US Politics- Enemy at the Gaetz

[Kalbear]

The problem is not that she mistook a gun for a taser. That does happen.

The problem is that she reached for a taser at all and that was standard operating procedure.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, larrytheimp said:

It's completely unbelievable.  If you are confusing a taser with a gun you have no business being police.  There is no amount of training that's going to fix that. 

It’s worth noting that where this took place is not one of the best areas in greater Minneapolis. They probably aren’t getting anywhere near the most talented prospective officers and the training is probably less than ideal.

Quote

Anyone see the footage of that vehicle stop (in VA, I think?) where the cops end up pepper spraying an active duty service member?  They escalated the entire time for no reason, have contradictory commands, it seemed like they were trying to trick the guy into getting shot.

The whole things is an embarrassment, especially when the cop is blaming the solider for not doing enough to deescalate the situation when it was the cop’s job to do just that. Citizens shouldn’t be held to a higher standard than the actual paid agents of the state.

[HexMachina]

3 hours ago, larrytheimp said:

It's completely unbelievable.  If you are confusing a taser with a gun you have no business being police.  There is no amount of training that's going to fix that. 

Anyone see the footage of that vehicle stop (in VA, I think?) where the cops end up pepper spraying an active duty service member?  They escalated the entire time for no reason, have contradictory commands, it seemed like they were trying to trick the guy into getting shot.

Was this the man pulled over for not having a license plate? If so yeah, I saw that and it shouldn't shock me at this point but it still does

[ThinkerX]

Our next POTUS...sadly, he'd probably be better at the job that Trump...and maybe Bush II...

https://news.yahoo.com/dwayne-johnson-says-itd-honor-161439995.html?ncid=facebook_yahoonewsf_akfmevaatca&fbclid=IwAR1pwh55BFBqVhxhWzPaerV0TEqABZY2_yP7ZqcOR2RNvaVwN3MXox1gpdQ

• A new poll suggested that 46% of US adults would support Dwayne Johnson's bid for president.

• Johnson, 48, teased the results on Instagram, saying, "it'd be my honor to serve you, the people."

• He previously said he would consider a presidential run if "that's what the people wanted."

[Fury Resurrected]

So, here in beautiful Minneapolis a cop in the suburbs shot and killed a 20 year old black kid named Daunte Wright because the officer thought she was firing her taser and not her pistol. During the Chauvin trial. So of course there was a little bit of riot activity last night and now we are under curfew until tomorrow morning. Again.

[Mindwalker]

41 minutes ago, ThinkerX said:

Our next POTUS...sadly, he'd probably be better at the job that Trump...and maybe Bush II...

https://news.yahoo.com/dwayne-johnson-says-itd-honor-161439995.html?ncid=facebook_yahoonewsf_akfmevaatca&fbclid=IwAR1pwh55BFBqVhxhWzPaerV0TEqABZY2_yP7ZqcOR2RNvaVwN3MXox1gpdQ

 

 

Nah, my money's on Tucker.

 

Well, ma

[S John]

3 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

It’s worth noting that where this took place is not one of the best areas in greater Minneapolis. They probably aren’t getting anywhere near the most talented prospective officers and the training is probably less than ideal.

The whole things is an embarrassment, especially when the cop is blaming the solider for not doing enough to deescalate the situation when it was the cop’s job to do just that. Citizens shouldn’t be held to a higher standard than the actual paid agents of the state.

Yea this is the thing that the police seem to have trouble getting through their skulls - you may be trained in how to deal with the general public but the general public is not trained to deal with you. And that is a major failure of said training. Most people are not used to having commands barked at them, or having confrontations with armed people. They often don’t seem to understand that the person in the other side of the interaction is likely just as nervous as they are and probably more so and without the training and muscle memory of an officer. 

That said I really, truly do not envy the job that police have in the US. You could not pay me enough to do it. And the elephant in the room here is the second amendment. Police are trained to behave as if each and every person they encounter is armed and dangerous because they fucking might be! Race is a huge factor because it influences the biases held by certain individual officers and how they view certain people but I have a hard time seeing how we go from Judge Dredd to Andy Griffith in a country with more guns than people.

[Week]

State enforced violence followed by state enforced silence.

