Seeing this video was quite amazing being able to learn about terrorism from someone actually holding office and seeing the actual threat it poses to us as a nation. Listening to the mayor of New Orleans was an eye opener since New Orleans is such a big city and could easily be a target of terrorism do to the population and the tradition that is down there. Some things that were quite surprising is that overall our vulnerability to terrorism is quite high. Hearing this was a shocker, as a nation we overall seem to be pretty safe and far away from all different kinds of threats. One big thing most people don't recognize is that our local law enforcement personnel is the first line of detection and the first line of defense against terrorism. This is because those local law enforcement officers are in those communities day in and day out and interact with the people that live in those communities. If there would be anything out of the norm these officers would be the first ones to pick up on that. Our local law enforcement officers and agencies need better training and need to be better equipped to deal with these problems and as of late we have geared towards providing them with more resources. As a country we can't keep putting this problem off and blaming it on someone else because it always seems to never be our problem. Out local, state, and federal agencies need to work together and accept this as their problem and work together to fix it. We need better cooperation between these agencies and better partnership. The federal government misses out on half of the things that local and state officers deal with on a day to day basis and they think that they can go in there and solve this terrorism threat right away. Well they are wrong, our federal agencies need to rely on our local and state agencies to give them the information needed about that person or that community as a whole. With the creation of these fusion centers things have gotten better but when the act of terrorism occurs and the federal agents are on scene they still push away and limit what that local or state officer can do. Now as a country we have around eight hundred thousand police officers and of that eight hundred thousand only five hundred those are active police officers. To me this seems low for a country as big as we are with a population over three hundred million. The federal government has even less federal agents than what we have with our sworn in police officers. Hopefully within the near future our federal and local and state police agencies will learn to work better together and combat these major issues that pose a huge threat to us do to the size and development of our country. The next big attack could be right around the corner and honestly after this video if the threat hits close to home our local and state officers aren't ready for this big of an attack nor are we prepared or equipped to handle something of its magnitude. NDIrish456.
Terrorism and Local Law Enforcement This day in class we took a different approach. Instead of doing the usual classroom lecture, we watched a video on Local Law Enforcement and how they are more effective when it comes to dealing with terrorists and terrorism in the community. The video started out with John Dickerson introducing Mitch Lansieu and Jane Harman. Mitch Lansieu is the mayor of New Orleans. Jane Harman is a former US Representative for Congress and she is the president and CEO of Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. What Mitch was saying was that Local law enforcement is the best method to combat against terrorism. Nobody will know the community better than the police officers who are charged with patrolling the area. It goes along with the Boston Marathon bombing. What happened in the Boston Marathon bombing incident was that the FBI came in and worked with the local law enforcement and they were looking at surveillance cameras. However, they were not familiar with the streets of Boston so they were not sure which cameras to follow in order to trail where and when the suspects were. This is where they needed the local police department to help out because they actually knew the streets and what cameras were where. In the video, they were talking about how a local police officer in a town of 30,000 people noticed that something was out of place with a house and so he checked it and there were terrorist activities that were being planned in there. Another thing that was talked about in the video was that terrorists are not just foreign invaders, but they are also local domestic residents. With that said, they also commented that local police are not just important in fighting against terrorists, but also other local residents in the community. Mitch said that there was even a gang war that happened in a park where 23 people were shot and the police arrived on the scene, but then just two weeks later the same thing happened again. With that in mind, Mitch was saying that there needs to be more training of police officers, but there also need to be more of them. Another point that I thought was needed, was that Mitch was talking about how when riots broke out in Ferguson, the law enforcement brought tanks out to face the people. Mitch said, that the tanks have done nothing but create an even bigger barrier between the community and the police in terms of trust. That is building trust is just as important as proper training of any police officer. You can give a police officer weeks and months of training on how to take out suspects and how to interrogate and interview people who were witnesses to a crime or event, but unless the community has trust in the police that are patrolling their neighborhoods, they are not going to spill the beans; and if they do, then it is most likely false evidence to steer the police in the wrong direction. With that said, the most important thing with dealing with the terrorists, both foreign and domestic, is trust between the community and the police because they will both work together to combat against terrorism. It is like the bundle of twigs; one twig is easy to break, but the more twigs that are bundled together the harder it becomes to break them. The same can be said about the community and the police working together. -MickSwagger456
Today was good because instead going over the chapter on Terrorism we watch a video on it. How it has effects on their city and community as well. The first person to speak is John Dickerson he is an cbs and anchor “Face the Nation. There are two main people who was talk on this subject the first one is Mitch Landrieu he is mayor of New Orleans if we want some kind change we need more officers out there trying to stop the violence on crimes. When a bomb went out in New Orleans it was a mess and how you going put thing together. The important was the officers who like in the community to get the right information because if you got other agency down there not sure what going on. That you need them cops because these the one’s everything who the suspect you should be out there and who new to your city or town. What important to those who about on terrorism they want a statement like what happens in Boston, Orland and Los Angles and what also help them is technology can hurt you or help you in the long run. It really depends on how you look at and it get hard to you can find them or they won’t be found unless they want to. The next person is Jane Harman she is president ceo, Woodrow Wilson International center scholars she was said some city would bring in the tank because the community need your trust without you just out there waste your time. Like if you got kids at the park playing have fun but you get gang start shooting you can easy hit a child because it can happen. With all that going on there need more training how these cops can control when someone get hurt or when someone don’t know how to talk them. A lot times you don’t know how to what to look for when you see a bomb maker and all you think is someone with a book bag, or someone who is shy and if you get the wrong details you can put someone on the internet for wrong reason and then you got angry people after him. For the Ferguson case I think they could of handle it way different than they like could of just talk to them not just think about it. When problem solve can help them by solve the crimes that would bring the community together. At end of the day you want be in a place where the people want to truth you can solve crimes from terrorism like when it was someone robbery gas station and when they finally get them found some bomb maker and see what happens when you get the person. This was very good information on this I learn a lot from watch this video and take notes on this because you need to know if you want be a cop. - Panthers456
Law enforcement officers in the community are put there to protect and serve the people, but then when it is time to protect and serve at a certain level the federal agencies like to step in and take over the operations like they are the ones who have been on the streets interacting with these people every single day. Federal agencies need to include local police departments and use their knowledge of the town and the people who live in it in order to be able to prevent anything bad from happening. Many times with the bombings and other terrorist attacks that are happening in our country could have possibly been prevented if the local police department was more involved. Terrorism is a big issue in our country today in my opinion. The United States as a country has been know from its beginning to be a country that gets what it wants and nothing is going stand in our way. That has looked different over the years and has caused a lot of fighting and a lot of deaths. Those people throughout our countries history died so that we could be here today living freely in our country, and it is our job to honor them and make sure that our country is safe and protected today, and in the future when it will be the next generations turn. Terrorist acts often are based around causing destruction to a structure or monumental site that is known to precious to Americans. In the past such things as 9/11, or the Boston marathon bombing are just two examples of the damage some people are trying to inflict on our country. In order to keep a look of power as a country we need to be able to put an end to any terrorist act quickly if not preventing it from even happening at all. Patrol officers are one of the best ways to monitor for terrorist activity, the officers who work out on the streets everyday are the ones who see who comes and goes from certain places and is able to tell when something is not right. This is possible because of the specific areas that officers are given to patrol in a certain area. These sections are often called “beats”. It is the job of the officer to know who lives in his beat, what those people do on a normal and the comings and goings of other people to the houses or establishments in your beat. Sometimes officers can live down in a not so good part of town in a program and I think that is very beneficial in staying proactive as a department and watching the community by living in it. Having an officer living in the community as well gives an around the clock presence of a police officer, and hopefully if the officer is treating the people correctly and fairly the community will feel safe and protected knowing they have an officer right down the street. -Wings456
“Part 1” I believe that police officers hold this stereotype that they have to have a strong exterior so that no one can know they have feelings. There are so many problems with this. Police officers have families, go to the same grocery stores, and get their haircut at the same barbers we do, so why are they considered “different?” Having police officers from our communities is a major benefit for us. They know who the trouble makers are, they know what the norms are, and they know the homeless people who commit small crimes just to be arrested during the cold winters. They are just like us! One step to becoming closer together with the police officers in our community is to build trust. By building trust we will build an empire that no one can break down. This “us against them” stereotype needs to be put to rest so that we can create safer communities for our future families to live in. Another way to build relationships is to educate our younger ones. We need to reassure them that police officers are here to keep us safe and keep our neighborhoods free from crime and robberies. The more educated kids are about law enforcement will help to start a domino effect with future children. Many people also hold this stereotype that all Muslims are going to bomb us, which isn’t true at all. That’s like saying every black kid is a troublemaker. Everyone is capable of crime no matter what color, race, or age you are. Our number one way of creating a better future is to teach our communities about the threats that some people uphold, but to believe there’s good in everyone. We can’t just walk down the street and say “oh that person belongs in jail,” or “that person has killed someone before,” because we don’t know! We don’t know everyone’s stories, so for us to assume is absurd and shouldn’t be happening. This false image is the main reason for a lot of community police conflict. Some believe that police officers hold these kinds of stereotypes, which is true to a certain extend. We can’t say that EVERY SINGLE police officer is bad, racist, or corrupt, just like we can’t say that every single hairdresser only cuts hair the way they want. This goes the same way with stereotyping blacks, muslims, or any other race. It’s not fair and we need to continue educating everyone in our communities so we can build relationships with our officers and ensure our safety. Police officers are regular people and should be treated with the same amount of love and respect we’d give to our family members, and vice versa. If we have a police, community relationship, we will have EVERYTHING. No one will be able to break us apart. The war on terrorism will slowly start to minimize the more we work together to put an end to all the stereotyping and hate crimes. One by one, we need to work together to fix this problem and the world will be a much better place. Cheer456
“Part 2” We always heard that when there is an attack on the American soil like for example bombing or shooting and the suspect identified as a Muslim or Islam, we think about terrorism. Well, terrorism is a big and global problem, but it is also a local one. There are individual terrorists who particularly lone wolves and often linked to their communities regarding their resentments, ambitions, and targets. In which cause many people to worry and fear their communities and people. In the wake of September 11, 2001, many local law enforcement agencies throughout the country find themselves struggling to identify their responsibilities and define their future role in the effort to combat terrorism. That was around that time the homeland security agency formed, it teaches and requires the law enforcement a shift of change on how prevention, intelligence gathering, and information sharing can ensure the safety and welfare of the citizens and help every agency to prevent future attacks or threats. Traditionally, local law enforcement has concerned itself primarily with preventing and solving crimes such as burglary, theft, and robbery. Crimes that have an immediate and visible impact on the local community and affect citizen quality of life. To learn about unknown future terrorist threats, many local law enforcement organization programs encourage local communities to be comfortable with the law enforcement. A reason that not only law enforcement officers are the vital part of counterterrorism, but also the local community, because they are the one who interacts more to other people, to the community, and know more about other individuals personality and identity. Law Enforcement organizations have sought to address the causes and reduce the fear of crime in communities through the creation of effective partnerships with the community and other public and private-sector resources. I believe that to fight terrorism. Law enforcement officers must engage more with the community, like to meet and establish one on one relationship with the community leaders. It is one way to build trust and faith from community-based organizations. To know such potential person who is threats to the community, the law enforcement is not the only one that needs to be educated who to look and what to watch for. The community must also be educated on how to combat crimes (not violent crimes, but such as hate crimes), to learn police watch, and to watch criminal activity in the neighborhood, and most importantly on how to be aware of violent extremist person or group and to prevent it. Many of the objectives to avoid terrorist attacks are currently available to law enforcement. I believe that they have to share those to individual, neighborhood, and community so they can support them entirely to fight crime and to fight against terrorism. In all, as law enforcement officer perspective, I think that we need to focus our training not only on responding to an attack of terrorism in the American soil but also on learning the non-criminal indicators of terrorism. Such signs that we are much more likely be encounter during a traffic stops or while responding to emergency calls. -Chopper456
