
Law Enforcement’s “Warrior” Problem - sergeant3
http://harvardlawreview.org/2015/04/law-enforcements-warrior-problem/
======
ZanyProgrammer
Cops need to stop dressing like they are mercs in Iraq circa 2004. Tactical
vests, cargo pants with a shitload of shit hanging off them-the average (non
SWAT) cop now looks like they are ready to go off on a patrol in a hostile
village. I'm an Army vet, and cops dressing like that does intimidate me a
little bit-I can't imagine that they present the image of a friendly ally to
the average person. Men should also grow their hair out and stop looking like
they are in basic training or AIT.

~~~
nine_k
As a complete civilian, I'd say that police in all their gear do not look
intimidating to me. Mostly it's the posture, the facial expression, the tone
of voice that makes someone look friendly (or not). I look at them as I look
at construction workers or garbage truckers: this is what they have to wear to
do their job, not best-looking, not most comfortable. I can sympathize.

How is all this gear _useful_ is another question.

~~~
digikata
The posture and expression is a part of training often referred to as "Command
Presence". I sympathize with the need to protect oneself on the job, but
applying "Command Presence" to every situation also escalates problems which
would have otherwise been non-issues.

~~~
nine_k
Verily! But most policemen I meet look either neutral or relaxed and friendly.
(Granted, I'm a Caucasian male, etc — but I rarely see the "command presence"
appearance on streets of New York.)

------
Someone1234
US police services need to move to "policing by consent" (also often called
"community policing"). The concept is that a police service is ineffective if
they do not have the broad support of the local community, and the police
service should adapt to service the community they have (not the community
they'd want to have).

If a bunch of gangbangers "hate" cops then that's fine. But when the good law
abiding citizens within a community lose faith in the police service, then
that police service becomes ineffective since the community won't help with
the police's core mission. Or to phase it another way, the police are an arm
of the community, they aren't a law upon themselves (in the figurative sense).

A lot of other countries do this, and it works well.

It is a completely different mindset. All law abiding citizens are now allies
in this "war" rather than potential law breakers. You actually have police
respond to legitimate community concerns rather than trivial things only the
police care about (e.g. DUIs might be a big community concern as opposed to
prostitution stings).

Honestly the first thing the US absolutely needs is citizen oversight of
police (and police complaints). As long as police police themselves, nothing
constructive will happen.

~~~
rayiner
I don't know if we'll ever achieve that here in the U.S. Most of these issues
arise in heavily black and Hispanic neighborhoods with high crime. These folks
have very little faith in the police and for good reason. The understanding
that police are there to protect rich white people from poor black and
Hispanic people has gotten less overt and less official since the 1960's, but
it's still there to a degree, especially in the widespread practice of
focusing resources on keeping violence in poor minority neighborhoods from
spilling into higher income white neighborhoods.[1] And in any case historical
practice has wiped out any trust that might exist between those communities
and the police.

Here is the real question: how do you do community policing in the low-income
black neighborhoods of Baltimore? How do you rebuild trust?

[1] As well as the practice of ignoring the deaths of gang members. Maybe they
got themselves into their predicament, but you're not going to build trust
among their friends and family by treating their deaths as inconsequential,
especially given the prevalence of gang membership along a wide spectrum of
involvement.

~~~
bdavisx
> Here is the real question: how do you do community policing in the low-
> income black neighborhoods of Baltimore? How do you rebuild trust?

You arrest and prosecute the perpetrators just as quickly and with just as
much or more punishment than the "regular" public would get. And you keep
doing that to any cop who breaks the law. You also get rid of (and prosecute)
the "good" cops who don't report the bad ones.

IOW you show the community that you (the local government) means business when
it comes to ending the problem.

~~~
a3n
"You also get rid of (and prosecute) the "good" cops who don't report the bad
ones."

This is why I say _the_ police _are_ corrupt. Looking the other way is
corrupt, even if you didn't take part in the corruption.

Would the officer in McKinney the other day feel compelled to resign if he
hadn't been caught "red handed" on video? Would his fellow officers have even
reported him? I seriously doubt it, and because many of us probably have that
doubt then it's up to the police to make that idea unthinkable among the
public.

------
beat
A grown man chases a bikini-clad 14 year old girl. He grabs her by the hair
and hurls her to the ground. He pins her down, with his knee bearing his full
weight down on her bare back. He draws his gun.

Does this make you uncomfortable? Can you picture this girl as your sister, or
your daughter?

