On 11/17/2015, 11:52:33, Coltsmith said:

That might be true, but hearing about the recent cases of police misconduct (whether its justified to call it that or not, I wasn't in the situation so I dont know) and the rejection I have seen from officers regarding the introduction of behavioural training (my infos are from a sequence at the Seattle PD, so that is only one department), I think a little bit more training wouldn't hurt, would it? I mean other job postings with the same amount of salary do have a longer educational period as well, or am I mistaking?

I agree that there is absolutely nothing wrong with more training, and I firmly believe that police officers are severely under trained for what they need to do. By that I do not mean that they don't know how to use a gun properly or how to articulate most laws and statutes, etc. But consider the following:

-Professional martial artists can require years in order to get to a high ranking belt, indicating that they are very proficient in hand to hand combat. Police officers only get a few weeks at the academy, often their only background in one on one "combat" being on a college or high school football or wrestling team. Both of these help, but are not guarantees you will be able to overpower somebody or take someone into custody who actually knows how to fight. If you want police officers to be truly safe, and reduce the amount of times they feel the need to use the weapons on their belt; they should be much better at hand to hand combat. Feeling a lack of control in a fight will lead you to use deadly force sooner.

-While police academies require that you pass certain fitness requirements in order to pass the academy; these requirements are largely unrelated to the physical demands of your job, and for the most part they are not upheld once you graduate. YouTube celebrity Police officer Dominic Izzo touches on this briefly when talking about how U.S. police can win back the public: By being extremely professional, holding yourself to the highest standard and putting procedure and the law above everything else like you swore to when hired. A lot of people do not upkeep their fitness after being hired. Some departments have a policy where if you can no longer do your job well, they'll give you a warning and if you do not improve, they'll fire you, but too few of them do. Watch this in regards to my last paragraph: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMdGqpU1dUs

-While I don't agree that every cop needs to be a law major; statutes specific to your city, county, state (whatever your patrol area is) need to be known like the back of your hand. This helps regarding questioning somebody properly about a crime, handling gun rights activists who open carry, when you can and cannot search someones property or enter a building, when you can or cannot detain somebody and how to handle people who are indeed law students or lawyers themselves. Many cops don't actually know what I just outlined anywhere near as well as they should simply because they don't have to, and they can call a supervisor to articulate it for them.

-Many cops are hired at a young age when they have college experience or military experience; but no actual "life experience". As Officer Izzo says, at 21 years old, how are you going to act as a councilor for two people who have been married for twenty years who are going through severe domestic problems that may or may not be causing violence or at least extremely heated arguments? People who get hired for this job should be people who have to deal with angry, disgruntled, upset or perhaps even mentally unstable individuals on a daily basis. Retail workers, people who work in the medical field, people with psychology and sociology experience, people who speak more languages than just English, people who are over the age of 30, people who have had a steady marriage for several years. These are all people who in all likelihood are more qualified to handle the problems an average cop will encounter each shift.

The bottom line is that cops are expected by the public to be supermen. Super strong, super tough, able to kick anyone's ass, act as a marriage councilor, a mental health expert, a paramedic, a hostage negotiator, a child care expert, be multi-lingual and know the law to the degree a law student would. This is not the case for any cop anywhere in America, and in all likelihood; not the case for any cop anywhere on the planet. I don't care how much training you've had, you can't be the best at everything. That being said, there is easily room for improvement in all of the areas I just mentioned, a lot of which does not have to be done in the academy itself. It can be done on the road with a more experienced model police officer; and I'm not talking about an FTO because they don't always know everything either, and even if they did, a few months of riding with them isn't long enough to absorb all the knowledge they have. These people should be your partner for a few years before you get your own cruiser and work alone, not for weeks or months.

 

8 hours ago, unr3al said:

If you want police officers to be truly safe, and reduce the amount of times they feel the need to use the weapons on their belt; they should be much better at hand to hand combat. Feeling a lack of control in a fight will lead you to use deadly force sooner.

These people should be your partner for a few years before you get your own cruiser and work alone, not for weeks or months.

