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Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?

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Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?

#131

Post by Fomite »

nostromo wrote: post #80

Crime is at an all-time low yet spending on police is near an all-time high. (Those factors could have a causal relationship, but I doubt it's the primary cause based on reading "The Better Angels of Our Nature".) http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1950_2010... Having big budgets but less crime means these swollen budgets end up being wasted on a lot of "fun" things like military gear. (Did you know t…

"Today in the US, if you call 911 about an emergency medical condition, they will often send a fire engine along with an ambulance and a cop. It makes me wonder if firemen and firewomen are so underutilized they've ended up with mostly make-work."

One of the reasons for this is also that fire stations are often far closer to the scene of a call (fire suppression being something that benefits from being distributed vs. centralized hospitals) so the fire truck will often arrive there first, and can render aid until the ambulance arrives.

Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?

#132

Post by thenomad »

blhack wrote: post #81
enko wrote: post #75

You can't make this shit up. > Police in North Dakota borrowed a $154 million MQ-9 Predator B drone from the Department of Homeland Security to arrest a family of anti-government separatists who refused to return six cows that wandered onto their farm.

That's really misleading. There is a base in Grand Forks, ND that houses several CBP (Customs and Border Patrol) Predator Drones, and they work with local law enforcement when asked to. So, more than likely, the drone is going to be flying home here anyway, and made a pass over some property. The facility where these things are flown from isn't some top secret bunker or anything, it's an office building on the air fo…

Thanks - really interesting and reassuring comment! Much appreciated.

Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?

#133

Post by kps »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #50

Somewhat tangential: There has long been a tie-in between the military and the police. Former military members make an easier transition to the police, and a lot of policemen have a strong weekend-warrior, macho mentality and like big guns and things that go boom. Plus the rank system is similar, there's use of deadly force, and so on. The U.S. has also seen major mission creep in the military. Instead of going in an…

The US military did do extensive nation-building in Europe and Japan after WWII. (I have it from my father, a 4-year-old German at war's end, that candy was most definitely involved.) I would argue that the difference is that, then, the military was expected and allowed to win the war first.

Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?

#134

Post by rayiner »

king_jester wrote: post #128
rayiner wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gang-related murders are the result of gang activity, and gang-activity is very scary for a community. First, lots of teenagers and young people are gang members, and gangs have major presences in inner-city schools, so even a "gang-related murder" isn't like some mobster getting killed, but something that hits really close to home in the community. Second, this activity is very geographically segregated, which makes…

> Gang-related murders are the result of gang activity, and gang-activity is very scary for a community. First, lots of teenagers and young people are gang members, and gangs have major presences in inner-city schools, so even a "gang-related murder" isn't like some mobster getting killed, but something that hits really close to home in the community. Second, this activity is very geographically segregated, which mak…

> The militarization isn't caused by violent crime, because we would expect as rates fall that there would be no call to increase police power at any given time.

The militarization can have been caused by violent crime without being perpetuated by it.

Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?

#135

Post by ljf »

blhack wrote: post #81
enko wrote: post #75

You can't make this shit up. > Police in North Dakota borrowed a $154 million MQ-9 Predator B drone from the Department of Homeland Security to arrest a family of anti-government separatists who refused to return six cows that wandered onto their farm.

That's really misleading. There is a base in Grand Forks, ND that houses several CBP (Customs and Border Patrol) Predator Drones, and they work with local law enforcement when asked to. So, more than likely, the drone is going to be flying home here anyway, and made a pass over some property. The facility where these things are flown from isn't some top secret bunker or anything, it's an office building on the air fo…

2k for a cow? Try 60 dollars...http://www.cattlenetwork.com/cattle-resources/cow-calf/price...

Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?

#136

Post by potatolicious »

rayiner wrote: post #105
calibraxis wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why tech workers need unions. When Facebook does something nasty, they can blame the unions; the billionaires and millionaires were merely cowering behind their desks. We shouldn't contort ourselves to avoid the simplest answer: the state is getting what it paid for. The US incarcerates its population more than any known state on earth. That isn't unions' fault — other countries with more powerful unions don'…

> That isn't unions' fault It is, in fact, the unions' fault. The prison unions and police unions are huge proponents of the drug war, longer sentences, etc. It isn't just there fault, of course, America's general Puritan streak helps, but the public unions have really capitalized on that. > other countries with more powerful unions don't jail themselves like this. What happens in other countries isn't a good model f…

> "It will be interesting to see what happens to the internal social cohesion European countries have enjoyed post-WWII as middle eastern immigration continues to rise."

