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Alton Sterling shooting.


James Arryn

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1 hour ago, Commodore said:

the problem is cops (whether by training or lack thereof) treating every interaction with a citizen as if they were a violent criminal

I agree.  At some point the streets started being treated as a war zone.  Some police want to pretend the us vs them attutude is coming from the other side but that isn't how it's playing out.  

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I knew a few guys from hs who became cops, and each one became at least somewhat racist over time; even a black guy. It's all wrapped up in that us vs. them thing, but honestly, to hear them talk it's really clear and simple: black guys are natural criminals, guards up when they're around, and this is in fucking Canada.

 So sad to see people I knew go down that path. And it seems endemic, dunno how to fix it, because they already view any contrary opinion as ignorant politically correct bullshit from people who don't have to face 'the truth' on the streets.

 

All that said, and w/o turning this into a soapbox, IMO a lot of these kinds of shootings don't happen where civilians aren't allowed to carry people-killing guns. Much more cut and dried: gun means danger/crime. Cops won't be second guessing and innocent civilians won't be taken for mortal dangers because they're doing something legal. That's me done on this aspect.

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The only hope I see for combatting this violence is that bystanders are getting the video evidence out when these atrocities happen.  

"I was scared" may be an excuse for a civilian to fire in a tense situation given the right circumstances.  Gun carrying professional law enforcement can be trained not to jump to pushing a trigger.  And the ones who cannot train to subdue their adrenaline response shouldn't be carrying lethal weapons.  

As it stands, every shooting by a cop who mistakenly thought he saw a threat is giving cover to a shooting by another cop who just happened to feel like hurting someone that day.  

One can be fixed with better policies, the other is criminal.  And both need to be eradicated.  

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3 minutes ago, Arakan said:

The USA has a clear Problem with police Training. It seems every idiot can become a police officer.

It's worse than that. There are two fundamental issues which lead to this happening over and over again. The first is that a substantial fraction of US police forces appear to have the mentality of an occupying force in hostile territory and the communities they patrol reciprocate this mentality. The police buy hand-me-down military equipment from the armed forces and will generally defend one of their own as if they are soldiers fighting an enemy rather than members of the same community as the people they're dealing with.

Second, the legal system gives them too much leeway. What happened in Baton Rouge is effectively a summary execution and if a member of the actual military did that overseas, they'd be in trouble because the military has a system for dealing with such actions. It's not perfect, but at least somebody has given the issue some thought and tried to avoid conflicts of interest. We don't really have such a system for the police -- they are generally investigated by their peers and the prosecutors who are supposed to be trying to convict them are on the same "side" as the accused (and also need to keep the good will of their peers). In a high profile case like this one, the federal government might step in, but they simply don't have the resources to conduct investigations of most police misconduct. Furthermore, the law itself (not an actual law, but a Supreme Court decision) gives the police a great deal of latitude.

The result of all this is that even if the officers are trained, they treat every encounter as potentially dangerous and have absolutely no compunction about using deadly force at the slightest hint of a threat to themselves. They're acting rationally in that their policy minimizes their personal risk. In 2016 so far, 53 police officers died in the line of duty, but this includes causes like accidents and heart attacks. If you combine their statistics for gunfire and vehicular assault, you'll get something like 30 casualties which is quite low for an entire nation of gun enthusiasts. On the other hand, the number of people killed by police is somewhere around 500 (i.e. more than an order of magnitude greater than the number of police deaths).

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7 minutes ago, Altherion said:

It's worse than that. There are two fundamental issues which lead to this happening over and over again. The first is that a substantial fraction of US police forces appear to have the mentality of an occupying force in hostile territory and the communities they patrol reciprocate this mentality. The police buy hand-me-down military equipment from the armed forces and will generally defend one of their own as if they are soldiers fighting an enemy rather than members of the same community as the people they're dealing with.

