
Police Use of Force: An Examination of Modern Policing Practices [pdf] - tboyd47
https://www.usccr.gov/pubs/2018/11-15-Police-Force.pdf
======
teumesios
Police serve themselves and the state, putting their lives well above those
they are supposed to serve and protect. I don't think the public's opinion is
likely to change until there's some radical reform.

[https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2016/07/07/graphic-video-
minne...](https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2016/07/07/graphic-video-minnesota-
police-shooting-philando-castile-ryan-young-pkg-
nd.cnn/video/playlists/philando-castile-shot-in-minnesota/)

This officer shot into a car seven times with a little girl on board,
murdering a man who was cooperating.

And then he gets off without charge, despite there being video evidence. Where
is the justice in that? People aren't that dumb, they aren't being treated
fairly and they know it.

According to this study, less than 30% of people believe that police behave
lawfully.

~~~
snackbugs
>Police serve themselves and the state

Just a minor nitpick about this, forgive me. Overall this post is perfectly
agreeable.

Police primarily serve private property owners, with private property being
different from personal property.

Private property refers to property which earns their owners accumulated
wealth: think landlords, business owners and such. Personal property, such as
your smartphone or house are intuitively different from this even though
things like this are called private property in vernacular.

I think it's a distinction worth posting about since policing as an
institution got its start in union busting and slave catching.

~~~
ticviking
> I think it's a distinction worth posting about since policing as an
> institution got its start in union busting and slave catching.

Do you happen to have a good citation for this, I've heard it several times
but am not familiar with any scholarship documenting that connection.

~~~
nyolfen
it’s pure ideology. law enforcing bodies have existed in every complex
civilization regardless of slavery.

~~~
snackbugs
Correct. For the strict purpose of protecting private property, something
which slaves were considered to be. Thank you for agreeing with the historical
facts.

~~~
ticviking
Or the common good, or providing the weak a champion to resist violence had no
role in the establishment of institutional policing?

David Friedman has a great summary of how a variety of societies pursue
justice and the origins of our own system and comparisons of the systems.

[http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Course_Pages/legal_sy...](http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Course_Pages/legal_systems_very_different_12/LegalSystemsDraft.html)

------
dmos62
I think many posts in this thread provide valuable commentary and mine won't
add as much value, but I'd like to share a viewpoint about how it's
interesting that in many countries it's considered quite normal that the
police/state are antagonistic to citizens, but in U.S., while the same tension
exists, there's a sense of Americans being continually surprised by that fact,
as if some sense of idealism partly counteracts the media and acts as a sort
of mild denial.

I don't mean to be critical; I'm quite sympathetic.

I grew up in a post-Soviet Bloc country, and while things have definitely
changed a lot since 1980s, the mistrust in police and state was still
something you could sense. However, that sense of mistrust was dramatically
different, because there was no conflicting sense of "it shouldn't be like
that". There was a sense of acceptance. Maybe you could call that Soviet
defeatism.

The only lesson I can draw from that is that it's easier to look at what's
happening in U.S. if you don't presume that the state is your friend.

~~~
zzzcpan
Well, most post-Soviet countries are also not police countries. People there
are not used seeing police act much and police using weapons would be a
massive news worthy story.

~~~
coolspot
Maybe western ones are not, but most coming to my mind are non-free police
states - Belarus[1], Tajikistan[2], Kazakhstan[3], Azerbaijan[4],
Kyrgyzstan[5], Uzbekistan[6] and so on.

[1] - [https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-
world/2018/belarus](https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-
world/2018/belarus)

[2] -
[https://freedomhouse.org/country/tajikistan](https://freedomhouse.org/country/tajikistan)

[3] - [https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-
world/2018/kazakhsta...](https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-
world/2018/kazakhstan)

[4] - [https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-
world/2018/azerbaija...](https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-
world/2018/azerbaijan)

[5] - [https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-
world/2018/kyrgyzsta...](https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-
world/2018/kyrgyzstan)

[6] -
[https://freedomhouse.org/country/uzbekistan](https://freedomhouse.org/country/uzbekistan)

~~~
zzzcpan
Yeah, I was hesitating whether to write most. The thing is though, even those
non-free states are not as brutal on policing as the US.

~~~
coolspot
As someone who lived in Russia first 23 years and now living in US, I can not
agree.

US has one of the lowest ratios of police force per capita - 284 officers per
100k citizens [1].

Compare to Belarus - 1442 per 100k citizens and Russia’s 515 per 100k.

[1] -
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_depend...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_number_of_police_officers)

~~~
aplummer
I mean, I don’t know how many police New Zealand has per capita (I think
regarded as the most “free” country) however isn’t it more the application of
force than the quantity of police?

