HayesGreener
Ronin
Those who know me know I was in LE for many years. First let me say that with around 850,000 officers in 17,000 agencies, there are some bad apples with a wide spectrum of misbehavior. I personally investigated some criminal behavior by LEO's in my career. As an investigator I did my part to send a few officers to prison, and later as an administrator I fired a few who were just unsuited to the work. On hindsight, every one of those officers should never have been hired. They slipped though the screening. Recruitment, selection, training, and discipline determine the quality of police service you get. If your agency fails in those areas, your potential for misconduct increases. Recruitment, selection, training, and discipline is costly. You get what you pay for.
In my experience, powerful police unions, especially in the Northeast, often hinder efforts to clean up and professionalize LEO agencies.
The good news is, the vast majority of officers are committed public servants trying to do a job making our communities safer. They must have the authority to use force and make arrests. They are the only profession in our country with those powers, which comes with a leadership responsibility to strictly control those powers. A culture of excessive or unnecessary force, or unjust use of the powers of arrest can only exist where there is a failure or absence of leadership. Add that to failure to properly recruit, select, train, and discipline officers, and you get a rogue, or at least an unprofessional agency. On balance, though, I have witnessed many, many incidents where officers would have been legally justified in using force, but showed great restraint in finding another way.
We saw some discussion about officer deaths here a few days ago. To date this year, as reported by ODMP, 116 U.S. officers have been killed in the line of duty. 55 of those officers were killed feloniously, either by gunfire, stabbing, assault, or vehile assault. Most of the rest were killed in traffic incidents of one form or another. The number killed feloniously seems to be trending higher than last year.
With respect to firefighters killed in the line of duty, FEMA reports there have been 51 to date this year. I have great respect for firefighters, they are lifesavers. They have a dangerous job and those I know displayed great courage. Some were part of my SWAT team as SWAT medics. But the danger to their lives is of a different character than for LEO's. When a firefighter is injured or killed, it is typically from a fire or other disaster related call, not from someone trying to murder them. It is critical work of great importance, but different in nature to LEO's.
In my experience, powerful police unions, especially in the Northeast, often hinder efforts to clean up and professionalize LEO agencies.
The good news is, the vast majority of officers are committed public servants trying to do a job making our communities safer. They must have the authority to use force and make arrests. They are the only profession in our country with those powers, which comes with a leadership responsibility to strictly control those powers. A culture of excessive or unnecessary force, or unjust use of the powers of arrest can only exist where there is a failure or absence of leadership. Add that to failure to properly recruit, select, train, and discipline officers, and you get a rogue, or at least an unprofessional agency. On balance, though, I have witnessed many, many incidents where officers would have been legally justified in using force, but showed great restraint in finding another way.
We saw some discussion about officer deaths here a few days ago. To date this year, as reported by ODMP, 116 U.S. officers have been killed in the line of duty. 55 of those officers were killed feloniously, either by gunfire, stabbing, assault, or vehile assault. Most of the rest were killed in traffic incidents of one form or another. The number killed feloniously seems to be trending higher than last year.
With respect to firefighters killed in the line of duty, FEMA reports there have been 51 to date this year. I have great respect for firefighters, they are lifesavers. They have a dangerous job and those I know displayed great courage. Some were part of my SWAT team as SWAT medics. But the danger to their lives is of a different character than for LEO's. When a firefighter is injured or killed, it is typically from a fire or other disaster related call, not from someone trying to murder them. It is critical work of great importance, but different in nature to LEO's.
