A Note From the Ranks and a Response
“Dear Chief,
“I’ve been a police officer for 20 years, all of it on the street, and I am not providing my [personal]information because I don’t want this published. I would however like to respond to your article. [My Note: I assume it is this article.]
“You are suggesting that the [deleted] Police Department needs to reduce its use of force. I believe you are out of touch with the streets. Officers are being assaulted at an ever-increasing rate.
“There is a generation in their teens now who simply lack a filter, a conscience, that don’t think twice about pulling the trigger on anyone, including cops. Police officers respond to the threat based on the totality of the circumstances, and we would most certainly be held accountable if the use of force was not reasonable.
“How could you possibly suggest a lesser use of force in general? Are cops supposed to take a beating and be near death before we respond? The investigation into the shooting of Robinson isn’t even complete, yet your article suggests the officer was wrong?
“The last time you submitted an article was after the shooting of [deleted], an article that was not in support of law enforcement. You managed to promote your book then too.”
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Dear Officer,
I am sorry that you feel that I am not in support of police. My blog addresses the whole field of policing and includes many followers in Europe and other countries, not just your city.
My opinion is that we must find ways other than using deadly force in handling standoffs not involving firearms. My blog posts are quite clear on this and they have addressed this problem many times during the last three years it has existed.
My opinion also is that the legal decision surrounding the shooting of Paul Heenan some months ago was correct. The officer met the legal standard. My concern was whether or not what he did was moral. Was it the right thing to do?
And yes, I continue to promote my book because it consists of the things I learned during and after my policing career. I can assure you I “promote” this book for the purpose of entering my ideas considered and discussed. I hope you have read it as well as follow my blog. I think there’s some good material for police in it. It also addresses what the community is thinking — and that’s very important for a professional police officer.
While none of us know the facts surrounding the Robinson shooting, I am saying that police must do everything possible NOT to shoot unarmed people. And I am not only talking about the person shot, but also for the sake of those who do the shooting.
Being a 20-year veteran police officer, I am sure you have mastered the ability to slow things down whenever possible in conflict situations. Many police shootings appear to lack this element and end up tragically.
I have argued that new, less-than-lethal methods, mechanisms, and associated training must be developed. I don’t think that our nation’s police can continue this practice without suffering a loss of community trust and support. The shooting of unarmed individuals must be curtailed.
If police fail to fix this national problem I am afraid that they will soon find themselves in a most difficult situation and one not conducive to policing our democracy. If this happens, their job will become even more difficult and dangerous.
I would love to sit down with you over a cup of coffee and discuss your thoughts and feelings further. I am open to listening and even changing my thinking. Would that be possible? If so, please call or email me.
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- Is policing more dangerous than I experienced during my career?
- Are officers being assaulted at greater rate than I experienced?
- Do today’s teens lack a conscience and don’t think twice about “pulling the trigger”?
- Where are the data to suggest these statements are true?
Improving Police: A Necessary Conversation 
Chief Couper, this is such a silly, played out argument. What this officer said to you is what teenagers say to their parents when they don’t want to listen to reason or have impulse control.
You aren’t out of touch but in fact, post 9/11 PD training is out of touch. We aren’t at war with ourselves and so warriors may stay tucked in the pages of graphic novels, video games and “Braveheart”.
Madison cops are not, have not been dying due to the use of restraint. There just aren’t the numbers to support an increase in militarization or use of deadly force on unarmed subjects. The numbers do exist, however, to support officers spending more time on conflict resolution and less time on tactics and weapons.
A friend recently said to me “If you dress like a soldier, you will act like a soldier.” and when chaos erupts, “cops will revert to their strongest training paradigm, which usually is tactics and weapons.” I totally agree with this. It’s time LE start spending more time preparing themselves for what is before them most often rather then that which happens less than 1% of the time.
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Thanks, Amelia. Always good to hear from you. Work to do in Madison.
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Reblogged this on e-Roll Call Magazine.
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They say that youth is lost on the young people. I say that experience and wisdom or the lack of wisdom and failure to learn from experience is lost on old people because this cop is a prime example of wasting his experience and learning nothing from it plus not turn it into any kind of good wisdom in how to do his job without resorting to force too many times.
If police oficers were being shot at more often in the USA today, our number of dead officers would be that of Italy, Mexico, and Columbia since organized crime in those countries are not scare of the police and do not hesitate to kill a cop. Killing a cop in those countries doesn’t carried a negative culture stigma (cop killer) compare to this country.
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We should be asking the cop the question why are the cops beating or shooting people wikthout a conscience and is more of this occurring todlay because of post 911 laws that have legimizates police misconduct, corruption, and brutaility or was it worse before 9/11 and the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1965 after police beating of protestors at the Selma bridge?
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Here is the problem, Ex-Chief Couper… You, and the rest of the media, are promoting – no, absolutely pushing – the idea that a man who is not holding a gun (or knife, or club, etc) in his hand is less dangerous than one who is. I have seen and experienced the damage that can be done by an “unarmed” man who is determined to get away from the police. I have also seen the damage that can be inflicted by an “unarmed” man who has had enough of his wife’s nagging, or his child’s crying, or of the other guy bumping into “his woman” in the bar.
I agree with you that there is work to do in all of law enforcement. We must work very diligently to repair the damage that has been done in the past. But, we must also stop immediately jumping to the conclusion that just because the suspect did not have a gun in his hand, he was not dangerous.
The entire country would be much better served, and we could all go a lot further in pursuit of our relationship with the community, if everyone in the media would just SHUT UP until the investigation is complete and all of the evidence is brought to the light of day. I am not in any way suggesting that we do not hold officers accountable for their actions. In fact, it is just the opposite – I hold those officers who work for me to the highest standards of accountability. However, by immediately jumping to the conclusion that the officer used an excessive amount of force, and that the officers’ judgments were based SOLELY on his/her innate racism, we are not helping anyone – except helping the media sell and helping the haters divide.
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I appreciaate what you have to say, John. I am not an academic, I was a street cop for my first 10 years. What I am calling police to do is to deeply look into policies and practices to try an eliminate or greatly curtail situations in which deadly force is used. I don’t think the public is going to be convinced that many of these instances are approopriate. Maybe I’m wrong. But I believe smart cops can develop better methods; e.g. mentally ill man who is at a “stand-off” with police, fails to comply with police orders and is shot. This has happened too frequently. And when race is mixed in it tends to destroy trust in our nation’s police. Trust needs to be rebuilt and maintained and officer safety can still be factored into these situations.
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Cops lsure like to tell other people not to jump to conclusions and wait until all the facts are in; however, they don’t applied it to themselves. When you look at what happen in Ferguson, Missouri, and New York City, the cops and the district attorneys have set out to smear the victims of police abuse and manipulate the facts in the investigation plus use their own media to present their side in a favorable manner. The the orginal Ferguson police report was a bloody sham (one page report) and the DA was acting more like a defense lawyer for the cop. In addition, cops also have new outlets like Fox News who are promoting hate in this country and being on the side of the police.
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“Chief Couper, this is such a silly, played out argument. What this officer said to you is what teenagers say to their parents when they don’t want to listen to reason or have impulse control.”
The cop is also saying what bad parents usually say to their kids when they don’t want to listen to reason or have impluse control.
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