how to injure a police officer

[spot]

SnoozeControl wrote: That has to be the most ridiculous generalisation I've ever read. Kudos.Good God, Snooze, that's not koan's voice you're quoting, that's a direct and acknowledged quote she's making from an article by George Carlin! He uses exaggeration to comic effect - it's how he makes his living. He uses it to make serious points while entertaining crowds. And your "for this purpose" is an interpolation, he does explain how the concentration of "castoffs" happened and his reasoning doesn't include so they can all be more violent together.

[spot]

Thank you, Snooze, though there are more meaningful ways of bumping a topical thread.

OK, let's have a shot at cleaning up the "knee jerk reactions for the sake of rallying to a righteous cause with disregard to the facts of a situation or of the harm that can be done by acting on one sided information" side of the thread, which is why I kicked it back into play.

We start off with the outright LadyCop lie: "the DJs at this radio station advocated taking a police officer's weapon and radio to effectively harm him/her". Well, that's LC for you, when did the truth ever come between her and a bellyload of prejudice. She's not here to speak her piece and we can't do a lot about that.

nvalleyvee, "Not just a sheeple" which is wonderfully apt considering, "WE RESPECT our officers". Fair enough. I'd rather discuss cases than hand out automatic get-out-of-jail-free cards to entire employment categories, but there's nothing wrong with a bit of earned respect.

A bit more LadyCop bile... "i am going to see that they are BLITZED from cops and citizens", and sure enough that's what she did alright.

Babygirl and turbonium, both moribund though not banned: 'the article says these two a**holes "gave their audience tips on how to disarm and injure police officers" ' - and so it does. KSDK-TV certainly did bite down hard on the lying propaganda they were being fed, didn't they. It's sheer coincidence that they're a commercial rival to KATZ, presumably. That's how you feed a frenzy when you want to start a lynching. How do these things become an avalanche? "i have sent this out to every cop i know and every friend i have"?

So, here comes the Christian Cavalry blowing the charge. Far Rider: "It may help to send letters to their primary advertisers as well, let them know that as long as those two idiots are on the air I wont be patronizing any of their establishments." Just how predictable can we hope to get? Oh, of course, LC's petrol-invective "those scumwads are going down".

We have a pre-reformation Babyrider with "I would LOVE to help blitz these @ssholes", and the authentic frontier spirit of "if they get enough negative attention, maybe we can get the dumba$$es fired...and run out of town...and drawn and quartered." And tarred and feathered, BR? How did you miss that option off the list.

So, we have the appetizers out of the way and in wades the main course. Dear Sirs... outrageous and unacceptable behavior... As an educator... despicable comments by your radio DJs concerning the harming of police officers undermines the entire fabric of our society... aborrhent... their behavior could result in the death of a police officer... organizing a group on the internet to pressure your advertisers... close to 1500 members... Every one of them is incensed... We are beginning the e-mail and letter writing campaign today... The choice is up to you... 1Lt. Jonathan St. Ives USAFR Lead Teacher The Transition Academy.

Are we well into lynching territory yet? This is, remember, a deliberately organized national campaign based on a lie.

What do we need next? More petrol? LC's predictably on hand with a can - "these scumsucking bastards are telling the public how to get our guns!!"

BTS chips in, "Here try this link........ It has every one in their corpoRAT office employees listed. Phone #s and e-mails........ Lets ALL send send send!!!"

And so it goes on until the objective is achieved. I think I saw a round of applause from Chonsi in there, some equivocation from Scrat and a reasonable query from Pants. JAB seems to have quietly sent a complaint to KATZ too.

Scumsucking bastards, aborrhent, incensed, scumwads, blitz these @ssholes, run out of town, drawn and quartered? This is the language of rational investigation?

I want a reaction, children. I want feedback from the firebrands. I particularly want the sanctimonious "1Lt. Jonathan St. Ives USAFR Lead Teacher The Transition Academy" explaining why he's lending his official dignitary-titled weight to the issue, given the aftermath. These are two intelligent civic-minded people working hard to establish cross-community relations being railroaded out of sight by a deliberate campaign of intimidation. How can you people have picked up these rocks on command and thrown them?

[spot]

Snooze, distract all you like in more trivial places, but I have a fairly reasonable query in place here and you're leaving muddy footprints.

[koan]

To simplify the discussion, I think it would be easiest add to "knee jerk reactions for the sake of rallying to a righteous cause with disregard to the facts of a situation or of the harm that can be done by acting on one sided information" that the weapon of choice is character assassination, otherwise known as slander.

Historically, defamation of character was punishable by death.[ The Law of the Twelve Tables (Lex Duodecim Tabularum, more informally simply Duodecim Tabulae)] If you think about it, slander is the most ancient weapon. All a person can really lay claim to in this world is themselves. Reputation is the most vital asset a person possesses. I know many women, the sex which seems to dwell more intensely in the world of character assessment, who spend a lot of time deciding where people should be placed in their personal hierarchy. They then go about promoting their hierarchy to other people by use of the telephone tree and whatever other means of information dispersal they can find. Some of these perpetrators should be quite thankful they don’t live in old Rome under the Twelve Tables.

