thank you...
Posted on 02/22/2013 3:37:46 PM PST by neverdem
Police typically say that their top mission is to protect “public safety.” That’s the lingo. But the recently concluded manhunt for former Los Angeles Police Department officer Christopher Dorner, accused of murdering four people after releasing a manifesto decrying his 2008 firing from the force, suggests that concern about the public’s actual safety sometimes is fairly low on the list of police priorities.
Last weekend, police opened fire on a 71-year-old newspaper carrier and her 47-year-old daughter who had the misfortune of driving a pick-up truck police thought might be Dorner’s. The Los Angeles police detectives who opened fire on them, putting two bullets in the older woman’s back, didn’t do much double checking. The carriers' truck was a different make and color from Dorner’s.
As the women’s attorney told the Los Angeles Times: “The problem with the situation is it looked like the police had the goal of administering street justice and in so doing, didn't take the time to notice that these two older, small Latina women don't look like a large black man.” This could be written off as a sad fluke, except that 25 minutes later different officers opened fire on a different truck—once again getting key details wrong. Can’t officers at least check the license plate, and issue a warning, before opening fire?
“Nobody trains police officers to look for one of their own,” said Maria Haberfeld, a police-training professor at John Jay College in New York, according to the Web site News One. “I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes and I don’t think anybody else would.” We all understand the situation. But saying that we wouldn’t want to be “in their shoes” is no excuse for such dangerous behavior. The police wouldn’t excuse a member of the public for misusing a firearm, regardless of how stressed out that person felt.
News One also published the photograph of a gray Ford truck in the Los Angeles area with a hand-made “Don’t Shoot, Not Dorner, Thank You” poster on the back window. T-shirts and bumper stickers have popped up to similar effect. Those are funny in a dark way, but police ought to recognize how poorly this reflects on them and their strategies. It’s sad when people are more worried about the police than they are about a murderer on the loose.
“Simply put, the police culture in our country has changed,” argued former San Jose Police Chief Joe McNamara, a Hoover Institution scholar, in a Wall Street Journal article in 2006. “An emphasis on ‘officer safety’ and paramilitary training pervades today’s policing, in contrast to the older culture, which held that cops didn’t shoot until they were about to be shot or stabbed.”
Murders are sadly routine in the Los Angeles area. The massive police presence was the result of the killer targeting their own, thus leading to the reasonable conclusion that police pulled out the stops not because the public was in danger but because they were in danger. I don’t blame police for their efforts, but I also understand why residents in, say, South Los Angeles, wondered why killings in their community don’t rate the same attention.
With crime rates at 40-year lows, this is an opportune time for a debate about such police-priority issues free from excess emotionalism.
Media reports have focused on the rantings within Dorner’s manifesto. But a lot of it is about bureaucratic indifference—about police officials who, in his mind, didn't care about the communities they are sworn to protect. Nothing justifies such violence and I'm sickened by people who are celebrating Dorner, but even the LAPD is re-opening the case of Dorner’s firing. Perhaps the department will try to glean some broader lessons from this tragedy.
Currently, a case before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is evaluating the lengths to which police are required to go to protect innocent bystanders. The case involves Sacramento police who were trailing a suspect who had run from his car and then hid in a tree in a family’s backyard. A police helicopter spotted him. So an officer released a police dog into the yard even though people were having a gathering in the backyard.
Police dogs are trained to bite and hold suspects, but they can’t distinguish between law-abiding citizens relaxing with friends and police suspects. So Bandit attacked the first person it saw. Instead of instituting reform and settling with the family, Sacramento PD has been arguing that “officer safety” would be endangered by requiring a reasonable warning before releasing a vicious dog on private property.
It’s frightening to think that police can use deadly force without taking even the most modest steps to protect innocent bystanders. It’s even more frightening to hear people defend this approach. Yes, officer safety is important. But so is the public’s safety. It's time to grapple with the proper balance.
I disagree. Your point with respect to the larger society perhaps has merit but with respect to the job of police work, less so. Standards of Manhood which necessarily applied to police work were relaxed because women can't or won't uphold them. This lowers the standards for all cops and we find ourselves where we are today: with cops acting exactly like frightened women. The brutishness fills the vacuum left by a sense of proper Manhood and may also be a manifestation of self disgust engendered by the abandonment of a Man's God-given role.
“Where is the outrage against a murderous POS that left a father without a daughter, wife without a husband and two little girls without a father? Appears that is who you are defending.”
There’s been plenty of outrage expressed over the murderer. Questioning the tactics of the police is not approving his murders.
When you get asked a direct question you deflect, insult or lie. You are excusing state authority using deadly force without cause or provocation on multiple occasions.
You are a troll pure and simple.
thank you...
And these are the ones that a lot of women find most attractive.
Take a look at the urban underclass. It's the thugs who are fathering the most spawn. They are breeding Orcs.
Oh, we understand plain English, all right.
