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Below are four articles listing the most dangerous jobs.
I can find my own statistics, but that's not the main topic, it's been discussed in previous threads and you should respond there, not here. I think I was fair with my original post, which dismissed the OPs assertations that "police killed one innocent person every day". That seems pretty far from a totally biased view as you would find in some, but to stay on the topic I would like to see some statistics that indicate how many shooting resulted in lawsuits? How many in prosecutions, how many in convictions. Compare to previous years. This may further dismiss or support the OP's claim...well not support, because it's still garbage, but dismiss or support that their may be overuse of lethal force.
I don't care how many perps supercop has claimed to have shoot or killed, and supercop should be attacking the OP, not me. But I appreciate just the facts from my listed requests from above, from a macro standpoint, or at least STAY ON TOPIC (and, what's this, my 3rd attempt at this?).
On the other hand, a few cases have resulted in some significant pay-outs by local police departments. One department in particular seems to have much more than its share of cases. I have to believe that leadership "sets a tone" and some departments are more willing to tolerate accept violence and overly violent officers than others.
Years ago I worked in law enforcement for 3-1/2 years. I don't claim that this makes me anything like the same kind of old veteran cop as Phil306, but this was long enough for me to get a solid basic picture of what police work and police officers are about. The departments in the local area where I worked were clean, as in not the kind of department MarkG referst to in the post above that tends to have more than their share of questionable incidents, so I can't speak from experience about what happens in a bad department that cultivates a culture where abusive officers are tolerated, but in the years since my stint in law enforcement I have observed some things from the outside, with the perspective of someone who has a solid degree of inside knowledge. My observation has been that generally bad police departments are usually found in places where there is widespread corruption in the local culture in general.
Of particular note are the kinds of old boy networks often associated with big-city politics, especially in older cities (sometimes in old small cities as well as large) with a longstanding culture of cronyism, and tightly cohesive neighborhoods where the same families have lived for generations. I'm talking about the kind of place where people who move in from outside the neighborhood are shunned by the longtime locals, where newcomers are shut out of jobs (except possibly for a few of them who are hired to do the actual work so the townies are free to use their "work" time making deals with each other), and where a townie guy might start a fight in a local bar, secure in the knowledge that even though he's at fault, the neighbors, the local cops, and the local judges will all see to it that he's protected from consequences, and where the poor sap he decided to pick on in the bar might actually end up facing trumped up charges.
In a case like that, I truly don't know what to suggest about dealing with police corruption in particular. In such places as I've just described, corruption among the cops is part of something much bigger, which involves the entire local culture. That's a tough one to deal with.
Similarly, in big cities in general, not just notoriously corrupt places like Chicago or New Orleans, but in most big cities, the sheer size of the municipal departments lends itself to inefficiency. All too often, the tendency to take the easy way out in an inefficient bureaucracy, possibly combined with pressure from unions (and there are police unions), means that bad employees in whatever occupation just get shuffled from division to division or department to department until they finally retire. Again, this is a systemic problem that runs much deeper than what happens in police departments in particular.
Quote:
Originally Posted by markg91359
There are people in all occupations who are unsuited to be in those careers. The system has to have a way to identify them and remove them. I think you would agree there are some people who may like the idea of having a badge and a gun and may like the sense of power that this gives them. I would be interested in hearing your thoughts sometime on how we can best deal with these types. I want to protect competent police officers, but prevent this type of person from harming the public.
Regarding individual bad officers, like the power-hungry guy MarkG describes here, you might be surprised who a lot of the bad apples are. From what I saw lo those years ago, it seemed that often the officers who showed the signs of this kind of attitude, or the potential for this, were the clean-cut nice guy cops who were hired in attempts to "humanize" police departments, and who took the job because at first they wanted to help people. These officers tended to become severely bitter after they found that the public they had at first expected would adore them for being caring and helpful just viewed them as cops, just like any other cops. Some of these officers really became ornery over time.
The tough-guy old-time coppers, on the other hand, had a more balanced view of things. You wouldn't have wanted to mess with those guys, but they generally wouldn't really be out to get you either, because they understood that a lot of people would automatically dislike them, or at least be kind of standoffish around them, since a lot of people basically don't like cops. The old coppers knew this and shrugged it off both because they were genuinely tough guys who weren't going to be fazed by a little ill will from the public and because they hadn't gone into the job expecting the public to adore them, so they didn't become bitter when that turned out not to be the case.
In any case, I'd say that MarkG is onto something with the idea that the culture within a department (which I believe often reflects the larger local community) will affect the number of bad-cop incidents. In a reasonably clean department, like those in the area where I worked, really bad behavior would not be tolerated, and the bitter wanted-to-be-good-guys cops would understand the limits on getting pushy with citizens.
