SWAT: Time to Rein In Excessive Response
In my new home state of Arkansas — a beautiful, reasonably inexpensive place to live, which I recommend to all retirees — we recently had another unfortunate incident that should illustrate that the militarization of local police forces has gone far beyond the needs of the domestic communities those police forces are sworn to protect and serve.
In Pine Bluff, an old, old man, reported to be 107, lost touch with the world in which he had lived so long and became agitated. The old codger fired a pistol at responding police officers, which immediately earned him a deadly SWAT team visit.
Agreed, any perpetrator firing on arriving officers opens himself up to a world of hurt. You simply do not fire at men who are formidably armed and authorized to use deadly force under the auspices of their local government. Responding officers have little to no information upon their immediate arrival on the scene. Whatever transpires in that period of immediacy is usually accepted as the necessary police response required to suppress an extant threat to the public welfare with whatever amount of immediate force is required.
But what is to be said of a heavily armed and armored tactical squad of large, fierce, armed, and armored men, who storm the small confines of a poor old man, who has endured penurious life for more than a century and whose mental faculties have surely by all that time been diminished, and shoot him dead? Yes, they used gas, but their version of events is that the gas failed to deter the intransigent old man. Excuse me, but I was a chemical and biological warfare NCO in the Army, who in years past conducted gas defense training, and I have to tell you: I don’t believe that explanation for a single minute. In the confined space of a small house, the effects of properly deployed CS gas grenades are incapacitating to young, trained, and prepared soldiers in their prime. To an old man over a hundred years, they would have to be damned near lethal.
The explanation that the centenarian would, after such a gassing assault, be sufficiently capable of presenting a deadly threat to authorities would be laughable were it not so tragic. There’s an old military term, gung-ho, which describes an enthusiasm for the task or mission at hand. In my six years in the 101st and 82nd Airborne, it was frequently used in a positive manner, to define those dedicated to the success of a mission, but also in a derogatory manner to demean those who were too eager to accomplish the mission at whatever cost.
And there lies the rub: based upon stories that come to us from around our country, there are far too many SWAT units being deployed to deal with situations that truly do not require their gung-ho military capabilities. It is of a piece with the growing tendency in community governments to over-respond to every minor disturbance, driven no doubt by the legal hyenas always lurking on the tort-defined peripheries of any community incident. I recently viewed a minor fender-bender in New Mexico, and present were seven emergency vehicles, including multiple fire trucks and ambulances, all with lights flashing and far too many personnel acting importantly and officiously. Four-lane traffic had to be directed to side roads — not because of the vehicles involved in the accident, but due to the completely road-covering spread of the various first-responders.
That saddens me, because I’m a believer in effective policing and public safety within our communities. But I am fed up with this gross overreaction to minor disturbances that were once handled by an officer, or two at most, but that now require a major callout of community first responders. Every time all those people roll out, it costs the taxpayers and the insurance companies of the citizens involved unbelievable amounts. Justifications for larger annual budgets are based upon the number of times those units were deployed in the last budget cycle. Enter into this calculus the self-serving machinations of public service unions, and we are quickly looking at a scam of the taxpayers of major proportions. Ask yourself this: “How much is it costing me as a taxpayer to have all those unnecessary firemen and EMTs standing around observing the local cops sort out a fender-bender?”
It’s the first responder equivalent of superfluous highway workers standing around leaning on their shovels while a few of them actually work. The term that survives from my youth is “featherbedding,” and it is apparently alive and well in public-service employment. That is maddening enough, but when such employment overkill and the required self-justifications result in the needless killing of a 107-year-old man, they have progressed beyond political corruption to a deadly vindicating of their existence that is unacceptable to the communities they profess to protect. That is not only sad; in some cases, it should be prosecutable.
And please, spare me, those of you in public employment who would be eager to remind me that I wouldn’t be critical of the excessive turnout of first responders if it were my life on the line. Old, retired businessman and ex-Army NCO that I am, I would be demanding to my last breath:
“Just what the hell is your function here?”
Crossposted at American Thinker
Category: Crime
This is the most ridiculous article I have ever seen posted on here. 7 or 107, shoot at the cops and you can expect return fire.
I agree with Tim on this one. Yes, it’s sad, yes, something should have been done long before the old gentleman started shooting at the cops; but no, once he fired upon police, it was not their place to psychoanalyze him and “give him time” and all that. He had a gun, he was impaired, and he was dangerous.
