I live in a small town of roughly 2200 souls. One main street with a couple of pizza joints, a post office and one gas station.
I've noticed that our city police now dress in tactical gear. Black, with boots and bloused pants; most, if not all, have shaved heads.
Please don't get me wrong, I am a strong supporter of law enforcement in all aspects of their work and I understand the current challenges due to the publicity shotgunned any time a suspicion of wrong doing is "uncovered". Officer safety is obviously most important, but image is important too, isn't it?
I remember when I was a kid, my parents repeatedly telling me that the police were my friends and protectors and not someone to be afraid of. Are we sending a different message now?

Was there a new chief hired or something?

Call the mayor, complain a lot.

Seems to be a trend. Basically establishes a face on the concept of "police presence".... Unfortunately, I think the days of the "friendly neighborhood police officer" are about as dated as Andy and Barney.......

Saw a thread here a while back regarding gov't grant money going to LPD's every where for tactical gear, equipment, even arms and vehicles.
Can't blame the locals for taking advantage of the additional funds, just seems the vibe gets more serious with the donning of the gear.

I live in an upscale "burb of the burgh"..... about 18,000 residents and a 20 man police dept.

Each cruiser has a racked shotgun and AR between the front seats....I think I would have opted for a lower profile..... trunk or ceiling racks.

Boots vs. spited shined shoes..... makes sense to me.... bloused pants..... seems a bit much.......

All for the baseball cap thing....

But more important I'd guess 95% of the folks who live here have never interacted with the officers. Except for the 4th of July.... there is little opportunity for the citizens/police to interact........ well except for traffic stops.

I serve on a Twp. Board...... so I've met a lot of the officers when they drop off stuff at the house.....always try to spend a few minutes shooting the bull........ heck one of the Sargent's Dad worked for my Dad on another Police Dept. across town. "Worked" with a few at some local public events.....

I worry about the disconnect between the police and the citizens......I think we've seen the results play out over the past couple of years.

sheeesh, folks are now concerned/afraid of how police dress or choose to cut their hair.

Maybe the police should wear clown clothes and have "Bozo" hair cuts!!

Don

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Laus Deo! <><

If you guys hate how they look now, wait until the future!

Law enforcement is expected to be adaptable. One moment they're writing a traffic ticket, the next minute they're in a firefight against jihadists with AKs and pipe bombs. Don't think I'll fuss much about the pants they wear.

I think that unfortunately, this is merely a sign of the times. Back in the day, when a James Dean look-a-like was stealing a car, it was fine for Andy and Barney to pull him over and threaten to tell his "pop".

Now a days, as someone else posted, you may be pulling over a car full of drugged out gang bangers carrying semi autos in their waistband and MP 5's under their arm.

Law enforcement must change with the times and quite honestly, I don't care if they drive around in half tracks as long as they keep the riff raff away from my front door.

Of course, once they come through my door, I will greet them in my black boots, black bloused multi-pocket pants, vest with 10 20 round magazines and black AR-15. I do wear a baseball cap but haven't shaved my head yet. Of course, time is taking care of that for me and probably in a few years there will be no need to shave my head.

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James Redfield
LM #497

Our cops dress like the military because Philly doesn't need any cops....we need a military!

Things change.

There was a time when the police communicated with their headquarters after they spotted the light on at their call box.

I started out in 1971 with a S&W model 15 in a black swivel holster with a thin strap to hold it in. Now, weapons are more secure in the holsters.

Ever try flying a helicopter with a firearm in a Dan Jordan holster?

A shotgun in the trunk can be fairly worthless, too. And there were many times in my 25 years that I wished I had an AR15 in a rack next to me.

Things change.

Sure.....all I was saying is given the nature of our community I'd have chosen a lower profile on how they were carried.

Trying to recall the setup ....... but remember thinking with all the radios/computer etc. in the front........ deploying either would not be quick...... trunk may be faster......or ceiling mount.... course that's a head room issue............

Maybe this would send a better message for some.

