IGX

Boris wrote:No. Not that I know of.
Maybe.
Don't know.

Your last question is an interesting one. I wouldn't scream racism, but there's probably a cultural component to it. (I just wrote this in a FB post...) You or I would be ultra-polite to the officer making the stop. We'd give respect even if we got none in return. We'd be self-deprecating. Not everyone would react that way - certainly anyone with an aversion to authority figures isn't going to behave like I would at a traffic stop.

baffled wrote:Dude: http://www.actionnewsnow.com/news/da-pl ... -be-filed/

Shapecharge wrote:I have purposely not done much of a chime in on these things mostly out of respect for members here who are or have been police officers and I as well have had my brief time on the job but I have to say it makes my blood boil every fucking time I hear the all purpose get out jail free card played called the "I was in fear of my life." Well I'm just one dude with my bullshit opinion but here it is: the fucking very nature of the job is inherently dangerous. Theoretically your personal make-up and the selection process to become a police officer and the training you receive is supposed to afford you the skill-set necessary to control these natural responses to fear. I probably spent 2-3 hours a day during a 6 month+ academy kicking and punching on my classmates as well as swinging that fucking side-handle baton...I was a fucking ninja with that thing. Now it seems that a large brother with a scowl on his face and his hands in his pockets who won't immediately comply is going to get two in the chest because somebody was scared. So what happened to using the more physical levels of contact to gaining compliance?

Another trend I'm seeing is it's seems to be okay to shoot someone who's fleeing or perhaps "about" to flee. When did this get started? It was fucking drilled into me and everyone else..."we don't shoot people in the back. We'll catch 'em another day." I find this completely outrageous. Yes, there are rare situations where someone is fleeing and you're going to fire at them, e.g. the "running" gunfight, but a dude running down the street with a 50 inch flat screen tv under his arm is not that case. Accidental discharges? Yes, police officers are fucking notorious for mishandling weapons but there's absolutely no excuse for a discharge that wounds/kills someone. Your ass would be bounced from any special operations unit for such an offense.

With all that being said, the countless awesome good things that police officers do on a daily basis all over the world never see the light of day because that's not newsworthy. I was having a few beers last week with a young SWAT officer and he told me a story that was indicative of what I just mentioned. He was telling me about a raid on a drug house and he along with another officer were clearing a bedroom. A naked woman was laying on her stomach with her hands under the pillows. They both continually asked...well screamed...for her to show her hands. The guy's partner was getting ready to light her up when the guy I was talking to just lowered his weapon, grabbed her by the feet, and drug her off the bed. He basically saved her life. That's what good training, and approaching the job with a purposeful, thoughtful mindset is all about.

A naked woman, who looked like Scarlett Johansson, was laying on her stomach with her hands under the pillows when the guy I was talking to just grabbed her by the feet, and drug her off the bed. That's what a purposeful, thoughtful mindset is all about.

Shapecharge wrote:I have purposely not done much of a chime in on these things mostly out of respect for members here who are or have been police officers and I as well have had my brief time on the job but I have to say it makes my blood boil every fucking time I hear the all purpose get out jail free card played called the "I was in fear of my life." Well I'm just one dude with my bullshit opinion but here it is: the fucking very nature of the job is inherently dangerous. Theoretically your personal make-up and the selection process to become a police officer and the training you receive is supposed to afford you the skill-set necessary to control these natural responses to fear. I probably spent 2-3 hours a day during a 6 month+ academy kicking and punching on my classmates as well as swinging that fucking side-handle baton...I was a fucking ninja with that thing. Now it seems that a large brother with a scowl on his face and his hands in his pockets who won't immediately comply is going to get two in the chest because somebody was scared. So what happened to using the more physical levels of contact to gaining compliance?

Another trend I'm seeing is it's seems to be okay to shoot someone who's fleeing or perhaps "about" to flee. When did this get started? It was fucking drilled into me and everyone else..."we don't shoot people in the back. We'll catch 'em another day." I find this completely outrageous. Yes, there are rare situations where someone is fleeing and you're going to fire at them, e.g. the "running" gunfight, but a dude running down the street with a 50 inch flat screen tv under his arm is not that case. Accidental discharges? Yes, police officers are fucking notorious for mishandling weapons but there's absolutely no excuse for a discharge that wounds/kills someone. Your ass would be bounced from any special operations unit for such an offense.

