears to be fading.
Instead of working towards a new set of rules of engagement, the trend may be to just second guess or Monday morning quarterback those police-involved Black deaths which cannot be absolutely and unquestionably identified on the very first and most superficial examination to be a justifiable homicide. In the recent Tyrone Harris shooting in Ferguson, there are even questions being raised in the face of claims and video showing that Harris had a gun and shot at officers first.
(An aside: Traditionally legal analysis of whether or not a shooting was justified as self-defense or under other justifiable-homicide laws tends to focus on the events immediately prior to the shooting. The Black Lives Matter movement, however, wants to expand the analysis far beyond that to issues such as whether police action was “really” needed in the first place, the seriousness of an action causing a need for police action, whether confrontation could have been avoided, and the like, and then adjudging whether the death was justifiable in light of the entire circumstances, not those just immediately prior to the confrontation. For example, in both the Sandra Bland and Sam DuBose matters the question is being raised whether the deaths were justifiable because the reasons that they were stopped did not justify what happened after, thus saying in effect that they should have both been written tickets and allowed to go on their way without the interaction which led to the officers wanting them to get out of their vehicles. That analysis, supported by continued protests and public complaints, is one of the things which is gaining political weight.)
That’s a reversal of what generally happened in the past where the officer was almost always given the benefit of the doubt unless the facts clearly showed him or her to be in the wrong (which is itself a practice to which the Black Lives Matter campaign objects). If the trend continues, then every officer involved in the death or injury of a Black person had better be prepared to hire a lawyer as soon as he or she can get to a phone, had better be prepared not to file a report or make any statements without that lawyer present, and had best be prepared to be fired because he or she will not do those things. In short, killing a Black person, or perhaps any mentally disturbed person or person of color, may except in the clearest of circumstances become a career-ender for many, many cops regardless of the eventual determination of whether or not it was legally justified.
There will doubtless be counter-suits by fired officers and protests by police unions, but whether to act quickly to fire cops will likely be judged on a cost basis for the employers of LEOs: What’s the financial and political cost of fighting with one officer’s lawyers or dealing with some labor problems versus the cost of an outraged Black community and even widespread protests or riots? Which one hurts the worst and is the hardest to make go away, especially since each new shooting or injury simply fans the protests to a new, higher level and since the Black Lives Matter issues are not going to go away. If police chiefs are political animals as Mas suggests, the political will may be turning.
———————
I wrote the foregoing a couple of weeks ago after reading about the Miller/Taylor matter and was waiting to post it as a comment here until I could do so at a time that it was not too off-topic. Since that time, a new report “Re-Engineering Training On Police Use of Force” has been issued by the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF), “an independent research organization that focuses on critical issues in policing” whose membership and board of directors is made up of executives, mainly chiefs of police, from law enforcement organizations around the country. What that report says led me to contact Mas to get his consent to post this sooner than I had intended.
That report says that police training and emphasis on de-escalation of confrontations is woefully inadequate. It comes to that conclusion in part because “the rioting last summer in Ferguson was not a story that would fade away quickly” (pg. 3) and “in the immediate aftermath of the demonstrations in Ferguson, there has been a fundamental change in how the American people view the issue of police use of force. A year later, this upheaval in policing is continuing, and it is unlikely to abate any time soon. … here’s why: Over the past year, the nation has seen, with their own eyes, video recordings of a number of incidents that simply do not look right to them. In many of these cases, the officers use of force has already been deemed ‘justified,’ and prosecutors have declined to press criminal charges. But that does not mean that the uses of force are considered justified by many people in the community.” (pg. 9)
It goes on to say, “there is a growing recognition in the policing profession that a review of an officer’s use of force should not focus solely on the moment that the officer fired a gun or otherwise used force. Instead, leading police chiefs are saying that the review should cover what led up to the incident, and officers should be held accountable if they failed to de-escalate the situation in order to prevent it from ever reaching the point where the use of force was necessary. And that is the type of analysis that community members make when they watch a video of a police shooting and wonder, ‘Why did all those officers have to shoot that homeless man? Just because he was holding a knife? All those officers were there, they had him surrounded. Why couldn’t they Tase him, or pepper-spray him, or just wait him out? They didn’t have to kill him.’ Police chiefs increasingly are recognizing this perspective, and are making a distinction between ‘could’ and ‘should’ when it comes to evaluating officers’ use of force. While a use of force might be legal, that is not the end of the discussion if there were less drastic options available.” (pg. 9).