Some over-reaction might be because of financial considerations: in the mostly rural township where my brother lives in Michigan the rule is if any of the volunteer fire/emergency squad is called out, ALL of the squad responds, since they only get paid when actually in response. When my sister-in-law fell down the stairs and an ambulance was called, my brother’s long, narrow driveway was filled by several fire trucks and the fire captain’s command vehicle, blocking the ambulance so that it took half-an-hour just to get the drive clear and the ambulance out to the road. Fortunately, the situation was not life-threatening, but it could easily have been tragic.
Kudos for posting this. We’ve got entirely too many cops in this country that mistakenly think they’re soldiers, at war with the public. Hell, they even have the nerve to call said public “civilians” as if they’re an actual wing of the military.
As Ronald Moore put it, “There’s a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people.”
And that’s exactly what’s happening all over the country. We need more Andy Griffiths and fewer wannabe GI Bros; if you want to be a door kicker, sign up for the Infantry.
Hmmm… sounds like a serious over-reaction by poorly-trained cops at first glance, but how were they to know whether or not he would shoot again? And how many times? My reaction to this is split: it is overkill on the part of the cops, using a lame excuse as their support; and it is likewise poor training for the cops.
All I ever saw in Chicago, until I moved, was a cop car or maybe two at a traffic incident. Now I see firetrucks arriving on scene over a fender bender. This IS ridiculous. It isn’t just the cost to taxpayers that is involved, it is the tie-up of emergency equipment over nothing.
And yes, it’s not just in rural areas.
Hell, I was watching the local news and the county sheriff just got a surplus MRAP – all we need now is the Duke, CROWS and a ma deuce! YeeHaw!!!
Poetrooper. You had, it strikes me, two separate articles here whose overlap hurt both. The guy who was older than dirt was an immediate danger and was effectively dealt with. Sure, they were alternatives. They could have cut power to his house, erected a bullet-proof wall around it, and waited for him to die a natural death, but I don’t think that would have been a reasonable alternative. It’s too bad he went off his rocker at 107 but, for all I know, it was suicide by cop and he got his wish.
Ex-PH2: I can’t speak for other cities, but our response units are sent out by the dispatchers according to the information the dispatchers are given. The dispatchers ask anyone involved in an accident if anyone is hurt; the fire deaprtment also will be asked to respond if a vehicle is damaged enough to be leaking or smoking (disabled). Here, if an ambulance is sent, the fire department also automatically responds. That puts lots of big, burly men on scene who are all First Responders or EMTs, and so are ready to handle whatever might arise. The way we look at it, they’re getting paid whether they’re sitting in the fire house or at the scene of an accident, so we don’t consider it to be an unnecessary response.
When I read of this at FOXNews.com; I thought that rather than respond with such force, if they had just backed off for a few minutes the ol’ guy would have forgotten what it was all about and come out and offered them some sweet tea. Did they not know of his age? Did they think that they needed to immediately quell the situation? What of the hours, and, once in awhile, days spent sitting, waiting someone out? What of shutting off the power and water to the home?
Had this been a barricaded, fleeing criminal, I would feel differently, but this was a small community event, and as best I know, LEO’s knew of the man’s age and mental condition.
Good post, Poetrooper.
Something similar happened not to long ago when police used a bean bag round on a 95 year old man and killed him.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2380266/Police-kill-95-year-old-man-stun-gun-bean-bag-rounds-threatens-12-inch-butcher-knife.html
I think that at some point policies have been put in place that encourage the police to be more aggressive in dealing with the public, perhaps because of the prevalence of violent conflicts the police had for so long with gangs due to the drug war. That’s probably understandable, but when it translates into situations like these, it’s probably time to drop back and rethink how policing gets done.
My grandfather was the sheriff of a rural NC county for 20 years from 1946-66 and I am certain that he would never have been so aggressive in similar circumstances-and he had to deal with violent offenders occasionally. Ultimately he had to answer to the voters of that county for the way he behaved, too often today it seems that police are only accountable to “review boards” made up of other cops or the DA who relies on the cooperation of the police in prosecuting cases, so there is a conflict of interest. This is becoming a serious problem.
I’m sorry but you shoot at cops, your age doesn’t mean shit. IF he were a 18 year old crip no one would be whining that he got a SWAT response.
