Do we need police training reform?

[Irene]

I'm still tired this morning. Not enough coffee. The good news is that the cat hasn't barfed yet. Keep your fingers crossed. The bad news is that it is bloody snowing. 

So, brief post to say that I have always felt marijuana should be legalized for home use only. I don't agree with people driving or working under the influence of it.

I know this is a shocker, but this is how I feel after years of watching the War On Drugs and knowing every day that it has been an abject and extremely expensive failure.

I don't condone the harder drugs. Addiction kills people and families. I do understand why people do it though. Life can be quite miserable for people just trying to survive and facing many hardships. Drugs are an escape from that reality.

They clearly open up altered states of consciousness, which even I find alluring. I, too, am extremely curious to see what lies beyond the veil.

[Sgt.Rocknroll]

And the inhumane treatment of that horse goes on! Lolol

[robomont]

its male birth control. bottom line. the most dangerous thing to any population. that wishes to keep poverty and slavery in place.
i produced my 2.3 kids to sustain said numbers. lol. the .3 is a third kid.
ive done my part to replace the lost.when you think of the ramifications of male birth control.the big picture is obvious.
why shouldnt males have the same rights as females.
as far as getting high,no more or less dangerous than caffiene.its just the population has adapted to caffiene and hasnt had  a hundred years of propaganda against it, except for mormons.

[petrus4]

robo, that is about the most ludicrous statement I have ever heard; you are on a vendetta against the peace keepers

Seeker, as far as I am concerned, there are no heroes here.  Not on either side.  There are merely people attempting to defend or propagate what they think is the right thing; but if there's one thing I've learned recently, it's that exclusively viewing one group as right and the other as wrong, only keeps conflict going.

If I view police as exclusively in the right and civilians as exclusively in the wrong, then that invalidates and ignores the real acts of injustice which police genuinely are at times committing against civilians; yet if I assume that civilians are exclusively justified and that the police are single-mindedly monsters, then that again disregards the fact that police are also, as Irene said, being murdered by civilians.

We have to avoid taking sides.  Both groups are in pain, and that is because things have happened to cause said pain.  As far as I am concerned, removing the factors which lead to said pain and conflict needs to be the main priority here, rather than assigning blame.  From what I am seeing, the people at Standing Rock do have valid arguments, and I've also seen photos of the injuries that they have received from police; but I also know that what Irene has said is true, that police are being unjustly murdered by civilians as well.

[petrus4]

I don't condone the harder drugs.

Neither do I.  I've seen the harder drugs kill people, and I've seen cannabis heal.  I also completely agree with you that no one should drive or operate heavy machinery under the influence.

[robomont]

thankyou petrus for a balanced opinion,i admit ive been fighting the uphill legalization battle a long time.me my wife and 2year old daughter at time ,went to pot legalization rally in austin when bush was gov of texas.20 years ago ?
and still not legal in texas,thats the biggest crime of all.and cops are put in the predicament of blind obediance to an unjust law.
but lets not forget,fbi would not even save statistics on cop killings,which shows the utter corruption at the justice dept.
like i said,there is no law in the usa,just folks that think there is.
and last,i bet cops are killing folks faster than folks are killing cops.so its unjust to single out cops getting killed.should not these cops be in an uproar over unjust killings of citizens.should it be number one on trumps agenda?
its not, because the gov wants civil war,its obvious really.they have set the stage for it.look around.

[zorgon]

It would be nice if the media reported the good LEOs do as well, but that isn't sensationalist.

I like to think that I left her in a better place than where I found her. This happens thousands of times a day across the country, but you never hear about it because it doesn't sell papers.

Quite true...

media is to blame directly for most of our problems  I recall an olymics several years ago with media saying repeatedly "I hope no one brings a bomb"  Over and over they said that..

so.. someone says "HEY!!!  I think I will take a bomb to the olympics!" so went out and made a pipe bomb

Good news doesn't sell  you are right

But ArMap also has a point..