If they are all directing traffic it’s not a police state.

~~~
hippich
They are there to protect the state from the population. Since population
doesn't have much means to harm the state, hence police are acting more
"mildly", but no way they are doing traffic regulation mostly (in fact I can
count on fingers of one hand seeing cops regulating traffic in Belarus)

------
toomanybeersies
It's interesting seeing the difference between American police and Australian
police and how they deal with violent situations.

A couple of weeks ago, we had a terror incident in Melbourne, where a man set
his car on fire and started trying to stab people (killing one). The police
arrived on scene within seconds, and attempted to stop the attacker using non
lethal methods, it was only when it was clear that he wasn't going to be
stopped that one of the officers drew their firearm and shot the attacker
(apparently only once too, unlike in the USA where they empty their magazine).
You can view footage of the incident here:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnk4su6HSHk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnk4su6HSHk)

The officer only used lethal force when it was clear that there was no other
option. I don't want to speculate, but I feel like if this was the USA, both
officers would've immediately unloaded their magazines into the attacker,
possibly hitting bystanders (it's happened plenty of times before).

Compare that to the USA, where an unarmed Australian woman who rang the police
to report a possible assault was shot by the police from inside their car:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Justine_Damond](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Justine_Damond)

~~~
loveyourmother
"shot the attacker (apparently only once too, unlike in the USA where they
empty their magazine)." I am not sure if you have ever dealt with someone who
is a lethal threat to you but it isn't like the movies. A wounded person can
still shoot and kill you or stab you. You can put multiple bullets into a
target and they can still kill you. Do police over react sometimes? Of course.
If you have reached the point of actually firing a weapon at an individual you
don't pause in between each individual shot to wait and see if you have done
enough. Each shooting is different. If you think cops are leaving their houses
with the intent or hopes of shooting and killing someone then you must not
know any cops. They just want to make it home at the end of their shift.

~~~
mixmastamyk
Surrounding a suspect who brought a knife to a gun fight does not put one in
substantial lethal danger.

And there is a pattern that other countries don’t feel obliged to repeat.

~~~
loveyourmother
A person with a knife and intent is just a lethal as someone with a gun. It
only takes a second or two for someone to cover 20ft and give you a deadly
wound.

~~~
Falling3
>A person with a knife and intent is just a lethal as someone with a gun

Then why do the police need guns? Shouldn't knives be sufficient?

~~~
loveyourmother
>Then why do the police need guns? Shouldn't knives be sufficient?

Sure, if your plan is to only deal with threats that are < 20ft away and can
be handled with a knife.

I never said the person with the knife would survive. They may very well get
killed. Who cares if he managed to slice open your arm or neck and you bleed
to death anyway.

------
Someone1234
Their point about police training seems quite valid (page 5).

While there is federal assistance for police departments to buy military
surplus equipment, there's very little assistance (outside of anti-terrorist
funding) for improved and lengthened general training (e.g. de-escalation of
force, averting the need for force, etc).

This results in some states and cities having well trained professional
police, whereas others receive minimum training and are then expected to learn
"on the job." For example California police officers are now receiving better
training on handling the mentally ill, something a rural police officer in
another state is unlikely to receive.

This is both unfair to the public and police officers alike. Unfortunately
getting people to pay for things can be challenging.

~~~
x220
Yes, and it becomes even more politically difficult to request more funding
for police departments when activists paint all police with the same brush and
sometimes want to literally abolish the police.

~~~
Someone1234
I don't see how? Both police and police activists want better training, police
to keep themselves safe, and activists to reduce the prevalence of incidents.
It is a win/win politically.

