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I will never get tired of hearing idiots extolling the virtues of "small government" while being totally ignorant to the massive inefficiencies in having dozens of law enforcement agencies in each region with a web of jurisdiction and independent training, management and equipment systems.
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Apr 4, 2015 01:51
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DrakeriderCa posted:I will never get tired of hearing idiots extolling the virtues of "small government" while being totally ignorant to the massive inefficiencies in having dozens of law enforcement agencies in each region with a web of jurisdiction and independent training, management and equipment systems. Small government and local units of government are two completely different things. My state, Illinois, has one of the largest, if not the largest number of local units of governments. Something like 7000 units of government between cities, townships, libraries, school boards, forest preserves, park districts, water reclamation districts, etc. Many Republicans support eliminating some of these overlapping jurisdictions and consolidating because that saves money and is what small government is about. Maybe since you're in Canada you're talking about something else? For reference: https://www.illinoispolicy.org/reports/too-much-government-illinois-thousands-of-local-governments/ It's stupid that we have 3 man police departments, but I don't think a central state police agency controlling everything is the answer either. If anything, rolling back more police jurisdiction to the county level and absorbing some of these small town PDs would be a better way to handle things. But it would cause people to lose jobs and many towns don't want to lose local control of their police force for obvious political reasons. Oh, and the sheriff comes with its own political problems. At least on the local level you have civil service lists and not the sheriff picking whoever he wants to be hired. The Shep fucked around with this message at 02:15 on Apr 4, 2015 |
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Apr 4, 2015 02:10
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I think straight federalization of the police is the way to go. There needs to be one national standard for case law, statutes, training, hiring etc. And realistically this is possible because you can still achieve the same level of service by having X amount of cops in the geographical area that used to be the county or city or whatever just have them answer to the feds. Local government is a relic from a time when communication between the state capital in pierre and sioux falls would take a week cause some rear end in a top hat had to ride his horse there to get the governors permission or whatever. Hell it could work for all levels of government. Why do I gotta call public works to plow my street in the winter, but if I go a mile out of town the county highway shop does it, and then if its a state highway DOT handles it.
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Apr 4, 2015 02:24
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Oh god the case law...  I like when two different circuit courts have similar cases with opposing outcomes.
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Apr 4, 2015 02:31
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Branis posted:I think straight federalization of the police is the way to go. There needs to be one national standard for case law, statutes, training, hiring etc. And realistically this is possible because you can still achieve the same level of service by having X amount of cops in the geographical area that used to be the county or city or whatever just have them answer to the feds. Local government is a relic from a time when communication between the state capital in pierre and sioux falls would take a week cause some rear end in a top hat had to ride his horse there to get the governors permission or whatever. Hell it could work for all levels of government. Why do I gotta call public works to plow my street in the winter, but if I go a mile out of town the county highway shop does it, and then if its a state highway DOT handles it. I don't think that would result in anything but the same ridiculous congressional horse-trading only applied to services that are presently handled locally. In some places it might make things better, but in others it'd be a lot worse. Also, since going to work for the Border Patrol and seeing them and Customs up close and personal, I have to say uniformed Federal law enforcement is its on unique brand of shitshow. If you ever want the military to look efficient and well-run, go to work for these agencies. Imagine the military run entirely by Second Lieutenants and that's about what it's like.
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Apr 4, 2015 02:34
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Branis posted:I think straight federalization of the police is the way to go. There needs to be one national standard for case law, statutes, training, hiring etc. And realistically this is possible because you can still achieve the same level of service by having X amount of cops in the geographical area that used to be the county or city or whatever just have them answer to the feds. Local government is a relic from a time when communication between the state capital in pierre and sioux falls would take a week cause some rear end in a top hat had to ride his horse there to get the governors permission or whatever. Hell it could work for all levels of government. Why do I gotta call public works to plow my street in the winter, but if I go a mile out of town the county highway shop does it, and then if its a state highway DOT handles it. Eh, maybe incorporate everything at the state level, but I think the country has enough regional issues and differences to make uniform law in all areas more trouble than it's worth.
