Quote:
Originally Posted by Old Dog New Trick
Over the last few days and after months or years now of protests from BLM and students at Universities demanding their "Safe Space" I think it's about time that law enforcement start doing what I pay taxes for them to do: Enforce the law.
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I couldn't agree more with you on this point ODNT. I think that the problem that you are seeing with this can be somewhat attributed to the community policing theory that has been in place for quite a while nationwide. While IMHO being proactive in the community is an important component to the job, it seems the mentality has overtaken the primary duty of enforcing laws. There seems to be a delicate balance that should be maintained and to me it appears with all the recent bad publicity and animus most police departments are always in crisis management mode which equates to backing off enforcing the law so you look like a softer gentler LEO which is pretty much what you are seeing now.
The flip side to that is the broken windows theory which equates to a zero tolerance mentality to all crimes minor and major. NYPD adopted that theory in the 90s and I was amazed when I visited NYC in 2005 and saw nothing of what I had expected the Times Square area to be based upon everything I had seen and read about it prior to this trip. The one thing that really surprised me though was how approachable the NYPD guys were. There was a credible threat of a sarin gas attack on the subways during this visit and after seeing tons of cops coming out of the subway with what looked like gas mask pouches in thigh bags I had to leave the bar we were in and ask one of them what was going on. Initially he was reluctant to break, but after I mentioned the thigh bag looking like a gas mask bag he kind of figured it wasn't my first rodeo and talked at length about what was going on. To me this officer and his partner showed a really good balance of the two theories in action.
I think that the problem that this nation is seeing now is finding that balance between officer friendly of the one theory and the more rigid mentality of the other. Those are just my opinions and I fully acknowledge that my insight is not as keen on this topic as those of who are actually doing the job.
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