Perfectly said. I can't count how many people call because they know we will stop active violence but then provide zero cooperation that would enable any enforcement action.Originally Posted by SouthNarc
Perfectly said. I can't count how many people call because they know we will stop active violence but then provide zero cooperation that would enable any enforcement action.
nyeti, interesting concept on exemptions. I would agree that the law is the same here on the right coast, but the concept of exemption hasn't come up as far as I have seen. A LEO presenting or pointing a gun is or was allowed under law. It is not an assault with an exemption; it is simply not an assault. It is not considered an assault unless the officer acts unlawfully. Nonetheless, I think we are held to similar standards regardless of the language. Of course, who knows what changes we will see in use of force law/policy in this day and age, especially in Maryland.
HCM, thanks for the detailed and interesting of your agency's reasoning on high/compressed ready. While I'm not ready to abandon low ready in my agency, I see your agency's reasoning.
That's totally fair. But aside from the narrow self-interest that shows up in ANY topic, I think most people have a real and legitimate interest in being policed well. Sure, they're mostly ignorant of what that really means, and are susceptible to media hype about it. Add confounding factors - like stupid laws for which cops are the visible manifestation, the occasional asshole with a badge making the whole profession look bad, etc - and it's not surprising that many people have a warped understanding about the whole thing.
I don't think we disagree on this? But I do think that there's a disconnect just due to such a big difference in how much knowledge and experience we have about police work. Things that seem just ridiculously obvious to you, could easily be totally unknown or vague and mysterious to me.
What this thread is really about, to me, is a simple layman explanation of the policies in place today. I'm the ignorant civilian, granted. But I'm capable of understanding an explanation, if it's presented honestly and openly. If a police agency tells me that it's important to let cops point guns at people even if they don't intend to shoot, I hear them, but if they can't give me a rational explanation for this nor a dozen other policies, then I have to wonder how much of that opacity is my inability to grasp specialized concepts, how much is legitimate opsec, and how much is Johnny Cochran bullshit to cover and distract from laziness, incompetence, or worse. We talked in the Ferguson thread about how long it took to release evidence that painted a different picture from what the race baiters were painting. From some perspectives, opacity may be prudent policy, but it eats away at any relationship.
Of course, it could also be that explaining unpleasant realities is simply unpopular, that cops tend to get burned when they try, and if so much of this opacity is understandable.
More likely, it's my ignorant intuition that the opacity is caused by the political nature of police leadership. Maybe if we made commissioners a limited appointment, say 5 years? Or if we just say that the politician who appoints a chief cannot replace them? Random ideas to make police leadership less political, so that we could realistically demand more transparency.
Sorry for the rant. But there's GOT to be a middle way here, where interested civvies can get a reasonable understanding of the rationale behind policy and SOP, without putting cops on the street in any (additional) danger. Maybe "citizen oversight" is a needlessly provocative name for a group of such interested civvies.
The answer, it seems to me, is wrath. The mind cannot foresee its own advance. --FA Hayek Specialization is for insects.
Under the laws of what state? Every state the I'm aware of considers pointing a firearm at someone to be a crime. Doing so may be justified, but that doesn't mean that the underlying act is not generally criminal. I wouldn't even call it an exemption, since that could be construed as something that must be disproven by the state in all cases. Justification is an affirmative defense, which places the burden of production on the defendant. I think this is why nyeti thinks being able to articulate the justification is important. As has been discussed, the rules for federal LE are different.
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Maybe they used to have that interest but now? I just don't see it. Now that's a jaded, pessimistic, point of view and one I certainly don't like having. But that's my limited subjective experience with doing the job.
Personally I don't have an interest in being policed. I'm not concerned about defending myself, my family is capable of defending themselves and anything I/we have is not going to be forcibly taken without a fight that I/we will probably win. If something is taken from me surreptitiously then I have insurance to take care of that.