Now getting people to pay higher taxes to fund it? That's the real challenge.

~~~
x220
I think that most activists want those things. Some activists are like the
person in this video:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjIEZf8Skx4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjIEZf8Skx4)

~~~
Someone1234
It isn't reasonable to define an entire group by their biggest extremists.
I've read some pretty outlandish things by upset police officers too, but just
like this, I don't think it is a reflection of the majority's opinion on the
topic.

~~~
x220
There are activists that think that more resources given to the police will be
used by the police (a mechanism of oppression) to oppress minorities and
underprivileged groups even more. This is not a fringe belief. Many people
with these beliefs vote, are very active in social movements, organize
protests, and steer the conversations around viral events. If people with
these beliefs are leading a movement and having an impact, it is entirely
reasonable to confront these beliefs and take them seriously.

------
pstuart
A key problem is that police forces have effectively no incentive to avoid
negligent use of force, in that any resulting lawsuits are paid for by the
taxpayers.

I propose that police forces must be self-insured, with their pension fund
backing the policy.

~~~
loeg
The problems are (1) that they get a special definition of "negligent" and
"force" than the rest of us, and (2) that they and prosecutors cover up
malfeasance (the blue line); not that the stakes aren't high enough if they
_are_ found guilty.

Raising the stakes for a group that already protects its own just increases
its incentive to cover up malfeasance.

~~~
naasking
> (2) that they and prosecutors cover up malfeasance (the blue line);

What's needed is something more systemic: abolish prosecutorial discretion.
Prosecutors will then have no choice but to pursue these cases or face
prosecution themselves.

It also creates incentives to repeal old or broken laws that are used only as
leverage against otherwise law abiding citizens.

It's a dramatic change, no doubt, but there's a lot to be said for it.

~~~
loeg
We simply don't have the prosecutors to litigate every case of lawbreaking;
there's a reason discretion exists, and it's not to be nice. And dramatic
changes don't happen overnight. We start with the system we've got and try to
work towards something more fair in little steps.

~~~
naasking
> We simply don't have the prosecutors to litigate every case of lawbreaking

Exactly, and that's part of the problem isn't it? You can address this either
by hiring more litigators, or _reduce illegality to what 's truly essential_.

The point I'm trying to make is that eliminating prosecutorial discretion
creates a different set of incentives whereby the law must be understandable
by mere mortals, and eliminates incentives for abuse (the blue line).

------
siruncledrew
Anecdotally, most people I know don't go out of their way to interact with
police, so when police come into the picture it's usually not for something
good. Further, because it's not for something good, that makes the situation
more tense and incongruous between parties involved. People try to actively
avoid police and not deal with them. If most interactions are negative, this
makes conflict resolution difficult if the sentiment towards one party is
inherently distasteful. This might be a bad metaphor, but it's kinda like how
people don't use customer service when they don't have a problem. If police
want to be guardians of a community, it requires putting in time to listen to
and understand the community, and it also requires the community be cognizant
of their interactions with police. Like with customer service for any party
involved, being shitty usually doesn't make things go smoother.

With that being said, I think police could do a better job of being helpful
and approachable. In the times police are actually needed, such as a car
accident or something being stolen, adding a bit more effort would go towards
establishing a better impression among the public. Further, changing the
structure of police incentives could also help, where they should be rewarded
and recognized for the positive outcomes created in the community, and not the
number of tickets written to bring $X dollars into the station.

~~~
mikepurvis
These are anecdotes from Waterloo in Canada, but my two recent voluntary
interactions with law enforcement were both neutral-to-negative:

First was stopping to ask a cop idling in a parking lot if they'd considered
more enforcement of the new yield-to-pedestrians law at a nearby
intersection/roundabout. Cars consistently run through the pedestrian
crosswalks while people are in them (I have many videos of this), which is
supposed to be a $1000 fine, but I've never seen any enforcement of it, or
heard of anyone getting such a ticket. She basically said that they don't have
time for that and would need more funding to be able to do proactive
enforcement. Although she was polite and took the time to speak to me, I was
disappointed at the lack of interest in something I see as a critical issue
impacting safety and walkability in the community.

