What Can Citizens Do To Bridge The Ever Increasing Gap Between Them And The Police?

Having sat here and considered the question a bit, I think you're asking it backwards.

The issue is, a non-LEO doesn't know what LEOs see as uncivil, or threatening, or 'bad'. Or vice-versa.

I can easily tell you what YOU are doing that I see as unlawful, impractical, stupid or wrong. But I can't see my behavior from YOUR point of view. So it's hard for me to come up with actions that would make LEOs happier that don't end up being insulting, because they too are being projected through this internal lens of what I see you guys doing wrong.

The root of both sides of the separation is 'us vs them', of course. A view inherent in the title of the thread. YOU are a citizen that happens to have a job as a LEO. When I read titles like that, I tend to have this internal snort 'you BOTH are civilians' since I still tend to see myself as military. But I suspect most LEOs would find it an insult to be lumped in with the proletariat as being exactly the same as them.

If you could blur THAT line a bit, it might solve the whole thing. Maybe everyone ought to have to serve a couple of years doing something in the way of civil service coming out of high school. You get to pick - military, police, infrastructure, health, Peace Corps or whatnot. If a lot of people had to stand a watch as a cop or a soldier, there might be less 'us vs them', less unnecessary war, fewer cops acting like jerks, fewer non-cops acting like jerks etc. We no longer share a common POV. THAT'S the issue. "bluelining" is as bad as BLM, it's the same damned thing actually, just from different sides, and it's a symptom of 'us vs them' carried toward a limit.

originally posted by: TorqueyThePig
Since that thread covers what the police can/should do to improve their relationships with the community, I would like to start a thread that discusses what the citizens can do to improve their relationships with the police.

Personally, I think BLM has been muddied with hipster SJWs just looking for their feel-good cause, like some rich bitch sponsoring some destitute kid in Africa. A braggart's effort kind of thing.
I think a lot of the cause-du-jour hipsters of the movement need to be dumped off in legitimate gang-controlled ghettos for a few weeks to gain an appreciation for the effective policing of their own neighborhoods. That would be a good start, an eye-opener & some humility.

The rest need to know what no cops at all would be like for them. You don't really appreciate what you have until it's gone (in a perfect world anyway, actually enacting this idea probably would be dangerous & snowball with gangs/cartels moving quickly to take fresh turf)

I'm no fan of cops Torq, but you're ultimately just doing your job. If citizens want to get in a tizzy over what the job requires, they can start hitting up their state reps & governors with alternatives and disapproval. Not throwing items and insults at you folks for doing what lawmakers ultimately give you the green light to do.

Citizens could push city councils to get police back to protecting and serving instead of being revenue generators. That would go a long ways to bridging the gap. Citizens could push for citizen review panel for all officers complaints. That would keep police from protecting their own. We could push for rookie officers to have no sidearm for the first 2 years, only the training officer allowed to have a sidearm. That would force police to learn how to deal with people without reaching for sidearm all the time.
The UK police deal with people with knifes, do we hear reports almost daily of UK police shooting to death a person with a knife. US Police shoot to death people in wheelchairs for holding a knife, when all they had to do is step onto the curb, spray the person with pepper spray, use ASP to knock the knife out of the person hand.

If people want to change things, start holding city council leaders accountable, if they won't push for police reforms you want to see, vote for someone that will.

a reply to: eluryh22

You know, that reminds me of something we did to improve department relations years ago at a hospital I worked at.

I worked in the lab, and there are always really poor relations between hospital departments...a lot of blaming and assumption, and it really impacts patient care in a negative way.

We realized that part of the problem was a lack of communication, but also a lack of understanding of the way each department worked. It's easy to be derisive of others when you aren't in their shoes. So we organized tours of all the departments for all personnel, to actually see what happens in each different department. Almost immediately, we started to see improvement in interdepartmental relations. The tension and quickness to anger was significantly reduced within just a few days. And that program is still in place today, fifteen years later.

I think you've got a great idea. Of course, my example is a few thousand employees in a hospital, not millions of people in a divided country...it wouldn't be remotely that simple. And there are always going to be people who refuse to work together. But if enough people for together and implemented a plan such as you suggested, surely the initial impact would be significant enough to give everyone else pause for thought at the very least. I think it's brilliant.

