Sleeping 7-Year Old Shot by Police During Raid

[Kamakazie Sith]

I am for the third or fourth time now advocating that for police to gain our trust so that we don't have people actually thinking about shooting cops (in this thread's case), they have to actually act on things such as police complaints not listened to, the bad officers to actually be demoted/discharge, etc, and to reduce the idea that there is a Blue Wall of Silence. This is all I have pretty much said in regards of my main point in this thread since my reply to Kamikaze. He agreed and Sanchez have.

Any other crap that's been flung around in my opinion has been a huge fucking red herring and probably why none of us know what the fuck is going on.

I want to point out something that might not be widely known, but for every valid complaint issued against police there are dozens of false complaints, and if you work for a department that investigates all complaints (like mine) it can be extra stressful if you're the subject of a false complaint. What I would like to see is charges brought up against people who are found to have lied about a complaint, and I mean with evidence to support it. (This doesn't happen in my department you can lie all you want about police conduct and you'll never see consequences)

[PeZook]

I want to point out something that might not be widely known, but for every valid complaint issued against police there are dozens of false complaints, and if you work for a department that investigates all complaints (like mine) it can be extra stressful if you're the subject of a false complaint. What I would like to see is charges brought up against people who are found to have lied about a complaint, and I mean with evidence to support it. (This doesn't happen in my department you can lie all you want about police conduct and you'll never see consequences)

This is happening in Poland now: you can actually get slapped with a criminal charge for filing a false complaint against an officer (the law was there, it just wasn't executed) and very often now, police are prosecuting people.

It was about time, too: last year, there were IIRC 15 000 or so complaints filed against Polish police, less than 100 of them valid. Of course, ironically, it caused quite a fuss amongst some people, even though it should vastly reduce the amount of false complaints so that departments save money and time to investigate the actual violations.

But as some people here pointed out, it's extremely difficult to promote the police force, since most people who come in contact with an officer are in a negative situation like speeding. I imagine it's doubly so in America where traffic stops are the single most dangerous activity an officer can perform, rather than boring routine.

[Alphawolf55]

I am for the third or fourth time now advocating that for police to gain our trust so that we don't have people actually thinking about shooting cops (in this thread's case), they have to actually act on things such as police complaints not listened to, the bad officers to actually be demoted/discharge, etc, and to reduce the idea that there is a Blue Wall of Silence. This is all I have pretty much said in regards of my main point in this thread since my reply to Kamikaze. He agreed and Sanchez have.

Any other crap that's been flung around in my opinion has been a huge fucking red herring and probably why none of us know what the fuck is going on.

I want to point out something that might not be widely known, but for every valid complaint issued against police there are dozens of false complaints, and if you work for a department that investigates all complaints (like mine) it can be extra stressful if you're the subject of a false complaint. What I would like to see is charges brought up against people who are found to have lied about a complaint, and I mean with evidence to support it. (This doesn't happen in my department you can lie all you want about police conduct and you'll never see consequences)

What would constitute evidence?

[SVPD]

What would constitute evidence?

Something like when the person comes in and claims "The officer swore at me when he wrote me this ticket." when the video of the actual stop shows nothing of the sort.

That's the most common one I can think of. A lot of false complaints really are just "this officer stopped me/wrote me a ticket for no reason" which is a question of innocence or guilt for the court. People seem not to understand that their disagreement with a ticket they got does not mean the officer was harrassing them by writing it. Like any other charge, the officer needs probable cause to write a ticket. Actual guilt requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and if you feel that the ticket does not meet that burden, you should go to court.

If you feel the ticket is bullshit because the law is too petty to actually be enforced, write your councilman or state legislator. Some laws are silly or obsolete. The speed laws, those requiring you to stop at a red light, and those requiring that you not drive up the shoulder to make a right turn past the cars at the aforementioned red light, however, are not in that category.

[White Haven]

I think a large portion of what causes distrust of police is the fact that the worst that will happen to someone like the assclown in the OP is that they'll face the same sentence a civilian would for doing the same thing. Police officers are given extraordinary trust and vast, potentially abusable powers, and when that trust and those powers are abused things break down. First, there's the Blue Wall to batter through, stronger in some areas than in others, but even if it's penetrated the officer in question doesn't face punishment specifically for his betrayal of that trust, which is in a broad scale far more damaging than the original crime. This would, of course, require new laws to that effect, I'm not advocating extrajudicial punishment. In a very real sense, future rape victims who keep quiet, future cops killed by people who've lost faith in the police, future crimes that go unsolved due to distrust of the police, and so on are laid at the feet of police who abuse that power and that trust. That harm to society itself is a crime in and of itself, but not one that's currently dealt with.

Also, 'paid administrative leave?' It's minor and somewhat petty, but words have the power to influence people, and that phrase oozes Blue Wall even though it's not. When people see an article like the OP, and they see that the officer is on 'paid administrative leave,' the first reflex reaction is 'what the fuck, all that and he's given a vacation?' It's all about perceptions, not realities, but that phrase has to go. Perhaps 'suspended pending review' or something that sounds harsher but means the same thing. The name of the game is manipulating public perception, and in a case like this you really, really want the public to feel that you're coming down on someone like a hammer at first glance. After all, it doesn't matter if your police department is actually untrustworthy if people think it is, from the perspective of the ability of the police to perform their duties.

