Detroit PD. Black glove plus?

[Motor City Sam]

I've made an attempt to clarify that in a later post. I do think that, when you mention SWAT-style tactics to Detroiters, they will think of Ayanna's death. That was a SWAT-style raid in which a young girl was killed, which is naturally memorable.



Well, if your desire was for a "more balanced" article, I guess I'm wondering where that "balance" is supposed to come from. Who is going to defend what happened, you know, speak to the press and make the article more "objective" or something. That was your complaint, wasn't it?



Are we veering off into some kind of "human shield" argument here? If so, that's so tasteless I won't address it.



Sure, because the whole conceit of the case was that you have 48 hours to solve a case before the trail goes cold. Nobody wants to end the episode saying, "We lost him." The pressure of being a live storyline is intense, as you've seen plenty of people on "reality television" behave like perfect jackasses. Anyway, if what you say is true, I guess I'd ask why the police stopped tactical raids and why Bing put the kibosh on TV crews. Seems pretty damning when you look at it that way.



Um, yeah, and if cops were to just run into crime scenes, guns blazing, probably fewer cops would be killed. But that's not what police do. At least not in Oakland County or Beverly Hills. Saying that something could save a police officer's life doesn't always make it right.



No, only her blanket was burned by it going off while she was sleeping on the porch. [[Where's all the expensive "night vision" hardware to see there's a kid sleeping out there?) Instead, what killed her was an amped-up "reality star" cop shooting first and thinking later. I'd hate to be that guy...



Just because an article doesn't have quotes to "balance it out" in your opinion doesn't mean the person who wrote it is biased. Sometimes, nobody except nut jobs are there to provide the "balance" you seek, and that's the point I'm trying to make.

Yeah, I would like a balanced article and I don't thnk anyone who happens to disagree with your point of view should be called a nutjob. Where did I say they need to find someone to what happened to Ayanna? They found lawyers to criticize the cops without any context for their comments. Would it be so hard to find lawyers from the police union of a defense attorney to say something like, "Let's not rush to judgement"?

And why are you coming up with all of this hypotheticl stuff to support your argument? You ask if I am "veering into human shield" territory, when at no point did I suggest anything like that. You're talking about throwing flash bangs in the middle of domestic calls and using Desert Eagles. You're saying that someone would actually call Ayanna's death no big deal. None of that stuff happened, or is happeing. And are you actually suggesting that a law enforcement professional is likely to act like a jackass based on what some idiot does on a typical reality show? And just so you know, plenty of 48 Hours cases end without an arrest. Some of them are even televised.

For you to call the officer who fired that shot that killed Ayanna an "ampled up reality star cop" shows a lot about where you are coming from in this whole argument. Do you know this officer? Obviously, you weren't there when the shooting happened, so how do you know. It appears as if you are projecting a lot of your own biases on that officer, me, and this entire thread.

[Motor City Sam]

Still missing the part about the DPD ever responding to domestic violence calls with machine guns. Where is that statement?

That's because it's not there. Apparently that idea of cops showing up at domestic calls with submachine guns was hyperbole meant to support the idea that the DPD is overracting to crime and hurting the community by using sophisticated weapons and tactics.

[Meddle]

I had a few years on the job with NYPD and, with relatively few exceptions, we recognized that the boot heel is not the means to deal with public discontent.

In my opinion, maybe New York cops are better used to dealing with the public.

You mean like 3 of them shooting an unarmed man over 50 times outside a wedding?

[Detroitnerd]

You mean like 3 of them shooting an unarmed man over 50 times outside a wedding?

Sigh, well, in my experience. For the record, I am white, and was usually dressed pretty well when I lived in New York.

