The Behavior Of US Police Officers - Part 3

[plague311]

Did he? Or did he draw what was on his dominant side fast?

Good idea, put their gun on the other side and their taser on the dominant hand or perhaps if there's a non-lethal style gun. Rubber bullets or something similar.

There's this common idea that to disable someone with a gun they have to be dead, but I don't believe that to be true at all. Shoot anyone with a rubber bullet, or as cops like to do shoot them 6-7 times with rubber bullets, and that person is going to drop the gun.

 

[Thermal]

British Police are trained to strike at the arm to force a drop or the Femur to take someone down, the modern extending steel baton can break your leg or arm

If you're fast enough to engage it and hit your fast moving target femur. Try that sometime. Taint as easy as it looks.

 

[plague311]

If you're fast enough to engage it and hit your fast moving target femur. Try that sometime. Taint as easy as it looks.

But I think the point is that other countries seem to be able to pull it off. What is it about America that makes our police completely incapable of doing what other police forces do? Are our cops slower? Are other country's citizen's faster? A leg is pretty good sized compared to the rest of the human body, and there are two of them. I would genuinely be interested in seeing someone try that, it seems rather simple to do. A baton is a good foot or two isn't it?

 

[Thermal]

Good idea, put their gun on the other side and their taser on the dominant hand or perhaps if there's a non-lethal style gun. Rubber bullets or something similar.

I can understand needing to have the gun on the dominant hand side. If you are confronting a murdering gunman (a real threat in the USA), you really need everything optimal.

There's this common idea that to disable someone with a gun they have to be dead, but I don't believe that to be true at all. Shoot anyone with a rubber bullet, or as cops like to do shoot them 6-7 times with rubber bullets, and that person is going to drop the gun.

Abso-◊◊◊◊◊◊◊-lutely. We might have more cops shooting faster, but if they bring down the suspect with nothing more than bruises and maybe a cracked bone, that's a solid win.

 

[Thermal]

But I think the point is that other countries seem to be able to pull it off. What is it about America that makes our police completely incapable of doing what other police forces do? Are our cops slower? Are other country's citizen's faster? A leg is pretty good sized compared to the rest of the human body, and there are two of them. I would genuinely be interested in seeing someone try that, it seems rather simple to do. A baton is a good foot or two isn't it?

Yeah, they pull it off, which is why I'm sure we can too. They are also 99.99% confident that their bad guys have no bang-bang. Disarming American police isn't an option as long as we are flooded with handguns. But getting cops to take that extra second to weigh out lethal v non-lethal might be (to them, anyway) the difference between living and dying.

Eta: I used to have an expanding spring steel baton, when they were semi-legal. It was just short of 18". Nasty ass thing to get whacked with, but you have to be a real ninja level sharpshooter with it to drop somebody whose moving fast with one hit.

And regarding hitting someone with a baton, we played around with that too, using soft sticks. Against someone timid, it's easy to score. Against an aggressive guy, not so much. They don't stand still. By the time you pick your target leg and swing, that leg ain't there anymore. Boxers deal with that a lot, and Floyd Mayweather has that evasion thing down to a science. Hitting a moving target is a whole lot trickier than it looks. IME, anyway. Where I had thr best luck scoring was with two sticks, going high and low on different places on the body. One or the other has better chances of contact than relying on just one.

 

[Andy_Ross]

It's easier to shoot everyone on sight, why even pretend to do anything else?

 

[Thermal]

It's easier to shoot everyone on sight, why even pretend to do anything else?

I actually live in the States. Taking down somebody with a knife without shooting is Saturday night barfight stuff. It doesn't even make the news. The Independence shooting was a rare outlier. You guys pretend it's the rule. It's not.

On the Bondi Mall thread, as we were arguing, a guy in my neck of the woods unexpectedly attacked a cop with a knife. The cop fought with him, and was joined by a second cop. Neither drew a weapon. Everyone got out in one piece. Barely made a mention on the back page of the news. That's how it really is over here, not this goofy fantasy of scared cops shooting everything that moves that you guys believe.

