O/T: More Discusting

[HeyBub]

Where he will have plenty of time to study for the sergeant's exam. Upon passing that exam with the highest possible marks, he will be assigned to the Police Academy where he will diligently apply himself to studying for the Lieutenant's exam. Upon scoring stratospheric grades on the Lieutenant's exam, he'll be placed in charge of a shift in the identification division. Delegating all his duties to subordinates, he bone up on the captain's test. When he becomes a captain, he'll no doubt be placed in either Internal Affairs or Public Relations until he becomes a deputy chief. After a couple of years as deputy chief in Dallas, some smaller town, possibly yours, will hire him as Chief of Police.

You may have recognized the Peter Principle.

[MikeWhy]

The laws as written don't just "allow", Mike, but compels you to act even if doing so contravenes those lesser laws, in the case of a life emergency. In all cases, possibly even including California, the laws place the value of human life far above the more trivial traffic or property laws. With that said, getting to the bedside of a dying family member doesn't qualify as a life emergency. The real trouble here was the demonstrated lack of human compassion. The fear, outrage, and concern is in deputizing, arming, and putting into a position of authority a provable psychopath.

[-MIKE-]

I wasn't taking sides or opining in any way.

I was just questioning the existence of any law on the books that allows drivers to ignore traffic laws do to "exigent circumstances."

[Bored Borg]

Thanks for the links, y'all.

Well.. I'm stunned.

I was waiting for the part where Moats is called "boy," gets pistol whipped and gets a fiery cross on his front lawn but I guess they actually turn the cameras off for anything the officers might consider a bit "dodgy."

As everyone seems to have said, the fundamental problem isn't Powell's action. It's Powell's perception that he's not doing anything reprehensible. I doubt that that can be fixed.. so what's to be done?

Issues : What is the purpose of a police force?

To whom is a police force accountable?

What perpetuates the idea that a police force is a legislative controlling body rather than a, er, _policing_ controlling body - i.e. how come policemen often see themselves as arbiters of reward and punishment rather than upholders of a social ethic, whether legislated or not?

There's a soggy midfield between politically-correct bureaucratic procedure-bound inflexibility and the fly by seat of the pants maverick make-it-up-on-the-spot traditionalism where everything is based on the subjectively assessed individual merits of an event within a bigger picture, The latter depends entirely on the personal integrity of its enforcers which is usually unrewarded and has vast potential for corruption while the former is driven by perceived "results" which are usually political instruments rather than anything to do with the public good.

Somewhere in between is the best and the worst of both worlds. Good men can make great things happen with a lousy system - and vice versa.

What we seem to have ended up with, (free)worldwide, is a police system where arrests and convictions are seen as 'positive" while preventative, make-the-world-safer policing has no statistical or political merit. This engenders the recruiting and promoting of.. well, frankly, idiots by.... idiots.. There are a lot of good coppers out there but that is in spite of, not because of the system in which they operate.

The world is not getting any safer - and it could do, but not employing the current socio-political and career models. It would be quite difficult to determine the effectiveness of a system, in terms of the wafffly statistics that currently demonstrate success if one set about employing staff of integrity, and freed them from the "motivation" of generating irrelevant statistics because they are not micro-managed by accountants and empire builders, When the pressure to demonstrate "success" has been replaced by the drive to produce safer communities, then maybe that will happen but it won't and can't while ever police forces are made up of Officer Powells and the stupids who employ them and encourage them to flourish.

Oh yeah - and that Powell bloke is just a shit and would be in ANY occupation. Roadsweeper, ice-cream vendor, accountant, suicide counsellor, air-traffic controller, The Pope.... whatever. If he got a job as a shit he'd probably be too unpleasant to hold it down. HOWEVER...... Someone thought he was ideal material to give a gun to to go out and add author-it-eye to his shit-ness. All hail the chiefs!

written from Engand where ofcxourse there's absolutely NOTHING wrong with our way of doing things.

see previous rants.

[Charlie Self]

Maybe. Maybe not.

But I'd bet that rolling through a stop sign, if not totally ignored in a white driver, would have been dropped on the instantt with the explanation Moats gave.

I live in a semi-rural county, but, even here, if the various cops didn't ignore drivers rolling through stop signs, they'd do little else all day but write tickets that would be tossed out in court. They'll grab someone when it is an obvious traffic hazard, but otherwise, 99.5% of the time, no.

[Morris Dovey]

Pour encourager les autres: One lash for each second the daughter was delayed plus one lash for each minute the son-in-law was delayed followed by dishonorable dismissal strikes me as appropriate. If I weren't such a gentle person, I might also suggest that medical treatment to ease the pain of the lashes be delayed for as long as the delay he caused...