“Part 3” We are always worried about terrorism in today's society. Americans see other country people as terrorist to our country. That is the huge stereotype in our world today. Some of that is true but most of the time it isn't. The terrorist could be the one that is right next to you. Also, he/she could be thousands of miles away from you. We all are scared of terrorist. For example, 9/11 was a huge impact on our world and change many laws and rules to our lying process. I hate when people say it was the president fault or whatever. People are always going to have those theories. These people were working with the biggest terrorist in the world. I would say the people that are in charge of terrorism are the FBI and special agents, that should be there job most of the time. They are the ones that should be able to protect us. They have the resources that nobody else does. Going into the law enforcement program I and we the people have to look for clues and people that are going to hurt our country. These people are not all muslim like the people see them. They could be living in our communities, thats why its so important for the local police to be on the search of this people also. Background check and investigating into these people lives especially if you have some sort of probable cause or just have that feeling. Law enforcement is a huge teamwork job Trusting one another is what we have to be able to do to stop the major acts in our country. I just went to Texas and on our way back we got stopped by a border control checkpoint. Yes there was a big sign that had people's faces on this sign that they were searching for. The officers just asked if we were US citizens and we said yes. I think we should have a little more information on these people that are coming to the US. Especially when the mexican border is right there. I'm not saying check everyone's id but we should be more careful. I really don't want to see another 9/11 happen to this country. I'm sure these terrorists are plotting something for the americans. We have stepped up our security systems on planes. Not saying they would try to take over a plane because any good american could do that and kill thousands of people. You have to have trust in these people. One little mistake and we could be punished by a huge disaster in our world. I do believe I live in the best country in this world and that's why I am going into law enforcement. I want to protect people and also help better people's lives. Terrorism is a huge part in today's society and it will always be a scare. I hope we have enough security and intelligence to stop these major acts from happening. Conrad456
Today, we watched a video from Aspens Institute. They had two guest speakers, one female, and one male. The male was a mayor of New Orleans, so he had a lot of insight and examples to pull from. The female is or either was a part of congress in some sort of way. She also had very good reasoning because of her background. So what were they talking about? Global Terrorism and how local law enforcement can help us in the fight against terrorism. The mayor spoke about wars. They aren’t helping period, and all we are doing is losing money. Instead he said we needed to address the problem at home before trying to stop it somewhere else. We are at a huge risk of having a soft terrorist attack, from what he said. The way to prevent this is community policing, more or less. We need more cops associated with state and federal terrorism programs. Not to mention that we need more of these programs that address other issues along with terrorism. Like the handout says from Lawfare, “Less than one quarter of all U.S. agencies have trained their officers in how to engage with Muslim-American communities that have been targeted for terrorist recruitment.” That is crazy to think about. Considering the times and issues of today, you would expect a bigger focus on this. That is one of the main issues we need to fix. Getting more cops informed and taught. The creation of more fusion centers would do nothing but just help out all the departments in surrounding areas. This is a good way of keeping tabs on certain people. Especially when people are moving around. Let’s not forget what Officer Buck was talking about in this handout article as well. We need more officers, whether that be full fledged or just a community outreach officer. They are all just as important. The are the first responders in cases like this. If we did a better job of applying these officers to the streets again, and not locked up in cars listening to music, we could catch a lot of the trouble before it even happens. I agree with their strategies. Engage, Build trust, Educate, Problem solve, and Mobilize. You should engage the community as much as possible. If you are in good terms with the community leaders of any group, you already have one foot in. The more comfortable people are around you and the more needed they feel, the more help you will get out of anyone. These community leaders are ties to everyone, so when they see something that is out of the ordinary, they can more easily tell a local law enforcement official. No one likes to go out of their way, and people are just forgetful. This also goes along with the Building Trust idea. Although I wouldn’t just be building trust with community members. I would also be doing this with the locals. The more you know about them, the better assessment you can make about the community as a whole. The more trust you have with locals, again, the more they will help you out. Even rapists don’t want to be the next victim of a terrorist bombing. Educate the public about your local laws and how you can do something to protect yourself. Some people might not even know their rights are being violated! So it’s good to make the public aware of how they can make a difference in terrorism. Or, as the article puts it, extremism. And the police should be doing their jobs. Talking to people, noticing differences in the community over time, and arresting offenders. Problem Solving. Lastly, Mobilize is important too. Getting the community involved, and making a focus on public issues a priority. One thing that the lady said that I agree with is the use of military vehicles to stop protesting. We don’t need tanks just rolling through the cities for no reason but to cause fear, it's excessive. ^~^Itis456 Group 4: 1 of 4 .... Part one
Plus, it doesn’t help anything. People don’t look at a tank and say damn, maybe next time. Again, officers just need to be more aware of their community. Little aspects like different religions, or type of people living in your area, just knowing those little things makes stopping terrorism easier, just for the sole fact that you are paying attention to changes in your area. Last thing to say about all this is that congress needs to step up and play a way bigger role than they do now. They should be helping the states get their stuff together and work together. All in the name of preventing terrorist acts on the homeland! ^~^ Itis456 Group 4: 1 of 4.... Part two
In class on Tuesday, I thought the video clearly explained what terrorism is. Terrorism is a unlawful use of violence against civilians or political aims. Terrorism been here on the earth for awhile. As mayor Mitch Landrieu of New Orleans said, “ the U.S is prosecuting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there wasn’t a discussion on how much it cost to protect the homeland.” He said we spent a lot of money on making Homeland security. In New Orleans they kept hiring more officers to stop crime and drugs coming over the border to keep the homeland safe. He gave a lot of good examples of soft target places. The soft target places that he named off are Boston, Istanbul, Paris, Orlando, and there are more to it. Most of FBI agents are there for support but they take care of it after. He also said the local law enforcement has to respond to the scene. For example he said, “ we aren’t adequately equipped.” He is mean that we are not prepared to take big events like this happening. There is only 400 of officers that is on a joint terrorism task force. This means that they stop terrorism acts. I believe that we don’t have enough security. As president and CEO, Jane Harman said, “ that terrorism is on steroids and it could happen anywhere on earth.” I believe that she is right because people are not scared to do such thing. Mitch and Jane is think that we need more training as an officer to deal with terrorism. We as people we assume that muslims are terrorist but anyone can be one. The reason why we assume is because the news shows more muslim terrorist acts. We really don’t need to assume about the religion. Every person isn’t bad but there are people out there that are. We need more officers on the streets to show we aren’t playing with terrorist acts and they probably can get guns off of the streets. We as officers we need to engage, build trust, educate, problem solve, mobilize, focus on all threats, and keep the strategies for building community resilience. All I can say we need to work together as a team and show that we are not scared to protect our homeland. --- Softball456 Group 4: 2 of 4
After watching the Aspen Institute’s video on Global Terrorism and Local Law Enforcement, I noticed a few things that could be changed. To keep strong ties between officers and the community they protect and serve, they can engage strong bonds and relationships with the individuals in the community. This way, the community puts faith and trust into the officers that serve them; as another slight bonus, many of the civilians can offer the officers information that could be helpful. Another helpful practice that officers can utilize is educating the town of signs of terrorism in their community. Civilians can then help officers by relaying information and keeping themselves and others safe from terrorism threats. One that I noticed in the video provided and in the handout given to me was the idea of problem solving. The handout states: “Community outreach offers officers help communities by responding appropriately to discrimination, hate crimes…” In other words, officers can help those in the community that discriminate against those of Islam descent or the Muslim religion. They can also help the community by educating those that have these discriminations and prejudices. Further in our handout, it discusses priority recommendations by outreach officers, such as focusing on all threats, keeping community policing activities separate from surveillance and investigations, and broadening the strategies for building community resilience. By focusing on all threats in a community, policing strategies can be used to handle ideologically inspired violence. By keeping community policing activities separate from surveillance and investigations, all police work is kept separate and organized. For the last additional work strategy, as stated in our text: “Police should expand beyond criminal justice models and build the capacity of communities to address the roots of terrorism, such as lack of support and opportunities for youth, using public health prevention models and targeted violence-prevention strategies…” This essentially means that officers can work with schools and weed out students that could be a threat to the community. Also to note, many citizens of a community always recognize any good deed that an officer does while on duty. By doing little things, officers can then build trust throughout the community, and place ties that are needed for any future use or reference. Getting information from informants around town can be extremely risky; informants can double-cross officers in order to get a bigger score from other criminals. When police have ties all around a city or town, the community is more willing to help put away these criminals and bad informants. Another point I noticed was made in the video was the amount of equipment a community police force needs. They used the example of Ferguson; the police force ended up bringing in tanks to handle the rioting crowds. As stated, this was a huge mistake on the communities part. The trust and faith that was put into the town was instantly erased when tanks were brought into the equation. Of course, not all communities are the same, but there was no reason to bring tanks in order to handle a rioting public. -ThisPrincessSavesHerself456 Group 4: 3 of 4
Ever since 9/11 terrorism has been a big deal on the local, state, and federal levels. Even though homeland security was created because of the attacks on 9/11 to deal with terrorism acts. The local police are the most important on the fight against terrorism. This is because the local beat cop knows everything that goes on in there beat. They are there on the daily and they know who everyone is and everyone knows who they are. They can very easily tell when something is out of the norm or if someone tips them off that something is going on. An example of this to a normal person would be in your regular neighborhood where you live. Most of the time you know about everyone around you. When something is out of the norm everyone can see it. Or you hear about something going on from someone in your community. This is the same idea with a regular beat cop. In his beat he can tell if something is going on. Because that officer is there everyday and is apart of that community because he or she knows who people are and they know who the officer is. There are ways though first that the officer has to gain the communities trust to even see or hear these things. It all starts with engaging with the people in the community and the different community based organizations to have them gain your trust and for you to also gain their trust. These community based officers are also there to educate and teach the people of the community about hate crimes, police work, different community resources to battle violent extremism and how to prevent it. These officers also need to be problem solvers for the community. This is by helping the community respond the correct way to discrimination, and islamophobia. They can also assist community members in accessing available social, legal, and mental and physical health concerns of the people. They also educate the people on the different threat levels and how to properly respond to them. These local police officers are and will continue to play the biggest role on the fighting against terrorism. There are countless times where there has been a plot for some sort of terrorism act and the local police officer was the one that noticed something odd in the community and investigated and stopped that person from commiting that act of terrorism. This is because these local cops are from that area and know what is going on in the community and when something is wrong or someone is acting out of the norm. Even though if a terrorist act occurred, the federal government would eventually take over the investigation, the local police would still be playing a vital role in that investigation just because of the fact that they know the area and what goes on way better than anyone else and could help the most. Trojan456 part 1 of 2..
