A Few Facts About LEO's/Police Officers And Their History

This is in recent events concerning police brutality, and things that the public knows and does not. I will present information concerning this chaotic problem, and maybe even a window into why it is happening.

Steroid abuse has become a major problem among police officers

Investigations in Oregon, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, New York and other states have in recent years found disturbing evidence of police officers abusing steroids. But Connecticut police insist they've never seen it here.

A national expert who's been studying steroid use in all types of subcultures from athletics to the military believes "tens of thousands" of cops all across the U.S. are on such illegal drugs. But the head of the largest police union in this state, a man who spent 20 years with the Milford P.D., says the issue has never even been raised in any Connecticut disciplinary hearing he knows about.

A recent scandal in New Jersey turned up 248 public safety officials — most of them cops — who were getting steroids prescribed by a steroid-abusing doctor, and New Jersey officials responded by ordering random police drug testing. But a Connecticut State Police spokesman says his department doesn't do that.

Just last month, a federal appeals court ruled a New Jersey police chief was within his rights to order several of his officers to undergo testing for steroids, strip them of their weapons and put them on desk duty.

www.ct.com...

Fighting Police Abuse: A Community Action Manual

1. SOME OPERATING ASSUMPTIONS

THE BAD NEWS is...
police abuse is a serious problem. It has a long history, and it seems to defy all attempts at eradication.

The problem is national: no police department in the country is known to be completely free of misconduct. Yet it must be fought locally: the nation's 19,000 law enforcement agencies are essentially independent. While some federal statutes specify criminal penalties for willful violations of civil rights and conspiracies to violate civil rights, the United States Department of Justice has been insufficiently aggressive in prosecuting cases of police abuse. There are shortcomings, too, in federal law itself, which does not permit "pattern and practice" lawsuits. The battle against police abuse must, therefore, be fought primarily on the local level.

Forget the "crime rate." The "crime rate" figures cited by government officials are based on the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) system, which has several serious flaws. To name only a few: First, the UCR only measures reported crime. Second, since the system is not independently audited there are no meaningful controls over how police departments use their crime data. Police officers can and do "unfound" crimes, meaning they decide that no crime occurred. They also "downgrade" crimes — for example, by officially classifying a rape as an assault. Third, reports can get "lost," either deliberately or inadvertently. There are many other technical problems that make the UCR a dubious measure of the extent of crime problems.

Forget the arrest rate. Police officers have broad discretion in making and recording arrests. The Police Foundation in Washington, D.C., which conducts research on policing issues, has found great variations among police departments in their recording of arrests. In many departments, police officers take people into custody, hold them at the station, question and then release them without filling out an arrest report. For all practical purposes, these people were arrested, but their arrests don't show up in the official data. Other departments record such arrests. Thus, the department that reports a lower number of arrests may actually be taking more people into custody than the department that reports more arrests.

www.aclu.org...

And a few other links.
Your Local Police Force Has Been Militarized
The Empire Turns Its Guns on the Citizenry
dotandcalm.com...

Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America
www.cato.org...

There is a video that is called "Get With The Program", I will NOT link to it, as I received a warning when I tried, as I am sure it is monitored, it is the video sent out for local agencies that are looking to buy and use militarized hardware, helmets, and tanks.


Police Officers, are no longer in "regular police mode", they went from just patrolling using batons, to having heavy ammunition, and shields that can hold back a bear. With signs in metropolitan areas, warning of "See Something Say Something" you cant help but to be wary of everyone.



A Decade After 9/11, Police Departments Are Increasingly Militarized

New York magazine reported some telling figures last month on how delayed-notice search warrants -- also known as "sneak-and-peek" warrants -- have been used in recent years. Though passed with the PATRIOT Act and justified as a much-needed weapon in the war on terrorism, the sneak-and-peek was used in a terror investigation just 15 times between 2006 and 2009. In drug investigations, however, it was used more than 1,600 times during the same period.

