Police shooting hits 4 bystanders, more details

[Simon_Jester]

Watching this, I've become badly confused about who thinks what. D-XIII, if you don't mind my asking, exactly when do you consider police use of force in gathering evidence of a crime to be justified?

(Note that 'never' is a possible answer to this question, if that is what you believe)

[Alyeska]

If someone said "pointing a gun at someone walking down the street is NEVER acceptable", is it not a fair counter to say "what if that someone is shooting at you?"

You're modifying the statement.

"pointing a gun at someone walking down the street is NEVER acceptable" is not the same as "pointing a gun at someone walking down the street shooting at you is NEVER acceptable"

In effect you're making a strawman argument. I said absolutely nothing about any other crime, at all. You constructed a counter rebuttal for an argument I never made and continued to harp it. Even after I made my position explicitly clear, you continued to disagree with me. You're arguing with me over a position I never took. Good job.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Really? There's no reason why people might be suspicious of American police forces beyond sensationalism?

Strawman. I never said the police were perfect and I never said people don't have a reason to be suspicious. I did, however, address Starks implication that the people have a reason to have an adversarial relationship with the police in the US and he cited a statement made by some officer somewhere to support that.

Mostly I'm challenging Starks implication that the adverersial relationship the US public is preceived to have with US law enforcement is based on reasonable articulable facts found after an investigation instead of news articles of preliminary findings of an incident and that these incidents are happening so widely and frequently that one can reasonable say that US police are corrupt and the people are reasonable to view the police as a threat.

Regarding your first article. I don't understand why you would post an article of the investigation when you can post the investigation itself. DOJ NOPD investigation Anyway, for the purpose of fun lets say that the ENTIRE NOPD is guilty and for more fun lets say that all the sworn officers of other departments under DOJ investigation (Seattle, Denver, Newark) are also guilty and then take that value and multiply it by 2. That would make it roughly 8730 guilty officers. So, that's 4 Law Enforcement Agencies out of 14,000 and 8730 officers out of 686396 officers. Which means .012 of US police are shit bags.

So, is that a reasonable number to conclude that the US population has good reason to be in an adversarial relationship with US police? Now if Stark would have been talking about the New Orleans police department I would have agreed with him completely. I wouldn't trust a NOPD officer at all because I have good reason to do so...a complete investigation. You have articles filled with incomplete information.

You talked about how you couldn't understand why people believe in a "Blue Wall" in several previous threads. Here's why. We see police forces lying about cases where they fucked up massively in order to turn tragedies into triumphs, such that Jose Guerena becomes not an innocent ex-Marine killed while unarmed, but instead a violent psycho who attacked the police after they announced themselves, but somehow didn't remove the safety on his gun. We see this endorsed by the top levels of the departments involved. It sure as hell looks like the Pima County Sheriff's Department is deliberately covering up a deadly mistake it made, and this trend is present across most of the other cases I linked. In other words, why do so many American police forces have such an adversarial relationship with the general population that they feel the need to close ranks around fuckups or make use of legalistic wrangling to keep from denouncing racist officers?

I question your allegation that the Pima County Sheriff is attempting to cover anything up when it is contrary to evidence. That evidence being coverups don't work well when you correct inaccurate information. What did happen was an admistrator or someone released information too soon before a proper investigation was completed and then the media went with it. Then as the investigation revealed accurate information the Sheriff had to release a correction. That's not lying, son. Your article doesn't support your assertion. In fact, your article reports some facts wrong itself. It claims Jose was hit 60 times. The autopsy shows only 22 times. It reports that they refused him medical treatment. When in fact they were under the belief that Jose had barricaded himself inside his home. This is supported by audio evidence of radio transmissions. Police procedure in a barricade is to contain and communicate. So, they weren't refusing. They were making sure it was safe for the EMTs.

Also, given the information revealed after the investigation the shooting does appear reasonable.