As an important part of handling terrorism with law enforcement, a key thing that stood out to me in the article and what was mentioned here and there throughout the video was the relationship between the community and police officers. I think it is smart to gradually build a one on one relationship with many people throughout the community for not only getting to know it and the people you build these relationships with like the back of your hand but also building that trust with the people within the community. It is very common for people to have a negative view on police officers and has been that way for a long time but I think one of the tasks police officers today should try to take on is of course building that trust. This will make it much easier for the community to build trust and easier to talk and get information when needed. Focusing on all threats is another important factor when it comes to terrorism. I feel like our country bases terrorism on one specific group of people after 9/11 and so when possible terrorist attacks hit, we don't even know if we should categorize it that or not. In my opinion, any act of violence towards a large group of people whether you are from this country or not is an act of terrorism. So focusing on all threats and not just selected ones and looking at the meaning behind one's actions can help us identify acts of terrorism. The role of a police officer is to also educate the community on possible terrorist attacks, suspensions of what that might look like and how to go about that if it were to happen. As a police department, I feel that is is very important to not only make sure your whole department has knowledge of this but people in the community as well for safety needs no matter where they go. In the video we watched in class, Mitch Landrieu the mayor of New Orleans and Jane Harman a former US representative for congress both spoke on this topic which was very informational. It was mentioned in the video that a gang war had taken place in a park which resulted in 23 people getting shot and surprising happened again within two weeks of each other. With that being said, I do agree that police officers need more training and knowledge about these attacks (because that is what that was) and more police officers are needed out on the streets for patrol. At the end of the day, the goal to fighting terrorism to to keep our country safe with the tools and skills to do so but most importantly giving knowledge to the community you work for and relationships within. Hiwelcometochilis456 part 2 of 2...
The video that went over terrorism in the United States was an interesting and informative way of going over the chapter for class. What I really enjoyed about this video was as opposed to the others which mostly just had one person as a speaker, this one had two people contributing to the event. Although some of it was political, with two speakers, we were able to listen to two different ideas and approaches about the topic of terrorism with the United States. Once you were able to look past some of the political motivation behind each person’s point of view, you were able to take away some really interesting views and even ideas for how the United States can handle terrorism. When many people including myself hear the word terrorism, the first thing that comes to mind is someone from outside the country that wanted to create chaos on the US. What both speakers really emphasized and I can agree with is that many of the terror attacks that do go on in this country are not from outside the country, but are people who have been brought up in our own country and have lived among us their entire life. What was a great example one of the speakers made was how the US wants to obviously lower crime here, so they spent money on law enforcement in Columbia to lower crime over there, thinking it will help lower our crime here. But when it comes to spending money on our own local police departments in the states, people are very quick to look at the budget and not want to spend the same money that was spent on law enforcement in another territory. When it comes to the large disasters that get national coverage, the first ones that respond and deal initially with the situation, are the police officers at our local police departments. While the feds get involved and eventually take over things, they are not the ones who respond to the crisis; it’s our police officers and EMTs who work in our communities. An idea I really liked from one of the speakers was instead of putting money and resources into a new task force to focus on domestic terrorism, take that same money and resources and put it into our police departments in our country. Train more police officers to deal with preventing terrorism by focusing on the relationship with the community and police. With an increase in trust in police from the community, crimes and suspicious activity reports will increase substantially. More reports about suspicious activity or behavior can help prevent many potential terrorist attacks that happen today. Although much of the talk in the video was political to an extent, the messages and ideas that lie behind those political pushes can be taken and hopefully used together in the future, as I think we can all agree regardless of political association, that if we can prevent some of these terror attacks we should work together to do so. Group 4: 4 of 4
After watching the video and doing my own little research about law enforcement and terrorism I was able to form a few thoughts about the matter. First, I would like to say that I totally agree with the video when it states that we are adequately equipped as we need to be to stand against terrorism. I say this because the local and state police departments do not have enough of the proper equipment to deal with a terrorist attack. Though it is good to have a great interaction with the communities so that they can get the sense of something wrong, or the communities trust them enough to inform them of a problem; however, it is still not enough to prevent terrorism from taking place. Thinking on the terrorist attacks in San Bernardino and Orlando, the first responders were patrol and traffic officers. The had none of the proper equipment to protect or confront attackers with explosives or high-powered weapons. In my opinion we need to establish more of the proper equipment in for these officers to deal with big issues like this. Instead we send in marine tanks to deal with smaller issues like the Ferguson incident. We need to properly prioritize when it comes to terrorism. Second, I would like to say that we need more than then the local law enforcement handling terrorist attacks. We need actual military personnel and people trained to help assist in situations like 9/11 or San Bernardino and Orlando. I say that because the local law enforcement only can do so much on their own. Yes, they can go into the communities and get the right information, but the people will only say so much to a police officer. That is where the tactics of computerized information finding comes in and the knowledge of nuclear weaponry comes into play. Officers are not taught in depth about all those things as someone working for the FBI or the military would be so I think it is in best interest that the merge together and take of the task of fighting against and preventing terrorism. Part 1/4
How important is it for law enforcement to be on the front lines regarding terrorism? This is a question that can be answered in different ways, mainly due to the fact that one size does not fit all and every community in the country. Yet, there is an agreement on all fronts to let people on the ground (local law enforcement) find out what is going on in their towns. Local law enforcement, has ties with community and religious leaders who can reach out to those in the community. So in terms of local law enforcements importance in dealing with terrorism, I feel that they play an extremely important role, with the assistance of local civil/religious leaders in their community. Public safety is goal of all law enforcement, but whenever something does happen, local cops are always first on scene, due to their training they know how to act in certain situations. It starts with training not just while being a police officer, but in college, people who want to become cops have to take classes, that will teach them how to build bridges between them and the community they serve. For instance, communication, religious, and foreign language classes can be useful tools when dealing with the local community. It is essential to listen and learn while in school. Local cops need to use what they have learned and put it to the test out in the community. A lot of trust, and good faith needs to be shown on the part of local law enforcement, in order to be able to share information that can be useful in keeping the public safe. If and whenever something does happen in this country, most of the time local law enforcement have persons of interest already in mind, most likely due to information given to them by those in the religious community. Due to the fact that police work with citizen organizations, such as neighborhood watch, and other organization that partner with local law enforcement. If a terrorist attack occurs It makes more sense to listen to the people on the ground. Especially those people who know people who have the right kind of information needed in moving forward. If that line of communication is not there, or in place at all, then there is total confusion, and chaos. Intelligence is the name of the game, intelligence at the local level can come in different forms. It is up to the local cops to sift through that information and share it with state/federal authorities. Knowledge is power, the right knowledge can save lives or prevent a terror attack from occurring. More needs to be done to cultivate the relationship between local cops and the communities they live in and serve. Local law enforcement is not only vital, but is essential, in terms of importance on being at the front lines of combating or preventing terrorism or terrorist acts from occurring. When properly funded, trained, and equipped local law enforcement can and will properly handle anything relating to terrorism. Part 2/4
It’s clear after learning more about this subject that law enforcement is the first line of defense against terrorism and they are essential in the quest to protect the homeland against domestic and international threats but I feel that through this message there is still much to learn on this topic. For example when we learned a brief bit about how the local officers needed to cooperate with other departments and jurisdictions when exactly is that appropriate? How much information needs to be already gathered in order to contact people from other jurisdictions to come help you? Even then, when you do contact them, will those other groups be able to act in an accurate manner that will truly prevent an incident? In the Parkland incident and many other incidents the FBI and local law enforcement have known about the impending threats and have taken measure to try to deter the actions of the deranged killer but ultimately they don’t do enough. Though of course I’m sure that our perspective through the lens of hindsight makes it clear to us that not enough was done though when these departments were handling the situations perhaps they had thought they were taking a reasonable amount of action. Of course though this begs the question of how many other people are among our communities that have also seen the lacking measures taken to prevent a terrorist incident. Is it tens or hundreds? The police and FBI are working with millions of people across our nation each day and there doesn’t really seem to be any standard proceedings for how we can help these officers prevent these tragedies, they may need a set of guidelines perhaps or perhaps they require further executive abilities. Maybe to further solve these issues we need our legislators at the federal and state levels to crack down on things that are often red flags for terrorists. Perhaps we need to pursue illegal firearms with the same level of intensity that we pursue drugs, perhaps we need to seperate people who are on psychiatric medication from their firearms or maybe we need to do government sanctioned checks to make sure that children don’t have access to their parents firearms. Drawing lines in the sand against red flags for terrorists may not deter the attempts for people who wish to commit awful crimes because their intents are already illegal but these measures would at least give the respondents or investigators the abilities that they require to handle these situations appropriately. It’s evident that terrorism isn’t something we can strictly narrow down to particular communities so facilitating all of the police in all of the communities across the nation is the logical measure as I understand it. This isn’t an easy topic to discuss in the current political climate where people wish to argue about Second Amendment Rights, what action should be taken in regards to illegal immigrants, what should be done in regards to refugees who wish to find a place of shelter within the United States or really any of the other hot button issues in the nation but if we wish to ensure the safety of our nation and the people in it we need to cut ties to these firm politically partisan ideologies and identities so that we can collectively begin working to solve the issues at hand rather than trying to stake moral superiority over one another. Part 3/4