In short, a professional association of chiefs of police is basically confirming and recommending what I had written a couple of weeks ago and, indirectly, what I wrote here long ago: that the real issue in the Black Lives Matter issue is ultimately going to be whether deadly confrontation could have been avoided, not just who was legally right after that confrontation occurred. If the report by PERF accurately characterizes public sentiment and the direction that law enforcement administration is heading, then law enforcement officers are either going to have to change or put their jobs in danger.
Just to wrap up, here’s some conventional thinking which is questioned by that report:
– Officers thinking solely about their own safety, rather than a broader approach designed to protect everyone’s lives.
– “Never back down. Move in and take charge.”
– Resolve dangerous situations as quickly as possible by whatever means legally available.
– Rigid or mechanical use-of-force continuums.
– The 21-foot rule being seen as “a green light to use deadly force”.
– The right of officers to have their need to make split-second judgments in tense and uncertain situations factored into whether a use of deadly force was legally reasonable should also be the ending point on whether their use of force was professionally reasonable.
– Officers thinking of themselves as warriors rather than guardians.
And here’s a few of the training ideas from the report:
– Emphasize training in de-escalation at a greater level than combat techniques.
– Utilize a decision making process which emphasizes gathering information, threat assessment, strategizing, identification of legal and policy requirements, and identification of options before taking action and then re-assessment of all those issues as events develop; train this until it becomes second nature and can be done in an instant.
– Considering objects which can be used as cover while creating and maintaining distance and time.
– Standing back to assess situations and allow communication, rather than immediately rushing in.
– Communicating and engaging with suspects, rather than just issuing orders.
– Realization that containment does not necessarily mean in restraint and that an officer can back up and still have someone contained.
– In after-action investigations always consider whether the officer’s actions created the exigency.
– Strongly emphasize the sanctity of all human life.
– Put very strict limits on foot pursuits and shooting at vehicles.
– Give special training for dealing with mentally disturbed individuals and individuals attempting suicide-by-cop.
The foregoing is a summary of some of the problems and responses highlighted by the report. Before reacting strongly to any of them, I’d strongly recommend actually reading the report, especially the interviews with two law enforcement officials from Great Britain where these techniques have been successfully in use for some time.
I’m so sick and tired of this whole Black Lives Matter. So far they have done nothing but get behind a few criminals that they have made the poster children for the cause.
This year there have been a record number of LEO’s killed in the line of duty and the year isn’t over yet. Even white and black officers that have been murdered by black perps get no mention or sympathy from the black “talking heads” Obama, Sharpton and Jackson yet these fools can’t wait to get behind a black criminal that is killed while committing a crime.
So Police are vilified, charged with crimes and or fired for doing their jobs and cities are paying out record amounts of money due to lawsuits filed by the criminals families who probably didn’t give a damn about him until he was killed in a confrontation with Police. He’s worth something now and by God somebodies gonna pay.
Who the hell would want to do this job anymore? The department brass are throwing these Officers under the bus before the facts are even in, all do to political pressure. No enforcement of the law creates anarchy and so many of these inner city areas where crime is out of control now will continue to get worse. Why should Officers even bother? Why put their lives on the line? Their damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
Here’s a thought. How about obeying the law? Not committing crimes and quit complaining about how black lives matter.
ALL LIVES MATTER !!!
Amen, Linda: ALL lives matter. BLM is divisive talk rooted in lies about policing designed to inflame. The flip side is that policing in big urban centers is in need of adjustments, but it’s not the ’60s anymore and what’s going on (officers afraid of not making it to the end of their shift) is precisely the fault of liberal reforms and inadequate selection and training. We seriously common sense to make a comeback because everyday’s headlines read like a Kafka novel excerpts.