Think about the real world consequences of warrior policing. This doesn't
sound like keeping the peace. It sounds like a child molester's rape fantasy.
That girl will be scarred for life. She will fear the police. She will fear
men. Is that what we want, as a society? Is this what liberty and pursuit of
happiness are supposed to be?

Do we want to be the kind of people who make excuses about how she deserved
it?

~~~
grkvlt
Depends. Did this actually happen? What has the girl done? Did she just kill
someone? Has she just bitten someone's ear off? Context is everything... Maybe
the police officer now has nightmares about ear-eating fourteen year old
bikini clad girls, and can never have a proper releationship, due to this
emotional scarring? If your sister or daughter went completely crazy, and had
or was going to hurt herself and others, then of course you want someone to
physically restrain her, before something worse happens...

So, yes - if she deserved it, then I absolutely want to be the kind of person
who makes that excuse!

------
sgnelson
This is yet one more of the hidden costs of the Afghan and Iraq wars.

You have a large population of soldiers, many who come back home after their
tours of duty, where they were in effect an occupying force. And then they get
a job in law enforcement. They are used too a certain way of doing things in
Iraq and Afghanistan, and they bring that culture home with them. Even for
those who didn't serve, as the article notes, this "warrior culture" has bled
into police forces everywhere.

In the military, they say "train as you fight." Well guess what they've been
training to do? Hint: it's not the warm and cuddly community policing. When
you're used to "fight or fight," in the military, and then you're put back in
the civilian world, these issues come to the fore.

Not to be mean or unfair, but some of these soldiers who come back have PTSD
and other mental issues (not their fault), but I've wondered how much of that
also plays a role in police violence and the way police officers handle
themselves in stressful situations.

~~~
vollmond
The other part is the excessive hero worship, also driven by the War on
Terror. The "support the troops" conversation stopper has extended to law
enforcement and any other public-facing service job, to the point where it's
impossible to have a civil debate about the military, police, teachers, or
anyone, without offending someone just for bringing up the topic.

~~~
hga
And law enforcement weren't "heroes" before 9/11???

Now, I'm probably older than you, old enough to have watched the first run of
hagiographic Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. _F.B.I._ TV series that ran until 1974,
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_F.B.I._(TV_series)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_F.B.I._\(TV_series\))
), but I assure this is nothing new. E.g. I can remember more than a few
debates I had with co-workers in the '90s on the War on Drugs, I said we could
have that, or a free nation, but they were so petrified by the prospect of
their children doing drugs that they preferred they'd live in an eventual
police state.

EDITED: added eventual, since this was in the context of where we were going,
still a confirmed trend two decades later.

~~~
happyscrappy
Your definition of police state is an insult to people who have actually lived
in one.

~~~
Jtsummers
We may not have police disappearing people in the middle of the night or
conducting summary executions on the street on a regular basis. They don't
(well, they might thanks to the NSA and other sources) have extensive dossiers
on every citizen. But we do have systemic racism and violence in the current
system that leaves a large portion of the population in fear for their safety,
and rightly so.

Cops conducting no knock raids for a low level meth dealer scarred a young boy
and lied to his family about the severity of his injuries (claiming he'd just
lost a tooth) [1]. Just check CNN for all the recent stories of unarmed black
men, boys and teenagers killed by cops. An officer in Alabama paralyzed an
Indian man who didn't obey his commands because he _couldn 't speak English_
[2] (at least he's been charged).

This may not be the same as police states seen in other parts of the world for
the majority of Americans. But for many, we've already crossed that line.

[1] [http://abcnews.go.com/US/family-toddler-injured-swat-
grenade...](http://abcnews.go.com/US/family-toddler-injured-swat-grenade-
faces-1m-medical/story?id=27671521)

[2] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-
nation/wp/2015/03/27...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-
nation/wp/2015/03/27/alabama-officer-faces-civil-rights-charge-after-leaving-
indian-grandfather-partially-paralyzed/)

~~~
venomsnake
> We may not have police disappearing people in the middle of the night or
> conducting summary executions on the street on a regular basis.

You don't need it. You have DA-s and mandatory sentencing ... as effective,
but a lot more subtle and less visible.

------
simonh
If police officers here in the UK started talking about having a Warrior
midset there's be an outcry. It would be a major scadal that would put the
credibility of the police force into crisis. (Brit here, so obviously I have
no real right of a say in US internal affairs, but I visit the US from time to
time).

I can see where it comes from, US officers are armed, and need to be so
because they frequently face armed criminals. They have to deal with a
different situation. The problem is that those members of the US public that
are not armed and actualy have no intention of criminality, or if they do in a
minor and non-threatening form, are being dealt with by armed police officers
expecting to deal with armed violent thugs. That's a recipe for utter
disaster.

