[simoncion]

Aside from your first sentence, and your (entirely reasonable!) opinions about the difficulty of providing proper training to civilian police, I agree almost entirely with your commentary. [0]

The core of my objection to police personnel calling non-police "civilians" is twofold:

* It lets police benefit from the competency halo projected by the military and their training when -in fact- most police get precious little training.

* It seeks to create a deep division between the police and the communities they serve. Police should be members of (and get to know) the communities that they police.

[0] It's important that cops be able to react with force to uncontrollable, imminently dangerous situations. However, I expect that those situations pretty much never actually happen. ;)

[woodman]

We generally are in agreement, just for different reasons. Whatever cache that halo might have bought them is long gone, thanks to the media's collective realization that stories of police misconduct are of public interest - with no ill effect on the popular opinion of the military (that I have noticed). I think civilian police are just trying to find a way of distinguishing themselves from those subject to their protection, which as you said, creates a deep division. I think they'd change their mind if the cost was trading their constitutional protections for the UCMJ... freedom has a flavor that those who have never been subject to an article 134 will never know :)