17
   

I saw a white man with a gun. I heard a policeman saying, "Place the weapon down on the ground, ple

 
 
ossobuco
 
  1  
Reply Sun 12 Oct, 2014 09:22 pm
@giujohn,
I was kidding, in my inimitable way - Christ, what an asshole being a well known plug in for various cartoons.

CI and I often agree and sometimes not.

0 Replies
 
giujohn
 
  0  
Reply Mon 13 Oct, 2014 01:59 pm
@hingehead,
Quote:

And how do you decide who has 'got carried away' or 'unrealistic'


No...I rely on what is called,"The Reasonable Man Standard". Dont play dumb (or maybe you're not, I dont know)
It's not hard to figure out when something is unreasonable...if you're a reasonable person not prone to emotionalism and histrionics.
hingehead
 
  2  
Reply Mon 13 Oct, 2014 02:46 pm
@giujohn,
Quote:
No...I rely on what is called,"The Reasonable Man Standard". Dont play dumb (or maybe you're not, I dont know)
It's not hard to figure out when something is unreasonable...if you're a reasonable person not prone to emotionalism and histrionics.


But 'reasonable man' is not a standard - it's a subjective opinion. 'Reasonable man' is code for 'in my opinion'.

Sad that you can't see that.
giujohn
 
  0  
Reply Mon 13 Oct, 2014 02:51 pm
@FBM,
Quote:
Americans have long maintained that a man’s home is his castle and that he has the right to defend it from unlawful intruders. Unfortunately, that right may be disappearing. Over the last 25 years, America has seen a disturbing militarization of its civilian law enforcement, along with a dramatic and unsettling rise in the use of paramilitary police units (most commonly called Special Weapons and Tactics, or SWAT) for routine police work. The most common use of SWAT teams today is to serve narcotics warrants, usually with forced, unannounced entry into the home.

These increasingly frequent raids, 40,000 per year by one estimate, are needlessly subjecting nonviolent drug offenders, bystanders, and wrongly targeted civilians to the terror of having their homes invaded while they’re sleeping, usually by teams of heavily armed paramilitary units dressed not as police officers but as soldiers. These raids bring unnecessary violence and provocation to nonviolent drug offenders, many of whom were guilty of only misdemeanors. The raids terrorize innocents when police mistakenly target the wrong residence. And they have resulted in dozens of needless deaths and injuries, not only of drug offenders, but also of police officers, children, bystanders, and innocent suspects.

This paper presents a history and overview of the issue of paramilitary drug raids, provides an extensive catalogue of abuses and mistaken raids, and offers recommendations for reform.


What unmidicated CRAP

Written by someone who has never stared down the barrel of a gun.
"nonviolent drug offenders"???
I worked as a Deep Cover Narcotics Agent in the southwest U.S. in the 80s. (And it's a lot worse now than it used to be) I was totally imersed in the the lives of users and dealers a like. I lived with then, worked with them, and partied with them. As a "buyer/dealer" I was always armed and so was most everyone else. These people didnt necessarily fear the cops but they did fear their each other.
Additionally, when sentences became much longer the attitiude was, "If I'm looking at 20 plus years, I'm not going down without a fight." So the tendancy to shoot at the police became more prevelant.
Where there are drugs there is money. And where there is money there are guns. The drug dealers are constantly in fear of a rival faction doing a home invasion to get their money, drugs, and guns. Users also are in fear of dealers who take exception to not being paid or to others who know they are a snitch. Gangs bring a different complextion to the over all picture. They will kill you for being "disrespected" or to send a message. Even little misdemeanor users can end up dead if you live in the right hood. So everyone be packin'.
And if your the poor dumb under paid cop who has to go in and serve the warrant, if you dont put EVERY advantage on your side you're an idiot...a dead man walkin'. They dont call it the "War on Drugs" for nothing. Ask the people who live in the hood if it's a war zone, they'll tell ya. And ask them who they fear more of being shot by; the police of the drug gangs.
Oh and yes, sometimes the police get the wrong address...and so do the gangbangers who are trying to do a home invasion on a dealers house...**** happens in a war...and in the hood.
hingehead
 
