Lawmakers begin bipartisan push to cut off police access to military-style gear • Hacker News Board

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

#301

Post by jjjensen90 » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 5:05 AM UTC

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #246

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…

This is important to introduce into the discussion. I have felt that in the vast majority of controversial police shootings, especially in the mistaken identity cases, they were likely the result of a hair-trigger reflex and being on high alert, with your conditioning telling you that if an adversary either gets the jump on you or even gets into a strategically advantageous position, today is the day that you are goi…

Being a cop is exceedingly safer than many professions where we don't bend the standard of protecting human life like we do for cops. About the same amount of lumberjacks die in the US during work as police. About the same number of toddlers kill themselves with guns every year as police die in the line of duty.

Part of the duty of a police officer is to put themselves in higher-danger situations than other citizens in order to protect and serve the public, up to and including taking physical harm or death (in fact half of police fatalities every year are in car accidents on duty).

If you train to be a hair trigger, protect-yourself-at-all-costs cop, that's how you will behave.

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

#302

Post by lawnchair_larry » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 5:24 AM UTC

mulmen wrote: post #293

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your perspective is skewed, and the example is arguably irrelevant. It’s not difficult to find examples where the situation is far worse than the US. There is no reason for them to be killing as many people as they do. Yes, there is absolutely a reason. There is a reason for everything. If you want to fix it, you need to set your emotions aside and get to the root cause of that reason. If you continue to deny that th…

Please, enlighten us. Why is "shot by police" the leading cause of death among black men? What is your proposed solution?

It isn’t. Not even remotely close. What a silly stat to invent.

For what it’s worth, black men kill more cops than cops kill unarmed black men.

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

#303

Post by jacobush » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 5:32 AM UTC

1123581321 wrote: post #226

jacobush wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, because they are notoriously violent.

Sorry, you’re saying Israelis are violent as a people? Or the IDF is, or some other organization?

IDF or whatever the branch is called which is doing the torturing.

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

#304

Post by anoncareer0212 » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 5:36 AM UTC

1123581321 wrote: post #224

chrisseaton wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if you're being sarcastic? If not do a Google image search for 'american police officer' - almost every image has a different uniform colour, cut, insignia in it. Dark blue, light blue, white, brown, black, grey, purple, yellow, green. It's every colour under the sun! Two police officers: https://static.trendscatchers.io/uploads/2019/01/bear34-uk.j... https://writersforensicsblog.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/…

The question whether I’m being sarcastic is unfortunate. Please assume good faith. I’ll give you the green. That is unusual. It might be fair to add green to the list for some state trooper uniforms and park police uniforms. I apologize if you’ve spent significant time in the US. I’m assuming you haven’t if significant variation in police uniform seems like it would commonly come up. The colors I mentioned are typica…

you are inventing standards out of whole cloth that simply aren't true, i'm very puzzled by this comment

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

#305

Post by cgriswald » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 5:37 AM UTC

mulmen wrote: post #293

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your perspective is skewed, and the example is arguably irrelevant. It’s not difficult to find examples where the situation is far worse than the US. There is no reason for them to be killing as many people as they do. Yes, there is absolutely a reason. There is a reason for everything. If you want to fix it, you need to set your emotions aside and get to the root cause of that reason. If you continue to deny that th…

Please, enlighten us. Why is "shot by police" the leading cause of death among black men? What is your proposed solution?

Homicide is the leading cause of death among non-Hispanic black males under 44 (taken in total, it’s not) [0]. In the same year as the CDC statistics above, 223 black men were killed by police [1].

It’s tragic, but many orders of magnitude away from your claim.

It’s not the quantity that makes it horrible, tragic, and infuriating. It is all those things because it’s evidence of a larger systemic issue which includes lots of other awful things that fall short of homocide; and it’s largely unnecessary.

[0] https://www.cdc.gov/healthequity/lcod/men/2017/nonhispanic-b...

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-de...

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

#306

Post by tmpz22 » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 6:03 AM UTC

chris_va wrote: post #110

Genuine question... What would it take to align police incentives (compensation, etc) with the outcomes we want? Reforming the unions? Better local politicians? De-militarizing the police seems like a great step, but it seems like trying to cut off a mindset that is already entrenched.

Unions are tied to pensions. Pensions are tied to politics. You’d have to create a greater economic force then tens or hundreds of billions of dollar pension funds.

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

#307

Post by jacobush » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 6:20 AM UTC

inetknght wrote: post #295

jacobush wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The National Guard said it was the MPD who was doing the shooting.

That makes sense. The NG goes by in their vehicle and the people firing the paint guns are wearing what looks like police armor. Do you have a link to cite though? I haven't yet read a statement from the National Guard about it and some brief searching on Google brings up a lot of useless noise.

I saw it as it unfolded while I watched YT and Twitter in disbelief. I’ll try to find it but I lost it in a flurry of tabs.

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

#308

Post by mulmen » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 6:26 AM UTC

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #302

mulmen wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please, enlighten us. Why is "shot by police" the leading cause of death among black men? What is your proposed solution?

It isn’t. Not even remotely close. What a silly stat to invent. For what it’s worth, black men kill more cops than cops kill unarmed black men.

Apologies, I misread [1] and didn't apply the sniff test. It's the sixth leading cause of death, not the first. And it's 2.5x the rate of whites.

Regarding your second claim, I can't find those numbers. The closest thing I can find is this newsweek piece [2] with data from 2013 and 2014. That suggests most people who kill police are white. But it also includes prison guards as police.

[1]: https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2019-08-15/police-shoo...

[2]: https://www.newsweek.com/who-kills-police-officers-315701

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

#309

Post by rconti » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 6:41 AM UTC

stuaxo wrote: post #259

pc86 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally any accident where stopped traffic can be more dangerous than slow-moving traffic (such as any highway). It's really not a strange concept and it's weird to me that you can't comprehend a first responder having a need to move a large, heavy, immobilized object.

Seems pretty weird from the UK POV that they would do it with the car, pretty sure that's not what happens here ?

I googled it; sure enough, can't find UK police vehicles with one. Perhaps it's a policy decision where clearing a road is left to tow trucks, which would take longer to arrive. Obviously there's separate liability there in allowing the police to do the "pushing". And perhaps, in a country of more compact dimensions, the added 1+ft in vehicle length is considered to be not worth the benefit.

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

#310

Post by mulmen » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 6:47 AM UTC

cgriswald wrote: post #305

mulmen wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please, enlighten us. Why is "shot by police" the leading cause of death among black men? What is your proposed solution?

Homicide is the leading cause of death among non-Hispanic black males under 44 (taken in total, it’s not) [0]. In the same year as the CDC statistics above, 223 black men were killed by police [1]. It’s tragic, but many orders of magnitude away from your claim. It’s not the quantity that makes it horrible, tragic, and infuriating. It is all those things because it’s evidence of a larger systemic issue which includes…

Thanks, I misread the source and didn't think about it.

You're right the quantity isn't specifically important but it does illustrate that there is a problem. Even if it is not the #1 cause of death it is disproportionately higher.