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I just have where and there linked in my brain for spelling purposes. They rhyme, they're often related in purpose, so they're stored adjacent to each other.

Where? There!

DBD, in the first page I think I've said pretty much what I've wanted to, violence is too random for me to say a person should willing ignore and even trade any advantages they have just so they don't escalate. The correct way to deal with violence is to end it, either by avoiding it ( talking it out, etc.) fleeing from it or ensuring the pacification of the one who begun it, ideally through the least violent means possible that still give you a high chance of success. If you've got a gun and a taser against an urnarmed opponent, go for the taser. If you've only got the gun, go for it. I will never ask anyone to just take the hits if the other person starts being violent ( and aren't a young child or some equivalent).

As far as tips for where and were, if it's something someone did or could do, use were. If it's a place (even a place in an argument, "where you've mentioned the word...").

Further than that, I don't know, english isn't my native language etc.

Deepbluediver wrote:I really don't know how else to reply to this- I highlighted my agreement with you last time in supersized letters; I don't know how you could possibly have missed it.

As far as I could see, you agreed that talking should happen, but didn't see me mention that specific things should be said.

The video, which we've both seen, shows the cops talking with (or at least listening to) Eric Garner for more than a full minute before it cuts out and then comes back to record the actual arrest. Clearly there are things that occur that we don't see. Also, if you go back and watch the video, you can hear the police speaking to Eric Garner as they attempt to handcuff him. I'm having trouble making out what they are saying, but there is clearly dialogue going on there.

You still don't seem to be aware that I want them to say specific things to the suspect, so I don't see much point in continuing. For some reason you can't hear my words.

Nepene wrote:You still don't seem to be aware that I want them to say specific things to the suspect,

I've heard you, I just don't think it's much of an answer- it sounds like you want police to follow a specific script, like they're tech-support* or something.
They can say whatever you want them say, but if people don't believe the intent then the words won't have much value.

What happens when someone doesn't respond nicely?



*I'm not being entirely serious here- just trying to keep the conversation a little light.

Deepbluediver wrote:

Nepene wrote:You still don't seem to be aware that I want them to say specific things to the suspect,

I've heard you, I just don't think it's much of an answer- it sounds like you want police to follow a specific script, like they're tech-support* or something.[/size]

This is indeed a new approach. Rather than ignoring my words, this time you took my words into account, added the word 'script' and replied to something I never said.

http://np.reddit.com/r/news/comments/2o ... er/cmruqwu

For others who like reading words and responding to specific things, I read this post. It looked pretty good. Suggested a lot of good ideas on force use. As a summary, end unions so that police can be instant fired in the event of bad use of force, increase training a lot with lots of details on how.

Wow... I'm actually wondering if this is going to be a good forum to stay with. You see... earlier this year I tried the RHJunior forum, because I like some of his comics. And... well, let's just say I'm hoping that nobody is going to respond to my disagreeing with them by accusing me of being about to threaten to rape their children. (seriously, someone's idea of responding to my verified facts and logical arguments was to ignore everything I said and then say "now that I've completely destroyed your arguments, are you going to threaten to rape my kids like another gay activist did?" And someone else thought that response was worth cheering on, before the thread got locked by a moderator who seemed to agree that I'd been shut down effectively and in a fair manner... @.@)

Anyway... I once spent a year as a security guard. And I took it pretty seriously, I even checked out a few books to study... one of them provided some very specific definitions for a security guard and for a police officer. A police officer is a public security guard, as opposed to a private security guard. But what are the ACTUAL duties of a security guard, public or private? Answer: to be a professional good citizen.

All of us are supposed to have the civic duty to "raise a hue and a cry" in the event that we see a crime in progress. If we see someone being attacked, or a burglary, it is our civic duty to say "I just noticed you committing a crime, and I am detaining you so that you can be subjected to the legal process!" A police officer is paid to do that on a professional level. Literally, to wander around trying to notice crimes in progress. The traffic cop who waits to see someone speeding or running a red light? "I just noticed you committing a crime!" The patrolman responding to a 9-1-1 call? Even detective work is simply following leads and putting together pieces of the puzzle, until finally a clear picture is presented that allows the detective to say "ahah! This is evidence that you committed a crime!"

