The Glade 4.0

Well I will admit I was wrong.

I really didn't think you were this crazy.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Diamondeye:

Because that's exactly what you posted. You'll notice, by the way, I use a definite article "the", not an indefinite article with the phrase "the situation." That would, in the context of a thread/conversation, specifically refer to the OP and the specific situation this thread is discussing.

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"Only in the rarest of circumstances" indicates you're talking about other hypothetical situations as "the situation". I'm not interested in listening to a bunch of linguistic technicalities as to why you meant whatever, when you started right off with "cop pulls gun on guy" which is hardly correct English.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Concession accepted, troll, and welcome to ignore.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Actually, despite being quite spartan, the statement -- "Cop pulls gun on guy" -- is quite grammatically correct. What you're not interested in is being wrong on an issue revolving around law enforcement officers, Diamondeye.

Your statements in this thread are simultaneously baffling and quite humorous. The police officer in question escalated a legal situation out of ignorance or arrogance. Either way, drawing his gun on a law abiding civilian well within the confines of the law did not in any way de-escalate the situation. It did, in point of fact, cause the situation.

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Poor DE on the long slow side into mental instability. I guess that is what eventually happens to authoritarians.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

No, that would be what you're not interested in being wrong on, as your diversion onto the irrelevant intricacies of indefinite and definite articles so amply indicate. The idea that you have not analyzed the situation in absolute perfection and that someone who is a member of the hated group of "opressors" might actually know something you don't is anathema to you.



No, in fact it did not. What caused the situation was his ignorance of the law on open carry. The situation was indeed legal; it was an officer perceiving a crime, and then eventully determining there was no crime and letting the citizen go. Regardless of his error, he in no way escalated the situation. "Escalation" refers to the level of force used and the level of threat. The officer threatened a high use of force, but in actual fact, used none whatsoever, and the situation remained there for its duration.

There's nothing humorous or baffling by me here; what's humorous (but hardly baffling) is your insistence on trying to make the appear
situation worse than it actually turned out.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

What a unique version of escalation DE has. Why one might think that the definition seemed to be created to only view things from the LEO's perspective. Its as if the regular use of the word doesn't even exist!

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Diamondeye:

I have made a clinical and perfectly rational assessment of the situation. The police officer elevated the threatened level of force by drawing his weapon. Thereby the statements in your most recent post, you agree he escalated the situation. Now, you can keep contradicting yourself in your furor to defend yet another officer of dubious actions, or you can simply admit you let your bias in these matters cloud your opinions.

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Elevating the threatened level of force is not what I was talking about. I was talking about escalating the level of force actually used either by actually using it or by causing the suspect to escalate when he wouldn't otherwise have done so. Seeing as the suspect never became violent in any way, and the officer never actually used any force, he didn't escalate the situation. That's the kind of escalation that actually matters, and is what we mean by escalation when we discuss it; escalating what you're threatening to do is just a tactic; a bluff if you will. In the interest of staying civil, I'll assume you were unintentionally unclear, or didn't understand what I meant, and are not now moving the goalposts.



No, I do not. Evidently I have not explained this well enough. Escalating what you are threatening to do is not the same as escalating the situation. The level of the situation is not determined by what could happen (which includes things that are threatened or warned) but by what actually does happen.



Or, you can admit that you're conflating the actual state of the situation with what the officer threatened to do in order to keep it nonviolent - which worked. Essentially what happened (although I haven't seen this video so obviously these aren't the actual words) was "don't reach for that gun, and we'll talk about what's going on here." The man remained calm, the officer talked to him, and the situation was resolved peacefully.

Now, the officer may have been rude in how he addressed the man, but I haven't defended that. The officer was clearly wrong about OC, but I haven't defended that except to call into question why he was wrong about it. I've only defended him against allegations that he escalated the situation, and there is no evidence whatsoever that he did. Instead, you are focusing on the drawn gun in an attempt to find fault without considering how that actually worked out.

But then, it's a lot easier to just claim his actions are dubious because you don't like them, and fall back on "well, DE is an LEO, so I don't need to listen to what he has to say. I can just claim he's biased and call it a day, while pretending I don't have my own massive stereotypes and biases in play."

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

You do realize your argument is a regressive post hoc fallacy right? Because violence did not occur, the situation was not escalated. That's both logically and factually incorrect.

A non-escalated situation would, regardless of your assertions and equivocation, require zero threat of force or violence or commission of violence/exertion of force by either party. Even in a state of ignorance, the officer could have questioned the individual's behavior (open carry) and arrived at the same conclusion without a) drawing his gun or b) the explicit threat of high level force that action entails.