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Apr 4, 2015 02:40
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i'm a hard leftist so i admit i want everybody to think like me, but I hate more than anything that the idiots that populate this state make decisions about things like gay marriage and abortion but you go to neighboring minnesota and poo poo like that is legal and unfucked with. Thats the kind of poo poo i'd like to see eliminated.
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Apr 4, 2015 02:57
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Move to Minnesota?
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Apr 4, 2015 03:00
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"Just change your job"
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Apr 4, 2015 03:01
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Branis posted:i'm a hard leftist so i admit i want everybody to think like me Admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery.
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Apr 4, 2015 03:12
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Feds or State level LE would be ok to make things more uniform but good luck if you think funding issues won't be twice as hosed, and you can kiss just about any real type of community policing goodbye. Honestly I think increase funding a gently caress ton, and hire a ton of more cops at the local level. Then the local police will have the money and time to actually train, and also community police the way most people want. Several issues would be solved by just increasing budgets. Will never happen though.
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Apr 4, 2015 03:13
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Cmdr. Shepard posted:Small government and local units of government are two completely different things. No, you're talking about rational approaches to actual issues and I'm talking about the average voter who's "republican"/"conservative" because daddy said liberals are all pinko fags and their degree of political sophistication is eating up talking points and deciding to support initiatives on a binary partisan scale so when they hear "small government" they think "gently caress anything federal, we need everything to be local" basically I'm just venting about idiots who haven't even posted here so don't worry about it
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Apr 4, 2015 06:31
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What are the best qualifications to have excluding a degree or the military?
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Apr 4, 2015 11:16
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Because it's much easier to understand over the phone, especially for ESL speakers. A bit of redundancy in communications is not always a bad thing.
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Apr 4, 2015 11:17
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Untagged posted:I'm pro right to carry, and I'd like to know if you have it. Does that happen a lot, carrying with a permit while intoxicated?
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Apr 4, 2015 15:30
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we take guns off DWI drivers probably 15-20% of the time. usually its in the center console of their truck which still counts as ccw I believe.
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Apr 4, 2015 15:57
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SedanChair posted:Does that happen a lot, carrying with a permit while intoxicated? Yeah, it does. Probably not "a lot", but a lot more than one would think.
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Apr 4, 2015 16:09
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Equine Don posted:What are the best qualifications to have excluding a degree or the military? Have an older relative that works for that department, or at least one in the same county. Preferably as a supervisor. In all seriousness though, being able to articulate yourself clearly both in speech and writing is very valuable - and by clearly I mean in proper English with good grammar and spelling. On top of this being able to not only draw, but explain why you drew, logical inferences from information. There are a lot of officers that are just terrible at writing reports or testifying, and that's very bad because lawyers are UNIVERSALLY good at this. Its extremely important to always remember that you were the one on the scene not them. While the courts don't allow armchair quarterbacking in court, the other side of that coin is that you have to explain why you did what you did to people who have no idea what happened beyond what you tell them and maybe some video or witnesses. Neither witnesses or video are good to rely on either - video tends to start late, stop early, and miss important things because of camera angle and witnesses are even worse than cops ate remembering and explaining what they saw. You need to be able to convey to people clearly and articulately what you saw and heard and smelled and why that led you to take the actions you did. In particular, be able to tie individual small pieces of information together into a larger picture. There's a court case (I can't remember which one right now) in which Border Patrol agents stopped a vehicle based on 6 or 7 small facts, each of which individually would be insufficient for probable cause, but taken together created it. The defense attorney tried to argue - essentially - that because each fact taken by itself did not establish probable cause, that therefore there was none. The court ruled against this tactic, but for the officer the obligation remains to tie the facts to one another in an understandable and logical manner in the first place. This is not only in order to win court cases but for your protection and your department's. It's quite possible to do everything by the book but then talk or write yourself into trouble because you explain things as if you were talking to someone else that was there, are careless with terminology, or otherwise just didn't clearly convey the facts. Lawyers are like sharks with the scent of blood for errors in your reports or testimony. There's no such thing as