With all that being said, the countless awesome good things that police officers do on a daily basis all over the world never see the light of day because that's not newsworthy. I was having a few beers last week with a young SWAT officer and he told me a story that was indicative of what I just mentioned. He was telling me about a raid on a drug house and he along with another officer were clearing a bedroom. A naked woman was laying on her stomach with her hands under the pillows. They both continually asked...well screamed...for her to show her hands. The guy's partner was getting ready to light her up when the guy I was talking to just lowered his weapon, grabbed her by the feet, and drug her off the bed. He basically saved her life. That's what good training, and approaching the job with a purposeful, thoughtful mindset is all about.

Shapecharge wrote:. I probably spent 2-3 hours a day during a 6 month+ academy kicking and punching on my classmates as well as swinging that fucking side-handle baton...I was a fucking ninja with that thing. Now it seems that a large brother with a scowl on his face and his hands in his pockets who won't immediately comply is going to get two in the chest because somebody was scared. So what happened to using the more physical levels of contact to gaining compliance?
t.

Hidden microphones that are part of a clandestine government surveillance program that has been operating around the Bay Area has been exposed.

Imagine standing at a bus stop, talking to your friend and having your conversation recorded without you knowing. It happens all the time, and the FBI doesn’t even need a warrant to do it.

Federal agents are planting microphones to secretly record conversations.

Jeff Harp, a KPIX 5 security analyst and former FBI special agent said, “They put microphones under rocks, they put microphones in trees, they plant microphones in equipment. I mean, there’s microphones that are planted in places that people don’t think about, because that’s the intent!”

FBI agents hid microphones inside light fixtures and at a bus stop outside the Oakland Courthouse without a warrant to record conversations, between March 2010 and January 2011.

OK, after seeing Facebook and the media going crazy all day about the two most recent police-involved shootings, I have a little bit of advice for my police friends. For what it's worth, I've been a cop for 21 years and a police trainer since 1997. I have more than 75 instructor certifications in police subject areas and 4,000 hours of documented training, mostly in police use of force subjects. I spent 13 years of my career doing nothing but teaching use of force to cops as a full time job. I might know a little more than the talking head you are seeing on TV.

My cop readers need to focus on two issues:

1) Ensuring the validity of the initial transaction- The first thing that comes up in any police shooting investigation or any lawsuit filed against the cops is "Why did the cops contact the person they shot." If the reason for the contact is bogus, then everything that transpires later is viewed with suspicion.

The media works this angle to the cop's detriment. They blame the shooting on the reason for the stop, not what the suspect did afterwards. Right now we are hearing every media outlet talk about the man in Minnesota who was shot "for having a broken tail light." That's not why he was shot, but it doesn't matter in the court of public opinion.

Your contact with any citizen in an enforcement capacity needs to be rock-solid. Not only rock-solid in a legal sense, but rock-solid in the court of public opinion.

Look at the Minnesota shooting. The reason for contact (broken tail light) is valid legally, but what does the public think about cops pulling people over for bullshit like that? They don't like it. Following the logic, they will like it even less when someone gets shot as a result of a bullshit stop.

I know what the cop was doing, he was likely hunting for criminals with warrants. I see it pretty regularly. Cops pull over crappy cars for equipment violations, hunting for an arrest. Poor people who can't afford to fix busted tail lights often can't afford to pay their tickets, their child support, or their court fees. Their driver's licenses are often suspended and they regularly have warrants. Sometimes their passengers are in the same situation.

So, aggressive cop looking to arrest "bad guys" pulls over a beater car and runs everyone inside for warrants. About 1/4 of the time he gets lucky and gets an arrest. Every once in awhile, bad shit happens and the cop ends up in the national media spotlight.