Second was a case where I'd witnessed what looked like a bike theft in
progress at the side of the road, and then a moment later realised there was a
police car half a block behind me. I pulled over and waved vigorously to flag
him down, but I believe he was looking at his console (it's not clear in the
video due to windshield glare) and cruised by without stopping. Either that or
he saw and ignored me, which is probably worse.

Obviously both were fine in the sense that I wasn't yelled at or shot, but
neither experience gave me warm fuzzies either.

~~~
ams6110
Police in cars are not just driving idly around most of the time. There's
always something they are being dispatched to investigate (not always with
lights/sirens). It's not that unusual that you weren't able to flag the car
down.

I witnessed a hit-and-run in Chicago, tried to flag down a cop that passed by
less than a minute later, he did stop for a second but said he was on another
call and to call 911 to report it.

~~~
HarryHirsch
_There 's always something they are being dispatched to investigate_

That's one of the problems right there. In America the cops' mission is to
catch something, criminals, speeders or undesirables, and even their vehicles
are camoflaged. In normal countries the mission of police is to keep the
peace, and police vehicles and uniforms are designed to be visible.

~~~
ams6110
Most police dispatches are in response to a call for help.

------
ncr100
They need help with data collection on which minority group is subject to
which type of policing / force.

Copy/paste finding statement from executive summary:

==

Accurate and comprehensive data regarding police uses of force is generally
not available to police departments or the American public. No comprehensive
national database exists that captures rates of police use of force. The best
available evidence reflects high rates of use of force nationally, and
increased likelihood of police use of force against people of color, people
with disabilities, LGBT people, people with mental health concerns, people
with low incomes, and those at the intersections of these groups.

Lack of training and lack of funding for training leave officers and the
public at risk. Critical training areas include tactical training, de-
escalation techniques, understanding cultural differences and anti-bias
mechanisms, as well as strategies for encounters with individuals with
physical and mental disabilities.

Repeated and highly publicized incidents of police use of force against
persons of color and people with disabilities, combined with a lack of
accurate data, lack of transparency about policies and practices in place
governing use of force, and lack of accountability for noncompliance foster a
perception that police use of force in communities of color and the disability
community is unchecked, unlawful, and unsafe.

==

------
romed
There should be some kind of cooling-off period between when these can hit the
front page and when the comments begin, proportional to the length of the
document. This one is 200 pages, so the first useful comment on this report
will appear tomorrow at the earliest.

The only conclusion we can draw right now is that some software company has an
exclusive contract to provide the government with PDF export applications that
do not generate hyperlinked tables of contents, and that publishing such a
document is in fact a crime against the people.

------
clarkmoody
A very nice anecdote from the article concerning community policing:

 _A retired police officer described to me his actions when patrolling a
neighborhood. After muster, he would drive his unit to an urban park in his
district and start picking up trash. The residents got to know him from this
and other actions. He would when time permitted play a game of horse with the
kids on the basketball court or engage a dad who was at the park with his kids
who might be having a beer. Interestingly, under “broken windows” theory of
policing the dad would be cited for open container or taken to jail. However,
this officer thought it was a good thing the dad was with the kids spending
time in the park and not creating a problem. He also engaged the basketball
kids. Over time he interacted this way with many citizens in his patrol area.
As a result, he not only gained trust and respect from the citizens, he also
gained great sources of information._

 _However, there was no department consistency in this policy. The next
officer on duty may have cited the dad or ignored the kids and merely
patrolled in his /her prowler._

Such a different conception of policing than most are used to.

~~~
Someone1234
It would be nice if the US adopted the Peelian principles/Nine principles of
policing[0] written by Sir Robert Peel in 1829:

1) To deter crime and disorder, as an alternative to their repression by
military force and severity of legal punishment.

2) To recognise always that the power of the police to fulfil their functions
and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and
behaviour, and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect.

3) To recognise always that to secure and maintain the respect and approval of
the public means also the securing of the willing co-operation of the public
in the task of securing observance of laws.

4) To recognise always that the extent to which the co-operation of the public
can be secured diminishes proportionately the necessity of the use of physical
force and compulsion for achieving police objectives.

