This is seriously troubling

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

I read your article and then did a little more research. It doesn't sound like there is a difference between assaulting a police officer and assaulting a civilian. Either can be misdemeanors or felonies, depending on the extent of the injury and whether or not a weapon was used. So I guess that means if an officer is trying to arrest you and you punch him, it will probably only be a misdemeanor if he is not really hurt. If you punched him in the face and it only left a small bruise, it would probably only be a misdemeanor. I think that is the reason that Chief Bratton wants to make resisting arrest a felony in certain situations. I think there are probably too many guys punching officers and getting off with a slap on the wrist.

I think if you punch an officer in the face, it probably should be a felony, regardless of whether the officer has any broken bones from the assault.

Anyway, if it was up to me to decide whether to pass this new law, I would need more information. I would need to know why Bratton feels that they need this law (I suspect it is for the reason I just mentioned), and I would would want to know what criteria would be used to determine whether a felony charge would be filed. If the reason given was the reason I stated and if the criteria was that the only people who could be charged with a felony are people who physically assault (punch) a police officer, then I would probably be fine with the new law. If there was no real criteria to decide what would be a felony, then I would be against it. But I would be shocked if the new law wasn't very specific and and didn't require a true assault to be filed as a felony.

If an officer is trying to arrest me and I punch him in the face, don't you think that should be a felony, regardless of whether the officer sustains any real injuries?

Oh yeah, I'm sure in an age of cops shooting people and performing banned chokeholds and getting away with it, that the issue is really people punching cops and getting away with it. No way is it cops asking for even more power to go along with fulfilling their wannabe military fantasies.
Our crime rates are the lowest they've been in 40 years. Its been trending down for years.
But to hear you and the cops, you'd think it was the opposite. Christ, we already have a huge prison population and you want to add to it?!

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by Danzig

Oh yeah, I'm sure in an age of cops shooting people and performing banned chokeholds and getting away with it, that the issue is really people punching cops and getting away with it. No way is it cops asking for even more power to go along with fulfilling their wannabe military fantasies.
Our crime rates are the lowest they've been in 40 years. Its been trending down for years.
But to hear you and the cops, you'd think it was the opposite. Christ, we already have a huge prison population and you want to add to it?!

As I said in my previous post with the link to a New York times article about the recent assaults on police in New York, the push for this new law is obviously a direct result of these recent assaults.

You call this an age of cops shooting people and getting away with it because there are a handful of such cases. There are well over 10000x more violent crimes committed by criminals. You are obviously very easily manipulated by soundbites and propaganda. Do you have any idea how many violent crimes were committed in this country in 2013? There were over 1 million violent crimes committed. Should we celebrate this since there may have been 1.1 million violent crimes a few years ago? There were over 14,000 murders in 2013. How many unjustified police shootings were there? Maybe 20 people at the most? How does 20 people compare to 14,000 people? But you want to focus on the 20 people and say that the police are the problem.

With regard to adding to the prison population, the only thing I want to do is get violent people off the street. If there are only 500 violent people on the street, then I only want those 500 people in prison. But if there are 1 million violent people on the street then I'd want to see 1 million people in prison. You're not doing anyone a favor by letting violent criminals roam the street simply because the prisons are crowded.

Here are some of the stats:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/n...110-story.html

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

As I said in my previous post with the link to a New York times article about the recent assaults on police in New York, the push for this new law is obviously a direct result of these recent assaults.

You call this an age of cops shooting people and getting away with it because there are a handful of such cases. There are well over 10000x more violent crimes committed by criminals. You are obviously very easily manipulated by soundbites and propaganda. Do you have any idea how many violent crimes were committed in this country in 2013? There were over 1 million violent crimes committed. Should we celebrate this since there may have been 1.1 million violent crimes a few years ago? There were over 14,000 murders in 2013. How many unjustified police shootings were there? Maybe 20 people at the most? How does 20 people compare to 14,000 people? But you want to focus on the 20 people and say that the police are the problem.

With regard to adding to the prison population, the only thing I want to do is get violent people off the street. If there are only 500 violent people on the street, then I only want those 500 people in prison. But if there are 1 million violent people on the street then I'd want to see 1 million people in prison. You're not doing anyone a favor by letting violent criminals roam the street simply because the prisons are crowded.

Here are some of the stats:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/n...110-story.html

absolutely bad police are a problem. they make it tough for everyone. their fellow police, the citizens they encounter...
as for the militarization, i blame the governments for that. local, state and federal.
we aren't the enemy, our cities aren't war zones.

'easily manipulated'. don't even start with the personal bs. i have no issue with people disagreeing with me, and holding their own opinions...but keep it on subject.
my dad was a cop in d.c. 20 years. i know all about dealing with it, the psychological crap, the citizens who spit on cops and call them names. the cops taking it out on their families, the stress, etc. and then i was in the navy, similar stuff. and just like in the navy with a cross section of the populace, you have good cops and not so good, and some really bad ones that you wonder how the hell they got hired.
but it helps no one to have the rest of the dept. close ranks and defend the bad cops. all they do is make it harder on everyone.

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by Danzig

absolutely bad police are a problem. they make it tough for everyone. their fellow police, the citizens they encounter...
as for the militarization, i blame the governments for that. local, state and federal.
we aren't the enemy, our cities aren't war zones.

