131–140 of 159 posts
aggieben:> Did you identity yourself as a doctor, or in any kind of way you had a reason to be there?
author:> No I didn’t. That was my first error. Second was not immediately showing my ID. I certainly could have done this all better.
This shit has been happening to poor black and Hispanic people for a long time. In a sick way, it's a good thing that it's happening to doctors now. It's easy for comfortable suburbanites to vote pro-police, but now that the cancer has spread and police are brazenly abusing everyone else, it won't be so easy to ignore. We need a system of collective punishment for such conduct. "Good" police officers should fear losi…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Weird, it seems counterproductive. Why doesn't the US police in bigger cities try to integrate with the citizens? Is the violence risk so big or are there legal reasons?
They should. The phenomenon of heavily-armed police spending most of their working hours either in a squad car or actively handling a disturbance, rather than walking a beat, is a modern one. It's something Peter Moskos laments in Cop In The Hood, which is a pretty decent book on the practices of modern police forces written by a sociologist who served for a year as an experiment. Beat policing is not one of the most…
This is simplifying quite a bit. Right now, most LEO are not in positions that require being heavily armed or in confrontation. The vast majority of LEO currently are in positions where being armed is not a benefit, if not a outright detriment, but their training and regulation require them to carry weapons unsafely (see for instance court security police who must carry weapons, except when they are in the courts where they actually work and where they must not carry weapons, leading to them all walking around with empty holsters all day).
The other side of this is of course corrections officers, who have objectively the most dangerous jobs in LEO but receive the least training, the least pay, and the least equipment.
It turns out this is quite simply a cultural problem. The culture of law enforcement in the United States right now is quite simply dangerous and irrational. Without fixing that culture, renaming titles isn't going to go very far.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They should. The phenomenon of heavily-armed police spending most of their working hours either in a squad car or actively handling a disturbance, rather than walking a beat, is a modern one. It's something Peter Moskos laments in Cop In The Hood, which is a pretty decent book on the practices of modern police forces written by a sociologist who served for a year as an experiment. Beat policing is not one of the most…
"they're the heavily armed ones that spend their day in cars or in confrontation" This is simplifying quite a bit. Right now, most LEO are not in positions that require being heavily armed or in confrontation. The vast majority of LEO currently are in positions where being armed is not a benefit, if not a outright detriment, but their training and regulation require them to carry weapons unsafely (see for instance co…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"they're the heavily armed ones that spend their day in cars or in confrontation" This is simplifying quite a bit. Right now, most LEO are not in positions that require being heavily armed or in confrontation. The vast majority of LEO currently are in positions where being armed is not a benefit, if not a outright detriment, but their training and regulation require them to carry weapons unsafely (see for instance co…
Renaming the titles isn't the point. The point is freezing new hires into that culture, and creating a new culture to run in parallel to it.
This is why I teach my children never to speak to police officers, to avoid them as much as possible, and to leave the area should they become visibly present. And I live in Canada; when I travel to the USA on business I stay in the hotel or the venue and restrict my traveling as much as possible. I don't fear the citizens, I fear the police.
That's always made me sad. My ex was American - when we moved to Ireland, I made a habit of routinely (once a week or so) asking random policemen for directions to places, just to teach her that they're entirely approachable here. The closest thing we had to a bad experience, was one chap who took it upon himself to walk with us until we could see our destination, just to make sure we found it. I'd only wanted to was…
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"I have a right to self-defense." No you do not have the right of self defense against a Police Officer. If you try to assault an Officer you will more then likely be shot and killed. The Officer will be completely within the bounds of the law.
It's not so black-and-white as you try to oversimplify a myriad of issues and legalities. It depends. If the man stayed at a reasonable distance, presented ID, approached calmly and slowly and said he needed to check the health of the prisoner because he is both a doctor and required to render aid under Duty to Rescue, and then waited for permission or made his intentions clear if denied, things might've happened dif…
I doubt very highly this case will make it to court. Or see any sort if compensation.
"Show me your ID"
"Why?"
"Show me your ID! You must obey an officer."
"I haven't done anything, I need to know he is OK, and I will be on my way"
Thats where any possibility of a civil ending to this story ends. He refused to show his ID while trying to enter a crime scene while officers were apprehending a suspect. At that point he becomes a danger to the Officers. Possibly an accomplice to the person in custody. Who knows what the crime was, how many suspects they were looking for etc.
On the self defence note, if anyone were to attempt to enter a crime scene and refuse to show ID and manage to get into an altercation with an Officer which lead to your death. There would be no chance that Officer would be on the wrong side of the law.
Most Americans are conditioned to defer to cops and cower when interacting with cops. This is the part of idolatry of uniformed men (aka 'thugs with guns') in the USA. For them 'common sense' means kneeling whenever a cop lays an eye on you.
In much of the rest of the world cops are treated as government employees, paid to risk their lives in confrontational situations (as they don't have many other skills, that is the main reason they are paid for in the first place.) It is not uncommon for a citizen to confront a policeman and request him/her to be civil. You don't get beaten or shot for that.
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By the letter of the law and international agreements, foreigners have rights. In practice? Enjoy jail and a swift deportation because you happened to say the wrong thing to an officer or otherwise incur their disgust. What an embarrassing, and costly, end to a business trip that would be.
Have you ever actually been to the US? For something like that to happen you'd have to be breaking the law. Saying the wrong thing to a cop won't do it - local police don't have the power to deport you. The most they can do is refer you to CIS, and if there's no crime CIS will say "Why are you bothering us?" It should be common sense you don't go to a foreign country and break the laws, no matter where you're from or…
Did you even read the original article?