Question pertaining the to the greater perceived threat

I do respect the good cops. It must be a really hard job, scary, dangerous, and you have to be really brave to be a cop, I think. I would not want to walk up to a car full of strangers alone to confront them at night. I can't blame them for being scared. They are just human.

 

Actually, it does describe most cops. In almost every case in which an innocent person is killed by a cop, the police department and the local judiciary protect the cop. In many cases, they attack the victim through the media, they make excuses and sometimes blatantly lie. The system protects the bad cops - the "system" is the entire police department and state lawyers, they all participate in the betrayal of justice.

Yes, cops have great authority - and with great authority comes great responsibility and an obligation to wield that power with care and caution. You would think that cops would not tolerate a "bad cop", that the "good cops" would expel any cop who abuses his power or shows he was not capable of properly wielding great power.

You use the words "they are responsible for public safety". When a cop kills an innocent person, he/she has betrayed the public safety, he is a threat to public safety and should become the target of people who "are responsible for public safety" - the first to go after him should be the entire police department and judicial system.

The "bad cop" has proven his incompetence or inability to do the job, he should be removed and punished, not protected and retained.

 

No it does not since MOST cops aren't involved in these types of controversies.

 

Numerous citations can be presented to show the contrary, including one uniformed officer who shot a chihuahua four times before finally killing it, and claiming to be in fear of their life while doing such.

 

One cop shoots and kills an innocent person. His entire department and the judiciary rally around him to protect him from the legal and financial consequences of his misdeed. One pulls the trigger, but they all are accomplices in the miscarriage of justice. In many cases, that miscarriage is covering up a murder.

 

When Detroit cops burst into the house in a no-knock raid and killed 7 year old Aiyana Jones - shot her in the head while she was sleeping on the sofa in the front room - they first blamed Aiyana's grandmother by claiming she grabbed the cops rifle causing the rifle to discharge. Unfortunately for the cops, the tv show "48 Hours" was there filming. The cops lie was exposed when a member of the film crew (Allison Howard) revealed the video - and she was of course charged with obstruction of justice for derailing the attempted obstruction of justice by the cops and state lawyers.

Can you imagine the gall it took for the killer cop to blame the childs grandmother for the killing of her grandbaby?

And by the way, the cops were at the wrong address when they burst in and killed Aiyana.

 

Yes, that is awful. I agree that there are some rogue cops but not most of them. There are over a million officers currently in the US, and most of them do not do these types of things.

 

I think that may have been the way it used to be a long time ago but not so much anymore. They are usually investigated by an independent committee (the name escapes me right now).

 

True, most do not pull the trigger.

But the Detriot PD and the Detroit judicial system rallied around Officer Joseph Weekley (the killer) to protect him, the Detriot PD and the Detroit judicial system attacked Allison Howard for revealing the truth, the Detriot PD and the Detroit judicial system did everything they could to hinder Aiyana's family in both the criminal and civil cases.

Weekley pulled the trigger, and the Detriot PD and the Detroit judicial system shielded him from justice and were accomplices after the fact.

 

Any law enforcement officer that chooses to remain silent in the face of corrupt or otherwise illegal behavior, is just as guilty as the law enforcement officer that committed the illegal act to begin with. If they know that illegal activity is being committed, they are devoid of a legitimate reason for doing nothing to try and stop said activity from continuing.

 

Did you mean to address my post? Did I say otherwise? I said nothing of the sort. I only said that I don't believe most police officers (of the 1 million currently serving the US) do these types of things. They are not killer robots. They are people with family, friends, children, pets, etc.

 

Some are reviewed by an "independent" committee made up of their fellow cops, state attorneys and judges. Over the past few years, people's anger has overflowed, there are some reliable media sources who have taken on the issue, and I suspect the tide might be turning. But whether it is a real reform by law enforcement to return to true justice, or its merely law enforcement engaging in PR remains to be seen.

 

Its not the number of police officers who do these things, its the tolerance of these things by so many police officers. Few cops actually do these things, but the tolerance for abuse is systemic in law enforcement.

 

The problem is only further exacerbated by the fact that those who would be inclined to speak up have their lives threatened until they learn to simply take not action. If one officer is inclined to speak up about corrupt practices, they will be denied backup when putting in a call for help. It is quite literally a matter of extortion, as they are quite willing to kill their own to maintain the status quo.

 

The usual Anti Police advocates have spoken.

 

Who at the same time advocate that only law enforcement officers and the agents of government have access to firearms. Hence the contradiction in need of being addressed.

 

Show one LEO here that has ever advocated that only LE should bear Arms.
Only the Leftists Non LEOs take such a position.
I never have.
I want all Law Abiding citizens to have full uninfringed Rights.

 

No such claim was made. Rather only the inconsistency of the differing narratives have been pointed out. The individuals claiming that only law enforcement officers and government should have access to firearms, are the same individuals that claim law enforcement officers are racist murderers whenever a minority individual is killed.

 

As a former LEO, I'm going to weigh in on this... and state we do indeed have a problem in American law-enforcement; but it's a problem that is contributed to by a lot of factors...and the American people themselves contribute to it.