There's no easy answer to this. It's right to support police that have to deal
with life threatening situations daily. But equally the non-violent public do
not deserve to face potential threats to their life and violent coercion in
routine interactions with law enforcers.

~~~
boards2x
>> But equally the non-violent public do not deserve to face potential threats
to their life and violent coercion in routine interactions with law enforcers.

It is really not "the public" at large, at least not in many cases. The police
seems to be profiling and directing excessive force towards non-Caucasians, as
it was so obvious in the shocking incident in Texas.

This case, which sort of crystallized the problem, all started with a typical
overweight Walmart white-trash female attacking a group of noisy (?) children
in the pool.

For the outsider, the US looks a very unpleasant place to be if you're not
white. Not to mention the huge incarceration rate for minor offenses, and the
proportion on non caucasians there.

I used to come to the US at least once a year, staying for up to 2-3 weeks on
holiday. I haven't in a long time, and I will probably not anytime soon.

It's increasingly becoming a sad and scary place.

~~~
DamnYuppie
The incident in Texas in only shocking when one considers the slanted
reporting that the media is doing. Those kids were trespassing, were violent
with minors, and flatly refused to listen to police officers. The reporting of
this is nothing more then a propaganda piece. We have large populations of
minorities who feel entitled to behave badly without any consequence because
the color of their skin.

~~~
knodi123
I was right there with you until your last sentence veered off into racist
territory.

~~~
DamnYuppie
Stating a group of people has entitlement issues isn't Racist. Racism is
denying people the ability to do something based on their race. I am not
denying anyone access to anything. I am simply stating that I see an issue
with how allowing people to continually play the race card emboldens them to
believe there are no consequences to their actions.

~~~
knodi123
You're right, it was less racism than bigotry. Stating that a whole race of
people has an entitlement issue is bigoted.

Why not just say "blacks", anyway? Everone knows what we're talking about
here, but if you say "blacks have an entitlement issue", it's harder to
pretend that you're not a bigot.

------
jmnicolas
Judging from the outside, US law enforcement has a "no accountability"
problem, not a warrior one.

~~~
spiritplumber
That's the big issue.

The great advance of cameras being cheap and ubiquitous has effectively been
countermoved by "Yeah, we saw the video, we investigated ourselves and found
nothing wrong" or district attorneys that either decline to prosecute police
abuse or treat grand juries in police-abuse cases completely differently than
they would in any other case.

~~~
hga
That's just a short term fix; _we_ know what's really happening (although it's
not always clear in videos, especially if conveniently edited like the Rodney
King one), and the longer this goes on without resolution the nastier it gets
for everyone.

Which, I suppose, can be a reinforcing cycle; in another sub-thread Army vet
remarkEon said "it's like they're at times forgetting these are _citizens_ and
not _enemy combatants_." As the police continue to lose support from the
populace, including the traditionally supportive right, more and more of us
become enemy combatants in a sense even if the vast majority of us don't take
action. And with the concealed carry sweep of most of the nation, we don't
actually need the police so much.

------
joesmo
It doesn't matter what attitudes change, the community relationship between
police and citizens will not be repaired till at least my generation is dead
(mid 30s) but more likely till at least three current generation of young
people is dead. And that only if dramatic changes happen now. Otherwise things
will continue to degrade and the police will continue to arrest and kill
innocent people for committing crimes that are victim less and shouldn't be
crimes at all.

The irony is, of course, that being a police officer is not even a very
dangerous job. That leads me to conclude they're just a bunch of cowards with
an inferiority complex out to hurt people to make themselves feel better. I'm
sure cops exist who aren't like this but that doesn't disprove the fact that
the majority are. Then you add their racism to the mix... Cowards will be
cowards.

~~~
bdcravens
> The irony is, of course, that being a police officer is not even a very
> dangerous job.

[http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/10/us/mississippi-police-
officers...](http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/10/us/mississippi-police-officers-
shot-dead/)

Routine traffic stop. Pretty sure I've never heard of a developer being
murdered during a pull request.

> That leads me to conclude they're just a bunch of cowards with an
> inferiority complex out to hurt people to make themselves feel better. I'm
> sure cops exist who aren't like this but that doesn't disprove the fact that
> the majority are. Then you add their racism to the mix... Cowards will be
> cowards.