The Poor old man had a gun and had shot at Police. I didn’t notice any law that says you get a pass on criminal behavior because you are over 65. At 107 I’m pretty sure he knew what he did was wrong, was dangerous and the consequences could be losing his life.
I think the other major issue is that police forces are no longer part of the community. Back when I was growing up (not all that long ago as I’m only 36) Cops used to walk the neighborhoods. We used to know the officers and they knew you. Now they cruz in there patrol cars and swoop in. How different would this have turned out if the policemen knew the man cuz they had been around in the peoples lives?
We live 6 miles from the scene of the incident in an adjacent town. “American Thinker” does not relay all of the facts in an effort to make a false point and I call bullshit. The fact he was chem corp type may explain it. What occurred is this nice 107 year-old gentleman, who was also visually impaired and almost deaf, did not want to leave a temporary residence to go home. He held hostages but released them to the initial responders, who he shot at. They backed off and called for a Sergeant, who after negotiations failed called for a SWAT team. The old wooden house was in a residential area. The man barricaded himself in a bedroom and the SWAT team tossed in gas after further negotiations failed. The man fired through the walls and/or door hitting the shield of a SWAT team member. None of the media reports indicated if the police knew this was a 107 year-old man, whose appearance was that of a much younger 80+ year old, or about his impairments. There was also no mention of the type of weapon he was firing. The only good news about all of the press reports is none of them mentioned he was a veteran. At this point with a special prosecutor appointed to investigate because the balls-less Arkansas State Police refused to touch this political hot potato, it is wrong to second guess the SWAT team.
We had another incident yesterday where a State Police SWAT team returned fire and killed another man in a different part of the state.
I’m with you 100% PT!! Below is a response I wrote to an article in our local paper a little over a year ago concerning the militarization of our small town police force. http://verdenews.com/main.asp?TypeID=1&ArticleID=45178&SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1190&Page=2 Dec 13, 2011 – “I wasn’t going to comment on this article at first, but the more I thought about it and the more I read the comments section, the more I realized a few things needed pointing out. I believe it’s reasonable for our community to debate the merits of how much of a militant presence we want our police force to project. Reasonable discussion of the pros and cons is constructive; the polarized, and polarizing, attitudes of folks like Jay Jay and Grandma Parker are not. First, so no one thinks I’m speaking from a lack of experience, I’m a recent Army retiree with 20+ years of mixed service including armor and multiple wheeled vehicle qualifications. I have logged Hundreds of Thousands of miles performing both standard and combat convoy operations. I’ll be among the first to point out that the HMMWV was a purpose built platform that was generally a compromise vehicle that never performed to anyone’s best expectations. From a civilian department use standpoint the fuel economy is miserable, the maintenance costs are horrendous, their reliability is suspect, and the mission profile is limited. Hopping into and out of one of these things while encumbered with full ‘battle rattle’ is an awkward exercise at best, and certainly not friendly to the smooth and speedy tactics necessitated by SWAT operations. I honestly fail to see how these vehicles are a realistic force multiplier for the Cottonwood PD. In contrast to what posters such as jay jay have said, it needs to be mentioned that the CTWD PD already has an armored truck for protected personnel movement, the argument that they actually Need these additional vehicles is false. Jay jay also pointed out that Cottonwood PD has responded to an alarming number of armed suspects recently and indeed they have. Amazingly they have been able to smoothly and professionally handle these situations without the… Read more »
Good post PT. I’m sick and tired of the militarization of our police forces.
@4; My brother is a State Trooper and I heard him call people civilians. I replied “ummmm, so are you”. He got all butt hurt when I explained that he was a civilian employee of the State whose job was peace keeping duties.
Sounds like this incident was exacerbated by lack of decent intel – would they have reponded differently had they known his age and status? That being said… bullets coming through the walls tend to level the age divide in a hurry.
I agree too, there seems to be a “cover against the lawyers! Call out the (EMS/cops/SWAT ) in huge numbers” mentality nowadays and I miss the old Texas Rangers “one man, one riot” mentality. NOTHING gets resolved by one responder.
The detail I have been waiting to hear about this incident is whether the bedroom in which he died was his or someone else’s. If he was in his own home the circumstances are entirely different from his being in someone else’s home.
If the home was that of the “hostages,” surely they would have know if there were others in the home. Still, the police would be correct in taking whatever action was necessary to remove someone not authorized to be there from the home of another.