That's what a cop's actual job is. Beyond that, there's the issue of their specific title. We call them LEOs these days...and that's a bad thing. We call them Law Enforcement Officers, and capitalize all three words because they are the Thin Blue Line and yadda yadda... but it used to be that a cop was called a Peace Officer. Literally, there to keep the peace. It wasn't about racking up a lot of arrests, it was about keeping the streets clean and safe. That little change in the job title is the difference between looking for an excuse to grab someone and throw them in cuffs ("I just arrested someone! If I can get the conviction, I will be rewarded with professional advancement!") and simply looking out for the citizenry.

As far as these incidents and the use of force... again, a cop is a citizen being paid to perform their civic duty on a professional level. They are not above the law they are sworn to uphold. They are not to be held to a different standard or absolved from responsibility. Speaking as someone who is a 2nd amendment supporter and a trained martial artist (with teachers who believed unarmed combat was for when the bullets ran out): you are required to limit your use of force to the amount being offered. Period. If they're not using lethal force, you are not permitted to use lethal force. You are not supposed to draw your firearm, even to threaten, unless you are justified in killing. You are never to point your firearm at anything you do not intend to destroy. And you never, ever elevate the force level beyond what is being offered. Period.

If you have one man surrounded and he's being resistant, then you rely on superior numbers - you force him down, you sit on him, and you cuff him. You don't need to use illegal and unauthorized choke holds. You have such a huge luxury in your numerical advantage that you don't even need any martial technique - just grab him, hold him, cuff him. Period. Even the baton is only to be used when you don't have other options. When you've got the guy surrounded and outnumbered, you have no reason to feel threatened. What you may feel you have, is a reason to feel angry and pissed off... and that's getting to the real problem.

In the case of these recent conflicts... we're seeing cops with an actual hostility against the citizenry. Literally, the cops see non-police, ALL non-police, as a threat to them. And... that's not a good thing. Not at all. The attack ON Eric Garner was "this NOT-A-COP is challenging our Authori-tee. He will respect our Authori-tee!" The incident with Michael Brown? I mean... for crying out loud, even if he did try to take away a cop's gun, weapon retention is a BASIC element of firearms training. And again: one unarmed teenager, and several cops. This isn't good policing. This is "people with badges are behaving like a criminal gang, and trying to justify it by proclaiming their belief that everyone who isn't wearing the badge is an outsider and therefore a potential threat."

And... well, let's just say I'm hoping that nobody is going to respond to my disagreeing with them by accusing me of being about to threaten to rape their children.

Not likely to happen.

crayzz wrote:

And... well, let's just say I'm hoping that nobody is going to respond to my disagreeing with them by accusing me of being about to threaten to rape their children.

Not likely to happen.

Whew, VERY glad to hear that. That was not a pleasant incident.

I originally backed out of this conversation because Nepene and I where just arguing in circles, each one of us accusing the other of ignoring what they were really saying. It wasn't productive. I feel like things are still being misrepresented to the point of being flat-out wrong though.

Archone wrote:All of us are supposed to have the civic duty to "raise a hue and a cry" in the event that we see a crime in progress. If we see someone being attacked, or a burglary, it is our civic duty to say "I just noticed you committing a crime, and I am detaining you so that you can be subjected to the legal process!" A police officer is paid to do that on a professional level. Literally, to wander around trying to notice crimes in progress. The traffic cop who waits to see someone speeding or running a red light? "I just noticed you committing a crime!" The patrolman responding to a 9-1-1 call? Even detective work is simply following leads and putting together pieces of the puzzle, until finally a clear picture is presented that allows the detective to say "ahah! This is evidence that you committed a crime!"

This seems like you are of the opinion that the only obligation of police is to clean up the mess after it occurs- that they have no responsibility and no authority to prevent a crime from happening. I think that most people would strongly disagree with you- they want police to be proactive in stopping crimes before people get hurt.