being too careful or too pedantic about articulating what happened, what you did, and why you did it. A good lawyer can turn a 100% truthful report into a pack of lies in a heartbeat if it's poorly written. Even if they don't do that, a case can still get thrown out if you leave out facts becuase you think everyone knows what you know, or nobody can understand what you wrote or what you're talking about. On the plus side though, this can work in your favor too. Like I said, the average person sucks at this too. I once got taken to court on a speeding ticket I wrote because, essentially, the guy was mad that I had not called him "sir" enough times and therefore I was rude. In the midst of being cross-examined by him (which all by itself was an exercise in the irrelevant) he asked me a question that went on for a good 2 and a half or 3 minutes before he finally stopped explaining the question and let me answer. By the time he got through it all I had forgotten the beginning part and had no idea what the actual question was. I must have tried to figure it out too long becuase the judge turned to me and says "Well, aren't you going to answer the question, officer?" I looked back at him and said "Your honor, I don't understand the question." He said "Oh good, I didn't either and I'm glad I'm not the only one, Mr. <ignorant shitlord> please rephrase the question." I'm pretty sure Ignorant Shitlord wasn't sure what he was trying to ask either because I was pretty sure that the new, shorter question had nothing to do with the original either. His cross-examination ended shortly after that. Also, at some point learn some basic Spanish if you don't have it already. Even if it comes from other officers once you get hired, learn words and phrases that pertain to your job. That may be better than formal Spanish because you'll learn the slang. Pretty much anywhere in the U.S. you are going to run across people that speak Spanish better than English (or pretend to) sooner than you think - and if you have a couple characters stopped and they are talking in Spanish, you want to know if they are talking about kicking your rear end. They'll do that openly in Spanish if you are not obviously Hispanic or a Spanish speaker because they just assume that if you're white or black and not Hispanic you must not speak it.
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Apr 4, 2015 16:13
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Out of over a thousand arrests I have made or or participated in, I have testified in front of a criminal trial jury three times. I have been to maybe thirty hearings with a judge where I have been cross-examined by opposing counsel. Of the court cases I did testify in, each trial was at least a year after the arrest; one was three years after the arrest. 
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Apr 4, 2015 16:41
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Smiling Jack posted:Out of over a thousand arrests I have made or or participated in, I have testified in front of a criminal trial jury three times. I've been in over 7 years now. Given evidence in Coroner's Court twice, called to Magistrate's Court once but didn't have to stand, anticipating being called to testify in Crown Court this month. Doing everything backwards.
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Apr 4, 2015 18:09
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I have to give sworn testimony before a magistrate for every arrest, and I'm in court either as a witness or arresting officer several times a month. Sweet OT. I don't know how cops go years without testifying.
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Apr 4, 2015 18:14
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I've been on the job for 9 years and I've never testified in a criminal trial. I've been to grand jury a few times and testified in traffic court once.  I blame it on my excellent report writing. Also I've worked for slower departments and haven't made close to 1,000 arrests like our illustrious OP. Untagged posted:I have to give sworn testimony before a magistrate for every arrest hosed up if true. The Shep fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Apr 4, 2015 |
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Apr 4, 2015 18:21
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Yeah, the trick to not testifying in court is not arresting anybody. Also, never become the only Intoximeter operator for the shift or you will get called in on your day off by rear end in a top hat lawyers who don't have any questions for you, they just want to see if you are going to show up.
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Apr 4, 2015 19:08
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deratomicdog posted:Also, never become the only Intoximeter operator for the shift or you will get called in on your day off by rear end in a top hat lawyers who don't have any questions for you, they just want to see if you are going to show up. This is the vast majority of my court appearances nowadays.
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Apr 4, 2015 19:21
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deratomicdog posted:Yeah, the trick to not testifying in court is not arresting anybody. Also, never become the only Intoximeter operator for the shift or you will get called in on your day off by rear end in a top hat lawyers who don't have any questions for you, they just want to see if you are going to show up. isn't this why a bunch of people will elect to go to court? just in hopes that the officer won't show? a question about speeding tickets (or really any ticket that will get you points on your license). a guy posted a thread in AI a while back talking about how he has gotten out of a bunch of speeding tickets. he still pays a fine, but the points get dropped. he basically requests a court date and i guess strikes a plea that he will pay the fine and not waste time with court if they will just keep points off his license. this might be something i made up when really stoned, but it was something. any truth to that? i guess you don't have to answer but if you don't answer we are gonna know anyway. like "do you have aids?" "i'm not gonna answer that." p. sure you got aids.