In class we did things a little differently, instead of going over a chapter with powerpoint slides and a lecture; we watched a video over local law enforcement and global terrorism with the Mayor of New Orleans and it was really informal and amazing to see someone other than my teachers thoughts on terrorism . What most people fail to realize is that our local law enforcement are the first in line for defense. The local law enforcement are interacting with people in the community 365 days a year and 24 hours a day. I tend to believe that if something was wrong, that the local law enforcement would be the first to notice. They interact with the communities so much that they would notice even the slightest change. We need to be prepared for an attack every day because it could happen at any moment, we do not know when the next one could be happening. I have heard some people talk about how the terrorist attackers are all foreigners, but when we take a step back and look, they can be any day people that we interact with, could be planning an attack. Local and state officers need to be trained in all the more areas to detect terrorism. Some people would think that is a little too much because the officers could make a big deal out of nothing, well I think it would be better safe than not do anything about something and something happens. I think even training members in the community to becaome more informed about things that would possibly lead to a terriost attack. This is a huge problem among all and it needs to be fixed. 9-11 was one of the terrorist attacks that changed the lives of a lot of people in society. The individuals who attacked us that day were highly trained individuals working with people who were known as the biggest terrorist in the world. The F.B.I. has more of the proper equipment to protect the rest of us and detect terrorism, and I think every local law enforcement agencies should have some. Everyone possible should be looking out for terrorism and protecting the communities. Every agencies, no matter what rank in the country they are should all come together and work together to help with this issue. It is teamwork and trusting one another. I never really looked at terrorism in the way until now. This really opened my eyes even more than before. I know I have said it before and other too, but this is a serious issue that needs some serious fixing, sooner rather than later before something bad happens. ~Dance 456 -Acquit 456. -TJGirl 456 -TaxSeason 456 Part 4/4
I have never really thought that there was a connection between local law enforcement and global terrorism. Until our class watched a video called "Connecting the dots between local law enforcement and global terrorism" I would never have thought of it in the way that the two people spoke about these two topics in the video. A few key things that personally stood out the most to me were how everyone agreed that communities and the local law enforcement both could do better with Relationships, the costs of different aspects, and what most believe could help the nation with terrorism. When most people think of the relationship between law enforcement and communities the first topic is usually police involved shootings and their use of force. While I agree that there has been unnecessary cases, not everything that local law enforcement has done has been bad or to the extreme of killing. On the other hand the people living in the communities are not all perfect either. The civilian side has made it harder and harder for the police to feel safe. I understand that the death of someone breaking the law does not have to be the outcome, but at the same time if the people of the communities were not breaking the law to begin with they may not be having the run ins per-say with their local law enforcement. The next topic that they talked about that caught my attention was when they were talking about cost. The federal government has cut costs everywhere for a lot of things one of them being law enforcement. What caught my attention the most was how when our nation goes to war or when we worry about protecting our borders the cost is never a question and is very rarely brought up. The last main point that caught my attention was when they were talking about what they think could help in a big way and it makes sense. They very briefly talked about how more law enforcement officers and more technology would be beneficial. This could help in major way especially since the technology in today's society is only getting better and better and with more technologies and equipment available it is getting harder for law enforcement to do their job effectively with running into so many issues with what the law enforcement officers can and cannot do legally. Now obviously there is no such thing as one hundred percent security and I don't think we could ever get to that point but we could definitely do more to strengthen our nation. I realized after watching this video and talking briefly in class that our local law enforcement officers do in fact play a huge role in connection with the global terrorism. Our local law enforcement officers are the ones that know our neighborhoods most of the times inside and out. They know who lives in our communities and what most of the community is involved in. What gets harder is the rural areas because they are not populated like the cities. People live further away from each other and are not "in the open". Tanker456 group5 pt 1
To be frank there is no way to actually end terrorism. He or she will still find a way to do this activity if he or she actually wanted to and that’s the sad reality of it. Terrorism happens very much in the communities that the person is from. Terrorism is normally the act of hatred. The person committing the crime is acting out of resentments, that not only harm their targets, but others around. I believe that if one was to look into the past dealing with terrorism, he or she could learn the depth of it and try to find mechanism to help prevent them. When it comes to the law I think that yes more can be done on their end, but at the same time it cannot. If they don’t have the funds, nor the enough body count how does one expected them to do more? It’s impossible; however, I do believe if law officials teamed up more could be accomplished. If the FDA, FBI,COPS, US MARSHALS, US GOVERNOR, and etc teamed up a lot could change. While watching this video about connecting dots between global terrorism and local law enforcement a lot of this was covered. Like they stated in the video police officers need to be trained and trained differently for occasions like this. The cops budget was cut short, but that doesn’t help prevent terrorism. With limited resources cops hands are tied. I like that they have the See Something, Say Something campaign. This campaign helps save lives if one was to think about it. Thousands of lives can be saved based on one person speaking up and taking action. Another thing is that in order to prevent terrorism the people need to know that they have someone in their corner that they can trust. If the community do not have trust in the police departments this will not work. Communication is key, but if there is no communication then positive results can not come out of this. The people need to trust the police and the police need to have trust in the people. Another thing that stood out is that if the president his or herself doesn’t protect homeland security is not a good president. I agree with that 100 percent. Homeland security works in the civilian sphere to protect the United States within, at, and outside its borders. Its stated goal is to prepare for, prevent, and respond to domestic emergencies, particularly terrorism. However is the president cannot protect homeland security, how can homeland security protect us. There is never a thing of 100 percent security. The weakness in our system has grown stronger, while terrorism has grown stronger. The two should not be at the same rate, terrorism should be decreasing while ou systems increase. In order to help decrease terrorism not only does police need to be more informed, but so does the people. Everyone needs to engage in the matter, build trust in each other, educate one another, and solve the problem. Although that sounds easier said than done, hard work needs to be applied. (Equality 456) group 5 pt 2
Patrol officers job is to present and prevent patrol officers is a necessity when it comes to terrorist attack for the simple fact that they are the first to any scene and they see the day to day where the FBI, CIA etc. only see the incident which they must be called. Depending on the officer and how he patrols his beat but if he does it correctly he should know who go with who, who is the top dog of that block etc. He can do this by simply just getting out his car and walking his beat communicating with his specified community even if he is doing little things by letting the kids play in his patrol car or asking about their day. Patrol officers must ENGAGE one on one relationships to open communication channels Patrol officers are the real eyes and ears but there aren’t enough officers but it’s simple we need more. BUILD TRUST be willing to establish a honest base and discuss sensitive topics that’s going on in the world we live in like terrorism hate crimes etc. once we do that than we EDUCATE teach the communities about police work and community relations and about terrorism. Once we’ve engaged the community-built trust and educated the community then we can solve the problem in an appropriate manner. But budget in the United states is far under that we had to cut some departments in the federal building that protected the homeland and its okay to do that if our first responders are trained but they are not so if we where to have a massive terrorist attack are first responders will be responding with no training could be more than they can handle and even deadly for them. So, in the meantime agencies need to somehow find a way to implement this type of training with in their department. Don’t settle for just training your department go further then that and start making programs to address the situation even though do to the bridge that have kind of been burnt between the agencies in their perspective communities do to the encounters with some officers its gone take a while for the community to come around but I do believe in REACH ONE TEACH ONE so if we can just reach one person at a time then can then go and teach one of their peers which can get the rain in motion. Going over it today in class really made me sit back and think that being a law enforcement is more to it than just an occupation where you enforce the law when you take that oath you promise to protect and serve no matter the problem you got to come up with a solution on the fly and from reading, hearing and seeing this just makes me respect what it is our law enforcement officer do on the day to day biases, and makes me what to be a part of something that’s bigger than just law enforcement. Junior345 group 5 pt 3
The import of the local police officer in combating terrorism cannot be overstated.The FBI has greater jurisdiction, the ATF has (allegedly) greater expertise in the means of terrorist attacks, and the DHS unifies more agencies than ever before, but all of them must ultimately adopt a “Have Gun Will Travel” methodology. Each officer must move around the country, covering a wide swath of territory in pursuit of justice. It would be cost prohibitive, even for the notoriously irresponsible federal government, to maintain as many FBI agents as there are local police officers in the United States. The federal, or even state officer, therefore, trades his knowledge of locale in for knowledge of a specialty, whether that is investigation, firearms, arson, homicide, or some other esoteric discipline. Whether this should be viewed as a trade up or a trade down is ultimately in the hands of each officer, as no man can make that determination for him.
Even so, the knowledge of locale provided by a local police officer is indispensable. Their knowledge of the streets, the informants, the players, the interests at work, are all valuable tools in the toolbox of justice. More than that, the police officer knows the community, having hopefully cultivated interpersonal relationships within the community during their career. The officer should be intimately familiar with fluctuations that occur to disrupt their beat. A sudden influx of college aged students waving the execrable hammer and sickle of Communist Russia should always serve as an alarm, lest that pernicious and pathological ideology corrosively entwine itself in a community. Regrettably, not all changes will be so obvious. But hermits keeping strange visiting hours, a change in the neighborhood’s mood for the worse, or an all too sudden silence at the wrong time might be clues that would be otherwise imperceptible to law enforcement officers from outside of the community. Indeed, the value of the local law enforcement officer is that he is a local, and a fellow citizen with a stake in how his community is run. The abyss of separation between ‘us’ the police and ‘them’ the public that seems all too frequently to be growing is a problem that must be confronted, now rather than later. The peace officer exists, by his nature, to keep the peace, and to uphold that peace, he must know the peace that is expected. To be an outsider is to perish, and in so doing, to perish miserably.
The limit of the peace officer is in his verisimilitude: rarely can he be a specialist when he is thoroughly occupied with being a generalist. He may know his streets, but rarely will he know the finer points of bomb making and defusing as a counter terrorist specialist should. He may recognize that Nadir Soofi is behaving suspiciously, but will he consciously connect him to the Islamic State that he has seen only in the news? For this reason, as integral as a local peace officer may be to an investigation, he, like all of us, must know when to listen to experts in the field.
In the inimitable words of Dirty Harry: “A good man’s gotta know his limitations.”