'easily manipulated'. don't even start with the personal bs. i have no issue with people disagreeing with me, and holding their own opinions...but keep it on subject.
my dad was a cop in d.c. 20 years. i know all about dealing with it, the psychological crap, the citizens who spit on cops and call them names. the cops taking it out on their families, the stress, etc. and then i was in the navy, similar stuff. and just like in the navy with a cross section of the populace, you have good cops and not so good, and some really bad ones that you wonder how the hell they got hired.
but it helps no one to have the rest of the dept. close ranks and defend the bad cops. all they do is make it harder on everyone.

I agree with you that there are some bad cops out there. I have no tolerance for the bad ones. But most of the cases lately have not involved bad cops, even though the race baiters and some in the media want to portray them that way. For example, there is no evidence that Officer Wilson was a bad cop. He had never done anything bad before and he did nothing wrong in the Ferguson case in most people's opinion. Yet he is portrayed as some kind of really bad cop.

With regard to the militarization of the police, it is necessary in this day and age. Here in Los Angeles back in the 1997, there was a bank robbery where the bank robbers got into a shootout with the police. The bank robbers were better armed than the police. They had body armor and high-powered assault weapons. The police's bullets weren't even hurting them. Eleven police officers were injured. I don't know if you remember this incident but most people in Los Angeles remember it vividly. This incident woke people up to the need for the police to be better armed. We can't have criminals better armed than the police. Here is some info on that case:

"Local patrol officers at the time were typically armed with their standard issue 9 mm or .38 Special pistols, with some having a 12-gauge shotgun available in their cars. Phillips and Mătăsăreanu (the bank robbers) carried illegally modified fully automatic Norinco Type 56 S-1s (an AK-47-style weapon), a Bushmaster XM15 Dissipator, and a HK-91 rifle with high capacity drum magazines and ammunition capable of penetrating vehicles and police Kevlar vests. The bank robbers wore body armor which successfully protected them from bullets and shotgun pellets fired by the responding patrolmen. A SWAT eventually arrived bearing sufficient firepower, and they commandeered an armored truck to evacuate the wounded. Several officers also appropriated AR-15 rifles from a nearby firearms dealer. The incident sparked debate on the need for patrol officers to upgrade their firepower in similar situations in the future.[4]

Due to the large number of injuries, rounds fired, weapons used, and overall length of the shootout, it is regarded as one of the longest and bloodiest events in American police history.[5] The two men had fired approximately 1,100 rounds, while approximately 650 rounds were fired by police.[2]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

I agree with you that there are some bad cops out there. I have no tolerance for the bad ones. But most of the cases lately have not involved bad cops, even though the race baiters and some in the media want to portray them that way. For example, there is no evidence that Officer Wilson was a bad cop. He had never done anything bad before and he did nothing wrong in the Ferguson case in most people's opinion. Yet he is portrayed as some kind of really bad cop.

With regard to the militarization of the police, it is necessary in this day and age. Here in Los Angeles back in the 1997, there was a bank robbery where the bank robbers got into a shootout with the police. The bank robbers were better armed than the police. They had body armor and high-powered assault weapons. The police's bullets weren't even hurting them. Eleven police officers were injured. I don't know if you remember this incident but most people in Los Angeles remember it vividly. This incident woke people up to the need for the police to be better armed. We can't have criminals better armed than the police. Here is some info on that case:

"Local patrol officers at the time were typically armed with their standard issue 9 mm or .38 Special pistols, with some having a 12-gauge shotgun available in their cars. Phillips and Mătăsăreanu (the bank robbers) carried illegally modified fully automatic Norinco Type 56 S-1s (an AK-47-style weapon), a Bushmaster XM15 Dissipator, and a HK-91 rifle with high capacity drum magazines and ammunition capable of penetrating vehicles and police Kevlar vests. The bank robbers wore body armor which successfully protected them from bullets and shotgun pellets fired by the responding patrolmen. A SWAT eventually arrived bearing sufficient firepower, and they commandeered an armored truck to evacuate the wounded. Several officers also appropriated AR-15 rifles from a nearby firearms dealer. The incident sparked debate on the need for patrol officers to upgrade their firepower in similar situations in the future.[4]

Due to the large number of injuries, rounds fired, weapons used, and overall length of the shootout, it is regarded as one of the longest and bloodiest events in American police history.[5] The two men had fired approximately 1,100 rounds, while approximately 650 rounds were fired by police.[2]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout

oh good god.
you reference one circumstance, from 1997, to say that cops need mraps and the like??
yeah, that happened which explains why the la school district needed rpg's...
and why even tho crime is down significantly swat raids needed to increase tenfold.

[Danzig]

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/edito...208-story.html

and absolutely read the scathing report from the aclu. also, take note in the article:

states have access to National Guard units they can deploy when circumstances call for a military response.



when police depts request these cool toys, there is a rule regarding keeping those neato things...they have to use them within a year to show that they do indeed need them.
yeah, so hurry and use them police, so you can justify them. that's what ferguson did--in response to protests. the rioting came after they showed up in full war gear.
in many of the cases hitting the news lately....things escalated between police and the public due to the actions of the police. they then use the escalation to excuse their response.
you had a 23 year old cop who ignored texas law and tazed an old man. thankfully he didn't shoot and kill the guy. but he did lose his job. that needs to happen elsewhere as well.


now, this is what i view as a great stance that all departments would do well to emulate:

http://gawker.com/police-chief-respe...sto-1675787560

[bigrun]

Good police work here...that'll show em

The indictment accuses the suspects of dealing heroin, crack, marijuana, Oxycodone and Alprazolam.

Quite a haul


http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/...icle-1.2109644