I agree with pretty much everything you said except for this sentence. Lack of control is not one of the factors for using deadly force (at least most of the time). If an officer is fighting with someone and they aren't winning they might try using a different tool or tactic such as a taser or OC spray but they won't just say "well I'm losing this fight so I guess I'll shoot him". That is not how the police are trained to deal with situations and officers who deal with a situation like that usually aren't on the job for very long. If they are losing a fight and the suspect is trying to take a weapon from their duty belt or they are at risk of going unconscious then yes, they might be justified in using deadly force but it is important to clarify that the second part of that scenario is why an officer is using deadly force not simply because they can't control a suspect. Maybe that is what you meant but the way I interpreted that sentence is that if an officer is having a hard time controlling a suspect they are just going to give up and shoot them.

And as nice as it would be for officers to have a partner for a few years there is simply no budget for that in most departments.

27 minutes ago, l3ubba said:

Maybe that is what you meant but the way I interpreted that sentence is that if an officer is having a hard time controlling a suspect they are just going to give up and shoot them.

And as nice as it would be for officers to have a partner for a few years there is simply no budget for that in most departments.

No, that's not what I meant. A fire arm should be used as a last resort when a cop is in clear and imminent danger of death or significant bodily harm. Very rarely will there be a fight scenario where a cop gets to switch between all of his weapons one at a time. Usually they have one chance for a single non lethal means to subdue someone, then they have to switch to the gun if it doesn't work and they're still in fear for their life. Three feet of distance is technically the safe space where if you're beyond it, you can't be easily disarmed. Ten feet is supposed to be the distance where a cop can put away a non lethal weapon and then un-holster and draw his/her gun and fire a shot off. That would take one hell of a steel nerved cop in an ideal scenario for that to happen with any degree of accuracy. If you're on the ground getting your face beat in, a taser might work if you can get it drawn and get a body shot, but that's a big 'maybe'. Pepper spray won't help you because it's going to hit you just as much as the suspect. A baton is not an option while pinned on the ground. The only solution if you're certain you can't regain control is to use your gun. That scenario has to be assessed, a decision has to be made and the action needs to be taken almost instantly. That problem can result in a very bad result, very quickly.

The problem is that officers can act with deadly force on fear of safety justifiably because they aren't well trained enough to feel confident in an actual fight where only fists or melee weapons are used. If I was a well trained martial artist cop with a baton but no taser or OC spray, had 10 feet of distance and was up against two people with no backup for 30 seconds, I'd feel confident enough to stand my ground with the baton until it got taken away from me or until I was on the ground looking up at someones fist. With two people pinning me, I'm not getting up and I most likely won't be able to keep control of my weapon for long if at all. If that were to happen, the gun's going to get used.

If I had little to no combat training, my gun would be out when dealing with two people. Not my baton. That is one of the many set ups for failure due to lack of training.

Believe me Bubba, the money for that extensive training exists. It's just not given to police departments. In the same way that it exists but is not given to schools, or college students, or elderly people, or the uninsured, etc. Because we're too busy bailing out large corporations and spending unlimited amounts of money on the U.S. military which has a budget larger than the next 10 biggest armies combined. Even without government financing, I think cops who want to feel confident on the job should take it upon themselves to get better. Go join a martial arts class, ideally one taught by a cop or ex-cop. Take some psychology and sociology courses, even if they're online. Take some Spanish lessons. Take an EMT course. These aren't things for the wealthy. Anybody with a cops salary can afford to do these things. It's going to make you a better cop as well as a better person. It may even earn you a promotion easier because you'll be better qualified than everyone else in your department.

Am I getting that right, you recieve no field training and self defense classes after you gratuated from the academy??? That cant be right, otherwise officers are underperforming after a few years...

And the part with the one-man-patrol what you guys are doing I don't really understand either, you can do jack shit if you out alone and dont have a partner...

10 hours ago, unr3al said:

No, that's not what I meant. A fire arm should be used as a last resort when a cop is in clear and imminent danger of death or significant bodily harm. Very rarely will there be a fight scenario where a cop gets to switch between all of his weapons one at a time. Usually they have one chance for a single non lethal means to subdue someone, then they have to switch to the gun if it doesn't work and they're still in fear for their life. Three feet of distance is technically the safe space where if you're beyond it, you can't be easily disarmed. Ten feet is supposed to be the distance where a cop can put away a non lethal weapon and then un-holster and draw his/her gun and fire a shot off. That would take one hell of a steel nerved cop in an ideal scenario for that to happen with any degree of accuracy. If you're on the ground getting your face beat in, a taser might work if you can get it drawn and get a body shot, but that's a big 'maybe'. Pepper spray won't help you because it's going to hit you just as much as the suspect. A baton is not an option while pinned on the ground. The only solution if you're certain you can't regain control is to use your gun. That scenario has to be assessed, a decision has to be made and the action needs to be taken almost instantly. That problem can result in a very bad result, very quickly.