Public opinion is much more powerful a weapon than the public who wield it seem to understand. I don’t blame people for breaking down into tears when they believe their character is under attack. From personal experience finding out one’s character is being attacked can be likened to having perceptions dulled by an oceanic roar in one’s ears as the mind struggles with panic. The value of one’s reputation can easily be seen in places such as this forum where many members find themselves obsessed with defending themselves until they finally realize that their online reputation can be abandoned if all else fails. Unlike “real life”.



In the case of this thread we see how disposable personalities can affect the real lives of people who's identities are not discardable.

[valerie]

I may not be one of the firebrands, but feedback anyway.



Spot, you acknowledge that LadyCop isn't here and I think it's unfair

to make (some) statements when you know she isn't and can't respond.

Where did that lie start? I don't know. Did you ever play that child's

game (I did, in Brownies I think it was) where you sit around in a circle

and the first person whispers a sentence into the next person's ear,

and it goes around the circle? And then lo and behold, when the

sentence is said out loud again at the end of the circle, it bears no

resemblance to the original?



I consider LC to be a friend, and did back then. I love her, I worry

about her, I care about what happens to her. When you have a friend

like that, you tend (at least in my experience) to want to "have their

back". I didn't throw any rocks at her command, but I do admit to

at times here saying things I wouldn't ordinarily have said. I surprised

myself. I have regrets (not about THIS thread, however!) and I have

tried through pm's to make amends where I could, unfortunately some

people are unavailable to me to do that. LC has a very strong

personality, capable of getting others to "rally 'round". Do I agree

with everything she did? Not by a long shot. She would every so often

get miffed at me and days would pass with no contact. Do I forgive

her? Absolutely. She is, you see, a friend.



Police officers are in my experience a very tight knit group. When

a call goes up from a fellow officer, there is a response. I'm glad there

is, even though my brother is no longer an officer. We have no way

of knowing now where exactly LC's info came from. And that original

link DID, as has been mentioned, give "tips". On the internet, what else

are people really supposed to go by? Wait until months later when

something else comes out? It's a long wait. And by the time anyone

DID get additional information, the people in question could have

potentially gone on to do more questionable things.



Mistakes were made. Who among us has never made same?



I don't think you are going to get the response you want from the

"firebrands". Some of them visit here rarely if ever. And the j person

probably wouldn't want to jump into this. There is little potential

for him to pump himself up. He has a need for that. "My forum"

indeed.

[BabyRider]

spot wrote: We start off with the outright LadyCop lie: "the DJs at this radio station advocated taking a police officer's weapon and radio to effectively harm him/her". Well, that's LC for you, when did the truth ever come between her and a bellyload of prejudice. She's not here to speak her piece and we can't do a lot about that.


No, she's not, so let's lay off her, since she can't be here to defend herself. The "that's LC" comment was uncalled for too, spot. Stick to attacking people who are here to defend themselves why don't you?



Oh, and ditto EVERYTHING Val said.

[spot]

spot breaks into a loud round of spontaneous applause and congratulates hopki605 on his ability to read and write, however slowly and despite his limited attention span

BabyRider wrote: The "that's LC" comment was uncalled for too, spot. Stick to attacking people who are here to defend themselves why don't you?And I agree with you entirely, BabyRider. Raising this thread from the gloom of obscurity would have been difficult without mentioning her though, she was rather central to the whole thing.

If I eventually leave ForumGarden with as many friends regretting my departure as she did, I shall feel surprised at how well liked I had become. Perhaps we can add that to her epitaph.

That leaves the Christian Cavalry and Disgusted of New Mexico still to speak, then.

[abbey]

spot wrote: spot breaks into a loud round of spontaneous applause and congratulates hopki605 on his ability to read and write, however slowly and despite his limited attention span



And I agree with you entirely, BabyRider. Raising this thread from the gloom of obscurity would have been difficult without mentioning her though, she was rather central to the whole thing.



If I eventually leave ForumGarden with as many friends regretting my departure as she did, I shall feel surprised at how well liked I had become. Perhaps we can add that to her epitaph.



That leaves the Christian Cavalry and Disgusted of New Mexico still to speak, then.I'd miss you.

[anastrophe]

spot wrote: If anyone would like to associate themselves with a letter of apology from ForumGarden to DJ Kaos, I'll be happy to write and send it together with a copy of the feeding frenzy.


let me be very, very clear: there will be no "letter of apology from ForumGarden to DJ Kaos". any communication of any sort claiming to represent ForumGarden in any capacity, other than a communication written by the owners and operators of forumgarden, will be a violation of our terms of service, grounds for an immediate ban, and probably actionable as fraud.



any individual who wishes to write on their own to anyone on earth is free to do so. claiming or suggesting that it is "[an] apology from ForumGarden to DJ Kaos" will be false, and actionable.



perhaps spot misspoke. a retraction would be appreciated. regardless, it's useful to have this out there.

