I just don't get it

[Derek McGowan]

So my part time job is retail. Halloween is a huge season for us. Several of the our franchise stores (I'm a floating manager) have off duty police as security during this month. I worked at one of those stores the final week of October.

The thoughts of police shootings, whether they were mistaken or justified, has been on my mind a bit lately and so I took the opportunity to discuss this whole body camera thing with the officers. I have a alternative idea that I wanted to hear there thoughts on. Since incapacitating the criminal is the major factor and not exactly how you do it, I asked what about a law that says officers leave there guns in the vehicles unless they know they are walking into a hold-up or some other known situation where a gun is a absolute must. At all other times the officers would carry tasers.

I was told that the officers can never know what they are walking into, a. and b. the idea is to always have either a balance of force with the criminal element or an upper hand. Those points make sense to me, fine..... even though I still can't see how a taser is less powerful than a gun when the taser will still incapacitate the same as (and probably more so) than a gun since shooting someone with a gun in the arm will not bring them down but shooting them in the arm with a taser will (?) None of the officers were comfortable with taking a taser into the field against those who potentially have guns.

But fine, I said. What about this. ....and this was where I got all Sci-Fi, like I'm prone to do..... What if the department gave you a device that will allow you to put a person to sleep, instantly, with but a glance and a thought. This device would be genetically encoded to you, so it couldn't be taken from you, it would work from point blank to 100 yards. You could take down multiple people. No recharge time. No medical repercussions to the officer or to the receiver. Would you be comfortable with taking that into the field versus a gun?

I asked 5 officers on different days. Granted, that is hardly a sample size at all, but there were black and white officers. One was a female, one was on the K-9 unit. So there was some variety. Not a single one was comfortable with this. They all felt safer with their gun. So then I said that if it is about a balance of power, who would you consider to have more power if you (the officer) had the gun and the criminal had the put-you-to-sleep-at-a-distance device... They All Said the Criminal!!

I just don't get it....

[tmj]

That's very interesting a. the topics you brought up and b. that you had the opportunity to ask the officers and they were willing to be engaged, cool.

I bet part of the reasons for the answers was the ' psychology ' of their training and their perspectives becasuse of it. I have never been through any training of that sort but I imagine they are trained to respond, action - reaction kind of thing. The criminal has all the power , the power to initiate action and you are then trained to respond and then within certain strictures. Perhaps the being armed with a firearm gives one more confidence to make up for being seemingly at a disadvantage or at least inferior position in regardto what actions to take and when you act(react)?

[Derek McGowan]

yeah, most of them keep making reference to getting ambushed

[Jules Troy]

He ermmm... Criminal has the device, puts the cops to sleep at 100 yards and then can casually at their leisure execute the cops..

[Derek McGowan]

He ermmm... Criminal has the device, puts the cops to sleep at 100 yards and then can casually at their leisure execute the cops..

One officer I spoke to said that they wouldn't prefer the put you to sleep device because it only works up to 100 yards while the criminals' gun has a longer reach! I was like "HUh...how does that make a...."

[dldelancey]

I wonder if it has something to do with a lack of imagination, and I don't mean that in a snide way. Maybe they just can't grasp the notion of the put-anyone-to-sleep-anytime power. It's too foreign for them to conceptualize? Nothing in their experience that is relatable?

[syrakusos]

… off duty police as security during this month.

...Not a single one was comfortable with this. They all felt safer with their gun. So then I said ...

Allow me to suggest that you might have five motivations from five people and never know what those are. You just consider them all "police officers" and ask them a "police" question. So that defines a context for you, but perhaps not for them.

Assuming that they are all police officers for all purposes here, then let me underscore your status to them as an outsider. Police lie. it is part of the Warrior or Guardian Ethic, to deceive for the sake of the task. That is a function to serve their exclusive status. It's the "blue curtain." See the discussion here on OL about "The Guardian vs. the Commercial Syndrome." So, whatever the answer really is, they might not tell you.

Another perspective is "cognitive dissonance." Once having given some answer, many people will be motivated to defend that choice, even when presented with new evidence.

That would tie also to their self-ascribed status. You cannot be allowed to fox them with a snappy reply. They will dig in and fire back.

You tried to show a cross-section based on their ascribed statuses, male, female, black, white. Who graduated from college? We know that police officers with associate and bachelor degrees make different choices than those with only high school diplomas. College changes you, perhaps, but we do not know how. I mean that officers with advanced education write more tickets and yet have fewer complaints lodged against them. But we don't teach traffic stops in criminology or sociology. (Women also work harder and have fewer problems with public relations. The best police force is of college educated women. See The Good Walk Alone, a science fiction novella by Wolf Devoon for a dramatization of what that might look like.)

Maybe the causal relationship works in the other direction: anyone willing to put up with college and get through it is a different kind of police officer in the first place. It is not just politics. The cops in my classes were all political conservatives. The instructors who were retired police tended to be more liberal or libertarian. In college. At the police academy it is a different story, more in line with traditional policing as you have found it in your short discussion.

I have never been through any training of that sort but I imagine they are trained to respond, action - reaction kind of thing.

It is OJT. Typically, whether you have a college degree or not, you still need to go through a licensed police academy. An officer might have gone through two: one wherever they lived and the second where they got hired, especially if it is in a different state. I worked with a young guy who got his BS before I did. He was in the community college police academy and then passed two different academies on his way to his first job as a federal police officer. But those were 13-week semesters, maybe only 6 weeks. (You pay to attend. And you cannot work while attending. So, they keep it short.) You don't get much training. Mostly, it is a sieve to see who washes out.

In college, the instructors may try to change your attitudes with their commie politics. At the academy, they just reinforce your desires.

Training is on the job, continuous and continual.

You learn to accept your organization. That is how rookies get involved in corruption. Very few are strong enough to walk away, leave, or (God forbid) go to Internal Affairs. The upside, however, is a continuity of collective intelligence as lessons are passed along and passed down.

But you do not know what it is like until you are there. You knock on a door and get shot. You stop a car for speeding and get shot. One of my professors was a young guy working warrants for a court and he came in to class one night still rattled. Nothing happened. But he realized that he was up in a high-rise, walking down a hallway, and everyone could see him, and he could not see them and it was miles and miles back to the stairwell…

[syrakusos]

I wonder if it has something to do with a lack of imagination, … It's too foreign for them to conceptualize? Nothing in their experience that is relatable?

Could be, certainly on a personal level. We do not reward creative people by offering them careers in law enforcement. And, really, you don't want police officers getting "creative". So, there is some "natural selection" toward unimaginative people working as police officers. That said, I have met some philosophers and artists in uniform. One guy was into theater. But statistically, imaginative people tend to find other work.

Still and all, I think that other dynamics were in play in this case. A weapon that instantly immobilizes a suspect from 100 yards is easy to understand. That is beyond the range of a handgun. (Yeah, I know… someone here will insist that they shot a squirrel at 200 yards with their grand daddy's cap and ball…) Most pistol work is close range: 20 feet, across a room, or less.

It was an "intelligence test" that Merlin gave to young Arthur. Excalibur the sword could cut anything; but Avalon the sheath protected the wearer from any sword, including Excalibur.