Policemen equipped with scary armoured gauntlets; that ought to put public relations back a couple of centuries.
Wednesday 1 June 2011
BodyGuard
Policemen equipped with scary armoured gauntlets; that ought to put public relations back a couple of centuries.
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12 comments:
Dredd would love it. Murphy, not so much.
The major purely physical problem I see is trying to use a weak-hand hold with the sidearm. AD would be a definite problem due to reduced tactile sensitivity. (Some sidearms are bad enough with just regular cold-weather gloves on, one reason for the "New York Trigger" on the Glock.)
Plus, as David points out, I can see this thing "escalating" a situation just by being on an officer's arm when they walk in. Imagine walking into a biker bar looking like a refugee from MegaCity One. Basically unhinged crowd + chemical IQ degradation + Mad Max-esque accessory = Bad Scene.
The major market I see for it would be in Second and Third World states where terrorizing the masses into obedience to the government/godhead is part of the official police mission statement. Syria, yes. Iran, definitely. The U.S.- depends on who wins the next election.
cheers
eon
And a cop walking into a biker bar wearing a truncheon and pistol doesn't send a message? Not sure what this would have over a club, as a weapon: additional semi-lethal thingie, interferes with grappling, and doesn't look too comfortable in the summer. Maybe useful when the riot cops form up into phalanges?
In the Disney movie 'Bolt', the villians in the movieworld had taser gloves, with wacky results.
You know who didn't need some fancy-pants glove? Joe Friday.
"Just the facts, ma'am." Why doesn't anyone say that anymore? Is it because it's not PC to say "ma'am"? Or are we not supposed to care about the facts?
Wesley;
(Trying again- screwed up my posting last time- oops.)
If I was the first uniform at a crime scene, and asked somebody "What happened?"- I could easily blow the case all to Hell. Because (1) going in, I'd have no idea if the person I was talking to was a perp, a witness, or a victim, and (2) I hadn't Mirandized them yet. Which meant anything they said probably couldn't be used in court, and any evidence developed from it would be excluded as well, on the "fruit of the poisoned tree" principle.
As a lab rat, my usual contact with perps and victims was restricted to when they were in the morgue wearing nothing but a toe-tag. Since ballistics (interior, exterior, and wound) was my field, generally all I had to worry about was not making a mess while determining where the bullets went in and/or came out.
When doing a GSR test (we called it "dermal nitrate" back in the Stone Age), the suspect's legal counsel generally had to be present. Which meant I was doing it with the DA's prosecutor watching as well, most of the time. All I had to worry about was not screwing up the test or the chain of evidence. The legal experts would make sure I didn't- or roast me over a slow fire if I did.
Evidence procedures make or break a case. And the ways you can screw them up, even without meaning to, are as numerous as dandelions on an average lawn. And twice as hard to eliminate unless you know exactly what you're doing.
cheers
eon
So much for Joe Friday!
Eon, it appears from your prior that our script-writing friends who dabble in crimeshow production may not be so adept if presented with a real-life whodunnit, if I read you right. It's so much nicer in the controlled worlds our minds create, where every character says and does exactly what we tell them to! Did the CSI stories get some elements right? (I'm noddingly familiar with evidence chains, but have never been more than a participant.) It must be an art to tease and wheedle the facts out of witnesses, perps, and victims. That being the case, should a plodding clodhopper such as myself try for a career in law enforcement (which I considered in younger days), he would be guaranteed a short career which likely would end immediately after darkening the academy doors. Subtlety and finesse were never my fortes.
At least I can relate to the dandelions! Cursed things. What's so dande about them?
Wesley;
I love the CSI shows- because I'm a science fiction fan. When I see Sid Hammerback on CSI:NY looking at a 3D holographic image of a body hovering in midair, or Natalia Boa Vista on CSI: Miami doing likewise with telephone voice samples, I'm reminded of "Star Trek". There may be such ultra-tech around these days, but most crime labs I know still do it all the old-fashioned way.
As for the "dramatic elements", I rarely went on "raids", did not normally wear a flak vest, and only ever fired my sidearm (a Colt MKIV Mod 70 1911A1 .45) on the range for qualification.
Generally, if us lab geeks ever saw a suspect anywhere outside of the lockup (for tests), or in court (when testifying), our conclusion was that somebody had screwed up big time. (Hopefully not us.)
As for being a "plodding clodhopper", that's what Claude Eustace Teal was supposed to be in Leslie Charteris' Simon Templar ("The Saint") stories. And Templar admitted that Claude Eustace's stolid proceduralism was as necessary to crime-solving as his own rather "unorthodox" techniques. (Charteris admitted basing Claude Eustace on the real-life Inspector Dew.)