[anastrophe]

spot wrote: I think the thread, at this point, indicates quite clearly that the two men who lost their jobs had not tried to injure any police at all, nor had they advocated the injuring of police. They were mobbed out of their jobs by a nationally orchestrated concert-party, of which some members of ForumGarden to their shame were willing participants.



It's only people like me, slowly mopping up these hysterical lynchings with facts, that stand a chance of swaying public opinion back upright. I originally typed "jim-crow lynchings" but I'm prepared to back down on the jim-crow bit, though it stinks to high heaven of it from where I stand.


i saw no link to an mp3 of the actual segment. do you have such a link? all i read were the dj's themselves saying what they claim they had said. no evidence has been presented.

[spot]

anastrophe wrote: perhaps spot misspoke. a retraction would be appreciated. regardless, it's useful to have this out there.I had completely forgotten that there is a distinction between ForumGarden as a commercial venture and the membership, anastrophe. It would be foolish to look for an apology from the company hosting the discussion, and I apologise completely for my crass abbreviation - I tend to leave out critical words when nearing the end of a thought. My sole concern related to an apology from some of those members who had been involved in the thread last year, either as posters or as readers, and the entire idea was an aside rather than central. I had not the least thought in my mind of ForumGarden as an entity making any statement on any content of the messages it carries.

As for the actual content of the transmission, I'll ask further and report back.

[anastrophe]

spot wrote: I had completely forgotten that there is a distinction between ForumGarden as a commercial venture and the membership, anastrophe. It would be foolish to look for an apology from the company hosting the discussion, and I apologise completely for my crass abbreviation - I tend to leave out critical words when nearing the end of a thought. My sole concern related to an apology from some of those members who had been involved in the thread last year, either as posters or as readers, and the entire idea was an aside rather than central. I had not the least thought in my mind of ForumGarden as an entity making any statement on any content of the messages it carries.



As for the actual content of the transmission, I'll ask further and report back.


this is as i presumed was your meaning, but again, needed the distinction made clear.

[spot]

anastrophe wrote: this is as i presumed was your meaning, but again, needed the distinction made clear.I'm very grateful to you for bringing it to my attention. That might sound sarcastic but believe me, it isn't in the slightest.

[spot]

anastrophe wrote: i saw no link to an mp3 of the actual segment. do you have such a link? all i read were the dj's themselves saying what they claim they had said. no evidence has been presented.http://www.stlradio.net/pages/thebeateatsit.htm carries a transcript of the relevant sections for the day, and I don't see any reason to doubt the accuracy of what's there (since any detractors at any point in the future could undo arguments made on the basis of what's there by producing the real thing, if this were corrupt).

[anastrophe]

spot wrote: http://www.stlradio.net/pages/thebeateatsit.htm carries a transcript of the relevant sections for the day, and I don't see any reason to doubt the accuracy of what's there (since any detractors at any point in the future could undo arguments made on the basis of what's there by producing the real thing, if this were corrupt).


the accuracy of the transcript may not be in question; however, as has been discussed before, intonation is lost in such a transcription. without the audio, it's ambiguous at best. at best. i think the firing was justified considering the circumstances.



McEntee, 43, was sitting in his police cruiser talking to a 13-year-old boy through his open window when a gunman approached the passenger side and shot the officer. The boy was shot in the leg. His injuries were not life-threatening. McEntee's car rolled forward and hit a tree. Neighborhood residents tried to help McEntee but the gunman approached and shot McEntee several more times. The killer took McEntee's gun and fled.



a coward guns down a cop in cold blood, and one week and a day later, these guys are joking about how best to fight a cop. terrible judgement.

if it had been a couple of clowns talking on a street corner, that's one thing - free speech, right to privacy, all that. these comments were broadcast.



that they seemingly backtracked a bit during the broadcast doesn't exculpate their comments earlier in the broadcast, which were in poor taste minimally, and could be seen by many as encouraging violence against cops, the claim that it was all in jest notwithstanding.



but without the actual audio, we're all left facing off based on our biases, rather than the facts.

[spot]

anastrophe wrote: the accuracy of the transcript may not be in question; however, as has been discussed before, intonation is lost in such a transcription. without the audio, it's ambiguous at best.I think you're forgetting that the entire railroading was based from the start on a wildly inaccurate description of what had been said, in which intonation is neither here nor there. The attack was based on a deliberate widely-propagated lie, not on a misunderstanding.

[anastrophe]

spot wrote: I think you're forgetting that the entire railroading was based from the start on a wildly inaccurate description of what had been said, in which intonation is neither here nor there. The attack was based on a deliberate widely-propagated lie, not on a misunderstanding.


since none of us have heard it, we don't know if the description of what was said was 'wildly inaccurate'. they discussed what would be better to do in a hypothetical fight with a police officer - take his gun or take his radio. think about it. they already stated why you would take the radio - to prevent him from calling for backup. and why would you want to do that? so that you could harm him without fear of other cops arriving on the scene. and if you took his gun - i wonder what purpose that would have? so the person could remove the magazine and quietly empty the bullets out of it? riiigght. sure, that's what they were discussing.



on what basis do you claim it was a deliberate lie? someone, clearly, heard the broadcast. the fundamental 'story' that would be related would be that they discussed how to fight a cop. as simple as that. the story may have warped during repeated retelling, but the fundamental message didn't change - they discussed what the 'best thing to do' would be in a fight with a cop - in other words, how to disarm a cop.



you seem far more sympathetic to a couple of guys who only lost their jobs. do you have any tears for the cop who lost his life?

