I sent this around to my son in upstate New York to prove that his home town is toughing it out. He probably wasn't to impressed as the snow in his front and back yard has accumulated to about five feet in depth.
Yesterday I commented on the military style training DOE is providing to APD saying, "Who knew?" I guess I did because this was supposedly going on during my term as Mayor. I remember visiting the Police Academy many times, but I really don't remember visiting DOE's facility. It is quite possible I didn't know, but that was almost 20 years ago and can't be sure. It is still a bad idea.
4 comments:
It's not about using the DOE facility, it is about when the training that is being done there is geared to military actions, not civilian police. Example, training APD officers in a night a convoy ambush complete with snipers is not what local law enforcement should be training for. Yet this is exactly what has been going on at the DoE facility.
So Richard Berry needs to wake up and start looking into this. His comments over the last couple months (I am not into blaming people for example) show how Berry is completely out of touch with APD reality.
Using the DOE to train cadets in law enforcement scenarios is fine, but it has now been exposed that this is NOT the only training that has been going on. The DoE through Wackenhut has been training our local officers in military attack tactics, this is WRONG. I hope Grisham opens a complete investigation and drags Berry and The APD command staff up to Capitol Hill to answer questions. I don't think they will be able to demand the national cameras be turned off. The light of day is on APD and Berry and they look awful damn dirty.
The fact that even you when you were Mayor did not know about this type of training speaks volumns on how APD had always operated and will tell Mayors and City Councils only what they want to hear and only what they want them to know. Police Chiefs, including Jerry Galvin and especially Ray Schultz, put a big emphasis on hiring people who have served in the military to the point of making it part of the recruitment process and giving veterans a degree of preference which is not bad in and of itself to give US Veterans preferential treatment. However, as you know, there is a big distinction in types of military service. I have seen it too often when police recruiters are more interested in a Marine as opposed to lets say and Air Force Veteran who was a clerk while in the service. The military mission and training as a whole is totally different from a citizens police mission. The military mission is to defend the country and kill the enemy while the civilian police mission is to serve and protect the public. The Military training that is going on at the DOE location is a major contributor to APD being as aggressive as it is with citizens in general.
Instead of military training the recruits should be shown reruns of the Andy Griffith Show for six weeks. Seriously, Andy was a model law enforcement officer. He understood human nature and didn't have to use violence. He never once fired his pistol. Just ask Miss Crump.
If APD is set on military training, I have a suggestion. Send All of them on two tours in Iraq. I bet 80 percent won't go,then they can stop pretending to be soldiers and realize they are Cops.
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