The Cops Behaving Badly Thread

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Hype
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Re: The Cops Behaving Badly Thread

#101 Post by Hype » Wed Apr 22, 2015 6:04 pm

Basically I think it's absurd that police still carry guns at all. What is this: 1790? We have so many non-lethal ways to incapacitate someone, should the need to do so arise. And if there is an absolute need for weaponry, why not leave that to a separate special unit? Like S.W.A.T.?

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Pandemonium
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Re: The Cops Behaving Badly Thread

#102 Post by Pandemonium » Wed Apr 22, 2015 6:33 pm

Adurentibus Spina wrote:Basically I think it's absurd that police still carry guns at all. What is this: 1790? We have so many non-lethal ways to incapacitate someone, should the need to do so arise. And if there is an absolute need for weaponry, why not leave that to a separate special unit? Like S.W.A.T.?
Cops are the first responders to any possible crime situation. When you have a city like LA, Chicago or NYC where a big majority of criminals are carrying weapons and not afraid to use them you can't wait for a SWAT team to show up when some dick decides he wants to carjack someone or hold up a liquor store and the first guy there is a cop on the beat. You may as well have several thousand SWAT guys stationed throughout a major city which is kind of what we have cops for. And SWAT teams don't have a sterling record either - look at the Waco, Texas Branch Davidian siege. I know cops killing unarmed people for no good reason is getting a lot of press and with good reason these days, but for every bad cop and bad decision made, there's hundreds of others who save lives and stop truly bad guys because those cops are armed. This is not a one-sided problem especially here in the US, there's kids in grade school bringing guns to class and shooting other students - it's the overall gun/crime culture in this country. The problem isn't armed police, it's bad cops who have a screw loose or just bad training and exceed the needs of a situation to take someone down. Something which is clearly a big problem.

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Re: The Cops Behaving Badly Thread

#103 Post by Hype » Wed Apr 22, 2015 7:24 pm

a big majority of criminals are carrying weapons and not afraid to use them
I don't think that's true.

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Re: The Cops Behaving Badly Thread

#104 Post by Essence_Smith » Wed Apr 22, 2015 10:20 pm

Adurentibus Spina wrote:
a big majority of criminals are carrying weapons and not afraid to use them
I don't think that's true.
I was going to say as much...at least 6 of my buddies are police officers here in NY and they rarely arrest anyone who is actually armed...there are criminals, and then there are violent criminals and they're thankfully in the minority. I don't have any stats to quote but I'll go out on a limb and say that half the people in jail right now aren't there for anything to do with having a weapon or doing anything violent and surely they're criminals. Many many countries have violent crimes being committed daily and few are as well armed as many police officers here in the U.S. are. I think there needs to at least be an attempt made at trying something new and less lethal...

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Re: The Cops Behaving Badly Thread

#105 Post by clickie » Thu Apr 23, 2015 4:48 am

Yeah but still, I bet if your cop buddies were told theyre no longer allowed to carry a gun, all six would resign.

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Re: The Cops Behaving Badly Thread

#106 Post by mockbee » Thu Apr 23, 2015 7:32 am

That's an interesting thought. Cops without guns. Well, they still do that in Britain right? They just get a stick?

I was going to also say, any situation where it would be useful for a cop to have a gun, they don't seem to be there...... Like at the school shootings, there has never been a cop who has shot the student killer, preventing him from shooting others has there? Not that I know of. Usually it's a civilian tackling the guy, or him killing himself.

I will have to say though.......the US is not like anyplace else, there is really fucked up stuff going on in many parts of the country. Even if the gun isn't a deterrent or even necessary the vast majority of the cases, I wouldn't want to go into these places without some sort of effective weapon to defend myself. Though, I do agree, that 99% of the time guns are not necessary for police.

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Re: The Cops Behaving Badly Thread

#107 Post by SR » Thu Apr 23, 2015 8:54 am

It doesn't matter if a majority of criminals are armed. Many of the violent ones are, and furthermore, in localized areas a high percentage are. In cities like LA, that means populations who reside in vast/expansive areas are essentially war zones. Police positively should be armed. As it is, they are insufficiently armed in many cases.

And as ES points out, his friends don't arrest many who are armed. Of course that's the case; there is much more non violent crime than violent. Big deal....?!? Many cops look to this kind of booking simply to take the day off and "work to go home". I know cops here in LA who love DUI's because it takes 6 hours to see it though and then have their lunch and go home.....shift over.