Cameras are cheap, in case police forces nationwide haven't taken note of that fact, so why aren't, for example, SWAT helmets equipped with them? That would remove so very, very much of the uncertainty from many of the cases of SWAT gross misconduct. A dog was shot? Alright, does the camera show the vicious corgi charging the officer, the hound standing at the end of the hall barking his ass off at intruders in his house, or the terrified bulldog running down the the hall away from the loud ang angry newcomers. Some dumbshit cowboy takes a shot into a house. Was he under fire from the seven-year-old asleep on the couch, or did he take a pot-shot at the defenseless gangbanger looming in the window with a chrome-plated pistol? To make this effective at catching or deterring people camera checks pre-raid and punishments for raids with inoperative cameras would have to be in place. Done properly, a policy like that could seriously do a lot to both clean SWAT units of people who shouldn't be in them (see: fucker in the OP) and clear the name of others who are accused of abuses they may not have committed. As an added bonus, 'His word against mine, who do you believe?' defenses break the fuck down in the face of video and audio evidence.

[SVPD]

I think a large portion of what causes distrust of police is the fact that the worst that will happen to someone like the assclown in the OP is that they'll face the same sentence a civilian would for doing the same thing. Police officers are given extraordinary trust and vast, potentially abusable powers, and when that trust and those powers are abused things break down. First, there's the Blue Wall to batter through, stronger in some areas than in others, but even if it's penetrated the officer in question doesn't face punishment specifically for his betrayal of that trust, which is in a broad scale far more damaging than the original crime. This would, of course, require new laws to that effect, I'm not advocating extrajudicial punishment. In a very real sense, future rape victims who keep quiet, future cops killed by people who've lost faith in the police, future crimes that go unsolved due to distrust of the police, and so on are laid at the feet of police who abuse that power and that trust. That harm to society itself is a crime in and of itself, but not one that's currently dealt with.

The problem with this point is that the vast majority of people do not distrust the police. By far, most people are courteous, cooperative, and express no hostility even if they aren't terribly happy about the situation. It's not at all uncommon for arrestees to say "you're just doing your job, man".

What really causes distrust of the police is A) people who just have a problem with authority in general, like the lolbertarian wanktards such as the Kehoe brothers B) people who are just basically criminals and C) the sort of people who have a bad experience with one cop or one department and think that somehow generalizes to all cops or all departments.

Third, this "Blue Wall" is essentially a conspiracy theory, an unfalsifiable hypothesis. Where's the actual evidence that any such thing exists? Cops get caught and punished by their own departments all the time; that's where we get all these stories from. The assertion that there's a "Blue wall of silence", since there's no evidence shown of it as a universal phenomenon, is apparently just attempting to generalize it occuring in specific precincts or specific departments to police in general. There's a healthy dose of "I've already made up my mind the cop is wrong, so when investigators don't throw the book at him, it must be them protecting their own."

Also, 'paid administrative leave?' It's minor and somewhat petty, but words have the power to influence people, and that phrase oozes Blue Wall even though it's not. When people see an article like the OP, and they see that the officer is on 'paid administrative leave,' the first reflex reaction is 'what the fuck, all that and he's given a vacation?' It's all about perceptions, not realities, but that phrase has to go. Perhaps 'suspended pending review' or something that sounds harsher but means the same thing. The name of the game is manipulating public perception, and in a case like this you really, really want the public to feel that you're coming down on someone like a hammer at first glance. After all, it doesn't matter if your police department is actually untrustworthy if people think it is, from the perspective of the ability of the police to perform their duties.

It's exceedingly minor and petty, and it really does not "ooze Blue Wall" unless you've already made up your mind there is such a thing. "People" do not, when they see the OP, and hear 'paid administrative leave' say 'what the fuck, a vacation?' because most people understand that the officer is entitled to fair due process like anyone else, and that just because things look bad at first glance do not mean they are. In the OP they are pretty bad, but plenty of other incidents like this one show that things aren't always as they seem. Videos like This one and this one (2 videos of the same incident from different angles) indicate that even when there's video, things aren't always as clear as they appear. In that case, the officers were exceedingly fortunate that there was a second cruiser positioned just so, or else we'd be hearing about white cops shooting a black man in the back for no reason and the supposed "Blue Wall" inventing a story that he had a gun, when in reality... he did.

Public perception is, I agree, important, but we should not pander to people who think that just because they've already convicted a cop in their own mind that the department ought to create the appearance it's doing the same cursory, railroad job they are.

People get upset over 'paid administrative leave' and want their feelings assuaged by harsher-sounding terminology when they are already hostile to the police as a default position and want style over substance. It's not 'public' perception that's the problem unless we're talking about a department like the New Orleans PD with a specific history of bad conduct. In most cases, it's the perceptions of a small portion of the public that's just hostile to the police (often to government in general) and won't change their minds anyhow.

Cameras are cheap, in case police forces nationwide haven't taken note of that fact, so why aren't, for example, SWAT helmets equipped with them? That would remove so very, very much of the uncertainty from many of the cases of SWAT gross misconduct. A dog was shot? Alright, does the camera show the vicious corgi charging the officer, the hound standing at the end of the hall barking his ass off at intruders in his house, or the terrified bulldog running down the the hall away from the loud ang angry newcomers. Some dumbshit cowboy takes a shot into a house. Was he under fire from the seven-year-old asleep on the couch, or did he take a pot-shot at the defenseless gangbanger looming in the window with a chrome-plated pistol? To make this effective at catching or deterring people camera checks pre-raid and punishments for raids with inoperative cameras would have to be in place. Done properly, a policy like that could seriously do a lot to both clean SWAT units of people who shouldn't be in them (see: fucker in the OP) and clear the name of others who are accused of abuses they may not have committed. As an added bonus, 'His word against mine, who do you believe?' defenses break the fuck down in the face of video and audio evidence.

