katydid23
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- Jan 10, 2011
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I asked my SO just that today. He's losing his patience with my questions about law enforcement training, techniques etc but he did say they teach you in the academy, which is about four months long here in CA, how to deal with it. But then he said, after those short four months, you get out and you have an FTO (field training officer). His FTO's advice to him was "handle aggression with aggression." He gave the example that if he was on a traffic stop and someone said "Here, take my f'ing license and registration" and throws it out the car at him, that could be construed, in his FTO's opinion as "aggression" and he could then haul the "aggressor" out of the car and meet aggression with aggression. I about threw up. Hopefully things have changed since he went through his FTO training some 20+ years ago and that's not the norm. But he did emphasize the academy training is short and "things change" once you're out on the street actually dealing with people day after day. We ended up in our usual "discussion" about law enforcement and their techniques...
I get the strong sense he fervently wishes I had never read about the Sandra Bland case...
So let's take that example. You walk up and politely ask a driver for his paperwork and then the driver says "Here, take my f'ing license and registration" and throws it out the car at you. What then. Do you bend over, putting yourself in a vulnerable position,, and pick it up off the street, and allow the interaction between you and the driver to begin that way? I would not.