Rip, I think we need to change this thread title to something like Tracking the Acceleration of the Slow-Drip Dismantling of our Culture.
I feel like a damn social anthropologist, sifting through all the small steps taken and signs of collapse that existed from the early nineties up until now.
Our country was like a typical guy starting out on SSLP, thinking he's making good progress on his squats, but then posting a form check and having a "Life comes at you fast" moment when he was told that, NO, his 355lbs. squats don't count cuz they're too high, and the bar is too high on your back, and you're too upright.
How did we get here? I guess just like our novice lifter, in the 2000s we managed to elect GWB and in '16 we miraculously got Trump into office, the equivalent of grinding hard through reps without realizing the foundation of awful form that we were continuing, nay, propagating, instead of re-setting right there to correct these egregious form flaws.
It would've been easier to fix those form flaws at 225lbs rather than grinding his way through reps up to 355lbs., and maybe it would have easier for our country to have recognized its cultural flaws and fixed things with Gore and Clinton wins way back then, rather than what we got.
I think a lot of people are concentrating on whether or not the taser is considered lethal or non-lethal. The taser 9 times out of 10 will incapacitate a subject, if deployed properly. If a subject gets a hold of a cop’s taser it can be used against the cop. Once the cop is incapacitated the officer is in jeopardy of getting their gun stolen. Cops getting their guns stolen and shot/killed happens. For example, a couple years ago a Massachusetts Police Officer was incapacitated by a rock. The perp stole the cop’s gun and executed the cop. Recently three NYC cops were shot at the “protests”, because an officer was stabbed and had their gun stolen. The perp then turned around and fired at two other police officers, striking them both. These are just recent examples, that I know of, because I work in the northeast and I’m sure there are many more around the county.
As you mention I think a bigger issue in law enforcement is the quality of applicants and recruits. You see a lot of new Police Officers and Agents today and they look like the kid from Super Bad. They speak 3 languages, have a 4.0 GPA, and ran the mile and half in under 9 minutes, which is great. But, that same officer is weak and has never been in an actual fight. When that officer is trying to restrain someone, they panic and then end up using their taser, OC, baton, and in some cases their firearm. If a strong officer was trying to subdue the same perp, it could have been done faster and with less force. Sadly, the majority of brass and academies don’t see this as an issue. However, some federal agencies are starting to navigate towards strength training. Hopefully, that mindset spreads and trickles down to state and local agencies. But, time will tell.
Eventually, people will need to see strength and lack of skills (in the sense of fighting) as an underlying issue. Then maybe you will see agencies get away from the Cooper Standards and runs and focus more on strength.
I've deleted this guy once already, and I'm not posting any commercial content in this thread. If you want this info posted, find a better way to do it.
Now, various municipalities around the country are claiming that "COVID-19 cases are surging" and that "restrictions must be reimposed" to prevent the "overwhelming of the health care system."
1. If you test more people, you will find more cases. Duh. But the media parrots the "new cases" bullshit without any mention whatsoever of an increased death rate -- which has not happened. Look at this data:
COVID-19 Provisional Counts - Weekly Updates by Select Demographic and Geographic Characteristics
COVID-19: Data Summary - NYC Health
At this point, anybody who believes this is anything but a control issue is either a fool or is in on the hoax. It's time to start talking about who and why.
I listened to the NPR folks discuss the Atlanta shooting at some length this morning on the way home from the gym. Somehow they couldn't bridge the gap of logic and see this incapacitation of the cop in question as an issue of concern.
Law enforcement has been reporting problems in recruitment and screening of candidates for at least 10 years, all over the US. Many of the agencies require a written exam, a psych eval, oral interviews, strength and agility testing (watered down to assure women can pass too), along with extensive background and drug testing. The interest in law enforcement as a career is fading fast among the available and possibly qualified labor pool. Some of the more inflammatory attitudes and language and publicity (including in this forum) is a pretty big disincentive to risking one's life and self regard in this service for little or no positive recognition or gratitude. While having a candidate or recruit have some experience in "a real fight" (and you need to be careful when you think you know what one of those is) it might likely kick them out of the candidate evaluation pool because of the risk averse nature of the heavy hand of the legal beagles and human resources second guessing law enforcement at every turn for negligent hires. Which is astonishing in how HR and legal in all levels of government are now seemingly enthused to ditch every principle they espouse for every other class of employee when it comes to privacy of disciplinary proceedings.
Even Cooper started to recognize that strength had a significant role to play in fitness in a few of his later books. So if academies at the city, county, state, or Federal levels are still cardio heavy, it's on them rather than Cooper. It might take some years yet to get those attitudes out of LE as seems to happening in the military more recently.
Mayor of the city of Tampa has issued an executive order mandating the use of masks in Tampa, when indoors. There are exceptions...link here, if anyone cares to read....
Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Information | City of Tampa
It is interesting to look back and see that Ross Perot, the first presidential candidate I ever got to vote for, was all the pro of Trump with none of the cons (read that both ways).
People were too stupid then for the sanity he presented. Trump owes it more to desperation than to anyone learning a single thing between then and now. Now he's just lucky to be running against a bigger clown than I ever could have imagined making it thus far.