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The behaviour of US police officers

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The Don said:
IMO the "problem" stems from the nature of the relationship between the Police and the public in the US.

It also mirrors the relationship between the government and the public in the US.

I'm not sure it's a fixable thing - indeed it seems to be a vicious cycle. Police actions towards the public fuel a lack of trust in the police among large sections of the population, public antipathy towards the police fuel the feeling among the police that they are under attack operating in hostile territory and act accordingly. :(
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When your police regularly look the same as your military in a foreign country I suggest there is a fundamental issue: https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-police-demilitarize-20140816-story.html. V https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB1fCCk1.img?h=768&w=1366&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f
 
Wonder what the US coverage of a scene like this would be if it were occurring overseas, especially if it were in a country that we see as adversarial.

Cops and soldiers fire on protest crowds from inside armored vehicles and behind barricades. Cop/soldier (hard to tell the difference at this point) is seen pointing a M4 carbine into the crowd while his partner fires a beanbag shotgun through the fence.

https://twitter.com/daviss/status/1382162743235579904
 
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Armitage72 said:
The CNN website has an article about "illegal air fresheners" on their site today.

Some police admit it's just a pretext to stop people whom they suspect of committing other crimes. I can't imagine what they would base those suspicions on.
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"Pretext stops" are "stop and frisk" for motorists. "Broken windows" and all that.
 
Bikewer said:
But there are still plenty of the (cheaper) older black models out there, and some departments still have the Taser on the “strong” side, usually in a leg holster.
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Except the video clearly shows the other officer carrying his *bright yellow* taser on his *left* side.
 
quadraginta said:
I agree that in a perfect world they are intended to apply to everyone equally.

But in real life it seems that the "felt threatened" defense works for law enforcement best, with whites who aren't cops and shoot darkies coming in a not all that distant second.

Everyone else trying it has a tough hill to climb.
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Joe seemed to be arguing against the principle itself, when it's the application that's the issue.
 
Belz... said:
Joe seemed to be arguing against the principle itself, when it's the application that's the issue.
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Joe's arguing the concept is yet another thing that, noble as it may be in theory, is counterproductive to the point of being destructive in a post-fact world where every other argument is an intentionally obtuse and/or contrarian performance piece.

Yes I am, no denying, much more "results" based in my morality then most people. At the end of the day you are much, much, much, much, much more what you do then some vague nebulous concept of "what's going on in my heart of hearts."

ETA: Hit "Post" too soon

But even allowing for the own personal slant I'm not claiming I am ignorant of the conceptual difference between murder and manslaughter, I'm just saying it's yet another thing thing the "I want a hamburger with cheese on it, not a cheeseburger" argumentative trolls have killed any real way of discussing and yes I mean on a legal level as well.

When we let "Shooting up a shopping mall after planning it out for 3 months is different from taking your eyes off the road to look at your cell phone and t-boning a car at an intersection" get strawmanned into "LOL she had no in mens rea intent with sprinkles because she didn't know which apartment she was in" we jumped the shark.
 
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cullennz said:
I know I am probably going to get **** kicked for this as I am not American, as "what would I know?", but to be fair to the cops from a purely independent eye view, what I see is this. Re cops being evil.

From what a quick look shows is there was 700,000 full time cops in the US. (2019 stat)
Even from all the threads on here highlighting dodgy **** from some of them, it is IMO pushing it to say the majority are actually that bad.

Even the stats showing mild stops that could be shown as a kind of racism via profiling, which are small in the grand scheme of things, don't show how many cop offenders are repeat offenders, which would whittle the number down , while also showing it is the bosses hiding it.
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US police are more that 15 times as likely to shoot an kill an unarmed person as police in Germany. furthermore, in the US, unarmed black men are 3X as likely to be shot and killed by police as unarmed white men. In Alabama (where one police chief suggested they should be shooting more black men) that number is more than 15X.


All tolled an unarmed black man in the US is nearly 50 times more likely to be killed by his own government than a typical German. In Alabama an unarmed black man is nearly 250X more likely to be shot and killed by his own government that a typical German man.

