Since the George Floyd riots, in recent cultural memory the idea of a cop thrashing a baton or shooting a rubber bullet into a crowd of courageous people, it's unfortunate in our mind the state presence is always a threat to our personal safety and the lives of others. In recent news, an update has been made by LAPD outlining how they approached crowd controlling, despite their intention to appear more organized and intimidating to the general public, their confession reaffirms that the police are incompetent, making them truly dangerous to the public welfare.
On Dec 8, the LAPD held a press conference on “crowd management and crowd control”, in dealing with ‘unruly’ crowds of protestors, the officers explain they turn to procedural “less-lethal weaponry” to deescalate their presence. They explain confidently they use less-lethal kinetic weapons, despite studies shown these very weapons cause more death than ‘appropriate’ harm, as seen here in this article by JMVH. “They are dangerous to use and become even more so when misused, causing traumatic brain injuries, organ damage, or bone fractures.” (Knock LA)
Though the issue is not the weapons themselves, no weapon causes death or great harm just by nature, it’s the handlers that use these weapons that are at fault. The speaking officers explained, “Officers take a 6.5-hour course learning “how and who can utilize less-lethal [weapons] in accordance with the law and policy,” including information about the use of 40-mm rounds in crowd control situations.” While “Higher-ranked officers potentially commanding a team of officers in a crowd control situation take an additional 4-hour course on crowd management and crowd control. An additional six hours are dedicated to “the application of less-lethal force.”
And once a year take an 8-hour course to ‘refresh’ their knowledge.
I don’t think there is more to be said aside from calling this practice of minimally training ‘officials’ to handle ‘less-lethal’ weapons intended to be used on real humans during demonstrations, is nothing, but negligent. And the police continue to complain we call them pigs, but it’s a well-earned insult, gritty irony for these incompetent troopers, bringing death and harm with their recklessness and genuine hate for the people.