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If you see the cops, start recording

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Re: If you see the cops, start recording

#181

Post by loudmax »

jonfw wrote: post #161
Ididntdothis wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"So, we should have the cops take out liability insurance and pay damages?" No, they should get proper training and be held to professional standards.

Are you ready to double the pay of police? If you wanted to go through a lot of training and be held to high standards, you'd probably look for a more lucrative gig than being a cop

> Are you ready to double the pay of police?

Yes, absolutely! Raise police pay, along spending money on police training. Then hold those officers to high standards. This is absolutely the way forward.

This certainly entails raising taxes, which makes better policing difficult to implement when one of the two major political parties is religiously opposed to taxation.

Re: If you see the cops, start recording

#182

Post by rabidrat »

mythrwy wrote: post #164
cwkoss wrote: post #6

I think half of the police force should be 'armed' with nothing more than cameras. Arrests are not necessary in the vast majority of situations police are called for, and recording technology is far superior to verbal testimony for serving our courts

I like that idea. It will cost more but what if we pair cops with non cop observers or participants? Like someone trained to talk with people and asses rather than just bust heads. Maybe it could even be volunteer sign a waiver and be a community observer? Or jury duty style even. Then, if head busting is actually needed (and sadly occasionally it is, please don't be naive) the head buster is on hand. But it should b…

Maybe you are using 'head busting' metaphorically, but no one needs to have their head actually busted, unless what they need is to be dead. In which case, the cop needs to kill them, with their bodycam on, so the inquest can be clean and proper (which is another issue entirely, sadly).

This idea that beating people is acceptable law enforcement procedure is ludicrous and part of the problem.

Re: If you see the cops, start recording

#183

Post by mythrwy »

rabidrat wrote: post #182
mythrwy wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like that idea. It will cost more but what if we pair cops with non cop observers or participants? Like someone trained to talk with people and asses rather than just bust heads. Maybe it could even be volunteer sign a waiver and be a community observer? Or jury duty style even. Then, if head busting is actually needed (and sadly occasionally it is, please don't be naive) the head buster is on hand. But it should b…

Maybe you are using 'head busting' metaphorically, but no one needs to have their head actually busted, unless what they need is to be dead. In which case, the cop needs to kill them, with their bodycam on, so the inquest can be clean and proper (which is another issue entirely, sadly). This idea that beating people is acceptable law enforcement procedure is ludicrous and part of the problem.

Yes metaphorically. I should have been more clear.

"Use of force" would be a more appropriate term.

Re: If you see the cops, start recording

#184

Post by munificent »

staticassertion wrote: post #30
chrisco255 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cops carry guns because the situation can always get out of hand. Violent criminals still exist in society. EDIT: the ignorant people claiming average police officer does not deal with violent criminals have obviously never worked as a first responder. They deal with rape, suicide, murder, assault, domestic abuse, robbery, every week unless they're some small town cop in a gilded neighborhood. The cops in St. Louis,…

How much of our police force deals with legitimate violent crime? The vast majority of police do not need guns. edit: > hey deal with rape, suicide, murder, assault, domestic abuse, robbery, every week unless they're some small town cop in a gilded neighborhood. Can you back this up? Statistics I've seen do not support your claim, and put violent crimes under 5% of police investigations.

If violent crimes are 4% of police investigations, then it still only requires 25 investigations per week for the parent sentence to be true.

Re: If you see the cops, start recording

#185

Post by mamurphy »

pjc50 wrote: post #158
mamurphy wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would anyone do differently in their shoes? It sounds like they volunteered for a task force, and would be facing individual liability with no assistance from their union if sued for any work resulting from staying on the task force. If you volunteered to program the Foo system at your job, and your company announced that you would be individually liable for any losses anyone suffered for your further work on Foo sys…

On the other hand, if I assaulted or murdered someone at work I wouldn't expect them to cover for me. Really the issue is one of process. Was shoving the guy to the ground and leaving him there a normal procedure for dealing with the alleged offense? If so, it's the department's fault and the superiors are negligent. If not, they failed to follow process and caused a death, so they should be individually liable for a…

Any person of conscience wants 0 (or at least less, moving towards 0) police brutality. I also think most people would avoid taking a job where they could be judged and imprisoned for a close-call mistake (that the jury believes was) made months or years earlier in a tense, dangerous situation, with no support to defend themselves. Many incidents aren't clear cut - the clear cut ones pull at our heartstrings because they are so egregious.

