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Caught on camera, police explode in rage and violence across the US

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Re: Caught on camera, police explode in rage and violence across the US

#61

Post by eezurr »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #55
eezurr wrote: post #49

There's two sides to every story. And every business/organization has bad apples. Achieving perfection becomes order of magnitudes more expensive the closer you are to achieving it, so some level of acceptance that factors economic cost must be reached. The police are humans too. Knowing people are throwing Molotov Cocktails and bricks at police cars, I wouldn't sit still in my car if people, I mean, a mob (mentality…

You know where the expression "bad apples" came from, right? A few bad apples spoil the bunch. In other words, if there are a couple of rotten apples in a barrel, it spreads quickly to the whole barrel. In other words, it's important to find and throw out the bad apples immediately or you'll have to throw out the whole barrel a few days later.

People are not apples obviously. Bad people may influence bad behavior, but the reverse it true too. Good behavior may influence good behavior. Some people are independent and are less influenced by others.

And, in organizations, change comes from the top. As I said, reaching perfection is prohibitively expensive.

Re: Caught on camera, police explode in rage and violence across the US

#62

Post by ookdatnog »

koheripbal wrote: post #46
terakilobyte wrote: post #17

As a veteran this hits me particularly hard. This kind of force goes beyond most uses of force I personally used in Afghanistan and Iraq, actual fighting being the exception. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’d be brought up on charges if we treated nonviolent people the way these videos portray.

> ...if we treated nonviolent people the way these videos portray. A lot of the videos portray violent rioters/looters. A lot of the ones of the police are ambiguous because they don't show what behavior warranted the police reaction. I've also seen a lot of videos of peaceful protests with police walking/talking/marching with the protesters. We do justice a disservice when we lump everyone and every precinct togethe…

I don't think the core sentiment of these protests is "literally every cop is evil".

Rather, the repeatedly demonstrated fact that the system is willing to protect the "bad apples" (read: outright thugs) corrupts the entire policing system and undermines its legitimacy, regardless of how many benign officers there are.

Re: Caught on camera, police explode in rage and violence across the US

#63

Post by StellarTabi »

koheripbal wrote: post #46
terakilobyte wrote: post #17

As a veteran this hits me particularly hard. This kind of force goes beyond most uses of force I personally used in Afghanistan and Iraq, actual fighting being the exception. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’d be brought up on charges if we treated nonviolent people the way these videos portray.

> ...if we treated nonviolent people the way these videos portray. A lot of the videos portray violent rioters/looters. A lot of the ones of the police are ambiguous because they don't show what behavior warranted the police reaction. I've also seen a lot of videos of peaceful protests with police walking/talking/marching with the protesters. We do justice a disservice when we lump everyone and every precinct togethe…

https://imgur.com/gallery/iFMweYc

Re: Caught on camera, police explode in rage and violence across the US

#64

Post by jakkyboi »

eezurr wrote: post #49

There's two sides to every story. And every business/organization has bad apples. Achieving perfection becomes order of magnitudes more expensive the closer you are to achieving it, so some level of acceptance that factors economic cost must be reached. The police are humans too. Knowing people are throwing Molotov Cocktails and bricks at police cars, I wouldn't sit still in my car if people, I mean, a mob (mentality…

This is not a gut reaction, this is as calm as I can be:

You're justifying police brutality. Period.

Cops don't get to brutally assault us citizens because they're not complying. That's some third world behavior and your comment, under the guise of considering both sides, is tacitly condoning this.

For the record, I don't condone looting or property desctruction. But there are plenty of videos circulating right now that have peaceful protestors that are being assault by cops, cause they make their job a bit harder.

Re: Caught on camera, police explode in rage and violence across the US

#65

Post by hedora »

This abuse of power is the direct result of the militarization of our police force.

I say we take away their guns.

If a suspect is brandishing a firearm, they can call in a separate unit allowed to carry weapons.

Also, no more riot gear. The police can’t be trusted with it. Let the national guard have it, but train them for emergency response, not hunting down crooks.

Re: Caught on camera, police explode in rage and violence across the US

#66

Post by _bxg1 »

eezurr wrote: post #59
_bxg1 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that, by your definition, the police are turning into an animal too. They're supposed to be better than that and work to lower the tension, but instead they react and escalate things. If they can't be better than that, we shouldn't be paying them and giving them guns. And we shouldn't be exempting them from prosecution for their actions.

The police are too organized IMO to be acting like an animal (barring the bad apples). I also don't view the police force as one identity, just like (I imagine) you don't view the protesters by the actions of the rioters. It doesn't help that the police all dress the same, so the brain lumps all of them into one identity, and people focus on the bad actions of the few. They are in an incredibly difficult situation, a…

> I also don't view the police force as one identity

I'm sorry, what? They are literally an organization. With uniforms. The entire point is that they're supposed to be one entity. If they can't even act as one entity - much less one that, I don't know, helps people - then why do they get to wear the uniform at all?

