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> Rhoads defended the procedure, calling the officers’ actions “on point.” It’s not standard to conduct investigations beforehand because that delays the appreh

> Rhoads defended the procedure, calling the officers’ actions “on point.” It’s not standard to conduct investigations beforehand because that delays the apprehension of suspects, he told me. > I noted that the officers could have sought information from the apartment complex’s security guard that would have resolved the matter without violence. But he played down the importance of such information: “It doesn’t matter whatsoever what was said or not said at the security booth.” It sounds far, far worse than: > I, for one, get tired of the constant refrain of hero worship while these guys say that there number one job is to get home safely. It honestly sounds like they are so self-centered that they only care about their arrest stats/job performance + personal safety. They care nothing for anyone else's safety if it gets in the way of their job performance numbers. That is a horrific concept, honestly.

mistermann 11y ago
> It honestly sounds like they are so self-centered that they only care about their arrest stats/job performance + personal safety. They care nothing for anyone else's safety if it gets in the way of their job performance numbers. That is a horrific concept, honestly. If you think of them as undisciplined teenage boys in over their heads, given a job for which they have not developed sufficient levels of mental maturity and responsibility, it kind of seems less nonsensical. > Rhoads, the Fairfax County police lieutenant, was upfront about this mind-set. He explained that it was standard procedure to point guns at suspects in many cases to protect the lives of police officers. Their firearm rules were different from mine; they aimed not to kill but to intimidate. According to reporting by The Washington Post, those rules are established in police training, which often emphasizes a violent response over deescalation. Another teenaged boy in over his head. Honestly, I lay very little blame at these people's feet. If you keep moving up the chain of command, eventually you will get to someone with the mental capacity to know this is wrong, and this is where the responsibility lies. Or, if this person's peers are so corrupt that he is literally powerless to do anything, then you move up one more level. Somebody somewhere is responsible for the way this is being handled, but it ain't the guys at this level. Expecting effective police policy to be set (at least entirely) at the local level is....unwise.
- fweespeech 11y ago
  I'm not sure how the idea that we hand undisciplined teenage boys firearms and power over the rest of the population any less horrific than what I described.
  - mistermann 11y ago
    I'm not saying it's not horrific, it just to me kind of makes this otherwise surreal state of affairs make sense. A grown man who doesn't know how to responsibly wield power to me seems extremely similar to a teenage boy not knowing how to properly behave with new strength and freedoms. Put a bunch of these similar people together with no responsible authority to control them, and you often end up with toxic and dangerous cultures.
vacri 11y ago
Personal safety is the #1 priority of any emergency worker. If you don't keep yourself safe, then that's one less person to be able to help out. Add to this that there isn't an endless stream of people both willing and able to do the job in the first place, and also that training takes a fair while, and it's clear that self-preservation is a requirement for emergency workers. By all means, question police methods. But to snidely chide them for putting their personal safety first suggests that you don't really understand their job at all.
- sudioStudio64 11y ago
  I'm not being snide. I'm saying that they want to minimize the negative aspects of their arrangement with society while maximizing the positive aspects. Positive aspect: Cops have a benefit of the doubt that other citizens don't have when it comes to the use of force. Negative aspect: They stop someone that resists arrest. If you are trying to maximize the positive things you get from the job and minimize the negative you will treat every person that resists arrest as if it were life threatening. When you add up the benefits that actually accrue to the police (and not just from asking them... like other conservative organizations they generally are very sensitive to perceived losses of authority) you see that they get a middle class life, authority over the physical safety of people around them, and higher burden of proof required to convict them. They also maintain one of the only government sanctioned unions so they have greater economic democratic power as well. They are super-citizens and they have come to believe that the deference paid to them is in fact owed to them. They have convinced themselves that their lives are always in danger in every interaction so they are owed greater deference by society. Its my contention that the danger's they face are not immediately present in every interaction and that they have actually been involved in creating the policies that put them in the situations where danger is greatest. Its time that they stop taking for granted the powers and position that society bestows. Its also time for us to decriminalize some of the behaviors that the police depend on to bolster their position politically.
- JshWright 11y ago
  Are you an LEO? "Priority of life" for law enforcement is: 1) Victims 2) Innocent Bystanders 3a) Other Responders (Fire/EMS) 3b) Law Enforcement Officers 4) Bad Guys

