Doug M.
Member
After years of declining crime, a spike in city violence | The Seattle Times
Well, DUH.
The main factor here is the abuse of LE over incidents that are legally inane but which reveal the reality of what cops have to do and the ignorance of the overwhelming majority of most citizens about the lawful authority and obligations of cops. For a pleasant difference, see http://www.forcescience.org/champion.pdf. Maybe not perfect, but FAR less stupid than the usual drivel.
Criminal use of firearms is adequately address by existing laws, if they are enforced, but we have real problems getting the feds to do their job (I've experienced it) while joining the Terrorists, Anarchists, and Narcissists in their cockamamie mindset about police work. There is a culture, which for lack of a better description, I refer to as the MTV culture (it crosses all racial and other demographic lines as far as I have seen) that thinks cops are just out to get them (which may be a function of "if you don't want to get hit by lightning, don't look like a lightning rod). They think that they can resist the cops, applying gang based "respect" standards that simply do not reflect the law. See TinyURL: I?m a cop. If you don?t want to get hurt, don?t challenge me. - The Washington Post, which is a correct statement of the law. Maryland v. Wilson, 519 US 408 (1997); Michigan v. Summers, 452 U. S. 692 (1981). See also TinyURL: Ferguson, Idiot Cops, and Experts Who Know Nothing At All « breachbangclear.com. It is the duty of the police to hunt bad people. Being a mere "report taker" to the detriment of catching a criminal is probably misconduct. Law enforcement officers find and capture bad people, document the investigation, and pass on the documentation to prosecutors for consideration of the next steps in the process. Some of those people decide to compound their crimes by resisting and assaulting the police. Fights are ugly. Use of force is ugly. Is it sudden, and violent. It's not like a movie. LE is not a people pleasing business, either. It is a coercive compliance business. Failure to accept both of those will ensure that the offender gets hurt, and that people who do not know what they do not know will be outraged, but not at the offender as they should be. I can live with the family and friends being very upset. They are entitled to an emotional response, and I don't think it is reasonable to expect them to be objective.
However, that is not the standard of the law. The general rule pertaining to use of force has been more or less the same for centuries, and is generally the same in both criminal and civil settings. In short, the person using force must be "reasonable" under the circumstances. Being factually correct is not the standard, nor would it be a sound standard. The test is not based on hindsight or the unaware perspective of reporters, friends of the offenders, or anyone else with no qualifications to assess the matter. "The "reasonableness" of a particular use of force must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight." Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 at 396 (1989). "The calculus of reasonableness must embody allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second judgments -- in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving -- about the amount of force that is necessary in a particular situation." Id., at 396-397. While this is the standard of Constitutional law applicable in the civil rights arena, many or most states also apply this to criminal law analysis. There are other cases from the U. S. Supreme Court since then, and they maintain the standard. It is not new.
We have the DOJ/Civil rights division, which is comprised of persons consciously chose for their ignorance of the law and police work, enabling that. They seek consent decrees that are not based on the law or facts, but driven by emotional responses (Seattle being the best possible example) and taking advantage of the ignorance of city officials. (Dear Mr. Holmes: I don't opine on bankruptcy, please SHUT UP about police operations. You don't know what you don't know.)
We have prosecutors engaging in questionable practices driven by mob rule (the Gray matter – pretty messed up from a tort perspective, but the stop and arrest were clearly legal under controlling law, and I am not sure if she is lying or completely unqualified; at a certain point, it does not matter). Governor Cuomo of NY has now taken review of LE shootings from local prosecutors and given to the (state) Attorney General's Office, for reasons that are simply insane and cannot be supported as a matter of law or fact (prosecutors could be biased or the populace has no confidence). I tend to believe that there are maybe 1000 lawyers and judges in the US who have any business opining on LE use of force, especially when it comes to understanding tactics, threat perception and control, etc, but anyone who thinks that their State AG's Office is any more likely to do a good job is either stoned out of their gourd or completely insane. Either way – they need a guardian.
After seeing the abuse of a friend in another state over an unfortunate but legally and ethically complete appropriate shooting, I have become more and more bothered by the mob rule responses to these events. (See http://dig.abclocal.go.com/kgo/PDF/Complete-OIS-Report-7-7-14.pdf.) Look at the data about the Florence neighborhood of South Central LA. L.A.?s Long Hot Summer of Racial Violence Is Brewing | PJ Media.