Congratulations, I think this is the most bigoted and stereotyping post I have
ever read on Hacker News. Ever.

~~~
stonogo
Your single example means nothing. There are (at conservative estimate) around
750,000 law officers w/ arrest powers in the USA. 114 were killed in 2014.
This is a 0.016% mortality rate -- and this number _includes_ accidental
deaths while on duty. This is about the same percentage as _murders only_ in
Chicago -- meaning the population of Chicago is, on average, in more danger
_just existing_ than any given police officer is _while armed and on duty_.

~~~
bdcravens
First off, statistics: For your analogy to be fair, you'd need to compare
mortality among police in Chicago, not nationwide police mortality, since an
officer, like a citizen, is under great threat in Chicago than rural Kansas.

Even so, you can compare the job to anything, and find statistics that sound
more impressive. More children die via drowning in swimming pools than by
gunshot wounds, but that doesn't mean that gun control discussions are
immediately null and void.

I have been places in life, and known people, that have an intense hatred for
cops and are happy to express their desire for an open season on them. People
that if facing arrest for something small, will use any weapon at their
disposal - gun, knife, vehicle - to get away. The fact that someone doesn't
know of this world - it's not proof it doesn't exist, but simply a blessing
for that person.

There are very, very bad people in this world, that if given the chance would
take your MacBook, your iPhone, your iPad, and your money. "But but.. you
don't understand! They'd never hurt me! I retweet about social injustice!"

There's some very, very bad cops who abuse their authority. But for someone to
say that there's no danger is incredulous.

~~~
stonogo
Nobody is saying the job is completely free of danger. We're saying they don't
need MRAPs and assault rifles. You don't get to exclude the middle ground
here.

And fuck your passing dig at accusing me of armchair activism; I've served in
actual wars, as infantry, where I was less well-equipped than some of these
suburban police departments. I am fully aware that danger exists, and what it
looks like. It is being overstated.

~~~
bdcravens
I was originally address joesmo's comment: "being a police officer is not even
a very dangerous job"

And I apologize if my words suggested a dig at you - I was still addressing
the idea that it's a safe pedestrian job filled with intentional racists. I
really was speaking to the general HN'er, rather than you specifically. I
think you'll agree that there is a lot of armchair activists who have never
seen a battle field, or a bullet wound, and whose opinions are shaped more by
Twitter and emojis than reality.

~~~
stonogo
It really isn't a particularly dangerous job, regardless of the opinions of
social media users. For instance, doing the research you suggested isn't
feasible, because no Chicago police officers have been killed AT ALL since
2011.

A brief record search indicates approximately 440 Chicago PD officers died in
_the entire 20th century_ \-- remarkably similar to the number of murder
victims in the city _per annum_ among the general population.

Police officers need training, and they need public support, and they need
good leadership and a healthy government to support and oversee them -- but
they don't need breathless hyperbole that justifies warfare-grade equipment
loadout.

------
zimpenfish
Radley Balko has been highlighting this for years.

This has a good set of links to articles and reviews of his book -
[http://www.theagitator.com/2013/08/05/all-things-warrior-
cop...](http://www.theagitator.com/2013/08/05/all-things-warrior-cop/)

------
mml
This article hits it squarely on the head. Police today are a reflection of
the paranoid, intermittently terrified culture we've built.

------
tux1968
Here in Vancouver we have a neighborhood where heavy drug users congregate.
There is a heavy foot-patrol police presence, but arresting everyone using
drugs is seen as an unworkable solution.

The police have taken to videotaping people who are heavily drugged and out of
it. For instance, someone laying stoned in an alley with a needle hanging out
of his arm. Of course medical services are summoned too.

The police then make the effort to track these people down to find them at a
time when they are not intoxicated and show them the video of themselves...
trying to wake them up to the truth and consequences of their addiction.

I don't know how effective this effort is, but I appreciate the police acting
like decent human beings rather than bully thugs.

------
j_baker
It seems like a no-brainer to me. Training police officers to think like
warriors indicates that they're fighting in a war. We already have enough
issues with gangs turning our streets into battlegrounds[1]. Why do we need
police officers to compound the issue?

[1] [http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/22/how-
chicago...](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/22/how-chicago-
became-chiraq.html)

------
NoMoreNicksLeft
Warriors go to war.

If the police are warriors, if they are going to war, who are their enemies?

The answer no one speaks aloud is "We are".

~~~
rhino369
Gangs mostly. This is why cops in cities with gang problems act like soldiers
and cops in suburbia are mostly polite meter maids.

