Really Bad: A salute for their service and compassion for their families.
I had not seen that. Truly terrible. One of the deputies had 30 years in according to the article.
Regards,
Robert A
Even worse:
Got this Email last night. If the video loads (its Afghan) you can clearly see the blue on green shooting. With these shitheads, you just never know:
“Yesterday, Wednesday 11 FEB at approximately 1250hrs, an Afghan Police Officer opened fire on a RS official and security detail at near point blank range as they exited the Ministry of Commerce. No RS personnel were injured in the attack”
Video of the Attack:
http://1tvnews.af/en/news/afghanistan/20798-police-officer-killed-after-clash-with-coalition-troops-in-kabul
“Keep your head on a swivel and stay safe out there”
idaho,
The way I keep sane when I read things like the CNN article is to keep reminding myself how statistics, averages, and probability works. We should expect apparent “clumping” of events. That means in any year we should have “terrible” weeks and “ok” weeks. I would really like to see articles like the above also mention the numbers of violent felons arrested. I have a suspicion that perceptions about how “violent” modern police are would falter a bit when compared with how many legitimately bad individuals were taken into custody. That is why I keep stating that “modern” policing is at the high point historically for law enforcement.
RE: blue on green shooting
That is really, truly ridiculous. Is the lack of vetting a cultural issue or is it a concession to “real politik”? Incidents like this cast massive doubts about the utility of training/aid(which is of course the goal).
Stay safe.
Regards,
Robert A
Robert,
There are so many problems here, it would take a thesis of massive proportions to even list them. There really is no vetting here, especially by what passes for a central Afghan government. Corruption is systemic to the whole culture and endemic within ever facet of an Afghan’s bloodstream. I thought Iraq was bad, but, this “country” is on a whole different level. I don’t know the details yet concerning the Afghan cop who opened fire, but, I would bet this month’s pay, that he “bought” his job from the local commander. There is no such thing as a vetting system from the government, what vetting is done, we attempt to do. With no national data base, this “country” operates on religious, familial, tribal, and “who you paid off today”. Corruption is a way of life here, beyond anything I ever ever seen, even worse than Somalia.
The US has paid massive amounts blood and over 117 billion dollars into this “country” with no change. Did you know the American Taxpayer PAYS the salary and RETIREMENT of every Afghan police officer, every Afghan solider, every Afghan Border Patrol officer (probably the most corrupt organization I have ever dealt with) in this “country”?, good deal if you can get it. Not to mention there are suspected 10,000 “ghost soldiers and police” on the payroll, whose monthly salaries go into the various corrupt politicians pockets while the USG stands by and does nothing. So, get back to the original point, no , vetting does not take place and corruption rules the day. At least the Taliban try to kill you in a straight up fight, instead of bleeding our country dry and fucking us over every day.
BAD, as always:
I was at Bagram Airfield doing an interview the day they were killed. I did not know the NYPD officer, but, I had meet the OSI agent on a previous assignment. The common theme here is multiple deployments, after 14 years of war, you cannot keep sending the same troops back , time after time, eventually you play your last card. My respect for their service and dying for our beliefs. It a shame the best we have, die in such a filthy, corrupt, excuse for a country.
Idaho,
RE: Herding Cats
That pretty much confirms the worst news/analysis I have read about the situation. It has to be especially frustrating when doing “training” is a large part of the mission profile. I realize professionalism wins out, but I don’t envy anyone having to kit up and teach such a force.
I don’t really have anything but condolences for the “BAD, as always” post.
Regards,
Robert A
Rather than make this the Idaho and Robert A gripe about things thread. Video of a semi-recent OIS involving an attack with a knife.
Story:
HL:
[quote]KCL website: The unidentified man called the agency about 11:50 a.m. and requested a law enforcement response to the area of Carmen and Daily drives for a crime that was about to occur, according to a news release.
The man also told the dispatch center that he wanted to kill himself…The man ignored the commands and charged at the deputy, who then opened fire several times…deputy suffered minor injuries[/quote]
Video: NSFW if watching a suicide by cop/assault with lethal force being ended with same is not safe for your work. Also an excessive amount of “Oh my gad” comments from those taping. Their comments reminded me of mapwhap’s last post.
