Monday, February 11, 2013

Officer Safety Uber Alles: Christopher Dorner and the "Rickoverian Paradox"




The intrepid Captain Phillip Tingirides of the Los Angeles Police Department has come down with a sudden case of “Blue Flu.” This is an oddly selective malady, one that only afflicts police officers. “Sick-outs” are a common police union tactic in contract disputes with municipal governments. In this case, the epidemic appears to be contained in the Tigirides household, where the bold and valiant captain is cowering in fear of his former comrade, Christopher Dorner.

“This month, it will be 33 years on the Los Angeles Police Department,” Tingirides told the Orange County Register. “I have had a number of threats and very rarely do I take them seriously. In this case … I’m taking it very seriously…. I recognize I am susceptible to his violence.”

Little in Tingirides’s official bio would suggest that danger has been his constant companion. Early in his career he patrolled such grim and forbidding territories as Wilshire and Hollywood before being promoted to such assignments as Prostitution Enforcement Detail, Community Relations, and the Vice Unit. 

His career has been devoid of measurable peril, even by the standards of law enforcement – which is one of the least risk-laden occupations in contemporary life. This helps explain why Tingirides has been hiding out in his home, surrounded by a phalanx of timid and trigger-happy police bodyguards who are entirely willing to open fire on innocent people if they come within eyeshot. 

“I haven’t been able for the last few days to go outside my house,” whined Tingirides to the Register. “Am I afraid? Well, I hesitate to use that word – but I saw what he did to his attorney.” The attorney to whom he referred was Randy Quan, who represented Dorner during the 2008 disciplinary hearings that resulted in Dorner’s dismissal from the LAPD for supposedly lying about abusive conduct by another officer. Lying about a Mundane is part of a police officer’s job description; lying about a fellow officer is simply impermissible.

Dorner is believed to be the assailant who shot Quan’s 28-year-old daughter, Monica. That young woman was apparently killed for the same reason the Obama Regime murdered 16-year-old Abdel al-Awalki: Someone habituated to criminal violence decided that the child was guilty of having an irresponsible parent. 

Tingirides was chairman of the three-officer “board of rights” that upheld the decision to terminate Dorner’s employment, and the stalwart captain was mentioned by name in the vengeful ex-cop’s online “manifesto.” 

 Back in August 2011, Captain Tingirides was interviewed on the beach near Torrance to promote a youth “Surf Camp” program. Despite the fact that he had grown up within easy distance of the shore, that interview represented the first time he had ever attempted to surf. 

The time devoted by Captain Tingirides to producing that PR spot for the LAPD constituted the most danger-intensive hour of his career. Surfing is a far riskier activity than working as a law enforcement officer. The risks are particularly acute for surfers who have the misfortune of encountering police, as David Perdue can testify.

Last Thursday, as the LAPD’s institutional panic escalated, Perdue visited a beach near the site of Tingirides’s 2011 press stunt to enjoy some early morning surfing. He happened to be driving a pickup truck that resembled the vehicle being driven by Dorner. Two officers flagged Perdue down, determined that he wasn’t the suspect, and then let him go. Scant seconds later, two other officers rammed their vehicle into Perdue’s truck and opened fire.
It was Perdue’s immense good fortune that the assailants were police officers – which means that their marksmanship was poor enough to make the typical Imperial Stormtrooper from Star Wars look like William Tell. Although he wasn’t shot, Perdue suffered a concussion and a shoulder injury.

Robert Sheahen, Perdue’s attorney, described the episode as one of “unbridled police lawlessness.” The Department offered Perdue the same perfunctory apology it had issued to two women who were shot at by another security detail guarding the home of another LAPD luminary. The LAPD has thus established itself as a greater threat to public safety than the “rogue” cop they are pursuing: While Dorner’s alleged crime spree targeted a narrow cohort – police officials and their families -- the police have engaged in indiscriminate violence against innocent citizens.

