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American police are trained to be afraid. They escalate situations constantly. They're trained that every traffic stop is LIKELY their last. I've had a gun pul
by chneu 7mo ago
American police are trained to be afraid. They escalate situations constantly. They're trained that every traffic stop is LIKELY their last.
I've had a gun pulled on me twice for traffic stops when I went to grab something. I'm white.
- ceejayoz 7mo ago[flagged]
- tacitusarc 7mo agoThe Snopes article is useful. For those who don’t want to read it, here is what Grossman says about that quotation: > That clip took my entire, full day presentation, and took it completely out of context. -They left out the part where I say that this is a normal biological, hormonal backlash from fight-or-flight (sympathetic nervous system arousal) to feed-and-breed (parasympathetic nervous system arousal) that can happen to anyone in a traumatic event. -They left out the part where I say that there is nothing wrong if it doesn’t happen, and absolutely nothing wrong if it does happen. -They left out the part where I say it happens to fire, EMS and even victims of violent crime. -They left out where I say that it scares the hell out of people. -They left out where I talk about it (and remember it is common in survivors of violent crime), as kind of a beautiful affirmation of life in the face of death; a grasping for closeness and intimate reassurance in the face of tragedy.
- ceejayoz 7mo agoYeah, shitty people often claim the context is exonerating. > They left out where I say that it scares the hell out of people. People literally pay money to do things that feel that way. Haunted houses, bungee jumping, skydiving. Context: Grossman's employed to train cops to overcome relutance to shoot.
- malfist 7mo agoI'm not sure that's at all a defense. That context in no way absolves him of bragging about how he's gets the best sex in his life EVERY TIME HE KILLS SOMEONE.
- danlitt 7mo agoThe quoted text describes separate comments from different police officers. It's also reported by a third party, is a paraphrase rather than a quote, and isn't bragging.
- scarecrowbob 7mo agoDamn, hoss, didn't think I'd wake up and have to read someone normalizing police violence. Like, they could just not, you know, go around creating the conditions for their own trauma.... that's a much more legit strategy. That's why folks aren't having this discussion about, say, "fire, EMS and even victims of violent crime". I know that violence creates traumatic responses, I've been getting a lot out of therapy after being illegally pepper sprayed by DHS last year. Real fuckin' hard for me to feel super sad that those officers probably had big feelings about that violence themselves when they could just, like, not go around assaulting folks.
- wat10000 7mo agoI really have to wonder what part of that he thinks makes it OK to call it a perk of the job that you get to have awesome sex after murdering somebody for work.
- drdeca 7mo agoI don’t see why any of those should be exonerating? Also, I feel like “nothing wrong if it does happen” regarding shooting someone, is the wrong perspective. If shooting someone is necessary, then it is necessary, but that doesn’t mean nothing went wrong. Anytime someone gets shot is a time something has gone wrong.
- vostrocity 7mo agoSo if someone threatens to kill you and your family, and you shoot them, something has gone wrong? I'd say something has gone right.
- ceejayoz 7mo agoThere are many situations where that isn’t the right response to that.
- drdeca 7mo agoYes, something has gone wrong: someone threatened to kill me and my family, and apparently the only way to stop them from doing so was to kill them. That may be the best option available, but it is still a tragedy.
- petsfed 7mo agoThere are a million ways to express the fact of the hormonal backlash without including a quote that makes it sound like killing will improve your sex life. In context, its correct, that's not up for dispute. The question is "does it add anything to the context?" and more importantly "could a student misconstrue its inclusion as something else?" You'd think that, being so educated on the hormonal backlash from experiencing trauma, that cops and the greater judicial system would be more forgiving of e.g. emergent hypersexuality in rape victims after experiencing a rape that Grossman calls out there. But you would be wrong, because even if Grossman wants his students to understand that concept for their own health, he wildly misunderstands the culture he helped create where the police view themselves as a thin blue line holding back the manifold forces of Chaos Undivided.
- dpark 7mo ago“Warrior mindset”. When you’re trained to assume that everyone you interact with is a lethal threat, you tend to react as such.
- helpfulclippy 7mo agoThey go around barking orders at people who haven’t done anything wrong because they look “suspicious,” escalate what could otherwise be calm encounters by showing up to everything armed to the gills, make it clear they can’t wait to use force against persons and property, demonstrate a consistent us-vs-them mentality that looks the other way for clear cases of corruption, commit brazen armed robberies under euphemisms like “civil asset forfeiture,” bypass policymakers wherever possible and lie to them when they can’t, and then wonder why some people don’t like them very much.
- hliyan 7mo agoIf only your country operated on the Peelian principles of policing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles Relevant fictional quote: There's a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people. - William Adama
- calvinmorrison 7mo agoIs that a problem for the Gendarmerie?
- GiorgioG 7mo agoIn the US police have no obligation to protect the people.
