The increasing militarization of police departments with the support of the Federal government selling them military-grade weapons surplus, is not helping the situation. That, and the long term move from foot patrols to patrol cars by most police departments in major cities.
I have thought that beat cops need to return. I have talked to some small business owners and it is rare for a police officer to stop in just to check up on things, or get to know the local community.
They give them military style equipment but not military style ROEs—Soldiers or Marines in combat can’t do what the police to do us every day. If Black and White would realize we both have the same problem with the Cop and it’s not about race, we could make some headway.
They militarized many agencies without providing the right kind of training to teach them to deal with situations. The military has very restrictive rules of engagement, they have to determine and identify an actual combatant/threat before engaging. Most law enforcement agencies are still using the “I felt threatened” as a basis for shooting dogs and people.
President O sided with BLM in making law enforcement the enemy, and that encouraged BLM and others to feel they could disrespect LE, and even set up ambushes for them. This article brushes by that but it has been happening more and more over the last 2 years. I have no doubt hearing about police being ambushed and murdered puts an extra element of fear in everyone wearing an LE uniform.
With the militarization of LE without proper training, along with the attitude of the previous administration toward LE- it was like pouring gas on a smouldering fire.
Add swatting pranks and we now have a recipe for disaster. I would think LE would be thoroughly trained to first confirm a situation before going in guns blazing. That would seem common sense if there were no swatting going on. With the swatting becoming more common I would think it would have immediately brought about a difference in training.
I don’t know what the solution is, but we do have to find one. I don’t want LE being killed left and right because they don’t react when there is a real threat. I also don’t want them killing innocent people because they perceive a threat where there is none.
A rookie BP once aimed an AR at my daughter and her 3 children from age 3 months to three years of age. He did a traffic stop on her in the dark on a deserted road in the middle of nowhere near the border. It is a state highway and she was coming to our house but to him the situation may have seemed scary. The thing is there was no threat to him, my daughter weighs 100 pound soaking wet. My husband talked to his supervisor about the situation and how easy it would have been for that to go wrong. The BP’s excuse was he thought he saw several heads in the car but he was actually seeing the top portion of car seats. If there had been adult passengers I still don’t understand the idea of aiming a rifle at them without any other cause. The BP said he was in fear of the situation. It was his first week on patrol out here by himself. Why he didn’t call for backup or any of a million other options- including a helicopter at his disposal- we still don’t know.
I think it is normal for LE to feel fear in a variety of situations- human nature and they are indeed in danger at times as we all know. There has to be a way to weed out those that cannot control that fear in order to make sound decisions when under stress. Some people are just not cut out for LE work. I don’t know how we fix it, but LE agencies have to recognize what the problems are and we have to get them fixed.