Second, the legal system gives them too much leeway. What happened in Baton Rouge is effectively a summary execution and if a member of the actual military did that overseas, they'd be in trouble because the military has a system for dealing with such actions. It's not perfect, but at least somebody has given the issue some thought and tried to avoid conflicts of interest. We don't really have such a system for the police -- they are generally investigated by their peers and the prosecutors who are supposed to be trying to convict them are on the same "side" as the accused (and also need to keep the good will of their peers). In a high profile case like this one, the federal government might step in, but they simply don't have the resources to conduct investigations of most police misconduct. Furthermore, the law itself (not an actual law, but a Supreme Court decision) gives the police a great deal of latitude.

The result of all this is that even if the officers are trained, they treat every encounter as potentially dangerous and have absolutely no compunction about using deadly force at the slightest hint of a threat to themselves. They're acting rationally in that their policy minimizes their personal risk. In 2016 so far, 53 police officers died in the line of duty, but this includes causes like accidents and heart attacks. If you combine their statistics for gunfire and vehicular assault, you'll get something like 30 casualties which is quite low for an entire nation of gun enthusiasts. On the other hand, the number of people killed by police is somewhere around 500 (i.e. more than an order of magnitude greater than the number of police deaths).

Yes.  The culture of "my life matters more than non-police lives" is a large part of where all the deaths come from.  The "blue wall of silence" reinforces this problem.  

Police do a difficult job.  This is not in question but their lives are not worth more than our lives.

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These are both chilling. It's hard not to be at least a little jaded when hearing these stories. I try not to watch video, but it's hard to avoid sometimes. I did see the Minneapolis one and wow, that one has quite a few factors that humanize it so much more than many of the similar videos we see. (and how fucking sad is it that we have a large bank of similar incidents and videos to compare it to).

The woman was shockingly calm as her boyfriend was bleeding next to her. I am amazed she could keep it together so well and fucking good for her. The audio of the cop right afterwards is telling, I think. He sounds panicked and she corrects his statement telling him, 'no, that's not what you told him to do.' Later in the back of the cop car, she breaks down and her very young daughter tells her 'It's ok, I'm here with you.' God damn that video is heartbreaking on a lot of levels. Am I being naive in thinking this might be the video that breaks through to some people who haven't admitted that there is a systemic problem?

And another thing about this video is the plight of the cop. He truly sounds distressed in a 'what have I done' type of way. If we're talking about improper training, then he is a victim of the system as well. I don't want to sound like I am defending him because he seems to be completely in the wrong here, but shit. There needs to be a change in the mind-set of how policing is done. (Altherion just replied as I was writing this and I agree - it's us v. them far too much). I don't expect the police to be perfect at all times, but there has to be consequences. I don't even really care about jail time in most cases, just some actual, serious fucking consequences. Take them off the streets, fire them, fine them, revoke their gun rights forever, yes, even jail time in certain cases, but my god, let there be consequences. Fuck.

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1 hour ago, James Arryn said:

I knew a few guys from hs who became cops, and each one became at least somewhat racist over time; even a black guy. It's all wrapped up in that us vs. them thing, but honestly, to hear them talk it's really clear and simple: black guys are natural criminals, guards up when they're around, and this is in fucking Canada.

I've heard cops say that if you're policing a poor area, you'll eventually hate the racial majority in your jurisdiction, regardless of your own ethnicity. 

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23 minutes ago, Altherion said:

The result of all this is that even if the officers are trained, they treat every encounter as potentially dangerous and have absolutely no compunction about using deadly force at the slightest hint of a threat to themselves. They're acting rationally in that their policy minimizes their personal risk. In 2016 so far, 53 police officers died in the line of duty, but this includes causes like accidents and heart attacks. If you combine their statistics for gunfire and vehicular assault, you'll get something like 30 casualties which is quite low for an entire nation of gun enthusiasts. On the other hand, the number of people killed by police is somewhere around 500 (i.e. more than an order of magnitude greater than the number of police deaths).

Whilst I agree with everything you say; I have a point of order - that 500 figure is 561 so far this year; last year was 1146.

