[Police brutality] American injustice, yet again.

[Pattern Ghost]

33 minutes ago, Matt the Bruins said:

Use of police force is the #6 cause of death among black men in the US, with about 1 in 1,000 dying that way, as opposed to roughly 1 in 2,500 white men.

 

This follows my last post. For clarification, was it meant as a counter argument?

[Matt the Bruins]

No, I think you're spot-on in your assessment, and increasing blue-on-white violence by 150% probably wouldn't change anything because we know it wouldn't be rich, powerful white men getting killed. Just information for the general topic to highlight that for back men, dying at a police officer's hands is more likely than due to a stroke or diabetes.

[Ranxerox]

9 hours ago, Matt the Bruins said:

No, I think you're spot-on in your assessment, and increasing blue-on-white violence by 150% probably wouldn't change anything because we know it wouldn't be rich, powerful white men getting killed. Just information for the general topic to highlight that for back men, dying at a police officer's hands is more likely than due to a stroke or diabetes.

 

I agree that blue on black violence is a serious problem, and certainly, black lives matter.  That being said somewhere in the neighborhood of 9000 black men die each year of diabetes and close to 14000 die of strokes annually.  So, you will need to produce some receipts to convince me that police killings of black men get anywhere near those numbers

[Pattern Ghost]

14 hours ago, Matt the Bruins said:

No, I think you're spot-on in your assessment, and increasing blue-on-white violence by 150% probably wouldn't change anything because we know it wouldn't be rich, powerful white men getting killed. Just information for the general topic to highlight that for back men, dying at a police officer's hands is more likely than due to a stroke or diabetes.

 

Gotcha. And I'd say that no knock warrants do disproportionately affect blacks more than whites, because they disproportionately affect the poor, and poverty is disproportionate.

[Ragitsu]

3 hours ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

Gotcha. And I'd say that no knock warrants do disproportionately affect blacks more than whites, because they disproportionately affect the poor, and poverty is disproportionate.

 

It is also possible that this could be a "chicken and the egg" scenario to some degree.

[Pattern Ghost]

3 hours ago, Ragitsu said:

It is also possible that this could be a "chicken and the egg" scenario to some degree.

 

If you mean poverty levels in black communities, that one's a pretty straight line cause and effect.

[Ragitsu]

6 hours ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

If you mean poverty levels in black communities, that one's a pretty straight line cause and effect.

 

I mean the reason as to why certain police procedures disproportionately target minorities.

[Pattern Ghost]

6 hours ago, Ragitsu said:

I mean the reason as to why certain police procedures disproportionately target minorities.

 

Gotcha.

[unclevlad]

This might be paywalled, but usually you get a few free articles a month:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/31/us/kentucky-state-police-hitler.html?action=click&module=Latest&pgtype=Homepage

 

For those who can't, the first paragraph is:

 

Quote

A slide show once shown to cadets training to join the Kentucky State Police includes quotations attributed to Adolf Hitler and Robert E. Lee, says troopers should be warriors who “always fight to the death” and encourages each trooper in training to be a “ruthless killer.”

 

The slide was removed, but it's more telling to me that the slide's author was an assistant commander at the state police academy for *10 years*.

[Ragitsu]

 

[archer]

New Jersey governor signs mandatory police body cam bill

 

The two bills, S1163 and A4312, will require all uniformed state, county and municipal patrol law enforcement officers to wear body cameras and keep them turned on while responding to a call for service or when initiating an investigative encounter. Exceptions include places where civilians can expect privacy, such as schools or medical facilities

 

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/527454-nj-gov-signs-mandatory-police-body-cam-bill

 

A lot of the problem with body cameras in other states seems to be that the officer (allegedly) forgets to turn his camera back on after turning it off (whenever he's legally allowed to turn it off).

 

It occurred to me that problem would go away if body cameras were set up so that they would automatically turn back on after a few minutes if the cop turns it off to go to the bathroom or whatever. Eliminate the excuse of "I forgot to turn my camera back on".

 

Give the camera a "vibrate" function like a cell phone to alert the officer that the camera is going to come back on. That'd make the officer have to consciously choose to hit the button to keep the camera off if he wants the camera off.

 

If they go to court over something, there's no video, and the cop says, "I forgot to turn it back on", they can point and say, "You deliberately hit the snooze button over and over which is the only reason there's no video. That's proof you knew you were doing something you weren't supposed to be doing and didn't want it recorded."

 

I haven't heard of any body cameras being set up so that they'd do that.

 

Thoughts?

[Lord Liaden]

At first glance that looks like one reasonable way to address the issue. But whenever a new suggestion like this is brought up I like to hear from all involved parties as to whether potential complications have been overlooked, because they frequently are.

[Cygnia]

‘Inedible’ and ‘Inadequate’ Food Is Being Served to People Incarcerated in Massachusetts DOC Prisons

[Ragitsu]

 

[Pattern Ghost]

Here's the video from the Scranton incident:

 

https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2021/01/31/rpd-body-cam-video-9-year-old-girl-getting-handcuffed/4330459001/

 

Not even close to acceptable. I hope they all get fired, though we know they won't.

