From a little light Googling I don't see that any police officers connected to the 100+ nights of rioting and protests in Portland killed themselves. Why would one event result in so many suicides while the other didn't?
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Fourth police officer who responded to Jan 6 attack dies by suicide
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Re: Fourth police officer who responded to Jan 6 attack dies by suicide
#42These officers faced BLM hostility on the left, as well as violence against them and accusations of being traitors from the right. The public that they're supposed to serve was spitting on them and demonizing them from both sides. Add a pandemic to the mix, and anybody's mental health would be flatlining. Suicide among some of them is tragic but not surprising. I don't know how effective counseling services are, but…
Maybe his cat died. Or his girlfriend left him. Or he has been depressed all his life. Or he was diagnosed with a terminal disease.
Re: Fourth police officer who responded to Jan 6 attack dies by suicide
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
The police haven't always been as militarized as they are now. We could easily go back. I think ending the drug war with legalization and decriminalization and ending no-knock warrants without extreme circumstances would go a long way.
Go back to which era ? Just asking out of curiosity. AFAIK, gun violence has always been endemic to the USA - and most especially in places where guns are banned. I suspect this will only change with a national ban on Guns. Yet gun traffickers across the border would love that. The American continents have more guns than anywhere else in the world.
Not "go back to" some era, but roll back the militarization of the police for the present/future era.
A ban on guns wouldn't change anything. There are many countries that are much more violent with much more violent police and bans on guns. Other countries have high gun ownership and low crime and low police violence.
Re: Fourth police officer who responded to Jan 6 attack dies by suicide
#44They were blackmailed to testify the script and then suicided.
Re: Fourth police officer who responded to Jan 6 attack dies by suicide
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
The police haven't always been as militarized as they are now. We could easily go back. I think ending the drug war with legalization and decriminalization and ending no-knock warrants without extreme circumstances would go a long way.
Go back to which era ? Just asking out of curiosity. AFAIK, gun violence has always been endemic to the USA - and most especially in places where guns are banned. I suspect this will only change with a national ban on Guns. Yet gun traffickers across the border would love that. The American continents have more guns than anywhere else in the world.
Militarization of the Police happened, strangely enough, primarily during the Clinton Administration in the mid-1990s. Clinton shut down a lot of military bases, and shrunk the military overall as part of wrapping up the cold war with Russia/ex-Soviet Union.
Shrinking the military meant shrinking buying military equipment, which meant fewer dollars going into defense manufacturing, and furthermore, possibly fewer jobs. As part of a compromise of shrinking the military, congress unlocked both military surplus, and new defense equipment sales to local police departments. Prior to this, police were very limited in what they could buy. The photos of rural vermont police owning armored personnel carriers, etc didn't occur before this time.
Re: Fourth police officer who responded to Jan 6 attack dies by suicide
#46From a little light Googling I don't see that any police officers connected to the 100+ nights of rioting and protests in Portland killed themselves. Why would one event result in so many suicides while the other didn't?
Because of the treason of storming a democratic process, and then lying about it? It makes you question who you're working for, when half of politicians are behaving in such shameful manner without reprecussions and justice. These police officers were physically assaulted and had no way of knowing wether they'd come out of it alive or dead. Some people were even searching for politicians to murder, and officers had no way to be able to guarantee for people's safety (ie. doing their real job). It was an extremely volatile and uncontrollable situation, a bet from the curtains behind, that could've gone either way.
Expectation is another attempt in a few years, as happened between 1930 and 1940.
I wish this warning is unnecessary!
Re: Fourth police officer who responded to Jan 6 attack dies by suicide
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some communities have also been disproportionately persecuted by the police for, a very long time. Maybe it's a legacy of slavery and later segregation. Maybe it's a lack of unifying national spirit (the melting pot of cultural assimilation and a desire to be a small spice in a greater whole) which might have just been wishful thinking on the part of history book authors. I suspect most of the non-anarchist who feel…
> Re-form the Police Triple their pay, but also enforce strict no-tolerance rules on misbehaviour and select candidates more carefully.
This is what I would do, if I were in charge:
1) Lawsuit payouts come from police pensions, not the taxpayer. Watch them keep each other in line when it's their money on the line.
2) Body cam not running? No qualified immunity, police then become liable for murder/assault/theft/kidnapping charges like any civilian would be if they committed the same acts. That would give police sufficient incentive to ensure their cams are not "malfunctioning".
3) Police that are fired for misconduct are no longer eligible for hire at any precinct.
4) Falsifying reports and planting evidence are prosecutable offenses.
5) Training becomes far more rigorous, and takes a civic-mindedness approach, not a warrior-wolf approach.
6) Military equipment is largely decommed, with only specialist anti-terror squads getting the heavy weaponry.
7) Civil forfeiture is abolished.
8) Hiring standards are raised.
Re: Fourth police officer who responded to Jan 6 attack dies by suicide
#48Were there suicide notes that even indicated it was even due to the Jan 6 attack? I think we've determined that many police officers are not the most emotionally stable individuals, with families of police officers experiencing up to a 40% increase in domestic violence. Maybe this is just another political ploy to try to find a correlation when there isn't even one.
Re: Fourth police officer who responded to Jan 6 attack dies by suicide
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
The police haven't always been as militarized as they are now. We could easily go back. I think ending the drug war with legalization and decriminalization and ending no-knock warrants without extreme circumstances would go a long way.
Go back to which era ? Just asking out of curiosity. AFAIK, gun violence has always been endemic to the USA - and most especially in places where guns are banned. I suspect this will only change with a national ban on Guns. Yet gun traffickers across the border would love that. The American continents have more guns than anywhere else in the world.
> gun traffickers across the border would love that.
The gun trafficking tends to be from the US into Latin America - see the FBI "fast and furious" fiasco.
Re: Fourth police officer who responded to Jan 6 attack dies by suicide
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
> demonized Do you think it may have something to do with a culture where a police officer can put his knee on an unarmed man's throat, hold it there until he dies, write it up as a 'Police responded to a medical emergency, man died on the way to the hospital', and then have their peers close rank around them when the truth gets out?
The police will sometimes, in the routine execution of their duty, have to pin someone down. I don't recall any evidence that the murder was intentional. There is an expectation that the police are the sort of people who could kill someone if the need arises. They aren't all going to be philosophers. Given that and the vitriol around the situation, it is quite reasonable for the police to close ranks around him and l…
The police exerted considerable effort precisely to prevent it ever going to court. Derek Chauvin would never have seen court without months of protests.
> look to the most charitable interpretation of what happened
This is not a courtesy the police extend to anyone else.
> There is an expectation that the police are the sort of people who could kill someone if the need arises
This is a very serious problem and not an excuse.
> the police don't need to become vigilantes as well.
We're asking the police to investigate, report and submit for prosecution, a crime. If they refuse to do that simply because they're protecting someone they've ceased to be police.