Reforming police, the Blue Wall of Silence

[James Arryn]

24 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I would love to see the training change from "everyone other than officers is always a threat" to "you are part of the community find a peaceful way to de-escalate the situations before you start shooting".

This is a good point. I'd imagine the CJS has historically been unsympathetic to that angle.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Another incident from April in Sacramento where an officer slammed a jaywalking suspect the ground and then beat him:
 

 

[Bonnot OG]

On 9/21/2017 at 7:07 AM, Crazy Cat Lady in Training said:

I'm rapidly becoming convinced that ALL cops are sadistic, power tripping psychopaths. I totally get why no one trusts them. Even if this man could have heard them and complied, he'd probably still be dead. 

This is what happens when you militarize police. Now the cops think they're in a combat zone, and We the People are the enemy. 

All Cops Are Bastards / ACAB

 

[Larry of the Lawn]

On 9/21/2017 at 9:21 AM, Tywin et al. said:

Well I wouldn’t go that far. I’m specifically talking about vets who were trained to be an occupying force. That becomes problematic because they tend to bring that mentality back home when they become police officers and treat citizens like they’re enemy combatants.

Also, I’m getting sick of this tunnel vision excuse. If you can’t properly train a person to handle these types of situations than you need to not be the person training them and they don’t need to be cops. Full stop. It’s not a justifiable excuse to be murdering citizens you’re paid to protect.

I heard one pretty positive report of a vet that ended up becoming a cop, even though I only heard about it because of a tragedy he was involved in.  It might be upthread somewhere but there was a pretty heartbreaking report of an officer (I think in OK or NE) that responded to a call of a guy with a gun.  The cop was a vet that had worked with a canine bomb sniffing unit in Iraq.  He said that he immediately recognized the guy was looking for suicide by cop and tried to talk him down.  In the meantime, back up shows up and just shoots the guy even though the first responding cop, the vet, was defusing the situation.  

Probably the story would have ended there except that the officer didn't support the use of force by his fellow officer and so the department fired him.  The cop that didn't shoot the suicidal guy was the one who was fired.  

 

The police in this country are out of control.  That rant from Leonardo DiCaprio's character to his shrink in the Departed is spot on about how they sign up to use their guns.  

[Ice Queen]

2 hours ago, Sword of Doom said:

All Cops Are Bastards / ACAB

 

Agreed. I live in a small town where everyone knows the cops, and they're Grade A jerks to everyone. 

There's a good reason why law enforcement and the military are separate. I have no data to back this up, but IMO communities are hiring combat veterans,  many if not most of whom have PTSD and other psychological issues. They're under the delusion that soldiers make good cops. Additionally, sociopaths and psychopaths gravitate towards fields where their personality traits (e.g., lack of empathy and aggression) are prized and well rewarded, such as law enforcement, the military and financial services. 

Edit: Just read larrytheimp's post. That's awful. Only cops can murder people and get away with it.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Is anyone else perplexed by the fact that conservatives, who are the first to scream about the excesses of government and its abuse of power, are normally the first to defend police when they shoot and kill the people they are supposed to be protecting?  

It is as though they forget police are agents of the State.  When they abuse their power it is the State abusing its power.

[James Arryn]

15 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Is anyone else perplexed by the fact that conservatives, who are the first to scream about the excesses of government and its abuse of power, are normally the first to defend police when they shoot and kill the people they are supposed to be protecting?  

It is as though they forget police are agents of the State.  When they abuse their power it is the State abusing its power.

They also tend to be the first to defend military actions. Agents of the state who are holdings guns would seem to be the commonality. 

[TrueMetis]

1 hour ago, larrytheimp said:

I heard one pretty positive report of a vet that ended up becoming a cop, even though I only heard about it because of a tragedy he was involved in.  It might be upthread somewhere but there was a pretty heartbreaking report of an officer (I think in OK or NE) that responded to a call of a guy with a gun.  The cop was a vet that had worked with a canine bomb sniffing unit in Iraq.  He said that he immediately recognized the guy was looking for suicide by cop and tried to talk him down.  In the meantime, back up shows up and just shoots the guy even though the first responding cop, the vet, was defusing the situation.  

Probably the story would have ended there except that the officer didn't support the use of force by his fellow officer and so the department fired him.  The cop that didn't shoot the suicidal guy was the one who was fired.  

 

The police in this country are out of control.  That rant from Leonardo DiCaprio's character to his shrink in the Departed is spot on about how they sign up to use their guns.  

This is why I wonder about people being against vets as cops. After all military vets are used to staring down the barrel of a gun or even being shot at without shooting back. But the biggest problem cops have is a complete inability to take even a mildly dangerous situation without going for their guns. Cops react with their guns in situations that would barely register for vets.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 hour ago, James Arryn said:

They also tend to be the first to defend military actions. Agents of the state who are holdings guns would seem to be the commonality. 

It is absolutely true.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

3 hours ago, TrueMetis said:

This is why I wonder about people being against vets as cops. After all military vets are used to staring down the barrel of a gun or even being shot at without shooting back. But the biggest problem cops have is a complete inability to take even a mildly dangerous situation without going for their guns. Cops react with their guns in situations that would barely register for vets.