Re: If you see the cops, start recording

#186

Post by Ididntdothis »

munificent wrote: post #176
Ididntdothis wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"So, we should have the cops take out liability insurance and pay damages?" No, they should get proper training and be held to professional standards.

Forcing them to take out liability insurance is how you incentivize them to get proper training and instill professional standards.

I work in medical devices. I don’t have to take liability insurance to do my job. I get training on FDA regulations and if I don’t follow them I get warned or fired. We also have internal and external audits with Independent auditors that have the power to demand changes or shut us down. The whole company culture is about doing things the right way and this is coming from the top. As far as I can tell all this is missing in US police or if there are auditors they are toothless or corrupt.

Re: If you see the cops, start recording

#187

Post by craftinator »

Ididntdothis wrote: post #179
jonfw wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you ready to double the pay of police? If you wanted to go through a lot of training and be held to high standards, you'd probably look for a more lucrative gig than being a cop

If that’s what’s needed to attract reasonable people into the police then so be it. If we aren’t willing to pay for proper training and supervision then we have the police force we deserve.

Being a police officer is a very high paying job for someone without an education. With overtime, the average pay in many departments is over $100k. For people without an education, who get a massive amount of job perks. The problem is that the job has too much power, which attracts violent, power hungry individuals. Take away their power, and you'll have a police force that desires to make their community a better place.

Re: If you see the cops, start recording

#188

Post by craftinator »

dominotw wrote: post #68
ryanwaggoner wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a pilot. This isn't remotely a fair comparison. There are lots of very complex and nuanced situations in aviation that require judgment calls. People are going to get it wrong sometimes. We're human. That's a far cry from this situation. There is no "judgment call" here: don't violently shove elderly people to the ground for no reason. If you accidentally do, help them up. If you pass by an elderly person lying o…

> There's no "mistake" here. I wasn't talking about this specific case though, not sure how you inferred that from my comment that shoving old man was a mistake . I was talking about a hypothetical case where it was indeed a mistake.

Great, well in this case, this cop acted violently and aggressively towards a senior citizen, who was killed through that cop's action. Not murder, but definitely manslaughter. If you did that to someone, that's what you would be going to jail for, and rightly so.

Re: If you see the cops, start recording

#189

Post by cwkoss »

mythrwy wrote: post #164
cwkoss wrote: post #6

I think half of the police force should be 'armed' with nothing more than cameras. Arrests are not necessary in the vast majority of situations police are called for, and recording technology is far superior to verbal testimony for serving our courts

I like that idea. It will cost more but what if we pair cops with non cop observers or participants? Like someone trained to talk with people and asses rather than just bust heads. Maybe it could even be volunteer sign a waiver and be a community observer? Or jury duty style even. Then, if head busting is actually needed (and sadly occasionally it is, please don't be naive) the head buster is on hand. But it should b…

They don't even need to be paired. The majority of police could be unarmed and armed cops are only dispatched for calls where necessity of force seems likely or when unarmed cops call for armed backup.

Considering how much is spent on weapons training, this would likely be a net cost reduction. "Camera cops" could probably be paid less because they would have less risk of being in violent situations, don't have mental anguish of making life or death decisions daily, and less animosity from the community.

Re: If you see the cops, start recording

#190

Post by mcguire »

mamurphy wrote: post #185
pjc50 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, if I assaulted or murdered someone at work I wouldn't expect them to cover for me. Really the issue is one of process. Was shoving the guy to the ground and leaving him there a normal procedure for dealing with the alleged offense? If so, it's the department's fault and the superiors are negligent. If not, they failed to follow process and caused a death, so they should be individually liable for a…

Any person of conscience wants 0 (or at least less, moving towards 0) police brutality. I also think most people would avoid taking a job where they could be judged and imprisoned for a close-call mistake (that the jury believes was) made months or years earlier in a tense, dangerous situation, with no support to defend themselves. Many incidents aren't clear cut - the clear cut ones pull at our heartstrings because…

Let's be honest here.

There are no "close-call mistakes" in the situations which have caused outrage. The problem is that the officers involved have excessive support to defend themselves.

If changing that causes some people to "avoid taking a job", good. The public has an interest in them not being in that job.

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