The problem is that officers can act with deadly force on fear of safety justifiably because they aren't well trained enough to feel confident in an actual fight where only fists or melee weapons are used. If I was a well trained martial artist cop with a baton but no taser or OC spray, had 10 feet of distance and was up against two people with no backup for 30 seconds, I'd feel confident enough to stand my ground with the baton until it got taken away from me or until I was on the ground looking up at someones fist. With two people pinning me, I'm not getting up and I most likely won't be able to keep control of my weapon for long if at all. If that were to happen, the gun's going to get used.

If I had little to no combat training, my gun would be out when dealing with two people. Not my baton. That is one of the many set ups for failure due to lack of training.

Believe me Bubba, the money for that extensive training exists. It's just not given to police departments. In the same way that it exists but is not given to schools, or college students, or elderly people, or the uninsured, etc. Because we're too busy bailing out large corporations and spending unlimited amounts of money on the U.S. military which has a budget larger than the next 10 biggest armies combined. Even without government financing, I think cops who want to feel confident on the job should take it upon themselves to get better. Go join a martial arts class, ideally one taught by a cop or ex-cop. Take some psychology and sociology courses, even if they're online. Take some Spanish lessons. Take an EMT course. These aren't things for the wealthy. Anybody with a cops salary can afford to do these things. It's going to make you a better cop as well as a better person. It may even earn you a promotion easier because you'll be better qualified than everyone else in your department.

I agree and I see where you are going. Ultimately it comes down to the specific scenario, the way it was worded just made it sound worse than it was. I also agree with the money issue, sure the money is out there the government just decides to spend it elsewhere and each group is going to say they are under-funded (which is pretty much true for every group) and needs it more than the next guy. And while I agree that every officer should try to better their knowledge and training even outside of what the academy and agencies provide there are some officers who really can't afford that. Some agencies don't pay that well, some officers have families they have to provide for first, there are many different reasons why officers can't do the courses on their own without sponsorship.

2 hours ago, Coltsmith said:

Am I getting that right, you recieve no field training and self defense classes after you gratuated from the academy??? That cant be right, otherwise officers are underperforming after a few years...

And the part with the one-man-patrol what you guys are doing I don't really understand either, you can do jack shit if you out alone and dont have a partner...

Depends on the agency. I can speak for the agencies in my area (or the area I lived in when I lived in the US). Most agencies in the Tampa, FL area will put you through orientation which lasts about 2-4 weeks after you get hired and it is essentially a mini-academy where they go over defensive tactics, shooting, legal studies, and department policies along with some other stuff. Then after that you will enter your FTO phases where you go out on the street with an FTO and respond to calls just like a normal officer the only difference is you have another officer with you who is teaching you and ultimately grading your performance to determine if you are ready to go out on your own. Again, depending on the agency FTO usually consists of 4 phases and each phase usually lasts about 4-6 weeks as long as you are held back and progress on a normal timeline. I know lots of other agencies across the US are set up the same way.

Depending on how much funding the agency has they can send officers to additional schools after they are hired on. There are schools for pretty much anything you can think of; DUI investigations, traffic crash investigations, drug identification, medical training, defensive tactics, shooting schools, sex crimes, etc.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "doing jack shit". Do you mean they can just screw around and do whatever they want or that they can get away with doing things they are supposed to? Sure, to a certain extent that is true but there are plenty of technologies that are used by departments that deter that and can track what you do even if you are alone. Lots of agencies have GPS that tracks where their units are so they can see if you are somewhere you aren't supposed to be and they can tell if you are actually responding to a call. They can pull video from any camera you have in your car or on your person.

9 minutes ago, l3ubba said:

I agree and I see where you are going. Ultimately it comes down to the specific scenario, the way it was worded just made it sound worse than it was. I also agree with the money issue, sure the money is out there the government just decides to spend it elsewhere and each group is going to say they are under-funded (which is pretty much true for every group) and needs it more than the next guy. And while I agree that every officer should try to better their knowledge and training even outside of what the academy and agencies provide there are some officers who really can't afford that. Some agencies don't pay that well, some officers have families they have to provide for first, there are many different reasons why officers can't do the courses on their own without sponsorship.