I did consider police work myself, but was well aware of how precarious those careers are and thought better of it. I’m in private security instead (making more money with less risk) and still get a feel for what officers face daily (I also work for a retired one and frequently interact with local cops). Just the other day when confronting a black couple suspiciously walking on a high-end residential street, entering driveways and peering through gates, the “BLM” line was immediately thrown in my face and, as my partner came to back me up, the male expressed fear for his life (lol). This BLM BS is just more ammo handed to the low-lives in order to keep people doing a difficult and thankless job at bay.
While it is being said that Police Chiefs and Prosecutors are throwing officers under the bus in cases of the killing of unarmed suspects, it appears that to me that Grand Juries still have the officer’s backs.
Des Moine Grand Jury fails to indict female officer that shot an unarmed man through her closed cruiser window. He had been stopped for acting erratically and was shot as he walked toward the officer’s side window. Police say he was “walking with a purpose”. This officer wasn’t alone, there was another officer at the scene.
Admittedly, I don’t know all of the evidence, nor do I know the vigorousness of the prosecutor’s presentation. I believe this case should have should have gone to the ” light of day” of a jury trial where advocates for both sides would have had the opportunity to make their case as to the reasonableness of this officers decision to use lethal force at that point in time. Obviously, this GJ disagrees with me.
“Des Moines” “officers’ “, very embarrassing.
Politicians and activists need to stop whipping up anger and fear to mobilize voters. Not just over the actions of the police either, all aspects of race and class in America have been factionalized to the point that there can be no constructive discussion and no progress.
The spin machine doesn’t care one bit about truth or justice or how many innocent people die, just how much political power they can harness for themselves.
For the record, I just want to say that I am glad Liberal Dave wrote his article. I believe he is a well-intentioned, talented guy, who has a different worldview than my own. That is OK in America.
Steve Ramsey had a link to a police shootout, after he mentioned that America is not like the UK. That youtube video led me to other police shootout videos, and I learned a great deal. I have always heard that shootouts are fast, but in the video they happened even faster than I had imagined. Most of the time it seems these officers are ambushed, then the gunfire is very fast after that. No wonder everyone wants hi-capacity (or “normal” capacity) semi-autos.
Liberal Dave had a link to the song “Gee, Officer Krupke” from West Side Story. The song was excellent, and the clear lyrics were even better. Who would have thought the liberal mindset about human nature could have been expressed so clearly in a song?
I really enjoyed where TN_MAN taught us about the three approaches to understanding human nature. That was excellent. I just want to point out briefly that, over two thousand years ago, the prophet Jeremiah took a negative view of human nature. From the book of Jeremiah in the KJV, chapter 17, verse 9, he wrote, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked….” Sounds like Jeremiah was a conservative.
I believe, this can be summed up with one Hollywood quote.
” What we have here, is a complete lack of respect for the law.”
I believe that most everyone is missing the most important point of today’s troubles.
LEO vs. Peace Officer.
When police are required to involve themselves into everyone’s business by enforcing all the mala prohibita laws (victimless crimes) passed by the fools and tyrants who create them, such as drug prohibitions, selling untaxed cigarettes, prostitution, carrying a weapon without permission etc, they have indeed become tyrannical and a threat to freedom. They are Law Enforcement Officers. Even if the law is wrong or unconstitutional, they will enforce it.
If police were ONLY concerned with laws where there was a victim (mala in se) such as murder, rape robbery, assault, etc., then they would indeed be Peace Officers and would return to the status of hero in the eyes of the public, excepting those rare cases of abuse of course, which will happen in any demographic group.
It’s not about race or even in most cases reaction. It’s about what we are asking them to enforce. Eliminate victimless crimes and restore the “Rule of Law” and stop the senseless and unconstitutional “law of rules”.
“Black Lives Matter,” as being exploited, is too much of a stalking horse for a policy of social destabilization. Clearly there is far more funding and questionable intent behind it than obtained for the notorious “Target Blue” assassination-of-police campaign in the U.S. back in the 1970’s that the Algerian Boumedienne waged via paid assassins, largely with diverted support funds from American leftist sympathizers.
