I don't think you can use this datapoint for this purpose. Cops are employing the paranoid strategies already, so there's no way to discern between 'these strategies are needless' and 'these strategies are effective'.

Its more dangerous being a spouse to a cop than it is to be a cop.

Probably the most dangerous aspect of the job in the US is driving.

Roofing, I think, tends to be the most dangerous.

Curious how much this varies among police. Some jobs are by their nature always dangerous.

But there are a lot of cops in the USA, and plenty I'm sure have nice, cozy jobs, and then there are some who spend thee majority of their career policing areas that more closely resemble warzones or 3rd world nations but this isn't the majority by any means.

Neither working as a 7 eleven worker nor a cop is a sacrifice, it's a free labor market.

I have seen some shit go down in 7/11's at 1am. You are not kidding.

Unfortunately, the police in Adama’s world are different from our own:

> the other serves and protects the people

The only time this was actually true was at the advent of organized policing in the United States - there were two purposes for cops. In the north, they were meant to ensure the protection of property, particularly commercial.

In the south, it was the same except that usually meant slaves, so in the worst kind of technically correct sense, they did at one point protect people…kind of. Well, kept them “safe” from freedom and such.

In the US police have no obligation to protect the people.

Is that a problem for the Gendarmerie?

A famous case of this is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Philando_Castile where the man identitified he had a concealed carry, the cop told him not reach for it, he started to say he wasn't, he was getting his license the officer asked for, with the officer cutting him off repeatedly and the officer shot him because he 'feared for his life'.

All they have to prove is that they fear for their life. It does not have to make sense, does not have to be 'justified', etc.

A black friend of mine did exactly this, asked for a permission to get a pen from his pocket. The cop laughed “sure” and the moment he put his hand inside his pocket they jumped him and arrested him.

> I think it's the only way to protect yourself from their hyper-nervousness.

“the only way” puts me in mind of The Onion headline “‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens”

A childhood friend's dad was a cop for 25 years; retired in the mid-90s. He never shot his gun, and only unholstered once in his entire cop career. My friend followed his dad, also became a cop in the exact same district; he's getting ready to retire. He's unholstered his gun countless times. He says he's shot at numerous people in his career, and even killed one dude. I once asked him what the difference was between his career and his dad's. He said crime was actually worse when his dad was a cop, a lot worse. But the big difference was the public's attitude and his training. He said the public had accepted the "tough on crime" narrative; that wasn't the case in his dad's days. But also, the training was straight-up military. He said that if he didn't use the military-style tactics, he would be sunned by his peers and even reprimanded. He said the training repeated one narrative, over and over: "It's us versus them."

He told me a story about a noise complaint. He said him and his partner banged on the front door of the house, but there was no response. He said they called in the status, but were told to wait. About 10 minutes later multiple SWAT vehicles arrived. He said one of the vehicles literally drove into the side of the house, making a huge hole in the house. About a dozen SWAT officers ran into the house, multiple shots were fired, the tear gas started a fire. The house was absolutely destroyed. ... No one was home; the house was empty. A kid left the TV on really loud when he left for school. A neighbor called it in, hoping the cops could just go into the house and turn off the TV. Worse, there was no punishment to anyone involved; the cops were doing as they were trained.

Are you sure about that? Police brutality has been reported as a huge issue in the US since at least the 60s. If anything, from the outside it looks like it's got better since Iraq.

The MOVE bombing was well before the Iraq war.

No, treating people with hostility and escalating the situation only makes it more likely that someone will snap and attack a cop.

People generally do not shoot at cops, because whether or not they hit the target doing so is pretty much signing their own death sentence. All cops have to do to protect themselves is to not provoke people to fight-or-flight reactions.

They go around barking orders at people who haven’t done anything wrong because they look “suspicious,” escalate what could otherwise be calm encounters by showing up to everything armed to the gills, make it clear they can’t wait to use force against persons and property, demonstrate a consistent us-vs-them mentality that looks the other way for clear cases of corruption, commit brazen armed robberies under euphemisms like “civil asset forfeiture,” bypass policymakers wherever possible and lie to them when they can’t, and then wonder why some people don’t like them very much.

The Snopes article is useful. For those who don’t want to read it, here is what Grossman says about that quotation:

> That clip took my entire, full day presentation, and took it completely out of context.

-They left out the part where I say that this is a normal biological, hormonal backlash from fight-or-flight (sympathetic nervous system arousal) to feed-and-breed (parasympathetic nervous system arousal) that can happen to anyone in a traumatic event.

-They left out the part where I say that there is nothing wrong if it doesn’t happen, and absolutely nothing wrong if it does happen.

-They left out the part where I say it happens to fire, EMS and even victims of violent crime.

-They left out where I say that it scares the hell out of people.

-They left out where I talk about it (and remember it is common in survivors of violent crime), as kind of a beautiful affirmation of life in the face of death; a grasping for closeness and intimate reassurance in the face of tragedy.

I don't think you understand what "de-escalation" is. It's not ignoring antisocial behavior or failing to confront people.