Original source here; with details, and breakdown by ethnicity, location etc: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/01/the-counted-police-killings-us-database.

 

 

ETA: Os course, so is the 53, so my apologies, and as you were.

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12 minutes ago, Altherion said:

It's worse than that. There are two fundamental issues which lead to this happening over and over again. The first is that a substantial fraction of US police forces appear to have the mentality of an occupying force in hostile territory and the communities they patrol reciprocate this mentality. The police buy hand-me-down military equipment from the armed forces and will generally defend one of their own as if they are soldiers fighting an enemy rather than members of the same community as the people they're dealing with.

Second, the legal system gives them too much leeway. What happened in Baton Rouge is effectively a summary execution and if a member of the actual military did that overseas, they'd be in trouble because the military has a system for dealing with such actions. It's not perfect, but at least somebody has given the issue some thought and tried to avoid conflicts of interest. We don't really have such a system for the police -- they are generally investigated by their peers and the prosecutors who are supposed to be trying to convict them are on the same "side" as the accused (and also need to keep the good will of their peers). In a high profile case like this one, the federal government might step in, but they simply don't have the resources to conduct investigations of most police misconduct. Furthermore, the law itself (not an actual law, but a Supreme Court decision) gives the police a great deal of latitude.

The result of all this is that even if the officers are trained, they treat every encounter as potentially dangerous and have absolutely no compunction about using deadly force at the slightest hint of a threat to themselves. They're acting rationally in that their policy minimizes their personal risk. In 2016 so far, 53 police officers died in the line of duty, but this includes causes like accidents and heart attacks. If you combine their statistics for gunfire and vehicular assault, you'll get something like 30 casualties which is quite low for an entire nation of gun enthusiasts. On the other hand, the number of people killed by police is somewhere around 500 (i.e. more than an order of magnitude greater than the number of police deaths).

 

 

A few things.  I don't think the numbers you are using paint an accurate picture.  The number of people killed by police may be 10 times greater than the number of police killed by people, but the number of people encountered/ arrested by police is WAY more than 10 times the number of police officers. There's also the fact that a police officer should never be shot in the line of duty, while there are plenty of instances that a civilian should be shot by police.

 

 

In my mind, this doesn't boil down to police training, or racism in the police department, or anything else. It boils down to gun control.  The police have to be scared for their lives, because every person in this country could be carrying a gun and could shoot them.  That leads to a legitimate fear, and fear leads people to behave irrationally. And none of that is going to change until something is done about handguns, which we all know isn't going to happen.  The police are going to continue to be scared for their lives, and they are going to continue to get trigger happy and shoot people who don't deserve to be killed. It should not at all be surprising that fatal shootings involving police and civilians, going both ways, are much more common in this country.

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10 minutes ago, sperry said:

A few things.  I don't think the numbers you are using paint an accurate picture.  The number of people killed by police may be 10 times greater than the number of police killed by people, but the number of people encountered/ arrested by police is WAY more than 10 times the number of police officers. There's also the fact that a police officer should never be shot in the line of duty, while there are plenty of instances that a civilian should be shot by police.

What the fuck kind of logic is this.  Every interaction between the police and the public is a chance for 1) the cop to get shot and 2) the citizen to get shot.  So yes, the ratio of cops shot to citizens shot is the relevant stat, and the number of arrests is a complete non-sequitur.  Ideally, no one gets killed, but lets stop the slaughter of citizens first.

If I told you that out of all the transactions done at Wal-Mart in a year Wal-Mart robbed a customer 1200 times, and they got robbed 30 times a year, The idea that Wal-Mart does millions of transactions should not be your first thought.  Nor should it be a defense of their theft.  And killing is a hell of a lot worse than theft.  I mean really, WTF.

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15 minutes ago, sperry said:

 

 

A few things.  I don't think the numbers you are using paint an accurate picture.  The number of people killed by police may be 10 times greater than the number of police killed by people, but the number of people encountered/ arrested by police is WAY more than 10 times the number of police officers. There's also the fact that a police officer should never be shot in the line of duty, while there are plenty of instances that a civilian should be shot by police.

