But to me, it seems these people who are actually going through the system to acquire a gun probably wont be pulling it on a police officer anytime soon. I have a feeling there is still some humanity left in people where even if they were carrying a gun, they wouldn't feel the need to shoot someone because they got pulled over for speeding.

So while that argument has some valid points, I don't feel you can throw out the human equation in all of this. Does increased levels of gun ownership lead to more gun-related violence? Absolutely. Does it lead to everyone owning a gun to start a shootout with the cops because they have the ability to? No. And at the end of the day, getting back to the argument at hand, I doubt tasers are being used in situations where the risk of guns would even be relevant. I believe if a cop had any worry that a man they're arresting might have a gun, they'd pull their gun out, not their taser. Don't know, just thinking aloud really.

Are there any statistics on tasers becoming more available to police officers?

Ordinary people aren't going to pull a gun on the cops, not even drug mules are that stupid. Otherising the criminal element is also childish and short-sighted because practically everybody has broken the law and is a criminal. The rampant paranoia present in the American police force is not justified, it's an occupier's mentality.

Police forces have become increasingly militarized not as a response to how well armed the populace is, but because the nature of the drug war has put them on a constant wartime footing. It also doesn't help that cops are scum who like to spend relief money on APCs.

if any pigs try to taze me imma pull out my gat

usa usa usa

I didn't find any good sources showing the rate of availability for tasers, compared to the rise in taser use, or for taser availability by itself. Admittedly, that's also not what I was looking for at the time.

The Largest Street Gang in America hint: It's cops

Preview: The first case on this video is about a sixteen year old boy who was walking on an overpass, fell over, and then was tased by officers on the ground below 11 times.

There's not much justification for the cops' actions in the first half of that video, but the principle behind the second part doesn't strike me as blue wall of silence so much as sound reasoning (even if some of those officers are way too edgy for their own good). I fully expect people would take a form home with them and fill it out with falsified info just to put pressure on police or to try to leverage money from the dept.

Fuck you. Nobody is obligated to identify themselves to a police officer for access to internal affairs. The idea that cops can ever be justified in intimidating citizens is wrong thinking.

No, but coming into a station with only the vaguest details (read: none) and outright refusing to identify oneself to an officer is what it is. Suspicious.

If I had a complaint with an officer and I didn't want to give them my identification, I would say "I'm not comfortable giving you that info." Which tells the officer a lot more than "Nah, that's cool" and trying quickly to walk away.

I can understand the reasoning behind not wanting to get into the details of a complaint against an officer, and I can see a law-abiding citizen not wanting to do so. I really can. But without anything to go on, why should the opposite be true of Police and subvert the public trust by allowing everyone to get the form and make up details/injuries later?

ok I'm going to roleplay a cop for a second


I'm going to need to see your ID. If you're going to file a complaint I need to see some identification.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING COMING HERE INTO MY POLICE STATION AND REFUSING TO IDENTIFY YOURSELF? DO YOU KNOW I CAN ARREST YOU FOR REFUSING TO COMPLY? IDENTIFY YOURSELF OR GET OUT OF MY POLICE STATION.

"You haven't arrested me, officer, and I haven't committed an offense. I don't have to comply to anything yet. But if you don't want to give me the form I know you have, then I'm going to leave peaceably."

At no point do you want to give them ammunition for "resisting arrest" or "disorderly conduct." Unfortunately a lot of the people in the second chapter do.

Of course, this is Texas penal code, so some states may have it tougher than others.

My point is that there's a way to avoid a confrontation, and if an officer tells you to leave, then staying there and persisting with the same question he's refused to answer is really just stupid. Don't poke the bear. Accept the reality that's right in front of you and go through a different channel.

Okay, except the testers weren't dressed or behaving like a pleasant white guy, Skexis. The whole point of the test is to demonstrate how police departments disenfranchise people, and the people they disenfranchise are going to be poor minorities, with poor communication skills. Or did you not pick up on the fact that the testers were ex-cops and knew exactly how they could handle police if they really wanted a form?

