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Comment by jimnotgym | Hacker News Reader

In the UK the police are generally armed only with a lightweight baton and cs spray. That forces you to deescalate.

There are specialist armed officers to respond to serious incidents, terrorism, guarding public buildings etc. In my view these are becoming far too common and visible.

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> That forces you to deescalate.

I work as a paramedic-firefighter. I've had multiple instances where police "are not our friends". There's far more egregious examples, but even smaller things.

Get called to an obviously mentally disturbed person who is agitated and such. Successfully talk to him over a period of time, calm him down, start a plan for getting him some assistance. There's a couple of police on scene, but they're hanging back. No crime has been committed and this is a medical issue, not a law enforcement issue. Really just there "for our safety". So far so good.

Until along comes another cop, who sees a broken glass in the gutter nearby our patient (who has a couple of minor lacerations on his hand), and comes barreling over to us and shouting and gesticulating at him for breaking the glass, littering, danger to people and potential damage to cars driving/parking there, etc., and asks "why shouldn't I take you to jail after they're done with you?"

Thanks, cop, now my patient is all agitated again and you've undone 20 minutes of my effort trying to help him.

And while the cops hanging back aren't contributing (directly) to the situation, they're obviously visible to said patient, and they definitely have no intention of trying to shut down their fellow officer.

And this is very far from an uncommon occurrence.

In Japan, police carry pistols, as well as other things (baton etc.). They're trained in de-escalation from what I've read, and it's extremely rare that they ever use their guns. When they do, it's apparently a huge paperwork headache, and every round absolutely must be accounted for, so police avoid it if at all possible.

You don't need to disarm cops to keep them from escalating unnecessarily; you just to have proper procedures and training.

Perhaps it also helps that cops here are dressed as professionals, with shirts and ties, rather than as paramilitary troopers.

>Perhaps it also helps that cops here are dressed as professionals, with shirts and ties, rather than as paramilitary troopers.

100% it helps! That is how police were dressed in the UK when I was young. They were known as the 'boys in blue'. Now it is all swat team black. If you dress someone as a soldier and equip them as a soldier, we shouldn't be suprised if they act like one.

Oh? 50 years ago, the Lakewood, Colorado, police were called the "blue blazers" because they dressed with jacket and tie. I never heard they were better thought of locally.

I believe this was tried somewhere in California, too

Menlo Park, green blazers, I believe. I recall a 99% Invisible episode about them.

I'm only 42.... police in the UK got their perpetual guns and SWAT outfits post 'war on terror' iirc. I remember clearly seeing the first 'bobby on the beat' in my home town wearing a stab vest over his white shirt and tie. He had traditional dark blue trousers and shoes (rather than combat boots). It is a rural town. I never heard of a knife crime. We thought it was health and safety nonsense. This would be mid 2000s.

I told a policemen friend (non uniform) that i didn't like that they moved someone after to black polo shirts. He said it was because sweat made the colour run from the stab vests into their white shirts...

Given the off-duty soldiers and off-duty police I've interacted with, I'd prefer a soldier over a police officer any day. I know you mean 'a soldier in enemy territory' but it's worth highlighting.

Hah, here the cops get a choice of that black, or a camo-green style uniform that is very Army-eque (not full blown camo, but from not much of a distance you'd assume they were military, not LE).

> we shouldn't be suprised if they act like one

I'd love it if cops were held to the same rules of engagement as the military.

You, as a civilian, are expected to remain calm while LE is aggressive and shouting at you.

You, untrained, are expected to remain unafraid with guns pointing at you, but a trained cop can "fear for his life"...

The situation on the ground is very different in Japan. Rarely do you have mass shootings or gang and drug violence. Those problems are a daily reality in the U.S.

American police officers would never wear a tie. They’d (rightly) fear that someone would try to strangle them with it.

Japan does have drug violence. Also, being a cop in an America is fairly safe occupation. And most deaths are from traffic accidents - cops mortality is mostly because they are a lot on the streets and get killed by cars.

To play Devil’s Advocate here, could it be safe because they’re able to defend themselves against grievous injury and death?

Instead of looking at death, we should look at overall incidents of violence for an honest measure of the danger involved. There are somewhat controversial figures in the civilian world around “Defensive Gun Use,” including non-lethal acts ending possible or would-be violent encounters that, if true, speak to guns leading to less death and injury than the current ~10,000 number we suffer as a nation.

I’ve heard a similar argument that we shouldn’t look at the murder rate as a measure of inner city violence, but attempted murder type charges for the fact that casualty care in hospitals is so much better these days that would-have-been murders are now only attempts.

An interesting stats rabbit hole I have, sadly, not the time to explore.

I've never even heard of drug violence here. Where did you see it?

> The situation on the ground is very different in Japan. Rarely do you have mass shootings or gang and drug violence. Those problems are a daily reality in the U.S.

The vast majority to US police offers will never encounter these situations in their careers. There’s no reason to have every officer armed to teeth just in case they’re blind sided gang violence, or a mass shooting. Besides we also know that most U.S. officers have no interest in responding to types of incidents, preferring to sit it out until someone else comes a deals with their mess.

