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Relapse wrote:
Like people not getting offended about the Dukes of Hazard General Lee for decades until they were told to be?

Exactly! Like a Scooby-Doo villain, the show was racist all along and you should feel retroactive offense/shame because of it.

(Coming up next week, why Scooby-Doo was sexist!)

 VorpalBunny74 wrote:

Relapse wrote:
Like people not getting offended about the Dukes of Hazard General Lee for decades until they were told to be?

Exactly! Like a Scooby-Doo villain, the show was racist all along and you should feel retroactive offense/shame because of it.

(Coming up next week, why Scooby-Doo was sexist!)

h

So it was old man Davis under that Daisy Duke mask!

Relapse wrote:
So it was old man Davis under that Daisy Duke mask!

and he would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those meddling Duke boys!

And he would have stayed off topic too, if it weren't for those meddling mods.

Come on guys

 motyak wrote:
And he would have stayed off topic too, if it weren't for those meddling mods.

Come on guys

Good un. Fair enough!

 motyak wrote:
And he would have stayed off topic too, if it weren't for those meddling mods.

Come on guys

My apologies.

On topic, why aren't more people worried that your police forces are going to have a brain drain if this keeps up?

(Has this already happened?)

That's an interesting question, as pointed out by another user a degree of some kind is required to police in at least some states, will these states see a lower recruitment rate as people who pay attention to news are scared off? Or will their rates remain pretty steady

 motyak wrote:
That's an interesting question, as pointed out by another user a degree of some kind is required to police in at least some states, will these states see a lower recruitment rate as people who pay attention to news are scared off? Or will their rates remain pretty steady

Various stories are pointing out that recruitment numbers have been dropping. Even rabid anti-police websites.

 motyak wrote:
That's an interesting question, as pointed out by another user a degree of some kind is required to police in at least some states, will these states see a lower recruitment rate as people who pay attention to news are scared off? Or will their rates remain pretty steady

A severe majority of places do not require college education. They usually have some combo of the following:

*Successfully completed at least 60 semester hours of college credit — essentially the equivalent of two years of higher education with coursework in any subject matter. Credits from any accredited college or university will be accepted; or
*Served in the Armed Forces of the United States, including the Organized Reserves and National Guard, for at least three years on active duty and, if separated from the military, have received an honorable discharge; or
*Have served at least five years in a full-duty status with a full-service police department in a municipality or a state within the United States, and have resigned or retired in good standing.
*One year full-time post law enforcement academy experience with a recognized local, state or federal law enforcement agency.

None require a 4 year degree (I can't find one in DC, MD or VA which does), and most times if you want to be an officer, you can be 19-20, high school and enter the academy and be on the street by time you are 21.

nkelsch wrote:

 motyak wrote:
That's an interesting question, as pointed out by another user a degree of some kind is required to police in at least some states, will these states see a lower recruitment rate as people who pay attention to news are scared off? Or will their rates remain pretty steady

A severe majority of places do not require college education. They usually have some combo of the following:

*Successfully completed at least 60 semester hours of college credit — essentially the equivalent of two years of higher education with coursework in any subject matter. Credits from any accredited college or university will be accepted; or
*Served in the Armed Forces of the United States, including the Organized Reserves and National Guard, for at least three years on active duty and, if separated from the military, have received an honorable discharge; or
*Have served at least five years in a full-duty status with a full-service police department in a municipality or a state within the United States, and have resigned or retired in good standing.
*One year full-time post law enforcement academy experience with a recognized local, state or federal law enforcement agency.

None require a 4 year degree (I can't find one in DC, MD or VA which does), and most times if you want to be an officer, you can be 19-20, high school and enter the academy and be on the street by time you are 21.

Generally 60 credit hours of college earns you an associates degree

I think that those prereqs are absolutely fine for being a police officer. Its just been the last 20-30 years where everyone feels if you don't have a college degree you are useless....and usually this forces useless people into college where they barely get by on easy degree programs...that way they can lord it over everyone else, regardless of how useless they are as a human being

 VorpalBunny74 wrote:

 motyak wrote:
And he would have stayed off topic too, if it weren't for those meddling mods.

Come on guys

My apologies.

On topic, why aren't more people worried that your police forces are going to have a brain drain if this keeps up?

(Has this already happened?)

Brain drain? Before making snarky comments I'll jjust rely on fundamental economic theory. If there is a shortage then salaries will have to rise until sufficient positions are filled.

Alternatively we could just have (more)posses. I've got the whisky. Who's got the rope?

