The rule of engagement in places like Iraq and Afghanistan are significantly stricter than they are for America's cops. No firing until fired upon, limits on use of things like tear gas and riot gear, etc. They're also trained significantly more.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/08/1...
> In contrast, soldiers continuously and over the course of their careers repeatedly train to employ techniques to deescalate stressful, unpredictable, and dangerous scenarios. They also know what steps they must take before resorting to lethal force. Most rules of engagement (ROEs) — the military’s term for rules that govern the circumstances when soldiers are justified using force — contain explicit instructions requiring soldiers to use verbal warnings, show their weapons, and exhaust all non-lethal physical options before resorting to deadly force.
Maybe on paper, but in practice they act with little if any respect for the communities they're in. For instance screaming at people and pointing rifles at their heads to "overcome" the language barrier. Or, as apologists phrase it, "use verbal warnings, show their weapons,"
Edit: Here is something else for the haters to consider:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killology
After WWII, the American military conducted studies that determined a large portion of their soldiers were unwilling to kill people in combat. This was perceived as a problem and efforts were undertaken to make soldiers more willing to kill people. Among these measures was the use of human silhouette targets at gun ranges, a practice which is not coincidentally common for civilian police today: http://www.americantargetcompany.com/law_enforcement_targets...
It's not just a matter of whether an individual police officer was a combat veteran, but also a matter of whether he ever received training from a combat veteran (which is extremely common.) Look up Dave Grossman.
https://www.vulture.com/2017/11/marvel-punisher-police-milit...
Looks like NYC cops make more than NYC nurses, or it's close.
From the source, starting $42K, $85K after 5 years, plus benefits:
https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/careers/police-officers/po-be...
New York nursing, average pay (> 5 years) $83K, $89K in NYC.
When you factor in years of medical school for the degree, medical malpractice insurance, and lack of benefits versus police pension, police are generally netting more.
[1] https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/04/06/in-blue-but-no...
[2] The effective nationwide minimum wage, (the wage that the average minimum wage worker earns), is $11.80 as of May 2019. So 40 hr/week * 52 weeks = $24,544 annually. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_the_United_Sta...)
1: https://files.kstatecollegian.com/2014/08/08.27.14.BikeCop.G...
2: https://d2eehagpk5cl65.cloudfront.net/img/c1200x675-w1200-q8...
Ex-military cops were almost 3x more likely to be involved in a shooting.
[0]https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1180655701271732224.html
[0] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20531680177128...
Study suggests ex-military cops are 2.9x more likely to be involved in a shooting if they had been deployed, and still 1.9x if they were ex-military but not deployed.
It's worth considering that people who leave the military to join another high risk of violence job may simply be violence seeking individuals, and that a randomly selected solider who was required to be a policeman would not show this effect. But given we can't really control that, we'd likely be better hiring fewer ex-military vets.
Another search suggests vets are over-represented in police jobs by about 3.5x their baseline rate
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
Have fun with this one, folks:
[1] https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/make-cops-carry...
[0] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/ferguson-michael-brown-...
https://twitter.com/samswey/status/1180655717038067712?s=21
(pasted the tweet which contains the link to the data because his entire tweet thread is interesting!)
Dress for the job you want. If they all dress like storm troopers some of them will act like storm troopers.
NY state patrol uniform: Grey with purple ties. https://northcountrynow.com/sites/default/files/images/Zone2...
NYPD (new york city) police: Black on black with black ties. https://media.timeout.com/images/103899055/image.jpg
It seems meaningless, but having interacted with a few police agencies I have noticed a trend. They cops that show up for meetings in head-to-toe black tend to be more aggressive. They try to assert themselves in every meeting, which is entertaining as we are the military. They cannot win the "who has the bigger gun" thing. The cops that come in oldschool blue shirts and ties are much easier to work with.
(Fyi, if those two NYPD officers in the pic were in the military they would get a talking to about attitude. Hands in pockets. Chewing. Crossed arms. In public? Have some respect for your uniform.)
The other side is they didn't know it was only old women in the home.
I've brought this up before: US law enforcement has a long-established training relationship with Israel. Is it any surprise that American police have a "siege mentality" when they are being trained by a country that is basically dealing with a multi-decade insurgency/hybrid war?
https://progressive.org/dispatches/us-police-trained-by-isra...
