Sheriff Cancels Calibre Press Training After Public Scrutiny

[AMC]

This fits in well with progressive's forced transformation of our profession from "Law Enforcement" to what I like to call "Law Encouragement". John is correct that a great deal of the public cannot handle the fact that life is dangerous, and that there are evil people who may seek to do them harm. Decades of progressive influence in the fields of law and education, and the insistence that someone else is to blame for everything negative that happens to you, also contributes to this Post-Modernist bullshit. But this current trend is a manufactured "crisis" that they are taking as an opportunity to further transform society. Groups like P.E.R.F. are 100% part and parcel to this. They look at Great Britain and see an idealized disarmed society, which they want to emulate. They see the necessary first step as being disarming (both psychologically and literally) our police forces. This can then be used as a moral argument for disarming the rest of our society. In the meantime, the increasing crime, bloodshed and chaos that occurs as a result of these policies can be used as an argument for someone to do something. And they're ready with the plan! Talking to folks in LE across the country, it sounds like most LE executives recognize P.E.R.F.'s Use-of-Force recommendations for what they are: Suicidal insanity that upends American Law and moral precepts. Some, like my town, have drank the whole pitcher of Cool-Aid....and thought it was sweet! Though our use-of-force revisions are currently in a "meet-and-confer" process with our union, I have no confidence that this will end well. Some of the contested language has already been put into policy by Department Bulletins (i.e. "Proportionality of Force"), and the unions reply was......crickets. Seems like they've largely given up....and frankly most don't have very much understanding of this stuff, and know that they're out the door soon, and so won't have to deal with it.

[DocGKR]

"Proportionality of Force" is an EXTREMELY flawed concept...

[jlw]

I was in a class recently taught by an enlightened PERF member. When he mentioned PERF, a salty old Captain told him that PERF was considered a cuss word in these parts.

I didn't get to stay for the whole class though. I had to leave early because one of my guys shot somebody.

[John Hearne]

I was in a class recently taught by an enlightened PERF member. I didn't get to stay for the whole class though. I had to leave early because one of my guys shot somebody.

If you had stayed, your officer wouldn't have shot anyone.

[11B10]

This fits in well with progressive's forced transformation of our profession from "Law Enforcement" to what I like to call "Law Encouragement". John is correct that a great deal of the public cannot handle the fact that life is dangerous, and that there are evil people who may seek to do them harm. Decades of progressive influence in the fields of law and education, and the insistence that someone else is to blame for everything negative that happens to you, also contributes to this Post-Modernist bullshit. But this current trend is a manufactured "crisis" that they are taking as an opportunity to further transform society. Groups like P.E.R.F. are 100% part and parcel to this. They look at Great Britain and see an idealized disarmed society, which they want to emulate. They see the necessary first step as being disarming (both psychologically and literally) our police forces. This can then be used as a moral argument for disarming the rest of our society. In the meantime, the increasing crime, bloodshed and chaos that occurs as a result of these policies can be used as an argument for someone to do something. And they're ready with the plan! Talking to folks in LE across the country, it sounds like most LE executives recognize P.E.R.F.'s Use-of-Force recommendations for what they are: Suicidal insanity that upends American Law and moral precepts. Some, like my town, have drank the whole pitcher of Cool-Aid....and thought it was sweet! Though our use-of-force revisions are currently in a "meet-and-confer" process with our union, I have no confidence that this will end well. Some of the contested language has already been put into policy by Department Bulletins (i.e. "Proportionality of Force"), and the unions reply was......crickets. Seems like they've largely given up....and frankly most don't have very much understanding of this stuff, and know that they're out the door soon, and so won't have to deal with it.

This ^^^ and John's post are pure gold. Thanks to both of you.

[TGS]

This fits in well with progressive's forced transformation of our profession from "Law Enforcement" to what I like to call "Law Encouragement". John is correct that a great deal of the public cannot handle the fact that life is dangerous, and that there are evil people who may seek to do them harm. Decades of progressive influence in the fields of law and education, and the insistence that someone else is to blame for everything negative that happens to you, also contributes to this Post-Modernist bullshit. But this current trend is a manufactured "crisis" that they are taking as an opportunity to further transform society. Groups like P.E.R.F. are 100% part and parcel to this. They look at Great Britain and see an idealized disarmed society, which they want to emulate. They see the necessary first step as being disarming (both psychologically and literally) our police forces. This can then be used as a moral argument for disarming the rest of our society. In the meantime, the increasing crime, bloodshed and chaos that occurs as a result of these policies can be used as an argument for someone to do something. And they're ready with the plan! Talking to folks in LE across the country, it sounds like most LE executives recognize P.E.R.F.'s Use-of-Force recommendations for what they are: Suicidal insanity that upends American Law and moral precepts. Some, like my town, have drank the whole pitcher of Cool-Aid....and thought it was sweet! Though our use-of-force revisions are currently in a "meet-and-confer" process with our union, I have no confidence that this will end well. Some of the contested language has already been put into policy by Department Bulletins (i.e. "Proportionality of Force"), and the unions reply was......crickets. Seems like they've largely given up....and frankly most don't have very much understanding of this stuff, and know that they're out the door soon, and so won't have to deal with it.