[Duke Bushido]

I couldn't get the link above to work, but I believe that this is the story:

 

https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/01/us/rochester-police-pepper-spray-child/index.html

 

 

Please note that not only did the handcuff the child, they addressed _none_ of the issues for which they claim to have been called, then pepper sprayed her.

 

NO!  I did _not_ say "_and_ pepper sprayer her."  After these two trained adult men subdued her by pushing her to the ground and handcuffing her (any other first world countries have handcuffs for nine year olds?  I'm just curious. Sure: they click tighter and tighter, but if they're not pretty small to start with, they ellipse pretty quickly).

 

So _after_ taking her down, and _then_ handcuffing her, and _then_ putting her in the car-- _after_ all that, they take a moment-- almost an afterthought-- to shoot her a face full of pepper spray.

 

Twenty-one weeks of training, right there.  Every other first world nation requires two or more _years_.  We require 1/4 of them.

 

Reminds me of a tweet thread posted to a friend's  social media (he forwarded me the screen caps):

 

S: It's funny how McDonald's employees are better at de-escalating a situation than the police are.

R: That's because if we can't do it, we get fired.

 

 

 

[csyphrett]

You don't trust the police (especially the freaking highway patrol). It's a lesson I have learned from the neighborhood. 

CES   

[Old Man]

Cops “need” to pepper spray a handcuffed 9yo girl in the back of a cop car?  On video? Please, bring me more facts. I’ll wait. 

[Sundog]

Sicarius, a lot of what you say is true. But what is also true is that US police are way too quick to escalate the situation in far too many cases. 

I have seen, both personally and in various media, police turning up to a fraught situation and only making things worse. Instead of calming the situation and separating the factions they come in as Mister Big and start announcing this and saying that when they have NO IDEA what the actual situation is. And, yeah, I've seen that blow up in their face too.

Alternatively, they come in as a first action, everybody gets cuffed. And then they wonder why even the putative victims don't want to talk to them.

And in this case, I don't need to see anything more. I don't need to give ANYONE the benefit of the doubt. They pepper sprayed a nine year old child in the face. There can BE no excuse for this.

[Pattern Ghost]

1 hour ago, Sicarius said:

I think a lot of arm chair warriors don't understand what it means to be in a potentially life threatening situation with a criminal.

 

Do you? What's your actual, real-life law enforcement experience look like?

[Duke Bushido]

"most cops" are employed in other countries.  We need to keep on mind that other than- potentiallyb lunatics- the US doesnt have a majority,of anything, globally-speaking.

 

I am,not trying to back your argument into a corner or push a sure on it: I had already noted this: US police officers receive roughly 21 weeks of training; many smaller or rural areas, and most Sheriffs and Deputies- recieve less: Sheriffa are elected or appointed, depending on the area, and they hire who they want.

 

In the rest of the first World, law enforcement recieves a minimum of two years, with additional training for certain special skill sets and recurring periodic training (like we do with our medical personnel here in the US).

 

I will have to look the stats back fir specific numbers (unless anyone knows where they might already be compiled), but the example I hold as most extreme is officer-caused deaths.  Since 2000, the US has had roughly 8 thousand people killed by law enforcement.

 

In that same period, most other counties have had 200 or less.  Finland, if I remember correctly, jas had _one_ in the entire history of its police force.

 

The one thing they all have in common that the outlier 8000 kill count country doesnt have is actual training.  You need more than 21 weeks training in the US for medical coding and billing, dor Pete's sake.  You need six months (unless you qualify for that Citibank loophole from a few years back)to sell insurance!  Niether one of these allows carryng a gun or making on the spot decisions about how to apply violence on a 10 year old child.

 

And yes; videos can be faked.  Doesnt alter the fact that the kid was cuffed and in the back seat when the officer backed up, drew his pepper spray, and delivered a face full.

 

Do I want police do away?  No.  Do I think all police are horrible?  No; whan I was driving truck a lifetime ago, I encountered a Texas Trooper who was extremely professional, calming-alert, but non-threatening: solid guy, in my limited interaction with him.

 

What I _want_, and what I think the country _needs_ is police that have had enough training to know what they are doing, period.  It cant that hard for two adults to calm or even restrain a child without pushing them down, cuffing them, putting them in the car, then attacking the kid's face.  It just can't.

 

Of course, it cant be that hard for five officers to not kill a guy with a prolonged blood flow stoppage as the suspect begs for his life.

 

I suppose the other thing I think we need is repeated psych evals: something routine, that comes,up _before_ the killing.

[Pattern Ghost]

I've buckled resisting adults into the back of a squad car without resorting to pepper spray, so I'm fairly confident that I could have put a 9 year old in without hurting her, if I had an urgent need.

 

Of course, there begs the question of whether anyone really needed to stuff a 9 year old non-subject who was crying for her daddy into a car for any reason other than the convenience of the officers.

[Starlord]

Be careful...some children are bigger than others.  

 

 

[Simon]

Keep politics to the political discussion thread, folks.

 

(offending post has been hidden -- that will be the one warning given)

[Ragitsu]

Police unions appear to be experts at circling the wagons.