[Police Brutality] "Nobody is doing that" Edition
Henroid
Mexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered User regular
Mexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered User regular
Editing in a Super Important Rule: Any links to media that's evidence / citations of police brutality have to comply with forum rules, particularly the new ones we got this past month. And even when they are in compliance, please place content warnings of what people can expect if they choose to open said media.
It's February and the honeymoon of "things are going to be better yay" is over. I'm sorry to tell you all that shit is still bad. (Edit - This line was written in the spirit of "New Years Day doesn't solve our problems" but was taken as a jab at the Biden administration. My bad for not making that clearer.)
To kick this thread off, while American law enforcement has a SHITLOAD of problems this thread's focus is on the use of force, be it racially driven or otherwise. I say 'otherwise' because this morning's headlines sure are a goddamn thing (via NBC):
I've been out of the news loop so I don't know what protests are continuing, but I have no doubt they will be happening the moment the new administration opens its mouth on the matter and delivers anything less than a perfect message.
To get ahead of it, yes while police participated in the attack on the capitol, discussion of that belongs in the coup thread.
It's February and the honeymoon of "things are going to be better yay" is over. I'm sorry to tell you all that shit is still bad. (Edit - This line was written in the spirit of "New Years Day doesn't solve our problems" but was taken as a jab at the Biden administration. My bad for not making that clearer.)
To kick this thread off, while American law enforcement has a SHITLOAD of problems this thread's focus is on the use of force, be it racially driven or otherwise. I say 'otherwise' because this morning's headlines sure are a goddamn thing (via NBC):
The girl was told by the officer "you're acting like a child," which she pointed out she was indeed a child. And then was attacked by the cop. Because all cops are bastards, and child abusers now.Authorities in Rochester, New York, are investigating a confrontation captured on video that shows police pepper spraying a 9-year-old girl while responding to a report of “family trouble,” officials say.
I've been out of the news loop so I don't know what protests are continuing, but I have no doubt they will be happening the moment the new administration opens its mouth on the matter and delivers anything less than a perfect message.
To get ahead of it, yes while police participated in the attack on the capitol, discussion of that belongs in the coup thread.
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The US police force is utterly and irretrievably rotten. To go with the tired comparison of cops to apples, nobody digs through a bunch of bad apples to try and pick out the good ones. You toss out the whole rotten lot and replace it because they're all infected. If we hadn't spent the last four years dealing with President Fuckhead, then this cop situation would be at the forefront of the public consciousness instead of getting buried under an insane pile of endless lawbreaking culminating in outright insurrection.
And even that situation has some direct relation to cop reform, though it won't be productive to focus on the Capitol insurrection here.
This also gets to my other pet issue, I don't think society is well served by allowing police to unionize. One law enforcement doesn't seem to have the issue that the rest of labor has, where management goes out of their way to turbo fuck labor over to make an extra penny. Most powers that be are willing to bend over backwards to meet law enforcement requests and in some cases, will to trample on people's rights to make it easier for the cops. So given that the union doesn't have to fight tooth and nail for better pay or attempts to make things safer, they've instead decide their raison d'être, is to ensure that the police have no accountability, which is fucking unacceptable and any organization that moves to elevate a group into a class above the law, needs to be obliterated from existence with extreme prejudice, to send a message that we aren't going to do that shit and attempts will not be tolerated. My other issue in regards to police unions, is that I feel they are corrupting the democratic process because they can endorse candidates and donate to political causes. I don't like this for the same reason, that I'm glad the military refuses to allow it to be a thing. One most people are hardwired to follow authority figures, the cops have said they support X, so most are likely to interpret that to mean they have to vote for X candidate. Second, this gives officers a mistaken notion they are allowed to mix their work with politics, which isn't bueno. The cops are allowed to have political views in the way that troops are. You don't not try to back your policy preferences with you position inside an organization that has coercive authority. AKA cops want to back a candidate, they do so without the badge and uniform and make it a point that any statement they say, doesn't leave the impression that it's an official stance of their department.