The manhunt for Dorner has involved the deployment of thousands of police personnel and the use of unmanned aerial drones. It will cost tax victims in Los Angeles and elsewhere millions of dollars in overtime. This means that the police involved in the pursuit – who are already trained to be risk-aversive – will have a financial incentive to prolong the exercise as long as possible. So it shouldn’t surprise us that the police, who are preoccupied with the sacred imperative of “officer safety,” have turned to the public for help in solving the crime.
LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has offered a $1 million reward – provided by private interests; all the available public money will probably be devoured by police overtime -- for information leading to the arrest and capture of Dorner.

“We will not tolerate anyone undermining the security of this community,” mewled Villaraigosa. “We will not tolerate this reign of terror.” LAPD Chief Charlie Beck also characterized Dorner’s shooting rampage, as “domestic terrorism.”

Who, exactly, is being “terrorized”? The productive public at large has been going about its business without facing any discernible risks from Dorner, whose only identified would-be victims are either police officers or their families (who have done nothing to injure anybody, of course).

The only way that private citizens could collect the reward for Dorner’s capture would be for them to take risks that police aren’t willing to run. For example: A citizen or privately employed security guard wouldn’t be able to ram an unidentified truck and open fire on its driver, or spray gunfire in a residential neighborhood, without facing criminal charges.

In the official reaction to Dorner’s rampage, we see an unusually candid manifestation of the “Officer Safety Uber Alles mentality that defines police work. From their perspective, the population exists to protect and serve the police, rather than the reverse. This brings to mind the concept of Rickover’s Paradox, which I encountered in a science fiction novel decades ago. According to author Vonda McIntyre, the scenario was used to test the moral attitudes of officer candidates at the U.S. Naval Academy.

The most famous version of this conundrum is the following:

Two individuals, the only survivors of a tragic shipwreck, are adrift in a small, damaged lifeboat. The water is pitilessly cold and infested with ravenous sharks. The boat itself is irreparably damaged in such a way that it will only be able to carry one of its occupants. If nothing is done, both occupants will perish. But whichever is cast into the sea will die very quickly.

One of those aboard the stricken lifeboat is a highly trained officer with valuable – perhaps irreplaceable – technical skills. A huge sum has been spent on his training, which makes him all but irreplaceable.

The other refugee is an innocent and law-abiding person of no particular achievements or aptitudes. Few if any would notice that person's absence, and the community at large would be impoverished in no discernible way if he were thrown overboard.

Since only one can be saved, which of the two should it be?

The only morally sound answer to this predicament –assuming that the military is actually the institution it pretends to be – would be for the officer to sacrifice himself on behalf of the civilian. This isn’t because there is a natural duty on the part of any individual to sacrifice himself for another, but rather because the officer had freely chosen that duty, and refusing to carry it out would invalidate the entire stated purpose of having a military establishment in the first place. Any other course of action would be based on the assumption that the civilian population exists to defend the military, rather than the reverse.

Although this parable is supposed to instill an attitude of chivalry on the part of military officers,  it actually underscores the uselessness of the state as a protective institution, because human beings are not wired to sacrifice themselves on behalf of strangers – and the state is structured in such a way that those who work on its behalf always place individual and institutional self-preservation above every other consideration.

This is why tax-subsidized cowards like Phillip Tingirides are cowering behind both their tax-funded bodyguards and the public the police supposedly serves, while someone who was once a part of the state’s punitive priesthood carries out a mission of revenge against his erstwhile comrades in officially sanctioned violence and plunder

If the police are reduced to puddles of panic at the thought of dealing with one of their own, why should the public trust them – or countenance their institutional existence at all? 

If you can, please help keep Pro Libertate on-line. My family and I are immensely grateful for any and all help you can provide. Thank you, and God bless!







Dum spiro, pugno!

36 comments:

Anonymous said...

Will...great article as always. Typo alert...6th paragraph, first line, the word "short" should probably be the word "shot"

Captain Kirk

liberranter said...

Spot. On.

William, I hope this eventually makes its way into the editorial pages of every remaining "dead tree pulp" rag of every major city in the country. The points you bring up are LONG overdue to be rubbed in the faces of not only officialdom by the general public these officials ostensibly "protect and serve."

