Biden said being a cop is 'one hell of a lot harder than it's ever been' in speech honoring fallen

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Source: Business Insider

officers.

President Joe Biden on Saturday said being a police officer is "harder than it's ever been" in a speech honoring officers who died in the line of duty in 2019 and 2020.

Biden made the remarks Saturday when he attended and spoke at the 40th annual National Peace Officers' Memorial Service. As Reuters reported, the event took place Saturday on the steps of the US Capitol. Other attendees included FBI Director Christopher Wray, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and first lady Jill Biden, according to the report.

"I've spoken to too many police memorials around the country," Biden said Saturday. "And it always amazes me how the public doesn't fully understand what we expect of our law enforcement officers."

"Being a cop today is one hell of a lot harder than it's ever been," Biden said during his remarks, which lasted 22 minutes, per Reuters.

Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/biden-said-being-a-cop-is-one-hell-of-a-lot-harder-than-its-ever-been-in-speech-honoring-fallen-officers/ar-AAPBHcp

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Especially when you're dealing with RWNJs

[Bleacher Creature]

1. He's a lot more gracious to them than they are to him. NT

[SoCalDavidS]

2. I Was Just Thinking The Same Thing

A large % of them refuse to get vaccinated, and all of their "unions" are fighting mandates all across the country.

[NYC Liberal]

7. Yes. COVID-19 is the number one cause of death for cops this year.

It dwarfs every other cause.

https://www.odmp.org/search/year/2021

Total Line of Duty Deaths: 361

9/11 related illness 1
Assault 5
Automobile crash 16
COVID19 231
Drowned 3
Duty related illness 2
Gunfire 49
Gunfire (Inadvertent) 1
Heart attack 15
Motorcycle crash 3
Stabbed 3
Struck by vehicle 12
Training accident 1
Vehicle pursuit 2
Vehicular assault 16
Weather/Natural disaster 1

[C Moon]

8. Wow!

[druidity33]

11. How is that a 'line of duty' death? nt.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

12. Job often requires unavoidable close interaction with the public, arresting, helping, ... nt

[druidity33]

13. So they should get vaxxed!

It's an avoidable death if you take precautions. If they are a breakthrough case and die after getting the shot, THEN maybe you can give them the death benefits associated with 'line of duty'. Do they get 'line of duty' benefits if they die of cancer or the flu?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

14. Yes, most have, as you know. But vax is not perfect, as you know. . . . nt

[druidity33]

15. Aren't LEOs vaccine reluctant...

and sheltered by their Union? I thought they were at less than 60% vaxxed...

[NYC Liberal]

22. NYPD is at 64 vs 80 for the rest of the city (here in NY).

So it’s gotten better but still far less than the average.

[NullTuples]

30. "most have as you know"? I see a whole lot of depts that refuse

to mandate it and hover at around 50%.

[3auld6phart]

29. Long term expenses.

Over 400+ have died from Covid. Some before the vaccines. Quite a few
since vaccines were available. Do the taxpayers pay for their hospitalisation
funeral expenses, their survivor’s pensions and schooling of the children
They should be terminated if they refuse to be vaccinated .

[FSogol]

35. The refuse to get vaccinated thing is mostly press hype. When Massachusetts announced

a vaccine mandate for State Troopers, it was reported by the police union that 100s were refusing to get vaccinated. The deadline came and went and only a single trooper didn't get vaccinated. He resigned.

[Enter stage left]

3. Especially when you're dealing with RWNJ's...

And that includes your fellow cops, your partners, your union chiefs, your internal affairs investigators and many others who are extreme RWNJ's.

[House of Roberts]

4. The only thing harder than 'the old days'

is accountability from the public.

Modern LEO have body armor, radio on their person, and computers in the squad cars.

[aocommunalpunch]

5. Counterpoint

Cops hear a constant drumbeat of warnings that they have an exceptionally dangerous job, that at any moment they’re possibly going to be killed, that they always have to be ready to shoot first and shoot to kill in order to protect themselves.

That’s largely untrue, but they don’t know that because the people they trust, the veteran cops training them, keep repeating the warnings while showing them videos of cops being murdered.

