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Canton, OH Stop Revisited w/ Police Trainer

Great advice, and nice to get a LEO's perspective! Thanks!

I think the part of not starting with "Officer, ..." or "Hello, ... " and simply blurting out "I have a CCW" FIRST is the best advice as I personally would have started out in conversation mode just out of habit.
 

Unfortunately, this is a bad example of a LEO encounter. What most people do not know about this encounter, is what happened prior to the citizen going ballistic. This state trooper had encounter(s) with this citizen before, and knew he could get the citizen to act this way as the citizen is known to have anger management problems. Prior to turning on the dash cam, the state trooper was acting much different and got the citizen stressed already. The state trooper lost his job over this incident.
 

Well, let's just see if this Canton cop does indeed get fired. Heck, last I heard he was not even being investigated for what look to me as clearly criminal acts on his part.

And I'd bet my bottom dollar that this guy has already done things that would have raised all kinds of red flags. This incident didn't come out of nowhere.
 
The current story from the city is that he's the subject of an IAD investigation.

It sounds like you haven't seen the SECOND video where he exhibits ALL of the same behaviors on display in the first. I'd be VERY surprised if those are the ONLY two videos of him acting out like Dennis Hopper in "Blue Velvet".
 

No, I haven't seen it. Good. Looks like he will get his comeuppance! But ... a IAD investigation is not the same as a criminal investigation by the DA. If one of us acted like that, we'd be charged with a crime. Even if we don't act like that, we would be charged, as was the innocent citizen in this video. Maybe in this case the criminal waits until after the IAD investigation.

At any rate, the end result if I were king would be that this officer would be allowed nowhere near a badge for the rest of his life, and I'd say nowhere near a carry permit either. Just think -- would any of us have ever gotten or kept a CCL if the state board had seen us acting like this guy did?
 
All indications are that the prosecutor is playing hard ball to try to force a plea deal to keep the city from getting sued. They've already made that ludicrous "offer" and had the victim and his attorney laugh in their faces. They're going to drag this out until a settlement will be brutal, or they lose their behinds in a civil judgment. The city's in a no-win situation, like the Japanese on Okinawa. The only question is when they make the final "Banzai" charge into the guns of the waiting Shermans.
 
I'll say it once again, opinions we have towards the police are based on a lot more than the actual police officers themselves.
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This is a good point, Deserteagle. Anecdotes do get passed around, and bad tales travel further than good ones. So I'll concede there's more forming people's opinions than just individual experience. For example, my own experience with a Skagit County Deputy promising to call me right back regarding a theft report, then calling two weeks later to ask if I'd worked things out with the thief (he knew her) might color my opinion. But so would my father's experience with a different Deputy stomping all over the tracks at the scene when he reported a theft of cedar logs and contents of a cabin, while telling him there was nothing they could do - followed by getting a different Deputy each time he called, telling him pretty much the same. He called my oldest son, who made a call of his own, then told him who did the theft, who was the leader and where the stolen cedar was at that moment - that information, given to the Sheriff's Dept. resulted in .. NOTHING -- UNTIL Dad got lucky and found a Deputy who had a hard-on for the ringleader. All of that is not MY experience, but I admit it colors my opinion. It is shared experience. Still, I'm the first to opine that most county Sheriff's Departments have a higher percentage of true Peace Officers than most other agencies.

You mention thousands and thousands of other police encounters. Good. Let's talk about MOST of the police encounters for MOST people: For most people, it's an encounter with a Revenue Collector (traffic cop) and his radar gun. Occasionally, it maybe be a theft report, that generally does not have a beneficial outcome (often, the reporting citizen is grilled almost as if he was the suspect). But most police enounters do not happen for the benefit of the citizen having the encounter, and a very high percentage of them involve the forcible taking of money they need to feed, clothe and house their families.

It does my heart good, on the rare occasions that I see a Trooper helping a lady with a flat tire. A friend is a better than typical Trooper. His got his ***** royally chewed by his Sergeant because, though he made more stops than others in his unit, he was not writing tickets to (taking money from) more than 75% of the people stopped. He was pretty pointedly reminded that that's why he's out there.

The two missions of the Police have not changed since the time of the Sheriff of Nottingham: Primary is forcible transfer of assets from the productive class to the ruling class. Secondary is keeping the peasants in line. Many departments still display the motto "To Serve And Protect," but a large body of case law (all the way to SCOTUS) makes it clear that the police have no duty to protect. You're protection is YOUR responsibility. Period. Many of today's officers are not really allowed to be Peace Officers. That's not of primary importance to the ruling class; and the police, after all, are the tools of the ruling class they serve.

On average, the majority of the Revenue Collectors I've encountered have been polite and professional. Most of them. And they were taking my money; that's their job.

I still remember being an idealistic 18 year old who wanted to be a cop, a good guy, help the good people, put away the bad guys. Funny how a few decades of societal observation can lead to disillusionment. I'm glad I never did it. My wife did it for a while, and she has the scars. She was lucky, but what she saw within the department finally made her leave.

Face it, much of the ruling class wants, if not Officer Harless, at least a force that intimidates the peasants sufficiently that they won't ever argue, no matter what. Police are caught in the middle; they are not the cause of the problem, just the target most visible to most observers.

In the Canton Ohio case, I'll hazard a prediction: If this gets enough publicity, the story has enough "legs," Harless will be fired -- and a very short time later, will be working for another department. Please tell me I'm wrong.
 
Oklahoma is a "must inform" state. I say "Good morning/afternoon/evening officer. Before we get started, the Oklahoma Self Defense Act requires me to inform you that I have a carry permit and I am carrying firearms at the present time." I haven't had much contact with the local police, but the Oklahoma Highway Patrol has been polite and professional in my personal knowledge.
 
fudo said:
I haven't had much contact with the local police, but the Oklahoma Highway Patrol has been polite and professional in my personal knowledge.
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Maybe they should fire the whole Canton PD and replace them with Oklahoma Highway Patrol officers.
 
fudo said:
I haven't had much contact with the local police, but the Oklahoma Highway Patrol has been polite and professional in my personal knowledge.
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I'm with you. Most of my encounters have been with a state highway patrol officer, and I have always been impressed with their professionalism.
 
Have to say the number of times I have been stopped by any State Trooper have been most impressed. Overall good experience, I think partly due to CC License.
 
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