bogie
Member
IMHO, the war on drugs and the increasingly stifly legal climate have had a few really nasty affects... The departments get federal money for the war on drugs, and if they confiscate something, they get money there too. Significantly more incentive to confiscate, you know? Also, with the "zero tolerance" and "everything exactly by the book" routines, you get officers who push the book as far as they can... Officer safety is all well and good, but they have pushed it past mall ninja...
They also have "tactical" toys. And since they have them, they wanna use them. A guy down at my friendly neighborhood pub got tanked, went outside, and attempted to drive the three blocks home. Got pulled over (good thing) and when he didn't immediately snap to and climb outta the vehicle for his stupid human tricks (duh... he was drunk - what did they expect?), they tazered him. With witnesses... Guess what - they just got tazers, so hey, they have to use them... Gotta be MUCH easier than just reaching in and dragging a hundred and fifty pounds of soggy induhvidual out to the concrete, right?
IMHO, two groups tend to be the most at fault at "black glove" syndrome... Younger males, and females... We will respect their authoritay... Which leads to us not respecting THEM...
We open our -private- club to local departments for training. On more than one occasion, I've been at the firing line, and had them pull slowly along it in their cruisers, giving us the evil eye... One fellow made sure we noticed him, and then gunned it, spraying gravel. NO style, you know? Fun part was that I was chatting with the fellow who was going to be the instructor for the next weekend... Karma rocks.
Town I live in has a "cruising" day... All the guys who have death machines hidden in their garages get a free pass to come drive a loop.... And they close off some of the streets... Well, at one exit, there are a couple of stop lights right after each other, and they're really not all that synced... So cars are backed up about a half mile (rush hour) and we're just trying to get home... I get to the second one, and there's three donut munchers watching the blocking off one of the streets, and watching the stop light and the line of cars... I call over "Hey, you guys have an unsafe situation back on the highway - maybe you should direct traffic and get some of these cars moving!" (pretty much the exact language), and Ossifer Jane stalks over, in full tactical 5'3" kick yer 6'2" butt mode, and starts grilling me... What's my name. What's my license number. Then the light turns green, people behind me start honking, she realizes what she's doing, and waves me on... Several turns on through the detour, I spot the chief... Heh, heh... Karma rocks.
They also have "tactical" toys. And since they have them, they wanna use them. A guy down at my friendly neighborhood pub got tanked, went outside, and attempted to drive the three blocks home. Got pulled over (good thing) and when he didn't immediately snap to and climb outta the vehicle for his stupid human tricks (duh... he was drunk - what did they expect?), they tazered him. With witnesses... Guess what - they just got tazers, so hey, they have to use them... Gotta be MUCH easier than just reaching in and dragging a hundred and fifty pounds of soggy induhvidual out to the concrete, right?
IMHO, two groups tend to be the most at fault at "black glove" syndrome... Younger males, and females... We will respect their authoritay... Which leads to us not respecting THEM...
We open our -private- club to local departments for training. On more than one occasion, I've been at the firing line, and had them pull slowly along it in their cruisers, giving us the evil eye... One fellow made sure we noticed him, and then gunned it, spraying gravel. NO style, you know? Fun part was that I was chatting with the fellow who was going to be the instructor for the next weekend... Karma rocks.
Town I live in has a "cruising" day... All the guys who have death machines hidden in their garages get a free pass to come drive a loop.... And they close off some of the streets... Well, at one exit, there are a couple of stop lights right after each other, and they're really not all that synced... So cars are backed up about a half mile (rush hour) and we're just trying to get home... I get to the second one, and there's three donut munchers watching the blocking off one of the streets, and watching the stop light and the line of cars... I call over "Hey, you guys have an unsafe situation back on the highway - maybe you should direct traffic and get some of these cars moving!" (pretty much the exact language), and Ossifer Jane stalks over, in full tactical 5'3" kick yer 6'2" butt mode, and starts grilling me... What's my name. What's my license number. Then the light turns green, people behind me start honking, she realizes what she's doing, and waves me on... Several turns on through the detour, I spot the chief... Heh, heh... Karma rocks.