Police officer training does everything possible to instill an attitude of fear, danger and “Us against Them” into recruits where “us” means other cops and “them” means everyone who is not a cop.

After being repeatedly warned that their lives are always in danger, they’re trained that in order to protect themselves from this immanent, ever-present threat they must

(1) shoot first if they feel threatened;
(2) shoot to kill, and
(3) don’t stop shooting until the “target” is on the ground and not moving.

https://medium.com/technology-taxes-education-columns-by-david-grace/being-a-police-officer-is-not-even-in-the-top-10-most-dangerous-jobs-1e985540c38a

[Withywindle]

10. They're being lied to.

Police is not even in the TOP 20 most dangerous jobs in the US.

According to this list from a workplace safety organization, it's #22. https://www.ishn.com/articles/112748-top-25-most-dangerous-jobs-in-the-united-states

I was a delivery driver (#7) for a while in my youth. Where's OUR po-faced presidential tributes? Where's our flag?

Someone DID make this, though, and I really appreciate it.

https://imgur.com/a/rLhgQIZ

[Jedi Guy]

16. I read the blurbs for each profession in your link and noticed something interesting.

For every other profession on the list, the most common cause of death was slips/trips/falls, exposure to substances/objects, or transportation incidents, with the exception of #19, which was violence by persons/animals for mechanic supervisors. Clarification on that one would be nice. Apart from that, though, police officer is the only profession on the list for which the the most common cause of death is "violence and other injuries by persons or animals." I suspect that if you filtered the list to show which profession is most at risk of dying by violence, police would be higher than #22. The blurb for cops also notes that it's 4.1 times more dangerous than the average job.

This is not to say that they should be taught to regard citizens as "them" or "the enemy", because they shouldn't. The "warrior" police training style needs to go, because it produces cops with exactly the wrong mindset, sending them out into the streets like soldiers instead of guardians or public servants.

But when was the last time someone walked up to a delivery driver and shot him/her in the head because he/she was a delivery driver? Cops are trained to be aware that someone may walk up to their car and shoot them while they're doing paperwork or while they're sitting in a diner eating a meal, because those things do happen. Because of incidents like that, you bet they have their head on a swivel when they're out there in uniform.

[Withywindle]

28. Delivery drivers get robbed a lot

Sometimes that's fatal.

Meanwhile the #1 cause of death for police this past year is - you guessed it, COVID-19. I'm not that sympathetic while the head of the FOP in Chicago is aggressively lobbying for cops' "rights" NOT to get vaccinated.

I have no doubts that some enter the police force with the best of intentions to help people. But they are powerless in a culture that's rotten from the top down, and devoted to coverups of the worst of the worst. Pseudomilitary training that teaches civilians are the enemy turns them into an occupying force. Until that system is dismantled and the justice system actually treats crimes committed by police seriously and fairly, then no, I'm never going to buy into copaganda.

[Jedi Guy]

31. Most common cause of death for delivery drivers is traffic incidents.

So I'd be willing to bet you that if you compared delivery drivers vs. cops when it comes to death by violence, the latter would top the former. Comparing deaths caused by slips and trips or traffic accidents to deaths caused by violence is not an apples to apples comparison and does not tell the whole story.

Regarding COVID-19 being the top cause in 2020... okay, and?

And it's copaganda that cops are sometimes killed just because they're cops? I'm sure the families of those officers will be relieved to hear that. But I guess I shouldn't be surprised to hear that from someone who says cops "don't solve shit" and are "useless" and who would never, ever call them... though I noticed you didn't answer my question about that particular point. And I noticed you didn't answer my question about the last time a delivery driver was killed because he/she was a delivery driver.

[ecstatic]

34. Copaganda. I'm going to borrow that word. NT

[Jedi Guy]

17. Well...

The reality is that sometimes people do just walk up to cops and shoot them because they're cops. In recent years I can recall two incidents off the top of my head. One where a guy walked up to two officers sitting in their car and shot them both, and the other where a guy walked up to two cops sitting in a diner and shot them both. So those things do happen, and new cops need to be aware of that.

