Why Those Damned Masks?
Among the many disturbing trends we are faced with in the introductory decades of this new century is one that leaves me, as a former proud warrior in service to the United States of America, cold to my core. What the hell is going on with the warrior class around the world when the folks they protect can no longer see their faces? Compare photos from previous wars and what is going on now; in those 40’s pics we don’t see our military personnel wearing obscuring balaclavas or scarf wraps. Nope, those men and women who fought the biggest war in the history of this planet shoved their mugs right up there in a defiant, “Get this, photog!”
Today it’s not just our military forces covering up but our police forces and that’s where my concern becomes more than just apprehension, it begins to speak to me in a small voice in the back of my mind that America is, without even considering the consequences, surrendering a key aspect of its liberty in allowing those who police us to become faceless enforcers, cloaked in both physical and political anonymity so that any means of policing those police becomes terribly problematic, if not impossible.
I have previously expressed my opposition to the alarming militarization of our domestic police forces, in particular their expanding use of heavily-armed and extremely aggressive SWAT teams for what was formerly the job of a single police officer, carrying only his sidearm, the much desired duty of serving warrants that went to those officers in favor. It was considered a cushy gig, almost entirely free of the risks of normal patrolling. Now doors are kicked in and rooms are swarmed by screaming men tossing flash grenades, men as heavily armed as any in our military, domestic copies of real soldiers who actually do engage in truly deadly house to house urban warfare where the enemy is equally well-armed and dangerous.
But serving a warrant? Working a civil protest? C’mon, guys, we who have been there and done that in terms of armed combat can’t help but be unamused by young, gung-ho police officers who feel the need to inject this level of combativeness and authority, with all its deadly consequences, into policing the quiet communities where we reside. And this business of hiding your faces instills absolutely no confidence in the populace you police. If you truly represent what is right and lawful in our society then why the need to hide your faces?
I know, the standard response is fear of retaliation. Well why don’t you substantiate that fear for us by going back through the history of policing in this country and point out to us all the instances of retaliation against a police officer and/or his family because he carried out his duties as a sworn officer? No doubt there are some, but my bet is that they are damned few because any potential retaliators full well understand that if they harm or kill a police officer, or particularly his family, they are marked, by every law enforcement agency from coast to coast, for obliteration: the lesson being, you don’t ever screw with cops or their loved ones
OK, I understand we live in an era of anonymous terrorism; can we please not make the situation worse by cloaking our cops in anonymity so that they further build the level of unease in whom we, the populace, are to believe and trust actually are operating for our benefit?
The recent upheaval in Ferguson, Missouri, has served at least one good purpose and that is that Americans are not happy with the storm trooper image of local police we were treated to in the television coverage. Millions of Americans are asking “Why all the damned combat uniforms and gear?” Why armored military vehicles when we’re only dealing with angry citizens who have absolutely no way of ever taking on an armored vehicle? And last but not least:
Why those damned masks?
Crossposted at American Thinker
Category: Police
I can only speak for myself, but there was a practical reason for wearing something over your face when I was in Iraq: not choking to death on dust, especially when in the turret of a Humvee or MRAP.
Seconded.
Thirded
Fifths….I can’t count
You need more fifths then!!!
I propose we abolish all police departments and let the sheriffs’ departments handle the community police work. Anyone with the power to arrest, search, shoot citizens needs to be subject to the vote.
I don’t like secret police either, Poe.
Agreed CS. I bought an OD green GI scarf at clothing and sales and it was one of the best TA50 related investments I ever made. I always wrapped it around the lower half of my face somewhat like a bandana. In the field during the winter it kept me warm and in the desert it helped keep me from drowning in sand.
I think that when the images began coming back from downrange of covered faces, it became seen as “Tacticool,” leading to the adaptation by LEO.
Yeah, that.
