Comments on: Idaho Not Immune From “Big City” Cop Issues

By: Easterner

Easterner — Wed, 02 Dec 2015 18:04:08 +0000

Bill Goodnight makes an important point.
“Who” investigates is paramount to the justice system. A system without standards and consistency is not

A good project for a criminal justice student or law school student (or a retiree with time) would be to compare the fatal cop shooting cases -just within Idaho to make it manageable. The result of comparing the details might prove to be interesting.

By: Bill Goodnight

Bill Goodnight — Wed, 02 Dec 2015 03:29:55 +0000

Who is investigating the killing of the Council rancher by Adams County Sheriff Deputies?……..The Idaho State Police.

Who is investigating the Caldwell police shooting?….. The Nampa Police Department.

Is it just me or is logic nowhere to be found in our society?

By: Trevor D Hitchin

Trevor D Hitchin — Wed, 02 Dec 2015 02:18:51 +0000

IC…
Finally.

You said it…thank you.
Very well written article & comment.
Appreciate cutting out the fluff…very serious now…

Peace on Earth… now please.

By: LaBatts 50 Ale

LaBatts 50 Ale — Wed, 02 Dec 2015 01:24:26 +0000

Cop is somewhere between 10 and 20 on list of most dangerous jobs in the US. Its excellent pay and benefits for a career requiring an easy 2 or 4 year education. Lots of people become cops after the military refused enlistment for personality or other problems. Your hiring standards are messed up coppers!

From 2010 through 2014, there were four fatal police shootings in England, which has a population of 52 million. Albuquerque, population 1 million had 26 fatal police shootings in the same time period. That’s a 38,000% higher rate. (To be fair England is mostly gun free, but also to be fair our cops are shooting lots of people without any weapon at all)

Coppers, you have a problem. The white people who pay your bills are finally tired of your crap too.

I suggest a massive reorganizing to make it a non-career job. 2 years cop work in station or jail to sort out the bad apples, followed by 6 to 8 years on patrol, and then it’s up or out. This will break up the blue line club and bully problems too. It will also cut down of the early medical disability retirements. I also suggest banning the unions from involvement in protecting cops in trouble. Wage and benefit negotiations and that’s it. For the safety of the public a Chief or Mayor should be able to hire and fire at will. Also needs to be a permanent federal copper database so problem cops can’t get a fresh start in the neighboring community. Problems with wife, girlfriend, drinking, speeding, other jackass problems, then no badge no gun. Federal oversight of any shooting by any department with higher than average rate.

I also think the best police tool ever, is stop and frisk. Look at the NYPD crime numbers before during and after. So we have a lawyer problem in the US just as bad as the cop problem.

And stop with the stupid TV shows glorifying cops. It’s propaganda. If you make a cop show than show us the whole animal, under the tail and everything.

By: J Smith

J Smith — Wed, 02 Dec 2015 01:21:38 +0000

Sounds like the cop who shot at the Caldwell man learned his tactics from watching violent TV shows.
Better to spend your time getting out of a cars way if you feel in danger. If he had time to shoot at the car, then it obviously wasn’t an immediate threat to him.
We need more peacekeepers and less Rambo’s / Terminator Units.
A dirty little secret is that the mythical economic ‘recovery’ never happened. All real economic indicators are in the toilet, or if they are not it is because the metrics were adjusted to hide reality. The Great Depression had ‘soup lines’, we have ‘food stamps’. Last I heard there were around 47 million people receiving them. So, there are a lot of desperate people out there, and that could be part of the reason for so many trigger happy cops.

By: chicago sam

chicago sam — Tue, 01 Dec 2015 23:09:58 +0000

In the case of the recent Caldwell shooting was the driver of the car shot in the back, side, or in the face with the car coming toward the officer?

EDITOR NOTE–If past “critical incident” task force reports are an indicator, we won’t know for about 6 months.

By: IdahoCrystal

IdahoCrystal — Tue, 01 Dec 2015 22:17:45 +0000

Sometimes it seems like some LEOs forget that, in the US, “Police” is a noun and not a verb – and that guns are not compliance weapons.

At any given moment, all officers carry 2-3 compliance weapons – batons, pepper spray, tasers, etc. – and yet the first thing they’re trained to reach for is their gun.

It wasn’t so very long ago that the majority of cops could serve their entire career never having drawn their weapons. Now, it seems as if they’re getting trained by the media – with a focus on fear-based, lethal force tactics, rather than de-escalation and negotiation tactics. Training as though every traffic stop or interaction will (not might) turn lethal – is just the right recipe for the worst that can happen.

EDITOR NOTE–Scroll through the PDF attachment. Without exception FIREARMS training is the #1 priority of police nationwide. First aid, mental crisis, are all at the bottom of training priority.