We (hopefully) learn from our mistakes. The current methodology seems to be one of pulling the weeds only when they become too obvious to be overlooked.

A more effective employment screening would reduce (but probably not eliminate) this kind of problem.

It'll be interesting to see if the good folks of Dallas are and remain sufficiently engaged to demand of their elected officials that action be taken to ensure that this kind of scenario is /never/ repeated.

Sadly, I think the whole story will blow over and be forgotten until the /next/ time.

[Lew Hodgett]

Apparently, that is a wide spread problem.

Trying to attract qualified candidates for a tough job that also carries a lot of potential baggage into the personal life is proving to be difficult here in SoCal.

Coming up with the money to pay them is another issue.

The job of policeman carries with it the not so flattering function of serving as the human garbage collectors for society.

It certainly is not a job I would want.

Lew

[HeyBub]

I was a cop for eight years, and it's not as bad as is made out. In real life, cops seldom see the perpetrators, but always see the victims. Their major job is to help the put-upon deal with their loss. If a cop takes one residence burglary report, he's taken them all. They're boring. But to the homeowner, a burglary can be a life-changing event. In many ways, being a cop is like being a super boy-scout. If you're a good cop, that is.

On the bright side, people are funny. Stress 'em a bit and they often get hilarious. Ask any paramedic, cop, emergency room worker, fireman, and they'll tell you stories that border on the unbelievable. Things like:

Dispatcher: "352, check a report of a nude, black female running across the Highway 90 bridge at this time" Unit 352: "Clear. Enroute." (two minutes pass) Dispatcher: "352, have additional information on your nude, black female subject. She is reportedly being pursued by another black female with a knife. Handle Code 3" Unit 352: "Code 3. Clear."

or this

Me: "Mister, don't you know it is extremely dangerous to drive that close to the car in front of you?" Driver: (shuffle, shuffle) "Man, I didn't know you was the fuzz. I though you was just a couple of ordinary turds."

or this

Dispatcher: "1350. Fight in progress. Joe's Joint. 11350 West Hardy. Reportedly two white females with chain saws involved. Unit 1350: (??) "Say again..." Dispatcher: "Two white females with chain saws, 1350!" Unit 1350: "Uh, clear. Enroute."

I, personally, put a lot of people in jail but they were all my friends by the time to go came around. I never got in a fight, never fired my weapon. Then there were cops that got in a shit-storm every time they hit the street.

I call it bad luck.

[MikeWhy]

There's a problem that's self induced, thankfully with a blessedly simple solution. I once lived in a neighborhood so free of crime, apparently, the cops had nothing to do at night but ticket cars parked in their owners' driveways for not displaying a village sticker. 700 more cops in that podunk backwater amounts to an occupation army.

[Mark & Juanita]

Yeah, the officer's behavior was reprehensible from a simple human compassion standpoint. That phrase on police cars "To Serve and Protect" is supposed to mean something. A more reasonable, but realistic, officer, after having obtained the story from the people in the car would have a) expressed concern and urged the family to continue into the emergency room, and b) made the statement, "I'm going to accompany you sir, to assure that all is right". This would allow the officer to verify, diplomatically, that he was not being scammed while performing his duty. There was nothing wrong with drawing his gun as he saw the car being emptied, but after he ascertained that no threat was impending, he should have switched to compassionate mode.

Please don't judge all of our police officers by one pretty obviously bad apple. We have a number of police and sheriff officers who attend our church, not one of them holds such racist views and would come down hard upon any of theirs who exhibited such views.

... snip

Yep, I get the irony.

[Mark & Juanita]

That, and knowing that every decision you make, even in a split-second life or death moment is going to be scrutinized, analyzed, and criticized to the n'th degree, possibly resulting in loss of reputation, legal liability, and loss of job is a pretty big deterrent to good candidates.

One would think that this would be the number one priority of governments -- alas, there are other priorities that get them more votes.

[HeyBub]

If you mean Dallas, that's hardly Podunk redux. Still, I, too, question the need for more cops in Dallas if the current crop has nothing better to do that ticket people who roll through red lights at 2:00 a.m.

The problem driver is NOT the one who knowingly runs a stop sign or red light. He's almost always taking extra care about the situation. The driver you want to sanction severely is the one who didn't SEE the red light or stop sign. Those cats are the real hazard!

[HeyBub]

You'll notice in the video that Moats was accosted in the Emergency Room parking lot! He was already at his destination. Apparently the red light he violated was very close to the hospital.