 

 

In my mind, this doesn't boil down to police training, or racism in the police department, or anything else. It boils down to gun control.  The police have to be scared for their lives, because every person in this country could be carrying a gun and could shoot them.  That leads to a legitimate fear, and fear leads people to behave irrationally. And none of that is going to change until something is done about handguns, which we all know isn't going to happen.  The police are going to continue to be scared for their lives, and they are going to continue to get trigger happy and shoot people who don't deserve to be killed. It should not at all be surprising that fatal shootings involving police and civilians, going both ways, are much more common in this country.

While as I mentioned, I agree that the presence of guns makes this kind of thing much more likely, even predictable, I don't get what you're saying with numbers here. Any 'interaction' has 2-way potential. Maybe I'm just slow today.

Also, as far as your 'should' scenario, I'm less puzzled, but not %100 in agreement. I kinda get your point as face value, but I also see a danger of an exceptionality extension. Our soldiers vs. their civilians, etc. Which is not to say your point about 'shoulds' is wrong, just that it's a dangerous foundation, if you get me.

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Just now, James Arryn said:

While as I mentioned, I agree that the presence of guns makes this kind of thing much more likely, even predictable, I don't get what you're saying with numbers here. Any 'interaction' has 2-way potential. Maybe I'm just slow today.

Also, as far as your 'should' scenario, I'm less puzzled, but not %100 in agreement. I kinda get your point as face value, but I also see a danger of an exceptionality extension. Our soldiers vs. their civilians, etc. Which is not to say your point about 'shoulds' is wrong, just that it's a dangerous foundation, if you get me.

 

Yeah, the amount of interactions was not a relevant variable here, at least not in an exact ratio as I posited. That was bad logic on my part, although it made sense in my head when I was typing it.

 

I will stand by my "should" statement though.

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4 minutes ago, sperry said:

 

Yeah, the amount of interactions was not a relevant variable here, at least not in an exact ratio as I posited. That was bad logic on my part, although it made sense in my head when I was typing it.

 

I will stand by my "should" statement though.

Ah, cool. I really did think it was probably me; am taking heat-break in Venice, not thinking too clearly. As far as the should thing, in case I was rambling, I kinda stand by your point too, in isolation. I just think it's the kind of thinking that gives cops a greater impetus to act more quickly in 'self-defense', though I'll admit 90% of that is down to human nature.

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I feel completely ridiculous making a comparison to cycling in London, but a lot of cyclists go around with purposefully visible cameras on their helmets so cars think twice before starting any road rage with them. The woman who filmed this in the car seemed very quick to start filming, I could well imagine black people driving around with "cops, you're being filmed" stickers and mounted cameras on the dash. As much for deterrence as evidence should the worst happen.

Again, I feel completely ridiculous saying it, but people are just getting openly murdered by cops here. What the actual fuck.

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23 minutes ago, sperry said:

 

Yeah, the amount of interactions was not a relevant variable here, at least not in an exact ratio as I posited. That was bad logic on my part, although it made sense in my head when I was typing it.

 

I will stand by my "should" statement though.

Fair enuf.  Kudos.

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7 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

I feel completely ridiculous making a comparison to cycling in London, but a lot of cyclists go around with purposefully visible cameras on their helmets so cars think twice before starting any road rage with them. The woman who filmed this in the car seemed very quick to start filming, I could well imagine black people driving around with "cops, you're being filmed" stickers and mounted cameras on the dash. As much for deterrence as evidence should the worst happen.

Again, I feel completely ridiculous saying it, but people are just getting openly murdered by cops here. What the actual fuck.

Most people use Go-Pro.s looking forwards through the windscreen as evidence in case they're involved in an accident, especially fraudulant. It wouldn't seem too much of a leap to put one looking into the car (especially from the passenger's side) in case of police brutality.

