l3ubba

Why is it that if I use a generalized statement I am said to "not have been exposed to what is going on"? I am American too aren't I? I should have been able to see at least a little bit of what is going on right? Or am I not aware because I have a different point of view on the situation? I never said there were no systemic problems. Apparently you didn't read the last paragraph of my last comment because that entire paragraph talked about what the police have done to try and solve some of these issues. The police are trying to increase transparency and engage communities now more than they ever have in the past. You keep saying that I am ignoring the issue but I have talked about it and pointed out that there are efforts being made to fix it. So I have only read a couple of short articles on what is going on in St. Paul right now but from what I have read it sounds like the police are arresting people who are disrupting traffic. There are also reports that some protesters were shooting fireworks at the police, so I wouldn't say they are taking them away for no reason. Plus while their protests are largely peaceful they are still doing illegal things like blocking highways and intersections. I'm not saying they shouldn't be protesting but I willing to bet that protests that have permits and follow the law don't get the same law enforcement response. If they want to protest in the manner that they are I am cool with that, I understand why they want to protest that way, but there are consequences for choosing that method. You don't seriously expect the police to just sit back and say "oh you're blocking a highway, that's cool we'll just let you continue on" do you? I have not defended law enforcement "no matter what". The majority of topics that are brought up on this forum just happen to be topics that I side with the police on. I know there have been topics where I thought the police were wrong and I expressed that belief. I don't know if you read those posts or not but that isn't really my concern. There are also plenty of things I have disagreed with the police on that weren't posted on here hence why you might not have seen me post anything on here. I am not a politician, I am not going to come out and make a statement on every single event that happens in this country. I come on this website once every week or two to see what is going on and if I see a topic that I am interested in I will join the conversation.

The shooting and the DoJ investigation of FPD were two separate investigations. The shooting brought the spotlight on FPD but the investigation of the department as a whole was not the same as the investigation of the shooting. The shooting (one particular incident) was justified however as a whole the department was messing up pretty bad. Overall I agree with the results of both investigations. I agree that the shooting was justified and I am happy that FPD got called out on the injustices going on in Ferguson so that they can be addressed.

I haven't seen any police department have the mentality of an occupying force. They go out trying to protect innocent people and enforce the law. I think that second part of their job description is forgotten a lot by citizens. Yes, the police are there to protect you but they also must enforce the law and most people don't like that part. It is their job to pull you over because you have a broken tail light or arrest you because you were breaking a law. And if people resist when the police are trying to enforce a law the police have the authority to use appropriate force to stop you. It isn't a popular position but someone has to do it. The police in Dallas weren't "cracking down on protests" were they? They were out there making sure it didn't get out of hand right? When protests pop up the police have to be there, it doesn't necessarily mean they are trying to stop the protesters from doing anything they are just making sure everyone is staying safe and no laws are being broken because regardless of whether or not the protest organizers intended for their protest to get out of hand there is always bad apples in the crowd who will use that to their advantage and abuse the anonymity of the crowd. There are plenty of departments who have invited black community leaders to come talk with them or go through some kind of scenario or simulator to try and increase understanding between the two groups but I have rarely seen any BLM leader take anything away from it. Unless it is some really small town with a department of like 8 officers every department has a community policing section/PR section and if any community leader (black, white, gay, etc) wanted to sit down and talk with the police the department would be more than happy to arrange that. There is a system already set up for the police to engage the community but it is a two way street. The community needs to be willing to talk to those officers and listen to what they have to say for it to work. For example, when there is a murder (or pretty much any crime) committed in a neighborhood the community will protect the suspect (or at the very least refuse to talk to police). The police are out there trying to solve a crime in your neighborhood and you are refusing to help them. That is fine and all but don't turn around and say "the police never help us, they just want to shoot us and put us in jail".

I don't keep track of my friends positions on every shooting but I know they are good guys and stand up against evil regardless of whether or not they are wearing a uniform (I'm cringing just writing that because it sounds so cliche but it is true). My point is BLM is quick to jump to conclusions on cases when before anything is known whereas police officers want to see what the investigation reveals before they start passing judgement (in most cases anyway). I think you are misinterpreting the thin blue line. It does not mean "us vs them" the blue line symbolizes law enforcement standing between good and evil. On one side is evil and the only thing protecting the good and the innocent is the thin blue line of police officers.