As for the sealing of search warrants and other information. This is done for the same reason that high profile criminal cases are sealed. So, that public opinion doesn't compromise due process. Is this abused? I'm sure it is Do any of your articles support this? Only the DOJ review does.

So what is the norm for collecting videos for potential evidential content, then? For that matter, I'd say that Stark looks like he knows more about law enforcement in the US than you, since you seem to present it as monolithic and it is not (and making it monolithic makes the above cases damning of all officers rather than of general trends, but I doubt you considered that). So let me amend that to "in your department and other departments you have knowledge of?"

The norm is you ask for it and then if your capabilities allow you make a copy on the spot and you don't have to relieve the person of their property. If you don't have the technology to do so, and some departments do not, then you seize the property in a courtesy manner and provide that person with a property receipt. The seized property will then be taken and a copy made of the evidence ASAP after which the owner will be notified that they can come claim their property. However, if they refuse to give it to the officer then it is their duty to seize it. This is usually done only in high profile situations such as homicides.

Well, avoiding the blanket statement to support your articles I will say that yes it is damning in variable degrees to those officers which range from simple courtesy violations to outright illegal acts. For example, the officer in the video if he was attempting to collect evidence at gun point should be fired and yes charged with aggravated assault, a felony. However, as new details come from the investigation including why that officer did what he did then that could change the course of any potential discplinary action.

How about you support your allegation that evidence collection procedures are so different in police departments across the US and that these examples are due to extreme circumstances. In other words. Put up or shut up.

[Alyeska]

God, you're fucking stupid. Please shut up and let the (relatively) smart folks talk.

No. I will not sit idly by while you try and bullshit and lie your way through this thread.

[Thanas]

Wait, there are 14.000 law enforcement agencies in the US? Holy mackarel.

EDIT: You are counting single stations like "single sherrif in town" as a seperate agency, right?

[Alyeska]

Wait, there are 14.000 law enforcement agencies in the US? Holy mackarel.

EDIT: You are counting single stations like "single sherrif in town" as a seperate agency, right?

They are separate, totally separate. My city has the local police, the sheriff, the state troopers, the university police, and the airport police. The railroad can have its own police agency potentially. I believe there is a small FBI contingent because of the Federal building.

[Thanas]

Holy crap.

Isn't that totally inefficient? We got national and state law enforcement, and that is about it. We got one national police and 16 state police. That is about it.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Wait, there are 14.000 law enforcement agencies in the US? Holy mackarel.

EDIT: You are counting single stations like "single sherrif in town" as a seperate agency, right?

There are over 30,000 cities in the United States. Over 19,000 of those have their own governments. At that point the government decides whether it wants to be under county jurisdiction or form their own police force.

As for it being totally inefficient. I don't know. However, I haven't conducted the necessary research. Though I admit it does sound inefficient which means it probably is...but it is done this way because that's how our laws are written.

[Dalton]

Holy crap.

Isn't that totally inefficient? We got national and state law enforcement, and that is about it. We got one national police and 16 state police. That is about it.

Consider the size of the United States against the size of Germany.

[Thanas]

Yeah, but only 3.5 times as much population and it sure as heck does not have a thousand times more the size....

[Kamakazie Sith]

Yeah, but only 3.5 times as much population and it sure as heck does not have a thousand times more the size....

Land also needs to be patrolled, which is what I believe Dalton was getting at.

[Captain Seafort]

And as Thanas said, it hasn't got a thousand times the area - more like 30 times. In any event, what has area got to do with the number of police forces? Sure you'll need a lot more people, but there's no reason for them to be organised in thousands of separate forces - one (or fifty) would suffice.

[Kamakazie Sith]

And as Thanas said, it hasn't got a thousand times the area - more like 30 times. In any event, what has area got to do with the number of police forces? Sure you'll need a lot more people, but there's no reason for them to be organised in thousands of separate forces - one (or fifty) would suffice.

Actually, I've already provided the reason. Please review the posts related to this subsection before commenting further.

