<story><title>New Style of Police Training Aims to Produce Guardians, Not Warriors</title><url>http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2015/12/10/new-style-of-police-training-aims-to-produce-guardians-not-warriors/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>exelius</author><text>I see a disconnect between what the public believes the job of the police is and what police officers believe the job of the police is.&lt;p&gt;In my mind, police officers sign up for a dangerous job knowingly - that&amp;#x27;s why they&amp;#x27;re revered as heroic by many in society. They are willing to put themselves at risk to protect society from harm, and that&amp;#x27;s noble.&lt;p&gt;What most police academies teach is the opposite. They teach officers to put their own safety over that of everyone else. They talk in terms of &amp;quot;reducing officer casualties&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;overwhelming force&amp;quot;. This is not a heroic police officer sacrificing himself for society; it&amp;#x27;s jackbooted thugs threatening, terrorizing and killing the very civilians they are supposed to protect. Turns out it&amp;#x27;s really hard to tell a bad guy from a good guy by looking at them, so they play it safe and treat everyone like a bad guy.&lt;p&gt;Not every officer thinks this way, but it&amp;#x27;s common enough that it leads to a lot of police shootings. IMO a police officer should be more willing to take a bullet than put one into someone. I realize body armor isn&amp;#x27;t foolproof, but the job is inherently dangerous and the officer goes into it knowing that - something a person on the street doesn&amp;#x27;t get.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>JshWright</author><text>Let me start off by saying I agree with you (if you&amp;#x27;re bored, crawl through my HN history and you&amp;#x27;ll find some very strong condemnations of certain LEO practices).&lt;p&gt;However... let me also explore a different perspective on this.&lt;p&gt;Do you feel the same way about paramedics and firefighters? We choose to put ourselves in harms way for the sake of others. Heroic, right? No... not really... My first priority on any scene is to go home to my wife and daughter at the end of the day. In fact, my priorities (usually...) are me, then my crew, then you.&lt;p&gt;Firefighting is not without risk, but in reality, modern firefighting is very conservative, and growing more so every year. There are practical reasons for this though. When a cop or a firefighter is out of the fight, they&amp;#x27;re not doing anyone any good. In fact, they are now causing a division of resources in the operation as they have now become someone else we need to rescue.&lt;p&gt;I am my first priority because I can&amp;#x27;t do anyone any good if I&amp;#x27;m injured. My crew is my second priority because they are the ones that are going to take care of me if things go sideways. Keeping those priorities straight is what maximizes our effectiveness in preserving life.&lt;p&gt;I realize this comparison is not perfect (it&amp;#x27;s generally easy enough to identify fire vs innocent civilians), and I am by no means excusing the military mindset of many modern police forces, but I hope that gives you some insight into the mindset behind some of the tactics used.</text></comment>
<story><title>New Style of Police Training Aims to Produce Guardians, Not Warriors</title><url>http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2015/12/10/new-style-of-police-training-aims-to-produce-guardians-not-warriors/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>exelius</author><text>I see a disconnect between what the public believes the job of the police is and what police officers believe the job of the police is.&lt;p&gt;In my mind, police officers sign up for a dangerous job knowingly - that&amp;#x27;s why they&amp;#x27;re revered as heroic by many in society. They are willing to put themselves at risk to protect society from harm, and that&amp;#x27;s noble.&lt;p&gt;What most police academies teach is the opposite. They teach officers to put their own safety over that of everyone else. They talk in terms of &amp;quot;reducing officer casualties&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;overwhelming force&amp;quot;. This is not a heroic police officer sacrificing himself for society; it&amp;#x27;s jackbooted thugs threatening, terrorizing and killing the very civilians they are supposed to protect. Turns out it&amp;#x27;s really hard to tell a bad guy from a good guy by looking at them, so they play it safe and treat everyone like a bad guy.&lt;p&gt;Not every officer thinks this way, but it&amp;#x27;s common enough that it leads to a lot of police shootings. IMO a police officer should be more willing to take a bullet than put one into someone. I realize body armor isn&amp;#x27;t foolproof, but the job is inherently dangerous and the officer goes into it knowing that - something a person on the street doesn&amp;#x27;t get.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>crusso</author><text>&lt;i&gt;the job is inherently dangerous and the officer goes into it knowing that&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I think that forums heavy with computer desk jockeys like HN tend to throw this idea around too casually.&lt;p&gt;If outsiders kept callously telling us &amp;quot;you signed up for it knowing that you would work 80 hours a week&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;you signed up for it knowing that your stock options would probably be worthless&amp;quot;, we&amp;#x27;d be up in arms and demanding that no one should be treated that way.&lt;p&gt;Yet we expect officers to put themselves into situations where they&amp;#x27;ll be hurt or injured &lt;i&gt;unnecessarily&lt;/i&gt;.  Take, for example, the Eric Garner case: &amp;quot;They didn&amp;#x27;t need 5 officers to tackle that guy who was resisting arrest&amp;quot;.  Really?  That was a big dude.  If he had decided to start punching; officers could have suffered knocked-out teeth, irreparably damaged eye sockets, and broken bones.  Can you imagine going to work every day where the public expectation is that the risk of your knocked-out teeth when confronting someone resisting arrest is perfectly acceptable?&lt;p&gt;There are very few jobs I would never do, but being a police officer is one of them.  The public is just way too callous in thinking that it&amp;#x27;s okay for you to be injured or killed because &amp;quot;you signed up for it&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;[grammar fix edit]</text></comment>