From what I saw back in the day, it seemed that the people who because of their basic personalities were constantly on big power trips, who were attracted to law enforcement in the first place for this very reason, usually would be weeded out in the hiring process. Those who made it through and were hired usually didn't stay around very long. Once they realized that police work was a job--a hard, often tedious job at that--and not the constant adventure of swaggering around like bad dudes that they had envisioned, they usually concluded that this was not the occupation for them.
I do have major issues with "No Knock" search warrants. There have been many mistakes, with those. Also, if any guys came in my house, yelling, at night, I would think it was a home invasion, bullets would fly.
I can find my own statistics, but that's not the main topic, it's been discussed in previous threads and you should respond there, not here. I think I was fair with my original post, which dismissed the OPs assertations that "police killed one innocent person every day". That seems pretty far from a totally biased view as you would find in some, but to stay on the topic I would like to see some statistics that indicate how many shooting resulted in lawsuits? How many in prosecutions, how many in convictions. Compare to previous years. This may further dismiss or support the OP's claim...well not support, because it's still garbage, but dismiss or support that their may be overuse of lethal force.
I don't care how many perps supercop has claimed to have shoot or killed, and supercop should be attacking the OP, not me. But I appreciate just the facts from my listed requests from above, from a macro standpoint, or at least STAY ON TOPIC (and, what's this, my 3rd attempt at this?).
Fair enough. I looked back over the thread, and found that in fact you were the person who pointed out that the article cited in the opening post presented the numbers for ALL officer-involved shootings, so that the OP wrote an inaccurate headline with the claim that this many INNOCENT people are shot. Apologies for getting on your case as much as I did. On the other hand, I certainly did not take Phil306's claim to have been involved in four of these cases to be any kind of boasting. More like trying to let us know that he really understands what happens after an officer-involved shooting. To accuse him of boasting about this, and keep sarcastically calling him supercop, is inflammatory, and in fact is also likely to move the thread off topic as Phil's personal experiences become the center of discussion, more than the general issues and the related stats.
I do have major issues with "No Knock" search warrants. There have been many mistakes, with those. Also, if any guys came in my house, yelling, at night, I would think it was a home invasion, bullets would fly.
It seems that a lot of those situations involve drug raids. As far as I'm concerned, I'd be in favor of legalizing drugs--with proper regulation, similar to what we have now with alcohol. I have various reasons for having this view, but a reduction in tragic no-knock incidents is another benefit that we'd likely see as a result. Of course we know about how soon we're likely to see drugs legalized.
I do have major issues with "No Knock" search warrants. There have been many mistakes, with those. Also, if any guys came in my house, yelling, at night, I would think it was a home invasion, bullets would fly.
Jasper "no knock warrants" are insane. Personally, I know of NO law enforcement agencies in this area which use them. I've never have and never would. They are just accidents waiting to happen. No amount of dope is worth someone's life.
Jasper "no knock warrants" are insane. Personally, I know of NO law enforcement agencies in this area which use them. I've never have and never would. They are just accidents waiting to happen. No amount of dope is worth someone's life.
I had a case once where the police obtained a "no knock warrant" and burst into some poor guy's home at about 1:00 a.m. They had the whole family lined up in the living room at gun point when they discovered they had gone to the wrong address.
There was a case in West Valley, with a "No Knock" search, Mark, you may have even been involved...or heard about it. The police raided this guy's house, he thought it was a home invasion, he shot at the police, protecting his family, they killed him right in front of his wife and two daughters. Horrible. Sure...the guy sold some dope, once in awhile....but, they found absolutely no drugs in the home. Just some legal guns and a "scale", they tried to convict the guy in the paper as a dangerous, major drug kingpin, for having a professional scale in his house. Right. I have one too, I weigh flour for baking bread. It is more accurate than using cups. I believe his family got bank on that whole fiasco.
Really statswise that nothing compared to the number killed each day by citizens for no reason that can be found.Also too mnay police arre killed each eyar. Cpompare4d tot eh number of violent calls that poice get :I think its to be expected especailly now days in these violent times.That murder si the elading cause of death for young black men I think says just what we send police into e.
I have a lot of respect for the North Las Vegas Police Department. They manage to handle their business without killing people most of the time. No doubt it's a tough job.
He's still with Metro. After getting in trouble for falsifying paperwork and shooting unarmed people, they gave him a paperwork job.
There are good, even heroic cops out there, and I respect those people immensely. That said, I avoid any contact with law enforcement if I can.
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