Unarmed Policing

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by sexobon

<snip>

I get the impression that half the public simply doesn't trust its routine police to be armed.
They would rather take their chances with encountering armed criminals than
face the uncertainty of arming their police. Claims that arming all police would
significantly diminish civil-police relationships, when the trust is that limited anyway,
would seem to be a red herring.

For those of us who grew up in the 60's, there was a paradigm shift in attitudes towards the police.
Not because they were armed... LE in America has been armed since the earliest days
... after all, that's where the Western movie got started.

But instead we saw the polarization of LE - from protecting the public to protecting the policer officer.
The primary force in this change was first putting police officers into patrol cars,
and next was adding a second officer as the partner.
The WE vs THEY way of thinking among LE became common place,
and the militarization of American LE has been underway ever since.

Of course, the endless rough cop ("Make My Day") movies from Hollywood made such attitudes heroic among some
... maybe that's the half of the public that doesn't start from a position of trust.