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Forum: Will Police Be Good Guys or Bad Guys

08 October 2006

temp man – at 18:38

At what point in the pandemic do you think the police will switch from being the good guys to the bad guys, if ever?

Let’s review the assumptions:

Police tend to be underpaid, so they and their families probably do not have much in the line of preps.
Police tend to self select for personality types that are Type A aggressive.
Police have superior firepower and the training to use it.
In the most recent example, Katrina, a very large, significant percentage of cops became “unhelpful.”

So at what point in a pandemic will the local gendarmes figure out that crowd control is a lethal activity?
At what point in a pandemic will officers become more worried about the safety and food availablity for their families over strangers?
In a pandemic, everyone expects first responders to experience the highest possible infection rate (due to the exact opposite of the term shelter in place, with little to no effective PPE), so if the CFR is high as well, will police command and control be one of the first points of collapse in our infrastructure?

Are the same assumptions valid for the National Guard and locally based armed forces?

NoFluingAroundat 18:48

temp man – at 18:38 In the most recent example, Katrina, a very large, significant percentage of cops became “unhelpful.”

“unhelpful”, that’s putiing it a little mildly, don’t you think?.

Olymom – at 19:02

Here’s a guy who gave shelter to others after Katrina. He has a lot of insight that temp man might find interesting. Part on cops is down aways.

http://www.frfrogspad.com/disastr.htm

KimTat 19:09

They are people like us, I have known quite a few police over my life times ( in a good way ; ) )

And yes there are some bad ones too.

They risk their life daily to protect, when the going gets rough, the good ones will do what we do, be heros, sip with their families, die.

The bad ones, well they will be bad.

Kathy in FL – at 19:11

The question is too generalized. What side of the fence are you viewing from?

If you are one of the people who didn’t prepare and who are out scrounging for your family … legitimately looking for food … and a cop busts you, you’ll consider him a bad guy. But in reality s/he is protecting something that belongs to others.

If a cop is having to enforce a quarantine that you object to … does that make him/her good or bad?

If a cop has to bust a few unruly heads to make sure that food lines and medical facilities are protected … does that make him/her good or bad?

You’ll need specific situations, not generalizations.

Walrus – at 19:12

The answer is Yes and No.

Follow Walrus’s theory - The Government will do everything to protect Government in a Pandemic. Their biggest fear is breakdown of law and order.

This is why I fear the Government.

I would not expect the Police or army to be unhelpful - at first.

I think we could have a three level situation.

Level 1 Pandemic - Not worse than 1918. The rule of law prevails everywhere. Little or no infrastructure degradation. Police and Military are helpful to the general public. Everyone shares the same burden. Food and fuel are still readily available. No threat to public order. The police are still your friends.

Preppers easily weather the pandemic and play a very useful role in helping their communities overcome it.

Level 2 Pandemic - Twice as bad as 1918. Major infrastructure degradation and some sporadic rioting and looting since food, fuel etc. is becoming scarce. Government itself is concerned that it is under threat. Medical facilities, food, fuel etc. reserved for Government use only. Police and Army now have the role of protecting the Government, Government facilities, medical facilities and reserves of food, fuel, etc. from the general public. Habeas corpus suspended, but Government still in control.

At this stage anyone remotely threatening non compliance with Government orders risks being shot on sight by police or military.

Preppers who have taken precautions to remain hidden and do not take a high profile so as to be a perceived “threat” to the police survive the Pandemic unscathed.

Level 3 Pandemic - 50% CFR. The “civilisation buster” Bodies in the streets. Complete breakdown of infrastructure and the rule of law and order. Government collapses and martial law is declared arbitrarily by the Army which is now the only coherent and organised body in the country. It has its own communications, food, transport and fuel. The police and what remains of emergency services are co-opted into it. It’s primary objective is to save the army by gaining control of whatever resources and infrastructure are still available for its own use.

At this stage unless you are a member of the military or emergency services…….tough.

Preppers who have hidden in built up areas do not survive after the third or fourth methodical searches and looting discovers them or their preps.

Preppers in isolated areas with strong local communities survive provided the army regards their community as an asset.

At the end of the Pandemic, the Army decides that martial law will remain for the foreseeable future. The country is broken up into a series of regional commands, and sub regions, and so on. All resources are controlled by the army. Everyone works for the Army.

Elections are held, but under a highly restricted voter franchise system that limits the number of voters to ‘good” people only.

Pretty soon the officer corps decides on hereditary entry qualifications for officer school and a nobility slowly appears.

temp man – at 19:28

Walrus, I think you are right.

For what it’s worth, about two years ago I had a contact that was number 3 in the State Police Force. I tried to get involved in their Pandemic Planning, only to be rebuffed for being a loon as they had no plan to plan. I may try contacting him again, but in a worst case scenario for a pandemic, It’s going to be the Armed forces who will provide for any long term “survival of the fittest”.

Loners won’t survive. Instead of adopting a fire department, I may adopt a police department.

crfullmoon – at 19:30

Print up the Pandemic Awareness cards, and hand them out when you see an officer.

