Forum: Author Hangout

It's far more likely a rifle or shotgun is retrieved as they are exiting the vehicle in that situation.

Not all police departments place long-arms in all of their vehicles, as some only put them in General Duties vehicles and Special Activities vehicles, while others don't put any in vehicles at all.

Possibly true for your area, but can you say the same for every law enforcement organisation in the USA. When I was writing Odd Man in College I corresponded a lot with a few of the police forces in the Atlanta region and learned a lot about the mixed up way the US law enforcement system is.

Many large colleges and universities have their own police forces and very few actually carry side arms, let along long-guns in cars. Many smaller police forces in smaller cities do not have long-guns in their cars except for the shift commander's car. While most major metropolitan city forces in places like LA would have a Remington 870 Riot gun in most of their cars not all of the other law enforcement units in the same areas would be so equipped due to the financial restraints on them.

Not every city has a police force, some of the smaller incorporated cities still use the county sheriff and his deputies.

It's a real mixed bag and will vary from force to force and the duties the officers are carrying out. For example, two cops working in the detectives are not likely to have a riot gun or any rifle in their car, even when the general duties cars of that same force will be so armed.

Atlanta PD

In and of themselves, right now Atlanta PD is a joke. That's why Buckhead wants to pull out of being part of Atlanta, because the civilian supervisors have set such tight ROEs (Rules of Engagement) on responding officers, nothing can happen.

Also, that's why I asked what size department. At the same time, our motorcycle cops carry AR-15s is special racks on their bikes. And I'm in Oklahoma - where the police will shoot their own windshield out to stop a suspect.

I can tell you, basing your comments only on Atlanta PD is going to be a mistake.

I wasn't basing my comment solely on the situation in Atalanta, but pointing out that as a major example of how complex the law enforcement situation was in the USA as in the Atalanta Metropolitan area there's about a dozen different law enforcement organisation and each has their own set of equipment, policies, and budget restraints. That's also the one I have the most detailed knowledge of, but I've contacted and dealt with many US law enforcement organisations over the years while researching various areas for my stories.

There's also the number of TV shows about the real law enforcement shows in action with 'ride along reporters and cameras' and the amount of gear some of them carried was interesting. I especially liked the shows about the Alaska State Troopers and the Navajo Nation Police.

Atlanta police, as Carl previously mentioned, have become a joke.

Now, is that the Atlanta Police Department only or are you also including the several other law enforcement organisations working in Atlanta that do not come under the control of the Atlanta Mayor like the various country Sheriff's Departments and other city police forces belonging to the smaller cities on it's edge?

If there IS an immediate threat to others, then they'll go in

Or not :-(

AJ

It's in the 1990s, and it's two Los Angeles detectives. It's loosely based on the scenario in the movie Falling Down, except there are two cops - detectives - not one. The suspect is similar to the Michael Douglas character, an unemployed guy who goes on a one-day rampage. He's in a diner at that point. The movie, as I remember it, has Robert Duvall chasing Douglas after Duvall's partner is shot. Duvall - perhaps somewhat unrealistically - calls for back-up but doesn't wait for it even though Douglas is trapped at the end of a pier.

May I describe the scenario to see if it's even remotely plausible? The point is, like in the movie, the unemployed defense worker is going to try a suicide by cop. There is the option that he actually tells them that (which is much like what happens in the movie) or they figure it out from the way he is acting.

One of the cops (I have her as a female detective) tries to distract him by offering to buy him a soda. And since he is stressed out and truly thirsty from the day he has been having, he accepts it. That gives her a few minutes to chat with him and convince him to surrender. The gun is in his jacket, as in the movie. (I know, it turns out to be a water pistol.)

I considered the idea that she disarms him herself, but that would be pretty risky. It's also risky to let him remove the gun himself. It struck me that that the safest option would be to have him lie on the floor so that he could be cuffed. There is something a bit anti-climatic about that however.

Maybe, but I thought that a fatal shooting, even if justified, can be pretty traumatic. If anybody has different knowledge, I'd like hear about it. Possibly it's different than killing in war, where there may be days or weeks of preparation and travel to the battlefield, plus the usual dehumanization of the enemy. A civilian shooting is usually close-up and abrupt.

Another thing they are being taught is to empty their magazines every time they shoot.

You've got Rule 37 confused with reality.

Rule 37: There is no overkill. There is only open fire and reload.

As for your comment regarding traffic stops, you're also confused. They're being taught to assume that the traffic stop WILL be dangerous until proven otherwise. Also, make sure your dash cam and your body cam are operational, because even if you follow procedure, without video evidence to back up your statement, our litigious society will assume you've done wrong.

