Chicago fires investigator who found cops at fault in shootings • Hacker News Board

Re: Chicago fires investigator who found cops at fault in shootings

#91

Post by dragontamer » Mon, Jul 20, 2015, 10:05 PM UTC

rquantz wrote: post #62

dragontamer wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. But then there are plenty of newbie (and even veteran) cops who don't understand the difference either. Keeping that in mind, and educating them of the viewpoint is more important than yelling at them or breaking them down.

If "pride" means doing childish things like the slowdown in New York last year, or apparently not investigating drive by shootings in Baltimore because the protesters hurt their feelings, then that pride needs to be ruthlessly rooted out and destroyed. We need cops who work for us – all of us – rather than for the FOP or PBA, and they need to understand that they have unconscious racial bias that needs to be countera…

So lemme get this straight.

Your solution to an uptick of 48% more murders is to fire all the cops. Break the Police pride down, punish the cops. That's totally how you get people to risk their lives and patrol the West Districts of Baltimore.

Absolutely brilliant. I wonder why no one has implemented this outstanding idea before. /sarcasm

Let me give you a hint: If you Fire a Cop, they'll just work in another district. There are _plenty_ of safe districts looking for experienced officers, and there's almost no reason why an officer has to keep working in West Baltimore aside from pride.

They can very easily jump to another richer district, one with fewer murders and higher-educated populace. And frankly, the smarter cops tend to do that. I think officers prefer to work in safe places and hand out speeding tickets all day... rather than taking on armed drug dealers in the worst parts of Baltimore.

Re: Chicago fires investigator who found cops at fault in shootings

#92

Post by colechristensen » Mon, Jul 20, 2015, 10:29 PM UTC

justwannasing wrote: post #86

colechristensen wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Police profile cars. That is, in edge cases like a bit of swerving, 10 over the limit, newly expired tags, etc; police will look at the car and what they can tell about who is driving it and where they are to determine if they pull over or not. A cop told me this directly. I don't remember his exact conditions – but they included things like a young guy driving a real nice car or a car that seem like maybe it was his…

Of the thousand killed by cop, how many were holding a gun to the head of someone, or came out shooting before that happened?

Life isn't like the movies.

Police should be masters at de-escalation. Instead, because they are not trained and motivated, they often create the situations which result in shootings. Not universally, but often. The people who shoot at the police _do_ have a reasonable belief that they'll be killed if they don't try to defend themselves. That is people who have committed crimes end up being more violent because they fear police brutality. Police in turn are quicker to turn to force in fear of their own safety.

This vicious should be and needs to be terminated by police learning how best to minimize the violent tendencies of petty criminals and the mentally ill. Don't get me wrong, the weapons they use are valuable and important tools, but they are so often used because the authority wants to use them.

I've known more than one person who before signing up, said openly that they were joining the armed services because they "wanted to shoot people". It's easy to find police on public media who clearly have the attitude that the people they work with on a daily basis are the enemy.

It's easy to look at the cops as the bad guys. "Fuck the police!" but that's falling for the same line of reasoning that the bad cops do.

You have to recognize that it's a systematic problem. The real world is complex – Americans really have to rid themselves of the Christian "good vs. evil" narrative we try to apply to every situation.

And it turns out that hostage situations in police shootings are indeed pretty damned rare.

Re: Chicago fires investigator who found cops at fault in shootings

#93

Post by rosser » Mon, Jul 20, 2015, 10:33 PM UTC

dragontamer wrote: post #91

rquantz wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If "pride" means doing childish things like the slowdown in New York last year, or apparently not investigating drive by shootings in Baltimore because the protesters hurt their feelings, then that pride needs to be ruthlessly rooted out and destroyed. We need cops who work for us – all of us – rather than for the FOP or PBA, and they need to understand that they have unconscious racial bias that needs to be countera…

So lemme get this straight. Your solution to an uptick of 48% more murders is to fire all the cops. Break the Police pride down, punish the cops. That's totally how you get people to risk their lives and patrol the West Districts of Baltimore. Absolutely brilliant. I wonder why no one has implemented this outstanding idea before. /sarcasm Let me give you a hint: If you Fire a Cop, they'll just work in another distric…

Then what's your solution? Telling everyone else they're wrong only goes so far — particularly in the face of the obvious and systemic problems that policing in America faces today.

So offer some alternatives instead of just knocking everyone else down.

Re: Chicago fires investigator who found cops at fault in shootings

#94

Post by frandroid » Mon, Jul 20, 2015, 10:50 PM UTC

saosebastiao wrote: post #27

frandroid wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Police unions are a special kind of thuggish killer-protection union, I would not lump them in with the rest of public sector unions.

I would, even if other public sector unions don't result in a physical war on the public. All public sector unions have the same imbalance of power as police unions: they have the power to withhold vital public services, the very reason we accept the problems with government as an institution, and they do it for personal gain. If a Kellogs plant goes on strike, I can still buy cereal from Post. If a transit union goe…

Yeah, but if a unionized bus driver runs you over, their union is not going to come out and say bullshit like "he threw himself under the bus" or "drivers should be allowed to drive over threatening pedestrians". There's a difference between public sector unions going on a legal strike (or even a wildcat strike!) and police /breaking the law to the point of killing people that had no business getting killed by cops, and getting supported in doing so/.

