What could go wrong?
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’ve lived in Ohio all my life. To what historical event are you referring?
As a staunch conservative in law school I hated the notion of defense attorneys, the exclusionary rule and the like because I thought they were about bleeding heart liberals trying to protect criminals. Years later I realized that government is the enemy and these are the only protections we have against out-of-control, oppressive government. Our founders understood the danger of tyrannical government and that’s why these protections appear in the Constitution. Check out the recent articles about the female Utah cop - cop of the year in 2007 because of her record number of DWI arrests - who has now been fired and may be prosecuted because she was routinely arresting folks who had no signs whatsoever of alcohol consumption. She wanted the promotions and recognition such behavior brought her. Even worse, her whole department was giving her the “atta girl” for all of her fine work. This kind of attitude by government and law enforcement is now the rule rather than the exception.
Thanks for posting. That's the most comprehensive description of those events I've seen.
WTF does "At random? No" mean to you? Are you retarded? Try to keep up.
I always think about the cop who arrested the man who ate a victim’s face off! Some situations are just plain horrifying. I think of how much courage it takes to do the job.
I probably threw you off track by mistakenly using “Ohio State”, I meant the Kent State shootings.
From what you've posted that I've read, it would be a waste of ammo.
I’d be very interested in how Newspaper Ladies’ lawsuit goes. The big question I want to see answered is whether you really need to know what you’re shooting at before you empty your gun. Even a self-defense argument shouldn’t excuse this kind of negligence — you know it wouldn’t for us “civilians”.
Is that so? Was't it a UHP sergeant who reported her?
One of my neighbors is a former Detroit cop who was transferred here after being targeted by gangs. Not a year after his transfer we closed our police department and he gave up being a cop rather than going to another larger city where he would spend every day worrying about his family.
He says its a whole different world. In Detroit he was taught to consider everyone to be armed and a potential threat. Here he found that everyone is armed and no one is a threat.
The Kent State issue did not involve the police. It was the National Guard. Also, new photos have been leaked through the drive-by media that show the protesters were advancing on the Guard, which is why they fired. It is very sad that innocent students, and not the POS protesters who didn’t even attend school there, lost their lives.
Yes I assumed that you knew all that when I posted post 13, evidently I took too much for granted.
Alaska Wolf ~ WTF does "At random? No" mean to you? Are you retarded? Try to keep up.
Silly driftdiver, it wasn't "at random" they were only targeting people in pickup trucks.
Not any random citizens, select citizens.
There is also a fair amount of evidence that a shot was fired by one of the weather underground types (SDS I think) with an intent to draw fire from the NG in hopes of starting the revolution.
I believe there have also been some admissions of intentionally spurring the Chicago rioting in hopes of starting the great marxist revolution.
It seems the National Guard didn't shoot the students right in front of them, they shot ones at the back of the scrum, where the agitators were working...
Try to keep up. You're really pathetic. LOL!
So its ok for the cops to shoot people at random as long as its dark?
47 posted on Friday, February 22, 2013 3:48:48 PM by driftdiver
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