A Well Adjusted Killer, Psychologist Approved, Trained in Niceness… Back to the Drawing Board

I realize the force is strong in the Twin Cities, that Booger eating morons are celebrated and placed in positions of responsibility, but Mohammed Noor is toast. The authorities may never get a statement out of him, and that refusal will result in dismissal from the police force. Noor-attorney-maybe-Damond-sleeping-meds/

Most departments employ a two track inquiry when conducting a deadly force investigation. One track investigates the shooting from a criminal investigation standpoint. Miranda and all rights due a citizen apply. The second investigation involves the application of policy, training, equipment and is strictly for internal purposes. An officer is required to assist in this investigation. The officers conducting the parallel investigations do not cooperate with one another although some information is shared. Noor has not cooperated in any phase of the investigation and is probably enough to lead to his dismissal.

Was-policeman-Mohammed-Noor-justified-in-shooting-Justine-Diamond/ 

I can’t come up with a reasonable circumstance or set of circumstances that get a police officer to the point where deadly force is justified in this situation. I see several false issues that don’t have any bearing on the incident. I also see several points where I would need to be clarification.

False issue – body cameras. The officers were responding to a call but had not made contact. Realistically, the cameras, usually at shirt pocket height, would have given a view of a darkened dashboard. Had they had the presence of mind to activate the camera at the moment of the gunfire, the camera would have retrieved the previous thirty seconds leading up to the shooting. I’m not sure that the Director John Ford and a combat veteran would have had the presence of mind to activate the camera. Cameras would not have prevented this incident.

From what I can discover the officers were cruising down an alley, blacked out, looking for a disturbance, possibly rape in progress. Where were they in relation to the reported call? A block out a darkened patrol car is in sneak mode. Windows open, radio down low, outside the immediate control of the suspect, I’m okay with this.

However, four car lengths away, that same patrol car is no longer sneaking. It is either time to get out on foot or light up the area. Most patrol cars can put out quite a bit of light, high beams, low beams forwards, one or two spotlights 180 degrees each side, takedown lights (for traffic stops) but supplement the headlights, and alley lights, mounted on the end of the lightbar, coverage right and left 90 degrees from sides of vehicle.

Obviously, the condition of the vehicle blacked out verses lit up will affect what each officer could have seen.

I want the driver officer’s uniform for ballistics I want to see the residue pattern on his uniform and not outside the realm of possibility any bullet holes.

So what is the real issue? When I started in police work, the Academy was six weeks long. An officer could work for a year before attending. Most departments did not have a formal Field training program. An actual psychological exam by a licensed practitioner was not required at the time. It was not retroactive. If it weren’t for “Police Story” and “Adam-12″ there would have been no tactical training. So what changed?

Back then police work was a boys club if the candidate fits the mold he was hired. EVIL WHITE MALE DOMINANCE! There is some truth there, but the guys running the boys club weren’t entirely wrong. There were other traits they looked for competitiveness, risk taking, physical ability, verbal persuasion, assertiveness, leadership, the ability to take orders, perseverance, a willingness to stand one’s ground especially when right and the ability to give one’s all for a cause, and not just pay lip service. No race has a corner on these traits, but some of these traits are more valued in some cultures than others.

The the psychologists, apologists, and politicians got involved in deciding what made a good police officer. They devalued or eliminated some of the traits the gold old boys valued. They came up with others on their own, nurturance, flexibility, interpersonal skills, and organizational citizenship. I guess if cops never left the building and only interacted with one another these might be useful skills. But cops, at least patrol cops do leave the building and the deal with people who used up their quota of nurturance, understanding and now require firmer methods.

The result is police girls that need a need a booster seat in order to drive a patrol car because the driver’s seat has been wallowed out by the 6’6″ 250-pound guy that drove the car before her. At a hundred pounds, she is carrying 1/4 of her body weight, 25 pounds on her gun belt. Give her one more piece of equipment and she would have to gain 20 pounds and 3 inches just to put it on her gun belt. People are amazed when she decides to put three rounds in the ten ring rather than wait for the 6’3″ PCP head to assault her?

I know I’m going to catch hell for picking on the police girl. The reality is many are thrust into aspects of the job for which they are at worst not suited for, or at best marginally suited.

The result is we recruit a guy, who until he came to the United States had probably never seen a flush toilet. We allow him to experience the American dream in a Somali ghetto in the Twin Cities that is just like home. English not his first language? Nonsense, he took the same quizzes and tests as everybody else. The fact that he needed the whole hour rather than the twenty minutes everybody else took is neither here nor there. By graduation, everybody agreed they could mostly understand him. Wonder what he saw when a white woman charged out of the dark at him. I suspect as a matter of assimilation, Noor was more capable of stuffing pork hot dogs in his face at a Twins game than to shout,”Freeze Bitch!” to a blonde white woman.

Police Departments have become a test bed for whatever selection process or criteria happens to be in vogue. Remember it is the practice of psychology, they have no idea if they got it right. The mental health professionals have re-normed the dimensions that dictate success as a police officer. Some of those dimensions can make a person seem unpleasant. Everybody that knows me says I’m an asshole. None of them were shy about going through a door with me. I just didn’t get to meet any sisters or parents at Sunday dinner.

I’m not a total dinosaur. I see the value of Miranda, Terry, and Escobedo. I played by the rules. Most of the changes in law enforcement have been positive. It isn’t necessary that all police officers be nurturing and be able to lend a sympathetic ear to alternative lifestyles. I can fake understanding and commiseration with the human garbage police often have to deal with, in order to make the criminal case. It is not necessary to feel sympathy. What is vital, however, is to have the discipline, self-control, and insight that will allow an investigating officer to obtain the needed behavior in a lawful manner.