Tell them you care about them and their families being stocked up in case of supply chain disruptions, print them the 2-page Pandemic Influenza; What it is and What You Can Do handout. Say, They don’t wait for a memo from the government to get ready for a blizzard; they go check the weather forecast themselves and act.

Community groups were happy to raise money for other places’ disasters; perhaps people can buy their own police and firefighters extra PPE or whatever might help them be able to function during and after an influenza pandemic? (How many cannot even afford to live in the municipality they work for?)

Getting households aware and preparing now, before pandemic starts, would also make for less crowd control work later.

I’d imagine the same assumptions are valid for the National Guard and locally based armed forces.

Kim – at 19:46

Police officers are drawn from the same pool that the general population comes from. That means they are not some specially-bred strain of superheroes, just a cross-section of the population at large. While most departments do pretty stringent screening, some have relaxed their admittance standards A WHOLE LOT in order to have a department that “mirrors the makeup of the community”. In other words, on some (usually large urban) departments it may be nearly impossible to get on the force if you’re a white male, regardless of whether your test scores are vastly superior to someone else’s.

That said, most departments are composed of highly dedicated individuals who are well-trained and have high sense of “right-wrong”. They will lay down their lives to uphold the law.

If a department was corrupt BEFORE a disaster (like New Orleans, widely known pre-Katrina as the most corrupt PD in the country), then they will also be that way AFTER a disaster hits. If you PD is generally well-run and composed of trustworthy individuals now, then that is the way it will be AFTER a disaster.

Bird Guano – at 20:11

As an example two departments in the San Francisco Bay Area (Oakland and Richmond) are having such a tough time recruiting for police, that they are now not automatically disqualified for prior gang affiliation.

Same for some misdemeanor drug violations.

This will have very, very bad consequences down the road.

Especially if they are put under any kind of stress.

The US Armed Forces is also seeing a street gang problem developing in the ranks.

Los Angeles gang graffiti has been found in Iraq.

Oh and on adoption police departments instead of fire departments ? Who ever said firemen don’t have guns and know how to use them :-)

SophiaZoeat 20:58

As it so happens I just put the FIRST DRAFT of an essay on the back burner last night. I had reached an impasse because of the bleak outlook that I envision for our law enforcement departments. If you read it, I apologize for its length up front and ask you to remember it is just a first draft.

I would also like to say that I come from a family of police, am married to a retired command staff officer and am the mother of patrol officer still considered “wet behind the ears”. On top of that, I spent 9 years on a small city PD. I feel I have an insight into probables that many do not, therefor I am emboldened enough to post them. You will not find anyone more “Pro-Police” than I, and yet, even I admit that there will be massive problems.

My incomplete draft follows….

LAW ENFORCEMENT

However you may feel about your local police or sheriff’s department, they serve a function that society would not function without. The risk of punishment keeps 90% of us law-abiding citizens, and we pay our law enforcement officers to stand between us and the remaining 10%. Failing that, we pay them to track down the offenders and facilitate the legal process.

First I would like to address the “Katrina Syndrome.”

We all sat in fascinated horror, those of us who didn’t live through it of course, as the tragedy unfolded on our televisions in all its ignominious details. We heard of police officers failing to report for duty, abandoning their jobs, and even looting. As a nation we were stunned and many even allowed those few despicable examples affirm all the negative thoughts and feeling that were ever entertained about cops.

Yes, there are bad cops out there; I would never attempt to convince anyone otherwise. However, there are bad and downright awful in every profession, from priests, doctors, lawyers, architects and truck drivers. What many fail to account for is that the police force in New Orleans is one of the most corrupt, under-paid, and demoralized police departments in America. To compare it, and its officers, with almost any other department is like comparing a General Practitioner with a Neurosurgeon.

There are, however, legitimate parallels to the New Orleans police response and what we will likely see in our own department during a severe pandemic.

In most modern departments, as in any well run modern-model private sector business, staffing is determined on a “current needs assessment.” In other words, manpower is determined by the day-to-day enforcement and deterrence needs of the civil entity. It is not based on the needs of that entity during an emergency, whether it’s a hurricane or a pandemic.

When an extraordinary incident occurs and extra police need to be deployed onto the streets several things happen at one time. All medically fit sworn officers are pressed into service and the department is placed on a twelve-on/twelve-off around the clock schedule, seven days a week, week in, week out, until the emergency passes. In almost all cases this schedule does not need to be maintained for more than a couple of weeks, and even more rarely, a month. Katrina was the first law enforcement mobilization that lasted into the several-month time frame.

The next thing that happens is that the National Guard is activated and deployed, followed immediately by an in pouring of law enforcement manpower and materials.

These three actions allow a community, city, county or state, to mount a police response to the emergency, even if it is less than optimal.

During a severe pandemic there will be no reinforcement from the “outside.” Each city, community, county and state will be on their own, making do with what they have, and what they have may be frightfully little.