It's a familiar storyline. In the 10 years since the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, the government has claimed a number of new policing powers in the name of protecting the country from terrorism, often at the expense of civil liberties. But once claimed, those powers are overwhelmingly used in the war on drugs. Nowhere is this more clear than in the continuing militarization of America's police departments.

www.huffingtonpost.com...


Something that we all know is that a change in outfit, can change someones attitude. Between paranoia, t.v, video games, and reports of fear and anxiety all around you, can you imagine if you had a gun as well?


Though this is from back in 1994 this is a sub-course with explanations and multiple choice questions when dealing with the public. This may also give a clue to what is going on in the minds of those that may have actually looked for a career in helping others, and had their minds changed by examples like these.
info.publicintelligence.net...

With having the knowledge of how and why, we can move ahead. I would love to just say that all of these men and women are just brutal, malicious, and frankly murderous people, but when you see that there is more at play it makes it, not easier, but more understood.

You dont just walk into a police station and sign up, and get a gun and a badge, you have to be "trained", to be who they want you to be when you graduate from the academy!!

Peace, NRE.

I think one of the main problems is an unspoken but clear internal conflict issue. The population at large, and future and present Police by default, are taught that the police are there to help people. Actually the Policy Enforcement Agents are there to enforce through force, the policies enacted by the corporate government they work for via tax collection. The conflict arises in the brain when the two conflicting realities cannot be reconciled. How does one reconcile this thought: "why am I trained to shoot the people I am hired to protect?"

With thousands, in some cases hundreds of thousands of local laws to enforce the Policy Enforcement Agents cannot possibly know them all, so they are trained to "spot" actions that can be later vetted for tax collection first, and conflict resolution can occur, but only if there is no money in it. How much more "helpful" would it be to society if a Policy Enforcement Agent pulled over a driver who was making an unsafe turn and took the time to explain the actual danger in doing things in that manner? A real life education about the physics of cars? Instead he's told to make himself as imposing as possible in his near riot gear, treat said "criminal" like a terrorist and issue them a taxation notice whereby they can atone for their sin by paying the City or State a fee.

How much more helpful would it be if each and every officer was screened for the ability for conflict mediation? Instead they are trained to asses, arrest and or issue a taxation notice or provide the local DA with taxation ammunition.

To be told you are there to help the community and then to be trained to abuse the community via taxation and arrest as your weapon of behavior correction is the problem. When did we accept the idea that taxation, arrest, and abuse from those in uniform is the best way to create a civilized society? Why do we accept this?

Not to mention 30 years of "shoot the #$%^ bad guys before the kill us all" movies and tv shows creating some disturbing training which only serves to reinforce the us against them mentality. The trouble is, an "US" becomes a "THEM" the moment a Policy Enforcement Officer has interest and I just don't see how they can be expected to resolve that conflict.

reply to post by crankyoldman

To be told you are there to help the community and then to be trained to abuse the community via taxation and arrest as your weapon of behavior correction is the problem. When did we accept the idea that taxation, arrest, and abuse from those in uniform is the best way to create a civilized society? Why do we accept this?

Very well said

Peace, NRE.

BTW, here is a little tid-bit that many may not be aware of its called COC- "Contempt of Cop".


Disorderly (mis)Conduct:
The Problem with “Contempt of Cop” Arrests

As the Supreme Court stated in City of Houston v. Hill, perhaps the seminal opinion in this area: “The freedom of individuals verbally to oppose or challenge police action without thereby risking arrest is one of the principal characteristics by which we distinguish a free nation from a police state.”12 Secondly, we are less worried about the negative consequences of angry speech in this context because we expect more from police officers than we do from the average citizen: “a properly trained officer may reasonably be expected to „exercise a higher degree of restraint‟ than the average citizen, and thus be less likely to respond belligerently to „fighting words.‟”13

www.acslaw.org...


Peace, NRE.

Due to current issues I think that this thread is quite informative, so I am giving it a bump

Peace, NRE.