At least the caught the guy who did it.
Entitlement generation? “Whadya mean I can’t go there?!?!?!”
Wishing him a speed recovery.
Musing from watching cops–
I wonder if any law enforcement agencies put their employees thru any kind of martial arts training. Sometimes the police look like they can handle themselves and other times they look like they could really use some kind of training so as to not get into that predicament.
I know The Driver trained with several police officers and one firefighter in his martial arts.
I know it isn’t a cure-all, but would think it would be an extra tool to help. Especially as Tree sez …
And if the cop shot we never will here the last of it.
So the guy was behind the officer with his arms around the officer’s neck and the officer blacked out. Sounds like attempted strangulation. Of course I wasn’t there & I’m not a lawyer or a police officer, but it sounds to me like the charge should be attempted murder. If the charge is something less, I’d like to know why.
At least in Minnesota, cops go through “Use of Force” classes, a large part of which is hand to hand combat.
I was with the Roanoke, Virginia Police Department for 30 years, retiring at the rank of Captain. I was Director of the Police Academy (at Lt. rank) for five years and we conducted training for Norfolk & Western RR police that were based there in Roanoke, qualifying them to be certified as law enforcement officers in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Yes, police training certainly does include defensive tactics training. Most police training in the USA is highly localized, and the quality or level of that training can vary substantially from one locale to another based on state & local legal requirements as well as budget issues. For example, the minimal entry requirement of total hours of training for the State of South Carolina is less than what I received as a rookie in Roanoke back in 1976. (!) Roanoke’s Basic Academy is now up beyond 26 weeks (over half a year).
I understand Mookie’s observation about the apparent lack of abilities of some of the officers on shows such as “Cops”. I seldom watch “cop shows” now as after thirty years on the job I have seen enough, but when I do watch I am sometimes dismayed by the apparent lack of training shown. Virtually all of our officers in Roanoke worked alone once they finished their training which included the field training portion (providing the greatest police visibility by putting more officers out there). As Director of the Police Academy, I would not sign off on a recruit unless I was convinced that they could
Without having been there we can only speculate at exactly what happened, of course, but we must also consider that there are some drug abusers whose strength seems magnified by their chemical of choice.
It’s very possible that the officer was simply overwhelmed by the attacker.
I agree that attempted homicide would be a logical charge there.
People can be funny about the tracks. A 55YO man was killed here this past weekend when his snowmobile got stuck on the tracks. Active tracks. On top of that, despite plenty of horn, he failed to get out of the way of an oncoming freight, apparently trying to save his sled.
Too bad the NS officer didn’t shoot and kill the thug, rather than getting injured himself. It isn’t like there’s a shortage of bad guys out there.
I’ve never seen Union Pacific police to know how they are armed, but most police around here are armed with a taser as well as their regular sidearm.
I was just thinking that! But since you can only probably taser the hard-core cases, you best be able to defend yourself until either help arrives or you are in a position to use whatever defense they issue you.
I get the feeling, just from watching Cops, mind you, that police officers would rather avoid using lethal means and make sure they give the “bad” guy plenty of warning before they do something like taser. I think the scrutiny, paper work, questioning, review boards etc makes sure that you don’t do anything in a spring-loaded fashion. Do whatever you can to contain the situation until you have no other options. They will pull their sidearm or taser and threaten, but then seem to re-holster it and go hands on when possible.
Just my thoughts.
[quote user=“Beach Bill”]
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I was with the Roanoke, Virginia Police Department for 30 years, retiring at the rank of Captain. I was Director of the Police Academy (at Lt. rank) for five years and we conducted training for Norfolk & Western RR police that were based there in Roanoke, qualifying them to be certified as law enforcement officers in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Yes, police training certainly does include defensive tactics training. Most police training in the USA is highly localized, and the quality or level of that training can vary substantially from one locale to another based on state & local legal requirements as well as budget issues. For example, the minimal entry requirement of total hours of training for the State of South Carolina is less than what I received as a rookie in Roanoke back in 1976. (!) Roanoke’s Basic Academy is now up beyond 26 weeks (over half a year).
I understand Mookie’s observation about the apparent lack of abilities of some of the officers on shows such as “Cops”. I seldom watch “cop shows” now as after thirty years on the job I have seen enough, but when I do watch I am sometimes dismayed by the apparent lack of training shown. Virtually all of our officers in Roanoke worked alone once they finished their training which included the field training portion (providing the greatest police visibility by putting more officers out there). As Director of the Police Academy, I would not sign off on a recruit unless I was convinced that they could defend themselves against an attacker. Our defensive tactics instructors drew from a variety of martial arts disciplines, as the street fighting encountered by police officers every day is not subject to rules. Every fight that a police officer is in involves a gun - the police officer’s gun - and a police officer cannot afford to lose a street fig
Mookie, You have it exactly. No matter how justified, the officer must bend over backwards to avoid getting sued or the department getting sued. And sometimes the officer waits a little too long to use whatever force s/he is going to use, and ends up getting hurt or killed by some useless piece of scum the world would be better off without. As you can tell, it’s a good thing I didn’t regularly carry a gun at work; I would have used it entirely too much.