The majority of Cops are just people trying to do a tough job, they range from a complete spectrum of Awesome! to being worse than the criminals they’re suppose to police. Unfortunately those at the latter end of the spectrum have the capability of causing tremendous damage by virtue of their position, and it’s even more unfortunate that Police culture protects even truly bad cops unless there’s some extreme undeniable evidence (aka a video) of wrongdoing out of a sense of misguided “brotherhood”.
It would be nice to see mandatory body cameras nationwide, body cams are by no means perfect but they are a nice first step in reducing abuses and protecting both the officer and suspect.
In yet another case - apologies if it’s been mentioned but I only read back a few pages in the thread - a deputy meant to pull out his taser but somehow pulled his gun and killed a man when he was trying to assist in an arrest in Tulsa. The video shows this. And it turns out this should become a huge lawsuit and maybe a lever to change things generally. Why? Because the guy isn’t an actual cop but is a donor, in this case a wealthy insurance executive, who has received training but not as much as an actual officer and who, according to the sheriff’s department, aren’t supposed to be assisting on arrests but are used for traffic control and clerical assistance in the field. As described in the [Tulsa paper](http://www.tulsaworld.com/newshomepage1/sheriff-s-office-reserve-deputy-who-fired-fatal-shot-was/article_3d1f3fe7-43cd-5fa1-9e8c-d8b3aefe2504.html): “Although he had training and experience for the arrest team, he’s not assigned to the arrest team,” Clark said of Bates’ role on the task force. “He came to render aid during the altercation, but he’s in a support role during the operation. That means keeping notes, doing counter-surveillance, things like that.”
There is a use of force policy in Tulsa but this is a lawsuit in the making: a lesser trained reserve officer who volunteers time and wears a uniform because he gives money to the department pulls out the wrong weapon and kills a man. And as the story notes, a lot of these reserve deputies are well off, which means deep pockets, which means a big potential verdict against this man, against the department, against the city and/or county, etc. And maybe that will discourage this particular idiocy in which departments essentially sell the rights to act as a police officer.
I follow, for example, a small township in MI near where I’m from which has been collecting money from hundreds of people, many not living anywhere nearby, who then get issued police credentials that enable them to carry weapons, etc.
And the reserve officer who pulled out the gun instead of the taser is 70 years old! I believe he genuinely just made a mistake, but this just points out the absurd overreliance on the use of force in policing. Why did this guy even have a taser or a gun? He’s not a cop.
Busdriver, did you read either of the articles linked by Cobrat and LasMa? If you’re seriously interested in knowing the answer to that question, I suggest you start there. Pleasant as the Nile breezes are this time of year, you still might want to consider exiting the barge.
I think it’s in the best interest of all, officers and the communities they police, to have as many cameras as possible documenting police encounters. They protect and vindicate officers who are clearly justified in using force, and hopefully would serve to keep in check those inclined to abuse their power (though that doesn’t seem to have entered the equation in the case of the officers helicopter news cameras caught assaulting the man who had already surrendered). That that sentiment isn’t as widespread among police departments and politicians as one would hope, speaks volumes.
Wow, that’s disturbing. What a ridiculous practice. Tulsa might indeed end up paying out the nose for this death. We lived there for a year in the mid-eighties. Glad we moved, not the least reason being its position along tornado alley.
“Busdriver, did you read either of the articles linked by Cobrat and LasMa? If you’re seriously interested in knowing the answer to that question, I suggest you start there”.
I did read through LasMa’s article. There is obviously a large amount of stupidity and raging testosterone going on in those departments. My question was more of a rhetorical one. Though in full disclosure, I have some military aviation t-shirts that some might consider rather offensive hanging in my closet, unless my husband threw them out. There are some professions that attract people with an overabundance of ego and testosterone, in my opinion. I suspect that some military units that are deployed on the front lines are similar, and I think that many police officers do feel that they are on the front lines. Much of their job involves dealing with people who have been abusive and criminal. I am sure they get jaded quickly, and lose their respect for others. I would not want to be a police officer, no matter what the salary was.
I rarely read through Cobrats posts anymore. I have learned my lesson in that regard.
lergnom, Cardinal, poetsheart - you’ve left out one of the most disturbing parts, IMO, of the story about the killing of the unarmed black man in Tulsa by a 73 yr old rich guy who basically bought himself a gun and badge
I have a hard time accessing the video/audio that contains the “f— your breath” part via the Daily News site and the one I eventually get to is pretty crummy, but there is decent audio and fair video on facebook https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=576444525791519
Oh, and to make it even more special, while the man was gasping for breath and dying a cop is crushing the man’s head into the pavement with a knee. Yay, cops!!
@poetsheart - There was a police helicopter at a very low altitude, the one which brought the officers to the remote location. So they wouldn’t have been surprised to hear a chopper overhead. Apparently they didn’t scan the skies to see if there was anything else, but there was also a news chopper at much higher altitude. They thought they were alone, and behaved accordingly.
Regarding Tulsa, they deserve whatever they get in terms of lawsuits, settlement payouts, firings of police brass, etc. How stupid can you be? Geez.
Thanks, Donna L, you beat me to it! I was getting ready to post that one here.
The senior cop kept reassuring Slager over and over that he can just relax for a while, because no one is going to ask him any questions for a FEW DAYS
And the oh-so-casual reference to “the last one we had” is disgusting.
Why does it seem that it is so often the foreign press that manages to do decent investigative reporting on all the crap that is going on in the US?
Regarding the Tulsa shooting, because the victim had a criminal past, they probably would’ve gotten away with saying it was accidental. They could have said, hey we didn’t know if he still had a gun on him. Stuff is about to hit the fan, or at least it should. Let me get this straight… So wealthy donors, who I guess after they’ve made their millions, are bored, and need new challenge. They are allowed for all intent and purpose to become cops because of their donations. In addition to that, they guy was in his seventies! WTH??? I don’t have words to express the pure idiocy of this policy.
Question, why are unlicensed reserve Cops allowed to ride around armed? Is Tulsa that short of real Cops that they had to resort to jokers like this guy? This policy is just bad juju waiting to happen as evidenced here.
Just realized that the link to the good complete audio/video of the “F— your breath” incident that I posted above was censored by CC, I guess because it is on Facebook. just substitute facebook.com where CC put the asterisks.
The yahoo video link above censors out virtually all of the obscenities yelled by the cops as the victim is lying there dying and it so CONVENIENTLY ends right before one of the cops says “F— your breath” in response to the victim saying “I’m losing my breath”
The guy was already ON THE GROUND and subdued before 73 yr old gramps supposedly attempted to tase him. Even the taser would have been unnecessary, and now the guy is dead.