[jcole]

Aiyana wasn't on the porch when shot; she was in the living room. The couch was moved to the porch after the shooting.
From Time magazine:

With a warrant in hand, they planned to search the house for the 34-year-old suspect. Officers say they announced their presence and then tossed a flash grenade into the front window of one side of the duplex to disorient the people inside. Then, police say, officers entered the house, where a 46-year-old grandmother in the front room allegedly struggled with an officer. Next, police say, an officer's gun discharged, fatally shooting the woman's 7-year-old granddaughter Aiyana Stanley Jones.
At a press conference Tuesday, defense attorney Geoffrey Fieger, who is representing Aiyana's family, offered this narrative: The flash grenade was thrown through the plate-glass window of the home's living room, apparently landing on Aiyana, who was sleeping with her grandmother on a sofa. Almost simultaneously, he said, a shot was fired into the house. The grandmother, Mertilla Jones, said Tuesday that as soon as the grenade shattered the window, she leaped to the floor. "I wanted to reach my granddaughter," Jones said, sobbing loudly.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...#ixzz1DfkkZuFr

[Detroitnerd]

Aiyana wasn't on the porch when shot; she was in the living room. The couch was moved to the porch after the shooting.
From Time magazine:

Whoa. They raided the wrong side of the duplex? I think this highlights my problem with no-knock warrants.

[jcole]

Whoa. They raided the wrong side of the duplex? I think this highlights my problem with no-knock warrants.

I don't care what it highlights; I'm pointing out that she was not killed on the porch.

[Detroitnerd]

I don't care what it highlights; I'm pointing out that she was not killed on the porch.

No, she was killed in her living room. On the wrong side of the duplex. Thanks for the clarification!

[jcole]

My dad was a Detroit cop for 37 yrs. One of his partners was killed in a DV; could have been Dad. So I really don't have a problem with how they show up when they get a call like that; as far as I'm concerned they could arrive in full armor with a battle axe, a sub-machine gun and a bazooka. As long as they stay alive.

[Detroitnerd]

My dad was a Detroit cop for 37 yrs. One of his partners was killed in a DV; could have been Dad. So I really don't have a problem with how they show up when they get a call like that; as far as I'm concerned they could arrive in full armor with a battle axe, a sub-machine gun and a bazooka. As long as they stay alive.

My dad was a cop too. He saw a lot of dead people, but his bright moment was delivering a kid in the back of a car. I still have all the letters people wrote to the department, saying he was polite and professional, helpful too. He really wanted to help people, and I respected that most about him.

As for your response: Are you seriously are advocating the use of military tactics and the likely death of innocent civilians so that police don't get hurt? That is a completely irresponsible point of view. This is the problem with militarizing police, it turns people into the enemy, policing into an occupation.

A half-century ago, you know what you had? No SWAT teams, no automatic weapons, no grenades. You had Sam the Cop. Sam the Cop knew every business owner on the street, knew every homeowner, knew all the folks on his block. And they were feeding him information the whole time. And if Sam the Cop brought you to your parents and said you were doing something wrong, your parents would kick your ass. Because they trusted Sam. And when Sam would retire, everybody on the block would throw a big party for him, because they all knew and trusted him.

You would sacrifice all that, turn urban areas into zones where police tote bazookas and, likely, blow up innocent people's houses with everybody inside? Poison any possible trust between the police and the people they're supposed to protect? All to protect police from harm? You're not talking about policing; you're talking about soldiering. Again, that's the problem with militarization of police and this whole god-damned drug war:

"This drug thing, this ain't police work. No, it ain't. I mean, I can send any fool with a badge and a gun up on them corners and jack a crew and grab vials. But policing? I mean, you call something a war and pretty soon everybody gonna be running around acting like warriors. They gonna be running around on a damn crusade, storming corners, slapping on cuffs, racking up body counts. And when you at war, you need a fucking enemy. And pretty soon, damn near everybody on every corner is your fucking enemy. And soon the neighborhood that you're supposed to be policing, that's just occupied territory."

[dookie joe]

Again, I have not heard of any incidents of DPD SWAT rolling out on relatively minor calls with machine guns.

Maybe not with machine guns, but the whole point of Warren Evans' "Mobile Strike Force" was to flood "statistical crime hot spots" with the strike force, which was made up of several DPD militarized units such as SRT and Gang Squad. The Mobile Strike Force would investigate everything from domestic violence calls to routine traffic stops in an effort to get guns off the street [[and get federal dollars).

[dookie joe]

My dad was a Detroit cop for 37 yrs. One of his partners was killed in a DV; could have been Dad. So I really don't have a problem with how they show up when they get a call like that; as far as I'm concerned they could arrive in full armor with a battle axe, a sub-machine gun and a bazooka. As long as they stay alive.