STOP HASSLING PEOPLE! The fact that some dude has a suspended license or hasn't paid a speeding ticket is not negatively affecting the safety of the community you patrol. I know you want to do good things and make lots of arrests, but every stop you make has the potential to go REALLY bad. Don't stop people for bogus violations. Don't hunt minor scofflaws. The public doesn't respect you for doing so and occasionally you will get thrown under the bus when you screw something up, or your stop ends up in a shooting that you didn't intend.

Put yourself in the position of the Minnesota officer. Would you have made that traffic stop if you had known it would turn out like it did? My guess is the answer is "no". Think about that the next time you feel like making a stop for a cracked windshield or some other inconsequential violation.

2) You need more and better training. I don't know a single department in the country that gives its officers all the training they need. Initial recruit training in most states is abysmal. In Ohio, barbers get three times more training than cops get before being licensed. In-service training is even worse. I know some departments that provide NO in service training other than watching a couple videos a year.

If you are scared of legally armed citizens with CCW permits and you freak out because someone has a gun, you simply aren't confident in your own abilities. That's a huge problem. When you aren't skilled and confident, you get scared and you over react. Freaked out cops don't make good decisions. When cops don't make good decisions, they end up on the national news.

Your department won't give you the training you need. You have two options. You can seek out the training on your own or you can hope you never get into a bad spot where your lack of skills gets you killed or put in jail.

There has never been a greater variety of top notch weapons and martial arts training available for cops and private citizens. You need to start taking classes. You will be amazed at what you don't know. I was already a state-certified police firearms instructor before I took my first professional shooting class. I learned more in that first day of professional gun training than I did in the two-week police "instructor" school.

If you haven't done any training outside the academy or your agency's in-service classes, quite honestly your skills are likely to be subpar. You don't know what you are doing. You are prone to being killed or doing something stupid that will get you fired or jailed.

Even though I've been teaching gun skills professionally for almost my entire career, I still take other folks' training to keep my skills sharp. This year, I will take two weekend-long professional shooting classes and at least one three-day seminar that focuses on other issues like knife fighting, legal updates, empty hand skills and the like. And I pay for those classes (and travel costs and ammo) out of my own pocket. I shoot my guns at least weekly and pay for 5,000-10,000 rounds of practice ammo out of my own pocket every year. If you aren't doing something similar, you are not ready to fight real bad guys on the street. And you know what? Dealing with a person who has a gun doesn't freak me out. I know I'm better than he is.

The same is true with police defensive tactics training. If your only training is from the academy, you don't know how to fight. You owe it to yourself to get at least a year or two of quality training (at least 2x a week) at an outside martial arts studio that focuses on a realistic fighting art. And it better be a fighting art where you regularly train against other people who are trying to punch, kick, or choke you. Doing fancy katas in your dojo's mirror isn't adequate. Look at wrestling, Judo, Jujitsu, boxing, Muay Thai, MMA, or Krav Maga.

It doesn't have to be a lifetime passion. You just need to do the work necessary to beat most criminals. You'll be amazed at how differently you look at situations on the street when you know how to fight. Your confidence will be a game changer and the criminals won't even try you.

OR, of course, you can ignore my advice, roll the dice and hope nothing bad happens. I wish you luck if you choose that route. It hasn't worked out so well for some other folks lately.

If you've read this far, I thank you for your time. If you are a cop, I hope it prompts some positive change.

As always, the views I express here are the rambling thoughts of a single curmudgeonly police trainer. They do not reflect the views of my fellow officers, supervisors, or agency.

Come this fall, St. Paul police are slated to begin wearing body cameras. They are wanted for a variety of reasons, one being accountability to evidence gathering. But recent hearings at the state Capitol were rife with dire warnings of costs: buying equipment, training officers and a higher ability to store data.

So what would St. Paul pay? Police officials are trying to make clear it won’t be cheap. And, perhaps more important, the costs won’t be a one-time thing: They’re estimating they’ll need five full-time employees to manage the data alone — more than twice the number Minneapolis is hiring. “Full-time employees are probably one of the scarier factors any department is dealing with,” said police Cmdr. Axel Henry, who has testified at the Capitol and spoken at numerous forums as the St. Paul department’s body cam point man.