The FEAR is there... maybe justified but the pendulum has swung to far the other way...  like that New Mexico guy they killed for 'illegal camping.. FOUR cops and a dog, cops with Kevlar and guns... Camper had a small pocket knife...

Cops yelling to come down... He was complying,   Cop 1 shoots rubber bullets, other 2 cops felt the need to blast him with real bullets, sick dog on him

Cop yelling at man to drop the knife  Ummm the guy is DEAD  lying on the ground knife (2-3" blade) lying beside his hand 

Looks like FEAR to me...

I could put together a list of cases where the cops involved over reacted because they were afraid...  like an elderly lady in a traffic stop flustered and was fumbling in her purse for her ID  (that was requested) She wasn't fast enough so the cop pulled her out of the car seat belt still on and when she screamed he felt he had to use the tazer



Okay so in todays world there are more bad guys  and with Obama stirring the racism pot by inviting a terrorist group like BLM into the Whitehouse it sure is making a mess

But if the Cops want "We the people" to believe that 90% of cops are good guys...  then "We the People" expect that cops need to know that 90% of "We the people" are good honest law abiding citizens


As to them being in my garage and that home invasion in Henderson? Well it seems that they WERE in violation of both procedure and the law... This is Nevada  we still have rights here.

[robomont]

usually im about 2 years ahead of the times.this can be proven by a heated discussion a couple years back on here that caused me to be absent for a term.now that belief is showing itself.im not evil,i dont want folks dead,i just clearly see conditions that leed later to issues.unless the feds step up and change the narrowmindedness,civil war WILL,break out.not may,will.too many bad things being placed on the board.police state laws,authoritarian rules,low iq cops,no jobs of real value,homelessness,a general socialism of communities,old people manipulated into neighborhood watch groups.
the squeeze is really bad for the 40 year olds to 60 year olds.really bad.REALLY BAD ,I MEAN HORRIFIC BAD.a year or 2 of poor employment is one thing,16 years of it is a FOOKIN NIGHTMARE.GET MY DRIFT?

[zorgon]

So, brief post to say that I have always felt marijuana should be legalized for home use only. I don't agree with people driving or working under the influence of it.

I agree with that... first of all from a taxpayers point of view... Colorado has shown the huge amount of taxes they collect  so much so they had a surplus and by Colorado law they need to return the overage to the people.  Also the BILLIONS spent on jails, legal system and law enforcement for a small ounce of something that is no worse than alchohol

Add to that the blow to organized drug lords...

On the flip side I recall my days in High School where the weed smokers were in Lalaland, giggling insanely and their reaction time slowed to a crawl.  At work here in Vegas at the Convention center  a weed smoking teamster on a fork lift dropped a crate on two people  killing them  So yeah should still remain the same  Use it at home. but not while driving or at work

your rights to freedom end when they interfere with another's rights and freedom

[robomont]

thats the first real accident ive ever heard of z,seriously,ive never ran across one even though its chances are high.but i trust your accuracy.

on a side note,i now know where you work.lol.
ill plan my ufo expose to be at the convention center when im famous.

[ArMaP]

should it be number one on trumps agenda?
its not, because the gov wants civil war,its obvious really.they have set the stage for it.look around.

And that's why I think you should not look at the police as whole but remember that when you are facing a police officer you are facing another human being with his/her own problems, someone that probably just wants to get back home to his/her family in one piece.

Someone (the government?) clearly wants people to take different sides and act against each other, so the best option would be to do the opposite.

[Irene]

Zorgon,

Law enforcement has never been "Adam-12", "Starsky & Hutch", or "Baretta". What has changed is that the population has increased and become more violent and defiant. Thank the hippies for that.

Dissemination of news, videos, audio is now instantaneous, so people are on top of the news as it is made. Aberrant behavior is much more exposed to the light of day.

Lastly, the Left has radicalized their hypocrisy. Passive aggressive protest is their trademark. They enjoy enraging their opponents, with the ultimate result being violence, then claiming they are peaceful.

They are a disgrace. Clinton lost because people saw through the bulls**t.

