In Iraq, I raided insurgents. In Virginia, the police raided me

> the cop was in the right yet cannot prove it and then their life is ruined if the case is automatically decided in the civilian's favor.

Wait, how exactly is the cop's life ruined?

> We always joked about how [American MPs] behaved like movie action heroes, always ready to use force.

I am in no way challenging the validity of your report. I'm offering this anecdote to put USian police training (or the lack thereof) in perspective.

I've heard from my father -an officer in the US Army-, and from many others who have reason to know that a HUGE part of an MP's training is in de-escalation and peaceful crowd control.

MPs are drilled over and over and over that the presence of a club, firearm, or -say- riot gear dramatically increases the tension of a situation and that they have to immediately and continually work very hard to bring that tension back down.

Some folks who have served as MPs have had opportunity to review the training procedures of some police departments who have been receiving military crowd control (and other) equipment. Many of those former MPs have gone on record with their serious dismay at the absence of even vaguely proper crowd control and de-escalation training.

If well trained USian MPs behave like action heroes; ready to use force at the slightest provocation, how are comparatively poorly trained USian police officers likely to behave when given identical equipment?

The cost also comes in the ignorance of that third world part who have poorer access to education and opportunities.

They are third world because they are ignorant. And they are ignorant because they are third world.

Sometimes small incentives go a long way toward getting people further ahead. Sometimes they may shine by means of sports. But not everyone can be saved by sports. :-)

> He explained that it was standard procedure to point guns at suspects in many cases to protect the lives of police officers. Their firearm rules were different from mine; they aimed not to kill but to intimidate.

That's nuts. At least they haven't gone that crazy in Norway - the police instruction on firearms are still: "Only aim at someone you're authorized to kill" -- eg: someone posing an immediate threat that can't be avoided by de-escalating the situation (so it's not enough for someone to threaten to kill a police officer, if that officer can easily back away and secure the area/wait for backup -- but more along the lines of someone aiming a gun at someone).

And this makes more sense to me too: Everyone is entitled to self-defense if they fear for their life -- if someone threaten you with a deadly weapon -- be that a knife or a gun, it's entirely rational to try and kill them in order to save yourself. You might of course serve out the rest of your life in prison if you make the wrong call -- but you'll be alive.

Just because someone is a cop, doesn't mean they can't be(come) a murderer. This is why it's so important for police to practice restraint. They work for us, not against us after all (or should, anyway).

> It honestly sounds like they are so self-centered that they only care about their arrest stats/job performance + personal safety. They care nothing for anyone else's safety if it gets in the way of their job performance numbers. That is a horrific concept, honestly.

If you think of them as undisciplined teenage boys in over their heads, given a job for which they have not developed sufficient levels of mental maturity and responsibility, it kind of seems less nonsensical.

> Rhoads, the Fairfax County police lieutenant, was upfront about this mind-set. He explained that it was standard procedure to point guns at suspects in many cases to protect the lives of police officers. Their firearm rules were different from mine; they aimed not to kill but to intimidate. According to reporting by The Washington Post, those rules are established in police training, which often emphasizes a violent response over deescalation.

Another teenaged boy in over his head.

Honestly, I lay very little blame at these people's feet. If you keep moving up the chain of command, eventually you will get to someone with the mental capacity to know this is wrong, and this is where the responsibility lies. Or, if this person's peers are so corrupt that he is literally powerless to do anything, then you move up one more level. Somebody somewhere is responsible for the way this is being handled, but it ain't the guys at this level. Expecting effective police policy to be set (at least entirely) at the local level is....unwise.