Merged Copaganda/Torturing the English language whenever a cop kills someone

[TurkeysGhost]

Copaganda and the media

With cops freaking out about progressive prosecutors and fearing a backlash from protests about police abuse and excess, we're seeing a rash of copaganda being produced by the cops and credulously boosted by the media. Numerous threads on here have brushed against this issue, but it seems there should be a dedicated one to explore the issue directly.

A recent example of how respectable media uncritically lends their credibility to these tales of copaganda:

A new scandal is brewing at the New York Times. I try my best below to document the paper's corporate and police union copaganda, and to share actual evidence and research that the NYT ignores. The stakes are huge.
Last year, I wrote about a NYT writer who didn't disclose he had worked for CIA, Palantir, and police or that he currently ran a consulting company that relies on "law enforcement" contracts. It was a shocking, unethical episode.

Well, today, NYT had different reporter write basically same story and send it to entire NYT email list. Who was his main data source? **The same CIA/Palantir/Police analyst.** Again, the NYT calls that guy a "crime analyst" without reporting any of his conflicts of interest.

Today's piece is, in many ways, worse. It is unethical faux-science suggesting that more police will make us safer. This is contrary to the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence, but you wouldn't know that from NYT. But it gets even more insidious.

It's a long thread, which is easier to read using threadreader.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1483528171374972931.html

The author details how the NYTimes uncritically lends its platform to "experts" who pass off what is, at best, heavily contested social science as established fact, or at worst is just total pseudoscientific bunk.

For example:

Fourth, there are two main experts offered to give vague support for the article's main theses: that changes in policing caused murder and that the solutions are more punishment.

The first source is a guy who pro-police journalists always seem to quote for the James Comey "Ferguson Effect" idea, in articles that don't offer any evidence, just his "opinion." NPR used same guy for same reason. His opinion here is impossibly vague.

The "Ferguson effect" suggesting that reaction by police and public to civil rights protests somehow increases crime is like climate science denial. It was laughed at when Comey suggested it, and now it's offered as fancy pseudo-science in the New York Times.

it's worth a read. The conclusion:

Setting aside the evidence in my thread above that police cause more crime than they prevent and instead use their budgets to brutally enforce inequality, every other comparable country in the world manages to have lower violence with less punishment. All that missing in NYT.

This is, unfortunately, part of a long pattern of similar unethical, dangerous reporting in the NYT. Below are a few of the many threads I've done recently collecting some of these examples. At a time of rising authoritarian movements, we cannot let this keep happening.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Another example of copaganda being uncritically reported, this time in the NYPost:

This is a story about how police are frontline propagandists. It starts with a violent robbery at a men’s clothing store in Manhattan. It ends w/ NYPD responding, but refusing to investigate. Then lying that no one would face any consequences bc of “reform.”

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1482869672038985728.html

Another long thread easier to read with the threadreader link.

In short, a NY City clothing store was the victim of two large shoplifting/robberies. In the second robbery, the perp punched an elderly employee in the face. Luckily, they left their cell phone at the scene.

Cops didn't show up in time to apprehend them, but they had the phone. Hell, someone called the phone trying to get it back. Seems like a slam dunk way to investigate and make an arrest.

The cops then lie to the victims, explaining that they can't do anything. They can't investigate and even if they did, they can't arrest because reformist DA's wouldn't take the case.

It gets worse. NYPD didn't just lie they couldn't search for or arrest the suspects. They lied that even if caught, they'd face no consequences. Because of "bail reform" & new Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg's wildly misinterpreted policy memo. Storeowners were understandably horrified.

This is 100% a lie. The local woke DA is quite clear that they will prosecute felony robberies, which, because of the violence used, this unambiguously is.

The offense & actions the storeowners described is Robbery in the Second Degree. A class C violent felony. Each individual would face minimum 3.5 years in prison. Max 15. Under NY Penal Law 160.10(2)(a). Bail reform doesn't touch this case. Alvin Bragg's memo doesn't come close.

It is FALSE Manhattan DA Bragg's new policy memo forecloses prosecution of these violent felonies. Or comes close to *condoning them*. He'd prosecute this case as a violent robbery. His prosecutors would request bail. Here’s a direct link to his policy

So cops show up after a crime, lie to the victims that nothing can be done, and blame a progressive prosecutor.

The understandably upset victims then have their story, including the believed lies of lazy cops, uncritically repeated in the press.

Their story, with the police lies, is here:

The responding officers were professional and sympathetic. They said it was happening all over the city, but their message was very clear: Do not engage, the perpetrators probably have weapons, and even if you stop them, or we arrest them, nothing will happen. You will waste your time in the system, and they will not be penalized. So where does that leave us?

The cops said, ‘We are going to catch these guys … but don’t expect these guys to do time.” That’s disheartening.

I am not an expert on criminal justice or reforms. I am just a guy that sells pants.