Fair thread idea hope it helps out.

Citizens are also family of cops(I was one) as are cops citizens. If they were alive and on the force now would address some of the following;
·Fellow officers need to be on alert of corruption in the ranks before it is running rampant throughout. I realize it's likely frowned upon to turn on one another in such a brotherhood of officers but it should also be a responsibility that is recognized to report bad behavior to their superiors.
·Better training for various situations such as mental illness in people to how to deal with citizen's pet's such as dog's behavior
·Encouraging psych evaluations especially if there are issues affecting the officer in life.

a reply to: Bedlam

I do see part of this problem as also a problem with the way some laws have been made and the clumsy way they go about trying to achieve their original purpose.

So much seems to be an injustice especially if you hurt in some way someone robbing your home - which most of us get irate about and want to stop immediately but have been made utterly defenceless because if we take action we are committing a crime also. Add the PC laws into this and tempers and crap designed to earn money for lawyers out of the general public is in full swing.

There is also a terrific change in the ethos of policing in that quietly and slyly policing as been turned on the people the police were supposed to protect e.g. the public. Now the public seems to be seen by the Police as the enemy. This attitude was demonstrated by the blatant attitude of the police on the tv before two of them left the station for their turn of duty and said in front of the cameras "Who can we arrest today?" with such relish it was horrifying. There was no concept whatsoever of helping people just arresting them.

I have personally seen police lying in court when 7n of them lied and the only honest one actually told the truth albeit uncomfortably. But we have to face that a lot of policing is also a revenue earner through fines etc so instead of being public servants they are now dual financial collectors occasionally instigating debt through perceived crimes (and crimes of course) but their role has significantly changed.

Sadly we are gone from the days of the Police being a part of our community and well respected. Which is a reflection on the policy of government's instructions to the Police. One instruction a solicitor told me was that they were to collect as much dna from the public as they could and any excuse for an arrest was the best method because processing someone gave them that right.

I don't think its an easy road for the police today and one this that has rumbled down is that older police are not so happy with the calibre of recruits and their attitudes to the job so there are rifts within the Police forces themselves.

a reply to: Tjoran

I'm sorry, but I disagree. If I'm a cop, and I'm pulling someone over, I've got to know there is always the risk that the person could shoot me. But there is also the possibility that the person could miss. And at that point, if I'm armed, they won't get the chance to give it another try.

There are other scenarios too. A friend of mine was carjacked, years ago, by a guy with a handgun. She stopped to get gas and the guy got into her car and forced her at gunpoint to drive him somewhere else. He let her go, and was caught by police an hour later, but it could have very easily come down to a firefight with police, had they been stopped while he was in her car.

Crazy things happen at traffic stops. And a lot of times, innocent bystanders get caught in the middle. If my friend had been stopped, and the cop who stopped them unarmed, the only one with any form of defense would have been the carjacker. Then, you've got two people's lives at risk and no way for either of them to defend themselves.

I think sometimes people don't really understand exactly what a patrol officer's job actually entails. They don't just lounge in their cars by the roadside waiting for someone to speed by. They answer all sorts of emergency calls, too. And they risk their lives every day because they never know what they might be walking into. They need their weapons. My brother is a cop and I'd be terrified for him if he had to pull people over for DUI or answer a domestic without his weapon.

There are people out there who would love it if cops were required to be unarmed for routine calls and stops. There was just a thread the other day here, where a man called 911 to deliberately lure an officer to his residence so he could shoot him. People are insane out there.

If we disarm our law enforcement the criminal element out there would be like a bunch of fat kids turned loose in a candy store. They'd take full advantage...people are dying by each others' hands out there right now and the cops are armed to the teeth. How much worse would it be if they had to leave their weapons behind?

demand the required minimum IQ to be increased from 90 to 110

a reply to: TorqueyThePig

Stop being confrontational!! As the saying goes, "you catch more bees with honey than vinegar."

a reply to: darkbake

Under Obama's Defense Act, you don'even have the right to remain silent as they can detain you without Marandizing you indefinately.

a reply to: NewzNose

Uh one still has that (and all other) rights

just a swine club decides to both be paid to know it and act in spite of it

the president is the CiC and also swears to defend the Constitution if memory serves

originally posted by: TorqueyThePig
a reply to: nwtrucker

I am not getting that vibe.