Let me give you an example of PROPER judgement.

I, as a deputy sheriff, took an out-of-county officer to the airport one evening. On the way back to the courthouse, at 2:00 a.m. on the freeway, a new Pontiac passes me like I'm sitting still. Wow! About five seconds later, a Houston PD car zooms passed, trying to catch-up to the Pontiac.

Hmm. Interesting. So I turn on my grill lights and step on the gas. The speedometer jumps up to 80+.

About a mile up the road, the Houston PD car turns on his lights and the Pontiac immediately pulls to the side of the deserted freeway. I pull up behind.

Out of the Pontiac steps one of the biggest black men I've ever seen. Dressed casually, but man, was he big! He must have been a linebacker for the Houston Oilers.

So, the first Houston PD officer says: "Why are you in such a hurry, sir?"

"Pussy, man!" says the driver.

The two HPD officers look at each other....

The driver pleadingly explained: "My ol' lady just called. Said she was in the mood and to get my black ass over there. Officers, she ain't in the mood all that often!"

The two HPD officers looked at each other again.

"Can't give a man a ticket for that. Wouldn't be right," one officer said. "Go on, get outta here, but be careful."

" 'preciate it officers. I really do." Zoom

All us cops returned to our assigned duties with a smile and knowledge that we had made the world just a little bit better.

[PDQ]

strength.

Funny thing you should mention.

Spent a little time there myself. =20 I found it was usually the ones looking for a fight that found one. In my time I never got into an argument where I couldn't talk my way = out. There were other cops who always seemed to get into beefs=20 but I never saw one who accidentally got into a scrap.

Must be all that "in your face" army style training that causes the = problems. I am thankful that my time predated the "Saturday night special" crowd.

P D Q

[Bill Hall]

That "foolish" young man made a good decision this morning ( with a little push from the Chief, I'm sure), he has resigned!!

[jtpryan]

de quoted text -

In reading through this thread, the bulk of which I agree with having very rarely had a positive police experience, a thought (devils advocate) came to mind. How would this story had played out if our young running back and gone throught the light, hit a car (or been hit) and killed a child?

While I don't agree with the officers behavior, I don't agree with the idea that it is OK to endanger the lives of other just because you percieve something as an emergency, accurate or not.

-Jim

[LRod]

quoted text -

I would agree with you had he careened through the light with wild and reckless abandon, but it's pretty clear from the dialogue that he was taking great care, not even speeding (note that speeding was never even mentioned). He rolled through the intersection after insuring that there wasn't any traffic and therefore, no lives to endanger. I'd say the cop put more liives in danger with his high speed pursuit for a rolling stop violation (lights notwithstanding--every cop will tell you those lights render their cruiser invisible) than Moats did.

[MikeWhy]

======= Yeah. Be mindful of the children.

How do you think it would have played out, running back or not, police presence or not. As though it never happens. But just suppose it happened that way just this once. What if? Would it hold your attention longer than the half minute it takes for the news spot to run?

[Upscale]

As usual, your tunnel vision blinds you to the obvious. Everything you've said was correct, up until your #4 comment and then your argument takes a nose dive.

And, that point was where the hospital staff came out and told the officer what was happening. Everything was crystal clear at that point. Someone was dying in the hospital and it was obvious why Moats ran the stop sign. That was the point where Powell could issue a ticket or not ~ his choice. But, there certainly wasn't any reason for the lecture or anything even close to it. At all times, Moats was non-threatening, respectful and used the word "Sir" frequently.

That's it, Powell needed to know nothing further. Anything after that was simply Powell abusing his position of power and in effect, making the police service look bad.

No argument, the police have a very difficult and demanding job and one that demands a lot of common sense as well as maintaining control of a situation. Powell failed miserably at the common sense part of it and as such had to pay the price for his lack of humanity in this situation.

[Mark & Juanita]

Given the way the incident was reported, the officer could have done both things here: 1) been compassionate, and 2) verified that the story he was being told was true. Since they were in the hospital parking lot, when he ascertained that this was not an imminent threat to himself and he heard the story, he could have told the woman to go into the hospital and offered to accompany the driver to ensure that they were able to get to the room in time. This would have been a win-win: if the story is true, he comes across as compassionate and boosts the image of the police force -- if the story is false, he has verified it and can come down the full force of the law on the perpetrator.

At a minimum, this officer exhibited extremely poor judgment given the situation as reported. The caveat here of course is that one must trust that the reporting of the incident was accurate -- this is somewhat born out by the video.

... snip