Police shootings

I was motivated to post this topic after a discussion I had over at Snow Flakes in Hell, specifically in this topic. The general course of the discussion is that I’m generally a great supporter of the police, my father was an LA County Deputy for 20 years, and my military service was with the Coast Guard, which often acts in a law enforcement capacity.

That being said, in more recent years, I have begun to grow increasingly concerned about the conduct of police with regard to civilian populace. It seems to me that more and more of late there is an “us vs. them” mentality in law enforcement, and amongst the civilians. Civilians regard cops as “out to get them”, and cops regard those they’re tasked to protect as nothing but a potential threat.

I would hope that it would be obvious to anyone why this is a bad thing. It creates a vicious circle where the police are mistrusting of us, and we reciprocate the sentiment in kind. Things like this shooting in Jacksonville, FL do not help the situation either. The story doesn’t have a lot of details, but from what I can sort of extrapolate, it sounds like the fellow the police killed was acting in defense of his property. Of course, this leads to a serious emotional conflict for me, as the part of me that wants to defend the police hopes that this was in fact a righteous shooting. Unfortunately, my gut feeling is otherwise. The other part of me is furious, especially if this man was just defending his property. I understand that the police must act in their own self-preservation; and that’s what burns me.

What if the police raided my house? Hypothetically, what if they’re executing a search warrant and get the wrong house? I know for a fact that I certainly would not have a positive reaction to a dozen black clad men wearing masks and carrying MP5s storming my bedroom. This is why I’m opposed to the police conducted raids without obvious identification. If you’re acting in an official police capacity, you shouldn’t be afraid to identify yourself as such.

Hell, this is really frustrating. If there’s one issue out there where I feel pulled in two directions, this would be it right here.