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Lawmakers begin bipartisan push to cut off police access to military-style gear

nytimes.com

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Re: Lawmakers begin bipartisan push to cut off police access to military-style gear

#281

Post by beart »

bananabreakfast wrote: post #225
tsss wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being a cop is actually a very safe job. I'd bet that your chance of being shot as a cashier at subway is higher than as a cop.

This is super disingenuous and very unfair to cops. Cashiers do not have to approach dangerous people who do not want to be approached. If they get held up they give the cash and they're good. In cities cops are often targeted to be killed since it could be the difference between life in jail and going free.

I don't see that your argument is any more fair than the one you are replying to.

Store clerks are also targeted because they are often alone and in poorly secure places. They have no choice weather or not to approach dangerous people because those people are approaching them. They have little or no training for handling these situations. They have no back up. They likely receive no pension or disability when injured. If they do something unwise in a dangerous situation, they will almost certainly be fired with no union to protect them.

Re: Lawmakers begin bipartisan push to cut off police access to military-style gear

#282

Post by maest »

eloff wrote: post #243
rayiner wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We agree on violent policing! Seriously, just look at where these cops firing rubber bullets and tear gas work. Almost all working for mayors with D besides their names. The level of police aggression isn’t palpably different whether you’re in Orlando or Minneapolis, and those two cities have vastly different politics.

I think everyone agrees they don't like violent policing. I think as per usual both sides will disagree about what the solution should be.

> I think everyone agrees they don't like violent policing

That is not completely true. For example, the narrative on thedonald.win wrt recent rioting is that most protesters are looters and that looters deserve being shot. They seem to be ok with militarized, strong-men police.

Also, "play stupid games, win stupid prizes" is used as a justification for violent policing. "Of course you're gonna get tazed/hit/shot at if you don't comply with orders/resist arrest/insult the officers."

Now, we can argue about how representative thedonald.win is to the entire population (I think a non-negligent part of the population subscribes to those views), but the point is, party affiliation does affect one's position wrt violent policing.

Re: Lawmakers begin bipartisan push to cut off police access to military-style gear

#284

Post by maest »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #219
Shivetya wrote: post #28

The equipment issue isn't going to solve anything, this is just lip service to the real problem. Police Unions have effectively created a system by which officers are nearly immune from prosecution and even if successfully prosecuted their record cannot travel with them in many cases. Now one fix that removing some of the equipment will do will reduce the amount of psychological impact it has on those wielding it, as…

Unions have effectively created a system by which officers are nearly immune from prosecution and even if successfully prosecuted their record cannot travel with them in many cases. I guess it’s time for us to acknowledge that unions are not always a net benefit.

They're great if you're part of the union, though.

Re: Lawmakers begin bipartisan push to cut off police access to military-style gear

#285

Post by pixl97 »

maest wrote: post #275
namelessoracle wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having gone through police training in another life, you are absolutely correct. I think it's deeper than just what you wear, it's the attitude of the higher ups and overall culture. The leadership team for police that wants you dressing all paramilitary and in all black is going to have a focus on you acting a different way during training and in what your day to day is like than the other group. There's also the br…

Something I've noticed in a lot of police encounter videos: there is no attempt at de-escalating the situation. The shooting of Daniel Shaver is a prime example of that: a benign situation made deadly by high strung officers shouting and giving conflicting orders to a stressed, innebriated man. I get that they shot because it sorta looked like Shaver may have been reaching for a gun while he was stumbling, but that w…

Mentality. I have family members in LE and they have plenty of teaching material on how to properly descalate. The FBI has volumes on how to do this and they provide it to all law enforcement agencies.

From the top down they simply dont care to follow. There is no punishment for them being violent against whomever they want.

Re: Lawmakers begin bipartisan push to cut off police access to military-style gear

#286

Post by joshuamorton »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #263
joshuamorton wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is not acceptable to have a non-zero casualty rate Systems have both false positives and false negatives. A system with no false positives but many false negatives can be worse than a system with few false negatives and few false positives.

If a false positive in threat identification means killing an innocent person, and a false negative means getting killed because you failed to identify and mitigate a threat, it sounds like you are saying that we must accept that an innocent person will be treated like a threat some percentage of the time in order for a police officer to have any hope of surviving the job. Is that accurate? Edit: I am not criticizing…

I'm unclear if you're saying the same thing.