 

[novaphile]

How are the cops going to get surprise attacked during a domestic disturbance call? They are trianed to assume the purpetrator and victim might turn on them.

I can give you an example.

Mixed patrol arrives on scene of a domestic disturbance, husband and wife, shouting and screaming at each other in the front yard.
Using standard tactics, they separate husband and wife. Female officer gets the husband to sit down on the front fence, and chats nicely with him, to help him calm down. Male officer takes the wife into the dwelling, and sits down with her on the couch, and helps her to calm down.

After a few minutes the wife says: "Oh! Where's my manners? I haven't even offered you a drink, I'll make us a cup of tea."

And: "I suppose I should put this away too."

After saying this, she stands up with the 11 inch carving knife, that was hidden between the couch seat cushions, in between her and the police officer.

To quote a common meme: "It was at this moment, he realised that he had ◊◊◊◊◊◊ up."

If she had intended to harm him. He would have been dead. No ifs, buts, or do-overs.

And yes, I know both officers in the above.

 

[Shadowdweller]

But I think the point is that other countries seem to be able to pull it off. What is it about America that makes our police completely incapable of doing what other police forces do? Are our cops slower? Are other country's citizen's faster?

Yeah, they pull it off, which is why I'm sure we can too. They are also 99.99% confident that their bad guys have no bang-bang. Disarming American police isn't an option as long as we are flooded with handguns. But getting cops to take that extra second to weigh out lethal v non-lethal might be (to them, anyway) the difference between living and dying.

The classic argument one usually hears from US peace officers is that policing in the US is uniquely difficult and dangerous. Usually due to the high incidence of weapons; but sometimes also due to some implied excess of "gang activity". It is certainly true that the US leads the world in terms of number of guns per person. And the US has less restrictive laws against openly carrying knives and other weapons than many other first world nations. Unfortunately without a major shift in court interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, there isn't likely to be any significant changes in the number of firearms amongst the population any time soon, much as some of us might wish otherwise. I've personally yet to see any truly credible evidence that gang activity or organized crime is notably worse in the US.

It IS worth noting that not only does US police training more often focus on firearm use and the immediate suppression of threats than policing in other countries, but US police officers receive significantly less training overall than police in other countries. Like one half to one sixth as much as police in other first world nations.

I strongly suspect that there are cultural and administrative elements to the issue as well at play: Some parts of our police force are elected; and frequently compete to portray themselves as as "tough on crime" to the voting public. Whereas advancement and promotion can be earned in some agencies based on the number of arrests or convictions. Or maybe just wide swathes of the US public like to envision criminals as irredeemably bad people undeserving of mercy or rights. Instead of human beings in bad circumstances; or who might need a bit of help fitting into society without breaking the rules.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I can give you an example.

Mixed patrol arrives on scene of a domestic disturbance, husband and wife, shouting and screaming at each other in the front yard.
Using standard tactics, they separate husband and wife. Female officer gets the husband to sit down on the front fence, and chats nicely with him, to help him calm down. Male officer takes the wife into the dwelling, and sits down with her on the couch, and helps her to calm down.

After a few minutes the wife says: "Oh! Where's my manners? I haven't even offered you a drink, I'll make us a cup of tea."

And: "I suppose I should put this away too."

After saying this, she stands up with the 11 inch carving knife, that was hidden between the couch seat cushions, in between her and the police officer.

To quote a common meme: "It was at this moment, he realised that he had ◊◊◊◊◊◊ up."

If she had intended to harm him. He would have been dead. No ifs, buts, or do-overs.

And yes, I know both officers in the above.

Why you need to kill first and talk second in all domestic disturbances.

 

[plague311]

In other news about the sketchy ass things police do, apparently they've been requesting guns from the ATF and then selling them for profit to...whoever. Sometimes they end up in the hands of violent criminals, sometimes they're given to the Mexican Cartel and sometimes they're given to traffickers. The point is that the officer selling them makes substantial profit without anyone in the system really caring at all.