Henry’s preliminary estimate for St. Paul’s ongoing costs is $721,000 annually by 2018 — after the program is in place. That’s after a first-year cost of roughly $1.3 million, covering new equipment and training, which would be offset by $600,000 in federal grants. Nearly 40 percent of those ongoing costs — $274,000 — will be for staffing. And there’s an even larger boogeyman: More than half — $382,000 — will go toward storing all that data, every year.

Turdacious wrote:

Come this fall, St. Paul police are slated to begin wearing body cameras. They are wanted for a variety of reasons, one being accountability to evidence gathering. But recent hearings at the state Capitol were rife with dire warnings of costs: buying equipment, training officers and a higher ability to store data.

So what would St. Paul pay? Police officials are trying to make clear it won’t be cheap. And, perhaps more important, the costs won’t be a one-time thing: They’re estimating they’ll need five full-time employees to manage the data alone — more than twice the number Minneapolis is hiring. “Full-time employees are probably one of the scarier factors any department is dealing with,” said police Cmdr. Axel Henry, who has testified at the Capitol and spoken at numerous forums as the St. Paul department’s body cam point man.

Henry’s preliminary estimate for St. Paul’s ongoing costs is $721,000 annually by 2018 — after the program is in place. That’s after a first-year cost of roughly $1.3 million, covering new equipment and training, which would be offset by $600,000 in federal grants. Nearly 40 percent of those ongoing costs — $274,000 — will be for staffing. And there’s an even larger boogeyman: More than half — $382,000 — will go toward storing all that data, every year.

http://www.twincities.com/2016/06/23/st ... y-cameras/
Good write up on the costs of accountability. No idea what the cost structure looks like for smaller departments, or departments in high crime areas.

Blaidd Drwg wrote:

Turdacious wrote:

Come this fall, St. Paul police are slated to begin wearing body cameras. They are wanted for a variety of reasons, one being accountability to evidence gathering. But recent hearings at the state Capitol were rife with dire warnings of costs: buying equipment, training officers and a higher ability to store data.

So what would St. Paul pay? Police officials are trying to make clear it won’t be cheap. And, perhaps more important, the costs won’t be a one-time thing: They’re estimating they’ll need five full-time employees to manage the data alone — more than twice the number Minneapolis is hiring. “Full-time employees are probably one of the scarier factors any department is dealing with,” said police Cmdr. Axel Henry, who has testified at the Capitol and spoken at numerous forums as the St. Paul department’s body cam point man.

Henry’s preliminary estimate for St. Paul’s ongoing costs is $721,000 annually by 2018 — after the program is in place. That’s after a first-year cost of roughly $1.3 million, covering new equipment and training, which would be offset by $600,000 in federal grants. Nearly 40 percent of those ongoing costs — $274,000 — will be for staffing. And there’s an even larger boogeyman: More than half — $382,000 — will go toward storing all that data, every year.

http://www.twincities.com/2016/06/23/st ... y-cameras/
Good write up on the costs of accountability. No idea what the cost structure looks like for smaller departments, or departments in high crime areas.

I wander what the cost saving in lawsuits will be over a ten year arc as we adjust to a society without privacy?

Turdacious wrote:

Blaidd Drwg wrote:

Turdacious wrote:

Come this fall, St. Paul police are slated to begin wearing body cameras. They are wanted for a variety of reasons, one being accountability to evidence gathering. But recent hearings at the state Capitol were rife with dire warnings of costs: buying equipment, training officers and a higher ability to store data.

So what would St. Paul pay? Police officials are trying to make clear it won’t be cheap. And, perhaps more important, the costs won’t be a one-time thing: They’re estimating they’ll need five full-time employees to manage the data alone — more than twice the number Minneapolis is hiring. “Full-time employees are probably one of the scarier factors any department is dealing with,” said police Cmdr. Axel Henry, who has testified at the Capitol and spoken at numerous forums as the St. Paul department’s body cam point man.