It's the mentality that veterans, especially combat veterans, might bring to police forces. The training of our police force has trained substantially over the years. Police no longer look at us as fellow community members, but instead, as "us" and "them"--occupying force and the hidden enemy within the "civilian" populace. I've made this comment here before, and it rarely goes over well, but police referring to us as "civilians" is highly militarized language. I supposed that's Foucaultian of me, but I think we can really see lines drawn between groups in the language they use. When we are called civilians, it indicates exclusion from "them." When you're a soldier in an occupying force, I suppose it makes sense. "Those are civilians over there." They're not our countrymen, but they're not enemies either. Here, though? Police were never supposed to draw a line between themselves and us.

I'd also say, you might be surprised at how military personnel handle tense situations in very similar ways to our police. 

[Dr. Pepper]

14 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Is anyone else perplexed by the fact that conservatives, who are the first to scream about the excesses of government and its abuse of power, are normally the first to defend police when they shoot and kill the people they are supposed to be protecting?  

It is as though they forget police are agents of the State.  When they abuse their power it is the State abusing its power.

I wouldn't say I'm perplexed about this.  It's a given.  Conservatism - the American brand, that is - is an ideology that stands for nothing.  It's been this way most of my life.  

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

11 minutes ago, Dr. Pepper said:

I wouldn't say I'm perplexed about this.  It's a given.  Conservatism - the American brand, that is - is an ideology that stands for nothing.  It's been this way most of my life.  

It is incredibly situational, hypocritical, and contratictory. A friend on facebook made a very cogent point in a police violence discussion.  She pointed out that most of those defending the free speech of people on the fascist fringe of the right are dead silent on Colin Kaepernick's right to remain seated for the National Anthem, because "reasons" ignoring an explicit and profound free speech/free expression issue right before them.

[all swedes are racist]

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/undercover-cop-air-force-officer-med-student-among-those-police/article_e2dcc3de-f228-5311-a35f-e60e1bd9ebee.html

Quote

The incident began when two uniformed officers near the protest ordered the man to show his hands, sources said. When he refused, they knocked him down and hit him at least three times and zip tied his hands behind his back. When he stood up, his mouth was bloodied, the sources said.

jesus, this would almost be funny if it weren't so fucked up 

eta for clarity: the above mentioned man was in fact an undercover cop working the protest

[The guy from the Vale]

7 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

It is incredibly situational, hypocritical, and contratictory. A friend on facebook made a very cogent point in a police violence discussion.  She pointed out that most of those defending the free speech of people on the fascist fringe of the right are dead silent on Colin Kaepernick's right to remain seated for the National Anthem, because "reasons" ignoring an explicit and profound free speech/free expression issue right before them.

The main difference lies in the skin color. They only care about the free speech of white (cis, hetero, Christian) people. People who aren't lily white, like Kaepernick, are considered second class citizens for whom the constitution doesn't apply. They effectively agree with the fascists, even if they may think their behavior was distasteful.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

12 hours ago, Dr. Pepper said:

I wouldn't say I'm perplexed about this.  It's a given.  Conservatism - the American brand, that is - is an ideology that stands for nothing.  It's been this way most of my life.  

I think Slavoj figured them out.

[all swedes are racist]

18 minutes ago, Simon Steele said:

I think Slavoj figured them out.

*tugging collar until my shirt rips off*

[all swedes are racist]

https://theintercept.com/2017/10/20/brooklyn-teen-police-rape-consent/

two nypd officers are suspended pending iad investigation for raping an 18yo woman in custody 

officers claim sex acts were "consensual", which strains credulity on it own, even given the horrific fact that sex between a person in custody and an arresting officer is not subject the same consent standards as prisoner or wars of a hospital, according to ny law

#abolishthepolice

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

10 hours ago, r'hllor's redrum lobster said:

https://theintercept.com/2017/10/20/brooklyn-teen-police-rape-consent/

two nypd officers are suspended pending iad investigation for raping an 18yo woman in custody 

officers claim sex acts were "consensual", which strains credulity on it own, even given the horrific fact that sex between a person in custody and an arresting officer is not subject the same consent standards as prisoner or wars of a hospital, according to ny law

#abolishthepolice

This quote from your article states the issue perfectly:

At a time of elevated public awareness about police violence and sexual assault, these detectives’ apparent defensive tack raises troubling questions about the way cops approach these national plagues. Let us be clear: Someone in police custody cannot give consent, in any meaningful sense of the word, to the officer holding them.

Claiming to have received consent, whether it is based in any truth or not, betrays a policing culture that refuses to recognize its own outsized power over those it alleges to protect and serve. The Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office is currently investigating the case to determine whether the claim of consent is credible under law, but the fact that consent seems to be on offer as a defense at all speaks to how the police themselves view rape — a dynamic that needs immediate redress.

[all swedes are racist]

https://jacobinmag.com/2017/10/police-reform-prisons-racism-vitale

good article on why police are not the answer, are in fact a large part of the problem

[dornishpen]

I’m sorry if this has been discussed before, but have any of you read The New Jim Crow? I recently finished it and it’s a very good analysis of some of the problems with the criminal justice system.