How much would it cost to implement this? Cameras add weight, and require some sort of recording mechanism and power source. I can tell you from having worn MILES gear that adding weight to a helmet significantly increases the burden on the wearer. What happens the first time a camera breaks during the raid, which will inevitably happen?

Cameras aren't a totally bad idea; they are a great thing in cruisers, but helmet-cams may or may not be practical. In any case your examples reveal the very basic problem: just because the OP has a dumbshit taking a potshot does not mean that we start looking at any situation, no matter what happened, from the assumption that a dumbshit took a potshot. We start with understanding that a weapon was discharged, and only when the facts are fully understood do we determine if the shot was in, in fact, one that should not have been taken. I'm also a little unclear on how a gangbanger with a pistol is defenceless, but that just speaks to the predjudicial nature of your examples. Your dog examples are no better; its mysterious that your small, less dangerous dog is aggressive but the bigger ones are not. Despite your mention of clearing people's names at the end, it seems you are approaching this with certain assumptions firmly in mind.

[Alphawolf55]

The Blue Wall of Silence is more then just a conspiracy theory, numerous ex-cops have mentioned it, people who work with police can attest to it, and it's a simple part of human nature (We cover our own and detest those that rat them out). Now is it as bad as the movie Scorpio? Probably not, but to say that it's just a conspiracy theory in the likes of the birthers and the truthers is a little dishonest. When the Whistle Blower of the NYPD tapes went to internal affairs what did his department do? Try to get him committed. You can say that's just one area but when does something become just a coincidence and more of an actual effect? You say that cops get caught and punished all the time? I would like to see numbers behind this to be honest. I'm sure it happens but not I'm guessing it's a last resort thing, I've seen cops get fired due to budget cuts but I've never read it happening due to the cop doing a bad job.

Again I'm not saying cops are subhuman or anything for this, it's human nature to protect their own. Plus that and paid leave are a big part of the fact that cops are still pretty much a union, you simply CAN'T fire them for most things that you could a regular person.

Also cops get caught most of the time because citizens go to the media or because the media researches it.

[White Haven]

I'm also a little unclear on how a gangbanger with a pistol is defenceless, but that just speaks to the predjudicial nature of your examples. Your dog examples are no better; its mysterious that your small, less dangerous dog is aggressive but the bigger ones are not. Despite your mention of clearing people's names at the end, it seems you are approaching this with certain assumptions firmly in mind.

Emergency! We need a sense of humor transplant, STAT! I figured that even you would have realized my examples were tongue-in-cheek by the time you got to the defenseless armed gangbanger.

I'll address the rest when I get home, just posting from work at the moment.

[Flagg]

The Blue Wall of Silence is more then just a conspiracy theory, numerous ex-cops have mentioned it, people who work with police can attest to it, and it's a simple part of human nature (We cover our own and detest those that rat them out).

KS seems to think it's all a part of the 5th amendment:

Well obviously the comparisons were hyperbole and meant to be a joke with a sad bit of truth thrown in. After all they don't call it the "blue wall of silence" because they are always chatty and open about their mistakes.

Yeah, I think they call that the fifth amendment of the constitution.

Now is it as bad as the movie Scorpio? Probably not, but to say that it's just a conspiracy theory in the likes of the birthers and the truthers is a little dishonest.

Scorpio is also a true story.

[Alphawolf55]

I would like to see the amount of times a cop is in courts on police brutaility charges or some other accusation of incompetence and how often a fellow police officer testifies against him or her.

[Simon_Jester]

I think a large portion of what causes distrust of police is the fact that the worst that will happen to someone like the assclown in the OP is that they'll face the same sentence a civilian would for doing the same thing. Police officers are given extraordinary trust and vast, potentially abusable powers, and when that trust and those powers are abused things break down... In a very real sense, future rape victims who keep quiet, future cops killed by people who've lost faith in the police, future crimes that go unsolved due to distrust of the police, and so on are laid at the feet of police who abuse that power and that trust. That harm to society itself is a crime in and of itself, but not one that's currently dealt with.

The problem with this point is that the vast majority of people do not distrust the police. By far, most people are courteous, cooperative, and express no hostility even if they aren't terribly happy about the situation. It's not at all uncommon for arrestees to say "you're just doing your job, man".

Who said the vast majority distrust the police? Doesn't look to me like White Haven did.

In a nation of 300 million people, you only need 5% or so of the population to develop the wrong sort of attitude for it to become a serious issue that causes a lot of individuals to suffer. Five percent of three hundred million is six million: the population of a small country in its own right. Likewise, there are over half a million police in America; you only need one or two percent of them to be abusive to have ten thousand guys in blue harassing citizens because that's how they get their kicks. And you can still say "well, it's a tiny minority, the vast majority respects the police/are honest cops." It's even true... but it's still overlooking a major social problem, and one that's likely to be very concentrated in certain areas (the worst departments, the poorest neighborhoods).

The fact that 90% of the people you meet trust you as an officer and that 95% of the officers you meet are arrow-straight doesn't mean the problem goes away.

What really causes distrust of the police is A) people who just have a problem with authority in general, like the lolbertarian wanktards such as the Kehoe brothers B) people who are just basically criminals and C) the sort of people who have a bad experience with one cop or one department and think that somehow generalizes to all cops or all departments.

