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George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

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Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#621

Watched first 10 videos with youtube links in the list: url - description - what I see in the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4_yJjdsJ_0 - trampling a peaceful protestor with a horse - protester stepped into the horse's way without looking in that direction, nobody's fault https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suTGneu7tZU - Shoving an unarmed woman to the curb, prompting a seizure that put her in the emergency room…

Just watched the first video. "protester stepped into the horse's way without looking in that direction, nobody's fault". This is clearly not true.

Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#622

The fact that is even possible is insane. Imagine there being over 700 videos of pilots messing up in one month, 700 crane operator mishaps in a month, 700+ food poising by a chain in a month. The also imagine you believe there's no problem. This is Ba Sing Se levels of delusion for some people.

The delusion is on your side if you believe pilots, crane operators or any other profession is as much under surveillance as the police and as active dealing with risky situations that could escalate. Are you just trying to fool yourself with these comparisons or everybody?

If a pilot has a crash, the crash is reviewed by the NTSB, and the FAA. Pilots are under a huge amount of scrutiny. There are voice recorders in the cockpit, blackboxes to capture flight parameters, etc etc.

Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Handcuffing a lifeless freshly shot body is more than enough. I’ve seen it over and over. Why is that a policy? Second, why shoot to kill and not to incapacitate? Shoot to kill is a policy. Why is that a policy? The police rule by fear. I’ve never broken the law and yet Im really affraid of cops in the US. I know I should not have a reason to but can’t help but be intimidated by their tactics, their orders, their dem…

"Second, why shoot to kill and not to incapacitate? Shoot to kill is a policy. Why is that a policy?" Most armed folks are taught that when you draw a gun it's to neutralize a threat. To neutralize is to completely eliminate the threat. Has anyone here heard similar sentiments while getting a concealed carry license? Something like 'Don't pull your gun out and point it at someone unless you intend to shoot and kill t…

Has anyone here heard similar sentiments while getting a concealed carry license?

Absolutely, I was taught this in my self-defense shooting class. The question of kill or not kill doesn't enter into it at all. We were trained to neutralize the threat, full stop. The effect on the future health of that threat doesn't enter into it.

And this makes sense when you understand that gunfights don't happen the way you see on TV. There, when someone is hit with a bullet they fall down and stop being a threat. This is not how the world works. In the real world, unless their circulatory system or nervous system is taken offline, they will continue to be a threat. Even if they've been hit through the aorta or femoral artery or something that is likely to be fatal, it'll take a minute or two at least for the effect to occur, and in the meantime, they're going to keep trying to kill you.

Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#624

Watched first 10 videos with youtube links in the list: url - description - what I see in the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4_yJjdsJ_0 - trampling a peaceful protestor with a horse - protester stepped into the horse's way without looking in that direction, nobody's fault https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suTGneu7tZU - Shoving an unarmed woman to the curb, prompting a seizure that put her in the emergency room…

Just watched the first video. "protester stepped into the horse's way without looking in that direction, nobody's fault". This is clearly not true.

And what is your interpretation of the video then?

Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#625
post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Handcuffing a lifeless freshly shot body is more than enough. I’ve seen it over and over. Why is that a policy? Second, why shoot to kill and not to incapacitate? Shoot to kill is a policy. Why is that a policy? The police rule by fear. I’ve never broken the law and yet Im really affraid of cops in the US. I know I should not have a reason to but can’t help but be intimidated by their tactics, their orders, their dem…

1) Because "freshly shot lifeless" bodies can and have come back to kill people. 2) Because there is no such thing as shoot to wound. If you've gotten to the point where you're shooting at someone they need to be dead. Any bullet holes in your body are potentially fatal. Especially the famous leg shot; damage to your femoral artery will kill you extremely quickly.

Yikes. No. If you don’t get threatened with a gun or another weapon you don’t shoot period.

Some people have mental issues and normally they twitch a lot. And cops claim they were afraid for their lives, it’s the easy license to kill. I find that barbaric and no wonder we see so much backlash against the police force!!!

Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a non American I am not getting this at all. In many US cities/towns sheriff is elected. In all other cases city mayor is elected. How it happens that all those mayors and sheriffs are still in the office if police brutality is such a big issue? Does this mean that people just do not care, or there is only some minority who thinks that the police is too violent and the rest is ok with that?

Police unions have considerable influence to block reform even when the elected politicians support it: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/06/us/police-unions-minneapo... The efforts to "defund police" would solve some of the same problems that police currently address through other means. This would weaken the influence of police unions. For example, spending more to treat drug addiction as a disease rather than paying…

Instead of "defund", maybe a better word, then, is "reform", or "reorganize"? Or maybe define that it is "police unions" who should be defunded, not the entire bucket called "police"?

I am just curious at this choice of word that seems to be the clarion call, which means entirely different in the dictionary than what is being implied! :-/

Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#627

If there ever was a case of "don't comment unless you've RTFA" this it: people extrapolating their viewpoint on a list of 700 things from watching 1, 2, 3 ... At a minimum, watch 100 videos. I did last night, only took about an hour, it's easy to find some to nitpick, some which are ambiguous ... and plenty that are totally horrifying. If you can watch 100 videos in a row from Greg Doucette's list and say, "the milit…

I did that yesterday, more than 100 of the videos.

