Comment by simonh
11 years ago
If police officers here in the UK started talking about having a Warrior midset there's be an outcry. It would be a major scadal that would put the credibility of the police force into crisis. (Brit here, so obviously I have no real right of a say in US internal affairs, but I visit the US from time to time).
I can see where it comes from, US officers are armed, and need to be so because they frequently face armed criminals. They have to deal with a different situation. The problem is that those members of the US public that are not armed and actualy have no intention of criminality, or if they do in a minor and non-threatening form, are being dealt with by armed police officers expecting to deal with armed violent thugs. That's a recipe for utter disaster.
There's no easy answer to this. It's right to support police that have to deal with life threatening situations daily. But equally the non-violent public do not deserve to face potential threats to their life and violent coercion in routine interactions with law enforcers.
You've never been to Police College in the UK. I have.
'Officer Safety Training' is all about banging in the concept of "There is no such thing as no threat. There is only a known threat and an unknown threat." It's even on posters around the college showing a police officer talking to an old lady carrying some shopping.
I'd describe it more as a siege mentality than warrior. However it leads to officers drawing batons in completely inappropriate situations and causing all sorts of problems for no reason.
I'm thankful firearms are not routinely issued as these same officers would just as quickly draw a gun and completely fuck a totally innocent situation into a major incident for no reason.
I had colleagues who were proud to be nicknamed Tackleberry. Not a good situation.
>> But equally the non-violent public do not deserve to face potential threats to their life and violent coercion in routine interactions with law enforcers.
It is really not "the public" at large, at least not in many cases. The police seems to be profiling and directing excessive force towards non-Caucasians, as it was so obvious in the shocking incident in Texas.
This case, which sort of crystallized the problem, all started with a typical overweight Walmart white-trash female attacking a group of noisy (?) children in the pool.
For the outsider, the US looks a very unpleasant place to be if you're not white. Not to mention the huge incarceration rate for minor offenses, and the proportion on non caucasians there.
I used to come to the US at least once a year, staying for up to 2-3 weeks on holiday. I haven't in a long time, and I will probably not anytime soon.
It's increasingly becoming a sad and scary place.
The police seems to be profiling and directing excessive force towards non-Caucasians
Law enforcement has always directed this kind of treatment towards non-whites in the US. What has changed is that there are now cameras everywhere so the officer's word isn't enough anymore and they have begun to subject middle and upper middle income white people to the same kind of treatment that used to be reserved for black and brown people.
For the outsider, the US looks a very unpleasant place to be if you're not white.
Racism isn't a US-only problem. There are incidents of European soccer fans making monkey noises when black players come onto the field. In some parts of Africa, there are issues with the government seizing land owned by whites.
It's not even always about race. Every Irishman with whom I have ever spoken has told me stories about how they and/or their (grand)parents were treated by other Europeans.
I don't know if it's possible to fix the underlying cause of these problems. Whenever people think in terms of "Us vs Them", they find justifications for doing all manner of terrible things to each other. It's just that police are the ones tasked with enforcing the laws of a society so when the laws reflect this conflict, so does the behavior of the police.
And we will always think in terms of "us vs. them" because we're monkeys, and we've evolved highly intelligent brains to, among other things, protect our bananas from the monkey tribe next door.
But we are getting better at overruling our monkey instincts with reason and compassion. So that's a good sign.
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The incident in Texas in only shocking when one considers the slanted reporting that the media is doing. Those kids were trespassing, were violent with minors, and flatly refused to listen to police officers. The reporting of this is nothing more then a propaganda piece. We have large populations of minorities who feel entitled to behave badly without any consequence because the color of their skin.
How does one get from "a few kids being rowdy and not listening to police officers" to "x group of people has entitlement issues"? Seems like quite a disingenuous stretch.
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From what I've read, most of the teens were invited by another teen who lived in the community (including the one who was slammed to the ground for mouthing off to the cop). Apparently, some additional teens who were not invited showed up which is what prompted someone to call the police but when this particular officer arrived on scene he didn't attempt to distinguish between teens who were invited and teens who were not and instead just started subduing every black kid in sight.
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I was right there with you until your last sentence veered off into racist territory.
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How sad to see such a thoughtless outburst, with fabricated facts, unsubstantiated assertions, and avoiding the real questions.
While I hope our society has progressed a little, something like this post often reminds me how many people embrace thoughtlessness and anger.
You watched the videos, right? Oh wait, you only watch Fox News.