Re: Chicago fires investigator who found cops at fault in shootings

#95

Post by projectileboy » Mon, Jul 20, 2015, 11:07 PM UTC

justwannasing wrote: post #10

Gonna give you guys a few quick blurbs. First, a chief of police was interviewed on CBS News a while back. He said there are thousands upon thousands of police interactions with citizens every day but all anyone ever hears about is the one bad one that happened one time. Second, and this might sound off-topic but I hope you get my point. I was helping a guy move, a few months back, along with one of his friends who's…

I don't think anyone would deny that being a police officer is a difficult job. But I'm not sure how you can deny that there exists a serious problem when you compare the number of people who are killed by police in the U.S. every year against the number of police in the U.S. that are convicted of a crime for their actions. Doesn't it make you curious that the police in other western countries don't seem to have anywhere near the same number of killings per capita?

Re: Chicago fires investigator who found cops at fault in shootings

#96

Post by dragontamer » Mon, Jul 20, 2015, 11:15 PM UTC

rosser wrote: post #93

dragontamer wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So lemme get this straight. Your solution to an uptick of 48% more murders is to fire all the cops. Break the Police pride down, punish the cops. That's totally how you get people to risk their lives and patrol the West Districts of Baltimore. Absolutely brilliant. I wonder why no one has implemented this outstanding idea before. /sarcasm Let me give you a hint: If you Fire a Cop, they'll just work in another distric…

Then what's your solution? Telling everyone else they're wrong only goes so far — particularly in the face of the obvious and systemic problems that policing in America faces today. So offer some alternatives instead of just knocking everyone else down.

Ironic, when your only solution is firing everybody.

As stated before, my solution is to create robust independent police review boards. It'd be something like New York City's model with an independent "Civilian Complaint Review Board", complete with subpoena power against officers.

http://www.nyc.gov/html/ccrb/html/home/home.shtml

Anyway, Chicago's review board has indications of weakness, and the article above is simply a note of what is going on in that agency. Maybe the review board needs to hire more non-cops and more lawyers from the ACLU.

The correct action depends a lot on the politics of the Chicago review board are. If the review board is appointed by the direct election, then the leaders need to be voted out and reformed.

If the review board is appointed by the local mayor / city counsel, then we should organize political protests and bring up the Chicago Independent Police Review Authority as an actual issue during Chicago elections.

If you don't live in the city of Chicago, then of course the article posted here doesn't apply to you. They don't apply to me either, but if it were happening in my city, that's how I'd start.

Re: Chicago fires investigator who found cops at fault in shootings

#97

Post by lvh » Mon, Jul 20, 2015, 11:17 PM UTC

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #77

digitalneal wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying Governors have no power over the cities that reside in their state? From 1977 to 2003 Republicans were in control of Illinois executive office. 26 years in a row. From 1972 to 1991, Jon Burge running the show as Chicago police commander. Are you trying to say that Republican governors had no power to investigate/curtail the evil that was brewing under his leadership? hehe.

They have very little. The CPD is managed by the city which is under Democratic machine politics rule.

If you're downvoting, is it because of the "machine politics" expression, or because the person's point is invalid? It seems like a valid counterpoint to the statement that the CPD was not, in fact, influenced by the Republican governor.

Re: Chicago fires investigator who found cops at fault in shootings

#98

Post by rosser » Mon, Jul 20, 2015, 11:39 PM UTC

dragontamer wrote: post #96

rosser wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then what's your solution? Telling everyone else they're wrong only goes so far — particularly in the face of the obvious and systemic problems that policing in America faces today. So offer some alternatives instead of just knocking everyone else down.

Ironic, when your only solution is firing everybody. As stated before, my solution is to create robust independent police review boards. It'd be something like New York City's model with an independent "Civilian Complaint Review Board", complete with subpoena power against officers. http://www.nyc.gov/html/ccrb/html/home/home.shtml Anyway, Chicago's review board has indications of weakness, and the article above is s…

Ironic, when your only solution is firing everybody.

I didn't advocate firing anybody. I think you're confusing me with other participants in this thread. That's pretty ironic, coming from someone who said elsewhere in the discussion, "if you want to stuff words in my mouth, I will refuse to partake in the discussion." [1]

EDIT: I also don't think the up-thread proposal was to fire everyone. Just the bad actors. And, really, do you want someone who's malicious and has a power trip walking around with a gun and the authority to use it?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9918408

Re: Chicago fires investigator who found cops at fault in shootings

#99

Post by mbrameld » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 1:13 AM UTC

afarrell wrote: post #71

mbrameld wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your cop family members are aware of bad cops but do nothing about it then they are bad cops too.

What specifically should they do?

They should do exactly what they would do if it were a non-LEO breaking the law in front of them: arrest them.

Re: Chicago fires investigator who found cops at fault in shootings

#100

Post by rquantz » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 2:20 AM UTC

dragontamer wrote: post #96

rosser wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then what's your solution? Telling everyone else they're wrong only goes so far — particularly in the face of the obvious and systemic problems that policing in America faces today. So offer some alternatives instead of just knocking everyone else down.

Ironic, when your only solution is firing everybody. As stated before, my solution is to create robust independent police review boards. It'd be something like New York City's model with an independent "Civilian Complaint Review Board", complete with subpoena power against officers. http://www.nyc.gov/html/ccrb/html/home/home.shtml Anyway, Chicago's review board has indications of weakness, and the article above is s…

And yet your solution would produce the same ridiculous, hysterical response from the police. They would treat your robust independent review boards as Armageddon. Because of pride.