------
nickbauman
Many more cops these days are vets. Many more vet cops have seen combat. It's
no surprise we have this militarization of local police forced underway. With
increasingly tragic results. Soldiers are trained to advance and overpower by
killing, wounding or inspiring enough fear to push the enemy back. I cannot
imagine this is a good foundation to build a police officer on in all but the
rarest of circumstances.

------
hackuser
I'd be very interested to hear from experienced police officers about how
accurately this description represents policing, how pervasive this point-of-
view is (training or not), why it has arisen, and why it's necessary. I, and I
suspect many here, know very little about the job.

Also, in broader society, my impression is that paranoid, angry outlooks are
now often accepted as legitimate, 'real' and strong by at least part of a
certain segment of our society, rather than being seen as weakness, out-of-
control emotion and shameful judgment. For example, this perspective is
embraced on a certain cable news channel, it's a hallmark of a certain
political movement, and you can see some leaders competing to prove who is
angrier and crazier. There's an underlying cultural debate here, also. Many
people support this police behavior.

------
glimmung
Horrifying.

These guys could do worse than read some Terry Pratchett - his Sam Vimes
character had a fine appreciation of the difference between a soldier and a
policeman.

~~~
venomsnake
The difference between a baton and a sword.

------
angersock
I really like the way commentary is noted in the gutters of the article and
referenced from the text. That's a very cool trick.

~~~
azernik
And on mobile it's also very nice - footnote icons that expand blockquote-
style text when clicked and turn into "close" buttons to collapse it.

------
dghughes
It also seems in some situations protestor are trying to be a warrior too how
many people protesting these days wear masks now compared to 50 years ago?

I'd say it's a culture problem both police and the people they interact with
both have a warrior attitude.

------
rhino369
The problem is that in many of Americas inner cities there is a gang war going
on. You'll never get ride of the warrior view when they are charged with
keeping the peace in war zones.

------
a3n
When you're a warrior, you're at war with someone ...

------
trhway
you have "change the world", "python ninja", "rock star", etc.. in software
engineering. Cops are people too, and what you see is just similar notions in
their professional area. Cool Tazer instead of cool MacBook. Agile law
enforcement with multiple refactoring... It is just bad luck if you happen to
be the one being "refactored".

------
andyl
'Within law enforcement, few things are more venerated than the concept of the
Warrior.'

Sure in some jurisdictions. But not all.

I work with LE in the field as a paramedic, and in the office as a SW Dev.
Lots of agencies. Most of the LE folk have been super professional and very
mindful of their public service role. Even in stressful situations.

From what I've seen, most cops are just regular people, not wanna-be soldiers.

------
happyscrappy
All cops should be wearing cameras, but I don't think it will work out very
well for the SJWs when all the interactions are clearly documented. Imagine if
there was video of Michael Brown going for the officers gun, would they still
riot?

~~~
NoMoreNicksLeft
> Imagine if there was video of Michael Brown going for the officers gun,
> would they still riot?

That's what causes the problem. Police apologists __imagine __circumstances
that justify their abuse, and are absolutely certain that 's what actually
happened.

If there was a video, I wouldn't imagine. I'd watch and see what happened.

~~~
happyscrappy
>If there was a video, I wouldn't imagine. I'd watch and see what happened.

Well you saw the video of him robbing the store and assaulting the clerk
moments earlier but that doesn't bother you?

Edit since I can't reply:

At least you didn't say "Police murder innocent black child" so that is a
start. His actions moments before make the cops story more likely to be true.

~~~
thornebrandt
A crime is something that someone does, it does not define who they are. A
robbery doesn't make someone's life 'not matter'. It is not a capital offense.
Neither is jaywalking, or being stoned. I think it's interesting that the
narrative that the police presented about Michael Brown grabbing a gun is
nearly identical to the South Carolina narrative presented about Walter Scott.
However, The Ferguson police didn't make the same mistake as the South
Carolina police. They made sure there weren't any leaked videos of the event,
which in the case of Walter Scott, showed the cop placing a taser on a dead
body. Remember how many hours Michael Brown was left to rot the sun? Remember
how many months it took for the grand jury to even begin? Despite all the
coaching that he no doubt received, Wilson's own narrative revealed itself:
"He was like a demon."

------
shit_parade2
Police are murderous thugs. Their pensions should be cut and department
budgets gutted.

US police kill about three people a day, and shoot and harrass many more and
all with hardly any consequences. They even openly operate 'blacksites' where
people are detained without rights and tortured, sometimes even killed.

These are not the hallmarks of a free society, it is the symptoms of fascist
military rule.

[http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/10/the-
counted-5...](http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/10/the-
counted-500-people-killed-by-police-2015)

