Originally posted by lazs2
mav... I think you are talking about uniformed police. I think that the ninja clad alphabet soup federal guys can pretty much do whatever it is that they want including breaking into anyones house in the weee hours of the night and shooting everyone they see...
Then... they get to investigate their own crime scene.
lazs
Laz,
Once again you are trying to put words in my mouth.
In this case I think it's my fault. I should have been plainer in my comment.
I made that statement as it is the same damn situation that I lived with for my career. Do your job and you can expect to be sued for it and in latter times prosecuted for it.
My department also instituted a no pursuit policy. Right after it was instituted the number of people running increased dramatically. Why the hell not? If they were drunk and they ran they got away. If they just didn't want a ticket and they ran they could get out of it. They figured that no Officer was going to risk being sued if an accident happened because it was already known that there was a NO PURSUIT policy. If you turned on the siren to chase them you already were subject to disciplinary action. If you got a complaint from the person you chased and caught you could kiss your raise that year goodbye since it would be a founded ccomplaint. You violated the no pursuit policy. If the person you were chasing was KNOWN to be violent, armed and in process of committing a violent criome at the time you were pursuing him, THEN you could pursue him. Think about it, you already had to know who it was and what they were doing as they were doing it in order to just chase them.
You could not use deadly force except in a narrow range of situations. (This is not necessarily bad by itself) You could not threaten the use of deadly force by drawing your weapon and had to justify in a sworn statement to the administration every time you drew your weapon. This sworn statement was available to attorneys by the freedom of information act even though it was an employee personnel document since it was department POLICY that you fill it out. Now you could be sued for violating department policy by drawing the weapon even if you had reasonable cause due to the tactical situation such as facing an agressive suspect who had a stick or rock or a knife or even a gun unless they were actually threatening you with the gun. We were expected to "fight fair" and protect the suspect even though the suspect was trying to kill the Officer.
It came down to allowing the suspect to not only produce the weapon, threaten to use the weapon but actually start firing before you were authorized to draw your own. People kinda wondered why Officers didn't chase down armed suspect on foot. You had to wait to be ambushed before you could be ready to defend yourself. Ain't PC policy wonderful????
Some things finally changed but you can still be sued just for doing your job even for doing it right. You can also be prosecuted more than once for the same act as well, since double jeapardy does not pertain to civil rights violations.
So Laz, please don't preach to me about what the "government" can do to about breaking into a house and indiscriminately shooting everyone inside. That is pure BS and you know it. There is no more "shock value" in some of your extreme statements any more. You really don't validate your arguments when you go off the deep end.