5) To seek and preserve public favour, not by pandering to public opinion, but
by constantly demonstrating absolutely impartial service to law, in complete
independence of policy, and without regard to the justice or injustice of the
substance of individual laws, by ready offering of individual service and
friendship to all members of the public without regard to their wealth or
social standing, by ready exercise of courtesy and friendly good humour, and
by ready offering of individual sacrifice in protecting and preserving life.

6) To use physical force only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and
warning is found to be insufficient to obtain public co-operation to an extent
necessary to secure observance of law or to restore order, and to use only the
minimum degree of physical force which is necessary on any particular occasion
for achieving a police objective.

7) To maintain at all times a relationship with the public that gives reality
to the historic tradition that the police are the public and that the public
are the police, the police being only members of the public who are paid to
give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the
interests of community welfare and existence.

8) To recognise always the need for strict adherence to police-executive
functions, and to refrain from even seeming to usurp the powers of the
judiciary, of avenging individuals or the State, and of authoritatively
judging guilt and punishing the guilty.

9) To recognise always that the test of police efficiency is the absence of
crime and disorder, and not the visible evidence of police action in dealing
with them.

Seems like US policing as a culture is slowly learning that these aren't
optional, but required to effectively police a large diverse set of peoples.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles)

------
MFogleman
I've only taken a brief glance at this report, so I apologize if my issue I'm
about to bring up is already addressed within.

It seems that this report is falling into the common trap of 'Officer deaths
are down, the job must be safer'. Officer training has increased in the last
20 years, as has protective equipment, and life saving measures.

Page 38 states "Further, the data presented on Chart 5 (which includes the
average number of police fatalities due to shootings, stabbings, assaults,
bombings, and vehicular assaults) suggest that intentional attacks against law
enforcement are at historically low levels.200"

The FBI's statistics[1] report that in 2017, 60,000 officer were 'assaulted'.
2677 were assaulted by firearm, and over 267 of them were injured.[2]

Quite simply, the most thorough and definitive source of attacks against law
enforcement officers is not used to measure attacks against law enforcement
officers, instead we are simply measuring deaths. Safety is a difficult thing
to measure. If a pilot with 5,000 hours of flight time has crashed 4 small
charter air planes with 0 deaths, is he safer than the pilot who has 2,000
hours of flight time with 0 crashes?

What we can measure is things like 'Felonious assaults' and 'Injuries per
weapon type'. Which we have measured, but people keep ignoring in reports like
this. Reports and reviews such as this usccr report are important, but we need
to look at the situation at hand accurately if we want to address it properly