Using time stamp from video. I will refer to the officer as officer and the man with the knife as the subject. A (presumed)male and female are heard, but not seen as they are the ones doing the vertical video while jamming to vintage Tupac.
0:01: Officer approaches subject. I can’t make out if the knife is visible at this point. All that is clear is the subject is prepared for any ugly sweater contest that could pop off.
0:03Officer draws weapon, subject steps back, then forward. Subject does not try to increase distance so if you are inclined to consider “pawing” the ground a pre-assault indicator that count is at one now. We are two “Oh my god’s” in from the gallery as the officer breaks leather/kydex so knife may have been obvious in real life.
0:07Subject is walking towards the officer with his left hand up and his right down by his leg. If everyone is using the “Total Picture, hand, other hand, run the waist line, face, repeat” method of scanning for weapon/assessment the officer has the flags of “closing to contact distance, what the fuck is going on with the “other” hand, and waistline/hand reaching. Also, damn that is an ugly sweater.
0:08Officer starts backing up. Subjects right hand comes out and forward. I think he is holding the knife there. I cannot make out the blade on the video but his hand position is consistent with a forward grip. We have gone from pre-assault cues and threat indicators to “go time”. Officer has his weapon in his right hand and pointed down at his side.
0:09Both subject and officer disappear from view. We get “Taze that motherfucker” from the male in the gallery.
0:13Officer is bladed, left side forward and hop/sliding back. Firearm is still held single handed, and is now at about a 45/low ready orientation.
0:14Officer still backing up, finally hits count 4 of his draw. Subject is moving forward, bladed with his left side forward.
0:19Both officer and subject stop. Camera turn ass over tea kettle. We are informed “This is not happening right now.”-always the battle cry of the good decision maker
0:25Music cuts out. Subject backs up a few steps. Officer closes gap Officer is heard giving commands. They are ignored
0:28Subject starts advancing. Officer begins backpedaling and firing.
0:33Officer falls while trying to back up. Subject still advancing.
0:35Officer is rising. Subject is bent over and appears to move past officer then falls over. Audio indicates one of the two budding film makers in the car is holding the phone/microphone in their mouth.
0:41Officer is up and angling on/beginning to secure scene/suspect. Voice over female “Oh my god, what do we do?”
0:45"Do we leave? What do we do?”
0:47Male answers: “Ugh, pull over.” Sweet baby Odin. These two children of knowledge were hanging out in the street filming.
Officer absolutely was justified in using force.
The gates/fences on the officers left and traffic to his right may have contributed to him being stuck “on a rail”/functionally in a hallway and prevented him from applying any sort of sidestep or better foot work.
Dangers of moving backward are well highlighted as the officer fell over and if the subject would have stayed focused on doing injury a few seconds longer this could have been very ugly.
Considering the terrain it was a more difficult problem to solve. I think points could be made about committing to being brutal enough, early enough. The officer seemed far, far too reticent to actually aim at the knife wielding subject than optimal. It looks like he was sort of caught in a passive loop at the beginning, drawing but not aiming, backing up, not taking either a two handed shooting grip or anything that would be described as retention.
The best choice may well have been to move in and deal with things at “fight range” with the bonus of having a gun rather than trying to make space to get into gunfight/marksmanship range. Of course that is much easier to do when not trying to simultaneously process information and jump through your own asshole. The chances to do that would have either been early, 0:07 or so when the officer seemed very much not prepared for doing violence, or at the stop at :19. The officer did seem to adjust and become much more dialed in, but still favored the run backwards tactic.
What am I missing?
Regards,
Robert A
“Rather than make this the Idaho and Robert A gripe about things thread. Video of a semi-recent OIS involving an attack with a knife”
#**
## # LOL…You are right, I have been bitching a lot lately…fed up with the corruption of all governments. will try to be true to the thread.
