I Learned to Think Like a "Warrior Cop"

[sinkingfeeling]

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/08/warrior-cop-class-dave-grossman-killology.amp?__twitter_impression=true

A course from a prominent police trainer taught me to treat neighborhoods like battlegrounds—and to always be ready to kill.

Pop quiz! What is the third thing—besides weapons and skills—that you need to survive armed combat? Is it:
A. Ammunition?
B. Body armor?
C. Tactical advantage?
D. The will to kill?

The answer is D, obviously—or at least it would be obvious if you knew that the question is part of an online course, called “On Combat,” that is steeped in a pseudo-academic field called “killology,” and that the instructor and creator, Dave Grossman, is the foremost killologist on the planet. When I decided recently to learn how to be a warrior cop, Grossman’s course is where I turned.

There are a lot of reasons for this evolution. As Radley Balko writes in his 2013 Rise of the Warrior Cop, much of it has to do with federal incentives for police departments to pursue this country’s endless war on drugs. But another answer is that there is a cottage industry of trainers and consultants who encourage police to see their beats as a battlefield.

[Best_man23]

1. And Federal, State, and City Governments stand around and wonder why

There's a Black Lives Matter movement and such strong push across the country to reform and in some cases, defund the police.

The first and immediate steps every community can do (and it doesn't require legislation) is a complete stop to warrior training and make every police office dress like a police officer instead of tactical or combat fatigues.

[Bettie]

2. Yes...and then they wonder why cops have utter disdain for

the people in the communities they work in.

Well, they see us all as enemy combatants...

[CrispyQ]

4. Perverted priorities.

[The Wizard]

5. Combat rewires the brain

Essentially you're hunting for people who are hunting for you. This is outside the realm of normal human understanding. If police see all of us as enemies that must be eliminated or vanquished, then their priorities are a danger to civil society.
Since we live in a climate of worshiping uniforms, we all have bounties on our heads. This is an anathema to the valued espoused by The Enlightenment and counter to a the values of our founders.