Orkan/KY,
As Sully referenced, there is quite a bit going on "behind the scenes" of LE so to speak. The problem is that it's sort of the conundrum of "proving a negative". Society doesn't hear about it when something is handled properly 100 times that week, they hear about it when it goes wrong on #101. Every single day cops act on their conscience in defiance of some absurd policy or ordinance. There are times when it's worth the bullshit to get into a confrontation over it, and there's times when it's more effective to just do what's right quietly. That's not the "code of silence" B.S., it's not drawing attention to the fact you're doing the right thing, so you can continue to do it. It's the tacit rather than explicit approval of supervisors to do what's right rather than what's "required".
In the deep south, the role of the armed citizenry is fantastic. I used to love going to prowler calls and arriving on scene to meet an octogenarian standing in a haze of gunsmoke after they'd unloaded on some young punk trying to break in their house. I'd always provide some of my own ammo to reload whatever they'd emptied in the encounter and ensure my narrative could NEVER be used as evidence against them should some over-zealous politician try to get involved.
During Katrina, the coastal city I was working in had the first Walmart to open after the storm. By company policy they had suspended all sales of weapons and ammo in the hurricane zone. I was approached by a guy from one of the more affected areas who'd made the trip over to get some supplies and ammo for him and neighbors because they'd organized a neighborhood "militia" in the absence of the police. He was nearly in tears that he'd left his family at a friend's house to come over only to be denied the purchase of ammo and was asking if I could recommend another place in town to try. I asked him what he needed and went to my trunk and loaded him up with boxes of ammo for each of the weapons he and his neighbors were using, gave him some cases of MREs, took him across the street to the gas station and put him at the head of the mile-long line for gas and had the gas station authorize a full tank of gas plus whatever gas cans he had with him (there was a 5gal per person ration in effect) so he could get home before it was dark, and gave him my cell # to call me if he ran into any problems on his future trips to the city. I told him to give that # to any of his neighbors who needed help as well, that between me and some other officers, we could get them outfitted for a siege if some semblance of order wasn't restored.
I'll tell you that more than anything that drove me out of LE, it was the adoption of the COMSTAT crime-mapping system that we adopted from NYC. In theory it's supposed to allow multiple precincts and entities within a city to track crime trends across different command elements that don't normally talk to each other. The way it's supposed to work is that officers with different pieces to the puzzle can find out that someone else is also working on the puzzle and they can compare notes to solve the crime. It's also supposed to let precinct commanders track crime trends so they can formulate plans to combat the issue.
What it turned into was an extremely adversarial process where a Dpty Chief was screaming at Precinct Captains every week about how they'd be relieved of their commands if they couldn't stop auto-burglary, homelessness, etc in their precincts. The consequence of that was that the Captains would then be under the gun to "do something", and would delegate problems to subordinates with a "fix it or else" mandate. It bred more bad decisions and extra-Constitutional practices than you could imagine: road blocks, 100% stop/frisk policies in certain areas after certain hours, the mandate for unlawful arrests just to "put someone in jail so I have some numbers to show the Chief next week", etc. It was LUNACY.
I was always one of the most pro-active officers everywhere I worked, so when I came off of a special task force and back to patrol the Capt asked me to head up his "COMSTAT detail" where my job was to be his enforcement arm and go out and solve his problems for him. I politely refused, then was TOLD I was going to do it. So I disregarded politeness and flat-out refused to be a part of it and dared him to MAKE me do it. I took a huge amount of shit from both him and my Lt, who was WAY up the Capts ass and was the prime offender coming up with unlawful ideas in an attempt to earn brownie points. On more than one occasion I had to directly disobey orders from him to make warrantless searches and arrests to "solve the problem". He'd threaten me with discipline and I'd threaten him with the LAW. He accused me of mutiny for telling other officers to disregard his orders. He ended up in a newsworthy jam shortly after I left his squad
One of the task forces I was on was an ATF program to prosecute felons in possession of firearms. It was hugely successful program that went after bad guys rather than going after guns. After a while the political winds shifted and someone got unhappy about the demographics of the cases and wanted a little more "balance" in who went to federal prison, so they decided to shift the focus to domestic violence cases (remember a misdemeanor DV case is also a disqualifier). Today's DV laws are unconstitutional on their face, mandating that officers make arrests where no probable cause exists and the officers KNOW that he accused is not guilty.
My boss and I quietly screened out those cases to ensure that "John Q" who'd been railroaded into some bullshit non-violent DV case by the courts or a vindictive woman never got prosecuted. We had to be discrete about it, but we controlled which cases were considered, so I just filed them in my "No Go" drawer. By the nature of the process, a lot of people to this day have NO IDEA that they were facing Federal prison had it not been for some discretion.
I don't offer up the "war stories" as any form of "look at me". I made mistakes just like anyone else who's ever gotten dressed in the morning and left their house. I simply offer them as some real-world instances of the behind-the-scenes dynamics in LE that don't and likely won't ever end up on youtube or CNN.
If the fear is "what happens when the balloon goes up", my personal concern is much more the response of the military rather than the police. Police officers are non-compliant by personality, military commanders are not.
***Let me reiterate that a couple of posts ago, KYPatriot and I were apparently typing at the same time, and I used the figurative "you" rather than a reference to any member in particular when I raised the issue of the military. KY and I have spoken via PM and I truly believe we're completely on the same page. I'm in NO WAY condoning or justifying un-Constitutional practices. I'm enjoying this discussion and hoping to pose rational points on the reality of a situation so that we as a collective can discuss how to apply the theory to the reality in a workable solution. KY, I hope you know you have my deepest respect, and I'm still waiting on you to let me know where and when I can vote for you.
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