Earlier quoted context omitted.
The charges were dropped.
Heads should roll for them being filed in the first place.
Rolling heads? The police? Their idea of decapitation is early retirement on a full pension.
Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?
161–170 of 254 posts
Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?
#162Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?
#163In the interest of playing devil's advocate, couldn't the fact that we have 94 guns per 100 Americans have something to do with it? To be honest, the cops that work in Oakland, Compton, Detroit, Chicago, and many other cities effectively are fighting wars with heavily armed gangs, etc. I don't know that I buy the notion that police are the way they are today because of the Civil Rights Movement and Vietnam protests.…
America has always had that many guns, but the police weren't always militarized. In addition, the amount of crime and number of police killed in the line of duty has steadily decreased over the years. The devil's advocate in me wonders if the number of police killed is reduced because of the heavy use of SWAT whenever they think there might be any threat to an officer in a raid.
America hasn't always had as many guns as it has now, nor the population density. Emphasis on population density and urbanification.
Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?
#164Crime is at an all-time low yet spending on police is near an all-time high. (Those factors could have a causal relationship, but I doubt it's the primary cause based on reading "The Better Angels of Our Nature".) http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1950_2010... Having big budgets but less crime means these swollen budgets end up being wasted on a lot of "fun" things like military gear. (Did you know t…
I'll take your extra firemen, thanks. Please don't conflate police looking for make-crime, with generous responses to emregency situations risking irreversible damage to life and property.
Taking off on a tangent, the comment about firefighters and police reminded of Dennis Smith's 'Report from Engine Co. 82'. It described his life as a firefighter in New York City/South Bronx during the 1960s and early 1970s. What I recall most vividly from it was that locals would use the callbox to ring the fire department, in case of problem, because they didn't trust the police.
Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?
#165In the interest of playing devil's advocate, couldn't the fact that we have 94 guns per 100 Americans have something to do with it? To be honest, the cops that work in Oakland, Compton, Detroit, Chicago, and many other cities effectively are fighting wars with heavily armed gangs, etc. I don't know that I buy the notion that police are the way they are today because of the Civil Rights Movement and Vietnam protests.…
> "Seems to me like the rise of inner city violence is a far bigger mover." What rise? Crime, inner city included, has been plunging, nationwide, for decades now. Major city crime rates are approaching fifty year lows.
It's been dropping since the 90s, but so far as I can tell there has been a large increase in violent crime rates since the 60s. If we're at a 50 year low in rates, what does that mean for the total number of violent crimes?
Which raises other questions. Has our militarized police force contributed to declining crime in the past 20 years? If so, to what extent?
Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is why tech workers need unions. When Facebook does something nasty, they can blame the unions; the billionaires and millionaires were merely cowering behind their desks. We shouldn't contort ourselves to avoid the simplest answer: the state is getting what it paid for. The US incarcerates its population more than any known state on earth. That isn't unions' fault — other countries with more powerful unions don'…
I fully agree with your point, but there is a union that contributes significantly to the prison-industrial complex: the various prison guard unions. (Also culpable are privatized prisons, which are often little more than slave labor camps.)
> (Also culpable are privatized prisons, which are often little more than slave labor camps.)
As opposed to regular prisons which are just slave camps? What exactly is the moral difference between the state of living between public and private prisons? (I take it that you were implying a difference exists, but I could be mistaken.)
Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
America has always had that many guns, but the police weren't always militarized. In addition, the amount of crime and number of police killed in the line of duty has steadily decreased over the years. The devil's advocate in me wonders if the number of police killed is reduced because of the heavy use of SWAT whenever they think there might be any threat to an officer in a raid.
America hasn't always had as many guns as it has now, nor the population density. Emphasis on population density and urbanification.
In regards to the first point, yes, there are more guns. I don't think the percentage of the population that owns 1 or more firearms has increased significantly.
Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?
#168In the interest of playing devil's advocate, couldn't the fact that we have 94 guns per 100 Americans have something to do with it? To be honest, the cops that work in Oakland, Compton, Detroit, Chicago, and many other cities effectively are fighting wars with heavily armed gangs, etc. I don't know that I buy the notion that police are the way they are today because of the Civil Rights Movement and Vietnam protests.…
Murders are WAY down from their peaks in the 90's. And that's across the board. So what violence are they encountering now, that they didn't encounter in... say ... '93 when they had no APC?
Again, devil's advocate. The Hollywood Shootout was in 97. Murders might be down, but I don't think it's murder rates alone that drive policy in the area.
Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is why tech workers need unions. When Facebook does something nasty, they can blame the unions; the billionaires and millionaires were merely cowering behind their desks. We shouldn't contort ourselves to avoid the simplest answer: the state is getting what it paid for. The US incarcerates its population more than any known state on earth. That isn't unions' fault — other countries with more powerful unions don'…
> That isn't unions' fault It is, in fact, the unions' fault. The prison unions and police unions are huge proponents of the drug war, longer sentences, etc. It isn't just there fault, of course, America's general Puritan streak helps, but the public unions have really capitalized on that. > other countries with more powerful unions don't jail themselves like this. What happens in other countries isn't a good model f…
No. I am no lover of the police or prison officers' unions (which are very powerful here in CA), but they are only one part of the problem. The other part is that we have private corporations that operate prisons for profit, such as Correctional Corporation of America, who are well-documented as promoting the building of more prisons through forums such as ALEC. The incentives are a) huge and b) perverse.
Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
> That isn't unions' fault It is, in fact, the unions' fault. The prison unions and police unions are huge proponents of the drug war, longer sentences, etc. It isn't just there fault, of course, America's general Puritan streak helps, but the public unions have really capitalized on that. > other countries with more powerful unions don't jail themselves like this. What happens in other countries isn't a good model f…
"Sub-segments of the population don't viscerally hate each other in Frankfurt or London the way they do in L.A. or Detroit." Belfast still has road barriers that are raised at night blocking roads between the Shankill Road and Falls Road areas - not to mention huge walls: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_lines Edit: To be fair, I agree with your point, but there are some very noticeable dividing lines in European c…
Yeah, that's an extremely exceptional case and related to a centuries-old political conflict between nations. I'm Irish, you can't generalize from Belfast to anywhere else except maybe Israel/Palestine.