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The Behavior Of US Police Officers - Part 3

No. Simply no. Patrol officers in most (civilised) jurisdictions can manage to deal with knife wielding attackers using graduated force, rather than immediately killing the attacker as the first and only option.
In situations where they control distance, are aware of the threat beforehand, and can isolate others from the assailant. That isn't the case here. The woman is already within range of lethality when the knife is drawn.

I was under the impression that even USAian police received training.
They acted precisely how they were trained to act, kid.
 
The Civil Rights Lawyer youtuber breaking down a pretty disgusting traffic stop where the police essentially fabricate a drug charge and lie shamelessly about the circumstances. Fortunately nobody dies or suffers significant injury

...just everyday pettiness.

 
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Footage shows NY officers beating prisoner before death

Newly released bodycam footage appears to show New York corrections officers fatally beating a handcuffed inmate who died the following morning.

The inmate, 43-year-old Robert Brooks, was pronounced dead on 10 December, the day after the incident took place at the Marcy Correctional Facility in upstate New York.

Following an internal review, New York Governor Kathy Hochul ordered the firing of the 13 officers and a prison nurse who were involved in the assault.

The office of New York Attorney General Letitia James has opened an investigation into Brooks' death, and the union that represents state prison workers called the video "incomprehensible".

The footage - which was released by James on Friday - shows officers repeatedly striking Brooks in the face and groin while he sits handcuffed on an examination table.

The videos also appear to show a prison officer placing something in Brooks' mouth before striking him, as well as a separate officer hitting him in the stomach with a shoe.

At one point, an officer lifts him by the neck before forcefully putting him on the examination table.

Brooks died the day after the assault. Preliminary examinations determined the cause of death was "asphyxia due to compression of the neck."
 
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Yes, Thermal, police are human beings and can do good things too. And should be praised when they do! But should absolutely be ◊◊◊◊ on when, in a role of authority, they do reprehensible or very stupid things.

As the thread is 'behavior' your post hiliting a story of good behaviour is on topic. But your declaration that hilighting the bad behaviour is ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊, is ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊.

Two sides of a coin. Praise, accountability.
 
No. The focus on behavior which is solely negative as if nothing else exists is anti-skeptical. The acceptance of a bull ◊◊◊◊ narrative without question is anti-skeptical. Everything about this thread has become the antithesis of skeptical discussion.
 
While you guys are having fun with your American ACAB bull ◊◊◊◊, I want to post about the Behavior of American Police too:

Tampa (Florida) police rescue 15 elderly people and children from a destroyed house during autumn's Hurricane Milton:



They did their job without killing anyone?

Hurray.
 
They did their job without killing anyone?

Hurray.
Case in point.

Maybe if we started a thread called The Behavior of UK Citizens and posted only stories of Brits raping and stabbing, commenting that all Brits are vicious thugs, you might get it? And if we posted a story of Brits doing what they more commonly do, and the reply is "They went to the store without raping and stabbing someone? Hurray", you might get it some more?
 
Case in point.

Maybe if we started a thread called The Behavior of UK Citizens and posted only stories of Brits raping and stabbing, commenting that all Brits are vicious thugs, you might get it? And if we posted a story of Brits doing what they more commonly do, and the reply is "They went to the store without raping and stabbing someone? Hurray", you might get it some more?
You do know there is a corresponding thread that deals with the bad behaviour of UK police?

ETA: https://www1.internationalskeptics....s/the-behaviour-of-uk-police-officers.329377/
 
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You are essentially getting salty about a man bites dog thread.

"It's unskeptical to focus on man bites dog stories while ignoring all the times a dog bites a man!"

Yes, usually the dog bites the man. Nevertheless we're still upset whenever a man bites a dog and we don't like it when it happens, especially when the man is only very reluctantly held accountable, or we find out he'd already been in trouble for biting dogs in the next state over.
 
You are essentially getting salty about a man bites dog thread.

"It's unskeptical to focus on man bites dog stories while ignoring all the times a dog bites a man!"

