tvc184

Attack the police or fail to comply with orders and you can likely expect unpleasant yet lawful results.

No, the legal system overwhelmingly favors the accused and unfortunately for many people, that includes police officers accused also. Use of force does favor the police as well it should. A person does not have any right to resist, assault or flee from an officer. Police and citizen interactions are generally not with consent meaning you have no rights to resist in any manner as listed previously and it doesn't matter if you don't like or don't trust the police. It doesn't matter if the police are talking to a family member or good friend. You cannot lawfully interfere. The laws have to give officers that authority or all law enforcement becomes voluntary. You can fight them in court, not on the side of the road. Many times the US Supreme Court is split 5-4 on cases but there are many 7-2, 8-1 and 9-0 rulings favoring the police. Safety is not a liberal or conservative issue. The Court realizes that officers and the public are endangered when that authority is not given or upheld. You will find that the Court often goes against officers in questions of detention, searches, etc., and on some occasions by those same wide votes. The rulings against officers is not uncommon on searches and seizures but is uncommon on uses of force in self defense. It is simple and stated all the time. When the police order you to do something, comply. You can get a lawyer and fight them later but in face to face contacts you are correct, the laws heavily favor the police and that is the way it should be.

Where do you see "all of them had it coming"? He said "handled appropriately" which means lawful. There is a huge difference. It is hard to take you seriously with such reasoning skills.

Hate only goes in one direction.

That is great stuff. So this is "one incident". If one officer (out of a million) does something... it covers everyone. Apparently that broad brush only goes in one direction. In Lois Lerner's case, she was alone at the top of exempt organizations. I guess in her case it was 100% crooked...... But it was only "one incident".

Where is the bias? If you ever see me say that there aren't corrupt or brutal officers, please point it out. I have made excuses for none of them. I have gotten officers fired because of abuse. I have submitted felony charges against an officer. In many forums I have sided with people that an officer in a particular case used improper force. Where is the bias. Is it bias to point out that if 40 thousand cops are crooked, 96% of them are not involved? So what is your perception on the number of bad officers? 100,000 perhaps? If so then 9 out of 10 are not included. Let us see your bias on how bad you believe officers are and how many are committing criminal acts to cover for other officers. Perhaps for your bias, you might take a look in the mirror.

You can't take a group of about a million people and say "any". That in itself is nonsense. Take a group that large of anyone and you can make any claim that you wish. Movie stars are murders. So are athletes. Democrats are child molesters. Republicans are racists. Why can we say those things with that true belief? Easy, we can find members of those groups that do exactly that. Yes, officers "snitch" on each other all the time. As a police supervisor I have had on several occasions had officers report misconduct or criminal acts by other officers. On many occasions I have questioned officers on misconduct of fellow officers and sometimes even friends and had them give information that incriminated the friend. Like screaming racism, it is easy to paint with a broad brush from the outside. Is it possible to find two officers alone and one cover for the other at the risk of his own career and even prison? Absolutely. It is common? Not hardly. If there are 20,000 crooked officers out there, that is about 2% of all federal, state and local officers. Want to double it to a horrendous 40,000 officers? Okay, 96% of officers do not fit in that category. I have no clue what you umbrella statement is about. Are you saying to have maybe in the Golden Triangle, that the Beaumont police chief controls the officers in Nederland? That would mean that Beaumont would be setting the tax rate for Nederland? Wow, talk about a truly liberal concept. No more local control. Let what is good for Houston (or bad) be forced on Beaumont because everyone knows that Houston officers have more training resources? The way your statement is laid out that we have "too many" police departments, you are also saying "we have too many city councils". The citizens of a city elect their own representatives who set their own tax rates who run their own police departments. Apparently that is wrong in your opinion. Ooooookay...............

That code of silence crap is... just that, crap. Some people would have you believe that it is 1948 and officers cover for each other at the expense of their own freedom. That is patent nonsense.

A left wing blogger's spin on history is your source?

Not PC... rationalization. It's the victim's fault.............

Huh? All governors are elected statewide. Redistricting has nothing to do with that.... nothing. You are fishing for answers with none available if that is your reasoning for losing governorships under Obama's term as president.

On this website and on Facebook there was a big debate over a Westbrook coach and his actions by putting a camera in a locker room. I made many comments on the issue and have yet to make any judgment. The reason is that I have no clue what happened. I cited the law which was often misquoted by people (including a couple of attorneys) and gave my opinion on what it might take to be a violation. I did not make a single post on guilt or innocence. From that case as an example, I saw plenty of opinions on both sides of the issue and in most cases wonder why other than they "wanted" him to be one way or the other.