“You’ve got to be a one-man fighting force…You’ve got to have enough guns, and ammunition and body armor to stay alive…You should be walking around in schools every day in complete tactical equipment, with semi-automatic weapons…. You can no longer afford to think of yourselves as peace officers…You must think of yourself [sic] as soldiers in a war because we’re going to ask you to act like soldiers.”
http://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/heroic-school-resource-officer-takes-down-five-year-old-boy/
sincerely
John “Faker 6” Giduck
And entrenching tools…
I guess you could possibly make the case that undercover officers who could be recognized or exposed might need this, but I’m guessing that as a percentage, that number is in the single digits. The reality is probably more in line with CS’s comment…”cool” versus necessity.
One of my neighbors is in this group. He’s a narc officer who also does duty on a SWAT team. His anonymity is essential because it’s hard to conduct undercover work when everyone knows who you are.
I don’t agree that we need SWAT teams to serve warrants or supervise civil protests. There should be a clear and convincing arguement that the person being served is violent before using specialized units.
Interesting. A lot of agencies won’t let their undercover narc officers do anything else because of the need for secrecy. That combined with the often sudden & urgent nature of SWAT alerts would seem to be counterintuitive.
Simple fact about real police. They are overt protecters of the citizens and not some kind of secret police who must live undercover because they deal with scum. When I see these losers wearing their balaclavas doing their SWAT thing, I know what I’m seeing.
I’m seeing men who are ashamed of what they do and trying to hide their identity so their friends and neighbors don’t hold them in contempt.
I could see them wearing masks around someone like Turd Bolling at Ambassador Worldwide Protection Agency.
It keeps them from becoming incapacitated due to his overpowering stench generated from the amount of BS that pours from his mouth.
The use of covering one’s face is practical during riot control. When tear gas is used, it helps protect against the effects of lingering gas and other crowd control agents. It’s much more comfortable than breaking out the gas masks. Secondly, protesters are much more violent these days. Covering your face is also a good defense against the sick feces throwing and fluid squirting thugs who take over just about all demonstrations, peaceful or not.
RobertM- I would argue that a cloth or your face would catch and hold fluids if your were hit. Why not use a face shield- the newer ones are shatter resistant and act as a barrier between your face and the “crap” they throw…
It may “catch and hold”, but it does stop the first toss of whatever they toss. And, the face shield doesn’t stop everything, either. Especially if the tossee is shorter than the target.
I would think they are wearing the mask for protection but that may not be the only reason. With our “open borders” that no one in the White House sees any need to close, they may be thinking about the pictures of those people who have had acid thrown in their faces, and there have been quite a few
pictures on the Internet.
I second what Country Singer (and 10thMountainMan) said- I wore a wrap around my face in Iraq and Afghanistan to keep the dust (and Afghanistan’s EPA violating amount of burnt fecal matter) out of my nose, mouth, and lungs. For a while we were actually issued Nomex flame hoods for flash fire issues with IED’s and explosions. We wore them not to intimidate or alarm people but for functionality. As far as civilian law enforcement- not sure why they would wear them, other than for tacticool purposes. (FYI LE guys- its a bitch to get the balaclava off to get your promask on in a hurry…)
Don’t you guys know ANYTHING?
Gosh, gee whillikers, it’s absolutely essential that lawmen wear masks.
How else can we get people to say, “Who was that masked man?”
Hi yo, Silver, away!
Best response so far…
Poetrooper…I have to say I agree. I believe (and I am not being a conspiracy nut here) that there is a movement in the highest levels of our government to militarize the local police forces. Their ultimate intentions I am not sure of but it is becoming a more visible and forceful presence each year. I believe that between the NSA’s ability to monitor all communications, along with HLS and other agencies, the government is taking a more hostile view of their own citizens. If this view is continued and hardened then the days of the “friendly police officer”, I was raised to trust, respect and admire will go by the wayside. We do not want a police state enabled and ready in America. The Constitution does not allow the use of military forces to subdue civilians into compliance and submission, unless in dire national or local circumstances. The answer then is to equip and train local law enforcement agencies to be ready to do it instead. I do not trust big government and never have. I do not trust the current administration or its policies towards Americans. They will do nothing about our Southern border but at the same time treat common law abiding citizens as potential threats and enemies, no matter the circumstances in which they meet. I am glad I still live in a small, quiet community. All this said is just my one humble opinion.