Social harmony and cooperation begin with respect based on law and order, not with passive-aggressive insistence on being treated with special tolerance because you feel somehow persecuted. We need to demand rule of law in this country from the top down, under the Constitution of the world’s greatest nation, and get busy throwing our many bums out of office, before the next election, if a lot of us have our way. And Mark Twain was right: the media is more fearsome through its destruction of personal honor than any other enemy could be.
Two reforms whose time has come: mandatory body cams and elected police review commissions.
With body cams must come presumption laws, laws that make a missing video be presumed to favor the citizen’s position in any litigation.
With elected commissions must come the authority to independently discipline or terminate officers for misconduct. Police must no longer be allowed to investigate themselves.
My $0.02.
Thanks again to those who have commented, with a special shout-out to Old Fezzywig and TXCOMT for their nice words and to TN_MAN for his courteous and thorough explanation of his position (with which, unsurprisingly, I don’t much agree, but it’s too off topic — and would be far too long — to dig further into here).
Of all the general comments, the ones I think I’d like to address most are those which take the position that the Black Lives Matter campaign should be disregarded because of a panoply of reasons:
– because all lives matter,
– because the police should be supported,
– because BLM is supported by white liberals,
– because BLM is a leftist or communist plot,
– because it is a temper tantrum,
– because it is a phony movement intended to foment racial division, blame local police departments, and federalize police power,
– because it’s part of a slow-moving cancer to rot American society for the left,
– because it’s divisive talk rooted in lies about policing designed to inflame,
– because it is a stalking horse for a policy of social destabilization,
– because it supports criminals instead of the police.
(Sorry, I kind of let that list get away with me because I thought the reasons were pretty interesting when lined up against one another, but back to my point.) The entire point of my posting was that regardless of what you may think of BLM, it would appear that some of the issues which it raises are gaining traction in very high places, and some of them being places which are not ordinarily thought of — though Mas makes the case that they may be more liberal than they appear — as being particularly liberal.
Moreover (and this should not be taken as me implying that I do not believe that BLM is raising some real issues about police and society), whether the facts are behind BLM or not the perception of a very large segment of the population is that there is a problem: According to a Pew Research poll, in March, 2014, just before the Ferguson incident, a poll said that 49% of the population though that all had been done that needed to be done to alleviate racism and 46% felt the opposite; in July of 2015 a year after Ferguson, those positions had not only reversed but broadly separated: 59% thought more needed to be done and only 32% though enough had been done already. Perhaps more significantly, among Whites-only there had also been a reversal and separation, but arguably even more significant: Before 57% thought enough had been done and 39% more needed to be done but now 53% thinks more needs to be done and only 40% thinks enough has been done. Link to poll: http://tinyurl.com/nlntqw7
In a Associated Press-University of Chicago NORC Center for Public Affairs poll conducted about that same time about 67% of the people interviewed (which was a little heavy on the proportionate number of Blacks, but see below) said that police violence against members of the public was an extremely, very, or moderately serious problem and only 33% said it was not serious or only slightly serious; among Whites 58% said it was extremely, very, or moderately serious. Link to poll: http://tinyurl.com/oms8qjz
In both polls if you looked at the Black-only numbers, they were staggeringly higher.
That suggests that my analysis, backed up by the PERF report (which is not, let me note, limited to police vs. Blacks, but takes the position, in effect, that police are in many cases unnecessarily confrontational in general) is being reflected in public opinion. In light of that the foregoing list of reasons to dismiss BLM is, frankly, close to being meaningless when viewed as a practical matter. And that was my point in writing this piece. Not that those reasons are meaningless, but that BLM may have already won the day.
The riots and protests have nothing to do with community outrage over police misconduct; they are simply an opportunity to loot, and to grab some free stuff. The “protesters” would not cross the street to spit on Michael Brown (or Freddie Gray, Rodney King, Newell “Snake” Johnson, or Eric Garner) if he were on fire. And the parents of the thugs never showed any interest in their children when they were alive. Then, when the kid is (justifiably) shot by a cop, the parents shed crocodile tears and file a shakedown lawsuit against the city (another way to grab some free stuff).