And yet those people exist. The ones of type (B)? Unless they're outlaws lurking in the woods, they come from a local culture that encouraged them to act that way, with friends and neighbors who tolerate that kind of thinking. And the ones of type (C)? They're exactly what White Haven is talking about.

Bad cops give the people they deal with bad experiences, and leave those people distrusting all police. How is this not a problem that needs to be solved, when it makes it harder for the good cops to do their jobs?

It's exceedingly minor and petty, and it really does not "ooze Blue Wall" unless you've already made up your mind there is such a thing. "People" do not, when they see the OP, and hear 'paid administrative leave' say 'what the fuck, a vacation?' because most people understand that the officer is entitled to fair due process like anyone else, and that just because things look bad at first glance do not mean they are. In the OP they are pretty bad, but plenty of other incidents like this one show that things aren't always as they seem.

It's the "pretty bad" cases that create the idea (true or false) that the Blue Wall exists. When no one is denying that a police officer shot a seven year old girl AND the police use a term like "paid administrative leave" to describe putting the guy on the sidelines while they investigate... that does make people wonder just how seriously they're taking this. Are they investigating? Obviously. Are they going to punish the officer as harshly as, or more harshly than, a civilian who did the same thing? The situation gives people cause to wonder.

Cameras aren't a totally bad idea; they are a great thing in cruisers, but helmet-cams may or may not be practical.

Well, the weight may go down further in the future. Maybe someday...

[Kamakazie Sith]

KS seems to think it's all a part of the 5th amendment:

Actually, I thought you were talking about the specific officer who is accussed of the mistake that would meet the elements of a crime. Like the officer in the OP, for example, and he does have the right to remain silent should he choose to do so. Obviously, if you are a witness to a crime and you and the suspect are both officers then you as a witness and especially a police officer are required to be the best witness you can.

[Kamakazie Sith]

I would like to see the amount of times a cop is in courts on police brutaility charges or some other accusation of incompetence and how often a fellow police officer testifies against him or her.

Do you honestly think someone keeps track of this information?

[Mr Bean]

I found it ironic to post this but good news everyone! One again thanks to the porn industry another issue is solved. Specificly equiping policemen with cameras that are not that heavy. Thanks to efforts of virtual and pov film companies. There exists cameras that are a pack of smokes or pen sized that record on flash memory up to five hours of 480p video in decent quailty. Batteries and the lense itself remain the biggest weigh issues. But sooner or later somes going to move to put that in a harnese to take the place where the old massive radios went and we equip our forces that way.

Granted no one has put the whole package togther slapped a 100$ surcharge on it and sold it to local government but cheap DIV verisons already exist check youtube.

[SVPD]

The Blue Wall of Silence is more then just a conspiracy theory, numerous ex-cops have mentioned it, people who work with police can attest to it, and it's a simple part of human nature (We cover our own and detest those that rat them out). Now is it as bad as the movie Scorpio? Probably not, but to say that it's just a conspiracy theory in the likes of the birthers and the truthers is a little dishonest. When the Whistle Blower of the NYPD tapes went to internal affairs what did his department do? Try to get him committed. You can say that's just one area but when does something become just a coincidence and more of an actual effect? You say that cops get caught and punished all the time? I would like to see numbers behind this to be honest. I'm sure it happens but not I'm guessing it's a last resort thing, I've seen cops get fired due to budget cuts but I've never read it happening due to the cop doing a bad job.

You're seriously claiming that you've NEVER heard of a police officer being fired for something he did?

No, it is not a conspiracy theory in the sense of Birthers, where the conspiracy is about a distinct, discrete event. But it is, in fact, a form of conspiracy theory, in the form of an unfalsifiable hypothesis. What defines this blue wall of silence? How do we know where and to what degree it exists? People have "attested" to it? How so? What precisely have they attested to?

As for the NYPD and the whistle blower, yes, that is one particular agency. I'm not sure what particular whistle blower you're referring to, but regardless, rhetorical questions like "when does a coincidence become an actual effect" do allow you to get around the fact that trying to generalize anecdotes like that is a hasty generalization.

What sort of "numbers" behind cops being punished are you looking for? It happens frequently. Here's one with the chief himselfgetting fired. Here's another. Yet another case of the chief getting fired. These are anecdotes, yes, but they occur over the last week or so and come from a cursory google search. I see no reason to think the last week is unusual in terms of dirty officers getting their comuppance.

Again I'm not saying cops are subhuman or anything for this, it's human nature to protect their own. Plus that and paid leave are a big part of the fact that cops are still pretty much a union, you simply CAN'T fire them for most things that you could a regular person.

It's really quite easy to fire a police officer compared to pretty much any other unionized workforce. The union may help the officer out so that he doesn't get railroaded by his department, but union protection only goes so far.

Also cops get caught most of the time because citizens go to the media or because the media researches it.

How do you know this is "most of the time"? Most police discipline isn't significant enough to involve the media; it's things like wrecking a car, forgetting to search a suspect, or something like that. It also merits at most a brief suspension. Firings are the tip of the iceberg.

[SVPD]

Who said the vast majority distrust the police? Doesn't look to me like White Haven did.

You're correct. I stated that the vast majority do not distrust the police. I was pointing out that the number is relatively small, not disagreeing with any claim he made that it was large. He referred to how widespread he thinks it is only in the vaguest terms.