[spot]

Perhaps we're reading a different transcript?

If I might structure the conversation slightly, it goes as follows:

One can distinguish ("this is how you test it") the punk police, "the cat who used to be a former bouncer or boxer", from "those who will take their gun and their badge off. Those are the ones who aren’t no punks." Do they "make sure all of their stuff is secure so you ain’t got no weapons" before "they’ll go head up with you"? They then go into a little dramatic play to indicate why not making all of their stuff secure is so essential. You get a police officer saying, "I will whoop you" and "he don’t take his gun off" and he's not up to it, how bad does it get? And at this point they throw in their by-play about hey, it gets worse still than just losing your gun. They conclude their moral with "I will say this, to the cops out there – and the cops know who they are, man, the ones who ain't no punks, you know what I’m saying? – keep doing what you do." - be sensible, don't go taking guys on in the street without controlling the environment.

Now you may read it as threatening. We're both experienced in reading threats where none exist, between us. I do think what I've written there is in the original and not just in my head.

The number of police officers who die in the line of duty is around three per state per year, half as many as those they kill while on duty. Both figures, as I pointed out earlier this week, are an order of magnitude less than public perception would suggest. I'm quite sure that DJ Kaos was aware of the sensibilities of the community, in the light of the recent murder of an officer in St Louis, but they chose to continue cross-cultural engagement. I'm not going to criticize them for that. They were seriously engaged in that. "St. Louis Police Chief Joe Mokwa had appeared on the show last month to talk about racial tension in the city. They planned to host a roundtable with police officers on July 15 to talk about police brutality and racial profiling." - except that they were taken off the air before that could happen. Well well, what a coincidence.

As for "do you have any tears for the cop who lost his life?", I can't recall when I last cried as a result of the death of someone I had no contact with. Not from space shuttle disasters or train crashes or assassinations or even Bob Hope popping his clogs. If you ask me whether I regret the death of that particular singular officer who was peripherally associated with this story then yes, I regret it and I'd rather it hadn't happened. I'm quite sure the same is true of the "couple of guys who only lost their jobs", both before their broadcast and after it. And, according to their own expressions while on air, during it.

[anastrophe]

you elide from your analysis the very portion where they discuss whether it's better to try to take the cop's radio or gun, with the desired outcome implicit. that's what the *entire* matter rests on, and you omit it.



not much point in further discussion.



also, if you're going to mention numbers of cops killed, then do the honest/ethical thing and produce the murder *rates* for cops as compared to the general population. a raw number is meaningless unless it's relative to the specific population. then take into account that cops *routinely* place themselves in harms way with dangerous persons, as opposed to the general population who rarely engage with dangerous persons. then take into account that cops *are* armed for defense of themselves and others, and yet still some are murdered.



it never hurts to also take into account that the overwhelming majority of cops are not power hungry dishonest inate killers, that the overwhelming majority of cops have a strong sense of duty and public service to their community, and for the privilege of serving their community and placing themselves in harm's way routinely, they are paid relatively low wages, have a high suicide rate, and enjoy the special privilege of having DJ's make light of how best to disarm an officer in a fight, a week after one was killed in the line of duty.



and you question why the community of law enforcement took a dim view of their antics?

[spot]

anastrophe wrote: you elide from your analysis the very portion where they discuss whether it's better to try to take the cop's radio or gun, with the desired outcome implicit. that's what the *entire* matter rests on, and you omit it.I did nothing of the sort! What do you think "at this point they throw in their by-play about hey, it gets worse still than just losing your gun" was?

Come on, be reasonable, stop trying to win, try to discuss. This shouldn't be a game.

If you'd like me to show a table of mortality rates per million employees for various industries, then say so. You know quite well that policing is well into the "safer" bracket, and so do I.

[koan]

Not to downplay the nobility of police work but this article shed some light on its rank as "dangerous"

But while police and firefighter deaths make the news, neither job is among the most fatal,

America's Most Dangerous Jobs

Job Number Of Fatalities Fatality Rate*

Timber Cutters 105 122.1

Fishermen 52 108.3

Pilots 230 100.8

Structural Metal Workers 47 59.5

Extractive Occupations 69 53.9

Roofers 65 30.2

Construction Workers 288 28.3

Truck Drivers 852 27.6

All Occupations 5,915 4.3

All data for calendar year 2000. *Deaths per 100,000 employed. Sources: Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Dept. of Labor
source

edit to add: sorry for messy copy/paste of stats go to link for it to make more sense

[anastrophe]

spot wrote: I did nothing of the sort! What do you think "at this point they throw in their by-play about hey, it gets worse still than just losing your gun" was?



