quote:

Originally posted by Sig2340:
One must wonder if somewhere in the command chain a vile asshole had it out for Officer Jarrott.

quote:

Originally posted by HayesGreener:
It is not uncommon for drug enforcement officers to have uniforms make a traffic stop to scope out a drug suspect, but never alone involving a dangerous felon like this guy. It is done where the subject would presume he is being stopped for traffic alone, but this guy would know how this works. I would damn sure not have allowed one of my officers to be assigned to a whisper stop without a command officer approving it.

There is a wide range of experience levels among federal agents, but the truth is, most federal officers, including supervisors, have very little experience dealing with dangerous characters. They dress up like tactical officers and go to the FLETC schools, but generally have very little real world tactical street experience. Most municipal officers or deputies will make more arrests in one year than most federal agents will in a 25 year career. Exceptions might be DEA raid teams, U.S. Marshal fugitive teams, and FBI bank robbery squads in big cities, but otherwise would be skeptical of the real world experience levels and tactical sense of most federal agencies. My sense is the decisions here were made by inexperienced leadership out of sheer inexperience and ignorance, with a measure of arrogance added in. It's a damn shame, somebody needs to be held accountable but probably won't.

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Originally posted by cajunmuscle:

quote:

Originally posted by HayesGreener:
It is not uncommon for drug enforcement officers to have uniforms make a traffic stop to scope out a drug suspect, but never alone involving a dangerous felon like this guy. It is done where the subject would presume he is being stopped for traffic alone, but this guy would know how this works. I would damn sure not have allowed one of my officers to be assigned to a whisper stop without a command officer approving it.

There is a wide range of experience levels among federal agents, but the truth is, most federal officers, including supervisors, have very little experience dealing with dangerous characters. They dress up like tactical officers and go to the FLETC schools, but generally have very little real world tactical street experience. Most municipal officers or deputies will make more arrests in one year than most federal agents will in a 25 year career. Exceptions might be DEA raid teams, U.S. Marshal fugitive teams, and FBI bank robbery squads in big cities, but otherwise would be skeptical of the real world experience levels and tactical sense of most federal agencies. My sense is the decisions here were made by inexperienced leadership out of sheer inexperience and ignorance, with a measure of arrogance added in. It's a damn shame, somebody needs to be held accountable but probably won't.

In full disclosure....I'm a current DHS leo agaent, so I wont make comments on this particular case.

I would like to speak to the comments about feds not having much "real leo experience". This is absolutely TRUE. I've been in law enf for 27 years. I retired as a narcotics detective with 13 years with a major city pd in the SE when I jumped over to the feds. I was shocked at how little "real" law enforcement experience feds in general possess. There are a few with previous leo experience like myself, but overall that's not the case. Federal law enforcement is nowhere near what I did or experienced as a local. Generally speaking there is a distinct difference between the average fed and the average local / state officer who do "real" work.

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The fact that an army of law enforcement vehicles swarmed the scene moments later showed others clearly knew the danger.

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Originally posted by 2PAK:
Generally speaking, being a cop anywhere in the state of New Mexico is challenging. The easiest (read: safest) place is probably Los Alamos County. Starting to mid wages for officers in Los Alamos used higher than NMSP or even Albuquerque for patrol officers. Not sure today.

IMHO, it becomes exponentially more challenging in the other counties and State Patrol from there...

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Originally posted by jljones:
This certainly won't be popular or well received by those wanting a pound of flesh, but you are grabbing at straws in playing the blame game to make it make sense.

First off, for those of you that don't get this, or understand why, this tactic goes on with this exact type person a thousand times per day. Most days, we get away with it without anyone getting hurt. Why? Liability reduction. LE has found that most of the time, people like this can be picked off on what seems to be a routine traffic stop, and a single officer can talk them into cuffs without any muss or fuss. And most of the time it works.

You show up 10 deep, and the risk to everyone goes up. The risk that he runs and now you have a high speed pursuit that kills three people in a horrific crash and the response is "Oh my Gawd, why didn't they just take him at home". So, you roll up at his house, and a shoot out ensues that kills a passerby. And the response is "Oh my Gawd, why didn't they just stop him for a brake light or something when he goes to the store."

It's liability reduction, gents. No matter what the police do, they have consider the impact. I'd say that they thought they could have a unit or two talk him into cuffs. It failed.