Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Abetting Police Aggression: The 'COPS Effect' - William Norman Grigg

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What's wrong Sammy, you won't answer the questions ??

I am not rilled up Sammy, i just want to hear your answers as to how it should be from your perspective, but with no knowledge, just assumptions.

QTip, it was becoming rather common from 1992 or so for me to find that some real hardassed scumbags I was arresting (who were at least originally from Schenectady) were showing addresses that were out in the boonies. It had to have been a rude shock to the locals in those areas to find lowlifes like them in their midst. Things changed much faster than most places could absorb. Get one murder in a rural area and there was a resulting demand for more police coverage. That ball of wax got much bigger as it rolled downhill.

You got that right Twin. You should have seen the changes that hit Oneonta when Job Corps. arrived on the scene. Those folks were warned but they didn't listen and now they are paying the price. You still can't get the liberal local politicians to say we screwed up.

Qtip
Soli Deo Gloria!

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What do you know about the supervision of these agencies? Do you know the chief, the Sheriff? What type of leaders are they? Do they project a negetive public attitude?

Any organization, be it private or public, is no better then it's leaders or supervisors. These administrators set the tone for the attitude of the agency, manytimes the supervisors fail to correct that attitude.

Manytimes it's a case of a few who project that attitude, but i've seen examples where surpervision fails to make the corrective action, due to various reasons and the issue continues.

I'll put it in plain and simple text, just because a person is in charge, that doesn't mean they have the guts, to stand up and take charge.

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To draw a line connecting the BATF & FBI, and other Fed. LE to city, county, state LE, using Waco as an example, is a long stretch.

Qtip Yes there are changes here in upstate and one has to change with the times, Things and Ways of downstate are making there way up here. I have seen the same "fringe" you talk about. My youngest daughter started off to be a NYS Trooper, She is now a RN in a great Hospital. I sleep better. Thanks Web

I was actually enjoying the read when the author went all BDS on us.
Sure, nobody ever broke into a home and tortured the occupants UNTIL the Bush Regime. And now they are actually waterboarding people, really haven't seen that in the news.
Credibility GONE.
I stopped reading the article right there.
It's like they have Tourette's Syndrome, they can't go three paragraphs w/o mentioning how much GW sucks.

what was the question again? Can you repeat them? I just was not paying attention, as you usually don't have a darn thing to say other than your usual ranting that no one understands you.

I am dedicating this Lyle Lovett favorite to you hunter, cause no one knows you...........
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQbTRcUbHwY

Just too many good and not so good responses to quote here, so I'll just ramble a bit.

The source of that article, while obviously bias, still kept a pretty grounded perspective, though they went out of their way to dig up lots of anecdotes.

Barak, I think you might well want to consider that "Propaganda TV" is alive and well in this country. And that rather than it being that it's an ever evolving police state, it might well be that it's an ever growing police culture that presses the boundaries of the law and community acceptance of what they can get away with. It may not be directly government sponsored, but ponder this. These shows COPS, America's Wildest Police Chases, etc, are narrated by, or consulted on by retired or former LEOs. Who then guide the "TV people" in to the world of police work, to show them "what it's like". The reason for choosing the particular perspective, obviously is multi-fold, but primarily 2 fold. The 2 most important are A: It must make good TV, and B: it must paint LEOs in a good light. The second one is more tricky sometimes. For instance: I was watching a COPS episode not long ago where they were doing a prostitution sting on the 'Johns'. As many of us here already believe that this isn't the most worthwhile use of police resources and their time, we must let those engaged in such explain why it is in front of the camera. So, if you ever watch these shows and they're doing these type raids on "vice" type deals, they spend an inordinate amount of time letting you hear the planning and debriefing. The debriefings include much back patting and reaffirmation of what good they've done. Anyway, back to "Johns" episode...they are all hidden in this area of known prostitution and have a decoy miked up...she lets the John make contact, guides the conversation to paying for sex, and when the transaction is done to the point of agreement, someone steps out of the bushes from some few feet away and yells "stop, police" or "freeze" I dont' recall which...well the guy wasn't moving to start with, and just took a step around to see what it was, instantly realized it was police pointing a gun at him and raised his hands. Just as this happened 2 more LEOs bum rushed the guy from behind and football tackled him to "take him down". So, Barak, if you watch enough of people committing what amounts to a non-violent misdemeanor being taken down by cops dressed in pseudo-swat type gear, and being treated no differently than an armed felon by being forcibly taken to the ground even when he's clearly submitted, well, after seeing that for the last 15 or so year, don't you think that a large portion of the public would believe that any and all means should be used to take down a murder suspect? Used to be LEOs were a secretive bunch, but they've discovered the use of Public Relations, and advertising. So now they "allow" the cameras on the inside, and take them where the good TV is likely to be made, all the while telling you what good they're doing and how now days, EVERY potential criminal suspect must be considered armed and dangerous...and we've gotten the public comfortable with the police responding with great force to "potential situations", "what could be", "what might be", "whatever they can imagine to be the worst possible case scenario".