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Apr 4, 2015 19:21
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Cole posted:isn't this why a bunch of people will elect to go to court? just in hopes that the officer won't show? This question is extremely location and jurisdiction dependent. I've written 5 traffic tickets my entire career, having never been in units that either allowed traffic tickets (foot patrol yay) or expected them (plainclothes). 
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Apr 4, 2015 19:34
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Cole posted:isn't this why a bunch of people will elect to go to court? just in hopes that the officer won't show? I have to go to court if they request me because I will get written up otherwise. There are a couple of defense attorneys who will specifically ask for the intox operator to show up even though they have no questions for me. They are supposed to get punished for this but they don't. The problem with this is that I don't get called in on my court date, when I have to work that night, but on the court date for the arresting officer, which quite often is my day off.
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Apr 4, 2015 19:40
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Cole posted:isn't this why a bunch of people will elect to go to court? just in hopes that the officer won't show? Something like 98% of court cases end up with plea deals. Its almost better to plead not guilty initially and take a plea than to plead guilty to any charge. So I could say that that advice is fairly sound although jurisdiction may vary. Also about not showing up, I would get in serious trouble with my boss at a minimum if I didn't show up for any court date. It's been awhile since i've even been to court but I swear we get subpoenas when we have to appear for poo poo, so theoretically we could face legal trouble for not showing up.
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Apr 4, 2015 19:41
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Smiling Jack posted:This question is extremely location and jurisdiction dependent. wanna suckle them tittays
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Apr 4, 2015 19:45
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deratomicdog posted:Yeah, the trick to not testifying in court is not arresting anybody. Also, never become the only Intoximeter operator for the shift or you will get called in on your day off by rear end in a top hat lawyers who don't have any questions for you, they just want to see if you are going to show up. <--- Breath Operator. Never. Not. In. Court. But like I said the OT is pretty sweet. Really though having to be in court for all these DUIs really is a waste of tax payer money. The defense always asks the same dumb operational and gotcha questions and all the state needs is me to show up to enter the results in to evidence. In reality being a certified operator should really exempt you from the process. If there is any questions of whether the test was run, or on the defendant, or whatever, there is a video of every test that is never used in court. Until then I'll keep paying for my vacations at the expense of drunks. Untagged fucked around with this message at 20:50 on Apr 4, 2015 |
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Apr 4, 2015 20:48
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Kiryen posted:I've noticed that there are a lot of people out there (by which I mean society at large, not D&D) that seem to think that 'more training' will make unfeasible or unsafe tactics workable. For example, if the police shoot someone who was clearly armed with, say, a knife they don't like it because what they really want is for the police to never shoot anyone. When you point out that a knife is a deadly weapon though, they realize they'll look like a total idiot if they say "well I don't care; I just don't want COPS shooting anyone." So, they dress it up with comments like "well, the police should be trained to take away knives without shooting people." Should there be training for the situation where a person does have indeed have a knife, but in addition may be some combination of the following: fifty feet away, mentally ill, a small child, an elderly person, whittling crafts with the knife, deaf and with their back turned, Sikh, pregnant, in a wheelchair, etc...?
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Apr 4, 2015 20:59
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Alastor_the_Stylish posted:Should there be training for the situation where a person does have indeed have a knife, but in addition may be some combination of the following: fifty feet away, mentally ill, a small child, an elderly person, whittling crafts with the knife, deaf and with their back turned, Sikh, pregnant, in a wheelchair, etc...? Yeah, it's called "don't shoot anyone who is not actually about to stab you or anyone else". Our local bloodthirsty ex military Finn (or whatever) advocates immediately blasting these people in the leg for some reason. There's no magic method for getting an armed person to drop a lethal weapon, especially if they're roaming around. Your best hope is that you can keep the idiots away from the disturbed armed person long enough for someone to show up with a shield and a taser or beanbag gun, and even those don't work all that well. Of course if the guy is alone in his house or apartment or whatever, lock his rear end in and wait for the negotiator to show up. If the subject is armed, mobile and/or in a location with other people (moms house, etc) and they are acting irrationally, the situation has the potential to go very badly very quickly. I eagerly await your anecdote about cops shooting someone with a knife in dubious circumstances. Smiling Jack fucked around with this message at 21:18 on Apr 4, 2015 |
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Apr 4, 2015 21:10
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If you shoot someone you're almost guaranteed to show up in court, so there's your deterrent right there.
