Thread: Question to UK Members

Originally Posted by spider8

Out of interest, what is your opinion on the word JUSTICE?

Perhaps there's no place for it today. Just asking...

Lord Birkett, a law lord, defined that rather nicely once as being the best possible outcome for all involved, the victim, the society, and the perpetrator.

Divus, just because law enforcement carry firearms does not mean they are going to go around shooting people. The majority of cops in U.S. never shot anyone. And some people deserve to be shot. Maybe I was one of them. Maybe not. But I agree with you whole heartedly about "Do unto others..." And that is one of my gripes. I can't - no average citizen can - just shot unarmed people. If I shot an unarmed guy that was 6 foot 7 inches tall and 400 lbs, that was rapidly moving toward me to do me bodily harm with his bare hands, my little ___ would be locked behind bars. Fight like a ___ ___ man the judge might say.

There are times cop shoot people. That officer (Pendergast) in that article/link I presented was investigated by Internal Affairs for fatally shooting an unarmed man. He was cleared though.

Sometimes - for whatever reason (i.e., usually alcohol related and not crack cocaine related) - cops fire their weapons in public and ride off, while off-duty. But that's very rare occurrences.

1) Shots at Cardinal's Home Linked To 2 Policemen Held in Slaying - NYTimes.com

By DON TERRY
Published: May 28, 1994

Two Milwaukee police officers were arrested in Wisconsin today hours after several shots were fired at the home of Joseph Cardinal Bernardin here. The Chicago police say the gunfire came during a bizarre shooting spree that they believe ended in the slaying of a bouncer at a nightclub.The Cardinal was not injured.

The Chicago police said the shell casings found at the Cardinal's home matched casings found at the nightclub, where the bouncer was shot once in the chest by two men shortly before 3 A.M.

The Milwaukee officers were arrested at 8 A.M. today at the apartment they share on Milwaukee's Northwest side, about a two-hour drive from Chicago, where one of the officers grew up.

They were taken into custody and questioned throughout the day about the shootings at the Cardinal's home and at the nightclub. They had not been charged late tonight.

The City News Bureau of Chicago identified the officers as John Koch, 35, a 12-year veteran of the Milwaukee Police Department, and Gabriel Bedoya, 33, who grew up in Chicago and has been a Milwaukee police officer since February 1992.

The nightclub's owner told local television reporters that the shooting had arisen from a confrontation between Mr. Rodriguez and the two men after the men tried to leave the nightclub with drinks in their hands. Public drinking is illegal in Chicago.

2) Milwaukee police often face minimal punishment for driving drunk - JSOnline

For example, Milwaukee police Officer Robert Waldoch got a deferred-prosecution deal from Ohio prosecutors in 1999 after he fired at least seven shots near downtown Cleveland and jumped into a river to try to escape police, according to a summary of the internal investigation . Waldoch later told investigators he drank "three or four" beers but wasn't drunk, the summary says. Authorities did not do a blood-alcohol test.

Waldoch was suspended for five days and remains on the force, according to his personnel record. He did not respond to an email requesting an interview.

Notice the correlation with alcohol (not crack and crackheadism, irrespective of its stigma, as most suburbanites think).

I don't regard myself as "innocent" but no more "criminal" or "evil" than any officers, military personnel, or partying college students that do regretful or even dangerous and destructive things while intoxicated. And most police think I'm a pretty alright guy (sober) when they speak with me. Suburbanites hearing or reading soundbites from the media think otherwise. And police policy respects police violence, lethal level violence that results in emergency medical care. Such is life.

My social work might call my commentary and thinking over my ordeals as "processing" my anger or feelings etc. Probably so. I dunno.

In the UK the police are usually big guys and go around in massive teams. We have some that carry weapons but it is not the norm. To handle some madman in a bar they would overcome him using force and drag him off. They also have sprays and taser guns.