Come on, be reasonable, stop trying to win, try to discuss. This shouldn't be a game.




i hope you're kidding. you condense the entire portion that inflamed people so much into "their by-play". omitting the specific details. here, let *me* cover it for you. my transliteration in red.





KAOS: You get a police officer saying, “I will whoop you.” If you whoop this dude, one-on-one, and he releases the handcuffs, what’s the first thing you’re going for? If he don’t take his gun off, but he’ll go head-up with you? What’s the first thing I’m going for?

you're engaged with a police officer. he states he can beat you up. he releases you from the handcuffs. what would you try to disarm him of? he has not taken his gun off. what will you try to disarm him of?



SYLLI ASZ: Uh, I’m going to go for his walkie-talkie.

i'll take his means of communication with other officers.



KAOS: Because that’s the first thing he’s going to do is call for backup. You’re a smart man if you take the walkie-talkie. Most people are going to go for the gun. No dawg. Because you don’t want the hound, boy. Because when he calls the cavalry, the cavalry will come and you will not win.

the first thing the cop will do is call for assistance. if you go for the gun, he can still call for assistance. once the other cops are there, you're dead (implicit is "you're dead too". What would be the purpose of taking the officer's gun if not to use it on him?)

SYLLI ASZ: So I’m going to take it before he can call his boys, you know what I’m saying?

take his means of communication, then you can fight without interference from his fellow officers.

KAOS: You go for the backup. Hey look, I will say this, to the cops out there – and the cops know who they are, man, the ones who ain't no punks, you know what I’m saying? – keep doing what you do. Because they are the ones who hold it down in the streets for real. Without their gun, with that mace, what do you got?



"let me backtrack here, because i just realized what i said was in really poor taste and lacking in good judgement, so i'll extend a pat on the back to the cops who aren't 'punks', and hope nobody was paying attention when i discussed what the best means was of disarming a cop."





If you'd like me to show a table of mortality rates per million employees for various industries, then say so. You know quite well that policing is well into the "safer" bracket, and so do I.


actually, i don't know what the murder rate is for police officers. so i'm sorry, i don't know quite well that policing is in the 'safer' bracket. i'd be surprised if it was, what with routinely dealing with violent people. i've never been in a violent fight in my life, nor ever been confronted by someone wielding a knife, a gun, or dangerously out of control on mind alterants or due to mental illness. cops *regularly* deal with such combative, dangerous people. a 'safer' bracket? i doubt it, but the figures would provide some illumination.

[anastrophe]

koan wrote: Not to downplay the nobility of police work but this article shed some light on its rank as "dangerous"





source


what a meaningless set of statistics. it doesn't address what's at issue. at all! utterly, totally, meaningless. murder is not equivalent to an industrial accident. the tree doesn't intend to fall on the sawyer.



what point are you trying to make? never mind. i'm not interested.

[spot]

anastrophe wrote: i hope you're kidding. you condense the entire portion that inflamed people so much into "their by-play". omitting the specific details. here, let *me* cover it for you. my transliteration in red.I'm not sure why you wasted that much space there. You left out the frame. If you remove the frame from the play then obviously you promote the play to becoming the discussion. It wasn't, it was a play in a frame. Even Shakespeare did these things and his audience knew what was happening. There's a frame around the component you've isolated. It's an obvious frame. The play is a conditional thing inside a frame that says see how silly this would be if anyone were so stupid. I can see that, I know you can see that, I'm surprised that you really want to push this foolishness.

[anastrophe]

spot wrote: I'm not sure why you wasted that much space there. You left out the frame. If you remove the frame from the play then obviously you promote the play to becoming the discussion. It wasn't, it was a play in a frame. Even Shakespeare did these things and his audience knew what was happening. There's a frame around the component you've isolated. It's an obvious frame. The play is a conditional thing inside a frame that says see how silly this would be if anyone were so stupid. I can see that, I know you can see that, I'm surprised that you really want to push this foolishness.


as i keep saying, and i'm not sure why it's ignored, the only way we'll truly know how their little drama played out is by listening to the audio. i can think of numerous intonations that could have been at play, that could make the whole thing either sinister or patently silly. without those intonations, we don't know if their setup was jovial or humorous in a dark way. we just don't know. without that, both of our interpretations are colored by the intonations we hear when we replay it from the transcript.



nevertheless: joke about what's the best way to disarm a cop in a fight. in a community already inflamed by police misconduct, combined with an innocent cop slaughtered. poor judgement, period. grounds for dismissal? maybe. based upon the person who called in and suggested "These cops got what they #$%$# they deserved", i think it's safe to say that their little play was performed at the wrong time, in the wrong place.



we clearly aren't going to agree on this. you're biased in favor of giving the DJ's the benefit of the doubt that their performance was lighthearted and silly, based upon the transcript. i don't know about you, but i know of a dozen different ways that "SYLLI ASZ: (laughing)" can be interpreted from a transcript. there are lecherous laughs, lighthearted giggles, knowing giggles, guffaws, angry 'i know what you mean' laughs, and on. "(laughing)" gives me nothing i can use to determine what they were feeling when they were saying it. they may full well have been railroaded, but neither you nor i can say unequivocally that that's the case, without hearing the audio. you may choose to believe they were railroaded. i may choose to believe they were not. neither of us knows beyond our own conviction in our belief.