The police are questioned all the time from their supervisors who review arrests and uses of force to the district attorneys who review the same including all justifications used by the officer and then to any civil action brought by any person. I am a police supervisor and I review and question officer's actions on almost a daily basis. Again, it is easy to judge when a person isn't there to see it or know and understand the laws.

No, they have no such obligation. Many police departments have a policy (not to be confused with law) that says they have no duty to retreat in any situation but they may if they wish. Tackling a person without justification is illegal. You have to see it through the eyes of the officer who should know why he is tackling the guy. A witness on the other hand, even with video, probably has no clue. The officer still has to justify it but way too many people hear about something or see a one viewpoint video and make a decision. Adding insult to injury is that they usually have no clue about the law.

This entire thread was started about the police in Chicago not being the aggressors and strangely enough, perhaps the very liberal CBS is siding against the police not doing more.... I supposed so they will have more stories when the police do.

NEWSFLASH: The officer is supposed to be and has the authority to be the aggressor. A general definition of the meaning of "police" is "non-negotiable coercive force". It is non-negotiable. When an officer hits you with his overhead lights while you are driving, it is not a request for you to pull over. It is a demand to pull over and the law sides almost completely with the police. The officer has the burden of justifying the detention but from the citizen's standpoint, it is not up for negotiations. It is also coercive. The officers can use force or the threat of force to carry that out. Only as an example I will show part of TX law on resisting arrest. Part of it says.... "Sec. 38.03. RESISTING ARREST, SEARCH, OR TRANSPORTATION..... (b) It is no defense to prosecution under this section that the arrest or search was unlawful." As you can see, you have no right to resist even an unlawful arrest. The place you contest that is in court whether it be at a criminal trial or if you sue the officer. Officer Wilson would not have been doing his job if he was not the aggressor. Michael Brown was the suspect in a robbery. He then tried to take the officer's gun. If a robbery suspect is in your neighborhood and an officer confronts him right after the crime, do you want him to be the aggressor and try to protect your neighborhood and potentially your family? Perhaps you want him to be passive and ask the felony suspect if he wanted to go to jail and if not, oh well have a nice day. You can come back and terrorize the neighborhood another day. Therein lies much of the problem when people point out the police as the person pushing the issue. You darn right they are. Heck, I'll bet when the US military goes into combat, they push the issue.

Shooting anywhere other than center mass is a much greater risk. It is extremely difficult to shoot accurately enough to hit someone in the leg and even if a person manages it, it will likely only stop the attack if you hit a bone like the femur. Hitting a target that is less than 1 inch wide while it is moving and you are under stress seems like a very long shot at best.

Unarmed is sometimes meaningless. If a guy is kicking in the front door of your home at 3:00AM and you feel threatened and you shoot him, what if he turns out to be unarmed? You go to prison for life or was that reasonable under the circumstances? Remember that almost no confrontation with the police is unarmed because the officer has a firearm. When I started police work about half of all officers were killed with their own guns. Half of the officers were killed by unarmed people. Hmmm....... There is also the landmark case from the SCOTUS in Graham v. Connor. In that case the high court ruled that an officer's use of force must be made from his perspective and not in 20/20 hindsight. They got rid of the "totality of circumstances" standard and went to "objective reasonableness" from the officer's viewpoint. They said that an officer must make a "split second" decision and it must be judged from that viewpoint and not someone sitting in a room months later. So even if someone feels that an officer might have used a different tactic or level of force as we find out later after the dust has settled, it might have no bearing on the case. As an example what if an officer shoots a guy that he feels has a gun and it later turns out that it was a cell phone that the guy was pointing like a gun? The officer killed a guy over a cell phone? Well just such a case happened and it was all on video. The truth is that Marquis Hudspeth in Shreveport, LA was in a high speed chase and when it ended, Hudspeth got briefly into a shooting stance and "pointed" the cell phone at officers who shot and killed him. You can clearly see what happened on video but the "totality of circumstances" turned out to be that he was no danger to officers and he was unarmed. The officers were rightfully cleared however. What if the guy breaking into your home that you kill at 3:00AM turns out to be your next door neighbor that had a few beers and was at the wrong house and was trying to get into what he thought was his home. Hmmm.... now you've killed an unarmed man that was committing no crime. It is far easier to make a decision sitting in your living room, watching something on a helicopter video when you don't think your life might end in the next couple of seconds.