As such, drawing his gun makes the cop's behavior dubious. Acting out of ignorance, regardless of root cause for that ignorance, is not an upstanding or rational behavior for a public servant with special dispensation to use force in stopping a crime. More to the point, because the officer was not stopping the commission of any crime and responded to a perfect legal action with a demonstrable threat of force, his judgment and behavior should be questioned and deeply scrutinized.

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No, that's exactly correct. I never claimed that the officer knew beforehand that it definitely wouldn't escalate. It might or might not have. It also might or might not have had he not drawn his gun. Escalation refers to the level of violence (or ore appropriately, force) in the first place; a lack of violence precludes escalation absolutely. Neither side used any, therefore the encounter never escalated.

What you are attempting to do is simplay assert that escalation has occured because drawing gun must necessarily be an escalation, and you have offered no good reason why.

Any time an officer interacts with anyone, it's a gamble. One can predict with a certain degree of probability what will happen, but one cannot know for sure. The officer guessed that having his gun already drawn would be a powerful deterrent to aggressive behavior by the person he stopped, about whom he knew absolutely nothing; it could have been a wanted bank robber. Most people will not attempt to beat someone who already has their gun drawn in a speed contest, but some people might try out of desperation or stupidity.

The fact that the officer was wrong in his belief that the man was illegally carrying the gun does not affect this in any way.



A non-escalated situation requires no such thing. "Escalation" is a technical term used in law enforcement and means a specific thing in that context. Even in other areas, a threat of force is not escalation to that level. A threat to use nuclear weapons in the midst of a conventional war does not mean the war was escalated to a nuclear conflict; it means there was a threat of that, presumably to get the enemy to back down.

If we want to use your definition of escalation, ok, fine, according to a dictionary definition he escalated it. However, he didn't from a law enforcement standpoint, so it's irrelevant. You can't switch definitions in midstream.



In your personal opinion



This is an utterly silly statement. Have you any evidence whatsoever that the officer knew he was ignorant? Unless he was aware and acted anyhow, you cannot in any way claim his behavior was not upstanding or rational. This is doubly true if his ignorance was due to the negligence of others, which the facts strongly indicate was the case.

You could claim his behavior was wrong and in need of correction, but that's it.



Not really. Many demonstrably legal actions appear to be a crime at first and require precautions to be taken. For example, if a burglar alarm goes off, and the polcie arrive with guns drawn to find a large white van at a rear door to a building, the fact that the people turn out to be custodians who forgot the alarm code does not mean the actions of the police need to be "questioned and deeply scrutinized."

You are focusing on the gun because it offers the greatest chance to castigate yet another cop. The gun is really not the issue. The issue is why he was not aware of open carry laws. I have pointed out why the facts lead to the conclusion that the city is covering its *** after failing to train on this issue. In fact, it occured to me that the city may not approve of state open carry laws and has quietly discourged it by avoiding mention that it is legal, and now it has bit them in the ***. This would put Philadelphia's behavior on par with Chicago and NYC and having lived in a suburb of Philly for over 10 years, counting summers home from college, it fits what I know of the city quite well.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

DE:

If it is an escalation any time a civilian trains a gun on anyone else, it is an escalation any time a LEO does as well. Your inability to see this from any perspective other than one that absolves said LEO of any real responsibility is staggering.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

That is not true. LEOs are not civilians. They do not have the same responsibilities, and therefore the same rules do not apply. I'm sure you're going to try to make this seem like I'm saying LEOs get "special privileges" or I think they're better than everyone else, but if you'd stop trying to make the world conform to your ideology for a minute, you'd see that everyone has different rules based on their responsibilities, and LEOs are not unique in that regard.

Your only other option is to claim that LEOs are civilians, and have absolutely no responsibility or authority other than what a civilian does, and that society is simply throwing away money on them for the sheer hell of it.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Remember everyone, to DE you are all equal its just that some are more equal than others.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Someone has to be in charge without it you have anarchy. Certainly you try to limit their individual power, but we all can't be chiefs but we all can't be Indians either.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Don't get me wrong, I understand where DE is coming from.

You've got an officer who see what he thinks is an illegal act. The blood starts pumping because he is percieving that something bad is about to happen in that auto parts store. If the guy is willing to openly display his weapon, he is more than likely not going to let this come to a peaceful resolution. I'm sure the officer is going over active shooter training in his mind at this point, trying to quickly assess what he can do, by himself, right now, to avoid that happening. Ok he gets agressive to force this person to focus on him, the person nearby that is best equipped to deal with this percieved threat. Sheepdog mentality engaged, he's going to protect people.

