quote:
1. To prevent crime and disorder, as an alternative to their repression by military force and severity of legal punishment.

2. To recognise always that the power of the police to fulfil their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behaviour, and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect.

3. To recognise always that to secure and maintain the respect and approval of the public means also the securing of the willing co-operation of the public in the task of securing observance of laws.

4. To recognise always that the extent to which the co-operation of the public can be secured diminishes proportionately the necessity of the use of physical force and compulsion for achieving police objectives.

5. To seek and preserve public favour, not by pandering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolutely impartial service to law, in complete independence of policy, and without regard to the justice or injustice of the substance of individual laws, by ready offering of individual service and friendship to all members of the public without regard to their wealth or social standing, by ready exercise of courtesy and friendly good humour, and by ready offering of individual sacrifice in protecting and preserving life.

6. To use physical force only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient to obtain public co-operation to an extent necessary to secure observance of law or to restore order, and to use only the minimum degree of physical force which is necessary on any particular occasion for achieving a police objective.

7. To maintain at all times a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and that the public are the police, the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.

8. To recognise always the need for strict adherence to police-executive functions, and to refrain from even seeming to usurp the powers of the judiciary of avenging individuals or the State, and of authoritatively judging guilt and punishing the guilty.

9. To recognise always that the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, and not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them.

Militarization breeds fear in the public. Policing breeds confidence in the public. Which do you think is better for society?

ETA: I don't want the police doing this to me when I'm driving my kids to school LINK

This post was edited on 8/20/14 at 3:25 pm

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Posted by jbgleason

Bailed out of BTR to God's Country

Member since Mar 2012

18898 posts

Posted on 8/20/14 at 3:37 pm to colorchangintiger

Great post.

I missed that on the dashboard cam date. I went off of the YouTube date. Which was pretty stupid but I found those "two incidences" with a 15 second Google so it wasn't exactly vetted investigative work. That being said, I am pretty sure we can all agree that criminals aren't exactly carrying switchblades and zip guns like in the 1950's. NOT that I am buying into the whole "we have to be better armed than them" thing as it pertains to this conversation. I was just responding to the statement that the LA Bank Robbery was the only time this has happened. I am sure somewhere on the wild internet is a list of every time the police have fought it out with bad guys carrying "bad" guns. But I am not going to look for it.

Regardless, your list above was some good stuff.

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Posted by Cali-to-Death Valley

SF Bay Area

Member since Dec 2004

746 posts

Posted on 8/20/14 at 4:42 pm to Wtodd

quote:
Just like our military, I want the cops to have superior fire power to the criminals. And they should be held accountable for when they screw the pooch.

Was a cop for over 33 years and this statement is truly how it should be.

Look I know for a fact (yes did time on a tactical team) that bad guys often have firepower that rivals or exceed the average cop on the street and often many tactical teams. I just need to refer to 2009 and Lovell Mixon using a fully auto AK-47 to kill four Oakland Police Officers (2 were SWAT members wearing ceramic entry gear) or the 1997 North Hollywood Bank shootout (which actually began LE's push for military grade gear). Now I'm not saying such is the case in Ferguson (If LE was fired upon during demonstrations, expect such a response.)

I completely agree 100% that if a cop "screws the pooch" and it can be proven they acted outside the law under the color of authority or in an unconstitutional, illegal or immoral way thus breaching the trust of the public they MUST BE HELD COMPLETELY ACCOUNTABLE and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

One last thing which I'm sure will draw some finger pointing. We as a community, can not truly expect total justice, when we demonstrate only when LE shoots an unarmed young man of color, but turn a blind eye to young men of the same color killing each other (armed or unarmed) at such an alarming rate. This does not/has not applied to just the young Black men of our generation-I am first generation Sicilian/American. Just check the news papers from the 20's-50's. Young Sicilian men were mired in the same type of life style without complaint.

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