Quick thought about the rift between LEOs and common citizens


Over the past 4 days I have been redoing the When the Balloon Goes Up! blog in hopes of making it a more flexible site (I am moving it to WordPress at balloongoesup.com).  I am moving the posts, the images, adding better labels and tags to make it easier to navigate and doing some proofreading and editing that should have been done before it was posted… overall I am pretty pleased with the material that has been put out so far and I hope you are too.

I just finished reviewing the October 30th post, “The rift between CCW and Police” and it made me think of a few quotes that I read recently in a copy of S.W.A.T that I received from my son for Christmas.

J. Goddard from Indiana wrote to the magazine about an editorial covering the death of
Jose Guerena (Page 6).  In his post he wrote

…To say that good officers should be tried for a criminal charge or fired is irresponsible.  I thought SWAT Magazine was for cops!

Some wannabe behind a desk (let alone someone who has never been behind a badge or on a SWAT team) couldn’t even understand the stress police officers are under and that sometimes accidents happen.

I have been a police officer for three years and I can tell you that if I see someone with a gun, they’re going down — hard — even if they are not pointing it at someone!”

To the magazines credit they responded quite properly, dressing down the reader and requesting that he “pull up your big-boy panties, do some soul searching and consider another line of employment.

A reader on the next page states that both he and his partner carry Maglites as “a primary source of illumination and alternate means of attitude adjustment when things get ugly”
Then later in the same magazine writer Brent Wheat said “… I giggle like a schoolgirl when criminals inadvertently leave teeth scattered on the pavement.”All of these comments are by individuals claiming to be cops!  Just like open carriers should be exceedingly polite and look like upstanding citizens, police officers need to do the same.  They are given a level power based on their position that requires citizens to comply EVEN to illegal requests and therefore need to be above-board at ALL times!

Obviously, there are a number of great cops out there like Richard from http://www.bluesheepdog.com and I recommend you listen to his podcast and I will be adding him to my blog roll just as soon as I get his permission.
Additionally I have been very impressed with the overall quality of S.W.A.T. Magazine and I am sad that I had not read it in the past…  I will in the future.
The December issue has topics on…
  • Building target stands from trash similar to the ones I use… A guide to making a target stand for $4
  • Using perspective to adjust training standards which goes into more detail than I did… It’s all about perspective
  • Reading a persons eyes
  • Desert Survival training
  • Deep concealment clothing
  • Fitness
  • The appropriate level of training
  • Flying with firearms
  • Female training

About

Ron is the Founder and President of When the Balloon Goes Up! He competes regularly in IDPA as an ESP/Expert, his focus is on concealed carry, home defense and analyzing equipment to find “Gear that Just Works!”

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  • Anonymous

    Police officers are just human sometimes they make statements they really do not mean, if questioned right after defending there life and having to take another life they are still trying to justify it in there own mind. If they are chasing a suspect matching the discription of an arm robber down a dark alley and around blind corners and while chasing them they fall in the gravel tearing there pants and getting there hands bloody and full of rocks, the fact they are scared, hurt and pissed may influance the aprehension. It should not but it might. If only we could program police like we do computors, to be without pain or emotion or fear. Police or at least the good ones do there job even when scared and ready to wet there pants even though most would never admit this basic human emotion. I have been there, I wish I could change some of the things that occurred and the thoughts I had at the time, I can’t I will deal with it. The nightmares persist.

  • http://constipatedweasels.blogspot.com/ Six

    24 years as a police officer. Retired last year. I could write a book. Here’s what I tell people.
    Get involved.
    If your local department has citizens academy and/or a ride along program, go. Get to know your cops, you may find out you have a lot in common. That also lets them get to know you. We deal with the scum of the earth. Most of our public contacts are negative, arrests, investigations, citations, etc. Getting to know cop friendly faces does everyone a lot of good and reminds the boys and girls in blue that not everyone is a criminal or a cop hater.
    If your department doesn’t have such programs find out why not. Maybe they just don’t know how to put one together (contact me, I can help). Maybe they don’t think there’s any interest. Get firm committments from friends and others and present them to your local department or political representative with your request. Be prepared to help out.
    Attend council meetings (or your local equivalent). You’ll hear a lot and get a chance to see what the various departments are doing and thinking. Knowledge is power.
    Take advantage of crime prevention and community outreach programs your pd offers. Even if you don’t think you need it, you may learn something and get to know an officer or two.
    I’m a believer in Community Policing. COPPS, COPS, POP, it goes by many names but it amounts to a community/police partnership to address the root causes of crime. But it requires involvement. Yours, not to put too fine a point on it.

    I’ll cut this short and leave it at this. We don’t get the law enforcement we deserve, we get the law enforcement we allow. All police departments are ultimately answerable to some political structure. How’s yours? What are your reps doing and who are they doing it with? Who is your rep? Get involved. Get to know your cops because they do in fact work for you and it’s a good idea to know who they are, how they train and what and how they think.

  • http://www.bluesheepdog.com Richard

    1. Thanks for the kind words about me and my site. I really appreciate it.

    2. S.W.A.T. magazine is a good publication and the editor is a solid guy. You could do a lot worse than to take a subscription to that magazine.

    3. I can’t agree with Six any more: people need to be involved. If more citizens would ride with their local law enforcement officers, we could really improve how citizens and cops work together.

    I work in a city of almost 100,000 in an urban county with about a million residents. Yet, city council meetings only draw a few dozen people and I consider myself lucky if I have a single citizen ride with me during the year.

    -Richard

  • Anonymous

    Im a cop in a busy urban environment in the NYC area. I think that reader in SWAT mag is a buffoon and needs to leave the “job” as we call it. If I see a person with a firearm I am going to be controlled , direct and professional , as I have been in the past. I certainly don’t think that just cause some has a weapon, they are a “Bad” guy. Cops have a hard job, but we are here to protect/help the good not abuse or oppress them. sometimes I am so disappointed in my fellow cops.

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