They are not above the law they are sworn to uphold. They are not to be held to a different standard or absolved from responsibility.

They are not above the law but they are most certainly held to a different standard, because their job requires them to do things that would be illegal for a normal citizen to do, such as assault (arresting a suspect), kidnapping and detainment (putting them in jail), invasion of privacy (wiretapping), breaking and entering (serving a warrant), etc. Cops aren't immune to over-reach, but in most situations we give them the benefit of doubt because they have a responsibility and training to respond to certain scenarios in a way that your average citizen does not.

Speaking as someone who is a 2nd amendment supporter and a trained martial artist (with teachers who believed unarmed combat was for when the bullets ran out): you are required to limit your use of force to the amount being offered.

If that's true, then you should know just how dangerous a single person has the potential to be, to both the police and to any bystander who might get dragged into the confrontation. The police act in a manner that doesn't allow for escalation in the first place, essentially preemptively stopping things before they go bad. IMO, this leads back to the first paragraph- you want police to react, I want them to prevent.

If they're not using lethal force, you are not permitted to use lethal force. You are not supposed to draw your firearm, even to threaten, unless you are justified in killing. You are never to point your firearm at anything you do not intend to destroy. And you never, ever elevate the force level beyond what is being offered.

Again, the standards for a citizen practicing gun-safety while shooting targets and for police arresting an accused criminal are different. If the police waited to draw their guns until they where being fired upon, then it might already be to late.

You don't need to use illegal and unauthorized choke holds

It wasn't illegal. Against department policy, yes, but not state law. And one of the defining tenants of our legal system is that those in authority are not allowed to change the law the suite their desires simply out of political expediency.

In the case of these recent conflicts... we're seeing cops with an actual hostility against the citizenry. Literally, the cops see non-police, ALL non-police, as a threat to them. And... that's not a good thing. Not at all.

Are we? All the numbers I've seen for violent crime show it headed downward. As we've discussed, the data on police use of force is sketchy and informal and best, and that needs to be fixed, but from the few numbers I've seen there does not appear to be an upward trend. The NY Post had article that mentioned over 300 police shootings per year in New York the 1980's, and so far in 2014 there have been 86. I have not yet been able to find the report they cite, but it would seem to indicate that the police response to the overall drop in violent crimes has been less force, not more.

The attack ON Eric Garner was "this NOT-A-COP is challenging our Authori-tee. He will respect our Authori-tee!"

Really? Because I thought it was an attempt to arrest someone with a long criminal history who had been reported by the local shopkeepers as breaking the law, and who refused to cooperate with police.

The incident with Michael Brown? I mean... for crying out loud, even if he did try to take away a cop's gun, weapon retention is a BASIC element of firearms training. And again: one unarmed teenager, and several cops.

I don't recall hearing about more than one police office on the scene.
Michael Brown, who had just robbed a store and assaulted the clerk, attacked the cop and tried to take his gun, and at one point started to flee then returned and charged the police officer again, as confirmed by multiple eyewitnesses.
At this point you are basically playing Russian roulette- saying that letting a violent person get a hold of a cop's firearm is an acceptable risk to not having that person be shot. That can be your opinion, but I seriously doubt you'll be able to convince a majority of people it should be voted into law.

This isn't good policing. This is "people with badges are behaving like a criminal gang, and trying to justify it by proclaiming their belief that everyone who isn't wearing the badge is an outsider and therefore a potential threat."

Again, I'll point to the decades-long drop in violent crime, particularly in my own home-town of NYC, that seems to prove that aggressive policing tactics are very effective. Also, during the course of this discussion, I read at least one source that estimated about 70 million police-citizen interactions per year. This seems low- another estimate put it at 25 million in New York City alone. Some of the highest estimates of police-on-civilian shootings put them around 1,000 per year, or a ridiculously small fraction of the incidents as a whole.



