Law Enforcement Discussion (Statistics, ideology)

[BaneTheBrawler]

I cant participate but I would be interested to see a discussion about automatic seatbelts and their effectiveness (or lack thereof) in police vehicles.

[Pirian]

The not wearing seatbelt thing drives me insane, and drives our driver trainers insane (it's the same group that helped a lot with the driving tests on myth busters). The reason why so many cops don't wear there seatbelts is due to concerns of it getting hung on there badges when trying to exit a vehicle. So for whatever retarded reason, most states that have seatbelt laws have exceptions for Police. Yet if you ask any police driving instructor the #1 thing that drives them insane, they typically answer cops who don't wear their fucking seatbelts.

Actually let me be a bit more clear, it's not just the hanging on the badges, it's the duty belts, body armor, etc. Still don't agree with it though.

You would think they would, you know, design better seat belts designed to be worn over police equipment for their police cars. It's not like the cars aren't made special, or anything, right?

[BerenTebogo]

The problem is, physically, anything with enough points of contact to release quickly and freely would take more time to put on.

Just like how with 1 point of contact it's easier to snag on shit since you have 1 length segment traveling a greater distance across the body. But that shit snaps in quick.

So a multi-point harness or something automatic that releases at multiple points quickly would probably suffer from not being put on when cops are in a hurry starting out.

[BerenTebogo]

Obviously there are ways to engineer around it, but it's not like it's just something super simple to fix.

[Thunder]

The problem is, physically, anything with enough points of contact to release quickly and freely would take more time to put on.

Just like how with 1 point of contact it's easier to snag on shit since you have 1 length segment traveling a greater distance across the body. But that shit snaps in quick.

So a multi-point harness or something automatic that releases at multiple points quickly would probably suffer from not being put on when cops are in a hurry starting out.

Can't visualize what you're saying. Idk if talking about solutions in terms of points of contact is best here

What I was thinking is just something you put on your seat belt and just leave that shit there forever. The seat belt wouldn't be able to "retract" all the way back when you leave the car, but who cares. It'd be a 2-3 ft attachment out of some material (not too rigid, not too flexible..) that would just make the seatbelt into a curved shape in that segment + the point where both straps connect for the "fastener/buckle - thing". Wouldn't be possible to snag on things protruding off your chest when leaving the car, that way.

Idk if that's easy to visualize but what I'm thinking is similar to why sleds are curved upward on the front end instead of parallel to the ground

So.. I do think it's a super simple fix lol. Almost anybody in the US with enough free time could "invent" this thing, create one prototype, hustle some deals with police departments, and then with those deals secure some investments for production.

[BerenTebogo]

Anything rigid enough to hold the seatbelt in place is rigid enough to go through your chest, hips, shoulder, etc when you suddenly come to a stop from 40mph.

Sure, anyone can design a prototype. Getting it to pass safety tests on the way to getting field tested though, that's the lol part.

[BerenTebogo]

Also, fwiw this is not an America only problem.

Put it this way: if the German auto engineers haven't figured it out, you're not giving the problem enough respect.

[Thunder]

Anything rigid enough to hold the seatbelt in place is rigid enough to go through your chest, hips, shoulder, etc when you suddenly come to a stop from 40mph.

Sure, anyone can design a prototype. Getting it to pass safety tests on the way to getting field tested though, that's the lol part.

huh? aren't we talking about seatbelt getting stuck on your shit when you go to take it off and get out the car? I dunno if I misunderstood the problem we're talking about or you did

The general consumer wouldn't care at all about this. I've never got things like badges, mags, guns, radios, walkietalkies, whatever the fuck else hanging off my chest lol

[Nephlite]

Blacks, mentally ill, people of low socioeconomic status ... it's a race issue, it's also not always a race issue.

Just because something is policy or a law does not mean it's just.

There's no easy solution.

For EDP calls, there's no hotline to call to get people out there specifically to deal with them. Who do people call when there's a dangerous situation? The police. It's crazy to think there's a quick solution to it that works every time. You still have to remember that there's a dangerous person there that needs to be dealt with, and who's better equipped than the police to handle it?