However, if this was his own home, why was it necessary to do anything? The “hostages” were not in danger – they were outside. Was anyone fired upon who was not inside the house? Easy fix for that one is to leave the house. Killing people just because you have the fire power to do so is never a good reason.
There is an old saying among law enforcement types, “If you have the time to get a warrant, then get a warrant.” If this was the dead man’s home, they certainly should have done that.
Had he stepped outside firing, then firing back would be entirely justified.
Again, the pink elephant in the room is whether this was his home or that of another. Everything else is dependent upon that fact. It’s a Constitutional thing.
I don’t get the problem with the so called ‘militarization’ of the police forces. Name a period in American history where police haven’t used surplus military uniforms and equipment, or been staffed with former soldiers and used military TTPs.
Sure, this case may have been overkill, but I think it is a symptom of the military having way too many cool toys that they can’t afford and the overflow going to cities. The military needs less whiz bang crap, and that simplification will spill down into the citiy police. If police forces (and the military) had fewer armored toys to hide behind, they would be smarter about these things. I agree police don’t need MRAPS, but the military did fine without then too, for a couple hundred years. Change the ROEs in favor of our troops, and ditch the overly armored crap.
Americans are the best civilization to ever have existed, and we are losing that with our risk-averse culture and trust in our devices rather than trust in our buddies and our training.
This article sums up the problem wonderfully. http://www.policeone.com/SWAT/articles/6385683-Police-militarization-An-argument-for-black-helicopters/
It is disturbing on every level, especially because he thinks he’s making a good argument. Also, “SWAT operators should swathe ourselves in a cloak of mysteriousness”? Grotesque.
To me, it reinforces how using fear as a motivational tool for training LEOs gives them an exaggerated sense of danger when they get on the street. Combine that with not correcting those who repeatedly put themselves in tactically untenable situations (i.e., recklessly chasing someone with minor outstanding warrants at night through familiar territory), and bad things happen.
* He’s what one might call ‘anasognostic’ (if you like $5 words): So disabled as to be incapable of realizing one’s own disability.
“I agree police don’t need MRAPS, but the military did fine without then too, for a couple hundred years.”
Was the British making IEDs by daisy chaining 155 rounds together during the War of 1812? I honestly can’t fathom why someone wouldn’t want our troops to have the best armor available. Is this some kind of “we were harder in my day” crap?
What I see regularly on the videos that accompany news reports is an excessive number of squad cars at a scene that may require only one or two at most. The police officers themselves are standing around talkin, not investigating anything, while the investigating cops – likely those called to the scene – are busy doing the job of investigation.
And frankly, I’ve seen less excessive force exercised by Texas sherrifs when confronted by someone with a rifle NOT held at the ready or aimed at anyone.
I won’t speculate on the elderly man’s motive for taking hostages or shooting at the police, but there are literally better ways to do these things, and the police separating themselves from the population that they work for is not one of those ways. And yes, I’ve seen rookie cops right out of the police academy, who should not be turned loose on the street with a gun because they are so twitchy and hypered up they can hardly sit still, even in the company of older, more experienced police officers.
I do NOT like the separation of law enforcement from the rest of us. They are here for our benefit and they should realize that.
While the response to the 107-year old, or 17-year old had it been a “yute” shooting, might have been appropriate, we have seen a rapid militarization of our police forces which far outstrips anything that is really needed, or even prudent from a financial standpoint.
It really HAS gone to an “us versus them” mentality, and I see it daily. Seriously, what does a podunk college town of less than 25,000 (Keene, NH) need with a $250K armored Bearcat? Some stoned hippies gonna jaywalk? Yeah, squish their smelly asses, that’ll teach ’em!
And it goes to the, “If ya got it, USE it!” mentality. Police are over-reliant on 1–overwhelming force, 2–cool toys and shit that goes bang than what actual POLICING used to be. We’ve gone from a few SWAT incidents a year to several hundred a year nationwide. Why? Are we that lawless now compared to then? Statistics indicate otherwise, but YMMV.
As I understand it, two people who lived in the home were threatened with a gun by the fellow. Police responded and were let into the home. No warrant was needed. They went to the bedroom where the man was and he shot at them. They called backup and, ultimately, he was killed. The police were there LEGALLY and were shot at. They met deadly force with deadly force. This, to me, is not the ripe case for examining police training and tactics.
I happen to agree with you.