Hmm... no one shot him. And he was kicking but and fighting with officers while armed with a gun. I walked quickly to engage and got 3 caps popped in my ___. Such is life. And by the laws of the jungle I should have gotten capped whenever you stepped to a man aiming a firearm at you. And by that law I'm a big boy and accept my medicine.

But a "law and order" society with reasonable uses of force is another matter. On that level I don't think I should have been popped.

Full article: Police Department ignores national standards for officers accused of domestic violence - JSOnline

When Robert Velez's wife left their home to escape his abuse, he used his Milwaukee police training - and his badge - to track her down.

First, Velez connected his missing wife to the Exel Inn hotel chain. He initially showed his badge at the Wauwatosa location, according to court and internal affairs records. Lying to the clerk, Velez said he was working undercover, looking for a suspect.

The woman wasn't checked in there, but the clerk located her in Oak Creek. She had alerted staff that her abusive husband - a cop - might come looking for her.
Nonetheless, the hotel desk clerk led Velez to his wife's room, knocked on the door, and told her to open it. If she didn't, the clerk said, he would use the master key.
She did.

Velez shoved past her into the room, where he found one of his fellow officers - whom he and his wife had known for about three years. Velez immediately began beating the man, telling him: "I'll break your f---ing neck! I'm going to kill you!"

When his wife tried to break up the fight, Velez punched her in the face. He put the man in a headlock and dragged him down the stairs, the records say.
When Oak Creek officers arrived, Velez also fought with them. He repeated the lie about working undercover a third time and pulled back his black leather jacket to show the gun in his waistband, according to a summary of the internal investigation.

As a result of the 2001 incident, Velez was arrested for battery while armed, domestic violence battery and misconduct in public office - charges that could have landed him in prison for 5 ½ years and barred him from possessing a gun for the rest of his life.

But that didn't happen. Not only did Velez avoid prison, he was suspended from the department for just six days.

Far above norm

Domestic violence is far more common among the families of police officers than among the rest of the population, according to the U.S. Department of Justice and the National Center for Women and Policing. At least 40% of police families are affected by domestic violence, as opposed to an estimated 10% in other households.

Most people with restraining orders against them lose the right to possess firearms. But the Milwaukee Police Department allows officers in that situation to "check out" their duty weapons at the beginning of each shift and return them afterward.

That is a constant source of stress for Jill Glidewell, who recently divorced Milwaukee police Detective Herb Glidewell.

"He said if I ever told the things he'd done, I'd disappear," she told the Journal Sentinel.

Nonetheless, she testified in an attempt to get a restraining order against him, detailing abuse dating back to 2006.

Milwaukee County Court Commissioner Dean B. Zemel granted the restraining order based on an incident that occurred Nov. 1, 2008, in which Jill Glidewell - a police officer herself - ended up with a damaged rotator cuff.

The week before, she had told her husband she was pregnant with their second child.

"He viciously attacked me while I was in bed," she testified later. "He got on top of me. With all his weight, he was picking me up and slamming me down as hard as he could on the bed, over and over, more than 10 times. I was screaming for him to stop and get off of me. That it was hurting me. "

She grabbed the phone, but he yanked it out of her hand and started beating the barking dog with it, she said. Taking the dog and her baby daughter, she drove to the District 6 police station, barefoot, at 3 a.m.

She was too embarrassed to go inside. A friend who was on duty came out to comfort her, but didn't push her to file a report, she said.

Jill Glidewell said she has never feared a suspect as much as she fears her ex-husband.

"This is the most dangerous thing I've ever done," she said of leaving him. "I live in fear every day that someone is going to shoot up my house."

Edited: Deleted video with obscenities. Forgot that's not allowed on here. It was Alonzo's scene in Training Day at the end of the movie.

This woman has to be courageous. She's done something more courageous than I've ever done in my whole life.

The suburbanite (Oak Creek etc.) might not comprehend this about this woman's choice to speak publicly. But I have a uncle that is a former Milwaukee police officer. A decorated former cop that killed a man in the line of duty. I remember him telling me a little about the culture of the police force. He told me that if you're a rookie cop and you've pissed off one cop (the wrong veteran cop) you don't even know it but you end up pissing off the whole police force. Consequently, no one will probably respond to your calls for back up.

