Re-read my post (# 43)....my statement was "Why do we, as untrained Monday-morning QBs, now have the insight to be able to develop real solutions to this?"

Insight....you could take that to mean "experience, credentials, a background in L.E. training". No where do I suggest you don't have the "right" to discuss.....I simply give you zero credibility at an objective solution with previous comments like "Gun totin' cops are getting out of control."

I fail to see where any previous post I've written in this thread gives that impression. Please help me understand where your defensiveness is coming from....

Are you a "damn hippie"? Not judging....just try to learn more about you.

The line was not the best I could have chosen, but I don't believe it dis-credits my every single opinion on this matter. There was some footage on the news the other night of a man brandishing a knife in some sort of standoff with about 8 policemen, all with handguns drawn and aimed, advancing on him from about a 90 degree arc, IOW, none of the poicemen could have hit each other in a cross -fire, but they had the guy effectively surrounded. They said the guy had been subsequently shot and killed.

I'm looking at this and thinking, maybe the world is better off w/o the guy but he probably has a family who would think differently. I'm thinking how about some pepper spray for starters? The stuff takes the piss out of me a bit -- tried it once.... whew...

Secondly, that is exactly the sort of circumstance a taser would be useful in. Instead, we see police use it on people, unarmed, who won't comply with police commands. If they didn't have tasers, they certainly should have had pepper spray. In the Roman coliseum, one weapon was a heavy net, with weights on the perimiter. These should be standard issue in the trunk of police cars. You fling it right and then pull the rope cinching the perimeter tight so the joker is restrained.

This is why I don't buy your assertion that I/we are "untrained Monday-morning QBs." The people training and running our PDs are trained?!? Is that why there is so little imagination displayed? How much do you think PDs pay out in cases where a civilian is killed and the family raises bloody hell? Even if they're found completely un-liable, the hassle, desk time for the officers, and court costs have to be substantial.

Even if you don't like street creeps, if less shootings leads to less friction for the PD in the future, bold new measures should be taken to minimize accidental shootings, accidental being anything that could have been avoided with a little time and finesse.

Furthermore, you have no comment about my description of the Oakland PD's misuse of riot control weapons? Witnesses there stated there was no riot, no interference in Port of Oakland business but the police, totin' less lethal but dangerous rifles, embarked on a li'l turkey shoot.

Similar bid-ness in Miami a year or two back, where retired union protesters, completely peaceful, were held at gunpoint, face down on the pavement, w/o provocation. One man was shot in the head with a bean-bag round, which are supposed to be aimed at the torso. Doctors said if it had hit a bit up or down, he could have been dead or paralyzed. I saw pictures of his wounds. Damn thing embedded in the flesh on the side of his head. The guy was filming the event because he favored the Free Trade of the Americas Zone and was preparing a documentary about it. He has video of Miami cops leveling bean-bag shooting shotguns at head level. Those were guns those cops were totin.'

I saw an interview with Miami Police Chief John Timoney and the guy was unbelievable. The man has no business being a police chief with that kind of attitude.

I saw the Christmas film "It's a Wonderful Life," a few days back. One scene has the town cabbie banging on the door of his cab to alert the town policeman of a suspicious fare in the back seat of his cab. In the old days, in a small town, police had a better relationship with cabbies. I did that once in Seattle; the guy was drunk, belligerant, and wouldn't tell me where he was going but wouldn't get out. I saw a cop, waved my arm and pulled over. The cop smoothed things right out. A few other cases like that.

Too often, I felt the cops regarded me as a PITA -- hell, all cabbies are scumbags, crooks, and lowlifes, everyone knows that, after all. Once, on the freeway, I entered a tunnel that goes under the convention center. It's dark inside and when traffic is backed up in there, it's easy to not see it out in the sunlight. I saw I needed to stop and did so. The car behind me stopped, but the one behind him didn't and the chain reaction sent me into the car in front of me, minor damage, if any. The cops came, didn't say what their verdict was.

Like a fool, I'd been traveling, I was about 30 and a hippie looking fool, didn't have strong roots so my license had my parents address on it. These two cops had been looking at me like I was the fool in the whole thing. I couldn't quite get it. I had stopped w/o hitting the car in front of me. Everyone at the scene agreed with that. So my mother opens a letter from the court saying I'd failed to stop and the whole thing could be settled for $110. She, thinking she was doing me a favor, sent in a check.

When I found out, I wanted to contest it big time, but since they had received payment, the case was beyond closed. I was so pissed. Those two guys played me for the chump -- it was pretty common back then if you could be i.d.ed as a hippie.

A lot of cabbies are pretty rough, but w/o 'em, there'd be a lot more drunk drivers on the road. It is a service that benefits police to some small degree and they ought to have at least some respect. Rarely did I see even bare traces of it.

I don't want to have a bad attitude about cops. I also don't blindly trust that someone is using my tax dollars to make sure they do their job right. That "someone" is you and me.

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

You guys think you have problems!!!!

Just try being a 'furner' - even from a friendly country - and see how much attention your TSA pays you!!!!!!

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1988 W126 420 SE

beware of fundamentalists!

It seems you have a severe bias in this case by your above statement.

Trust? Hardly, just suggesting we not be so quick to judge the actions of others when, clearly, there is an admitted bias.

Dude, I've given a couple of examples where it appears clear to me, police abused the power of the guns they were issued. These examples were both with non-lethal weapons -- non-leathal when used properly -- but they were guns nonetheless.

You've not addressed either example. Apparently you think repeating your charge that I have bias based on my poorly chosen statement: "gun-totin' cops out of control," substitutes for rebuttal. On further examination, I don't think my line was that far off-base. The footage of the 8 or so cops in NOLA facing down the guy with a knife in a semi-circle was just a bit weird. The gun has become the main, almost the only tool apparently.

As for my judging the actions of others, what the hell am I supposed to do in the face of the incident in Oakland, where the OPD went off on a little turkey shoot? (Oh hey, it's not deadly force, let's have some fun with these peacenik creeps!!) The longshoreman waiting at the gate all said that the protesters were not being violent.

Repeta me, por favor, power corrupts, and I see gradual moves to police state thinking and reality.

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K