Police Horrors
The days of the police rushing to your defense may sadly be gone. Now, after many years of very expensive SWAT-ization that we were told was needed because of all these scary assault rifles that criminals were getting, we have had several horrible instances where the police are seemingly more concerned with their organization and setting up perimeters and all the neat stuff like that they learned at SWAT Camp than actually stopping the bad guys
Podunk local cops wasted more than half an hour assessing the Connecticut home invasion and setting up a vehicle perimeter — time the two attackers used to strangle the mother in her living room and set the fire that claimed the lives of the two girls upstairs, according to shocking testimony today.
The revelation — which suggests perhaps the family could have been saved but for police bungling — came on day three of testimony in the murder trial of crack addict Steven Hayes, charged as one of the two monsters who launched a rein of rape and murder against a Cheshire, CT family on a Monday morning in July, 2007.
I simply can not fathom the horror that that poor family went through, and the father’s life of horror ahead as he relives what might have been avoided had the police acted instead of planned.
This has been troubling me a lot since the shootings at Virginia Tech, where on the YouTube videos you see the police behind their cars talking on the radios and “organizing” while you can clearly hear shots being fired in the building. How many lives might have been saved had they moved in earlier to take the bastard out?
Look, I fully recognize that it’s very easy to sit here and armchair quarterback the police in these cases, and I know they’ve got one hell of a tough job, never knowing when the door they knock on may have some nut with a knife or a shotgun behind it. I know that. I get it.
But the fact remains that the police are authorized to use deadly force to protect people in danger, and they are given great latitude when they do so.
Morality, Nanny State, People | Mr. Bingley | 
September 17, 2010 11:10 am
Subscribe
SWAT teams are overrated IMHO and rarely needed in the capacity that they are equipped.
I seriously doubt this would have gone down like this in a southern state. And I hope the murdering psycho bastard gets fried.
and goddamned cnn has the video of the poor women in the bank right when she told them to call 911.
It’s heart-wrenching.
It’s heartbreaking. Just heartbreaking. And I have to say that the guy in charge at the scene should no longer have his job. He is quite obviously unready for something to go wrong. He’s probably fine for every day police work – but not emergencies.
It does show one thing. When it comes to protecting yourself – you can’t count on anyone else. Ever. *sigh*
This just strengthens the adage, “When seconds matter, the police are just minutes away.”
These days, goobermint is mostly bureaucracy, infused with hesitation and indecision. They have huge amounts of resources, yet find it hard to act because of some bothersome regulation.
The police are a prime example. Shoot first, dial second, I always say.
Our police are becoming seriously overmilitarized to deal with drug crimes, and it’s a major problem. I don’t begrudge cops carrying a firearm, but it seems that every week there is some new outrage in the news about a violent break-in to a citizen’s home, or something like this where the Keystone Kops didn’t know how or when to use their expensive toys and people died. Militarization of the civilian police force is not only unnecessary, it’s increasingly dangerous.
The police have become the Praetorian Guard of the government.Overpaid and answerable only to the hierarchy,they are bodyguards of the elite.
At Columbine they needed three swat teams to capture two already dead high school students.
I’ve got a lot of respect for cops, whose job I’d never want to do. But I have to wonder if police training and procedural changes over the past 15-20 years or so have been more about protecting cops than protecting citizens.
Those CT cops who sat around planning and setting up perimeters? Yeah, I’ll bet they followed protocol to the letter.
That’s exactly my fear, Eric. I agree 100%.
But at least none of the victims had one of those ebil guns around. That would have been terrible!
We need more going in with guns blazing. The bad guys know they have time while procedures are being followed. But sad thing is, no matter how things are handled- bad things happen and lawsuits and pointing fingers will always be the norm when they do.