The folks at NRA’s Life of Duty send us their latest video in their “Patriot Profiles” series about Chris Paz and Rolando Tirado who were both injured in 2011. They were officers with the Buckeye, Arizona PD. Its a 20 minute video, so I saved it for the weekend;
Category: Police
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Militarization of the police
I understand the need in today’s culture for a prepared police force, I recognize that they need to be well-trained, mostly I want every law enforcement officer to go home to their families tonight or whenever their shift ends. But, ladies and gentlemen, we don’t need a police force that looks like that graduation photo above of the Michigan State Police after their Emergency Services class which I snagged from Radley Balko at the Washington Post.
Radley wrote about the photo last month when it was Tweeted by the Michigan State Police’s Public Affairs Section. At the link above you can read the email exchange between Michigan state offices in regards to the Tweet, and they totally miss the point of the controversy that took place. It’s not that the picture was posted to Twitter, it’s about the militarization of the police force in this country.
I hate that I find myself on the side of the American Civil Liberties Union, but, ya know, I hear about shrinking law enforcement budgets across the country, and then I see them spending money in preparation for a war against our citizens. We talked about it last month when we found this quote from Sgt. Dan Downing of the Morgan County Sheriff’s Department;
‘The weaponry is totally different now that it was in the beginning of my career, plus, you have a lot of people who are coming out of the military that have the ability and knowledge to build IEDs and to defeat law enforcement techniques.’
I forgot about all of those training standards for building IEDs from my Common Tasks Training, maybe because I never had that training. Neither did Timothy McVeigh – the scary vet that everyone likes to point to as an example of what we’re capable of doing to this country.
When I moved to DC 15 years ago, I was shocked to see the Metropolitan police dressed in BDU-style uniforms. It seemed incongruous to police work – and that was before 9-11. That was just the beginning, though. Now we have examples of preparation for war against the citizenry in our own country, including armored vehicles, up to and including tanks. Warrants are served with a stack of SWAT members outside your door. What’s up with that?
Actually, police-guys, you look more like Air Softer wannabes than you look like law enforcement personnel. Seriously.
Brookline SRT poses before a police training exercise. They train 2x a month to be prepared for any situation. pic.twitter.com/wax7auHmZ2
— Brookline PD (@BrooklineMAPD) June 24, 2014
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When seconds count….
ROS sends us a link to Tampa Bay’s 10 News which tells the story of John Breau of New Port Ritchie where he faced down a couple of home invaders while the 9-1-1 operators played “transfer this call” as Breau’s wife was pistol-whipped in front of him. Apparently, only some of the Pasco County 911 operators are qualified to take police calls, while others can only take fire calls. If you’re unlucky and get the wrong type of operator well, you have to be transferred to the properly qualified operator;
Each time the dispatcher tried to transfer the emergency call to a qualified person a prerecorded message came up saying “If this is an emergency hang up and call 911. Thanks for calling the Pasco County Sheriff’s office non-emergency number.”
And that prerecorded message about calling 911 came up not once, but twice when the dispatcher who is not qualified in law enforcement in this building was sitting right next to the law enforcement qualified dispatcher but couldn’t transfer the call.
“It felt like I was on a customer service call to be honest,” Breau says.
So, just shoot, for Pete’s sake.
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Police officers push Vietnam vet home
ChipNASA sends us a link to a story where two San Diego cops encountered Vietnam veteran Gil Larocque broke down with his power scooter at a busy intersection. The officers did the only thing they could;
“You wouldn’t expect them to do something like that, push you all the way home,” Larocque said.
But that’s exactly what San Diego police officers Milo Shields, a veteran, and Eric Cooper, the son of a veteran did, when they saw Larocque struggling, trying to flag down traffic in the hot sun.
“I appreciate what they did, they went out of their way. How many people would stop?” Larocque asked.
It was a lot easier said than done, as there were some hiccups along the nearly two-mile route, pushing Larocque and a dead scooter that weighed more than 300 pounds.
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Police and their irrational fear of veterans
You guys keep telling me that most police officers are veterans, too, but I keep reading articles like this one from the UK’s Daily Mail sent us by Arby about some cop in Morgan County, Indiana’s Sheriff Department;
‘When I first started we really didn’t have the violence that we see today,’ Sgt. Dan Downing of the Morgan County Sheriff’s Department told Fox 59. ‘The weaponry is totally different now that it was in the beginning of my career, plus, you have a lot of people who are coming out of the military that have the ability and knowledge to build IEDs and to defeat law enforcement techniques.’
Of course, he’s defending his department’s purchase of a mine-resistant armored vehicle. But, I’d like to see Sergeant Dan point to one incident of a veteran building an improvised explosive device to use against the police. In fact, I’d like to see him show me one veteran who learned to build an IED. It wasn’t part of my training. Now, folks might know how to defeat IEDs, or how to be blown up by one, but I haven’t heard of any US forces using their own IEDs against the enemies in Iraq or Afghanistan. Maybe I missed that news.