But Barak, here's the thing. Police, police work, and to some extent police policy are regionally cultural. Not every department operates like Dallas PD. Where that quasi-military attitude creeps in, it gets that way, but it's not everywhere. There are still lots of departments that are still acting more like peace officers than occupational armies. To that end, the retired police that always wanted the quasi-military way for police, have hold of TV and are using it to promote it. It's not the state, it's a certain police culture, and they have the fact that their way of doing police work, also happens to make good entertaining TV too. A real world Sgt Jack Friday, calmly knocking on his prime suspects front door to "ask him a few questions down at the station" just wont play. But I know for a fact it still exists, because I've done it very recently with some of my detectives. Just rode out in the hood, found "Willy" and asked him to hop in the car and go down the the station for a chat. A few hours later, he was being booked for murder after a confession.

This article, takes the good sensationalized TV, and sensationalizes it in a different light for the writer's own purposes.

It sounds like Archerhunter hasn't done as much reading about Waco as most liberty advocates have, and isn't aware that the Sheriff of Waco specifically asked the Feds to let him arrest Koresh peacefully the next time he came into town. Of course the Feds are murderers: they have been at least since George Washington's actions against the Whiskey Rebellion, probably longer.

But what the incident in the article shows is that your separation between Federal and local is shrinking. The Feds needlessly destroyed private property without apology or compensation; now local police departments are doing the same thing. In this particular instance nobody was murdered by the police, so the separation you mention does still exist to some extent; but we hear every other week or so about people being murdered by local police, frequently without apology or compensation (or prosecution), so it's certainly not beyond the realm of possibility.

.280, wouldn't you agree that there are less Sgt Jack Friday approaches today and more "quasi-military" mindsets?

Not all the apples are bad, for sure, but the apple cart is in trouble.

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Oh Sammy, there's no need to keep repeating questions to you anyway, you poor old fart, you got oldtimers disease, and couldn't remember it anyway. At least your in a good spot, in your FL. gated retirement community.

I've never watched a full episode of COPS; I happened across one once, and after just two televised arrests I was too sick to my stomach to continue. So fifteen years of indoctrination I don't have, and as we both know I'm not a particularly representative sample anyway.

But I imagine that if I were forced to watch it over a long term, the beliefs I'd form from it would be more in the direction that cops are incorrigible, self-justifying rabid dogs to be avoided if possible and put down if not.

(Obviously, somebody's going to quote the last part of that paragraph and use it as a clear admission of violent paranoia, so this disclaimer is undoubtedly hopeless from the beginning: but I didn't say that's what I do believe, merely that I imagine that's what watching COPS long enough would lead me to believe.)


I understand what you're saying. But I'm less interested in the precise state of society at a given moment than I am in the direction of its change. And given your use of the word "still" above, it would seem that you and I agree on that direction.

My take - the show DALLAS SWAT probably had more to do with this than anything. I don't care what the profession is - as soon as you add a camera the personality of the job changes.

I highly doubt the Dallas PD allows them to film it for free and thus (real or imagined) they feel pressured to put on a show of some sort. Kinda sounds like that's what happened here.

