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Criminal Behavior Against US Police Officers

Thermal said:
That can be said of any job. Threats exist, and you can't accuse any victim of on-the-job unexpected casualties of "not handling it". No one can reasonably be expected to "just handle" being murdered at work.
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This seems to be up for contention with some people saying that cops should expect getting murdered and that's why they approach every single scenario with guns out, ready to shoot, and in constant fear.

I'm not sure where the actual stance is because if they don't expect to get shot then why are they so commonly aggressive in their day to day work?
 
It's in the fact that if I want to kill someone I have to prove they are a threat, but when a cop does they only have to say, not prove just say, that in the moment they can't prove they weren't a threat.

Nobody is expecting cops to passively and happily be murdered (outside of maybe one person but that's an act...) and the suggestion is a strawman. And a real strawman not a standard internet "I only know how to argue by naming logical fallacies I obviously don't understand but they got used against me so I'm just going to repeat them" strawman.
 
JoeMorgue said:
It's in the fact that if I want to kill someone I have to prove they are a threat, but when a cop does they only have to say, not prove just say, that in the moment they can't prove they weren't a threat.
Nobody is expecting cops to passively and happily be murdered (outside of maybe one person but that's an act...) and the suggestion is a strawman. And a real strawman not a standard internet "I only know how to argue by naming logical fallacies I obviously don't understand but they got used against me so I'm just going to repeat them" strawman.
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Or they were afeared for their life!

Of course you are right this has thread has nothing to do with criminal behaviour against the police, it's trying to make some clever point because they get upset that these (white) police officers keep getting called out in the "Behaviour..." thread.
 
What if, hang with me for a second, a lot of the threats police face (real or perceived) is due to the way policing is conducted?

Like, why send people with guns who can ruin your life in any number of ways to enforce tail light regulations? Can't that be done by the same people who enforce expired parking meters? The last time I had a busted tail light, the officer wrote me a summons and it was dismissed because I fixed it and showed an officer at my local precinct the next day. Why did 2 people with guns have to take positions around me to issue said summons?
 
Donal said:
What if, hang with me for a second, a lot of the threats police face (real or perceived) is due to the way policing is conducted?

Like, why send people with guns who can ruin your life in any number of ways to enforce tail light regulations? Can't that be done by the same people who enforce expired parking meters? The last time I had a busted tail light, the officer wrote me a summons and it was dismissed because I fixed it and showed an officer at my local precinct the next day. Why did 2 people with guns have to take positions around me to issue said summons?
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I think we just had a thread about Portland, or Seattle or some such, no longer pulling over people with minor traffic violations for pretty much this same reasoning. It puts people's lives in danger and cops will commonly use it just to pull people over. Which can then escalate. It commonly targets poorer people as well, since most of them can't afford to pay for some of those things.
 
I think people are missing the fact that the police as a "harassment squad" very much IS something a sadly large number of people want.

A busted taillight leading to an arrest for resisting arrest very much IS the outcome some people want.

You have to understand there "undesirable" people out there who need to be "kept in check."
 
plague311 said:
This seems to be up for contention with some people saying that cops should expect getting murdered and that's why they approach every single scenario with guns out, ready to shoot, and in constant fear.

I'm not sure where the actual stance is because if they don't expect to get shot then why are they so commonly aggressive in their day to day work?
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Because they are, by the nature of their jobs, adversarial and confrontational with the people they come in contact with, often to the point of violence. Not the case with a delivery guy or plumber on a job site. They only rarely attack you. I'd much prefer beat cops to have no firearms, but that neccesitates the citizenry having none, too.
 
Thermal said:
Because they are, by the nature of their jobs, adversarial and confrontational with the people they come in contact with, often to the point of violence.
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THAT is where we should be focusing. I think a lot of this can boil down to, as mentioned by someone previous, the way the cops go about policing their areas. Cops should learn to do better.

Thermal said:
Not the case with a delivery guy or plumber on a job site. They only rarely attack you. I'd much prefer beat cops to have no firearms, but that neccesitates the citizenry having none, too.
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I don't mind them having firearms, if I'm being totally honest. I seriously mind them using a firearm as their initial go to, and I do believe they should be concealed. The whole idea of having your gun out for quicker draw is both a downside and an upside. Upside being, presumably, as a deterrent. Though that doesn't seem to be working. Downside being it would take them longer to get to it. If that's a downside, I guess.

The OP has mentioned a few times about how some of the cops get shot at just exiting their vehicle. What if the cops didn't have visible guns so the people in the vehicle didn't think they had to shoot them to get away? Maybe it would give the cops a bit more time to dig deeper into what's happening? I have no idea, just a thought.

"Live by the gun so we die by the gun" is a phrase that exists for a reason. Cops do repeatedly live by the gun.
 
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This also only works in a society that has created the double standard that the citizen is supposed to remain perfectly calm, non-threatening, and non-flustered when an entire SWAT Team roles up on him because his turn signal is out but the cops get to open fire when the black guy they just demanded show him his ID reaches into his pocket.
 