All this being said, the problem here in LA is a confluence of particulars. First the superstructure is fantastically corrupt. In combination with a remarkably low standard for education, training, and vetting the LAPD population are a fraternity of complete fucking imbeciles. In what ought to be a very noble profession, they have reduced it to legal criminality, one that is completely supported by the judicial system.

FUCK the police....in the ass.....with the empire state building.

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Re: The Cops Behaving Badly Thread

#108 Post by Essence_Smith » Thu Apr 23, 2015 12:25 pm

The only difference in the situation nationwide with how the police have been handling people of color in these situations is that now people are getting it on video. Remember how shocked we were when the Rodney King video was all over the place? Now that happens all the time and it's drawing attention to a situation that's been going on for decades.

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Re: The Cops Behaving Badly Thread

#109 Post by SR » Thu Apr 23, 2015 2:44 pm

Essence_Smith wrote:The only difference in the situation nationwide with how the police have been handling people of color in these situations is that now people are getting it on video. Remember how shocked we were when the Rodney King video was all over the place? Now that happens all the time and it's drawing attention to a situation that's been going on for centuries.

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Re: The Cops Behaving Badly Thread

#110 Post by Hype » Thu Apr 23, 2015 7:15 pm

Essence_Smith wrote:
Adurentibus Spina wrote:
a big majority of criminals are carrying weapons and not afraid to use them
I don't think that's true.
I was going to say as much...at least 6 of my buddies are police officers here in NY and they rarely arrest anyone who is actually armed...there are criminals, and then there are violent criminals and they're thankfully in the minority. I don't have any stats to quote but I'll go out on a limb and say that half the people in jail right now aren't there for anything to do with having a weapon or doing anything violent and surely they're criminals. Many many countries have violent crimes being committed daily and few are as well armed as many police officers here in the U.S. are. I think there needs to at least be an attempt made at trying something new and less lethal...
The FBI publishes data on this, but it's difficult to get exactly what you want. E.g., here's just robberies for the entire US by region, for 2013:

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/cr ... n_2013.xls

From that, 43.6% of all robberies in the US in 2013 were "Strong-Arm", i.e., weaponless. That's pretty close to what you said (half). This is just for robberies. You can find similar data for other stuff.

The vast majority of murders are committed with weapons: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/cr ... s_2013.xls

But the vast majority of police-stops/arrests aren't for murder, and the vast majority of action by police in cases of murder is after-the-fact, and so it's not clear that the murder weapon itself indicates that the police need a weapon to arrest suspects. If the murder weapon is a hatchet, and your suspect is an 80 year old guy who murdered his wife, I find it hard to see why a gun would be needed.

Plus, police not being armed with purely lethal weapons (tasers and batons can still be lethal in some cases) doesn't mean not still wearing bullet proof vests, or having other ways of responding to threats...

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Re: The Cops Behaving Badly Thread

#111 Post by nausearockpig » Fri Apr 24, 2015 3:04 am

I say we arm the police with strong words and if they come across someone who has a bang-bang stick, they get on their tin-can-string-calling-box and get their armed colleagues who will no doubt be there within an acceptable time-frame to restore order and save lives.

Jesus. Fucking. Christ.

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Re: The Cops Behaving Badly Thread

#112 Post by Hype » Fri Apr 24, 2015 5:24 am

There's a lot of room between lethal weapons and strong words. It's not obvious that state enforcement of criminal justice requires front-line agents to be universally granted the means to mete out lethal force. The very fact that there exist police forces that do not have this option, and yet still function adequately, is enough to defend that claim. The question of how much force these people should have, and when they should be permitted to use it, is and should always be a perpetually open one. Otherwise, state coercion can't be kept in check.

Folk myths/beliefs about criminals all carrying guns, or about the psychology of "cops" are not useful here. They just serve to impede clear thinking about an issue that is already killing innocent people.

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Re: The Cops Behaving Badly Thread

#113 Post by mockbee » Fri Apr 24, 2015 7:33 am

Yeah.


I'd say.........and we are all just conjecturing here........that there are very, very few situations where a cop using a gun, prevented or deterred further crimes being committed. Sure a cop needs the capacity to incapacitate someone, but there are many options for that, other than guns, which are pretty much used exclusively to kill people. Are police fit to be judge and jury?

Police have the right to incapacitate? Yes

Right to kill? I don't feel they do.