Keep in mind that calling police officers sociopaths because of their training isn't right. Police officers are becoming that way because Mommy and Daddy ... if there IS a Daddy ... didn't spend the first ten to fifteen years of juniors life teaching him that you respect the police officer, even when he's giving you a ticket and you simply comply with his orders, they've taught him to yell, scream, and otherwise get right into the police officers face.

The sociopaths are the assholes that were burning down courthouses last summer. And the elected assholes that put ROEs on the police so they couldn't do what they should have done.

(Oh, and if you've never personally fired a pistol in a sudden and surprise combat situation, there's no such thing as calm and aimed fire, it's 'send something downrange to fuck up HIS firing while you're finding cover'.)

It wasn't long back that a teen was killed for not dropping a knife.

Think of it as evolution in action - Niven/Pournelle

Maybe, but I thought that a fatal shooting, even if justified, can be pretty traumatic.

From speaking to officers who had been involved in such, the post shooting investigations and paperwork is what causes most of the trauma because they are handled on the 'guilty until proven innocent' method with an assumption of there was no need to shoot.

I was under the impression that American police offices kill more suspects per capita than most other developed countries. (I have no idea what they do in Iran or Nigeria. Brazil seems to have a lot of police-civilian shootings.). I believe British police still don't carry firearms during normal patrolling.

America is a uniquely strange place when it comes to violence. We may have the least restrictive gun laws compared to Europe, Japan, and other places. American civilians own a large number of firearms, and we may be the only country with something like the Second Amendment (I'm not going to get into the interpretation of that).

Everything is subjective if you want to go that route. I specifically excluded Iran and Nigeria, and I could have also excluded many other countries. I think it is fair to compare American police forces with those in Britain, Germany, Japan, and other countries. Where exactly one makes the comparison is of course subjective.

It depends on how you look at it.



But yeah, worldwide is much worse. I think I did mention that Brazil is pretty bad. Venezuela is off the charts.

Just curious, why are you so emotionally invested in this?

What I'm invested in is the software on this site. How did the link get into the whole text?

I have seen no instance, however, where a police officer was deemed to be guilty just because he or she used their weapon.

I think you're misunderstanding what Ernest is saying. It's not that they're found guilty automatically, it's that the Internal Affairs investigation PRESUMES guilt, and has to find evidence to prove innocence, versus the standard which should be presumed innocent.

The biggest issue we're dealing with in law enforcement within the last few years is that the bad apples are being blown out of proportion, thus having a media change of the public perception. Are there bad cops? Sure. Always have been. Is it endemic of all police forces? No, and also, never has been.

How many of us used to watch "COPS", where the announcer would always say, 'All suspects are presumed innocent unless found guilty in a court of law". What we're seeing with the media pushing the 'bad cop' narrative is that 'All cops are presumed guilty by the court of public opinion, regardless of the facts'. Ferguson, Missouri - 'Hands up, don't shoot' - was a FALSE narrative, to push a political agenda. Louisville, Kentucky, with Breona Taylor - was a FALSE narrative, to push a political agenda. George Floyd was a politically biased narrative, with public pressure changing testimony - as has been found out in sworn testimony that will go to Chauvin's appeal.

Just wondering, why do you think this is happening so much recently? What social changes have occurred?

Actually, controversy over police conduct goes back a long way. The Harlem riots of 1943 were caused, I believe, by a police shooting that resulted in a Black soldier being wounded, but a rumor went around that he had been killed. Almost every racial disturbance since then has been caused by police actions or allegations of actions, although some would argue that those were just pretexts for deeper causes. (E.g., see the Kerner Commission report.)

Just wondering, why do you think this is happening so much recently? What social changes have occurred?

From an analysis as a Criminologist (Master of Science), I'm going to look at some quotes by Barack Obama.

When he was running for President, when asked if he was concerned about Republican attacks upon him, he said, "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun." That set the tone for many blacks because they heard the quote, but not the context.

When his friend was arrested for failure to cooperate with police, he said, "The Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home. . . . What I think we know — separate and apart from this incident — is that there is a long history in their country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately, and that's just a fact.'

In referring to his own grandmother (remember, Obama's mother was white), he said, "The point I was making was not that Grandmother harbors any racial animosity. She doesn't. But she is a typical white person..."

And just to show how he really felt, he also said, "I don't believe it is possible to transcend race in this country. Race is a factor in this society. The legacy of Jim Crow and slavery has not gone away. It is not an accident that African-Americans experience high crime rates, are poor, and have less wealth. It is a direct result of our racial history."

Of course, the minister at the church he attended, Jeremiah Wright, wasn't afraid of saying things, as Obama quoted, "It is this world, a world where cruise ships throw away more food in a day than most residents of Port-au-Prince see in a year, where white folks' greed runs a world in need, apartheid in one hemisphere, apathy in another hemisphere...That's the world! On which hope sits!"