Seeing this video was quite amazing being able to learn about terrorism from someone actually holding office and seeing the actual threat it poses to us as a nation. Listening to the mayor of New Orleans was an eye opener since New Orleans is such a big city and could easily be a target of terrorism do to the population and the tradition that is down there. Some things that were quite surprising is that overall our vulnerability to terrorism is quite high. Hearing this was a shocker, as a nation we overall seem to be pretty safe and far away from all different kinds of threats. One big thing most people don't recognize is that our local law enforcement personnel is the first line of detection and the first line of defense against terrorism. This is because those local law enforcement officers are in those communities day in and day out and interact with the people that live in those communities. If there would be anything out of the norm these officers would be the first ones to pick up on that. Our local law enforcement officers and agencies need better training and need to be better equipped to deal with these problems and as of late we have geared towards providing them with more resources. As a country we can't keep putting this problem off and blaming it on someone else because it always seems to never be our problem. Out local, state, and federal agencies need to work together and accept this as their problem and work together to fix it. We need better cooperation between these agencies and better partnership. The federal government misses out on half of the things that local and state officers deal with on a day to day basis and they think that they can go in there and solve this terrorism threat right away. Well they are wrong, our federal agencies need to rely on our local and state agencies to give them the information needed about that person or that community as a whole. With the creation of these fusion centers things have gotten better but when the act of terrorism occurs and the federal agents are on scene they still push away and limit what that local or state officer can do. Now as a country we have around eight hundred thousand police officers and of that eight hundred thousand only five hundred those are active police officers. To me this seems low for a country as big as we are with a population over three hundred million. The federal government has even less federal agents than what we have with our sworn in police officers. Hopefully within the near future our federal and local and state police agencies will learn to work better together and combat these major issues that pose a huge threat to us do to the size and development of our country. The next big attack could be right around the corner and honestly after this video if the threat hits close to home our local and state officers aren't ready for this big of an attack nor are we prepared or equipped to handle something of its magnitude. NDIrish456.
ReplyDeleteTerrorism and Local Law Enforcement
ReplyDeleteThis day in class we took a different approach. Instead of doing the usual classroom lecture, we watched a video on Local Law Enforcement and how they are more effective when it comes to dealing with terrorists and terrorism in the community. The video started out with John Dickerson introducing Mitch Lansieu and Jane Harman. Mitch Lansieu is the mayor of New Orleans. Jane Harman is a former US Representative for Congress and she is the president and CEO of Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. What Mitch was saying was that Local law enforcement is the best method to combat against terrorism. Nobody will know the community better than the police officers who are charged with patrolling the area. It goes along with the Boston Marathon bombing. What happened in the Boston Marathon bombing incident was that the FBI came in and worked with the local law enforcement and they were looking at surveillance cameras. However, they were not familiar with the streets of Boston so they were not sure which cameras to follow in order to trail where and when the suspects were. This is where they needed the local police department to help out because they actually knew the streets and what cameras were where. In the video, they were talking about how a local police officer in a town of 30,000 people noticed that something was out of place with a house and so he checked it and there were terrorist activities that were being planned in there. Another thing that was talked about in the video was that terrorists are not just foreign invaders, but they are also local domestic residents. With that said, they also commented that local police are not just important in fighting against terrorists, but also other local residents in the community. Mitch said that there was even a gang war that happened in a park where 23 people were shot and the police arrived on the scene, but then just two weeks later the same thing happened again. With that in mind, Mitch was saying that there needs to be more training of police officers, but there also need to be more of them. Another point that I thought was needed, was that Mitch was talking about how when riots broke out in Ferguson, the law enforcement brought tanks out to face the people. Mitch said, that the tanks have done nothing but create an even bigger barrier between the community and the police in terms of trust. That is building trust is just as important as proper training of any police officer. You can give a police officer weeks and months of training on how to take out suspects and how to interrogate and interview people who were witnesses to a crime or event, but unless the community has trust in the police that are patrolling their neighborhoods, they are not going to spill the beans; and if they do, then it is most likely false evidence to steer the police in the wrong direction. With that said, the most important thing with dealing with the terrorists, both foreign and domestic, is trust between the community and the police because they will both work together to combat against terrorism. It is like the bundle of twigs; one twig is easy to break, but the more twigs that are bundled together the harder it becomes to break them. The same can be said about the community and the police working together.
-MickSwagger456
Today was good because instead going over the chapter on Terrorism we watch a video on it. How it has effects on their city and community as well. The first person to speak is John Dickerson he is an cbs and anchor “Face the Nation. There are two main people who was talk on this subject the first one is Mitch Landrieu he is mayor of New Orleans if we want some kind change we need more officers out there trying to stop the violence on crimes. When a bomb went out in New Orleans it was a mess and how you going put thing together. The important was the officers who like in the community to get the right information because if you got other agency down there not sure what going on. That you need them cops because these the one’s everything who the suspect you should be out there and who new to your city or town. What important to those who about on terrorism they want a statement like what happens in Boston, Orland and Los Angles and what also help them is technology can hurt you or help you in the long run. It really depends on how you look at and it get hard to you can find them or they won’t be found unless they want to.
ReplyDeleteThe next person is Jane Harman she is president ceo, Woodrow Wilson International center scholars she was said some city would bring in the tank because the community need your trust without you just out there waste your time. Like if you got kids at the park playing have fun but you get gang start shooting you can easy hit a child because it can happen. With all that going on there need more training how these cops can control when someone get hurt or when someone don’t know how to talk them. A lot times you don’t know how to what to look for when you see a bomb maker and all you think is someone with a book bag, or someone who is shy and if you get the wrong details you can put someone on the internet for wrong reason and then you got angry people after him. For the Ferguson case I think they could of handle it way different than they like could of just talk to them not just think about it. When problem solve can help them by solve the crimes that would bring the community together. At end of the day you want be in a place where the people want to truth you can solve crimes from terrorism like when it was someone robbery gas station and when they finally get them found some bomb maker and see what happens when you get the person. This was very good information on this I learn a lot from watch this video and take notes on this because you need to know if you want be a cop.
- Panthers456
Law enforcement officers in the community are put there to protect and serve the people, but then when it is time to protect and serve at a certain level the federal agencies like to step in and take over the operations like they are the ones who have been on the streets interacting with these people every single day. Federal agencies need to include local police departments and use their knowledge of the town and the people who live in it in order to be able to prevent anything bad from happening. Many times with the bombings and other terrorist attacks that are happening in our country could have possibly been prevented if the local police department was more involved. Terrorism is a big issue in our country today in my opinion. The United States as a country has been know from its beginning to be a country that gets what it wants and nothing is going stand in our way. That has looked different over the years and has caused a lot of fighting and a lot of deaths. Those people throughout our countries history died so that we could be here today living freely in our country, and it is our job to honor them and make sure that our country is safe and protected today, and in the future when it will be the next generations turn. Terrorist acts often are based around causing destruction to a structure or monumental site that is known to precious to Americans. In the past such things as 9/11, or the Boston marathon bombing are just two examples of the damage some people are trying to inflict on our country. In order to keep a look of power as a country we need to be able to put an end to any terrorist act quickly if not preventing it from even happening at all. Patrol officers are one of the best ways to monitor for terrorist activity, the officers who work out on the streets everyday are the ones who see who comes and goes from certain places and is able to tell when something is not right. This is possible because of the specific areas that officers are given to patrol in a certain area. These sections are often called “beats”. It is the job of the officer to know who lives in his beat, what those people do on a normal and the comings and goings of other people to the houses or establishments in your beat. Sometimes officers can live down in a not so good part of town in a program and I think that is very beneficial in staying proactive as a department and watching the community by living in it. Having an officer living in the community as well gives an around the clock presence of a police officer, and hopefully if the officer is treating the people correctly and fairly the community will feel safe and protected knowing they have an officer right down the street.