Depends on the agency. I can speak for the agencies in my area (or the area I lived in when I lived in the US). Most agencies in the Tampa, FL area will put you through orientation which lasts about 2-4 weeks after you get hired and it is essentially a mini-academy where they go over defensive tactics, shooting, legal studies, and department policies along with some other stuff. Then after that you will enter your FTO phases where you go out on the street with an FTO and respond to calls just like a normal officer the only difference is you have another officer with you who is teaching you and ultimately grading your performance to determine if you are ready to go out on your own. Again, depending on the agency FTO usually consists of 4 phases and each phase usually lasts about 4-6 weeks as long as you are held back and progress on a normal timeline. I know lots of other agencies across the US are set up the same way.

Depending on how much funding the agency has they can send officers to additional schools after they are hired on. There are schools for pretty much anything you can think of; DUI investigations, traffic crash investigations, drug identification, medical training, defensive tactics, shooting schools, sex crimes, etc.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "doing jack shit". Do you mean they can just screw around and do whatever they want or that they can get away with doing things they are supposed to? Sure, to a certain extent that is true but there are plenty of technologies that are used by departments that deter that and can track what you do even if you are alone. Lots of agencies have GPS that tracks where their units are so they can see if you are somewhere you aren't supposed to be and they can tell if you are actually responding to a call. They can pull video from any camera you have in your car or on your person.

I meant to ask, whether the departemnts sent their officers to annual field trainings to freshen up their skills on dealing with suspects and certain situations in a roleplaying manner. In Berlin, the department requires officers working in the patrol divison to go to annual training 3 times a year, other division which work mainly on the streets two times a year and any other officer to train 1 time a year, that's what I meant with Field Training. Of course you can take specializations aswell.

And regarding the one-man-patrol I meant you can't do stuff [typo in my last post, I meant "can't do jack shit"], because in most situations you require a second officer to be your backup, e.g. when searching a person, arresting a perp or stopping a car. So for me at least, having an one-man-patrol doesn't really make sense because you have to call in backup anyways...

Edited November 19, 201510 yr by Coltsmith

4 minutes ago, Coltsmith said:

I meant to ask, whether the departemnts sent their officers to annual field trainings to freshen up their skills on dealing with suspects and certain situations in a roleplaying manner. In Berlin, the department requires officers working in the patrol divison to go to annual training 3 times a year, other division which work mainly on the streets two times a year and any other officer to train 1 time a year, that's what I meant with Field Training. Of course you can take specializations aswell.

And regarding the one-man-patrol I meant you can't do stuff [typo in my last post, I meant "can't do jack shit"], because in most situations you require a second officer to be your backup, e.g. when searching a person, arresting a perp or stopping a car. So for me at least, having an one-man-patrol doesn't really make sense because you have to call in backup anyways...

Again I don't know how other agencies do it but in my area there wasn't really annual training like you are talking about. You have to qualify with you weapons every year and I think there are some other small qualifications that you have to do annually but not exactly training. While it would be nice to do I don't think agencies have the budget to do that especially if they have a large number of officers. I think Germans can afford to do that because they collect a larger percentage of taxes among other reasons (like not spending nearly as much of your GDP on your military like the US).

I understand now. Yes, there are somethings that an officer can't do by themselves and usually if dispatch knows they are going to a call like that then they will dispatch multiple units. Unfortunately there are some cases where you just have to hold out until backup gets there or deal with it by yourself. That is one of the hazards of the job. If you have never watched Alaska State Troopers on National Geographic it is an excellent show and you can see how these troopers work by themselves with back up sometimes 8+ hours away.

2 minutes ago, l3ubba said:

Again I don't know how other agencies do it but in my area there wasn't really annual training like you are talking about. You have to qualify with you weapons every year and I think there are some other small qualifications that you have to do annually but not exactly training. While it would be nice to do I don't think agencies have the budget to do that especially if they have a large number of officers. I think Germans can afford to do that because they collect a larger percentage of taxes among other reasons (like not spending nearly as much of your GDP on your military like the US).

