Law Enforcement & Balaclavas

[HKguy9]

What are your thoughts of LE use of balaclavas?

[FPrice]

If you live in Alaska, the Northern Tier states, or a place where it gets REAL cold during the winter-time, then LEOs should be allowed to use balaclavas to protect themselves from the cold!

[swampgator]

Seems to me Law Enforcement did okay for a long time before everything went "TACTICAL".

Not too long ago a high risk warrant was often executed in Levis, sneakers and windbreakers.

[Christopher II]

I don't like it.

First off, it's bad tactics. An armed man wearing a mask is assumed to be a BG, far as I and others are concerned. Were I a cop, I'd be seriously worried about friendly-fire and target identification issues.

Second, one must ask why exactly do cops need to conceal their identities from the public? Yes, I've heard the stories about undercover cops being threatened by BGs they put away. I've also chatted with plenty of cops who tell me that the whole criminal revenge thing is mainly a product of John Sanford and NYPD Blue.

The only valid reason I have heard for wearing a mask is when using distraction devices. This is (or should be) pretty rare.

- Chris

[Tamara]

...to wear flaky, sticky pastries on their hea... oh, wait, you said balaclavas...

[A10mmguy]

They are for concealing identity and use of incindiaries.

They really mess up your hair too.

[SamH]

Revenge attacks are real. In June 1994, Germany, an off-shoot of the Red Army Faction firebombed the home of a GSG-9 operator, in retaliation to the killing of Red Army Faction leader, Wolfgang Grams.

While the likelihood of revenge attacks are unlikely, the threat is real. It does exist. And police or security intelligence personnel who deal with sensitive criminal or security matters should have their identities concealed from the general public.

Not too long ago a high risk warrant was often executed in Levis, sneakers and windbreakers.

There is a significant difference between a high-risk warrant against a drug-dealer, and a high-risk warrant against an outlaw motorcycle gang.

What's the problem with police being properly equipped to do their job? They're more likely to get injured or killed by criminal activity than most members of the general public. Surely they deserve some extra protection?

[Seeker]

I too have heard that it is to prevent retaliation. And I believe that's what the High Speed Low Drag crowd tells themselves. However as a mater of researed fact, when people are allowed to be anonymous they tend to be more aggressive, have less empathy and feel less personal responsibility for their actions. This is most famously demonstrated in the Stanford Prison Experiments by Philip Zimbardo - and in this experiment the guards wore mir5rored sunglasses as opposed to balaclavas.

Recently, in Portland there was a protest when GWBush came to visit. The police were in full riot gear (including balclavas under their riot helmets) and one reported on scene noted that they police were removing their nametags. Shortly after the police advanced their barricades into the not unruly crowd, compressing the demonstrators and then the sprayed the crowd with pepper spray and rubber bullets - because the crowd didn't respond well to being compressed! Interestingly, the reports from reporters on the scene (incuding some from KPAM at the time reported it generally as I have described. Later reports by sources that were not on scene (the Oregonian and the various local news) portrayed it as the police defending themselves from riotous protesters.

[SamH]

I've seen pictures of the Portland protests taken by an anti-government group. They had plenty of pics which they claim were evidence of police brutality. I don't agree at large, but some pictures were violent in nature.

When I was a young boy, living in a city slum in Korea, we had a university a few blocks down the road, and political protests were rife. Every few months, there would be a protest. Invariably, this resulted in students throwing molotov cocktails at police, and looting nearby businesses, while police fire tear gas and beat the students with truncheons.
If the mob at Portland wants to see police brutality, they should go to Korea and check it out. From what research I've done on police tactics, American police are comparatively gentle, compared to countries like Korea and Germany - and even more so when compared against China or Russia.

The thing is, there is no discernable increase in police abuse of power when wearing balaclavas or operating undercover. Most officers who work in confidential areas are the better of the group. Those who are specially screened for their integrity and strength of character, who receive specialised training, and whose conduct is much more closely scrutinised due to the sensetive nature of their work.

Balaclavas are also used as safety gear - not only to conceal identity, but "tactical" balaclavas are fire-retardants and can help save an officer's life when operating in situations where a fire is likely.

In Australia most police officers wear sunglasses of the very dark or reflective type. It is health risk if they don't wear them - in fact, most people wear sunglasses when working or playing outdoors.
However, the level of police brutality in this country is almost non-existent.
The Queensland Police SERT also make use of fire-retardant balaclavas, yet their record for use of force is exemplary.

