In the United States towns & cities police departments operate their own systems. In the City of Coatesville our police serve our community.

“It is with regret and admiration that I write to your department,” Eric Watson Sr. began his letter.

Police said Officer Jared T. Davis was on patrol in a marked police vehicle when Eric L. Watson, 29, of Coatesville, allegedly threw a large rock at Davis’ vehicle, cracking the front windshield.

Police said during the struggle to get Watson to the ground to take into custody, an officer who assisted was injured.

“The regret is that your Officer (Detective) Joseph Thompson was injured in a confrontation with my son Eric Watson,” said Watson Sr. “I would like to extend my sincere apology to the injured officer, his family and your department at this time.”

Thompson suffered from a fractured sternum. He was treated at Paoli Hospital.

“This apology I also extend to Officer Jared Davis who must have been traumatized by the experience of being attacked by Eric,” Watson Sr. said...

The Watson family had been trying to find Eric for the past two years, according to Laufer. When they heard the news, they traveled to the police station and apologized for his conduct, Laufer said. He informed Thompson, who is home recovering for the next several weeks, about the letter. Thompson told him he appreciated the note."

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“Narcissistic rage is like no other. The intensity is palpable. Logic and reason falls by the way side. They have no limits. They do not stop at the edge. They do not care if they destroy themselves, as long as they take you with them. They are willing to go to extremes and commit atrocities you could never imagine. And this is why you can't beat them. Why? I'm reminded of an old fable.

Once, there was a frog trying to cross a flooded river. As he prepared to cross to the other side on a lily pad a scorpion asked to ride with him. The frog responded, "If I let you go you still sting me." The scorpion answered, "If I sting you we will both die. Why would I do that?" So the frog acquiesced and they boarded the lily pad. Halfway across the scorpion stung the frog. As the frog lay dying he pleaded, "Why on Earth did you sting me? Now we will both die!" The scorpion answered, "Because I'm a scorpion. It's my nature."

We cannot change other people. This is especially true if you are dealing with a narcissist. Even knowing this, it's hard to grasp just how far they will go to hurt you when enraged. Their behavior sometimes defies reason and reality.”

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KELLEVISION

Narcissistic Rage: The Scorpion and the Frog

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“The Memphis police officers charged with the brutal killing of Tyre Nichols were part of a specialized unit that had been formed a little more than a year ago to help halt a surge of violence in the city.

The unit — called SCORPION, or the Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods unit — was designed as a 40-officer group that would deploy in neighborhoods, with a focus on crime hot spots. The officers have often operated in unmarked vehicles, making traffic stops, seizing weapons and conducting hundreds of arrests.

The unit was such a key part of the city’s crime-fighting strategy that Mayor Jim Strickland touted it in his State of the City address a year ago, at a time when the city was tallying record homicide numbers.

Now, that unit has been involved in a fatal encounter that Police Chief Cerelyn Davis, who created the team in the fall of 2021, called “heinous, reckless and inhumane.” Five officers have been charged in Mr. Nichols’s death, and Chief Davis has ordered a review of the unit.”

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New York Times

Special Memphis Police Unit Was Supposed to Stop Violence

Officers from the unit are now accused in the murder of Tyre Nichols.

Jan. 27, 2023

By Mike Baker

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“It is in the best interest of all to permanently deactivate the Scorpion unit,” the Police Department said in a statement on Saturday

Police officials said the decision had been reached after “listening intently to the family of Tyre Nichols, community leaders and the uninvolved officers who have done quality work in their assignments.” Cerelyn Davis, the Memphis police chief, met with other members of the unit on Saturday.

“The officers currently assigned to the unit agree unreservedly with this next step,” the department said in the statement. It added that while the “heinous actions of a few” cast a cloud of dishonor on the unit, “it is imperative that we, the Memphis Police Department, take proactive steps in the healing process for all impacted.”

Lawyers for Mr. Nichols’s family called the decision “appropriate and proportional.”

The unit — its full name is the Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods unit — had been central to efforts by city and police officials to combat persistent violence and crime at a time when the city’s murder rate had been climbing, stoking fears about public safety. Jim Strickland, the mayor of Memphis, had highlighted the unit’s importance to his crime-fighting strategy during his State of the City address a year ago.

Scorpion was launched in 2021 by Chief Davis just months after she took over the department. The group consisted of about 40 officers who drove unmarked vehicles, making traffic stops and hundreds of arrests as well as seizing weapons.

Mr. Nichols was stopped on the evening of Jan. 7 as he was headed to the home he shared with his mother and stepfather in the southeastern corner of Memphis. The video footage released on Friday that captured Mr. Nichols’s interactions with officers showed him being pulled out of his car, and he can be heard saying, “I’m just trying to go home.”

Mr. Nichols fled on foot, and when officers caught up to him, he was kicked, struck by a baton and pepper-sprayed, at one point screaming, “Mom! Mom! Mom!” He was hospitalized in critical condition and died three days later.

