Police Rethink 'Always Armed' Policy

Police Rethink 'Always Armed' Policy

Nov 27, 2005

By RAY HENRY

Associated Press Writer

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) -- An old police tradition of requiring off-duty officers to carry their weapons - "always armed, always on duty" - is being scaled back in police departments nationwide, increasingly being blamed for the deaths of officers shot by colleagues who thought they were criminals.

The policy requires officers to respond to crimes even when they're not on duty. Supporters also say that letting officers carry their guns off-duty protects them from crooks bent on revenge.

<snip>

The policy is at the center of a $20 million civil rights lawsuit being heard this month in Providence, where Sgt. Cornel Young Jr. was killed in 2000 while he was off duty and trying to break up a fight. He was dressed in baggy jeans, an overcoat and a baseball cap, and carrying a gun.

<snip>

"If an officer has this tunnel vision, and all he sees is the gun, he may not see the badge hanging on the detective's chest," Klinger said.

<snip>

"Unless police officers are trained, they do stupid things on both sides of the coin," Fyfe said.

More at:

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/ARMED_OFF_DUTY?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US

Cornel Young Jr. was killed by two uniformed police officers While he was responding to their same call. Young was providing backup.

Young was shot by an on duty cop that had been on the job 8 days.
The other cop that shot Young, was in Young's graduating class at the acamdemy.

The only people who were untrained were those on duty.

Either that or the rumors that Young was killed intentionally because he was Black or Bisexual are true.

This "news" story is false and an attempt to save face for a digusting incident in this city. This AP MOFO really needs to stop reading only the wire and go down to Fidas (scene of the crime) and do some fucking homework.

It wasn't blaming the off-duty officers. It was trying to prevent exactly these types of situations in the future. Poor training and recklessness by an on-duty officer may be responsible for many of these situations, but is not possible to eliminate.

Unless you think Young was killed deliberately, that is. The fact that one of the on-duty officers was in his graduating class is suggestive. I don't think it's conclusive -- I wouldn't recognize most of my HS or college graduation class in a strange place at night dressed in an unaccustomed manner.

i do for even third grade.


Again, no one bothers to do homework on Rhode Island issues and the way the Providence Journal organizes their website,...I don't blame them.