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 Ghazkuul wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Ghazkuul wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
To be fair, there are major problems with policing & corrections systems in the US, and ultimately, respect must be earned, it cannot simply be given or it would be worthless.

Unfortunately, there is, on just about a daily basis, stories and videos of police doing wildly irresponsible things that erode that respect, and an almost nonexistent rate of them having to take responsibility for such actions, or at least a widely held perception of such. Coupled with other controversies like civil forfeiture and stop & frisk and the like, it makes it difficult to maintain respect.

We had a saying in the Marine Corps, "you might not respect the man but you sure as hell better respect the rank" Don't get me wrong, that only went so far. I can't tell you the number of times I wanted to tell someone with a higher rank exactly what kind of a Feth Nut they were, but I couldn't because they held a higher rank. The same should apply in the civilian world to an extent. Treat cops with respect simply because they are cops. If hes a dirt bag? report him. No point going to jail because you feel like being the tough guy, you will lose 99% of the time.

The problem is twofold. First, the concept that a civilian policeman somehow "outranks" a non-police civilian is an issue many have a problem with, civilian life is not the military.

Second, reporting almost never goes anywhere for the overwhelmingly vast majority of cases, and in many cases can result in further harassment or deep legal issues. In many cases, like civil forfeiture, where a cop can just take anything they want and you have to sue them to prove it wasn't used for illegal purposes, the process is quite simply beyond the means of many people.

Im not saying that cops "Outrank" Police, my point was that you still have to respect them, even if you don't like them. As a society we have all agreed to follow certain rules and to empower certain members of our society to enforce these rules. By saying your not going to follow the rules because you don't like the person who is enforcing them...well thats just being plain uncivil

To some extent I agree, however the person enforcing them is also acting as an agent of authority, and if they abuse it or are not properly representing that authority, that reflects strongly upon that authority, particularly when such cases are frequent and corrective action is...significantly less so.

 cincydooley wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Another one is that nationwide the average of police is 80% white.

]

Which means exactly nothing unless we know how many applicants were of color.

It doesn't mean nothing, it means we can't derive any one singular meaning from it, however it does lead to a couple of different questions. Is the application pool proportionally representative and if so why is this not reflected in hiring stats, and if not, is there something about the institutions (either through public interactions or hiring processes) that is artificially shaping the applicant pool?

^^ What the man said.

If you look deeper into this, there are many police departments that are very unrepresentative of the area they police, and there are some that are bang on. Meaning if your area is 90% white you probably expect to have round about 90% white policemen, but in a lot of cases, you have 40% black people and maybe only 20% black police.

The national average of 80% white reflects the fact that in most areas the police over-represent white people compared to the local population.

Given the amount of social tension in the USA around race, this of course is likely to lead to... trouble.

I'm not saying the UK is any better, mind you.

 Vaktathi wrote:
is there something about the institutions (either through public interactions or hiring processes) that is artificially shaping the applicant pool?

I mean, it certainly can't be popular culture influencing said populations:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WiT-c3NA0M

And it apparently matters very little, as IIRC Baltimore was a city that had more minorities than whites in their police force, and also have minorities holding 4 of the top 6 positions.

The notion of over-representation is absurd to me. You can only hire from your applicant pool.

That feeling when someone cites a song written in response to police brutality and profiling as the reason for bad relations with the police.

Well for a comparison look at the military. The US Army suffered from a lack of recruits during the recent war on terror. They were literally pushing through people that had no right to be in the military (weren't qualified mentally/physically/emotionally). And yet, even with that stat the US Military is only about 30% minorities. (black, hispanic, asian, non-white).

It has less to do with racism in hiring and more to do with the feeling of civic obligation.

I know this. You know this. The NWA know this. But there a reason this is the "anthem" and KRS's Sound of da Police isn't.

To be fair, look at the lyrics, when they're talking about "got it bad cuz I'm brown" and "they have the authority to kill a minority" or "***ing me cuz I'm a teenager with a little bit of gold and a pager" in like, the opening thirty seconds, it would appear that there is a public relations issue that would possibly make it less likely for certain groups to look to join their organization due to a perception of being treated unfairly.

