Category: Law Enforcement/First Responders

Washingtonpost.com:

DALLAS — The police chief here said Monday he feels that law enforcement officers across the country are being asked to take on too much, comments that came as his department was still investigating the mass shooting of Dallas police officers last week and protesters in other cities continued demonstrations against how officers use force.

Even as the Dallas police worked to sift through massive amounts of evidence from the shooting rampage that killed five officers — an effort that entails watching hundreds of hours of videos and conducting scores of interviews — David Brown, the Dallas police chief, said he believes officers in his city and nationwide are under too much strain.

“We’re asking cops to do too much in this country,” Brown said at a briefing Monday. “We are. Every societal failure, we put it off on the cops to solve. Not enough mental health funding, let the cops handle it. Here in Dallas we got a loose dog problem; let’s have the cops chase loose dogs. Schools fail, let’s give it to the cops. That’s too much to ask. Policing was never meant to solve all those problems.”

If cops are being asked to do too much nation-wide, I also throw in that teachers are asked to do too much.

How about it?  Are cops asked to do too much?  Our cops here in Prince William County often have a masters degree.  They are highly educated and highly skilled.  They are held to tough standards.  These folks are hardly getting  rich.

What are things that cops must do today that 50 years ago were just unheard of?

 

 

Washingtonpost.com:
A police officer slams an unarmed 15-year-old girl in a bikini to the ground, pulls his gun and kneels on her as teens on either side of him shout and, of course, record the encounter. Within hours, millions watch the video: Some see a defenseless black teen being manhandled by an out-of-control white cop; others see a lone, scared officer in the crowded, chaotic aftermath of a fight he doesn’t yet understand.

In theory, video sends a message of certainty: This is what happened, and we can all see it. Recorded snippets of an encounter between police and the public can reveal the crushing, life-or-death stress that officers face —

Cellphone video has become as much a part of policing as tickets and handcuffs. Video images of police shootings have sparked national turmoil. But Friday’s ugly, cacophonous scene in McKinney, Tex., at first seemed like something more routine — a call about misbehaving teens at a pool party on a hot Texas afternoon.

Then it went awry, at least in the seven-minute version of reality that a local teen posted on YouTube. The clip is the classic kind of video that can crush public trust in police. Yet paradoxically, police chiefs are pushing for more video, in the form of body cameras, to repair relations with those they serve.

In theory, video sends a message of certainty: This is what happened, and we can all see it. Recorded snippets of an encounter between police and the public can reveal the crushing, life-or-death stress that officers face — and the overwhelming power an officer can wield.

The first time I saw this video I thought that this was a cop in fear for his life.  Kids, regardless of age, can kill you just as quick as a 30 year old.

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washingtonpost.com:

On Wednesday, [Doug] Hughes, a 61-year-old mailman from a small town on Florida’s Gulf Coast who dearly wants campaign finance reform, flew his fragile little ultralight gyrocopter through some of the most closely protected airspace on the planet and landed it on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol. He called it Project Kitty Hawk.

He announced his plans on the Internet and in his hometown newspaper. He said he felt compelled to do what he could to halt corruption in the nation’s capital. He attached a big U.S. Postal Service insignia to the aircraft fuselage, loaded it onto a trailer last Friday, and drove north. He would not go postal, but rather airborne, to deliver 535 letters to members of Congress urging them to tighten the rules on money in political campaigns.

“I have no intention of hurting anyone,” Hughes wrote on his Web site, the Democracy Club, which carries the motto, “Because We the People own Congress.” “There is no way I can prevent overreaction by the authorities, but I have given them as much information and advance warning as my fuel supply allows.”

The warning didn’t help. Air defense systems did not detect the copter as it entered restricted airspace above Washington, according to a North American Aerospace Defense Command spokesman. No one tried to stop the gyrocopter, which sounds like a lawnmower and looks like a flying bridge chair.

I am glad Doug Hughes was uninjured.  He had no intent to harm anyone.  But the question remains, how did we know that?  It seems that there is some real faulty security around federal buildings.

I am surprised that the gyrocopter wasn’t shot out of the sky.  Perhaps it should have been.  There should be no exceptions and no slip ups that close to the Capitol, the Supreme Court and the White House.

Washingtonpost.com:

A white police officer in North Charleston, S.C., was charged with murder Tuesday after shooting and killing a black man following a routine traffic stop over the weekend.

The decision to charge the officer, Michael Thomas Slager, came after graphic video footage emerged depicting Slager firing a volley of bullets into the back of Walter Scott, who was running away.

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Warning: GRAPHIC LANGUAGE

Washingtonpost.com:

Racial tensions flared at the University of Virginia after a black student sustained head injuries while white police officers arrested him outside of a popular Irish pub early Wednesday morning.

The injuries, captured in cell phone videos and photographs from a crowd of students nearby, left the student with bloody streaks down his face, an image that quickly spread on social media. In one of the videos, obtained by The Washington Post, the student calls three officers from the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control “racists” as they try to handcuff his hands behind his back.

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