Police behave with cowardice because they are allowed to. Police have, since their slave catching beginnings, acted with complete impunity. They may 'fear' that someone has a gun, but they have no fear, no hesitation about taking a person's life. No hesitation to inflict pain and death upon the "normies".

Eta- the elephant in the room is police behave like gangs - extracting money and inflicting pain on people who have the misfortune of coming across them.

[Fury Resurrected]

6 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

I think this is what people outside the US simply don’t understand. Why is it that you would shoot a person with an outstanding warrant? They ran, you’ll get them later. The taser could have killed him as well, as we have seen in other cases.
 

And she may have yelled taser but she automatically went for her gun. 

The outstanding warrant was also for missed payments on a payment plan for a two year old possession of weed petty misdemeanor. The original fine plus fees was $156. This kid was killed for owing less than $156.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

56 minutes ago, Fury Resurrected said:

So, here in beautiful Minneapolis a cop in the suburbs shot and killed a 20 year old black kid named Daunte Wright because the officer thought she was firing her taser and not her pistol. During the Chauvin trial. So of course there was a little bit of riot activity last night and now we are under curfew until tomorrow morning. Again.

It's rather disheartening driving through Edina and Park watching all these businesses board up. There won't be anything happening there and they should know that. It really just seems like a projection of their prejudices. 

34 minutes ago, S John said:

Yea this is the thing that the police seem to have trouble getting through their skulls - you may be trained in how to deal with the general public but the general public is not trained to deal with you. And that is a major failure of said training. Most people are not used to having commands barked at them, or having confrontations with armed people. They often don’t seem to understand that the person in the other side of the interaction is likely just as nervous as they are and probably more so and without the training and muscle memory of an officer. 

That said I really, truly do not envy the job that police have in the US. You could not pay me enough to do it. And the elephant in the room here is the second amendment. Police are trained to behave as if each and every person they encounter is armed and dangerous because they fucking might be! Race is a huge factor because it influences the biases held by certain individual officers and how they view certain people but I have a hard time seeing how we go from Judge Dredd to Andy Griffith in a country with more guns than people.

100%!

[Week]

Things like this are not because of the 2nd Amendment

Or

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/04/10/metro/years-boston-police-kept-secret-union-president-was-an-alleged-child-molester/

Such a lazy cop out that - again - centers police as the potential victims when they are perpetrators of violence. Police behave with no respect or regard for non-Police. It has to stop.

 

 

[Week]

On the force for 25 years, counseled other officers after murders, and president of the Brooklyn Center Police Association.

Yet, confused a loaded glock for a taser. Must've been the 2nd amendment that lead to the confusion.

[S John]

51 minutes ago, Week said:

On the force for 25 years, counseled other officers after murders, and president of the Brooklyn Center Police Association.

Yet, confused a loaded glock for a taser. Must've been the 2nd amendment that lead to the confusion.

Are you capable of understanding that there might be many facets to an issue as broad as police violence in America and that perhaps widespread access to firearms in this country just might be a part of the problem here? Christ, man, congratulations on your least nuanced argument award. I’m not saying that the 2a is the issue in each individual shooting i’m saying it’s a factor in the reason that the police are trained and militarized like they are. I do not think that is controversial in any way. Police in this country are dealing with an armed population, clearly they have repeatedly shown that their training and many individual officers are not up to the task - but that is what they are dealing with.

[Week]

I am. Are you @S John? It's pretty ridiculous to bring up the 2nd Amendment as a concern for police when the most visible, discussed incidents have absolutely no connection to the 2nd Amendment. To being up - in this case - essentially a non sequitur in the face of violence AGAIN inflicted on the Black community AGAIN followed by blatant lies and somehow bringing this attitude? No. No, thank you.

Break up police unions, abolish QA, create a national database to prevent bad cops from getting rehired to prey on other cities, and you'll have the start of some solutions to policing that aren't the implacable 2nd Amendment. Look at the "warrior training" that has proliferated across the country along with surplus military supplies. That isn't fear, that is aggression. You'd recognize it if you empathized with those most commonly at the receiving end of the tip of the spear.

