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George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

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Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#311

Post by ss3000 »

vegai_ wrote: post #283
danShumway wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All you could find is 400 cases from ALL the years. These aren't from all the years, they're from approximately May 26th of this year. It's 400 cases in the last 3-4 weeks. That is a startlingly high number, made worse once you actually start digging into the individual incidents, because you realize they're not just isolated. A lot of these videos aren't, "a single police officer does something shifty", they're, "…

>These aren't from all the years, they're from approximately May 26th of this year. It's 400 cases in the last 3-4 weeks. But... aren't there riots everywhere right now? This isn't exactly a normal situation.

What does the existence of riots have anything to do with these instances of police brutality on _peaceful_ protestors?

Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#312

Post by Traster »

pnako wrote: post #141

I don't see much discussion of root causes here. But a lot of "police ought to be this or that". Perhaps the best solution is to have more democracy or community input into policing. It seems like it's happening now in the US (it would be quite different in other countries, where the police is national and considered civil servants; in France you can't elect sheriffs, and police is beyond the responsibility of mayors…

One of the issues we've seen is that the police act as a political organisation. It's a message from the Police: "Look at these looters, you need us". They use their position to push for the political outcome they want. Similarly you can elect a mayor who will reform the police, but what's likely to happen is that the police just tweak their behaviour to allow an increase in crime so that come next election, the mayor's "reforms" have made his citizens less safe and you get rid of the mayor - because the police aren't accountable, the mayor is. An institutional interest has emerged and really the only way of changing that is to remove the institution and replace it.

Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#313

Post by lm28469 »

jpxw wrote: post #302
sschueller wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Switzerland has a lot of guns yet we don't have this police issue here.

How many police are killed in Switzerland per year?

What's your argument here ? Police brutality is ok because US police officers are more prone to being killed ? By now there are thousands of videos clearly showing people not resisting, sometimes not even participating in any crime, being beaten and/or killed by the police, it's not normal and no one should defend that.

Gun violence in the US is the symptom of very deep problems, you can't consider it just by itself while disregarding the societal issues being it.

Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#314

Post by luckylion »

arianvanp wrote: post #266
luckylion wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Police in Europe is, on average, very kind. I generally agree. "The left" in Germany does disagree completely, though, so I think it's pretty controversial and not really as simple as you make it out to be.

Nobody in the left in Germany will claim police brutality is at any level near what America is facing as that's completely absurd. However, people do acknowledge police is authoritative, profile racially, and abuse their power at times. I think you can acknowledge both without being inconsistent.

> Nobody in the left in Germany will claim police brutality is at any level near what America is facing as that's completely absurd.

And that's not what I said. They certainly won't agree that police in Europe is "on average, very kind".

> However, people do acknowledge police is authoritative, profile racially, and abuse their power at times.

That's an overly euphemistic way of describing "ACAB", which is very common and not controversial on the left.

Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#315

Post by bryanrasmussen »

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #191
spike021 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is Ba Sing Se levels of delusion for some people. A reference I never expected to see on HN. It's insane, but then you realize that a significant portion of the US population _still_ only watches television news media and refuses to spend extra time looking at other sources, like Twitter.

Neither you or the parent poster explained what "Ba Sing Se" is. I quickly discovered that it is a reference to a city in "The last Airbender" [0]. I don't want to watch three seasons of it just to understand the reference. A very obscure reference might deserve an explanation to make the remaining 99.9% of the readers able to understand what you mean. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar:_The_Last_Airbender#Ba_…

Avatar: The Last Airbender is one of the greatest series ever made which also has the benefit that it can be understood by kids, so it's worth investing 3 seasons in anyway.

I guess I'm in favor of obscure references, I think even if I hadn't understood I would think that must mean something really delusional.

Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#316

Post by dtech »

bnjms wrote: post #244
simonebrunozzi wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither you or the parent poster explained what "Ba Sing Se" is. I quickly discovered that it is a reference to a city in "The last Airbender" [0]. I don't want to watch three seasons of it just to understand the reference. A very obscure reference might deserve an explanation to make the remaining 99.9% of the readers able to understand what you mean. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar:_The_Last_Airbender#Ba_…

“There is no war in ba sing se” is the equivalent of the older phrase “we were never at war with Eurasia”. Which is now more obscure but likely better understood on HN. OP is saying you’d need to be incredibly delusional to deny police are brutal and there’s a problem.

With all due respect, 1984 has a much higher cultural impact and awareness than ATLA. The show isn't that well known outside of current 20-30 year olds.

Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#318

Post by raxxorrax »

vegai_ wrote: post #273
raxxorrax wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially compared to other countries, the US police seem to show quite the restrained considering most countries do not allow to carry weapons. It is a significant risk for safety of course. But if you look at the data, the often believed stereotype of US police being glorified cowboys seems to be quite untrue. Frankly I am a bit cynical about politicians declaring the need for police reform. In my country protests…

> Especially compared to other countries, the US police seem to show quite the restrained considering most countries do not allow to carry weapons. Not most. Ireland, Norway, Iceland, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Maldives have police officers work unarmed. Are there others?

That wasn't expressed clearly, I meant civilians not generally being allowed to carry weapons. If you can expect people to be unarmed, you have a lot less tension in police interactions.

Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#319

Post by ss3000 »

Disgusting. After things settle down, in addition to all the systematic reform that will hopefully take place, I hope we can look back at these videos and put all of these officers in jail for violating the constitution and betraying their oath to protect and serve their communities.

It's finally time to put all that facial recognition tech to good use.

Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#320

Post by luckylion »

baddox wrote: post #279
rutthenut wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, let me see. Why might the police need guns to hand out speeding tickets? Perhaps it's because at least some of the people they stop, for speeding or other possible offences, won't take kindly to being stopped and in many parts of the USA, those in the vehicle may be permitted to carry guns of their own... Glorified customer service work? Far from it

But we actually have data on this. Traffic stops are not particularly dangerous for police in the United States. There are laws in place about how legal gun owners must notify law enforcement during traffic stops. In fact, there is no shortage of video of law-abiding citizens in the US notifying law enforcement that they have a legal firearm in the vehicle and receiving a disproportionate response. But you don’t even…

> There are laws in place about how legal gun owners must notify law enforcement during traffic stops.

Isn't the issue with laws that those breaking them don't usually care about laws? I'm sure you have laws in place against murder, and murder still happens. "But there's a law against burglary, why would you want additional protection and have a strong door" isn't a good argument.

There are good arguments (and the whole issue is a good gun control argument in general), but that really isn't one.

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