Yes, usually the dog bites the man. Nevertheless we're still upset whenever a man bites a dog and we don't like it when it happens, especially when the man is only very reluctantly held accountable, or we find out he'd already been in trouble for biting dogs in the next state over.
Yup. And if posters kept throwing up man bites dog stories to perpetuate a narrative that all men are cruel animal abusers, I'd call them numbnuts, too.
 
Yes, Thermal, police are human beings and can do good things too. And should be praised when they do! But should absolutely be ◊◊◊◊ on when, in a role of authority, they do reprehensible or very stupid things.

As the thread is 'behavior' your post hiliting a story of good behaviour is on topic. But your declaration that hilighting the bad behaviour is ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊, is ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊.

Two sides of a coin. Praise, accountability.
I think it's an important part of police behavior, based on a primitive, childlike perception of the complexity of humanity, which is taught us from childhood, that from the get-go they tend to see the world as binary. If you are seen as one of the good guys, the citizens they consider themselves to protect, there's nothing more useful than a cop. Stories abound of police helping pregnant women and stranded motorists and the victims of various emergencies. If someone goes missing, nothing better than a squad of cops on the search. This is real. Friendly Officer Clemmons is out there, and when your car breaks down, he'll probably let you sit in his nice warm car until the towtruck comes.

But if they perceive you as a bad guy, the switch is thrown, and the same person who gives you his coat and a cup of cocoa is just as likely to shoot you without asking questions.

I don't think this really is a "man bites dog" issue. Most of the cops you'll run across are decent people and at least believe themselves to behave accordingly. The issue in a thread like this comes down, I think, to the binary, DickandJane level of social consciousness that leads such a large body of largely decent people to be so dangerous.
 
(...) If you are seen as one of the good guys, the citizens they consider themselves to protect, there's nothing more useful than a cop. (...)

But if they perceive you as a bad guy, the switch is thrown, and the same person who gives you his coat and a cup of cocoa is just as likely to shoot you without asking questions. (...)
I agree, I think this is probably a huge part of the overall way they relate to the public. I have guilty-nervous face so any interaction initiated by the cops? I'm a perp. Even though I'm a tiny woman. I literally got backup called on me for looking too upset after being pulled over for having no seatbelt on. It's nearly panic-attack inducing. Bleah.

And this kind of thing shakes out as people having diabetic episodes etc, being seen as uncooperative perps. And bad things happen.
 
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What is "unskeptical" about only discussing examples of bad behaviour? That bad behaviour happens.
Indeed, we should expect public servants to do their jobs. The cases where they don't are concerning.
 
Indeed, we should expect public servants to do their jobs. The cases where they don't are concerning.
Yes, and I am in fact in favor of praising them when they do a good job. I'm also under the impression that they often are praised for that; that heartwarming cop stories are popular news filler etc. so I'd be surprised if good cop actions in general go underpraised.
 
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Indeed, we should expect public servants to do their jobs. The cases where they don't are concerning.
It's not that. A "Failures of US Police" thread wouldn't carry the ACAB vibe. This one does. Constant postings (from those who know nothing of American policing aside from sensational one in a million horror stories) that all police are murderous, cowardly thugs who shoot first and ask questions never. These tales are the rare outliers in a nation of a third of a billion.

The original Independence police story was accepted without question, because posters were hooked on that narrative. I've had cops pull guns on me a half dozen or so times (not sure of the exact number because of lights shined in my eyes) and *I* don't even think they are all ogres. You're gonna get a few psychos in any nationwide group, be it priests or popo. Just don't damn them all, and don't hold American cops to a higher standard (see recent AAH).
 
The problem with that is that there are many police forces with genuine rotten-barrel problems which drive out good cops who want to do any more controversial good than cute lady rescue. I believe in this very thread we've had a good cop who was let go for deescelating a situation that his fellows wanted to shoot at instead.
 
Applicable to both this and the UK thread: Police officers doing the job that they are paid to do is not (or shouldn't be) noteworthy.

Police officers committing crimes, abusing their authority, abusing the exceptional powers entrusted to them, these things are noteworthy.
 
It's not about whether the actors are good or bad in these stories. It's about the narrative that they are clumsily propping up. AACAB.

