De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer • Hacker News Board

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#371

Post by mr_spothawk » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 4:38 AM UTC

runarberg wrote: post #201

lsh123 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny how your call statistics/number racist. Godwin's Law in action.

Statistics can absolutely be racist. Numbers might not lie (except when they do), but they can use some odd definition, use different metrics, or scale different populations differently/unevenly (as is the case here). When you use any misleading technique on a statistic that obscures the truth, you are lying. When you put up a number to proof a point about a minority that is absolutely not true, that is a lie, and th…

only white numbers can be racist.

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#372

Post by prawn » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 4:38 AM UTC

jayd16 wrote: post #361

prawn wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case, the police are the counter protest, I guess.

There's plenty of bad actors looking drum up violence as well. At the very least you get the kind of person who starts fights in a bar for the sport of it. Police can work with organizers to do something about it or they can choose to let it boil over.

"Let" sounds a bit too passive for a lot of what's happening though.

I guess my point was that at a police brutality protest, you have protestors facing police which is instantly adversarial and a form of counter protest if cards are played poorly. If you have a reopen rally per the example up-thread, you're (very generally speaking) not going to have quite the animosity between them and those securing the area. And combine that with the fact that someone not wanting to rush and reopen is likely to stay at home per state instructions.

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#373

Post by olliej » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 4:39 AM UTC

vulcan01 wrote: post #105

SlavikCA wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> all lawsuits are settled with funds from police pension funds I like it most. > 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 All these "go to jail" stops at the "qualified immunity". And no politician yet was willing to do anything about it. We need to demand to end this "qualif…

> all lawsuits are settled with funds from police pension funds Wouldn't that hurt all the police officers in that area?

Yes, because those cops currently choose to allow this behavior.

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#374

Post by kuzimoto » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 4:40 AM UTC

Jommi wrote: post #350

kuzimoto wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Police brutality is a systemic issue. That's a pretty bold claim. Do you have any statistics to show police are by and large using disproportionate force? > Peaceful protest over the years haven't changed the system. Charging that one officer doesn't solve it either. There are bad people in society. That doesn't mean the whole system is bad. Of course there is room for improvement, and action should be taken to rem…

https://www.citylab.com/equity/2020/02/police-violence-racia... https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/08/police-officer-shooti... Just some starter insight to reading about police violence. Police in US use disproportionate force compared to any other country.

I read through both articles. I'm sorry, but I do not see any comparisons between US and other countries.

> between 90 percent and 95 percent—of the civilians shot by officers were actively attacking police or other citizens when they were shot”

Sounds like the vast majority used exactly the amount of force required.

Also, does not anywhere state the types of crimes being committed which would be relevant.

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#375

Post by MadNinjaSkills » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 4:43 AM UTC

But if the police are trained to use violent force... just how does that work? The fact that police will never really be of service to a suicidal person (who can point a toy gun at them, and then they shoot him/her- granting the individual's wish to end his/her own life) comes to mind. (Oh, yeah, don't commit suicide!)

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#376

Post by Jommi » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 4:43 AM UTC

thebradbain wrote: post #61

coldcode wrote: post #4

Of course it does. But politicians who ramp up the rhetoric and threaten to have people killed does not. Flint and Camden and other cities where the police sat down or walked with the protestors have no issues. People connecting to people with understanding rarely results in violence. I think places where the police still walk a beat (or other regular outreach over a wide area) and get to know the locals rarely have…

"As they would rather not tax people to pay for it" I think you may be underestimating how much cities dedicate their budgets to police spending: "Mayor Eric Garcetti's 2020-2021 city budget gives police $3.14 billion out of the city's $10.5 billion. That's the single biggest line item, dwarfing, say, emergency management ($6 million) and economic development ($30 million)." (In fact, LAPD is getting pay raises while…

Please don't use LA as an example. Its not a city that can be compared to any other because of its weird patchwork nature and stupid geographic boundaries.

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#377

Post by Jommi » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 4:43 AM UTC

thebradbain wrote: post #72

thebradbain wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"As they would rather not tax people to pay for it" I think you may be underestimating how much cities dedicate their budgets to police spending: "Mayor Eric Garcetti's 2020-2021 city budget gives police $3.14 billion out of the city's $10.5 billion. That's the single biggest line item, dwarfing, say, emergency management ($6 million) and economic development ($30 million)." (In fact, LAPD is getting pay raises while…

Personally, I'd love California to try a ballot initiative putting a 10-15%-of-budget cap on police spending in cities. I think it could easily pass, and if NYPD's 2017 strike is any indication, crime rate could actually go down [1]. NYPD ended their strike voluntarily because city officials were recognizing that maybe they weren't as necessary, after all! https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-proacti.…

Less spending on police, even less trained officers, great right?

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#378

Post by Jommi » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 4:45 AM UTC

kuzimoto wrote: post #374

Jommi wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.citylab.com/equity/2020/02/police-violence-racia... https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/08/police-officer-shooti... Just some starter insight to reading about police violence. Police in US use disproportionate force compared to any other country.

I read through both articles. I'm sorry, but I do not see any comparisons between US and other countries. > between 90 percent and 95 percent—of the civilians shot by officers were actively attacking police or other citizens when they were shot” Sounds like the vast majority used exactly the amount of force required. Also, does not anywhere state the types of crimes being committed which would be relevant.

I said they were just the start, you can use them to seed more searches on google. You can for example see the graph here: https://cdn.theatlantic.com/thumbor/rFBg-9fA0Ehnx8OSyE6UvrD0...

Showing an avg. 50% fatality rate on police shootings. You can compared this to other countries, which have the same statistic at something like 5-10% and it's not like these countries are overrun by mass shootings or terrorists. Some might actually says its the reverse :D

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#379

Post by js2 » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 4:46 AM UTC

> That, experts say, speaks to a cultural attitude that is endemic to the profession, and is hard to change with new chiefs or rules. Thomson encountered this when he tried to make change in Camden. The police department was so dysfunctional that the city took the unprecedented step of disbanding the force and reconstituting a whole new agency from scratch.

This American Life did a story about a new chief trying to reform the Firehouse culture in Amsterdam in order to combat discrimination:

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/684/transcript

Spoiler alert: he failed. It's hard to turn an organization around.

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#380

Post by jamiewilson » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 4:46 AM UTC

kortilla wrote: post #362

idealboy wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I and about 90% of the crowd wore masks. Yes, we did our best to keep 6 feet but not always, hence the masks. People were walking around with hand sanitizer to share. A global pandemic is awful, but it does not alleviate us of our civic responsibility. Was it uncomfortable and difficult? Yes. Am I glad I went? Hell yes. Black lives matter.

> but it does not alleviate us of our civic responsibility. The protests haven’t worked though for the last 20 years or so. IMO it’s more important to vote and promote change than to block traffic. People remember how you made them feel more easily than what you actually said. Preventing them from getting somewhere is a great way to just piss people off.

It’s no wonder that the protests over the last 20 years haven’t worked to garner more support considering that those who do participate are treated with violent retaliation. Maybe if those of us begging to be heard were allowed to speak, and scream and chant, it would inspire more people to unite, organize and vote.