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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

#681

Post by base698 »

pjc50 wrote: post #440
peterwwillis wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we begin with the fact that this isn't even remotely in the same universe as a peer reviewed study? There's nothing to compare it to, there's no data on what the timeline is, there's no meta analysis of the different cases, what sparked the incidents, the outcomes, or how often non-violent confrontations or de-escalations happen, etc. Basically you're looking at a single specific dataset, like "number of children…

> "number of children strangled" At least in that case you wouldn't have people arguing that the kids deserved it. > Horror porn is not an intellectual argument. This isn't porn, this is filming reality as it happens. I know we're all a bit numbed, but this reminds me of the decisions by the Allied forces to document Auschwitz as well as possible when it was overrun, or how the BBC footage of the Ethiopian famine spa…

You can be massively misleading even if you're filming reality as it happens. The first of the recent Atlanta shooting videos to air left out the part where you see the suspect point a taser at the police. Ie the video appears he was shot in the back, but security cam footage shows the full story.

Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#682

Post by dragonwriter »

mindslight wrote: post #638
vorpalhex wrote: post #608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've made a common mistake, and that's confusing people on social media for the majority. Most people don't want to defund their police. Per the latest Monmouth poll, about 60% favor the police (compared to ~11% for congress) and most people see the police as their protectors. Police don't get a lopsided contract by threatening politicians and that's a grossly inflammatory claim. Contracts are negotiated like any o…

Police generally have contracts where they have weaseled out of criminal, civil, and even administrative sanctions, allowing them to break the law with impunity. If you don't see this as extreme corruption, then you don't actually believe in the rule of law. > Per the latest Monmouth poll, about 60% favor the police (compared to ~11% for congress) and most people see the police as their protectors Unfortunately this…

> Police generally have contracts where they have weaseled out of criminal, civil, and even administrative sanctions

No, they don't. You can't contract out of criminal sanction, for one thing. You could be indemnified from civil sanction, but QI makes that mostly moot anyway.

And, to the extent they do, those contracts are negotiated with and approved by local elected officials. Work—and, yes, this takes convincing others—to change those officials minds or change the officials, and you change what contracts get negotiated, or even of the police department continues to exist. Cf. Minneapolis (especially, but not exclusivelt) right now, Camden in 2012, etc.

The idea that citizens don't have control of local police through local government is wrong. Normally, local citizens are between actively approving and tacitly tolerating the behavior of police rather than actively seeking change, but they absolutely do have the power should they choose to exert it.

Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#683

Post by SkyBelow »

cies wrote: post #644
SkyBelow wrote: post #636

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is the notion of victimless. There are crimes that put people at risk but don't always create a victim. Do we allow for crimes that have a risk of a victim even if there isn't a direct victim? There are crimes where we say that someone is a victim despite their own feelings of being victimized or having suffered a crime. Do those stay as well? We have crimes where there isn't someone physically hurt and n…

To most of these I'd say: make 'm offenses not crimes. As I see it: crimes make it punishable by jail time, offenses not.

But doesn't this then introduce the problems with fines? They can be disproportionate and can also be viewed as a tax. Making them proportionate has other issues, such as effectively making it a non-punishment for some people who can optimize around it (people working under the table) and can easily lead to situations where corporations can structure themselves so they don't have to pay any significant fine with caught.

Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#684

Post by freeflight »

ha4fsd3fas wrote: post #641
supportlocal4h wrote: post #522

When one 737 Max crashed, some pointed the finger at the pilots. When a second one crashed, the focus quickly shifted. It is a common attitude in aviation that even pilot error is really a systems fault. Perhaps opposing buttons are too close together, or some control requires attention to be diverted at the wrong time, or pilots are allowed to fly too many hours without adequate rest, or plenty of other things that…

I think you are comparing apples to oranges. Your comparison would be more accurate if all humans were law abiding citizens. I don't think you could put blame on pilots if airplanes could sabotage flights at will. Of course if all humans are law abiding citizens there would be no issue to begin with. I think every society with lower crime has significantly smaller police brutality issue with some rare exceptions like…

> I think every society with lower crime has significantly smaller police brutality

Crime-rates do not correlate with police brutality and mass incarceration.

Canada locks up way fewer people, has way less harsh sentencing than the US, yet Canadian crime rates are not that different from those of the US [0].

It's also really weird to evoke HK in this discussion when the current police response in the US is way worse than anything reported out of HK. Particularly in the context that for the longest time the HK police actually had a rather splendid international reputation [1].

While US police had a "Dirty Harry" like reputation for several decades now, something that's reached its current peak with the whole "blueline" mentality and the glorification of comic vigilantes like the Punisher as a symbol for law enforcement.

As such a whole lot of this is rooted very deeply in policing and incarceration culture and not some countries being inherently "more criminal" than others.

[0] https://youtu.be/wtV5ev6813I

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/24/world/asia/24iht-hkpolice...

Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#685

Post by rzwitserloot »

AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #654
cies wrote: post #644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To most of these I'd say: make 'm offenses not crimes. As I see it: crimes make it punishable by jail time, offenses not.

That's reasonable, but how do we punish (or otherwise deter) offenses? The most obvious answer seems to be to fine the offenders, but really, how do you fine a homeless person?