‘We were actually approached when we’d stop to get fuel by people wanting to know why we needed this…what were we going to use it for? ‘Are you coming to take our guns away?’’ Downing said.
‘To come and take away their firearms…that absolutely is not the reason why we go this vehicle. We got this vehicle because of the need and because of increased violence that we have been facing over the last few years. I’ll be the last person to come and take anybody’s guns.’
And then *yawn* Sergeant Dan uses that incident in the North Hollywood bank robbery nearly 20 years ago as an excuse for his department to buy the MRAP. I don’t remember, did those guys use an IED against the police?
I’m all for the police protecting themselves, and I want them all to go home safely, but using returning war veterans as an excuse to arm themselves beyond their actual needs doesn’t make me feel good about what is shaping up to be a war against vets. It perpetuates the myth of the “crazy vets” and I think that I have a little bit of credibility of law abiding veterans in our dealings with the police. Millions of veterans didn’t even think about breaking the law yesterday.
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Why I Love Their Job – Forward Observer
On the fourth anniversary of a close friends death. SSG Ian Deutch was killed on duty, as a Nye County Sheriff–27 days after returning home from Afghanistan. SSG Deutch was a skilled forward observer, whom I had the privilege to serve alongside while in Afghanistan.
SSG Ian Deutch, EOW 4-26-2010 Forward observers are the link between the units on ground and various fire assets available to those units. These could include anything from 60mm mortars to fixed wing, artillery, and naval guns. In our area of operations our greatest assets were our 81mm mortars. A platoon of fast acting, highly accurate mortarman, who stood ready at their guns 24 hours a day, every day until we all came home. Our mortars could put a round on target in a matter of minutes, but it was our forward observers who told them where those targets were.
Our forward observers, were all trained by SSG Deutch. If it wasn’t his Hamburglar sounding voice over the radio, it was one of his soldiers. The standard which he held himself to, and he held his soldiers to, shaped the battle space. It had a positive effect on our missions, and capabilities. It also had a dramatic effect on the capabilities of the enemy forces within the area.
Our enemy, never attempted to stand and fight, which isn’t unusual for the modern enemy faced. But having spoken to the units we relieved, and the units who relieved us. The enemy adjusted their techniques based on the unit on ground. They stayed and fought the preceding unit. They never stuck around more than a few minutes with us, because that was all they had. Within three minutes 81mm mortar rounds were landing within 100 meters of their position, the adjustments to follow were always fast and deadly accurate.
The psychological effect of this was damning. And the effects were obvious. A skilled forward observer can save lives by reducing the enemy’s offensive capabilities.
The forward observer; with a radio, map and compass is the single most damage producing individual on the battlefield. Do I want to do this job? No, lots of map reading and math, and I am simply not that good at it. But I am always happy to have one around.
We all miss you brother, thank you.
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Cop charged in death of veteran
You probably remember the story from last year of 95-year-old John Wrana who became belligerent when nursing home staff tried to treat his urinary tract infection, so they called in the local Park Forest, Illinois cops. When they arrived, the officers began treating him as threat because he had a knife, a cane and a long shoehorn (that they mistook for a machete) so they tried to tase him, but missed. So they decided to beanbag his ass, that caused internal bleeding and the World War II Burma Army Air Corpsman died soon after.
One cop has been charged in the incident according to the Chicago Tribune;
Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez’s office said patrolman Craig Taylor, 43, was charged with one count of reckless conduct, a Class 4 felony. Taylor has been with the Park Forest Police Department since January, 2004.
Taylor is expected to appear before a judge later Wednesday at the Leighton Criminal Courts Building. The case is being handled by the special prosecutions unit.
I think all parties over-reacted to the whole thing, including Mr Wrana. But, just by admitting that they thought a shoehorn was a machete tells me that the police didn’t adequately evaluate the situation. Beanbagging a 95-year-old just seems like it was an excessive reaction. Tasing him was a bad idea, too. They could have just waited him out. 95-year-olds aren’t known for their stamina.
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Army vets on patrol in NYC subways
The folks at ABC News send their latest article from their Standing Up For Heroes series. This one is about NYPD Transit Crime Unit Officer Juan Rodriguez and his partner Cezar, a former military working dog.
Rodriguez is a tabbed Ranger who got out of the Army in 1997. Cezar had three deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan;
The NYPD tested 50 dogs for the job before they decided to add Cezar. Law enforcement agencies are encouraged to adopt retired military dogs that still have a working life. “He’s already trained and tested and now we can use it in the police department,” says [Randy Brenner, training supervisor with the NYPD Transit K-9 Crime unit], who is training Rodriguez.
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For Rodriguez, it’s great to finally be able to be working for a dog. “I feel like I’m a kid again. It brought back my military time,” he says. “I’m not sure how long their working life is but I hope he lasts a good amount of years so I can work with him as long as I can.
“Just like anybody who has a pet, you grow a bond. He’s not only your pet at home but your partner at work.”