ReplyDelete-Wings456
“Part 1”
ReplyDeleteI believe that police officers hold this stereotype that they have to have a strong exterior so that no one can know they have feelings. There are so many problems with this. Police officers have families, go to the same grocery stores, and get their haircut at the same barbers we do, so why are they considered “different?” Having police officers from our communities is a major benefit for us. They know who the trouble makers are, they know what the norms are, and they know the homeless people who commit small crimes just to be arrested during the cold winters. They are just like us! One step to becoming closer together with the police officers in our community is to build trust. By building trust we will build an empire that no one can break down. This “us against them” stereotype needs to be put to rest so that we can create safer communities for our future families to live in. Another way to build relationships is to educate our younger ones. We need to reassure them that police officers are here to keep us safe and keep our neighborhoods free from crime and robberies. The more educated kids are about law enforcement will help to start a domino effect with future children. Many people also hold this stereotype that all Muslims are going to bomb us, which isn’t true at all. That’s like saying every black kid is a troublemaker. Everyone is capable of crime no matter what color, race, or age you are. Our number one way of creating a better future is to teach our communities about the threats that some people uphold, but to believe there’s good in everyone. We can’t just walk down the street and say “oh that person belongs in jail,” or “that person has killed someone before,” because we don’t know! We don’t know everyone’s stories, so for us to assume is absurd and shouldn’t be happening. This false image is the main reason for a lot of community police conflict. Some believe that police officers hold these kinds of stereotypes, which is true to a certain extend. We can’t say that EVERY SINGLE police officer is bad, racist, or corrupt, just like we can’t say that every single hairdresser only cuts hair the way they want. This goes the same way with stereotyping blacks, muslims, or any other race. It’s not fair and we need to continue educating everyone in our communities so we can build relationships with our officers and ensure our safety. Police officers are regular people and should be treated with the same amount of love and respect we’d give to our family members, and vice versa. If we have a police, community relationship, we will have EVERYTHING. No one will be able to break us apart. The war on terrorism will slowly start to minimize the more we work together to put an end to all the stereotyping and hate crimes. One by one, we need to work together to fix this problem and the world will be a much better place. Cheer456
“Part 2”
ReplyDeleteWe always heard that when there is an attack on the American soil like for example bombing or shooting and the suspect identified as a Muslim or Islam, we think about terrorism. Well, terrorism is a big and global problem, but it is also a local one. There are individual terrorists who particularly lone wolves and often linked to their communities regarding their resentments, ambitions, and targets. In which cause many people to worry and fear their communities and people. In the wake of September 11, 2001, many local law enforcement agencies throughout the country find themselves struggling to identify their responsibilities and define their future role in the effort to combat terrorism. That was around that time the homeland security agency formed, it teaches and requires the law enforcement a shift of change on how prevention, intelligence gathering, and information sharing can ensure the safety and welfare of the citizens and help every agency to prevent future attacks or threats. Traditionally, local law enforcement has concerned itself primarily with preventing and solving crimes such as burglary, theft, and robbery. Crimes that have an immediate and visible impact on the local community and affect citizen quality of life. To learn about unknown future terrorist threats, many local law enforcement organization programs encourage local communities to be comfortable with the law enforcement. A reason that not only law enforcement officers are the vital part of counterterrorism, but also the local community, because they are the one who interacts more to other people, to the community, and know more about other individuals personality and identity. Law Enforcement organizations have sought to address the causes and reduce the fear of crime in communities through the creation of effective partnerships with the community and other public and private-sector resources. I believe that to fight terrorism. Law enforcement officers must engage more with the community, like to meet and establish one on one relationship with the community leaders. It is one way to build trust and faith from community-based organizations. To know such potential person who is threats to the community, the law enforcement is not the only one that needs to be educated who to look and what to watch for. The community must also be educated on how to combat crimes (not violent crimes, but such as hate crimes), to learn police watch, and to watch criminal activity in the neighborhood, and most importantly on how to be aware of violent extremist person or group and to prevent it. Many of the objectives to avoid terrorist attacks are currently available to law enforcement. I believe that they have to share those to individual, neighborhood, and community so they can support them entirely to fight crime and to fight against terrorism. In all, as law enforcement officer perspective, I think that we need to focus our training not only on responding to an attack of terrorism in the American soil but also on learning the non-criminal indicators of terrorism. Such signs that we are much more likely be encounter during a traffic stops or while responding to emergency calls. -Chopper456
“Part 3”
ReplyDeleteWe are always worried about terrorism in today's society. Americans see other country people as terrorist to our country. That is the huge stereotype in our world today. Some of that is true but most of the time it isn't. The terrorist could be the one that is right next to you. Also, he/she could be thousands of miles away from you. We all are scared of terrorist. For example, 9/11 was a huge impact on our world and change many laws and rules to our lying process. I hate when people say it was the president fault or whatever. People are always going to have those theories. These people were working with the biggest terrorist in the world. I would say the people that are in charge of terrorism are the FBI and special agents, that should be there job most of the time. They are the ones that should be able to protect us. They have the resources that nobody else does. Going into the law enforcement program I and we the people have to look for clues and people that are going to hurt our country. These people are not all muslim like the people see them. They could be living in our communities, thats why its so important for the local police to be on the search of this people also. Background check and investigating into these people lives especially if you have some sort of probable cause or just have that feeling. Law enforcement is a huge teamwork job Trusting one another is what we have to be able to do to stop the major acts in our country. I just went to Texas and on our way back we got stopped by a border control checkpoint. Yes there was a big sign that had people's faces on this sign that they were searching for. The officers just asked if we were US citizens and we said yes. I think we should have a little more information on these people that are coming to the US. Especially when the mexican border is right there. I'm not saying check everyone's id but we should be more careful. I really don't want to see another 9/11 happen to this country. I'm sure these terrorists are plotting something for the americans. We have stepped up our security systems on planes. Not saying they would try to take over a plane because any good american could do that and kill thousands of people. You have to have trust in these people. One little mistake and we could be punished by a huge disaster in our world. I do believe I live in the best country in this world and that's why I am going into law enforcement. I want to protect people and also help better people's lives. Terrorism is a huge part in today's society and it will always be a scare. I hope we have enough security and intelligence to stop these major acts from happening. Conrad456
Today, we watched a video from Aspens Institute. They had two guest speakers, one female, and one male. The male was a mayor of New Orleans, so he had a lot of insight and examples to pull from. The female is or either was a part of congress in some sort of way. She also had very good reasoning because of her background. So what were they talking about? Global Terrorism and how local law enforcement can help us in the fight against terrorism. The mayor spoke about wars. They aren’t helping period, and all we are doing is losing money. Instead he said we needed to address the problem at home before trying to stop it somewhere else. We are at a huge risk of having a soft terrorist attack, from what he said. The way to prevent this is community policing, more or less. We need more cops associated with state and federal terrorism programs. Not to mention that we need more of these programs that address other issues along with terrorism. Like the handout says from Lawfare, “Less than one quarter of all U.S. agencies have trained their officers in how to engage with Muslim-American communities that have been targeted for terrorist recruitment.” That is crazy to think about. Considering the times and issues of today, you would expect a bigger focus on this. That is one of the main issues we need to fix. Getting more cops informed and taught. The creation of more fusion centers would do nothing but just help out all the departments in surrounding areas. This is a good way of keeping tabs on certain people. Especially when people are moving around. Let’s not forget what Officer Buck was talking about in this handout article as well. We need more officers, whether that be full fledged or just a community outreach officer. They are all just as important. The are the first responders in cases like this. If we did a better job of applying these officers to the streets again, and not locked up in cars listening to music, we could catch a lot of the trouble before it even happens. I agree with their strategies. Engage, Build trust, Educate, Problem solve, and Mobilize. You should engage the community as much as possible. If you are in good terms with the community leaders of any group, you already have one foot in. The more comfortable people are around you and the more needed they feel, the more help you will get out of anyone. These community leaders are ties to everyone, so when they see something that is out of the ordinary, they can more easily tell a local law enforcement official. No one likes to go out of their way, and people are just forgetful. This also goes along with the Building Trust idea. Although I wouldn’t just be building trust with community members. I would also be doing this with the locals. The more you know about them, the better assessment you can make about the community as a whole. The more trust you have with locals, again, the more they will help you out. Even rapists don’t want to be the next victim of a terrorist bombing. Educate the public about your local laws and how you can do something to protect yourself. Some people might not even know their rights are being violated! So it’s good to make the public aware of how they can make a difference in terrorism. Or, as the article puts it, extremism. And the police should be doing their jobs. Talking to people, noticing differences in the community over time, and arresting offenders. Problem Solving. Lastly, Mobilize is important too. Getting the community involved, and making a focus on public issues a priority. One thing that the lady said that I agree with is the use of military vehicles to stop protesting. We don’t need tanks just rolling through the cities for no reason but to cause fear, it's excessive.
ReplyDelete^~^Itis456 Group 4: 1 of 4 .... Part one
Plus, it doesn’t help anything. People don’t look at a tank and say damn, maybe next time. Again, officers just need to be more aware of their community. Little aspects like different religions, or type of people living in your area, just knowing those little things makes stopping terrorism easier, just for the sole fact that you are paying attention to changes in your area. Last thing to say about all this is that congress needs to step up and play a way bigger role than they do now. They should be helping the states get their stuff together and work together. All in the name of preventing terrorist acts on the homeland!
ReplyDelete^~^ Itis456 Group 4: 1 of 4.... Part two
In class on Tuesday, I thought the video clearly explained what terrorism is. Terrorism is a unlawful use of violence against civilians or political aims. Terrorism been here on the earth for awhile. As mayor Mitch Landrieu of New Orleans said, “ the U.S is prosecuting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there wasn’t a discussion on how much it cost to protect the homeland.” He said we spent a lot of money on making Homeland security. In New Orleans they kept hiring more officers to stop crime and drugs coming over the border to keep the homeland safe. He gave a lot of good examples of soft target places. The soft target places that he named off are Boston, Istanbul, Paris, Orlando, and there are more to it. Most of FBI agents are there for support but they take care of it after. He also said the local law enforcement has to respond to the scene. For example he said, “ we aren’t adequately equipped.” He is mean that we are not prepared to take big events like this happening. There is only 400 of officers that is on a joint terrorism task force. This means that they stop terrorism acts. I believe that we don’t have enough security. As president and CEO, Jane Harman said, “ that terrorism is on steroids and it could happen anywhere on earth.” I believe that she is right because people are not scared to do such thing. Mitch and Jane is think that we need more training as an officer to deal with terrorism. We as people we assume that muslims are terrorist but anyone can be one. The reason why we assume is because the news shows more muslim terrorist acts. We really don’t need to assume about the religion. Every person isn’t bad but there are people out there that are. We need more officers on the streets to show we aren’t playing with terrorist acts and they probably can get guns off of the streets. We as officers we need to engage, build trust, educate, problem solve, mobilize, focus on all threats, and keep the strategies for building community resilience. All I can say we need to work together as a team and show that we are not scared to protect our homeland. --- Softball456
ReplyDeleteGroup 4: 2 of 4
After watching the Aspen Institute’s video on Global Terrorism and Local Law Enforcement, I noticed a few things that could be changed. To keep strong ties between officers and the community they protect and serve, they can engage strong bonds and relationships with the individuals in the community. This way, the community puts faith and trust into the officers that serve them; as another slight bonus, many of the civilians can offer the officers information that could be helpful. Another helpful practice that officers can utilize is educating the town of signs of terrorism in their community. Civilians can then help officers by relaying information and keeping themselves and others safe from terrorism threats. One that I noticed in the video provided and in the handout given to me was the idea of problem solving. The handout states: “Community outreach offers officers help communities by responding appropriately to discrimination, hate crimes…” In other words, officers can help those in the community that discriminate against those of Islam descent or the Muslim religion. They can also help the community by educating those that have these discriminations and prejudices. Further in our handout, it discusses priority recommendations by outreach officers, such as focusing on all threats, keeping community policing activities separate from surveillance and investigations, and broadening the strategies for building community resilience. By focusing on all threats in a community, policing strategies can be used to handle ideologically inspired violence. By keeping community policing activities separate from surveillance and investigations, all police work is kept separate and organized. For the last additional work strategy, as stated in our text: “Police should expand beyond criminal justice models and build the capacity of communities to address the roots of terrorism, such as lack of support and opportunities for youth, using public health prevention models and targeted violence-prevention strategies…” This essentially means that officers can work with schools and weed out students that could be a threat to the community. Also to note, many citizens of a community always recognize any good deed that an officer does while on duty. By doing little things, officers can then build trust throughout the community, and place ties that are needed for any future use or reference. Getting information from informants around town can be extremely risky; informants can double-cross officers in order to get a bigger score from other criminals. When police have ties all around a city or town, the community is more willing to help put away these criminals and bad informants. Another point I noticed was made in the video was the amount of equipment a community police force needs. They used the example of Ferguson; the police force ended up bringing in tanks to handle the rioting crowds. As stated, this was a huge mistake on the communities part. The trust and faith that was put into the town was instantly erased when tanks were brought into the equation. Of course, not all communities are the same, but there was no reason to bring tanks in order to handle a rioting public. -ThisPrincessSavesHerself456
ReplyDeleteGroup 4: 3 of 4
Ever since 9/11 terrorism has been a big deal on the local, state, and federal levels. Even though homeland security was created because of the attacks on 9/11 to deal with terrorism acts. The local police are the most important on the fight against terrorism. This is because the local beat cop knows everything that goes on in there beat. They are there on the daily and they know who everyone is and everyone knows who they are. They can very easily tell when something is out of the norm or if someone tips them off that something is going on. An example of this to a normal person would be in your regular neighborhood where you live. Most of the time you know about everyone around you. When something is out of the norm everyone can see it. Or you hear about something going on from someone in your community. This is the same idea with a regular beat cop. In his beat he can tell if something is going on. Because that officer is there everyday and is apart of that community because he or she knows who people are and they know who the officer is. There are ways though first that the officer has to gain the communities trust to even see or hear these things. It all starts with engaging with the people in the community and the different community based organizations to have them gain your trust and for you to also gain their trust. These community based officers are also there to educate and teach the people of the community about hate crimes, police work, different community resources to battle violent extremism and how to prevent it. These officers also need to be problem solvers for the community. This is by helping the community respond the correct way to discrimination, and islamophobia. They can also assist community members in accessing available social, legal, and mental and physical health concerns of the people. They also educate the people on the different threat levels and how to properly respond to them. These local police officers are and will continue to play the biggest role on the fighting against terrorism. There are countless times where there has been a plot for some sort of terrorism act and the local police officer was the one that noticed something odd in the community and investigated and stopped that person from commiting that act of terrorism. This is because these local cops are from that area and know what is going on in the community and when something is wrong or someone is acting out of the norm. Even though if a terrorist act occurred, the federal government would eventually take over the investigation, the local police would still be playing a vital role in that investigation just because of the fact that they know the area and what goes on way better than anyone else and could help the most. Trojan456
ReplyDeletepart 1 of 2..
