(06-24-2020 03:20 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  Who puts themselves at risk first? That's the real problem, because while I personally think it needs to be the cops... I also know that 'bad guys' will try and take advantage of this.

I'm going to disagree here. I don't think the burden should always be on police to take the risk. All you're going to get from that is a bunch of dead cops. Of course, I suppose that's exactly what BLM wanted when they were chanting, "What do we want? Dead cops. When do we want it? Now."

Quote:It's been a long time, but I recall suggesting on this forum the creation of multiple levels of police... I think we need to go back to that.
1) purely defensive police. No weapons, but protected. Cameras, tracking devices, drones, remote policing (like traffic cams). I'd turn MOST policing into this. Cop sees a speeder, he (or a camera) gets close enough to get a picture of the driver and plate and that's it. No personal contact.

I'd turn traffic police into radars and cameras, like in a number of other countries. No reason for an officer even to pursue a speeder to get a photo. That kind of thing will end badly more than not. We really don't need 1-on-1 officer-citizen confrontations on the side of the road.

Quote:Domestic disturbance, starts with what is essentially a social worker or mental health professional.... starts with a call or video chat or something.
2) 'non-lethal' police. They might go with a social worker with tazer or rubber bullets or some other non-lethal means.... including perhaps some version of a tranquilizer dart. There are some health risks here, but we should be able to come up with something.

I'd move domestic disturbances into your 'non-lethal police' category. An officer with a social worker is probably the right combination to deal with a lot of these. Now if the perp is armed, move that to your category 3.

Quote:3) armed police. Respond to armed or aggressively non-compliant and unknown if armed assailants deemed not to be mental health issues. This is basically SWAT, but without the military hardware
4) swat... for confrontations with heavily armed people, and this could be part of the national guard or something rather than police.

I kind like the National Guard idea conceptually, something like the Carabinieri in Italy or the Gendarmerie in France, although the problem I see is that the NG is not on duty 24/7/365. That's one reason why I proposed repurposing them as an emergency response team; we only have to pay them when they are training or actually responding. Adding this would require greater repurposing of the NG than I had proposed. One thing we could do with the NG is that in the Coast Guard every officer and petty officer E-5 and above is designated a federal marshal. I could see designating Guardsmen E-5 and above as state police.

Quote:Just spit-balling here on my computer... hadn't really thought about the details in some time.

I haven't thought about this particular idea in great detail, although I do like the idea of radars and cameras for traffic policing. Free up officers to do other things. It might make the profession less attractive to those who just want to wear a gun and drive fast, but getting rid of them wouldn't be a bad thing to my way of thinking.

What I'm thinking is traffic violations done electronically, then three levels of police:
1) Unarmed accompanied by social workers for minor domestic disputes, the objective is to defuse them
2) Armed for most situations
3) Heavily armed for SWAT situations

Funny story about speed cameras. They have them randomly along Sheikh Zayed Road, the main drag in Dubai. They move them from day to day. My driver on one trip there loved to drive well faster than the limit. She knew most of the spots, so she would speed along until she got close to a possible camera location, then slam on brakes to slow down, then speed back up when we were past the camera. The last morning, on the way to the airport, I think one of them caught her. I was flying out, so I don't know how that ended up, but she let out a stream of profanity when she thought it got her.