Most social justice advocates see this as a victory if twitter, websites, and my classes at UC are any kind of worthy rubric of judgement.

The role of the media is absolutely to blame. We are at a point where the right to use violent force, bestowed upon police institutions by the social contract, is being called into question. Thats really messed up when you think about it.

 Peter Wiggin wrote:
Most social justice advocates see this as a victory if twitter, websites, and my classes at UC are any kind of worthy rubric of judgement.

The role of the media is absolutely to blame. We are at a point where the right to use violent force, bestowed upon police institutions by the social contract, is being called into question. Thats really messed up when you think about it.

I would argue that if such is being called into question, it's because such institutions have shown repeated and egregious abuses of such a right, which should be much scarier.

 Ghazkuul wrote:
Well for a comparison look at the military. The US Army suffered from a lack of recruits during the recent war on terror. They were literally pushing through people that had no right to be in the military (weren't qualified mentally/physically/emotionally). And yet, even with that stat the US Military is only about 30% minorities. (black, hispanic, asian, non-white).

It has less to do with racism in hiring and more to do with the feeling of civic obligation.

So what are you trying to say, black people have less of a inclination towards than civil service than white people? Can you clarify that statement?

According to this article based on Pentagon stats, whites are under-represented in the armed forces but over-represented in the officer corps.

http://www.businessinsider.com/us-military-demographics-2014-8?op=1

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Peter Wiggin wrote:
Most social justice advocates see this as a victory if twitter, websites, and my classes at UC are any kind of worthy rubric of judgement.

The role of the media is absolutely to blame. We are at a point where the right to use violent force, bestowed upon police institutions by the social contract, is being called into question. Thats really messed up when you think about it.

I would argue that if such is being called into question, it's because such institutions have shown repeated and egregious abuses of such a right, which should be much scarier.

And yet there is nowhere near the same outcry regarding the constant stream of dead black folks on our streets.

I lived in Oakland, I know the score. <shrug>

 Ghazkuul wrote:
I had a neighbor who was a Cop and him and his wife would routinely check on my wife when I was either deployed or out on long training exercises.

I bet they did .

Also, beating up anyone is wrong.

Also Also, US needs less guns

 Peter Wiggin wrote:
Most social justice advocates see this as a victory if twitter, websites, and my classes at UC are any kind of worthy rubric of judgement.

The role of the media is absolutely to blame. We are at a point where the right to use violent force, bestowed upon police institutions by the social contract, is being called into question. Thats really messed up when you think about it.

No we are not. We are at the point where we question the judgment of the police in using the appropriate amount of force, because too many have used too much force. In the case of the original story the office thought he had a choice between shoot or do nothing, which means he is either not very good at his job, or not trained very well. The person who attacked him got hold of his gun, knock him out and had every opportunity to kill him, yet did not, but the cop felt he could shoot him or do nothing. The very fact that the cop let someone aggressive get that close to him is an issue. He needs to learn how to deal with that situation without escalating or restoring to his gun. The use of deadly force should be the last resort, but for the police in the US it seems to be the only resort.

 Steve steveson wrote:

We had the same issue in the UK in the 70's and 80's, where the police had issues, and we now know there was problems with racism, corruption and violence. At the time it manifested in the same way as in the US. An attitude of "I AM THE LAW!", with arrogance and other deep issues, which culminated in major riots. The UK police worked hard to root this out and change their relationship with the public. They are not perfect now, but much better. The US police need to face up to this. They cannot just demand respect.

Yes, they rooted out the previous racism so hard that out of fear of appearing racist they allowed an astonishing number of children to be raped. Not my idea of positive change.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
^^ What the man said.

If you look deeper into this, there are many police departments that are very unrepresentative of the area they police, and there are some that are bang on. Meaning if your area is 90% white you probably expect to have round about 90% white policemen, but in a lot of cases, you have 40% black people and maybe only 20% black police.