[Captain Seafort]

Actually, I've already provided the reason. Please review the posts related to this subsection before commenting further.

1) I was responding to your comment regarding Dalton's post.

2) I assume you're referring to this:

There are over 30,000 cities in the United States. Over 19,000 of those have their own governments. At that point the government decides whether it wants to be under county jurisdiction or form their own police force.

If so I fail to see the logic behind your assertion. The US is not alone in having thousands of local "governments". The UK certainly does. Unless my knowledge is completely out of whack, so does Germany. This does not mean that said local governments require their own police force - they simply need a detachment of the state and/or national police.

[Dalton]

Easier said than done. I live near plenty of villages that have laws and ordinances particular to that village, so they therefore have their own police force to enforce those laws.

[SVPD]

I'm not prepared to work out the physics of the situation mathematically, but what you're doing seems like "wild speculating about the physics", not "thinking about it. It strikes me as unlikely that a cell phone could withstand a determined stomp from a full-grown man, who would probably stomp it more than once.

I've seen it done before, although with a low tech plastic box one like Bean says. Being a video phone, it's likely that the one here was less durable than mine, but maybe not. (I've never actually launched an expensive one onto the road before...)


Now, I think it's more likely that the guy is exaggerating about what happened too, but at the same time, a relative lack of damage doesn't prove he's lying without knowing more facts. At this point, I have enough reasonable doubt to go around for everybody.

No, it does not, but if we want to accuse the officer of attempting to destroy evidence we need to have probable cause and if we want to convict him we need proof beyond a reasonable doubt. There is far more than a non-trivial possibility that the phone owner is laying which blows the latter to hell and could jeopardize the former.

[Mr Bean]

To give Thanas a bit more specific consider my local.
We of course have State Troopers(1) on our highways to enforce road safety and respond to accidents, I've got a state park just up and down the road from me and the State Park Police(2) are there to ensure no one is hunting in state parks without a licenses and walking the more rugged trails in case some idiot gets a bolder dropped on his arm. We then have the local district police(3) who are a step up from the local Sheriff and his two deputies(4) the difference is the district cops work stuff like guarding the local court house and acting as a regional backup to the local Sheriff. The local Sheriff of course is the one serving eviction notices, the one who's authority stops at the boundary of his local county but within that county he's the primary point of contact.

So that's four sets of cops for my little district not counting national cops like ATF, DEA, IRS, FBI, Immigration, Homeland Security, Secret Service and if I'm in a military area MP's. So that means just me myself in a rural area have ten different police agencies I fall under and I'm sure I'm missing a few. Every city in America has city police, every county in America has at least a Sheriff's department, every district in the US has it's own law enforcement agency. And we add in the special services like Forestry which function like Sheriff's departments except they focus on conservation related crimes like illegal logging, hunting/fishing and more. They are real legit cops with badges, guns and the whole nine yards. Over time in America more and more crimes are spun out into their own departments and eventually their own organizations.

[Bakustra]

Really? There's no reason why people might be suspicious of American police forces beyond sensationalism?

Strawman. I never said the police were perfect and I never said people don't have a reason to be suspicious. I did, however, address Starks implication that the people have a reason to have an adversarial relationship with the police in the US and he cited a statement made by some officer somewhere to support that.

Mostly I'm challenging Starks implication that the adverersial relationship the US public is preceived to have with US law enforcement is based on reasonable articulable facts found after an investigation instead of news articles of preliminary findings of an incident and that these incidents are happening so widely and frequently that one can reasonable say that US police are corrupt and the people are reasonable to view the police as a threat.

Regarding your first article. I don't understand why you would post an article of the investigation when you can post the investigation itself. DOJ NOPD investigation Anyway, for the purpose of fun lets say that the ENTIRE NOPD is guilty and for more fun lets say that all the sworn officers of other departments under DOJ investigation (Seattle, Denver, Newark) are also guilty and then take that value and multiply it by 2. That would make it roughly 8730 guilty officers. So, that's 4 Law Enforcement Agencies out of 14,000 and 8730 officers out of 686396 officers. Which means .012 of US police are shit bags.

