Then please explain to me what your view is. To me there are only roughly four views on it. Either police need to use SWAT-like tactics as much as they currently are, they need to use them more, less, or they are using them just right. I am of the view that they need to use less SWAT style tactics while you have come across as one of the other three (all of which means you come across as holding the view that these types of tactics need to be used more than I feel they need to be used). Also please explain why you feel this way so that I can attempt to understand where you're coming from.
Well, I suspect I think they should be used more often than you think they should. I don't think they should be used more than they currently are. The reason I feel the way I do is that there are a lot of situations that
could be handled by patrol officers, but not nearly as safely or as effectively.
It is but a piece in the puzzle to showing the overall mindset of cops on a national level. I know there are many cops not like this, but there are also many that have this mindset. I wish I could have found the original article on it, but the weapon was slung on his back and the fact remains that the cop saw what appeared to be a civilian with a gun and then shot him without ever taking in the full situation. The original articles were a bit better as the agencies didn't have time to come up with a cover story.
The article you linked stated that he had the weapon slung down his strong side and had his strong hand on it to keep it from bouncing. You won't catch me defending the transit cop's actions but nor will I condemn them out of hand as I wasn't there and didn't see what he saw. It's still a tragedy, however, and I do not think they were trying to cover anything up. Not release all the details so minimize looking incompetent, sure, but there isn't a person on this earth that isn't guilty of that at some point in their lives. Doesn't make it right, but doesn't make it sinister either.
That might be true, but what good is that training if they are taught to shoot people with a gun as a natural reaction? People have also posted how at various firing police ranges around the country the word used to start shooting is "GUN!" Which just goes to further reinforce the reflexive shooting of someone who has a gun before the full situation has been digested.
They're taught to shoot at threats, not people with guns. The totality of the circumstances are involved with this training. The simulators have full-motion interactive video and often there are multiple potential outcomes to any given scenario. You can use lethal force, less-than-lethal force, or even talk them down if you keep a cool head. The word the local PD and SD use around here isn't "GUN", I know that for a fact. I agree with you that using "GUN" is a bit narrow-minded.
That would be a gross stretch on your part. By using your logic to get to the point that it's "easy" for cops to shoot someone means that any time something is "easier" than something else that you could say the "easier" thing is easy. What I have been saying the whole time is that our military operates under stricter Rules of Engagement than our police force and that is simply wrong. By the rules being stricter for the military it means that you can also say that they are looser for the police (when compared to the military standard), or in other words it is easier for the police to engage someone than the military due to their looser rules. And I'm sorry, but it shouldn't be harder to shoot an enemy combatant than one of our own citizens.
It shouldn't be harder for a soldier to shoot an enemy than an officer to shoot an enemy, and I don't think it is in general. I do think the repercussions for an officer shooting an innocent are worse, however. The difference is that officers have been dealing with an insurgency-like theater for their entire existence.
Or they have the wrong house. And the reason why they are breaking in can very easily be questionable. And there's the question of, is it truely required? Why not just arrest the person while they are at work, or on their way to work, or something like that? Do they really need to kick in the door and point weapons at people? What does that really accomplish in most cases?
Or have the wrong house, granted. But if they have the wrong house, they are still under the impression that someone in there is a threat and are acting accordingly. Mistakes (sometimes tragic) happen.
Is it truly needed is where we disagree. I argue that yes, in cases where SWAT/SRT are activated it usually is. Many criminals of that type do not just go to work, and when they do go out and about they are always armed. The option is thus: Confront them at a location and time of their choosing where innocents are in far greater number, or confront them at a place and time of SWAT/SRT's choosing where the situation is more carefully controllable and there will be minimal innocent bystanders. To add to this, sometimes the object of the search warrant simply is in the house. It's all about tactics and minimizing known and unknown risk. I'd wager the vast majority of SWAT/SRT callouts do not result in force beyond going hands-on or OC/Tazer usage.
Fair enough, but can you at least give your view on it for why you disagree.
After re-reading your response to that, I'm not so sure we disagree as much as I previously thought. The object is the same in both our cases, that being to stop the threat by any means necessary. I just feel that not meeting force with force when it is presented is bad tactics. We do agree that you shouldn't instantly make the gun appear in your hands, but to me that is the ultimate goal and as you said, I'd be constantly working on creating an opening to do so.
This can go either way. It can seem like an eternity, especially for the police issuing the orders, but at the same time it isn't a lot of time. Especially when the tactics are designed to disorient the target to begin with. If your target can respond in 1-2 seconds then I would say that you didn't do a good job of disorienting them, and if they can't fully respond then more time is needed.
True enough, but I also disagree that most SWAT/SRT tactics involve 1-2 second timespans between warning and shoot. As I previously said, most SWAT/SRT callouts do not result in deadly force being used.
And here's my issue with this. They don't know who the bad guys are, and as such they slowly start to view everyone as a bad guy or potential bad guy (this seems to be more common in urban places). As such, even if they aren't at war with the citizenry they slowly start to act like it over time.
The inverse of this is that if you treat everyone as a good guy, you start getting complacent and then people get killed. I'm not advocating being heavy-handed with everyone you meet, far from it, but none of the soldier friends I have from any branch ever let their guard down with a civilian in a warzone that they did not know. To do so would be dangerous. No less so for officers. Most officers can readily ascertain if John Q Public is a threat or not after just a few words exchanged. There are bad apples out there though, and those tend to spoil the bunch.
I think part of the issue that people see on the forum is the whole thing about the few bad cops making disproportionate number of bad stops combined with the lack of discipline to fix the bad cops which is further excalibrated by the fact that carrying a weapon (especially OCing) makes one more likely to draw the attention of the police. As such you see many people posting about bad experiences and a lot of people take all of that to mean that we hate law enforcement. Do a lot of people distrust the cops? Sure, but why should they trust them? With the lack of discipline and the fact that most people don't know the officer they are interacting with you simply don't know if it's a good cop or bad cop. And so just as how the cops are slowly viewing more and more of the citizenry as part of the criminal element, you have more and more citizens starting to view the cops with distrust as they don't know what type of cop they're dealing with.
Now some people I on the forum do come across as flat out hating law enforcement, but I wouldn't say most people here do. It's simply where a lot of bad stories congregate and a good part of it has to do with the police mindset and training in how they interact with citizens.
Yes, and that's the crux of the issue that I personally have. The bad stops, the bad encounters, the outrageous abuses get publicized and widely so. They stir up outrage, as well they should. I just wish that some of those who are so quick to raise a torch and pitchfork against law enforcement in general would raise them against the incident in question and not the entirety of law enforcement everywhere. Whether they truly mean to include all law enforcement in their tirades or they are merely using literary license, it becomes wearying to read for me.
I will say that I wouldn't be surprised if some leadership were to push it as if it was mandatory, which would lead people under them to think it's required. But unless it's in a reg somewhere it isn't truely required. I've had to correct a lot of people in my career on what is and isn't mandatory or how to do things, but you better believe they were pushing it as if it was mandatory.
Fair enough and the statement remains retracted. As I said though, the book itself doesn't deal with why police are becoming more militarized except briefly. The meat of the book is the physiological and psychological reactions of the human body and mind in a combat situation. It is a very good read indeed, as is its predecessor, "On Killing", which explores the same reactions in the act of killing in general.