**
Thanks for the video and analysis, excellent as always:
“The officer seemed far, far too reticent to actually aim at the knife wielding subject than optimal. It looks like he was sort of caught in a passive loop at the beginning, drawing but not aiming, backing up, not taking either a two handed shooting grip or anything that would be described as retention”. Good point and a direct result of the mass media mentality of every cop is wanting to kill someone. However, we have brought it on ourselves by hiring some who are total fucking morons. The Darwin cell phone camera is slowly weeding them out.
When I am in the states, I am constantly amazed at the general stupidity of the public. Those Spielberg disciples are a perfect example, "My God, do we leave? LOL
By the way, spent some time on the drug problem here, going to attach an article you might be interested in.
Tasked With Combating Opium, Afghan Officials Depend on It - The New York Times
By Azam Ahmed
15 February 2016
Garmsir, Afghanistan – The United States spent more than $7 billion in the past 14 years to fight the runaway poppy production that has made Afghan opium the world’s biggest brand. Tens of billions more went to governance programs to stem corruption and train a credible police force. Countless more dollars and thousands of lives were lost on the main thrust of the war: to put the Afghan government in charge of district centers and to instill rule of law.
But here in one of the only corners of Helmand Province that is peaceful and in firm government control, the green stalks and swollen bulbs of opium were growing thick and high within eyeshot of official buildings during the past poppy season — signs of a local narco-state administered directly by government officials.
In the district of Garmsir, not only is poppy cultivation tolerated, the local government depends on it. Officials have imposed a tax on farmers practically identical to the one the Taliban uses in places they control. Some of the revenue is kicked up the chain, all the way to officials in Kabul, the capital, ensuring that the local authorities maintain support from higher-ups and keeping the opium growing. And Garmsir is just one example of official involvement in the drug trade.
Multiple visits to Afghan opium country over the past year, and extensive interviews with opium farmers, local elders, and Afghan and Western officials, laid bare the reality that even if the Western-backed government succeeds, the opium seems here to stay.
More than ever, Afghan government officials have become directly involved in the opium trade, expanding their competition with the Taliban beyond politics and into a struggle for control of the drug traffic and revenue. At the local level, the fight itself can often look like a turf war between drug gangs, even as American troops are being pulled back into the battle on the government’s behalf, particularly in Helmand, in southern Afghanistan.
“There are phases of government complicity, starting with accommodation of the farmers and then on to cooperation with them,” said David Mansfield, a researcher who conducted more than 15 years of fieldwork on Afghan opium. “The last is predation, where the government essentially takes over the business entirely.”
The huge boom in poppy production that began a dozen years ago was strongly identified with the new Taliban insurgency, as the means through which the militants bought their bullets, bombs and vehicles. In recent years, the insurgents have committed more and more working hours to every facet of the opium business. That fact was built into a mantra of Western officials in Afghanistan: When security improves, opium will be easier to take down.
That the Afghan government is now also competing in the opium business, in the absence of other reliable economic successes, has ramifications beyond the nation’s borders. Governments across the region are struggling with the health and security problems brought by the increased opium flow. And as the trade becomes more institutionalized in Afghanistan, it has undercut years of anticorruption efforts, perpetuating its status as a source of regional instability, crime and intrigue.
An Entrenched Process
The administration of President Ashraf Ghani has made fighting corruption a central promise. A spokesman for his government, asked about official involvement in opium trafficking, including in Garmsir, insisted that there was “zero tolerance” for such behavior. “The president has been decisive in acting on information that indicates involvement of government officials in illegal acts, including taxation of opium,” said the spokesman, Sayed Zafar Hashemi.
But in Garmsir and other places in the Helmand opium belt, the system is firmly in place and remarkably consistent.
It relies on a network of village leaders and people employed by farmers to manage the water supply, men known as mirabs. These men survey the land under cultivation and collect money on behalf of officials, both in district-level government and in Kabul.
The connections run deeply into the national government, officials acknowledge privately. In some cases, the money is passed up to senators or assembly members with regional connections. In others, employees in the Independent Directorate of Local Governance, the agency that oversees provincial and district governments, pocket the payoffs, officials said. Some of the most important regional police and security commanders, including allies of American military and intelligence officials, are closely identified with the opium trade.