I am not a conspiracy theorist but, from observation of current events, and what Obama has said in the past https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tt2yGzHfy7s
I think what you are saying is correct.
Jilly…Thank you for posting this link. I have not seen this video before. I am still not a conspiracy nut but this goes to show what the highest levels of our government thinks about the American people and their (Obama’s) stated needs to “control” them…military style.
In GWOT, there is a concern that the enemy will learn a soldier’s identity and then attack his/her family. Add that to the dust issue and it makes sense in theater, it may be being over careful but that’s better than the alternative.
For LEO, if you are raiding a gang – rather it be inner city, biker, or whatever – then the reprisal issue could be valid. Outside of that very specific situation, there is no valid reason for them to hide their identity.
A balaclava will do you zero good against CS and if wearing a gas mask is too unpleasant, find a new line of work. As was pointed out earlier, there are ballistic face shields that will do way more to protect you than a rag.
If the police in other nations don’t need to cover their face when responding to much worse riots than what we see in the US, then the police officers in what is supposed to be the bastion of freedom damn well don’t need to do so either.
Sorry, I had to laugh about the part of serving warrants by yourself. I am not a cop, but have seen anough idiots arrested to know that they don’t just come along quietly when they get popped on that default/bench warrant or are being arrested on drug and weapons charges.
I also have to say, I have never once seen a cop wearing a mask while on patrol.
I’ll second this. Very few people who are being arrested go quietly into that good night. Sending one cop to serve an arrest warrant is foolish at best.
On the other end of the spectrum, I do not think we need a full SWAT team rolling out to arrest one person unless the offender is known to be violent/has weapons charges/known gang member, etc.
RB, up until a few years ago it was SOP and in fact seen as a plum assignment. Ask yourself this: how often do you hear about an officer being harmed while serving a warrant as opposed to a civilian (and too frequently an entirely innocent civilian and /or his equally innocent family dog) being wounded or killed by a police SWAT team?
No one’s saying there aren’t situations that require an aggressive response but excessive force is being employed far too frequently nowadays. And when it is used, the question remains, “Why the damned masks?”
That’s just the thing. The national media does not care when a cop gets shot serving a warrant. Go over to policeone.com and about every other day someone gets shot. One fully understands that this is a risk one knows about when joining, but the idea that police shoot at people PROPORTIONATELY more than they get shot is a myth created by inference. In absolute numbers the police kill about 4 for every officer that is killed, but when you compare the proportion, its like 300 to one in the other direction. Another thing that bears mentioning is that I keep hearing that SWAT is used disproportionately to serve warrants. Aside from the fact that, properly done, an entire team will have safer options for both the arresters and the arrestee and that it matters WHO the warrant is for; The courts have in the last 3 years begun a series of rulings mandating the securing of a warrant after an armed and barricaded situation has progressed beyond the initial crisis, like after an hour or two. So that is something that isn’t often mentioned and should be brought to light. Lastly, the idea that combat veterans and police officers are mutually exclusive strikes me as a sort of crude stereotyping and given that we have been in armed conflict for the last 14 years, it should be self evident that we have thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of combat veterans in police service. I would like to see intelligence and specificity brought to the militarization of police debate. Are helmets militarization when police had helmets before helmets were revived in the army? Are flash bangs militarization when they were used by police before militaries used them? How many armies had armored vehicles with no mounted weapons (an important distinction) before police started using them in the 1940’s? When the Tommy Gun was made it was made for the military but the first entity to use it in service was the US Postal Service, so who is imitating whom there? The idea that the Police were just walking around with… Read more »
I see the face masks as a response to social media, YouTube, etc. If something hits social media before the police department has a chance to deal with it, the officer and his/her family could be the recipients of mob action, if someone on the interwebs is able to identify him/her.