"After we're done having this peaceful and not stressful conversation, would you like to join me for a spot of tea at the local parlor? Perhaps we can discuss monocle-polishing techniques, hmmmm"

It kind of bothers me that you think that there is a specific sequence of words that, once repeated, will grant the speaker immunity from cop dickishness. I find it equally disturbing that you feel a need for such a script to be recited, that by simply saying "no" the civilian somehow deserves to be treated like that.

To be quite honest Skex, most officers are going to pretty much cut you off right there and start pressuring you back. Don't ever say you don't have to comply with what a cop says, because they'll more often then not find a way to MAKE you comply.

It kind of bothers me that people think cop dickishness is universal and unavoidable.

I don't think there is a goddamn abracadabra phrase, I think there's a way to appeal to someone's sense of right and wrong without being foolish. You're whitewashing the whole thing, though. Parts of the video were worse than others, and suggesting I approve of strip searching an assault victim without cause serves your own ego better than any point you wanted to make.

The bottom line is that if cops didn't practice preventative measures (i.e. detaining suspicious people) then everyone would be up in arms about how many murderers, drug dealers and rapists were simply walking the streets. The fact that cops have a great deal of flexibility in how and why they detain people is what you're angry at. Not the fact that anyone can't walk in and get a form without at least the scarcest of details.

And if you could not treat me like a five year old, that would be just peachy too.

Brady, the point of the video I saw (in plain writing, no less) was that the cops pressure anyone and everyone regardless of color or creed into doing what they say just because they're all power-hungry. Which is not true.

Attitudes Towards armed officers
 

As much as i wish i could argue that (im english) i think this clip speaks volumes about English attitudes to this subject:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwDZjS2BT08

really because I was only talking about the film in question so...

I whole-heartedly believe that your "just say this" statement is false and grounded in naivete. You don't have to give them ammunition for disorderly conduct, they can find it themselves.

Also if you can explain to me how preventative measures come in when asking for complaint forms plz

It's true, you don't have to have done something wrong to be detained. You do to be arrested. This film makes no distinction between the two and I'd be curious which cases were treated as one or the other. It's one of the reasons alarm bells are ringing in my head.

I am resistant to what amounts to a propaganda video. Yes, some officers can and will abuse their power, because the nature of the job is such that it will attract power-hungry people. But my original post was discussing the principle behind why the officers would not want to give the form out and not the actions of the officers.

Brady wanted to play make-believe, so I played along. I said what I would have said to an officer of the law. If you don't like how I said it, that's another thing. There's also nothing stopping someone from playing nice with the guy or using a joke to break the ice, but I prefer to be straightforward and speak without guile, so if the example officer decided to detain me for whatever reason, I have no legal recourse. I may not enjoy time spent in a cell for nothing, and I may go to internal affairs to suggest cooler heads need to prevail over in precinct 32, but my outrage would be proportionate to whatever they had done to me. The race issue is another can of worms, but I'll just say if I was a black man I'd probably be considerably more pissed depending on how I was treated.

The 'ammunition' thing was the wrong way to say what I wanted. Aside from arresting people who are clearly guilty due to evidence in hand, officers have a duty to keep crimes from being committed, and part of that is detaining people who may have or may be intending to commit a crime.

Asking for a form, obviously is not a crime, since I've already granted that a person should have a right to get a complaint form, but if your behavior is such that you are fidgety and/or avoid direct questioning, that is suspicious, and makes a cop wonder what you have to hide. Maybe it's nothing. But it's within their power to detain a person (not arrest them) for something like that. I don't have to agree with it to know it's true when I walk into a station and ask for a form. Which is why I phrased the response like I did, straightforwardly, addressing their concerns if not their questions.

Fuck principles. They are public servants, and it is their duty to serve requested forms.

So long as police unions keep using their dues to fight prosecutions of officers under investigation for abuses of power to murder, all police are culpable for those crimes.

Excusing their behavior is the source of the problem. Americans have this bizarre infatuation with power and a deference to authority that should not exist in a free society. Who gives a shit if somebody is acting suspicious? Acting suspicious is not a crime.