We also understand Sophistry. "It depends on what the meaning of is, is..."
This article is about the police blasting away at ANYTHING they thought was Crisptopher Dorner. As Steven Greenhut wrote, "The police wouldn’t excuse a member of the public for misusing a firearm, regardless of how stressed out that person felt."
Well, they're excusing themselves, and YOU'RE excusing them, too. "Yes, yet they didn't kill anyone..." "It was dark. How good are you at seeing colors when it is dark? What do you suggest, walking up to a potential murderous fugitive and asking for a driver;'s license?" "However, there are extenuating circumstances that explain their response." "Is it true that the shooting incident with the 'surfer' occurred while it was dark?" "Thanks for posting. I wasn't aware the shooting incident with the two women victims occurred in the dark at 4:30 AM." and on and on and on, interspersed with foamings about other posters being "retarded", "drama queens", "liars", "cowards", "mindless", "whining", "bullies", "CT freak", "mental midget", "hysterical BS", "deranged", "insane", "psychopath", "incapable of understanding plain English"
And the crowning Sophist lie of A. Troll: "No one is defending the actions of the cops."
Well, except for the Apologist Wolf. BTW - he claims to have learned his vicious trolling trade on Liberty Post. It might be one of the few things that's not just a flat-out trolling post...
Yes, you have used those words.
Somehow we are still left doubting your sincerity. Why do you suppose that is, hmmm?
Nope.
The police blazed away at unarmed civilians on two separate occasions, they did this when conditions were such that they couldn't identify their targets.
That, sir, is a fact. I have no problem understanding it.
You, on the other hand seem to. You mouth the words that they should be charged, but your heart isn't in it.
Not for want of trying. Well over 100 rounds fired at close range, 3 vehicles destroyed, 3 civilians injured, God knows how many imperiled by stray rounds.
Final result, suspect burned (good riddance), yet another innocent civilian's property (the cabin) utterly destroyed, with minimal concern that there might be hostages or other innocents trapped inside.
I think you are fully capable of grasping the twin facts that the SWAT teams first action wasn't to attempt a peaceful resolution, it was to "go ahead with the burn as planned". As planned. And the intent of the entire exercise was to kill Dorner, no matter the cost in terms of civilians and property.
They had any number of less lethal options, from talking him out to starving him out, to using non-incendiary teargas, at no to minimal risk to themselves.
I don't fault them for not going in with flashbangs and a full frontal assault, as there would be actual risks associated with that, I do fault them for having no intention of risking taking him alive. They wanted to burn him alive "as planned", per the voice recordings taken directly from police scanner intercepts.
Nothing would deter them from this goal, not prying the front door open and receiving no response, not seeing blood splatter in the corner, not the cessation of gunshots from inside.
The goal was first, foremost and only death to Dorner. Not capture, trial, conviction and execution. Apparently the police believed that the first 3 steps were what? Unnecessary? Uncertain? Dangerous? Embarrassing?
They used the two step process: Chase away the witnesses, burn the whole place down.
You're OK with this. I'm glad he's dead too. But I mourn a far worse fatality than the death of one ex-cop, the death of even the appearance of legal process. You celebrate it.
Yikes!
Sophistry. There’s a word I meant to use last night. That and half-truths.
I think you are confusing two incidents that happened moments apart. The women delivering papers were fired on and stopped. An officer responding to that shooting spotted another pickup traveling away from that area and thought it was Dorner fleeing, police rammed the second pickup and also fired shots at it. The driver of the second pickup had just been stopped by police and released.
It was even more disturbing to me that it was clear from photos that both the driver and passenger were targeted by police during that shooting. If they were convinced it was Dorner in that pickup, did it not occur to them the other person could have been a hostage?
shoot first ask questions later...
Truly scary. Hubby was talking to a friend of ours that is a State Police Officer of many years about all of this and our friend was as stunned as we are at the actions of LEO in CA.
Where did I lie? Your mindless allegations, insults and lies prove that you are a troll pure and simple, don't they?
What does "the cops involved in the incidents being discussed should be charged both criminally and civilly" mean to you? Is English your second language? Do you need someone to hold your hand and walk you slowly through this? Or are you as totally hopeless as you appear?
Cowards make comments about others without pinging them. You've proven what you are. You fouled yourself, I didn't. You have to live with it, I don't.
We? LOL! Am I supposed to be impressed or GAS?
Will you be filing civil charges against the LAPD?
Of course, he DID use the "clever" ploy of calling you a troll in return. **snicker**
Wonder what's next for the Troll Beneath The Bridge To Nowhere - "I'm rubber, and you're glue..."?
Pretty common fare for a snarky little troll who learned his trade on Liberty Post, I guess.
He lauds his own vitriol as eloquence, and everyone else is wrong, a retard, and doesn't understand English.
I did point out to him that I went to college for free on my English skills, and he didn't...
I believe that his riposte was that I was "too stupid to be embarrassed"...
"Oh SNAP!"
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