I am getting the more "lines are being drawn in the sand" vibe.

I feel it, I don't like it, and I want it to change.

The trouble is who is 'creating that 'vibe'? Is the vibe valid? Where I live there is no issue at all. Nothing has changed...other than more support for the police.

Not your fault but Police vs citizens is a generality and I'm a citizen too. It's election time....

a reply to: tigertatzen

That's actually what spawned my idea.

Although not specifically geared towards inter-unit relations, there has been a TON of training going on at my place of employment (about 2,000 people including office and field personnel) and a side effect is that we've all made some sort of friends in different units and now many of us have a "go to" person in those respective units.

Sometimes just some brief interactions with others can go a long way towards building a relationship.

Honestly, I see a police officer I say hi, they look at you like scum. I saw a cashier joke with a police officer, he said nothing just looked at them annoyed. I saw someone pulled over the other day, the officer walked over to thier car like a predator. All his actions screamed "I'm gonna # your day." I wave to every cop I get eyesight with. Nothing but contempt from 90% of the cops I've interacted with, even slightly, and I see the same thing when they interact with anyone else.

It wasn't always like this, when I was young, even when I got caught shoplifting, the cops were at least decent human beings, they talked, they empathized. Yeah you were in trouble, but the people bringing you in felt like humans. When I waved and smiled, cops would do the same. If I said hi, they'd say hi back, if someone joked with them, they joke back or laugh. More and more I see nothing but contempt or division.

I'm not sure what we the citizens can do to improve relations with cops. It seems many cops have determined we're nothing but contempt and want nothing to do with us. I keep trying to be nice, to let them know, we're people and not the enemy. But I'm getting tired of it. I meet one decent cop for every ten I run into.

Also important to note imho is this:

"the police" as you said in the title, is not the personae who cease to exist after their shift, but their collective department: thus is one individual wearing your shirt in your town does theft or murder, all evil needs to win if for good to do nothing.

a reply to: TorqueyThePig

"Go after those who create the laws, not those forced to uphold them!".

I am amazed at those who can't see the government from local to state to federal who are those who have created a policing for profit policy from the top down!

Here is an example that I see happening in my rural area quite frequently. Traffic violation stop for burnt out tail light. Passenger arrested for possession of a small amount of weed. Ok, first I can see the issue of the police making sure they are safe while doing their job, but to search and find something that is not a threat to their safety in the search should not be able to be written up? I get why the police do it, PROFIT for the local politicians. I also understand it is part of policing for profit and has nothing to do with safety.

Now these issues have been hashed out in the courts already and guess what? The JUDGES said it's okay for the police to do it.

This is just one example, but citizens need to hold the judicial system AND public officials accountable for the laws they have created to make policing more about PROFIT than SAFETY?

Edit: QUOTAS!!!! Eliminate them!


If you notice, you rarely see law makers having the finger pointed at them, yet it is THEY who should be protested for creating the laws and by doing so forcing the police to arrests to add to the legislative coffers.

With that being said, I don't see it being fixed. The goal is a Federalized Police. It isn't a secret the Feds want it, it is just figuring out the darkness driving it and just how much worse it will be for the citizens.

a reply to: seeker1963

I don't know much about fema region 3 but the almerican thing says no

because at nurember "i shot the guy but tony told me to" did not hold and guy who got to play judge is american

and clearly an attempt to put on the police the old "dependent upon writers of laws" stigma
well no, the police are responsible for the police

writers are responsible for writings

easy

fp


and computers

yall police have to lay off the computers

seriously, the idea was to share data freely, not censor it into another tv

And if some poor soul writes "computer crimes" are a thing and calls it law, he's wrong despite his hat because:

the Constitution is the law, and unconstitutional opinions are not the law of this land.

Especially the "domestic enemy" & "pursuit of happiness" thing