I'm suggesting that optimizing for officer safety at all other costs may result in more overall death (/injury) than if more emphasis were put on civilian safety as well. I very much don't have any particular data to back that assertion up in this case, but often such things are true.

Hopefully that clarifies.

Re: Lawmakers begin bipartisan push to cut off police access to military-style gear

#287

Post by joshuamorton »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #279
c2471 wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that the two are coupled. It is not clear why 0 false negatives is the aim. In almost all hard problems, you cannot have 0 false positives and 0 false negatives. Normally, getting to 0 false negatives requires a large number of false positives. E.g. if I wanted a 0 false negative pregnancy test, the only feasible way would be to tell some very large proportion (maybe all) test takers they are pregnant. I…

I want to disengage from the false positives/negatives discussion, it’s too abstract to be relevant, and demonstrably false anyway. There exists a system with 0% false positives. I find point (a) interesting. You posit that they have control over which situations they enter. But one of the major criticisms I hear, after abuse of force, is that “the police didn’t do anything”. It would seem that these are incompatible…

> But one of the major criticisms I hear, after abuse of force, is that “the police didn’t do anything”. It would seem that these are incompatible. They can choose, but we expect them not to.

I can't parse what you're trying to say here, which prevented me from responding to the main body of your post, unfortunately.

> Nobody is ever going to protest this.

What would you suggest we protest? There are many dangerous professions. Law enforcement isn't even the most dangerous. They're not even in the top 10. Should we protest car accidents that lead to the death of professional truck drivers?

"Police" is an institution. It has norms and is governed by rules. Police officers are meant to protect and serve society. When they fail to do that, that should be protested. I don't see the value in protesting the fact that law enforcement careers carry risks. Yes, it's true that there are bad people in the world. That doesn't give law enforcement carte blanche to abuse their power, nor absolve individuals or institutions from protest of abuse of that power.

(There's also a relatively snarky response here: Yes, it's regrettable that these officers died in the line of duty. We should dismantle the US police institution in its entirety, which would solve both the concerns of BLM protestors and largely address your concern. While I don't share that view, I do know many people who do.)

Re: Lawmakers begin bipartisan push to cut off police access to military-style gear

#288

Post by vsareto »

mdorazio wrote: post #277
vsareto wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can't end this debate without the warrant. You can acknowledge that you don't have that information and there's a chance it was justified before they rolled up if any of the people were known to be affiliated with dangerous people. If you know of a way to figure out if every situation is going to be dangerous before it happens, definitely put that forward. I'll acknowledge that it could have been some bored SWAT g…

I'm trying to figure out what kind of warrant you're imagining that would justify bringing a full SWAT team to evict squatters who were known protesters in an ongoing legal dispute with the property owner, not some gang kids.

https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/1-deputy-de...

These kinds.

I'm going to reiterate that it could have been overkill or poor judgment and that we don't have all of the information.

Re: Lawmakers begin bipartisan push to cut off police access to military-style gear

#289

Post by therealdrag0 »

papeda wrote: post #76

Slightly tangential question, but I have seen at least one proposal [1] for "malpractice insurance" for cops. The claim is that this would shift expenses for bad policing settlements from taxpayers to bad actors -- a bad cop attracts suits, creates settlements, pays higher premiums, and perhaps eventually stops being a cop. It has some kind of economic logic, but to the best of my knowledge this has never been implem…

There was a planet money episode about this too: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/03/22/705914833/epis...

Re: Lawmakers begin bipartisan push to cut off police access to military-style gear

#290

Post by xupybd »

sandworm101 wrote: post #84
Shivetya wrote: post #28

The equipment issue isn't going to solve anything, this is just lip service to the real problem. Police Unions have effectively created a system by which officers are nearly immune from prosecution and even if successfully prosecuted their record cannot travel with them in many cases. Now one fix that removing some of the equipment will do will reduce the amount of psychological impact it has on those wielding it, as…

5) Change the uniforms. Dress for the job you want. If they all dress like storm troopers some of them will act like storm troopers. NY state patrol uniform: Grey with purple ties. https://northcountrynow.com/sites/default/files/images/Zone2... NYPD (new york city ) police: Black on black with black ties. https://media.timeout.com/images/103899055/image.jpg It seems meaningless, but having interacted with a few polic…

What's wrong crossed arms?
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