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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

#721

Post by vorpalhex »

ardy42 wrote: post #713
vorpalhex wrote: post #653

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you de-escalate when there are innocent bystanders? And if a bystander is harmed while you are attempting to de-escalate, doesn't that make the officer negligent? Sure, if there's someone hanging out by themselves then de-escalate and do whatever. The moment there are innocent people in harms way though, that calculus changes. De-escalation is a great catch phrase, but it's not a universal solution. It's one tool…

> Sure, if there's someone hanging out by themselves then de-escalate and do whatever. The moment there are innocent people in harms way though, that calculus changes. No, it's not that simple. Police escalation itself can put innocent people in harms way. The police can shoot, miss, and kill innocent bystanders . Escalation can provoke a criminal to start shooting and kill innocent bystanders or police. That's not t…

Cops kill about 1600 people total (justified and non-justified combined) per year in the US. There are about 16,000 murders per year in the US. Out of the ~1550 people killed by police in 2019, about 40 were unarmed.

You should be much more concerned about a criminal harming you than a police officer.

Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#722

Post by freeflight »

vlads_ wrote: post #695
freeflight wrote: post #684

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

You claim that law enforcement culture differs in the countries which you are comparing and that is indeed true. But is the crime culture the same? Or is that not a factor worth considering?

Police are institutions with standardization, their culture isn't some random construct, it's something that's actively decided on, that's codified in legislation and training.

Criminal culture is not, it's something that emerges way more naturally, usually as a direct response to the culture set by police and punishments established by law.

If, for example, the punishment for certain crimes is so high by default that the criminal would rather die than get a sentence that would equal death, then you have taken any and all motivation from that criminal to look for a more reasonable way out, instead preferring to "go out in a blaze of glory" on their own terms.

That's why this whole "tough on crime" approach mostly leads to an escalation on both ends: Cops treat criminals more harshly, criminals respond by acting more harshly themselves because acting more reasonable wouldn't gain them anything anyway so they might as well completely live out their destructive urges.

This is further reinforced through a prison system that's not aimed at rehabilitation, but generally seen as a form of "revenge", as "punishment" and as such victimizes its inmates, which leads to even more resentment, while leaving them utterly unprepared, and with quite a grudge, when they get released back into society.

Which leads to the outcome that it usually won't take long until they get into trouble again [0] because their time in prison taught them nothing except "might makes right" and how sadistic cruelty is a valid way of interaction with other people when you are the one in a position of power.

[0] https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2019/may/3/long-term-re...

Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#723

Post by fongitosous »

freeflight wrote: post #689
AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

sure illegal drugs only affect users. and the user affected by illegal drugs don't loose any notion of right/wrong and can harm other people

Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#725

Post by fongitosous »

the problem is not police violence. the problem is what they are legally allowed to do VS what they are not.

the notion of "resisting arrest" allow police to do pretty much whatever they want from the moment you said "no" to one of their asks.

Hell even getting out from your vehicle when a cop tells you to stay in it is "resisting arrest".

this is the main problem. if you give people a way to be legally violent you are responsible for the deaths. its is beyond politics, democrats or republicans allowed these laws and procedures, the neck restraints and other dangerous things for decades.

Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#726

Post by derivagral »

koheripbal wrote: post #670
lagadu wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alternative would be intervening and things possibly getting violent. The well-being of a statue isn't worth the possibility of causing harm to someone.

I suppose then I could organize a mob to vandalize anything I want because the police should prioritize the well being of the mob over that of property? Seems like that would embolden mobs to destroy whatever they want. Doesn't seem like an intelligent or sustainable strategy.

The mob may leave after the destruction, but that doesn't mean that the police don't later conduct investigations, arrests, etc based on tracking/video of the members of that mob.

I'm curious how many protestors or rioters keep their phones on them (with location/COVID apps or otherwise.) Even if they don't, plenty of others are taking the videos.

Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#727

Post by monocasa »

softawre wrote: post #714
jairofloress wrote: post #709

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.” Its a cycle we already saw so many times, I believe with so many movements asking for rights, that this is "weak men" part creating hard times. Mexico did a while ago what so many people is asking for, disband a security corp, result? The Zetas. Why people is ignoring statistics? People kill peop…

I don't think any reasonable person is suggesting we fully defund or disband the police. They are suggesting that by giving police military style gear it incentivizes them to use it. Instead of giving the police this crazy gear, we should redirect that money into training for the police. Or maybe some of it should go to schools.