Numbers like these don't happen by accident, nor is it because of 1-off issues with specific officers. There are systematic problems with how policing works in the US. Like most social issues African Americans suffer the most sever consequences from this but the problems run much deeper.

Instead of viewing themselves as being there to help and serve the community they act as though they are at war with those communists and see their role as being one of enforcing obedience from those communities. Furthermore they are being trained either though the culture of their department, and in some cases explicit course material. As mentioned up thread, even military forces experienced in peacekeeping in hostile countries don't allow their troops to point weapons at people simply because "they could be dangerous" but in most cases US police are explicitly taught to do just this.

The reason militaries are no longer allowing this is because if you treat people as if they are your enemy their will respond in kind and view you as their enemy. Even people who do not start out as hostile will become so if you point guns at them and so will their friends family and anyone who happens to see it happen. This makes for more enemies and a downward spiral of hostility that will inevitably claim more lives than just accepting a little more risk when dealing with people.
 
RecoveringYuppy said:
His link is about the Daunte Wright shooting.
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I assure you, if a non-cop did a whoopsie and accidentally shot someone dead, it would not take multiple days for an arrest warrant.

The moment it became clear that this cop didn't intend to shoot Wright, she should have been arrested for manslaughter.
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
I assure you, if a non-cop did a whoopsie and accidentally shot someone dead, it would not take multiple days for an arrest warrant.

The moment it became clear that this cop didn't intend to shoot Wright, she should have been arrested for manslaughter.
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Yeah, but she is a cop and it makes a legitimate difference. Taking two business days to arrive at charge is not "late" and is not something to be outraged about. There are plenty of other good things to be outraged about.

She got the proper by the book attention and got charged quickly. She was suspended (not sure if that's the official term), she resigned, the autopsy was fast, she's now been arrested. All in two business days.

You'd have a point if she had shot someone while off duty not doing police work.
 
quadraginta said:
Were the cops who stood around watching Derek Chauvin spend nine minutes murdering George Floyd "good" cops or "bad" cops?
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Well, since two of them had only been on the job for about a week, and one of them tried to tell Chauvin to get off Floyd, it might not be clear-cut. They couldn't fight their boss, but then they could have called for a supervisor, and they didn't do that either.
 
See, my definition of "good" doesn't include "I would like to stop this murder happening right in front of my eyes, but I might suffer some loss of peer respect, diminished career potential, or other inconvenience to myself. I will instead do nothing, but make it clear how much I would really like to have done more."
 
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quadraginta said:
Were the cops who stood around watching Derek Chauvin spend nine minutes murdering George Floyd "good" cops or "bad" cops?
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There was a breaking story today about the police officer in NY who was fired when she tried to get her partner to release a choke-hold on a black suspect in handcuffs. Her attempt to interfere cost her her job, and she had to sue in order to get her pension.

In fact, lower courts had sided with the police department in denying it. Today, 15 years later, the supreme court ruled in her favor.

So, she tried to stop her white, male partner from choking a handcuffed black person, and got fired for it. And the department was so adamant that she had to take it all the way to the state supreme court.

Now, is she a good cop? Or a bad cop?

I suggest she is a good cop. And she got fired as a result.
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
I assure you, if a non-cop did a whoopsie and accidentally shot someone dead, it would not take multiple days for an arrest warrant.....
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Ahem... Zimmerman was a non-cop. It took a public outcry before he was arrested.

I don't think the charges were that slow in coming in the not-taser case.
 
pgwenthold said:
There was a breaking story today about the police officer in NY who was fired when she tried to get her partner to release a choke-hold on a black suspect in handcuffs. Her attempt to interfere cost her her job, and she had to sue in order to get her pension.

In fact, lower courts had sided with the police department in denying it. Today, 15 years later, the supreme court ruled in her favor.
....
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Details here.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crim...e-s-chokehold-citing-george-floyd/ar-BB1fEzuX
 
Lots of screaming in Trumpland because the cop is being charged in thw Wright shooting,but the cop who shot the women in the Capitol Insurrection is not being charged. They have the chutzpah to claim that blacks are being given favorable treatment in our justice system.. The mind boggles at the idiotcy.
Needless to say, lots of racism and references to Minneapolis as Mpgadishu West. Not every trying to hide the racsim.
 
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