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 d-usa wrote:
It's nice when the cops even advertise that they are becoming your friendly neighborhood Warriors:

Damn. That kinda shows how they see themselves, huh? Or at least how whoever OK'ed that advertising campaign sees the police.

Don't they know that police and troops that hide their faces in movies always end up as bad guys getting shot?

 Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:

The 12 officers were acting on a tip from Mr. Stewart's former girlfriend, who said that he was growing marijuana in his basement.

Women

Police,
specifically gun nut trigger happy American police.

Those idiot police were so proud of themselves of their shooting spree and the 300 ish rounds they let off they spilled the source of the bust.....
of drug dealers...
who get involved in shoot outs

First thing I noticed in this thread, But Frazzies happy with new improved 'warrior cops' so, all its OK then.

The above was after reading page one.

Reading on we come to this gem:

 d-usa wrote:
It's nice when the cops even advertise that they are becoming your friendly neighborhood Warriors:

Anonymous, yeah right.

to nonsense like sheriff's offices buying APC's; as if they were touring Afghanistan instead of Phoenix

Scary stuff, we've seen a lot of crazy over here in Ireland with regards to the North etc but (no offense to the US), from a general viewpoint that is another level.
Post 9/11 fear/reactions have gotten (imho) absolutely disproportionate to the US homeland real threats or "what might happen!".

The US has a lot to offer but this does not constitute it :(

Comrade
Post Wed, 24/Jul/2013 03:08:25 AM Subject: Rise of the Warrior Cop
Personally I've never found actual military veterans to be bad LEOs.

I have found however a whole metric crap ton of civilians who try and overcompensate by pretending they were in the military by attempting to imitate what they think being in the military was like.

Very interesting.

Witzkatz wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
It's nice when the cops even advertise that they are becoming your friendly neighborhood Warriors:

Damn. That kinda shows how they see themselves, huh? Or at least how whoever OK'ed that advertising campaign sees the police.

Don't they know that police and troops that hide their faces in movies always end up as bad guys getting shot?

If it hasn't been pointed out yet, the above advertisement may have been created as a way to reassure people that the state is more powerful, and thus more likely to be able to protect you from those who believe the "snitches get stitches" and "don't be witnessing" lines.

Because the involvement of the community, even as witnesses, is integral to LEOs. LEOs cannot hope to have any effect on crime in a court of law if nobody talks (hence the drive behind the aforementioned phrases).

So while the advertisement may be misguided in that it assumes everyone views that sight as a friendly and reassuring scene, there is a chance that the intention is to comfort those who perceive themselves to be on the 'right' side of the law; hence the show of force and the tagline "we've got your back".

I attribute it to the same cultural forces that brought on the rise of tacticool. I suspect it's a combination of 'combat envy' and the glorification of snake-eating secret squirrels in pop culture over the past decade.

As much as I want to really comment on the advertisement on the side of the bus....want to point out that on military combat ops we do not wear masks for a reason. Just want to point that out. but I will admit depend on the situation on dealing with insurgents we do don Kevlar sleeves and mask along with ballistic Oakly's. because being blinding by wood chips....or mud chips along with frag grenades....I've enough scars on my body....better then tat's lol

Some countries do cops differently...

@ OP:

Oh where to start. This whole article borders on the ridiculous. The news media hates cops. Period. The guy grabbed a gun and opened fire on the cops. Cops are the bad guys. This is the story this article is trying to sell? Seriously? If they get information of some sort of drug growing operation, they aren't going to send a patrol out. SWAT is activated because it is above what a patrol officer is expected to handle. This could be suicide threats with hostages to drug busts.

Next is the fantastic anti-equipment brigade argument. What defines military hardware? The article claims that cops have been gearing up since the 60s, but...



These are late 1920s cops with tommy guns. This was considered top of the line of the time. This was to keep up with the growing gang element of the time. Does the presence of submachine guns make these cops military? The article makes common poorly conceived arguments such as equipment level and the desire to go home alive as a bad thing. You want to officers to be able to do their job as safe as possible, you're going to have to give them equipment. If you want to blame officers getting assault rifles, blame these guys:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout

Or perhaps these kids:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbine_High_School_massacre

Police need a way to quickly and effectively deal with these threats. They can't wait for the swat team to assemble. To ask the police to go in with inferior equipment and tell them that it's their job to do so, is near asking them to go get themselves killed. We don't ask soldiers to fight with pistols and clubs because we want them to come home, why are we asking police to deal with threats like these with a "What's all this then?"

And seriously the article says, "If you browse online police discussion boards, or chat with younger cops today, you will often encounter some version of the phrase, "Whatever I need to do to get home safe." It is a sentiment that suggests that every interaction with a citizen may be the officer's last." Does this author want the officers to get the crap beaten out of them by every drunk, tweaker and idiot? Or does he just want them to die for their community? I honestly can't tell. He believes that swat teams shouldn't be part of vice because obviously the guys dealing drugs don't carry guns and hang out with other guys with guns amirite? This man has no idea what he is talking about and has bought into or is rabidly selling the bs the news media driven idea that cops are bad and are trying to kill you.

