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De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

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Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#241

Post by komali2 »

briefcomment wrote: post #222
komali2 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They will instead tell us there is no choice but to make this more of a police state. Let them try...

You don't understand the power the government can wield if there is "justification" for it. The only way to have the government serve us instead of control us is to be loud, in the majority, and peaceful. At least in a country like the US.

What you're saying hinges on the people never stepping outside the bounds of what the US government deems acceptable.

Consider that the US government deems what we want (no more police brutality) unacceptable, by definition, we need to work outside the system to solve the problem.

It's similar to 2a people I've met that think that somehow the constitution guarantees their right to overthrow the US government if it becomes tyrannical. That's absurd. The US government would never let itself be overthrown. There's no internal system for such a thing.

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#242

Post by stcredzero »

sagarm wrote: post #224
kuzimoto wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. When you commit a crime and violate someone's freemdoms (the primary being right to life, liberty, property), you forfeit your own. When you kill someone and take their life, you steal or destroy property, you are now in debt to society. By living in a society you agre…

Police brutality is a systemic issue. Peaceful protest over the years haven't changed the system. Charging that one officer doesn't solve it either. The Police reaction to these protests clearly shows systemic reform is needed. Peaceful protesters and reporters have been tear gassed, shot, and arrested. They don't deserve to be tret like that just because others decided to vandalize and loot.

Peaceful protesters and reporters have been tear gassed, shot, and arrested. They don't deserve to be tret like that just because others decided to vandalize and loot.

This is exactly what extremist groups exploiting the protests want. The extremists want to foment violence between the protesters and the police. The situation plays into their hands, because the police have no way of distinguishing who is who.

The circumstances are not normal. Rule of Law has broken down. By continuing the protests, peaceful protesters are creating cover for looters and violent perpetrators. Those protesters who are willfully exploiting this situation to "pressure" the authorities are having evil done for their goals.

There needs to be another kind of lockdown to prevent the spread of the contagion of violence, the contagion of chaos, and the contagion of injustice.

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#243

Post by silverreads »

ineedasername wrote: post #190
renewiltord wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Can't dismiss it now. Every major corporation and most congressional lawmakers are now pushing for reform.

Especially worth looking at Rep. Joyce Beatty who is a 70 year old black woman who got peppersprayed with the protesters. An elected lawmaker was attacked by the cops. Think about it.

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#244

Post by thephyber »

komali2 wrote: post #218
throwawaygh wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 worl…

I couldn't believe when they found the salary of the San Jose policeman that shouted "fuck you bitch" at a protester it turned out to be something like $250,000. Like holy fuck I thought bayarea frontend engineers were paid a lot, god damn. Dude looked 25 years old!

At the risk of sounding like I'm defending a guy I think should have been fired for conduct unbecoming an officer, I looked at the breakdown of his compensation. To be accurate, his total compensation (not just salary, but includes health benefits and probably things like reimbursements, uniform, etc); last year was closer to $230k. The $250k was the previous year. Remember that police unions have strict employment contracts where all of their overtime must be paid (they don't just make salary and work a variable number of hours).

SJPD has been chronically understaffed since at least 2008 when there were large layoffs. The department prefers to hire fewer officers, but work the existing ones longer hours (hence lots of overtime).

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#245

Post by sneak »

sockgrant wrote: post #9
olliej wrote: post #3

Yes, but police are functionally just wannabe soldiers, without the actual training. They want to beat people up. They want to be tough guys who have no consequences. Talking about how to fix policing means nothing until: * police go to jail * officers who do not report other officers go to jail * bosses/chiefs etc who are aware of abuses of power and brutality and do not arrest those officers go to jail * police are…

Sorry, your comment might make some good points but you lost me, your reader, when you made absolute claims about police officers. There certainly exist police that just want to be tough guys and beat people up. But there’s plenty officers not like that. You detract from your other points by taking such a black and white stance.

It astounds me that people persist in this naive, ignorant, and destructive viewpoint even when provided with gigabytes upon gigabytes of video evidence to the contrary.

"Cop" isn't just a job. It's a social contract amongst the police and prosecutorial apparatus.

There are no police for the police. Police rape and murder with impunity. Did you know that cops beat their domestic partners at a rate 5x greater than the general population? Fully 40% of cops are wife beaters.

They can do whatever they want, and taxpayers end up paying the civil suit settlements that follow.

This isn't an issue with some criminal minority. Everyone who wears the uniform is either a criminal directly, or is actively engaged in the criminal conspiracy to hide evidence of the group's criminal activities. The ones that don't play ball are forced out.

Here's one from yesterday: they all somehow had their body cameras off when they murdered another black guy. https://www.npr.org/2020/06/01/867281529/louisville-police-c...

If people didn't stop being willfully blind when it came out that Chicago PD has a whole dedicated black site for kidnapping and torturing people prior to trial, they probably won't ever be.

There are no good career cops. The entire concept is rotten to its core, which was created and established specifically to address the risk of property damage by the poor and escaped slaves.

The first letter of ACAB is by far the most important one.

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#247

Post by ashtonkem »

beloch wrote: post #78

We should expect police to us less use violence and improve their crowd management and deescalation skills. The increasing militarization of police is a trend that must be reversed. However, we should not neglect the other side of the equation either. This article is, in large part, about just that. The article points out that many protests in the U.S. went smoothly through the practice of police and protest organize…

There now appear to be police that want violence now too. In my city they’re ignoring looters and tear gassing the protestors. There is no public safety rationale for that.

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#248

Post by silverreads »

jeffbee wrote: post #193
briefcomment wrote: post #59

Earlier 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.

According to Donald Rumsfeld, looting is a normal step on the road from oppression to freedom. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGGrS0VPrbc

Hey that's not fair, that's from 2015! What does he think now? Don't just judge a man forever by his past actions!

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#249

Post by komali2 »

InfiniteBeing wrote: post #237
komali2 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After adjusting your statistics to take into account that black people are 14% of the US population, I have come to the conclusion that black people are murdered by cops at a terrifyingly higher level than white people. Why didn't you come to the same conclusion? Is it a lack of knowledge of statistics, or is it an irrational value system that depends on confirmation bias to continue to exist, i.e., racism? It certai…

It's not really the case when you take into account their violent crime rate, homocide rate, rate of shooting at police and killing police.

You really just burned a 3 year old account by positively IDing yourself as a racist. Nice one.

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#250

Post by adrr »

tcbawo wrote: post #103
panic wrote: post #31

Earlier 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…

Being a police officer isn't a dangerous job, it isn't even in the top 10 of most dangerous jobs in the US. No one thanks the 7-11 clerk for the danger they put themselves into so you can buy a Slurpee at 2AM in the morning. No one thanks the crab fisherman who risk their lives so you can enjoy "all you can eat" snow crab legs at Red Lobster.

There's lots of extremely brutal jobs that are thankless. People who pick your food. Visit central California during summer where people are picking produce in 100+ degree weather for 10 hours day. It's hard back breaking work.

Being a police officer is a well paid job with a pension where most of your day is filling out paperwork.

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