Police Militarization in the US

[Vgree]

San Francisco Votes To Allow Killer Robots



I'm usually among the civil liberties protesters but I also think cops should be effective and, to the extent possible, safe.

I think in the not too distant future, every cop car will have a drone and a stair-climbing robot and it might have a smoke bomb or percussion grenade and that's all OK with me.

If there's a violent, armed, or dangerous suspect and you can send a robot or @Vgree to contact and incapacitate him, which way do you want to go? I want to send the robot.

This isn't a crazy new idea, obviously the Dallas PD used their bomb robot to incapacitate the suspect who had shot multiple Dallas officers a few years ago.

We use our bomb squad robot regularlly to search for armed subjects and have used it to grab firearms out of the hands of armed suspects. They have also used it to drag suspects out from under beds.

I think there needs to be some pretty strict scrutiny to use this but putting a robot in those situations will save officers lives and should actually save bad guy's lives too. Not putting a living person into a house with an armed subject slows down the whole process and gives that bad guy more time to make better choices.

 

[solosailor]

I'd never want to allow automated decisions by these devices. So a remote control device, not a robotic automated device. The police can't be trusted with their current toys in many instances, well proven over and over again.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Sorry for the video; I was trying to excite our more rabid gun owners

You're not all that exciting and your need to start a new thread when an existing one already covers the subject makes you seem like a bit of an attention whore.

 

[badlatitude]

You're not all that exciting and your need to start a new thread when an existing one already covers the subject makes you seem like a bit of an attention whore.

You must be afraid of competition, Tom. Every morning I turn on my computer to find aging threads written by you that have lost any entertaining value ages ago, put there to amuse or entertain just you.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

We Ain't Comin' Out

 

[Vgree]

We Ain't Comin' Out

Waco is a perfect example of really poor planning and a "have to do it the cool way" attitude from LE.

He should have been picked up while on a jog one morning. Sure sometimes that way endangers the public more if it is in a city. But this was a rural area with little to no danger to the public.

Sickening that the ATF bragged about this day and still does. Fuck the ATF. Of all the federal LE agencies I have run into they are the worst. They reached out to us once saying they needed a marked unit to stop a car. When we asked for more info they wouldn't give it. Made it up the chain a ways and found out the guy they wanted us to stop was known to be armed, likely making explosives, and had made numerous threats to kill law enforcement and they wanted a random patrol person to stop him.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Waco is a perfect example of really poor planning and a "have to do it the cool way" attitude from LE.

He should have been picked up while on a jog one morning. Sure sometimes that way endangers the public more if it is in a city. But this was a rural area with little to no danger to the public.

Sickening that the ATF bragged about this day and still does. Fuck the ATF. Of all the federal LE agencies I have run into they are the worst. They reached out to us once saying they needed a marked unit to stop a car. When we asked for more info they wouldn't give it. Made it up the chain a ways and found out the guy they wanted us to stop was known to be armed, likely making explosives, and had made numerous threats to kill law enforcement and they wanted a random patrol person to stop him.

Funny how they knew enough to be evasive about why they wanted a random guy like you to make that stop.

 

[Vgree]

Funny how they knew enough to be evasive about why they wanted a random guy like you to make that stop.

Federal law enforcement has a long history of getting local LE killed in these type of things.

Little to no supervision of what individual branches are doing and when it is questioned any damning info is swept under the rug.

As a cop I don't trust federal LE at all. I generally assume they are incompetent and trying to get me killed. And they don't care about citizens at all. If you aren't them you are worthless.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Federal law enforcement has a long history of getting local LE killed in these type of things.

Little to no supervision of what individual branches are doing and when it is questioned any damning info is swept under the rug.

As a cop I don't trust federal LE at all. I generally assume they are incompetent and trying to get me killed. And they don't care about citizens at all. If you aren't them you are worthless.

Wow, I did not know that. When I read about federal law enforcement teaming up with locals, it's usually in the context of "equitable sharing" of seized assets and it all looks like one big team from my perspective. Thanks for broadening my view. And alarming the shit out of me!

