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Seattle Police, Protecting & Serving

deadrose

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deadrose
Joined
Nov 23, 2005
Messages
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Location
the wet side of the mountains
Yesterday was not a great day to be the public face of Seattle PD.

First, this dashcam video from last summer was released

An elderly black man was arrested & held overnight. The arresting officer said he was swinging his golf club at her and at signs. He was using it as a cane. Camera footage didn't back her up, but he was still out a cane, even after the sentencing was voided. Until yesterday the only outcome was that someone talked to her about it. Turns out she's one of the officers who tried to file a suit against the department, saying that the DOJ use-of-force agreement was restricting their ability to do their jobs, and has a history of posting racist screeds on Facebook.

More can be found here http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2015/01/28/seattle-police-jailed-elderly-man-for-walking-in-seattle-while-black

While the brass were figuring out how to respond to that, a video from last week's Martin Luther King, Jr. Day march was also put up on Youtube which appears to show a single officer losing her cool and hosing down everyone in the vicinity with pepper spray, including a high school teacher who had just stepped off the stage after a speech. He was talking on his phone with his wife when he was sprayed in the face for no visible reason. Nor did there appear to be any reason for the pepper spray to be used at all.

I almost feel sorry for the new Chief of Police at times like this.
 
It's taken me a while but I now have a handle on how these thing happen. I think.

They all make absolute sense if one considers that the first duty of a LEO is to come to no harm. The safety of the officer is paramount and all other considerations fall far behind this.
 
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I'd like to this opportunity to point out that in both these instances of extreme police stupidity, both officers were female.

:duck:
 
3point14 said:
It's taken me a while but I now have a handle on how these thing happen. I think.

They all make absolute sense if one considers that the first duto of a LEO is to come to no harm. The safety of the officer is paramount and all other considerations fall far behind this.
Click to expand...

Blah. It's much easier to snark, than to admit that police officers should accept no unnecessary risks, and then tackle the difficult problems of studying ideal and actual police procedures, and making an informed contribution to the debate over the best way to implement and train the best possible procedures.

I know it's easier, because I'm doing it too.
 
theprestige said:
Blah. It's much easier to snark, than to admit that police officers should accept no unnecessary risks, and then tackle the difficult problems of studying ideal and actual police procedures, and making an informed contribution to the debate over the best way to implement and train the best possible procedures.

I know it's easier, because I'm doing it too.
Click to expand...


The bolded is where the wriggle room is...
 
3point14 said:
It's taken me a while but I now have a handle on how these thing happen. I think.

They all make absolute sense if one considers that the first duty of a LEO is to come to no harm. The safety of the officer is paramount and all other considerations fall far behind this.
Click to expand...

I don't know how tongue-in-cheek this is, but... yeah.

I think we can all sympathize with the perils of being a cop. In can be dangerous and situations can escalate to deadly levels quickly. But, in spite of society seeming to become less violent (violent crime rates are generally trending down), I get the impression that many LEOs are becoming more worried about their safety in their jobs.

I've heard a few interviews lately where the LEO talking expressed this fear. The latest being a story about a new smart phone app that lets drivers tag real time traffic conditions, and one of the things they can tag is a cop. The LEO being interviewed said it was a bad thing because people are "hunting cops" these days - referencing the murder of two NYPD officers several weeks ago. His organization was asking the app developer to remove this feature.

If you feel like you're being hunted, you're more inclined to strike first, removing the potential threat. But, why would cops feel more hunted now, when violent crime rates are dropping?
 
Here in TO a police spokesman (he was a man) when asked, "How about you just don't hire racists," responded that one the things they were now doing was checking an applicant's on-line social site postings! *
Score a plus for the Internet? :cool:


=====
*I thought I saw this in the Toronto Star but can't seem to retrieve it now.
 
I live about 30 miles from Seattle and work in Bremerton which is just across Puget Sound. Going to Seattle or reading about it is like visiting another country at times.

Ranb
 
Upchurch said:
It's not as dangerous as you'd think. It's not even in the top ten most dangerous professions.
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I don't doubt it. But, the perception is there. At our team lunchbreak today I asked who would, for the same pay, be a cop and why or why not. Six of the nine said no, and cited fears of 1:1 confrontations with dangerous criminals.

Of course, we're talking SW programmers here, so there is that. But, I doubt this is a point of view unique to white collar workers.
 
madurobob said:
I don't doubt it. But, the perception is there. At our team lunchbreak today I asked who would, for the same pay, be a cop and why or why not. Six of the nine said no, and cited fears of 1:1 confrontations with dangerous criminals.

Of course, we're talking SW programmers here, so there is that. But, I doubt this is a point of view unique to white collar workers.
Click to expand...

No offense, but I think you would get the same response if you asked them if they would take the same pay to be a lifeguard.
 
madurobob said:
I don't know how tongue-in-cheek this is, but... yeah.
Click to expand...

It's moderately tongue in cheek but, I think, a decent piece of speculation.

All of the fatal police involved incidents in the USA, good shoots and otherwise, make perfect sense if the object of the exercise is to protect the officer from harm above all other considerations.
 
Wasn't there a video out not too long ago of a Seattle (male) cop punching a woman in the face multiple times as well?



There it is. It wasn't multiple times, and she had it coming so it's not really that bad. I was wrong.
 
3point14 said:
It's taken me a while but I now have a handle on how these thing happen. I think.

They all make absolute sense if one considers that the first duty of a LEO is to come to no harm. The safety of the officer is paramount and all other considerations fall far behind this.
Click to expand...


They can't protect others if they can't protect themselves.

I wrote the above with some snark, but I also think it's not unreasonable. Unfortunately, it seems that a number of officers seem to think that harming innocent people is an acceptable means to that end.
 
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