A week? I think it's already not the case. Maybe not across the entire nation but certainly in some places. I can see an argument that Twitter isn't a source of "quality" journalism. But these things are so widespread that I think it's hard to not only discredit it but even ignore it. In the first link [0] you've got National Guard walking in a neighborhood shooting paint at people legally standing on their own property. In the second link [1] you've got protestors taking refuge inside of someone's personal property.
No, it's not a war zone insomuch as there aren't live rounds being used. Except for, you know, when they are being used {[2],[3]} [4]. Okay so the latter three videos videos aren't in neighborhoods. I don't think it matters. It shouldn't matter whether these events are happening to a neighborhood or not. The fact is, they're happening and people are getting permanent injuries and some even dying.
[0] https://twitter.com/tkerssen/status/1266921821653385225
[1] https://twitter.com/allieblablah/status/1267636221406261248
[2] https://twitter.com/BrandiKruse/status/1266889752466227200
[3] https://twitter.com/BrandiKruse/status/1266924674107109377
That's interesting, and betrays the fact that modern policing has somewhat drifted away from its historic tradition. (https://www.techuk.org/insights/opinions/item/15744-behind-p...)
I'm pretty sure you're talking about Buffalo, NY.[1] They purchased 115 semi-automatic rifles that use the same .40S&W ammunition as their pistols. That's the opposite of "high powered". And they're not fully automatic. They can in no way be construed as assault rifles.
The 450 vests they bought are resistant to rifle rounds. Their old vests could only stop pistol rounds.
I agree that many departments go overboard, but this doesn't seem like an instance of that.
1. https://buffalonews.com/2017/03/07/buffalo-police-to-get-new...
Per part 4 in the thread above, more military-style equipment appears to lead to a significant increase in police violence.
It's also worth reading for the rest of what does (and doesn't) work.
Link to full study on militarization and police violence: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20531680177128...
[1] http://blogs.reuters.com/photo/files/2011/09/mdf489180.jpg
Relevent: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-blazer-experiment...
> For many years, the Menlo Park police had worn some variation of the traditional, pseudo-military, dark blue uniform. But Cizanckas thought that look was too intimidating and aggressive, so he traded it for slacks, dress shirts with ties, and a blazer. Guns and handcuffs remained hidden under the coat. Instead of a metal badge, the blazer sported an embroidered patch that looked a little like a coat of arms....
> That’s because uniforms not only shape how people see the police, but also how police see themselves. In challenging an image so entrenched in the style and psyche of police officers, Chief Cizanckas was bucking a tradition that would prove hard to change: a uniform whose history was interwoven with the profession it represented and that went back more than a hundred years.
Cops are also generally brutal on their vehicles. The biggest problem is probably a cop in a hurry getting out of a running vehicle without putting it into park. They get into lots of low-speed/rolling car collisions. These things happen if you are getting in/out of your car 50 times a day.
The solutions you are talking about are real, but this thing you said about equipment isn't true. It's definitely one of the points of emphasis for organizations that are working on this, see: https://www.joincampaignzero.org/demilitarization
And that's based on research like this that receiving military equipment made it more likely for that police department to kill its citizens. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20531680177128...
If not do a Google image search for 'american police officer' - almost every image has a different uniform colour, cut, insignia in it.
Dark blue, light blue, white, brown, black, grey, purple, yellow, green. It's every colour under the sun!
Two police officers:
https://static.trendscatchers.io/uploads/2019/01/bear34-uk.j...
https://writersforensicsblog.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/chi...
I think there's almost literally nothing consistent between these two uniforms (badge?)
> with a badge and utility belt
That's also what mall security guards wear in the US though.
It seems obvious to me that as we work toward decarceration and decriminalization there will be a need for fewer police officers.
Practically everyone agrees that racial profiling should go away. Well, that's less "work" and should lead to fewer staff. Pretty similar public sentiment toward drug possession.
Not quite cops, but related. If we got rid of cash bail we'd need smaller prisons and fewer corrections officers. People who are released without bail overwhelmingly return for their court dates. So the only reason they are in jail is because they couldn't afford bail--they haven't been convicted of a crime. And that bail is then used to coerce confessions out of people.
On a given night, about 470k people are in jail because they couldn't make bail. That's about 25% of incarcerated people.
At 83 million, Germany's population is 25% that of the USA, so all things being equal the Police in the USA would only use 184 bullets per year, and there would only be 28 deaths as a result of police shootings.
In reality, The police in the USA shot shot and killed nearly 1,000 people in 2015 [2].
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/52r4zr/sho...
[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2015/12/26/a...
> An early study even suggested that altercations between citizens and police had declined because of the new uniform. The study’s findings were eventually challenged...
