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[Police brutality] American injustice, yet again.


Ragitsu

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I think part of the problem with the police who themselves break the law or abuse their authority merely 'resigning' is there is little to keep them from heading to another area of the country and getting a new job with a new police department. Sure, their background might raise a red flag, but the new department might also just note that they 'quit their job' instead of 'were fired'. So you have Bad Cop #3 get caught using excessive force on year, and quitting. But in three years, he could be wearing another badge doing the same thing all over again.

Exactly.

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Roter Baron, I think it is interesting that you don't see police on a regular basis in Germany. While it has never been my presumption that Germany is strictly policed and it would have never occurred to me that people would assume so, I am just used to seeing police on a regular basis. Actually, here in Japan it is extremely common to see police out and about on a normal day. I probably see more police here than I ever did in the US. But that might be because the police here are designed to be built into communities whereas in my home in the US they are designed to have one or two major headquarters from which everyone works out of. To give you an example, in just a 15 minute bike ride from my house I could visit at least 4 different police 'boxes'. Is this not the case in Germany then? Are you all more like the US in that you have one major depot that houses most police functions for a city / ward / district?

 

Actually the German system seems more like the one in the US. The difference is that the police is (with the exception of the Federal police, Bundespolizei - means excatly that) is organized by the Länder (states) of Germany. So, there is of course police in every city or Kreis (county) but it is funded by the Land, in my case Nordrhein-Westfalen.

 

All police officers are employed by the Land they work in and are civil servants called Beamte - word by word it means "those with an office" = "officer", and are in the same level of employmentship as other civil servants. For instance, at leats in the Western states most teachers (such as I) are Beamte, too.

All Beamte are virtually (if not convicted of a crime worth two or more years in prison) non-displacable - after two years of probation you are usually "in for life" if you don't want to quit. But if you quit or you are dismissed then getting back into any kind of official job is pratically impossible.

So, being released from the force would mean for a cop: That's it for you with copping and policing! No other Land or offical bureau will hire you. Same for any other job (teacher, fire-fighter etc.).

 

There is no such thing as a University or College Police, Sheriff's Department etc.

 

BTW for American visitor's:

No "Miranda Rights" here!

And if an officer asks you to identify yourself, you MUST do so!

 

I was once asked to show my ID while I was waiting for the bus, about 300 meters away from my appartment in a neighbourhood in which I had lived for about 18 years.The reason: It was November, it was dark, there ha dbeen some burglaries in the area and I "looked suspicious", standing there at the corner - and as one cop told me: "We passed you in our cars like two times, we don't know you." - Yeah, and I was wearing jeans, a jeans jacket, my black Bundeswehr boots and a black wollen cap .... So, they made me show my ID and miss my bus. One girl that happened to be in one of my classes (about 17 at that time) was also made to identify herself. Well she got rather nervous since she had no ID-card with her and police has the right to detain you until they have proof of your ID. Since the Comprehensive School I workes in and she visited was on the same street, I could ID myself and she had a letter on her person, the cops let that pass ...

 

The "Mysterious Bus Burglar" is still at large by the way ... :eg:

 

My only "harrassment" by German police so far. (Okay, getting caught for speeding is also some kind of harrassment.)

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Speaking of being forced to show ID without cause, all foreigners in Japan are expected to maintain state ID at all times no matter what. It is a punishable offense (normally a warning or very small fine but up to and including expulsion) if you don't. And while there is no such rule for natives (that I am aware of), there have been a series of issues with native Japanese being thought of as foreigners and being asked to show ID. When they couldn't they would be taken to the local police box until their ID could be verified. Normally that would end in an apology by the police of course but it is an awkward thing for natives, or worse yet for natives with non-100%-Japanese bloodlines to constantly be treated like 'others' by their own people. While foreigners might expect it, a native Japanese person experience it is a bit shocking. 

 

As a foreigner in Japan you don't have many rights when it comes to objecting to police action. And while natives would have more, they have been brought up in a culture that just doesn't question authority in the same way someone from the US might. 

 

La Rose. 

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By the way: A lot of people have the understanding that Germany is quite extensively policed. In comparison to the USA: Far from it! If I am in Bochum, a neighboring city of about 350,000 (about the size of Pittsburgh) I usually NEVER see a police car.

