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My family saw a police car hit a kid, then I learned how NYPD impunity works

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501–510 of 650 posts

Re: My family saw a police car hit a kid, then I learned how NYPD impunity works

#501
post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Please stop spreading nonsense. This attitude is exactly part of the problem > Also, you can see the full bodycam footage and UK peoples take on this stop at https://old.reddit.com/r/policeuk/comments/hbbhkb/a_calm_col... . The bodycam footage is in the article I linked too, thank you, and the comments on that sub are disgusting examples of exactly the lack of understanding I described. > Bear in mind she was stopp…

The only thing I saw sexist/racist in that video (first minute, since I wouldn't waste another watching it further after seeing her responses to a completely calm cop) was the woman's own commentary. She was obviously trying to provoke him. The entire "panic attack" is faked. It is so obvious.

I guess you know better than the consultant psychiatrist that examined her and who stated that they though she had been unable to comply due to ptsd from a prior event, then. Where did you get your degree, and when did you interview her and review her case history?

Also, at no point did I claim the officers did anything sexist or racist. That entirely misses the point that the problem is his failure to understand that the way he is choosing to act is pointlessly escalating a situation because he failed to pause and reassess and rushed ahead with a course of action he had no reason to rush into*.

I've seen UK police be far more patient than this - they're fully capable of taking their time. There was no compelling need here to be in that kind of hurry.

Re: My family saw a police car hit a kid, then I learned how NYPD impunity works

#502
post #475
post #22

> “I blame myself,” she kept saying. “I never let him out on Halloween. A bunch of Black boys together. I shouldn’t have let him out. But he begged me.” Notice that while average white parents might worry about criminals before letting their kids out on the street, the black parents worry (with good reason) about the police. (Just to spell it out: this is why so many BLM activists feel comfortable saying "abolish the…

I just don't get it. The number of unarmed black men shot by police across the entire US in 2019 was 14. [0] How does such a small number spark this level of fear and protest? Also, do people actually think the police generally and on average does more harm than good as to request abolishing it? [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/police...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/... Says 42 unarmed black people in 2019. But if we ignore race, 170 unarmed people got killed in 2019. By comparison, the FBI says there's an average of 64 law enforcement personnel killed.

An encounter with the police is actually 3 times more dangerous for citizens than it is for the police. And that's for an unarmed person.

If we concede that the police "have a dangerous job", then interacting with them, (which again, is three times more dangerous) should reasonably be pretty terrifying.

Re: My family saw a police car hit a kid, then I learned how NYPD impunity works

#503
post #447
post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you actually watched the (heavily edited by the guardian) video, you would see the cop was calm and polite the entire duration. I have seen it. I'm not denying the cop was calm. I called that out in my original comment. But that does not change the point I made, that he keeps dismissing her obvious signs of distress as lies or indications of guilt, and in doing so demonstrates that he does not understand that pe…

If the officer was calm and professional I don't know what more you want from them. It's not the job of the police to hold the hands of every paranoid individual and shush them back to a state of tranquility. Is Theresa May some sort of authority on policing that her name keeps being mentioned here? As an external observer it seems that she was a complete failure at everything during her tenure, surely there's someon…

> It's not the job of the police to hold the hands of every paranoid individual and shush them back to a state of tranquility.

Umm... It kinda should be. yeah. It certainly shouldn't be their job to shoot those people, or tackle those people, or manhandle those people.

Re: My family saw a police car hit a kid, then I learned how NYPD impunity works

#504
post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, the fact that you are only 10 times more likely to die from a civilian as from a police officer is an appallingly bad ratio . That ratio should be over 100:1, not 10:1, and certainly not 9:1. This conversation is missing another statistic: The percent of citizens who are also LEOs, which I'm seeing is about 1 in 300. Which means your chances of dying during an encounter with a random civilian are about 30 time…

This is comparing murder to every instance of police killing someone, justified or not. Police murdering someone is much more rare. The ratio you are talking about probably is in fact well over 100:1.

Of course, it's only murder if someone ends up going to jail, no? Consider John Crawford, who was murdered by police, yet charges were not brought against them.

Now consider we have multiple data points of police committing murder and getting away with it. How can we argue that it's rare, given that we have several instances of police getting away with it and not being considered part of said recorded statistics?

Re: My family saw a police car hit a kid, then I learned how NYPD impunity works

#505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is completely irrelevant. It's like responding to "It's raining today" with "It was sunny last week". At best, it's a non-sequitur, at worst it's an active attempt to distract from the conversation at hand. And it ignores the facts that A) black-on-black crime does not happen at a substantially higher rate than white-on-white crime, B) the explanation for why most crime is intra-racial in a segregated country is p…

> It is completely irrelevant It's irrelevant to the real issue, but not to the upthread claim that blacks view police as the greatest threat. In the latter context, it is not irrelevant to point out that such a view does not seem to be in line with the evidence.