Probably the big things that would solve some issues. Outside organizations made to ensure police are accountability, have someone that does think Lt. Racist McDouchebag is awesome because the lieutenant treats them to launch or appears to be a nice kind of family guy. Lt Racist McDouchebag is someone they don't know and they are looking through is records and realizing his ass needs to go. Also helps in gray areas where Sergeant By The Book did what he was suppose to, hit an area where things were unclear and demonstrated his actions were justified, even if the lessons learn determine that going forward officers should be trained to avoid what Sergeant By The Book did. Though honestly, don't think we get much of this. Do away with electing top law enforcement, have them going through a proper hiring process. If it makes people care about certain locality elected offices that make the decisions on who gets hire more, I can only see that as a plus for society. Do away with police unions. Have some sort of setup where the top leadership for PDs, isn't solely at the discretion of the department. If the department is fucking rotten, you can't trust them to pick honest people to head the organization. Body cameras become mandatory. If it fails, then the testimony of the officer wearing it should be consider inadmissible; especially, since I'm pretty sure we can have more than one on an officer.
I live close to Seattle's East Precinct. I know them more than well enough from months of listening to them throw bombs and poison at my neighbors.
Most police don't police communities they live in and have been trained to view those communities as active threats to their safety. How does one overcome overtly hostile police training that puts law enforcement professionals on a permanent wartime footing?
Unless you’re just trying to stir people up, you’re going to need to engage more constructively than this. There have been numerous, ongoing discussions around police behavior.
Asking if people know their local cops well enough is not very helpful to this discussion, to say the least.
Force hiring to be local? I feel like you could legislate that you have to have a residency in the city/county to be a cop there.
Yup, they're racist, bigoted assholes.
Also take a look at any number of studies that show police officers don't actually live in the neighborhoods they patrol.
People trying to stir it up again will be kicked.
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That would be a start certainly, but we're still left with dealing with the toxic culture surrounding a lot of police departments, and that problem could potentially be solved by having more community oriented policing, but as evidenced by the firsthand accounts of a lot of forumers and others just in the general public, even when the police live in the precincts they serve, there is this like stark disconnect between the police and the general public.
It’s way too fucking many, with too little accountability and oversight, and that’s before one gets into the really out there shit like “warrior training” trying to drive home a sense that they are predators and the rest of the populace are prey who can dangerously lash out at any moment.
US policing is, imo, irrefutably fucked from top to bottom.
Just because most officers manage to go through their day without committing too many racist actions (if not outright hate crimes of their own) doesn’t make it less of an issue.
We’re looking for a sub 1% fuckery quotient here, and it’s been riding a hell of a lot higher for a long time now.
I have hopes that the new administration will be less inclined to turn tear gas and threatening helicopters on the populace, but the shit that has happened in the last few decades (and especially the last 4 years) happened, the people who directed those actions and participated in them are probably mostly still in uniform. Even if it gets quieter, they are still present. It can’t just be about driving them underground, there needs to be investigations and consequences.
I've known police at various levels in a personal capacity. Many of them seemed like nice people. None of that really changes the institutional issues at work though. The whole discussion is pointless because of that.
So I can be sure that if I got to know a police officer, I'd probably get on well with them (if we didn't mention politics), but that doesn't mean that my mind would be enlightened by the experience or anything. I don't think they are cartoon monsters.
Editing in a Super Important Rule: Any links to media that's evidence / citations of police brutality have to comply with forum rules, particularly the new ones we got this past month. And even when they are in compliance, please place content warnings of what people can expect if they choose to open said media.
I was too busy getting frisked for walking down the street at the time to invite them to my niece's birthday, my bad.