We can always dream, can't we?

Chris Mallory said...

Targeting families is SOP for both the military and the police, so Dorner is just reverting to his training when he attacks the families of his ex co-workers.

Cops are civilians. Civilians are government employees not in the military. People who don't work for the government are citizens. I refuse to let a government thug take away my citizenship and turn me into a civilian.

Anonymous said...

"To preserve one's life is generally speaking a duty, but it may be the plainest and the highest duty to sacrifice it. War is full of instances in which it is a man's duty not to live, but to die. The duty, in case of shipwreck, of a captain to his crew, of the crew to the passengers, of soldiers to women and children, as in the noble case of the Birkenhead; these duties impose on men the moral necessity, not of the preservation, but of the sacrifice of their lives for others, from which in no country, least of all, it is to be hoped, in England, will men ever shrink, as indeed, they have not shrunk. It is not correct, therefore, to say that there is any absolute or unqualified necessity to preserve one's life. "Necesse est at eam, non at vivam," is a saying of a Roman officer quoted by Lord Bacon himself with high eulogy in the very chapter on necessity to which so much reference has been made. It would be a very easy and cheap display of commonplace learning to quote from Greek and Latin authors, from Horace, from Juvenal, from Cicero, from Euripides, passage after passage, in which the duty of dying for others has been laid down in glowing and emphatic language as resulting from the principles of heathen ethics; it is enough in a Christian country to remind ourselves of the Great Example whom we profess to follow. It is not needful to point out the awful danger of admitting the principle which has been contended for. Who is to be the judge of this sort of necessity? By what measure is the comparative value of lives to be measured? Is it to be strength, or intellect, or what? It is plain that the principle leaves to him who is to profit by it to determine the necessity which will justify him in deliberately taking another's life to save his own. In this case the weakest, the youngest, the most unresisting, was chosen. Was it more necessary to kill him than one of the grown men? The answer must be "No"- "

R v Dudley and Stephens (1884) 14 QBD 273 DC

Leon Haller said...

Another typo after "Vonda Macintyre".

Excellent article. I strongly support the individual right to keep and bear arms. That said, if we eliminated the cops, who would be empowered to make legitimate arrests and investigate crimes?

Liberty is not anarchy, nor is the Constitution a blueprint for anarchy.

William N. Grigg said...

Thanks for catching the typo.

Municipal police forces are a standing army accountable only to the corporation that employs them. They have no legally enforceable duty to protect citizens or investigate crimes against them. A police chief, unlike an elected sheriff, cannot be removed through citizen action. Thanks the the spurious concept of "qualified immunity," supplemental protections like the "Garrity" rule, and the malign influence of police unions, there is little effective recourse for citizens who are abused by police.

There are many more private security officers than government-employed police; this attests to the fact that government "law enforcement" is leaving the security market badly under-served.

Back in the early 1970s a detailed study of police patrols was conducted in Kansas City; the researchers discovered that there was no measurable benefit to routine police patrol in terms of crime abatement.

Given all of this, it's pretty clear to me that the police are at best a marginally useful institution. Mark Crovelli has offered a useful suggestion: If municipal police departments are going to exist, they should operate like fire departments -- that is, in a purely reactive, rather than pro-active, fashion. This would mean that they wouldn't be deployed to investigate and punish vices or mulct motorists for various mala prohibita. They would be limited to investigating actual crimes against persons and property and taking suspects into custody to be tried for those crimes.

You're right that the Constitution isn't a blueprint for anarchy. I do have my doubts, however, that a charter of government permitting seizure of property through eminent domain, and seizure of persons through suspension of habeas corpus, could really be considered a blueprint for liberty, either.

Shazbot Almighty said...

Anarchy is absolute liberty, Leon. The Constitution (minus the Bill of Rights perhaps) is a document that defines your enslavement. I like how Larken Rose puts it:

I'm Allowed to Rob You!

Dave said...

If one of the larger departments in the nation reacts this way to just one guy targeting them, just imagine what would happen if the state ever pushed the nearly one in three Americans who own guns hard enough for a small percentage of them to start pushing back.