Henry’s preliminary estimate for St. Paul’s ongoing costs is $721,000 annually by 2018 — after the program is in place. That’s after a first-year cost of roughly $1.3 million, covering new equipment and training, which would be offset by $600,000 in federal grants. Nearly 40 percent of those ongoing costs — $274,000 — will be for staffing. And there’s an even larger boogeyman: More than half — $382,000 — will go toward storing all that data, every year.

http://www.twincities.com/2016/06/23/st ... y-cameras/
Good write up on the costs of accountability. No idea what the cost structure looks like for smaller departments, or departments in high crime areas.

I wander what the cost saving in lawsuits will be over a ten year arc as we adjust to a society without privacy?

And how that will correlate to the increase in civil forfeitures required for poorer areas to pay for it.

Blaidd Drwg wrote:What's surprising is people acting surprised.

OK, after seeing Facebook and the media going crazy all day about the two most recent police-involved shootings, I have a little bit of advice for my police friends. For what it's worth, I've been a cop for 21 years and a police trainer since 1997. I have more than 75 instructor certifications in police subject areas and 4,000 hours of documented training, mostly in police use of force subjects. I spent 13 years of my career doing nothing but teaching use of force to cops as a full time job. I might know a little more than the talking head you are seeing on TV.

My cop readers need to focus on two issues:

1) Ensuring the validity of the initial transaction- The first thing that comes up in any police shooting investigation or any lawsuit filed against the cops is "Why did the cops contact the person they shot." If the reason for the contact is bogus, then everything that transpires later is viewed with suspicion.

The media works this angle to the cop's detriment. They blame the shooting on the reason for the stop, not what the suspect did afterwards. Right now we are hearing every media outlet talk about the man in Minnesota who was shot "for having a broken tail light." That's not why he was shot, but it doesn't matter in the court of public opinion.

Your contact with any citizen in an enforcement capacity needs to be rock-solid. Not only rock-solid in a legal sense, but rock-solid in the court of public opinion.

Look at the Minnesota shooting. The reason for contact (broken tail light) is valid legally, but what does the public think about cops pulling people over for bullshit like that? They don't like it. Following the logic, they will like it even less when someone gets shot as a result of a bullshit stop.

I know what the cop was doing, he was likely hunting for criminals with warrants. I see it pretty regularly. Cops pull over crappy cars for equipment violations, hunting for an arrest. Poor people who can't afford to fix busted tail lights often can't afford to pay their tickets, their child support, or their court fees. Their driver's licenses are often suspended and they regularly have warrants. Sometimes their passengers are in the same situation.

So, aggressive cop looking to arrest "bad guys" pulls over a beater car and runs everyone inside for warrants. About 1/4 of the time he gets lucky and gets an arrest. Every once in awhile, bad shit happens and the cop ends up in the national media spotlight.

STOP HASSLING PEOPLE! The fact that some dude has a suspended license or hasn't paid a speeding ticket is not negatively affecting the safety of the community you patrol. I know you want to do good things and make lots of arrests, but every stop you make has the potential to go REALLY bad. Don't stop people for bogus violations. Don't hunt minor scofflaws. The public doesn't respect you for doing so and occasionally you will get thrown under the bus when you screw something up, or your stop ends up in a shooting that you didn't intend.

Put yourself in the position of the Minnesota officer. Would you have made that traffic stop if you had known it would turn out like it did? My guess is the answer is "no". Think about that the next time you feel like making a stop for a cracked windshield or some other inconsequential violation.

2) You need more and better training. I don't know a single department in the country that gives its officers all the training they need. Initial recruit training in most states is abysmal. In Ohio, barbers get three times more training than cops get before being licensed. In-service training is even worse. I know some departments that provide NO in service training other than watching a couple videos a year.

If you are scared of legally armed citizens with CCW permits and you freak out because someone has a gun, you simply aren't confident in your own abilities. That's a huge problem. When you aren't skilled and confident, you get scared and you over react. Freaked out cops don't make good decisions. When cops don't make good decisions, they end up on the national news.

Your department won't give you the training you need. You have two options. You can seek out the training on your own or you can hope you never get into a bad spot where your lack of skills gets you killed or put in jail.