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- Change it back -

A black target is slower to acquire and a shaved head is cooler in the summer. As long as they're there and working in the interest of public safety, I wouldn't be concerned about their appearance.

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I'm Proud To Be An American!

My last interaction with the police was more than 20 years ago, other than our Chief, who is a friend. It just seems as though when they do details at our local lake, people are reluctant to approach.
It was simply an observation on my part and I have no problem with them protecting themselves in any way they deem necessary.

While I am not a fan of Field Marshall Montgomery, I nevertheless offer an excerpt from his memoir in which he recounts a postwar inspection trip to Palestine:

"The Palestine police force was armed to the teeth...it was a bad imitation of the Army--and it that role its personnel could never be any better than third-rate soldiers. It was able to carry out the duties neither of a normal police force nor of a normal army."

Most tactical gear I see is regular gear painted either black or camo.

In a town of 2200, doesn't most everyone know each other, including your personal friend the Chief and those he hires?
Where is all this fear coming from?

Let me throw in a wild guess--political leaders and the main stream media?

What did I win?

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... a little behind in my work

With schools such likely soft targets, I'd like to see all police officers AR-15 trained and equipped. We simply can't wait for the swat team.

However, there has been growing concern over the militarization of the police, particularly in minority neighborhoods where the police are sometimes viewed as an occupation force. Yet, with the increasing threat of paramilitary attacks on soft targets, the police must be equipped to instantly respond to these threats.

In the Middle East, police don't fare very well when they're the target of terrorist cells.

Spent a year at PNSY with the USS Saratoga (CV-60). I would concur.

It's fun to dress up & play soldier. You can play with cool toys & not have to go sleep in the desert for a year at a time...

I think it's important to keep the two topics separate.

Making sure that police officers have the best and most effective weaponry and protective equipment available is one thing.

However, a large part of today's "tactical gear", including the term itself, is the same marketing gimmick as camo fashion for hunters. It doesn't primarily concern utility or necessity, but an image to project. Shaved heads and mirror sunglasses go along with that. I think that's what the OP was addressing.

Long hair is an issue in any up close and personal "interaction" There is a reason for short hair in the military, even the women.

Interesting discussion.

I shall continue to observe.

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Un-Reconstructed Southerner

How do they conduct themselves when interacting with the citizens?

I have interacted with a wanna be spec. Ops. Traffic ticket writer here in Texas not long ago and if he hadn't had a badge it would have been a bad day in Liberty Hill. More to the story but I would get a ding!

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Hue 68 noli me tangere

Well maybe that is because some of the minority neighborhoods that I have been through need an occupation force. Perhaps the police that wear the tactical gear feel that it gives them an edge through a slight intimidation factor. I think that many of the punks out there would not have a problem going toe to toe with Barney Fife but might think twice about going up against the Rock.

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James Redfield
LM #497

I had heard the opposite about the color black, that it was in fact a color easy to target. Look at modern USMC and US Army combat uniforms - all black has been eliminated, even the boots are no longer black and black rifles are often painted.

While that is certainly true, we as gun owners should not forget that over the last few decades, minorities have not been the only ones who found themselves at the pointy end of militarized law enforcement, particularly concerning certain federal agencies. It's easy to applaud if it's some other group being intimidated which one doesn't particularly care for. But if this becomes the new normal for law enforcement and every Barney Fife thinks he has to act like the Rock, that can easily create more problems than it solves. And the incessant bleating of the TV crime channels and other scare media nonwithstanding, this country still consists of a whole lot more Barney Fife neighborhoods than inner city war zones that require Robocop.

The clothes, the haircuts, it's part of the culture of young cops right now. Personally, I don't think they do themselves any favors with the look, but they didn't ask me either.

I don't think this comes down from the Chief. He's a very personable fellow. Not so much with the patrol officers who I run into at the DD, they tend to stay pretty much to themselves and socialize together from what I've heard. Understandable really when you think about people having similar life experiences and such hanging together.
It could be just a matter of the gear being more efficient to work with.
Phil - maybe its a commentary on modern society, but I probably only know about 100 folks in town.