How was that comment snarky? It seems legitimate to believe that it might be off putting to someone considering a career in law enforcement to not want to do it, especially in light of some of the comments on this thread and others that say cops should be happy to get killed or their heads beat in before they use lethal force to protect themselves.
A profession that the news services, as well as the obama administration, seem determined to crucify the members of on a weekly basis, whether they are in the right or not, will end up losing all the good people

Relapse wrote:
How was that comment snarky? It seems legitimate to believe that it might be off putting to someone considering a career in law enforcement to not want to do it, especially in light of some of the comments on this thread and others that say cops should be happy to get killed or their heads beat in before they use lethal force to protect themselves.
A profession that the news services, as well as the obama administration, seem determined to crucify the members of on a weekly basis, whether they are in the right or not, will end up losing all the good people

The same thing was said though about enlistments during the recent war on terror. I know for a fact that the USMC had a waiting list for recruits, even during the troop surge. I would be more concerned with how the average civvie is now going to view the police and react accordingly. This guy got beat up by some random thug because he didn't want to kill the guy. The civvies watched and took pictures and made snarky comments online about it. You might not like the police, hell you can even hate them if you really want to, but your supposed to respect them. The police have lost respect and now everyone thinks they can question cops and then scream abuse or mistreatment when the cops do their jobs. its a slippery slope to be sure.

To be fair, there are major problems with policing & corrections systems in the US, and ultimately, respect must be earned, it cannot simply be given or it would be worthless.

Unfortunately, there is, on just about a daily basis, stories and videos of police doing wildly irresponsible things that erode that respect, and an almost nonexistent rate of them having to take responsibility for such actions, or at least a widely held perception of such. Coupled with other controversies like civil forfeiture and stop & frisk and the like, it makes it difficult to maintain respect.

Relapse wrote:
How was that comment snarky? It seems legitimate to believe that it might be off putting to someone considering a career in law enforcement to not want to do it, especially in light of some of the comments on this thread and others that say cops should be happy to get killed or their heads beat in before they use lethal force to protect themselves.
A profession that the news services, as well as the obama administration, seem determined to crucify the members of on a weekly basis, whether they are in the right or not, will end up losing all the good people

Sorry, I meant before I make snarky comments.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:
To be fair, there are major problems with policing & corrections systems in the US, and ultimately, respect must be earned, it cannot simply be given or it would be worthless.

Unfortunately, there is, on just about a daily basis, stories and videos of police doing wildly irresponsible things that erode that respect, and an almost nonexistent rate of them having to take responsibility for such actions, or at least a widely held perception of such. Coupled with other controversies like civil forfeiture and stop & frisk and the like, it makes it difficult to maintain respect.

True that.

 Vaktathi wrote:
To be fair, there are major problems with policing & corrections systems in the US, and ultimately, respect must be earned, it cannot simply be given or it would be worthless.

Unfortunately, there is, on just about a daily basis, stories and videos of police doing wildly irresponsible things that erode that respect, and an almost nonexistent rate of them having to take responsibility for such actions, or at least a widely held perception of such. Coupled with other controversies like civil forfeiture and stop & frisk and the like, it makes it difficult to maintain respect.

We had a saying in the Marine Corps, "you might not respect the man but you sure as hell better respect the rank" Don't get me wrong, that only went so far. I can't tell you the number of times I wanted to tell someone with a higher rank exactly what kind of a Feth Nut they were, but I couldn't because they held a higher rank. The same should apply in the civilian world to an extent. Treat cops with respect simply because they are cops. If hes a dirt bag? report him. No point going to jail because you feel like being the tough guy, you will lose 99% of the time.

 Ghazkuul wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
To be fair, there are major problems with policing & corrections systems in the US, and ultimately, respect must be earned, it cannot simply be given or it would be worthless.

Unfortunately, there is, on just about a daily basis, stories and videos of police doing wildly irresponsible things that erode that respect, and an almost nonexistent rate of them having to take responsibility for such actions, or at least a widely held perception of such. Coupled with other controversies like civil forfeiture and stop & frisk and the like, it makes it difficult to maintain respect.

We had a saying in the Marine Corps, "you might not respect the man but you sure as hell better respect the rank" Don't get me wrong, that only went so far. I can't tell you the number of times I wanted to tell someone with a higher rank exactly what kind of a Feth Nut they were, but I couldn't because they held a higher rank. The same should apply in the civilian world to an extent. Treat cops with respect simply because they are cops. If hes a dirt bag? report him. No point going to jail because you feel like being the tough guy, you will lose 99% of the time.

The problem is twofold. First, the concept that a civilian policeman somehow "outranks" a non-police civilian is an issue many have a problem with, civilian life is not the military.

Second, reporting almost never goes anywhere for the overwhelmingly vast majority of cases, and in many cases can result in further harassment or deep legal issues. In many cases, like civil forfeiture, where a cop can just take anything they want and you have to sue them to prove it wasn't used for illegal purposes, the process is quite simply beyond the means of many people.

Thats great but that doesn't impact the level of "dirtbags" in the police force.