  2  
Reply Mon 13 Oct, 2014 04:25 pm
0 Replies
 
ossobuco
 
  1  
Reply Mon 13 Oct, 2014 04:30 pm
re reading, I agreed with CI on that one, just to correct the assumptions.
0 Replies
 
ossobuco
 
  1  
Reply Mon 13 Oct, 2014 04:31 pm
re reading, I agreed with CI on that one, just to correct assumptions.
0 Replies
 
FBM
 
  1  
Reply Mon 13 Oct, 2014 04:53 pm
@giujohn,
Show some credible evidence for whatever claim you're making. Otherwise, you're just offering up more anectdotes and empty rhetoric. Even a casual search of the media reveals that professionals and the public alike recognize that there's a problem.
parados
 
  4  
Reply Mon 13 Oct, 2014 05:16 pm
@giujohn,
Upon further examination of the actual law, it seems it wasn't the 2001 Congress that failed to act renew the law. It was the 2004 congress. The law that collected data was part of the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban. That law expired in 2004 during the 108th Congress which was controlled by the GOP.

giujohn
 
  0  
Reply Mon 13 Oct, 2014 06:13 pm
@hingehead,
Quote:

But 'reasonable man' is not a standard


You are incorrect. It is used in the legal system by juries to determine ones conduct in a particular event
giujohn
 
  0  
Reply Mon 13 Oct, 2014 06:16 pm
@FBM,
Everything you post is an anecdote filled with heresay.
giujohn
 
  0  
Reply Mon 13 Oct, 2014 06:18 pm
@parados,
So it sunsetted in 2001 but you're blaming the 2004 congress for not renewing it?? Please show me your reference.
FBM
 
  1  
Reply Mon 13 Oct, 2014 06:25 pm
@giujohn,
giujohn wrote:

Everything you post is an anecdote filled with heresay.


Still don't grasp the concept of research, do you?

Quote:
Asset seizures fuel police spending

olice agencies have used hundreds of millions of dollars taken from Americans under federal civil forfeiture law in recent years to buy guns, armored cars and electronic surveillance gear. They have also spent money on luxury vehicles, travel and a clown named Sparkles.

ABOVE: In Douglasville, Ga, population 32,000, an armored personnel carrier costing $227,000 was bought using money taken from Americans under civil forfeiture laws.
The details are contained in thousands of annual reports submitted by local and state agencies to the Justice Department’s Equitable Sharing Program, an initiative that allows local and state police to keep up to 80 percent of the assets they seize. The Washington Post obtained 43,000 of the reports dating from 2008 through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Stop and Seize: In recent years, thousands of people have had cash confiscated by police without being charged with crimes. The Post looks at the police culture behind the seizures and the people who were forced to fight the government to get their money back.
Part 1: After Sept. 11, 2001, a cottage industry of private police trainers emerged to teach aggressive techniques of highway interdiction to thousands of local and state police.
Part 2: One training firm started a private intelligence-sharing network and helped shape law enforcement nationwide.
Part 3: Motorists caught up in the seizures talk about the experience and the legal battles that could take over a year.
Chat transcript​: The reporters behind “Stop and Seize” answered readers’ questions about the investigative series.
The documents offer a sweeping look at how police departments and drug task forces across the country are benefiting from laws that allow them to take cash and property without proving a crime has occurred. The law was meant to decimate drug organizations, but The Post found that it has been used as a routine source of funding for law enforcement at every level.

“In tight budget periods, and even in times of budget surpluses, using asset forfeiture dollars to purchase equipment and training to stay current with the ever-changing trends in crime fighting helps serve and protect the citizens,” said Prince George’s County, Md., police spokeswoman Julie Parker.