What do most REGULAR people use police services for? Usually it's a minor complaint that's not civil but not egregiously or violently criminal. Your neighbor won't turn his loud, obnoxious music down. Your car got clipped in a parking lot and you need a report. You're using police services to regulate the behavior of others.
So let's look at it this way: This is pistol-forum.com As a group, probably pretty damn adept at protecting themselves. If police service disappeared tomorrow who here would actually feel it? I posit that NO ONE would, because everyone here can defend themselves and no one engages in crime. Other than the petty niggling shit I just listed and drunk drivers, when was the last time ANYONE here utilized police services?
And it's being used to regulate yours. Unless you are a thug, the other most common interaction with police involve you being stopped for speeding or some other minor traffic offense. And most don't like that. Deep down, I still like to think most honest people know they need the police if something really serious happens. They just don't like some of the things that go along with being policed.
Yup! If technology allowed for traffic enforcement to be completely automated and there was a speed camera every 2 miles on every roadway in the U.S. then that would cut down on probably 95% of most police interaction with the public, unless you were hit and hurt. And even then it's fire and EMS that's primary there as far as saving lives.
One of the first things for citizens to understand is that there really isn't any secret shit. In the city I worked for every department published annual reports with all the stats that they bothered to collect. If it wasn't in there, it's because we didn't know it either. Second, it was harder then, but now most things are online. Want to know if CDP officers followed procedure with Tamir Rice? Read their General Police Orders in PDF format. Not every municipality posts SOPs online, but if they don't they're yours for the asking. In fact, there is so much transparency in the state I worked in that our personnel files were available to anyone who wanted to see them.
Now let's get to understanding why a policy is a policy. UOF guidelines are pretty similar everywhere and could be based on a template from a national organization. Or they've been modified by lawyers in consent decrees. Again using Cleveland as an example, you can see what UOF was and what it's going to be with a simple Google search.
This thread shows the great variation in policies dictated by municipalities and the courts. It's really pointless for me to try to remember the rational behind anything because A) I'm sure it's all changed in the last ten years and B) you don't live where I worked.
Citizens who want to know need to ask locally, which Cory has done. However, they need to investigate with their minds open. They need to delete Al Sharpton, CCN, FoxNews, Cops, Adam-12, and whatever else has created their view of LE.
I'm not as cynical as SN and I don't think I can make it alone. Without LE my locale will start looking like Somalia in a week. After the hurricanes ten years ago it took at least 4-5 times the usual number of cops to keep it from becoming just that. We'll miss the blue line when it's gone.
"Gunfighting is a thinking man's game. So we might want to bring thinking back into it."-MDFA
Beware of my temper, and the dog that I've found...
That's when you open carry your long gun and hang out with like minded friends!
I know I sound cynical but I have to say at least around here, people did a pretty good job of policing themselves during Katrina.. The eye of the storm hit 50 miles from my county and we got our ass kicked. Lost 2/3 of our fleet and couldn't get wheeled vehicles into many areas. We were policing on borrowed four wheelers from a local Polaris dealership. On three occasions we stopped a bad guy from getting executed for stealing/looting. Our jail took 3 feet of water too, so there was no taking anyone into custody. Most bad guys "paid at the pump" and that worked pretty well for the most part. So it worked on the MS. Gulf Coast. New Orleans? Not so much..
Craig,
Isn't there a bigger goal here in terms of prevention of crime? As an individual, yeah I can defend myself. And my one report of a burglary is not, in and of itself, significant. But when investigators put together my burglary with others in the area, and then eventually find the person(s) responsible and arrest them, then isn't the whole community made safer, and I will be less likely to get burglarized again? If police fail to do that kind of work over time then that leaves room for organized crime to get rooted and that brings more crime and becomes a larger job later when it is out of control.
I can hear that you are very frustrated with the state of policing and community reaction and oversight. I don't mean to put you on the spot, but with all that experience you have, you must have some ideas on how to fix it?
Thanks,
Cody
Last edited by cclaxton; 05-31-2015 at 12:39 PM.
That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state;
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