What I Learned at the Police Academy: Officers are trained to see the world as a violent place—and then to act accordingly.
Officers are trained to see the world as a violent place—and then to act accordingly.
The world is a dangerous place, at least if you’re in the U.S. The proliferation of “Warrior Mindset” policing in the U.S. follows the proliferation of personal firearms.
The world is a dangerous place, at least if you’re in the U.S.
Horse. Shit. I ran with some serious low-lifes in my 20's, including a mule for the Mexicans. I worked in South Chicago at all hours. I've been in gritty places you can't fathom from behind your suburban keyboard. Rarely, rarely, felt I was in danger. And I did some stupid shit.
the proliferation of personal firearms
Yeah. Because that's a new thing? I've hardly ever seen a gun, of any sort, outside appropriate places. Gun range, cop's holster, etc. Never seen a weapon drawn in anger. And again, I put myself in wildly sketchy situations.
Go outdoors and touch some grass or something. And get the fuck away from social and mass media.
I ran with a rough crowd too, I knew guys who had guns but nobody ever went and fetched them in anger, they were for serious business. if you just rolled around with heat you were asking for a jail term because you got pulled over for failure to indicate and a cop got nosey.
Punches to the face tho, saw those alot.
Growing up in a similarly dangerous place, I can half agree with everything you’re saying here, but its a mixture of luck and know how that probably keep people from seeing the worst of the violence. It’s there though. Violent crime stats are trending down year by year, but I’ve had plenty of people in my extended circles be the victims of violence. One beaten by homophobes for being a ripped Amazon of a lesbian. One got a revolver pulled on him while carrying home groceries, he asked the guy “do you just want my groceries? I spent all my money on them.” and he let him go. I drew my personal firearm once on a guy that produced a knife on me after drunkenly hitting my car, and as with the vast majority of defensive gun usage, he saw it and immediately lost his will for fuckery.
Shit goes down more here than it does in say, Canada or European countries with more restrictions on firearms. It’s not a madmax war zone, but In 2021, there were a total of 48,830 firearm deaths. About half are suicide. Numbers for how many the cops are responsible for aren’t very well reported. Compared to other things people die from, 42,939 automobile accident related deaths in the same year for instance, yeah, that’s a lot. But remove the suicides? 20k isn’t looking like much in the grand scheme of things. I don’t think the reality is as cut and dry as either of you are putting it.
People paid to run around with military weapons, body armor, and combat vehicles: "My life is more important than your life"
And heavily overpaid given the training, amount of work they do, and risk: "I'm not paid to be at risk, I'll stand outside"
A training video from 1988 called Surviving Edged Weapons illustrates the irrational and paranoid training police regularly receive.
Police are also the largest market for dowsing rods
It's a profession rife with superstition and fraud.
Officers are trained to see the world as a violent place
Good read. Police do what they're trained to do: shoot first and ask questions later...
that's an odd use of the word "accordingly". you don't get to select a response that is an arbitrary overreaction and then treat it as normal.
even if the world is a violent place, there are other ways to deal with it. at least that's the case for humans and their power of thought.
but yeah, if the counterargument is that the people that underwent this training were either not human or not capable of thought...
