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Law Enforcement’s “Warrior” Problem

harvardlawreview.org

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Re: Law Enforcement’s “Warrior” Problem

#41

Post by stonogo »

bdcravens wrote: post #24
joesmo wrote: post #9

It doesn't matter what attitudes change, the community relationship between police and citizens will not be repaired till at least my generation is dead (mid 30s) but more likely till at least three current generation of young people is dead. And that only if dramatic changes happen now. Otherwise things will continue to degrade and the police will continue to arrest and kill innocent people for committing crimes tha…

> The irony is, of course, that being a police officer is not even a very dangerous job. http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/10/us/mississippi-police-officers... Routine traffic stop. Pretty sure I've never heard of a developer being murdered during a pull request. > That leads me to conclude they're just a bunch of cowards with an inferiority complex out to hurt people to make themselves feel better. I'm sure cops exist who…

Your single example means nothing. There are (at conservative estimate) around 750,000 law officers w/ arrest powers in the USA. 114 were killed in 2014. This is a 0.016% mortality rate -- and this number includes accidental deaths while on duty. This is about the same percentage as murders only in Chicago -- meaning the population of Chicago is, on average, in more danger just existing than any given police officer is while armed and on duty.

Re: Law Enforcement’s “Warrior” Problem

#43

Post by Inception »

jmnicolas wrote: post #2

Judging from the outside, US law enforcement has a "no accountability" problem, not a warrior one.

IMO, the warrior problem leads to the no accountability problem you speak of. If you program officers to think and act a certain way, then you can't really punish them when they act on their training.

Re: Law Enforcement’s “Warrior” Problem

#44

Post by beat »

A grown man chases a bikini-clad 14 year old girl. He grabs her by the hair and hurls her to the ground. He pins her down, with his knee bearing his full weight down on her bare back. He draws his gun.

Does this make you uncomfortable? Can you picture this girl as your sister, or your daughter?

Think about the real world consequences of warrior policing. This doesn't sound like keeping the peace. It sounds like a child molester's rape fantasy. That girl will be scarred for life. She will fear the police. She will fear men. Is that what we want, as a society? Is this what liberty and pursuit of happiness are supposed to be?

Do we want to be the kind of people who make excuses about how she deserved it?

Re: Law Enforcement’s “Warrior” Problem

#45

Post by Crito »

3pt14159 wrote: post #27
angersock wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally agree, but the short-cut hair makes a great deal of sense if you don't want a suspect pulling on your scalp.

De-escalation is more effective than the slight tactical advantage.

Has it really come to vilifying a haircut? The haircut is not to blame for anything here, it is all the people who may happen to wear it.

Short hair is pragmatic, but more importantly, it is a personal preference. Nobody should be criticized for wearing short hair. Doing that makes you no better than people who talk about "long-haired hippies" disparagingly.

Re: Law Enforcement’s “Warrior” Problem

#46

Post by rayiner »

Someone1234 wrote: post #30

US police services need to move to "policing by consent" (also often called "community policing"). The concept is that a police service is ineffective if they do not have the broad support of the local community, and the police service should adapt to service the community they have (not the community they'd want to have). If a bunch of gangbangers "hate" cops then that's fine. But when the good law abiding citizens…

I don't know if we'll ever achieve that here in the U.S. Most of these issues arise in heavily black and Hispanic neighborhoods with high crime. These folks have very little faith in the police and for good reason. The understanding that police are there to protect rich white people from poor black and Hispanic people has gotten less overt and less official since the 1960's, but it's still there to a degree, especially in the widespread practice of focusing resources on keeping violence in poor minority neighborhoods from spilling into higher income white neighborhoods.[1] And in any case historical practice has wiped out any trust that might exist between those communities and the police.

Here is the real question: how do you do community policing in the low-income black neighborhoods of Baltimore? How do you rebuild trust?

[1] As well as the practice of ignoring the deaths of gang members. Maybe they got themselves into their predicament, but you're not going to build trust among their friends and family by treating their deaths as inconsequential, especially given the prevalence of gang membership along a wide spectrum of involvement.

Re: Law Enforcement’s “Warrior” Problem

#47

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

happyscrappy wrote: post #35

All cops should be wearing cameras, but I don't think it will work out very well for the SJWs when all the interactions are clearly documented. Imagine if there was video of Michael Brown going for the officers gun, would they still riot?

> Imagine if there was video of Michael Brown going for the officers gun, would they still riot?

That's what causes the problem. Police apologists imagine circumstances that justify their abuse, and are absolutely certain that's what actually happened.

If there was a video, I wouldn't imagine. I'd watch and see what happened.

Re: Law Enforcement’s “Warrior” Problem

#48

Post by nickbauman »

Many more cops these days are vets. Many more vet cops have seen combat. It's no surprise we have this militarization of local police forced underway. With increasingly tragic results. Soldiers are trained to advance and overpower by killing, wounding or inspiring enough fear to push the enemy back. I cannot imagine this is a good foundation to build a police officer on in all but the rarest of circumstances.

Re: Law Enforcement’s “Warrior” Problem

#49

Post by rmxt »

bdcravens wrote: post #21
rmxt wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does one get from "a few kids being rowdy and not listening to police officers" to "x group of people has entitlement issues"? Seems like quite a disingenuous stretch.

edit: to be clear, I'm talking about the video specifically, not the parent comment's general perspective. Watching the video, while has was telling the girl to get on her face, several teens were encroaching and yelling. The one he chased with gun out came up behind him and made a motion that looked like he was feinting pulling out a gun. I think the events in Ferguson and otherwise and causing some to become a bit…

When you say "some" and "they" do you mean "black people"? I only ask because the parent comment specifically talks about minorities. If so, that's a unfortunate dichotomy that you have created.

If anything, the safer generalization is that cops are the ones that have a history of acting recklessly in their interactions with non-police. Especially considering that they are civil servants, whose job is to protect all people with equal consideration.

Re: Law Enforcement’s “Warrior” Problem

#50

Post by hackuser »

I'd be very interested to hear from experienced police officers about how accurately this description represents policing, how pervasive this point-of-view is (training or not), why it has arisen, and why it's necessary. I, and I suspect many here, know very little about the job.

Also, in broader society, my impression is that paranoid, angry outlooks are now often accepted as legitimate, 'real' and strong by at least part of a certain segment of our society, rather than being seen as weakness, out-of-control emotion and shameful judgment. For example, this perspective is embraced on a certain cable news channel, it's a hallmark of a certain political movement, and you can see some leaders competing to prove who is angrier and crazier. There's an underlying cultural debate here, also. Many people support this police behavior.

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