And it's like I said before that for every one EDP that's called in and considered dangerous that loses their life because they were dangerous, think about the hundreds of others that are taken peacefully. It's a tragedy when one is killed; I'm not saying it isn't. But you have to understand that a person who threatens the life of others is still dangerous.

Now, when you say this, do you mean the same amount or the same proportion? The implications should be obvious, but just so they're spelled out: if say, 10 black people were killed and 10 white people were killed then yes, just as many black people were killed as white people, but when you consider 13.2% of the population is black, that suddenly means that your chance of being killed by a police officer is much higher simply because you are black.

It's true that if you look at it in that aspect, proportionately, more blacks are killed by Law Enforcement by population index. If you look at it by LEO statistics, more whites are stopped, arrested, and killed per officer than blacks. A few people (including hey) have pointed that out, and I'm not ignoring it.

It's a serious argument when you dive deep in to the numbers and look at the stats of where the killings happen the most. My argument is the amount of killings happen in more impoverished areas, and no one seems to look at the amount of crime per capita in those regions where LEO killings happen more frequently at a more underlying problem than just a racial disparity. There's a lot more that goes in to it.

huh? aren't we talking about seatbelt getting stuck on your shit when you go to take it off and get out the car? I dunno if I misunderstood the problem we're talking about or you did

The general consumer wouldn't care at all about this. I've never got things like badges, mags, guns, radios, walkietalkies, whatever the fuck else hanging off my chest lol

Sath's pretty much hit it. The point where the seatbelt hits on the body to retain you in the vehicle to prevent injury is across the chest and hips, and the hips are where the most gear on police officers is, and the chest is second depending on how much crap you put there (i.e. a load bearing vest).

So when you get in an accident, if the seatbelt isn't snug against your hips and chest when the seatbelt locks, it does no good when it slips off of your hips and slides up in to your stomach or sternum. It defeats the purpose of a seatbelt.

I would like to point out that some of those LEO Traffic Related fatalities are not just ones where the officer was at fault. Some are when the officer is in a cruiser on a traffic stop on the side of the road and gets hit from behind (usually by a drunk driver) and killed. Some are also being struck on the approach after a stop, or deploying a spike strip. Some are straight negligence.

As part of EVOC and a piece of gear I always have one of these in place to help with the gear getting snagged on the seatbelt problem as Melena pointed out:

http://www.seatbeltextenderpros.com/...FUsR7Aodn2kAGA

It's situational awareness when you're in training that it's a problem LEO's have identified as being a problem when getting in and out of a car many times a day, and it becomes quite the pain in the ass to take the seatbelt on and off, especially if you have to bail out quickly during a foot chase.

I dunno if any of the other LEO's want to comment, but I learned that it's part of muscle memory to train yourself to put the damn thing on and take it off every time. Getting used to, and identifying problems as they arise so you can essentially "clear the problem" is key to development. I'm super guilty of forgetting to put it on, especially if I'm going to a hot call, but I have tried to train myself in the art of quickly buckling in when I take off, and taking it back off before I exit so I don't get caught in it when I jump out.

It's a real problem with Law Enforcement, and I don't know an easy solution.

[hey]

It's true that if you look at it in that aspect, proportionately, more blacks are killed by Law Enforcement by population index. If you look at it by LEO statistics, more whites are stopped, arrested, and killed per officer than blacks. A few people (including hey) have pointed that out, and I'm not ignoring it.

You are ignoring it though. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to even think about the raw numbers. Only the rate matters. The only reason to use raw numbers is to make it seem like it's not as bad as it is. Stop that.

[Nephlite]

You are ignoring it though. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to even think about the raw numbers. Only the rate matters. The only reason to use raw numbers is to make it seem like it's not as bad as it is. Stop that.

Numbers can be used to make whatever argument you want. I'm not ignoring it. I'm just saying there's more to it than just that, and hate it when people use that number and put the sole blame of the problem on that one issue.

[Pirian]

Numbers can be used to make whatever argument you want. I'm not ignoring it. I'm just saying there's more to it than just that, and hate it when people use that number and put the sole blame of the problem on that one issue.

