I'm increasingly of the belief that the domestic police in the United States shouldn't even be called a force, they should be called a service. They should not carry firearms, and they should not receive primarily military training. They should be well paid and receive aggressive financial incentives to continue their education. They should always be wearing a body cam when on duty.
There will always be a need for armed police at some point, but that point is not the streets, and not daily response to mundane events.
Clearly the local police made various constitutional violations against a suicidal war veteran and they trashed his place and left it for him to come back to. How jaded and unconcerned?
Sadly one of my former employees left and joined the war and while there lost a buddy in Iraq. After being home for 12 months he took his life leaving all of us in shock. If police did that to a hero who are they willing to go for bat for????
No one. This should be obvious if you're living in the US. Even if you've never had an encounter with police, watch ANY cop show, especially the reality ones. Every roughly 20-30 seconds you will hear some cop talk about how dangerous the job is (it really isn't) and how their main objective is to get back to their family. The police does not give a fuck about you and they certainly will not "stand up" for you if you are in danger. They will get back home to their families at all costs, including your own life. The rest of the "serve and protect" bullshit is for rubes and other idiots who are dumb enough to believe it and whose parents did them a huge disservice by not teaching them about one of the gravest dangers of American society.
But what communities want is a police force that provides safety to citizens, not one that fights enemies. There's a big difference between those mindsets.
My buddy is a copy in a mid-size south florida town and is getting 6K retirement checks after 20 years of service and still working full time in the DROP program. I'd say he's fairly well paid for only high school education.
It seems to me like the most outrageous police brutality sources would be solved by high-level oversight.
Unfortunately in a society where a lot of citizens have fire arms, where gang culture exist this will not be possible at all. How many times police was shot on routine daily events? Police not carrying weapons is not realistic in USA.
Certain officers and teams absolutely should well armed, but it should be a much smaller subset of the force. A call for deadly force should be an explicit, intentional escalation.
About 64 officers die per year. Not all of those are shot.
In 2013: https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-release...
>> 76 law enforcement officers were killed in line-of-duty incidents in 2013. Of these, 27 law enforcement officers died as a result of felonious acts, and 49 officers died in accidents.
Most of those felonious killings were by gun.
>> In 2013, of the 49,851 officers assaulted while performing their duties, 29.2 percent were injured. The largest percentage of victim officers (31.2 percent) were assaulted while responding to disturbance calls. Assailants used personal weapons (hands, fists, feet, etc.) in 79.8 percent of the incidents, firearms in 4.5 percent of incidents, and knives or other cutting instruments in 1.8 percent of the incidents. Other types of dangerous weapons were used in 13.9 percent of assaults. Expanded assault details have been included in the 2013 publication. Data for assaults during which officers were injured with firearms or knives/other cutting instruments are located in new tables, figures, and selected narratives.
From this I don't know if the 4.5% of gun incidents refers to 4.5% of 49,851 officers assaulted, or to the 29.2% of those which were injured.
How many people are shot and killed by police each year? We don't know, the police don't count these numbers. How many people are shot and injured by police each year? Again, we don't know, because the police don't count these shootings.
"gang culture" and "lots of firearms" are not reasons for beat cops to be armed on a daily basis.
"how many times has a police officer been shot during routine daily events?" - this is not relevant. Having a gun does not protect you from being shot. Quite the opposite, in general.
If a police officer is attempting to make an arrest and experiences armed resistance, then it is of course necessary to have a small, dedicated part of the police force that is authorized to use firearms.
I think it's a reasonable hypothesis that the ability to use lethal force with near impunity has enabled a police culture of maximum-confrontation. That culture is going to be hard to root out, and taking away the guns that enabled it (from most cops, and increasing scrutiny of who are still allowed to carry) could be a good start and do a lot of good.
Agreed. Also works if the citizenry wear body cams.
Obviously funding and regulatory-capture would be a problem, but maybe that can be mitigated somehow.
People respond to incentives. Giving any individual any sort of immunity against laws that apply to everyone else will ultimately lead to the worst abuses. How many will we never hear about?
This sort of story will continue to appear until there is a systemic change.
But they were the cops doing it, so...