 

I was assigned to Berlin from 1988-1990. I also spent time in Frankfurt and a few other places in the West for various reasons. (Training, vacationing, etc.) Things have likely changed, but my very first impression of German police was seeing them at the train station (not so much the airport that I can recall), toting around submachine guns . . . and hoping they didn't have a reason to use them in that crowded/enclosed space. In general, I didn't see a lot of patrol cars. Hardly any the entire time I was there. But I also did a few concert surveillance details, and there was always a huge police presence (these in Berlin, before the wall came down). I'm talking about motorcycle cops on standby in the stadium, and huge riot vans on each corner, with a few cars to boot, in a perimeter around the concert.

 

In Berlin, we ran a joint police desk with the German police. Berlin was kind of odd, because at the time we actually had some jurisdiction over the Berlin civilians (still WWII occupation army at the time), so we had the joint desk. For practical purposes, we never really bothered with the civilians, but we were supposed to do ride-alongs with our German counterparts and vice versa. One time I took Frank with me. Frank must have been seven feet tall and about half as wide. At one Volksfest, we had a guy who didn't want to leave the beer tent at the end, and got in Frank's face. I watched Frank pick him up by the lapels and throw him at least ten feet right into a large trash can. That guy wasn't small, at least my size, which was about 180 at the time.

 

Anyway, Frank has me pull over a local for failure to stop. He collects the fine right there . . . then buys lunch with it.

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In Berlin, we ran a joint police desk with the German police. Berlin was kind of odd, because at the time we actually had some jurisdiction over the Berlin civilians (still WWII occupation army at the time), so we had the joint desk. For practical purposes, we never really bothered with the civilians, but we were supposed to do ride-alongs with our German counterparts and vice versa. One time I took Frank with me. Frank must have been seven feet tall and about half as wide. At one Volksfest, we had a guy who didn't want to leave the beer tent at the end, and got in Frank's face. I watched Frank pick him up by the lapels and throw him at least ten feet right into a large trash can. That guy wasn't small, at least my size, which was about 180 at the time.

 

Anyway, Frank has me pull over a local for failure to stop. He collects the fine right there . . . then buys lunch with it.

 

I'm curious, is this an example of good or bad police work?

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Different times then - and Westberlin was different even then. The guys with the SMGs were most likely Bundesgrenzschutz (now: Federal Police) and was considered a paramilitary unit with combatant staus in times of war (a status that Federal Police does not have today).

 

This Frank, though physically imposing (my neighbour is of the same size), seems to me like the example of a bad officer: It is not professional policing to throw people around in beer tents and buying lunch with fine money is fraud.

 

So, here we have a German example of "Hey, I am hulking and strong. I used to bully my classmates for their lunch. Great! I become a cop and the fun will never stop!"

 

The examples sound funny. But aren't.

 

Today, by the way, police is not allowed to collect fines in cash - pay by debit card if you can. Otherwise, you get the fine by mail.

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Different times then - and Westberlin was different even then. The guys with the SMGs were most likely Bundesgrenzschutz (now: Federal Police) and was considered a paramilitary unit with combatant staus in times of war (a status that Federal Police does not have today).

 

Definitely different times. This was just after the La Belle bombing and the Pan Am flight 103 bombing, and the boogy men of the day were the RAF and random skinhead groups.

 

And like Japan, I think there were still severe limits on Germany's ability to raise a military force, so they relied on some militarization of the police. The guys with the SMGs were in Frankfurt, though.

 

 

This Frank, though physically imposing (my neighbour is of the same size), seems to me like the example of a bad officer: It is not professional policing to throw people around in beer tents and buying lunch with fine money is fraud.

 

Well, he was outside the beer tent, to be fair. And he didn't actually hurt the guy, but I'm not sure if that was on his mind. More like, "You poke Frank in chest?! Frank throw puny human!" Aside from his size, though he was hardly unique. Every group has that type, I think. Speaking of his size, there must be some giant blood in the German populace. I've run into far more people of his height and build (which is to say, big and also thick -- thick limbs, thick joints, just completely out of scale, not lanky like many tall people) in Germany than anywhere else.

 

 

The examples sound funny. But aren't.

 

Well, the first one was, but you had to be there I guess. The guy that got tossed was truly asking for it. Frank put up with quite a bit of spittle-screaming and chest-poking before he chucked the guy. He could have easily cuffed him and stuffed him, true. On the other hand, the guy calmed down super fast after being tossed, and Frank let him go on his way without an arrest. Also, to clarify "into a large trash can" . . . I mean literally INTO it. Guy's butt was in the can with his arms and legs sticking out.

