quote:

Originally posted by P220 Smudge:
Well, I finally watched it. Or at least until the medics arrived. That was tough to sit through. Let's be frank: If that was six white cops, Memphis would be a smoking pile of rubble right now.

Let's face it, every large city in America would be on fire right now. This was probably the most horrific video of police action I have ever seen. Nobody can possibly defend this conduct. However, it will be interesting to see the social mantra shift from racist cops (can't do that here unless they identify as white) to condemning American policing in general. Taking a one in a million incident (literally) and labeling these rogue thugs in uniform as somehow "systemic."

I’m paranoid anyway, we’re all under surveillance.

By God, Kemp's actions have worked!

1000 guard troops has kept the leftist domestic terrorist trash out of the city.

quote:

Originally posted by Mars_Attacks:
By God, Kemp's actions have worked!

1000 guard troops has kept the leftist domestic terrorist trash out of the city.

That worked down there, and up north here Jan/Feb isn't really riot weather. They prefer it to be warmer. Now if this had happened in June or July, there'd be cities burning.

I do find it a bit strange you have a specialized street team trying to perform a traffic stop, kind of curious if they were looking for him, if there’s a history maybe…

quote:

Originally posted by SigSauerP226:
I do find it a bit strange you have a specialized street team trying to perform a traffic stop, kind of curious if they were looking for him, if there’s a history maybe…

There was not. They were not. And it wouldn’t matter if they were.

Scorpion hit target areas and saturated them. Memphis has an enormous problem with auto theft and the stolen vehicles then being used for additional crimes. Most likely they were out looking for stolen cars, saw something that made them suspicious, and then things went straight to hell.

An added wrinkle is right before this happened there was a crew rolling around impersonating police and committing robberies. It’s entirely possible that Nichols thought he was being robbed, leading to his initial refusal to stop. This is precisely why I don’t like unmarked cars or officers out of uniform making traffic stops.

Bunch of angry sounding guys jump out of unmarked cars shouting at me wearing sweat shirts and beards? I’m not full of confidence those are police.

Plain clothes and unmarked should be used as spotters. Uniforms and marked units should make the stops. Task Force officers doing hands on police stuff should be in uniform and look like police.

NONE OF THAT excuses what these five former officers did in the least. I don’t care if they had seen Nichols kill 4 men and eat three of them. You can’t do what they did. Ever.

quote:

Originally posted by copaup:


Plain clothes and unmarked should be used as spotters. Uniforms and marked units should make the stops.

Must be nice to to work in a place where you have all these resources standing around just looking for work. In the real world, these resources don’t exist. At least not in any agency around here.

There may also be a couple of people that will sell dope, stolen property, stolen guns to TFOs in uniform, but I’m also going to guess that’s going to be more of a no as well.

quote:

TFOs in uniform

What is a TFO??

It is clear that the mass media is doing everything they can to keep rubbing this in our faces in the hopes a riot will break out somewhere.


Oops... spoke too soon, Philly just went riot.

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:

quote:

Originally posted by copaup:


Plain clothes and unmarked should be used as spotters. Uniforms and marked units should make the stops.

Must be nice to to work in a place where you have all these resources standing around just looking for work. In the real world, these resources don’t exist. At least not in any agency around here.

I wasn't aware I didn't work in the real world. That particular unit was made up of both unmarked and marked units. I ran a plain clothes team for over a year back when I was young.

We are almost 800 officers under complement and most shifts still try to run a unmarked car and/or a plain clothes unit every night they can to watch for prowlers. They aren't supposed to be going hands on though. Police who don't look like police doing police stuff lead to major issues. Blue on blue and "I didn't know those guys were cops so I shot at them" being high on the list.

If you don't have enough people to have someone in uniform to work with the unmarked units, don't use unmarked units.

Given the context of this thread debating large agency tactics versus the other 98 percent of LE is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Memphis is north of 2000 officers and this didn’t happen because of an unmarked vehicle.

quote:

Originally posted by Rightwire:
It is clear that the mass media is doing everything they can to keep rubbing this in our faces in the hopes a riot will break out somewhere.


Oops... spoke too soon, Philly just went riot.

Could it be because the Eagles just won a trip to the Super Bowl?

quote:

Originally posted by radioman:

quote:

TFOs in uniform

What is a TFO??