Now that would scare me! No Clowns Please

Most people have NO CLUE what kind of stuff goes on around them. I have worked in small towns and responded to them as part of a larger agency. I have been a prosecutor in small to medium counties in two states. Those areas are not at all immune to the various forms of violent and other serious crimes, and in fact, often the folks there are less aware and more surprised when it happens.

I am not a fan of bloused boots; can't see them as a practical matter. However, most traditional look police uniforms are awful items in which to work. Hats other than foul weather gear and helmets are a major safety fail, and allowing them should result in brutal discipline. I worked very hard to avoid any assignment that required not wearing my jumpsuit.

Like it or not, the "officer friendly" types are the ones who get assaulted the most, and end up dying. They are unprepared, and they give that impression. The FBI research folks published some of that material well over 20 years ago, and I had a supervisor who was a perfect example (we all saw it) who was nearly killed because he was just that sort. Had a guy once tell me I was scary looking (while we were part of a small group chatting about something innocuous) and he was amazed when I thanked him. I had to explain to him LE is about coercive compliance, not making people happy, and the more I could scare into compliance by my demeanor, the fewer I had to fight - then it made perfect sense.

Militarized? Don't make me laugh. Putting aside that Radley Balko is a complete lunatic with no idea of the extent of his ignorance, LE is a para-military type of organization. Further, I have seen a lot of historical photos from 85-100 years ago that show cops in squads with water-cooled belt fed machine guns mounted on various vehicles, etc. We are far less likely to use unjustified force than 50+ years ago, and in fact are way too reticent to use proper lawful force.

Image of shotgun and AR in the racks? Who cares? Looks don't really matter - being able to get access to the tools in an ergonomically sound manner does. Seconds kill - in fact, the human factors research shows that small portions of a second kill.

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NHI, 10-8.

Around here many are wearing jump suits will lots of pockets. No shaved heads.

I could care less really. I go about my business and they go about theirs. As long as they do a good job, that's all I care about.

I'm concerned more about their attitude than their attire.

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Life Is A Gift. Defend it!

Months ago, in another "tactical gear" thread, I made a joke that I was too old to use tactical gear but I did find that tactical underwear still worked for me.

Sure enough, two members posted about "what does it do" & "where do you get it"?

I should be more careful.

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Music/Sports/Beer fan

Actually the militarization of the police has come about in great measure since the formation of Homeland Security. They have been providing arms, material and training in urban warfare. The government has encouraged the hiring of returning military troops into law enforcement for quite a while. They have proved they know how to take orders. Many LEOs are para-military in their thinking and training. Am I saying they are all that way..no of course not. Am I saying I don't trust in our police officers?? Again..no of course not. But as long as we have officers that think the way the one previous poster said about dressing scary and coercing the public into compliance...their job and our safety will not get any better. Coercive compliance?? Too reticent to use PROPER LAWFUL force?? His idea of proper? With that thinking he may need to find a different line of work!! Luckily the police in the area I live in for the most part don't act that way and don't NEED to look scary to do their job. And the LEOs I worked with used as much force as necessary to control the situation. ..99.99% of the time they did it in a very lawful manner

^ Decent people such as yourself have little exposure to extreme edges of the behavior cops are expected to respond to and address. It is as foreign to you as most forms of science are to me. From a pending article of mine: "One duty of law enforcement officers is to hunt and capture these bad people, document the investigation, and send the documentation to prosecutors for consideration of the next steps in the process. Much crime is ugly, sudden, and violent; often, so is controlling the offenders. Only the criminal is responsible for the use of force."