My grandfather was a cop. He spent forty years in uniform, and when I was growing up he told me about how police officers weren't police to be bullies or authoritarians, but sworn protectors of society. It was an honor to be a law-enforcement officer, and they held themselves to a higher standard... and the society trusted them and saw them as honorable people doing a difficult job and did everything they could to support them. But then, people themselves chose to hold themselves to a higher standard too; they took responsibility for their actions and understood this was necessary for them to have a role in their own security. There was no "US vs. THEM" mentality, but an entire society trying to work together towards their mutual benefit. Yes, I understand that it was far from an idyllic society, with parts of the country rife with institutionalized racism, and there were places (especially in the South) where corruption was the rule rather than the exception; but in some parts of the country law enforcement officers and the people worked together for the benefit of all. Law enforcement agencies tended to be smaller, with fewer officers per capita, but the people generally did a good job of looking out for themselves and each other.

Then, things began to change. Personal responsibility somehow became unreasonable to expect. Cops became "pigs" and people turned on them en masse. Cops began to be blamed for things beyond their control in society, and people demanded they do more with less. Everything law enforcement did began to be fiercely scrutinized, and the people demanded cops be immediately available when they were needed but nowhere around when they weren't. People engaging in irresponsible, dangerous, and self-destructive behavior would wail in outrage about "there are REAL criminals out there and you're bothering ME?" The courts began to slap violent criminals on the wrist and release them without charging them, or plea-bargaining rapists and murderers out of jail before the arresting officer could finish filing his paperwork.... and people blamed the cops instead of an overloaded legal system. People voted for all kinds of social programs and pulled money from the budgets of law-enforcement to pay for them, and then were shocked when the quality of law enforcement suffered. Government bureaucrats get princely salaries while law enforcement gets paid pennies. Some officers can't even afford to live in the towns they are tasked with policing! Training is laughably limited and usually one of the first things cut when budget concerns become a political football; officers are carrying guns on the street while barely being aware of even the fundamentals of effective gun handling; much less have even a clue on how to deal with the realities of close quarters combat.

In the end, some people still pursue being law enforcement for the right reasons: a sense of calling towards wanting to contribute to a better society. But, current circumstances make many quality candidates turn away from the job. Why put your life on the line for a society that hates you, whose media attacks you, that pays you a salary that is a pittance at best and demands the impossible from you while cursing you for every perceived failure... and even when you do the job right political forces throw you under the bus as soon as public favor rejects the policy that motivated you to do what you did? Cops die when they hesitate to do what is necessary because they fear the legal ramifications of what they need to do. They are faced with a consistently inconsistent deluge of politically correct directives and counter-directives and counter-counter-directives until they don't know what policy they need to follow in a given moment. A lot of good officers end up resigning in disgust and frustration because it just stops being worth it, and the departments get fewer and fewer qualified applicants even as they deal with ever more violent criminals and ever more dwindling resources and an ever more selfish, childish, and irresponsible society.

As for me, my LE career came to an end for a combination of reasons. Injuries and other personal reasons were part of it, but something happened to a friend of mine that made me realize it just wasn't worth it anymore. He was faced with a criminal he found hiding in a construction site, and the suspect grabbed a lead pipe and advanced on him aggressively. He retreated, calling for backup as he repeatedly ordered the subject to drop the weapon. The guy kept coming, and when my friend realized he had been backed into a corner with nowhere else to go he gave one last command for the subject to halt and then shot the suspect, killing him. Preliminary investigation, including analysis of security camera footage and the recorded radio transmissions, proved that he'd followed policy to the letter and had only fired when he nowhere else to go. Nevertheless, public outcry was deafening. "A jack-booted agent of a totalitarian government had gunned down an unarmed immigrant child" was the shout. The deceased was 18, had an extensive violent criminal record, was in the country illegally, and had indeed been armed with a deadly weapon... but when it was pointed out that the pipe was a deadly weapon, a representative to the local "immigrants rights" organization rejected that because "it's not like that poor boy had actually hit him with the pipe yet!" as if my friend should have waited to have his skull crushed in before he should take any defensive action! My friend was cleared by the agency, but faced a lot of defamation and public abuse in the community, which claimed the only reason why he'd been cleared was because of a corrupt system and he was still a murderer of a "helpless child". He ended up transferring to a different station in a different part of the country, and I made the final decision for myself to hang it up.

Ultimately, we live in a society based upon personal freedom and liberty; but such a society only survives so long as the people themselves understand the responsibilities inherent in preserving such a society that each and every citizen much bear. If we fail to take responsibility for ourselves, as individuals, then a free society cannot stand, and those who might choose to stand up to protect their fellow citizens find their fellow citizens unworthy of the sacrifices necessary.

 

All of which goes on to illustrate the dueling narratives that are being sold by the same group at the same time. They call for only law enforcement officers to have access to firearms, but do not actually want them to use said firearms in the line of duty.

 

53% of murders are committed by blacks.
55% of murder victims are black.
Gun control has nothing to do with either.