NY State bail reform, while well intentioned, has been very bad for New York City. Too many people that should be incarcerated are not. The ability of perpetrators to rob my store, get arrested, and come back the next day to do it again, tears at the fabric of this city.

https://nypost.com/2022/01/15/nyc-shopkeeper-robbed-twice-by-marauding-bandits/

Across the country cops are telling victims of crimes that progressive policies will make it impossible to prosecute crimes, including serious, violent crimes, in a campaign of propaganda and fearmongering.

 

[Bikewer]

Even though I’m retired from actual police work, I still work for the department, and a common thread from the guys is… “You can’t do police work any more.”

By which they mean, of course, you can’t do police work the way it used to be done. Having been around for much of that…. This is a good thing.

I don’t see much of anything in the way of “copaganda” on the media sources I use; being a long-time NPR listener it’s mostly the other way around. However, one thing I do note about the coverage of crime and what to do about it is the consistent refusal to address the actual causes of crime.
Those knotty social issues that have plagued big cities forever… Poverty, lack of opportunity, sub-standard education, ghettoization, redlining….. On and on.
Not to mention the creation of a permanent underclass of citizens as a result of “mass incarceration”.

Now, all the above applies to the general class of “street crime”. The run-of-the-mill muggings, burglary, auto theft, shoplifting, “car clouting” etc.

That’s what most people think of when they talk about “crime”, but there are whole other classes of crime that are rarely addressed…. The wide range of sex crimes, for instance, and the equally wide range of “white collar” crime which causes far more financial loss yearly than all of street crime combined.

Just to veer off the track only slightly, the same thinking might apply to the “war on drugs”, where billions were spent on interdiction, arrest, incarceration, etc…. But almost nothing on trying to address the underlying problem….”Why do people feel the need to intoxicate themselves”.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

I don’t see much of anything in the way of “copaganda” on the media sources I use; being a long-time NPR listener it’s mostly the other way around. However, one thing I do note about the coverage of crime and what to do about it is the consistent refusal to address the actual causes of crime.

NPR has also parroted unproven copaganda nonsense, like the "Ferguson Effect"

This morning hundreds of thousands of @NPR listeners were exposed to brazen copaganda masquerading as "reporting." Peddling a dangerous lie that protests against police violence caused a "surge" in homicides. We all need to call this out.

NPR justice reporter, @relucasz, starts by admitting that "it's difficult to attribute causality bc often local factors drive crime & we're talking national numbers here." It's actually more than that. It's impossible to attribute *any* causality based on a single year of data.

After admitting "it's difficult" to ascribe causation for short-term spike in homicides reporter Ryan Lucas, then (w/ no evidence to support it) surmises that "the civil unrest" following the police murder of George Floyd was the main cause along w/ COVID. This is all wrong.

https://twitter.com/ScottHech/status/1442865362417061889

NPR starts the story saying that the data doesn't show any clear cause for the spike in murders, then gives its platform over to wild speculation about a totally unsupported "Ferguson Effect".

The data is inconclusive, so let's just speculate wildly about how cops are too sad to do their jobs so we need to be nicer to them. Very responsible journalism.

 

[dann]

Another excellent YouTube video from Renegade Cut (21:20 min):

What legal and illegal methods do the police use to deceive suspects? What are perfectly legal ways to protect ourselves from their deception?
Cops Are Liars (Renegade Cut, Dec 23, 2021)

And a slightly older one: Why Resist Arrest? (Renegade Cut, June 11, 2021 - 20:41 min)

 

[Donal]

So cops show up after a crime, lie to the victims that nothing can be done, and blame a progressive prosecutor.

It's always been some iteration of this. Police forces have never been good at solving petty property crimes, so they don't even bother anymore. There was a cop named Adrian Schoolcraft who actually documented and recorded officers in his precinct discouraging people in low-income neighborhoods from reporting small property crimes because they are almost never solved (and the cops had no interest in trying). This made their stats look better. And that was the least of the dirty $%^& they pulled.

 

[Suddenly]

The big wave of stories trying to gin up outrage over smash and grab theft was pretty bad. Mass numbers of people making nighttime raids on upscale stores and running off with stuff.

This one was particularly shameless:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/23/us/smash-and-grab-thefts-explainer-cec/index.html

A wave of "smash-and-grab" crimes is plaguing upscale stores in major US cities, with mobs of thieves making off with expensive goods in brazen, nighttime raids.

Okay.

Fourteen robbers barged into a Louis Vuitton store in suburban Chicago last week and fled with more than $100,000 in handbags and other merchandise.

Honestly not a violin small enough for this.

One reason for this is law enforcement's lack of resources, which means theft cases sometimes are put on the back burner, he said. And, he added, the "defund the police" movement has sapped some officers' morale.

Sure...

