Friday, December 26, 2008

We're the Only Ones Diagnosed Enough

In a survey of a random sample of U.S. emergency physicians, virtually all said they believed that law enforcement officers use excessive force to arrest and detain suspects. [More]
Put another way, just under 10 out of 10 doctors equate "Only Ones" with violent criminals...?

I guess it doesn't occur to some cops that we'd like to go home at the end of their shift, too?

[Via Avg Joe]

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Small wonder why cops are not called, Peace Officers any longer.
By their own actions they are not Law Enforcement Officers as well.

Anonymous said...

David,

At cost, the full article is available on the web:

http://emj.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/26/1/20

Anonymous said...

Science Daily is interesting:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081223193110.htm

The most frequently cited type of injury was blunt trauma inflicted by fists or feet. Around three out of four cited overly tight handcuffs.

But around 70% felt they should be reporting incidents of this kind, while just under half felt it should be a statutory requirement to do so, as it is for child abuse, domestic violence, and elder abuse
.

Interesting that the article compares Police Violence to Domestic Violence.

W W Woodward said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
W W Woodward said...

Sorry, I found some grammatical
errors in my original post.

This may be a case of the pot calling the kettle black. The last time I felt a need for checking statistics, I found that doctors kill more people than do police officers.

That said, I understand too well from personal observations how an officer can allow stressful circumstances, adrenalin, and others peoples’ (arrested persons) behavior to dictate his actions in an arrest situation.

I’ve been teaching use of force to peace officers as well as to correctional officers since the early 80’s and always stress in my presentations that the penal code makes no allowance for emotions when employing a use of force in an arrest or inmate control situation nor in a force situation where neither party is LEO. My guess, or hope, is that most academy use of force instructors attempt to establish and stress those principles with their rookies. The mind set for legal use of force is every bit as important as the mechanics.

No use of force can ever be legally or morally justified by, “The idiot pissed me off.” Unfortunately - in both worlds, more often than not, that is the case.