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1559-1816....
> Effects of such an alteration were examined in the laboratory and in the field. No positive effects of the uniform change were found.
That said I'm all for police not looking like an occupying military force armed to the teeth.
"Fittingly, the most chilling scene in the movie doesn’t take place on a city street, or at a protest, or during a drug raid. It takes place in a conference room. It’s from a police training conference with Dave Grossman, one of the most prolific police trainers in the country. Grossman’s classes teach officers to be less hesitant to use lethal force, urge them to be willing to do it more quickly and teach them how to adopt the mentality of a warrior. ... In the class recorded for “Do Not Resist,” Grossman at one point tells his students that the sex they have after they kill another human being will be the best sex of their lives. The room chuckles. But he’s clearly serious. “Both partners are very invested in some very intense sex,” he says. “There’s not a whole lot of perks that come with this job. You find one, relax and enjoy it.”"
1. You do what you train to do.
2. What you look for in the world is what you will find.
3. Police work is risky, but not excessively so. https://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfar0020.pdf
Here’s an Italian police car [0]. Here’s a Cobra HISS tank [1]. Here’s a local police department’s default cruiser [2].
When the police car looks more like a GI Joe tank than other nations, that’s an easy fix. Just like making kids were corny uniforms affects behavior, I think having police drive non-threatening cars will reduce violence.
[0] https://images.app.goo.gl/3uEds6hdzPwoiF6D7 [1] https://images.app.goo.gl/eJAaVdK5qNXEKah39 [2] https://www.ajc.com/rf/image_large/Pub/p8/AJC/2017/03/20/Ima...
These kinds.
I'm going to reiterate that it could have been overkill or poor judgment and that we don't have all of the information.
2) Per [1] the surface area of your torso is about double that of one leg (that is, anterior torso is 18%, an individual leg anterior is 9%), so it's far more likely to hit if you aim for the torso. Even if you aim for a torso and miss, you might hit a limb or head - it's a lot less likely to miss a limb and hit something else.
3) The research behind the Tueller anti-knife self defence drill found an attacker with a knife could cover 21 ft / 6.4 metres in about 1.5 seconds. To stop the attack, you have to be able to shoot them before they can close to melee range - you must aim for the largest possible target to have any hope of success.
I am not commenting on US police practices generally, but specifically that the idea you can shoot to wound is neither responsible nor practical.
The rifles used by everyday police are the same as those owned by tens of millions of civilians. These weapons are cosmetically similar to those used by the military, but they have the same functionality and fire the same cartridge as the Ruger Mini-14.[1] They are semi-automatic. Every "bang!" requires a pull of the trigger. The reasons police have these weapons are because pistols are less accurate, have shorter range, and are unable to penetrate body armor. These rifles are usually locked in the back of the vehicle and only brought out for standoff situations, or if the cop has retreated due to being outgunned. Such occasions are rare, but when they happen, those rifles are worth their weight in gold (as are the fire extinguishers and medical kits in practically all police cars).
Moreover, police have always used the latest weaponry. A century ago, they were equipped with the Thompson submachine gun[2] and the Browning Automatic Rifle[3] (both of which are fully automatic weapons).
I agree that police have gotten more militarized over time, and I would love to roll that back, but it's also true that many of those arguing in this thread are either misled or disingenuous. We're much more likely to convince others if we make sure our arguments and our facts are unimpeachable.
1. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ruger_Mini-14.jpg
2. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thompsonad1sm.jpg
3. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Firearms_practice,_1...
It’s tragic, but many orders of magnitude away from your claim.
It’s not the quantity that makes it horrible, tragic, and infuriating. It is all those things because it’s evidence of a larger systemic issue which includes lots of other awful things that fall short of homocide; and it’s largely unnecessary.
[0] https://www.cdc.gov/healthequity/lcod/men/2017/nonhispanic-b...
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-de...
Regarding your second claim, I can't find those numbers. The closest thing I can find is this newsweek piece [2] with data from 2013 and 2014. That suggests most people who kill police are white. But it also includes prison guards as police.
[1]: https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2019-08-15/police-shoo...
[2]: https://www.newsweek.com/who-kills-police-officers-315701
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20531680177128...
> The US Department of Defense 1033 program makes excess military equipment, including weapons and vehicles, available to local LEAs. The variation in the amount of transferred equipment allows us to probe the relationship between military transfers and police violence. ... >
This is what it looks like even when the officer knows it is coming: https://youtu.be/2h0-q_IJbxE
