Posts by Matthew Poole
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simply callous calculations
Unfortunately, that's how budgets work. It's impossible to afford everything, or even a large subset thereof unless "everything" is "not actually very much". It's a very significant issue for emergency services, since they're funded out of taxation (even in the US), and thus have only limited available funds. Their bang-for-buck requirements are pretty high, especially when what's being weighed up is something with quite high ongoing costs vs something with relatively light ongoing costs. All the more so when the high ongoing costs are coupled with a significantly higher up-front cost.
The Fire Service would love to have no appliance more than five years old, but simply cannot afford it. The modernisation project underway at present is still only rotating fairly-new (8ish years) appliances out of busy career stations into quieter career stations, and the moderately-old (10-15 years) appliances out of quieter career stations into volunteer stations to replace appliances that are quite often older than some of the people riding them. The Police deal with much cheaper capital items (a basic pumping appliance runs to $500k, one with rescue gear to $700k, and something with a ladder or aerial boom can't be had for under a mil), but that doesn't mean they've got bottomless pits of money to spend. Everything must be worth its cost, on an objective basis, and avoiding something that has a very low statistical likelihood of occurring had better be extremely cheap to implement. Dogs aren't, but their alternatives are. -
I have no knowledge of tasers or guns, but I have seen police dogs in action. And they seem to be very, very effective.
Oh, unquestionably. I'm not disputing their effectiveness as currently utilised, simply the practicality of trying to use them as an all-situations replacement for pepper spray, Tasers (when (as I believe they inevitably will be) they're approved), and firearms.
There are a multitude of documented cases where simply drawing a Taser has resulted in offender compliance, including during their trial here. For every instance of their discharge, there's at least instance of a miscreant doing as they're told when a Taser is only pointed at them. "Don't tase me, bro!"As for firearms, if nothing else Stephen Wallace got what was coming to him because he didn't comply with the orders of a man with a gun. Most people obey someone who's pointing a firearm at them.
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The hand held Taser is a one shot device, until it is reloaded and charged.
Charged? Reloading is sufficient, from what I've just read. It's possible to shock a suspect multiple times once the weapon has been fired, so clearly there's sufficient charge for more than one shot. According to this page reloading takes "less than a second", so that's pretty good. However, if you need to fire more than twice and you're out of cartridges you've got problems.
I didn't realise the XREP was simply a charged slug. Only just read that link. Very cool. Adding those to the table-of-equipment doesn't need a loosening of weapons SOPs (that's Standard Operating Procedures), it just needs them to be allowed. What's looser about that?
ARVs==Armed Response Vehicles. An acronym that I've used in another thread, because I cannot think of a better term for what's proposed.
AOS==Armed Offenders Squad. That one, I assumed, was just known.
I was discussing the ARV concept because you just posted a link to that article without being explicit about just what in it was of interest. My bad.Shep, in terms of bang for buck (har har), dogs aren't that flash for the reasons outlined above. To get the same availability and flexibility would require ridiculous levels of expenditure, pretty much requiring one dog for every patrol car. The figures I've found on the 'net indicate at least $3k/year, conservatively, for food, training expenses, and veterinary care. A Taser is in the $500 range, the cartridges run to about $70 each, retail, it seems. I'm sure the NZ Police would get a much better price. Pepper spray will be far cheaper (and I've only ever seen a single canister on an officer's belt).
I don't disagree with you that dogs are useful, but it would have to be one extremely interesting parallel universe before they'd be any kind of viable replacement for what police officers can carry on their belts. -
They have a long lead-in time to availability, and are limited to taking down one person at a time.
You could also say this about Tasers too, subjectively of course.Each cartridge is good for a single shot, yes. But the reload process appears to be little more involved than changing a pistol magazine, so in a matter of seconds a Taser is good to go again. Their lead-in time is days, assuming they can be air-freighted over. Weeks if not. Still dramatically shorter than any useful canine resource.
I wouldn't call the ARVs '"looser" control', either. Rules-of-engagement shouldn't change, and firearms are out on the streets right now, as they are at any given minute of any day. Assuming the UK model is followed, and that article mentions that we have ex-UK cops with ARV experience which suggests that that's what we'll base on, they won't be mobile armouries with which to equip otherwise-unarmed officers. It'll be two or three officers with additional training (probably existing AOS), and sufficient weapons on-board to arm themselves. At the moment sergeants' cars carry multiple firearms because they're the arsenal from which other officers draw at a scene. ARVs are meant to be self-contained. They have pistols and MP5s for each crew member, nothing for other cops. Here it'll probably be pistols and Bushmasters, maybe a shotgun.
The ARVs are a good idea, provided that their SOPs don't allow them to be drafted into any kind of operation that would increase their response times (such as pre-planned raids, and certainly not proactive policing). "Trojan" patrols, as the Met calls them, are mobile with a priority assignment of responding to armed incidents. They run with a driver, communicator and navigator. If we do the same thing, that's immediately three well-trained officers per car who will be a matter of minutes away from any emerging situation. At present the AOS can take an hour or more to get anyway, given their need to go to wherever their central base is to get kitted up.
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IIRC, a similar sentiment was (incorrectly) attributed to something I said in another thread, and you were seemed to have a distinctly different point of view there. Has something changed your mind, or have I misread what you are saying?
If you can point to me something contrary, please do. I've never been in favour of Tasers, because of the potential for abuse. Not once have I spoken in favour of them being used here, I've always favoured the use of known-lethal force if a situation calls for it, instead of the false sense of security that comes with the "less-than-lethal" tag.