In a nation of 300 million people, you only need 5% or so of the population to develop the wrong sort of attitude for it to become a serious issue that causes a lot of individuals to suffer. Five percent of three hundred million is six million: the population of a small country in its own right. Likewise, there are over half a million police in America; you only need one or two percent of them to be abusive to have ten thousand guys in blue harassing citizens because that's how they get their kicks. And you can still say "well, it's a tiny minority, the vast majority respects the police/are honest cops." It's even true... but it's still overlooking a major social problem, and one that's likely to be very concentrated in certain areas (the worst departments, the poorest neighborhoods).

While you are correct in terms of the absolute numbers, and correct that it's a social problem, the fact of the matter is that probably about 5% already does have the wrong attitude and that is not likely to change because so many of those would hold that attitude regardless of what was done about it. At its core, most of those people who have a bad attitude towards the police have one because they get in trouble frequently. Yet we don't see any sort of massive issue on the national level; what issues there are, as you say, confined to certain areas. It's therefore pointless to try to address the problem in terms of the police as a national whole.

The fact that 90% of the people you meet trust you as an officer and that 95% of the officers you meet are arrow-straight doesn't mean the problem goes away.

Obviously. However, if you're looking for perfection in a population that turns over near 100% every 25 to 30 years, you're barking up the wrong tree. There will continue to be problem officers, they will continue to get in trouble, be removed and replaced, and life will go on. Likewise, there will still be a wide variety of reasons why people will have a bad attitude towards the police, and only some of them will be because of a personal bad experience or because of something they saw on the news. I don't see any real reason to think there is some sort of critical mass of angry people that is developing.

And yet those people exist. The ones of type (B)? Unless they're outlaws lurking in the woods, they come from a local culture that encouraged them to act that way, with friends and neighbors who tolerate that kind of thinking. And the ones of type (C)? They're exactly what White Haven is talking about.

Of course they exist, and they will always exist. The point was that people who are distrustful of the police because of some bad experience are only a subset of them all. The people of type B) are far more common, (as you point out, they come in entire neighorhoods) and the problems with their feelings towards the polcie come from a variety of socioeconomic issues far broader than the actions of the cops.

Bad cops give the people they deal with bad experiences, and leave those people distrusting all police. How is this not a problem that needs to be solved, when it makes it harder for the good cops to do their jobs?

Because it can't be solved. It can, and is, being addressed on a constant basis, but it will never be solved. There will always be some bad people who end up getting into law enforcement. IT's been a problem for ages and there is no reason to think we are, for some reason, at a point where the problem is so pressing that new, major efforts need to be undertaken to address it; measures that would have their own costs and which wouldn't actually solve the problem anyhow.

It's the "pretty bad" cases that create the idea (true or false) that the Blue Wall exists. When no one is denying that a police officer shot a seven year old girl AND the police use a term like "paid administrative leave" to describe putting the guy on the sidelines while they investigate... that does make people wonder just how seriously they're taking this. Are they investigating? Obviously. Are they going to punish the officer as harshly as, or more harshly than, a civilian who did the same thing? The situation gives people cause to wonder.

In other words, people are taking anecdotal incidents, making hasty generalzations based on them and thereby creating in their minds the existance of an unfalsifiable phenomenon, based on such irrelevancies as the term used for the status of the officer in question during the investigation. If this creates the "Blue Wall" in the mind of someone, the problem is with them and the basis on which they come to that conclusion, and no amount of effort to "solve the problem" will satisfy them because there will be a perpetual idea that the cops must be getting away with something we aren't detecting.

The "situation" in this case is that a young girl was accidentally shot. If people are wondering if discipline will be meted out properly because the incident happened in the first place, and they are just assuming it will not be based on the aforementioned poor reasoning that leads to the assumption of some universal "blue wall", then the problem is that they are looking for a reason to wonder.

[Flagg]

KS seems to think it's all a part of the 5th amendment:

Actually, I thought you were talking about the specific officer who is accussed of the mistake that would meet the elements of a crime. Like the officer in the OP, for example, and he does have the right to remain silent should he choose to do so. Obviously, if you are a witness to a crime and you and the suspect are both officers then you as a witness and especially a police officer are required to be the best witness you can.

Ah, we missed each others points then. No bad.

[Simon_Jester]

While you are correct in terms of the absolute numbers, and correct that it's a social problem, the fact of the matter is that probably about 5% already does have the wrong attitude and that is not likely to change because so many of those would hold that attitude regardless of what was done about it.

Which leads to the question: are the people chronically in trouble with the law the only ones who distrust the police? How much distrust of the police is unavoidable (people who have been arrested dislike police) and how much is preventable (people who decide the police are Nazis because a little girl gets shot because some oaf had his finger on the trigger while bumbling through a house in the dark)?

Obviously. However, if you're looking for perfection in a population that turns over near 100% every 25 to 30 years, you're barking up the wrong tree.

Perfection, no. Improvement? I think I can hope for improvement without being unreasonable. Not from 95% to 100%, but from 95% to 96, or maybe 98.

Because it can't be solved. It can, and is, being addressed on a constant basis, but it will never be solved. There will always be some bad people who end up getting into law enforcement. IT's been a problem for ages and there is no reason to think we are, for some reason, at a point where the problem is so pressing that new, major efforts need to be undertaken to address it; measures that would have their own costs and which wouldn't actually solve the problem anyhow.

