All of that costs money, which the politicians ultimately control.

Politicians also control who gets promoted to positions in the command structure, whether you believe it or not, those people make the decisions, formulate SOPs and policies.  Those same people are politically "protected" class, and will let shit roll down hill in a heartbeat, rather than be leaders and take responsibility.

Sort of yes...........they appointed the people in command, and the best guy, or most competent guy doesn't always get picked = good ole' boy system/friends and family plan.

This just demonstrates further the incredible mental gymnastics some people will go through to blame others for their own fuck ups.

Right. It wasn't the cop's fault for clearly fucking up. It was the corrupt system that put the political cronie in as chief, who put the wrong guy in charge of the team, who allowed him to let his gun hang off safe.

What the fuck ever happened to personal responsibility?

If LEA certification bodies were worth the paper their "cert' is printed on, they would yank accreditation from any agency that had SOPs allowing for off safe weapons-muzzle up-in a stack and departments that keep officers that negligently kill granpa proned out.  If there are states that allow LEAs to operate without state or national accreditation they should be pressured at the state house level for such. But mostly those (accrediting) entities exist for their own purposes, and are useless outside the average everyday police work standards.

Municipal and County politicians aren't effectively watching or caring until it's time to put out the fires and cover up the mess.

You make valid points.........

I'm just trying to give you an understanding of what goes on in a lot of departments, and a lot of fuck ups can be because of a direct result of training, or inadequate, improper or lack of training....because of lousy leadership....and that is where it starts, the rest spreads like cancer.

I have seen some agencies where you need to be one of the department ball-washers to even get selected for the team: No try-outs, no standards, etc.......just the buddy system.  Some agencies pervert the very meaning of "professional".

So....I am not surprised what I see sometimes from "other" agencies ...........and it isn't always the small ones. Some of the most qualified, professional, and well trained teams I have seen came from 50 man departments............I've seen some really shit teams come from 1000 man agencies.

Don't get me wrong, even the best of the best CAN have an accident.

 Politicians don't give a fuck, they have the option to pass the buck to save their own asses


Understand here: I'm not, nor have I, condoned what happened here........... a lot of what both yourself and dbrowne have said are very valid, and very good points, and I do agree with.  I'm just trying to paint the bigger picture of where some of the failure in SOPs and training doctrine stem from.

Well said.

Being a type A personality that is humble is one of the best attributes of a SWAT cop = Hot heads need not apply  Unfortunately many become cocky or get selected because their team leader/commander is cocky = Bad Ju Ju.

That the accreditations are "feel good" report cards is exactly what I suspected.  So the best way to normalize GOOD SOP and marginalize or eliminate DEMONSTRABLY BAD SOP is through the Accrediting bodies.

Am I correct in assuming that STATE accrediting bodies are a function of state government? As for National Accreditation I couldn't begin to figure out their parent.

Edited to unfuck quote. ETA: Took two tries.

 I tried to unfuck it too

There is a serious lack of ethics in almost all levels of gov't bureaucracy. Who you know, who you blow, and who you call brother will many times determine whether you get promoted or not in a gov't agency.
LE agencies are by no means exempt from this happening.
Some are really bad.
Unfortunately, often the incompetents who get promoted over the more qualified will go to all levels to cover their asses.
Including lying and falsifying records, no matter what the outcome is, just so long as it doesn't sully their records or hurt their chances of further promotions.
And they are very, very good at it.
It's very difficult to find an LE agency that will do a fair investigation of their own. They either whitewash a screw up or go overboard with a massacre, depending on who screwed up or who will get burnt.

and and all rolled into one .

I am glad to know I am not the only JOhn that forgets to let go of the "shift" key for the second letter of my name, been doing it for years.

This post has activated the crap-storm avoidance system. ~ JW777


<Account locked. Bama>

lol
sorry bro

I saw it before the edit.


I'm curious to see what happens.

lol? Advocating murder is lol to you?

See this?

Not a thing. Color me wrongfullest.

Yep, this is why we don't have a dept armorer, or issues long guns.



 

[/quote]



What would happen?  There was no coc violation posted just my wacky sense of humor.

Funny story....



A close friend of mine works for a small dept. He spent 25 years as a firearms instructor over SWAT, new recruits, etc. before he took this "small dept" job. The man is amazing. When the new dept. firearms instructor job came up, he didn't get the job. A guy that weighs about 290, and is almost legally deaf got the job.



Ever wonder why dumb weapons policies get put into place? The fucking politicians. And 90% of the time, it is their constituents the bitch and moan about police policy.
 

JW777 should have left your comments so EVERY LEO on this board could read what you wrote.