I do LE legal among my other duties as a Deputy Prosecutor assigned to our civil division. I have written and taught on this and other aspects of search and seizure law (use of force is a type of "seizure") for more than 30 years. LE uses force very rarely - in general terms, in about 1% of all encounters. Lethal force is of course far more rare, but LE only uses lethal force in about 3 - 4% of the encounters in which it would be justified as a matter of law and ethics. The research on this is consistent in this conclusion. Depending on the year, LE is assaulted with weapons other than body parts somewhere around 15,000 times yearly, and experiences many more potentially lethal assaults with personal weapons (body parts, such as feet, elbows, etc). A low estimate of the number of justifiable homicides that could result would be 20,000. Assuming that the figure I have seen for this year of 1000 people killed by cops is correct, that is 5% of the number it could be.

Coercive compliance: you bet. Most people don't resist. Those incidents matter only in showing the results of sound conduct by persons contacted. Those who do resist don't get a choice. They get forced. From the same pending article:

"The law is clear, and has been this way for several decades. “The risk of harm to both the police and the occupants is minimized if the officers routinely exercise unquestioned command of the situation.” Michigan v. Summers, 452 U.S. 692, 702-703 (1981). This is true in any non-consensual encounter. Brendlin v. California, 551 U.S. 249, 258 (2007)(citations omitted). In one recent event, police responded to a report by a caller who was in error and may have been influenced by the man's physical appearance. The man complied with the lawful orders, and all stayed safe, just as the US Supreme Court said. The citizen, to the extent he is distressed, blames the caller and their organization. He not only does not blame the officers – he had friendly pictures taken with officers who had held him at gunpoint! In mixup, Florida deputies hold Santa Rosa man | The Press Democrat, last accessed 09/20/2015. There is no right to resist a Terry stop or even an unlawful arrest except in a very rare circumstance. See, for example, State v. Mierz, 127 Wn.2d 460, 476, 901 P.2d 286 (1995) (citations omitted); WPIC 35.23.02, WPIC 17.01.01." (Those last citations are to the Washington Pattern Jury Instructions for Criminal cases.)

The popular media presentation of incidents such as the Michael Brown shooting and the Eric Garner matter is based on ignorance of the law and conscious disregard or deliberate misstatements of the facts. Likewise the drivel about the Andy Lopez and Tamir Rice shootings, along with many others.

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NHI, 10-8.

What people don't understand is that it takes an "A Typical" personality to survive and perform effectively as a cop. Most cops have it. Some don't.

And you may never see it in writing but it is a requirement by many police departments to even consider getting hired as a cop.

Some folks don't like those in authority. They don't like imposing people or those with strong personalities that stand out among the rest.

But ask yourself this...... Who would you want to walk our streets and uphold the law? I sure as hell wouldn't want the weak or the meek to do so.

Some cops abuse their authority. Most don't. But if you put them and yourself in a situation where they need to enforce their authority, you deserve such treatment.

I got no heartburn with how they dress and how they enforce the law as long as it's legal and consistent.

Walk a mile in their shoes.

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Life Is A Gift. Defend it!

Display this bravado with your "customers" all you want, but there's no need to try and impress me with it.

Everybody wants LEO's to stay low profile, until they need them to be high profile. It's a fine line that often is not conducive to wardrobe changes and hair appointments . . .

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Wisdom comes thru fear . . .

I lived for 30 years in a small New Mexico town of about 25,000 people. I used to see the police cruising around in 2 MRAPs, equipped with 30 cal and 50 cal machine guns. Paid for originally by tax payers at a cost of about $658,000 each.

Once, after their range qualification day, I was able to buy a large cardboard box of once fired 7.62 brass for $4 at the surplus & salvage office.

Another thing that bothers me is that while you could always count on a police reaction if you messed with them, nowadays the police sometimes preemptively initiate the violent action them selves for little or no apparent reason.

In this case, a guy was standing in front of a hotel and was flung to the ground by a plain clothes officer. It turned out that the subject had a strong resemblance to another guy who the police were actually looking for. BUT, the actual suspect was only wanted for credit card fraud!