Police behavior is not a response to the 2nd Amendment but in alignment with it. Was 1/6 so long ago that we've already forgotten the police presence invading the capital? Or the number of times police coordinated with white supremacists and other r/white wing groups? Police are largely a fascist right wing organization in the US that acts with impunity. Fear of an armed populace is not a driving factor. "Thin Blue Line" mentality and it's offensive flag has got to go.

Finally, being a cop isn't in the top 20 of most dangerous jobs in the US. Much of the danger are these completely unnecessary traffic stops that serve no purpose and create considerable risk (I'd say ask Philando Castillo or Duante Wright but you can't). Further, military personnel routinely respond in horror at the irresponsible, dangerous responses by police IN America that would be unacceptable when deployed overseas.

Eta- Christ, the cop who killed Duante Wright was a 25 year veteran, counseled cops after other killings by police, and was the head of their union. Training is the problem in your mind? Concern about an armed populace? Get outta here. 

Etaa- Just thinking about the number of violent arrests and assaults on medics, law observers, and media over last summer. Completely unarmed and clearly marked.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

19 minutes ago, Week said:

I am. Are you @S John? It's pretty ridiculous to bring up the 2nd Amendment as a concern for police when the most visible, discussed incidents have absolutely no connection to the 2nd Amendment. To being up - in this case - essentially a non sequitur in the face of violence AGAIN inflicted on the Black community AGAIN followed by blatant lies and somehow bringing this attitude? No. No, thank you.

The ungodly prevalence of firearms absolutely complicates the issue, but it's not the only problem. We need to accept there's been an across the board systemic failure and that we have to address it at every level. That's having too many guns available too easily and police having to factor that in, a society that's been conditioned to fear and hate minorities, specifically African-Americans, police culture which is poorly trained, seeking middling candidates and establishing a mindset that they're above the law, lacking empathy for your fellow human being, etc. You could list the problems for days. The Second Amendment isn't the only problem, but it does explain a lot of the shoot first, as question mentality and then individual police offers are pretty to insert their own prejudices after the fact without fear of any real punishment in most instances. 

[S John]

29 minutes ago, Week said:

I am. Are you @S John? It's pretty ridiculous to bring up the 2nd Amendment as a concern for police when the most visible, discussed incidents have absolutely no connection to the 2nd Amendment. To being up - in this case - essentially a non sequitur in the face of violence AGAIN inflicted on the Black community AGAIN followed by blatant lies and somehow bringing this attitude? No. No, thank you.

Break up police unions, abolish QA, create a national database to prevent bad cops from getting rehired to prey on other cities, and you'll have the start of some solutions to policing that aren't the implacable 2nd Amendment. Look at the "warrior training" that has proliferated across the country along with surplus military supplies. That isn't fear, that is aggression. You'd recognize it if you empathized with those most commonly at the receiving end of the tip of the spear.

Police behavior is not a response to the 2nd Amendment but in alignment with it. Was 1/6 so long ago that we've already forgotten the police presence invading the capital? Or the number of times police coordinated with white supremacists and other r/white wing groups? Police are largely a fascist right wing organization in the US that acts with impunity. Fear of an armed populace is not a driving factor. 

Finally, being a cop isn't in the top 20 of most dangerous jobs in the US. Much of the danger are these completely unnecessary traffic stops that serve no purpose and create considerable risk (I'd say ask Philando Castillo or Duante Wright but you can't). Further, military personnel routinely respond in horror at the irresponsible, dangerous responses by police IN America that would be unacceptable when deployed overseas.

If we implement all of the solutions you lay out, and I don’t disagree with them by the way, there will still be hundreds of millions of firearms in this country. I think it is impossible, no matter how much training you give a person, to predict how they’ll react out on the street. Even if they behaved perfectly 999 times, incident 1000 is still a wild card. An individual officer cannot unknow that there are some crazy assholes with guns out there and as long as that is a factor in the minds of human beings, we will continue to see this. Saying it is a hard job and I don’t envy them is not an excuse for their behavior, it is a hard job and I really don’t envy them.

There are obviously bad apples, bad cultures within departments, major issues with racism in the ranks, plain old bullies in the ranks - all of that can and should be addressed. The drug war should be addressed, policing for revenue should be addressed. All of that will absolutely help. But what person could not have the possibility of an armed encounter in their head walking into unknown situations? It is absolutely a factor in the posture police take toward the general public. And when you mix that with personal biases and institutional racism you get predictably shitty results.