I’m running for mayor of a small town where our police department just gunned down a crazy guy with an air rifle, unfortunately using a personally owned weapon.
So far as I know, the state doesn’t have a law against this POW thing. Our municipality certainly doesn’t have an ordinance.
But we’re one step away from Mayberry. We patrol a major highway, but so, too, do the state troopers, and they don’t carry an AR-15 up to the side of a car during a traffic stop.
Our officers have felt so “outgunned”, a sentiment not validated by even a cursory review of our department’s caseload, that they strongarmed our council into purchasing them rifles, which of course will come with range time and maintenance.
There are other circumstances at work – we’re outsourced by a far more rural municipality to provide police service to them, otherwise they’d have to depend on the state troopers.
But we also have county-wide SWAT assets, so I’m not sure we need to so equip our local PDs in this way. I do wonder if the APC is the next step.
Here’s another consideration: as we so outfit our local police departments with SWAT-level capabilities, are municipalities going to have to carry higher liability insurance? Our taxpayers can’t afford any negative litigation that might come our way. That’s as true of inadequate holding cells as it is armaments, though, so maybe we’re all living on borrowed time until the police shoot someone who has litigious relatives.
Thanks for the considered argument on this one, fellow jumper.
And another thing. what if one of his rounds–which were not 107 years old–hit an officer in the head through the bedroom wall and killed him? Would you be lamenting the outcome if it was the same for the old man? I don’t think so. So, what’s different? Yeah, I know, “Look, isn’t that cute? Grandpa tried to shoot the nice officer.”
I’m with you, the militarization of police is very farging scary.
Coupled with no-knock raids that’s one of the worst scourges on our nation.
I can take or leave Radley Balko, but he’s done great work on highlighting abuses.
One of the worst was a guy who was on death row for years after waking up to black-clad, armed men invading his home and he got into a gun battle and killed a cop.
I mostly wanted to comment based on this though
There’s an old military term, gung-ho, which describes an enthusiasm for the task or mission at hand
I used to think that too, but the meaning has shifted from what it originally meant.
There’s a movie called “Gung Ho” with Randolph Scott, Robert Mitchum and a few others you’d know.
It’s a war-propaganda/recruiting movie made during WWII about (from IMDB) The true story of Carlson’s Raiders and their World War II attack on Makin Island.
According to a speech Scott made in that movie, Gung-Ho means, “Work together”.
It’s a good movie.
@1-Tim:”7 or 107, shoot at the cops and you can expect return fire.”
I genuinely hope that is just hyperbole, Tim, because I doubt there are many here at TAH that would agree with SWAT firing on a child. We’re supposed to be the grownups.
@13-Club Manager: You may not like my premise but please don’t disparage my service. This “chem corps type” as you refer to me was also an infantry fire team and squad leader with the 101st in Nam in 65-66. As such, I saw too many children and old civilians killed in the so-called fog of war, to now accept it unquestioningly. In six years I spent a lot more time as an Airborne grunt than I did as a “chem corps type.”
And I stand by my suspicion that the full truth isn’t being told here. CS gas deployed by professionals in a confined space would have incapacitated that old man within minutes.
I do agree with your assessment of the Arkansas State Police for declining to investigate. However, I think they’re simply hiding because they quickly determined the killing was unjustifiable and wanted no part of it, fearing it might turn into a highly publicized racial incident like the Zimmerman case. Frankly I’m surprised the racial hucksters like Jackson and Sharpton haven’t made it one, considering the old man’s age.
I’m confused. The Goons over on SA (Who I find are generally more tolerable than dumpster diving DU) agreed that the PD responded properly and the article here is opposite. Just… bizarre.
The guy wasn’t just popping shots at the PD, he was firing out the window and had fired on other people in the household. He also fired at their probe trying to determine if he was actually armed or if it was some sort of hoax. They gassed him, they flash-banged him and he was still shooting.
#9 The incident happened over a few hours and this was after the initial shots fired.
I agree with the sentiment that the PD shouldn’t be getting the gear they’re picking up, but in this case? While it’s a shame they had to plug the blue hair, it was probably the safest option.
BK. The department “gunned down” a man with a rifle that turned out to be an air rifle? Really? No verbal commands to put the rifle down? The rifle was never pointed at an officer? The department just killed him? Because, if you mean that because that’s what happened, fine. But if you mean that a man with a gun was confronted by a police officer who shot the man for cause, that’s another matter.