I understand now. Yes, there are somethings that an officer can't do by themselves and usually if dispatch knows they are going to a call like that then they will dispatch multiple units. Unfortunately there are some cases where you just have to hold out until backup gets there or deal with it by yourself. That is one of the hazards of the job. If you have never watched Alaska State Troopers on National Geographic it is an excellent show and you can see how these troopers work by themselves with back up sometimes 8+ hours away.

Well Berlin is broke as shit, we cant even afford to maintain shooting ranges for annual shooting qualifications (which are required to maintain your status as a gunholder in the police) but training officers annually is a priority for the department and if a broke berlin can do it, so can most american departments, because if you e.g. compare the equipment used in both countries and especially Berlin, we police like you did in the 70s, not even kidding. We never heard of mdcs or ANPR or tasers. And yes I did watch Alaska State Troopers, and i liked it alot! But that supports my point, that you always should have a patrolcar with two officers sitting in it!

1 minute ago, Coltsmith said:

Well Berlin is broke as shit, we cant even afford to maintain shooting ranges for annual shooting qualifications (which are required to maintain your status as a gunholder in the police) but training officers annually is a priority for the department and if a broke berlin can do it, so can most american departments, because if you e.g. compare the equipment used in both countries and especially Berlin, we police like you did in the 70s, not even kidding. We never heard of mdcs or ANPR or tasers. And yes I did watch Alaska State Troopers, and i liked it alot! But that supports my point, that you always should have a patrolcar with two officers sitting in it!

I agree, more training and two man cars would be nice unfortunately our government (I'm talking mostly about state and local government) don't have the budget to provide that kind of funding especially when you get to the county and city governments most counties in the US are struggling to balance their budget and if they provide more funding to law enforcement they have to take away from something else whether that be fire department, school system, trash collection, etc.

55 minutes ago, l3ubba said:

I agree, more training and two man cars would be nice unfortunately our government (I'm talking mostly about state and local government) don't have the budget to provide that kind of funding especially when you get to the county and city governments most counties in the US are struggling to balance their budget and if they provide more funding to law enforcement they have to take away from something else whether that be fire department, school system, trash collection, etc.

I agree with what you are saying, but having two man cars instead of one man patrols can be cost effective, because you do not need so many patrol cars roaming around

Edited November 19, 201510 yr by Coltsmith

On 11/19/2015, 10:49:30, Coltsmith said:

Am I getting that right, you recieve no field training and self defense classes after you gratuated from the academy??? That cant be right, otherwise officers are underperforming after a few years...

And the part with the one-man-patrol what you guys are doing I don't really understand either, you can do jack shit if you out alone and dont have a partner...

No, you're getting that wrong. But a new police officer receives what I would deem far too low levels of both. The academy teaches you what more or less amount to wrestling takedowns and a few pressure points, along with a couple of headlocks or sleeper holds. Length spent with an FTO may vary by department; but most I've talked to say 6 weeks.

One man patrols make a lot more sense in towns that are small or even large but don't have as much crime. Two police officers in a patrol car is safer during encounters with a criminal, but you're cutting the area you're able to watch for crime in half, and doubling the time it takes to get backup from another unit or transport from another unit. A single police officer is usually sufficient. The main areas where you'll see two to a car is in larger, crime ridden cities like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. Even some large cities with high crime rate still have one officer per car in a lot of cases. Miami FL, Atlanta GA, Detroit MI, Newark NJ, Kansas City MO/KS and Stockton CA; and many other cities I won't bother to put down here have one man patrol cars. Now do some of these departments have a mixture of two man cars and one man cars? Sure. But keep in mind all of the cities I mentioned are within the top 30 cities for the most murders in the United States, so they aren't exactly safe areas to patrol. No town I've ever lived in, or any town near where I've lived in has had two man patrol cars with the exception of Boston MA for obvious reasons. It's a city with enough assault, robbery, drug and homicide crime to warrant having another officer with you. But again; it's a mixture of one man and two man cars. If you're patrolling the Jamaica Plains, Charlestown or Roxbury suburbs as an example; you better have another Boston P.D. officer with you or you could be in big trouble real fast. Just 10-30 minutes north of those areas will be nice clean universities (with the obvious exception of "methadone mile") and a bustling city center with cobble stone streets, nice clean businesses and a largely safe metro area with a couple of sports stadiums and plenty of places to shop or eat at right on the waterfront.

Edited November 21, 201510 yr by unr3al