And how many times was there any actual retaliation?
I can see ALL sorts of fun in a prosecution when they put the arresting officer on the stand, and the defense contests that it’s actually the arresting officer. The first time that happens and I’m on the jury, well, that’s reasonable doubt right there. That guy on the stand don’t look nothin’ like the Tacti-Fool on video…
Back in the ’90’s, long before the internet was a factor, a local women went to work for the Sheriff’s department as a dispatcher…and passed on the entire list of local police and deputy’s names and home addresses to a felon in the state penitentary who happened to be her boyfriend. I’ll let you do the math on potential harm in that situation.
Back in the 80’s, a friend of my Dad’s was an agent with BATF. He was out of town when a felon he had arrested showed up at his front door. It’s unknown how the man got his personal info. Fortunately for everyone involved, the perp wasn’t into killing cops’ family members, so the woman and children who were home at the time went unharmed. Because of that situation, the agent moved his family to a gated community.
Those are two situations where the internet wasn’t even a factor. And as far as a legal confrontation, there are other, quite legal ways of getting indentification of a police officer involved in an incident. I’m talking about vigilantes, and their penchant for shooting into houses and cars with very little regard for who they hit or hurt. And if you don’t think that mentality isn’t bright enough to connect faces with names and addresses, you would be sorely mistaken.
It’s pretty simple actually. A lot of our narcotics undercover investigators are also members of the SWAT team. In order to retain their ability to go undercover they hide their identity during SWAT callouts. They are usually serving warrants on people that know them. If you get your way there would be nobody whose cover wasn’t blown.
And you can keep hating all you want, but most of the guys on my SWAT team are military combat veterans.
What is your name Poetrooper? Mine is Colin Berry. No pseudonym there.
I just sent this email directly to Colin Berry who seems to think I’m hiding behind a username. My name is Is Russ Vaughn, Colin, as every regular reader of TAH knows. I’ve been writing on behalf of our military for many years which you can easily determine by Googling my name. I’m a ground combat veteran of Vietnam with the 327th Airborne Infantry of the 101st Airborne in 65-66. Served six years active, most with the 101st some with the 82d Airborne. Got out as SSGT E-6, turning down a promotion to E-7 to go back to college on the G.I. Bill. When I graduated I went into military marketing and spent thirty-plus years on military installations throughout CONUS and overseas. Those are my credentials and I’m not hiding behind a username as you imply. I use it because everyone else at TAH uses one. If you check me out at American Thinker you will see that I’ve been posting there for ten years under my name. The Poetrooper bit came about because I have written many pro-military poems which again you will find by simply Googling my name. I do not hate any LEO. I was a military policeman for a time and I have been a lifelong supporter of law enforcement. However, like tens of millions of other citizens, I am troubled by the increasing militarization of our local police institutions. It is a legitimate concern, even within law enforcement. Granted there are times when overwhelming and anonymous force is called for, but not as a matter of routine service of warrants and routine crowd control, which is what it is becoming. And I’ll wager there has never been a drug bust when every member of the team was also serving undercover and requiring a mask. If you are not open-minded enough to recognize that the American people are becoming concerned with the changes we see taking place in our law enforcement agencies then you, young man, aren’t paying attention to an issue that could really impact your future. Quit being reflexively defensive and listen to the… Read more »