Of course, I would have rescinded said invite after they told me to leave town, and especially so after I was hit and run by a police supporter and had my case closed the same day, citing lack of evidence. Nevermind that I had the bumper for that car that hit me, and had already located the offending vehicle in a local repair yard. When I brought up that I knew who it was, they said it was in my best interest to not pursue anything and closed the case that same day. I don't think I was targeted in that incident, just that anyone involved in the local cops was beyond justice.
I absolutely got to know the local cops. I know they were ratfucking bastards who drove me and my spouse out of their hometown with veiled threats of violence. This was in Idaho for what its worth and I wasn't engaging in crime on any level, I was going to college and working. I committed the sole crime of having long dyed hair and had piercings. It was enough that I got stopped multiple times each week and questioned. And I was a middle class white dude presenting person. I can't even imagine what racial minorities in the area had to deal with, what few who couldn't leave.
I know some of my local cops in my current coastal PNW town, one even socially. They were useful when my house got broken into and even helped get some of my stuff back (truly!). I get that it can be a mixed bag but occasional anecdotes of them doing a decent job on behalf of a populace doesn't bring the people back from the dead that cops in this country routinely kill, often for no reason. This doesn't even address the lives they ruin via uneven enforcement and detention.
That a few cops in one town did their job doesn't mean that there isn't large scale institutional problems in this country, and ongoing complicity with those institutions constitute material support in terms of time and labor.
Good cops, such that may exist, are not a demonstrable check on the horrors that bad cops inflict on people. The current legal and social structures of current law enforcement departments simply does not allow for it.
In several different communities at several different points in my life I have gotten to know the local cops. Been on pretty good - downright friendly - terms with most of them without any real issues myself.
They are all bastards.
Sure, if you are white / non-threatening and treat them with the respect (bordering on reverence) they think they deserve, and generally don't do things that cause them problems they can be good and friendly - helpful even - for you. Being friendly can benefit you quite a bit - in my early 20's it got me out of speeding / racing tickets, one for sure drunk driving ticket, and at least one dead to rights marijuana possession charge.
But them playing favorites and letting people they see as their friends off on crimes is them being bastards. And even if they are being friendly you should never, ever think of them as your friends because most of them will turn on you in an instant if they think you are being disrespectful of them or their chosen profession.
They are conditioned into having loyalty first and foremost to the badge / brotherhood / fraternity / blue link / whatever you want to call it.
And just because a cop may not be a bastard toward you at some point in time, they are still a bastard. To the black family from out of town, the guy in a luxury vehicle who is just going to pay the falsified ticket instead of fighting it, to the kid with tattoos / piercings who smokes weed, they are absolutely pigs and bastards to them.
I guarantee anyone who knows a 'nice' cop, if they followed that cop around for a day they would find at least one or two on the job they would find plenty of examples of that cop being a straight up badge heavy dick and treating people like garbage just because they can. Then probably laughing about it with their buddy cops.
Absolutely, my best friend from College became a cop.
And after hearing a couple stories of his fellow officers abusing people in their custody, without being reported let alone reprimanded, it became a ACAB situation.
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Yep. And it often starts out benign.
Sure, some people sign up for law enforcement, because they're bastards and want to use authority for their own satisfaction.
But there's a lot of cops that sign up for a multitude of reasons, from wanting to be like the good guys on TV, to genuinely wanting to help. And then they get that beaten out of them, they see something, they object, they're told to be quiet by other cops. They might have a bad experience, and let that fester.
This is a post from a previous thread, describing former officer Paul Manning's attempt to report an officer for "breaking a kid's nose", and the coverup that followed that eventually forced him out of the job.
https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/42547329/#Comment_42547329
A cop that makes sufficient noise, isn't permitted, by the actual bastards and the complicit ones, to stay in the job.
A silent cop is a complicit cop. A complicit cop is a bastard.
Therefore, I'm fine with "All Cops Are Bastards".
I'm pretty tired of people presenting this as something like anyone has actually argued. The closest thing I've heard to this is when fox News tries to complain about how Biden isn't delivering fast enough so we should just go back to supporting Trump.