Anonymous said...

You make some valid points. You also make leaps of rhetoric and logic that are unsupportable (such as claiming that the officer in question is a coward). You undermine your position with baseless statements.

kirk said...

fearing one of their own bespeaks of the recognition of the nature of what they have created, inculcated and cheered on...for use on we, the chumps, with 'paid administrative leave' for the abominations ensconced when applied to us.

the idea of 'enforcers' fearing their own is not lost on this writer, even if the presstitutes do not see, or, if they see, do not report. the hypocrisy on display is breathtaking

my absolute, total lack of faith, hope or belief in anything 'official' has been vindicated.

in the end, the fear they exhibit at what they routinely direct against us is grist for the mill that will ultimately result in a very ugly backlash against all things 'official'.

Anonymous said...

"Given all of this, it's pretty clear to me that the police are at best a marginally useful institution. Mark Crovelli has offered a useful suggestion: If municipal police departments are going to exist, they should operate like fire departments -- that is, in a purely reactive, rather than pro-active, fashion. This would mean that they wouldn't be deployed to investigate and punish vices or mulct motorists for various mala prohibita. They would be limited to investigating actual crimes against persons and property and taking suspects into custody to be tried for those crimes. "


So the Highway Patrol shouldn't enforce speed limits, but only arrest speeders if they crash as a result of speeding?

Dude, I'm on board with that! (Just wait till I get a Ferrari!)

William N. Grigg said...

So the Highway Patrol shouldn't enforce speed limits, but only arrest speeders if they crash as a result of speeding?

Ironically, my colleague at LewRockwell.com had a very good piece on that subject this morning:

http://lewrockwell.com/peters-e/peters-e300.html

Bill said...

Will, another excellent piece! Some of the ocmments reminded me of this quote:

But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.

Lysander Spooner

I think Lysander summed it up very well.

liberranter said...

I do have my doubts, however, that a charter of government permitting seizure of property through eminent domain, and seizure of persons through suspension of habeas corpus, could really be considered a blueprint for liberty, either.

Exactly, William.

Leon: On that topic, if you haven’t already done so, see here, here and here.

@Shazbot Almighty:

Good point where “anarchy” is concerned. Too many people confuse its real definition (“absence of centralized authority”) with that of nihilist violence.

@Dave at 5:53AM:

I would imagine that if the vast majority of the nation’s gun owners were to choose to rise up at once, the porcine posse would have to concede defeat. They might try to fight back, but they’d be outnumbered and ultimately outgunned, no matter how many supah-sophisticated federally-furnished “toys” they have in their armory.

@Shazbot Almighty:

Good point where “anarchy” is concerned. Too many people confuse its real definition (“absence of centralized authority”) with that of nihilist violence.

@Dave at 5:53AM:

I would imagine that if the vast majority of the nation’s gun owners were to choose to rise up at once, the porcine posse would have to concede defeat. They might try to fight back, but they’d be outnumbered and ultimately outgunned, no matter how many supah-sophisticated federally-furnished “toys” they have in their armory.

Anonymous said...

"So the Highway Patrol shouldn't enforce speed limits, but only arrest speeders if they crash as a result of speeding?"

I would put forth that at this point in our technological evolution, it would be trivial and profitable for municipalities to set up "robot" radar traps, where your speed is measured and you receive a citation in the mail or a visit from a reactionary lawman if you were going over say for example 90mph. I'm not necessarily for this, but if it would cut down on gun nuts in uniform taxing the heck out of our communities, then OK.
-njt

Eric said...

While I can certainly understand Dorner's rationale for doing what he's been doing, his attack on people who did not directly wrong him sours me on the whole idea.

Your assertion that this is the same line of reasoning used by the Obama administration on al-Awakli doesn't excuse the actions by either party.

Reading Dorner's supposed "manifesto" leads me to believe that Dorner believes himself to be a "subject matter expert" on unconventional warfare.