 

They create a no-win situation that contributes to the degradation of society as a whole; all so they can then swoop into the resultant devastation and rebuild society their way.

 

I think the OP asked two different questions both somewhat rational.

For the more liberal minded, ( notice I avoided the terms I would normally use for those on the left) I would strongly recommend that you contact your local police department and see if you can go on a ride a long for a night or two. I guarantee that that would soften your thoughts regarding the all cops are racist and have the right to shoot anybody they want meme that is pushed daily by the leftie/socialist (sorry, I could not help myself) crowd.

If the thousands of firearm laws already on the books were enforced in a harsh manner by judges and prosecutors that constantly strike "deals" with the system, firearm related crimes committed in this country would drop dramatically. I say, mandatory prison sentence for using a gun in the commission of a crime followed by the sentence for the crime itself which is to be added to the former. No deals or plea bargains period. You commit a crime with a gun, you goin' to jail.

Build the wall and line it with prisons so anyone that goes over or under it will be greeted with bars.

That said,

I am sure the OP knows that firearm violence has dropped well over 25% in the last three decades in spite of the fact firearm ownership and carry permits has gone up by hundreds of thousands in that same period.

 

thanks for the post.

If I may ask one question, an issue that i've referred to in the past regarding the subject of LEO's whom I've always had a tremendous amount of respect for.

Was it your experience that LEO's were more inclined to protect other LEO's in the cases where mistakes were made?

In some of the public the event's where mistakes were made, for better or worse, it has appeared to me that officers were very protective of their co-workers and in some cases willing to fudge facts or file false reports to protect them.

That has always been an issue for me.

 

Growing up around law enforcement, and working in the field myself, I found a very different mindset than most people would expect. In my grandfather's day, officers held themselves to a very high standard because they knew how important the public trust was, and that bought them tremendous leeway in terms of public goodwill.

In the agency where I worked, there was a fierce loyalty between us; there had to be, because we often found ourselves alone, in the middle of nowhere, able to rely on no one but our fellow agents to respond if we got into a dangerous situation. However, we also held each other to a very high standard of behavior; it's a hard job to do and even harder when the public trust gets betrayed by misdeeds on the part of agents. If someone screwed up, or was in danger of screwing up, we were generally very quick to call each other on it; the idea was that we needed to police each other to keep ourselves on the straight and narrow. It helped that we were in an agency that had very clear guidelines in its policy and so long as we followed policy we were pretty golden. There was an incident in another station where two agents stupidly failed to follow policy and then tried to cover it up, and everybody cringed but then said, "Well, they should have followed policy...." and those agents were ultimately prosecuted for their misdeeds. Sadly, they'd actually done the right thing in the moment, but because they didn't want to do the paperwork at the end of a long shift they decided to cover up what they'd done... and it ruined their lives.

Unfortunately, some agencies and local departments have indeed had a tendency to close ranks and protect the misdeeds of their fellow officers, even if they privately disapproved of the actions of the miscreants. That's partially the fault of those who seek to micromanage departments and want to prosecute every officer to the fullest extent of the law for every transgression, real or imagined. Remember the officer who shot Michael Brown in self-defense? He was hounded into resigning, his career and good name in tatters, all because of political pressures brought to bear by those with an agenda.

The response to this is for the departments to want to handle it in-house, or for officers present at the scene of an incident to try and cover for an officer who commits a misdeed because everyone there faces the loss of their career and pensions just for being present at a questionable event even if they did nothing wrong. I know of a group of officers from another agency who actually stepped forward immediately when one of their number did something wrong and honorably reported the malfeasance of their fellow officer... and they were promptly charged as accessories by an overzealous prosecution that wanted to "make an example of them" for being dirty, even though they'd done the right thing by coming forward! They were fortunately able to prove their innocence (thanks to their careful documentation of everything that had happened and proper collection of evidence) and avoided jail time, but two of them had their careers destroyed and lost their pensions, and one was demoted and reassigned and ended up taking early retirement at a reduced pension... and these are officers who were trying to do the right thing by holding another officer to account for a misdeed! What do you think that did for unit morale and cohesion? And what do you think it did to the motivations of other officers to try and do the right thing in the future?

In the end, some officers start turning a blind eye to other officers' misdeeds and just try to keep their heads down, those that do speak out end up being seen as "traitors" who have betrayed their brother officers, and officers of integrity face a no-win situation and end up leaving law-enforcement. I myself got sick and tired of political intrigue and chicanery and watching friends from other departments getting thrown under the bus for political expedience, and when you combined that with some things I had going on in my personal life at the time it just ended up making more sense to resign and walk away from my career rather than be stuck in that environment.

I will admit to a level of sadness and melancholy on this subject. Law enforcement only works when its agents hold themselves to a high standard of integrity and honorable service. When one officer acts contrary to that, it harms everybody by undermining public trust. But when politicians and disreputable officials use law-enforcement as a scapegoat for society's ills, or play political games that undermine law enforcement officers' ability to do their job effectively, then that only makes things worse. When shifting blame and political skulduggery becomes more important than protecting the public, then the public is who suffers.