Body cams and dashboard-mounted cameras are no help, even assuming the public gets to see footage uncensored. (Which we wouldn’t; in the infamous “Rodney King video,” for example, the media repeatedly showed the cop hitting King, but edited out the earlier part, where King was attacking a cop.) Most people have no training or experience in the use of force, and would be very uncomfortable watching even a justified shooting (or arm-twisting, or choke hold, or whatever). After any use-of-force incident, you always hear old women grumbling, “I don’t care if that boy was lunging at that policeman with a knife, nothing could ever justify breaking his arm with a billy club.” (Uh…actually, the cop would have been justified in shooting his attacker in that case.)
And, of course, the professional activists are uninterested in looking at circumstances, case by case. The most justified shooting can easily be distorted to make the aggressor look like the victim, and vice versa, to promote The Agenda. The activists don’t want truth or justice, they want a controversial issue to justify their sinecures.
The fact is, there is nothing the police can do about it, short of simply quitting their jobs. The reckless driver doesn’t like getting a ticket any more than the crack dealer likes getting arrested, and both will have a negative attitude about cops.
And the calls for more touchy-feely sensitivity training are looking at the problem from the wrong direction. Always what the cop or armed citizen should have done differently. Wilson should have maintained a distance from Brown, Zimmerman should not have gotten out of the truck, etc. Hoe about: Martin should not have been trespassing in people’s yards, Brown shouldn’t have robbed the convenience store.
It’s like that story that Abraham Lincoln told. A farmer was attacked by a vicious dog, and stabbed it to death with a pitchfork. The dog’s owner angrily asked why the farmer didn’t fend the dog off with the other end. The reply: “Well, why didn’t your dog attack me with HIS other end?”
I recommend Peggy Hubbard’s video, which has gone viral on Youtube.
Northern Exposure: body cams may not be all bad, but they bring a lot of baggage with them, including the possibility of inserting deceptive CGI, encouraging acting out (beware of the ham impulse), giving a false impression of a comprehensive view, requiring the presence of blinding bright light on a SUSPECT (every John and Jane Q. Public these days) in order to provide a clearer view of the scene, etc. I hate the whole Big Brother concept. Ultimately nobody really watches the watchers, who need watching the most, because they are potentially the most dangerous, especially when they control editing.
Mas, can we now address the Virginia TV shootings? Specifically, do you see the antis gaining any traction this time around?
TXCOMT
To Dave (The liberal non-uncle one):
“Not that those reasons are meaningless, but that BLM may have already won the day.”
In my judgment, it is too early to make such a pronouncement. The BLM movement has a lot of attention at the moment because of (a) the unrest caused by recent incidents, (b) a news media that is sympathetic to the cause due to left-wing bias and (c) a left-wing administration that is also sympathetic to the cause.
However, none of these favorable conditions may last. The unrest may eventually die down. The news media will retain its left-wing bias but it has a short attention span and will soon turn elsewhere for material especially if the unrest fades. With an upcoming election, the current administration will be gone although it is possible that it will be replaced by yet another left-wing version. Even so, each administration has it own causes to promote and seldom enjoys carry the torch for a previous one.
Some left-wing movements have staying power (communism, the gun control movement, etc.). Others are merely a “flash in the pan”.
It is too early too know about the BLM movement. I certainly do not accept your view that it is inevitable.
Black lives matter has a fatal flaw. They are not interested in compliance with the law because their community is committing enormous amounts of crime and they are more concerned with what happens to those people who are criminals merely because they share the same skin color. They have given up on holding their community to the same standards of lawfulness and civility as the rest of america and basically said we are incapable of NOT committing crimes so the responsibility is now on the govt to not enforce the laws and ensure that their fellow blacks are not hurt or held responsible even when they are violent or clearly in the wrong. It is an orwellian concept that the law enforcer is somehow to blame for when the criminal ignores civilization, does violence, breaks the law and gets injured in the process that the criminal has been unjustly deprived of some “right”. This kind of thinking can only be defeated when people denounce it over and over and not wring their hands because the shouters are minority.