Problem is, there was no threat, nothing illegal, and it was the officers own ignorance that made this situation escalate. Pennsylvania has a uniform firearms code, meaning that only the State can legislate anything to do with firearms, ammo or the like. The laws have not been changed on Open carry for many many years. The MPOTEC training was a supplimental training that dealt with open carry. It even says that the mere act of open carry, even with a "man with gun" call in, is not an illegal act. I really fear how this would have turned out if there WASNT a recording of the encounter. I'm sure the list of charges would have been much longer. And reckless endangerment? The cop was the one who was endangering everyone downrange of his ignorant behavior. Private citizens with zero legal training are forced to be accountable for every law. Why are the Police being held to a lower standard? Switch it around and say that Open Carry was illegal in Philly. Think the excuse "oh it's legal in the suburbs, I didn't know Philly had a different standard, sorry officer..." would have gotten him pat on the back and a hearty laugh as he was sent on his way?

The officer failed, the officers supervisors failed, hell the whole structure in place failed. The question that will never, ever be honestly answered is why. Personally, my experience with Philly police is that this officer is the norm, not the exception. I understand why they act the way they do, if I was in close quarters day after day with people who's mantra is "stop snitching" and who challenge me at every turn, I'd have a much shorter switch to flip as well. However if officers are degrading to the point of being a danger to citizens who are doing nothing wrong- that needs to be fixed.

Kinda blows the idea of "if youre not doing anything wrong, you've got nothing to worry about" right outta the freggin water.

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

Official press release... "gun Owners will be inconvenienced" if they open carry in Philly. So laws, training and rights be damned, Philly cops are going to do what they want until they are punished through the courts. In the meantime we will see citizens rights trampled, their property seized, freedoms, and finances taken.

Nothing like doubling down on a mistake.

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

I don't disagree with your assessment of basically what happened. However:

1) The cop was not engaging in an illegal act. He was investigating a perceived crime. Eventually he determined no crime was committed and did not make an arrest. It is not illegal in any way to take protective actions when investigating a crime. Had he arrested the man, that would have been illegal.
2) Private citizens are not "forced to be accountable for every law". I already pointed out that mistake of non-governing law is a defense. "Ignorance is not a defense" is really not as absolute a principle as is often put forth.
3) "Lower standards" are a red herring. No one has said "well, its perfectly ok that the officer didn't know the law".



That problem is certainly not going to be fixed by people who feel that the mere investigation of a possible crime that turns out not to reveal one is inherently problematic just because the officer took steps to protect himself. There was a failure here. 2; the failure of the department to adequately cover this issue, and the filing of charges by the DA for no apparent good reason. The officer drawing his gun was not.



Not exactly. If you're doing nothing wrong, you have substantially less to worry about than someone who is.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Except its been ruled illegal in the Pa Supreme Court, criminal and civil lawsuits have been successfully pressed against individual officers and departments in the past for doing less than these officer's did.

You know except for history, law, and case law.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

People shouldn't be walking around with guns anyways. It's a public safety hazard. How do the police know if they have a license or not?

It would be interesting to see a graph of people carrying weapons versus homicide rates in metropolitan environments.

1) No it's not.
2) Open Carry is de facto legal in the state. In Philadelphia, they could just ask. MPOTEC guidelines are to observe, not go cowboy.
3) as long as that graph seperated legal carry from illegal. But it's been done and it makes the Brady Bunch cry. LCTF holders commit less offenses then the same segment of society who do not have LCTFs.

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

Significantly less. In fact, at the moment there is a major hubbub in Texas about allowing CCW holders to carry on campuses at public universities. The anti-gun crowd is digging up almost any straw they can grasp at in order to claim it's going to be some major disaster; my favorite so far is "college students could have undiagnosed mental illnesses!" Well no ****, so could anyone else.

Of course the pro-CCW crowd isn't helping because they're focusing on things like the VT shooter, which are so vanishingly rare as to be a pointless argument. The real fact of the matter is that there's not likely to be any meaningful change in campus safety, and so there's no compelling reason to maintain the restriction - especially not to cater to the fears of certain faculty who think their campuses ought to be magical gun free places.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I'm a college student with undiagnosed mental illnesses!

...but the only person I'd be dangerous at with a gun is me.

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Grenade 3 Sports Drink. It's fire in the hole.. Your hole!