 

[Steam Flyer]

Federal law enforcement has a long history of getting local LE killed in these type of things.

Little to no supervision of what individual branches are doing and when it is questioned any damning info is swept under the rug.

As a cop I don't trust federal LE at all. I generally assume they are incompetent and trying to get me killed. And they don't care about citizens at all. If you aren't them you are worthless.

That's awful. It would be a real disaster if this were true across all the Federal LE agencies; it's certainly true of some that we (the general public) can observe. I've had a bad feeling about the whole "Homeland Security" thing since it began. However it will take a lot of serious political will to clean house.

The Federal agencies I dealt with... industrial and technical, and then before that the military... were a mix of ultra-professional and muddle-headed doo-gooders. Never knew what you were going to get, but it always paid to CYA

 

[Vgree]

That's awful. It would be a real disaster if this were true across all the Federal LE agencies; it's certainly true of some that we (the general public) can observe. I've had a bad feeling about the whole "Homeland Security" thing since it began. However it will take a lot of serious political will to clean house.

The Federal agencies I dealt with... industrial and technical, and then before that the military... were a mix of ultra-professional and muddle-headed doo-gooders. Never knew what you were going to get, but it always paid to CYA

I should say that I have bumped into a few true professionals in federal LE.
The US Marshals are 100% the most professional LE agency I have ever been around. Their fugitive task force guys are real pros and when our swat team has worked with them they were amazing, spoke our language and treated us like equals.
They are also the last people in the world I would want hunting me because they are damn good at it.

The FBI hostage rescue team have also been nothing but impressive. I got to attend some training with their team a few years ago and they were very squared away and serious.

Other than that I have been unimpressed by federal LE. Since they don't deal with the public day to day they forget how to do daily cop stuff. They forget how to deescalate through words.

I'm not saying that all street cops are pros at it, but take a guy who stops 10-15 cars a day and writes tickets, that guy gets really good at talking to people and "selling the tickets".

The federal guys don't get that, it's office to operation which results in negative results.

 

[Gouvernail]

Federal law enforcement has a long history of getting local LE killed in these type of things.

Little to no supervision of what individual branches are doing and when it is questioned any damning info is swept under the rug.

As a cop I don't trust federal LE at all. I generally assume they are incompetent and trying to get me killed. And they don't care about citizens at all. If you aren't them you are worthless.

You might benefit from re-reading your post multiple times until you recognize exactly what it is you wrote.

Perhaps you could imagine it being written by a Fed cop >>>>>

Local law enforcement has a long history of getting state and Fed killed in these type of things.

Little to no supervision of what individual branches are doing and when it is questioned any damning info is swept under the rug.

As a cop I don't trust local cops at all. I generally assume they are incompetent and trying to get me killed. And they don't care about citizens at all. If you aren't them you are worthless.

 

[Steam Flyer]

You might benefit from re-reading your post multiple times until you recognize exactly what it is you wrote.

Perhaps you could imagine it being written by a Fed cop >>>>>

Local law enforcement has a long history of getting state and Fed killed in these type of things.

Little to no supervision of what individual branches are doing and when it is questioned any damning info is swept under the rug.

As a cop I don't trust local cops at all. I generally assume they are incompetent and trying to get me killed. And they don't care about citizens at all. If you aren't them you are worthless.

I got that too, but VG has a lot of steam to blow off. Let him, and learn from his words.

 

[Vgree]

You might benefit from re-reading your post multiple times until you recognize exactly what it is you wrote.

Perhaps you could imagine it being written by a Fed cop >>>>>

Local law enforcement has a long history of getting state and Fed killed in these type of things.

Little to no supervision of what individual branches are doing and when it is questioned any damning info is swept under the rug.

As a cop I don't trust local cops at all. I generally assume they are incompetent and trying to get me killed. And they don't care about citizens at all. If you aren't them you are worthless.