He gave me an example of a lesbian cop on the department that was dating another female cop. The cop she was dating was hot looking. According to him a number of male officers were upset by this. For quite a while no cop in the city would respond to her on-duty calls for back up. Eventually she gained others respect when she rescued a veteran male cop from a beating.

Video interview: Journal Sentinel Video Player - JSOnline

I have come back to this thread a few times, but only now have I figured out what was bothering me.

Like the USA, the UK is a varied country. Out here in the sticks you will probably see nothing more than a farmer's or a game hunter's shotgun. The only time I saw an armed police officer was at Heathrow airport.

I suppose it depends on your line of work. Gang members, career criminals, terrorists and the rich and famous might require fire arms. The average Joe does not.

There are fire arm obsessives who should never be allowed within a mile of a gun.

It is the mythology that makes a difference. Us over here never had a wild west; our mythology is Robin Hood. Swords, bows and armoured knights, not cool. Not easy to conceal. And whoever heard of a gallop by arrowing?

Originally Posted by bazz cargo

I suppose it depends on your line of work. Gang members, career criminals, terrorists and the rich and famous might require fire arms. The average Joe does not.

Well, bazz, you need them (guns) to stop bank robbers with guns.

Live streaming video of police having fatally shot a suspect in 2 separate bank robberies. Police Shoot, Kill Person In Downtown Milwaukee - Milwaukee News Story - WISN Milwaukee

you need them (guns) to stop bank robbers with guns.

This is sad, and not unknown in this country.

Some thoughts spring to mind.
Would carrying a firearm increase your bravado? Would you risk your life to save an insured bank's money?

And what of the criminal, would going armed against firearm trained and experienced police be tantamount to suicide? Would not a little time spent in prison be preferable to death? Criminals are the same as you and I, only they have discovered a rather uncivilized way of making a living, and make some really dumb decisions.

In USA you have a rather Darwinian society; make the grade or be considered less than human. No money, no medicine. That kind of pressure will produce an 'every man for his self society.' Add freely available guns, and despite the scary stories telling you about the overwhelming tidal wave of violence, you will get some, (remarkably few) people ascribing to barbarian principles. These are not just found in gangs, they can be found in commerce, government and in religious organisations, and other places. We in the UK are not immune.

Originally Posted by Writ-with-Hand

Well, bazz, you need them (guns) to stop bank robbers with guns.

A false premise based on lack of imagination, for example with containers that mark or destroy notes if interfered with, high resolution video and DNA technology it is almost impossible to get away with Bonnie and Clyde style bank robbery. My guess is that the decision has been taken somewhere that it is cheaper and more efficient to shoot these people than to lock them up.

One or two or three incidents doesn't make you a poor cop or law enforcement agent. I don't even think being an alcoholic necessarily means one is a poor law enforcement agent. You might actually be good at your job even if you have certain flaws. And unless one is a deity then their humanity necessarily means they have human vulnerabilities. So, this is true of cops or citizens that think of themselves as "good."

The City of L.A. is demonstrating that even law enforcement agents can break the laws while at the same time employed in a system that punishes law breakers.

Report: problem deputies sent to work at LA jails - Yahoo! News

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A report finds Los Angeles sheriff's officials routinely transferred problem deputies to the county jail as a way of keeping them from the public.

A Sunday story in the Los Angeles Times (Sheriff's Department used jail duty to punish deputies - latimes.com ) says some deputies were allowed to remain working in the county's lockups after being convicted of crimes or found guilty of serious misconduct.

Documents obtained by the Times show that among those sent to work in the jails was a deputy accused of fraud, loan sharking and threatening to kill somebody. Another deputy beat a firefighter bloody and unconscious during an off-duty incident.

The background and conduct of deputies have come under increased scrutiny as federal investigators probe misconduct and brutality against inmates in the nation's largest jail network.