Cont: The behaviour of US police officers - part 2

[lobosrul5]

//Slight hijack, but it does fall into the general topic/theme of the thread//

I actually think that's slightly backwards. As in there's a lot more people in LEO positions who got shoved in the metaphorical locker back in 4th grade than who did the shoving.

There's a lot more "Let me see you give me a purple nurple now Jimmy Glick from Ms. Rosenstein's biology class!" in the attitude of cops than not.

Seems extremely unlikely to me. Most of the patrols cops here are in good shape, athletic types. Not the nerdy or fat kid that was picked on, more like ex-football player.

 

[Thermal]

Or, from a different perspective, you want to help the community by making it safer

...by controlling people and being violent to them against their will. It may be well-intentioned, but the job description is to be the Hammer.

It'd be like saying people doctors only because they want to either make a lot of money or fondle people's genitals.

What were you just saying on another thread about strawmen?

A doctor's tools and training are dominated by diagnoses and treatment. A cop's are dominated by retaining, hurting, and killing people.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

You don't become a cop unless you want to control others and be violent to them against their will. It's kind of in the job description.

Sure, I've met plenty of bouncers that enjoy getting rowdy too.

The difference is that bouncers don't have the expectation of total impunity, so that usually tempers their sadism a bit.

Slowly crushing people to death seems to be a uniquely cop form of torture.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

NYPD is full of antivaxxers.

The nation’s largest police force is still struggling to get its cops vaccinated against COVID-19 — with the latest figures showing just 43 percent have gotten the jab, The Post has learned

https://nypost.com/2021/07/21/nypd-lags-in-vaccinating-cops-as-delta-covid-variant-spreads/

 

[TurkeysGhost]

US Congressional Rep calling for DOJ to investigate LASD deputy gang.

Rep. Maxine Waters on Wednesday requested that the U.S. Department of Justice investigate allegations that a violent gang of deputies called the Executioners runs operations at the Los Angeles County sheriff’s Compton station.

“I ask that the DOJ take two immediate actions: launch an independent investigation into the existence of the ‘Executioners,’ both at the LASD Compton station and within the greater LASD community, and launch a pattern or practice investigation into the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department for potential civil rights and constitutional violations,” Waters (D-Los Angeles) wrote in a letter to the Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland and Asst. Atty. Gen. Kristen Clarke.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-07-21/maxine-waters-requests-sheriffs-department-compton-executioners-investigation

 

[Armitage72]

US Congressional Rep calling for DOJ to investigate LASD deputy gang.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-07-21/maxine-waters-requests-sheriffs-department-compton-executioners-investigation

There was a scene in the science fiction series "Falling Skies" in which a character sarcastically asked a black man if he had been in a gang before the alien invasion. The man responded "The baddest gang around. The Boston PD."
It was meant as a joke then.

 

[Belz...]

...by controlling people and being violent to them against their will.

No. You're just wrong. Most police officers seldom have to resort to any kind of violence.

It may be well-intentioned, but the job description is to be the Hammer.

If it's well-intentioned then they don't want to control and be violent.

 

[bluesjnr]

Most police officers seldom have to resort to any kind of violence.

And yet so many do... at the merest opportunity.

 

[ZiprHead]

What is your evidence for this?

It's right next to the exact same evidence that cops are grown up high school bullies. Go find it.

When I was in college, medical field, on the first day of one of my classes the teacher asked us why we were taking the class. One of the guys in the class said he was originally in criminal law (or whatever it was called). He wanted to be a cop.

He said he dropped that major and went into medical because most all of his classmates were either the high school bullies and wanted to continue doing so, or they were the bullied and were now seeking payback. He said the thought of sitting next to these guys eight hours a day every day sickened him.

 

[mgidm86]

I think it is probably the job that makes the cop a bully in a lot of cases. Power corrupts and all that. I know two people who became cops. One wasn't a bully in school or picked on. He was big but a decent dude. I could see the job changing him though. I think his Dad was a cop. Smallish town.

The other, a super nice guy I've known since his birth. Intelligent and thoughtful.

I have no idea what they are like now.

I think many types of people become cops which is why not all cops are Derek Chauvin. It is easy to get carried away though when you have authority, and it probably also depends on where you work...big city, small town...

 

[Aridas]

And yet so many do... at the merest opportunity.

Too many, perhaps, but it's likely not wrong to consider the problematically violent offenders to be a relatively small minority that gets oversized attention for obvious reasons. With that said, focusing on the violent offenders, specifically, makes it far too easy to overlook how lots of the cops who are not violent offenders and too much of the judicial system go out of their way to protect the violent offenders from receiving real consequences for their offenses.

 

[gnome]

Too many, perhaps, but it's likely not wrong to consider the problematically violent offenders to be a relatively small minority that gets oversized attention for obvious reasons. With that said, focusing on the violent offenders, specifically, makes it far too easy to overlook how lots of the cops who are not violent offenders and too much of the judicial system go out of their way to protect the violent offenders from receiving real consequences for their offenses.

That, and screening is only part of the solution. How police are trained and the effectiveness of accountability methods will almost certainly change the behavior of officers. Police are not divided into good and bad. Just like anyone else, they have impulses from both, in varying amounts, and what is reinforced is what will emerge most. Behavior that is successful will be repeated. So it's a huge mistake to treat it as a sorting task without paying attention to how the job itself affects their choices.

A reformed institution and policing culture could see a "good cop" made of someone who would otherwise end their career in a courtroom on TV.

 

[Belz...]

And yet so many do... at the merest opportunity.