Hmmmmm when I say that about the police people say that I am just ignoring bad police or don't want to address the issue. Why shouldn't we focus on all the good police do? My issue with the BLM movement is they only focus on when the police kill a black man not when black men are being killed by other black men. Why do black lives matter only when the police are the shooters? They are being very selective in which lives matter to them and I see that as somewhat hypocritical. People keep saying "all cops need to do to be considered 'good cops' is speak out against bad cops and injustices" but from what I have seen most of the cops I know do exactly that. Where the issue seems to be is what cops and civilians consider an injustice. Every cop I know spoke out when the cop in S.C. shot and killed that guy who was running away after trying to grab his taser. Every cop I knew thought that was too far and wanted to see him prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. The biggest issue is that everyone starts protesting before even learning what happened. As soon as a black man is killed by the police there are protest, nobody knows what happened or if it was justified but solely because the person was black it automatically calls for a protest. And it isn't like police have been trying to address the issue. Everyone is calling for more transparency so what do the police do? Start issuing out body cams like crazy, they start focusing on more community policing. You can't say they aren't trying.

I don't understand why people think these things. Do people actually think that police officers enjoy shooting people? If they do then they are greatly mistaken. I have never met an officer who shows up for work and says "I want to get involved in a shooting/fight/[insert use of force] today".

There isn't enough information to go off of and just like pretty much every shooting that is happening people are getting outraged before they even know what is happening. BLM is only protesting because a black man got shot and that is my problem with that movement. They automatically assume that if a black man is shot by the police it is because the police were racist and felt like murdering a black man that day. If black lives truly mattered to them they would be protesting all the black men who are killed by other black men across the country on a more regular basis than police shootings. I don't see why these officers would just randomly decide to yell "GUN GUN GUN!" and shoot a guy for no reason, however, I'm sure a thorough investigation will be conducted and appropriate action will be taken. Unfortunately for these officers and other officers who have shot black men they have already been determined to be guilty by the American public and no amount of evidence will clear their names.

I'm not going to respond to your whole post because I think Hastings' response covers pretty much everything I would have said, but I will respond to this part. It was more than 2 naval brigades that took Crimea, Russia sent more troops when the crisis started and they took Crimea without any resistance. I do not doubt that the Crimean people wanted to join Russia since they are mostly ethnic Russians as you stated but Russia has a pretty long history of rigging elections and other votes so I wouldn't put it past them when it comes to Crimea and eastern Ukraine. I never said Russia wants to take the Baltic states but they might try some more clandestine operations to influence governments to do what Russia wants. They have done it in the past and they have been caught doing more than just "humanitarian operations" in eastern Ukraine. I don't fault Russia for any of this. They are doing what they think is in their best interest and it is nothing the US hasn't done in the past too. That doesn't mean that I think we should just roll over and let them do what they want. This is all part of the game and that being said that is why NATO is still relevant.

LOL that is the funniest thing I've read today! Yeah NATO is the one causing Russia to invade Crimea and forcing Russia to wage a proxy war in eastern Ukraine. All NATO's fault right there (sarcasm if you couldn't tell). And who is to say that if the Baltic countries such as Estonia and Lithuania weren't NATO members Russia wouldn't do the same to them? They (the Baltic countries) have been trying to become less dependent on Russia for energy in the past few years just like Ukraine was doing when they got invaded. If those Baltic countries weren't NATO members Russia might have tried the same with them because they aren't too happy about that right now. What "unjust wars" has the US fought with NATO? You could argue that the invasion of Iraq was unjust but other than that NATO hasn't been drug into any unjust wars by the US.

You don't need a degree but it is strongly recommended you have one. You are in the exact same situation I was in when I was 19. I was in college working towards my bachelors degree and I dropped out because I didn't really enjoy school and just wanted to jump straight into law enforcement. I went to the police academy and graduated with no problems. I started applying to agencies and kept getting turned down due to "lack of [life] experience". Most applicants now days have at least an associates degree or higher and most agencies, even though their minimum requirement might say 19 or 20 years old, are looking for people who are at least in their mid-20s because how is a 19 year old going to deal with a 30 or 40 year old person who is going through a crisis? No amount of training can replace life experience. I'm not saying that they won't hire 19 year olds but it is becoming less and less common due to the scrutiny placed on LEOs now. The younger you are the more of a liability you are. My advice, finish your degree then apply. Trust me, I was there and I know how much it sucks to have to wait to start a career you know you will love but it will pay off enormously in the end.

What is with all the comments about the US? The US has nothing to do with the EU as they are not a member (it is the European Union, not the European Union + the US). EU members are not "vassals to the US" as someone put it, that is one of the most ridiculous things I've heard. And as for disbanding NATO there is very much still a need for it. While tensions are not nearly as high as they were in the Cold War there are still enemies to the West and having a defensive pact is helpful especially to smaller nations with less capable armies. I'm not even sure why the US or NATO got drug into this conversation as neither of them have anything to do with Brexit or the EU.