The national average of 80% white reflects the fact that in most areas the police over-represent white people compared to the local population.

Given the amount of social tension in the USA around race, this of course is likely to lead to... trouble.

I'm not saying the UK is any better, mind you.

The difficulty of course is hiring. Strangely, not everyone wants to be a police officer. Entire ethnic groups tend to not. This is compounded of course by discrimination.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Peter Wiggin wrote:
Most social justice advocates see this as a victory if twitter, websites, and my classes at UC are any kind of worthy rubric of judgement.

The role of the media is absolutely to blame. We are at a point where the right to use violent force, bestowed upon police institutions by the social contract, is being called into question. Thats really messed up when you think about it.

I would argue that if such is being called into question, it's because such institutions have shown repeated and egregious abuses of such a right, which should be much scarier.

Indeed.

 Mozzyfuzzy wrote:

 Ghazkuul wrote:
I had a neighbor who was a Cop and him and his wife would routinely check on my wife when I was either deployed or out on long training exercises.

I bet they did .

Also, beating up anyone is wrong.

Also Also, US needs less guns

So if you were walking down the street and you witnessed a nun being raped in public while at the same time being mugged, would it be ok then to beat someone up? I mean instead we could do the british thing and ask them politely to stop and if they didn't we would have to call their mother.

"I Tried to find an older video of some comedy skit where they have a british cop go down a Crime alley training scenario but failed :("

The problem with the American police is too much beating up of people who ought not to be beaten up.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The problem with the American police is too much beating up of people who ought not to be beaten up.

Your right killkrazy, im sure you have a vast amount of experience dealing with US police and aren't basing your entire conclusion on sensationalist news stories.

So if you were walking down the street and you witnessed a nun being raped in public while at the same time being mugged, would it be ok then to beat someone up? I mean instead we could do the british thing and ask them politely to stop and if they didn't we would have to call their mother.

"I Tried to find an older video of some comedy skit where they have a british cop go down a Crime alley training scenario but failed :("

Option 1. Use opportunity to obtain better lane as everyone is watching the crime. Suckers!
Option 2: attempt fist fight. Get ass kicked.
Option 3: Call the PoPo. They come after they finish that important meeting at the Dunkins.
Option 4: 9mm behind ear. Turns out it was performance art. Now you're in jail.
Option 5: 9mm behind ear. Now you have the Cali Cartel after you.
Option 6: unleash horde of wiener dogs. Righteous Victory!

 Peter Wiggin wrote:

The role of the media is absolutely to blame.

Truly, the last thing we want is people getting worked up and jumping to crazy conclusions and panicking because of something that they heard in the media even though knowledgeable people try to reassure them and explain what is really happening.

We are at a point where the right to use violent force....

Any police officer who thinks he has a "right to use violent force" needs to turn in his badge and gun and be removed as far as possible from ever having any sort of authority over anyone.

 d-usa wrote:


Any police officer who thinks he has a "right to use violent force" needs to turn in his badge and gun and be removed as far as possible from ever having any sort of authority over anyone.

There obviously need to be efforts made to retrain and reeducated when it comes to deescalation. This much is clear.

However, I don't think police officers should be forced to put themselves in positions like this, where deescalation fails, and the only recourse is to allow themselves to be attacked.

We've mentioned multiple times in the thread that there needs to be a step before shooting someone.

Most folks have agreed that step could be tasing. But we need to recognize that tasing doesn't work a lot of the time (be it due to narcotics in the system of the 'tasee' or due to equipment failure) and not all police officers carry tasers all the time. Remember, if that taser does fail, an advancing assailant will likely be on top of a police officer by the time they're able to pull their firearm.

I think mandatory body cams can help with due diligence and keep both sides 'more' honest, so I'm all for them.

But I don't know if there's a good solution in the intermediary beyond training, training, training.