Your suggestion that discharge of Tasers be treated the same as discharge of firearms would probably be adequate to get me on-side on their use. As it stands, though, they're just something else that can be misused with a fairly high degree of impunity.
Shep, according to the Police website there are around 110 general duties dog teams around the country, attached to 21 dog sections. If they started tomorrow and tripled the number of dogs (which is completely impossible for any number of reasons, not least of which is getting the puppies), in about two years' time we'd have about one dog for every 30 staff (approx 10k police). Those dogs would require expensive care and on-going training. The same sums would probably be sufficient to have a Taser available for issue to every officer on duty (which doesn't appear to be the current plan).
You do the math. Dogs are expensive, on an on-going basis. Their up-front costs are higher, too. They have a long lead-in time to availability, and are limited to taking down one person at a time.
Whereas these "toys", that aren't being sought because they might be good for recruiting purposes, are cheaper to buy, cheaper to keep around, and can be used on several suspects in very quick succession. They don't require years of training to be functional, there aren't concerns about whether or not they can play nicely together, and their operators don't get attached to them and have to take time off if they get "injured" or "killed" in the line of duty.As for the values placed on the respective lives, of course the life of a dog is of less import than that of a person. But that doesn't mean that the police will willingly throw them away just because some people dislike pepper spray or Tasers. They're an expensive asset whose loss has a very detrimental effect on their handlers.
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even if that means the dog dies
Police dogs don't just materialise fully trained. It takes years. They're a finite resource, and treating them as utterly expendable displays an alarming lack of understanding. For one thing, their handlers get attached to them. The bond between dog and handler is very close, even though they're working dogs, and the loss of their partner affects the handler a lot. Plenty of media reports about attacks on police dogs bear that out.
Also, not all cops are suited to being deltas. They don't like dogs, or they don't want to work with them, or any of a whole raft of things. Any cop can be trained to be at least passingly effective with pepper spray, or another weapon, but the same is not true of dogs. You can't just go into the station armoury and issue yourself a dog, they're not commodities that can be bought.
It's all very well to say that dogs are less important than people, but dogs have very severe limitations. Their availability is extremely restricted, the lead-time on replacements is measured in years (the police dog that died earlier this month, his handler had already started working on training a replacement dog because it takes so long), and because they're living creatures it is much harder for humans to view them as just an expendable asset. The handlers raise them, feed them, care for them, and work with them every day. You can sit in your chair and say "They should just use them and throw them away," but it's not your pet that you're discussing. -
My assumption was that the cops need more toys.
It is probably easier for them to get toys than recruits at the momentThat's a disturbingly cynical view. Cops who feel under-equipped leave the job. If they don't believe that they're being given the tools to do the work moderately safely and effectively, why would they stay? High turnover militates against effective recruiting, lowers the effectiveness of the force due to higher numbers of inexperienced officers, and makes it a treadmill just recruiting to keep up with the numbers who are leaving.
Even though I oppose Tasers (I'd rather they shot someone who's a direct threat to their lives, because at least they're under no illusions as to the potential danger of their actions) I understand why police officers want to have them. It's nothing to do with "toys" and everything to do with making sure the people in blue shirts have the tools that they feel are required.
More officers would be useful, but when you're facing down someone who's got a machete, or a softball bat, under-equipped recruits aren't going to be of much use to you - unless you're planning on using them as an expendable distraction while the experienced officers go in and club the bugger from behind? -
Pepper spray & Tazers kill, but to my knowledge a police dog never has. Therefore as scary as they may be I'ld like more dogs on the beat than a more heavily armed force.
Pepper spray doesn't usually kill on its own. Deaths as a result of its use are statistically extremely rare. I think there's been one in NZ. Tasers are a bit trickier, and I do oppose them (due to the likelihood of abuse), but they're definitely a less-lethal weapon.
Dogs have a couple of problems. 1) in crowds, they are easily confused. A suspect who runs into a group of people while being pursued may lead to an innocent person being mauled. 2) dogs may not work well together. One of the comments in the internal review of the Wallace shooting was that, even if a second dog had been available (due to police reluctance to deploy dogs alone against a suspect like Wallace), there's no guarantee that they'll be able to be used as a team. They don't train in cooperative tactics. If you have to tackle multiple people simultaneously, as happens not infrequently, how do you get around the issue of only having one usable "weapon"?
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Note that the police are quoted as saying they were useful in apprehending criminals.
O'rly? Coz that's not what the UK experience is. In fact, in London only 3% of street crime is solved courtesy of CCTV. That's in a country that kinda defines pervasive surveillance. So I'd be very, very sceptical about the value of cameras in solving crime.
I am firmly against extending police powers and surveillance but totally in favour of spending large sums on more cops on the beat.
Agreed, but they should be ring-fenced to reactive/proactive patrols that cannot be dragged into traffic work or long-term investigations. I understand that they might be stuck doing scene guards for a night or two, or put onto canvassing a neighbourhood after a murder, but that should be the exception not the rule.
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Glenn, I'm surprised that so few articles mention the firearms issue. Maybe the reporters took it as a given that our unarmed police meant people would know that there's a delay while firearms are delivered and distributed?
That you were aware of the Otahuhu incident, and the need for a senior officer to divert from there to Manurewa, says that you know perfectly well that the shooting required resources in excess of those immediately available.
It's interesting that you're the only person who's suggested that the delay had nothing to do with waiting for firearms. Out of all the positions taken, nobody else thought that it was in the least unreasonable that our primarily-unarmed police might not have had firearms (or sufficient firearms, since the dog handler who was first on scene likely had a pistol) at their disposal with which to ensure they were armed in response to the possible threat. Why do you think that is? Are you that cynical about the police's motivations?