> When you talk to a mob, you aren't talking to anyone.

They don't have to talk. They can show through their actions that they're willing to de-escalate the violence. Here's one that did: https://twitter.com/SCr_conserv/status/1266885805328355333

Re: Caught on camera, police explode in rage and violence across the US

#67

Post by pengstrom »

eezurr wrote: post #61
bryanlarsen wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know where the expression "bad apples" came from, right? A few bad apples spoil the bunch. In other words, if there are a couple of rotten apples in a barrel, it spreads quickly to the whole barrel. In other words, it's important to find and throw out the bad apples immediately or you'll have to throw out the whole barrel a few days later.

People are not apples obviously. Bad people may influence bad behavior, but the reverse it true too. Good behavior may influence good behavior. Some people are independent and are less influenced by others. And, in organizations, change comes from the top. As I said, reaching perfection is prohibitively expensive.

>People are not apples

Indeed. With our greater-than-apple intelligence, we should expect cops to sort out the bad apples themselves. Not close ranks and ostracize colleagues who speak up against the bad apples.

When you have great power and knowledge, inaction is being complicit.

Re: Caught on camera, police explode in rage and violence across the US

#68

Post by komali2 »

eezurr wrote: post #49

There's two sides to every story. And every business/organization has bad apples. Achieving perfection becomes order of magnitudes more expensive the closer you are to achieving it, so some level of acceptance that factors economic cost must be reached. The police are humans too. Knowing people are throwing Molotov Cocktails and bricks at police cars, I wouldn't sit still in my car if people, I mean, a mob (mentality…

Great, so, let's ask an important question: Why were the cops there at all? Apparently, as videos come out, every protest was peaceful until the cops turned up in avenger armor.

Re: Caught on camera, police explode in rage and violence across the US

#69

Post by komali2 »

koheripbal wrote: post #46
terakilobyte wrote: post #17

As a veteran this hits me particularly hard. This kind of force goes beyond most uses of force I personally used in Afghanistan and Iraq, actual fighting being the exception. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’d be brought up on charges if we treated nonviolent people the way these videos portray.

> ...if we treated nonviolent people the way these videos portray. A lot of the videos portray violent rioters/looters. A lot of the ones of the police are ambiguous because they don't show what behavior warranted the police reaction. I've also seen a lot of videos of peaceful protests with police walking/talking/marching with the protesters. We do justice a disservice when we lump everyone and every precinct togethe…

> A lot of the videos portray violent rioters/looters.

I've yet to see an instance of this that wasn't precipitated by cops showing up in ironman armor to a peaceful protest and firing on people with all sorts of military-police toys.

The violent instigators are the cops, across America. Even Target came out and said "whatever, our shit's insured, this problem with the cops needs to be solved."

Re: Caught on camera, police explode in rage and violence across the US

#70

Post by komali2 »

verdverm wrote: post #25
verdverm wrote: post #11

I forgot about that, and how pissed it made me. Also forgot how people revenge killed good, innocent cops https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/cops-shot-bro...

Do those of you downvoting me, do you think it's because I think those officers are innocent or something? They are guilty. I also think there are many people using this tragedy as an excuse to commit crime and somehow justify their behavior via a bifurcation of their world view. Are you applying your beliefs about a group (the police in this case) at an individual level or in one broad stroke? Is not the definition…

> excuse to commit crime

When cops break the law, and that's what they're doing here, they destroy faith in the justice system, in rule of law.

What's crime? Is looting a Target, crime? Sure, according to tons of various laws in the USA, it is. Think about it another way though - there's a pile of food, more food than anybody could possibly eat before it spoils. In fact, lots of it does get thrown away, because it spoils. You're hungry, you walk up, take some, eat it, and leave. Did you just do something unethical? You take a TV, a pure form of entertainment and nothing more. Did you just do something Bad? Hm. Maybe, if I followed a very very long chain of events, I could say that the taking of the TV meant a CEO got to buy 1/100th less TVs for himself, sure, that's kinda bad I guess.

Is it... worst than someone with a state-sponsored monopoly on violence doing, well, any of the following? :

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23373619

There is no "excused crime" happening here. It's people recognizing that the rule of law is broken, that those with the Most Might are doing as they please, and telling themselves "well fuck it, I'm going to get a TV then."

Expectation of the citizenry to, uh, "respect property rights" (lmfao) is absurd when we don't even expect our police to respect the rights of People to exist without violence being committed against them.

So in short, who gives a fuck if target loses TVs - until we solve police brutality to the point that every cop is held criminally accountable for unethical violence, I say let it all burn, because the harm done by a looted target is immeasurably less than even a single instance of police brutality.

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