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Apr 4, 2015 21:16
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DrakeriderCa posted:We do it in our "academy" but we don't have ongoing training in it. I tend to think this difference in priorities has something to do with the ease of avoiding wrongful death suits. If it was 'train better or pay out x million in damages every time someone screws up and it costs lives', there'd be reason to make that budget available. Pipe dream, I know, and on the heads of the people above the officers.
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Apr 4, 2015 21:22
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Then again, in my experience 99% of the people either drop the knife or run, or both. This is also true in firearms cases. Shootings by the NYPD are so rare it's hard to discern a statistical trend for non-compliant EDPs with knives; the 2009 case where a guy ran out of his room and stabbed a Sgt in the brain is not included because nobody got shot, for example.
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Apr 4, 2015 21:26
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Liquid Communism posted:I tend to think this difference in priorities has something to do with the ease of avoiding wrongful death suits. If it was 'train better or pay out x million in damages every time someone screws up and it costs lives', there'd be reason to make that budget available. Perhaps police departments aren't killing as many people as you think. Trust me, the city calculates exactly how much things cost, this is why NYC tends to settle almost every case regardless of merit.
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Apr 4, 2015 21:29
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Alastor_the_Stylish posted:Should there be training for the situation where a person does have indeed have a knife, but in addition may be some combination of the following: fifty feet away, mentally ill, a small child, an elderly person, whittling crafts with the knife, deaf and with their back turned, Sikh, pregnant, in a wheelchair, etc...? No. All this falls under general "use of force" training. Does the person have the means, opportunity, and intent to inflict bodily harm and how severely? For example your elderly person - merely being "elderly" does not prevent someone from inflicting serious harm if they want to - quite a few older folks are a lot more physically fit than you'd think. What's important in that example is "whittling a stick", not "elderly". The law requires that situations be judged on the totality of all circumstances. It does not create special snowflake categories of protection. Kiryen fucked around with this message at 21:33 on Apr 4, 2015 |
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Apr 4, 2015 21:30
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Kiryen posted:It does not create special snowflake categories of protection. This is what newspaper headlines are for.
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Apr 4, 2015 21:37
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Cmdr. Shepard posted:The multi-jurisdictional SWAT teams in my area train more often than any other unit I'm aware of. The problem though is that if you talk to D&D, they have this idea of some mythical level of training and qualifications that can't be met because there is not infinity money and the applicant pool isn't going to get any better than it already is without substantially raising salaries, and even then it might not change much. PD's are having a tough time as it is recruiting qualified applicants, and you'd be surprised that qualified applicant and level of education aren't necessarily related to eachother. Kiryen posted:So, they dress it up with comments like "well, the police should be trained to take away knives without shooting people." Smiling Jack posted:I eagerly await your anecdote about cops shooting someone with a knife in dubious circumstances. Kiryen posted:Does the person have the means, opportunity, and intent to inflict bodily harm and how severely?
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Apr 4, 2015 21:57
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FRINGE posted:Yes. A group of (theoretically) trained adults working together using real-time radio communications should be able to take a knife away from a single individual without using guns. In the theoretical circumstance where an officer is alone in an alleyway (with firearm already in hand), no escape route, and gets charged by a person with a knife then of course using the firearm in actual self defense makes perfect sense. How do we disarm a person with a knife who refuses to drop it or give it up and charges officers? Assume you have 2 officers on duty with back-up being 5-10 minutes away. Maybe add in a crowd or some family members that may or may not be interfering. FRINGE posted:The problem that is often cited as "lack of training" is actually more of "inappropriate training methods". What are your qualifications to make such a statement? The Shep fucked around with this message at 22:03 on Apr 4, 2015 |
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Apr 4, 2015 21:59
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