Quote:
Originally Posted by canadian citizen
Beenaroundabit.
Obviously I was referring to the USA. Where Police hiring boards give extra points to ex military members, especially those who were in combat trades, you will get aggressive and unsympathetic people. Add to that the "shoot first and maybe ask questions latter " attitude ,and the result is Police who act as if they have no need to be responsive to civilian control and over sight.
In case you think I am some kind of anti gun anti police kind of guy..........I served for 30 years in the Canadian Forces, as a Military Police investigator . I can speak from personal experience and training that we do it different here. Starting with the idea that the Police are not special humans.. They are equal to the public that they serve. Being polite costs nothing, but it sure does go a long way towards more helpful relations with the people that individual Police officers interact with. If you go in with the attitude of " us versus them " it will go badly.
It works for us here in our country, your mileage may vary.
Jim B.
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Actually, police hiring boards in the U.S. give "extra points" for people who are
veterans, period. Meaning they've served their country. There are no special provisions for folks in "combat trades" unless someone has some uber-specific training that is needed for a specific job (like a military sniper who applies to become a police sniper). Being overly aggressive/combative is most certainly not a desired trait to see in a law enforcement applicant here. I've sat on enough hiring boards (and rejected enough applicants) to know.
Law enforcement in the U.S. and Canada are obviously very different, due to a host of factors - to include population, crime rates, and existing legislation. If you have 30 years in law enforcement, you know that. But if you truly think U.S. law enforcement officers are trained to "shoot first and ask questions later," your understanding of how things are done here is obviously based on media coverage and not on the day-to-day course of business.
As in most countries where law enforcement polarizes popular opinion, the media reports the comparatively few situations where cops make mistakes or do things the wrong way, but ignores the millions of
other situations where cops do everything the
right way, every shift, every day. If all you do is pay attention to the former, you're getting a skewed perception. Again, if you have 30 years in law enforcement, you should understand that.
Moreover, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act - to which Canada is a signatory - protects geese in Canada just as it does here. I'm sure that has a lot to do with the reason these geese were being shepherded across the street. I.e. it's more important (and less controversial) to protect something at the outset than to let it be killed and have to take enforcement action after the fact. So while commendable, I doubt it was purely out of the goodness of a Canadian officer's heart and certainly shouldn't be used as a way to compare (in your opinion) how great cops are in Canada and how poor they are here.
I also speak from experience: 21 years as a federal criminal investigator here, working both for and with my Canadian national and provincial counterparts on a daily basis. I did not mean to hijack this thread, but to me, a dig against U.S. law enforcement in
a nature forum seems to reflect an unfavorable bias. Perhaps you didn't intend it that way, but that's certainly how it came across.
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