Am I reading the article right - US police forces generally don't provide any training to their officers, once those officers have completed the academy? It's all contracted out to weirdos like this? That seems very odd. As far as I know the Met (for example) runs almost all its own training - some of the more academic bits they do in partnership with various London universities.
The smaller forces run joint courses with each other (I think South Yorkshire Police handle the public order and driving training for the other Yorkshire forces, for example), or they send their officers off to go on a Met-run course if it's something very specialist.
Today I'm refusing to read the Washington Post because of the strike. I'm not refusing to read the NYT, but I've got a thing to do first. It's also the first day of Hanukkah tonight, in which the New Jersey police celebrate how their search warrant was set to expire in one day but miraculously lasted seven days when they decided the judge was wrong.
1: This just shows how the US is at a more advanced stage of capitalism, so that this kind of governmental function is privatized.
The most telling aspect of the story is that not a single police officer reported any issues with the training. In so far as any of them realized that they were being taught to violate official policy, they probably thought that was awesome.
Also I suspect that attending a 6-day training workshop in Atlantic City was viewed as a perk, a paid vacation.
I'm pretty sure the last time I was stopped by the police, he just wanted to see if I was white. He didn't even look at my license after he saw my face. His reason for pulling me over was that when I used my turn signal to change lanes, I turned it off too soon. Apparently, if I had kept blinking until I was completely in the lane, I wouldn't have been stopped.
The most telling aspect of the story is that not a single police officer reported any issues with the training.
No, many police officers reported issues with the training.
Retired and active law enforcement sources reported to OSC that red flags about the content of Street Cop's training were raised by county and municipal law enforcement as far back as 2014, only two years after the Company's founding.One individual raised concern that Street Cop's course on "profiling vehicles" had "indications of racial profiling." Another individual expressed that officers were being told by Street Cop that their "supervisors don't know anything" and that prosecutors providing legal advice were "idiots." Another municipal department received information that their officers were provided improper information by Street Cop on search and seizure law. This department chose to retrain their officers as a result.[78] Yet another municipal department told OSC that in 2019, they decided to not send officers to Street Cop anymore due to the "questionable interdiction methods and tactics" that were being taught. A former county law enforcement official described Benigno's training as focused on "archaic" case law that he views as "loopholes" and indicated that his training about motor vehicle stops and use of force could destroy an officer's career, result in someone being hurt, or cause a department to be sued.
Another department's officer described Street Cop's training as relating to tactics which are more about "hunting" suspects than community policing, elaborating that some counties in New Jersey that followed this type of training were known as "interdiction country." This law enforcement officer also described to OSC that officers would come back from Street Cop courses with "material in hand" (likely referring to the RAS Checklist) and that, based on the factors listed in the document, every driver on the road "earns a checkmark" or would be suspected of being "dirty."
Some municipal departments reported to OSC that they intentionally chose not to reimburse for tuition or other associated costs when their officers attended Street Cop courses. One department indicated that, while their officers are free to attend any training on their own time and at their own expense, any certificate received from a Street Cop course would not be added to their personnel files. One department even warned its officers that if they made a mistake based on what they were taught at a Street Cop event, there would be consequences.
A county police academy in New Jersey reported to OSC that it would not host the Company because of the "questionable material" being taught, indicating that it received information that material being provided to students by Street Cop "walked the line between legal and illegal." The academy staff described Street Cop as having a "cult-like" following. On the other hand, other police academies in New Jersey reported that they continue to host Street Cop at their facilities.
OSC was provided with access to feedback collected through online surveys that were taken by participants who attended Street Cop classes outside of the Conference. In one survey from Benigno's NJ Case Law class in 2020, the attendee noted that "[t]he blemish on Dennis's classes are the offensive comments," which "now and then" can be "very harsh." The attendee noted their concern "that the wrong person may not understand what I believe, which is that this is mainly an entertainment act and not Dennis's character. That person could damage or destroy a vibrant growing national business and actually hurt a lot of cops in the process. My suggestion is to curtail comments just a bit, and Keep them focussed [sic] on bad guys not sexual preference or ethnicity."
It's true that the company didn't report that any of the officers attending one particular conference in 2021 had anything negative to say, but Street Cop had been raising red flags for years.
I asked my state legislator friend if we do that in the Granite State. She said no, we have a statewide curriculum and use actual police officers to do the training. They had wanted to add constitutional training to the curriculum but discovered it was already in the curriculum.
I might add that this city has the best cops of any place I've ever lived.
The company offers a course on "New Hampshire Case Law That All Cops Need To Know" https://www.streetcoptraining.com/courses/new-hampshire-case-law-that-all-cops-need-to-know/ for which the audience is, presumably, cops in New Hampshire
and public documents show that New Hampshire police officers have attended Street Cop courses as recently as last year https://www.laconianh.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Item/19581?fileID=43011
as confirmed by the NJ Comptroller investigation into the company https://www.nj.gov/comptroller/library/reports/PoliceTraining/appendixb_police_training_report.pdf
so I'm afraid your state legislator friend isn't telling you the truth.
The first link in 10 seems like auto-generated marketing spam for every state. Here is the one for .
Links 2 and 3 are concerning to me. I will pass them on.
I use Kagi Summarizer for long articles (or most articles, these days).
*******
The Street Cop Conference provided police training to New Jersey law enforcement officers, but much of the content directly contradicted New Jersey's police reform initiatives and encouraged unconstitutional policing tactics.