So the question might be what can be done so we don't witness a reverse refining process where all the gold is cooked off and what we are left with for cops are the dross.

 Ghazkuul wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
To be fair, there are major problems with policing & corrections systems in the US, and ultimately, respect must be earned, it cannot simply be given or it would be worthless.

Unfortunately, there is, on just about a daily basis, stories and videos of police doing wildly irresponsible things that erode that respect, and an almost nonexistent rate of them having to take responsibility for such actions, or at least a widely held perception of such. Coupled with other controversies like civil forfeiture and stop & frisk and the like, it makes it difficult to maintain respect.

We had a saying in the Marine Corps, "you might not respect the man but you sure as hell better respect the rank" Don't get me wrong, that only went so far. I can't tell you the number of times I wanted to tell someone with a higher rank exactly what kind of a Feth Nut they were, but I couldn't because they held a higher rank. The same should apply in the civilian world to an extent. Treat cops with respect simply because they are cops. If hes a dirt bag? report him. No point going to jail because you feel like being the tough guy, you will lose 99% of the time.

A cop is a CIVILIAN. He doesn't outrank any other civilian. And, as others have said, reporting goes nowhere because of the "thin blue line" of cop buddies and useful idiots protecting cops for doing things that would land you and I in prison for 20+, and the idiotic notion that "unless you do the job of law enforcement you can't understand what they go through."

Small question, just to go back to the original article:

I know that different police departments have different use of force guidelines, and that from what I can tell from the article the guy that attacked the cop was unarmed and didn't have any indications that he had any weapon of any kind.

So from what we know is that the officer was faced with the following situation: a guy that was angry and kept on asking "what did you pull me over for" while walking towards him who was unarmed. Is that by itself justification for deadly force?

Relapse wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Always interesting how "thug" starts popping up in certain kind of threads again...

What about rap and hip hop groups taking the the word, which was used to designate lawless people to describe and make heroes of those who live the definition, ie, people who are the opposite of born with a silver spoon? It all started with these groups.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thug_Life:_Volume_1

That group passes out the N-word like E at a rave. Not a good source for acceptable behavior...

 d-usa wrote:
Small question, just to go back to the original article:

I know that different police departments have different use of force guidelines, and that from what I can tell from the article the guy that attacked the cop was unarmed and didn't have any indications that he had any weapon of any kind.

So from what we know is that the officer was faced with the following situation: a guy that was angry and kept on asking "what did you pull me over for" while walking towards him who was unarmed. Is that by itself justification for deadly force?

It is entirely dependent on the state I guess, stand your ground laws, etc... Fists are a deadly weapon. You don't have to be "armed" to pose a serious threat to someone.

In my opinion, there is a ton of grey area in the question, and how it could be answered.

What are police guidelines? Cops don't usually start shooting everyone that gets into a fistfight with them.

 d-usa wrote:
Small question, just to go back to the original article:

I know that different police departments have different use of force guidelines, and that from what I can tell from the article the guy that attacked the cop was unarmed and didn't have any indications that he had any weapon of any kind.

So from what we know is that the officer was faced with the following situation: a guy that was angry and kept on asking "what did you pull me over for" while walking towards him who was unarmed. Is that by itself justification for deadly force?

If it was someone Brown's size, I'd say it was. That being said, we see that anything can happen, even with people who are "unarmed", so I guess it would ride on what the training of that department is coupled with how the officer reads the situation. The scenario you put forward could be played out on the part of the suspect in several different ways.

Ouze wrote:

 Breotan wrote:
If someone's video shows the perp pulling the trigger then an attempted murder charge may well stick even if the gun had no bullets.

I don't know what the legal requirements in that venue are for attempted murder but in my lay opinion, just beating someone in the head with a metal object should qualify for attempted murder.

The charge is supposed to be based on intent not only on mechanism.

If you have got a gun and you want to kill someone you probably try to shoot them instead of hit them on the head.

Equally you could be accused of attempted murder if you wanted to kill a diabetic and gave him a can of normal Coke you had emptied and filled with Diet Coke.

 Ghazkuul wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
My honest take on this:
...
...

3) If the police unions have a problem with the fact that they are under increasing public scrutiny, then instead of complaining about the scrutiny they should focus on the actions and behavior that led to the public sentiment that the police needs to be held accountable.

#3 specifically: The first "action" was Ferguson where Michael Brown was shot to death by a cop. Why was he shot? because he attacked a police officer, what has followed since then is over 1 year of civil unrest, riots and looting. So your very argument is flawed from the start. Are their other cases where the police did act inappropriately? yep, but Michael Brown was the catalyst and the world is a better place without that thug

Leaving aside general racism, the police have a significant history of excessive attacks on people, starting with Rodney King in 1991 if not earlier. Rodney King was probably the first one that made big news due to it being filmed on video by a passer by. It wasn't until the late 20th century that video cameras started to get cheap and portable enough for them to become widespread outside professionals. Nowadays with smartphones nearly everyone has the capability to film an incident and post it to social media immediately, and more of these kind of incidents are being publicised. Even if the Michael Brown case had never happened, something else would have come along.