I don't know anyone who tried to claim that everything would magically be fixed simply because we got a new president, especially since it was generally understood that the main problem were local and not federal. There are lots of people who are glad we no longer trying to actively make things worse, but that's another matter.
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Trust me when I want to verbally jab Biden I will be doing it bluntly.
The only people I know trying to argue anything like that are Republicans who never wanted to admit that there were any problems in the first place, ala "slavery ended a long time ago, why are people still complaining?"
Without getting into the struck portion, I generally take issue with this idea that people who have a negative opinion of the police just, like, don't know any cops maaaaan. I was in the Army National Guard. There are a lot of cops in the Guard, which is to say I've spent a lot of time shooting the shit with a lot of cops, including them shooting the shit about the job.
I also had a friend in college who got hired on as a cop.
I've known a very nonzero number of cops, over a lot of years, and that includes everything from rural deputies to sworn college police officers to small town cops to actual city of Seattle cops. And know what? My opinion on how shitty cops tend to be is largely driven by those associations. Like, I spent years claiming "the video doesn't show everything" with a side of "well, in the moment that can be justified. On this very forum. I was that guy. Not in every case, obviously. But often. The more I talked to actual police officers the less charitable I was, because I had the opportunity to get the opinion of actual police on actual in-the-news controversies. To see the kind of people they are and the kind of stories they tell.
Meanwhile, back to a 9-year-old being pepper sprayed for...wait, what was it...acting like a child, I just have to note once again that what we see here isn't one officer making a mistake or taking things too far. How many officers were involved in that incident? And nobody was like, hey, maybe we don't hit a kid with the pepper spray? Was any attempt even made to contact her father, that she was screaming for? Was there some reason this couldn't be done on-site, and that she had to go into the back of the car to a second location?
Former La Mesa officer charged with filing false police report in arrest of Black man
This incident really hit me for some reason, and not just because it's local. Nobody died, nobody was shot, but that almost makes it more relatable as the kind of everyday nonsense you have to worry about running into. Something about how petty the whole thing was, and watching how many individuals were involved in escalating and none thought maybe it didn't need to go this way. That, and the realization that had this happened at pretty much any other time the victim would have been eating a charge, paying court fees and a fine, and would have left this with a criminal record. At best. This would never have made any newspaper. It would have been a non-story that nobody who didn't know the victim gave much thought about.
But of course Minneapolis burned that same night, so this got some attention. An actual investigation happened. Not only were the charges dropped, but the officer involved was suspended and fired in part because he had a pattern of conveniently activating his body cam incredibly late in a contact (including this one). They also apparently found other video sources showing that the justification he had for making the stop to begin with was entirely fabricated. He hassled, assaulted, and arrested a dude for no reason...with the help of six of his friends...and then just made some shit up for the original probable cause.
And he would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for thousands and thousands of those meddling kids.
Now he's facing a felony prosecution for falsifying a police report.
How much longer does it take until people recognize that any "reform" less than an utter dissolution and reconstruction from the most basic level of the whole damn thing is not going to make policing bette
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Pepperspray, tasers, tear gas, rubber bullets/beanbag rounds, etc. Meeting passive non-compliance with violence should not be allowed.. If this girls mom did that to her, she'd be in jail for years-and no defense attorney would try a "well in the moment she wasn't doing what she was told to do" defense - these shitheads should be looking at the same.
Also "training" can go die in a fire. I'm sorry, if you and 5 other adults are so incapable of handling an upset 9 year old you need to use pepper spray, no amount of training will turn you into a competent anything. Let alone someone who should be allowed near a gun.
What is writing up new use of force standards going to change? They have a police accountability board in Rochester, too. That did not prevent this incident.
What consequences are the officers involved going to face? Anything less than being stripped of their badges and their pensions will show that every reform ostensibly adopted has been a smokescreen to make people stop paying attention. Deploying another smokescreen is not a solution.
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If I pepper sprayed a random child I'd lose more than my job
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