When I was a kid I prayed every night that my dad would come home from his duties as a county sheriff. And he did my whole life every day.

My father retired from police work in 2000, that was the year I started. I didn't last a year, but I did graduate from 2 police academies. I decided that blue uniforms and the sea was more to my liking, so I came back to the military. The fist academy was in California at College of the Sequias in Visalia California. The 2nd one I went to was the Alaska State Trooper Academy. I had to redo the academy because it had been more than 5 years since the first time I went through it.

At the state trooper academy in Alaska we were always taught to be at level 10 alert "switched on" like we were in combat. They even wanted you standing at the "ready' when you were talking to anyone. It was fairly uncomfortable, and at the time I was an Iraq veteran.

Of course as I went to my department they were the same way. I call this "switched on" concept the "cobra". As you are kind of bobbing back and forth looking for danger like a cobra.

Anyway I am digressing here.

I realize that we live in a dangerous society, and that bad men can be everywhere. But why the change in police work that pushes officer safety above that of the public? How are we stupid enough to let those laws pass? What happened to protect and serve?

Not just the United States, I read about other nations where Officer Safety is the most important concept in law enforcement. Here in Australia there was an article in the Sydney paper about it the other day.

It might have been a couple years ago, but we had a big run here on AR about the game warden that shot the old man out of his turkey blind.

My father is in his 70's and now retired from law enforcement since 2000. He told me the other day that he was really dissapointed with the way law enforcement had turned. He was a cop from the 1960's until 2000, over 35 years of experience. City police in Wyoming, County Sheriffs office in Wyoming and retired as a federal agent.

He told me the biggest problem with concepts like SWAT is that if you have a special weapon or piece of equipment there is a tendancy in police work to want to use it. Not every officer needs to be SWAT trained. Clear judgement, good linguiestic skills and sound thinking solve a lot of problems. Force should be the last option, not the first.

At the end of the day I think we need to prosecute cops that violate civillian rights, and we need to ensure we have a police force of the people.

Good points especially about if we have SWAT we have to use it !
Society has changed greatly too. Colin Greenwood [sp ?] wrote about that in his 1955-1985 career as a London policeman .Gun crime kept increasing despite increasing gun laws.

If you are not "standing at the ready" when dealing w/the public/unknown person(s) you are going to get yourself and/or someone else hurt. My "head is on a swivel" at all times when I'm in uniform or not. If you are not aware of your surroundings bad things can happen in a hurry.

My safety at any scene is paramount. I can't protect the public if I'm hurt.

Nothing wrong with having a SWAT Team and of course you are going to use them if you have them!

Are you going a active shooter scene with just a handgun when you have a AR or shotgun available along w/your "bail out" bag. I think not!

Same thing w/ SWAT. Why should a patrol officer try to handle a scene like that, with most likely, what is on his gun belt, when SWAT can show up w/all their training, equipment and maybe even some specializied vehicles?

In the 12 years since your dad retired, the crooks have become more emboldened.

Becoming a cop doesn't mean letting yourself get killed is part of your job and...because you can't protect and serve if you are dead...and all is not what it appears to be.

I can't speak to what is taught in AK and not sure what you mean by "Level 10" but what is taught in CA (including the academy you went to) is "to be cautiously aware at all times" and yes you are taught to stand and position yourself properly at all times. The alternative would be to do dumb things like stand with your gun leg forward when you talk to somebody on the street.

You might not be aware of the notebooks that are confiscated in prisons each year that are instructions on how to kill and ambush police officers. PM your phone number and I will tell you the details.

One of the events that led to a focus on Officer Safety was the Newhall Massacre. The crook who pulled out a gun he had hidden and started the shooting was asked by the investigator:

"Why did you start shooting?"

Reply: "He got careless, so I wasted him."

A fellow deputy of mine went to a silent alarm at a bank...there were slip ups in procedures and he made a mistake by relaxing when he saw the "Bank Manager" in a suit and tie greet him at the door. Yep you guessed it, that was the armed robber. A gunfight ensues and the deputy wins and is very lucky judging by the scar on the edge of his eye socket across his sideburn from a bullet.

Ted Bundy looked like "joe citizen".

Dennis Rader the BTK killer was a member of Christ Lutheran Church and had been elected president of the Congregation Council. He was also a Cub Scout leader.

You might find this clip interesting:

http://missoulian.com/news/loc...02e0.html?mode=video

What is remarkable to me is how few mistakes are made by officers, not how many.

Force is an option and it might be the first and the appropriate first option. If someone opens fire on an officer, do you expect him to say "Please stop" first?.

By the way, the Game Warden "did not shoot the old man" out of the turkey blind. As I recall, the Game Warden asked the old man to leave his gun in the blind and come down out of his blind. The old man came down out of the blind with the gun, refused to put the gun down, and continued to advance on the Warden. Now neither of us were there, so neither of us knows exactly what happened but I don't believe there is any information anywhere that states the Game Warden shot the old man out of the turkey blind.

