Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department • Hacker News Board

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#151

Post by spamizbad » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 10:55 PM UTC

leanstartupnoob wrote: post #110

remarkEon wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My sense is that most (but not all) of the people cheering this on are like you. They don't live there, they have no family there, and they have no ties to the city or the state. Spoke with a childhood friend last night, and he's leaving the city and moving to Minnetonka once his lease is up in August. Everyone else he knows is doing something similar. Obviously this is all anecdotal, and like you said we get to watc…

I still live in Minneapolis and most people that I know want to stay. Everyone who watched the video knows George Floyd was murdered, but the MPD and its union still want to fight their termination and all charges. MPD response to protesters has been incompetent, callous, and malicious. The majority of MPD are suburban Trump supporters and like all Trump supporters they can't stand progressive places like Minneapolis…

Cities live and die based on those with real roots in the city. Which is why it’s largely not worthwhile to shape city policy on the desire of “tourists” who are either transient or “if 1 bad thing I don’t like happens I’m leaving immediately”

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#152

Post by karlakush » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 10:55 PM UTC

umvi wrote: post #140

siliconc0w wrote: post #103

The problem is American gun culture and the probability that any call might turn into a violent one. Other countries don't have that problem so they can send unarmed social workers with higher confidence, over a life time of calls, they're going to see retirement. In America that isn't the case and responders need a gun because everyone has guns and you need to have sustainable system for keeping order that ensures,…

Would it help if murdering unarmed peace keepers or whatever had extreme punishment attached? Even criminals can be trained. Kill an unarmed peace keeper, your life is effectively over.

There is already extreme punishment for peace officers. It doesn't stop criminals from doing it, though.

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#153

Post by cryptoz » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 10:55 PM UTC

chipperyman573 wrote: post #128

throwanem wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The idea of an internment camp is not even considered. https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/22/us/ice-detention-coronavirus-... https://www.insider.com/report-detention-centers-use-disinfe... https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/border-fac... https://archive.is/bxmYQ [WaPo]

Those are for people who are specifically not here legally and therefore don't recieve the full protection of our constitution and laws. While I vehemently disagree with these camps, there's no reason to assume a re-born America's laws would apply to people who are not citizens/legally accepted into its borders. A fix for these camps would be to guarantee the same protections we Americans enjoy to people who come her…

> Those are for people who are specifically not here legally and therefore don't recieve the full protection of our constitution and laws

Do you have a citation on that? I don't think that's true. ICE detains a lot of people here legally, including citizens.

https://www.google.com/search?q=american+citizens+in+ice+det...

Regardless, ICE should be obeying international laws for human rights, which they are not.

It seems to me that ICE is meant to intimidate entire groups of people regardless of their citizenship or legal status.

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#154

Post by aasasd » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 10:56 PM UTC

Not really comparable, but related still:

> In 2005 Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili fired "the entire traffic police force" of the Georgian National Police due to corruption, numbering around 30,000 police officers. A new force was built around new recruits. The United States State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law-Enforcement Affairs has provided assistance to the training efforts.

Haven't heard any reports of traffic mayhem in those months. Afaik after that traffic police went from post-Soviet bandits and bureaucrats to polite workforce and their DMV started handling routine procedures in ten minutes instead of ‘file your request, go home and wait for a response’.

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#155

Post by scarface74 » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 10:57 PM UTC

corfufilma wrote: post #139

scarface74 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that any different than the lawless gangs that have the force of government behind them?

Do you (or others) actually believe this statement, or are you being contrarian to make another point? If you do, what sort of experience / data leads one to believe that policing in western societies are top-line equivalent to the strong-armed lawlessness that exists in many failed states around the globe. Genuinely curious.

The data that we have is racial bias in stop and frisk (no evidence of crime before the stop), bias is traffic stops, bias in tickets being issued for the same offense, racial bias in sentencing.

Not to mention that almost every case that came to trial against police came about after video came out. Before the video, they tried to cover it up.

How many times have we seen recently that when “the few bad apples” were fired and/or charged, “the good cops” objected?

