How to fix the police

Believe it or not, police relations with citizenry haven't always been good as illustrated in the 1850's poster above.  The first truly modern uniformed police force was instituted by Louis XIV, hence the distinctly French name "police".  The police were initially the enforcement arm of the sovereign and there was a lot of resistance to enforcement.

Our modern police forces are believed to be based upon the creation of the Metropolitan police of London, created by Sir Robert Peel and heavily influenced by the philosophy of Jeremy Bentham.  They wear blue because at the time the military of the state wore red.  They were to be distinctly separate and recognizably, not an arm of the sovereign.  The philosophy was "Policing by consent".

There are nine Peelian principles:

1. To prevent crime and disorder, as an alternative to their repression by military force and severity of legal punishment.

2. To recognize always that the power of the police to fulfill their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behavior, and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect.

3. To recognize always that to secure and maintain the respect and approval of the public means also the securing of the willing co-operation of the public in the task of securing observance of laws.

4. To recognize always that the extent to which the cooperation of the public can be secured diminishes proportionately with the necessity of the use of physical force and compulsion for achieving police objectives.

5. To seek and preserve public favor, not by pandering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolutely impartial service to law, in complete independence of policy, and without regard to the justice or injustice of the substance of individual laws, by ready offering of individual service and friendship to all members of the public without regard to their wealth or social standing, by ready exercise of courtesy and friendly good humor, and by ready offering of individual sacrifice in protecting and preserving life.

6. To use physical force only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient to obtain public co-operation to an extent necessary to secure observance of law or to restore order, and to use only the minimum degree of physical force which is necessary on any particular occasion for achieving a police objective.

7. To maintain at all times a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and that the public are the police, the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.

The statement outlined above in bold is the principle that Sir Robert Peel most often and loudly tried to hammer home.

8. To recognize always the need for strict adherence to police-executive functions, and to refrain from even seeming to usurp the powers of the judiciary of avenging individuals or the State, and of authoritatively judging guilt and punishing the guilty.

9. To recognize always that the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, and not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them.

Now that I've outlined the basics I'll offer you a few ideas of my own for you to build upon.

Federalizing the police is the most stupid idea I've heard, it moves the power and authority of law enforcement even further from where it belongs, with is with the people.  Recreating the original problem of police, that of being the oppressive enforcement arm of the state underline the principle that those who fail to study history are doomed to repeat it.  A National Police Force will, in my opinion, only make matters worse. Now for some of my ideas:

1. The position of police chief should be an elected position similar to that of Sheriffs, acting independently of municipal government.  The position of police chief should also be easily and readily subject to recall by the people. 

2. Not all police need to be armed.  We should take an example from our English brethren and separate routine policing from armed policing.  There are five countries that do not arm their police officers when on routine patrol.  Britain, Ireland, Norway, Iceland, and New Zealand.  In Iceland roughly 1/3 of the citizenry is armed, it's police are not, they had their first police shooting in 2013. In 2014/15 there were 5,647 "Authorized Firearms Officers" in England out of roughly 125,000 officers.  London has the most with 2,122 AFOs on a force of 40,788.

3. Police need to get out of cars and go back to walking a beat.  This will of course necessitate more police and consistent with #2 above, they should not be armed.  Today, the most common interaction between the public and the police is in enforcement, that needs to change.  The public's most common interaction with the police can not be only when they get stopped, ticketed, fined, or arrested.

4. Police who are armed should not ever remove their weapons from their holsters unless they are going to fire them.  Unless you already have a legitimate reason to shoot someone you should never draw your weapon.  Drawing a weapon should have to meet the same rigorous legal reporting requirements and justification as shooting it.

5. Murder or attempted murder of a police officer in the line of duty should be an automatic capital offense, no other sentence, no plea deal, if you're guilty, you are dead.

Well, I've thrown out a few ideas, what are some of yours?

Charlotte & Tulsa

Well, what do you think?