> American police officers would never wear a tie. They’d (rightly) fear that someone would try to strangle them with it.

That’s why police officers in other countries wear clip-on ties that are specifically designed to breakaway if yanked on. Nobody wears a real tie.

I used to do volunteer ambulance work - all our ties were clip-on. No risk of getting strangled with a clip-on tie.

I do want to add, I know Newton, Iowa--the town this article takes place in--and they do not have any mass shooting or gang violence. There is drug use, but barely any drug-related violence (unless you count alcohol, I guess).

I know you are talking about police in general, not this specific town, but I wanted to make clear that none of those are a daily reality in Newton.

I still think it would be a totally different story if it were Newton, Japan rather than Newton, Iowa. Police culture doesn't stop at city limits. It permeates a society. The police in Newton, Iowa likely have the same warrior mindset as the ones in Baltimore, they just don't see nearly as much action.

But every police officer in Newton knows that there's nothing stopping a criminal from another state just showing up in town, heavily armed, and robbing a liquor store. Whereas doing that in Japan would be far more difficult.

Heck, when the former president of Japan (Shinzo Abe) was assassinated the shooter used a home-made gun.

> Heck, when the former president of Japan (Shinzo Abe) was assassinated the shooter used a home-made gun.

Which does nothing at all to imply guns are hard to come by in Japan. I'm sure there are plenty of preppers in the US who make their own firearms.

> Whereas doing that in Japan would be far more difficult.

Why? It looks pretty easy to move around Japan?

According to Wikipedia, the US has an estimated 120 civilian firearms (registered and unregistered) per 100 people. In Japan, that number is 0.3 [1].

There are literally 400 times as many guns per capita in the US compared to Japan.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_g...

You think a lot of people can figure out how to build their own guns and ammunition from raw materials? The shooter in this case used some metal pipes from a hardware store, a piece of wood, some duct tape, and an electrical igniter he made himself. He had to make his own ammunition and gunpowder from raw materials too. Moreover, the guy wasn't some random idiot; he was in the army before and had some kind of technical job there.

As for "moving around Japan", in case you've never looked at a map, Japan is an island (or more properly, an archipelago). You can't just import guns there. And buying a gun is very difficult and will put you on a first-name basis with the local cops, and even here all you can buy is a hunting rifle or shotgun, and you better have a good reason to own it. Handguns are completely prohibited. The idea that some criminal could just show up in town, heavily armed, is utter fantasy.

A costume and it's accessories do not make someone a professional.

A costume absolutely can affect the attitude and behavior of the person wearing it. You should try an experiment yourself: go to work one day in your usual outfit. Then, the next day, dress up in drag (assuming you're male) or a furry costume and see if you behave the same.

The costume changes how people perceive you, the assumptions they make about you, and by extension the way you interact with those people.

There is no such thing as "the police" in the USA. In my immediate area there are (the ones I see regularly): City police (the major presence), Public school police, Transit System police, State Patrol, and County police.

Every department will have different policies, leadership, departments (like SWAT), etc.

Yes even in the West Country tasers are routinely carried and in cities firearms are very visibly carried. Seems like quite a change in the last ten/fifteen years.

Indeed there has been.

Tasers were brought in with the excuse that they would replace the need for guns and reduce how many officers would carry guns. Tasers would, as argued when they were introduced, only be used by specialists in cases where previously they would have to use lethal force.

And yet here we are ~20 years later and tasers have started to become part of a routine carry.

In Q2 2018, Avon and Somerset police record 1 use of taser for the whole quarter.

In 2022, they recorded between 80 and 120 uses of taser per month. Although I suspect "use" in the 2023 report may be drawn not fired, the Q2 2021 reports 230 uses of taser with 51 firings, so applying a similar ratio is still an escalation of 100x over a few years.

Statistics from their "use of force" reports: https://www.avonandsomerset.police.uk/about/our-priorities/u...

Tasers are interesting one, I’m not a huge fan of them myself.

But I did have a very interesting conversation with a Met Police Officer while he was escorting me to hospital. He pointed out that without the Taser, his only other option was his baton. He frequently used the threat of the Taser to deal with situations where he would be forced to use a baton instead, and noted most of the simply the threat of a Taser was enough to get people to reconsider their actions, and accept arrest more peacefully.

Obviously there are places where the presence of Tasers have resulting an increase an escalation which wouldn’t have otherwise, and no doubt there are some officers that abuse their Tasers, but I don’t removing Tasers would be a clear cut improvement. But I would be in favour of more technical controls (automatic logging of a Taser being upholstered, automatic trigging of body-worn cameras, simple method for the public to request footage etc) to prevent abuses.

Edit:

> In Q2 2018, Avon and Somerset police record 1 use of taser for the whole quarter.

I would be very careful reading this data. Looking through what’s available it’s clear to me something significant changed in either police behaviour or, more likely, data collection.