There has been no law passed in any state that I am aware of that puts officer safety above public safety. State laws are usually broadly written and govern under what circumstances an officer can use force such CA PC 835.

But most of the public argument in this area is about exactly when and how much force can and should be used.

The law that governs the issue on the use of force by police officers is 4th amendment of the US constitution because the ultimate use of force is considered a "seizure" of your person and is governed by the "unreasonable searches and seizure" clause. As an aside, the death penalty is different it is governed by the 8th and 14th Amendment.

You may want to research the case law on use of force by police officers.

The key cases are Tennessee v. Garner, Graham v. Connor, Long Beach POA vs City of Long Beach/Peterson vs. Long Beach, San Diego County vs. Forrester, and US vs. Downs.

Graham v. Connor is usually considered the main case.

Rather than taking sides or making choices between public safety and individual freedom I made a simple resident location decision.

Dillingham is not an ideal terrorist target. Dillingham is not attractive to ethnic gangs, smugglers, drug cartels or international fugitives. Yes we have some crime in Dillingham and as a volunteer rescue squad member I responded to quite a bit of it but I'd emphasize that I never feared for mine own or my fellow responders safety. "Its Dillingham!" has a variety of meanings in a variety of discussions, but as it pertains to public safety it means, "Really, what could happen here thats so bad?" I get my education on urban crime from Net Flicks and my education on the decay of our federal gov. and western civilization from the ARPF. What I see on a daily/ annual basis outside my front door has little to do with the fascist bent of the thugs I read about on the computer and see on tv.

Dillingham is very appealing to big game hunters, sport fishermen, people historically of this area and a few others. I believe there are many towns with similar attributes in many states that also have little or at least managable public safety issues. Its your choice gentlemen, reside in an area that increases your chances or fears of harm from the public or the government or choose to live in a place where the chance or fear is diminished.

quote:

Originally posted by MOA TACTICAL:
...the biggest problem with concepts like SWAT is that if you have a special weapon or piece of equipment there is a tendancy in police work to want to use it. Not every officer needs to be SWAT trained. Clear judgement, good linguiestic skills and sound thinking solve a lot of problems. Force should be the last option, not the first.

At the end of the day I think we need to prosecute cops that violate civillian rights, and we need to ensure we have a police force of the people.

Amen, Amen, Verily I say to thee, AMEN.

In my opinion, force is a "last safeguard", not a first "position."

In light of a tense situation a number of years back, I now tell all my high school kids & young adults (especially men) that there are two things to do when pulled over by police for a traffic stop:

1. Turn on the overhead dome light in your car.

2. Keep your hands on the top of the steering wheel until the officer instructs you to put down the window; immediately put hands back on steering wheel after complying with officer's instructions.

I don't begrudge officers being mindful of threats in today's world. But there is another side to this also: sometimes - perhaps even most of the time - errors in judgment can result in a shooting. Mind you, I don't say "officer errors", because there's plenty of good and bad judgments both people involved can make. And typically most "conversations" involve two people, yes?

That's my .02

friar

Having retired after 33 years on the job of local, county and state Law enforcement.

I carried a patrol rifle for most of them having my choice of rifle for some of them.

Rural deputies have carried rifles long before other departments.

I seen huge advances in tatics and officer safety. These along with vest have gone a long ways to make officers safer from armed attacks.

I also seen a huge decrease in our civil rights mainly due to the failed so called war on drugs.

Gettting a no knock warrent was almost unheard of in the 70's and early 80's. The judges in my area needed a dam good reason. Knowing how dangerous they could be.

We needed a consitutional admendment to out law achohol. Why didn't we need one for drugs.

We saw high crime rates to to achohol gangs fighting with each other.

We now see the same thing with drug gangs.

I see drug probaition as a failure as achohol probaition was.

For those in favor of keeping drugs out lawed tell me where in the consitution you get the auttority to do so.

SWAT has it place but as with any LEO tool it can be abused.

Pretty good post, I started back in patrol after returning from a side trip to a wet green place in 69' and retired in 2012 for good this time

ONe thing I learned from my betters was that it was your job to go home with no more holes than GOD gave ya!

Now broken and brused didn't count.

[quote]But why the change in police work that pushes officer safety above that of the public? [/quote
I've never been a cop at any time in my life but I believe the answer to your question is this. There are a lot more assholes around that are more than willing to shoot a cop. maybe it's because they're drugged up or maybe they just don't want to go back to prison. My ex-son in law is LEO and can't wait for the enxt 17 months to pass so he can collect his pension. Can't say as I blame him.
Paul B.