The only reason I take exception to this is that there have been significant change to the way police operate in the past few decades- in particular, the rise of SWAT teams and specialized entry tactics. That's partly a function of policy (more raids on armed drug dealers make the tactics necessary). But it's still a significant change in the parameters, one that warrants a change in the methods taken to address police errors.

When all warrants are served by knocking and waiting for someone to answer the door, hitting the wrong house is unlikely to get people killed. There's a chance for the situation to be defused before the police have (as per doctrine) shot any threatening pets and (as per doctrine) forced everyone in the house to get down on the ground at gunpoint. There's a chance for the homeowner to say "I'm sorry, but this is 3804 Cherry Lane, not 3802," and prove it.

When warrants are served by kicking the door down in the middle of the night, or by knocking and kicking the door down within ten seconds... suddenly, hitting the wrong house by mistake becomes a much bigger deal.

So if nothing else, the shift to no-knock warrants and... I'm going to call them "short knock" warrants merits some new procedures for making sure the police get the right house more reliably. Which hardly endangers officers' lives, and is unlikely to stop them from performing a raid that they had hours or days to plan in any case. And that's just one example; I suspect there are others.

The "situation" in this case is that a young girl was accidentally shot. If people are wondering if discipline will be meted out properly because the incident happened in the first place, and they are just assuming it will not be based on the aforementioned poor reasoning that leads to the assumption of some universal "blue wall", then the problem is that they are looking for a reason to wonder.

What happens if they don't see punishment?

Imagine, just for the sake of argument, that the "blue wall" existed. Not necessarily in every case or every department, but in enough times and places to make it a real phenomenon that got in the way of investigating police misconduct.

What would be the evidence of its existence? We'd see policemen doing things that we'd expect their departments would punish them for, and they'd get punished lightly or not at all. They'd see property damage and loss of life over mistakes no one gets punished for, because they're being wrongfully dismissed as innocent mistakes even when they aren't. They'd probably see more of those things than actually happens, of course, since whatever blue wall exists doesn't have 100% coverage.

But even so, take this back to the real world, where the blue wall may just be a rumor. If people see the same sort of thing they'd see if the blue wall existed, is it realistic to expect them to assume it doesn't exist? To interpret what appears to be an example of police shooting people and getting away with it as evidence that the police department is letting their officers get away with murder?

[SVPD]

Which leads to the question: are the people chronically in trouble with the law the only ones who distrust the police? How much distrust of the police is unavoidable (people who have been arrested dislike police) and how much is preventable (people who decide the police are Nazis because a little girl gets shot because some oaf had his finger on the trigger while bumbling through a house in the dark)?

Obviously they are not the only ones, but given the sheer number of the people who are in trouble with the law, and the fact that the population in general is cooperative, polite, and understanding, the number who dislike the police out of something other than resentment of personal circumstance really cannot be all that large. In any case, that sort of resentment isn't universally preventable; some of it may be, but since the police will inevitably be less than perfect, some people who simply resent authority, people in uniforms, or worry that their 40K miniatures are at risk will find a reason regadless.

Perfection, no. Improvement? I think I can hope for improvement without being unreasonable. Not from 95% to 100%, but from 95% to 96, or maybe 98.

You can certainly hope for improvement, but since we're just eyeballing these percentages in the first place, what you're thinking of as 96% or 98% may or may not be achieveable at reasonable costs. Frankly, I don't think a great deal of improvement is possible because it involves chasing down thousands of small problems across thousands of agencies.

The only reason I take exception to this is that there have been significant change to the way police operate in the past few decades- in particular, the rise of SWAT teams and specialized entry tactics. That's partly a function of policy (more raids on armed drug dealers make the tactics necessary). But it's still a significant change in the parameters, one that warrants a change in the methods taken to address police errors.

I don't think so. I think it really requires addressing why we're using those tactics so often in the first place. Specifically, drug policy and all its attendant consequences. I think that the "war" mentality of dealing with drug addiction needs to be curtailed. Trying to address the problem by putting the onus on the polcie to be ever more severe in dealing with errors is really not fair to either the cops because inevitably higher-ups will start hammering people for things that look questionable but are legitimate to assuage the press and the public, nor is it fair to the public because it only addresses the errors after they occur, when the number of errors in the first place could be addressed by simply changing public policy.

When all warrants are served by knocking and waiting for someone to answer the door, hitting the wrong house is unlikely to get people killed. There's a chance for the situation to be defused before the police have (as per doctrine) shot any threatening pets and (as per doctrine) forced everyone in the house to get down on the ground at gunpoint. There's a chance for the homeowner to say "I'm sorry, but this is 3804 Cherry Lane, not 3802," and prove it.

Frankly, I don't think going to the wrong house is a cricticism of the tactics at all, because there is no excuse whatsoever for getting the wrong house regardless.

When warrants are served by kicking the door down in the middle of the night, or by knocking and kicking the door down within ten seconds... suddenly, hitting the wrong house by mistake becomes a much bigger deal.

Yes, it does, but the problem there is the totally inexcusable nature of hitting the wrong house.

So if nothing else, the shift to no-knock warrants and... I'm going to call them "short knock" warrants merits some new procedures for making sure the police get the right house more reliably. Which hardly endangers officers' lives, and is unlikely to stop them from performing a raid that they had hours or days to plan in any case. And that's just one example; I suspect there are others.

I don't see the need for any new procedures; getting the right house shouldn't be a major challange. I should also point out that by far, most warrants are still the traditional sort. Although no-knock warrants are far more common, they still aren't used for most matters.

