Brother-in-law becoming a cop. Maybe a good thing?
Brother-in-law becoming a cop. Maybe a good thing?
So over thanksgiving my brother-in-law was talking about how he's currently going through the training to become a cop (being fast tracked for reason below) and I'm not quite sure how I feel about that. On one hand, I'm firmly in the ACAB camp. On the other hand, if somebody is going to be hired a cop, he seems like the kind of person that would do the least harm.
Frist off, he is an MP in the army and has been for several years so he already has more and better training/dicipline than most cops out there. He has actual training in conflict deescalation and proper restraint methods that don't kill people. Unlike most cops he actually has real firearm training so he can be trusted not to shoot at falling acorns or blow an infants head off in an altercation. He has actual medical training, which most cops aren't required to have.
Outside of training he also does seem like a decent guy. He's not an agressive macho shitbag like most cops and he does what he can to help people. He does strike me as leaning slightly conservative but he also lives in a rural area of a red state so that's to be expected. I don't think he's a trump supporter but if he is then he's smart enough to keep his mouth completely shut about it even after the election (which trump supporters usually aren't).
So I'm kind of torn on this one. On one hand, our current policing system is rotten to the core and he's someone looking to be a part of that. On the other hand, even though the current system needs to be burned down and rebuilt, we do need some form of police force and he seems like someone who would do the least harm in that roll.
So yeah, I'm not sure how I feel about that. I would be interested to hear what y'all think though. Have any other lemmings experienced similar or have family members who are cops?
It depends on your local police department, honestly.
People are products of their environment. If the local police are decent, your brother-in-law may actually be a good fit. If the local police are shit (ie the average in the US), then your brother-in-law will either become fired, immensely stressed, or shit just like them.
We relate a lot of stories about bad cops, and Lemmy isn't the most military-friendly place, but one thing I constantly see repeated by veterans, both those with and without police experience, is how baffling the utter lack of discipline and oversight in US police is. Pointing out that RoE are looser for cops than infantry in active combat zones is common.
I wonder if the ROE thing is more about a lack of command and control. There are whole buildings dedicated to tracking what everyone is doing and a lot of vets say you couldn't do ANYTHING without contacting higher command. Usually cops are mostly left to use their judgement as long as they are in the area their designated patrol area. There's more and more gps tracking these days but odds are that isn't monitored in real time.
Just to get this out of the way, this is why I'm not a fan of the ACAB and similar blanket statements. I get it cops in general have done fucked up things. But slapping a label on all of them is passing judgement on the good ones making a difference. And there ARE good ones and good departments. They don't make national news and definitely don't deserve that kind of shade.
We have cops that have become family friends and one I am now related to. They are genuinely top notch cops. I was heading home and seen them work serious car accidents first hand. They know their use of force and laws well enough that even some local sovereign citizen types gave them some praise in a video they made.
Being an MP going to be a regular cop isn't as seamless as you might think. Laws on a military base and real life differ so sometimes there's issues unlearning the stuff the military teaches as far as procedures go.
For gun stuff you don't need to be John Wick and the military does NOT teach you guns as well as some think unless you clear rooms for a living. Little to no shoot/no shoot scenarios either for most of the mil. But they do teach you solid gun safety and enough medical to make a difference. In most cases lower levels of the use of force contiunuum are going to be used long before a gun anyway so that's where the training focus should be so a gun can stay holstered longer.
Anyway yeah real life is messy and I'm glad people like your brother in law are willing to do unsexy but important work that can expose them to very traumatic things. I hope they serve the community well
The point of ACAB isn't to take it literally. It's a reminder that a whole fucking lot of cops, particularly in the USA, are bad. And the problem is that when you're dealing with an individual cop at an individual interaction, you don't know which you're dealing with. And you won't until it's too late.
So the smartest thing to do is, with any interaction with police, clam up and lawyer up. No matter what. Because you don't know if they're asking questions because they're investigating someone else or investigating you. And when the latter, the bad cops (and remember, you don't know which kind you've got!) will cheerfully lie and cheat and distort and generally railroad you to fit their theory.
Nothing will ever change if only rotten people go into the system. Of course, there's a high chance he will become corrupt himself, but it's a necessary risk.
You can't hope for some higher power to come down and fix things. Nobody is going to magically dismantle the police and form a new one. The best you can do is make the police as diverse as possible, especially in the personality profile of it members.That's kind of where I'm at right now. He is the best person to be working a bad job.
As far as the higher power coming down and fixing things, I am hoping for that. That higher power being our government. The only way things are going to improve is with proper oversight and accountability which can't come from within. As it is the rotten system isn't going to un-rot itself. The few decent cops out there are more likely to be fired for it than to change anything. The change needs to be forced upon them from the outside.
Hey why can't we hope for a larger reform? It's not like police reform is an impossible concept, just having oversight boards staffed with the civilians cops are meant to be protecting would go a long way towards curbing police brutality, as it would actually allow prosecution and consequences for bad officers.
Sending good people to get framed/killed/terrorized by bad cops on an individual basis is far less likely to enact any meaningful change than supporting and voting for local police reform.
If he's really a good person you should be worried. Good cops get fired if they're lucky. They get killed if they're not
ACAB (except those I like) is a pretty sad stance. Reminds me of when conservatives get abortions.
That's a false equivalence.
In the abortion case, conservatives want to be the exception to the rule, while in OP's case, they want the rule to change to match the exceptions they see.
ACAB is not about all cops being personally bad people, but that the system of policing is broken.