The Firing Line Forums - View Single Post - Thoughts, opinions, reactions to provacative article...

bk688 · February 13, 2012, 11:12 AM

I couldn't finish more than half of the article. Talk about slander!

There are several issues with the police/civilian relationship.
1. People are always upset with those who break the law, but the second they get caught breaking the law themselves, many of them believe they have free rein to verbally assault the officer. Quite frankly, some of the people who get pulled over for minor traffic violations deserve to get kicked in the head for their attitude and mouth.

2. The quality of police officers heired in many places is questionable. This is why many departments now require degree's. Not that a piece of paper solves much, but officers with degrees are FAR less likely to use unreasonable force. The second part of this is their unions. It is such a pain in the rear to get rid of a bad officer because of their unions. My department has a dozen officers that should never have been hired, but Admin refuses to get rid of them out of fear of law suits.

3. Running the department: Pure and simple, if I work a 16 hour shift because my co-workers think its fun to abuse their sick time and admin refuses to discipline them for it, that speeding stop at hour 15 isn't going to be pleasant for anyone. If I have supervisors who talk down to officers, have no people skills, and play the favorites' game, it is not going to be a pleasant day. I could go on forever like this. the opposite argument is that those problems shouldn't be brought to the street. Well isn't that the pot calling the kettle black. Ever have a bad day at work and then snap at your kid at home for doing something you normally would have been more patient with? Welcome to the grumpy authority club!

4. Training! Officers are rarely trained to the standard necessary. We ask these people to preform a paramilitary job, refuse to fund them (this isn't just the economy, imagine tripling you local PD's budget just for training), and when we do raise the budget our Chiefs and Admin personnel think that if they buy their officers new cars, replace shotguns with rifles, buy cool computerized bla bla bla, that they will have a force of robocops. The truth is that an officer who is constantly trained (imagine a month of training then a month on the street repeated for an officers entire career) the officers are far more likely to be able to handle a situation properly. This is one reason we see departments hiring large amounts of ex-military personnel. They believe that this prior training negates the lack of training in the future, a horrible miscalculation.

February 13, 2012, 11:12 AM	#6
bk688 Member Join Date: May 24, 2009 Posts: 53	Wow I couldn't finish more than half of the article. Talk about slander! There are several issues with the police/civilian relationship. 1. People are always upset with those who break the law, but the second they get caught breaking the law themselves, many of them believe they have free rein to verbally assault the officer. Quite frankly, some of the people who get pulled over for minor traffic violations deserve to get kicked in the head for their attitude and mouth. 2. The quality of police officers heired in many places is questionable. This is why many departments now require degree's. Not that a piece of paper solves much, but officers with degrees are FAR less likely to use unreasonable force. The second part of this is their unions. It is such a pain in the rear to get rid of a bad officer because of their unions. My department has a dozen officers that should never have been hired, but Admin refuses to get rid of them out of fear of law suits. 3. Running the department: Pure and simple, if I work a 16 hour shift because my co-workers think its fun to abuse their sick time and admin refuses to discipline them for it, that speeding stop at hour 15 isn't going to be pleasant for anyone. If I have supervisors who talk down to officers, have no people skills, and play the favorites' game, it is not going to be a pleasant day. I could go on forever like this. the opposite argument is that those problems shouldn't be brought to the street. Well isn't that the pot calling the kettle black. Ever have a bad day at work and then snap at your kid at home for doing something you normally would have been more patient with? Welcome to the grumpy authority club! 4. Training! Officers are rarely trained to the standard necessary. We ask these people to preform a paramilitary job, refuse to fund them (this isn't just the economy, imagine tripling you local PD's budget just for training), and when we do raise the budget our Chiefs and Admin personnel think that if they buy their officers new cars, replace shotguns with rifles, buy cool computerized bla bla bla, that they will have a force of robocops. The truth is that an officer who is constantly trained (imagine a month of training then a month on the street repeated for an officers entire career) the officers are far more likely to be able to handle a situation properly. This is one reason we see departments hiring large amounts of ex-military personnel. They believe that this prior training negates the lack of training in the future, a horrible miscalculation.