[koan]

anastrophe wrote:

...

actually, i don't know what the murder rate is for police officers. so i'm sorry, i don't know quite well that policing is in the 'safer' bracket. i'd be surprised if it was, what with routinely dealing with violent people. i've never been in a violent fight in my life, nor ever been confronted by someone wielding a knife, a gun, or dangerously out of control on mind alterants or due to mental illness. cops *regularly* deal with such combative, dangerous people. a 'safer' bracket? i doubt it, but the figures would provide some illumination.


I suppose I was trying to "surprise" and "illuminate" you.

anastrophe wrote: what a meaningless set of statistics. it doesn't address what's at issue. at all! utterly, totally, meaningless. murder is not equivalent to an industrial accident. the tree doesn't intend to fall on the sawyer.

what point are you trying to make? never mind. i'm not interested.


Then you will also not be interested in the following:

WASHINGTON - Law enforcement organizations reported Tuesday that 154 officers died in the line of duty in 2004, nearly half of them in traffic-related accidents.

The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund and Concerns of Police Survivors said the statistics for 2004 were compiled from reports through Dec. 24.

Seventy-two local, state and federal officers died from traffic-related accidents while 57, about one-third, died from shootings, the organizations said. A variety of causes led to the other deaths.


source

[anastrophe]

koan wrote: I suppose I was trying to "surprise" and "illuminate" you.
as i pointed out, your figures are meaningless in context. tell us how many muffins you can make from a pound of wheat flour. that's equally illuminating in its irrelevance to the subject at hand.







Then you will also not be interested in the following:




correct, because that information has already been covered, and doesn't address the question of the rates. but do keep prattling on about either redundant or irrelevant information, as if it provides useful details. it never stopped you before!

[spot]

Anastrophe, people join the police for any number of reasons. I suggest that a desire to improve the lot of their fellow man is an uncommon reason for applying. I suggest that your extreme picture of the stress they face is perhaps more of an attraction than the public service aspect.

As for the risks involved, they're not irrelevant at all, and as the attachment shows the fatalities involved are even fewer in in the UK than in the USA. But seriously - are you not hearing the numbers koan's bringing into the context of this railroading? Around fifty US police officers deliberately killed in the line of duty per year, nationally? It's fifty too many, obviously, but get a grip, it's not an epidemic. What is an epidemic is street murders, those "Homicide rates among young black and Hispanic males aged 15-24 dropped almost 50% in the 1990s. Homicide remains the leading cause of death for young black men and the second leading cause of death for young Hispanic men" statistics. The people that DJ Kaos was addressing before he had his plug pulled by angry white men who didn't want the debate to be heard.

Attached files

[anastrophe]

spot wrote: Anastrophe, people join the police for any number of reasons. I suggest that a desire to improve the lot of their fellow man is an uncommon reason for applying. I suggest that your extreme picture of the stress they face is perhaps more of an attraction than the public service aspect.


i rather strongly disagree with your opinion, which should be unsurprising. you see the darker side of man as pre-eminent, apparently.





As for the risks involved, they're not irrelevant at all, and as the attachment shows the fatalities involved are even fewer in in the UK than in the USA. But seriously - are you not hearing the numbers koan's bringing into the context of this railroading? Around fifty US police officers deliberately killed in the line of duty per year, nationally? It's fifty too many, obviously, but get a grip, it's not an epidemic.


please point me to where i suggested that, even marginally or peripherally. please don't put words in my mouth, then suggest i should 'get a grip' regarding them.





What is an epidemic is street murders, those "Homicide rates among young black and Hispanic males aged 15-24 dropped almost 50% in the 1990s. Homicide remains the leading cause of death for young black men and the second leading cause of death for young Hispanic men" statistics. The people that DJ Kaos was addressing before he had his plug pulled by angry white men who didn't want the debate to be heard.


don't forget of course, that the perpetrators of those homicides in most cases were also young black and hispanic males aged 15-24. it's not angry white men who are killing them. they're killing each other.



curiously, you suggest there is an 'epidemic' of street murders, while simultaneously pointing out that the rates have halved in a decade. likewise, the murder rate in the united states is at a 40 year low, with no new gun laws, and no greater law enforcement presence.



all are interesting statistics. none have a damned thing to do with a couple of DJ's talking about what best to disarm a cop of while fighting him.



you claim angry white men stopped the debate. i say an angry white man is trying to whitewash an egregious lapse of judgement by the DJ's.