Task Force Officer

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:
Given the context of this thread debating large agency tactics versus the other 98 percent of LE is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Memphis is north of 2000 officers and this didn’t happen because of an unmarked vehicle.

I don't believe I said it did. I was trying to provide some background on the situation and in doing so point out one of the flaws in which a certain agency I may or may not be affiliated with does things that could have at least contributed to a bunch of crooks wearing badges going cowboy so other agencies might learn a lesson we...THEY... are learning much to their chagrin.

Maybe I'm reading tone wrong, but I'm tired. Bad, bad tired. My soul hurts from this. I didn't know those guys directly, but I know people on that unit. Good people. We've had an officer attacked outside his home this morning. An officer completely uninvolved in the situation. Another got followed all the way to their neighborhood until marked units made the scene.

MPD had 5 officers go completely off the rails and do something unimaginable. "Don't murder people" seems like an obvious lesson to take from this, so I'm left trying to process it by finding other lessons we can take from it other than "don't hire murderers." Maybe a reason why a totally innocent person ran, because he WAS totally innocent. None of that should have happened. None of it.

Nichols was not the problem here. I find it deeply irritating when people, often other police, try to put the blame at least partially on him by asking questions like "well why did he run?" or "what was his history like." That's not important. What's important is "what did we do wrong and how do we make sure nothing remotely like it ever, ever, happens again?" It's entirely likely he ran because he thought he honestly didn't think that first car that lit him up was the police. They certainly didn't look or sound like police when they jumped out on him. They looked like criminals and were proven to be criminals.

MPD hasn't had 2k sworn officers in nearly a decade. Any given shift is a third overtime just to make minimum complement. And given that this absolute disaster occurred on a large department, large department tactics are fairly germane to the conversation.

Even before this happened, we'd already had circumstances pop up where officers were shot at and the defense was "I didn't know they were the police and thought I was gettin robbed." That's a strong argument to a jury. Police who don't look like police doing police stuff is an invitation for bad things to happen. Not things like THIS. Things like police funerals or justified shootings that shouldn't have been necessary. What I'm saying is when you have police doing hands on police stuff it's probably a really good idea that they are obviously police. And maybe don't put guys with 3 years or less on into a high speed saturation unit without extremely close supervision lest they lose track of reality and their basic humanity.

But I'm out. Like I said, I'm probably emotionally compromised on this topic and don't want to say something I don't mean or will later regret.

I’m not emotionally attached to any of this. Which is the reason my reply was short, sweet and to the point.

You seem to be trying to assign blame, look for reasonings to comprehend why or how this happened. Sometimes you just have to accept that evil lurks amongst us. You can take rookies and put them in street crimes. As long as they have sound supervision, they can and will thrive. Unmarked vehicles had nothing to do with this. You can claim that it does but surely you don’t think this would have ended any differently had they been pushing a roller. Or wearing class A’s with a campaign cover or bus driver hat.

Evil.

We can blame all sorts of things to make ourselves feel better. Or attempt to heal “us” on how this happened on “our” watch. We can disconnect and say “ah this happened 2000 miles from me and had nothing to do with me”. We can take solace that we work in a two man agency. Or 10. Or 100. And that it couldn’t happen here.

What we have to recognize is that evil is in our society. And police are a cross section of society. Therefore, evil exists. You can’t reason with it. Most cases, try as you may, you can’t understand it. All we can do is keep our head down and keep trying to do the right thing. For the right reasons.

Evil. Some people are just fucking evil.

Be well and rest.

quote:

Originally posted by copaup:

quote:

Originally posted by SigSauerP226:
I do find it a bit strange you have a specialized street team trying to perform a traffic stop, kind of curious if they were looking for him, if there’s a history maybe…

There was not. They were not. And it wouldn’t matter if they were…

In my experience, these units don’t try to stop random vehicles for traffic violations. They see something really crossing the line, they radio for patrol and then hand it off. My thinking was he’s in a high traffic gang/drug area and that’s why they were interested in this guy. Or they could have known him from prior contacts, plenty LE know the players, though they never said his name… Idiot fled and resisted the whole time, but didn’t deserve kicks and punches to the head, and ghetto ass kicking he got.

quote:

Originally posted by G-Man:

quote:

Originally posted by P220 Smudge:
Well, I finally watched it. Or at least until the medics arrived. That was tough to sit through. Let's be frank: If that was six white cops, Memphis would be a smoking pile of rubble right now.

