[BartSimpson]

andyt andyt:

I don't think that arming yourself is good protection against the police. You'll likely wind up dead or charged with first degree murder. You pull a gun on a cop, then what? Shoot him, go to jail big time. Disarm him and let him go, you're going to have a whole SWAT team after you.

Quite to the contrary.

Check the stats (anywhere in North America) and you'll find that SWAT teams are principally deployed against unarmed individuals while police overwhelmingly try to negotiate with armed individuals. Your RCMP does not act as aggressively with people they know are armed as opposed to how they employ hyper-aggressive dynamic entry tactics against people they know to be unarmed.

Seriously, your best chance for surviving an encounter with overly-aggressive cops is to let off a full-auto burst and then wait for them to call you and ask you to surrender. Then wait until you see the news media aiming cameras and then surrender.

And what happens when you're confronted with an aggressive cop and you're not armed?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFNDK8PQGNw

[Regina]

I can't think of one single time where firing at a cop has resulted in anything but death, charges and or jail for that person. I quite agree that there are many cowboy power trippers out there but pulling out a gun to confront them will never work.

[bootlegga]

Regina Regina:

I can't think of one single time where firing at a cop has resulted in anything but death, charges and or jail for that person. I quite agree that there are many cowboy power trippers out there but pulling out a gun to confront them will never work.

Based on this list of RCMP officers killed in the line of duty, many of them confronted armed suspects.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/in-the-li ... -1.1023793

[BartSimpson]

Regina Regina:

I can't think of one single time where firing at a cop has resulted in anything but death, charges and or jail for that person. I quite agree that there are many cowboy power trippers out there but pulling out a gun to confront them will never work.

Now you do:

Deputy Jeff Mitchell was on patrol on 10/27/2006 when he stopped a white van on Dillard Road in south Sacramento County. The driver shot him and has never been found.

http://storify.com/C2Case/deputy-jeff-m ... ficer-down

(Details edited...just seems to be bad form)

In any case, there's an example of someone who fired at a cop and has not ended up charged, dead, or incarcerated.

[Regina]

That's a play on words. He's on the run and faces charges if found.

[Xort]

The police should all have cameras and audio recording hardware on their uniforms.
The notes they take should be without a coach and without collaboration.

I'd also like to see a set of suggested additional sentences for the police. Similar to committing a crime with a weapon.

But in the end what we need is someone to watch the watchers as they say. Maybe a federal force with the single duty to seek out bad cops.

[stratos]

$1:

And that's why trust in the police is waning.

Actualy the notes that have nothing to do with the case are not to be read by the lawyers. Yet if they do and find on some other page info that might discredit the officer they will use it. Thus by ensureing that they, the lawyers, do not see the other pages is not wrong it is actualy a legal right of the officers.

[stratos]

$1:

The police should all have cameras and audio recording hardware on their uniforms.

This is very slowly happening. Just last week there was a news report about the police in Austin wearing a Vidcam on their uniform along with the one in the car.

Here in Austin there have been officers suspended and I think 1 fired for not having their carcam on when they conducted stops or responded to incidents.

[DrRosen]

I'm confused by this ruling. If I'm a cop and I'm now told that I'm not allowed legal council before testifying about my notes, my natural reaction is going to be to not take notes. Why would I allow evidence that's supposed to be about a suspect I'm investigating be used against me? Seems to me this decision will result in alot more bad guys getting away with stuff due to system-wide lack of note taking. I can't see how this will be productive.

[Xort]

DrRosen DrRosen:

I'm confused by this ruling. If I'm a cop and I'm now told that I'm not allowed legal council before testifying about my notes, my natural reaction is going to be to not take notes. Why would I allow evidence that's supposed to be about a suspect I'm investigating be used against me? Seems to me this decision will result in alot more bad guys getting away with stuff due to system-wide lack of note taking. I can't see how this will be productive.

No you are allowed legal council before testifying about your notes, however while you are making your notes they must be your own words without guidance.

It's reasonable that someone recording a statement of events must do so without legal advice. It's also reasonable to require notes to be taken and made with a set quality as part of the job.