Gerry Parlato Says: August 26th, 2015:
There are 67 elected county sheriffs in my state. All 67 are pro-second amendment. There are hundreds of appointed police chiefs. The vast majority are anti-second amendment. Politics has no business being involved in law enforcement.
So you want to get rid of the elected sheriffs, since all of them are politicians? I don’t actually think that’s what you meant, since you mentioned their 2nd Amendment views, and readers of this site normally favor RTKBA.
But departments run by elected sheriffs are notoriously infested with political influence – in hiring and firing, in contracting, in tweaking enforcement to accommodate campaign donors and other rich people, and in official reactions to controversial incidents.
Such problems also infect departments with appointed chiefs, but not as immediately – unless the overlaying political entity is rotten. Abuse incidents can often be traced to bad hires.
Another issue is institutional politics. “Jack Dunphy” has noted that very few of the LAPD brass came up through Patrol; they shifted to specialist units and staff positions early in career. Such insiders tend to be more interested in avoiding trouble than with supporting their officers.
In any case, politics is inevitably intertwined with law enforcement. The laws to be enforced are made through a political process. Law enforcement is a function of government, and must be answerable to the people. That too is necessarily a political process.
The answer is a hard one – work in politics to get better elected officials: those anti-2A Chiefs were appointed by anti-2A mayors. Also, keep operations separate from the actual election process.
@tc: That Peggy Hubbard speech was amazing. Passed it on. How can they, the hypocrites in the movement, seriously claim that black lives matter when they don’t believe it themselves? Good question and it points to the manipulation of white guilt that it really is.
I’m mid ’60s, gray hair and bald. If all of the street gangs in my neighborhood were made up of elderly old farts like me, every time a cop pulled me over and frisked me for weapons I would say “Good!”. I’d also be glad to be frisked at the airport if elderly people were constantly threatening and attempting to sabotage planes. What’s the matter with everybody? Don’t they want to live?
You hear a lot of commentary about the number of tickets Ferguson wrote, as well as the number of warrants outstanding. The St. Louis area is composed of a number of towns, all shoulder to shoulder. When commuters go through the various towns, they quite often disregard that town’s speed limits and safety. Hey, they are in a hurry to get to work or home. The towns may ignore the commuters and work the crashes, or write the tickets, harvest the income and have many fewer crashes to work. Some of the little towns are up front about this, with signs saying the traffic ordinances are strictly enforced. Win-win. The town gets the income from the scofflaws and reckless and their citizenry and police get to deal with a much lower crash casualty rate. Except a lot of scofflaws and reckless don’t bother to pay tickets or show up for court; thus the warrants. I suspect this is more likely than driving the poor man down, and putting the pressure on him to explode. Can’t say for sure since I drove up from the Southwest rather than down from the North-Northwest. And then too, I was just visiting.
Also policing has changed for the better, the police have never been nicer, less corrupt, better trained, more law-abiding than they are now. This changed in our area in the mid-eighties. Before, they could and, in certain cities would, beat a person to death, or close to it. That is not to say many were not professional and good officers. It is just to say in quite a few places they could chose to be otherwise and did so with impunity, depending on the city and what it wanted.
Now, they are watched more closely and incidents are cherry-picked and highly publicized to discredit them. They are being attacked now just as in the seventies by the media because they responded in a recent survey as being for the Second Amendment (That angered the marxists.), and to muddy the waters for an increasingly corrupt government that desires to take policing away from local control.
Another thing that has changed policing. In our part of the world, towns have grown from a population of 750 in 1986 to 450,000 in 2014. This growth came from everywhere; with all sorts of cultures and ideas. This has created many interesting situations for Peace Officers, which is what they are still called here. They deal with many more unknown and volatile situations under a spotlight with a much higher frequency than the old timers dreamed of, and with a lot less power.
By the way, SWAT teams came about because of plantiff’s lawyers, rather than a desire by cities in many cases. They wear BDU”s because they are cheap and more practical than regular uniforms for low crawling and climbing.
Yes let’s put even more stress and requirement on an officer who is trying to do his job. Not to mention who is going to pay for or pass the budget that includes all this special training.
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