[Stobey]

Excellent post, NoSlack71! And it sounds to me like an excellent job in your career. As you pointed out, you "warrior cops" were actually true warriors - military men who "graduated" from the "school of very dangerous hard knocks" in Vietnam - and were therefore more mature both in age and emotionally. They knew the difference between real bad guys, the "run of the mill" bad guys on the street and the "normal" issues that cops face every day, and knew how to behave/react accordingly.

My Dad was also one of those good cops - both warrior (WWII Marine) and cop, but able to distinguish when each was called for. One one occasion, a nutcase was being transported to "Marlboro Country" [in NJ] w/a patrolman on watch in the ambulance, when the bad guy got out of his restraints, assaulted the officer, took his gun and shot him, as well as the ambulance driver, and managed to escape and holed up in a vacant farmhouse -- fully armed. Although a number of officers responded to the call at the farmhouse, none dared go in. It was left up to my father, who went in with the WWII vintage "schmeisser" that he sometimes used in training courses at the Middlesex County Police Academy where he was RangeMaster and instructor, to convince the nutcase (who had retreated to the upstairs) to throw the pistol down the stairs and come down with hands up, otherwise he [Dad] (who knew where the perp was by listening to his footsteps in the room above) would have cut a hole in the floor with the schmeisser and brought him down that way - in which case the perp certainly wouldn't have exited the farmhouse alive. That sucker complied without firing another shot. Nor did my father have to use the schmeisser.

I'm afraid the same cannot be said for what we have today. Too many have seen shows like "Flashpoint" and may have too much adrenalin running through them at the time that seems to short-circuit the rational functioning of the brain. Not that there weren't cases of "overkill" in years past perhaps due to a long vehicle chase and too much adrenalin; but it's a very different world we live in today from that world of 1977 (and yes, it almost seems a world away).