I would hardly consider Germany a police state. It is probably the furthest thing from a police state.

From the stories I have heard I would say the opposite but brutality is somewhat a personal opinion. I don't consider what the polizei do "brutality" in most cases but I know a lot of people who think it is. Not to mention that those prank videos are fake just like 99% of all prank videos on Youtube.

People take things way too personally now. Something I learned early on was to not take things so personally. I am on the shorter side (about 5'6"-5'7") and pretty much any time we rolled up to a call or came in contact with someone they would make some smart ass comment about my size. It was (and still is) annoying but I would not show any emotion when people said stuff to me because I knew that is what they wanted. Sometimes it is hard to not let it get to you, some people are really good at getting under your skin but if you let everything both you, you will not last in law enforcement. And it is no different when someone is resisting, their resistance isn't a personal attack against you it is just part of the game.

I have a lot of questions about these videos but I just realized how far off topic we have strayed from the original post. I'll have to send you a message or start another topic. Great videos though! (and I think I have seen the one with the truck and trailer before)

I'm not saying that I didn't say it I just can't recall it and don't know what the context in which I said it was (and my opinion on whatever we were talking about back then might have changed). I understand the difficulty, Russia still isn't the greatest when it comes to Freedom of Information. I probably will never fully understand it because I do not live in Russia and I don't know or work with any Russian police officers. I also understand you are not trying to dictate the way American police do things or say that Russian police are better nor am I trying to dismiss alternative tactics. I am just trying to learn about other police tactics and educate people on the way things are done in the US and why they are done that way.

The video upsets me because I have close friends who are police officers, some of which I consider brothers and sisters and I know if that was a video of them nearly getting killed I would be pretty upset. It is about having empathy for a human being. As for the insults thrown around on this thread I haven't paid much attention to them because they are just a waste of time. If I am honest I didn't read through every single post on this thread. I skimmed through and your post stuck out to me because it had statistics and numbers, something that catches my eye. Is that fair on my part, no and I will admit that I was wrong. I don't like it when anyone, regardless of whether or not I agree with their side of the argument, throws around "facts" without having anything to back it up. That being said, I like the uncalled for sarcastic response. I thought we were having a civilized conversation and I don't think anything I wrote warranted that kind of response. If this is the road this conversation is going down then I am going to step away. I don't recall saying that or the context in which it was said however I did read the document you linked and I found the sections you were talking about in regards to training. Law enforcement is a subject that interests me and I enjoy studying how different agencies (both foreign and domestic) train and employ different tactics and if I had a better way of translating all 96 pages of that document than cutting and pasting everything piece by piece into Google Translate I would be interested in reading the rest of it. The only reason I would dismiss news articles is because the news only focuses on stories that get them ratings and/or fits their agenda. While a police officer shooting a weapon out of someone's hand might be a great story one week the next week there could be a more major story that people care more about. Not to mention that if something is common practice and done frequently the media doesn't usually report on it. How many stories do you hear about a police officer investigating a routine shoplifting from a Walmart? Hardly ever right? And if you do it is usually because something bizarre or crazy happened during the call. I'm not saying that media reports don't mean anything, just saying that I rarely trust them as my sole piece of evidence. I am a very skeptical person and it is nothing personal towards you so I wouldn't take it that way. I am used to being lied to almost on a daily basis so I like to verify things for myself. I can understand how that can be a little irritating especially when it is a subject that you might know a lot about, I know I get irritated when I tell someone something that I know is a fact and they continue to question me but that is just who I am and it is difficult for me to change that.

Really? Have you ever had your ass beat and put in a choke hold? It is pretty violent and very scary. And why shouldn't we be upset that a police officer doing his job was nearly killed? I understand it is part of the job but that doesn't make it okay or any less upsetting. You claim your father is a police officer. Are you saying it wouldn't be upsetting to see a video of your father nearly being killed by someone? Looking at one statistic from one police department? That is a pretty small sample size considering you are making a claim about policing as a whole in the US. You mention there are many variables but then don't mention those variables or talk about how they effect your statistics. I have heard you make this claim many times on this forum, so many times that I am interested in seeing evidence of this. I am not trying to say you are a liar but as someone who has a decent amount of firearms training himself from various different sources I have met few people who can make these kinds of shots on moving targets who are trying to attack them. Not saying it can't be done, just saying I have not met too many people or seen too many instances where it actually happened. Who knows, maybe Russian police just have so much training that they are super badass special forces snipers. The problem is that firearms are lethal weapons and I was trained that you don't point your firearm at something if you don't intend to shoot and you don't shoot something if you don't intend to kill it. What happens when someone is holding a baseball bat and the police decide "well I'm just going to shoot him in the arm so I don't have to kill him" then when they take the shot they miss and end up killing him? Are they going to be held liable? And if so why? They didn't intend to shoot him in the chest and kill him, they were doing their best to try and take him alive. My point is you shouldn't shoot someone unless you are willing to take the chance that they might die as a result, so if your intention is to use a less-lethal tactic/tool of taking a suspect into custody then a firearm should not be used at all.