In Tulsa an unarmed man with a stalled vehicle was shot by police, although perhaps there was PCP in the vehicle. Officers believed the man had a gun, none was found.

In Charlotte, an armed man (at least according to the police) was shot and killed waiting for his child's bus. According to the police he was observed exiting his vehicle armed and returning to his vehicle before police intervened.  

A key question is why?  North Carolina is an open carry state and the 4th circuit court of appeals has previously ruled (2013) that the open carry of a firearm does not constitute a legal reason for the police to stop a person.

Honestly, in the vast majority of cases I do not think these shootings racially motivated.  I find it hard to believe that a black officer working for a black police chief had a racist motive behind his shooting of a black suspect. The problem lies in why was he suspect at all?  The police were not there for him, he had done nothing illegal, the police had no reason to challenge him at all.

The circumstances that we are in are dire, we are afraid of the police (at least some of us are), and the police are afraid of us... nothing good can come from this situation.  On one side you have questionable police tactics and on the other, well the response doesn't help the situation at all does it?

In a free society it is not incumbent upon the people to adapt to the state but for the state to adapt to the people.  The police can not be permitted to react to an armed citizen with lethal force, they can not shoot someone simply for being armed, and they certainly can not shoot someone for simply being uncooperative.  These are the hallmarks of an oppressive police state, let us not forget that the charter of the police is to serve the citizenry, not the state, they are on the street to protect the citizenry, not themselves.  

While I disagree with the BLM movements interpretation of events we should all be outraged at how readily our police resort to lethal force.

Red Stick

3 Cops dead, 3 wounded.

So who else thinks Black people shooting cops is not the way to get cops to stop shooting Black people?

Police Tape

The right to take video of police encounters in public is clearly protected by the First Amendment but the trend is for police to detain people shooting video and then subsequently drop the charges.

"Exercising this right has consistently and uniformly been upheld by state and federal courts; they have made it abundantly clear that citizens have right to film police in public," he said. "What is alarming is the degree to which police are ignoring this clear precedent and continue to threaten citizens." Jonathan Turley GWU

ABC News

PoliceOne 

“As a basic principle, we can’t tell you to stop recording,” says Delroy Burton, chairman of D.C.’s metropolitan police union and a 21-year veteran on the force. “If you’re standing across the street videotaping, and I’m in a public place, carrying out my public functions, [then] I’m subject to recording, and there’s nothing legally the police officer can do to stop you from recording.”

Atlantic 

The trending police tactic is to detain the citizen, wipe the recording, and charge with obstruction, interference, disorderly conduct, and the like.  Wait... there's an App for that.

Police Tape is a program released by the ACLU-NJ.  The app is simple and allows you to use the Police Tape feature to record video and audio interaction with the police and then it backs up the video so that it can't be deleted if your phone is taken. 

iDigitalTimes

A Must Read

I got home from the bar and fell into bed soon after Saturday night bled into Sunday morning. I didn’t wake up until three police officers barged into my apartment, barking their presence at my door. They sped down the hallway to my bedroom, their service pistols drawn and leveled at me.

This is from a good opinion piece from the Washington Post and Alex Horton a member of the Defense Council at the Truman National Security Project who served as an infantryman in Iraq with the Army's 3rd Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division.

TO SERVE AND PROTECT...???

All in the attempt to apprehend a shoplifter.  More like boys wanting to play with their toys. I'm just waiting for the video of the (literally) boys in blue hootin' and hollerin' it up as they destroy this man's home.

FRIDAY FREE-FOR-ALL

Comments?

Jack Booted Thugs

Photo: Sean Kendall

Meet Geist

He was home alone in his backyard when Salt Lake City police came in and shot him in the head.

A Salt Lake City family called police to report that their three year old was missing.  Police proceeded to conduct a house to house search, knocked on the door of Sean Kendall's house and when no one answered, entered the private, gated, backyard without a warrant. When the dog exited his kennel the officer felt threatened and shot the dog.