Brad Cates, a former director of asset forfeiture programs at the Justice Department, said the spending identified by The Post suggests police are using Equitable Sharing as “a free floating slush fund.” Cates, who oversaw the program while at Justice from 1985 to 1989, said it has enabled police to sidestep the traditional budget process, in which elected leaders create law enforcement spending priorities.

“All of this is fundamentally at odds with the U.S. Constitution,” said Cates, who recently co-wrote an article calling for the program’s abolition on The Post’s editorial page. “All of this is at odds with the rights that Americans have.”

...

Justice’s inspector general’s office has conducted 25 audits on spending since 2008, an average of four a year, examining more than $18 million in Equitable Sharing spending, roughly three-quarters of 1 percent of the money spent during that time. Justice has challenged millions of dollars in spending as unsupported or unallowable.

One audit examined about $3.4 million in Equitable Sharing funds that the Oklahoma Highway Patrol spent from July 2009 to June 2012.

The audit found $1.9 million in unallowable and unsupported expenditures relating to salaries, overtime pay, construction, fees paid to contractors and the use of two Ford F-150 pickup trucks by non-law enforcement personnel.

Oklahoma authorities did not return calls seeking comment.

Auditors found the Mesa County, Colo., Sheriff’s Office paid thousands for projectors, scanner equipment and other items that were not intended for law enforcement. They also paid for 20 lawyers in the Mesa County prosecutor’s office to attend a conference at the Keystone ski resort. Auditors questioned more than $78,000 in spending.

The Mesa Sheriff’s Office also did not respond to calls from The Post.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/10/11/cash-seizures-fuel-police-spending/

0 Replies
 
hingehead
 
  1  
Reply Mon 13 Oct, 2014 06:36 pm
@giujohn,
Quote:
You are incorrect. It is used in the legal system by juries to determine ones conduct in a particular event

And you can guarantee, with different juries, the same decision will be made every time, over time?
0 Replies
 
hingehead
 
  2  
Reply Mon 13 Oct, 2014 06:43 pm
I think the police have a tough job, and I understand John's defensiveness but putting your hands over your ears and going 'la-la-la-la' is not a solution.

This (below) is just one of the issues that is eroding trust in the police, and I think that is a dangerous thing for any society - our institutions and our faith in them are crucial for a continuing civil society.

0 Replies
 
hingehead
 
  2  
Reply Mon 13 Oct, 2014 06:46 pm
@giujohn,
and,

The reasonable person (historically reasonable man) is one of many tools for explaining the law to a jury.[1] The "reasonable person" is an emergent concept of common law.[2] While there is (loose) consensus in black letter law, there is no universally accepted, technical definition. As a legal fiction,[2] the "reasonable person" is not an average person or a typical person.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_person
cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Reply Mon 13 Oct, 2014 06:48 pm
@hingehead,
Let's face it, anything stating it depends on 'reasonable person' doesn't understand human psychology. Whose definition are they working with? LOL
FBM
 
  2  
Reply Mon 13 Oct, 2014 06:57 pm
@cicerone imposter,
Tough to define, true, but languages are conventions, and they're in a constant state of flux.

More to the point, I think, is the relative rarity of someone who, under close scrutiny, fits the definition. How, for example, could a reasonable person see all the statistics and examples of police militarization, brutality, various forms of misconduct, etc, and still somehow vehemently deny - sans supporting evidence - that there is even a problem?

Hinge is right. It's a bad case of
http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb192/DinahFyre/lalala.gif
cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Reply Mon 13 Oct, 2014 07:11 pm
@FBM,
What's the criteria of a "reasonable person?" Can you provide a hint?
FBM
 
  1  
Reply Mon 13 Oct, 2014 07:14 pm
@cicerone imposter,
Nope. Not me. It's kinda like that SCOTUS ruling on porn, "I know it when I see it." And it works the other way, too; I know an unreasonable person when I see one.
 

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