I've never been exposed to nor heard of PERF, so I looked it up. I found this and read it:

http://www.policeforum.org/assets/gu...rinciples1.pdf

Honestly, most of the points were things that I thought we as American LEOs were already doing; granted, my exposure to nationwide LE TTPs is minimal.

The biggest problems I had with this paper were the following:

1) Proportionality of force. I don't think that proportionality of force is a flawed concept, but that PERF is misrepresenting it to mean minimal force necessary........which, as we've discussed before, is flawed as it requires 20/20 hindsight. You can tell that PERF tried really hard in their paper to skirt that issue, and their explanation and reference to their critical decision making model basically says the officer has to consider 20/20 hindsight.

2) Sans shields, the tactics I learned at FLETC would have had me approach those situations (in their Police Scotland training week) the same way as the Scots did. The difference is we wouldn't have a non-lethal backup to non-lethal deployment. The huge problem I see with these scenarios is that they're scripted, and the perp complies in a 100% best possible manner to not only "de-escalation" but the deployment of intermediate force adjuncts. They use this scripted success to say, "Look, you don't need guns." In reality, intermediate force adjuncts do not always produce the desired outcome.

3) Red herrings, strawmans, and reductio ad absurdums: PERFs paper tries to make its point by giving examples where LEOs shouldn't shoot, but says we do. Thing is, what they stated was a no-shoot to begin with according to even legal standards. Or, when discussing actual example shootings using tidbits from reports, it's quite clear they were misrepresenting and/or purposely not including all of the info based on why the officer shot, and instead saying the officer shouldn't have shot based on "A", when the officer was likely presented with, "B" and "C" inputs to their decision making as well. I'll have to go back through and read it again to pick out the specifics.

[AMC]

TGS, Proportionality of Force is an extremely flawed concept. As used in our policy, it asks to officer to consider the "seriousness" of the offense which we are attempting to make the arrest for, over and above the suspects actions, in deciding whether or not to use force for the arrest. It also calls for "Proportionality" in response to suspects armed with weapons other than firearms.....basically meaning we should never be able to shoot at someone unless they are shooting at us. Yes, they are actually calling on our officers to engage in prolonged gladiatorial combat against these folks using plastic shields and riot batons. I agree with your assessment of the Scottish training videos.....all staged, canned incidents. Good luck with a that with some meth-head maniac with an ax. But in their discussions about this, they are calling for overturning and rejecting the Graham "reasonableness" standard, in favor of exactly the 20/20 hindsight judgement you talked about!

[TGS]

TGS, Proportionality of Force is an extremely flawed concept. As used in our policy, it asks to officer to consider the "seriousness" of the offense which we are attempting to make the arrest for, over and above the suspects actions, in deciding whether or not to use force for the arrest. It also calls for "Proportionality" in response to suspects armed with weapons other than firearms.....basically meaning we should never be able to shoot at someone unless they are shooting at us. Yes, they are actually calling on our officers to engage in prolonged gladiatorial combat against these folks using plastic shields and riot batons. I agree with your assessment of the Scottish training videos.....all staged, canned incidents. Good luck with a that with some meth-head maniac with an ax. But in their discussions about this, they are calling for overturning and rejecting the Graham "reasonableness" standard, in favor of exactly the 20/20 hindsight judgement you talked about!

Maybe I'm confusing terms, but I thought "proportionality of force" is part of Graham in determining what is reasonable force. Ex: He has a lethal instrument, I can articulate him posing a threat of grievous bodily harm, so I can respond proportionally with a lethal instrument in order to effect a 4th Amendment seizure. He does not have a lethal instrument, and if I cannot otherwise articulate a risk of grievous bodily harm, therefore my force must be proportional (hands on, intermediate force adjunct, etc).

The way your department is applying proportionality is whoa flawed, for sure. That doesn't mean the concept of proportionality of force is flawed, unless like I mentioned before I'm simply using/remembering the term incorrectly.

ETA: Okay, looking around further. Looks like I'm straight up confusing the term and applying it incorrectly, and likely trying to make more sense of it than it's intended.

[Chuck Haggard]

“Detached reflection cannot be demanded in the presence of an uplifted knife. Therefore, in this Court, at least, it is not a condition of immunity that one in that situation should pause to consider whether a reasonable man might not think it possible to fly with safety or to disable his assailant rather than to kill him.”

[Backspin]

“Detached reflection cannot be demanded in the presence of an uplifted knife. Therefore, in this Court, at least, it is not a condition of immunity that one in that situation should pause to consider whether a reasonable man might not think it possible to fly with safety or to disable his assailant rather than to kill him.”

That should have been the 9th Circuit's opinion in Hayes v. San Diego.