May 23, 2012 - Riot Gear

[xoxoxoBruce]

I don't "subscribe" to anything but my experience, and first hand accounts of friends. Even with them, I try to discard exaggerations and embellishments.

I've posted here about the PA state cop that saved my ass when I fell and dislocated my shoulder in the woods. I also posted about sending thank you cards to the two cops that shot and killed a bank robber who opened fire in a crowded parking lot.

I have a lot of respect for cops, and the shit they face every day. None for the people that use them for evil, and contempt for the ones that refuse to confront rogue cops.

[wolf]

I'm in the 'shopped crowd on this one.

Police departments these days as super-sensitive to public image. So much so that no officer would be permitted that kind of personal expression on equipment, particularly some one with rank (those look like Captain's bars on that vest). Actually the whole outfit looks less tidy than regulation. If that is an undoctored image, perhaps it's of a rioter, not the riot squad?

As far as riot gear, SWAT, etc. ... if people weren't assholes, we would need that kind of policing.

[Aliantha]

I don't care if it's shopped. It's still funny in context.

As to cops in riot gear. I think they have a right to protect themselves from petrol bombs and all the other nasties that sometimes get thrown about during some protests. If the best protection happens to be a military style outfit then that's just life. Why should the cops who put their lives on the line every day for those same knuckleheads, be in more danger just so they don't look too scary? It's a nasty scary world out there, and it's getting worse.

[ZenGum]

It is true that sometimes there are riots where strong police force is necessary, and a well equipped riot squad (or well-armed SWAT team) is called for.

Problem is, once that squad exists, it wants to find something to do. And the powers that be seem quite keen to use that sort of force even when it really isn't called for. As Bruce said, this alienates the majority of people and makes the cops the enemy.

Last year I saw a doco which talked about dealing with the riots at the Celtics Vs Rangers games in Scotland. Step one was to make one set of entrances for Celtics fans, and the other set of entrances for Rangers fans, but they were within sight of each other and just a bottle's throw apart.
If the gap in between was filled with fully equipped riot cops, things almost always turned violent. Instead they now fill the gap with ordinary cops in uniform, and things almost always remain peaceful. They do, of course, have a few truckloads of riot cops in a warehouse a short distance away.

[classicman]

FWIW ... Print this out and keep it in your wallet.

[Aliantha]

On the flip side, there was an issue here in Brisbane a couple of weeks ago where a tent embassy had been set up by indigenous people, but the Greek community wanted to hold their annual festival there.

Police were brought in to move the embassy (in the end, just to one side of the park), but the one item that really caught my attention was that one copper booked a woman in her car who tooted her horn in support of the aboriginal people.

Way to alienate the general population mate!

[xoxoxoBruce]

A Toronto internal police disciplinary ruling found that Constable Andrew Vanderburgh was "harassed and berated" by other cops because he insisted on booking an off-duty cop whom he'd caught driving drunk. Vanderburgh, a rookie, brought in Breton Berthiaume based on a phoned-in tip about an erratic highway driver. Berthiaume, an off-duty cop, failed a breathalyzer. When Vanderburgh went ahead and booked the other officer, his fellow cops objected, and began a campaign of harassment and intimidation. The Toronto Star's Betsy Powell reports:

link

[Undertoad]

Yeeeah. Couple years ago a PA state trooper turned the wrong way on to the Schuylkill from Spring Garden and proceeded up the highway at speed until he hit someone. He was killed. He was drunk.

It turned out he supervised DUI checkpoints and reconstructed fatal accidents. And it turned out to be 1am the night before his 8am court appearance for DUI.

true story

[Perry Winkle]

I might believe those riot suits were not meant for intimidation if they made them in happy pastel colors.

[wolf]

Pastels show too much dirt. You need the blacks and charcoal grays, really.

[wolf]

Well, there's a surprise. Cops are human, and humans sometimes do stupid things.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by wolf

Well, there's a surprise. Cops are human, and humans sometimes do stupid things.

So they get a pass unlike others that do stupid shit?

[glatt]

Not only shouldn't cops get a pass, but they should be held to a higher standard than everyone else.

The Spiderman movies really overdid this to the point of making it sound cheesy, but with power comes responsibility. Cops are exactly the ones who should be turning in their coworkers who are breaking the law. It ruins the reputations of all cops when a dirty cop is not only tolerated but actually protected.

[ZenGum]

I think we established a while back that the presence of DanaC is strongly correlated with protests turning into riots.