An independent autopsy commissioned by his family found that Mr. Nichols “suffered extensive bleeding caused by a severe beating,” according to preliminary findings.

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New York Times

Memphis Police Disband Unit Whose Officers Were Charged in Tyre Nichols’s Death

Mr. Nichols’s family and activists had demanded the scuttling of the group, the Scorpion unit, which patrolled high-crime areas of the city.

By Rick Rojas

Jan. 28, 2023

The Death of Tyre Nichols

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RE-POSTING:

Sunday, September 26, 2021

Most police officers would have instantly shot Eric Watson Jr. dead. Not in Coatesville PA. “Even during the injuring of an officer, the rights of Eric were not breached,” Watson Sr. wrote.

"Davis saw Watson approach him in his rearview mirror before Davis pulled over after driving a short distance. With the violence demonstrated toward Davis, Laufer said the officer could have justifiably used deadly force, but instead he used his judgment and pulled out his Taser – which he did not use.

“Even during the injuring of an officer, the rights of Eric were not breached,” Watson Sr. wrote.

Davis was recently verbally threatened in an unrelated incident.

Police said that Gerome Darnell Gray Jr., 22, of West Chester, allegedly threatened Davis July 9 when he attempted to disperse a group and arrested someone for disorderly conduct. According to the police and the criminal complaint, Gray reportedly said, “Davis, I’m going to f— you up.”

Coatesville police Chief Jack Laufer said when the police hear an apology, it is usually verbal.

“We don’t often get a personal apology from a family member,” Laufer said, including letters.

Both of Eric Watson’s parents apologized in person to police.

Watson Sr. thanked Davis, the Coatesville Police Department officers and the leadership by Laufer for their professionalism during the incident and their assistance afterward.

“In admiration, I want to commend the action taken by Officer Jared Davis by displaying professionalism beyond the norm in a time when madness seem to be the order of the day and the lives of the officers in blue are in danger,” Watson Sr. wrote in his letter.

This incident occurred in the midst of national protests after police shootings in July that killed Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, La., and Philando Castile in St. Paul, Minn., both black men. The assault on the Coatesville officer also came after police were killed, three in Baton Rouge and five in Dallas, in addition to those injured.

Laufer said they learned that this incident did not occur as an act of hate toward police. He said the letter showed that. He said when the community read the letter they were reassured of that and it reinforced that it was not a direct attack on law enforcement or the Coatesville police.

“I think it makes the city feel better,” Laufer said. “Was it a violent crime? Yes and he’ll have to answer for his actions. Maybe this will help him to get the help he needs.”

The Watson family had been trying to find Eric for the past two years, according to Laufer. When they heard the news, they traveled to the police station and apologized for his conduct, Laufer said. He informed Thompson, who is home recovering for the next several weeks, about the letter. Thompson told him he appreciated the note.

“They’re a good, solid family with connections to law enforcement and the military,” Laufer said about the Watson family. “Being in law enforcement (the father) appreciated how bad it could have been.”

Davis saw Watson approach him in his rearview mirror before Davis pulled over after driving a short distance. With the violence demonstrated toward Davis, Laufer said the officer could have justifiably used deadly force, but instead he used his judgment and pulled out his Taser – which he did not use.

“Even during the injuring of an officer, the rights of Eric were not breached,” Watson Sr. wrote."

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The Times Herald

Father apologizes to Coatesville police for his son’s actions

RE-POSTING:

Sunday, May 31, 2020

"resolution condemning police brutality" It’s only a resolution, but I think Pelosi will kill this. DNC leadership is behind a corporate bribery built wall. One of the biggest bribes comes from the “Police Industrial Complex.”

"They are responding to the murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis. And the murder of Breonna Taylor by police in Louisville. They are responding to the excessive use of force by police in cities across the country where protests of these murders are taking place.

"[P]olice brutality and the use of excessive and militarized force are among the most serious ongoing human rights and civil liberties violations in the United States and have led to community destabilization, a decrease in public safety, and the exacerbation of structural inequities," the resolution reads, laying out a condemnation of the system racism in law enforcement in three pages of legislative text. "Whereas the House of Representatives has a moral and constitutional obligation to protect the civil rights and liberties of all people from police abuses," the resolution continues, "be it resolved that the House of Representatives" answers.

They call for "'he adoption of sound and unbiased law enforcement policies at all levels of government that reduce the disparate impact of police brutality and use of force on Black and Brown people and other historically marginalized communities."

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DAILYKOS

Democratic lawmakers, all women of color, introduce resolution condemning police brutality

VIDEOS OF COMMUNITY - POLICE FORUM IN COATESVILLE PA ARE BELOW

We had a meeting in a tent about drugs in Coatesville. Our then Republican PA State Rep. Harry Lewis was invited. But was not there. He told my friend Elwood Dixon it was “anti-police.” I think what Harry meant was the “Community Policing” practiced by our Coatesville PD was counter to the military style policing then endorsed by the Philly PD Union, supported by the Republican Party and some Democrats on the take.

