The Rooster
"Okeydoke"
December 19, 2021By Julius Prodis Sulek
Officer Michael Brown (click here) and his police dog Odin burst into the bedroom with a pack of officers from Richmond’s gang unit, and there he was: the intruder hiding under the bed.
It was around midnight as the swarm of police, guns drawn, crowded into the dark, cramped room to capture the 21-year-old man who had barged into a neighbor’s apartment after police showed up at his home to search for a weapon.
But in the shaky glow of their flashlights, they quickly discovered the suspected gang member wasn’t the only one concealed under the bed.
“Hey, there’s a kid under here!” an officer called out with alarm....
Albuquerque - A deadly New Mexico police shooting (click here) that happened a year ago Monday prompted angry protests and a murder investigation into the officers involved.
The fallout from the killing of James Boyd, a mentally ill homeless man, provided an early glimpse of the outrage that would spread across the country in 2014 over what critics decried as heavy-handed law enforcement tactics.
Boyd’s death came amid a wave of police shootings in Albuquerque. Mayor Richard Berry called it a game changer and urged the U.S. Justice Department to finish an investigation into the police department so a federal monitor could be appointed....
The issue regarding police violence within the USA is a two edge sword, in that, officers need options and the law abiding public, including those with mental health problems, need protection from them.
The policing with attack dogs is a worry. Of course, it can be a good tool, but, under what circumstances. I see the use of dogs in the USA as a means of detecting illegal drug activity. But, as a routine form of law enforcement, the question arises, once a dog tastes the blood of humans are they still effective in their purpose?
In an issue (click here) described in "The Mercury News" the police officer lost control of the dog. The dog caught by his harness under a porch was interpreting the struggles of the man in pursuit as aggression and became more aggressive and more injury was inflicted. Dogs don't think in terms of civility or crime, they think in "pack mentality" and protection of the pack, even if that pack is one man and one dog. Should the dog ever be "off leash?"
“I attempted to call K-9 Gunnar to my side several times,” Hodges later wrote in a police report, but the Belgian Malinois (click here) “refused to come off the contact as the suspect was screaming, flailing his arms, agitating K-9 Gunnar.”
In speaking to a guard dog trainer it was stated dogs need to own their aggression to know their capacity. They need to experience their own strength in training to understand they are not in danger when they attack a target or in this case a potential criminal.
Dogs, tasers, guns and flash bangs are not the best domestic tools for a police officer in a country that likes to think of itself as civil. Yet, because of capitalism and consumer choices available in the USA, police officers are sadly outgunned by sincere criminals. It seems to me there needs to be a summit that encompases current police practices with current danger to police on the job and current dangers in those practices.
The issues law enforcement face today also include their top killer, COVID-19 and it's variants.
But, the future vision for police officers needs to include a higher level of safety from more than the virus, but, also the chance of meeting a criminal that has more power at the end of a gun than the officer does. The USA needs a new vision of law enforcement and that includes an evaluation of danger within the societies where police do their work.
Are current measures appropriate and what does a society have to do to end the problems police face? That aspect of SOCIETY RESPONSIBILTY is a huge part of the picture no one ever addresses. Why? Because of the profit margins of all aspects of the USA economy. Economists need to be part of a larger picture to target the violence and keep the benevolence.
The summit will have to encompass every aspect of danger for police officers, what causes it and a PLAN to end that danger to return the USA to PEACE WITHIN IT'S BORDERS.
I do not believe police use grievance processes at all to mayors and council to end violence within the city. They simply take it on the chin and that spawns self-righteous attitudes, bonding and strategies outside the definition of good police work.