There is more to it than just that, but the raw numbers are useless. You must look at them as their respective proportion to the population or they simply have no meaning. That being said, once you establish that fact then you can look into causal reasons, e.g. poverty distribution and it's effect on crime, crime rates broken down against race, and even the growing realization that black people are treated more harshly with punishments at every stage of their lives.

Yes, numbers can be made to say almost anything you want, but that doesn't make every conclusion valid. This is most obvious in cases like this where, if you're bothering to break up crime rates by race to begin with, there is a logical step of breaking the numbers down proportionally by population percentages.

[hey]

Numbers can be used to make whatever argument you want.

Clearly.

[Nephlite]

There is more to it than just that, but the raw numbers are useless. You must look at them as their respective proportion to the population or they simply have no meaning. That being said, once you establish that fact then you can look into causal reasons, e.g. poverty distribution and it's effect on crime, crime rates broken down against race, and even the growing realization that black people are treated more harshly with punishments at every stage of their lives.

Yes, numbers can be made to say almost anything you want, but that doesn't make every conclusion valid. This is most obvious in cases like this where, if you're bothering to break up crime rates by race to begin with, there is a logical step of breaking the numbers down proportionally by population percentages.

I've heard a conclusion based on this logic that clearly, blacks are more violent than whites. If you take the LEO killings data by population, compare it to the offender status and violent crime status indexes by population for minorities, and present them, it shows this. Does this mean blacks are more violent? A reasonable person would say no. But that's what people are using to validate their arguments, when it's clearly not the issue.

So there's two facets to the argument, both on extremes. There's enough in the middle that needs to be addressed before putting it in black and white contexts.

once you establish that fact then you can look into causal reasons, e.g. poverty distribution and it's effect on crime, crime rates broken down against race

This is not a "casual reason". If it's that simple, how come it's not addressed and ruled out as a possible contributor to the issue?

[hey]

I've heard a conclusion based on this logic that clearly, blacks are more violent than whites. If you take the LEO killings data by population, compare it to the offender status and violent crime status indexes by population for minorities, and present them, it shows this. Does this mean blacks are more violent? A reasonable person would say no. But that's what people are using to validate their arguments, when it's clearly not the issue.

So there's two facets to the argument, both on extremes. There's enough in the middle that needs to be addressed before putting it in black and white contexts.

If you want to argue that there's more to it, then go for it, but don't act like black people aren't killed much more than white people. I'm sure you're right, there is more to it than just racism by the cops.

[Pirian]

I've heard a conclusion based on this logic that clearly, blacks are more violent than whites. If you take the LEO killings data by population, compare it to the offender status and violent crime status indexes by population for minorities, and present them, it shows this. Does this mean blacks are more violent? A reasonable person would say no. But that's what people are using to validate their arguments, when it's clearly not the issue.

That is not a conclusion based upon this logic. I already addressed that in the very quote you were addressing:

Yes, numbers can be made to say almost anything you want, but that doesn't make every conclusion valid. This is most obvious in cases like this where, if you're bothering to break up crime rates by race to begin with, there is a logical step of breaking the numbers down proportionally by population percentages.

But to make it a little more clear, let me further break it down using your specific example. The LEO killings data does not say that blacks are more violent than whites, but what it may show (and I don't know, I haven't looked at the data; this is, for the sake of the conversation, just a postulation based upon how I perceived you represented the data) is that blacks represent a higher proportion of the data relative to their population representation - that is all. To say that "blacks are more violent than whites" and then cite this data is at best an erroneous use of the data, and at worst is a prevarication of the data.

So there's two facets to the argument, both on extremes. There's enough in the middle that needs to be addressed before putting it in black and white contexts.

I'm not trying to put it in black-and-white context, and I thought that was quite clear in the first paragraph of the post you quoted.

This is not a "casual reason". If it's that simple, how come it's not addressed and ruled out as a possible contributor to the issue?

Well no, see, that's the thing; it's not that simple. You start out with very general, broad data, and then you use that data to answer very broad, general questions, and as a springboard for more specific questions, or at least as a guide for your next set of variables for data collection.

