There are many ways in which the police forces in the United States are almost unique in the entire world. One of them, which I have discussed in this blog many, many times, is how much of an absolute coward the average American cop is.
When cops get a report of some elderly man possibly having hit a car with a baseball bat (no reports of any firearms), why do they need six cops pointing their drawn guns at his back from 10 meters away, while a seventh cop yells orders at him like an insane asylum lunatic? This was not some kind of spree shooter fleeing from a crime scene where he had shot twenty people. This was 70-or-so years old homeless guy, slowly strolling ahead with difficulty, who had allegedly hit a car with a baseball bat.
Why does an American cop, who has locked up a handcuffed suspect in his patrol vehicle, start rolling around on the ground like a complete clown when an acorn falls onto the roof of said car from the tree branches above, and after having rolled around on the ground like a circus clown for quite a while, he shoots his entire service piston magazine at the car with the suspect inside, him miraculously surviving by the smallest of margins?
Why do civilians have to do the cops' job at stopping a suspect fleeing in a car, with the cops, who were just following the car from a distance because they were too scared to stop it themselves, and after civilians have stopped it, hiding behind their patrol car doors and behind each other like scared cats, while the suspect is completely immobilized hanging upside down from the car's window, with the cops too scared to approach?
And by far the most egregious case: Why did cops stand at the entrance of the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde twiddling their thumbs for a whopping 70 minutes while there was an active shooter inside the building killing children? Why was the mother of two of the children in the school way more courageous than a big bunch of heavily body-armored cops, being able to sneak past the cops using a back entrance, and saving a dozen or so children, while the cops were doing absolutely nothing?
Because American cops are FUCKING COWARDS. That's why. They absolutely love to bully and harass innocent people who have done nothing wrong, trying to pin any crime they can muster in order to get an arrest, but immediately when they are in a real situation where actual courage would be needed, they become completely scared cowards of the worst caliber.
They will always, always put "officer safety" above the safety of civilians. Always. They have honed down the idea of "safety first". However, in this case it's "officer safety first (civilian safety a far, far second)".
This is not just speculation. American cops are literally being taught this in training, in the academy, and afterwards: "Always make sure that by the end of the day you get home safe and sound." Officer safety is being very directly inculcated onto them. Even if they might not be told directly and explicitly "officer safety always goes above the safety of civilians", that sentiment is at the very least very strongly implied (and I wouldn't actually be surprised if it's actually being explicitly said especially behind closed doors, where civilians and the press can't hear it.)
American cops get zero respect from me. And yes, even the actual courageous ones who aren't such cowards get zero respect from me. Why? Because they don't speak up, they don't intervene when other cops are abusing innocent people, they don't do anything when other cops show extreme cowardice. They just play along, they don't step on toes. Even these "non-coward" cops are too scared to go against their own "brotherhood". Which, in the end, makes them as much cowards as those others.
But how did the situation become so bad in the United States?
After all, American cops weren't always like this. Indeed, they were much more courageous in the past, and actually cared about the people they were tasked to protect, and would more easily put their lives on the line for them.
Why and when did this change?
This presentation by the YouTube channel Southern Drawl Law gives a quite plausible reason for the change.
It posits that the main turning point happened with the extremely famous landmark case Terry v. Ohio, which legalized the so-called "terry frisks". And what was the main reason to legalize them? Well, what do you know, "officer safety". What else.
Over the years more and more of similar supreme and local court cases have been passed, such as the famous Pennsylvania v. Mimms, which legalizes traffic cops ordering a stopped driver out of the car, no reason need given. Why? You guessed it: For "officer safety."
According to the video author the (in)famous Terry v. Ohio kick-started this "officer safety first" culture among American law enforcement, only reinforced more and more by subsequent similar laws and court rulings. And what do you know, we end up with cops doing absolutely nothing for 70 minutes while an active shooter is killing children, because "officer safety" is literally more important than the safety of young children. And that's no exaggeration, allegory or badmouthing. It was literally and factually the situation.
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