But the real money often stays local, with provincial and district officials. In the case of Garmsir, the district governor and police chief reaped the largest share of the rewards, according to local officials and farmers. The local police were also included in the profits.
Farmers said they paid about $40 for each acre of poppy under cultivation. In 2015, that meant nearly $3 million in payments from the district of Garmsir alone, according to officials familiar with the process.
Garmsir is just one of several districts in Helmand Province, the heart of poppy country and the center of the 2010 American troop “surge,” where the government has built local opium alliances with farmers. The district of Marja has a similar system to the one in Garmsir, in which locals pay a flat rate based on how much poppy they grow, according to interviews with more than a dozen farmers and officials. In the district of Nad Ali, the same conditions exist to a lesser extent.
That the Taliban have closed in on some of those districts in recent weeks will mean little to the local growers. They paid their tax to the insurgents before the American troop surge and to the government after it. They will adjust again.
And the money to be made is only increasing. Already, experts say, satellite imagery from the past growing season across southern Helmand showed that opium cultivation was occurring openly within sight of military and police bases.
“Over the years, I have seen the central government, the local government and the foreigners all talk very seriously about poppy,” said Hakim Angar, a former two-time police chief of Helmand Province. “In practice, they do nothing, and behind the scenes, the government makes secret deals to enrich themselves.”
Lucrative Arrangements
By the most basic metric, the international effort to curb poppy production in Afghanistan has failed. More opium was cultivated in 2014, the last year of the NATO combat mission, than in any other year since the United Nations began keeping records in 2002.
If there was a bright spot in 2015, it was that a poppy fungus or weevil reduced the harvest by as much as half in some places. But the lower production is likely to mean even more desperate attempts to increase cultivation next year, if the past is any guide.
Highlighting the efficiency of the government poppy tax, officials in Marja decided this year to halve it from the year before — precisely the proportion of the harvest that the fungus blighted.
“In the case of the opium trade, they try harder,” said one counternarcotics law enforcement official in southern Afghanistan. “There’s just too much money to ignore it.”
Government complicity in the opium trade is not new. Power brokers, often working for the government, have long operated behind the scenes, producing, refining and smuggling opium or heroin across one of the many porous borders of Afghanistan. That kind of corruption has been seen nationwide.
Taxation on a districtwide level in the main opium-growing centers, however, has been less common. Most who spoke about it did so on the condition of anonymity, fearing reprisals. Those who spoke openly tended to have enough resources to deter official blowback.
“Of course it happens here,” said a local police commander in Marja, Baz Gul, who oversees a few dozen men and was one of the residents who first took up arms against the Taliban. “But the police chief, the local police commander, they don’t take the money directly. They do it through influential figures.”
As it happens, Marja — one of the most violent districts during the 2010 troop surge, and the site of pitched battles recently between the Taliban and Afghan forces backed by American Special Operations troops — is a case study in opium economics.
One elder in Marja, who collects money from villagers who cultivate poppy in his block of 44 acres, said poppy was simply too alluring to ignore. Even with the tax, even with the blight, opium outstripped the next most lucrative crop by a ratio of more than three to one.
In 2015, the elder said, the group’s earnings came close to $62,000, less than half as much as the year before. With a tax of $60 per acre, the final profit for all 44 acres was roughly $59,000. By comparison, the average income for an Afghan, according to the World Bank, is $681 a year.
“Most other crops would have earned about $20,000 for 44 acres,” said the elder, seated in the home of another tribal elder in Marja. A dozen men arrayed in the room nodded quietly at his accounting.
Blight and Turbulence
The district of Nad Ali, a short drive from the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, appears less organized than Garmsir or Marja. In April, on a drive through open farmland in government-controlled areas, much of the poppy crop had been plowed through because of an early harvest or because the plants were so disease-ridden that the farmers saw no point in keeping them standing.
Farmers in Nad Ali said tax collection depended on a number of factors, including one’s relationship with the local police commander, proximity to the district center and how badly crops were hurt by disease. In some cases, the teams sent by the government to eradicate crops collected the funds. In others, it was the local or national police.
