Was anybody at all saying that this was all the result of sloppy training under Trump? The GOP wasn’t saying that, because they praise everything Trump does. The most useless and cowardly of the democrats did mention training, but not as the only issue. Two things can be true: the new recruits that have joined in the last year are undertrained and incompetent, and the entire institution is rotten to the core.
ICE and Border Patrol are rotten. But, it’s not just them. All policing in the US needs to be torn apart and rebuilt. Too many bad apples were left in the bunch, and now the bunch has rotted. Police officers really need to believe in their core that their mission is “To Protect And Serve”. They can’t see themselves as the “Thin Blue Line” between order and chaos. I would bet that the majority of American police would sneer in derision at Robert Peel’s principles of policing, when really that should be a bare minimum 19th century historical document that is taken for granted in the modern world.
I think an argument could be made that the agencies’ rottenness hadn’t mattered, that prior to 2025 they would have been this disastrous, but were never broadly deployed in a way where it had such dire consequences as now.
I think the agencies’ rottenness was a back burner issue. It mattered, but there were so many other things that mattered more. There’s also the fact that the victims of awful ICE and Border Patrol agents were almost never Americans. They even knew better than to touch Europeans or rich Asians. As a result, any terrible things they did mostly stayed under the radar.
Was anybody at all saying that this was all the result of sloppy training under Trump?
The Lincoln Project, for starters. Hakeem Jeffries got on the “they just need more training” bandwagon recently. Lots of Op-Eds about how “Abolish ICE isn’t helping” have said this
All policing in the US needs to be torn apart and rebuilt.
Show me the link where they said it was all the result of sloppy training under Trump.
I’m not saying they never said that the agents needed more training. I’m saying the claim is that it is all the result of sloppy training. That there are no other issues.
Policing in general in the USA needs reform. You’ve got most officers training to use their gun first and ask questions later, like they are at war with the citizens in their jurisdictions. Sometimes that might be necessary, but mostly not. I get the job can be dangerous, but they signed up for it. If the only tool you give them is a hammer, everything becomes a nail.
Besides the fact that police come from slave-catchers and are an institution which should be entirely abolished, perhaps replaced with state-run SWAT teams for the scenarios that actually require an armed response and community safety officers for everything else, what you’re talking about is largely a result of the so-called ““War on Terror””. There was so much extra equipment from the Middle East that much of it was given for free to police officers. Military equipment plus military training (see “The Rise of the Warrior Cop”) resulted in police that view and treat America like a battleground and all citizens as potential threats.
Being a cop is a less dangerous job than being a pizza delivery driver. The vast majority of cops go their entire careers without firing a shot except at the range. Yet they act like every time they stop someone for speeding they’re about to be murdered.
It’s a fact that because of the American gun culture that’s more true in the US than it is in most countries. So, maybe as long as the US has guaranteed gun rights and the accompanying gun culture, US cops will be in slightly more danger than cops around the world. But, there’s no reason that the job couldn’t fundamentally be about keeping people safe vs. shooting bad guys.
Was anybody at all saying that this was all the result of sloppy training under Trump? The GOP wasn’t saying that, because they praise everything Trump does. The most useless and cowardly of the democrats did mention training, but not as the only issue. Two things can be true: the new recruits that have joined in the last year are undertrained and incompetent, and the entire institution is rotten to the core.
ICE and Border Patrol are rotten. But, it’s not just them. All policing in the US needs to be torn apart and rebuilt. Too many bad apples were left in the bunch, and now the bunch has rotted. Police officers really need to believe in their core that their mission is “To Protect And Serve”. They can’t see themselves as the “Thin Blue Line” between order and chaos. I would bet that the majority of American police would sneer in derision at Robert Peel’s principles of policing, when really that should be a bare minimum 19th century historical document that is taken for granted in the modern world.
I think an argument could be made that the agencies’ rottenness hadn’t mattered, that prior to 2025 they would have been this disastrous, but were never broadly deployed in a way where it had such dire consequences as now.
I think the agencies’ rottenness was a back burner issue. It mattered, but there were so many other things that mattered more. There’s also the fact that the victims of awful ICE and Border Patrol agents were almost never Americans. They even knew better than to touch Europeans or rich Asians. As a result, any terrible things they did mostly stayed under the radar.
The Lincoln Project, for starters. Hakeem Jeffries got on the “they just need more training” bandwagon recently. Lots of Op-Eds about how “Abolish ICE isn’t helping” have said this
Preach it
Show me the link where they said it was all the result of sloppy training under Trump.
I’m not saying they never said that the agents needed more training. I’m saying the claim is that it is all the result of sloppy training. That there are no other issues.
Policing in general in the USA needs reform. You’ve got most officers training to use their gun first and ask questions later, like they are at war with the citizens in their jurisdictions. Sometimes that might be necessary, but mostly not. I get the job can be dangerous, but they signed up for it. If the only tool you give them is a hammer, everything becomes a nail.
Besides the fact that police come from slave-catchers and are an institution which should be entirely abolished, perhaps replaced with state-run SWAT teams for the scenarios that actually require an armed response and community safety officers for everything else, what you’re talking about is largely a result of the so-called ““War on Terror””. There was so much extra equipment from the Middle East that much of it was given for free to police officers. Military equipment plus military training (see “The Rise of the Warrior Cop”) resulted in police that view and treat America like a battleground and all citizens as potential threats.
See also, Dave Grossman and “Killology Training.”
Being a cop is a less dangerous job than being a pizza delivery driver. The vast majority of cops go their entire careers without firing a shot except at the range. Yet they act like every time they stop someone for speeding they’re about to be murdered.
It’s a fact that because of the American gun culture that’s more true in the US than it is in most countries. So, maybe as long as the US has guaranteed gun rights and the accompanying gun culture, US cops will be in slightly more danger than cops around the world. But, there’s no reason that the job couldn’t fundamentally be about keeping people safe vs. shooting bad guys.