Our Coatesville PD is deeply involved in "Community Policing."

"The intensive militarization of America’s police forces is a serious menace about which a small number of people have been loudly warning for years, with little attention or traction. In a 2007 paper on “the blurring distinctions between the police and military institutions and between war and law enforcement,” the criminal justice professor Peter Kraska defined “police militarization” as “the process whereby civilian police increasingly draw from, and pattern themselves around, the tenets of militarism and the military model.”

The harrowing events of the last week in Ferguson, Missouri – the fatal police shooting of an unarmed African-American teenager, Mike Brown, and the blatantly excessive and thuggish response to ensuing community protests from a police force that resembles an occupying army – have shocked the U.S. media class and millions of Americans. But none of this is aberrational.

It is the destructive by-product of several decades of deliberate militarization of American policing, a trend that received a sustained (and ongoing) steroid injection in the form of a still-flowing, post-9/11 federal funding bonanza, all justified in the name of “homeland security.” This has resulted in a domestic police force that looks, thinks, and acts more like an invading and occupying military than a community-based force to protect the public."

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The Intercept

The Militarization of U.S. Police: Finally Dragged Into the Light by the Horrors of Ferguson

Glenn Greenwald

August 14 2014, 8:40 a.m.

"Community Policing

Acceptance of constructive change by police and the community is central to the purpose of the Police Foundation. From its inception, the foundation has understood that to flourish, police innovation requires an atmosphere of trust, a willingness to experiment and exchange ideas both within and outside the police structure, and, perhaps most importantly, a recognition of the common stake of the entire community in better police services.

The Police Foundation has done much of the research that has led to a questioning of the traditional model of professional law enforcement and toward a new view of policing–one emphasizing a community orientation–that is widely embraced today.

It was in Kansas City that the foundation learned, in a practical test, that random preventive patrol may not be the best way to deter crime. It was the foundation that was among the first to learn that shortening police response time may have little effect on the chances of a burglar or robber being caught. It was also the foundation, working jointly with the police in Houston and Newark, that began to see the advantages of foot patrol and door-to-door surveys as a way of dealing with the public’s fear of crime and disorder. It is from the foundation’s Newark Foot Patrol experiment that the “broken windows” theory is derived.

What this, and other, research revealed is that there are strategies–several of them new, some of them used in the past but discarded–that can reduce levels of perceived crime and disorder, reduce fear and concern about crime, improve satisfaction with police service, increase satisfaction with neighborhoods, and, in some cases, reduce crime itself. By staying in close contact with neighborhoods they serve, the police can identify problems at the local level, and, working with residents, respond to them.

The name for the model of policing that has emerged varies: in some places it is called community or community-oriented policing, in other places, problem-oriented policing. However it is labeled, it tends to be based on some commonly shared beliefs:

It is the job of the police to cope with problems, not just respond to incidents.
Among the problems with which the police should be concerned are those involving disorder and incivility as well as those involving serious crime.
Reducing crime and disorder requires that the police work cooperatively with people in neighborhoods to
As the most visible local agency of government on duty 24-hours a day, the police must be willing to serve as catalysts to mobilize other city agencies and services.

The movement toward community policing has escalated dramatically in recent years, due in large part to the Federal government’s commitment of billions of dollars to hire and train 100,000 community policing officers. With assistance from the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services of the U.S. Department of Justice and the national Community Policing Consortium, thousands of America’s police departments–large, medium, and small–are working to develop organizational philosophies and strategies for the implementation of community policing.

The Police Foundation is one of five leading national law enforcement organizations that joined in an unprecedented cooperative effort through the creation of the national Community Policing Consortium (CPC). Under a cooperative agreement with the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, these five organizations–the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, the National Sheriffs’ Association, the Police Foundation, and the Police Executive Research Forum–played a principal role in the development of community policing research, training, and technical assistance.

Since 1993, the foundation has provided community policing education, training, and technical assistance to more than 1,000 law enforcement agencies and communities on issues such as internal changes and shifting paradigms, partnerships and diversity, strategic planning, ethics, and integrity.

Community policing research conducted by the Police Foundation are listed below."

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Community Policing

This is community policing, the type of policing OPPOSED by our PA State Rep. Harry Lewis:

“Coatesville Police Chief John ‘Jack’ Laufer also praised law enforcement officials for their ‘good investigative work and utilizing a joint team approach.’ He said the city’s Vice Unit was able to ‘remove a sizable quantity of dangerous drugs and firearms from the streets of Coatesville.’

The fight against violent crime most often associated with the illicit drug trade requires a team approach not only within law enforcement, but also with the community we serve,’ Laufer said. “Together we can bring about positive change within the City of Coatesville.”