[JoshM75]

Balaclavas are a non issue as long as Officers have some form of identification, badge number, name tag, etc.

In NZ the lack of ID lead to a complete failure to prosceute officers in the infamous "clown beating affair". Basically some young female/male students [dressed as clowns and small animals] were involved in a non violent anti apartheid protest. They were badly beaten by riot squad officers, other officers intervened later to stop the assault.

There was little cooperation from the Police and it was impossible to identify the offenders. To this day the names of the officers involved is still considered the best kept secret in the NZ Police.
There was a civil settlement between the Police and the victims.

For an otherwise excellent police force this is a dark stain.

SamH

However, the level of police brutality in this country is almost non-existent.v

Victoria SERT has a pretty bad rep for questionable shootings and has the Royal Commission on Police Corruption [including cops killing cops, drug dealing, armed robbery, etc] ended yet?

[Don45cal]

LEO's while performing their duty as Civil Servants should not be able to conceal their identity!

Too cold? If the LEO's are cold and it does get cold, they should be rotated off their post to keep warm.

[SamH]

Victoria Police doesn't have SERT, it has SOG. (just being picky)

I said "almost non-existent", so my statement is still correct.

My point when mentioning Australian police was that the use of sunglasses, or similar items which partially conceal some part of an officer's physical features, do not have any discernable effect on the conduct of police in the country.

The Wood Royal Commission into the NSW Police Service, and the Fitzgerald Inquiry into the Queensland Police Serivce both found widespread corruption in both police services, especially relating to drug enforcement. However, police brutality was not a significant issue (though it does feature some mention).

The chiefs for both police services were replaced, and numerous reforms were put in place. Notable among these was the disbanding of the NSWPOL Special Branch, and the replacing of the NSWPOL's ICAC by a much better designed Police Corruption Commision.
Both police services have steadily implemented various recommendations made by Wood and Fitzgerald, and police corruption has been reduced significantly since the investigations.

Fairly speaking, the integrity of Australian police services are much higher than in many countries. The nature of corruption in Australian law enforcement is also easily detected, due to the high level of public scrutiny of police services.
Surprisingly, in Australia, our Federal Police actually have the best anti-corruption measures in the nation. A stark contrast to their colleagues in the FBI.

[Jato]

Intimidation.

[SamH]

Intimidation.

And oh yes.... hostage-takers and other sick-minded criminals deserve all the intimidation they get.

I've yet to see constables on patrol wearing balaclavas. For tactical teams, balaclavas are useful safety items, and the intimidation factor helps to reduce the level of resistance by suspects.

Intimidation doesn't make balaclavas bad. It depends on the usage.

[Tamara]

Yes, GSG-9 faces the threat of retaliation when taking down Baader-Meinhof Gang stronghouses. Deputy Fife, however, does not face the same kind of threat when he kicks in Aunt Bea's door to lob in a flashbang and bust Opie for a half-ounce of pot. But he'd like to think he does, and the balaclava does make him feel kinda cool and SAS-like...

[12-34hom]

Tamara, well spoken.

Your bias towards the police or authority in general is quite parochial.... almost comical.

12-34hom.

[Tamara]

Your lack of knowledge on my thoughts or positions on anything is amazing, as is your willingness to display it.



Question some police tactics, and suddenly I'm entirely biased against authority.

[Christopher II]

What's wrong with being biased against authority?

It's really very simple. If the police are going to be accountable to the population at large, they need to be easily identifible by said population. That means uncovered faces, name tags, and visible badges. I'm willing to make an exception for safety purposes, in the case of using flash-bangs and other incendaries, but even in these cases antiflash goggles or clear face shields would probably do a better job.

- Chris

[KSFreeman]

Tamara, question authority, but raise your hand first.

Fine with me. So long as the policacrats don't substitute tactically-chic clothing for training. After my first meth case, I see why they wear them.

[HankB]

Masks are meant to conceal identity. A masked man is UNKNOWN, more so if he's wearing ninja-garb rather than a recognizable police uniform complete with clearly visible numbered badge, name tag, etc. (I've heard of a number of instances where name tags and badge numbers were taped over.)

I mean, if he's completely anonymous, you don't know he's a legitimate LEO engaging in legitimate LEO business, do you? And just watch TV news - don't terrorists routinely wear masks?