Do you guys condemn all men wholesale when a small percentage of them commit crimes? We have posters here very loudly condemning American police wholesale.
 
It's not about whether the actors are good or bad in these stories. It's about the narrative that they are clumsily propping up. AACAB.

Do you guys condemn all men wholesale when a small percentage of them commit crimes? We have posters here very loudly condemning American police wholesale.


If you do nothing when you know your fellow officers are committing crimes they you are as guilty as they are.
 
So there aren't any cops turning a blind eye to the misdeeds of their colleagues?

How about when entire police forces are committing crimes? Manufacturing their own crack to sell so they can arrest the people that buy it for example?
 
So there aren't any cops turning a blind eye to the misdeeds of their colleagues?
...wut? I just agreed with you that conspiracy after the fact is a crime for those involved.
How about when entire police forces are committing crimes? Manufacturing their own crack to sell so they can arrest the people that buy it for example?
Same as men who get into criminal activity in gangs. They are criminals, and should be treated as such. Are your police crack manufacturers still in the biz, or have they been sat on?

Any more thought provoking thought experiments?
 
It's not that. A "Failures of US Police" thread wouldn't carry the ACAB vibe. This one does. Constant postings (from those who know nothing of American policing aside from sensational one in a million horror stories) that all police are murderous, cowardly thugs who shoot first and ask questions never. These tales are the rare outliers in a nation of a third of a billion.

The original Independence police story was accepted without question, because posters were hooked on that narrative. I've had cops pull guns on me a half dozen or so times (not sure of the exact number because of lights shined in my eyes) and *I* don't even think they are all ogres. You're gonna get a few psychos in any nationwide group, be it priests or popo. Just don't damn them all, and don't hold American cops to a higher standard (see recent AAH).

But that's not the issue

This is

The problem with that is that there are many police forces with genuine rotten-barrel problems which drive out good cops who want to do any more controversial good than cute lady rescue. I believe in this very thread we've had a good cop who was let go for deescelating a situation that his fellows wanted to shoot at instead.

And this
Applicable to both this and the UK thread: Police officers doing the job that they are paid to do is not (or shouldn't be) noteworthy.

Police officers committing crimes, abusing their authority, abusing the exceptional powers entrusted to them, these things are noteworthy.

With the addition that these incidents highlight systemic failures , not just with individual police forces (although many certainly fail their citizens) but the whole police structure.

Just as the Met Police in the UK (the largest police force) has been found to be institutionally racist (in the 1990s and recently) and institutionally sexist, homophobic and institutionally corrupt. In official judicial inquiries.

 
It's not about whether the actors are good or bad in these stories. It's about the narrative that they are clumsily propping up. AACAB.

Do you guys condemn all men wholesale when a small percentage of them commit crimes? We have posters here very loudly condemning American police wholesale.
Whatever you do, don’t read any of the politics forum threads.
You’ll run out of pearls.
 
In situations where they control distance, are aware of the threat beforehand, and can isolate others from the assailant. That isn't the case here. The woman is already within range of lethality when the knife is drawn.


They acted precisely how they were trained to act, kid.
So US cops are trained as murderous psychopaths? I didn't think even your cou trt was that insane.
 
But that's not the issue

This is
Are you sure? I don't see the majority of the thread dealing with systemic cover-ups. The majority appears to be one-off freakshows. The recent discussion about the Independence shooting is a good example. A completely imaginary narrative, swallowed wholesale, and then switching to criticizing the cop for shooting when an attacker suddenly lunges at him with a long knife (interestingly, shooting a knife-lunging attacker almost immediately is called exemplary police work and heroic on other threads). Where is the cover up here?
Again, failures and betrayals are fair game to loudly criticize. That's not what the discussion is sliding towards.

But conceded, I'm likely overreacting to a couple posters "thoughts".
With the addition that these incidents highlight systemic failures , not just with individual police forces (although many certainly fail their citizens) but the whole police structure.

Just as the Met Police in the UK (the largest police force) has been found to be institutionally racist (in the 1990s and recently) and institutionally sexist, homophobic and institutionally corrupt. In official judicial inquiries.