It's easy to say that when you look at select events rather than statistics. You know that most police officers never draw their gun in the course of their careers? And that the US isn't the only country in the world?

 

[quadraginta]

It's easy to say that when you look at select events rather than statistics. You know that most police officers never draw their gun in the course of their careers? And that the US isn't the only country in the world?

I understand what you are saying, here. But I don't see how it is relevant.

The point isn't to try and find solutions to improve the behavior of cops who are already behaving well. It is to find solutions to stop the ones who aren't.

Whether those cops comprise a majority of the forces or not is hardly important. They exist, and the numbers, however small, are not inconsequential.

Worse still, they exist within a system which has been designed to protect them from their actions, which can do little to dissuade others from embarking on the same path.

Then, also, these cops you talk about who do behave well do not seem inclined to do anything to improve the situation. Quite the opposite. They close ranks and defend the worst among them.

How good is that sort of behavior? In my opinion that makes them accessories. Perhaps not equally guilty, but their hands are far from clean.

 

[Belz...]

I understand what you are saying, here. But I don't see how it is relevant.

The point isn't to try and find solutions to improve the behavior of cops who are already behaving well. It is to find solutions to stop the ones who aren't.

But that's not what I was addressing. I was initially responding to Thermal's claim that all people who become cops want to control people through violence. That's simply not true.

 

[TomB]

Then, also, these cops you talk about who do behave well do not seem inclined to do anything to improve the situation. Quite the opposite. They close ranks and defend the worst among them.

How good is that sort of behavior? In my opinion that makes them accessories. Perhaps not equally guilty, but their hands are far from clean.

I think this is a situation that has to be addressed, but I'm not sure how. So maybe examine why cops either cover or turn a blind eye to the transgressions of their fellow officers. I think it might be a little simplistic to just label them complicit and blame it all on police culture. Let me explain before you start yelling....

No one likes a tattle-tale. That's ingrained in us from grade school up. The kid who tells on another kid is seen in as much (or more) of a negative light than the kid who was doing something wrong.

The movie "Scent of a Woman" comes to mind. Al Pacino's speech begins with "But not a snitch!" and then goes on to talk about integrity. It's a bit more complex than that, but being a "snitch" is not associated with integrity. At least not on the surface. (I know, there's more to it in the movie.)

In other careers, most people don't want to inform on their colleagues either, for reasons that, in my opinion, go back to grade school. No one wants to be the outsider in the group. And the group doesn't trust the person who rats on Joe, even if the group doesn't like or trust Joe or the things Joe does either. Of course, stealing office supplies, snooping through the Boss's desk, or even faking numbers in a time report are of a different magnitude than what we are talking about here. But still, it applies.

Perhaps, more so, actually. If you're a snitch at the office, no one talks to you at the water cooler and you aren't included in lunch plans. And yes, that sucks and leads people to find new jobs. (It's probably why harassment is often not reported.) But for a police officer or a soldier, you might find yourself in situations where you are depending on people who don't trust you and who, as a result of reciprocity, you don't trust either.

I didn't write the above to in any way excuse the officers who don't report their fellows. I often rant to my wife that other officers present are accomplices. In my mind, the correct thing to do, having just witnessed another officer commit a crime, is to cuff him and put him in the back of the car like any other criminal. (I also recognize that this isn't particularly practical.)

But if you want to address the silence of other officers, you have to recognize where it comes from and I don't think it's unique to police culture.

In theory, body cameras should help because they would not only record the crime, but make it so that witnessing officers have little choice but to speak up or at least speak the truth when confronted.

 

[Babbylonian]

But that's not what I was addressing. I was initially responding to Thermal's claim that all people who become cops want to control people through violence. That's simply not true.

It's untrue and profoundly unhelpful when trying to figure out how to fix the problem. A police culture has been built up wherein cops are trained to see themselves as being at war, a war in which they can only trust their colleagues and everyone else is an enemy combatant.

 

[gnome]

Just as in any career, we have to try and normalize a line of "too far". The stakes are higher in policing, of course. Fudge a time report and it doesn't have to be anyone else's business on your team, and if it causes a problem for the team I can see preferring to settle it without escalating it to management or whatever. That makes total sense.

Plant evidence on a suspect--too far. The public mistrust built from that can have deadly consequences, even if caring about the suspect's screwed up life isn't on the table. People should be afraid of being rejected by their own teammates for stuff like that.

How to get there from here? I don't know. Too often "snitches get stitches" is a sociopath's shield from consequences.

 

[Belz...]

It's untrue

It's untrue that most police officers never need to use their guns? It's untrue that most police officers rarely have to use force in the line of duty?

and profoundly unhelpful when trying to figure out how to fix the problem.

Maybe you missed what I said in the post you quoted, but I was addressing a specific claim about the reason why people become cops. You're for some reason trying to make it about something else.

A police culture has been built up wherein cops are trained to see themselves as being at war, a war in which they can only trust their colleagues and everyone else is an enemy combatant.

I'm not denying that there's a serious problem with law enforcement in the US. I'm disagreeing with thermal that people always become police officers in order to violently control people. It's a ridiculous hyperbole.

 

[Babbylonian]

It's untrue that most police officers never need to use their guns? It's untrue that most police officers rarely have to use force in the line of duty?



Maybe you missed what I said in the post you quoted, but I was addressing a specific claim about the reason why people become cops. You're for some reason trying to make it about something else.



I'm not denying that there's a serious problem with law enforcement in the US. I'm disagreeing with thermal that people always become police officers in order to violently control people. It's a ridiculous hyperbole.

I was agreeing with you. Does that change your interpretation of what I wrote?