GUARDIANS OR WARRIORS

A key issue is whether we approach law enforcement with an eye to providing Guardians or Warriors.

When I was a policeman for 15 years, then a defense lawyer and prosecutor, the trend had gone from sentinels and protectors to more like warriors, operating combat patrols in enemy territory. I watched it with discomfort.

The warrior mentality is where we are now. The police go to work everyday operating as if they are military combatants patrolling  enemy territory. Every interaction is cast as a potentially dangerous encounter on high alert. Danger...life threatening danger...is assumed at every turn. The moment there is resistance, pushback, hesitation...it is interpreted as an attack in progress.
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If you look closely at the incident between the Minneapolis Police and Floyd or any other incidents that are similar, you will find at the core of those incidents a kind of skeletal framework where the police don't view themselves as the protector of that particular class of people in Minneapolis but rather as the enemy of them and looking for a reason to take me action against them. Where we are now is where you get when you start with that mindset.

I'm certainly not suggesting that the police cannot find themselves in situations where some level of escalated violence doesn't occur. They have to be prepared for it and proficient at diffusing it. However, the alleged passing of a phony $20 bill in a convenience store of some kind should not so quickly escalate to the death of the defendant. Not to mention escalating to worldwide violence which has already racked up scores of deaths and millions upon millions of dollars of property damage and civil unrest that will have damage going far into the future.

Peaceful Protest is constitutional even encouraged by the Constitution. The people have a right to peacefully assemble and to ask for redress of their Grievances. And they need to be able to do that without being interfered with but of course we've gone further than that now.

For president dodo Trump to think that this whole thing is about antifa or outside agitation shows that he doesn't know and doesn't care what's going on and also needs to keep the chaos churning to divert attention from his own blundering buffoonery.

The difference between Warriors and Guardians. We must shift the police mentality to Guardian. This country is not Afghanistan. It is not enemy territory. You don't have to be dressed in paramilitary uniforms carrying all manner of automatic and semi-automatic weaponry and be on the razor's edge of ready to shoot kill or maim no matter what the crime being investigated.