Let's face it, every large city in America would be on fire right now. This was probably the most horrific video of police action I have ever seen. Nobody can possibly defend this conduct. However, it will be interesting to see the social mantra shift from racist cops (can't do that here unless they identify as white) to condemning American policing in general . Taking a one in a million incident (literally) and labeling these rogue thugs in uniform as somehow "systemic."

As predicted - no surprise

"Tyre Nichols case revives calls for change in police culture'

https://www.amny.com/police-fi...e-in-police-culture/

I was working all weekend and finally got a chance to watch all the videos. What I saw was appalling...tactically, morally, ethically...pretty much every way you can imagine. I won't go further than that, as I don't have much to add beyond what has already been discussed here.

Copaup, thanks for sharing your thoughts here. Be safe, man, and do your best to get the physical and mental rest that you need. I can only imagine what you and the other guys working down there are dealing with right now. This isn't your fault, you didn't do this, and while we all get tarnished to some extent when something like this is perpetrated by others wearing the badge, we can only control what we do personally, and in some small way influence those immediately around us. Keep up the good fight!

Wow. I have so much to say, so much I probably shouldn't say, and most of that will probably fall on deaf ears (not so much here, but in general).

First off. I'm amazed. This is one of the worst things I've watched. Fuck these guys. To call them an embarrassment would be an understatement. I'm not sure I have the words to describe how ridiculous this is. THIS is WAY worse than any of the George Floyd stuff.

These guys are going to prison, and should go to prison.

To break down SOME of the things I remember... And some questions and random points I have:

(I've seen lots of video on this, but not repeatedly, not over and over, and certainly not all of it. I'm not trying to lawyer the whole thing. Trust me, that will be done to death)

1. The stop is supposedly for "Reckless driving" Ok, sure. That's a valid stop for sure. One of my pet peeves actually. I hate revenue generation via traffic stops, in my mind, stop people for traffic who are doing unsafe things. THOSE are the people who need tickets. Those are the ones I'm zero tolerance for. If I stop(ed) you for the following:

1. Driving without a License (mostly Suspended/Revoked)
2. Aggressive driving/Careless and Imprudent driving
3. No Insurance
4. Road Rage

it was ZERO TOLERANCE. You are getting ticketed. Full stop. You are getting a ticket for EVERY INFRACTION there is.

If we want to justify traffic stops for traffic safety, the let's do that. If you are doing the above you are driving a vehicle weighing thousands of pounds and endangering the lives/safety of others. That's a ticket. Act responsibly.

From watching some of the videos I can't see the initial violation. It may be out there, but I haven't seen it. If it is, and I see it, I may change my opinions.

If the stop was JUST for a reckless driving charge, i'm dumbfounded why they approached the way they did "Get out of the car M***** F*****" and such. Why? (Now, having served on task forces, and ESPECIALLY targeted task forces where the traffic stop was a pretext to stop some REALLY BAD DUDE that needed to go to jail, I get it. But from the back story, this doesn't' seem to be that unless this is a mistaken case of identify, which also, doesn't seem to be the case. Not sure why they approached him and ripped him out of the car like that. That's how you approach a person you KNOW is armed and dangerous. I've done it tons of times, but not someone who i have no intel is not a threat.

Now, once they got him out, they seemed to have control of his left arm. I'll get back to that.

Now, first off, they MAY (depending on what they were doing and the pretext (see above) for the stop, had justification to order him out of the car. I dunno and can't say with the information available to me. If this is correct, and getting him out and ordering him onto his stomach and cuffing is all totally justified, obviously depending on a variety of circumstances.

Now, when they first got him out/down, and his left arm is bend back, why in the world a cuff wasn't applied there is beyond me. Especially with a numbers advantage. A knee to the shoulder blades turning the suspect to his left onto his stomach while another officer controlled his left arm, followed up with leverage (even a baton, not for strikes but used as a lever) to apply cuffs to his right wrist would have been textbook. But, I"m watching the video, not actually there.