You do realize that it was far more likely for a cop to get killed in the 1920s than today? People act like it's never been more dangerous for cops than it is now. That's a total falsehood.

[jcole]

You do realize that it was far more likely for a cop to get killed in the 1920s than today? People act like it's never been more dangerous for cops than it is now. That's a total falsehood.

First of all, my father wasn;t a cop in the '20's; he was on the force from 1936-1973; he saw 3 riots and lots of other crap in that time.
I don't advocate battle tactics but I do advocate cops going into a situation armed in whatever way will keep them safe; sorry if you disagree that police should be afforded safety on the job.
What we had a half century ago was the beginning of the 1960's; and entirely different world than the one you depict with Officer Sam, the neighborhood cop; it was an era of civil unrest, riots and demonstrations in the streets.

[Detroitnerd]

What we had a half century ago was the beginning of the 1960's; and entirely different world than the one you depict with Officer Sam, the neighborhood cop; it was an era of civil unrest, riots and demonstrations in the streets.

The riots of 1942, 1943 and 1967 were hardly the Detroit police's most shining moments. For critics of the largely white police force, these were traumas that offered proof that police unfairly targeted blacks over whites. You do realize that the police were stopping black people from moving into their projects in 1942, shooting unarmed protesters in 1943 Big Four-style [[while mollycoddling white rioters), and precipitated the 1967 unrest via STRESS and supercops hardcore-charging into a private after-hours party for returning Vietnam vets? You leave out the possibility that Sam the Cop policed white neighborhoods with their help, while his peers in black neighborhoods were seen as an occupying force.

I'm trying to parse what you're saying and I can't help but get this sense that you feel policing minority neighborhoods requires heavy-handed tactics to "keep officers safe." I am not alone in the feeling that this is the same tendency that helps people see police as an occupying force that's not to be trusted, which only breeds more problems.

[jcole]

Parse away, 'nerd, you have no idea who I am or what I mean. You're the one who just rhapsodized about 'Sam the neighborhood cop' and the good old days a half century ago, and now you're telling us how the cops were rotten in the 40's and 60's. Make up your mind. Seems like you just want to stir the pot, as you usually do,.

[Detroitnerd]

Parse away, 'nerd, you have no idea who I am or what I mean. You're the one who just rhapsodized about 'Sam the neighborhood cop' and the good old days a half century ago, and now you're telling us how the cops were rotten in the 40's and 60's. Make up your mind. Seems like you just want to stir the pot, as you usually do,.

Haha. Hardly. The story of Sam the Cop is a favorite anecdote of a trusted old pal who grew up on the near west side in the 1950s, although it may have had a lot to do with the fact that that was a white neighborhood. And you'll note I'm making an effort to distinguish between good police work and bad police work. The worst of it was when police were cracking down on the "era of civil unrest" their tough-guy tactics often helped foment.

I take it that, since we are trying to have a serious discussion about police tactics, that after advocating the irresponsible use of force that typifies poor police work, you are going to take your marbles and go away, accusing those who disagree with you of "stirring the pot." Nice deflection. See ya round, jcole.

[jcole]

Haha. Hardly. The story of Sam the Cop is a favorite anecdote of a trusted old pal who grew up on the near west side in the 1950s, although it may have had a lot to do with the fact that that was a white neighborhood. And you'll note I'm making an effort to distinguish between good police work and bad police work. The worst of it was when police were cracking down on the "era of civil unrest" their tough-guy tactics often helped foment.

I take it that, since we are trying to have a serious discussion about police tactics, that after advocating the irresponsible use of force that typifies poor police work, you are going to take your marbles and go away, accusing those who disagree with you of "stirring the pot." Nice deflection. See ya round, jcole.

Sorry, my marbles and I went out this evening instead of hanging around on here.
If you noticed, in my first post I was referring to police going on DV cases, not every type of call; these are many times the most dangerous and I believe that the police should be allowed to protect themselves. Apparently you don't.
Now that I clarified that, I will take my marbles and go home; it's late and I've said what I have to say.