*
I'm not doing that, nor is anyone else as far as I can tell. It's simply a matter of trying to explain the reality of law, tactics, and ethics. Have I met some real first class Adam-Henry boneheads who can't turn on and off the dominant behavior as needed? Oh yeah. And I, like most of my friends, hate them with a passion - more than most outside the field could comprehend. Have I also met some first class losers who could not control a wet sponge? Yes. And they too are reviled.

I worked very hard to be as easy going as possible, partly to over-compensate for my harsh voice and general distaste for people (most cops, CPS investigators, ER medical staff etc. have a deeply ingrained hatred for most people because of their experiences - don't critique it if you haven't been there). I pet dogs and cats, let kids play with the lights in the car, etc.

However, there is time when fiddling around is a complete fail, and it is well proven that a failure to use enough force soon enough results in more injuries to all. I'm well aware that there are people tougher than me, especially now that I am older and out of the field. That said, I'm pretty big and strong, and using any significant force meant a high likelihood of injuries to the other. Everyone involved is better off if I can by my ugly look and unpleasant demeanor dissuade someone from engaging in conduct that results in going hands on. Sun Tzu: "To win without fighting is best."

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NHI, 10-8.

Bravado? Where?

You're the last person I need to impress. You're nothing to me.

How's that for bravado. Wanna play nice? Or mean. I can do either.

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Life Is A Gift. Defend it!

The vast majority of LEO are fine, and do a great job. The ones who tend to stand out in my mind live to try and bully people. As I get older, I see less and less of this, but I have children who are beginning to drive, and they describe similar things as I remember as a teenager. It seems we have a few who love intimidating kids, and that is horse feces.

Which would you prefer?? There was an implied threat in the reply. From the way it was written it seemed the latter but this is an impersonal venue so could be wrong.. I may also be wrong but it seemed the previous poster meant scare the kids.. but don't need that demeanor for (most) adults. We had a State trooper at home and when I was a kid..heck..all of us young'uns just knew he was the meanest thing on two legs. Met him a few years later, in a traffic stop for a light out ,after I was married and he actually acted like an adult too. Fancy that!

Well, that thread was fun while it lasted.........

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Un-Reconstructed Southerner

I'm glad I brought this up. Some really interesting perspectives.
I've wondered if the job makes LEOs somewhat cynical about the general public and I can understand if it does. Dealing with an element of the population that the rest of us don't have to because of them, and on a very regular basis.

My .02 from 3 decades behind the badge.....
Gear, appearance, etc. My agency has worn the nearly exact same traditional uniform for over 50 years. There are exceptions for Mounted, Motor, Bicycle, SEU (SWAT), etc. But regular patrol has had to work with the very unpractical wear for a long time, mainly because it 'looks nice' to the public.

Wool pants that are dry-clean only (ever been through a NC Summer with 95* heat and 90%+ humidity?)

Cotton/Poly blend shirts with mandatory clip-on tie. Shirts only look good with heavy starch press job (which I did myself for about 18 years).

Badge, snaps on keepers needing shining about every two days (Brasso and NevrDull smells will forever reside in my olfactory memories)
Clarino (that's black plastic for those unaware) uniform shoes that are cold in Winter and cook your feet in Summer.

A policy that vacillated wildly about uniform cover wear to the point of absurdity. Most of the time, if out of the patrol car, it WOULD be on. Some supervisors would hunt guys to spot them hat-less and write up disciplinary action.

Working within these parameters so that you 'look nice' for the public has very few fans among those of us that had/have to do it.

My second thought on the topic - as a career LEO in a busy place, we rarely had interactions with folks of the caliber that are this forum. We did have routine interaction with some of the worst examples of humanity and depravity. Many for whom the value of life, anyone's life, is a foreign concept.
Good, contributing citizens are woefully and blissfully ignorant of what that may be like day-in and day-out. Yes, we are figuratively 'garbage men' and still try to be the forthright and upstanding Boy Scouts that most good citizens expect. It can be difficult to wear a whole dumpster full of the hats required.

AND ---thank you. The OP brought up a topic that once more has caused me to thank the Lord above that I am retired.

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Ret'd LEO
SWCA #2275