Then to go to pepper spray, and taser when you have numbers, and size, and half of them are standing around and not each taking an appendage, is equally silly. Even in the "old days" you knew to grab an appendage and "hold the fuck on" until you can get cuffs applied.

How he gets up and runs is beyond me. That shouldn't have happened.

Then after getting caught again, they spray him OC multiple times. Holy crap. First off, if one OC spray doesn't work, no matter how many more you do, it still won't. OC SUCKS!!!!! I've had it directly in my eyes in the academy, and a number of times on the street, self inflicted, residual, and collateral. It SUCKS. If someone fights through the first OC spray, change tactics. The second, third, etc, etc sprays WILL NOT WORK. It is TOTALLY possible to fight through, and THAT is the reason we have to experience it in the academy.

They guys continuing to spray him is idiotic. If what you are doing isn't working, stop doing that and try something else.

Ok, then he runs. OK. By letter of the law they are justified here. I get it. UNLESS I MISSED SOMETHING (and it's possible i did, there are so many different versions passing around) I'm good with it until they catch him again and there is punching.

I can understand punches, if they are fighting. He didn't seem to be. He was out of breath and seemed to be able to be cuffed. There were two officers and one suspect. Just use your weight and isolate the limbs, then cuff. That's week 2 or 3 academy stuff.

After that, this ENTIRE thing is off the rails. Honestly, I don't' even want to watch any more (I have, but I don't want to watch it again). I don't know how ANYONE could think this is alright. Even if you are the WORST possible human being, you would have to admit this is the stupidest tactics and most bush league police work known to man.

I honestly can't think of ANY possible use of force, or ANY use of my weapons that I don't have at leave ONE bit of experience in. I'm not an expert certainly, but I do have experience.

In addition to the things I've criticized earlier in my post, EVERYTHING PAST THIS POINT is bullshit.

Yes, there IS certainly the aspect of the fact that the "suspect" (I hate to say that term without any backstory. I don't know Mr, Nichols and have no idea as to who he is, what he is about, what the Police were doing there, why they pulled him over, etc etc.) resisted arrest. I won't venture into that territory. I just know that OUR guys in similar units ARE NOT GOING to waste their time on some one innocent, when we have a literally barrel of fish to focus on.

Now, the questions is why?

From what I have read, and that's to be taken with a grain of salt due to the media, these officers were all newer.

Was this shit training? What this shit HR? Was this a shit culture of the Dept?

Are the wrong guys being hired as police officers? Probably.

If they are like almost every dept across America, they CANNOT get people to do this job.

For those long time members here, they are aware of MY story of trying to get in this career. It was not just 10 years just to get hired, I had to pay for the academy myself. After that, I competed with LITERALLY hundreds of people for one or two jobs to get on.

Then after the events of 2014 (of which I was at ground zero) and since then, we have not only nearly doubled the starting salary, but are literally going to college campuses and BEGGING people to sign up. We have also lowered the standards. My dept used to be the "industry standard" requiring on paper, an associates degree, but in reality wouldn't hire you without a bachelors degree. Now, after multiple reductions, we reduced the requirements to a GED.

How much of this is not just on the idiots who beat this man to death, but on the stupid admins who hired people like this? How much is on the "activists" who "defunded" or their real goal "demoralized" the police? They pushed SO hard to check boxes instead of letting departments hire people deemed good by police, but instead deemed "good hires" by civilian boards, or activists, or idiot alderman (or alderwomyn) to check boxes. And maybe those people have no business being officers?

I know where I would lay my 20 dollar bill....

Sorry, i'm irritated. This SHOULD NOT have happened. But I think the reason it happened is not on police as a whole, but on the extreme pressure society places on police.

The wrong people were place on the dept, for the wrong reasons, to check the wrong boxes, and the unit was directed to do the wrong thing and the wrong person died.

Sadly, while the officers involved here need to be held accountable, absolutely no one is going to hold the OTHERS accountable. Mainly the chief, the mayor, the City Council, and really..... Society.

Society ALSO needs to be accountable. This is what happens when "thug culture" becomes mainstream. This is what happens when you "pass the buck."

This SHOULDN'T happen.

^ ^ ^ ^
Kevin, that was an excellent essay. Thank you for taking the time to write and to post it.