I agree with some of your points. However, I do take issue with others. After serving as a state trooper for 30 years, I too retired in 2000. In those 30 years I only had significant issues with two violators. I don't know if that speaks more to my safety measures or sheer luck. Either way, I always told myself I was going home at the end of my shift, regardless of what I had to do to accomplish that. One thing I observed during those years was if someone had intentions of doing you harm, there wasn't much you could do to avoid a confrontation. You could only count on your safety training and instincts to help you make it through the incident. When I was a trooper on the road, there were many, many nights when I was the only trooper working a county which was 800 square miles. Even though there were other local officers on duty, our communications did not allow us to cross-communicate. It was up to you to get the job done. The world has changed since 2000 but people are still people. We had very few dealings with the local minister, the college professor or the school principal at 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning and you better be ready for whatever may be headed your way. You are right, law enforcement has changed. It had to change to try and keep up with society. Look at our military, haven't their tactics changed? The types of warfare we are engaged in are different than any we have faced before. But, look at our enemies, even though some of them still live/hide in caves in the middle east they possess the abilities to kill and maim thousands of our brave service men and women. Admittedly, there are still some poor examples of law enforcement officers in the ranks. Law enforcement agencies must continue to closely scrutinize applicants and properly train those they hire. Court rulings have greatly changed hiring procedures for agencies. As an example, size and weight restrictions are gone. And, there was a time when an applicant could be rejected if he admitted he smoked marijuana now, that's not the case. You almost have to have proof that the applicant was a drug dealer before he can be rejected now. I could go on and on but, I will not. The important thing to remember is that we still get our applicants and officers from society in general. Sometimes that's good and sometimes it's not so good. Hopefully, the bad apples can be weeded out before they ruin an organization. But, when it comes down to the life and death decisions, it is still up to the individual officer to decide do I "get tried by twelve or do I get carried by six"? And you better be right and your decision better be made quickly.

quote:

I started watching the watchers when they became LAW ENFORCEMENT POLICE instead of PEACE OFFICERS.I noticed the change in the wind right off...and it's getting worse everyday

NEVER THE LEAST DEGREE OF LIBERTY IN EXCHANGE FOR THE GREATEST DEGREE OF SECURITY

+1


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In too many instances, especially in smaller, rural towns, police forces seem to have started viewing regular citizens as some form of security risk.

Yes, many things have changed in our society, but treating a little old lady running a stop sign, the same as a potential drug dealer is a little bit of overkill, IMO.

quote:

Originally posted by Crazyhorseconsulting:
In too many instances, especially in smaller, rural towns, police forces seem to have started viewing regular citizens as some form of security risk.

Yes, many things have changed in our society, but treating a little old lady running a stop sign, the same as a potential drug dealer is a little bit of overkill, IMO.

That’s because DHS keeps telling local law enforcement to watch out for those constitutional believing, church going, firearms owning folk because they’re dangerous to the established government.

I cannot argue against that assessment.

Me neither.
Paul B.

The world is most certainly a different place from when I grew up. On both sides, the level of aggression has risen dramatically. It is getting harder and harder to tell which are the good guys and which are not. Any more, how is a no-knock warrant different than a home invasion other than it is "sanctioned" by someone. The last statistic I read said something like 80% found nothing on such warrants. I wish I could find the article.

Same with drug dog hits. They are very ineffective and in a lot of cases, just fraudulent based on the officer "leading" the dog to alert so they can then claim probable cause. It seems that a lot of departments are now resorting to stealing in order to fund departments and prosecutors offices since budgets have been cut. If there is "probable cause" they can conficate whatever cash you have and you have to go back to the original location to retrieve it, even if there was no arrest or even a ticket given. Since in some cases it costs more to go to court to get your stuff back, people abandon it.

Here are a couple articles. When the police are willing to steal from you, why should there be a great level of trust. It actually happened to a friend of my daughter's who is a model and travels with some cash since that is how they get paid a lot. They took all of her cash since "only drug dealers have cash on them". That was in Texas last month. The articles are from other places.

Searches in Illinois

Tennessee police theft

Police deserve respect and, from a personal perspective, admiration, but they need to stay inside the bounds of the law. They should be alert, ready and able to defend themselves and the people they serve with whatever means necessary. One of the problems they face is politicians not allowing them to have the means and equipment to be on the same playing field as their opponents. THAT is the shame.

When you have to teach your law abiding children exactly how to answer and NOT answer an officer's questions, that is also a shame. When you have to learn not to tell officers you have anything, that is also a shame.

Most Policemen I know....and my wifes family has two, one active and one retired.........know nothing about the constitution and care even less.

While I have the greatest respect and admiration for our military, the local police force is recruiting too many ex military.........

The police and the military are two entirely different things. The police are not nor should they ever be a paramilitery type of origanization.

Our police seem more in tune with revenue generation.....seat belt tickets and speed traps....than public safety. I know this comes from higher than beat cop level but damn, we need more beat cops patrolling than cops hiding under overpasses looking for seat belt violators.



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Why is this in the 'American Big Game Hunting' forum?

George

Poor moderating or rule enforcement might be the cause.

It's gotta be somewhere?????



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Hey, I just think it's funny the American Big Game Hunting forum has a moderator named Canuck.

Maybe because no one would read it in Misc. Forum??? Don't know.