If he was as much as an expert as I get the impression he is coming across as, he should know that you don't win an insurgency by attacking people who are indirectly attached to people who are oppressing you.

We've tried that in Iraq and Afghanistan and only get more people who are willing to strike a blow against the Great Satan by strapping on a Semtex vest.

That all being said, it's fairly apparent that Dorner is correct about his dismissal by the fact the LAPD has re-opened the case against him for review. I'm sure that nothing will come of that but it shows that he's actually made an effect against the regime, as they don't usually backpedal so publicly.

What really interests me personally is the effect that a single person can have on an organization as large as the LAPD. Imagine an organized campaign - there would be mass chaos. It's peeling away the thin veneer of "law and order", and for that reason alone I can't help but be sympathetic to Dorner.

Better now than when things have deteriorated further than they already have.

To borrow from a movie as well as the internet, "He's the hero Los Angeles deserves, but not the one it needs right now. So they'll hunt him, because he can take it".

William N. Grigg said...

Your assertion that this is the same line of reasoning used by the Obama administration on al-Awakli doesn't excuse the actions by either party.

I agree that neither of those actions was justified. That was my point, and I regret making it so poorly.

Horace Smith said...

Stay safe Mr. Grigg. You are a national treasure. I have contributed a few bucks before and will again. My rear end is back here in Colorado in my electric wheel chair but my heart stayed in Idaho last week.


And I was there for the 26th annual meeting of a group that has anonymous in its name and have absolutely no respect for anyone who uses it as a comment signature, let alone anyone who discusses cowardice. There seems to be as lot of real Patriots on the web who won't reveal their names. But you just know they'll be real freedom fighters--someday.

Horace Smith said...

So I posted the comment and went back to my addiction with the Castle show. The last line was by a convict who told Beckett to be careful. "There is nothing more dangerous out there than a killer with a badge." I believe it.

WorBlux said...

""So the Highway Patrol shouldn't enforce speed limits, but only arrest speeders if they crash as a result of speeding?"

I would put forth that at this point in our technological evolution, it would be trivial and profitable for municipalities to set up "robot" radar traps, where your speed is measured and you receive a citation in the mail or a visit from a reactionary lawman if you were going over say for example 90mph. I'm not necessarily for this, but if it would cut down on gun nuts in uniform taxing the heck out of our communities, then OK.
-njt"

I don't thing it would to be a fine, or speed traps as we know thim. I think either insurance could have GPS in cars and issue rates based on actual driving habits, (we are already seeing partion implementations of this scheme) thus those dangerously fast would bear the cost of speeding, and simultaneously have a direct incentive to slow down.

90mph plus is likely reckless driving (willfull disregard of the saftey and property of others, causing them to fear for the same is mala per se, much like simple assault. Under some interpretations of common law, it probably could be assault.

Anonymous said...

"90mph plus is likely reckless driving"


Not in Montana. Or Nevada, or any other state where the highways are wide open.

The German Autobahns seem to handle high speed (100mph+) just fine. And if you have a car that's designed for high performance driving, like a Corvette or BMW, then you should be just fine.

khyeron said...

"90mph plus is likely reckless driving (willfull disregard of the saftey and property of others, causing them to fear for the same is mala per se, much like simple assault. Under some interpretations of common law, it probably could be assault. "

That is a remarkably short sighted comment.

I have raced some awe inspiring cars in the past, which all could run canter at a measly 90 mph (or 120 mph) perfectly steady and cleanly on nice western highways. Are you telling me that you live in a city where 20 mph is "too fast" and thus by your experience, you're a perfect judge of both man and machine and believe that your ideas should be directly imposed on everyone else through government force and insurance company financial terrorism??

That's what it seems like to me.

Walter Zoomie said...

Mr. Grigg:

I love your work. I couldn't find an email for you so I'll post this here.

This is a piece I threw together after hearing a radio broadcast yesterday.

http://walterzoomiesworld.blogspot.com/2013/02/butler-county-ohio-sheriff-salivates.html

I thought maybe you could do your magic on this joker, as you are much better at this kind of thing than I.