Russ, Thank you for your reply. I expected something like that. I was nearly positive, based on how others interact with you, that you were a respectable man with airtight credentials. I did imply that you were hiding behind your pseudonym in the same way you implied that police officers were hiding behind their masks. Your response was that everyone else did it on this blog. Well, not quite. Many use their real names. Perhaps if you asked some of the officers behind the masks why they do it they would give you answers that are reasonable and credible, much like you just did. Have you done that? I’ve never seen a SWAT executed search warrant where every member of the team was masked up. I’m sure it happens, I just haven’t seen it in my experience in law enforcement. Those that do operate undercover usually are masked up, solely to protect their undercover status. When they leave the UC assignment they lose the mask. I’m not being reflexively defensive. I did decide to get your attention, though. It worked. I am very open minded. Since you shared with me, I’ll reciprocate. I am a US army veteran of the 90’s. After training I served in the 7th ID. When we closed Fort Ord I finished my enlistment at Fort Drum. I missed Somalia, but made it to Haiti and Korea. I then finished off 5 years in the Guard. I was a combat engineer. After all that I eventually became a police officer. I spent 5 years working evening shift in a city near a major metro city. I was a burglary detective for three years, and currently am a special victims investigator specializing in crimes against children and elder abuse and exploitation. You may not hate LEOs, but your post shows that you don’t understand our reasoning. Someone like me sees it as someone who has an axe to grind and didn’t do their research before spouting off on their pet peeve. I believe my impression might be wrong, but that is the impression you gave me. I… Read more »
Well let’s start at the end and work back because it is at the end I get a better idea of who you are. I too have served many years on SALT (Seniors and Law Enforcement Together for the rest of you here at TAH) committees as a member of the Alamo Area Council of Governments Senior Affairs Committee. So I have served side-by-side with many law enforcement officers who represented their agencies. I liked every one of them as they all seemed to have been well-selected to represent their agencies based on a genuine interest in protecting seniors primarily from fraud and scams. And I was not your typical old cranky, single-issue geezer who frequent such committees. I was there on behalf of my employer, a United Way agency hospice, because we saw that even the dying and their vulnerable families are sometimes exploited by the bad guys. That being said, I still think you are leaping to the false conclusion that I am some cranky old single-issue, axe-grinding geezer regarding the issue extant. Nothing could be further from the truth. As the regulars here at TAH will testify, I am a cranky old multiple-issue geezer with endless axes to grind. Only a few of them have to do with law enforcement. Because of long associations with both law enforcement and the military, I am fully aware of, rather than disconnected from, how many of our sworn officers are combat veterans and I think THAT is a very good thing for our country. My problem is not with them but with the local politicians including politicized department heads and budget planners who are largely to blame for so many of these changes that many Americans are beginning to question. We all know that budget increases and systems purchases are justified by data based on past and current usage. The more call-outs and incidence reports the easier to justify bigger budgets and larger forces. The more times the SWAT unit deploys, the more can asked for in that part of next year’s budget. As I noted here at TAH recently,… Read more »
Russ,
I apologize, I don’t have time to write a full response. Suffice it to say that I agree you and I would find a lot of common ground over a beer.
Thanks for the reply.
Colin Berry
I’m not trying to be a gadfly, but I presume you have had to fetch a wounded or trapped person in a killzone, or at least saw it done. Did you do what we used to do before we got an armored car; strap vests on the windows and scrunch yourself down? I did; and it was sub-par to say the least. Later, we got an old apc and mounted the shell on a fire truck chassis. It looks like a steampunk army nightmare, but you can sit in it, put people in it and shield other people with it, and that seems like a pretty important thing.
Elliot Ness didn’t wear a mask, your gang argument is invalid.
I wasn’t talking about ‘mob’ as in Al Capone, I was talking about ‘mob’ as in spontaneous street violence. No mask in the world is going to protect a cop from a mafia hit.
It’s a slippery slope. If you want to really justify it every LEO in the country is at risk to catch a fist or flying projectile to their face on a daily basis.
There is also the risk of being readily identified as an LEO opens them and their family up for retribution from thugs.
Using that you can justiying having every LEO in the country walkig around like Robo Cop.
There is also the other issue of giving a LEO the ability to HIDE from justice while abusing their authority.
When the number of LEOs being caught beating citizens on video goes down you can argue for masks, until then officer friendly I want to see your face.
