TexasCHLforum.com

VMI77 wrote:

A-R wrote:

VMI77 wrote:

A-R wrote:

VMI77 wrote:

A-R wrote:

Cedar Park Dad wrote:

I think departments should issue body armor and provide a stipend for purchasing a handgun (which I think should, within certain needs dictated by department policy be a personal choice)...or a least a stipend for an officer to purchase his own body armor. Policing is one of the only legitimate functions of government so I have no problem with getting the funds from some other part of whatever budget.

Agreed. Why is this even an issue? Given the last few years the level of Homeland Security grants and surplus military hardware, why isn't body armor and sidearms easily available. To see Strykers piratically given away and officers having to buy their own armor and pistols is unacceptable.

Because the Pentagon gives what they have available. They could give surplus body armor, but unlike vehicles and weapons, body armor actually has an expiration date beyond which it is no longer guaranteed to function as specified (meaning actually stop the types of bullets it is supposed to stop). I know you don't care because you don't care if your agency's officer have armor to begin with - but conscientious police brass do care that their officers not wear substandard safety equipment to better protect the officer from harm and the department, and ultimately the government and your tax dollars from giant liability.

Yes it does, but it's 90% hype by those who sell body armor for the purpose of selling more body armor. Dupont has tested 30 year old body armor and it functions just like it did the day it was made. It does deteriorate if it gets wet and sweat will cause it to deteriorate over time. If it's sealed so it doesn't get wet it doesn't deteriorate. Merely being exposed to the air doesn't result in deterioration. I have some and it is sealed in a moisture proof liner. As long as the liner remains intact and doesn't admit moisture it will be fine.

The funny thing is, your contention that it's a liability issue is more of an argument that officers should buy their own body armor to relieve the department of that liability --or that the department provide a stipend for officers so they can buy their own armor. The department incurs all kinds of costs by issuing it themselves, and IF there is any liability, that too. It would be more cost effective to provide officers with an allowance and have them buy their own body armor. As it is now some departments buy new armor to replace armor that was never even worn and hence does not need to be replaced. A complete waste of money. But hey, just tax dollars, and someone may have a brother-in-law that sells body armor.

Well as long as 30-year-old body armor has the VMI77 seal of approval

I've actually seen expired body armor stop rounds larger and faster than it was rated to stop before expiration. And if you want to wear expired armor to a gunfight, by all means go ahead. But if you want to mandate someone enter a gunfight (police have a duty to act) then you have a moral obligation to provide them with the best equipment for that dangerous job. If and probably, even likely, are not words I want to hear when choosing a life saving device. Would you board a plane that has a 90% chance of completing the flight and landing safely?

Come on, get real.

Wow, talk about a non-sequitur.....well, two non-sequiturs. Dupont did the test, not me. And I have no idea where you got a 90% chance of anything, much less a 90% reliability for body armor number that you're apparently nonsensically comparing to a 90% chance of a plane completing a flight.

Moral obligation this, moral obligation that.....I don't think you actually know what morality is. No one has a "moral obligation" to provide you with anything at someone else's expense. In the first place, no one mandates anyone become a LEO and be involved in a gunfight. That's a choice an individual makes knowing what the risks are --or in ignorance....doesn't matter, if the choice was made freely, the individual is still responsible for that choice and determining the risks. If it were "mandated" and you had no choice you might have somewhat of a point, but your whole argument is based on the false claim that someone is forced to be a LEO.

And wow, because an individual chooses to become a LEO it confers a moral obligation on someone else to provide them with the best equipment? Are you a government employee by chance? A choice YOU make cannot confer a moral obligation on another person. This isn't a world where your choice to do something confers any moral obligation on another person to provide you with the best of anything.

Geez, time to dismount the moral high horse and get real.

Society mandates upon all police a DUTY to act. So yes, society has a moral obligation to provide the best tools possible for police to carry out their duty. Sorry you're so warped by your pseudo anarcho-libertarian belief structure that you can't fathom this concept, but I'm done explaining it to you. YOU stated police are one of the few legitimate government functions. So pony up, man up, or shut up.

I'm done responding to your blather.

But go ahead, type another windbaggery retort if it makes you feel superior.

I'll rest on my morals.

You can't explain what you clearly don't understand so I get the name calling and tap dancing.

I'd just move on but I can't let pass the blatantly FALSE claim that society mandates a duty to act for all police. Courts, including the US Supreme Court, have ruled several times that the police have no duty to act in any specific instance.

This is going to be long winded because I'm going to go ahead and cite the court cases that make it clear that police DO NOT have a duty to act. Since this information should be known to a police officer, and since even if it isn't, it is a trivial effort to find out, I have to conclude, since you keep repeating the duty to act mantra, that you're more interested in mythology than fact:

Let's go with the MSM first:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/polit ... .html?_r=0

Published: June 28, 2005

WASHINGTON, June 27 - The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the police did not have a constitutional duty to protect a person from harm, even a woman who had obtained a court-issued protective order against a violent husband making an arrest mandatory for a violation.

