Always has, gotta love cameras. Just remember if you stay at a hotel or go to the gym you may be watched.
No, I mean the benefits of cameras everywhere (cop brutality being caught) comes with a price. Cameras are tiny and they're everywhere.
http://www.copblock.org I have followed this site off and on for a couple years. Some of the articles and videos are downright repulsive. There may be only a few bad apples giving all cops a bad name, but there are some REALLY bad ones. The good cops are just as bad, if they stand there and allow the stuff to happen. Man, this is a subject I could go on and on about....
You have to figure that outright corruption used to be rampant with police in America. Especially during prohibition. Issues with our police force is not a new thing. On the one hand, I think cops get a raw deal in a lot of ways, but I also think they need to rethink their tactics and how they apply them to the public. One issue is that I think they look way too militaristic. Why the hell are cops wearing plate carriers in public? I find this to be completely ridiculous. Are they in a combat zone? Why not give them tactical helmets to match and an AR-15 to carry on the beat? These aren't the streets of Baghdad. Dressing cops like they're in a combat situation will only put them in that frame of mind. Especially if they're former military. This is what cops used to look like. Which group looks more approachable?
I agree with you about approachability, but I was supposed to wear a whole bunch of kit while riding the mean streets of Kabul. Nevermind that I wore nothing but native clothes when I was running around Helmand province. There are about 1.1M cops, similar to the 1.4M active duty military. Since 2015, there have been 271 deaths of policemen, the vast majority by gunshot. There have been 77 deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan combined since 2015. The job is dangerous, and (imho) moreso since the vitriol of the extremist (not normal) side of the BLM spinoffs. It's hard as a supervisor or leader to tell your people to take risks without protection. To the original point, I'm all for cops being held to a much stricter standard in their duties than they are, and much harsher penalties if they violate those standards. Don't want to live up to that? Don't become a policeman.
I think there are ways of achieving a higher standard of safety without looking like you're about to stack up and breach. Realistically, unless they're wearing sapi plates, the plate carriers are overkill. They can wear soft armor without rocking MOLLE. I get it, tac vests are great for bearing the load of all that gear, but they're supposed to be approachable. They're supposed to be a part of the community. They're not supposed to look like SWAT. The special tactics units are SUPPOSED to look scary. They're supposed to be tactical. Officer Friendly isn't supposed to look like he's about to load into a HMMWV and drive out to the FOB.
he isn't supposed to, but the citizenry is also not supposed to be out targeting him. Once the latter occurs, how do you (as Off. Friendly's supervisor) tell him "suck it up, be friendly, don't wear armor?" SAPI's good for rifle rounds, but you can get concealed 9mm armor pretty cheaply. At least they say it's 9mm resistant. You could easily get away with concealed torso protection against pistol rounds. If a sniper is tossing 7.62 at you, you're pretty much screwed regardless of the plates... there isn't a helmet yet that'll stop that.
But that's my point. You can wear soft armor under your uniform. You don't need a plate carrier, because these guys aren't wearing plates. If they were wearing SAPI's, then I guess you could make the argument that the vests are necessary, but cops used to wear the armor under their uniforms for years... maybe decades. What changed? Why is it acceptable to wear tac vests now?
Ah, gotcha. I agree on the visibility of the protection. I thought you meant they should look like Barney Fife. Everyone wants to wear the Gucci kit. Have since the Cushites invaded Egypt.
There was just so much advancement in kit after the Iraq War. I remember back in 2004 we were still rockin the tactical fishing vests from Tactical Tailor.
Cops are under a lot of stress just from department heads. You can be an outstanding officer and still feel like they are just looking for a reason to fire you. Most people can handle the stress, but others let it build up and explode on the wrong target. I have a theory that the ones that blow up probably spent some time in real combat, and were allowed to vent. Now in the public eye they cant do that. I think PTSD has a lot to do with cops going off the deep end and i wish more studies were done.
What's sad is what passive sheep we've become. Look at the guy beat by police on the United flight, lots of people filmed it but when the guy ran back on the plane and hide in the back this time the cops removed everyone from the plane before taking him off again. Everyone just left knowing that if the police did that to the guy with people watching there was nothing stopping them from beating the guy even more after they got all the passengers off the plane.
It's a fear of authority. The government is extremely powerful. People are angry, but they're not ready to actually step over that line.
I've shot sapi plates with 762 and it didn't go through. It was with an M-39. They were broken sapi plates too. Honestly made me feel really good after I saw that lol.