There has never been a greater variety of top notch weapons and martial arts training available for cops and private citizens. You need to start taking classes. You will be amazed at what you don't know. I was already a state-certified police firearms instructor before I took my first professional shooting class. I learned more in that first day of professional gun training than I did in the two-week police "instructor" school.

If you haven't done any training outside the academy or your agency's in-service classes, quite honestly your skills are likely to be subpar. You don't know what you are doing. You are prone to being killed or doing something stupid that will get you fired or jailed.

Even though I've been teaching gun skills professionally for almost my entire career, I still take other folks' training to keep my skills sharp. This year, I will take two weekend-long professional shooting classes and at least one three-day seminar that focuses on other issues like knife fighting, legal updates, empty hand skills and the like. And I pay for those classes (and travel costs and ammo) out of my own pocket. I shoot my guns at least weekly and pay for 5,000-10,000 rounds of practice ammo out of my own pocket every year. If you aren't doing something similar, you are not ready to fight real bad guys on the street. And you know what? Dealing with a person who has a gun doesn't freak me out. I know I'm better than he is.

The same is true with police defensive tactics training. If your only training is from the academy, you don't know how to fight. You owe it to yourself to get at least a year or two of quality training (at least 2x a week) at an outside martial arts studio that focuses on a realistic fighting art. And it better be a fighting art where you regularly train against other people who are trying to punch, kick, or choke you. Doing fancy katas in your dojo's mirror isn't adequate. Look at wrestling, Judo, Jujitsu, boxing, Muay Thai, MMA, or Krav Maga.

It doesn't have to be a lifetime passion. You just need to do the work necessary to beat most criminals. You'll be amazed at how differently you look at situations on the street when you know how to fight. Your confidence will be a game changer and the criminals won't even try you.

OR, of course, you can ignore my advice, roll the dice and hope nothing bad happens. I wish you luck if you choose that route. It hasn't worked out so well for some other folks lately.

If you've read this far, I thank you for your time. If you are a cop, I hope it prompts some positive change.

As always, the views I express here are the rambling thoughts of a single curmudgeonly police trainer. They do not reflect the views of my fellow officers, supervisors, or agency.

Blaidd Drwg wrote:I got it off "Mick Lane" on the facial books.

Blaidd Drwg wrote:

Turdacious wrote:

Blaidd Drwg wrote:

Turdacious wrote:

Come this fall, St. Paul police are slated to begin wearing body cameras. They are wanted for a variety of reasons, one being accountability to evidence gathering. But recent hearings at the state Capitol were rife with dire warnings of costs: buying equipment, training officers and a higher ability to store data.

So what would St. Paul pay? Police officials are trying to make clear it won’t be cheap. And, perhaps more important, the costs won’t be a one-time thing: They’re estimating they’ll need five full-time employees to manage the data alone — more than twice the number Minneapolis is hiring. “Full-time employees are probably one of the scarier factors any department is dealing with,” said police Cmdr. Axel Henry, who has testified at the Capitol and spoken at numerous forums as the St. Paul department’s body cam point man.

Henry’s preliminary estimate for St. Paul’s ongoing costs is $721,000 annually by 2018 — after the program is in place. That’s after a first-year cost of roughly $1.3 million, covering new equipment and training, which would be offset by $600,000 in federal grants. Nearly 40 percent of those ongoing costs — $274,000 — will be for staffing. And there’s an even larger boogeyman: More than half — $382,000 — will go toward storing all that data, every year.

http://www.twincities.com/2016/06/23/st ... y-cameras/
Good write up on the costs of accountability. No idea what the cost structure looks like for smaller departments, or departments in high crime areas.

I wander what the cost saving in lawsuits will be over a ten year arc as we adjust to a society without privacy?

And how that will correlate to the increase in civil forfeitures required for poorer areas to pay for it.

That's truth.

and it needs to be unraveled.

Turdacious wrote: Unless we figure out a way for mandate socialism to exist without regressive taxes and effects, it won't be.

johno wrote:

Turdacious wrote: Unless we figure out a way for mandate socialism to exist without regressive taxes and effects, it won't be.

Maybe they could fund it out of Government Money instead of Taxpayer Money.