 

 

Today, by the way, police is not allowed to collect fines in cash - pay by debit card if you can. Otherwise, you get the fine by mail.

 

So, the police can take debit cards on the side of the road? That's pretty cool. Sounds less prone to abuse.

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Well, the cops can't all be of Frank's build, so they'll carry full auto SMGs instead:

 

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2014/12/29/lapd-issue-hk-mp7s-motorcycle-k9-patrol/

 

Oh what the fu-...

 

Why do ordinary motorcycle officers (not S.W.A.T. or H.R.T.) need to routinely carry submachine guns firing ammunition explicitly designed to pierce armor? Granted, the wounding characteristics of 4.6x30mm aren't as overall nasty as .45 ACP, but police officers are (supposedly) taught to watch out for overpenetration...so these rounds are going to make "watching their background" even more difficult.

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Are you being intentionally obtuse?

 

He knew the trial wouldn't go anywhere because it's the Prosecutor's job to know what evidence he needs to get a conviction and it was obvious the evidence wouldn't provide a conviction.

 

I don't buy your contention that trials defuse issues in the first place but I will emphatically say that the outcome of a "no guilty" verdict in a trial over this incident would have sparked as much or more violence. Confirmation bias is a powerful thing.

 

If you are getting an impression of desperation from the cop because he didn't want to go to trial then you and I live on another planet. If I get accused of something I didn't do and I can quash it before it goes to trial I quash it. Trials are very hard on the soul and occasionally are mishandled. Of course, I won't go parachuting or bungee jumping either.

 

If it were the case that prosecutors only proceeded when they knew they could secure a conviction, then every trial that actually proceeded would end in conviction. That's not the case, so we can write that idea off. Trials and pretrials proceed by different rules, and they don't always end the same way. "Certain" convictions sometimes fall apart, and longshot prosecutions sometimes pull through against the odds. How the evidence is presented, what it is, how the witnesses handle cross-examination - all make a difference. There's a reason that testimony at a Grand Jury trip is treated legally as hearsay and is not normally admissible at an actual trial.

 

We'll just have to disagree on whether a trial would have helped defuse the issue: since it didn't happen, we'll never know. It has happened in the past though.

 

As for "that he was desperate to avoid a trial" comment, you'll note that I was referring to the prosecutor, not the cop, who of course would probably not have wanted to go on trial, even if he was truly innocent and assumed that h e was likely to be exonerated. Any trial is going to be stressful. To Badger, I should note that had the case gone to trial the officer would have been suspended on pay and the police department's insurer - not the cop in question - would have been paying legal costs. So stressful, yes, but financially he would probably be better off than he is now.

 

This is more than just technical futzing about: if the citizenry lose faith in the justice system, the consequences are inevitably terrible for everyone. I've lived in places like that, but you can just look across the border at Mexico for an example. And loss of faith seems to always start with "minor" things like this, where broader concerns get lost in local noise. You place emphasis on the fact that Brown was a big guy, does seem to reacted aggressively towards the cop, and isn't a poster boy for unwarranted use of deadly force. Maybe true. But see it from the community end of things: why was Michael Brown stopped in the first place? What heinous crime was he committing? He was initially stopped for ... jaywalking. Even later, when he was recognised as a potential suspect in a nearby robbery - of 3 cigarillos - that's not enough to warrant the use of deadly force, which requires the suspect be an imminent risk to the community or the officer in question. So using a gun in self defence - which arguably was the case when the officer was in his car - is fine. Pursuing the suspect and firing a further 10 shots at him and killing him - that's pretty dubious and not immediately clear that it's in accordance with the law. Here's the autopsy report - http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/12/heres-dods-report-michael-browns-autopsy and http://graphics8.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/08/13/ferguson-qa/819e10796b809e6135932cdd63a2bb937c390f1f/autopsycrop.jpg.

 

Seen from the community point of view, this is another case of a minor crime escalating into confrontation and death. Police in other countries are specifically instructed - first order of business - to try to avoid escalating things, which is maybe one reason that they kill citizens at 3-5% the rate that US officers do. It's almost certainly a major reason that Ferguson boiled over the way it did: less to do with the actual details of the incident - more to do with the nature of the incident.