 

He deserved it. Shocking that he would push that hard to get locked.

It took me 5 years to get weaponlights on all of our Patrol Shotguns and Carbines. A particular dayshift Lt., who was looking to get promoted to Capt.,  fought me for years on this and would not purchase them.  Late last year we had an incident with n EDP shooting an AK47 randomly throughout a section 8 apartment complex.  The first officer to arrive had a Shotgun, and couldn't see a damned thing where the subject had fled, when i arrived with my personal patrol rifle - which has a light - we were able to take the guy in to custody without incident.

I had, had enough.........went to the Patrol Captain and walla! We got the weaponlights I wanted

Needless to say, yesterday, one of the junior firearms Instructors told me that Lt. was having a shitstorm because of the weaponlights and that we had to cut about 1" of foam out of the Rifle cases so they would fit. He asked him....how did you do that: he replied: With a knife...duh  

Bottom line....it wasn't his idea and he didn't think lights were necessary, and he is a fucking idiot..

 

I guess this shows the Mods and Site Staff will let you pull out enough rope to hang yourself.

 

Ah.... there it is.  I thought I smelled a lawyer.

Sorry to hear this happened.  There can be accidental discharges (as opposed to negligent), it depends on the circumstances.

For example, officer goes in through the door expecting possible immediate trouble from criminals inside (safety off, finger outside the trigger guard), as he's moving, he trips, goes to catch himself with his hands and the weapon swings free, catches on some equipment and fires.  Accident.

Example 2:  Officer goes in through the door expecting possible immediate trouble from criminals inside (safety off, finger outside the trigger guard), but it turns out there's no trouble inside and everyone is cooperating.  So officers are questioning people, maybe cuffing some as a precaution until they can figure out what is happening and which of them are bad guys, if any.  While cuffing someone, he trips, goes to catch himself with his hands and the weapon swings free, catches on some equipment and fires.  Negligence.

It would be worse if when tripping he pulled the trigger with his finger, because he should not have his finger on the trigger at that moment, but in any case, it shouldn't happen either way.  Because at that point he should have had his safety on, so even if he trips and the equipment catches on the trigger, the weapon can not fire.  Now if he was doing as he was trained and following department policy (leave safety off all the time until all the arrests and everything is completely over) by having his safety off, which seems very unlikely, then it's not his negligence, but the department's for training him that way.  In that case, he would not be punished, but the department would have to change it's training policies on the use of safeties.

If, on the other hand, he had been trained to put his safety on when doing routine cuffing of suspects and so on, but he was careless and failed to put the safety on, then it's his negligence and I think he has to be fired, you can't kill innocent people through sheer negligence and not pay the price.  He's probably a good guy, too, but with something this serious, what else can you do?

Either way, the department is liable for damages.

Of course, if drug traffickers were wiped out (easy to do if you have actual men running the country, there is no real "war" on drugs going on), then you wouldn't have millions of Americans' (and their families) lives being destroyed by getting hooked on this poison, and drug-related incidents like this wouldn't happen, because there would be no need for the cops to be there to begin with.

+1

Nope, not accident. Negligent. Tripping and tripping hazards while making a fast, stressful entry into an unfamiliar building are entirely foreseeable, as is the resulting risk of an off-safe gun firing as a result.



This example is no different than the one above.

Murder? No. Manslaughter? Possibly. Again, the word 'negligent', in a legal sense, carries criminal culpability. Actus reus is easily provable. The mens rea is another thing - a savvy attorney could probably convince to the right jury some degree of intent (––> negligence).

Check the Cato Institute. There have been loads of SWAT shootings on innocent people, AD's, wrong houses, etc. I wrote a paper this last term regarding paramilitary policing as it relates to COP (Community Oriented Policing) and the trends are frightening, especially for those like myself who view the Constitution sacrosanct.

Edit for link:
http://www.cato.org/raidmap/

Let me just say that I'm impressed.

I go to the movies, come back, and JF is locked.... How about a friendly IM as to what happened?  

Someone copy me as well!  I just replied to him in another thread.  This done made my Monday.



(Does anyone know what his new screen name will be?)

A_nother_D_ude



 

I missed it.  Someone get there panties in a wad?

Now that someone is in trouble, the thread will die...

+1

Likewise....well maybe for like 2 more years, I might be gone by then

Mistakes by non-Cops involving guns in other people's homes almost invariably lead to very bad things for the person that did it.  Same standards should apply.

Man, I always miss the good stuff. Can you give a hint to what was said?





 

It's long been acknowledged that he does/did not speak for all of us. I hope it was known, anyway.

It has by anyone paying attention.