Police should use the minimum violence necessary. But some people refuse to de-escalate.
De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer
181–190 of 799 posts
Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
The police could stop the protests instantly by changing how they deal with racist officers and officers who kill people. They would rather escalate the situation than make these changes.
Being a police officer is a difficult, thankless, dangerous job, yet critical for a functional society. You don't get the same resources, respect, or pension of the military. If you are let go/fired, you have little chance of finding something comparable close by. It's not healthy for the psyche to be put into harm's way for an entire career span. There is probably a lot of untreated PTSD going on. It's not surprisin…
Police are praised as heros and, when you count the pension, make 5x more money than the typical immunology PhD student (without whom we would likely literally be entering a new multi-century dark age).
Lots of people do hard society-critical jobs that take an emotional/physical toll at wages far below that of a typical officer. Only one of those occupations has a serious violence problem.
I can’t even imagine a world where there are protests in the streets asking immunology PhD students who have no pension and make 19K a year with a college degree to stop killing people. And there will never, ever be a parade for those folks.
Stop excusing police. They are paid better than most for the job they do, even if most of that comp is back-loaded.
Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
Now that being said, black lives matter in particular suffers from (in my opinion) a lack of leadership and organization. A universal problem with "leaderless movements" is that they quickly devolve to the lowest common denominator level. Anyone can put out their slate and call themselves an "activist" and it's inevitable that some dim person will come along and try to make a name for themselves by taking things fart…
> Would you feel that way if they came and burned your house or business down? Yup, and I have the receipts to prove it: my motorcycle was vandalized in Oakland during the protests. A small price to pay for unsung voices being heard. You say violence is violence, yet I bet you have no problem with criminals being put in jail, i.e. their freedoms being violently removed from them.
You say violence is violence, yet I bet you have no problem with criminals being put in jail, i.e. their freedoms being violently removed from them.
The state should have the monopoly on violence. Then, instead of everyone doing violence, we have certain, appointed people given the responsibility who can then be trained and monitored. This is part and parcel of the Rule of Law. Certainly, this system isn't perfect. But you only have to live in a country or region without Rule of Law to know that it's much preferable to improve the system, than to abandon it.
Yup, and I have the receipts to prove it: my motorcycle was vandalized in Oakland during the protests. A small price to pay for unsung voices being heard
Are you going to speak for the elderly woman who was beaten by a 2x4, or her husband who was beaten when he came to protect her? Are you going to speak for the independent owner of the vintage clothing store in LA who was preparing to re-open and had his windows smashed and his inventory stolen?
Can you determine who will pay, and what "price" they will pay?
Have you ever criticized someone for their callous opinions on these matters, because it doesn't affect them so much? Well, perhaps the tenor of your opinion is connected to your not being affected so much.
Your circumstances just happen to afford you that privilege.
Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-de...
That stat becomes more useful when you take into account black Americans are roughly 15% of the population.
I am not sure that per-capita is the right metric. I would prefer to look at it by police encounter or by crime or something like that.
This is slightly old but has some interesting data on killings by race: https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-09-29/race-and-hom...
In these graphs you can see that total number of killings for white on white or black on black is roughly the same despite the 15% number you quoted.
Edit: fix autocorrect typo
Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Police commanders ... WANT mayhem" That's what I responded to. I'm curious if you truly think the people that I listed want to see their home towns on fire.
Most Police Don’t Live In The Cities They Serve: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/most-police-dont-live-i... Chicago: 88% of police live in city St Louis: 59% Atlanta: 14% Minneapolis: 10% (white officers: 5%) Seattle: 12% Oakland: 9% Also, certainly in Minneapolis—and likely elsewhere—the police chief doesn't seem to have nearly as much control over rank and file officers as the union head does. This story gives…
And apparently the union head has a history of complaints against him, one for wearing a "white power" patch: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.insider.com/president-minne...
Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer
#186From afar, it seems to me like the big problem in US policing is a lack of calm professionalism. The de-escalation approach in the article would to me but just one aspect of taking a professional approach where safety and following rules and best practices is paramount (and prioritised over 'winning' against criminals).
I have always suspected that US police are shunted into sub-optimal patterns because there are so many guns here that the odds a simple interaction will involve a firearm are much higher than they are in less-well-armed societies. Does anybody know if I'm right about that? That doesn't mean that they can't do more de-escalation or take other steps, but the high prevalence of guns does seem like it would be a contribu…
Of course you’re right. It’s why people-police statements are constantly pointing out how these guys “put their life in the line every day” in reference to the dangerous criminals out there (while ignoring that most crimes are non-violent offenses, or at least offense that don’t involve a gun). The 2A people want the government to fear its citizen’s (in their mind this somehow prevents tyranny) and then complain when the state responds to violence with fear and violence.
It’s almost as if the American gun lobby wants both sides to need lots of guns and bullets for some reason...
Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer
#187Could we please stop calling “protesters” all the people looting jewelry stores, Target, Nike, etc? These are not protesters, these are looters. Police should use any means at their disposal to protect lives and property from looters and rioters.
By the same token, can we please stop calling "police" all the people bashing in heads, punching journalists, planting evidence, instigating violence? They are not police, they are violent thugs. Protesters should use any means at their disposal to protect their own lives from violent thugs.
Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
Change does not require looting and beatings does it? Wouldn't looting and beatings simply give the police more power, and be counter productive against making police more accountable? Looters and those who bash people's skulls in are opportunists who don't care about change. The ones that want change see their opportunity slipping away.
> Change does not require looting and beatings does it? Just how long do you think the civil rights movement has been a thing? 50 years of doing things the way the white people demanded - peaceful protests, sit ins, black political leaders. Yup, it helped, it went down, but it never solved the problem, and I see no indication that it would have on a reasonable time scale. And the whole time you've got people STILL sa…
They will not listen just because a couple thousand people break windows and light things on fire. They will instead tell us there is no choice but to make this more of a police state.
The only thing that may work is to get everyone to use their voice. Historically, probably only a tiny fraction of the population have used their voice. The vast majority of us need to stop being silent.
Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
I care about both. Two wrongs are two wrongs.
But hopefully you care about one much, much more than the other. They are not comparable in terms of needing discussion at this moment in history. (Edit: In the event that you honestly don't know which one is the more important topic, right now or pretty much any other time - police frequently murdering black people or some store windows getting smashed and merch stolen - it's the police murdering black people.)
I can't actually tell which one you're trying to say is more important right now. The case for "riots are the bigger problem right now" being that there is a whole lot more rioting and looting happening right now than there usually is, whereas the amount of police violence is currently significantly below the typical level (as a result of the coronavirus and everyone staying inside, but still).
Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
Change does not require looting and beatings does it? Wouldn't looting and beatings simply give the police more power, and be counter productive against making police more accountable? Looters and those who bash people's skulls in are opportunists who don't care about change. The ones that want change see their opportunity slipping away.
Yeah that's what people said for twenty years. So people wrote letters and went to court and the media. Turns out that didn't work. Actually, have you seen Daniel Shaver's killing? No riot. Outcome: that policeman collects a pension and rests easy at home. So it is established your technique doesn't work. When the good things don't work, eventually you get the bad things. That's not even through people changing. It's…
Regardless of the effectiveness of peaceful protests over the past 20 years, violent ones are even less likely to see change. Those already on the fence or against the issue will just use it as an opportunity to dismiss it all as thugs interested in chaos, no matter that the majority are peaceful.