 

cheers, Mark

 

Edit: oh, and I *have* tried skydiving: I got my B licence (unsupervised free fall) at university. It's awesome fun and can be highly recommended. :)

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(...) Speaking of his size, there must be some giant blood in the German populace. I've run into far more people of his height and build (which is to say, big and also thick -- thick limbs, thick joints, just completely out of scale, not lanky like many tall people) in Germany than anywhere else

(...)

So, the police can take debit cards on the side of the road? That's pretty cool. Sounds less prone to abuse.

Tell me all about it! I am about 180 cm (that's about 5'10''), my  weight is about 93 kg (quite evenly distributed - still too much) and in the US I am feeling okay size-wise.

 

HERE! Forget about it! All my friends are taller than I am, about a quarter of the 8th graders I teach are taller than I am and in Year 11 and 12 about a quarter to half of the girls are as tall as I am! Or taller. The boys - well lucky me if there is another "dwarf" that is as "short as poor, small Baron.

 

Germay has a medium height for males at 180,4 cm - only the Dutch as a little taller (180,8). That is the whole adult population, including the oldtimers (my father is about 173 cm). That means that the male population of Germany in the age-group of 18 to 25 is probably beyond 185 (6'2").

And in the supermarket I regularly see women in the 6 feet plus category.

 

I feel like a garden gnome sometimes ...

 

Regarding the debit card "service": My reaction when I had to pay for speeding wasn't exactly "Gosh, that's mighty cool of you, Mr. Officer, sir!" - But I kept my mouth shut, smiled my sweetest smile and paid the waylaying b ... officer of the law only doing his duty to Volk and Vaterland.

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Wow. Germans are some tall folx. I think the average male high in the US is about 175-177cm I am just under at 173 and fairly heavy at some 85ish Kilos. But I guess that does match up with most every example of a German male I have met. The girls, however, have tended to be shorter than me. Perhaps still taller than the average American woman, though. But not noticeably.

 

Here in Japan the younger population has grown leaps and bounds over their parents and especially the grant parents. Most young adults are about my height and there is no shortage of men taller and some much taller than I. Women do still tend towards being shorter than their American counterparts but are still at a respectable height. 

 

La Rose.  

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Oh what the fu-...

 

Why do ordinary motorcycle officers (not S.W.A.T. or H.R.T.) need to routinely carry submachine guns firing ammunition explicitly designed to pierce armor? Granted, the wounding characteristics of 4.6x30mm aren't as overall nasty as .45 ACP, but police officers are (supposedly) taught to watch out for overpenetration...so these rounds are going to make "watching their background" even more difficult.

I've come to the conclusion that law enforcement agencies get seriously traumatized by high-profile shootouts. The FBI was so shaken up by the Miami shootout back in the eighties that it first went to the ludicrous 10mm round and then developed an entirely new caliber for its agents to use in their sidearms. Likewise the LAPD seems to be constantly reliving the Hollywood shootout where they couldn't bring down two heavily armored and chemically enhanced goons. This is just speculation though.

 

I thought 4.6x30mm was a tumbling round so it wouldn't overpenetrate, but I don't think it really matters either way.

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If it were the case that prosecutors only proceeded when they knew they could secure a conviction, then every trial that actually proceeded would end in conviction. That's not the case, so we can write that idea off. Trials and pretrials proceed by different rules, and they don't always end the same way. "Certain" convictions sometimes fall apart, and longshot prosecutions sometimes pull through against the odds. How the evidence is presented, what it is, how the witnesses handle cross-examination - all make a difference. There's a reason that testimony at a Grand Jury trip is treated legally as hearsay and is not normally admissible at an actual trial.

 

We'll just have to disagree on whether a trial would have helped defuse the issue: since it didn't happen, we'll never know. It has happened in the past though.

 

As for "that he was desperate to avoid a trial" comment, you'll note that I was referring to the prosecutor, not the cop, who of course would probably not have wanted to go on trial, even if he was truly innocent and assumed that h e was likely to be exonerated. Any trial is going to be stressful. To Badger, I should note that had the case gone to trial the officer would have been suspended on pay and the police department's insurer - not the cop in question - would have been paying legal costs. So stressful, yes, but financially he would probably be better off than he is now.