- V-eHGsd_ 7mo agoindeed, and this is unironically cited by the "shall not be infringed" crowd as a reason that they should be allowed to bring guns anywhere and everywhere, potentially turning any movie theater disagreement or minor road annoyance (or traffic stop, to bring this back to the police) into a violent life ending incident. to quote jwz out of context, "now you have two problems".
- stuffn 7mo ago[flagged]
- morserer 7mo agoI thought this was interesting, so I checked your sources > Insane take truly. First, CCW carriers are statistically the least likely to be involved in any kind of "violent life ending incident". Sure, you could argue this, with the exception of suicide, found guns (usually by kids in the home), and stolen guns. It's not just the person certified, it's everyone around them who can obtain access to the gun they now own >The number of non self-defense homicides caused by them is approximately 0 per year. Only because there's no public data on this particular statistic. A nonprofit produced a database based on news headlines and limited state data, though, and found 1700 suicides and 600 convicted murders by CCW carriers between 2007 and 2025: https://vpc.org/concealed-carry-killers/ https://vpc.org/concealed-carry-killers/ A better way to phrase it would be that the number of homicides are far less than the violence that a lack of CCW would enable, though that on its own is statistically shaky. > Second, to suggest that people should allow themselves to be victims to violent crime because it's safer for the whole is some sort of collectivist trotskyite nonsense we will never agree on. Under no circumstance should an innocent person forfeit life or property for a violent criminal. You're right, we (the USA) probably won't ever agree on it, due to the intense financial incentives behind firearms manufacturing and ownership and the subsequent lobbying and influence over public influence that those companies fund, but every other country apart from the US is a sweeping counterexample to this. We lose 45,000 people per year to guns (~60% by suicide). It's the #1 cause of death for children since 2020. https://www.cdc.gov/firearm-violence/data-research/facts-stats/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/firearm-violence/data-research/facts-sta... https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/ https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/ It's reductive to suggest that the only thing having more guns around does is "prevent victimization" when the guns themselves enable violence to so many nearby parties, including to the owner themselves. > Its astonishing to me people can look at FBI statistics, total gun deaths trending down for the last 30 years, and then suggest people who are statistically the most safe with guns shouldn't be able to carry them. The figure you're quoting appears to be the graph from page 1 of https://bjs.ojp.gov/document/tpfv9323.pdf https://bjs.ojp.gov/document/tpfv9323.pdf, which is nonfatal victimization, which hasn't trended down--it's hovered between 1 and 2 per 1000 since 2003, and appears to be more of a reflection of improved medical skill than anything about guns. Anyway, you were quoting gun deaths--that's page 13. That chart has stayed roughly the same since 1999: 4-5 per 100k persons (except for the spike during covid) >The qualifications for CCW are harder than police qualifications in most states. But you wouldn't know this because Everytown, MSNBC, CNN, and others have spent the last 12 or so years lying through statistics so that the government has the monopoly on violence. No permit required for CCW in 27 states. You also have states like Utah that will mail you a permit that's valid in 30 different states and doesn't require proof of live-fire training. But yes, in CA, for example, it's a 16 hour course, background check, fingerprints, clean record, (sometimes) psych evals, and even then there are restrictions. This isn't an indicator that CCW is difficult to obtain, though, since this is a reasonable barrier--it's an indicator that police qualifications are laughable. (While we're on that topic, by the way, law enforcement officers (both active and inactive) are allowed to concealed carry in all 50 states) https://aliengearholsters.com/blogs/news/how-to-get-a-concealed-carry-permit-for-all-50-states https://aliengearholsters.com/blogs/news/how-to-get-a-concea... Share more feedback if you have it. Would love to learn more
- alsetmusic 7mo ago> I've had a gun pulled on me twice for traffic stops when I went to grab something. I'm white. Something I learned from a friend is to ask permission for every movement or at the very least narrate and move slowly. "I'm going to reach in the glovebox for my registration. Is that ok?" I think it's the only way to protect yourself from their hyper-nervousness. Edit: friend and I are also white.
- petesergeant 7mo ago> I think it's the only way to protect yourself from their hyper-nervousness. “the only way” puts me in mind of The Onion headline “‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens”
- zmb_ 7mo agoA black friend of mine did exactly this, asked for a permission to get a pen from his pocket. The cop laughed “sure” and the moment he put his hand inside his pocket they jumped him and arrested him.
- altcognito 7mo agoWith body cameras this is a lawsuit.
- ceejayoz 7mo agoBut is it a winning one? Qualified immunity tends to chime in.
- coryrc 7mo agoThat doesn't mean what you think it means.
- ceejayoz 7mo agoNo? Jessop v. City of Fresno is worth a peek. https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/17-16756/17-16756-2019-09-04.html https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/17... > The panel held that at the time of the incident, there was no clearly established law holding that officers violate the Fourth or Fourteenth Amendment when they steal property seized pursuant to a warrant. For that reason, the City Officers were entitled to qualified immunity.
