I'd say it is two fold but the primary change needs to be in their training. Stop the military style training, tactics and supplies. Stop all the military threat engagement and move more towards the social worker style of training. No I don't mean make cops all defenseless, but the fact is over the last 30 years we have militarized our police and forgotten to teach them to use their words to disarm people and instead given them more and more training on how to get physical with people.
Cops are literally trained how to yell and how to intimidate people and given military style equipment and training -- so what do we expect them to do?? How about instead, we teach them to use their compassion and voice to reason with the vast majority of people. No not all problems can be resolved with compassion and reason, some require a gun and someone willing to use it, but we shouldn't start there. It is called escalation of violence/force and police used to be trained to prevent it, anymore it feels as though they are the ones to escalate resolvable problems into all out fights.
I am not saying all cops are bad, there are a huge number which will first use their words and compassion, the problem is as a group, it feels like those who will use their brain first are no longer the majority.
Is this what you have experienced or what you are seeing on the news? In my own experience, most cops are usually really nice, but I have also come into contact with those that have ego’s and are just plain assholes. However, from my own experience this is the case for society/people you come across in general.
Combo of both. I spent ~8 years working on EMS/911 systems and interfacing with law enforcement fairly regularly. I also worked for one of my parents businesses which built (software) law enforcement systems in the 80's and 90's. I know quite a number of very good people who are LEOs who work hard to help their community and care about what they do. And I'd say the vast majority of people go into being a LEO so they can do good for their community, not because they are dicks (but like any profession some are). Three of the people I know that are officers in the recent past have told me personally the training has gotten too focused on militaristic tactics and on physical enforcement (threat neutralization to prevent officer harm). Even pointing out the types of surplus military gear their departments are purchasing etc. So that's one of my primary sources for that specific comment. The news seems to confirm much of it once you remove the sensationalism most news outlets like to put out there, but look at the gear and training tactics they are using, much of it comes from the military.
My own personal interactions have varied over the years, but have been net positive, that said, I am a 40 something entrepreneur/professional who is white. However, even with that, I have had more than a few run ins where a LEO tried to use intimidation and threats instead of conversation to understand what is going on. To be super clear, I am not against them doing their jobs in any way, I know their job is hard and I first hand know (from EMS work) how hard it is when you are dealing with people who abuse the system. But as an example,. less then 2 months ago I had a cop in a neighboring city screaming threats at me and stopping my vehicle for driving around a car accident. What made it interesting is I was following the instructions of the Sgt that was directing traffic who had told me to go around a specific way (which I was doing at less then 10 MPH as he said proceed slowly). My luck is I knew the Sgt could hear this tantrum and the Sgt came over to put a stop to it. Sadly though, this was after the cop had already asked me if I was "fucking stupid" and threatened me with arrest, but I hadn't even said a word yet. When the Sgt walked over he told me to have a nice day and go ahead and made a point of saying that I did nothing wrong. In one example, I saw the good LEO and the dickhead. So that is a recent personal interaction with a bad cop, who I don't think is in the majority, but nonetheless he is out there and is getting training that focuses on threat neutralization instead of calm deescalation. I mean he had every right to stop me and say hey, wth dude why are you driving through here, and I could've said I was told to and that'd be it, he could/would confirm and all is good. No need for the crazy talk.
My overall feeling is the vast majority of cops are good humans doing a hard job where they deal with mainly societies troubled people all day long. So when you train them on threat neutralization or in other militaristic tactics it gives them muscle memory of the wrong nature. Even good ones. And for the bad ones it only intensifies their ego and trains them to be better at their aggression.
Comments
I'd say it is two fold but the primary change needs to be in their training. Stop the military style training, tactics and supplies. Stop all the military threat engagement and move more towards the social worker style of training. No I don't mean make cops all defenseless, but the fact is over the last 30 years we have militarized our police and forgotten to teach them to use their words to disarm people and instead given them more and more training on how to get physical with people.
Cops are literally trained how to yell and how to intimidate people and given military style equipment and training -- so what do we expect them to do?? How about instead, we teach them to use their compassion and voice to reason with the vast majority of people. No not all problems can be resolved with compassion and reason, some require a gun and someone willing to use it, but we shouldn't start there. It is called escalation of violence/force and police used to be trained to prevent it, anymore it feels as though they are the ones to escalate resolvable problems into all out fights.
I am not saying all cops are bad, there are a huge number which will first use their words and compassion, the problem is as a group, it feels like those who will use their brain first are no longer the majority.
Is this what you have experienced or what you are seeing on the news? In my own experience, most cops are usually really nice, but I have also come into contact with those that have ego’s and are just plain assholes. However, from my own experience this is the case for society/people you come across in general.
Combo of both. I spent ~8 years working on EMS/911 systems and interfacing with law enforcement fairly regularly. I also worked for one of my parents businesses which built (software) law enforcement systems in the 80's and 90's. I know quite a number of very good people who are LEOs who work hard to help their community and care about what they do. And I'd say the vast majority of people go into being a LEO so they can do good for their community, not because they are dicks (but like any profession some are). Three of the people I know that are officers in the recent past have told me personally the training has gotten too focused on militaristic tactics and on physical enforcement (threat neutralization to prevent officer harm). Even pointing out the types of surplus military gear their departments are purchasing etc. So that's one of my primary sources for that specific comment. The news seems to confirm much of it once you remove the sensationalism most news outlets like to put out there, but look at the gear and training tactics they are using, much of it comes from the military.
My own personal interactions have varied over the years, but have been net positive, that said, I am a 40 something entrepreneur/professional who is white. However, even with that, I have had more than a few run ins where a LEO tried to use intimidation and threats instead of conversation to understand what is going on. To be super clear, I am not against them doing their jobs in any way, I know their job is hard and I first hand know (from EMS work) how hard it is when you are dealing with people who abuse the system. But as an example,. less then 2 months ago I had a cop in a neighboring city screaming threats at me and stopping my vehicle for driving around a car accident. What made it interesting is I was following the instructions of the Sgt that was directing traffic who had told me to go around a specific way (which I was doing at less then 10 MPH as he said proceed slowly). My luck is I knew the Sgt could hear this tantrum and the Sgt came over to put a stop to it. Sadly though, this was after the cop had already asked me if I was "fucking stupid" and threatened me with arrest, but I hadn't even said a word yet. When the Sgt walked over he told me to have a nice day and go ahead and made a point of saying that I did nothing wrong. In one example, I saw the good LEO and the dickhead. So that is a recent personal interaction with a bad cop, who I don't think is in the majority, but nonetheless he is out there and is getting training that focuses on threat neutralization instead of calm deescalation. I mean he had every right to stop me and say hey, wth dude why are you driving through here, and I could've said I was told to and that'd be it, he could/would confirm and all is good. No need for the crazy talk.
My overall feeling is the vast majority of cops are good humans doing a hard job where they deal with mainly societies troubled people all day long. So when you train them on threat neutralization or in other militaristic tactics it gives them muscle memory of the wrong nature. Even good ones. And for the bad ones it only intensifies their ego and trains them to be better at their aggression.