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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.
Gee what does a crip or a blood do when one of their gang gets smoked.... They go after the perp and to heck with bystanders . All the while police tsk, tsk about “ senseless and undisciplined” thugs. Hahahahahaha. Typical tough guys wearing their balaclavas and pretending their spec operators except for one little thing. Discipline...
Too bad you can't handle the truth. Is it true that the shooting incident with the 'surfer' occurred while it was dark?
cop hating?
really?
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I followed the Dorner story as it was happening on KFI radio online and all of the points you made were reported by KFI. It was also noted by many callers that newspaper delivery people all over the valley do drive with lights out on residential side streets because they get too many complaints if the paper delivery people’s headlights shine in their windows. If callers knew this why did the police seem to not be aware? Even if all your points are accurate it still seems the police had no reason to fire upon the vehicle. The people in the vehicle were not firing at police or anyone else and obviously police did not identify vehicle or occupants before firing upon them. Inexcusable.
pingarooney
So its ok for the cops to shoot people at random as long as its dark?
Here is a new thread featuring a new essay and 5-minute YouTube video titled “Democide: Socialism, Tyranny, Guns and Freedom.” The video has had 12,000 views in the first two days.
I helped to produce the video. It’s an effort to lift the debate from Newtown “small ball” to the big leagues of state democide, where these efforts at “reasonable and commonsense” gun control laws always lead to death by the million in the end.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2990161/posts?page=42
So the fact that Dorner was a murdering SOB excuses everything the cops did?
I thought you were better then that.
Is it true that if it were that would make it A-OK with you?
I’m just not willing to play the left’s game.
I thought you were better than that.
Actually, I agree with you - men no longer respect women (gee, I wonder why).
But, the rules cops follow are for female cops - it makes them all hysterical and fearful of the public.
Expecting police not to shoot innocent people is a conservative principal.
The governments power is derived from the people, not the police.
Here’s the best description of the Redondo Beach incident I’ve seen so far. They said they heard the shots at the blue truck and thought they were being shot at, so it was just a number of minutes later.
The quintessential photo of that incident is the one showing how the guy’s rear axle is torn clean off from getting rammed. It says here that the officer rammed it so hard that he couldn’t get out of his own car.
http://www.sgvtribune.com/news/ci_22600650/officer-who-shot-at-innocent-redondo-beach-mans
At random? No. Is it ok for a murderer to shoot at cops as long as he wrote a manifesto?
That's what I asked you. Are the questions to difficult for you?
nope, not here.. live in a small town, the difference between when I was in my 20s-30s to now (50s) is from men from the area that we all lived around, and could talk to on a neighborly level, to young Rambo’s who purposely try to intimidate you into giving them a reason to arrest you.
According to the Griffith Observatory civil twilight started at 6:17 on the morning of Feb 10.
Perdue was rammed and shot at about 5:45.
In the absence of other illumination such as streetlights, city sky glow and the ramming unit’s own headlights it would be difficult to distinguish the exact make and color of the truck.
That means the police were well within their rights to shoot first and ask questions later, if at all.
At least according to some...
What part of murdering SOB did you miss?
Quit changing the subject. The subject at hand is the fact that cops shot innocent people simply because they were in the general area.
Further at hand is the general problem of the militarization of the police in this country.
It took me a bit of research to pin down the time of the incident and when daylight started.
So shoot me.
I know you want to, as I’m not wearing blue, I’m an acceptable target in your book.
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