Here's a reality check: The US had pretty much worked its way through the racial problem prior to his election. By his words and actions, as well as his willing accomplices in the liberal media (please, don't anyone say they're not, everyone knows better), he did more to destroy relations between the communities and the police, and to increase the seeds of racism in the United States.

Factual numbers: Blacks make up 13% of the population of the United States. Blacks commit 51% of all homicides and 37% of all violent crime in the United States.

Two quotes from LBJ: "These Negroes, they're getting pretty uppity these days and that's a problem for us since they've got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we've got to do something about this, we've got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference."

And is discussion regarding the Civil Rights Act, he said, "I'll have those niggers voting Democratic for 200 years." (Before you run off to Snopes and go, no evidence - it's from a book by a steward on Air Force One that had a lot more info about LBJ right - like how he liked to walk around nude even with people present - and Snopes lost all credibility this week when they had to admit their founder was making things up.)

So, my conclusion is that through his contempt for the white majority of the United States, as well as his contempt for police attempting to do their job, fit in with the principles espoused by other leaders of his political party and through media bias, engendered ... well, everything we saw last summer, from the Antifa & BLM riots, to the recent police shooting of Ella French in Chicago. (Where neither the Mayor NOR the Police Commissioner said her name right at her memorial services, NOR would the Police Commissioner allow the traditional playing of the bagpipes at the service, saying, 'We don't have time for this shit.')

The Internal Affairs is within the very police department being investigated. Police investigating the police. Can you document specific cases where some Internal Affairs units presumed officers guilty and the officers had to prove their innocence?

Are you kidding? That's the whole POINT of IA - they ALWAYS assume the officer is dirty. They're not there to clear the officer's name, they're job is find the evidence to convict them. That's why no one in a police force likes IA. It's not police investing police - it's like the IG showing up for an inspection at a military base. Their job is to FIND things that are wrong.

And I have WAY too damn many friends in law enforcement that we've sat around drinking beers on weekends that have told me this. Stuff doesn't get recorded where you're going to just go, here, let me give you THIS link! Is it anecdotal? Sure. Does that mean it's not valid? Not in the least.

I have seen no instance, however, where a police officer was deemed to be guilty just because he or she used their weapon. Do you have specifics of the cases you cite? Just because they are investigated does not mean an assumption of guilt.

First of all, not all countries or legal jurisdictions work the same way as they do in the USA. Here in Australia there are two major groups involved deciding if a case will go to court: the Department of Police Prosecutors (DPP) and the Crown Solicitor's Office (CSO). In general the DPP handle all initial cases and the CSO takes over for the major cases. With regards to an officer involved shooting the investigation is made by a special police unit and the initial decision as to what action to take is made by the head of that unit and then confirmed or overruled by the Police Commissioner (PC). If the PC decides legal action may be warranted against the officer involved the matter is referred to the DPP and they will make a decision on as to lay charges or not. None of these people are elected officials.

I do have cases I could cite, but in doing so I would also identify the officers involved and that would likely cause issues for them.

As to my comment on being 'guilty until proven innocent,' I was referring to the manner in which the investigating officers handled the investigation. As far as I know, in every law enforcement organisation all officer involved shootings are thoroughly investigated and it's only after the investigation is a decision made as to how the matter will be handled, and in most cases the incident is found to be justified and no further action is taken while in some cases the officer is complimented on their quick actions in saving lives. In every one of the cases where I have any personal knowledge of, either directly or via communication with the officer involved, the death were found to be justified.

The sad part is the way the investigators handled the investigation so upset the officers that it made some of them reluctant to draw their firearm again, and it made some of them resign from the service due to how they were treated by the department's investigators.

I'm regretting starting this thread. I thought it was a straightforward question but I started a political firestorm. Oh well, too late now.

I should stick to love and sex and keep the police out of it.

I'm regretting starting this thread. I thought it was a straightforward question but I started a political firestorm. Oh well, too late now.

I should stick to love and sex and keep the police out of it.

The original post was too wide open with so many variable that I think if you'd set out the whole situation at the start it would've been answered before people got off into the tangents.

I'm regretting starting this thread. I thought it was a straightforward question but I started a political firestorm. Oh well, too late now.

I read this and had to laugh. How long have you been on this site? Unless it's a topic that's completely straightforward, there's ALWAYS thread drift.

Whether it's the grinning dick coming along and posting some definition, or some other thing, they ALWAYS drift and wander aimlessly for quite a while. Especially when you get a couple of members of the group that seem to go at each other in every thread they're in.