If you think this started because of North Hollywood I have a bridge to sell you.

SWAT teams were storming houses for drugs in the early 80s.

That has now spread to storming houses for a whole slew of minor potential offenses.

No, police patrols were issued heavier weaponry like the AR 15 because of North Hollywood. You missed what I was saying.

 Surtur wrote:
No, police patrols were issued heavier weaponry like the AR 15 because of North Hollywood. You missed what I was saying.

before that bucko. Sheriffs in my part of country had AR-15s in the early 80s and shotguns before that.

Anyway, being heavily armed goes all the way back to the 20s and the Tompson.

The US has a lot of organized crime. Now its different from what it was back then, but no less of a threat.

And if anything, going from Tommy guns to AR-15s is a bit of a downgrade. You want to totally destroy something very quickly, get a Tommy. It shoots big rounds and lots of em.

We have trigger happy police in the UK too, just a lot fewer of them.

If you give people guns, you must expect them to want to use them.

The same thing is happening with tasers.

We have a much more dangerous criminal element here too.

We arm our police because we have to.

Then they come and shoot you.

Not me, I'm not breaking the law.

And if there was a misunderstanding I certainly wouldn't be stupid enough to pull a gun on the cops.

Keep picking up the cans Civilian..

Hell yeah, you get 5 cents apiece for them here in Cali.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Not me, I'm not breaking the law.

HAHAHAHA

Like that stops anything.

 Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Not me, I'm not breaking the law.

HAHAHAHA

Like that stops anything.

You might be surprised.

 Frazzled wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Vets coming home are not the problem. We've had that for over 200 years.

Police being equipped and taught to act like an occupation force is the problem.

Where do you think they learned how to act that way??

Not there. It defies logic. We've had plenty of cops from WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam etc. etc.

There was a documentary 5-6 years ago that correlated returning Vietnam vets joining up with a distinct shift in the way US police departments acted and perceived their role, referring to the public as "civilians" instead of "citizens" etc.

 Frazzled wrote:
If you think this started because of North Hollywood I have a bridge to sell you.

SWAT teams were storming houses for drugs in the early 80s.

That has now spread to storming houses for a whole slew of minor potential offenses.

And as I already explained to you, and Surtur also pointed out, with a picture and everything, the arms race between cops and criminals has been going on since bank robbers got their hands on tommy guns, and police realised that unless they wanted to operate at a disavantage they'd better get some tommy guns of their own.

This idea you keep insisting on, that this all some new thing that started in the 80s just makes no sense at all.

And really, this shouldn't be that hard a thing to understand. When they are faced with potentially life threatening situations, police are going to ensure they have the numbers and the hardware to control whatever may eventuate. And its a point that is made even more clear by the rising trend in police deaths on duty through much of the 20th century. Now, we can add that cultural factors, and the legacy of that now declining rate of police deaths on duty cause police units to overestimate the risks, leading to the use of more SWAT style entries than is needed, but that's arguing on the margins, not with the policy as a whole.

But instead we get all this nonsense about cops being envious of soldiers and all this other junk. Because it's easier to just type a sentence and write off a whole profession than it is to actually think about the issue.

They didn't have SWAT kickins in the 50s.

 Frazzled wrote:
They didn't have SWAT kickins in the 50s.

Of course not, they had Hoover's FBI for that.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
They didn't have SWAT kickins in the 50s.

Of course not, they had Hoover's FBI for that.

Is that suit Hoover or I'm wearing a dress Hoover?

 Frazzled wrote:
They didn't have SWAT kickins in the 50s.

No, they had regular cops with no training in entry tactics and poorly defined lines of command. And as a result they had some colossal feth ups.

but hey they had dress wearing Hoover. Much safer.

 Frazzled wrote:
but hey they had dress wearing Hoover. Much safer.

Clearly the answer is to give SWAT teams dresses and tommy guns. This will have the double effect of police being reluctant to use SWAT because they don't want to have to put on woman's dresses, while ensuring SWAT still remains a powerful deterrent, because no-one wants to be shot by a guy in a woman's dress. Well, most people don't, anyway.

For me the problem is not that police departments have military-level hardware and tactics available for them to use. They should have all the tools available to them that they need to do their job safely and efficiently.

My problem with the "militarization" of the police has to do with the everyday tactics.

Officers doing community policing (patrols, traffic, community events) while looking like soldiers that are occupying a country instead of looking like police officers in their community.

The use of SWAT teams for minor warrants and use of no-knock entries and subsequent use-of-force when homeowners think they are being robbed.

Using equipment because you have it instead of because you need it.

Things like that.

For sheer absurdity, it is hard to beat the 2006 story about the Tibetan monks who had overstayed their visas while visiting America on a peace mission. In Iowa, the hapless holy men were apprehended by a SWAT team in full gear.

Wow.. Just amazing.