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Chicago Police Department shuts down its arrest API

chicagoreporter.com

191–200 of 273 posts

Re: Chicago Police Department shuts down its arrest API

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We see that all the time. You can read articles in major newspapers about the "rubber rooms" where teachers who can't be fired -- but who certainly also can't be put in front of a class -- are required to spend their workdays.

Why can’t they be fired? AFAIK, tenure generally does not protect teachers who do grossly illegal acts, such as assaulting a student.

How do you know they've done it?

Do you have to leave them in front of kids teaching students until they're convicted?

What if that takes months? Or never actually happens? But the teacher has crossed the line inappropriately enough times that no parent wants their kid in the same room with him?

In the most positive light, a union might protect a genuinely good teacher being unfairly accused or targeted for political reasons from being put out of work. But sometimes following the processes for ensuring that can be so unreasonable to work through on a practical level that it's easier to just keep them employed but away from students until it gets resolved or they quit.

There's a famous PDF that gets shared when this comes up (although it's geared toward an incompetent teacher):

https://reason.com/wp-content/uploads/assets/db/126393089187...

Re: Chicago Police Department shuts down its arrest API

#192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just direct voting. There are plenty of other ways to influence culture to sway other voters. And given the limited number of candidates and the frequency with which our elections come down to a few percent, they certainly wouldn't have to sway 48% of the population to influence how elected representatives treat them.

Can you give me an example, other than voting, of how democracy is collective bargaining? You're not considering wedge issues? What if the candidate that would improve your working conditions also has a stance on an issue that you are strongly opposed to? For example, do you vote for the candidate who will give you a small raise but also disagrees with you on abortion? What if all of the candidates feel like siding w…

Can you give me some examples, other than voting, of what constitutes democracy?

> You're not considering wedge issues?

Maybe our systems of government shouldn't have this weakness. This is what I was talking about when I mentioned the "strong indictment".

Re: Chicago Police Department shuts down its arrest API

#193
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the individual to make a claim that: "They are a force which exists to terrorize working class people in order to force them to work for minimum wage. They are an investment by the ruling class which allows them to maintain their profits on marginalized workers." Is just over the top absurdist. It's easily debunked by asking someone making above minimal wage "are you being forced to work by the police?" Will they…

Well, can you sleep on the street in an American city? Can you solicit charity? Are you allowed to eat a piece of bread to avoid dying of hunger, even if you have no money? Or will the police fine you and jail you? I don't agree with your reading of the original argument, but if you want to take it extremely literally, the police do actually force you to work, assuming you do not have money or relations to support yo…

Depends on where you are, where the local law is, etc. "Allowed to eat a piece of bread to avoid dying of hunger" .. is there a law against it?

I'm not sure what you're trying to get at. Our society is based on trade. They also have charities and shelters to help those who don't have it.

Re: Chicago Police Department shuts down its arrest API

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Collective bargaining evens out the power imbalances between workers and their employers. It doesn't really matter if the employer is the government or a private company. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make about collective bargaining and democracy since the two are unrelated. There are other ways to handle public sector unions. For example, in Canada the military is not part of a union but their pay is tie…

> Collective bargaining evens out the power imbalances between workers and their employers. The reason it's strange is because if the government is a democracy (representative or direct), there should already be a mechanism for collective bargaining. The fact that this is often insufficient strikes me as a pretty strong indictment of our systems of government.

In a private company, there is also a mechanism for collective bargaining, without a union. The workers could just buy up all the outstanding stock, and replace the board.

And yet, nobody considers that to be sufficient to deny workers their right to organize.

Re: Chicago Police Department shuts down its arrest API

#195
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia defines the police as "a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder". If you are claiming that the police are in fact, "a force which exists to terrorize working class people in order to force them to work for minimum wage" then I think the burden of proof is on you.

This is a very weird argument. No one is talking about the definition of the term, they are talking about the implementation as it exists in the US right now. This is like saying that just because the DPRK has "democratic" in the name, it must be a democratic nation.

[deleted]

Re: Chicago Police Department shuts down its arrest API

#196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's crazy to me that in 2020, there isn't comprehensive, mandatory Federal tracking of police-involved shootings. There is a billion dollar lobby that goes up to bat whenever law enforcement gets bad press, or legislation they don't like gets proposed. While I'm in favor of unionization, I do not support organizations that represent the strong arm of the state's desire to operate opaquely and without oversight fro…

It's confusing for me that so many people will complain about how the police unions prevent reform and allow for bad behavior -- but then support unions for all other public sector workers.

Other public sector workers aren't issued guns. Other public sector workers don't fight against any transparency into their actions. Other public sector workers don't murder people on a regular basis and get away with it. Other public sector workers don't seize assets from people unconstitutionally under civil asset forfeiture. Other public sector workers don't regularly lie under oath to keep their buddies out of jail, or to put people they don't like in jail. Other public sector workers don't kill a dog every hour.

The entire point of unions is to empower the oppressed. But the police have over and over demonstrated that they are not the oppressed, they are the oppressors.

Re: Chicago Police Department shuts down its arrest API

#197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Passive-voice is frequently nonfactual. Cars do not run people over (unless they are rolling, and not being driven); guns do not shoot people (unless they experience a mechanical malfunction). This phrasing is _designed_ to mislead, to divert blame from the responsible parties, and has no place in the vast majority of news stories.

It's purpose is to presume innocence, a tenet which seems to be rapidly fading from society.

Indeed, it presumes innocence of the police, a standard that is rarely applied to any other group, especially not protesters. That is precisely the problem.

Re: Chicago Police Department shuts down its arrest API

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's confusing for me that so many people will complain about how the police unions prevent reform and allow for bad behavior -- but then support unions for all other public sector workers.

I recently encountered a Reddit comment that might clear your confusion, paraphrased thusly: "We never see the any teachers union consistently come out in defense of pedophiles amongst their members"

Clearly untrue. You've heard of the "rubber rooms" correct?

Re: Chicago Police Department shuts down its arrest API

#199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NPR's Planet Money just released a podcast titled: "Police Unions and Civilian deaths". Some of the notable quotes include: * Starting roughly in the late '50s, Rob says, state governments began allowing police officers to collectively bargain - in other words, to join unions. This is where we found a really remarkable and really horrible result....after officers gained access to collective bargaining rights ... ther…

HRDAG estimates that 1 in 3 Americans murdered by a stranger are killed by a police officer. https://granta.com/violence-in-blue/ In Chicago, the police union has attempted to destroy complaint records and uses an arbitration clause to minimize impact of discipline and to keep information about sustained misconduct complaints under wraps, including other police departments considering hiring an officer ( https://proj…

Well that's certainly playing with statistics.

Most people are murdered by someone they know, so we're looking at a pretty small slice of all murders.

And that stat is for homicides, not murder. So it includes people lawfully killed.

Re: Chicago Police Department shuts down its arrest API

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Passive-voice is frequently nonfactual. Cars do not run people over (unless they are rolling, and not being driven); guns do not shoot people (unless they experience a mechanical malfunction). This phrasing is _designed_ to mislead, to divert blame from the responsible parties, and has no place in the vast majority of news stories.

I disagree many times it's often the only 100% factually correct statement. Person A was run over by a car. Person B was arrested at the scene sitting behind the wheel. The reporter often only has that information to go on. They can not know 100% for sure that Person B ran over Person A. 2 weeks later camera footage comes out showing Person C driving over Person A, getting out of the car and running, and Person B mov…

This would be a great point if not for the heavily skewed application of this technique towards the police, as a sibling comment gives examples for.
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