[spot]

anastrophe wrote: [quote=spot]As for the risks involved, they're not irrelevant at all, and as the attachment shows the fatalities involved are even fewer in in the UK than in the USA. But seriously - are you not hearing the numbers koan's bringing into the context of this railroading? Around fifty US police officers deliberately killed in the line of duty per year, nationally? It's fifty too many, obviously, but get a grip, it's not an epidemic.please point me to where i suggested that, even marginally or peripherally. please don't put words in my mouth, then suggest i should 'get a grip' regarding them.I had in mind the following comment, where you not only invited the posting of the very number koan posted (which makes "what a meaningless set of statistics" a singularly unkind remark to make to her) but also, to my mind, made an epidemic out of the hardships police face on the job rather than a background factor. I think your "regularly" brings it into that scale. "Get a grip" is, I suppose, a request that you consider the difference between perception and reality that I've been trying to draw into this thread. There's no reason why we can't both exercise civility while we disagree.

anastrophe wrote: actually, i don't know what the murder rate is for police officers. so i'm sorry, i don't know quite well that policing is in the 'safer' bracket. i'd be surprised if it was, what with routinely dealing with violent people. i've never been in a violent fight in my life, nor ever been confronted by someone wielding a knife, a gun, or dangerously out of control on mind alterants or due to mental illness. cops *regularly* deal with such combative, dangerous people. a 'safer' bracket? i doubt it, but the figures would provide some illumination.

[anastrophe]

spot wrote: I had in mind the following comment, where you not only invited the posting of the very number koan posted (which makes "what a meaningless set of statistics" a singularly unkind remark to make to her) but also, to my mind, made an epidemic out of the hardships police face on the job rather than a background factor. I think your "regularly" brings it into that scale. "Get a grip" is, I suppose, a request that you consider the difference between perception and reality that I've been trying to draw into this thread. There's no reason why we can't both exercise civility while we disagree.


you are warping and twisting my words, period. koan's statistics were indeed meaningless. they are a list of the top eight most dangerous jobs (why eight? normally they're top ten lists). where does law enforcement fall on the list? if it's number nine, then that puts the lie to the suggestion that it's on the 'safe' side. if it's number 942, then indeed it could be characterized as 'on the safe side'. my 'regularly' in no way suggested an "epidemic" (your characterization) of police homicides. i was referring to 'going in harm's way'. that includes fatal and nonfatal encounters.



but do go on minimizing the risks police officers face while charged with maintaining the public peace, and in so doing more often than not dealing with violent individuals. do continue to lump fatality statistics - the majority of which are accidental, and most certainly not intentional - for other professions, into the same column as an officer having his life taken intentionally by a violent criminal.



you want reality? here:



http://www.bls.gov/opub/cwc/archive/spring2000art1.pdf



"Public police and detectives suffer the second highest fatality rate from homicide, 4.4 fatalities per 100,000 workers."

as far as i'm concerned, that's the end of the discussion wherein you and koan minimize the issue of police fatalities. i'm done. that's the statistic i kept badgering you and koan for. there it is. the rest is so much noise.

[anastrophe]

i might as well quote the entire paragraph, since the data provided is relevant and meaningful, unlike other statistics tossed out so far:

Public police and detectives suffer the second-highest fatality rate from homicide, 4.4 fatalities per 100,000 workers. "Good training, teamwork, and special equipment such as bullet-resistant vests and helmets minimize the number of injuries and fatalities to law enforcement personnel. Nevertheless, the risks associated with pursuing speeding or fleeing motorists, apprehending criminals, and dealing with public disorders often are life threatening for the officer." Apprehending criminals puts police in frequent contact with lawbreakers: "In 1998, [public] law enforcement agencies nationwide made an estimated 14.5 million arrests for all criminal infractions excluding traffic violations." Homicides led all other causes of fatalities to police over the 1992-98 period, accounting for almost half of their deaths. The second leading event for police was highway crashes, which accounted for 34 percent of their fatal work-related injuries.

[spot]

A fisherman risks death by drowning, a scaffolder or roofer from falling, a docker from crushing, a police officer from - actually, from driving accidents. Homicide's a half of that. You have a thing about homicide, obviously. You're interested in who the highest is, since you found the second highest? Taxi drivers. There's statistics for you, focus one way and you miss the sights.

[koan]

why not toss in the actual conclusion of the article, anastrophe?

Conclusion

Work-related homicides are the second leading cause of job-related fatalities, but, like all job-related fatalities, steps can be taken to reduce their frequency. (14) This basic assumption underscores the need for an accurate accounting of the facts.

* The fact is that work-related homicides have decreased - 34 percent in the last 4 years.

*The fact is that coworkers commit a small share of workplace homicides; most result from robberies.

*The fact is that police have a high rate of workplace homicides, but taxicab drivers have a rate 4 times as great.

*The fact is that homicides may occur in all industries and at all times of the day.


Perhaps you should specify more clearly what you are looking for before insulting members who are merely trying to provide information.

[anastrophe]

spot wrote: A fisherman risks death by drowning, a scaffolder or roofer from falling, a docker from crushing, a police officer from - actually, from driving accidents. Homicide's a half of that. You have a thing about homicide, obviously. You're interested in who the highest is, since you found the second highest? Taxi drivers. There's statistics for you, focus one way and you miss the sights.