- mpweiher 7mo agoCould also be that this is at least partially justified due to the incredible pervasiveness of guns in the US.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- NohatCoder 7mo agoNo, treating people with hostility and escalating the situation only makes it more likely that someone will snap and attack a cop. People generally do not shoot at cops, because whether or not they hit the target doing so is pretty much signing their own death sentence. All cops have to do to protect themselves is to not provoke people to fight-or-flight reactions.
- bobsh 7mo agoIt started after the Iraq war. They got Hummers and vets.
- jimt1234 7mo agoA childhood friend's dad was a cop for 25 years; retired in the mid-90s. He never shot his gun, and only unholstered once in his entire cop career. My friend followed his dad, also became a cop in the exact same district; he's getting ready to retire. He's unholstered his gun countless times. He says he's shot at numerous people in his career, and even killed one dude. I once asked him what the difference was between his career and his dad's. He said crime was actually worse when his dad was a cop, a lot worse. But the big difference was the public's attitude and his training. He said the public had accepted the "tough on crime" narrative; that wasn't the case in his dad's days. But also, the training was straight-up military. He said that if he didn't use the military-style tactics, he would be sunned by his peers and even reprimanded. He said the training repeated one narrative, over and over: "It's us versus them." He told me a story about a noise complaint. He said him and his partner banged on the front door of the house, but there was no response. He said they called in the status, but were told to wait. About 10 minutes later multiple SWAT vehicles arrived. He said one of the vehicles literally drove into the side of the house, making a huge hole in the house. About a dozen SWAT officers ran into the house, multiple shots were fired, the tear gas started a fire. The house was absolutely destroyed. ... No one was home; the house was empty. A kid left the TV on really loud when he left for school. A neighbor called it in, hoping the cops could just go into the house and turn off the TV. Worse, there was no punishment to anyone involved; the cops were doing as they were trained.
- adrr 7mo agoNot even the most dangerous job in the US. Forest workers, commercial fishermen, pilots etc are more dangerous. If we're talking about gun violence, your corner market cashier is more likely to get shot, Has anyone thanked a 7 eleven worker for their sacrifice thas you can get a slurpee at 2am?
- RajT88 7mo agoI have seen some shit go down in 7/11's at 1am. You are not kidding.
- cool_dude85 7mo agoProbably the most dangerous aspect of the job in the US is driving.
- ceejayoz 7mo agoFor a bit, it was COVID. https://abcnews.com/Health/covid-leading-cause-law-enforcement-deaths-2022-3rd/story?id=96363324 https://abcnews.com/Health/covid-leading-cause-law-enforceme...
- tokai 7mo agoIts more dangerous being a spouse to a cop than it is to be a cop.
- shagmin 7mo agoCurious how much this varies among police. Some jobs are by their nature always dangerous. But there are a lot of cops in the USA, and plenty I'm sure have nice, cozy jobs, and then there are some who spend thee majority of their career policing areas that more closely resemble warzones or 3rd world nations but this isn't the majority by any means.
- PaulDavisThe1st 7mo agoRoofing, I think, tends to be the most dangerous.
- gypsy_boots 7mo agonot only trained that way, the justice system upholds this by not prosecuting police violence in any meaningful way
- aeternum 7mo agoThis will be a controversial opinion but I think some escalation by police is warranted. The reality is there are aggressive people in society that have a tendency to escalate things. If police are trained to only de-escalate, it removes a powerful check on aggressive escalation. The second order effect is an increase in events like people being pushed onto train tracks, glass bottles being thrown if you glance the wrong direction, etc. I think optimally you have a police force that is trained in de-escalation but also escalates things slightly more than the average citizen and thereby provides a service to society as a buffer.
- wffurr 7mo agoI don't think you understand what "de-escalation" is. It's not ignoring antisocial behavior or failing to confront people.
- aeternum 7mo agoI'm not claiming that de-escalation implies ignoring antisocial behavior or failing to confront. I'm claiming that some antisocial behavior is only triggered by some degree of escalation.
- bjoli 7mo agoI wonder what you base this on. What would statistics backing this up look like?
- aeternum 7mo agoIt's a good question. It would be violent crime trend correlation with de-escalation training. Or even with complaints of police aggression. Even more useful would be to separate out assault + battery where the victim is random vs. non-random, IE domestic or gang.
- bjoli 7mo agoI had a look around and there is very little actual ecidence for detrimental effects. Most things seems to be exaggerations by politicians who want to be tough on crime.
- stevenwoo 7mo agoNot only that but if they claim they were afraid for their life, that excuse is used to justify any action, which works short of admitting wrongdoing on video and in post incident interviews.