Note the data provided in the graphic: over 26 TIMES as many residents of the neighborhood killed by other private citizens (most presumably unlawfully given the sad state of crime and the virtual inability of a private citizen to be lawfully armed in most of CA) as by cops. Many of those were probably criminal on criminal offenses as they often are, but some number of the decedents were actually just victims. LE does not shoot near as many offenders as it could/should, which is also supported by the research data. Private citizens likewise.
This is one of the many things that gripes me about the silly posturing about the killings of offenders by cops. There is a complete failure to address the fact that the offenders are the ones who create the problem, and who choose to make the cops shoot them. There is also no recognition at all of what these offenders do to their neighborhood, and the impact on those who have to keep living there (usually just the same pigment, just the same deprived socio-economic status, etc – but not violent predatory offenders). (I've known more than one cop/retired cop who said they liked to work in these rough areas because there was a lot of good hunting of bad people, the primary job of LE, and that also the other folks in the neighborhood needed them to be doing that.) Another is the utterly moronic comments by the member(s) of the Police Commission. Anyone who known enough about the relevant area pf the law to comment knows perfectly well that the facts described provide a more than ample basis for a Terry stop. Ms. Madison is not even arguably qualified to opine, has no idea of the extent of her ignorance, and ought to shut up. Even if she was right about her claim of a lack of basis to make a non-consensual contact with Mr. Ford (and she is not even close to right), he had no right whatsoever to resist, to assault the officers, and to try to disarm and kill one. Ever.
(Edited) The reporting and folklore about Michael Brown and Eric Garner were dishonest and irresponsible. LE Command personnel should have been fired for their actions and statements during those events and that period. The people shot by cops (they are not victims, and anyone who uses that term is a blithering idiot) are not at all like most other people. They are broad spectrum dysfunctionals, with long histories of all sorts of violent predatory behavior, mental health problems that never get addressed worth a hoot, etc. Who they were, and their problems, no matter how sad in retrospect, is not relevant. It is not even to be considered, as a matter of law. The person they are at the time of the shots is all that matters, and it is demonstrated by their conduct.
--
"The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it." Albert Einstein.
--
Well, DUH.
The main factor here is the abuse of LE over incidents that are legally inane but which reveal the reality of what cops have to do and the ignorance of the overwhelming majority of most citizens about the lawful authority and obligations of cops. For a pleasant difference, see http://www.forcescience.org/champion.pdf. Maybe not perfect, but FAR less stupid than the usual drivel.
Criminal use of firearms is adequately address by existing laws, if they are enforced, but we have real problems getting the feds to do their job (I've experienced it) while joining the Terrorists, Anarchists, and Narcissists in their cockamamie mindset about police work. There is a culture, which for lack of a better description, I refer to as the MTV culture (it crosses all racial and other demographic lines as far as I have seen) that thinks cops are just out to get them (which may be a function of "if you don't want to get hit by lightning, don't look like a lightning rod). They think that they can resist the cops, applying gang based "respect" standards that simply do not reflect the law. See TinyURL: I?m a cop. If you don?t want to get hurt, don?t challenge me. - The Washington Post, which is a correct statement of the law. Maryland v. Wilson, 519 US 408 (1997); Michigan v. Summers, 452 U. S. 692 (1981). See also TinyURL: Ferguson, Idiot Cops, and Experts Who Know Nothing At All « breachbangclear.com. It is the duty of the police to hunt bad people. Being a mere "report taker" to the detriment of catching a criminal is probably misconduct. Law enforcement officers find and capture bad people, document the investigation, and pass on the documentation to prosecutors for consideration of the next steps in the process. Some of those people decide to compound their crimes by resisting and assaulting the police. Fights are ugly. Use of force is ugly. Is it sudden, and violent. It's not like a movie. LE is not a people pleasing business, either. It is a coercive compliance business. Failure to accept both of those will ensure that the offender gets hurt, and that people who do not know what they do not know will be outraged, but not at the offender as they should be. I can live with the family and friends being very upset. They are entitled to an emotional response, and I don't think it is reasonable to expect them to be objective.