So, is that a reasonable number to conclude that the US population has good reason to be in an adversarial relationship with US police? Now if Stark would have been talking about the New Orleans police department I would have agreed with him completely. I wouldn't trust a NOPD officer at all because I have good reason to do so...a complete investigation. You have articles filled with incomplete information.

That's fucking stupid, what you just wrote. It's pretty clear that you have your mind set firmly behind the Blue Wall, and it colors your perceptions of things. See, it's not just a matter of raw statistics and concluding that since some small fraction of US police are sociopathic that this means that the average citizen is safe. First of all, let's note that it is quite possible for one bad apple to spoil the whole barrel simply by the other members of the police force being reluctant to denounce him or her or work to get them fired or charged. It's possible for perfectly ordinary, usually harmless people to do perfectly terrible things like fill an unarmed man with lead because they were ordered to do something incredibly risky for an absurdly-treated crime. It's possible for larger departments, like those of New York and Cleveland, to have quotas for certain routine infractions. Finally, it's possible for these factors and others to turn ordinary people against fellow citizens and start to consider them as civilians and potential enemies by producing a culture of militarization and alienation. This is something that has been studied by academics and has been concluded to contribute to police violence.

You talked about how you couldn't understand why people believe in a "Blue Wall" in several previous threads. Here's why. We see police forces lying about cases where they fucked up massively in order to turn tragedies into triumphs, such that Jose Guerena becomes not an innocent ex-Marine killed while unarmed, but instead a violent psycho who attacked the police after they announced themselves, but somehow didn't remove the safety on his gun. We see this endorsed by the top levels of the departments involved. It sure as hell looks like the Pima County Sheriff's Department is deliberately covering up a deadly mistake it made, and this trend is present across most of the other cases I linked. In other words, why do so many American police forces have such an adversarial relationship with the general population that they feel the need to close ranks around fuckups or make use of legalistic wrangling to keep from denouncing racist officers?

I question your allegation that the Pima County Sheriff is attempting to cover anything up when it is contrary to evidence. That evidence being coverups don't work well when you correct inaccurate information. What did happen was an admistrator or someone released information too soon before a proper investigation was completed and then the media went with it. Then as the investigation revealed accurate information the Sheriff had to release a correction. That's not lying, son. Your article doesn't support your assertion. In fact, your article reports some facts wrong itself. It claims Jose was hit 60 times. The autopsy shows only 22 times. It reports that they refused him medical treatment. When in fact they were under the belief that Jose had barricaded himself inside his home. This is supported by audio evidence of radio transmissions. Police procedure in a barricade is to contain and communicate. So, they weren't refusing. They were making sure it was safe for the EMTs.

Also, given the information revealed after the investigation the shooting does appear reasonable.

As for the sealing of search warrants and other information. This is done for the same reason that high profile criminal cases are sealed. So, that public opinion doesn't compromise due process. Is this abused? I'm sure it is Do any of your articles support this? Only the DOJ review does.

So the Sheriff's department was somehow confused when it authorized the union lawyer to present the information about the case to make it seem like Guerena was connected to burglars rather than to victims, or when it released that he had guns and body armor in his house without noting that they were all legal and reasonable for an ex-Marine to have, or when it pretended that it did not serve a no-knock warrant? Because in that case the entirety of the Pima County Sheriff's Office couldn't find their ass with both hands and a map. But they have refused to release further information, so it sure looks like they're unwilling to acknowledge that they screwed up in any way here. Even if they did all this through sheer incompetence and having a talking anus for an union attorney, then they still ought to acknowledge that they made a mistake in doing that.

