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Comment by JeremyMorgan | Hacker News Reader

I'm an EMS professional and am very fortunate to work in an area where the local culture prevents much of this from happening. While it's primarily rural, we do mutual aid in the larger nearby cities ( around 10-90k people in each) and the culture is the same there. The cops respect the opinions of the EMS and Fire professionals in every case I can remember, and at the same time we rely on them for safety and respect their opinion in that regard.

This is still fantastic advice however.

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I immediately thought..."you must work in Vermont, Oregon, or a blue part of the Midwest, or some place like that." Judging from your profile, looks like I was right. I wish this mentality and culture were more pervasive across the United States.

EDIT: My point above was less about a specific "culture of respect for EMS workers", and more about a "culture of respect for non-law enforcement" in general that law enforcement does not always seem to have in the United States. Rethinking, it might not be the red/blue state divide as responders have pointed out. I still do think that there's a geographic component to law enforcement culture. I completely agree that urban areas, though a blue general population, regularly show instances of oppressive police culture. With the above, I was more trying to point out that in those areas there are generally less reports of oppressive and abusive police behavior. However, maybe the effect that I am trying to point out is an illusion of sample size. Either way, I think we would all be in a better place could we extrapolate the small-town police vibe to large urban areas. Yes, it's idealistic, but removing the adversarial relationship between big city PDs and their populations is something worth striving for.

https://xkcd.com/1138/

Why would that be geographically variable?

I'm a paramedic in New York, outside of stories that very occasionally hit the various EMS news sites (like this one), I have never heard of a cop questioning a paramedic's authority to do what's in the best interest of the patient.

"blue part of the Midwest"

I'm in a red part of the Midwest and the cops I know (many friends from HS or cycling in as security at the local workplaces) know when an EMT says "transport", thats it. It helps that some of the EMT's are former cops, but they know the story.

Hilarious that rmxt thinks the police could only be professional in a liberal-leaning area.

You know, like the extremely professional folks in Seattle PD, which is also in a blue city in a blue state.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_and_politics_of_Seat...

Oh wait, I was completely wrong about that.

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Feds-findings-in-Seat...

That's not to say that all the people who work for Seattle PD are bad apples that need to be fired. But I'm sure a few of them are, if the whole department is getting investigated by the Justice Department.

That Seattle PI article is from 2011; so if the justice department is still investigating.. They need to hurry the hell up.

Also, Washington is only a blue state because of Seattle. It would be a swing state at best. You can see the evidence in its state legislature, where it has been in a near state of paralysis for years trying to figure out a budget that will satisfy "starve the beast" conservatives and Seattle's infrastructure needs.

Maybe I shouldn't have included the "blue" remark in my original comment. Perhaps it's not a red/blue issue, but I do think that there's a geographic component to it. I completely agree that unprofessionalism can and does rear it's head in otherwise quite "blue" urban areas. Maybe it's a mere function of there being more cops in urban areas, and it's just that the bad apples stand out. (i.e., https://xkcd.com/1138/)

I think it's more an issue of incentives than political inclination or geography. The police have a lot of power. Any investigations into officer misconduct (at least prior to widespread cellphones) generally resulted in the officer being cleared. That means that there's little/no incentive NOT to do something bad; the odds you get caught are minuscule.

Even if there are no truly evil, bad actors the lack of a restraining force means that even with random events and outcomes, officers will tend to behave worse and worse on average. Initially bad events are outliers but as more happen with no repercussions the average slowly creeps towards "worse" and what used to be rare becomes commonplace.

So to me it's clear that the police need better management from folks who really get a kick out of putting very, very bad guys behind bars. If a normal person murders someone they get the full force of the justice system against them. If an officer does so, currently they tend to get white glove treatment.

We're seeing that the trend might be changing a little in Baltimore, but we won't know for sure until the trial is done. They don't have to be convicted in order to know that the trend has changed, but they need to be VIGOROUSLY prosecuted for what happened.

I don't think it has anything to do with politics. While Oregon itself is a blue state and Portland is a liberal Mecca, the place i'm talking about is 45 miles of I5, solidly in conservative country. I don't think politics dictates police culture, I would guess it's mainly regional in nature.

Seems like it would be the opposite. Red-leaning areas tend to be more white and I'd imagine there's more of a "good ol boy" mentality instead of the adversarial situation between cops and citizens that you see predominantly black or latino areas (which are generally more liberal-leaning).

Red-leaning areas tend to be more white

Red-leaning areas tend to be in the southern US where there is a large minority population of african americans and latinos. There are a few exceptions (Wyoming), but I think your statement doesn't make that much sense.

And, even with all the scrutiny, Seattle police are still showing up to peaceful protests in full riot gear, seemingly randomly beating the shit out of people and pepper spraying with reckless abandon.

It doesn't help the police nor their reputation by employing agent provocateurs either.

http://reverbpress.com/features/undercover-cops-infiltrate-p...

Yeah I think Oregon in general is "nice" for the most part. We don't have the usual EMS or Fire vs Police thing, nor do we have the career vs volunteer firefighting rivalries I read about either.

Because cops in Chicago never shoot people.

I had always assumed that EMT/LEO was like Star Trek. Where the Captain might have final say in most matters, in regards to medical/health matters the Chief Medical Officer can override the Captain.

In our area we have a medical director who oversees the entire county, and is surprisingly available for matters like this. If a problem like this were to reach him I am certain a local police department or even police chief wouldn't be able to override him.

Well... literally speaking police have the guns, so they can do whatever they want. That's the point. When minutes matter (like in the case of a stroke) I don't want cops & EMTs fighting with each other.

Probably doubtful the police chief would want to get into a media brawl with the county medical director though.

It's complicated...

The ranking medical provider on scene is in charge of all aspects of patient care. That seems pretty simple, but then you have to consider the matter of consent...

I can't do anything without the informed consent of the patient. When a patient is in police custody, suddenly the state has some say in what that patient can and can't consent to (and the cop is an agent of the state). However... I can't think of a conceivable scenario where a cop would want to assume the liability of disregarding my advice.

"I can't think of a conceivable scenario where a cop would want to assume the liability of disregarding my advice."

What [personal] liability does a cop take on by disregarding your advice? It seems that cops have strong immunity to liability. It also seems that when a cop is found liable that the state/municipality pays the price.

Perhaps if police [officers] had to be individually bonded and insured then at least "costly" police would lose their capacity to be officers through market means (insurance and bonding is no longer cost effective).

A cop who disregards my advice to the detriment of the patient is, at the very least, going to have a bad time with his supervisor, and it will have an impact on his career.

Beyond that, it varies based on local and state laws. It's certainly possible that he could face civil liability (or his department could face that liability on his behalf... again, with pretty negative effects on his career).

Sounds nice on paper, but do you think a meaningful punishment would get past the police union?

I'm not a cop but my impression is very much "no".

I don't think much official punishment is likely. I do think you underestimate how effective peer pressure and caring about your reputation can be.

That's certainly not enough, but it is something.

"I do think you underestimate how effective peer pressure and caring about reputation can be."

I think peer pressure and reputation are very effective at stopping the "good" officers from turning in and removing the bad officers.

Along the lines of the other reply to your response:

And are they going to get a "paid vacation"?

Some folks are okay with never moving up and care more about a secure job [protected by a union].

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