In a violent confrontation, if I have to convince a suspect that I will kill him, his family and his dog in order to get him to surrender. I will, with a clear conscious. I’ll look a pedophile in the eye and tell him that his explanation that the three-year-old came on to him is perfectly reasonable. Let’s get the details and write them down. Wanna pray? I’ll get down on my knees with you while you ask for God’s forgiveness for doing that drive-by shooting. It’s only fair because I never will.

I am from a different generation, thank God! My generation embraced problems, sometimes we solved them sometimes we didn’t, but we didn’t leave them for somebody else to address. This wasn’t noble; it was an acknowledgment if we didn’t handle it, what ever it was, wouldn’t get handled. Before 2000 if there was an opening at the narcotics task force we usually found somebody to fill the position who wanted to be there. After 2000 that stopped being the case. The routine excuse, from so-called cops for not pursuing a position, “I don’t want to get involved.” Ham and eggs, the chicken made a contribution, the pig was involved!

What we got were earnest young men who wanted to help the community. That is until they found out that “our community” were dopers, whores, liars, welfare cheats and the down on their luck. They would come back from the first undercover buy all wide eyed saying, ” The way he was talking, I think the informant is still using drugs.”

“Well there is a reason for that, Mother Teresa can’t buy dope!”

Patrol is the common experience, it is the glue that holds individuals together to form the organization. It is the largest consumer of manpower. These days especially, not everybody who is suited for some form of police work is suited for patrol. I don’t know how to clear the hurdle.

A first step would be to admit that there is a difference between boys and girls. Women cops are at their best when they stop trying to emulate their male counterparts. When a male officer tells a perp that,”I’m fixin to rip off your head and piss down your neck!” The perp likely will take that as the threat it was meant to be. When a female officer makes the same statement, the perp thinks he got lucky and has a date!

Thirty-five years ago I was a Sergeant on patrol. I was following a female rookie who was out on her own and watching from a distance as she handled calls and whatnot. I observed her make a traffic stop and during the course of the stop invite the driver to meet her at the curb. She put him on the sidewalk while she stood in the street and conducted her business.

I pulled up as she let the violator go and walked her through her stop. I pointed out that at 5’4″ she was going to be shorter than about 95% of the males that she stopped. Most of these same males would fall into the 18 to 25-year-old range and could be embarrassed by being subservient to a female police officer. The role reversal could set up a conflict, that she didn’t need. I pointed out that by placing the violator on the sidewalk, while she stood in the gutter, she gave the violator an additional ten inches of height, something that she could ill afford to give away. Off we went to serve and protect.

As days passed I observed that she had changed up her routine. Now she stood on the sidewalk while the violator stood in the gutter. Now she was eye to eye with her violator. I didn’t realize I created a monster until the following weekend.

She stopped a frat rat that was well known to patrol. He stood 6’7″ and was a doughy 300 plus pounds. He used his height and bulk to intimidate officers, consistently invading their body space and towering over them. He started his routine on her. We were driving Ford Crown Victorias, worthless as a patrol car, but for the front bumper that stuck out twelve inches from the grill. My intrepid police girl latched on to the frat rat’s shirt and dragged him to the front of the patrol car. She then climbed up onto the front bumper, which added at least fourteen inches to her height. The frat rat probably hadn’t looked up to anybody since the fifth grade.  Suddenly he found an irate police girl looking down on him. She wrote tickets. He signed tickets. She put the ticket book away and then the finger started, waving, circling, poking and shaking all the while accompanied by a lecture about common courtesy, how to treat women, and respect. My rule has always been either you write a ticket or you chew the violator out, not both. He shrunk before my eyes. She stepped down off the bumper of that Crown Vic, avoiding the puddle of goo that used to be a 6’7″ 300 plus pound frat rat and went on her way.

I believe what I witnessed was some bizarre roadside “This is Your Life” where the frat rat was confronted not with an irate police girl, but by every woman who had chastised him; beginning in Sunday school and continuing to that present time. A male officer couldn’t have done it. I stopped the same frat rat several weeks later. I determined that he was DWI and called for a cover officer. There were none immediately available. A stray EMS unit heard my request and decided this ought to be fun and responded to the call. EMS showing up was too much for the frat rat, I believe his life flashed before his eyes. There is something disconcerting when the police order the ambulance ahead of time.

I suspect Noor had no business being a police officer. Unfortunately, all the traditional hiding spots for incompetent cops were filled. The message was received by the troops loud and clear, don’t mess with the department’s token. He ain’t much but he’s all we’ve got.

Reading between the lines enough senior patrol officers whispered in the Sergeant’s ear all the mean nasty things they would do to make said Sergeant’s life a living hell if Noor was assigned to them. So the Sergeant put him with the only guy that (a) didn’t have a bitch coming or (b) hadn’t been on the job long enough to learn how to make a Sergeant’s life hell. So Noor and a probationary patrol officer went out to make the world safe, without any adult supervision.

If the guys in the Twin cities were honest, they could point out all sorts of token programs and people that are hidden and exist only for the self-aggrandizement of the brass or towards partial fulfillment of an advanced degree in the management of left handed masturbaters. Don’t let the bureaucrats screw up your police department, they are the ones playing fast and loose with officer’s lives and taxpayer money. Speak up, what are they going to do; make you work midnights with Tuesday and Wednesday off? Mayors and Chiefs come and go you guys are there for the long haul.