This problem actually goes a lot further than just the cops. It’s our modern society, across the board. How many of us doesn’t put a favorite bumpersticker on a car for fear of having our car keyed or our tires slashed? How often do you refrain from saying something in public for fear of social or legal retribution? I like the Stars and Bars, but would never fly it now for fear of getting a brick through a window. We now live in a society where people will take their personal outrage out on you, personally, with very little fear of retribution. And if they decide to kill you, so what? Hey, they won the argument, as far as they’re concerned. So they do some time in the slammer; you’re in the ground under a headstone. They won. And if it’s that bad for all of us, the anonymous people out on the street, how much worse is it for the cops? Because the fact is, they DON’T ‘serve’ a polite society anymore — they GUARD an unruly, vicious, and largely uncivilized, ‘me-first’ pack of anti-social hooligans.
Little bit of synchronicity here. I was leaving a chemical plant this morning in Corpus Christi en route to Houston when my co-worker (a civilian) and I passed a totally blacked out MRAP. I had to explain to him what it was, but couldn’t explain why local police needed one in BFE.
Having been to both Corpus and Houston, I would say an MRAP is totally justified there. That being said, with the thousands of MRAPs going to rot in military depots, we might as well give them out to police forces. While they may never actually need to use it, if that one time they do need to use it occurs and it saves lives, then yes it is justified to have it in my opinion. It is better to have and not need than not have and go in unprepared.
Also the majority of the ‘tanks’ and ‘MRAPs’ I have seen complained about in blogs and in the news, were in fact just an armored car built specifically for LE and not a military vehicle.
There is a need from time to time, to be able to take people from point A to point B while within range and sight of a person with a firearm. In such situations it is best to have a vehicle that stops bullets. Regular police cars do this very poorly.
The problem with MRAPS is that they are very tall and often you have to shield people with said vehicle or load injured people into them. Much and faster with a Bearcat type vehicle (though the media will still call it a “tank”)
It isn’t a universal thing involving every city, town, village and county in this country.
Nor is it something that one should necessarily take for granted is met with approval by the US government.
http://news.msn.com/us/us-rethinks-giving-excess-military-gear-to-police?gt1=51501
This is for Shawn Kelley on Facebook which I do not use who is slamming me for hiding behind my TAH username, Poetrooper:
The name is Russ Vaughn, Shawn. When I joined up with Jonn here at TAH I was asked to come up with a user name. Google my name Shawn and you will see I’ve been posting with that name quite openly for a decade. Don’t accuse me of hiding because I don’t. The very same article was posted this morning at my main site, American Thinker, with my name clearly on it; so take your snide implication of cowardice and stick it where the sun don’t Shawn.
I don’t know why it would matter anyway. You are not, in this capacity, acting as an agent of the state. So any anonymity you enjoy here is of no consequence, but someone with arrest powers? Yeah, that’s a different story.
Years ago, I made extra money working in college as a sports official.
There was another referee more senior to me in experience to me who when refereeing touch football games would bring 5 flags with him.
FIVE flags.
The teams hated him because not only was he overly officious, they felt that when he showed up with five flags on his belt, he was ready to use them. It didn’t matter that all it took for any play was 2 flags max, he was there to be “raining flags.”
No one trusted him from the players side and no one wanted to work with him on the referee side.
Every time I see all the gear, the masks the massive and weaponry carried by some police today, I remember that referee because like him, I think the police want to use the things they carry.
I realize that policing can be a dangerous job. Yet when I see raised weapons pointed at civilians, I wonder “since when did Americans become the enemy? And who in the policing world decided we were the enemy?”
Tacticool industry. If you didn’t pay $500 for the certified warfighter carabiner cup holder for dynamic hydration you’re at a tactical risk when trying to quench your thirst. Since they are private the bad guy has access to the tactical cup holder, so you better have it or else he has the advantage.
That is where it comes from and with an administration that official states patriotic Americans are the #1 enemy to our nation it just ramps it up 100 fold.
All people other than police are “civilians” in that context. The guy who robs the store and shoots the clerk is a civilian. The officers 8 year old kid is a civilian. Its fair to ask why any particular officer points a gun at anyone, but the idea that the category “civilian” is meaningful to the question is more emotional than logical.