mistermann 11y ago

> It honestly sounds like they are so self-centered that they only care about their arrest stats/job performance + personal safety. They care nothing for anyone else's safety if it gets in the way of their job performance numbers. That is a horrific concept, honestly. If you think of them as undisciplined teenage boys in over their heads, given a job for which they have not developed sufficient levels of mental maturity and responsibility, it kind of seems less nonsensical. > Rhoads, the Fairfax County police lieutenant, was upfront about this mind-set. He explained that it was standard procedure to point guns at suspects in many cases to protect the lives of police officers. Their firearm rules were different from mine; they aimed not to kill but to intimidate. According to reporting by The Washington Post, those rules are established in police training, which often emphasizes a violent response over deescalation. Another teenaged boy in over his head. Honestly, I lay very little blame at these people's feet. If you keep moving up the chain of command, eventually you will get to someone with the mental capacity to know this is wrong, and this is where the responsibility lies. Or, if this person's peers are so corrupt that he is literally powerless to do anything, then you move up one more level. Somebody somewhere is responsible for the way this is being handled, but it ain't the guys at this level. Expecting effective police policy to be set (at least entirely) at the local level is....unwise.

fweespeech 11y ago
I'm not sure how the idea that we hand undisciplined teenage boys firearms and power over the rest of the population any less horrific than what I described.
- mistermann 11y ago
  I'm not saying it's not horrific, it just to me kind of makes this otherwise surreal state of affairs make sense. A grown man who doesn't know how to responsibly wield power to me seems extremely similar to a teenage boy not knowing how to properly behave with new strength and freedoms. Put a bunch of these similar people together with no responsible authority to control them, and you often end up with toxic and dangerous cultures.

vacri 11y ago

Personal safety is the #1 priority of any emergency worker. If you don't keep yourself safe, then that's one less person to be able to help out. Add to this that there isn't an endless stream of people both willing and able to do the job in the first place, and also that training takes a fair while, and it's clear that self-preservation is a requirement for emergency workers. By all means, question police methods. But to snidely chide them for putting their personal safety first suggests that you don't really understand their job at all.

sudioStudio64 11y ago
I'm not being snide. I'm saying that they want to minimize the negative aspects of their arrangement with society while maximizing the positive aspects. Positive aspect: Cops have a benefit of the doubt that other citizens don't have when it comes to the use of force. Negative aspect: They stop someone that resists arrest. If you are trying to maximize the positive things you get from the job and minimize the negative you will treat every person that resists arrest as if it were life threatening. When you add up the benefits that actually accrue to the police (and not just from asking them... like other conservative organizations they generally are very sensitive to perceived losses of authority) you see that they get a middle class life, authority over the physical safety of people around them, and higher burden of proof required to convict them. They also maintain one of the only government sanctioned unions so they have greater economic democratic power as well. They are super-citizens and they have come to believe that the deference paid to them is in fact owed to them. They have convinced themselves that their lives are always in danger in every interaction so they are owed greater deference by society. Its my contention that the danger's they face are not immediately present in every interaction and that they have actually been involved in creating the policies that put them in the situations where danger is greatest. Its time that they stop taking for granted the powers and position that society bestows. Its also time for us to decriminalize some of the behaviors that the police depend on to bolster their position politically.
JshWright 11y ago
Are you an LEO? "Priority of life" for law enforcement is: 1) Victims 2) Innocent Bystanders 3a) Other Responders (Fire/EMS) 3b) Law Enforcement Officers 4) Bad Guys