Police officers will suffer the same 30–60% absenteeism due to illness, refusal to risk infection, and death forecast for the private sector. To those categories must be added those that will initially report but drop out due to the exhausting, emotionally overwhelming conditions that they will have to work in day in, day out, without a break.

I believe a strong case can be made that law enforcement will suffer higher rates of attrition than what is built into most pandemic plans. They will be out and about attempting to do their jobs and thus risking exposure everyday. Will they have PPE? Why would they have it if it is the assumption that not even hospitals and paramedics will? The chances of being able to immediately wash their hands after physically handling a person (all will be potentially infected) are slim at best and probably non-existent in reality.

There is also a dynamic to the demographic of patrol officers. Most are in exactly the same age range that will be at highest risk of death from an infection of H5N1, those under forty. As is often said, “Police work is a young man’s (or the PC label, “person’s”) profession.” Most who start in law enforcement leave before they are comfortably into middle age, finding that the horrid hours, low pay, the risk of civil and criminal liability, the risk of maiming and death, coupled, finally, with the “shoveling sh** (offal) against the tide” syndrome, out weighs any sense of civic duty, and “I’m gonna make a difference” pipedream.

And let’s face it, as those remaining see their fellows starting to drop, the motivation to report to work will lessen with each passing day.

At a time when we will need our law enforcement officials to maintain order and assist in emergency relief they will be over-worked, over-whelmed and dangerously understaffed.

In conditions such as I envision the only priority that law enforcement will address is protection of medical facilities and critical supplies. Perhaps they will be tasked with protecting the seats of government and critical infrastructure, and at most maintain civil order in certain pockets. Two months into a severe pandemic I anticipate, although just my personal opinion, that all law enforcement agencies will be down to 20–30% of their pre-pandemic staffing levels, and that is a conservative estimate.

Our police will be hanging on by there fingertips…just like everyone else.

Think about this for a moment.

A thirty percent staffing level, for 24/7 coverage. That would reduce the numbers to fifteen percent on a twelve-on/twelve-off schedule. What will happen when there is a food riot? A storming of a clinic? A gang of hungry marauders busting down your door to see if you have any food left?

There really will be only two potentialities if I am correct. One is that police will respond with a no questions asked/no prisoners taken approach. Or, worse, will not respond at all. How high on the priority list will crimes against property be? And make no mistake, a food riot, a storming of a clinic, or busting down of your door to steal your food, are all property crimes.

Which would be worse? Which will be viewed as the most egregious post-pandemic? If you ask me, it’s a no-win situation, and that is why I factor in the drop-out factor at the rate that I do. If you have no chance of winning, why fight the battle? Of course, there will be officers who stick to the job till the bitter end, either theirs or the pandemics, but how effective will these few brave and stubborn souls be by the time we reach the “exit point?”

My critique is by no means meant as any form of criticism. It is however, a summation of what I think will be in play during a severe pandemic. If only 40% of medical staff surveyed is willing to report during a pandemic, why would police be any different? But no one has thought to poll them, unlike doctors and nurses, as to their likely response, so I can only surmise based on an extrapolation of the groups that have been surveyed.

In the best, most nationally acclaimed departments, most of police work is reactive, with a healthy sprinkle of proactive actions. In other words, much of police work is after the crime has been committed, reports, investigations, follow-ups, interviews, more reports, arrests, more reports, and sometimes, with luck, trials. While there is no real good way to measure proactive police work, crime not committed, it is still there, even if unquantifiable.

During a severe pandemic, there will be no proactive police work, and I challenge the assumption that there will be much reactive police work either. And sadly there is no official leadership as of this date to ensure that I am wrong in my assessments.

SZ

temp man – at 23:18

Great essay Sophie.

Protection of supplies may be the only relevent job the police will be able to do with any success during a pandemic.

There won’t be much medical infrastructure to support after the first wave.

I would think that the police that survive/ are left would become the nucleus of the community rebuilding effort.

09 October 2006

crfullmoon – at 08:54

Can someone put Sophie’s essay on the Main Wiki -under anticipated problems - under Police, as an Opinion or so?

Science Teacher – at 16:08

That is a really good essay, SophiaZoe and thank you for sharing it.

Local and state police will get ill just like everyone else. Do you know if your son/daughter’s police dept has ordered extra PPE?

Our armed military forces may not be there for a fall back position as many here feel they will. They will have similiar infection rates. I am skeptical about the government having ordered enough PPE to protect them as well.

dc – at 18:09

SophiaZoe well done- everyone needs to remember the police are “people” just like the rest of us with the same strengths and weaknesses. Yes, there are some bad apples but many police choose the profession because they truly believe in “serve and protect”

And in Katrina there were some officers who stayed on duty under horrible cicumstances, doing the best they could. Based on past experiences (and an Uncle who is a retired sergant!) I belive that the majority would hold fast and do what they could to protect us, but they would be strectched thin.

Closed - Bronco Bill11 December 2006, 13:50

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