Good question. But note that the status quo answer has been proven to be woefully suitable.

Fining the homeless seems silly, and unlikely to serve as either a deterrent or as workable compensation for society at large.

Throwing them in a jail is even worse; it is unlikely to deter (part of the problem is that there are mental issues at work which are likely going to make _any_ deterrence ineffective, you need complete solutions for individual cases, or systems in place that reduce the incidence of homelessness and the mental issues strongly correlated to it) - and it is a giant cost to society, not a gain.

There are _NO_ easy answers, that's part of the problem. We can point at the elephant all day, but the current plan of 'lets squawk like a bird loudly' has proven ineffective at chasing the elephant out of the room and also makes no logical sense as to why that should lead to the desired result either. It makes sense to stop the squawking like a bird immediately, even if there isn't yet a plausible plan in place to chase the elephant out.

Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#686

Post by lisper »

AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #677
lisper wrote: post #659

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might start by providing them with a home.

This is indeed the right thing to do. But I can easily imagine that out of 8 million people living in New York City, a certain number does not want to live at home and actually prefer staying outside.

This is an issue about which I happen to have some direct knowledge. I once made a documentary film about homelessness:

http://graceofgodmovie.com/

And you're right, there are some people who are homeless by choice, but they are a tiny, tiny minority, probably less than 1% of the homeless population.

Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#687

Post by vlads_ »

kthejoker2 wrote: post #412

If there ever was a case of "don't comment unless you've RTFA" this it: people extrapolating their viewpoint on a list of 700 things from watching 1, 2, 3 ... At a minimum, watch 100 videos. I did last night, only took about an hour, it's easy to find some to nitpick, some which are ambiguous ... and plenty that are totally horrifying. If you can watch 100 videos in a row from Greg Doucette's list and say, "the milit…

I've watched 30 clips. ALL of them were 30 second clips with no context. All of them from one Twitter thread as well, so not sure why that was not linked instead.

On the other hand, all of the instances of so-called police brutality with context which I've seen elsewhere occur after the police calmly order the protestors to leave a particular area, or to go home because of a curphew order or something else and the protests refuse in a less-than-calm manner.

My question is this: is the police using force to manage a crowd always unjustified in your view?

Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#688

Post by dragonwriter »

mindslight wrote: post #671
vorpalhex wrote: post #657

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Police generally have contracts where they have weaseled out of criminal, civil, and even administrative sanctions That's false. Qualified immunity is a result of a supreme court decision and not part of police contracts. The only thing in most contracts is that police officers who are fired get a chance at mediation for firing disputes. Police officers do get legal protections, the same way you and I get them. You…

Qualified Immunity just sets the default and is mostly a red herring (not that it shouldn't be addressed). A city could easily declare that an officer acted outside their explicit government duties when committing a crime. Furthermore, this could be straightforwardly clarified in their contract. In general you're repeating talking points about fragments of what I said, while ignoring my substantive points. For instan…

>Qualified Immunity just sets the default and is mostly a red herring (not that it shouldn't be addressed). A city could easily declare that an officer acted outside their explicit government duties when committing a crime

QI is irrelevant to crimes, it applies to torts. And when carrying out their explicit duties, police are performing ministerial tasks for which government employees, including police, have absolute immunity; it is only outside that space where they enjoy qualified immunity, and whether the requisite nexus to their official duties for QI exists is a legal question for the courts, not a matter which the city can declare dispositively after the fact.

> For instance, explaining QI doesn't address how the police have also been able to weasel out of criminal and administrative penalties

That's not contract, especially for criminal penalties, it's prosecutorial discretion which is entirely a matter of what the public looks for in choosing the (almost invariably locally elected) head public prosecutor who sets prosecutorial policy.

When the most important fact voters weigh in electing a DA is police union endorsements, they literally have no one else to blame but themselves for police impunity before criminal law.

Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#689

Post by freeflight »

AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #606
leetcrew wrote: post #589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't necessarily say that DUI is a victimless crime. you might not hurt anyone, but you've exposed everyone on the road to excess risk, which could be argued is a type of harm. I'm not sure jail time is necessary for DUI. having your license suspended is already a severe punishment in places where you really need a vehicle to get around. requiring an interlock whenever the person is allowed to drive again also…

Well, here we step on a slippery slope of defining a "victimless" crime. Many illegal drugs have a potential of causing harm. Should the harm be purely physical? Homelessness is a public nuisance, which we can choose to ignore, but so is walking naked in a school yard, which will be seen as a much more controversial subject.

> Many illegal drugs have a potential of causing harm.

To the user, which is a risk they chose to take.

Now you could argue that the illicit trade is causing harm, but that's the direct result of criminalization and not of people choosing to consume substances.

Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#690

Post by luckylion »

xorfish wrote: post #620
luckylion wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 commo…

Extreme left. I don't think this sentiment is popular on the left as a whole.

That's hard to say, of course.

There's little rejection in left wing parties and German trade unions (with the exception of the police unions, obviously) with regards to ACAB and similar messages, although you won't find anybody running for chancellor embracing it. As they will march with the Black Bloc on ocassion, I don't think you can draw a clear line.

The parties' youth organizations are generally significantly further left, so that's a different story entirely, but that's probably true for any youth organization.

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