Yada yada
Yada yada
The pickup was moving with its lights off.
Yada yada
Yada yada
The media has not mentioned nor this piece at “Reason.”
The cop lied to you. Lights were on
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.
Make sure you lace your boots up nice and tight before taking on the big boys there sport.
Did you ever think that if multiple people read you the same way that the problem might, just might, not be the rest of the world? Do you ever think, or just emote?
And you're telling me to keep up?
I'm way ahead of you.
He didn’t arrest the hungry man, he shot him. Because the man wouldn’t step away from the buffet table.
Or concoct story later.
Obviously I do. You emote, drama queen.
OMG, you’re one of the “big boys”, drama queen? You’ve already been squashed and I wear Russell boots without laces.
Thanks for the ping driftdiver!
I saw this thread earlier just after it was posted and thought I’d check in later to read the posts.
LOL, turned out just like I figured it would!
The media has not mentioned nor this piece at “Reason.”
The cop lied to you. Lights were on
Obviously? It doesn’t seem to be obvious to others on this thread.
Some of us see you throwing hissyfits and emoting.
Who? Wellllll, I’ll leave that as an exercise for the reader.
The thinking ones will be able to figure it out for themselves.
Good luck with that...
Your fantasizing is amusing and entertaining.
Most of the time the lights were on. The driver said she made a practice of turning them off momentarily whenever the light was going to hit the window of a residence.
Lights off, lights on. It was dark. The cops were skeerd of trucks. That makes it OK.
The friend I know in the LAPD said that if nothing else their career is over.
Oh, PLEASE!! Let’s hear the excuse for the other truck, which was stopped, let go, moved a short distance, and then was rammed AND shot up.
They can talk "protect and serve" all they want, but the reality is that they train for "officer safety" above all else, including public safety.
That's what we get with unionized police.
Damn Cop Hater!!!! I say shoot’em all and let God sort’em out!! What are you! Some kinda Libertarian nut??? /s
Perhaps, but that’s not the way I’d bet.
Excellent questions. I’d like some public answers.
Some say that the difference between a cop and a criminal is sometimes just the uniform. I’m not quite that cynical. I know some good officers and have had some family members who were cops. But there seem to be more and more incidents these days involving cops who are out of line.
You’ve been on FR since ‘03 and haven’t learned better manners yet? Are you just on here to be rude to other FReepers?
In before the
“jackbootlicking copsuckers”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2990015/posts?page=39#39
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