Another good example from fiction is Inspector Richard Queen, NYPD, Ellery's dad. He, too, was based on a real-life model, the father of one of the authors, Manfred B. Lee. Believe me, without the "by the book" men and women on the street, nothing gets done. (And us lab rats have nothing to work on.) The trick is to know the book by heart, and never fail to follow it.
(No, Horatio Caine is not a good role model for investigative officers. Mac Taylor and Jim Brass, by comparison, are much better. Trust me.)
As for dandelions, the birds seem to like them, so I guess they do have an actual purpose. My lawn mower tends to deal with them efficiently enough to suit me. (If I can't see them, no problem.)
cheers
eon
Hello Eon,
Please forgive me for taking so long to get back. Family get-togethers and work made for a busy weekend.
Seems to me that with your background, expertise, and talent, you could write a pretty fair dinkum yarn yourself about criminal investigations. Have you? And if you have, have you been published?
I’ve got an admission to make: I’ve never seen a single CSI episode of any flavor. My wife controls the remote and is not into crime drama. I figure it’s a cheap price to pay to help keep her happy. However, we do both enjoy “House”, so all is not lost. I was hoping to watch an episode using Netflix streaming (those clever capitalists - ain’t progress wonderful?), but did not give myself time. I hope to remedy that soon.
Right about the dandelions. Like everything, they serve a purpose (birdfood) and they are pretty in their own right. But they do seem to displace grass with ruthless efficiency. Ditto the mower – Another example of progress I’m thankful for. And there are good targeted herbicides that do away with the dandes nicely while letting the grass thrive. The birds never seem to go hungry, thankfully. But then, we know why that is. And there’s a lot to be thankful for, even though some seem determined to shrink the blessings for the rest of us.
Wesley;
Thanks. Actually, I do some creative writing, but it's mainly in the SF vein. My few published works (under my real name) are non-fiction, mainly articles for historical magazines on such diverse subjects as WW II Luftwaffe paint formulations and Japanese "Kaiju Eiga" movies.
The basic problem with writing detective yarns from my POV is that real "detecting" just isn't very "literary". Few people would buy a book about how I, the Great Lab Beanie, plus about twenty other detectives, uniforms, deputy DA's, etc., caught the dangerous criminal who murdered a man in a rented room with a .44 Magnum. The victim was his partner in three bank holdups, and he didn't want to share the loot when he decided to blow town.
I was the one who found the sections of the 180-grain JHP bullet's jacket with the rifling marks that tied the Ruger Super Blackhawk in his car trunk to the homicide. They were stuck in the inner face of the outer wall of the building after the slug went through a wood door, the vic, and a plywood inner wall. (It was a case of "Knock, Knock." "Who's There?" "BOOM.")
When the slug hit the heavy wood outer wall's inner side, it more or less came apart from sheer astonishment. But the jacket bits were still "readable", and could be matched up to an exemplar slug under the comparison microscope.
It was his gun, proven by the rifling marks, plus his prints on it and the guy he bought it from. Up the river he went, for twenty-five to life. (No DP here then, plus I think the judge figured he owed him some slack for only killing his dimbulb accomplice, thereby removing at least one other knuckle-dragger from the gene pool.)
Factual, but not very exciting. Which pretty much defines "real" police work. Hawaii Five-O, it ain't. (Either version.)
We used to have a saying about "TV" police work;
"If anything happens in a real case that is anything like a TV cop show, it means that somebody has screwed up spectacularly. You better pray it isn't you."
Especially if the Chief, or Sheriff, finds out. His usual response will be to order a lunch of lightly-roasted cop's rump on rye. With you supplying the rump.
And that, frankly, sucks.
;-)
cheers
eon
Frankly, Eon, it sounds like the tale of the robber-turned-murderer and his dimbulb partner would make a pretty good made-for-TV movie, if done properly. Might have to focus more on the two dim ones and what they did, however, as it seems many who plunk down in front of the - well, it's not a boob-tube anymore; have to think of an appropriate honorific that rhymes with screen or panel now, I suppose - wouldn't have the patience for learning the investigative details. Still, throw in a dash of cool science-fiction ways of getting to the answers, and that could hold the audience. But it's pretty amazing how many things have to go right in an investigation (especially the one you mentioned) to get the court conviction. Another thing going for your investigation is it's a lot more interesting than most TV detective show crime unravelings; an example of truth trumping fiction.
(By the way, great style regarding: "When the slug hit the heavy wood outer wall's inner side, it more or less came apart from sheer astonishment.")
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