Bottom line, as the police are so want to say, if you didn't do anything wrong you have nothing to fear.

[BartSimpson]

Regina Regina:

That's a play on words. He's on the run and faces charges if found.

Not really. So long as the shooter keeps his/her silence then there's not much to go on. The bullets used in the shooting were frangible hollow points which left no useful ballistic information, and the shooter either policed their brass or shot from inside their vehicle and, again, denied evidence to investigators.

It's not the first such case. I'm sure Canada has unsolved LEO shootings on the books, too.

[BartSimpson]

DrRosen DrRosen:

I'm confused by this ruling. If I'm a cop and I'm now told that I'm not allowed legal council before testifying about my notes, my natural reaction is going to be to not take notes. Why would I allow evidence that's supposed to be about a suspect I'm investigating be used against me? Seems to me this decision will result in alot more bad guys getting away with stuff due to system-wide lack of note taking. I can't see how this will be productive.

If you're a cop and you're doing nothing wrong then you have nothing to fear about oversight.

I think that's a fair argument since cops use it to justify warrantless surveillance and searches all the time.

[Thanos]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

DrRosen DrRosen:

I'm confused by this ruling. If I'm a cop and I'm now told that I'm not allowed legal council before testifying about my notes, my natural reaction is going to be to not take notes. Why would I allow evidence that's supposed to be about a suspect I'm investigating be used against me? Seems to me this decision will result in alot more bad guys getting away with stuff due to system-wide lack of note taking. I can't see how this will be productive.

If you're a cop and you're doing nothing wrong then you have nothing to fear about oversight.

I think that's a fair argument since cops use it to justify warrantless surveillance and searches all the time.

If I said the same thing about an NSA meta-data search where no one got arrested or even had a phone call listened to by a government agent you still would have called me a fascist and told me to go back to 1984.

[Xort]

Thanos Thanos:

If I said the same thing about an NSA meta-data search where no one got arrested or even had a phone call listened to by a government agent you still would have called me a fascist and told me to go back to 1984.

You fail to grasp the difference between the general population and volunteer paid and employed police officers.

[BeaverFever]

Thanos Thanos:

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

DrRosen DrRosen:

I'm confused by this ruling. If I'm a cop and I'm now told that I'm not allowed legal council before testifying about my notes, my natural reaction is going to be to not take notes. Why would I allow evidence that's supposed to be about a suspect I'm investigating be used against me? Seems to me this decision will result in alot more bad guys getting away with stuff due to system-wide lack of note taking. I can't see how this will be productive.

If you're a cop and you're doing nothing wrong then you have nothing to fear about oversight.

I think that's a fair argument since cops use it to justify warrantless surveillance and searches all the time.

If I said the same thing about an NSA meta-data search where no one got arrested or even had a phone call listened to by a government agent you still would have called me a fascist and told me to go back to 1984.

Unedited Police notes are required because they are a first-hand account of events. Moreover, there is an expectation that the officer provide a complete and non-self-serving account. If they have been vetted and altered by lawyers, then :

1) They are no longer a first-hand account events
2) They are no longer complete and non-self-serving

Remember, we're not just talking about cases where the police is accused of doing something wrong, we're also taking about cases where the police is simply giving evidence to convict the accused. Courts have increasingly refused to admit police testimony and/or have declared mistrials where the arresting officer testifies to key facts that aren't in their notes.

Police officers in the performance of their duties dont' have the same rights to privacy from government oversight that average private citizens do. Police ARE government oversight. They have powers to seach, arrest and detain members of the public, and are trusted to give truthful and complete testimony used to incarcerate citizens, and even to kill members of the public on behalf of the state. It's only reasonable that the state and the public be able control and monitor how that power is used.

An officer who doesn't break the law has nothing to fear complete and accurate notes. If an officer makes a mistake on the job that compromises the intergrity of his arrest and testimony, his lawyer should certainly NOT be able to edit mention of the mistake from his notes just so he can save face and convict a potentially innocent person.