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[Grakelin]

Police are not soldiers deep in enemy territory

Yes they are.

[Flagrarus]

But of course universal health care is what will make America a fascist country.

Sarcasm or trolling... damn, they look too similar.  I give up.

Sarcasm, obviously ( at least I think it is ).

Oh, I came across this link as well reading some comments on one of these stories:
http://www.cato.org/raidmap/
It's about botched SWAT and police raids, thought it might be relevant enough to post here

[nil]

Police are not soldiers deep in enemy territory

Yes they are.

Being a police officer is a fairly dangerous job, but only because of all the driving.  Their siege mentality comes more from their paramilitary-style training than it does from dangerous criminals.

[Grakelin]

I'll just leave this here, since you seem to think the police aren't in any danger.

EDIT: Here's something, too.

Take note that police deaths in the USA are higher than in Canada.

EDIT2: Whoops, this guy got away, no big deal though, as he was only a proven threat to police officers.

EDIT3: Not deep in enemy territory, amirite.

[KaelGotDwarves]

Police are not soldiers deep in enemy territory

Yes they are.

Uhhh... having volunteered with the local police force(not as a cop) but as support, I can tell you that's wrong.

Police creed is about protecting the public, not making the public their enemies. Even in shitholes like detroit.

The problem is you get a minority of assholes that make the rest look bad by not following standard procedure and lording over their power, and trust me, if a majority of police were assholes you'd be hearing many more stories like this. It's like labeling all soldiers babykillers. Both have shitty jobs that I wouldn't want to do (I've also worked as security before) and I'm surprised more don't crack from the stress of having to deal with assholes pulling weapons on them.

I know when I had weapons, guns and knives, pulled on me it was a highly stressful, traumatic experience. I quit that job.

EDIT: but if I had a family like many officer and I didn't have the luxury of quitting, I can see how years of stress and dealing with criminals could lead to a "shoot first" mentality. I'm not saying it's right, but perhaps we as a society should focus on continued police retraining and psychological evaluations.

[Grakelin]

The public isn't your enemy, you're right. The colloquialism here is in regards to the people shooting at you.

[KaelGotDwarves]

The problem, in this case, is that there wasn't anyone shooting - besides the police.

I'll withhold judgment because that's for a jury but it seems as though we went from gun "accidentally" discharging to him blindly firing into the house and and running the gamut of "I did this, oh wait that isn't right so I did this instead", which doesn't sound good at all.

And hindsight being 20/20, the police should have surrounded the house and made sure the suspect was actually there before rushing in with tragic results. Hopefully they learn from it instead of what seems to be an attempted coverup. It makes all cops look bad.

[Grakelin]

Sure, that all makes sense, and I'm not justifying the actions of the ones who burned the kid. This is the full quote I was responding to:

I agree with the need to find a balance.  I simply think there is far too much emphasis on officer safety and not enough on public safety.  Police are not soldiers deep in enemy territory, yet that is exactly how they act.

Closely and secretly observing a home and snatching the suspect up when he leaves to go buy some smokes or whatever is usually a far safer and more effective method than a no-knock raid, but since it doesn't allow SWAT teams to play GI-Joe and and use their flashy new toys it is often ignored.  As far as community co-operation is concerned, the first step is to tear down the blue wall of silence--citizens will not and should not trust the police so long as they prioritize their buddies over the law.

[DJ]

I think the main problem is that the selection process for cops is not strict enough.

[ChairmanPoo]

we don't know the circumstances. Maybe the 7 year old girl was a dangerous insurgent.

[Zangi]

we don't know the circumstances. Maybe the 7 year old girl was a dangerous insurgent.

Of course, she was menacing the cops with a loaded mini-rocket launcher!  It all makes sense now!

[Realmfighter]

Holy crap.

She would be at the exact right hight to cripple people unnoticed!

[Flagrarus]

I think the main problem is that the selection process for cops is not strict enough.

It's probably also because they can often get away with stuff like this. I think the main problem is that the police isn't willing to own up to mistakes like these. Instead they try to cover it up or just lie about what happened. And unless they actually admit that things like this are wrong and punish the people involved, it's probably not going to go away either.

Sort of like the Catholic Church, I guess.

( I could be completely wrong about this, of course )

[ChairmanPoo]

Dramatized footage of the event:

[nil]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-12-28-copdeaths_N.htm

Forty-one officers were shot and killed in 2008, down 40% from 68 in 2007. That's the lowest number since 1956, when 35 officers died from gunfire. The U.S. population today is 305 million, compared with 169 million in 1956.

The total number of officers who died in the line of duty — 140 — dropped 23% from 181 in 2007, one of the highest totals in two decades. The overall figure includes police killed in traffic fatalities and other accidents plus shooting deaths.

As a police officer, you would be 2 to 3 times more likely to be killed in an auto-accident than you would be by gunfire.  This is why being a truck driver is a more dangerous job than being a police officer, as the earlier link established.

It is difficult to find statistics on how many people are killed by police in a year (the only bit of data I could find was unsourced, said 200) and impossible to do so w/r/t innocent people.  But as long as police deaths remain in the low double-digits, I'm not really seeing a reason to hold the safety of well-paid, often armored public servants over innocent members of the public.

Also: the only one of your links that involved a pre-planned raid was the Canadian grow-op; the others were a traffic stop, a 911 call, and a bunch of cops sitting in a coffee shop.  The grow-op incident is unfortunate, but ending the drug war will end almost all drug-related crime, which is why it is step one for any sort of intelligent law enforcement reform.  As for the rest... determined criminals will always be able to get the drop on cops when they're going about their routine business.  It doesn't follow that cops should therefore treat every home as if it were some bunker fortified by hardened soldiers.