As an important part of handling terrorism with law enforcement, a key thing that stood out to me in the article and what was mentioned here and there throughout the video was the relationship between the community and police officers. I think it is smart to gradually build a one on one relationship with many people throughout the community for not only getting to know it and the people you build these relationships with like the back of your hand but also building that trust with the people within the community. It is very common for people to have a negative view on police officers and has been that way for a long time but I think one of the tasks police officers today should try to take on is of course building that trust. This will make it much easier for the community to build trust and easier to talk and get information when needed. Focusing on all threats is another important factor when it comes to terrorism. I feel like our country bases terrorism on one specific group of people after 9/11 and so when possible terrorist attacks hit, we don't even know if we should categorize it that or not. In my opinion, any act of violence towards a large group of people whether you are from this country or not is an act of terrorism. So focusing on all threats and not just selected ones and looking at the meaning behind one's actions can help us identify acts of terrorism. The role of a police officer is to also educate the community on possible terrorist attacks, suspensions of what that might look like and how to go about that if it were to happen. As a police department, I feel that is is very important to not only make sure your whole department has knowledge of this but people in the community as well for safety needs no matter where they go. In the video we watched in class, Mitch Landrieu the mayor of New Orleans and Jane Harman a former US representative for congress both spoke on this topic which was very informational. It was mentioned in the video that a gang war had taken place in a park which resulted in 23 people getting shot and surprising happened again within two weeks of each other. With that being said, I do agree that police officers need more training and knowledge about these attacks (because that is what that was) and more police officers are needed out on the streets for patrol. At the end of the day, the goal to fighting terrorism to to keep our country safe with the tools and skills to do so but most importantly giving knowledge to the community you work for and relationships within. Hiwelcometochilis456
ReplyDeletepart 2 of 2...
The video that went over terrorism in the United States was an interesting and informative way
ReplyDeleteof going over the chapter for class. What I really enjoyed about this video was as opposed to the
others which mostly just had one person as a speaker, this one had two people contributing to the
event. Although some of it was political, with two speakers, we were able to listen to two
different ideas and approaches about the topic of terrorism with the United States. Once you
were able to look past some of the political motivation behind each person’s point of view, you
were able to take away some really interesting views and even ideas for how the United States
can handle terrorism. When many people including myself hear the word terrorism, the first
thing that comes to mind is someone from outside the country that wanted to create chaos on the
US. What both speakers really emphasized and I can agree with is that many of the terror attacks
that do go on in this country are not from outside the country, but are people who have been
brought up in our own country and have lived among us their entire life. What was a great
example one of the speakers made was how the US wants to obviously lower crime here, so they
spent money on law enforcement in Columbia to lower crime over there, thinking it will help
lower our crime here. But when it comes to spending money on our own local police
departments in the states, people are very quick to look at the budget and not want to spend the
same money that was spent on law enforcement in another territory. When it comes to the large
disasters that get national coverage, the first ones that respond and deal initially with the
situation, are the police officers at our local police departments. While the feds get involved and
eventually take over things, they are not the ones who respond to the crisis; it’s our police
officers and EMTs who work in our communities. An idea I really liked from one of the speakers
was instead of putting money and resources into a new task force to focus on domestic terrorism,
take that same money and resources and put it into our police departments in our country. Train
more police officers to deal with preventing terrorism by focusing on the relationship with the
community and police. With an increase in trust in police from the community, crimes and
suspicious activity reports will increase substantially. More reports about suspicious activity or
behavior can help prevent many potential terrorist attacks that happen today. Although much of
the talk in the video was political to an extent, the messages and ideas that lie behind those
political pushes can be taken and hopefully used together in the future, as I think we can all agree
regardless of political association, that if we can prevent some of these terror attacks we should
work together to do so.
Group 4: 4 of 4
After watching the video and doing my own little research about law enforcement and terrorism I was able to form a few thoughts about the matter. First, I would like to say that I totally agree with the video when it states that we are adequately equipped as we need to be to stand against terrorism. I say this because the local and state police departments do not have enough of the proper equipment to deal with a terrorist attack. Though it is good to have a great interaction with the communities so that they can get the sense of something wrong, or the communities trust them enough to inform them of a problem; however, it is still not enough to prevent terrorism from taking place. Thinking on the terrorist attacks in San Bernardino and Orlando, the first responders were patrol and traffic officers. The had none of the proper equipment to protect or confront attackers with explosives or high-powered weapons. In my opinion we need to establish more of the proper equipment in for these officers to deal with big issues like this. Instead we send in marine tanks to deal with smaller issues like the Ferguson incident. We need to properly prioritize when it comes to terrorism. Second, I would like to say that we need more than then the local law enforcement handling terrorist attacks. We need actual military personnel and people trained to help assist in situations like 9/11 or San Bernardino and Orlando. I say that because the local law enforcement only can do so much on their own. Yes, they can go into the communities and get the right information, but the people will only say so much to a police officer. That is where the tactics of computerized information finding comes in and the knowledge of nuclear weaponry comes into play. Officers are not taught in depth about all those things as someone working for the FBI or the military would be so I think it is in best interest that the merge together and take of the task of fighting against and preventing terrorism.
ReplyDeletePart 1/4
How important is it for law enforcement to be on the front lines regarding terrorism?
DeleteThis is a question that can be answered in different ways, mainly due to the fact that one size does not fit all and every community in the country. Yet, there is an agreement on all fronts to let people on the ground (local law enforcement) find out what is going on in their towns. Local law enforcement, has ties with community and religious leaders who can reach out to those in the community. So in terms of local law enforcements importance in dealing with terrorism, I feel that they play an extremely important role, with the assistance of local civil/religious leaders in their community. Public safety is goal of all law enforcement, but whenever something does happen, local cops are always first on scene, due to their training they know how to act in certain situations.
It starts with training not just while being a police officer, but in college, people who want to become cops have to take classes, that will teach them how to build bridges between them and the community they serve. For instance, communication, religious, and foreign language classes can be useful tools when dealing with the local community. It is essential to listen and learn while in school. Local cops need to use what they have learned and put it to the test out in the community. A lot of trust, and good faith needs to be shown on the part of local law enforcement, in order to be able to share information that can be useful in keeping the public safe. If and whenever something does happen in this country, most of the time local law enforcement have persons of interest already in mind, most likely due to information given to them by those in the religious community. Due to the fact that police work with citizen organizations, such as neighborhood watch, and other organization that partner with local law enforcement.
If a terrorist attack occurs It makes more sense to listen to the people on the ground. Especially those people who know people who have the right kind of information needed in moving forward. If that line of communication is not there, or in place at all, then there is total confusion, and chaos. Intelligence is the name of the game, intelligence at the local level can come in different forms. It is up to the local cops to sift through that information and share it with state/federal authorities. Knowledge is power, the right knowledge can save lives or prevent a terror attack from occurring. More needs to be done to cultivate the relationship between local cops and the communities they live in and serve. Local law enforcement is not only vital, but is essential, in terms of importance on being at the front lines of combating or preventing terrorism or terrorist acts from occurring. When properly funded, trained, and equipped local law enforcement can and will properly handle anything relating to terrorism.
Part 2/4
It’s clear after learning more about this subject that law enforcement is the first line of defense against terrorism and they are essential in the quest to protect the homeland against domestic and international threats but I feel that through this message there is still much to learn on this topic. For example when we learned a brief bit about how the local officers needed to cooperate with other departments and jurisdictions when exactly is that appropriate? How much information needs to be already gathered in order to contact people from other jurisdictions to come help you? Even then, when you do contact them, will those other groups be able to act in an accurate manner that will truly prevent an incident? In the Parkland incident and many other incidents the FBI and local law enforcement have known about the impending threats and have taken measure to try to deter the actions of the deranged killer but ultimately they don’t do enough. Though of course I’m sure that our perspective through the lens of hindsight makes it clear to us that not enough was done though when these departments were handling the situations perhaps they had thought they were taking a reasonable amount of action. Of course though this begs the question of how many other people are among our communities that have also seen the lacking measures taken to prevent a terrorist incident. Is it tens or hundreds? The police and FBI are working with millions of people across our nation each day and there doesn’t really seem to be any standard proceedings for how we can help these officers prevent these tragedies, they may need a set of guidelines perhaps or perhaps they require further executive abilities. Maybe to further solve these issues we need our legislators at the federal and state levels to crack down on things that are often red flags for terrorists. Perhaps we need to pursue illegal firearms with the same level of intensity that we pursue drugs, perhaps we need to seperate people who are on psychiatric medication from their firearms or maybe we need to do government sanctioned checks to make sure that children don’t have access to their parents firearms. Drawing lines in the sand against red flags for terrorists may not deter the attempts for people who wish to commit awful crimes because their intents are already illegal but these measures would at least give the respondents or investigators the abilities that they require to handle these situations appropriately. It’s evident that terrorism isn’t something we can strictly narrow down to particular communities so facilitating all of the police in all of the communities across the nation is the logical measure as I understand it. This isn’t an easy topic to discuss in the current political climate where people wish to argue about Second Amendment Rights, what action should be taken in regards to illegal immigrants, what should be done in regards to refugees who wish to find a place of shelter within the United States or really any of the other hot button issues in the nation but if we wish to ensure the safety of our nation and the people in it we need to cut ties to these firm politically partisan ideologies and identities so that we can collectively begin working to solve the issues at hand rather than trying to stake moral superiority over one another.