Well, there is, but stating it would be dangerously close to "blaming the victim" here, I think.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Steve steveson wrote:

No we are not. We are at the point where we question the judgment of the police in using the appropriate amount of force, because too many have used too much force. In the case of the original story the office thought he had a choice between shoot or do nothing, which means he is either not very good at his job, or not trained very well. The person who attacked him got hold of his gun, knock him out and had every opportunity to kill him, yet did not, but the cop felt he could shoot him or do nothing. The very fact that the cop let someone aggressive get that close to him is an issue. He needs to learn how to deal with that situation without escalating or restoring to his gun. The use of deadly force should be the last resort, but for the police in the US it seems to be the only resort.

Clearly. But no amount of training is going to deescalate some people. Especially ones with warrants out and nothing to lose. The notion that "deadly force is the only resort" is absurd; deescalations and tasings, which happen ALL THE TIME, don't make the news.

I think you vastly overestimate the amount of time one has to make a decision of whether or not to draw on an advancing subject.

 cincydooley wrote:

 d-usa wrote:


Any police officer who thinks he has a "right to use violent force" needs to turn in his badge and gun and be removed as far as possible from ever having any sort of authority over anyone.

There obviously need to be efforts made to retrain and reeducated when it comes to deescalation. This much is clear.

However, I don't think police officers should be forced to put themselves in positions like this, where deescalation fails, and the only recourse is to allow themselves to be attacked.

We've mentioned multiple times in the thread that there needs to be a step before shooting someone.

Most folks have agreed that step could be tasing. But we need to recognize that tasing doesn't work a lot of the time (be it due to narcotics in the system of the 'tasee' or due to equipment failure) and not all police officers carry tasers all the time. Remember, if that taser does fail, an advancing assailant will likely be on top of a police officer by the time they're able to pull their firearm.

I think mandatory body cams can help with due diligence and keep both sides 'more' honest, so I'm all for them.

But I don't know if there's a good solution in the intermediary beyond training, training, training.

Well, there is, but stating it would be dangerously close to "blaming the victim" here, I think.

And it might just be that I am taking that statement wrong, but it just feels like it's a horrible mindset and not something that I would want anyone with a weapon and/or authority to have.

I agree that police officers have a duty to protect themselves and others. They also have a duty to protect the bad guy to the extend that they should use the least violent means to secure an arrest and the least violent means to protect themselves and others (which truthfully the least violent way sometimes is to shoot and kill because it will reduce the overall amount of violence that can result if you don't stop someone).

But "I have a duty to protect and serve, which sometimes includes violent force to carry out that duty" is different than "I have a right to use violent force" IMO. It just feels a bit "you see this badge, that's my 'do whatever I want and get away with it' badge. I have a right to use violent force whenever I want". Like I said, it might be a minor difference, or maybe I'm just reading too much into that statement.

 d-usa wrote:

But "I have a duty to protect and serve, which sometimes includes violent force to carry out that duty" is different than "I have a right to use violent force" IMO. It just feels a bit "you see this badge, that's my 'do whatever I want and get away with it' badge. I have a right to use violent force whenever I want". Like I said, it might be a minor difference, or maybe I'm just reading too much into that statement.

I don't think you're reading too much into it. I think it's an important distinction to make, as, to me, it sorta draws the line between someone that wants to protect and serve and someone that wants to harm and kill.

We don't want sociopaths on the force, obviously. But I also don't think we want officers to be afraid to use violent force if they have to.

It's easy to say, in retrospect, that this officer should have used deadly force. Unfortunately, if he had, we'd likely be seeing him on the news with another "cop shoots unarmed black man" headline. Doesn't seem to be a middle ground right now.

 cincydooley wrote:

It's easy to say, in retrospect, that this officer should have used deadly force. Unfortunately, if he had, we'd likely be seeing him on the news with another "cop shoots unarmed black man" headline. Doesn't seem to be a middle ground right now.

I honestly still don't think that he had justification to use deadly force while he was thinking "I think I would be on the news". Someone being angry and walking towards you is not enough of a reason to kill, heck people get into physical fights with cops every day and that still isn't a justification to kill. He did have justification to kill once he started to fight with him over his gun IMO, but not really much before then.

