Reform the Police, a refrain as old as Police themselves. But, we will never get the proper answer until we understand the question? "More Training" has been the Panacea to combat Police brutality and misconduct but, can the Police as currently conceived, designed, organized, and utilized be retrained?
More than a decade ago I became aware of the grotesque David Grossman and his On Killing / Warrior Cop police training, a course of instruction designed to turn even well-adjusted LEOs into sacred trigger happy panicked shooters and affording psychotic Police Officers the justification they needed to gun down any black man they saw.
Grossman's "Killology" training wasn't a bizarre outlier from a weirdo who never saw combat but, a highly touted and widespread methodology which had been taught to thousands of cops and merely the most visible of the Let's make police into brutal abusers philosophy.
Sadly, it seems a vast swath of politicians were never aware of this training until it had already wrecked an entire generation of Police Officers in a similar way the Joe Rogan/Andrew Tate/Jordan Peterson toxic masculinity has warped and deluded the young generation of Zoomer boys these days. The general approach was to simply allocate the money for "More Training" and let the departments pick and choose.
Therefore, in this Post-Ferguson era, we still see toxic training being sold to Officers and the content provided by these so-called trainers containing vulgar, rude, discriminatory, unconstitutional methods, demeaning misogynoy, and toxic masculinity.
Street Cop, founded in 2012, is a private law enforcement training vendor that conducts business in the State of New Jersey. The founder and CEO of the Company is Dennis Benigno, a former law enforcement officer who worked with a municipal police department in Middlesex County, New Jersey, until 2015.
Benigno claims to lead “one of the largest, if not the largest, police training providers in the United States,” impacting approximately 25,000 to 30,000 law enforcement officers nationally on an annual basis. In New Jersey alone, the Company conducts 40 to 45 courses annually, training in “excess of 2000 state and local law enforcement officers.” Included in the New Jersey course offerings is a case law class “tailored specifically to New Jersey,” which Benigno himself instructs.
Among other things, OSC found:
- Instructors at the Conference promoted the use of unconstitutional policing tactics for motor vehicle stops;
- Some instructors glorified violence and an excessively militaristic or “warrior” approach to policing. Other presenters spoke disparagingly of the internal affairs process; promoted an “us vs. them” approach; and espoused views and tactics that would undermine almost a decade of police reform efforts in New Jersey, including those aimed at de-escalating civilian-police encounters, building trust with vulnerable populations, and increasing officers’ ability to understand, appreciate, and interact with New Jersey’s diverse population; and
- The Conference included over 100 discriminatory and harassing remarks by speakers and instructors, with repeated references to speakers’ genitalia, lewd gestures, and demeaning quips about women and minorities.
The New Jersey Office of State Comptroller has a detailed report of the vile bullshit and borderline criminal misconduct taught at a 6 day seminar in Atlantic City in October 2021. And what did The Founder of Street Cop, Dennis Benigno with his synthol oil muscles, and his instructors teach? Why the same tired Reactionary Crap of Warrior Cop hyper-vigilance. The repetition of the US and Them, Kill or Be Killed, Treat Everyone Like a Dirtbag Criminal and you might just go home alive.
I've been to a lot of training over the years and immediately steer clear of the hard-chargers who come in festooned in street tactical 5.11 clothing, wearing their duty/off-duty pistol in their low leg holster...
What we always find with this type of training or an institution like Street Cop; is the classic reductive stereo-types which have been repeated since Joseph Wambaugh and Clint Eastwood invented them 60 years ago. Righteous god fearing white christian police beset by the savage hordes of blacks, hispanics, queers, and others while namby-pamby bleeding heart liberals tie the Police hands instead of letting them do the righteous work. Of course, the foundation stretches back even further to the lies Wyatt Earp and Tom Mix sold Hollywood of the lone lawman fighting for Law&Order over a 100 years ago.
Even today, right now, the Republican Party and rightwing propagandists continue to propagate this bullshit, the stereotype that if only "Our" Police were unshackled, if only the crime-coddling Democrats got out of the way, if only the media didn't broadcast Chauvin's extrajudicial killing of George Floyd crime wouldn't be out of control.
Never forget the people that say this are the ideological descendants of those who gave Nixon and Regan the free reign to use draconian methods in the "War on Drugs". And were absolutely fine when the fucking terror was rained down upon poor and minority communities. Back then Police didn't raid and bust ever rich white frat house at Dartmouth now did they? But, once the War on Drugs began to impact little "Maddie & Connor", well then white society demanded leniency and counseling and treatment instead of incarceration and a life-long sentence which fucked millions by giving them a criminal record.
Do you know why the Republicans in Congress like Major Traitor Greene and that Coward Josh Hawley are still so mad at the Capitol Police? Because Republicans expected the Police to aid them, and their rightwing paramilitary terrorists on January 6th in overthrowing the Government.
Remember the issue isn't just Reforming the Police or finding/fixing/removing the few bad apples it's also dealing with the bad faith efforts of conservatives to undermine solutions while demonizing the efforts in order to obtain political power. Recall how Republicans and their compliant corporate media stenographers told the American populace that #DefundthePolice was the official policy of Joe Biden and every Democrat office-holder. Then couple that with the Republican predilection of axiomatically defending every extrajudicial killing of a minority in America and you have the right ingredients for the Modern Reactionary Police. A Police Force that will readily stomp on the faces of anyone who hinders the White Power Christian Fascist Nation the Republicans seek to turn the United States into...
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