[Inkdaub]

5 hours ago, S John said:

Yea this is the thing that the police seem to have trouble getting through their skulls - you may be trained in how to deal with the general public but the general public is not trained to deal with you. And that is a major failure of said training. Most people are not used to having commands barked at them, or having confrontations with armed people. They often don’t seem to understand that the person in the other side of the interaction is likely just as nervous as they are and probably more so and without the training and muscle memory of an officer. 

That said I really, truly do not envy the job that police have in the US. You could not pay me enough to do it. And the elephant in the room here is the second amendment. Police are trained to behave as if each and every person they encounter is armed and dangerous because they fucking might be! Race is a huge factor because it influences the biases held by certain individual officers and how they view certain people but I have a hard time seeing how we go from Judge Dredd to Andy Griffith in a country with more guns than people.

Agreed entirely with first section plus bolded part of second.  Particularly when the training police do get includes 'Killology'. 

[DireWolfSpirit]

Pessimism has set in, I have zero faith that our police will ever stop inadvertantly blowing away citizens.

There is no end in sight to this bleak reality we have smashed into.

[OnionAhaiReborn]

5 hours ago, S John said:

If we implement all of the solutions you lay out, and I don’t disagree with them by the way, there will still be hundreds of millions of firearms in this country. I think it is impossible, no matter how much training you give a person, to predict how they’ll react out on the street. Even if they behaved perfectly 999 times, incident 1000 is still a wild card. An individual officer cannot unknow that there are some crazy assholes with guns out there and as long as that is a factor in the minds of human beings, we will continue to see this. Saying it is a hard job and I don’t envy them is not an excuse for their behavior, it is a hard job and I really don’t envy them.

There are obviously bad apples, bad cultures within departments, major issues with racism in the ranks, plain old bullies in the ranks - all of that can and should be addressed. The drug war should be addressed, policing for revenue should be addressed. All of that will absolutely help. But what person could not have the possibility of an armed encounter in their head walking into unknown situations? It is absolutely a factor in the posture police take toward the general public. And when you mix that with personal biases and institutional racism you get predictably shitty results.

I'd be really curious to see what the rate of cops encountering armed resistance in random traffic stops is. I can't dispute that we live in a heavily armed country but it's still always seemed ridiculous to me that the guy who's pulling me over for speeding needs a gun when he walks up to my car. IIRC, while we have lots of guns per capita, a lot of that is down to  some people owning lots of guns. How likely is it, truly, that a given individual being stopped is armed? And even if they are, how likely is it that you're going to really end up with some kind of quick draw situation with them where the cop needs their gun on them immediately? For that to happen the person needs to own a gun, have it on them, and intend to use it to get out of a traffic stop, so basically they have to already be guilty of something much more serious that it's worth committing murder in their minds to attempt to flee. How often do these situations occur? I'm not totally dismissive of your point- guns are a serious problem- but I'm not sure police are enormously at risk in their usual run-of-the-mill encounters. 

[Week]

Absolutely gobsmacked at bemoaning gun culture as a danger to police that somehow explains much of our crisis with policing. Of course it is but police ARE GUN CULTURE. It is offensive and absurd to be blaming poor policing on training and a potentially dangerous, armed population when the cases of Duante Wright, George Floyd, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner, etc. etc. have absolutely nothing to do with it. This is systemic rot which you agree with and then immediately pooh-pooh because "guns are the real issue". 

Guns are the reason we have more murders than any other country per capita, mass shootings, school shootings, suicides, but not the primary reason why police kill unarmed citizens. Why police cover up child abusers within their ranks. Why police tortured the Black residents of Chicago for decades.

Look at the arrests of white mass shooters - safe, calm, and without incident. Dylan Roof got a burger on his way to the station. Juxtapose that with Duante Wright.

By blaming guns, we 1) let cops off the hook 2) blame a problem without a solution. We have many other solutions to improve police accountability which. must. happen. 

Again, fewer police die than construction workers, loggers, farmers, etc. Etc. Is it a dangerous job? Yes. Could it be made less dangerous? Also, yes. Is it as dangerous as a lot of other occupations? No.

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cfoi.pdf