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#156

Post by karlakush » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 10:57 PM UTC

macspoofing wrote: post #6

I don't think it will work. Minneapolis has one of the highest crime rates in the country, just as Baltimore did, and that city saw crime rates rise even higher after protests led to tighter regulations on the Police ... but I don't live in Minneapolis and so I'm curious to see how it will turn out. I support this as a great social experiment.

The white flight from Minneapolis is going to be unlike anything we've ever seen before if the city council goes through with this.

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#157

Post by WaxProlix » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 10:58 PM UTC

jimbob45 wrote: post #31

nkrisc wrote: post #5

It sounds kind of crazy on the surface but it makes sense - what else would you do if you completely lost faith in the police force to do its job effectively? It would probably seen easier to disband it and replace it with something else than to try and reform such an organization.

- Bodycams - Mandatory psych evals half-yearly - Anonymous corruption reporting - Reduce/eliminate drug penalties - Eliminate civil forfeiture - Ticketing revenues no longer fund the department - Expanded auditing of violent calls Unfortunately, the greater group of protesters is incapable of understanding nuanced policy or democratic change. I fully expect MN to swing red this election as a result of this.

Did you just advocate for tearing apart the current policing paradigm and then wind up with "Unfortunately, the greater group of protesters is incapable of understanding nuanced policy or democratic change"? That's a wild ride of a post right there.

How do you think what's happening will differ from what you're suggesting?

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#158

Post by morgante » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 10:59 PM UTC

sremani wrote: post #143

morgante wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. Camden disbanded their police department and has seen crime drop: https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/01/what-happened-to-crim... Disbanding the police doesn't mean no public safety measures. It means disbanding the department and rebuilding a new approach to public safety.

From the article @citylab: "Other cities are still struggling. Kansas City, Columbus, Phoenix, and Birmingham saw homicide rates reach new highs in 2017. In Baltimore, homicides hit a new per-capita peak." If I have to place bet, the fate of Minneapolis will be similar to that of Baltimore.

Why? None of those cities have reformed or rebuilt their police departments.

You're just spreading FUD.

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#159

Post by boomboomsubban » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 10:59 PM UTC

throw1234651234 wrote: post #64

ceejayoz wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That hardly seems comparable.

It's directly comparable. It didn't work so well in Ukraine either, which has an educated, Western society. They disbanded and "rebuilt" their police force to step away from Russian influences. Corruption came back, but in the meantime, a lot of operation efficiency was lost. Swapping out a police department is much like swapping out a dev team - you are losing a LOT of tribal knowledge, and you have few guarantees t…

>It's directly comparable

How? Is Minneapolis also disbanding it's entire civil beaurcracy? Is Minneapolis also blacklisting the current police from other jobs? Are they letting the current police take home any equipment they currently have access to?

Your Ukraine comparison is slightly better, but "corruption came back" doesn't address whether the move was beneficial or not. Nobody expects the result of disbanding the police to be a perfect racism free police force.

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#160

Post by daodedickinson » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 10:59 PM UTC

spamizbad wrote: post #108

remarkEon wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My sense is that most (but not all) of the people cheering this on are like you. They don't live there, they have no family there, and they have no ties to the city or the state. Spoke with a childhood friend last night, and he's leaving the city and moving to Minnetonka once his lease is up in August. Everyone else he knows is doing something similar. Obviously this is all anecdotal, and like you said we get to watc…

It’s interesting that we never consider the status quo to ever be an extreme. Perhaps part of why these root-to-branch efforts seem so extreme is because the Overton window has been shifted so far to the right wrt Criminal Justice we’ve lost perspective. American policing is not exactly a shining beacon of civil achievement. It has a long history of being both problematic and largely ineffectual at establishing law &…

The Overton Window is as far left as it ever has been such that drug possession is becoming more decriminalized, sentencing and bail reforms have recently passed, and body cameras are more prevalent than ever before.

Reduced policing in Baltimore after Freddy Gray's death has led to more than 100 extra murders of black men per year.