Could you police?

[Spike]

Probably because You were a minor demon or vampire character on a Joss Whedon TV show.


- Ed C.

No, Ed. I have the layout of the Sewers memorized because there is a notional army of Snipers waiting on the rooftops to kill anyone who looks remotely like a criminal.

Jesus, that was a blatant Wiff even for you.

[TonyLB]

Most criminals don't care to get shot, or in fact engage in shootouts with police.  A lone cop may be in a risky position trying to stop fleeing felons by confronting him with pistol drawn and pointed, but in real life said felons trying to shoot him are at more risk than he is due to the disadvantage of him 'having the drop' on them.

I'm not exactly sure where the criminal's odds entered into this.  I wasn't comparing the cop's odds of survival against the odds of the criminals ... I was comparing them against the odds of a more cautious cop.

I get your arguments, and I think it'd be reasonable to agree to disagree.  I've been reacting to Jackalope's assertion that British cops are (and I quote) "fucking pussies."  I think it's easy for someone on the outside to take a cheap shot:  Police procedures are made by the guys who have to go out there, collar the criminals, live to get home and then get up the very next day and do it all over again.  Different priorities, and I don't think grandstanding (e.g. lone-officer arrests) have very much place.

[Spike]

Its not necessarily odds, mind you, but perception of Odds.

Players in a game (or... non-players...) will often 'beat the odds' and Hollywood gives us some over the top villians even in petty thugs. In real life, if someone points a gun at you and shouts freeze, you probably aren't going to even think of raising your own gun and trying to beat them unless you have a serious lack of fear.

Hell, I get hot sweats whenever one of the morons I work with gets 'flag happy' when I KNOW there aren't any bullets around.  If I know they have ammo, its ass beating time if they can't remember to keep their muzzle pointed away from me, no ifs ands or buts.   I  imagine its much much worse when you know the other guy has bullets, its pointed at you with intent, and monkeying around him will see you buried without tears.

I rather suspect the cops odds are decently good, and the question that really comes to mind in all the questions is 'when does backup arrive?'.   Meekly following fleeing felons to their secret lair is NOT what I expect my tax dollars to accomplish.  Weighing risk with purpose... that is, what we pay our police to accomplish must be a factor when determining what sort of risk is acceptable... must be considered here.  

I expect that there would be riots if armed robbers ran past police officers who never made an attempt to stop them out of 'risk avoidance' even once in a while. You want the paycheck? You risk getting shot. Don't like getting shot? Find a new job.

Simple.


EDIT:::: Also, please do not equate me with Jackassalope....

[Serious Paul]

Aren't you a screw, not a pig?

Missed this. My position falls somewhere between the two.

[Kyle Aaron]

Well ... you and several dozen of your well armed and armored co-workers get to crash into their headquarters in a coordinated effort, after thoroughly scoping the area and formulating a plan of attack.

Or more often, simply threaten to do so, lots of police cars and heavily-armed officers surrounding the place - so that the offenders surrender, and nary a door need be kicked in.

A few years back a US SWAT team went to NZ to train with them there. The US sniper said to the NZ one, "so, how many suspects have you taken out?" The Kiwi was a bit taken aback, saying, "well... none. But that's good, isn't it?" The American was apparently confused and disgusted, and just assumed they must have a very low crime rate.

The approach of American groups is to end any confrontation as quickly as possible with no harm to police or innocents; the approach of Commonwealth groups is to end it with no lives lost, not even those of offenders.

Of course the American approach is much more fun in an rpg session :cool:

[Serious Paul]

Policing varies in this country, from state to state-let alone county to county- as much as it does from other countries. Some Departments are pretty Gung Ho-LAPD being a pretty publicly well known example, and-others haven't fired a shot "on the job" since before the civil war, or ever.

Locally the State Police are pretty professional-up north in the UP they are not to be fucked with, and the County Boys are pretty level headed-but the city boys can be a bit rambunctious. Go one county North or East and they get trigger happy as hell.

To this whole mess add that you have City, Township, County, State and Federal Law Enforcement Agencies who don't always communicate with each other-and well things can slip through the cracks.

[jgants]

Of course, in America, an officer in such a situation would be in very little danger, as American criminals rarely fire at police, and American courts tend to strongly favor officer discretion in officer shootings.  American criminals mostly know that if you run at the police with a handgun in view, you're pretty much dead.  Game over.

Heck, in major cities in the US, the cops can usually get away with firing off dozens of shots into unarmed minorities (who may not even be committing a crime at the time) as long as they claim they "thought" the minorities were armed.

I agree with Serious Paul, though, it's more of a big city thing.  Smaller cities and rural areas almost never use their guns.  I can't remember the last time we had a police-involved shooting here, and I live in the 2nd biggest city in the state.

My father was chief of police of a small town for years, and the only time he ever used his gun on the job was to take out a rabid dog.  There was a rabid cat one time, too, but I think that one just got caught / gassed (that situation was odd enough to make the news and we got all kinds of bizarre hate mail from animal lovers - I remember one was a "postcard" made out of a piece of a Capri Sun box).

[James J Skach]

I agree with Serious Paul, though, it's more of a big city thing.  Smaller cities and rural areas almost never use their guns.  I can't remember the last time we had a police-involved shooting here, and I live in the 2nd biggest city in the state.

Yeah, but you live in Iowa...



OK...sorry...just couldn't help myself...I'm sorry...really...

[jgants]

Yeah, but you live in Iowa...



OK...sorry...just couldn't help myself...I'm sorry...really...

Hey, just the other day we had an armed robbery.  Of course, the guy was using a hammer, not a gun...  At least we stopped chasing down purse snatchers with the police copter.  

[Jackalope]

I see your arguments, but I'm still not convinced that a beat cop should be trying to pull off multi-person arrests single-handedly when there is not yet an explicit threat to public safety.  The number of things that can go wrong, even if the cop is as well armed as the criminals, is staggering.

I suspect that the sweet spot is somewhere between the two extremes:  You hang back and act as eyes and ears while a force is rapidly mobilized, and that force (plus you, maybe) intercepts the criminals at some point before they've settled in and pulled up the drawbridge on their little castle-o'-crime.

Beat cop?  Do you know how rare beat cops actually are these days?  That's a relic of policing from forty years ago.  Modern police forces have to cover far too great an area with a limited number of officers to use beat cops.  They use patrol cars nowadays.

I answered the question with the assumption that I was one of several cars moving into the area, because a report of robbery would bring all available units to the area.  That's how modern urban police work.  Single officer, single car, constantly moving in a pattern around the city, with a central dispatcher that can bring at least a quarter of the active mobiles in the jurisdiction in a two minute response.

A parking lot is just about the optimal place to make an arrest.  Beats the hell out of having to raid a house or apartment.

[Serious Paul]

A parking lot could be an ideal place to make an arrest-but anytime you use force you have to consider the totality of circumstances. The fact is many departments would rather come to your house-no one outruns the radio right?-, where they can control when and how a breach is made-if it even has to be made-as opposed to me getting all John McClane in the parking lot.

I always tell the new guys that you can use whatever force you can articulate with in the boundaries of policy and procedure. I need to be able to justify my actions to a jury of my peers-as an old instructor of mine used to say: Are you a doctor? Are you a Lawyer? Are you a Millionaire? No, no and no? Then you're not qualified to give an opinion, defend it or pay for it.