Now in my opinion the police officer was not in hot-pursuit, and a mere missing child does not qualify as exigent circumstance.  In order for exigent circumstances to apply the officer would have had to have some reason to believe the child was present, which is unlikely since he was found asleep in his home.

The Police are there to help?

I grew up around police officers, went to barbeques, worked on cars, went fishing with them, even worked for a retired police officer for a time.   Now there are two possibilities, either I was extremely naive, or the police have changed a lot,  I think the latter is the case.

I even have a few friends who are cops, but the advice I give friends and family now is have nothing to do with them without a lawyer present.  Some kids in my neighborhood had broken into a house and the deputy sheriffs were apparently looking for where they stashed the loot.  They asked kindly if they could look in my barn, I declined.  I offered to look myself and let them know if I found anything, they declined.  I never would have dreamed of doing that twenty-five years ago, but times change, and if you ask me law enforcement has changed.

What do you think of this? Was the cop justified? How do you feel about law enforcement today?

Deseret News

Salt Lake Tribune

If you ask me, they're public servants and they need to be reminded who's master.

War on Cops

On 14 January, eleven police officers were shot in five states in a 24-hour period. 14 officers in all were killed in January of 2011.  In 2010, 162 officers were killed in the line of duty, up from 117 in 2009.

The lunatics are running the asylum. We celebrate a gansta culture, laugh at lawlessness, and worship thugs. Then scratch our heads when stuff like this happens.



Like soldiers, cops don’t need our sympathy, they need our support. 
When some criminal bum files a lawsuit because somebody put his cuffs on too tight, we need to step up and defend our police department, and even encourage legislators to pass laws narrowing the window of opportunity for such legal frivolities.  


A YouTube Viral Video Does Not Tell The Whole Story
I hate when some youtube goes viral because an “innocent protestor” was slammed to the ground by policemen or cuffed and hauled off. Here’s the bottom line folks: a police officer is the law on the scene and must administer justice as the situation warrants. He doesn’t know who you are and all the personalities involved. He just rolled up on the situation and now has to sort it out. Shut your mouth, cooperate and if you’re not a perp you’re on your way. Shooting off your mouth is not going to keep you out of trouble, it just make the situation harder to sort out.

We view these youtubes, like the guy with some sign at an event up in Alaska last year, with full knowledge that the person was harmless. The cops on the scene don’t know that. Anyone could have a knife, a gun or could just be hopped up on meth or some other drug that makes them violent, powerful, and impervious to pain compliance techniques. The police are charged with protecting the public, but they also must protect themselves as much as possible. And yes, they make mistakes, but people acting stupidly and refusing to listen turns a small mistake into a much bigger one.

Cases like Amadou Diallo also go viral. Intellectual luminaries like Bruce Springsteen ask why the cops had to shoot him 41 times? If you believe a perp to be imminently and lethally dangerous, you shoot him, and you keep shooting until he goes down. It’s not like in the movies where you shoot once, or pull a Lone Ranger and shoot the gun out of the perp’s hand. You don’t fire a warning shot and see what happens. If there’s a lethal danger, you put it down.
 
We now know Diallo was not armed, but the officers on that dark night did not. The officer who yelled “Gun!” made a mistake. That mistake would not have happened had Diallo followed orders and simply raised his hands. The policemen would have frisked him, questioned him and he’s on his way. He could have lived to file whatever complaint or lawsuit he felt was necessary if he thought his rights were violated.

It’s a sad fact of life for people in bad neighborhoods that they may sometimes be stopped. It’s even sadder for the police officer killed in the line of duty and the grieving loved ones left behind.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1350523/Police-shootings-America-Sudden-wave-sparks-fears-secret-war-cops.html
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/01/24/authorities-fear-cops-targeted-officers-shot-hours/?test=latestnews#