What happens if they don't see punishment?

I really can't say I can see how that will happen in this case given the publicity, but if it does it means either A) there is a specific problem in this particular case with this particualr department, B) that there was some exonerating fact or facts we have not seen yet (highly unlikely but possible) or C) some supervisor, thinking this is open-and-shut, jumps the gun on something or doesn't follow procedure himself and fucks up the whole case against the officer, in which case he will likely still quit or get fired.

The latter is something that hasn't come up yet but is worth noting: Bosses have a bad habit of throwing officers to the wolves, meting out punishment without affording officers their rights, and generally ignoring disciplinary procedure, especially in small departments. It greatly complicates many of these issues because in many cases the press or the public goes apeshit when an officer does something they don't like but that was what he was trained to do and was by the book. In this case either the department is good, and acquits the officer and revises the policy (if needed and it isn't just a matter of it looking bad to people who think law enforcement is all nice and cuddly all the time) or the department is bad, blames the officer, and generally ends up embarassing itself when it has to re-hire the officer, gets sued by him, or something like that. The problem is that when people decide they're out for cop blood, they have a tendancy to think that "revising policies" is not doing anything, when in fact a small change in policy can have a large effect on how similar incidents are handled in the future.

In other cases the problem is simply that the bosses did not train the officer properly because they don't have the money, or just don't tke training seriously enough.

Imagine, just for the sake of argument, that the "blue wall" existed. Not necessarily in every case or every department, but in enough times and places to make it a real phenomenon that got in the way of investigating police misconduct.

Why would I imagine an undefinable phenomenon.

What would be the evidence of its existence? We'd see policemen doing things that we'd expect their departments would punish them for, and they'd get punished lightly or not at all. They'd see property damage and loss of life over mistakes no one gets punished for, because they're being wrongfully dismissed as innocent mistakes even when they aren't. They'd probably see more of those things than actually happens, of course, since whatever blue wall exists doesn't have 100% coverage.

Do you see the problem with claiming the existance of a phenomenon you can't define what the evidence of would be.

But even so, take this back to the real world, where the blue wall may just be a rumor. If people see the same sort of thing they'd see if the blue wall existed, is it realistic to expect them to assume it doesn't exist? To interpret what appears to be an example of police shooting people and getting away with it as evidence that the police department is letting their officers get away with murder?

Yes, as a matter of fact it is, because the average person is fair-minded and realizes they weren't there at the time, that the job is tough, and that mistakes happen. They may not excuse mistakes that are significant enough for the individual officer, and they may not excuse particular departments with a reputation, but most people do realize that not all cops are cops.

I have had people tell me before they were glad they were arrested in my city and not a neighboring one, because that particular city tolerates practices we don't.

If something just appears bad, and some random person is all pissed off because, based on their limited information, they think the cop is getting away with something, they have a problem. In some cases, they may have a legitimate point, but in many, it's a case like that 2-part video I linked earlier where they have only seen part 1. Some people just can't get their heads around the fact that we don't convict people in the court of public opinion just because they're cops.

[Keevan_Colton]

I would like to see the amount of times a cop is in courts on police brutaility charges or some other accusation of incompetence and how often a fellow police officer testifies against him or her.

Do you honestly think someone keeps track of this information?

Court records exist for a reason you know...the fact that there has been no study into them that you're aware of just highlights how ignored the issue is.

[Keevan_Colton]

Also, as a small aside, could you kindly go away and learn basic English SVPD. You seem unable to grasp the use of basic rhetorical statements and sarcasm...

[Kamakazie Sith]

I would like to see the amount of times a cop is in courts on police brutaility charges or some other accusation of incompetence and how often a fellow police officer testifies against him or her.

Do you honestly think someone keeps track of this information?

Court records exist for a reason you know...the fact that there has been no study into them that you're aware of just highlights how ignored the issue is.

Sure, and you are correct. This information is probably recorded, but it isn't stored in a readily accessible place and available for situations like this which would require quoting the material and linking a source to it.

[SVPD]

Court records exist for a reason you know...the fact that there has been no study into them that you're aware of just highlights how ignored the issue is.

Cort records are completely open to the public. If they haven't been studied by the numerous organizations and people out there that dedicate themselves to finding fault with the police it indicates that either A) the issue is nowhere near as serious as people are claiming here, or B) that they're afraid they'll find that it is adequately dealt with already, or C) They really don't give a shit to the degree that they claim if actual work would be involved.

Also, as a small aside, could you kindly go away and learn basic English SVPD. You seem unable to grasp the use of basic rhetorical statements and sarcasm.

Could you kindly go away and come back when you have a fucking point?

[Simon_Jester]

Which leads to the question: are the people chronically in trouble with the law the only ones who distrust the police? How much distrust of the police is unavoidable (people who have been arrested dislike police) and how much is preventable (people who decide the police are Nazis because a little girl gets shot because some oaf had his finger on the trigger while bumbling through a house in the dark)?

Obviously they are not the only ones, but given the sheer number of the people who are in trouble with the law, and the fact that the population in general is cooperative, polite, and understanding, the number who dislike the police out of something other than resentment of personal circumstance really cannot be all that large. In any case, that sort of resentment isn't universally preventable; some of it may be, but since the police will inevitably be less than perfect, some people who simply resent authority, people in uniforms, or worry that their 40K miniatures are at risk will find a reason regadless.

