Listen Close and Pay Attention Pantaleo

Training Police is just the Tip of the Iceberg.

How Good Police and Bad Police need to be weeded out using psychological health checks and mental testing. Training alone will not solve everything.

After a long 4 hour chat with several police officers, and a few questionable people who claimed to be police, I have come to believe that there is a mindset that automatically overrides how police are trained to behave. 

"I will make sure I make it back home every night, no matter what" - Just about every officer I talked to last night made this statement or something similar about how they would handle an aggressive person. One of the officers from Florida made a statement that sounded rather assuming, that if confronted with someone who could cause him harm or if he felt threatened, he would do "whatever it takes" to make sure he went home at the end of his shift.

_{Training Police to think differently will take more than sensitivity training or changes in procedures. In all honesty, there is much more to it than just needing new law-enforcement training guidelines. It will take new ways of understanding their mental mindset and psychological belief that their job is to survive.} 

One officer I talked to stated that there are lots of cases where an officer had to fire his weapon in self-defense and was still killed before he could take down the suspect. "I've watched training videos that showed police officers shooting suspects 5-6-7-8-9-10 times and the suspect still managed to get to the officer, so I assure you, if I think my life is in danger, I will shoot them before they shoot me." 

When I listened to this, I felt like as if I was listening to someone serving in combat in the middle east. What I thought was interesting, was that the rest of the policemen in the conversation agreed with this statement. 

I even asked them if they all felt the same way. 

One of the Officers, who is from Pennsylvania answered, "I think many cops have itchy trigger fingers, and many more have no issue pulling their gun even if unsure of the situation, but if it means going home or being put in a pine box, all you have is that protection between you and a person who can put you in that box." 

Then I decided to bring up both Ferguson and another questionable police shooting that was caught on tape. I posted this video earlier on iOverview. The question was simple, "What do you think of what happened in Ferguson and in this video?" One of the officers from New York immediately said, "I think the Ferguson thing was a good shoot, and I've read the case file of this one, the guy had a knife and was known to be armed, so it was a good shoot too." The officer from Florida said simply, "I wasn't there, I can't say if Ferguson was right or wrong, but I've seen this video before and I don't think I would have pulled the trigger." The Pennsylvania Officer said, "killing someone means your life was in immediate danger, if I ever have to pull the trigger, I would have to be sure I was going to be killed. I also wouldn't go chasing someone who was unarmed just to kill him like in Ferguson, but in this video, I think it would be tough to unload like this officer did, a single shot maybe, but emptying my weapon, no."

Now I asked about Eric Garner, and the response was unanimous. The Florida police officer said, "there was that video of that NYPD officer using the choke hold, he should be in trouble for it." The Pennsylvania Officer stated, "How he managed to get off is beyond me." The New York Officer first asked if his name would be used in this interview, when I said no, he said, "Most of the police I work with feel that Pantaleo and other officers involved should have been fired, because there was no CPR applied. We are trained to give CPR and nobody did anything, and when you see Garner laying there, he's dying and nobody did anything but watch him die. An Officer that does that is not doing his or her job and shouldn't keep their job, and really, I was shocked he got off, but it's New York man, too many fingers in too many pies, he didn't get what he deserved because he knows somebody, or someone above him felt sorry for him, believe me, the higher ups buy and sell people everyday, and that explains everything to me."

I asked the same Officer if he would call the hold Pantaleo used as a choke hold, he answered, "Man, let me tell you what, if you put your arm around a persons neck and put your weight behind it, your going to be doing something considered illegal in our Police training, and Pantaleo should have known that, so yeah, man it's a choke hold and he used it in the video."

There is tons of talk about training police in better forms of police tactics, but no conversations about how police view themselves when they interact with the population they serve.  

Police live a double life, at work they are almost demonized one second and the next a hero, and it goes back and forth. Like the old saying goes, nobody likes a cop until you need one, and this is basically how they feel. They love their job, but also face people who rather spit in their face than shake their hand, and even then they spend most of their time watching out for the potential dangers in their job.

 As one of the Officers said, "I put on my uniform everyday knowing that I will be hated for wearing it and loved for wearing  it, it all just depends on where I go and who I meet  when I'm called."

"I'm a cop, and people hate me for being one. 9 out of 10 times I'm respected and appreciated, and then there is that one person who would kill me for just pulling them over, it's Russian roulette, I have no idea who I will be facing next and what the outcome might be from one call to the next." Said the Officer from Florida.

From everything said and all of the discussions between me and these policemen, I feel that training alone isn't enough. Police have a mentality that needs to be studied or understood. In their eyes, it's basically a life or death situation on a daily basis. They have fears that are justified but that seemingly overrides their judgement in dangerous situations. Their job is to serve and protect, but the problem really is who they are most ready to protect, and that seems to be themselves.