The police are doing what I suspect they did in Baltimore and that is to not be proactive. When you have no backing, you don't go out of your way. I think the police will respond correctly to all calls given but between those times, hiding in alleys, looking for street dope deals, checking doors and night, stopping cars with a headlight out to see if the driver or passenger has warrants, etc., will be a thing of the past. Timothy McVeigh was stopped by a state trooper for a license plate violate and the largest terror attack in the country at that time was solved. Good luck today. An overwhelming percentage of officers do the right thing. If they make a mistake then that is exactly what it was, a mistake. There is very little intentional abuse of rights but it does exist. According to FBI stats the police make about 35,000 arrest each day. That is 35,000 not only confrontations but where a person's liberty, potentially for life in some situations, it taken away in handcuffs and being placed in a cell. That is not nearly all contacts or confrontations. That is just the most serious. When you are doing a quarter of a million arrests per week, there will always be chances to point out issues. Even most of those are legal but they sure don't look good on camera. It is hard to hit someone, throw the person on the ground or shoot someone and make it look nice. If only 1 tenth of one percent of arrests are questioned, that is over 1,000 per month. You can see where the huge numbers make it easy to find viral videos. If an appalling 1% of arrests came into question, that is over 10,000 per month. With those fairly large numbers we will always see officer doing the wrong thing and they should be punished. Let one cop in 500 do something wrong not every day but in a year and the entire profession is slammed. If the Chicago cops are backing off and not being aggressive, I understand completely.

In the summer of 1991 I gave a talk at the monthly meeting of the Lion's Club. At the end of the 10 minutes presentation I took questions. None were about the DWI that I spoke about but they wanted to know about the then rage in the media, "assault weapons". In particular was the San Ysidro, CA McDonald't shooting from a few years earlier where one of the weapons was an Uzi. It last over an hour and killed 20 in what was up to that time the deadliest single shooter incident in USA history. I wasn't expecting the question but offered my opinion. With the high capacity handgun of today, with the ammo being much lighter and easier to carry (I could probably carry several hundred rounds loaded into magazines in my blue jeans pockets), it wouldn't be long before someone with a handgun does more damage as up close they are much faster, much easier to conceal and way more ammo can be carried with a lot less weight and effort. Try to carry 200 rounds on AR magazines and then try the same with a Glock 9mm. Unfortunately I didn't have long to wait. A couple of months later a guy in Killeen, TX crashed his truck through a window at Luby's and killed 23 patrons. The CA incident lasted over an hour with the shotgun and Uzi. The Luby's shooting lasted about 12 minutes. At the range almost every mass shooting happens, a handgun is plenty powerful and much faster and easier to use. In Columbine they used handguns. In VA Tech he used even small .22 handguns. In Luby's it was handguns. In fact with children huddled up in New Town, CT, a handgun would have been much faster with much more ammo carried. As sick as he was it is probably better that he used an AR rather than a couple of handguns. We might have lost more children. I don't care what their lately preferred weapon is but as long as the incidents are up close and personal like shoot or nightclub shootings, there is no real advantage to a rifle and in some circumstances it is a more poor choice. I would like to see any evidence that banning rifles would end any of the mass shootings that are happening.

That was one of 10 and it doesn't mention half a mile away. Oh yeah, that was for effect......

Teachers are there all the time at no additional cost. Did you know that TX allows teachers to carry weapons in school and TX even has a school/marshal program where it licenses teachers as law enforcement officers while on school grounds? Both situations require the district allowing it but both are in place at no additional cost.

And all this time I thought that he was in the trunk of a car nearby and had drilled a hole in the trunk which is why they weren't caught sooner. You sure that you aren't making this stuff up? Sat on high ground?

Anything that goes blattttt-ta-tat-tat-tat is probably a machine gun and illegal already. Even most SWAT teams do not carry them. I though the DC sniper shot from a block or so away and sometimes from across the street. Where are you getting your information that he was shooting from about half a mile away? Also, he was taking well place single shots and not spraying ammo. In fact that could have been accomplished with almost any rifle. The AR was a weapon of convenience, not necessity. I think you are just making this stuff up as you go.

When you show a couple of videos of the people that actually try to enact those laws, what better video could we show? This wasn't some rant by a right wing zealot but the actual lawmakers showing that they are for banning what they have no clue about and make outright bogus claims. Better videos?