A disturbing exchange with a police officer

[Jimmy Higgins]

I'm not going to press the issue of giving the benefit of the doubt. It may cause the conversation to go in a direction that may not be helpful for it. Besides, I confess the that the cop-mindset is probably wrong.

I re-read the OP anyway. The officer does, in fact, say "kill or be killed." I have heard more stories about this than I suppose the average citizen not heard. I just haven't understood the larger issue to be so cut and dry. Many factors are involved.

The guy is a cop in a location where there are very few violent crimes. His statements do not correlate to the conditions he is subjected to in his job. Other officers in more violent areas are definitely at a greater risk, but when an Officer in an area where violent crimes rarely happen, it seems like a disconnect between reality and what they perceive... not a good trait for an officer.

 

[dismal]

I'm not going to press the issue of giving the benefit of the doubt. It may cause the conversation to go in a direction that may not be helpful for it. Besides, I confess the that the cop-mindset is probably wrong.

I re-read the OP anyway. The officer does, in fact, say "kill or be killed." I have heard more stories about this than I suppose the average citizen not heard. I just haven't understood the larger issue to be so cut and dry. Many factors are involved.

The guy is a cop in a location where there are very few violent crimes. His statements do not correlate to the conditions he is subjected to in his job. Other officers in more violent areas are definitely at a greater risk, but when an Officer in an area where violent crimes rarely happen, it seems like a disconnect between reality and what they perceive... not a good trait for an officer.

Well we have ksen and the media doesn't.

But then again, ksen gets most of his stuff out of the media.

But your point is certainly valid in that some things get vastly more media, social networking and political attention than other similar things. To a large extent the media are sheep, but perhaps some are shepherds.

 

[ksen]

I'd be interested in what kinds of threads dismal would start.

Hey dismal, I'll take a couple day break from posting new threads if you make the effort to post some of your own. I promise not to be needlessly nitpicky and will make a faithful attempt to engage your topics with you.