Keep on truckin' brother.

Chris Mallory said...

" "robot" radar traps, where your speed is measured and you receive a citation in the mail "

Sure, just as soon as your robot can be cross examined in a court of law. In Kentucky, the citizens have the right to take any offense before a jury, even a seat belt violation.

KP Ryan said...

Thank you for this, Mr. Grigg -

This is easily the best article I've come across in regards to the Dorner case.

I read somewhere earlier today that 10,000 local, county, state and federal cops were involved in this, a most massive hunt, for Dorner.

At the end of the day (if memory serves); Dorner took down 3...
And the 10,000 cops took down 3 (the grandmother and her daughter and the surfer you mentioned in your article). I can't give them another point for taking out Dorner. 10,000 cops using all the technology the State has available doesn't deserve credit for finally taking out the 1 man it's been hunting for a week.

Anonymous said...

One guy...just one. And the LAPD went into uncontrolled panic mode, throwing lead at anything that resembled the suspect's vehicle due to a lack of discipline and an inability to think under the slightest pressure. Then they willfully abandoned nearly all other duties in the hunt for one man. What would happen if they were facing ten equally trained and determined opponents...twenty...a hundred? If nothing else, this incident shows just how easy it would be to render any police department completely impotent.

MoT said...

What this whole incident has proven, yet again, is that a highly statist machine is incapable of doing what it claims it can while it fails at great expense. Watch how many of these badged buffoons will pat each other on the back and bestow medals for "bravery" after shooting innocents. It's already begun.

Bilejones said...

Mr Grigg,
Have you seen this?
http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2013/02/cleveland_police_chase_and_shooting_scene.html

willb said...

This entire episode is the best example yet of why we need
the 2nd Amendment. Of course the MSM is ignoring it and
can only harp about Princess Cruise Lines. How convenient
to have a rudderless ship full of helpless women as an
example of the need for state power. The psycho-drama
being played out on our TVs is laughable.

Dorner himself was a whining supporter of gun control as his
manifesto points out and his reasons are obvious: he was a
bully and like all bullies he was a coward at heart.

Scratch one golem, on to the next.

Anonymous said...

I am VERY surprised that the usual suspects aren't all over you for having the unmitigated audacity of speaking the truth vis-a-vis the psychopathic police officers and military personnel. The typical canned response is something on the order of "you're un-American" or "you are obviously a police hater" or some other equally dumbed-down drivel.
America has devolved into a populace of sycophantic NWO ball-washing, boot-licking handmaidens. It's refreshing to read an honest essay regarding the tyrants who pervade our once great nation. Keep up the good work and f#ck anyone who can't handle the truth.

willb said...

Oh, and BTW, if you think Dorner was a "whistle blower" for any
reason other than selfish purposes consider the fact
that though he seemed to be standing up for a mentally challenged
citizen, Dorner had no qualms about ambushing and shooting to
death a defenseless woman.

There is no altruism in this story; Dorner was a typical state
screened sick fuck: a narcissist already on the verge of crisis
looking for a reason and someone to vent his hostility including
his fellow officers who easily recognized a trait they also shared
and decided was too acute even for the police department.

Case in point: look at what happened when he didn't get his way -total meltdown.

Actually, there is nothing more enjoyable than watching a bully be bullied.

Sans Authoritas said...

Horace Smith,

Have you heard of "Publius?"

Anonymous said...

The two women out delivering papers and the surfer are going to have a nice windfall after a lawsuit. The taxpayers have deep pockets so it shouldn't be a problem.

Anonymous said...

Oh Hi could you do a write up on the Florida state trooper who killed a 51 year old grammaw in a 90mph collision and got off with not even a slap on the wrist when a fellow officer who wrote up citations didn't show up?

kirk said...

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/man-down-syndrome-loved-police-died-police-custody-183111733.html

Anonymous said...

Mr. Grigg have you heard about a company supplying DHS and other LEOs with paper targets depicting old men and women, children and a pregnant woman? It is all over the interweb tubes but here is link I just found:

http://oldranger68.com/?p=100