According to the data, Tasers were used only 15 times in 2018/2019 Q4, but in 2019/2020 Q1 usage shot up to 201. They were fired 0 times in 2018/2019 Q4 and fired 30 times in 2019/2020 Q1.

Additionally “tactical communication” was used 1,865 times in 2018/2019 Q4, but only 515 times in 2019/2020 Q1.

So either the Avon and Somerset Police got a lot less talkative, and lot more trigger happy after the 2019 easter holiday, or the 2018/2019 data was collected using a different methodology, and appears to be wildly inaccurate. If we exclude the 2018/2019 data, the increase in Taser usage is still there, but it’s not a 100X increase, more like a 10X increase. Not great I agree, but still an order of magnitude lower than your original analysis.

I’m pretty sure their body-worn cameras are automatically enabled (or tag the current time window to be retained?) when the officer’s taser is activated in at least some constabularies.

Unfortunately the best source I have is a vague memory of some tv documentary. Some light searching didn’t come up with much[1] but digging a little deeper I found mentions of a few external sources than can enable the BWCs in the Axon documentation[2].

[1] https://touch.policeoracle.com/news/article.cfm?id=88715 [2] https://my.axon.com/s/article/Signal-Configuration

Nearly all UK uniform cops also carry tasers.

And I've seen cops in my local shop wandering up and down the sandwich aisle, packing pistols. Really, if they're on lunch-break, they could just leave the ratchet in their desk (this shop is literally across the road from the station).

Basically, if there are cops with pistols in my local shop, it should be safe to assume they're chasing an armed criminal, and that therefore I should leave not just the shop, but the the whole area.

I complained; complaint rejected without investigation by the Chief Constable (and he was pretty rude about it).

Carrying pistols in the UK? I didn’t think firearms offices carried pistols at all in the UK, I’m also surprised they’re carrying any firearm when they’re off duty.

Northern Ireland but thats a whole can of worms as to whether the poster meant UK or GB.

It was GB. They were in uniform, and with all the macho shit - cuffs, collapsible nightsticks, tasers, flak jackets. I said it was "lunch-break", because they were clearly shopping for sandwiches. But that doesn't mean they were off-duty.

Yeah, I'm not used to seeing coppers packing pistols. I think there was some political march that day, but in this town marches and protests don't turn into riots. And I don't think it's appropriate for gunmen to serve as march stewards.

Authorised firearms officers will generally carry some form of rifle (or submachine gun?) as their primary firearm but will also carry a sidearm, most commonly a Glock 17 I think but I do know my local constabulary issue a SIG Sauer P320 (and a SIG Sauer MCX as their primary, but again this varies by constabulary).

Yes same thing in Germany and france especially. I See cops way more armed than bevor. In south France you see the “gendarmerie” everywhere with heavy weapons. It wasn’t the case 10 years ago. Sad to see this. One of the downside of this is a little story of a friend. He was a year in ,i think Mexico, and there were military people with arms everywhere. At first he kind of freaked out but after beeing back to Germany he said he feel less safe hier because of the lack of weapons. He knew there was no rationally to it but still he felt this way

While in Germany police are routinely armed with pistols, heavier weapons like MPs are used for serious incidents only, usually. This includes soccer games, and transport to/from those (my main encounters with MP-wielding police officers is when I happen to go to the train station while there’s a local soccer game where others arrive, or one where the fans go to via train)

MP= machine-pistole = German word for submachine gun (SMG).

And apparently through us, to English:

> The term can also be used to describe a stockless handgun-style submachine gun. The term is a calque of Maschinenpistole, the German word for submachine guns.

-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_pistol

Didn’t realize it wasn’t as widespread as SMG.

In the U.K., they’re a regular fixture (cops with SMGs) - train stations, street corners, shopping centres, supermarkets, the beach, you name it, they’re there, and armed to the teeth. Football match, you’ll have hundreds of them, often pre-emptively in riot gear.

The football always annoyed me. The riot great I can understand, the SMGs are inexcusable. I always felt it was an excuse for the police to bill the club for their most expensive personnel.

AFAIK the club only pay for the police inside the stadium.

Can find anything completely declarative on this subject, but everything I’m seeing suggests you’re right. Football clubs only pay for officers within the stadium, and it’s seems UK case law prevents the police for charging stadiums for officers one public grounds in the surrounding area [1].

There is also an ongoing debate about how policing costs of football matches are funded, given all police forces have seen huge cuts in budgets over the past few years. But equally football matches are much less violent than they used to be, and some question if the police tactics used today are the right approach (police seem to expect the worst, despite evidence suggesting their own tactics might be enabling bad behaviour).

[1] https://www.squirepattonboggs.com/en/insights/publications/2...

De-escalation is entirely possible without guns.

You can crack a skull with armoured gloves or steel-toed boots until resistance ceases.

You can use any of several body holds like "the sleeper" until resistance ceases.

You can kneel on a neck until resistance ceases.

Plenty of police actions have successfully "de-escalated" and "brought the situation under control" without resort to firearms, even in the USA.

This is not what people mean by de-escalation

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