Ok. Your London police, too, are generationally antisocial psychos, and pretty much nothing is being done about them either.

So what should we think about this? I'm inclined to think that police work, pretty much by definition, is going to attract if not outright require violent applicants. Some will be nastier than others. How, from a hiring standpoint, do you hit the sweet spot of "only violent enough to be justifiable in hindsight"? Is it possible?
 
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I'm inclined to think that police work, pretty much by definition, is going to attract if not outright require violent applicants. Some will be nastier than others. How, from a hiring standpoint, do you hit the sweet spot of "only violent enough to be justifiable in hindsight"? Is it possible?
That's one of the systemic things being complained about; some forces will not accept applicants that seem like they would cause trouble by way of being too smart, too moral, or too educated. And I don't mean 'well we don't need to waste a rocket scientist on a beat cop's job' smart either. When forces don't want the kinder, smarter people that show up at their door, what else is the force going to be but a brute squad? If their reason is that a kinder cop has no place in the force, that's an indictment in itself.

Oh also if they'd stop hiring cops fired for horrible cause from other police forces that would be very nice too. Honestly that would be a huge improvement. Many of the worst incedents in the thread were caused by previously fired cops.
 
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That's one of the systemic things being complained about; some forces will not accept applicants that seem like they would cause trouble by way of being too smart, too moral, or too educated. And I don't mean 'well we don't need to waste a rocket scientist on a beat cop's job' smart either. When forces don't want the kinder, smarter people that show up at their door, what else is the force going to be but a brute squad? If their reason is that a kinder cop has no place in the force, that's an indictment in itself.

Oh also if they'd stop hiring cops fired for horrible cause from other police forces that would be very nice too. Honestly that would be a huge improvement. Many of the worst incedents in the thread were caused by previously fired cops.
I'm reminded of an old acquaintance, way back in time, who had been a psychologist when younger, who said he suspected most cops, not of being bad guys exactly, but of aspiring to something like superhero status - the super-good hammer of God. And, of course, in so doing, they end up bad, because a person who thinks he's doing good is not held back by conscience. Back then, as I recall, it was no secret, even a selling point, that police training included a concept they called "preventive aggression."

Anyway, this fellow said he had run into one really good cop in his experience. He was, fortunately, the Connecticut police commissioner at the time. But he had been an ordinary trooper, and back then when asked why he'd become a State Trooper, he replied that it seemed a good job, since liked to drive fast and thought the uniform "snappy."
 
Yeah, and to be fair it's easy to see where dealing with unrepentant petty criminals all the time will make you stop caring about cutting corners and giving new encounters any benefit of the doubt. But that still doesn't mean we should be effectively training our cops to do that on purpose.

Much less training them to be dumb, panicky animals, which seems to be the driving reason behind many of the mistaken or unneccesary shootings by cops who really were just trying to do their jobs, like the guy who shot Philando Castille for not obeying his order to stop moving because Phil had gone into his own trained routine of getting his vehicle registration out and didn't understand that the cop thought that he had announced that he was going for a gun to threaten him with.
 
Yeah, and to be fair it's easy to see where dealing
with unrepentant petty criminals all the time will make you stop caring about cutting corners and giving new encounters any benefit of the doubt. But that still doesn't mean we should be effectively training our cops to do that on purpose.

Much less training them to be dumb, panicky animals, which seems to be the driving reason behind many of the mistaken or unneccesary shootings by cops who really were just trying to do their jobs, like the guy who shot Philando Castille for not obeying his order to stop moving because Phil had gone into his own trained routine of getting his vehicle registration out and didn't understand that the cop thought that he had announced that he was going for a gun to threaten him with.
Yes and no - they do continue to give the benefit of the doubt to those they consider the same as they are - their "us". However I do think it is an issue that if you are dealing day-in day-out with the worse failings of our society and those that are the worse people of our society it will influence you. It's why we need rigorous procedures, ones that try to ensure the worse behaviour cannot happen (of course there is no perfection) and when it does happen it is exposed and dealt with. It's also why we should not have the police policing themselves.
 
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