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Blue Flu and Warrior Cops
Jun. 19th, 2020 10:11 amBlue Flu
Reportedly in Atlanta, local police officers called in sick or otherwise decided not to work in protest to the arrest of an officer for shooting a fleeing suspect in the back. The cute name for this activity is "blue flu." A commentator, Beau of the Fifth Column, made a short video which captured my thoughts on the matter with great clarity. To recap:
1) Blue flu is intended to cause pain in the community. The chaos and fear of no cops is supposed to cause the community to run to the cops with open arms and say "protect us."
2) These kind of actions make it clear that the officers aren't interested in serving the public; rather in protecting themselves. True public servants would show up anyway.
3) Generally, blue flu doesn't create chaos and crime. Reported crime either stays the same or goes down.
4) Blue flu typically proves that the US is over-policed and we could be as safe as we are now with fewer and/or less active cops. "As safe as we are now" may not be "as safe as we want to be" but that's a different argument.
Warrior Cops
There is also a phenomenon of "warrior cops." This is a term of art for various training programs which purport to teach police how to survive and win in the event they get in a fight with a violent offender. I am of two minds on these programs.
On the one hand, the history of police work in the US is full of cases where police officers get badly beaten by violent offenders. These events usually end in officer fatalities. There are a lot of tactical lessons to be taken from those sad events.
On the other hand, many of these programs train their graduates to walk around "with a plan to kill everyone they meet." This is not a good outcome, especially since statistically, 95% of cops will never be in a genuine life-or-death fight. Creating this "us vs. them" mentality leads to overreactions and fewer crimes solved, as the "thems" find themselves wanting nothing to do with the cops.
I've heard that the training classes offered by Massad Ayoob square that circle. I'm not sure if he succeeds in that effort or how, but making the attempt is an important thing to try.
Reportedly in Atlanta, local police officers called in sick or otherwise decided not to work in protest to the arrest of an officer for shooting a fleeing suspect in the back. The cute name for this activity is "blue flu." A commentator, Beau of the Fifth Column, made a short video which captured my thoughts on the matter with great clarity. To recap:
1) Blue flu is intended to cause pain in the community. The chaos and fear of no cops is supposed to cause the community to run to the cops with open arms and say "protect us."
2) These kind of actions make it clear that the officers aren't interested in serving the public; rather in protecting themselves. True public servants would show up anyway.
3) Generally, blue flu doesn't create chaos and crime. Reported crime either stays the same or goes down.
4) Blue flu typically proves that the US is over-policed and we could be as safe as we are now with fewer and/or less active cops. "As safe as we are now" may not be "as safe as we want to be" but that's a different argument.
Warrior Cops
There is also a phenomenon of "warrior cops." This is a term of art for various training programs which purport to teach police how to survive and win in the event they get in a fight with a violent offender. I am of two minds on these programs.
On the one hand, the history of police work in the US is full of cases where police officers get badly beaten by violent offenders. These events usually end in officer fatalities. There are a lot of tactical lessons to be taken from those sad events.
On the other hand, many of these programs train their graduates to walk around "with a plan to kill everyone they meet." This is not a good outcome, especially since statistically, 95% of cops will never be in a genuine life-or-death fight. Creating this "us vs. them" mentality leads to overreactions and fewer crimes solved, as the "thems" find themselves wanting nothing to do with the cops.
I've heard that the training classes offered by Massad Ayoob square that circle. I'm not sure if he succeeds in that effort or how, but making the attempt is an important thing to try.