[robomont]

imho,our defiance wasnt the hippies,it was tuning out the msm bs.once i did that,reality slid in along with my recent court appearances over the last 20 years,once the state occuses you of child rape,abuse and starvation,via cps,it tends to make one never trust gov again.ever.the state is the enemy.ill take that experience for life.then letting a serial killer neighbor across the street from me go?
i cant say it on this forum but to say a fire of intense light boils my soul.like the furnace of hell itself.

[petrus4]

What has changed is that the population has increased and become more violent and defiant.

Irene,

You and I seem to have a fundamentally different view of reality.  While I very much recognise the value of harmony, virtually my entire life experience, starting from the very earliest point of childhood, has consistently taught me that authority is almost exclusively corrupt, and never to be trusted; and that the vast majority of the time, the real reason for the existence of said authority is predatory. 

This is also why Zorgon views his scenario as a vicarious monarch to be a positive thing, presumably; because he has observed it as a source of benefit both to himself and others.  If I had had similar experience to him, then no doubt I would have the same opinion; but I have not.

For me, the world consists almost exclusively of bullies; and this is true to the point where the only time when I feel genuinely physically safe, is when I am also physically alone.  In my experience, all the police have ever really appeared to be, is simply a more severe and better armed group of bullies than the civilian kind; and worse, they deprive me of the ability to defend myself from said civilians.  I have experienced home invasion, an attempt to kill me, and having said home set fire to, in multiple seperate incidents, and the police were nowhere in sight until well after said crisis had already passed. 

Police have never given me any reason to have faith in them.  I can accept the fact that your own reasoning for being sympathetic to the police, is due to the fact that your life experience is the opposite; but I hope you are willing to recognise that in both cases, there is a valid basis for our difference of opinion.  I might well be more sympathetic towards police myself, if my experience with them had been more positive.  The reason why I can not join with the Seeker in thanking police for their service, however, is because I personally have nothing to thank them for.  They have not served me.

So if as robo says, my opinion seems to be balanced, it is primarily because I do not presume that integrity exists anywhere.  I don't think it exists among civilians, and I don't think it exists among police.  I am not going to cheer civilians on for killing police, but neither am I going to applaud the police for being accessories to corporate economic crime or degradation of the environment.  The issue here is not the fact that the police are bastards, but that everyone is, police or civilians alike.

This is also why I am nowhere close to advocating the rule of law purely for its' own sake, because the one thing that I have repeatedly seen recently, is use of the law as a weapon by a vastly wealthy minority, and as a means of ensuring that a much larger majority are kept permanently incapable of improving their living conditions.  Considering this, I do not view civilian defiance as a negative thing; in fact, maintaining it may well be imperative to our continued survival.

The truth is, that the rule of law does me no good.  I have never been in a condition of living or interacting physically with other human beings, where said human beings have not attempted to derive benefit from me, in a manner that was also detrimental to me; and this has occurred in an environment where the rule of law was supposedly still operating in the background.  We are currently moving towards extinction; and again, to a large extent this has occurred within a context where we have had the rule of law.

The Judge Dredd approach does not work.  If it did work, I would welcome it; but the problem with trying to defend us from the barbarians at the gates, is the fact that we are all barbarians, which means that said gates have never served to keep the barbarians out in the first place.

The only thing I've ever found that does work, is isolation.  Keeping myself out of sight of everyone else as much as possible; and ideally, seperating myself from the rest of the population with closed and preferably locked doors.  You might ask, if that is the case, why I use the Internet; and the answer is that unfortunately I require some form of interaction with the collective in order to remain sane, which the Internet provides.  At this point however, I do not view physical interaction with other human beings as virtually anything other than a threat to my own wellbeing.  I am not an atheist, but the Goddess I pray to, wears the face of Sarah Connor.

[zorgon]

on a side note,i now know where you work.lol.

LOL retired from that 5 years ago when my leg went bad   Wearing a negative compression device right now, part of a clinical study   Free medical and paid $75.00 a week

They used to be huge  wear them like a back pack  Miniaturisation now