To a certain extent you are right, but it depends on where in Europe you are (but that is beside the point). Unfortunately it is a complicated problem since each scenario is different and has many different factors. I think one of the biggest factors when it comes to comparing the use of deadly force in the U.S. compared to Europe is the culture. Living here in Germany for the past 2 years I have noticed that Germans (and most other Europeans) are generally more strict when it comes to following the laws and are much more submissive to authority figures (i.e. the police). Whereas Americans are all about "I know my rights" and "This is America, it's a free country and I don't have to listen to you".

Everyone accepts the danger of their profession but that doesn't mean they should be expected to just roll over and die when faced with a dangerous situation. Actually my German is awful so I wouldn't be the best person to look up stuff about this.

If you understand their reaction and say that even you would do the same thing if you were in their shoes then how does that make what they did wrong? That is the whole defense as to why they did that. I am not talking about any civil law BS, people sue all the time and this 17 year old girl is well within her right to sue if she wants but civil law and criminal law are two different things. You can be found civilly liable and still not have committed a crime or visa versa. I am only looking at this from a criminal standpoint, the police officers were justified in defending themselves. I don't think it is comparable to Tamir Rice at all, the only thing they have in common is that they were both holding guns that didn't fire real bullets. Tamir Rice wasn't shooting at the police, this guy in Germany was. Retreating isn't always an option. We don't know what the surrounding area looked like. In my experience a lot of apartment complexes have narrow hallways and there isn't really anything to take cover behind. We don't know if they were close to the stairs or if they were on the other side of the hallway with nowhere to go. It isn't always as simple as running away especially in close quarters combat. Even with all of that aside, the police are under no obligation to retreat when they are performing their duties.

I got it, you are okay with good cops and want to call out bad cops. You have said that multiple times and I agree with that statement. Nowhere do I say that we should defend police officers all the time "no matter what". I guess it is difficult for you to imagine this scenario because you haven't had to experience it yourself but I am telling you that legally that officer was justified in what he did. The officer fired a shot through the door knowing that the person on the other side was trying to shoot him. He knew that whoever was at that door meant to harm him so he responded. And that is the issue, you guys are assessing the situation as regular people. This is US case law so it doesn't apply in Germany but I would not be surprised if they had their own similar case law, but in these situations you are supposed to look at the situation from a reasonable officer's point of view at the time of the incident. If you walked up to someone's door as a police officer and all the sudden a pistol is stuck out at you and someone from behind the door starts shooting at you what are you going to do? Are you not justified in returning fire? You have a split second to make a decision. You are in a narrow hallway with no cover and no place to immediately escape to, how are you going to stay alive? You don't know who is behind that door but you know whoever it is has a pistol and is willing to use it against you. Make a decision right now, you don't have time to think. If you stop for one second too long you might be dead.

Closing my eyes to what problem? Responding to someone who is shooting you from behind a door is not reckless and there is no law out there that says that is. I'm not sure what law you have studied but it isn't U.S. law and I imagine it isn't the law in Germany either. Well it is clear that no matter what I say you are entrenched on the idea that the officer was wrong and this dumbass guy was well within his right to stick a pistol out of a door without seeing who was there and just blindly firing at people. So I am correct in assuming if this guy had blindly fired a pistol out of his door and instead of a couple of police officers he shot a little girl you would still think he didn't do anything wrong? And the fact that you legitimately think the civilized world is "going to implode" just goes to show your overall mindset.

It is unfortunate she was shot, but guess who's fault that is? The guy who decided to blindly fire at the police. If he hadn't done that nobody would have been shot. It is ridiculous how the public wants to pin the blame on the cops anytime they have to use force yet the people who are causing that to happen are seen as "innocent". Nobody takes responsibility for their actions anymore. And I can see you are one of those people who thinks the world is going to shit because a couple bad things have happened. Worse things have happened in our time and the world kept going. You sound just like the people in America who think if Trump doesn't get elected America is going to implode.

They don't know that. All they know is that there is a guy in a house shooting at them, they have no idea what his intent is or if he plans on shooting anyone else. And you are talking about taking stuff out of context? You are the one using examples about police shooting into a crowd at a mall which is not even remotely similar to what we are talking about.