The shooting appears reasonable given the circumstances, but consider that the larger complaint of the article is about the circumstances of a no-knock warrant being applied overly often and in grossly inappropriate situations. If they had served a warrant like they initially claimed, identifying themselves clearly as police, then Jose Guerena would still be here today. If Guerena had not been as disciplined as he was, more people might well have been killed because of the warrant as well.

Finally, why seal the warrants only when people begin to ask questions? And why only address one of the articles?

So what is the norm for collecting videos for potential evidential content, then? For that matter, I'd say that Stark looks like he knows more about law enforcement in the US than you, since you seem to present it as monolithic and it is not (and making it monolithic makes the above cases damning of all officers rather than of general trends, but I doubt you considered that). So let me amend that to "in your department and other departments you have knowledge of?"

The norm is you ask for it and then if your capabilities allow you make a copy on the spot and you don't have to relieve the person of their property. If you don't have the technology to do so, and some departments do not, then you seize the property in a courtesy manner and provide that person with a property receipt. The seized property will then be taken and a copy made of the evidence ASAP after which the owner will be notified that they can come claim their property. However, if they refuse to give it to the officer then it is their duty to seize it. This is usually done only in high profile situations such as homicides.

Well, avoiding the blanket statement to support your articles I will say that yes it is damning in variable degrees to those officers which range from simple courtesy violations to outright illegal acts. For example, the officer in the video if he was attempting to collect evidence at gun point should be fired and yes charged with aggravated assault, a felony. However, as new details come from the investigation including why that officer did what he did then that could change the course of any potential discplinary action.

How about you support your allegation that evidence collection procedures are so different in police departments across the US and that these examples are due to extreme circumstances. In other words. Put up or shut up.

You know, why do you think that an officer would potentially be acting reasonably to demand evidence under the threat of death? I mean, given situations that could actually happen, not absurd thought experiments. But your little tantrum is unwarranted; I simply found that your "Heh, foreigners" response to Stark was annoying, so I responded by correcting you in a deliberately annoying fashion. If you're going to continue to demand that I defend something that I never intended seriously, then I do believe that even in the absence of federal precedent that the right to make a jackass of oneself is reasonably implied by the First Amendment.

[SVPD]

That's fucking stupid, what you just wrote. It's pretty clear that you have your mind set firmly behind the Blue Wall, and it colors your perceptions of things.

You know what else is fucking stupid? Poisoning the Well fallacies.

[Bakustra]

That's fucking stupid, what you just wrote. It's pretty clear that you have your mind set firmly behind the Blue Wall, and it colors your perceptions of things.

You know what else is fucking stupid? Poisoning the Well fallacies.

You know that poisoning the well is not actually fallacious all of the time, right? If I point out that somebody advocating armed overthrow is being dishonest about their actual support for such, I am committing a poisoning the well fallacy, even though it is not fallacious in this instance. What I am saying here is that Kamakazie is too caught up in defending law enforcement to consider the other point of view. If this is true, than it is important for any debate or discussion with him, because arguments will have to be reformed in order to fit within certain preconceptions, in much the same way as arguing with a solipsist requires reformulating arguments. But thank you for reminding me that I somehow dropped a paragraph. Here, I will reconstruct what should have been the second paragraph of my post above:

The major fault with this is that it ignores another part of fear- the actual danger. People are not thinking that "oh, there's some infinitesimal chance that I'll get tased fatally", they're thinking "This guy could kill me right now, by accident, and have a good chance of getting away with it." People have an infinitesimal chance of getting hit by lightning, but they still are afraid of it and take actions to avoid it. But avoiding getting killed or hurt by the police is not something that you can necessarily predict. The cases of officers serving no-knock warrants at the wrong address or of harassing suspects that turn out to be innocent or of targeting, intentionally or otherwise, African-Americans for drug searches despite whites being statistically more likely to use and carry narcotics all show that being law-abiding is not enough to avoid this.