@28 Old folks don’t necessarily succumb to the effects of chemicals and drugs the way young and middle aged folks do. They can be both more and less tolerant to heat, cold, hunger, chemicsls…the list goes on. I’ve seen them both under- and over-react to drugs, and it’s never mildly: they either sit there and look at you when you’ve given them something that would drop a horse, or they keel over from a another drug that they shouldn’t have blinked at. We tend to call people of this advanced an age “frail,” but they are unpredictably so.
I just want to respond to someone who said if cops want to be doorkickers they should join the infantry. Sorry to bust your bubble Billy Badass but every member of my departments SWAT team were infantry before being hired. EVERY. SINGLE. PERSON. And that’s not unique to my department. If you want cops not to act like grunts, maybe you should spearhead the effort to ban infantry from becoming cops. Sounds stupid doesn’t it?
I’ll peobably piss off a lot of folks, but in my opinion, the entire SWAT team, including it’s it’s leadership, should be charged with murder.
I also believe that NO cop should be armed with anything more than a revolver and a shotgun, the latter assigned one to each cruiser. Every SWAT team, and all other such groups, should be dismantled and their equipment turned over to the National Guard, the Reserves, or the AD military. The members of such groups need to be sent back to walking beats, or, better yet, since they want to play soldier, enlist in the actual military, or go off to play paintball and airsoft, something much more in tune with their real life skills.
I despise SWAT personel. They have absolutely no place in our society and serve only as an example of what the police should NOT be.
Every year we are treated to the same stories over and over again. Perhaps it’s time to consider disbanding ALL the police forces and starting over from scratch.
AW1 Tim.
Most idiotic post I’ve seen on the internet in recent memory. That’s saying something.
Swat Teams are basically proof of the competence or incompetence of a department multiplied by ten. There is a need for competent officers with special training and weapons to deal with the weapons and techniques used by criminals.
That being said the team leaders, members and department need to be held accountable for incompetence or criminal neglect.
@33 – agreed. The militarization of the police puts us all at risk. There are a number of dead innocent people (and their dogs) as evidence. If you need that kind of force, call in the Guard.
I believe the 107-year-old man was mostly blind and deaf. I’m guessing that in all the commotion, he was scared to death, hence the use of a firearm.
Given his age and condition, maybe the better course would have been to back off and let the situation calm down. But cops don’t do that anymore.
Oh, and now we have campus police arming up:
http://news.yahoo.com/cops-ohio-state-armored-fighting-vehicle-now-130210219.html
When a police force has that kind of equipment, they need to justify it by using it.
@Mike Defensive much? The comment suggesting that those who want to kick in doors should find their calling in the infantry did NOT in any way imply that current PD door kickers weren’t former grunts, it simply stated an opinion that that’s were the majority of that type of behavior should be consolidated, back in the military. All of your SWAT team are former infantry? Yipee, that doesn’t make me feel better since the military mentality is NOT what I want policing my street, and lest you forget, it is MY street, and the community at larges street, not the PD’s street. Police are supposed to be public ‘servants’, not public ‘intimidators’. I submit that if enough of the public that you are supposed to be serving is telling you that what you are doing is intimidating, and not serving, that you should can the hurt feelings and attitude and listen up. If you don’t like the risk associated with doing your job with a lowered personal security posture, find another line of work that doesn’t seem as risky to you. My brother-in-law is a state cop, because of my military background he’s tried repeatedly to get me to join law enforcement. I’ve repeatedly explained to him that I’m a bad risk for any department because my training was not about ‘protect and serve’, it was about ‘control and dominate’, and that also happens to be how I am comfortable dealing with any situation I might find to be personally threatening. That’s NOT a good place to start from as a peace officer. Does that mean I think all former military are a bad bet for law enforcement duty? No, on a case by case basis I’m sure you’ll find plenty of qualified people who would make great peace officers, but being former infantry does not automatically qualify one to be a good SWAT member, let alone a regular beat cop, in my opinion it should raise flags that mean a closer scrutiny of that individual’s core instincts and motivations. As others here have pointed out Mike, the nation’s lawlessness… Read more »
Do you really think that calling in the Guard is a better solution than having a dedicated SWAT team? Around these parts, the only combat arms units are the NG Special Forces and field artillery. That would make some awesome headlines “suspect was holed up in his house, everything within 1000 meters obliterated because some people are scared of paramilitary police,” Or “Army Special Forces conducts raid on domestic violence case. Internet says ‘at least it wasn’t those scary police.'”