So... does it even matter whether the police even try, that being the case? Should I walk away with this with the conclusion that it doesn't matter whether the police accidentally shoot little girls and kick down the wrong doors, or whether the officers who do it are punished harshly, because either way the vast majority of people will support police and the tiny minority of discontents will oppose police?

Because that seems absurd to me, and I doubt you believe it.

The only reason I take exception to this is that there have been significant change to the way police operate in the past few decades- in particular, the rise of SWAT teams and specialized entry tactics. That's partly a function of policy (more raids on armed drug dealers make the tactics necessary). But it's still a significant change in the parameters, one that warrants a change in the methods taken to address police errors.

I don't think so. I think it really requires addressing why we're using those tactics so often in the first place.

How is that not a way of addressing police errors? After all, if you put police in fewer unnecessary situations where errors are possible, there will be fewer errors. I have no problem with tackling the issue that way.

If police are predictably shooting more dogs and kicking down more of the wrong doors on account of all the drug raids they're doing, then we should count that as a cost of our drug policy and probably revise the drug policy accordingly. I don't care about hammering on police for the fact that police errors happen. I care about making the errors go away.

When all warrants are served by knocking and waiting for someone to answer the door, hitting the wrong house is unlikely to get people killed. There's a chance for the situation to be defused before the police have (as per doctrine) shot any threatening pets and (as per doctrine) forced everyone in the house to get down on the ground at gunpoint. There's a chance for the homeowner to say "I'm sorry, but this is 3804 Cherry Lane, not 3802," and prove it.

Frankly, I don't think going to the wrong house is a cricticism of the tactics at all, because there is no excuse whatsoever for getting the wrong house regardless.

Which is why I didn't criticize the tactics here.

This is a consequence of using the tactics, and one that should be considered before we decide to use them, not as a reason to rewrite them. The problem is that, empirically, using SWAT tactics (or, more generally, no-knock and "short knock" raid tactics) causes cases where the police go to the wrong house to become much, much worse. Even if there is no excuse for going to the wrong house, it's a mistake we don't need to worry about too much as long as it doesn't lead to property damage, injury, or death. When people can die in a raid on the wrong house, you need more precautions.

So in this case, the shift in emphasis from... call it "polite" entry tactics to more aggressive ones means that police need to pay more attention to getting addresses right, if it is at all possible for them to do so. That doesn't necessarily mean a huge change in police procedure; it may be something as simple as making the team double-check that they have the right house before they go in, or making them carry GPS. But if anything can be done without imposing a major burden on police, it should be done.

I don't see the need for any new procedures; getting the right house shouldn't be a major challange. I should also point out that by far, most warrants are still the traditional sort. Although no-knock warrants are far more common, they still aren't used for most matters.

Of course. And perhaps there should be special procedures for verifying that you have the right house before executing a no-knock warrant, simply because the consequences of getting it wrong are worse?

Imagine, just for the sake of argument, that the "blue wall" existed. Not necessarily in every case or every department, but in enough times and places to make it a real phenomenon that got in the way of investigating police misconduct.

Why would I imagine an undefinable phenomenon.

The "blue wall" is perfectly definable: a tendency for police departments to rally around police officers accused of crimes and protect them from punishment, by methods such as:
-Not testifying against fellow officers
-Concealing evidence that could condemn fellow officers
-Harassing individuals who speak out against fellow officers

Now, whether that exists or not is a different question. But the idea that it's undefinable is a joke.

What would be the evidence of its existence? We'd see policemen doing things that we'd expect their departments would punish them for, and they'd get punished lightly or not at all. They'd see property damage and loss of life over mistakes no one gets punished for, because they're being wrongfully dismissed as innocent mistakes even when they aren't. They'd probably see more of those things than actually happens, of course, since whatever blue wall exists doesn't have 100% coverage.

Do you see the problem with claiming the existance of a phenomenon you can't define what the evidence of would be.

You completely missed my point.

My point is that, logical or not, people who see something that to them is identical to evidence of police screwing up and getting away with it... are going to conclude that the police are screwing up and getting away with it. There is a very real need for the police to not let their officers be seen to screw up and get away with it; they cannot function forever without thinking about the public relations aspect of their own internal policing.

The public has a right to ask "who will guard the guardians?" and to see adequate evidence that an answer exists. How much evidence is adequate, that's negotiable. I don't think the right is.

[White Haven]

Regarding the point I've seen made by both KS and SVPD, that this sort of problematic behavior is concentrated in a few bad-apple police departments, that's more or less irrelevant. Whether or the local police somewhere are corrupt and/or incompetent and/or covering for each other, media coverage and penetration via the internet is everywhere. Even if the percentage of assorted 'bad cop' incidents is quite low, and it is, the sheer population of the country means that as an absolute number, it ends up looking much higher to the average person because in modern times, they'll have the potential to hear about far more of them via modern media. Accordingly, even if that percentage is the same as it was before the rise of modern communication (given the explosion of the war on drugs, I doubt that, but we'll run with it for the moment), people will hear about more of them, so that percentage becomes less and less acceptable.

In summary, the fact that a given police department is squeaky-clean doesn't really even matter anymore for the purposes of public perception, so the fact that New Orleans or Detroit has a hugely shitty track record has the potential to cause problems for departments that keep their noses clean. That really needs action at a federal level to deal with, but it needs to be dealt with, and I'm frankly somewhat disgusted that the threshold for federal intervention is as high as it is. On the plus side, if the 'problem children' are concentrated in specific departments, that would make it at least easier to target a response if any were forthcoming.