Originally Posted by
Duffman
We were fighting a mostly insurgent force that blended in with the population and primarily used ambush tactics. It was assymetrical warfare where we were supposed to work with local Afghan govts to provide infrastructure (roads, schools, etc). Called COIN, it was renaming hearts and minds. Granted we weren't dealing with drug abuse and domestics, we were held to extremely high levels of accountability and they wouldn't hesitate to throw us in Leavenworth, for say, shooting a spotter in the same valley we got mortared last week.
My issue is that in the military if someone commits a war crime, it's obvious they're done. With police, I don't have that confidence. It's not personal, it's my issue with the existing system and exactly what I think would happen if the military were allowed to unionize.
Fair, and I appreciate and respect your level headed analysis on this.
The big issue I see is the leadership (or lack thereof) in the PD. The job unfortunately attracts a lot of people who want to be police officers for the wrong reasons. It attracts a LOT of good people who want to make a difference, but it also attracts people who crave power and authority. Since promotion is often strictly based on a civil service examination (doing well on a written test), it isn’t hard for these people, who crave power, to seek and end up in positions of leadership—and that leadership becomes toxic. It creates a culture of heavy handed tactics, viewing all civilians as perps, etc. It runs counter to the COIN tactics you mentioned, and creates division in the community.
So now you’ve got good cops working with and under ****ty cops. Guess how that’s going to go.
We need better leadership—leadership that isn’t afraid to weed out the *******s BEFORE the problem children end up in a bad shoot or similar. Same goes for union leadership.
We also need a national database so proven bad cops can’t department shop. The world needs Walmart greeters.