SWAT-Team Nation: The Militarization of the U.S. Police

Re:SWAT-Team Nation: The Militarization of the U.S. Police by ChuckMcM on Friday August 09, 2013 @03:34PM (#6187870)

I've read the paper. I know the people who live across the street and were standing outside and watched the whole thing go down. The accounts differ.

As with most things, what is reported, what people saw, what people thought they saw, and what actually happened can often be disjoint. I'm interested in the DA's report (although those take a loooooong time to come out)

I have fundamental questions though about the rules that our public safety department is operating under. And I will get those answered.

One, what is the justification for driving around in an armoured vehicle? There is so much information on how what you do "just before" a situation can totally change the way you react in a situation, it seems unreasonable to roll into a situation like a squad of marines rolling on to the beach head.

Second, what is the standard used for engaging deadly force? How is that established, trained, and on what basis was it arrived at?

Third, what is the process for evaluating the training effectiveness and its implementation in our police force? What does it tell us about this event?

Fourth, in our policy what precedence to we place on safety, is it citizens first or officers first?

As I mention elsewhere, it was the combination of events that got me asking these questions, not just this one. So it goes from "hmm, that was a sad story" to "hmm, is there a problem here that needs to be fixed?"

I know how to fix problems, step one is verify that it is one. That is where I am now.

This bit annoys me though:

  > I realize this might be the result of error
  > rather than intention, but you should 
  > apologize to people for having only 
  > provided them with half the facts.

Given that I know some of the eye witnesses, and I know that the reported story wasn't the same as the their story, I felt like the folks with 'half the facts' might be people who only read it or watched it in the news. So I consider myself to be in possession of slightly more facts than those folks, but I make no claim as to the overall percentage. And that leads me to the second annoyance.

As I wrote, (and was misread), the thing that bothered me wasn't the shooting. I recognize that there is no way at this stage for me to have any sort of informed opinion about the justifiabilty of that shooting. What bothers me is how the police responded. And to a lesser extent the equipment they brought with them.

Since nobody disavowed this as some rogue event, I must conclude that they responded as they were trained to do. And it is that which has me bothered. Trying to understand how we are training our cops to respond, and what is the motivation for training them in that way.

Sorry you missed all that.

EDIT: formatting

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:SWAT-Team Nation: The Militarization of the U.S. Police by jnbiche on Friday August 09, 2013 @04:08PM (#6188121)

As someone who used (almost 10 years ago) to be involved with my state's emergency preparedness infrastructure (I worked in public health at the time), and who worked closely with law enforcement, firefighters, and paramedics in that capacity, I can answer your fourth question easily: officer safety comes first. That's official and unofficial policy of almost every PD in the nation. I'm not convinced it's the proper approach, and neither are a minority of LE I've spoke to about it, but there's a whole rationale behind why officer comes first.

I do complete share your concerns about police militarization and police brutality. I've actually seen it much, much closer up than vast majority of people here, and not in the capacity I refer to above; it's not pretty, yet it's very routine for most LE.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:SWAT-Team Nation: The Militarization of the U.S. Police by RyJones on Friday August 09, 2013 @06:36PM (#6189024)

Every event I have been involved in that was reported by the media has had basic matters of fact incorrectly reported. Basic stuff that gives no political advantage, like the type and color of a car involved in a wreck; not stuff that you could argue is to support bias, like the number of people at a political rally. If they can't bother to get basic facts right, I have difficulty extending trust to them on matters that require interpretation.

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Re:SWAT-Team Nation: The Militarization of the U.S. Police by anigbrowl on Friday August 09, 2013 @03:56PM (#6188025)

If you have extra facts then share them instead of arguing that mere possession of same makes you right.

This bit annoys me though:

Well, too bad! You don't say what facts you have from your neighbors, and you haven't contradicted the claim that the guy called police to report himself as having killed someone and that the body of a woman was found in his house. Now those are salient facts and you know it; you should not have omitted them from your original description of the situation.

What bothers me is how the police responded.

If anyone calls up the police saying that they've killed a person the police are setting out with a possibility that they're going to be encountering an armed and dangerous individual. There's a huge difference between 'I'm calling to report a murder' and 'I'm calling to tell you I just killed someone.' You originally reported this as an example of the first situation, which is clearly not the case.

I didn't miss anything here. Now if your neighbors' report of the facts is substantively different, then by all means share their version, but since the 9-11 calls is a matter of public record and can easily be obtained by the media I'm going to take the claim that the dead guy called in saying he'd killed someone at face value. How you can omit that from your summary is just beyond me.

[ Parent | on HN ]