280Rem:

That certainly is not rambling. Well thought-out and concise reply, but definitely not rambling.

You�re also correct that local differences play a part in the image a department paints for itself. In my area when the Chief left-got himself arrested-the new chief changed the cops/swat attitude to one more traditional. From my point of view it makes for a much more comfortable atmosphere. Makes one feel we are both on the same side.

However, in Pittsburgh I see the police trying to do a job with one hand tied behind their back. In some parts of town it seems like there is a shooting every night. Some bad areas and they are more than willing to shoot each. They also don�t worry if kids, old people or police get in the way. But let an officer actually do his job and the papers are all over it and the very people he is defending protest that he could have handled it in a gentler way.
In those situations I think the cops/swat image commands more respect and makes the job slightly safer.

I don�t know the answers, but one thing I do know is there are one hellava lot more bad citizens than bad police.



Battue

The disdain is there, in the attitude of many LEOs. CrimsonTide said, "If we tear your trailer up, arresting or attempting to arrest you or yours, you can file a claim with the board of claims." He used "your trailer" instead of "house," or "dwelling." A subtle use of language to put down and imply that those reading his post are lesser (thus living in trailers).

You have made personal attacks against several people here instead of refuting their arguments. You can't seem to take an opposite position without taking a shot at someone.

As long as you and CrimsonTide and GeneL continue to effect that kind of attitude toward the people here, you're going to have a very difficult time (probably impossible) convincing folks that a lot of cops don't have an attitude of disdain. You show it to them first-hand.

Penny

Mannlicher, who would have thought that you and Barak have something in common?

Penny

"It sounds like Archerhunter hasn't done as much reading about Waco as most liberty advocates have"

True statement.

"I've never watched a full episode of COPS; I happened across one once, and after just two televised arrests I was too sick to my stomach to continue."

Pretty much the same here. I hated the COPS show first time I saw it and flat refuse to watch. First thing out my mouth was they're just programming people to accept the advancement of the Police-State. These types of tv "entertainment" look to me like pure propaganda. And to find humor and entertainment in human misery suggests very low moral standards.

Very little of what's on tv these days is worth looking at. It's rare for me to sit and watch. It bores me. It's lame. Not much good could ever come from it IMO. Mostly bad.

Yep, and not sure which came first, the chicken or the egg. COPS and it's like, have certainly sensationalized it. And unlike Hollywood movies, COPS is deemed real. In about 96 or so when I was on midnights (just picking a particular incident) we had a robbery of a grocery store. A chase ensued, shots were fired, the car in front of me took a load of 00 Buck to the winsheild (officer unharmed and continued the chase) and we lost the suspects. Clearly armed and dangerous. We got a good lead on them by daybreak and the night shift and 2 or 3 detectives went to a house where thought at least one was. 2 or 3 plainclothes detectives, and about 8 uniformed officers formed an entry team and perimeter team. No SWAT, no tear gas, no auto weapons. Only shotguns and pistols. We knocked on the door, and made a non-dynamic, but armed tactical entry and cleard the house. They weren't there. We did it that way because we were still basically in fresh pursuit, and it appeared they were "holed up." After that, the detectives did their work Jack Friday style, and made 3 uneventful arrrests. But that was more than 10 years ago. We didn't have SWAT in our Dept, but the County would have gladly sent theirs had we asked. It just didn't call for it in our minds. It was something like 10 or 12 to to 3 and we were just as well armed and better trained.

So the answer to your question, is yes, for sure. One has to wonder why, and LEO propaganda TV could be one cause. Certainly 9/11 saw a marked rise in this type of police behavior, because I think some police in their regional culture believe themselves to be the "stateside military" in a sense.

Propaganda isn't directed at the 10% on each end to the spectrum, it's directed at the 80% in the middle. In this case, all the "good law abiding" citizens that finally got to see "what cops really do" first hand on TV.



Clearly, or I thought clearly, I indicated there's an obvious shift. You noted, if I understood you correctly, that you still were in the camp that is due to a growing police state. The article raises the question is it more driven by a community acceptance driven by propaganda put out by non-state, private pro-police entities.