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57 minutes ago, sperry said:

There's also the fact that a police officer should never be shot in the line of duty, while there are plenty of instances that a civilian should be shot by police.

That "should" is a tricky thing. Most people will agree that there are instances where a police officer shooting a civilian is justified. However, given the current flood of incidents, I think it is pretty safe to say that police have abused this premise by expanding the set of instances far beyond anyone would find reasonable (e.g. shooting a subdued individual simply because there is a gun in said individual's pocket).

Quote

In my mind, this doesn't boil down to police training, or racism in the police department, or anything else. It boils down to gun control.  The police have to be scared for their lives, because every person in this country could be carrying a gun and could shoot them.  That leads to a legitimate fear, and fear leads people to behave irrationally. And none of that is going to change until something is done about handguns, which we all know isn't going to happen.  The police are going to continue to be scared for their lives, and they are going to continue to get trigger happy and shoot people who don't deserve to be killed. It should not at all be surprising that fatal shootings involving police and civilians, going both ways, are much more common in this country.

The issue is not gun control, it's the belief that every person in the country could should them. This is a subset of what I meant by the mentality of an occupying force in hostile territory. The US has the most guns per capita of any first world country, but it is not unique in having liberal gun laws. For example, Switzerland has fairly liberal gun control laws and a fairly high number of guns per capita (even if we exclude the army-issued ones), but I'm pretty confident that I've never seen a Swiss police officer or border guard scared for their lives because Swiss citizens can be carrying guns. The same is true of several other Western countries.

I don't think we can do anything about gun control (see the Second Amendment) and it probably would not help. What we can do is attempt to demilitarize the police and remove the harmful mentality. The first step was initiated last year: we need the military to stop sending them equipment. The next step is teaching them that their lives are not more important than the lives of people in the communities they patrol. This means that police officers who act like the ones in the video have to go to prison. They'll be much less trigger happy if they know that going too far leads to second degree murder conviction.

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2 hours ago, James Arryn said:

I knew a few guys from hs who became cops, and each one became at least somewhat racist over time; even a black guy. It's all wrapped up in that us vs. them thing, but honestly, to hear them talk it's really clear and simple: black guys are natural criminals, guards up when they're around, and this is in fucking Canada.

 So sad to see people I knew go down that path. And it seems endemic, dunno how to fix it, because they already view any contrary opinion as ignorant politically correct bullshit from people who don't have to face 'the truth' on the streets.

 

50 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I've heard cops say that if you're policing a poor area, you'll eventually hate the racial majority in your jurisdiction, regardless of your own ethnicity. 

To some extent this is understandable. Police do regularly deal with the worst humanity has to offer. That's got to take a toll eventually.

43 minutes ago, sperry said:

 

 

A few things.  I don't think the numbers you are using paint an accurate picture.  The number of people killed by police may be 10 times greater than the number of police killed by people, but the number of people encountered/ arrested by police is WAY more than 10 times the number of police officers. There's also the fact that a police officer should never be shot in the line of duty, while there are plenty of instances that a civilian should be shot by police.

 

 

In my mind, this doesn't boil down to police training, or racism in the police department, or anything else. It boils down to gun control.  The police have to be scared for their lives, because every person in this country could be carrying a gun and could shoot them.  That leads to a legitimate fear, and fear leads people to behave irrationally. And none of that is going to change until something is done about handguns, which we all know isn't going to happen.  The police are going to continue to be scared for their lives, and they are going to continue to get trigger happy and shoot people who don't deserve to be killed. It should not at all be surprising that fatal shootings involving police and civilians, going both ways, are much more common in this country.

Maybe, but it seems the motivation for shooting Alton Sterling was rage, not fear. Here was a guy who had some run ins with the cops plenty of times before, probably did some bad things, and they got reports that he was allegedly threatening people. Then he resists (though not violently) and argues with them. They see he has a gun, and use it as an excuse to execute him.

It seems like a similar motivation as with Eric Garner and Rodney King (though that wasn't lethal).

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