PO Potatoes- The thoughts and musings of a crime fighting Potato

"A person who is not inwardly prepared for the use of violence against him is always weaker than the person committing the violence."  - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn,  The Gulag Archipelago  chp 1, 'Arrest' If you've been paying attention to the news, the new buzz word around policing and the law enforcement profession is "police violence".  Even the United Nations is  getting in on the discussion  surrounding use of force in the US, with a heavy focus on the death of Keenan Anderson in Los Angeles, and murder of Tyre Nichols in Memphis. Notice the terms I used. Keenan Anderson was involved in a traffic crash, fled on foot, attempted to enter another vehicle, and was initially compliant with responding officers.  After a short while he suddenly gets up and runs off, and around this same time officers made the determination that he was at fault for the accident.  I watched the BWC footage and I could easily articulate the aspects of gross intoxication (body mov

One of the narratives that is alive and strong today, more so in certain circles, is that the police are nothing more than a wing of the government that is meant to oppress, tax, and murder.  Usually along with that narrative is that modern policing sprout from slave catchers pre- and during the Civil War era in the US.  That frame of mind does nothing but put police on the same plane as the pro-slavery supporters, Nazis and bloodthirsty communists of the 20th century, and the sociopaths that police routinely put behind bars. More times than I care to count I have been on the scene of a shooting, usually a young man, more often than not black/African American, and normally known to us from arrests or not-so-positive interactions.  Usually they are in their gang's territory, or were followed.  In any case, there are usually young teenagers or young adults.  Many have been in and out of bad homes, or come from single parent house holds, or even just raised by grandma.  They foun

So there you are, minding your own business when you see a squad car pull over a car.  It looks random but innocuous. Suddenly the police are jumping out, guns pointed and another squad pulls up.  They all fan out around the car, one shouts about crossfire while 3 others go directly to a passenger door and immediately the occupant is pulled out.  You hear the occupant start screaming they didn't do anything and see them try to pull away.  There are 3 officers all struggling to keep his hands on the roof of the car and him from running. Suddenly an officer yells something, and the 3 officers move in closer.  They tell him to relax, stop resisting, stop moving.  Suddenly the crowd starts shouting to leave him alone, that this is harassment and illegal.  But then one of the officers turns around holding a gun they just pulled from the occupants waistband and then other 2 put him in cuffs.  You realize the occupant was armed.  You originally saw 3 officers pinning a person against t