As I said below, I do agree that the "warrior" training style needs to be stopped since it encourages exactly the wrong mindset. It's possible to be aware and vigilant while on duty without thinking of oneself as a soldier in enemy territory. That's the sort of mentality that training encourages, and it produces exactly the wrong kind of cop.

[Bucky]

20. That's pretty rare. Cops are more likely to be killed in traffic accidents

An average of 51 officers die each year from gunshots

Car, motorcycle, boating, or other vehicle accidents took more police lives over the past ten years.

In 2020 covid19 killed more officers than any other cause.

https://nleomf.org/memorial/facts-figures/officer-fatality-data/causes-of-law-enforcement-deaths/

[Bucky]

21. Note: line of duty deaths do not include suicides, but should

https://www.wsaw.com/2020/07/23/study-police-more-likely-to-die-by-suicide-than-in-line-of-duty/

Suicides by officers outstrip all line of duty deaths combines, as demonstrates by the Jan 6th insurrection

[Jedi Guy]

24. Yes it's rare, but it does happen.

And I can tell you, from conversations I've had with officers when I worked as a dispatcher, that it's always on their minds. I really can't say that I blame them, either.

Hell, it was pounded into us as dispatchers that if we hadn't heard from an officer in a while we were supposed to check in with them and make sure they were okay.

Regarding your last point about suicides, I definitely agree that mental health issues among police need more attention. My department did extensive psychological testing before hiring, even for dispatchers and other non-sworn personnel. Dispatchers never got a "check up" talk with behavioral sciences, though, and I don't know if the officers got one.

I feel like every officer should have a mental health evaluation every so often, say every six months or so. Just so the shrinks can touch base with them and get an idea of what's going on in their heads. Things like that might help.

[LeftInTX]

25. I still think "guns everywhere" is also part of the problem

30 years ago, I was a white mother with three kids. Getting pulled over for a traffic violation, was just that. It was a traffic violation. Cop would never assume that I'm armed or dangerous.

Nowadays I'm a grandmother, but if I get pulled over, a cop is gonna assumed that I'm armed, even though I probably would not give any indication that I was armed.

I was last pulled over in 2005 by a state trooper. (I was going 85 on the interstate) I sweet talked him. I told him my story. I was 50 miles from home and had to pick up from son from school. He let me go.

[C Moon]

9. I'm sure President Biden recall it as well.

[twodogsbarking]

18. You have one tenth of a second to decide if

that is a gun or not. Maybe if there weren't so many guns then cops
wouldn't assume you have one. Silly me.

[LeftInTX]

27. Yep...nowadays it's not the usual suspects either..White middle class moms now pack heat.

Nowadays, they assume "everyone is carrying"...If you are stopped, expect them to assume you are armed. And if someone is marginalized, how do they show that they are "not armed"? Many police calls involve people who are aggressive and "acting out"...They may be armed, they may not be armed, but they often aren't in the best frame of mind to deal rationally with police.

[ForgoTheConsequence]

36. Police overwhelmingly support the NRA and gun rights.

Blame them.

[Bucky]

19. He's not wrong

A whole bunch of social service shit gets dumped on cops because Republicans keep gutting the social safety net. People become desperate and marginalized, desperate people get involved in drugs & hooliganism, and all these problems that could be dealt with humanely end up on the job tasks of people who mostly have training for dealing with actual crimes. Cops should be stopping burglars, not addicts that our society is too lazy to give healthy options to.

[LeftInTX]

26. Family members calling the cops on "out of control" family members is now backfiring.

Calling the cops used to be a way of "scaring your kid"...I did it several times, and my parents did it to me. Nowadays, it is not a safe option.

[Bucky]

32. whoa

That's, um, an interesting approach to parenting.

[LeftInTX]

33. I had a kid who was getting in trouble alot..ever hear of the program, "Scared straight"?

It's where they take "at risk" youth and have them tour jails etc.

[ForgoTheConsequence]

37. Tell that to police and prison guard unions that lobby for stronger drug laws.

[malthaussen]

23. Shame that's not true. But if it were, it should be harder.

Arguably, we should expect more from officers of the law than we do of the kid pulling coffee down at the local Starbucks.

-- Mal