Common Sense my redleg butt, more like Total Absurdity. Yes, police forces need to be more judicious in their use of force, but it is the height of folly to suggest that use of the actual military is somehow better than a paramilitary section of a police force that trains in these tactics. I much prefer that to a bunch of fat cannon-cockers who do medical readiness once a month for drill and haven’t touched a weapon in nine months, and didn’t qualify when they did.
OWB, the guy was in a relatives bedroom, it was the family that called police when he became roudy. I also didn’t mention according to the media, SWAT also used a flash bang. He was shooting indiscrimently but did hit a police shield twice (not once). They have the entire thing on video.
AW1, say what? We had two road cops gunned down by a father/son team using full auto’s, then they got into a shoot out with others in the West Memphis Wal-Mart, out gunning and wounding several others. It ended when a brave Game and Fish Cop rammed their van firing his weapon through the windshield. I met that kid and it was a pleasure to shake his hand. Do you also recall an old movie about two FBI agents that progressed with “on the last day of their lives.” They were on a stakeout, in Florida I believe, armed with only a .38 pistol and the bad guys had semi-auto carbines. Responder should have the latest in firepower and both the training and enough annual range-time to know how to use them.
I agree wholeheartedly with the point about militarization of the police. The police have, for a long time, acted like they were separate from the communities they police, which leads to a poor relationship with the community they work in, even the law-abiding citizenry (whom they inevitably treat with ill-ease at best or disdain at worst during things as routine and harmless as traffic stops). The constant crap I hear from friends in law enforcement about the ‘blue line’ that exists between themselves and society just drives this point home, the idea that they’re not a part of the community, but a race of refs set apart from it. Then you give them military equipment? I live in Ohio, and I have been to the OSU area quite often. There is NOTHING that occurs there that would require any sort of up-armored vehicle. When I lived in Indiana, I lived in Zionsville. They have a freaking APC in Zionsville. Zionsville, to put this into perspective, is well below the average rate for ALL types of crime for the state of Indiana, is well ABOVE the average income rate, and is basically a community of fairly to extremely affluent people. The last time there was real crime was when a woman was murdered at the retirement home. That was the first murder in 70 years. There is little to no real violent crime, outside of the occasional fistfight or drunken brawl or domestic violence. The majority of crime that Zionsville PD responds to is of the ‘rich kid caught doing drugs/drinking underage/being sexually deviant/speeding/truant/causing a scene’. So the idea that Zionsville PD has any legitimate need for an APC or AR15s is moronic. Campus police? With a fucking armored vehicle? My college campus police, the ‘chief’ couldn’t even qualify to carry a fucking gun. He wasn’t allowed to for two of the four years of undergrad that I was there. The idea that that quality of ‘officer’ now has access to that is terrifying. We need more Andy Griffiths and less wannabe Rambo’s who see everyone as a criminal and a… Read more »
@Club Manager
Really? Where was this ‘Father-son team with full autos’?
Because I call bullshit.
The idea that ‘first responders’ should all be equipped with, at tax payer expense, ‘the latest and greatest’ weapons available is ridiculous. They’re police, not the fucking military. They’re not walking into a war zone, they’re on the same streets that I drive through with, at most, a 1911.
The police are such a ‘CYA’ group in so many areas that its hard to believe their claims.
Probably comes from that consistent ‘us vs. them’ mentality they carry around, the idea that it’s police vs. the world, including the parts of the world that aren’t a bunch of criminals.
It seems to me that one’s view of the proper police role is heavily influenced by where one lives or has lived. One simply cannot expect a Chicago or Detroit police officer to have the same deportment on duty as one in, oh, Martinsburg, West Virginia. There are small, medium, and large departments, urban, suburban, and rural, some of which deal with major felons constantly, others of which can’t spell felon. The “us v. them” mentality is real and is largely explained by the Ghostbusters theme song. The alternative to all of this is a national police force. No Thanks.
The ‘us vs them’ mentality is drilled into them in academies that suggest they need to fear every person on the street, the idea that they’re basically in a war against the populace.
The alternative is to remind them that maybe they shouldn’t be complete assholes to all of society, and that a relatively tiny minority of people commit real crimes, while everyone else gets caught for stupid shit like speeding.