It's already here. Every time there is some discussion of Muslim extremism or immigration we have a few HN members saying things that, in even conservative parts of the US, would leave your jaw hanging.

In the US it's common for the more liberal folks to perceive Europe has some kind of bastion of social enlightenment. This view seems to fall apart once you actually inject some different skin colors into the population.

Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?

#137

Post by tzs »

enko wrote: post #75

You can't make this shit up. > Police in North Dakota borrowed a $154 million MQ-9 Predator B drone from the Department of Homeland Security to arrest a family of anti-government separatists who refused to return six cows that wandered onto their farm.

> North Dakota [...] a family of anti-government separatists

Were these the kind of anti-government separatists who are harmless quirky people who confine their anti-government activity to blogs and leaflets, or the kind of anti-government separatists who amass a ton of weapons and declare themselves independent and vow to shoot any government agents who "invade" their sovereign territory?

Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?

#138

Post by _ap »

blhack wrote: post #81
enko wrote: post #75

You can't make this shit up. > Police in North Dakota borrowed a $154 million MQ-9 Predator B drone from the Department of Homeland Security to arrest a family of anti-government separatists who refused to return six cows that wandered onto their farm.

That's really misleading. There is a base in Grand Forks, ND that houses several CBP (Customs and Border Patrol) Predator Drones, and they work with local law enforcement when asked to. So, more than likely, the drone is going to be flying home here anyway, and made a pass over some property. The facility where these things are flown from isn't some top secret bunker or anything, it's an office building on the air fo…

> I think something like this (flying a UAV, since CBP doesn't actually fly drones) should require a search warrant, but this is a totally reasonable use of resources IMHO.

The Supreme Court decided in 1986 that aerial surveillance of a person's backyard did not require a warrant. Then again, the search was conducted by a human only using his "naked eye". See California v. Ciraolo.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_v._Ciraolo

Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?

#139

Post by rayiner »

potatolicious wrote: post #136
rayiner wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That isn't unions' fault It is, in fact, the unions' fault. The prison unions and police unions are huge proponents of the drug war, longer sentences, etc. It isn't just there fault, of course, America's general Puritan streak helps, but the public unions have really capitalized on that. > other countries with more powerful unions don't jail themselves like this. What happens in other countries isn't a good model f…

> "It will be interesting to see what happens to the internal social cohesion European countries have enjoyed post-WWII as middle eastern immigration continues to rise." It's already here. Every time there is some discussion of Muslim extremism or immigration we have a few HN members saying things that, in even conservative parts of the US, would leave your jaw hanging. In the US it's common for the more liberal folk…

Social enlightenment is easy when your major cities aren't majority-minority and almost perfectly geographically segregated by race/ethnicity. From someone who lived in Chicago for several years: it's hard to empathize with people who look different than you, have dramatically different family backgrounds, etc. It's harder still to empathize with them when they're separated by a river.

Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?

#140

Post by vacri »

jimzvz wrote: post #49
Spooky23 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easy for a guy sitting in a chair in front of a computer to say. I'm not justifying the behavior, I'm trying to illuminate why it's happening. You're attributing responsibility for a situation to people who don't make decisions. Society has made choices (let's move to the burbs to get away from those poor folk) and your representatives have enacted laws that have created all sorts of absurd situations. And we drop po…

Regardless of where the responsibility lies, it is unacceptable. I agree that the actual police officer does not control policies but they do control their own actions and it is part of the job description to put their lives on the line for the benefit of the general public. If they are not happy with that then they can leave the job that they voluntarily entered. As soon as they draw a gun on someone without clear e…

Emergency services have to put their own safety above the public safety. It's how they're trained, and it's necessary. If you sacrifice an officer of the emergency service for a member of the public, you now have one more member of the public... well, actually you don't because the officer is also a member of the public... and you have also lost a trained officer, who can't respond to future requests for help, so the future service to the public suffers. And not all areas find it easy to recruit for the emergency services.
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