Relapse wrote:
How was that comment snarky? It seems legitimate to believe that it might be off putting to someone considering a career in law enforcement to not want to do it, especially in light of some of the comments on this thread and others that say cops should be happy to get killed or their heads beat in before they use lethal force to protect themselves.
A profession that the news services, as well as the obama administration, seem determined to crucify the members of on a weekly basis, whether they are in the right or not, will end up losing all the good people

The purpose of society is not to be violent and racist and then give police free reign of violence. Perhaps there need to be changes on bothe sides of the equation.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Ghazkuul wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
To be fair, there are major problems with policing & corrections systems in the US, and ultimately, respect must be earned, it cannot simply be given or it would be worthless.

Unfortunately, there is, on just about a daily basis, stories and videos of police doing wildly irresponsible things that erode that respect, and an almost nonexistent rate of them having to take responsibility for such actions, or at least a widely held perception of such. Coupled with other controversies like civil forfeiture and stop & frisk and the like, it makes it difficult to maintain respect.

We had a saying in the Marine Corps, "you might not respect the man but you sure as hell better respect the rank" Don't get me wrong, that only went so far. I can't tell you the number of times I wanted to tell someone with a higher rank exactly what kind of a Feth Nut they were, but I couldn't because they held a higher rank. The same should apply in the civilian world to an extent. Treat cops with respect simply because they are cops. If hes a dirt bag? report him. No point going to jail because you feel like being the tough guy, you will lose 99% of the time.

The problem is twofold. First, the concept that a civilian policeman somehow "outranks" a non-police civilian is an issue many have a problem with, civilian life is not the military.

Second, reporting almost never goes anywhere for the overwhelmingly vast majority of cases, and in many cases can result in further harassment or deep legal issues. In many cases, like civil forfeiture, where a cop can just take anything they want and you have to sue them to prove it wasn't used for illegal purposes, the process is quite simply beyond the means of many people.

Im not saying that cops "Outrank" Police, my point was that you still have to respect them, even if you don't like them. As a society we have all agreed to follow certain rules and to empower certain members of our society to enforce these rules. By saying your not going to follow the rules because you don't like the person who is enforcing them...well thats just being plain uncivil

 Ghazkuul wrote:

Im not saying that cops "Outrank" Police, my point was that you still have to respect them, even if you don't like them. As a society we have all agreed to follow certain rules and to empower certain members of our society to enforce these rules. By saying your not going to follow the rules because you don't like the person who is enforcing them...well thats just being plain uncivil

The issue is, though, that in the US at least, it is not the particular officers, but the police in general that have lost respect. If it was the actions of a few that had taken place, you might have a point, but it is the actions of the police to defend and cover up and the systemic issues within some, possibly many, police forces. Militarization, institutional racism, shoot first ask questions later, closing rank and the other issues that the US police have. People have lost respect for both individual officers and the police as an institution. They have lost respect by the actions of the police as a whole as well as individual officers. The issue you were talking about was the attitude of a few people, but I would hope that if an enlisted man made a complaint about an NCO the USMC would take that seriously and investigate, and that if they did not then people would lose respect both for the people and the institution. In the case of the armed forces you show that by not enlisting or not re-enlisting. You don't have that choice with the police.

We had the same issue in the UK in the 70's and 80's, where the police had issues, and we now know there was problems with racism, corruption and violence. At the time it manifested in the same way as in the US. An attitude of "I AM THE LAW!", with arrogance and other deep issues, which culminated in major riots. The UK police worked hard to root this out and change their relationship with the public. They are not perfect now, but much better. The US police need to face up to this. They cannot just demand respect.

In the case of the story in the OP this seems to be part of the issue. UK police face problems like this every day with no gun. It seems some US police have become too reliant on the use of their guns and power they hold that they don't consider other options and from some of the videos I have seen many don't know how to defuse a dangerous situation in any other way than overwhelming power.

The new Time magazine (August 24) has a major article about being a police in the USA today. As well as the personal anecdotes and interviews, there is a wealth of interesting data.

One of the interesting points is that public respect for the police is now back down to the same level as just after the Rodney King scandal in 1991-92. Another one is that nationwide the average of police is 80% white. There are wide variations between areas. Pay ranges from about $30,000 to about double that depending on location.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Another one is that nationwide the average of police is 80% white.

]

Which means exactly nothing unless we know how many applicants were of color.

There are wide variations between areas. Pay ranges from about $30,000 to about double that depending on location.

Sounds worth it.