Damn all and thank you for a wonderful metaphor to describe the overreach of American law enforcement. I promise you, gitarcarver, that I will use that in some future writing and I will give you credit.
If you will, let me know when you use it so I can make sure to read the article.
Like I said, I have always remembered that guy because if he was bringing all those flags, he wanted to use them. (And sometimes did. Geez, was that a mess when he did.)
Odd thing is that when I see some of the comments by LEO’s here, it is almost as if they don’t see the issues and don’t see the problems. I don’t think that there are many people on this site that hate police as a gut reaction. Many people signed up and took a similar oath to the same Constitution that the police take.
There is a disconnect between the police and the citizenry right now.
A friend always tells me something he read somewhere:
“Too many Barney Fifes and not enough Andy Taylors.”
I would think that especially older veterans would have a more refined suspicion of some of the broad stroke characterizations of police officers. To me, the disconnect is very similar to the disconnect between the military and much of society in the 60’s and 70’s. People treated servicemembers like trash because they thought every one of them couldn’t wait to commit an atrocity, or kill a baby, or massacre a village. The instances of bad things happening were real, but the broad characterization was not. Its funny, I go to dinner in my police uniform I have to think about what people are doing to my food, at least prepare for the possibility that someone (like at Denny’s for instance) will turn around from a soda fountain and blow my brains out. If I went to the range to qualify and wear cargo pants I have to field argumentative questions from some guy at a gas station question why I am wearing “military” gear. I put on my Navy uniform and I can barely get out of the door for people saying thank you for your service, trying to give me cookies, trying to buy my lunch, or let me on the plane first.
Whats funny is, I am the same guy. Moreover, my experience has been that I work for nearly identical organizations, with virtual carbon copies as co-workers, and nearly identical standards of comportment and ethics. In both cases, my treatment has nothing to do with me, nor does it have to do with the actual situations I see at work in both places. It simply has to do with whats popular right now.
Criminals wear masks. The military wear combat uniforms. If you are not a criminal or in the military, wear a badge with a # and a professional uniform. Otherwise I do not trust you.
Law Enforcement suffers from What If tacticool marketing in which everyone has to be ready for every possible threat avenue regardless of how practical.
It’s funny because even in this thread somebody talks about a friend who does such and such and the hypocrisy is the guy knows, yet the cop is supposedly so worried about others finding out. What If tacticool marketing in action.
I read some place on the internet that the reason so many odd vehicles like ambulances and firetrucks show up at a traffic stop in some communities – NOT all communities – has more to do with the money fact, specifically, the lack of it, than anything else.
If, for example, you’re transported in an ambulance to a hospital after a minor accident, you get a bill from the ambulance company. If a fire engine shows up, also, you’ll now get a bill for that, and you may even get a bill for services from the police department. This is not a joke.
As I said, it doesn’t occur in all communities, but it is on the rise. In regard to the balaclavas or masks, they don’t appear in all instances, but they do appear and there is complete justification in asking why.
And since I put in a link to an article that says the federal government doesn’t think it’s a good idea, http://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=54812&cpage=1#comment-1731904 , maybe some of you should have read that.
Love the interaction between POETROOPER and COLIN BERRY. You both have proved that it is possible to have an coherent exchange
of ideas w/o name calling and losing the tread of the initial post.
All to many times I quit reading post, whether on the net or in other media, when it becomes (D) vs (R), (them) vs (us), etc.
Using common sense and valid arguments beats name calling hands down. BZ to both
It seems now that some communities are rethinking their eagerness to take the freebies MRAPs that the USGOV handed out to them.
http://news.msn.com/us/two-california-cities-to-give-up-military-vehicles-amid-local-unease
I cannot imagine why they thought it was a good idea in the first place, so if they give up that semi-military twaddle, that’s fine.
Now if they can just admit that some people who are wearing police uniforms are on power trips and abuse their badge power and should be ditched, that would be even better.