Sure. You're correct. But it's such a frequently deployed concern troll that it's challenging to assume good intent. Like many, pjc50 is just trying to articulate, organize some thoughts on a very tough topic. Does every. single. statement. have. to. be. pendanted. and. relitigated. every. with. the. same. tired. talking. points. every. single. time?

Re: My family saw a police car hit a kid, then I learned how NYPD impunity works

#506
>The commissioner can also let the case go before an internal NYPD judge (whose boss is the commissioner). If the judge decides punishment is merited, the commissioner can overturn or downgrade that, too.

The NYPD have their own Judges?!? eh?

Re: My family saw a police car hit a kid, then I learned how NYPD impunity works

#507
post #475
post #22

> “I blame myself,” she kept saying. “I never let him out on Halloween. A bunch of Black boys together. I shouldn’t have let him out. But he begged me.” Notice that while average white parents might worry about criminals before letting their kids out on the street, the black parents worry (with good reason) about the police. (Just to spell it out: this is why so many BLM activists feel comfortable saying "abolish the…

I just don't get it. The number of unarmed black men shot by police across the entire US in 2019 was 14. [0] How does such a small number spark this level of fear and protest? Also, do people actually think the police generally and on average does more harm than good as to request abolishing it? [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/police...

Getting killed while unarmed is the highest level of escalation. Those stories are highlighted because in those situations it's obvious that Black people are being mistreated by police, and that police will lie about the circumstances. The mobile videos of deaths go viral more easily, and it's harder to justify the police actions when they kill someone. Even then, people have viewed these videos and argued that the dead person deserved it; such as in the case of Eric Garner.

People are protesting because the same factors present in wrongful deaths are also present in lower-level harassment by police. Black people have lots of personal stories about police encounters which will never be widely shared because there's no video and you have to trust the storyteller that the police acted wrongly. From the article:

> A recent CCRB report focused on police abuse against Black and Latino boys: “Young teens or pre-teens of color were handcuffed, arrested, or held at gunpoint while participating in age-appropriate activities such as running, playing with friends, high-fiving, sitting on a stoop, or carrying a backpack.”

The report doesn't focus on police shootings, it focuses on police abuse. Protestors are using uncommon events to highlight common events.

Re: My family saw a police car hit a kid, then I learned how NYPD impunity works

#508
post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you actually watched the (heavily edited by the guardian) video, you would see the cop was calm and polite the entire duration. I have seen it. I'm not denying the cop was calm. I called that out in my original comment. But that does not change the point I made, that he keeps dismissing her obvious signs of distress as lies or indications of guilt, and in doing so demonstrates that he does not understand that pe…

And others are likely finding it offensive that you keep trying make us disbelieve our own eyes watching that video. There is nothing there except textbook police work. If you don't know how to interact with police, perhaps stay home...

If that is textbook police work, then the textbook is a piece of crap and needs replacing, because you can see from the start how he is failing to pick up the fact that he is triggering escalation step by step for no good reason.

If you find it offensive that some people actually expect the police to treat people with empathy and understand they may be dealing with scared and panicked people or people with mental health issues, then I have no sympathy whatsoever.

The police exists to serve, not to scare innocent people into staying home - at the moment that happens, the police has become the problem and needs to be dismantled.

Re: My family saw a police car hit a kid, then I learned how NYPD impunity works

#509
post #475
post #22

> “I blame myself,” she kept saying. “I never let him out on Halloween. A bunch of Black boys together. I shouldn’t have let him out. But he begged me.” Notice that while average white parents might worry about criminals before letting their kids out on the street, the black parents worry (with good reason) about the police. (Just to spell it out: this is why so many BLM activists feel comfortable saying "abolish the…

I just don't get it. The number of unarmed black men shot by police across the entire US in 2019 was 14. [0] How does such a small number spark this level of fear and protest? Also, do people actually think the police generally and on average does more harm than good as to request abolishing it? [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/police...

Now go dig up the numbers of black men and women put in jail in comparison to the population. Go look up the numbers of police stops of black people in comparison to the immediate city populous. You don't have to be shot and killed for a police to ruin your life. The fact that you think people are requesting to abolish the police pretty much says it all... there is a very stark difference between redistribute high amount of tax payers money spent on police departments to arguably better community programs and efforts (defund) vs get rid of the police altogether (abolish). Think about it, internalise it, do better for your fellow man.

Re: My family saw a police car hit a kid, then I learned how NYPD impunity works

#510
The only solution is to incentivize good behavior, not bad ones. Any time a police officer is caught doing something wrong, the money should be taken out of the local police pension fund. If one cop is bad, then ALL COPS SUFFER. This is the right incentive system, so that bad cops get weeded out.

First offence, depending on the severity, gets nothing. Second and subsequent get exponentially worse cuts to the pension fund. Good cops will weed out bad cops pretty quickly if they realize all their efforts are being lost because of bad behavior.

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