Payments ranged from about $90 to $100 for every acre, according to six farmers.
“All of our poppies were disease-affected,” said one farmer in the Loy Bagh area of Nad Ali. “What people paid depended on how much they cultivated and how much was destroyed by the disease.”
The system in Garmsir, however, appears to leave little to chance. Located farther from the provincial capital than Marja or Nad Ali, the district enjoys more autonomy than most under government control.
Interviews conducted in mid-March, before the blight appeared, showed a system of accommodation that was settling in comfortably. While farmers were not happy about paying the government, most saw it as inevitable and noted that the profit margin for opium was still considerably better than for wheat or cotton.
“We understand that the officials will charge us money,” said Juma Khan, a 35-year-old farmer in Garmsir, shrugging.
The system ran into turbulence in the spring, when two members of Parliament caught wind of the arrangement. After their demand for a cut of the profits was rebuffed, they went public, according to Afghan officials familiar with the case.
Officials in Kabul quickly fired the district governor, police chief and intelligence director, who were accused of dividing the profits. In a small ceremony, the Helmand deputy governor returned wads of cash to cheering farmers outside of the provincial governor’s offices and promised to crack down on such exploitation.
Officials said that all of the money had been returned to farmers and that the responsible parties had been removed from power. But neither promise was entirely true.
The governor of Garmsir — who, in an interview, denied that he had created or collected any tax — was quietly moved to Washir, a neighboring district. Months later, he was moved back to Garmsir, where he has returned to his old job. Government officials in Kabul said he had been cleared of wrongdoing after a thorough investigation.
A later visit to Garmsir unearthed a second inconsistency: Farmers said they had received only half of their money back. Still, that was something of a rebate. After all, they had lost nearly half of their crop to blight.
Fazl Muzhary contributed reporting from Marja, Afghanistan; Nad Ali, Afghanistan; and Garmsir; and Taimoor Shah from Garmsir.
Also wanted to bring up the age old problem of gun vs knife. I would rather face an adversary armed with a gun than a knife, because , deadly force is not questioned as intensely and you don’t get the media hell over “he only had a knife”. Example: Dipshit was later proven to be high on coke, he had a folding buck knife, one of the original models, cut his old lady, police were called, didn’t drop the knife, took a swipe at a responding officer, shot dead. While testifying in front the Grand Jury, was asked," Why didn’t you just shoot the knife out of his hand?" “the poor man would still be alive”. Jesus Christ. Headlines in a major paper" Cops kill man armed with pocket knife". We used always joke, we needed to be cut at least twice, before we could ever shoot a dipshit with a knife. Sad, but, true.
really good video, Robert. I know a Army CID reservist here who is a Baltimore cop back in the states. I will pass it on to him. Thanks
Working the street is a constant battle to apply good judgement to all situations. One officer was shot and the other had to kill the perp. I am not going to criticize the officers for doing what they thought best, but, IMHO, based on my experience, there were some serious control issues involved. Once you make the decision to arrest, there can be no hesitation in effecting that arrest. Mileage may differ for others.
You are spot on with that assessment. Once a Police Officer says the magic words “you are under arrest” there is no reason for such polite talk, “listen to me now this is only a misdemeanor please comply”.
I wonder how many realize that this kid could have lived if they had done their job correctly. Why didn’t they do it correctly? I think every Cop in the country is hesitant about being overly harsh based on movements like Black Lives Matter and the fact that they don’t want to get tried on the evening news by the left wing media.
It’s a shame because no one had to die in this encounter.
This is not criticism of the officers. I was not there and I was not making the decisions. We all can learn from every shooting. A few things, I would have done differently:
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Why they allowed the perp to put his hands in his jacket pockets and then have him reach into his front pockets and pull them out is beyond me. Its the hands that kill. Did they think he couldn’t have possibly have revolver or semi-auto in his front pocket? If he had been trained, with the combat mindset to kill, he could have drawn and fired a bullet into the head of the closest officer and probably the second.