I live in Cincinnati right now. I know a cop who was around for 25 years and never shot anyone. And he was in my precinct, a precinct heavily filled with drug use, addicts, and general assholes of society (thank Christ I live on the very outskirt of it).
I remember growing up in a suburb and knowing the names of pretty much all the cops, from Lt. Murphy on down. (’50s and ’60s.)It was a suburb, so they rode around mostly in cars… but they usually had windows down and waved back at kids.
Now they drive around with the windows up and try to look like Robocop. They carry, and if pushed to, shoot almost 50 rounds of ammo (and seemingly hit once or twice when they do.) Once I had a cop pull a gun on me on a clear Sunday morning outside the church where he was directing traffic over a simple misunderstanding of his traffic signals… at the IA hearing (yeah, I complained) he claimed he had been ‘in fear of his life from a drive-by’. I guess lots of drivebys happen in middle-class suburbs by middle-aged white guys driving Hyundais.
Also remember when the various departments were scared of being “outgunned” by all those scary 9mms in the ’80s – lots of very nice ‘obsolete’ .357s hit the market. Should have bought more of ’em.
Hey That Guy, I’m sure that all that quality time you spent in the police academy gives you that authoritative air on how cops are at war with the people who pay them.
Rather, I blame it on having to deal with the dregs of society day in and day out. Dealing with the same scumbag people every day, people who treat cops like crap for a living. Then, on the off chance I get to deal with normal people (on a traffic stop for example) they lie and blame me for catching them in their lies, making legal threats of the most ridiculous nature. In short, they act like the criminals I have to deal with. After a while of seeing law abiding citizens act like that, you begin to become a bit calloused and start to treat everyone equally.
If the citizenry would shape up and behave sua sponte, you can bet that cops would calm down too. Treat cops nicely and with respect, and you’ll get the same in return.
Yeah-it’s everybody else but you guys, only you guys have any standards of behavior.
Jacobite: Defensive? No more defensive than when grunts are when criticized by civilians who have no clue what their jobs and day to day lives are like but feel perfectly fine making sweeping generalizations based on nothing more than ignorance. That answer that question? As far as saying military behavior should stay in the military, good luck with that. As I said, you’d have to ban vets from becoming cops. Still sounds stupid right? Having a SWAT team with highly trained former military members should make you feel better if you would think about it for a minute rather than just being an ass. Yipee huh? As Notasquid addressed, would rather have a military unit from the ANG deployed against civilians? I wasn’t responding to a comment about being public servants or those are YOUR streets and you pay our salary (insert eye roll here). I addressed the idea that cops/SWAT officers do not have the balls to be infantry or they should get back to air soft or some such nonsense stated multiple times in this thread. Then you double down by making it seem like if I can’t hack it with a revolver and a shotgun…blah blah tough guy posturing bullshit blah blah. Spare me. You are the one that seems to be intimidated by cops. Grow up. I know full damn well a cop is not a grunt. One of those ways is a cop is not expected to kill and die. I never thought I’d hear a vet tell someone/anyone to lower their personal security posture. Wow. You’re brother in law is a cop and says you should be one?? Cool story bro. The crime rate is going down. True. LEO debacles are going up? Sources for that claim would be appreciated. I’m sure you don’t know if it’s actually going up or just being reported more these days. It’s an ignorant statement that I’d expect a vet to avoid. For example, are instances of misconduct committed by US troops going up? If I went by what the news told me, I’d say yes but that… Read more »
I’m going to throw something in here that needs to be part of the discussion. There are communities in this country that cops don’t dare go into alone — or they won’t come out alive. There are criminal gangs that use cop-killing as a promotion within the gang — and those gangs have spread into every state in the nation. A recent statistic said that one in ten people on the street is impaired with either drugs or alcohol. What’s the stats for mental illness? One in five?
We don’t live in your granddad’s neighborhood anymore. Neither do the cops.
@46
Bull. Fucking. Shit.
Treat a cop well and they’re still an asshole. And that’s from a man who’s, as I said, never committed a crime and yet had a cop pull a gun on him when I mentioned I have a concealed carry license and handed the actual license to the cop along with my driver’s license.
So sorry if you know a few people who aren’t that way, but the reality is that the vast majority are, and the only ‘separation’ is the one you create. Like with snarky questions like ‘do you know how fast you were going’?