JoeMorgue said:
I think people are missing the fact that the police as a "harassment squad" very much IS something a sadly large number of people want.

A busted taillight leading to an arrest for resisting arrest very much IS the outcome some people want.

You have to understand there "undesirable" people out there who need to be "kept in check."
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It should be noted that this is also a bad deal for officers too, as the people wanting the police to 'keep scum in their place' insist on situations that put police in greater risk. It's to their political benefit to get more cops injured and killed.
 
tyr_13 said:
It should be noted that this is also a bad deal for officers too, as the people wanting the police to 'keep scum in their place' insist on situations that put police in greater risk. It's to their political benefit to get more cops injured and killed.
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I've always said that. My "sympathy" such as it is doesn't lie with them because... well obvious but on a purely functional level we've not made the best situation for cops to be in either.

That's also one thing that baffles and pisses me off. The cops should be wanted to deescalate the current situation as much or more than anyone.
 
JoeMorgue said:
That's also one thing that baffles and pisses me off. The cops should be wanted to deescalate the current situation as much or more than anyone.
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You become a cop to be a hero. What better way to be a hero than to "take the trash out"? It's part of our culture.
 
Thermal said:
Because they are, by the nature of their jobs, adversarial and confrontational with the people they come in contact with, often to the point of violence. Not the case with a delivery guy or plumber on a job site. They only rarely attack you. I'd much prefer beat cops to have no firearms, but that neccesitates the citizenry having none, too.
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Welcome to the civilised world...
 
Thermal said:
Because they are, by the nature of their jobs, adversarial and confrontational with the people they come in contact with, often to the point of violence. Not the case with a delivery guy or plumber on a job site. They only rarely attack you.
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Except of course for how often Pizza delivery people are attacked and it makes it a more dangerous job than being a cop. But with statistics you can prove anything that is even remotely true.
 
Donal said:
What if, hang with me for a second, a lot of the threats police face (real or perceived) is due to the way policing is conducted?

Like, why send people with guns who can ruin your life in any number of ways to enforce tail light regulations? Can't that be done by the same people who enforce expired parking meters? The last time I had a busted tail light, the officer wrote me a summons and it was dismissed because I fixed it and showed an officer at my local precinct the next day. Why did 2 people with guns have to take positions around me to issue said summons?
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A lot of it has to do with how U.S. government is structured. And perhaps a bit to do with the physical geography of the country as well.

Having multiple divisions of police in a large urban area is probably reasonably possible. And, to some extent, it exists. Parking enforcement is an example, as is the experiment the New York is doing with a mental health response team.

But most of the country does not resemble New York or Chicago. as towns get smaller, so do the amount of resources they have for emergency services and law enforcement. You get down to having volunteer fire departments, for example, because the budget doesn't allow for a full-time standing force. So if you have a budget to support five officers total, it's not effective to make one parking only, one two traffic patrol, and two criminal enforcement. You won't be able to have coverage at all times for any of the areas. It's more effective, in theory, to hire five officers who can handle all three (criminal, traffic, parking). Oh, and also be the first responder for medical emergencies because the nearest hospital\ambulance service is in the medium sized town 20-30 minutes away.

Of course, the State Police might patrol the state road that makes up the main drag through town, but they don't go into the residential areas to enforce the school speed zones. And, on the criminal end, they may be quite a ways away when the call comes. Which is why a small community may decide to have it's own small force instead of rely on state or county forces in the first place. If small towns want a guarantee of a level of patrol, they have to do this. Or pay. There is at least one small town around here that I know pays the county sheriff's department to patrol their village.

I don't think its an unsolvable problem. It mostly involves reversing the structure of U.S. police forces to be designed from a top down viewpoint rather than ground up.
 
ponderingturtle said:
Except of course for how often Pizza delivery people are attacked and it makes it a more dangerous job than being a cop. But with statistics you can prove anything that is even remotely true.
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You have it backwards. Pizza delivery guy is not there to bring the threat of violence, financial pain, or loss of freedom to the customer. The cop is, and his very presence is a threat to some. Not so for Pizza guy. Pizza guy was just a convenient target for theft.
 
Of the 264 police officers who died in the line of duty in 2020 across the United States, more than half died of COVID-19, according to new data compiled by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund (PDF) (NLEOMF).
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But they would have been shot dead sooner or later anyway!
 
Thermal said:
You have it backwards. Pizza delivery guy is not there to bring the threat of violence, financial pain, or loss of freedom to the customer. The cop is, and his very presence is a threat to some. Not so for Pizza guy. Pizza guy was just a convenient target for theft.
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Yes and it is still much safer than pizza delievery or convience store clerk. If we are using the risk of violence as the standard for justifying the police officers behavior, then it justifies for them more than for the police.

That the police are their to act as violent enforcers for the state is a different argument and not one based on their safety as reasons to justify police violence. That is more police violence is the desired goal to start with.
 
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