Thoughts on Cops

Note: This was originally posted on another forum. I have extracted my comments verbatim. Hyperlinks were added. I have not copied the original post, to which this was a response, since this is all about me, me, me. Plus, I could be wrong.

One of the things I have ALWAYS hated, even back before I was radicalized, was the "us vs. them" mentality pushed by cops. Although I have read, and continue to read, Mas Ayoob's writings, he's one of the primary offenders. When he writes about "the Job" I cringe. When I see "officer survival" advanced as the most important part of being a police officer, I not only cringe, I get angry.

Officer survival is NOT the most important part of the job.

An important part, yes. But "public safety" ought to outrank "officer survival"---otherwise, why be a cop at all? (I hope this isn't misunderstood.)

This kind of goes hand-in-hand with the militarization of law enforcement. It will surprise no one that I think this is a horrible, horrible idea. Back when I was a kid, and I'd read National Geographic stories from Spain, I would laugh at the sub-gun toting police, and the police in masks. That's so Third World, I'd think to myself. Masks! Put me down in the "Cooper corner" on this one: masks are a target designator. Bad guys wear masks. Well, color me "too stupid to foresee the future" because we've got it in spades now, right here in River City. (That's a Music Man joke, son, a Music Man joke---said in my best Foghorn Leghorn.)

Regardless of the ultimate outcome of the Yearning for Zion case, rolling in with a M113---to me---was a bad idea. It was a bad idea at Waco, and it was a bad idea in San Angelo.

I know the way the military is trained to deal with hostile encounters. (I hasten to point out for new readers that while I am a veteran, I served in peacetime, in a pretty pogue capacity, and never went anywhere, and never did anything, and am not trying to pass myself off as some salty hardened combat tactimal extreme operator. At all.)

I know the way the military is trained to deal with hostile encounters---and I don't want our police to react anywhere close to the same way. Unless I vastly misunderstand, the police are there "to protect and to serve." The military is there "to locate, close with and destroy the enemy through fire and maneuver." There ain't TOO MUCH overlap between those two things.

While Peel's professionalization of police forces did away with the "hue and cry" I remain convinced that the good old "h&c" had some real merit. It placed responsibility for the safety of the community . . . on the community. Obviously there were problems with the hue and cry as well, and in our increasingly urbanized life it would be, today, even harder to implement. Nonetheless, the trend of "outsourcing" isn't limited to call centers in Mumbai---we have increasingly surrendered our autonomy and sovereignty to others. From a division of labor standpoint, maybe that's a good thing, but it's as close to being "un-American" as I can imagine.

Unless there is credible evidence of an intent to resist arrest, sending "raiding parties" to serve warrants is, also, unAmerican. (I think, at least.) If a federal warrant needed to be served in Waco, it should have been served by two US Marshals in a USG Ford Taurus, wearing regulation grey trousers and regulation blue blazers, with regulation 3" S&W 13s on their regulation hips.

When Charles Whitman was up in the Texas Tower ("How can you shoot civilians?" "Easy--you just don't lead them as much."), both sworn officers and plain ol' walking around "civilians" gunned up and returned fire. I believe that today, any civilian producing a firearm in a situation like that would be arrested if not shot.

I am not anti-cop. But dang if I like the trend lines.