Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site hou5d.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!tektronix!uw-beaver!cornell!vax135!floyd!harpo!eagle!hou5h!hou5a!hou5d!mat
From: mat@hou5d.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Challenging Police
Message-ID: <669@hou5d.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 29-Sep-83 01:27:25 EDT
Article-I.D.: hou5d.669
Posted: Thu Sep 29 01:27:25 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 23-Sep-83 03:43:11 EDT
Organization: AT&T Information Systems Laboratories, Holmdel, NJ
Lines: 78

To the gentleman who challenged a police officer while holding a rifle:

I am sure that afterward the officer in question understood well what
had happened and why.  That situation was probably very thoroughly rehearsed
in his training.  But, as you noticed, you you came VERY close to getting
yourself killed.

Police in New York, New Jersey, and other metropolitan areas are superbly
trained and will wait till the last fraction of a second before killing even
to protect themselves.  But they will kill if they have no more time.  And I
would not like to be the one to test how close they can make a call.  In
other places, other countries, and even other parts of this country, they
would have shot first and asked the questions later.

By the way, New Jersey State Troopers are handing in their service revolvers
for 9 mm semiautomatics with 14 round clips.  And they will carry two spare
clips.  After several police died in gunfights for lack of fast firepower,
New Jersey is taking no chances.  And you can be that they will be trained to
use the weapons to the fullest.

I have a friend who used to be a cop.  One day I startled him.  Really
startled him.  The hallway was deserted and I was moving quietly amid the
machine noise.  He was unarmed, but if I had been carrying a weapon -- any
weapon, even a pistol,  I would have been in BIG trouble.  His training and
technique were and are THAT good.  No, I would not like to put a cop on the
spot.

Once, a couple of years ago when I was working in the Trade Center I had
the misfortune to come upon a pair of Port Authority cops with their guns
drawn.  A lot of NYC police will say that the secondary forces -- Port
Authority, Transit, Housing, etc are second-rate, so take this as you please.

The night operator and I were running a large bunch of envelopes for a
mailing list and were in quite late.  We were unaware that several
valuable objects had been reported stolen from the office of the firms
owner.  Tom had taken off his tie to reduce the chances of it getting
caught in the envelope feeder and I had changed into old clothes to reduce
the wear on my suit.  It was about 01:30.

I had gone to one of the pantries to put up some coffee and turned a
corner leading back to the machine room to discover two Port Authority
cops with drawn revolvers, holding them on Tom.  Not wanting to surprise them
out of turn I said, as gently as possible, ``Can I help you, gentlemen?''
I think that by that time, they had decided that they should put their guns
away because they did not turn them on me, but they took our ID badge numbers
and headed off to patrol another section of the office.

Another time I was visiting a museum in Yonkers and took a wrong turn
in an industrial area heading back to the parkway.  I started over a
sharp crest and around a sharper turn to discover a car sitting diagonally
across the middle of the street.  I was about to pass it to the right
when I saw that to the right was a white man in a business shirt, tie,
and trousers holding a large automatic on a black man, while a black woman
looked on.  The man with the gun was motioning for the other to turn
around;  he was turning to spread against a wall.  I passed to the
left of the car, hoping very quietly that the man with the gun was a cop.
I wasn't going to hang around to find out.

We ALL ought to be damned scared about where we are going as a society when
this sort of stuff becomes common -- when big-city cops have to draw their
guns several times a day, when they have to USE them every couple of months.
I don't think that answering violence with violence is the proper answer for
the society as a whole -- but if that is the only answer available to an
individual to protect himself at a given instance, then we should make it
clear that he is expected to do so.  And I think that th courts should answer
violence with punishment -- not for reform but to keep the bastards off the
street.  If it takes life imprisonment, then they should do it.  If a lifer
becomes a threat to guards or to other inmates, or if the perpatrator killed
an officer of the law then I think he should be executed.  It is the duty of
the courts to ensure the integrity of the law.  And it is in the court system
where the violence ought to take place.

And when London boasts that their police do not carry guns,  I wonder how
well the officers could handle a situation like the one that you put a pair
of policemen in.

					Mark Terribile
					hou5d!mat