Eventually I saw a pattern, surprising since it was common in major cities all across the US and as if there were some single, central training materials. Apparently:

(1) Police are taught to be in control of any contact with a citizen. Recently the police have been taught to act nice initially, but, once it is clear some actual law enforcement is to be involved, be in control.

Being in control can mean that the citizen has been intimidated and made submissive so that they won't resist. Part of this is to demand that a citizen DO some little things, e.g., stand with feet apart, move back 10 feet, or tolerate being falsely accused of something, e.g., "weaving" in the road, being too close to the officer, etc. The officers are looking for things, even trivial, fake things, to object to so that they can object. It's like Captain Sobel in the 101st Airborne training in the series Band of Brothers -- "find some" infractions so that can complain about them and force the soldiers to accept being falsely accused so that they will be more compliant -- the police seem to have borrowed this tactic.

If the citizen does not look submissive, then the officer provokes a defensive reaction from the citizen so that they can arrest the citizen or threaten to arrest them.

Then, finally, maybe arrested, the citizen has been subdued and is submissive, which is what the police wanted to begin with.

(2) The police like to teach citizens, to change their attitude, and do this by hurting them, e.g., hitting them with a club, bending their arms, throwing them to the ground and putting a knee on their neck, spraying them with pepper spray, etc. They regard good police work as meting out "cruel and unusual punishment", with pain and maybe serious injury, without "due process". So, the police want to be absolute dictators on the streets.

(3) In a confrontation with a citizen, the police want some result where they successfully took some law enforcement action, a ticket or an arrest. E.g., in Atlanta, at first they didn't want merely to leave the citizen alone or, if the citizen was drunk, let him call a cab and (ii) later wanted to make sure the citizen was not able just to run away. The reaction to a citizen running away?

"Shoot them and kill them. Gee, they might 'get away'; can't permit that; that would violate due respect for the police; so, shoot the citizen." -- or some such.

(4) The expected, usual approach to an arrest is to throw the citizen to the ground, hold them down with a knee to their neck, their arms behind their back, and put on handcuffs.

From the 100 or so videos I watched, it appeared that (1)-(4) are so standard that they have been taught from some standard source. E.g., in all of that, some semi-bright guy had the idea that it was good to put a knee on a neck, and it appears that that is now standard.

Apparently part of (1)-(4) is the associated support for it from the Blue Line, e.g., police unions, Police Benevolent Associations, liability insurance cities buy for their police, the norm of police sticking together, local prosecutors, DAs, and judges who work daily with police and want to cooperate, politicians who want safe streets, etc. And at times maybe there has been more to police power, e.g., confiscating cash, shakedowns, payoffs, etc.

I'm sure that changing (1)-(4) can be done but won't be easy.

Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#628

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over the last week I have been starting to realize that what you said is true in general, and not just of protests. It seems that police inflame and instigate most of the violent situations they are involved in. We are literally paying to be abused. We shouldn't be trying to get that money back; we shouldn't even be paying it in the first place.

I have this idealised vision of a police force that are more like monks. Their main training is mental, meditation, mindfulness, situational awareness, sensitivity training, de-escalation training. They are also extremely well trained in combat and self defence but almost never use it. When they do they can quickly disarm and subdue violent perps without struggle. They exist just to keep the peace between people. Peo…

Jedi don't scale...

Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#629
post #438

Is it true that black on black violence kills massively greater numbers than the police?

Yes, this is undisputed. And this is a huge problem. But the difference is that a police officer has sworn an oath and is paid to protect the people. Also, he has a special position of power that people see misused.

By what percentage should we split our efforts between these two problems? Perhaps these 2 issues are together creating a positive feedback loop

Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#630

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"the militarization and use of force tactics of US law enforcement are not a problem" then I'd like to hear why you think so given this evidence. Just to play devils advocate, can't I conclude there is a problem without that problem being the "militarization" of the police force. In other words aren't I allowed to conclude there was a problem prior to the militarization of the police force, and really what we are se…

I see your example of the extreme end a lot, and while I understand why people arrive at it, I think it's useful to question some of the underlying premises. Oftentimes, I think people say things like "I don't think a few bad police officers ruin policing just like I don't think BLM is evil because of a few violent actors" because they have empathy for police officers who don't do horrible things, and it's sort of a…

>Even if the bad acts are a "drop in the bucket," would that be acceptable?

No, I believe injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere. Also, I agree with you the injustice is worse when committed by people in positions of authority acting in that official capacity.

That said I don't condemn everyone based on the acts of one or some, that goes for police and BLM.

>And isn't the fact that these bad acts are persistent—regardless of frequency relative to good acts—at the very least suggestive of systemic issues?

Yes, part of why I am happy about the proliferation of video and want to shine a light on the nameless, faceless prosecutors making decisions behind the scenes to sweep these tragedies under the rug to protect the officers. Again no one talks about it, no one knows the name of the prosecutor who initially watched the video and refused to bring the charges against George Floyd's murder(s), that helps fuel the systemic issues. Video will help with accountability, but that is only helpful for what happens on the streets, we need to also focus on behind the scenes on the nameless, faceless people protecting bad actors.

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