It is not purely random, as various factors make various minority groups likely to be harmed more by the police, but ultimately it is something that we, as people, cannot really predict or avoid, and that makes it scarier for some than the lightning, for you can see storms, but you may wake up one day to the police breaking down your door and killing your dog because they thought you were a dealer, and you may end up taking perfectly reasonable actions in the early morning hours that kill you or send you to life in prison for factors beyond your control. It is quite frankly horrific in the Kafkaesque sense. But there is also the sense that this can be avoided, that it doesn't have to be like this, which tempers that fear. Yes, I think that it is reasonable to fear the police, for the reasons I have outline above.

[SVPD]

That's fucking stupid, what you just wrote. It's pretty clear that you have your mind set firmly behind the Blue Wall, and it colors your perceptions of things.

You know what else is fucking stupid? Poisoning the Well fallacies.

You know that poisoning the well is not actually fallacious all of the time, right? If I point out that somebody advocating armed overthrow is being dishonest about their actual support for such, I am committing a poisoning the well fallacy, even though it is not fallacious in this instance. What I am saying here is that Kamakazie is too caught up in defending law enforcement to consider the other point of view. If this is true, than it is important for any debate or discussion with him, because arguments will have to be reformed in order to fit within certain preconceptions, in much the same way as arguing with a solipsist requires reformulating arguments. But thank you for reminding me that I somehow dropped a paragraph. Here, I will reconstruct what should have been the second paragraph of my post above:

Regardless of whether it is fallacious all of the time, it is a fallacy in this instance. The "blue wall" is an undefinable, unverifiable, unfalsifiable, nebulous allusion to an assumption that a law enforcement officer is taking a certain position or doing a certain thing simply because he is a law enforcement officer. Not only is it Poisoning the Well, it is also a form of appeal to motive. It's also a form of Guilt by Association wherein the misbehaviors of some police officers are attributed to all others for no better reason than that it cannot be positively proven they are not also engaging in misbehavior.

You are simply assuming that KS is "too caught up in defending law enforcement". What exactly is that supposed to mean? How do you know that he is? By what standard? Is KS not allowed to present positions that are too supportive of law enforcement according to certain people's tastes, or what?

By the way, as to your linked articles: The first relates to one precinct in NYC with one captain wanting an entire shift to write 20 citations for certain offenses per week. While this could technically be a quota, spread across all officers like that it looks more like he simply has a bunch of officers simply ignoring certain offenses, and a community of people who regard it as "harrassment" when certain laws that inconvenience them are enforced. Some police officers are lay and need to be reminded that they need to get off their fat asses and enforce the law sometimes

As to the second, it relates to one particular police lieutenant, not to the entire city.. and the city in question is Cinncinnatti, not Cleveland.

[Bakustra]

You know that poisoning the well is not actually fallacious all of the time, right? If I point out that somebody advocating armed overthrow is being dishonest about their actual support for such, I am committing a poisoning the well fallacy, even though it is not fallacious in this instance. What I am saying here is that Kamakazie is too caught up in defending law enforcement to consider the other point of view. If this is true, than it is important for any debate or discussion with him, because arguments will have to be reformed in order to fit within certain preconceptions, in much the same way as arguing with a solipsist requires reformulating arguments. But thank you for reminding me that I somehow dropped a paragraph. Here, I will reconstruct what should have been the second paragraph of my post above:

Regardless of whether it is fallacious all of the time, it is a fallacy in this instance. The "blue wall" is an undefinable, unverifiable, unfalsifiable, nebulous allusion to an assumption that a law enforcement officer is taking a certain position or doing a certain thing simply because he is a law enforcement officer. Not only is it Poisoning the Well, it is also a form of appeal to motive. It's also a form of Guilt by Association wherein the misbehaviors of some police officers are attributed to all others for no better reason than that it cannot be positively proven they are not also engaging in misbehavior.

You are simply assuming that KS is "too caught up in defending law enforcement". What exactly is that supposed to mean? How do you know that he is? By what standard? Is KS not allowed to present positions that are too supportive of law enforcement according to certain people's tastes, or what?