Instructors taught traffic stop techniques like the RAS Checklist that encouraged stops based on arbitrary factors alone without reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.
Attendees were encouraged to illegally prolong stops in violation of the Fourth Amendment to develop reasonable suspicion for searches.
Speakers made over 100 discriminatory and harassing comments touching on protected categories like gender, race, religion, and disability.
The training normalized a "warrior mindset" and included comments glorifying violence, mocking reforms, and dehumanizing civilians.
The content showed disregard for anti-discrimination policies and increased civil liability risks for agencies from harassment and discrimination claims.
Millions have been spent settling NJLAD cases against police departments related to officer misconduct like harassment.
Some departments declined to host or send officers to Street Cop due to questionable tactics taught.
Street Cop provided misleading information about approval from prosecutors and departments.
The conference organizer dismissed concerns about discriminatory comments found in the training.
US police forces generally don't provide any training to their officers, once those officers have completed the academy? It's all contracted out to weirdos like this?
I may have missed it, but I don't see where the links say this. There's way too much sketchy private training, sure; it is probably almost all better provided in-house or in collaboration with other agencies. But not all, or even necessarily most, ongoing training is private.
Police agencies are so under-overseen that there are probably plenty such where continuing education is not a requirement, or a paper requirement. It does say New Jersey only just made it a requirement at the state level.
Looks like they offer a lot in Texas, which is a bummer.
14: I may well be wrong about that - but the NJ report keeps talking about how there is no certification requirement or oversight for post-academy training, and that wouldn't make sense if most post-academy training was provided in-house?
18: I agree the lack of oversight may be built on that understanding, but that understanding might then have eroded. Doesn't mean internal training doesn't exist in some quantity; it may often be as shitty, who knows.
Oh wait, I missed the n't in wouldn't. To be clearer, I think no certification requirements or oversight, even if all training were in house would have made sense in an era where the local agency was seen as autonomous in its own affairs, and state oversight either inappropriate or insulting.
The problem is, or a problem is, that so many police in America are members of little independent local police forces. There is nothing truthful you can say about American police practices generally, anything might be different jurisdiction by jurisdiction.
Okay, 4 is insane. Have you taken these instructions deeply to heart and used your turn indicator properly since then? I feel like using that much mental bandwidth on timing the indicator would be hazardous.
The attendee noted their concern "that the wrong person may not understand what I believe, which is that this is mainly an entertainment act and not Dennis's character. That person could damage or destroy a vibrant growing national business and actually hurt a lot of cops in the process. My suggestion is to curtail comments just a bit, and Keep them focussed [sic] on bad guys not sexual preference or ethnicity."
Which Boy Scout badge do you get for this?
22.1: Right. I had a rental car with Texas plates and I was driving on the interstate into Omaha. If I weren't white and looking like I knew lawyers, he would have made me sit there until I let him search the car or a drug-sniffing dog was found.
Oh yeah. I had a brown-skinned colleague in Tennessee who had Texas plates for awhile and used to get stopped on the Interstate all the time. The cops were looking for drugs.
I got pulled over looking for drugs one time in a Hyundai Accent filled to the brim with firewood. From a distance I probably looked like a low-rider.
Or you looked like a Hyundai Accent full of firewood. Because that seems different.
Yeah, come to think of it, I was leaving Texas in a U-Haul many years ago, and the cop had me open up the back so he could have a look. I was fine with that because I was moving furniture and I felt confident that he wouldn't check the sock drawer.
And when you think about it, it makes sense that people from Texas are regarded with suspicion in more civilized states.
There was a big blackout in Texas when I was stopped. Maybe he thought I was stealing electricity?
Fun fact: Hyundai Accent shocks are not actually built for hauling firewood.
"focussed [sic]"
This spelling is, in fact, correct.
"I got pulled over looking for drugs one time in a Hyundai Accent filled to the brim with firewood."
I wouldn't have thought you'd be likely to find drugs in a Hyundai Accent filled to the brim with firewood, and you certainly should not have been looking for them while driving.
||
Humans are attested in various roles, including as slaves and prisoners.|>
Timing is hard to fathom, but it seems from this evidence that the 400-comment arguments about policing here may be a thing of the past.
31: That spelling is standard on your island but not in Atlantic City.
35: Yes, I think when you have even Spike rhapsodising about how his local police are wonderful, the potential for those arguments is largely absent.
That spelling is standard on your island but not in Atlantic City.
Clearly Atlantic City is wrong, then.
Yeah,
I don't get why the guy who thinks it's just entertainment thinks that's some kind of defense. The operative issue here isn't whether the guy is a genuine deep in his heart racist asshole, but whether his 'class' is teaching the wrong things. I guess his point is that this is no more a 'class' than an SNL cold open is a presidential press conference?
The past participle of focus rhymes with mussed and fussed and debussed, and is therefore correctly spelled "focussed". If it rhymed with abused and fused and mused, it would be "focused".
Timing is hard to fathom, but it seems from this evidence that the 400-comment arguments about policing here may be a thing of the past.
It's hard to find the knife's edge of what this community is willing to dig in and take to 400. But the past tense of "focus" may just do the trick.
https://proofed.com/writing-tips/spelling-tips-focused-or-focussed/
Divided by a common language.
I am also willing to argue, if necessary, that the correct plural of "octopus" is neither "octopi" nor "octopods" nor "octopodes" but "octopusses".
This reminds me. The other day I was in a bar talking about moose, as one does, when an acquaintance of South Asian birth used the word "meese" without irony.