Maybe you bring up extreme situations, like madmen on the street gunning people down, but police typically aren't (usefully with a gun) involved in those situations anyways.....outside of blocking off streets, etc. :noclue:

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Re: The Cops Behaving Badly Thread

#114 Post by Essence_Smith » Fri Apr 24, 2015 9:08 am

Again I don't have stats here, but most police officers (thankfully) never have to fire their guns while on duty. I've spoken to many many veteran officers and the majority will tell you they've drawn their weapons many times but have never actually fired it and are usually thankful they haven't had to.

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Re: The Cops Behaving Badly Thread

#115 Post by Pandemonium » Mon Jun 22, 2015 3:33 pm

For those that think just minorities get shot by cops for no good reason, apparently this guy was literally capped because he flagged down a couple LAPD cops on patrol with his arm "wrapped in a towel" and appeared "threatening" to the cops who repeatedly yelled at him to drop the "towel or gun" (he didn't have a weapon) before shooting him. He probably simply had an injured arm.

Not for the squeamish:


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Re: The Cops Behaving Badly Thread

#116 Post by creep » Mon Jun 22, 2015 7:06 pm

yeah not watching

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Re: The Cops Behaving Badly Thread

#117 Post by nausearockpig » Mon Jun 22, 2015 8:31 pm

You don't see much - you can see some pink stuff on the top of his head. that's his brain cos the top of his head is missing....

From a purely visual perspective it's not that bad given how desensitised we are to violence and gore on TV/movies but from a real life perspective it's utterly abhorrent and horrifying...

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Re: The Cops Behaving Badly Thread

#118 Post by SR » Wed Jun 24, 2015 11:14 am

Of course, I don't think "just minorities" get shot by police; they are just shot more often.

I won't watch. Is this the case where they handcuffed the guy post mortem? To what possible end? Mystifyingly stupid, corrupt, and barbaric.

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Re: The Cops Behaving Badly Thread

#119 Post by Hype » Wed Jun 24, 2015 12:24 pm

SR wrote:Of course, I don't think "just minorities" get shot by police; they are just shot more often.

I won't watch. Is this the case where they handcuffed the guy post mortem? To what possible end? Mystifyingly stupid, corrupt, and barbaric.
In order for it to make sense as an intentional action at all, you'd have to imagine that the guy doing the cuffing really believed the victim wasn't dead. Which leads me to suspect that the guy is mentally retarded. That's the only way I can figure this makes any sense.

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Re: The Cops Behaving Badly Thread

#120 Post by SR » Wed Jun 24, 2015 1:56 pm

The guy, dead was infinitely smarter than the cop who shot him, and the rest of the LAPD multiplied by 10.

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Re: The Cops Behaving Badly Thread

#121 Post by Pandemonium » Thu Jun 25, 2015 9:57 am

The guy almost unbelievably survived that shooting (so far) but remains in critical condition. The local media has buried the story so there's zero info on what the status is of the investigation.

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Re: The Cops Behaving Badly Thread

#122 Post by Pandemonium » Thu Jul 02, 2015 8:38 pm

Now here's a shooting that was absolutely justified even though the gun turned out to be a prop replica:



"Video: Texas cops fatally shoot man who pulled replica
Footage captured the split-second decision officers were forced to make when a suspect pulled what appeared to be a handgun

Yesterday at 8:46 PM
By PoliceOne Staff

PALESTINE, Texas — Body camera footage capturing the split-second decision officers were forced to make when a suspect pulled what appeared to be a handgun has been released.

According to the Palestine Herald, Sgt. Gabriel Green and Officer Kaylynn Griffin were called to the scene May 31 after employees at a local store witnessed 47-year-old James D. Bushey attempting to steal a case of beer.

Bushey then entered a nearby restaurant and hid in a stall. While the officers were escorting him out of the building, he pulled out the replica pellet gun.

Green fired multiple shots at Bushey before Griffin, who had been armed with a TASER, pulled her weapon and also opened fire on the suspect.

Bushey died at the scene. Police later discovered the weapon was a replica made to resemble a Colt 1911 .45 caliber handgun, according to the report.

Both officers have been cleared in the incident and have returned to full duty. "

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Re: The Cops Behaving Badly Thread

#123 Post by guysmiley » Thu Jul 02, 2015 9:40 pm

I think people often have no idea how many split second decisions police officers have to make. That was a decision every one of us would have made.

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Re: The Cops Behaving Badly Thread

#124 Post by Romeo » Tue Jul 07, 2015 9:31 am

and buying this will definitely get you shot

http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow ... story.html

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Re: The Cops Behaving Badly Thread

#125 Post by creep » Fri Jul 17, 2015 4:50 am


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