The headline would have been right because at the time there was no physical altercation, no history of violent behavior that the cop knew about, and no weapon of any kind in the hands of the bad guy.

It's a gakky situation to be in, that's for sure. And you can't really shoot people because they scare you or you have a hunch that they might turn out violent, even if that hunch turns out right.

It is a good case for having two cops work together, but that's not an option for the many departments that barely have enough cops on the force without having to require them to buddy up.

 Peter Wiggin wrote:
Most social justice advocates see this as a victory if twitter, websites, and my classes at UC are any kind of worthy rubric of judgement.

The role of the media is absolutely to blame. We are at a point where the right to use violent force, bestowed upon police institutions by the social contract, is being called into question. Thats really messed up when you think about it.

The social contract bestows the right upon police to use the minimum level of force required to protect the population and those in their custody. It doesn't give them carte blanche to beat the gak out of people, or murder people who run away from them, or to lie about the actions of their friends so that they walk.

At the end of the day, cops are CIVILIANS. If you want to kick doors and kill people, sack up and join the military. The model for law enforcement should be closer to that of a social worker.

I do think that it is important for us to make sure that questionable actions by cops and bad policies are made public, and that the media is an important tool for that even if they are often self serving in regards to creating ratings.

At the same time we need to make sure that we give credit to all the good cops and departments out there to make sure that we are "anti bad cop" and not "anti cop".

Stuff like that also needs to be shared:

https://www.facebook.com/OhioStateHighwayPatrol/videos/910164162410686/

 d-usa wrote:

But "I have a duty to protect and serve, which sometimes includes violent force to carry out that duty" is different than "I have a right to use violent force" IMO. It just feels a bit "you see this badge, that's my 'do whatever I want and get away with it' badge. I have a right to use violent force whenever I want". Like I said, it might be a minor difference, or maybe I'm just reading too much into that statement.

I agree with this paragraph.

 Ghazkuul wrote:

 Mozzyfuzzy wrote:

 Ghazkuul wrote:
I had a neighbor who was a Cop and him and his wife would routinely check on my wife when I was either deployed or out on long training exercises.

I bet they did .

Also, beating up anyone is wrong.

Also Also, US needs less guns

So if you were walking down the street and you witnessed a nun being raped in public while at the same time being mugged, would it be ok then to beat someone up? I mean instead we could do the british thing and ask them politely to stop and if they didn't we would have to call their mother.

"I Tried to find an older video of some comedy skit where they have a british cop go down a Crime alley training scenario but failed :("

That would depend on the person (being the 'you', not the people in the situation, before I get yelled at for does it depend on the nun/rape mugger for me to do anything), I'd call the cops, while running up to kick they guy where it hurts, does it make my actions right? In a strict moral sense no. In a is this probably the right thing to do sense? I would feel that yes it is. But then again if everyone had my amazing set of morals, the whole situation wouldn't have existed

Anyway I didn't want to get involved in no moral discussion, I jut wanted to make a "I bet they did" joke, while providing the bare minimum of being vaguely on topic

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The problem with the American police is too much beating up of people who ought not to be beaten up.

Idea: Stop basing your viewpoint on media storms and base it on real life experience. Go live in a place with over 100 murders per 400k residents, where people are mugged in broad daylight and children are shot dead by drive by shooters. Demonize the police a bit more once you've stepped outside the "safe" zones.


As for the question about how to treat people actively engaged in a crime, well I've seen large crowds literally turn a blind eye while a woman was being beaten in the public square in front of Oakland City Hall. The world is a totally fked up place.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:


At the end of the day, cops are CIVILIANS. The model for law enforcement should be closer to that of a social worker.

Look brother, no offense here.....but have you ever actually dealt with the social issues you are talking about?

Cops aren't civilians, and using that kind of a model will result in more cops and citizens dying while criminals are empowered. See the original post in this thread for an example.