However, that is not the standard of the law. The general rule pertaining to use of force has been more or less the same for centuries, and is generally the same in both criminal and civil settings. In short, the person using force must be "reasonable" under the circumstances. Being factually correct is not the standard, nor would it be a sound standard. The test is not based on hindsight or the unaware perspective of reporters, friends of the offenders, or anyone else with no qualifications to assess the matter. "The "reasonableness" of a particular use of force must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight." Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 at 396 (1989). "The calculus of reasonableness must embody allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second judgments -- in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving -- about the amount of force that is necessary in a particular situation." Id., at 396-397. While this is the standard of Constitutional law applicable in the civil rights arena, many or most states also apply this to criminal law analysis. There are other cases from the U. S. Supreme Court since then, and they maintain the standard. It is not new.
We have the DOJ/Civil rights division, which is comprised of persons consciously chose for their ignorance of the law and police work, enabling that. They seek consent decrees that are not based on the law or facts, but driven by emotional responses (Seattle being the best possible example) and taking advantage of the ignorance of city officials. (Dear Mr. Holmes: I don't opine on bankruptcy, please SHUT UP about police operations. You don't know what you don't know.)
We have prosecutors engaging in questionable practices driven by mob rule (the Gray matter – pretty messed up from a tort perspective, but the stop and arrest were clearly legal under controlling law, and I am not sure if she is lying or completely unqualified; at a certain point, it does not matter). Governor Cuomo of NY has now taken review of LE shootings from local prosecutors and given to the (state) Attorney General's Office, for reasons that are simply insane and cannot be supported as a matter of law or fact (prosecutors could be biased or the populace has no confidence). I tend to believe that there are maybe 1000 lawyers and judges in the US who have any business opining on LE use of force, especially when it comes to understanding tactics, threat perception and control, etc, but anyone who thinks that their State AG's Office is any more likely to do a good job is either stoned out of their gourd or completely insane. Either way – they need a guardian.
After seeing the abuse of a friend in another state over an unfortunate but legally and ethically complete appropriate shooting, I have become more and more bothered by the mob rule responses to these events. (See http://dig.abclocal.go.com/kgo/PDF/Complete-OIS-Report-7-7-14.pdf.) Look at the data about the Florence neighborhood of South Central LA. L.A.?s Long Hot Summer of Racial Violence Is Brewing | PJ Media.
Note the data provided in the graphic: over 26 TIMES as many residents of the neighborhood killed by other private citizens (most presumably unlawfully given the sad state of crime and the virtual inability of a private citizen to be lawfully armed in most of CA) as by cops. Many of those were probably criminal on criminal offenses as they often are, but some number of the decedents were actually just victims. LE does not shoot near as many offenders as it could/should, which is also supported by the research data. Private citizens likewise.
This is one of the many things that gripes me about the silly posturing about the killings of offenders by cops. There is a complete failure to address the fact that the offenders are the ones who create the problem, and who choose to make the cops shoot them. There is also no recognition at all of what these offenders do to their neighborhood, and the impact on those who have to keep living there (usually just the same pigment, just the same deprived socio-economic status, etc – but not violent predatory offenders). (I've known more than one cop/retired cop who said they liked to work in these rough areas because there was a lot of good hunting of bad people, the primary job of LE, and that also the other folks in the neighborhood needed them to be doing that.) Another is the utterly moronic comments by the member(s) of the Police Commission. Anyone who known enough about the relevant area pf the law to comment knows perfectly well that the facts described provide a more than ample basis for a Terry stop. Ms. Madison is not even arguably qualified to opine, has no idea of the extent of her ignorance, and ought to shut up. Even if she was right about her claim of a lack of basis to make a non-consensual contact with Mr. Ford (and she is not even close to right), he had no right whatsoever to resist, to assault the officers, and to try to disarm and kill one. Ever.
(Edited) The reporting and folklore about Michael Brown and Eric Garner were dishonest and irresponsible. LE Command personnel should have been fired for their actions and statements during those events and that period. The people shot by cops (they are not victims, and anyone who uses that term is a blithering idiot) are not at all like most other people. They are broad spectrum dysfunctionals, with long histories of all sorts of violent predatory behavior, mental health problems that never get addressed worth a hoot, etc. Who they were, and their problems, no matter how sad in retrospect, is not relevant. It is not even to be considered, as a matter of law. The person they are at the time of the shots is all that matters, and it is demonstrated by their conduct.
--
"The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it." Albert Einstein.
--
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