Adair, Iowa, had a population of 794. So, it seemed suspicious when its three-person police department asked regulators to buy 90 machine guns, including an M134 Gatling-style minigun capable of shooting up to 6,000 rounds of ammunition every minute.

Federal agents later discovered Adair's police chief, Bradley Wendt, was using his position to acquire weapons and sell them for personal profit. A jury convicted Wendt earlier this year of conspiracy to defraud the United States, lying to federal law enforcement and illegal possession of a machine gun. Wendt is unapologetic and has appealed his conviction.

"If I'm guilty of this, every cop in the nation's going to jail," Wendt told CBS News just days before a federal judge sentenced him to a 5-year prison term. Wendt's crimes appear to be part of a nationwide pattern.

Source

That's probably one of the more disturbing articles I've read in recent times.

 

[Thermal]

In other news about the sketchy ass things police do, apparently they've been requesting guns from the ATF and then selling them for profit to...whoever. Sometimes they end up in the hands of violent criminals, sometimes they're given to the Mexican Cartel and sometimes they're given to traffickers. The point is that the officer selling them makes substantial profit without anyone in the system really caring at all.



Source

That's probably one of the more disturbing articles I've read in recent times.

This ◊◊◊◊ should be front page news and careers ending in prison. This isn't stealing paper from the copyroom. It's a profound betrayal of public trust.

 

[plague311]

This ◊◊◊◊ should be front page news and careers ending in prison. This isn't stealing paper from the copyroom. It's a profound betrayal of public trust.

No argument from me. The fact the cop most recently busted is saying every cop does it is ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ concerning. The ones in charge of enforcing laws are the problem.

 

[Thermal]

No argument from me. The fact the cop most recently busted is saying every cop does it is ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ concerning. The ones in charge of enforcing laws are the problem.

Counterintuitive as all hell that the police wouldn't have a super tight accounting of every firearm running through their department, too, from acquisition requests to disposal. Police in 23 states, the article says, already nabbed on this. It's not exactly a one-off outlier.

 

[plague311]

Counterintuitive as all hell that the police wouldn't have a super tight accounting of every firearm running through their department, too, from acquisition requests to disposal. Police in 23 states, the article says, already nabbed on this. It's not exactly a one-off outlier.

Nope and it transcends any political affiliation as well. States from coast to coast, blue and red, etc. Mind blowing.

 

[Thermal]

Nope and it transcends any political affiliation as well. States from coast to coast, blue and red, etc. Mind blowing.

Brazen little ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊, too. The last guy popped is unapologetic. 90 automatic weapons for a three cop town of under 800 people? Who the ◊◊◊◊ is he outfitting, Delta Force?

 

[plague311]

Brazen little ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊, too. The last guy popped is unapologetic. 90 automatic weapons for a three cop town of under 800 people? Who the ◊◊◊◊ is he outfitting, Delta Force?

Funny you should say that cause an ex-delta force member got popped for doing this same thing too!

 

[Thermal]

Funny you should say that cause an ex-delta force member got popped for doing this same thing too!

Jesus christ, a brother can't even wax hyperbolic anymore without it being literal fact.

 

[plague311]

Jesus christ, a brother can't even wax hyperbolic anymore without it being literal fact.

Just to drive the point home for the fun of it:

A decade later, prosecutors uncovered a multistate conspiracy linking a sanctioned Russian arms dealer with three police chiefs, one sheriff and a Delta Force veteran who sold machine guns directly to a criminal trafficker. All of them pleaded guilty. An additional alleged co-conspirator, who worked as an intelligence analyst for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, denied wrongdoing and his case is proceeding to trial.

In case you're using a checkbox that covers local (police chiefs), state (sheriff), military (Delta Force) and federal (Intel Analyst for Homeland Security). That might be a BINGO right there.

 

[jimbob]

Nope and it transcends any political affiliation as well. States from coast to coast, blue and red, etc. Mind blowing.

You need fewer police forces. Probably only federal and state. It wouldn't solve the problem but would remove the complete *********** that 18k police organisations causes

Edited to mask obscenity not yet caught by the auto censor