Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

theappeal.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 398 posts

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

#201

Post by Wowfunhappy »

catalogia wrote: post #180
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's why I said should . I think bodycams themselves are fantastic tools—but like most technology, they cannot by themselves fix a human problem.

Our system doesn't assume criminal guilt under any circumstances, by design, and that's a good thing. Everybody accused of a crime has the right to a trial, even cops.

Let me expand on what I wrote: From a professional perspective, you should be assumed guilty, and probably loose your job, if you are accused of something and your body cam was not on. Because even if the accuser is lying, why was your camera off?

From a legal perspective, I think a cop without a body cam should be given the exact same rights as a private citizen, including around the use of force. The right to use force comes with responsibilities, like having a body camera.

And when standing in court as a private citizen, a body cam which just happened to get turned off at the exact time of the incident should be viewed with extreme suspicion. Not proof in itself, but a very serious black mark.

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

#202

Post by yardie »

jsdevwork1 wrote: post #189
chinesempire wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever really tried one for yourself? East Berlin used to be second World, but many of my American friends moved there because they were tired sick of being harassed by their own country brutality and would never go back. Even many African countries are safer than the US if you are black. On the other side, one of the most annoying kind of tourist you can find in my city, which is Rome in Italy, are Americans.…

I sure have, Venezuela. No water, constant power failures, gas at 8-12 USD per gallon (controlled by the military police$$$, though that is a recent development), minimum wage at 5USD per month. Food at international prices. Basically non-existent judicial system. Police brutality several notches above what you see in the US.

So out of the 200+ countries you could have compared the US to you chose a failed state. There are many other 3rd world/developing countries who have fully functional governments.

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

#203

Post by RickJWagner »

jeffbee wrote: post #8
TrevorAustin wrote: post #4

"Dissolve the organization and start over from scratch" is an under-used solution in American life, even in the private sector. Apparently Camden, NJ did a version of this in 2013 with a fair amount of success: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-04/how-camde...

Indeed, Americans need to realize that almost everything about our society is a bad first draft, in need of prompt replacement. People reflexively defend existing institutions, but the more I've thought about it over the years, the more I've realized there's almost no aspect of American life worth preserving. Police departments might be a good place to start, but most American cities also need to address structural d…

Not my America. It has problems, sure. But it's the place where people line up to get in. The place where multinationals that hire lots of international colleagues are headquartered. A super-power, and one that has good intent at least as much as any other super-power.

I'm proud of my America, even if it does have warts (some of them ugly.) I have confidence we'll get better in the future.

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

#204

Post by Trumpi »

ufmace wrote: post #162

I don't live in Minneapolis, and I don't know if this is the right solution or not. But what bothers me about what I've read so far, is they seem to have remarkably little details about exactly what they want to replace the department with. Exactly what does "community-led public safety" mean?

It sounds like a euphemism for vigilantes, though I certainly hope that this is not what they intend.

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

#205

Post by skissane »

jMyles wrote: post #178
skissane wrote: post #46

The US has lots of different police forces – city police, county police, state police. Many other countries have more centralised policing with fewer levels. I think, a smaller number of bigger police forces might promote more professionalism, more professional management, oversight by more experienced politicians (state political leaders tend to be more experienced and capable than local political leaders, especiall…

> county police This is very, very rare. More frequently, we have county Sheriffs, not police. And their duties are quite distinct; only recently have they come to resemble police. Shrievalty is more concerned with the functioning of the courts: sometimes holding suspects before trial (and maintaining jail facilites), ensuring the security and order of the court, protecting jury members from violent coercion, capturi…

Country Sheriffs in the US appear to me to do a lot of policing work.

For example, Polk County Sheriff (Florida) seems to be busy arresting people for DUI – https://tampa.cbslocal.com/2020/06/06/sheriff-grady-judd-54-...

Sacramento County Sheriff's (Calfornia) has a homicide bureau – https://www.sacsheriff.com/Pages/Organization/CID/Homicide.a...

Erie County Sheriff (New York) has a drug squad which regularly carries out undercover buy operations – https://www2.erie.gov/sheriff/index.php?q=narcotics-unit

Washington County Sheriff (Oregon) has a traffic safety unit – https://www.co.washington.or.us/Sheriff/FightingCrime/Patrol...

Many US counties have unincorporated areas, in which county sheriffs have full police patrol responsibilities. Often, that authority also extends to incorporated areas (villages/towns/smaller cities) which are too small to have their own police departments and rely on the county for all policing functions.

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

#206

Post by CivBase »

ufmace wrote: post #162

I don't live in Minneapolis, and I don't know if this is the right solution or not. But what bothers me about what I've read so far, is they seem to have remarkably little details about exactly what they want to replace the department with. Exactly what does "community-led public safety" mean?

I agree. I'm worried they don't have any real plans yet. If they do, I think they need to be very public about them. It sounds like a lack of transparency was a core issue with the old PD.

I'm particularly worried that if this was voted on prematurely - before they were ready to deploy their new solution - that there might be some retaliation from the existing PD until the decision takes effect.

I'm also worried that "comminity-lead" implies a more political law enforcement organization. After all, sometimes what is "right" is not what is "popular" and I would hope that an officer is more concerned with the former.

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

#207

Post by yawaramin »

xu44 wrote: post #184
grecy wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scores of videos in the last week show police brutally beating regular citizens who have assembled peacefully. Recent events are proving the First Amendment sounds great on paper, but is utterly worthless when people actually try to exercise that right.

Let's just ignore the scores of videos of businesses being looted, cars being flipped, places set on fire or the killing of David Dorn.

Time to choose a priority: more important to stop the roadside executions of Black people by cops, or to stop 'looting'?

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

#208

Post by fludlight »

JshWright wrote: post #150
dcposch wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did a more than just a reorg. Disbanding and replacing a PD eliminates the old police union contracts. Those lopsided contracts are at the root of the impunity and violence we've seen over the past week. Many cities have made extraordinary contractual concessions, including: - Secrecy clauses. Officer Bob might have 31 excessive force complaints against him, but the city is contractually forbidden from making th…

I don't understand why there isn't a professional license required for LEOs. I'm a paramedic. If I harmed a patient once (let along 31 times), my card would get revoked and that would be that. A cop, meanwhile, is likely to face no consequences at all, and in the absolute "worst" case scenario, they would just get a job in the next town over.

Paramedics and police are at opposite ends of the union representation spectrum. Paramedics have no union and are thus treated like livestock. The police have the strongest unions in America and are thus largely untouchable.

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

#209

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

Recursing wrote: post #141
Natsu wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it comes to code, I thought the consensus was strongly against that because it tends to introduce more problems than it solves.

I think a lot of it comes from opinion pieces such as this one https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-... which makes incredibly confident and general statements from a very small sample size, while there are many success stories of successful complete rewrites Also, "Most software at Google gets rewritten every few years." https://arxiv.org/pdf/1702.01715.pdf

> Also, "Most software at Google gets rewritten every few years."

That's hardly point in favor, given Google's "reputation" for long-term support and stability, and the sheer amount of engineers that they can throw at literally every problem.

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

#210

Post by Invictus0 »

11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #79

"...MPD announced last year the discovery of 1,700 untested rape kits spanning 30 years, which officials said had been misplaced." This leads me to think that there are some objective metrics by which a police department's performance can be measured. For a department to have 1,700 untested rape kits (vs. nearly 2500 rapes reported in 2019) seems outrageous, even if it represents a low percentage of total reported. W…

Unfortunately, the rape kit problem is much worse than you think.

[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2019/07/nati...

Post reply on HN