in 2012, three police officers were killed (not just shot!) by firearms in the line of duty. Hmmm... Bad guys have guns in Britain? Inconceivable! (For you Princess Bride fans!)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_British_police_officers_killed_in_the_line_of_duty

bbauska wrote:in 2012, three police officers were killed (not just shot!) by firearms in the line of duty. Hmmm... Bad guys have guns in Britain? Inconceivable! (For you Princess Bride fans!)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_British_police_officers_killed_in_the_line_of_duty

How many US police officers were shot and killed in the line of duty? What are the relative prevalances of crime in both countries? How many people are shot and killed by police in both countries? If you are going to pluck a single stat for some kind of effect, could you give us more context and tell what you really mean by it?

Yes, we have criminals with guns. We have done since there were guns, pretty much. But we are not seeing our police adopting a full on arms race.

I do not want to live in fear of my nation's police force. Our police officers are not issued firearms as a matter of course (although there are firearms officers in trained units). In polls of pol ceofficers there has been considerable opposition to being armed.

To my mind, respect has to earned. When it is demanded through the implicit threat of violence for 'non-compliance' we are not seeing real respect - it is the same fear that all bullies engender.

Oddly, I find it is a 'conservative' who tends to support a small and less powerful government who is seeming to rationalise the need for fear of the agents of government power.

Perhaps you could look up the Peel Principles of policing.

I do not want to live in fear of my nation's police force.

I don't trust the police as far as I could spit them, and I'd trust them even less if they were armed. It's a sorry state of affairs, but there have been too many instances of blatant police corruption that they've gotten away with in recent years, and too many unnecessary deaths.

bbauska wrote:

rickyp wrote:bbauska

I know it is scary for people to be stopped by cops.

is it really acceptable that citzens should fear their police force?

Yes. It is.

No it's NOT. You only write that because you (were) a cop. No normal person thinks the ideal situation is to live in fear of the government coming to take your life and liberty. Because you know that's what you're saying.

http://thefreethoughtproject.com/cop-sh ... this-bang/

This is not policing.

bbauska - below are the 9 'Principles of Policing', commonly attributed to Robert Peel, the British Conservative politician who established the Metropolitan Police, Britain's first full time professional force, which covers Greater London. As an aside, the UK slang terms for police, "Bobbies" and "Peelers" (the latter no longer used and more derogatory) come from his name. He later became Prime Minister.

Even if he did not write them, he did support them and they were part of the "General Instructions" issued to every officer by the Metropolitan Police:

1. To prevent crime and disorder, as an alternative to their repression by military force and severity of legal punishment.
2. To recognise always that the power of the police to fulfil their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behaviour, and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect.
3. To recognise always that to secure and maintain the respect and approval of the public means also the securing of the willing co-operation of the public in the task of securing observance of laws.
4. To recognise always that the extent to which the co-operation of the public can be secured diminishes proportionately the necessity of the use of physical force and compulsion for achieving police objectives.
5. To seek and preserve public favour, not by pandering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolutely impartial service to law, in complete independence of policy, and without regard to the justice or injustice of the substance of individual laws, by ready offering of individual service and friendship to all members of the public without regard to their wealth or social standing, by ready exercise of courtesy and friendly good humour, and by ready offering of individual sacrifice in protecting and preserving life.
6. To use physical force only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient to obtain public co-operation to an extent necessary to secure observance of law or to restore order, and to use only the minimum degree of physical force which is necessary on any particular occasion for achieving a police objective.
7. To maintain at all times a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and that the public are the police, the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.
8. To recognise always the need for strict adherence to police-executive functions, and to refrain from even seeming to usurp the powers of the judiciary of avenging individuals or the State, and of authoritatively judging guilt and punishing the guilty.
9. To recognise always that the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, and not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them.

This is the very antithesis of the idea that the people should fear the police.

Oh, and coming back to Ferguson, the St Louis County Police have suspended an officer after footage emerged of him giving a talk to the "Oath Keepers" (a fine upstanding bunch of military and ex-military patriots and in no way at all a collection of paranoid right wing nut jobs) with racist and homophobic content.

http://m.dailykos.com/story/2014/08/22/ ... h-surfaces

http://gregmitchellwriter.blogspot.co.u ... guson.html

If this is the kind of officer who is serving in the area, are we to wonder why the local people do not trust the force?

Yes. It is. I have done law enforcement maritime boardings. I want compliance. If that comes with fear, so be it.

Above is my quote. I said I want compliance. If it comes with having a tea party, so be it. If it comes with fear so be it. There is a time for compassion and a time for fear. A good officer can flow between each need with out a loss of effectiveness.

I don't see how the full quote makes any difference.

Your lack of concern over whether fear or other means of gaining 'compliance' make a difference is noted.

danivon wrote:I don't see how the full quote makes any difference.

Your lack of concern over whether fear or other means of gaining 'compliance' make a difference is noted.

And your lack of desire for compliance is also noted.

Are you saying that an officer should NEVER use fear as a motivator for compliance?

I'm saying that the Peelian Principles above are a better guide than whatever you had.

Item 6 in the Peelian Principles says:

6. To use physical force only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient to obtain public co-operation to an extent necessary to secure observance of law or to restore order, and to use only the minimum degree of physical force which is necessary on any particular occasion for achieving a police objective.

If physical force causes someone in the public to fear, then fear is acceptable by Peel?

bbauska the peelian principles can't be taken out of the context of the totality of the principles .
Police are not feared, because they might use force when all of the principles are followed:
Particularly
7. To maintain at all times a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and that the public are the police, the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.
8. To recognise always the need for strict adherence to police-executive functions, and to refrain from even seeming to usurp the powers of the judiciary of avenging individuals or the State, and of authoritatively judging guilt and punishing the guilty.
9. To recognise always that the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, and not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them.

The reliance upon fear to force compliance isn't necessary in an enviroment where all of the principles matter equally and are followed equally.
Do you think Ferguson residents who happen to be black epect that their police force feels they are part of their community?
If noit they have failed point 7... and although its not a house of cards, without the aceptance as part of the community, effective policing becomes much more difficult. Force is a blunt instrument, and fear when used as a weapon generates hate.

So you see no reason at any time that a person should fear a police officer.

Bank robber about to rob a bank with a pistol puts the gun down because he/she is afraid of police's return fire.

Three criminals fighting with police and the police disable one by dislocating a shoulder. The other two surrender

Is there ever a good reason for someone in non-compliance to fear the police?

I say yes, you (I assume) will say no. If so, we won't agree.

Perhaps we need to just wait and see the real story of what Mr. Brown did or didn't do.