It's not at all clear that the officers are the criminals here, and not their chief, their mayor, their governor. Holding the system/state accountable is a complicated question. Civil suits are a relatively flexible tool.
When you look at police shootings, for example, we pursue criminal charges when the officers show personal malice or "hate crime", not when they shoot in accordance with their training and the department's overall use-of-force principles. It's hard to show that it's correct to throw individual officers in jail for following the will of "the People overall" and the local Executive.
Police have the hardest job in America BUT that does not mean anything negative to police is bias. What positive spin could you possibly give this issue with the police or the lower courts?
I'm sure there are a few professions that would disagree. Air Traffic Controller comes to mind immediately. And before you say something about cops having to face the threat of death, most cops never even come close to that. Conversely, every ATC is responsible for thousands of lives daily.
(I really appreciate that linking, btw.)
Even assuming, without deciding, that the initial “sweep” of Corrigan’s home [was justified], the second top-to-bottom search by the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit (“EOD”) after the MPD had been on the scene for several hours was not.
EOD officers cut open every zipped bag, dumped onto the floor the contents of every box and drawer, broke into locked boxes under the bed and in the closet, emptied shelves into piles in each room, and broke into locked boxes containing Corrigan’s three firearms. [..] the police had left the contents of his bureau drawers and shelves scattered on the floor, his electric stove had been left on, and the front door of his home was left unlocked.
"Because it was (and is) clearly established that law enforcement officers must have an objectively reasonable basis for believing an exigency justifies a warrantless search of a home, and because no reasonable officer could have concluded such a basis existed for the second more intrusive search, the officers were not entitled to qualified immunity across the board."
I wouldn't call it inexcusable, I'd simply call it criminal.
veterans go though a unique form of stress. and they get seperate medical care etc, which I hear is not always that great.
I'm not too surprised that the suicide hotline had trouble handling someone who wasn't suicidal. I called one once, trying to figure out how to help a mentally ill person who had been e-mailing me. They weren't exactly the appropriate place to call, but this person was in another country and they were the first people I could think of to at least point me in the right direction. They did help, but they also kept asking me questions like, "does this make you suicidal?" Strange experience, although it did work out fine in the end for me.
> A disabled vet with PTSD accidentally called a suicide prevention hotline when
> intending to dial the Veterans Crisis Line.
Edit: District court did rule in MPD's favor. Which isn't surprising of course. Still, wouldn't have been surprised if MPD appealed had it gone against them, for above mentioned reasons.
For the most part, most cops are mostly good... there are some very bad apples out there, and some jurisdictions are definitely worse than others.
And here we see why the current American problem is uniquely American — because that would never have happened.
https://www.veteranscrisisline.net/GetHelp/WhatToExpect.aspx
I'm clearly no suicide prevention expert, but questioning the caller on drug use, repeatedly demanding to put weapons (that are not even present) away, then calling a militant police force upon no response, shows that the Hotline isn't really being the sympathetic role they were initially intended to be.
As bad as this situation has been for veterans, it brings to light how poorly (IMO) they are handling citizens reaching out for help as well.
The drug use question is a reasonable one, at least in terms of active use. It has a significant impact on how you want to talk to someone, how at-risk they are, and yes, on what the police should be aware of if they're eventually contacted. It shouldn't ever go further if the person doesn't need a police visit, though.
Demanding that he "say the guns are down" sounds like stupid and alarming legalism. It strikes me as someone reading a script, unable to deal with an answer of "they were never up to begin with, and are locked away, can we move on".
And the whole thing... yes, the police can help with suicides. Yes, someone hanging up without explanation is a bad sign. But you can't fail to help people, then assume they're unstable for hanging up on you, then make wild and unjustified claims to the police.
As an initial thought, I would have expected the hotline to operate under the same privacy regulations as any other medical facility. At least in the absence of any warning otherwise.
And the uninformed still wonder why we have so many problems with mental health and suicide in the US, a place where seeking help--even by accident--is likely to make things worse or even lead to death.
There is, for sure. There are crisis centers that don't respond like that. They may not be common - so maybe some luck is involved - but there are people out there trying to help others.