?? ' have a thing about homicide' - well certainly. don't you? you don't see any difference between a rock falling on someone, and the intentional taking of life? the bible says "thou shalt not murder", it doesn't say "thou shalt not accidentally stand under a falling rock".



"driving accidents". yes, and usually in the pursuit of criminals, not on their way to the local market. but that's *not* part of the statistic i provided, so why are you bringing it up? driving accidents aren't part of the homicide rate for cops.



i didn't go looking for the 'second highest'. sheesh. i quoted from the report on workplace fatalities, specifically homicide. it's absolutely horrible that taxi drivers are murdered by criminals so frequently. in what way does that change any of this discussion? had the DJ's done a happy little skit, wondering how best to hurt or kill a cabbie, that would have elicited exactly the same outrage from the community of taxi drivers, and the DJ's would have been fired.

[spot]

anastrophe wrote: ?? ' have a thing about homicide' - well certainly. don't you?If a given sum of money could halve either the number of police deaths through homicide or the number of road deaths, I'd put the money into halving the road deaths. I note in passing that it might reduce police deaths by a larger number too. You find homicide a more singular risk than me, it would seem.

[anastrophe]

koan wrote: why not toss in the actual conclusion of the article, anastrophe?



Perhaps you should specify more clearly what you are looking for before insulting members who are merely trying to provide information.


baloney. perhaps you should read more carefully. what part of "homicide rate" comes even close to your list of accidental death rates as satisfying exactly what i was asking for?



and what part of the conclusion of that article makes *any difference whatsoever* to what's under discussion? two 'punk' DJ's glibly discussed what would be best to disarm a cop of during a fight. that was a poorly chosen topic of on-air conversation. coming a week and a day after a cop had been gunned down in cold blood, it was a doubly poor choice.

[anastrophe]

spot wrote: If a given sum of money could halve either the number of police deaths through homicide or the number of road deaths, I'd put the money into halving the road deaths. I note in passing that it might reduce police deaths by a larger number too. You find homicide a more singular risk than me, it would seem.


i find homicide to be wrong. how hard is that to conceive? given a sum of money, i'd rather see it go to providing better body armor, to prevent homicides. we all take risks. intentional taking of life is wholey different from routine risks of a job. that's what this whole goddamned topic is about. i don't know why you and koan insist on minimizing this aspect of it.



this is going nowhere. you excuse the behavior of the DJ's, based on your interpretation of the transcript. i do not. nobody has come forward with a tape. the choice of words they made, even without intonation, is poor. again, within the circumstances of a cop having been murdered a week and a day before, the law enforcement community was particularly touchy about the subject of cop killing. the DJ's made up an offensive scenario, with much left unsaid, and in my interpretation, implicit - you take the cop's radio first, so he can't call for backup. if you get his gun, you murder him.



but as above. going nowhere. all these points have been made. i'm bothered by homicide, by the taking of innocent life. you are not, at least no more so than someone falling overboard from a boat. fine. we'll leave it at that.

[spot]

anastrophe wrote: baloney. perhaps you should read more carefully. what part of "homicide rate" comes even close to your list of accidental death rates as satisfying exactly what i was asking for?Perhaps you just didn't read the article she provided in response, anastrophe. The relevant paragraph reads:

The third most common cause of death on the job in 2000 was homicide, which claimed 677 workers. Fifty cops were murdered. But so were 205 salespeople. Falls were the second most common cause of death, accounting for 12% of the total. Not surprisingly, roofers and structural metal workers were the most likely to meet this fate.

The exact figure you enquired after. "satisfying exactly what i was asking for"?

[koan]

I agree with anastrophe

This is useless. I'm obviously not wanted here.

[anastrophe]

spot wrote: Perhaps you just didn't read the article she provided in response, anastrophe. The relevant paragraph reads:

The third most common cause of death on the job in 2000 was homicide, which claimed 677 workers. Fifty cops were murdered. But so were 205 salespeople. Falls were the second most common cause of death, accounting for 12% of the total. Not surprisingly, roofers and structural metal workers were the most likely to meet this fate.

The exact figure you enquired after. "satisfying exactly what i was asking for"?


ARGH. this is like talking to a wall. what part of the word RATE don't you and koan understand? where is RATE in the information she provide? where? where? what am i missing here? why is this very fundamental concept apparently baffling you and koan?



this is pathetic.

[koan]

what baffles me, anastrophe is how you can call spot an angry white man after the way you jumped all over my attempt to join the conversation. How did my comment justify your reaction? Anyway, as I said...I'm done with this thread too. I'd rather have liver for dinner.

[spot]

anastrophe wrote: ARGH. this is like talking to a wall. what part of the word RATE don't you and koan understand? where is RATE in the information she provide? where? where? what am i missing here? why is this very fundamental concept apparently baffling you and koan?



this is pathetic.fifty per year isn't a rate??

I need to return to school, evidently. I thought fifty per year was a rate.

[anastrophe]

anastrophe wrote: produce the murder *rates* for cops as compared to the general population.


but do keep telling yourselves that the information you've spewed has been responsive to that.