To conclude, I do not support unlimited police authority; I am a borderline-libertarian with a healthy distaste for government and centralized authority. However since I am not a cop, I defer to the police and grand jury, who have the experience and have seen all the evidence, respectively, and not on the narrative provided to me by the media and by politicians with agendas.
The little hard evidence I've seen seems to indicate that violent confrontations with the police are on the decline, that the apparent spike in incidents is merely the rise in the ease of social media and information sharing (which is again a good thing), and that most people only perceive a widespread problem because they live in such a ridiculously peaceful period of history that incidents which would at any other point in time have been perfectly normal now seem shocking to us.

I'm not going to defend every single incident of police brutality, but neither will I jump on the bandwagon of denouncing all cops and repealing the successful police tactics of the last several decades.

Deepbluediver wrote:This seems like you are of the opinion that the only obligation of police is to clean up the mess after it occurs- that they have no responsibility and no authority to prevent a crime from happening. I think that most people would strongly disagree with you- they want police to be proactive in stopping crimes before people get hurt.

Actually, the courts themselves have stated that the cops are NOT responsible for protecting the citizenry. It is up to us to protect ourselves. And while I would like to see the cops stopping bad guys before they start... I don't want to see it at the price of civil liberties.

They are not above the law but they are most certainly held to a different standard, because their job requires them to do things that would be illegal for a normal citizen to do, such as assault (arresting a suspect), kidnapping and detainment (putting them in jail), invasion of privacy (wiretapping), breaking and entering (serving a warrant), etc. Cops aren't immune to over-reach, but in most situations we give them the benefit of doubt because they have a responsibility and training to respond to certain scenarios in a way that your average citizen does not.

And all of those things should be performed under the strictest possible supervision BECAUSE of how those things are such "grey areas." Arresting a suspect doesn't count as assault unless the suspect resists - the cops don't need to be using force if you're quietly complying (i.e. slamming the suspect down and putting them in a submission hold is something you're not supposed to do until AFTER you've given them the opportunity to quietly allow you to cuff them). Invasion of privacy... yes, we all have some huge issues about that I think. Serving a warrant? Yes, that's why you need a judge to issue the warrant... it's also why "no knock warrants" and bursting in without a warrant because you "suspected they were flushing drugs down the toilet" are frowned upon by many people.

If that's true, then you should know just how dangerous a single person has the potential to be, to both the police and to any bystander who might get dragged into the confrontation. The police act in a manner that doesn't allow for escalation in the first place, essentially preemptively stopping things before they go bad. IMO, this leads back to the first paragraph- you want police to react, I want them to prevent.

And that's where it becomes problematic. Prevention isn't something that can be done effectively with the threat of force. It's done with education. With an atmosphere that discourages criminal behavior. With a friendly police presence that is welcomed by the community rather than feared as an invasive threat. But cops do not get issued magic wands. They can't just make it better, and they can't arrest someone who hasn't done anything yet.

Again, the standards for a citizen practicing gun-safety while shooting targets and for police arresting an accused criminal are different. If the police waited to draw their guns until they where being fired upon, then it might already be to late.

Totally untrue. If a police officer draws their weapon in anger and fires it, they have to be literally in fear for their life. A citizen can shoot at someone before being fired upon, IF they believe that a lethal attack is imminent. In other words, if you walk into a bar with your hand in your pocket and a threatening expression to approach someone you'd previously argued with, that person is justified in drawing his gun before you can pull out whatever it was you were hiding in your pocket. But it is still the same. Lethal force is only justified in response to a fear of lethal force.

It wasn't illegal. Against department policy, yes, but not state law. And one of the defining tenants of our legal system is that those in authority are not allowed to change the law the suite their desires simply out of political expediency.

If this were an ordinary citizen using this hold against another ordinary citizen who then died, it would be considered murder. And that's the point: cops are not above the law. Cops are not to be held to a different standard. Certainly not to a LOWER standard, as you are suggesting. They should not be allowed to get away with criminal behavior. Especially when they outnumber the man five to one - at that point your options increase exponentially. You could shove him down and have one cop sit on each limb and a fifth on the torso. Or pick him up bodily and CARRY him somewhere.

