Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire How to end many police shootings

My experience with our local deputies has been in line with most Sheriff's department people I've met across the county. They have all been pretty laid back, country boys.

Police and State Troopers have been entirely different.

State Troopers in my state an be pretty stiff. When one tells a joke, I almost don't know what to do with myself.

He first encounters of anyone with a gun while working would have been fellow cops, but it was only the first
ordinary peaceful citizen with a legal gun that got her worrying...."us" and "them" attitude it seems,...I wonder
where such a greenhorn cop got that from?.......safe to say it wasn't from her time at college or secretarial position.

I think you would be surprised how many young people, especially in middle class suburbia, grow up without guns or knowing that people around them have guns. To them, the only people who have them are cops and bad guys. Nothing in our training teaches us that citizens shouldn't have guns. But, bigger agencies in liberal areas often have questions on pre-employment written exams regarding the applicants history of gun ownership. No one will admit it, but I'm sure it doesn't help your score to admit you collect guns. Liberal politicians appoint liberal leadership that impose their views via policy.

I disagree that she developed the "us vs them" attitude after becoming an LEO. Our culture develops that from our childhoods and throughout life. Cliques, sports rivalries, jobs. If you want to get angry, listen to insurance claims adjusters talk to each other at a party and laugh about how they did this or that to some schmuck.

And there it is, they are hiring 'justice warriors', not policemen.

I was almost fired from my first training phase.
My Field Training Officer (FTO), a good but young man, was ordered to bring me to the FTO office, where I promptly met the (connected) Lieutenant. Said Lieutenant began to chew me out, stating things like, "No one walks through my training program!"
I was completely startled as I did not know where this was coming from or why. Luckily for me, the bourbon on his breath brought me back to reality quickly (Mom was a drunk) and I realized it was because I was training in some of the roughest government projects the City had to offer. Now I wasn't the 24 year old college student that the majority of my Academy class was. I turned 41 during the eight month program.I had been in the US Army where I had served in the Ranger Regiment, the 7th IN (Light), and the 82 ABN.
I mustered up some tact and replied,

"With all due respect Sir, I am not one of your little college kids who's never seen a black man. I left tougher men dead on the side of the road in Panama." (Not quite true but I was pissed)

He gaped there like a goldfish and waved me out of his office.

18 years later I am working with bums under a freeway and he has retired with an outrageous salary and I hope never to meet him again.

I was the only person in my 50 member Academy class that had to provide a list of all firearms in my possession by action type and serial number in order to get hired.

That is ridiculous. Completely uncalled for. It's none of their business. 20% of gun owners probably own 80% of the guns in thijs country and prison population demographics suggests those 20% are NOT the problem. Watching gun ignorant officers try to clear weapons on scene is horrifying.

My son in law had to work 3 years in the county jail...he just went to the academy this month so maybe some county's have that figured out...

I love you, but I can't imagine wanting a job and living in California that bad.

There would be a lot fewer police shootings if there weren't so many felons who need to be shot.

Out of everything on here this one has nailed it. Follow orders, do what your told. Not real hard. Police shootings would damn near drop to zero!

Wrongful death shootings by cops are seldom prosecuted and in the few instances where they are, the conviction rate is 11%, which explains why they are seldom prosecuted.

OTOH, Plaintiff Attorneys routinely get huge out of court settlements from Municipalities for the same incident that wasn’t criminally prosecuted.

I don’t see anything that will change that situation.

Giving people military gear who don’t have a military mindset certainly increases the likelihood of bad shootings. Employing military tactics against fellow citizens should cause concern for all of us, but cops increasingly don’t see fellow citizens........ they see enemies.

Teach your kids the truth....... The Police are not your friend. They don’t trust you and you should not trust them.

Yeah...... that’s real good advice EXCEPT that often there are multiple cops... some of them scared schitless... shouting conflicting commands. It may get to the point that a man’s best chance at surviving is to kill the cop before he kills you.

I've found that smiling at them causes them to relax.

That works for traffic stops..... most times. Not a good plan for swat teams busting your door down because they got the address wrong.

That is the thing wrong with the idea of getting people with a military background; they come in with a perception that the general population is the enemy and needs eliminated. Unhappily we have a lots of non native english speakers now, and a lot of us are hard of hearing, not counting the deaf. Long ago I heard a cop threaten that he would put anyone "on the ground" if he saw them with a gun; I carry guns out to the car all the time, and back, not always in a case. The days of walking over to the neighbors and showing him a new something and sighting it (unloaded) down the street are gone. I am even careful boresighting across the back field from the deck now, looks right at a highway.

Open your door and get whacked by cop, having not done one damn thing wrong. We're pretty much already there.

A cop who wrongfully kills someone is guilty of a crime.

That seems lost on a lot of folks.

One way of lowering the crime rate is prosecuting criminals, but oftentimes the witnesses to the crime are other cops and we have ample evidence from lots of cops who are forum members that unbiased testimony is impossible to come by.

So...... the bad cops lose their job and get hired by another agency.

Can you give us an example of this?

If a cop kills someone outside the sanctity of justifiable homicide, they ARE usually prosecuted. Beyond that, the state law enforcement licensing agency will pull their license.

My experience has been that nobody hates a bad cop worse than other cops.