BACKGROUND: The driver had been ‘stalking’ the Trooper while in pursuit of a speeding car. This put the Trooper in a position of being threatened. When stopped,the driver antagonized the officer. Single Troopers are dependent upon our submission to investigation for their safety.
The Trooper verbally escalated so that he did not have to Physically escalate to violence in order to force the driver into submitting to investigation, or to throw the driver ‘into the system’ for failing to submit to investigation.
Other countries use groups of police at all times but they are smaller countries with more dense population with fewer drivers, because those countries were not organized for cars like the USA. So either triple the cost of officers or submit to investigation to keep costs down.
WHAT”S THE PROBLEM
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educate the public (a) the police’s role in identifying risky behavior (insurer), and enforcing violations, and intervening in crimes, and resolving disputes, (b) in the citizen’s responsibilities when ‘pulled over’ or ‘questioned’.
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explain to the public how the officers need to react in each case: (a)instruct to investigate, (b) command if necessary, (c) verbally escalate if necessary, (d) physically escalate if necessary (e) escalate to deadly force of necessary.
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train officers to ensure that they can only escalate in response not initiate escalation, and that their primary function is (a) obtain control of the environment, and (b) de-escalation (c) investigation in that order. And that escalation is only necessary if they can’t get control of the environment.
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explain to the public how cops and citizens are human beings, who don’t know each other, thrown into conflict.
Be forgiving of one another.
Most of what I find when investigating is simply not getting the training I got as a child by the police in how to interact with police and what police were trying to do and why. Explaining incentives is all that’s necessary for ordinary human beings.
Most ‘bad’ police behavior is due to initiating the accusatory method ithat causes the citizen to escalate his behavior. Rather than just asking for his or her side of the story. And it’s this ‘cheap’ way of agitating the citizen so that he can put the citizen into the system, rather than de-escalate the situation.
In other words, police are habituating the strategy of ‘don’t make me come here or you’ll be in the system’ rather than “I’m here to de-escalate conflict in the citizenry, to reduce your risky behavior, or to intervene in criminal behavior”.