The attack ON Eric Garner was "this NOT-A-COP is challenging our Authori-tee. He will respect our Authori-tee!"

Really? Because I thought it was an attempt to arrest someone with a long criminal history who had been reported by the local shopkeepers as breaking the law, and who refused to cooperate with police.

Yes. Thirty charges in thirty four years, for minor offenses. Including "resisting arrest," which could mean "got caught doing something criminal and didn't want to go easy," or could mean "the cop wanted an excuse to arrest him." It's amazing how many people get charged with "resisting arrest" but not for any other crime. Garner was not a violent criminal; he was attacked because they suspected him of selling the cigarettes in his pocket without paying the taxes for the sale. At that point you're not defending the public against violent felonious scum; you're officially being one of the Sheriff of Nottingham's men.

As for Michael Brown, the facts are extremely sketchy. There have been conflicting accounts by various witnesses. Some say he had his hands up and was fleeing, some say he was charging... that's the point of a trial. To try to determine the truth. Innocent until proven guilty - Officer Wilson should have been given a fair and speedy trial in which the witnesses were brought on the stand, the reports and facts could be issued, and a jury could have determined the truth - regardless of whether or not he was found innocent or guilty, it would have been better than the murky... this, that we got. In other words, by not putting Wilson on trial, WILSON has been victimized - he will now live under a cloud of suspicion that a trial could have lifted.
http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/wha ... s-shooting

This isn't good policing. This is "people with badges are behaving like a criminal gang, and trying to justify it by proclaiming their belief that everyone who isn't wearing the badge is an outsider and therefore a potential threat."

Again, I'll point to the decades-long drop in violent crime, particularly in my own home-town of NYC, that seems to prove that aggressive policing tactics are very effective. Also, during the course of this discussion, I read at least one source that estimated about 70 million police-citizen interactions per year. This seems low- another estimate put it at 25 million in New York City alone. Some of the highest estimates of police-on-civilian shootings put them around 1,000 per year, or a ridiculously small fraction of the incidents as a whole.

That's... kind of the point. Police do not influence crime rates, in point of fact. It has to do with other issues, issues they cannot control anymore than firefighters can control the number of fires that take place or than EMTs can control the number of victims in need of emergency care. Their job is to be First Responders - to respond to issues as they happen. What has caused the drop in crime rates has been the change in our culture and in our own behaviors. This has been a drop since the 1970s - the decade where crime peaked was also the decade in which the country was exploding with violent unrest, massive distrust of the government, and crazy cults. A cop is no more to blame for crime rates falling OR rising than a firefighter is to blame for an unusually hot summer leading to a spate of fires.

To conclude, I do not support unlimited police authority; I am a borderline-libertarian with a healthy distaste for government and centralized authority. However since I am not a cop, I defer to the police and grand jury, who have the experience and have seen all the evidence, respectively, and not on the narrative provided to me by the media and by politicians with agendas.

It's interesting... a lot of people claim to be libertarian, but... being a libertarian means mistrusting authority by definition - of believing that the watchmen should always be watched in turn. It also means believing in self reliance, in protecting yourself and not expecting the cops to do it for you. Do politicians have agendas? Of course. Do the various media outlets have agendas? Again, no denying that - and each media outlet has their own specific agenda, they are not a unified conglomerate. But many police also have an agenda... sometimes when someone has done something wrong, their way of dealing with it is to blame the victim and rationalize it because they're the heroes and can't be bothered with petty rules that bind lesser mortals. And... that's where I take issue.

I'm not going to defend every single incident of police brutality, but neither will I jump on the bandwagon of denouncing all cops and repealing the successful police tactics of the last several decades.

I agree. There are some EXTREMELY effective police tactics out there. Like these: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/12/2 ... l-policing

But to be honest... police brutality is nothing new. And neither is claiming that "getting tough on crime" is effective in spite of evidence to the contrary: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rampart_scandal

(Just edited this because of a typo, and also a few additions regarding Garner and Wilson)