What do police chiefs have to say on the subject?

http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/maga ... e_id=72004

No Duty to Protect: Two Exceptions

By L. Cary Unkelbach, Assistant County Attorney Representing the Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office, Centennial, Colorado

Law enforcement generally does not have a federal constitutional duty to protect one private person from another. For example, if a drunk driver injures a pedestrian or a drug dealer beats up an informant, agencies and their officers usually would not be liable for those injuries because there was no duty to protect.

Generally, the Due Process Clause does not provide an affirmative right to government aid, "even where such aid may be necessary to secure life, liberty, or property interests of which the government itself may not deprive the individual."

Those interested can read the entire article, but I will summarize the two exceptions for brevity: there is a duty to protect 1) a person in police custody; and 2) from State created danger. For example:

At least three circuits have set forth specific tests to determine if a state-created danger exception exists. The Third Circuit requires the plaintiff to show that (1) the harm ultimately caused was foreseeable and fairly direct, (2) the state actor willfully disregarded plaintiff's safety, (3) there existed some relationship between the state and the plaintiff, and (4) the state actors used their authority to create an opportunity that otherwise would not have existed for the third party's crime to occur.

I would think people who have made the effort to obtain a CHL and post on a CHL blog would know this, but....

http://dailycaller.com/2013/10/23/nra-p ... o-protect/

“… a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any particular individual citizen.”

“The duty to provide public services is owed to the public at large, and, absent a special relationship between the police and an individual, no specific legal duty exists.”

Opinions rendered decades ago by the DC superior court and DC court of appeals based on years of SC precedence.

How about a crime in progress that they witness?

http://gothamist.com/2013/01/27/city_ar ... al_dut.php

It later turned out that Howell and fellow officer Tamara Taylor, who were part of the manhunt looking for Gelman, had locked themselves in the front room with the conductor because they thought Gelman had a gun. Lozito told the Philadelphia Inquirer, "When the news was brought to my attention that police had an opportunity to intervene and maybe prevent the whole incident, and it was explained to me they chose to stay in the motorman's compartment instead of coming out, I was very upset."

Lozito sued for negligence, but city lawyers say his demand for unspecified money damages should be tossed because the police had no “special duty” to protect him or any individual on the train that day—there's a long-standing legal precedent requiring cops to put the public safety of all ahead of any one individual’s rights. According to the official NYPD account and Howell’s affidavit, Howell was the one who tackled and subdued Gelman.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maksim_Gelman

In the spring of 2012, Joseph Lozito, who was brutally stabbed and "grievously wounded, deeply slashed around the head and neck", sued police for negligence in failing to render assistance to Lozito as he was being attacked by Gelman.[17][18][19] Lozito told reporters that he decided to file the lawsuit after learning from "a grand-jury member" that NYPD officer Terrance Howell testified that he hid from Gelman before and while Lozito was being attacked because Howell thought Gelman had a gun.[20][21] In response to the suit, attorneys for the City of New York argued that police had no duty to protect Lozito or any other person from Gelman.[20] On July 25, 2013, Judge Margaret Chan dismissed Lozito's suit; stating while sympathetic to the Lozito's account and not doubting his testimony, agreed that police had "no special duty" to protect Lozito

http://www.ehow.com/list_7573433_respon ... izens.html

There is a common misconception that a police officer's duty is to protect to the exclusion of his own safety. While police department training methods vary between regions, one universal goal of any police training program is to ensure that officers avoid taking unnecessary risks. This means waiting for back-up, working with a partner whenever possible and only using direct confrontation as a last resort.

And in fact, there have been plenty of instances where police waited for backup while people were being killed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Ysidr ... s_massacre

Within ten minutes, the police had arrived at the correct restaurant. Immediately, a lockdown was imposed on an area spanning six blocks from the site of the shootings.[13] The police also established a command post two blocks from the restaurant, and deployed 175 officers in strategic locations. (These officers would be joined by SWAT team members within the hour, who also took positions around the McDonald's restaurant.)

The incident had lasted for 78 minutes, during which time Huberty fired 257 rounds of ammunition, killing 20 people and wounding 20 others, one of whom died the following day. Seventeen of the victims were killed inside the restaurant, with four additional victims killed in the immediate vicinity of the restaurant. Several victims had tried to stanch their bleeding with napkins—often in vain.

For 68 minutes, the police took no action to stop the rampage. During this time people were bleeding to death inside and outside the restaurant. Police never attempted to enter the restaurant and the nut job was finally killed by a sniper.

So, neither in law or in actual police procedures is there any duty to act. None. Nada. Zip. Now, there absolutely are heroic LEOs, but there is no legal duty for them to act, and police procedures often call for officers not to act until it is safe to do so. Furthermore, the factual reality is that a LEO who doesn't act will be punished no more severely than any other employee who doesn't do a job. A LEO could watch someone murdered right in front of him and do nothing. The worst that will happen to him is being fired.

Now I agree that most would not do that. Most would in fact act, and most became LEOs to act in such situations, but there is nothing other than their conscience that compels them to do so. And once again, people CHOOSE to become LEOs.