A reasonable person has no reason to submit or open his door to an UNKNOWN assailant. (Of course, if there's already a couple of MP5SD's pointed between your eyes from a distance of 10 feet, "resistance is futile.")

[HKguy9]

When I was a young boy, living in a city slum in Korea, we had a university a few blocks down the road, and political protests were rife. Every few months, there would be a protest. Invariably, this resulted in students throwing molotov cocktails at police, and looting nearby businesses, while police fire tear gas and beat the students with truncheons.

On a little bit of a veer....funny how "if you wanna riot, for yer own sakes don't loot a Korean business" applies in Koreatown, but not Korea.

My Korean ex-roommate is there right now and wishes he could have brought a Garand with him....their lack of RKBA sucks big time.

Keep it comin' guys, and keep it civil

[Edward429451]

I think that while they may have their uses in specific applications, they are likely used domesticly for intimidation and a sort of conditioning of the public to instill the 'resistance is futile' thought in the public mind. Plus the over zealous officers know it keeps em a little further away from accountability...

That said, I'll say one other thing. Balaclava'd LEO's coming to my door will NOT be met with the same respect or cooperativness that a regularly uniformed officer would...FWIW.

[Tamara]

Here's my take on the SWAT fad, which I'll honestly admit was influenced by a couple of police officers I knew (bear in mind that I'm the kind of person who'll watch video of Operation Nimrod with a bag of popcorn).

SWAT is the flavor of the month; every police/sherriff's department worthy of the name these days has a high-speed/low-drag tac team of some type. The problem exists in two areas.

The first is employment; once you have your SWAT/SERT/SRT team, you gotta use it. Unfortunately (fortunately?) most jurisdictions don't have all that many "armed, barricaded suspect with hostages" calls per year, so you have to look around for other uses for them. Well, serving high-risk warrants seems to be a pretty good and legitimate use, so you can use them for that, too. Again, though, outside of a few urban war zones there really aren't that many bunker-like crack houses, and most meth labs aren't guarded by legions of shotgun-wielding Hell's Angels, and inevitably these units wind up being used to descend on some Deadhead's house like the wrath of god to sieze their weed stash, when the situation probably could have been resolved by using a meter maid to put a boot on their VW Microbus.

The second issue is a personnel one; to wit, where do you get the guys to man this team? Even if you use SWAT to apprehend everybody with unpaid parking tickets, there's just not enough work in most departments to justify a full-time team, so you have to rely on part-time operators. Volunteers? What are the quals you're looking for? Being tight with the chief? Prior military experience? Just being young and gung-ho and wanting a chance to play with MP-5's? Each has their potential downsides. For instance, the Atlanta Police Department has a SWAT team whose marksmanship and selection standards are so low and so politicized that one person who'd worked with them in a professional capacity remarked to me that if he was ever caught up in a hostage situation in Atlanta and heard that SWAT had deployed, he'd make a play for one of his captor's guns, since the odds were about as good that way as if he waited and took his chances with "friendly" fire. See, armored cars and submachineguns are very visible things to show city administration that you're being tough on crime, while, say, gun skul (as KSFreeman puts it) isn't. This is also the genesis of part-time units of young hard-chargers like Atlanta's Red Dog Squad, whose sole purpose, as one veteran cop put it, seemed to be to give the APD a public relations black eye.

So, yeah, there're problems. What are the solutions? If I knew that, I'd be a highly-paid consultant, and not just someone griping at a keyboard someplace...

[Christopher II]

Tamara's story about the Atlanta SWAT team reminds me of a story related to me by the leader of a Police Explorer troop who I was tight with back in MD (he's a real cop now, and likely one of the best you'll ever meet. He got into the game for the right reasons.) Anyway, he said that the Maryland State Police SWAT team had such a bad record for, um, "friendly-fire incidents," that a rumor went around the SP that in order to be considered for a SWAT posting, you must have shot at least one police officer.

Training!

- Chris

[Midnight Sun]

Last July 4 as I was driving home from visiting friends I saw a black-BDU MA state trooper directing traffic near the beach where the locals would be watching the fireworks from.

The old show "Real Stories of the Highway Patrol" used to have as one of their regulars another MA state cop who not only wore black BDU's on patrol at night in his cruiser, but wore LBE also (Must be hitting the Iranian embassy after the next traffic stop).

Now for one of their so-called SWAT operations thats one thing but to dress this way on routine patrol and service only contributes to the JBT image as far as the public goes. "Us vs Them."