I don't disagree completely with you, just basing off my experience.
I would challenge you to find a time that local LE forced federal LE to do something that endangered them. I don't know of any, but I can find numerous examples of Federal LE asking Local LE to stop or investigate something without giving them relevant information.

Local LE answers to the public they serve much more so than Federal. If I mess up the city council and their constituents are going to be requesting an investigation. Then either a state agency or a federal agency would be doing that investigation. But when a Federal officer messes up who investigates them? Congress?
Take for example the shooting during the storming of the capitol. The female shot was unarmed and shot for trying to climb through a window. That officer got a medal, and was priased for saving lives.
No imagine that was a local officer who just shot an unarmed person for climbing in a window. Local LE get charged even when the suspect was armed but might have dropped the gun a split second before they acted.
Two very different standards.

With that said, there are plenty of Local LE who are incompetent and shouldn't have badges so I can't understand some worry from Federal LE looking downward.

 

[Vgree]

To bring the topic back on course a bit, talking about militarization of police.

Recently drones have become a big thing for LE, many departments are deploying small drones to track fleeing suspects, search for missing people, and scout areas. I have personally gotten to use one equipped with thermal technology, we were able to locate a 4 year old who had walked away from his home in below freezing temps. While it was an incredible tool for that it scared me a bit.

I can see it being something that gets abused. Because LE drones look very similar to commercial drones there is very little that would limit an agency using them to gather information that would previously have required a warrant. Honestly there may already be some case law related to it, we don't have one and had to contact another agency when we needed one.

With the quality of the camera and video equipment on them I could see it being used to "spy" on people. I'm sure there will be some interesting case law coming related to expectation of privacy related to what can be seen from the air over your own property.

 

[MR.CLEAN]

I don't disagree completely with you, just basing off my experience.
I would challenge you to find a time that local LE forced federal LE to do something that endangered them. I don't know of any, but I can find numerous examples of Federal LE asking Local LE to stop or investigate something without giving them relevant information.

Local LE answers to the public they serve much more so than Federal. If I mess up the city council and their constituents are going to be requesting an investigation. Then either a state agency or a federal agency would be doing that investigation. But when a Federal officer messes up who investigates them? Congress?
Take for example the shooting during the storming of the capitol. The female shot was unarmed and shot for trying to climb through a window. That officer got a medal, and was priased for saving lives.
No imagine that was a local officer who just shot an unarmed person for climbing in a window. Local LE get charged even when the suspect was armed but might have dropped the gun a split second before they acted.
Two very different standards.

With that said, there are plenty of Local LE who are incompetent and shouldn't have badges so I can't understand some worry from Federal LE looking downward.

Vern, do you know what agreement or policy governs your department's provision of assistance to federal LE agencies? I'm curious as to how your own supervisors continue to provide assistance without proper information disclosure, when so frequently and obviously dangerous outcomes occur. As far as I understand - and this is not my area of expertise - the federal government may not compel a state agency to do its bidding.

 

[MR.CLEAN]

Take for example the shooting during the storming of the capitol. The female shot was unarmed and shot for trying to climb through a window. That officer got a medal, and was priased for saving lives.
No imagine that was a local officer who just shot an unarmed person for climbing in a window. Local LE get charged even when the suspect was armed but might have dropped the gun a split second before they acted.
Two very different standards.

If you mean to provide a relevant analogue, your 'local officer' would need to be employed in protecting hundreds of local elected officials and hundreds more staff and guests, and those officials would need to be huddled behind a nearby door, hiding from an angry, weapon-carrying mob of thousands who'd already breached two layers of security perimeter and were shouting 'hang [one of the officials]' and 'where's [another official]'. Your local officer would then have to react with deadly force to one of the walls being breached by a person [ex-military, by chance] holding an object and toting a backpack, at the vanguard of the mob.

I'm guessing the local DA would arrive at a similar conclusion as did the capitol police and congress: Justified homicide, self-defense (defense of others). Shooter stopped the murder of hundreds, hero, medal.