For example, of the post you quoted, the last question posed in my first paragraph, as I mentioned, has been a question that has been looked at. This is a study looking at an aspect of that very question (don't worry, as far as data goes, this is a very digestible report). A report like this simply begs questions, but making a definitive statement such as, "punishing of these children at a higher and harsher rate than those of their peers lead them to self-identify as "bad", and thus lead to them having lower expectations of themselves that translate into higher rates of poverty, crime, and incarceration later in life", and citing this article is just as erroneous and possibly deceptive as the definitive statement in your first example, "blacks are more violent than whites", and citing the LEO data.
There are lots more research going on in regard to that question, and it's looking like the answer is a resounding "yes" btw (shocker), but it's not a question you can answer with the data provided in that one study, large though it may be.

[Thunder]

OK, I'm not crazy,

The reason why so many cops don't wear there seatbelts is due to concerns of it getting hung on there badges when trying to exit a vehicle.

Actually let me be a bit more clear, it's not just the hanging on the badges, it's the duty belts, body armor, etc. Still don't agree with it though.

This is what I was talking about when I was talking seatbelts. Not the part that seat belts are rendered ineffective in some collisions

This is a problem that's totally fixable and doesn't need to go through safety regulations, a lot of R&D, whatever else.

[Nephlite]

But to make it a little more clear, let me further break it down using your specific example. The LEO killings data does not say that blacks are more violent than whites, but what it may show (and I don't know, I haven't looked at the data; this is, for the sake of the conversation, just a postulation based upon how I perceived you represented the data) is that blacks represent a higher proportion of the data relative to their population representation - that is all. To say that "blacks are more violent than whites" and then cite this data is at best an erroneous use of the data, and at worst is a prevarication of the data.

Sorry, I should have specified that people (not necessarily me) are using the data to say blacks are more violent than whites based on the crime statistics per-capita. I agree with you, it's erroneous, but it's another side of the argument that people are using.

I'm a big-picture guy. I don't see things from one angle. I like to look at everything. And yes, I know, using that example is a clearly shitty way to push a political agenda, but it can still be taken at face value if you dive in to it and think to yourself "I can see where they're coming from."

Well no, see, that's the thing; it's not that simple. You start out with very general, broad data, and then you use that data to answer very broad, general questions, and as a springboard for more specific questions, or at least as a guide for your next set of variables for data collection.

For example, of the post you quoted, the last question posed in my first paragraph, as I mentioned, has been a question that has been looked at. This is a study looking at an aspect of that very question (don't worry, as far as data goes, this is a very digestible report). A report like this simply begs questions, but making a definitive statement such as, "punishing of these children at a higher and harsher rate than those of their peers lead them to self-identify as "bad", and thus lead to them having lower expectations of themselves that translate into higher rates of poverty, crime, and incarceration later in life", and citing this article is just as erroneous and possibly deceptive as the definitive statement in your first example, "blacks are more violent than whites", and citing the LEO data.
There are lots more research going on in regard to that question, and it's looking like the answer is a resounding "yes" btw (shocker), but it's not a question you can answer with the data provided in that one study, large though it may be.

We're in agreement, except we have different conclusions based upon how we're interpreting each other.

You're doing a better job of throwing my own argument back at me, which is what I'm trying to do when people say there's only the "racism" aspect of this issue. I should have you be my spokesperson.

[hey]

You're doing a better job of throwing my own argument back at me, which is what I'm trying to do when people say there's only the "racism" aspect of this issue. I should have you be my spokesperson.

Well, it all comes down to racism, just from more than just the cops. I think we can all agree that plays a part.

[Nephlite]

Well, it all comes down to racism, just from more than just the cops. I think we can all agree that plays a part.

Definitely plays a part. The more I hear about the whole Ferguson thing, the more personal deep hatred I see from people. It's not surprising, but at the same time, I've been at this job long enough to know people in general, not just blacks and not just whites, are pieces of shit. I wish that I could be one of the first people on the ship that takes us off this planet so I can be alone.