Critically burned toddler in coma after SWAT team drug raid on home

It seems quite clear. Until we start jailing cops for any and all infractions of the law, they will continue to behave like this.
Most jurisdictions elects their chief prosecutor or district attorney. For those politically inclined and who enjoy voting, this is a good place to start if you want change. Insist on bringing up the topic in electoral debate. Make it part of the media landscape by demanding a prosecutor that will try every case in which police accused of committing a crime.
After all, what right do that have to try us as citizens when they refuse to hold their officers up to the same standards.

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Way too damned much pink and blue on that map.

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Indeed!

And green (death of a non-violent offender) should be included in that imbalance. Further, when we note that orange specifies “death or injury of a police officer” whereas blue denotes “death of an innocent” excluding mere injuries, it is clear that the SWAT teams are far more concerned with protecting their own lives than with anything else.

Presuming that young Bounkham (sp?) survives, his little pin on this horrific map will only show under the category of “other examples of paramilitary police excess” Rather banal, IMO.

Until orange is the vastly predominate color on this map, all such claims (that police work is especially dangerous) are not just hollow but actually deceitful.

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Here’s the 10 most dangerous jobs for 2012:

  1. Logging workers
  2. Fishers and related fishing workers
  3. Aircraft pilot and flight engineers
  4. Roofers
  5. Structural iron and steel workers
  6. Refuse and recyclable material collectors
  7. Electrical power-line installers and repairers
  8. Drivers/sales workers and truck drivers
  9. Farmers, ranchers, and other agricultural managers
  10. Construction laborers

There’s a noticeable lack of “law enforcement” on this list.

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Well I hope you’re happy now cause you’re gonna make them feel all butt-hurt and they’ll be sniveling… They’'ll probably have to kick some homeless person just to cheer up [quote=“IronEdithKidd, post:48, topic:35413”]
There’s a noticeable lack of “law enforcement” on this list.
[/quote]

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I see that at least one jurisdiction realized that one needs to get rid of the hammer if you wan’t to protect the nails…

Even though the actual suspect didn’t live in Stamp’s home and was already in custody, the SWAT team still decided to carry out the raid. Framingham has since disbanded its SWAT team.
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You fatuously post a list to claim LEO is not a dangerous profession?
The first list I happened to google has LEOs on the top 10 list.

Edit: So it seems like the argument is going, “Well, it’s dangerous, but it’s not the most dangerous” (so what?) Or: “But steelworkers don’t use flashbangs.” (really, wtf?)

Look, it’s disgusting when LEOs are brutal and sloppy and trample innocent people’s civil rights, so address that; saying they do not have dangerous jobs is just being contrary and false.

@IronEdithKidd’s list is based on 2012 data – the most recent data

Your list appears to be using data from 2007 – every stat has this qualifier

…fatalities in 2007

edit (one stat cites 2008 data)

I will leave the list veracity determination up to the denizens of BB.

'nother edit:
it appears that roughly 1/3 of police deaths are the result of interactions with “violators” (apprehending/chasing/fights) – I assume that the rest are deaths due to being in an occupation that puts in long hours behind the wheel of a vehicle.



Fatal occupational injuries by selected characteristics, 2003-2012 - all_worker.pdf

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I notice that even on your list, LEO’s are number 10. Call me when, without repercussions, fishermen can break into my home and shoot me with a spear gun, or maybe a logger can climb in my window and chase me around with chainsaw, or plane can crash land onto my house, or a steel worker can start pouring molten iron into my bedroom in the middle of the night, or a farmer can drive through my living room on a tractor, or it’s okay for a roofer to randomly shoot a nailgun through the windows, or truck driving crashes into my home, or a gang of recyclable collectors can break in and take everything that can possibly be recycled. That should all be reasonable since those guys have dangerous jobs, and number 10 on the list is allowed to soften up my house with grenades in the crib before storming the entrances with a platoon of organized, heavily armed men trained as soldiers.

PS English teachers should probably be allowed to stab me with a pen for that run on sentence.

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I have to say, your list says “Transportation incidents are a common cause of death.” under the LEOs.

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Wait, they’re not allowed to do that? I knew there was something fishy about that guy.

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From the very list you linked, I infer that a taxi driver is more likely to be shot “in the line of duty” than is a police officer. But they don’t get to preemptively toss flash-bangs into the back seat.

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If the only thing you have is a flash grenade then everyone looks like a drug criminal.

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The list is from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Somehow, I suspect it might be a tad more reliable than some random AOL list.

Almost like that degree of authority IS INTOXICATING?

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Right. They are above the law right now. Since they choose when to enforce it, and repercussions against them are so difficult to make stick.

Also most of the worst ones seem to operate in packs.

They should be constantly surveilled while on the job.

I vote that the govenor and all the state representatives in Georgia donate their entire salaries for at least a year to a trust fund to support this kid on his hopefull recovery and future education. Then, if he doesn’t survive, they forfeit all salaries and benefits until those responsible are held accountable and spend at least 10 years in prison for murder!

Until the politicians responsible for allowing our police (Serve and Protect - right!) to do such egregious acts are held accountable, it won’t get better!

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The problematics is well described in the Radley Balko’s book “Rise of the Warrior Cop - The Militarization of America’s Police Forces”, from 2013, ISBN 1610392116.

Having a SWAT team makes sense in a few limited cases. However their uses naturally grow totally disproportional; the small police stations want their own teams, want the cool boy-toys that come with it, and have no money to buy the officers time to train properly, so they do training on-the-job by engaging soft targets. The power-craving personalities that have the least business getting into a power-wielding position get enrolled. Cops get more fed money by the number of drug busts, which futher skews the incentives towards numerous soft drug-related targets (instead of being incentivized to have safe communities peacefully patrolled by Officer Friendlys). And then there is the adrenaline rush that comes with the operation; the cops tend to describe it in the same terms as drug users describe their highs.

Unless these (and more) underlying factors aren’t addressed, things won’t get better.

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Blergh, this is just too fucking awful for words.

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