There is a pretty good argument around fully disbanding the police; and it appears to be the stance that Minneapolis is taking.

The idea being that for the roles you'd traditionally want police to cover (response to violent crime), they've successfully received case law that doesn't require that to be one of their duties. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia And nearly everything else is better handled by social worker like positions addressing the root issues. Police shouldn't be mental health professionals. It's just cheaper to give homeless housing than constantly fine and jail them. The war on drugs has been a policing failure, just like alcohol prohibition was. Low level traffic infractions tend to just be an extra revenue generation scheme aimed at the poor. etc.

We've also got data on the idea that the policing causes crime, from when the NYPD went on strike 2014-2015, and the crime rate plummeted. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-017-0211-5

And we've spent decades trying to reform in place, without much progress, because structurally they don't want reform and kneecap the reforms at every opportunity. Better to dump the whole system and it's nomenclature, and rebuild what pieces we want with new roles.

Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#728

Post by AlexTWithBeard »

lisper wrote: post #686
AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So, I've just checked the HUD report [1] and apparently in NY about 5% of homeless are what they call "unsheltered".

I sincerely wonder why.

My "off-the-top" theory would be that these people are either indeed homeless by choice or they are such assholes that not a single shelter would tolerate them.

How wrong am I?

[1] https://www.hudexchange.info/resource/5948/2019-ahar-part-1-...

Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#729

Post by koheripbal »

freeflight wrote: post #691
koheripbal wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I pseudo-randomly sampled 30 videos... Almost all of them had outright wrong, or heavily misleading titles and/or descriptions with contradictory claims in the comments - and almost none of them provided context to the police actions. This list is really more about stoking emotions than providing evidence of anything. I mean look at this one... https://twitter.com/jayjanner/status/1267111893753307137 A large volume o…

> This list is really more about stoking emotions than providing evidence of anything. Yet lists like that is all we have to actually quantify the problem because there are literally zero attempts of doing it on a federal level [0]. In that context, I always consider it quite fascinating how the federal US government is allegedly very informed how many protesters are killed by security forces in countries like Iran,…

> lists like that is all we have to actually quantify the problem

That's obviously not the case. We have mountains of data on the problem.

Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#730

Post by mindslight »

dragonwriter wrote: post #706
mindslight wrote: post #696

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can't contract out of criminal sanction You're just nitpicking the word "contract". The arrangement with the cities generally result in public prosecutors do not bring charges against the police. That's part of the de-facto contract, even if it is not written down. > The idea that citizens don't have control of local police through local government is wrong. Normally, local citizens are between actively approvi…

> You're just nitpicking the word "contract". The arrangement with the cities generally result in public prosecutors do not bring charges against the police. That's part of the de-facto contract, even if it is not written down. It's not part of a contract, which is binding and enforceable, and which once and while in place, citizens have very restricted ability to change via the political process. It's part of the po…

I was responding to the obtuse claim that "contracts are negotiated like any other", which opens up a wider scope that the contract itself. I probably should have used the word "arrangement" for the general situation.

Examining the problem constructively, then each aspect does have different details to pay attention to. But they also have similar shapes with momentum and indirection. Civil and administrative penalties need to be fixed through the explicit contract, which takes a contract cycle and can be derailed behind the scenes by corrupt officials. Criminal penalties need DAs willing to uphold the law, which takes an election cycle and can be derailed behind the scenes by corrupt officials. Analogously to what you said - once a DA is in place, "citizens have very restricted ability to change via the political process".

The biggest issue is that a small chance of a twenty million dollar payout in case of an egregious murder isn't worrisome to a municipality, and specifically to its politicians who's liability is limited to possibly losing their job. Meanwhile if they do advocate for reigning in the police, the union will most certainly make them lose their job at the next election. So while we can talk about municipalities being responsible for the paramilitary forces they're creating in the abstract, this is clearly not an effective mechanism for reigning them in.

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