DeletePart 3/4
DeleteIn class we did things a little differently, instead of going over a chapter with powerpoint slides and a lecture; we watched a video over local law enforcement and global terrorism with the Mayor of New Orleans and it was really informal and amazing to see someone other than my teachers thoughts on terrorism . What most people fail to realize is that our local law enforcement are the first in line for defense. The local law enforcement are interacting with people in the community 365 days a year and 24 hours a day. I tend to believe that if something was wrong, that the local law enforcement would be the first to notice. They interact with the communities so much that they would notice even the slightest change. We need to be prepared for an attack every day because it could happen at any moment, we do not know when the next one could be happening. I have heard some people talk about how the terrorist attackers are all foreigners, but when we take a step back and look, they can be any day people that we interact with, could be planning an attack. Local and state officers need to be trained in all the more areas to detect terrorism. Some people would think that is a little too much because the officers could make a big deal out of nothing, well I think it would be better safe than not do anything about something and something happens. I think even training members in the community to becaome more informed about things that would possibly lead to a terriost attack. This is a huge problem among all and it needs to be fixed. 9-11 was one of the terrorist attacks that changed the lives of a lot of people in society. The individuals who attacked us that day were highly trained individuals working with people who were known as the biggest terrorist in the world. The F.B.I. has more of the proper equipment to protect the rest of us and detect terrorism, and I think every local law enforcement agencies should have some. Everyone possible should be looking out for terrorism and protecting the communities. Every agencies, no matter what rank in the country they are should all come together and work together to help with this issue. It is teamwork and trusting one another. I never really looked at terrorism in the way until now. This really opened my eyes even more than before. I know I have said it before and other too, but this is a serious issue that needs some serious fixing, sooner rather than later before something bad happens.
~Dance 456 -Acquit 456. -TJGirl 456 -TaxSeason 456
Part 4/4
I have never really thought that there was a connection between local law enforcement and global terrorism. Until our class watched a video called "Connecting the dots between local law enforcement and global terrorism" I would never have thought of it in the way that the two people spoke about these two topics in the video. A few key things that personally stood out the most to me were how everyone agreed that communities and the local law enforcement both could do better with Relationships, the costs of different aspects, and what most believe could help the nation with terrorism. When most people think of the relationship between law enforcement and communities the first topic is usually police involved shootings and their use of force. While I agree that there has been unnecessary cases, not everything that local law enforcement has done has been bad or to the extreme of killing. On the other hand the people living in the communities are not all perfect either. The civilian side has made it harder and harder for the police to feel safe. I understand that the death of someone breaking the law does not have to be the outcome, but at the same time if the people of the communities were not breaking the law to begin with they may not be having the run ins per-say with their local law enforcement. The next topic that they talked about that caught my attention was when they were talking about cost. The federal government has cut costs everywhere for a lot of things one of them being law enforcement. What caught my attention the most was how when our nation goes to war or when we worry about protecting our borders the cost is never a question and is very rarely brought up. The last main point that caught my attention was when they were talking about what they think could help in a big way and it makes sense. They very briefly talked about how more law enforcement officers and more technology would be beneficial. This could help in major way especially since the technology in today's society is only getting better and better and with more technologies and equipment available it is getting harder for law enforcement to do their job effectively with running into so many issues with what the law enforcement officers can and cannot do legally. Now obviously there is no such thing as one hundred percent security and I don't think we could ever get to that point but we could definitely do more to strengthen our nation. I realized after watching this video and talking briefly in class that our local law enforcement officers do in fact play a huge role in connection with the global terrorism. Our local law enforcement officers are the ones that know our neighborhoods most of the times inside and out. They know who lives in our communities and what most of the community is involved in. What gets harder is the rural areas because they are not populated like the cities. People live further away from each other and are not "in the open". Tanker456 group5 pt 1
ReplyDeleteTo be frank there is no way to actually end terrorism. He or she will still find a way to do this activity if he or she actually wanted to and that’s the sad reality of it. Terrorism happens very much in the communities that the person is from. Terrorism is normally the act of hatred. The person committing the crime is acting out of resentments, that not only harm their targets, but others around. I believe that if one was to look into the past dealing with terrorism, he or she could learn the depth of it and try to find mechanism to help prevent them. When it comes to the law I think that yes more can be done on their end, but at the same time it cannot. If they don’t have the funds, nor the enough body count how does one expected them to do more? It’s impossible; however, I do believe if law officials teamed up more could be accomplished. If the FDA, FBI,COPS, US MARSHALS, US GOVERNOR, and etc teamed up a lot could change. While watching this video about connecting dots between global terrorism and local law enforcement a lot of this was covered. Like they stated in the video police officers need to be trained and trained differently for occasions like this. The cops budget was cut short, but that doesn’t help prevent terrorism. With limited resources cops hands are tied. I like that they have the See Something, Say Something campaign. This campaign helps save lives if one was to think about it. Thousands of lives can be saved based on one person speaking up and taking action. Another thing is that in order to prevent terrorism the people need to know that they have someone in their corner that they can trust. If the community do not have trust in the police departments this will not work. Communication is key, but if there is no communication then positive results can not come out of this. The people need to trust the police and the police need to have trust in the people. Another thing that stood out is that if the president his or herself doesn’t protect homeland security is not a good president. I agree with that 100 percent. Homeland security works in the civilian sphere to protect the United States within, at, and outside its borders. Its stated goal is to prepare for, prevent, and respond to domestic emergencies, particularly terrorism. However is the president cannot protect homeland security, how can homeland security protect us. There is never a thing of 100 percent security. The weakness in our system has grown stronger, while terrorism has grown stronger. The two should not be at the same rate, terrorism should be decreasing while ou systems increase. In order to help decrease terrorism not only does police need to be more informed, but so does the people. Everyone needs to engage in the matter, build trust in each other, educate one another, and solve the problem. Although that sounds easier said than done, hard work needs to be applied. (Equality 456) group 5 pt 2
ReplyDeletePatrol officers job is to present and prevent patrol officers is a necessity when it comes to terrorist attack for the simple fact that they are the first to any scene and they see the day to day where the FBI, CIA etc. only see the incident which they must be called. Depending on the officer and how he patrols his beat but if he does it correctly he should know who go with who, who is the top dog of that block etc. He can do this by simply just getting out his car and walking his beat communicating with his specified community even if he is doing little things by letting the kids play in his patrol car or asking about their day. Patrol officers must ENGAGE one on one relationships to open communication channels Patrol officers are the real eyes and ears but there aren’t enough officers but it’s simple we need more. BUILD TRUST be willing to establish a honest base and discuss sensitive topics that’s going on in the world we live in like terrorism hate crimes etc. once we do that than we EDUCATE teach the communities about police work and community relations and about terrorism. Once we’ve engaged the community-built trust and educated the community then we can solve the problem in an appropriate manner. But budget in the United states is far under that we had to cut some departments in the federal building that protected the homeland and its okay to do that if our first responders are trained but they are not so if we where to have a massive terrorist attack are first responders will be responding with no training could be more than they can handle and even deadly for them. So, in the meantime agencies need to somehow find a way to implement this type of training with in their department. Don’t settle for just training your department go further then that and start making programs to address the situation even though do to the bridge that have kind of been burnt between the agencies in their perspective communities do to the encounters with some officers its gone take a while for the community to come around but I do believe in REACH ONE TEACH ONE so if we can just reach one person at a time then can then go and teach one of their peers which can get the rain in motion. Going over it today in class really made me sit back and think that being a law enforcement is more to it than just an occupation where you enforce the law when you take that oath you promise to protect and serve no matter the problem you got to come up with a solution on the fly and from reading, hearing and seeing this just makes me respect what it is our law enforcement officer do on the day to day biases, and makes me what to be a part of something that’s bigger than just law enforcement. Junior345 group 5 pt 3
ReplyDeleteThe import of the local police officer in combating terrorism cannot be overstated.The FBI has greater jurisdiction, the ATF has (allegedly) greater expertise in the means of terrorist attacks, and the DHS unifies more agencies than ever before, but all of them must ultimately adopt a “Have Gun Will Travel” methodology. Each officer must move around the country, covering a wide swath of territory in pursuit of justice. It would be cost prohibitive, even for the notoriously irresponsible federal government, to maintain as many FBI agents as there are local police officers in the United States. The federal, or even state officer, therefore, trades his knowledge of locale in for knowledge of a specialty, whether that is investigation, firearms, arson, homicide, or some other esoteric discipline. Whether this should be viewed as a trade up or a trade down is ultimately in the hands of each officer, as no man can make that determination for him.
ReplyDeleteEven so, the knowledge of locale provided by a local police officer is indispensable. Their knowledge of the streets, the informants, the players, the interests at work, are all valuable tools in the toolbox of justice. More than that, the police officer knows the community, having hopefully cultivated interpersonal relationships within the community during their career. The officer should be intimately familiar with fluctuations that occur to disrupt their beat. A sudden influx of college aged students waving the execrable hammer and sickle of Communist Russia should always serve as an alarm, lest that pernicious and pathological ideology corrosively entwine itself in a community. Regrettably, not all changes will be so obvious. But hermits keeping strange visiting hours, a change in the neighborhood’s mood for the worse, or an all too sudden silence at the wrong time might be clues that would be otherwise imperceptible to law enforcement officers from outside of the community. Indeed, the value of the local law enforcement officer is that he is a local, and a fellow citizen with a stake in how his community is run. The abyss of separation between ‘us’ the police and ‘them’ the public that seems all too frequently to be growing is a problem that must be confronted, now rather than later. The peace officer exists, by his nature, to keep the peace, and to uphold that peace, he must know the peace that is expected. To be an outsider is to perish, and in so doing, to perish miserably.
The limit of the peace officer is in his verisimilitude: rarely can he be a specialist when he is thoroughly occupied with being a generalist. He may know his streets, but rarely will he know the finer points of bomb making and defusing as a counter terrorist specialist should. He may recognize that Nadir Soofi is behaving suspiciously, but will he consciously connect him to the Islamic State that he has seen only in the news? For this reason, as integral as a local peace officer may be to an investigation, he, like all of us, must know when to listen to experts in the field.
In the inimitable words of Dirty Harry: “A good man’s gotta know his limitations.”
-Arsenal456