[1][https://ucr.fbi.gov/leoka/2017](https://ucr.fbi.gov/leoka/2017)
[2][https://ucr.fbi.gov/leoka/2017/tables/table-85.xls](https://ucr.fbi.gov/leoka/2017/tables/table-85.xls)

~~~
alistairSH
While I don't disagree with your broader point, in several states, all
assaults on law enforcement officers are felonious.[1], so felonious assault
isn't a meaningful statistic (or, at least not separate from lesser assault).

So, police stop you in the street for whatever reason, you brush by them, and
bang, you're charged with felony assault.

1 -
[https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title18.2/chapter4/secti...](https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title18.2/chapter4/section18.2-57/)

------
wonderwonder
Even if police get extra training on deescalation, they have no incentive to
apply it as there are virtually no repercussions for using force to resolve
every situation. You can be arrested for no other crime than resisting arrest,
police have almost godlike powers in the states and are actively protected by
those meant to regulate them such as their fellow officers, prosecutors,
courts and leadership. If they are caught egregiously violating civil rights,
the taxpayers have to pay a fine for the officers who then return to work none
the worse. Legally police officers don't even have to know the laws they are
enforcing with courts having ruled that if an officer arrests you for
something even if you weren't breaking the law their wrong assumption of the
law trumps your 4th amendment rights.

A police officer can shoot an unarmed innocent civilian in a swoop and swat
and receive zero repercussions essentially turning swat teams into
assassination teams on call. In my personal opinion, every accusation of
police misconduct should be fully investigated by the FBI and if laws are
found to have been broken then federal charges are brought and if found
guilty, the officers right to be a police officer is permanently removed in
much the same way people with felony's are not allowed to serve in the FBI or
own a weapon. If an officer kills someone who was "reaching for their
waistband" and that person is found to not have been armed, instant
manslaughter charges. If officers are found to have known about a violation
and protected their fellow officer even if just through their silence, they
should be charged with obstruction of justice or a similar crime. Until police
officers are held at the very least to the standards of their fellow citizens,
things will never improve.

I have seen officers off duty that are wasted pile into civilian cars and
speed off then throw zoom past on duty officers who laugh and let them
continue on their way. Luckily no one was killed. All of those officers should
have had their badges trashed, especially those on active duty.

I respect the police, they have to deal with the worst humanity has to offer
and they charge into places everyone else is running from. Many of them are
good people. They cannot be given carte blanche to rough people up, or kill
them. They also cannot be allowed to essentially run state sanctioned gangs.

------
golergka
The core of this report is intellectually the hardest pill to swallow to both
sides: there's not enough data. Unfortunately, human beings are highly
uncomfortable acknowledging that they don't know something, our thinking is
not used to this. So, instead, both sides will continue to quote selective
statistics and anecdotes that prove that they're right and the others are
wrong, and will ignore all the evidence to the contrary.

------
solidsnack9000
_The “black-on-black” crime narrative as an explanation for police excessive
use of force disregards the structural and historical issues that formed these
neighborhoods, as well as the social and economic factors that currently
sustain them. Paul Butler explains that the violence in black communities is a
symptom of historic discrimination, brutal policing practices, and mass
incarceration. Thus, if we want to decrease “black-on-black crime” we first
need to address the systemic issues that maintain it._

This passage starts by discussing an explanation for police excessive use of
force and ends by discussing an explanation for crime within the black
community.

It seems like the authors are saying that we can’t use crime within the black
community to explain police brutality until (unless? because?) we use systemic
issues to explain this crime. This seems fuzzy. It’s likely that black-on-
black crime is a symptom of something; but that doesn’t prevent it from having
symptoms, too.

------
x220
We need a different department in each state tasked with investigating and
prosecuting law enforcement officers and prosecutors suspected of crime, a
department that is completely separate from the rest of the normal law
enforcement departments. It's a founding principle of the United States that
institutions will not keep themselves in check, they instead require another
institution to keep them in check (checks and balances). It's time to start
applying that to law enforcement misconduct investigations and prosecution.
This means that police officers won't have to go easy on their coworkers
suspected of crime (so that their other coworkers won't ostracize them) and
prosecutors won't have to turn a blind eye towards police misconduct (for fear
of poisoning the relationship with a police department) since it won't be
their job anymore.

Edit: if you disagree, say why.

~~~
frankydp
You are most likely getting down voted because your suggestion is already
policy and law in most(if not all) states. Applied in different ways and at
different levels. For example local police(city/county) critical incidents are
investigated by the state level agency, and a state agency CI would be
investigated by either the FBI or neighboring state agency.

~~~
x220
Thanks for the info!

------
qaq
Better tech could solve some issues having some Boston dynamics based
"partner" would prob solve issue of police officers overreacting in what they
perceive as dangerous situations.

~~~
afarrell
Developing the technology to automatically police an area seems like a
dramatically bad idea. It would make it far easier for a wealthy elite to
control territory without the accountability of needing to prevent their
police/soldiers from joining the side of protestors.

I’d rather live in a world where the rulers need the begrudging consent of a
large number of people, for the reasons explained in The Dictator’s Handbook
or in this CGP Grey video
[https://youtu.be/rStL7niR7gs](https://youtu.be/rStL7niR7gs)

~~~
qaq
I am not suggesting the autonomous AI robot version more like approach stopped
vehicle and take transmit info remotely to the officer at a safe distance.

------
qrbLPHiKpiux
> Police officers are vitally important to the co mmunities they serve.

I thought their job was "to enforce the law?"

------
blattimwind
If this document tries to extract "modern policing practices" from American
policing practices, I doubt there is anything to learn.