 

[Vgree]

Vern, do you know what agreement or policy governs your department's provision of assistance to federal LE agencies? I'm curious as to how your own supervisors continue to provide assistance without proper information disclosure, when so frequently and obviously dangerous outcomes occur. As far as I understand - and this is not my area of expertise - the federal government may not compel a state agency to do its bidding.

We have some basic department policies related to assisting other agencies, which includes federal agencies, it is very broad and allows for the supervisor on duty to refuse if they believe it is immoral, illegal, or doesn't follow the mission of our PD.
The example I gave above, I was the supervisor on duty, they called at about 4pm to ask for assistance and the initial brief was "they just needed a marked unit so the guy didn't think it was an impersonator stopping him". Zero info about who he was or why they were investigating him.
I had previously dealt with issues where we hadn't been given all the facts, I understand they may need to keep some info secret for investigation purposes. But a simple "Hey this guy is probably armed and might want to fight" would go a long ways.
Anyways, I ended up speaking to a supervisor two levels up and he was shocked that they were having a local PD stop the guy. They had everything they needed to arrest him and had zero need for us to be involved. I never got a straight answer why it occurred.

But you are correct, we do not have any obligation to do their bidding, but generally agencies help each other, but there is a rift that is growing between local LE and Federal, especially in more conservative areas where the local LE probably disagree with some of the actions that Federal LE are taking.
The FBI have helped our SWAT team find a few very serious criminals because they have tools we don't and were able to give us some valuable info to help us take them into custody safely. But they have also asked us to serve some warrants that were questionable at best and we refused.

 

[MR.CLEAN]

We have some basic department policies related to assisting other agencies, which includes federal agencies, it is very broad and allows for the supervisor on duty to refuse if they believe it is immoral, illegal, or doesn't follow the mission of our PD.
The example I gave above, I was the supervisor on duty, they called at about 4pm to ask for assistance and the initial brief was "they just needed a marked unit so the guy didn't think it was an impersonator stopping him". Zero info about who he was or why they were investigating him.
I had previously dealt with issues where we hadn't been given all the facts, I understand they may need to keep some info secret for investigation purposes. But a simple "Hey this guy is probably armed and might want to fight" would go a long ways.
Anyways, I ended up speaking to a supervisor two levels up and he was shocked that they were having a local PD stop the guy. They had everything they needed to arrest him and had zero need for us to be involved. I never got a straight answer why it occurred.

Thanks for the background. After a few of those, I'd hope you and your colleagues would be calling for a revision to the policies.

But you are correct, we do not have any obligation to do their bidding, but generally agencies help each other, but there is a rift that is growing between local LE and Federal, especially in more conservative areas where the local LE probably disagree with some of the actions that Federal LE are taking.
The FBI have helped our SWAT team find a few very serious criminals because they have tools we don't and were able to give us some valuable info to help us take them into custody safely. But they have also asked us to serve some warrants that were questionable at best and we refused.

It sounds like local PD needs to go through a periodic assessment of the risks and benefits of doing this kind of business with federal LE.

"Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice..."

And hopefully any time they make you do the feds bidding, you assume the target outguns you and act accordingly!

 

[MR.CLEAN]

My personal experience with feds includes contact with dozens of federal agency staff over the years, usually negotiation of a contract or fine/penalty, occasionally witness/defense stuff). Contact has been with BLM legal staff (grazing permits and endangered species act stuff), Army Corps legal and admin staff (waterways), DOJ/FBI (securities fraud cases) and SEC (fraud and other securities act violations).

My general experience is that well-paid federal staffers (lawyers, staff supervisors, field agents) are highly educated, highly qualified, highly competent, and, with some exceptions, usually well motivated, especially those that draft back and forth every 5 or 10 years between federal and private jobs. They generally are more competent and more skilled than the local or state versions of the same position. Most of the underlings are like admin employees everywhere: Some are go-getters looking to advance, most are bored career keyboard bangers who will take shortcuts and be incompetent at X% of the jobs or X% of the time. My rare contact with elected or politically appointed officials has not been good, but too limited to be of much value.