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I am sorry, but, media whores or not, its your responsibility to stay alive and go home the same way you came in that day, and it that means slamming your ass to the ground or killing you, makes no difference to me. I will be as professional and compassionate as possible, but, once the arrest decision is make, you are going down to the ground. It is safer for you and me. I could not fathom the lack of aggression in the arrest sequence. Had the two officers worked together and simply took him to the ground, handcuffed him, and then searched, then things would have been different. Once the situation moved on from “stop and frisk or stop and question” due to probable cause or investigation of a call", then the “arrest mode” should kick in and all survival training activated.
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Anytime you place your hands on someone to initiate an arrest, they can kill you. Period. With an non combat mindset and a lack of good, aggressive tactics, you are simply giving the perp time to adjust to the situation, formalize a plan, then attack. Always remember, you carry you death with you wherever you go, and I don’t care what super duper level 3 retention holster you carry, it will fail in a death fight. Made a fucking decision, get the cuffs on ASAP, either easy or hard makes no difference. If you are within your authority, if you have issued clear verbal commands, then whatever comes next is on the perp. An officers’ reactions are always dependent on the perps action. Don’t give him or her the chance to react.
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I am a fed now, I really don’t know if I could go back working the street. I simply do not know, if I would have the patience to deal with the crap.
Obviously it’s their duty to do the best job that they can. However a young (or even not so young) Patrol Officer does not want his face and name blasted all over the media for “hating black people”. This I truly believe played into their sloppy police work. Granted all we know is what we saw but it was a horrific job on the Police Officers part.
idaho,
Thank you for the article. I read yesterday but haven’t had time to really put down any thoughts on it. It sums up a lot of the suck and fail in the situation. I also think it glosses over the reality that other than growing and easy to grow flower that is marketable world wide, what the fuck else can they do to participate in the global economy? No matter what you cannot emotion your way out of physics or legislate an alternate reality. It would take external investments in infrastructure and a large cultural shift towards western ideas about “on time”, quality control, work structure, etc. just for Afghanistan to compete favorably in the non-lucrative novelty rubber dogshit market.
RE: The video.
Excellent video to post. I need a bit of time to put my thoughts in order on it, but [quote=“idaho, post:742, topic:198222”]
Had the two officers worked together and simply took him to the ground, handcuffed him, and then searched, then things would have been different.
[/quote]
is a big part of it. Unfortunately, I think there were also a ton of things that thwarted that and I saw some honest to god physical/technical errors playing also. And I have never put handcuffs on anyone, even in the bedroom.
Zeb1,
I don’t remember seeing you around, course I was gone for a bit also. Welcome to the forum and good posts.
Regards,
Robert A
Another fallen brother, a respectful salute to your service and dedication. Unless you have worked the drug wars or actually live there, Mississippi has a tremendous meth problem, with Latino cartels supplying base chemicals and cheap trash dealers. I suspect the heroin explosion in the Northeast will eventually make its way to the rural areas of the South, if it hasn’t already.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/mississippi-shooting-police-officer-suspect-dead/
You are correct. Afghanistan has nothing but limes ,pomegranates, goat meat, and rugs. They are light years away from cashing in on their tremendous mineral wealth, and, they will get only a small percentage of the profits, since their tremendously corrupt politicians have basically sold their country to China. You ever notice how America spills its best blood and the “benefactors” are either the Chinese or Russians? Anyway, without sounding cryptic (because of classified issues) , the hypocrisy of the “drug war” would make a pig puke. Put it this way, you get sent out to destroy a crop and then told to back off, because, that field was owned by a Warlord who “supported” us. Go find a crop belonging to someone who doesn’t.
A little street action to start your day:
All involved have a black belt in running their mouth.
Glad no one was a trained knife fighter, with everybody standing so close, could have gutted all three in about 15 seconds.
Glad no one used a firearm , by the time they had talked themselves into a corner, all would have been dead.
for the street, a decent right hand.
morons.
The quality of this video is excellent. Beard got laid out hard.
The guy with the black jacket broke down mentally. Started yelling shit from his pre-teen days.