 

This is more than just technical futzing about: if the citizenry lose faith in the justice system, the consequences are inevitably terrible for everyone. I've lived in places like that, but you can just look across the border at Mexico for an example. And loss of faith seems to always start with "minor" things like this, where broader concerns get lost in local noise. You place emphasis on the fact that Brown was a big guy, does seem to reacted aggressively towards the cop, and isn't a poster boy for unwarranted use of deadly force. Maybe true. But see it from the community end of things: why was Michael Brown stopped in the first place? What heinous crime was he committing? He was initially stopped for ... jaywalking. Even later, when he was recognised as a potential suspect in a nearby robbery - of 3 cigarillos - that's not enough to warrant the use of deadly force, which requires the suspect be an imminent risk to the community or the officer in question. So using a gun in self defence - which arguably was the case when the officer was in his car - is fine. Pursuing the suspect and firing a further 10 shots at him and killing him - that's pretty dubious and not immediately clear that it's in accordance with the law. Here's the autopsy report - http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/12/heres-dods-report-michael-browns-autopsy and http://graphics8.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/08/13/ferguson-qa/819e10796b809e6135932cdd63a2bb937c390f1f/autopsycrop.jpg.

 

Seen from the community point of view, this is another case of a minor crime escalating into confrontation and death. Police in other countries are specifically instructed - first order of business - to try to avoid escalating things, which is maybe one reason that they kill citizens at 3-5% the rate that US officers do. It's almost certainly a major reason that Ferguson boiled over the way it did: less to do with the actual details of the incident - more to do with the nature of the incident.

 

cheers, Mark

 

Edit: oh, and I *have* tried skydiving: I got my B licence (unsupervised free fall) at university. It's awesome fun and can be highly recommended. :)

I just glossed over what you wrote. You and I fundamentally have a different idea of what trials are for. Apparently, you are fixated on their use for Public Relations and think that a trial will meaningfully change public opinion. I think you are wrong on both counts. I don't believe in show trials and I believe confirmation bias says a trial wouldn't have changed anyone's mind.

 

As to the particulars of the case, you are doing a very good job at ignoring WHY Brown was shot. Brown was shot because he wrestled and punched with a cop while the cop was in his car. He didn't get shot because he was big or black or because of cigarillos. Even witnesses who thought the cop was wrong agreed there was a fight at the cop car.

 

If you start winning a fight with a cop he will use his gun to keep you from using it.

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Brown was shot the first time because he wrestled and punched a cop. Why was he shot after stepping away from the vehicle?

According to some of the witnesses and the cop and supported as an explanation of events by the forensic evidence - Brown was moving toward the officer and his hands were not up with palms facing the officer as Brown's friend claimed. The officer claimed he was being charged at. Some witnesses agreed.

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I've come to the conclusion that law enforcement agencies get seriously traumatized by high-profile shootouts. The FBI was so shaken up by the Miami shootout back in the eighties that it first went to the ludicrous 10mm round and then developed an entirely new caliber for its agents to use in their sidearms. Likewise the LAPD seems to be constantly reliving the Hollywood shootout where they couldn't bring down two heavily armored and chemically enhanced goons. This is just speculation though.

 

I thought 4.6x30mm was a tumbling round so it wouldn't overpenetrate, but I don't think it really matters either way.

 

Next up: grenade launchers.

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I think they've had grenade launchers for a while now actually. They just don't use frag grenades yet.

 

I should have clarified what I meant.

 

Motorcycle officers carrying grenade launchers as a standard issue weapon...and they wouldn't just be packing less-than-lethal rounds either.

 

---

 

It's nice to know that cyberpunk is becoming more and more of a reality.

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According to some of the witnesses and the cop and supported as an explanation of events by the forensic evidence - Brown was moving toward the officer and his hands were not up with palms facing the officer as Brown's friend claimed. The officer claimed he was being charged at. Some witnesses agreed.

 

That is some selective awareness you have going on there:

 

According to which witnesses? Could it be that mythical juror number 40 who was never at the scene and a racist little monster? What about the two witness caught on camera at the same time Brown was murder saying his hands were up? 

 

As to the physical evidence supporting the cop, no it doesn't. The physical evidence says only that Brown was most certainly at distance when the next several shots were fired: including the killing shot and the shots that followed it. Most everything else is simply spin. 

 

La Rose. 

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