For example, Proposition 47, a California ballot initiative passed in 2014, sought to alleviate prison overcrowding by reducing the penalties for some crimes. The measure raised the threshold for felony theft from $500 to $950.
"For the low-level criminal, the benefit far outweighs the risk, since the threshold for a misdemeanor offense is $950 -- meaning that a person can steal up to that amount and only be charged with a misdemeanor," Buel said.

Which is, of course, staggeringly dishonest as these are breaking and entering cases which makes them felonies. Not to mention the various conspiracy charges that would seem obvious.

"These brazen, violent crimes are committed by sophisticated criminal organizations that are involved in drug trafficking, human trafficking and other serious crimes," Raoul said.

There's the uncritically reported cop conjecture spot on your bingo card...

The result is a ruthless cycle that affects everyone, Eliadis said. Some affected stores will shut down or relocate. And retailers plagued by thefts see their insurance rates and private security costs increase -- costs that eventually get passed on the customer.

Also a classic. Which gets just hilarious when an example is designer handbags.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

You'll Love this one..

Suspect armed with 2 guns by San Francisco airport's BART station is 'neutralized' by police

They exhausted all their options before they executed the suspect..

 

[Reactor drone]

You'll Love this one..

Suspect armed with 2 guns by San Francisco airport's BART station is 'neutralized' by police

They exhausted all their options before they executed the suspect..

"One bystander suffered minor injuries and has been treated and released"

There's a coincidence. I wonder how they they were injured?

 

[Brainster]

You'll Love this one..

Suspect armed with 2 guns by San Francisco airport's BART station is 'neutralized' by police

They exhausted all their options before they executed the suspect..

Sounds more like a wise-ass headline writer using the pr flak's wording ironically. but yeah, that's quite a euphemism.

 

[bruto]

Sounds more like a wise-ass headline writer using the pr flak's wording ironically. but yeah, that's quite a euphemism.

I think, assuming that "neutralized" is in quotes as shown here, that you are right.

 

[arthwollipot]

I think, assuming that "neutralized" is in quotes as shown here, that you are right.

They might be quoting an official police statement that used the word.

 

[bruto]

They might be quoting an official police statement that used the word.

Exactly, but I don't think they'd put the word in quotes except to stress "that's their word, not ours."

 

[arthwollipot]

Exactly, but I don't think they'd put the word in quotes except to stress "that's their word, not ours."

That's literally what quotes are for. Hence the name.

 

[bruto]

That's literally what quotes are for. Hence the name.

Yes, but what I meant is that the quotes would not be necessary, except to imply that this was not the word they would have used. If the police had reported that a man had been shot in the street, the reporter would not state "A man has been 'shot' in the street."

 

[Skeptical Greg]

The police will never report " A man has been shot in the street. " If it was a policeman who did the shooting.

 

[Thermal]

"There was an incident in the street involving a bullet-ridden man. Police were quick to respond just beforehand"

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Whoops media uncritically repeated police lies yet again:

The photo shows a Black teenager on a hospital gurney, blood seeping through his gray sweatpants. There are tears on his face, and he is sweating. His arms are handcuffed behind his back, and blue-gloved hands clutch at his sweatshirt.

The widely-printed account of what happened to the young person in the photo, that this teenager who shot a police officer outrageously walked free because of lax bail laws, was a credulous transcription of the NYPD’s version of events, replete with racist tropes. Papers reported that the NYPD responded to an “unruly crowd” where the teen — a “gang member” — repeatedly refused to comply with orders to show his hands, resulting in a “battle” with cops that ended with the teen firing the gun he was holding, shooting an officer and himself. One article coolly described the bullet as merely “passing through” a “gang member” on its way to injuring a police officer.

...

Then, last week, Judge Naita Semaj determined that NYPD Officer Taulant Gjonbalaj and his colleagues lied in this case, finding the “incredible…self serving” police testimony “had no value.”

“There was absolutely zero reason for any of those officers to approach this individual… He literally does everything you tell your child to do when they’re approached by cops,” said Judge Semaj, noting the teen kept his hands up, recorded, and answered all questions. Video fully discredited the police account.

But the case and fearmongering coverage had already been used to denigrate the young person, undermine any presumption of his innocence, and mislead the public to believing that modest pre-trial reforms in New York were to blame. Adams and other officials, including members of the NYPD, also advanced the case as an argument for the so-called “dangerousness” standard, a nakedly racist proposed addition to a suite of pre-trial detention options for judges that are already used to make the city’s pre-trial jail population 92% non-white. Proof that police lied only underscored the need for the very pre-trial protections they seek to undermine.

https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-police-lie-consequences-20220315-l4jubiydbvbg5l6iym7ln3sqdq-story.html

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Defund The Police .... PR Departments.
Seriously, why do they have PR Departments at all?

 

[sarge]

Defund The Police .... PR Departments.
Seriously, why do they have PR Departments at all?

Because they so often do mind boggling stupid things during their interactions with the public? Increasingly, their public affairs efforts should be re-labeled as public disinformation efforts.