No it isn't. In this case, I am suggesting with this that KS is unable or unwilling to consider positions from outside those of law-enforcement officers, because he immediately dismisses potential fear of the police with moronic statistics and the assumption that nobody could possibly be afraid of the police. Should I instead have called him an ignorant motherfucker, or a slimy douchebag, or any other array of insults that also are designed, in effect, to poison the well? Very well, then, I will simply call him an unsympathetic sack of shit, etc., and not use the term "blue wall" or imply in any way that police officers may defend other police officers given their shared perspective in law enforcement, because that is clearly prejudicidial and unreasonable to think that just because the two actual police officers in this thread defended other police officers in the past and are doing so now and have indicated that they believe that doing so is the right course of action because many people are ignorant of the specific considerations of law enforcement, that they are defending police officers. (PS: The term "blue wall" only means that, that police officers have a tendency to defend or treat less harshly the actions of other police officers. It does not necessarily condemn the police so much as the atmosphere which produces the need for it. But go ahead and categorize me as one of the uncooperative civilians, officer.)

By the way, as to your linked articles: The first relates to one precinct in NYC with one captain wanting an entire shift to write 20 citations for certain offenses per week. While this could technically be a quota, spread across all officers like that it looks more like he simply has a bunch of officers simply ignoring certain offenses, and a community of people who regard it as "harrassment" when certain laws that inconvenience them are enforced. Some police officers are lay and need to be reminded that they need to get off their fat asses and enforce the law sometimes

As to the second, it relates to one particular police lieutenant, not to the entire city.. and the city in question is Cinncinnatti, not Cleveland.

That is not technically a quota, that is a fucking quota! That is what the definition of a quota is- having a specific, numerical target to meet! Not to mention that you didn't even bother addressing the rest of my post, but it is late, or, rather early.

[Norade]

So what about cases where there is clearly an officer doing wrong and not being properly dealt with for it? Go to the following link and tell me if the officer in plain clothes, one Constable Geoff Mantler, was justified in booting the man in the face when he was on his knees already. Now factor in the fact that he's been investigated for excessive force on two previous occasions and tell me why after this incident he was suspended with pay found innocent, and then, after public outcry investigated again and suspended without pay?

It seems to me that without that video and the public being able to see he'd have hide behind the thin blue line. What do you have to say about the confidence things like that justifiably have on public faith in the police?

One of many news articles on Mantler.

He tries to pussy out of a court date.

[Norade]

Ghetto Edit: Proof that it's not a lone incident.

[Thanas]

To give Thanas a bit more specific consider my local.
We of course have State Troopers(1) on our highways to enforce road safety and respond to accidents, I've got a state park just up and down the road from me and the State Park Police(2) are there to ensure no one is hunting in state parks without a licenses and walking the more rugged trails in case some idiot gets a bolder dropped on his arm. We then have the local district police(3) who are a step up from the local Sheriff and his two deputies(4) the difference is the district cops work stuff like guarding the local court house and acting as a regional backup to the local Sheriff. The local Sheriff of course is the one serving eviction notices, the one who's authority stops at the boundary of his local county but within that county he's the primary point of contact.

So that's four sets of cops for my little district not counting national cops like ATF, DEA, IRS, FBI, Immigration, Homeland Security, Secret Service and if I'm in a military area MP's. So that means just me myself in a rural area have ten different police agencies I fall under and I'm sure I'm missing a few. Every city in America has city police, every county in America has at least a Sheriff's department, every district in the US has it's own law enforcement agency. And we add in the special services like Forestry which function like Sheriff's departments except they focus on conservation related crimes like illegal logging, hunting/fishing and more. They are real legit cops with badges, guns and the whole nine yards. Over time in America more and more crimes are spun out into their own departments and eventually their own organizations.

Thanks for the context.

That strikes me as a fairly good way to end up with a bloated security apparatus, how many officers are there in total?