The Shooting Gallery: Police Violence MEGATHREAD

[Admiral Yi]

To respond to Yi, about the specific video in question: I don't know, but not that. Not even 10% of that.

Several cops beating the lady repeatedly with batons is just nonsensical when she has no weapons and is no threat. At this point, it just feels like the cops are enjoying it.

What about you? What do you feel would be an appropriate use of force in the video?

I'm conflicted.  The optics are horrible, reminiscient of Rodney King.  On the other hand the first dude is smacking her thigh purposefully, as opposed to a bone.  And cops will need to force compliance in some situations.  Any kind of physical force is going to anger some people.  So I'm around 80% OK with the baton on the thigh.  Probably better than tackling her and having her head smack on the concrete.

[Valmy]

Frodo should be waived on high!

[Admiral Yi]

Frodo should be waived on high!

And go straight to hobbit university?

[Zoupa]

To respond to Yi, about the specific video in question: I don't know, but not that. Not even 10% of that.

Several cops beating the lady repeatedly with batons is just nonsensical when she has no weapons and is no threat. At this point, it just feels like the cops are enjoying it.

What about you? What do you feel would be an appropriate use of force in the video?

I'm conflicted.  The optics are horrible, reminiscient of Rodney King.  On the other hand the first dude is smacking her thigh purposefully, as opposed to a bone.  And cops will need to force compliance in some situations.  Any kind of physical force is going to anger some people.  So I'm around 80% OK with the baton on the thigh.  Probably better than tackling her and having her head smack on the concrete.

The larger question is why even use force in this instance? What is gained? She's not a threat. It's just like the folks on their porch chilling and then they get shot at. How are they a threat?

Use of force needs to be a last resort. It seems for american cops, it's done almost right away to force compliance with whatever they feel like at the moment. Any challenge to their authority, even verbal, non-violent ones results in a violent response.

[viper37]

3 - police are absolutely taught de-escalation, at least in this country.  They are taught to use distance and to speak.  Problem is when the mentally ill person rushes at you with a weapon there's no time for de-escalation.

not nearly enough, and they should not have to intervene alone in these cases, they aren't properly trained for that.  Raising your voice and shouting orders does not de-escalate a situation and will often result in the mentally hill charging at the cops with a knife

Just yesterday (or the day before), a police officer shot at a 26 yo 1st nation woman 5 times.  She apparantly had some mental health issues and felt threatened by someone (real or not is not known at this point).  Her boyfriend, currently in another city, called the cops to check on her because she wasn't responding to phone and he told them she feared someone living nearby.  Cop came in alone, the woman apparently had a knife, she was shot 5 times.

This happens a lot, way, way too often, regardless of the race or gender of the individual.  Police are ill equipped to deal with mental illness.  It ain't their fault, there's only so much you can cram into their 3 year classes.  You can't give them 3 more years of training on specific intervention methods on mentally hill patients, like those whose job it is.

[Admiral Yi]

The larger question is why even use force in this instance? What is gained? She's not a threat. It's just like the folks on their porch chilling and then they get shot at. How are they a threat?

Use of force needs to be a last resort. It seems for american cops, it's done almost right away to force compliance with whatever they feel like at the moment. Any challenge to their authority, even verbal, non-violent ones results in a violent response.

I can't tell enough about the situation from the clip to comment on the appropriateness of any police orders or use of force in this case.  I don't know what the two ladies were doing and what the cops told them to do.

My impression about quickness to resort to force does not match your.  My impression is based on the TV show Cops (which, arguably, is cops on their best behavior) but also on various sovereign citizen clips.  Those clips are sometimes filmed and posted by the sovereign citizens themselves to show the world how terrible and unlawful the cops treated them, and they usually show the opposite.  A lot of patience and a good deal of humor about these jackasses.

Now you can argue that it's different for blacks (although a good number of sovereign citizens are black) or when the camera video is not rolling and I can't dispute that, but I can say at the very least your generalization is a little broad.

[grumbler]

Frodo should be waived on high!

Then he'd be a free agent... on high?

[Razgovory]

Proud Boys canoodling with the Salem, Oregon, police.

https://twitter.com/Satellit3Heart/status/1268863536299675648?s=19

I wonder to what degree the brutality seen in the response to the protests is due to the radicalization of the police.

[garbon]

You lead with the police. I don't think I've ever felt supportive of the police. I don't think I've ever been conditioned to support them either.

I don't think any of us would include you in a group like "Americans generally."  Not even you think that you are a typical American.

I think that Valmy is right.  Outside of the inner cities, Americans generally did reflexively support the police and other first responders.  And I think that he is right to note that that support has been badly damaged by cops going rogue all over the place, right in front of the cameras, when cops used to save that shit for the black guys they pulled over at 2:00 AM.

Let's look at some links on public opinions:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/03/yes-police-have-high-approval-ratings-americans-support-police-reform-too/

Washington Post leads with statement polls show Americans generally support the police as evidenced by generally high police support in Gallup polls.

But then look at that by race and a more complicated picture emerges.
https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/193586/public-opinion-context-americans-race-police.aspx

Now assuming the graph that comes from next link is accurate representation of the Gallup data then I think the following is defensible.

While one can reasonably claim that the majority of Americans reflexively support the police, it is important to recognize that the majority of African Americans cannot be described as such.

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/graphs/confidence_in_police_1994-2015.html


Note, if we look at respect for police the majority of whites and minorities respect the police. Even I've stated that, in jury selection of all places when explaining by aversion toward the police.

https://reason.com/2016/10/24/american-respect-for-police-hits-a-48-ye/

[Razgovory]

https://www.france24.com/en/20190501-live-france-may-day-protests-tight-security

More where that came from.

So what?  Zoupa hasn't held up French police tactics as a model to copy.

He's just smug

Eh, he can a bit hard to handle but he's an okay guy.

[bogh]

My impression about quickness to resort to force does not match your.  My impression is based on the TV show Cops (which, arguably, is cops on their best behavior) but also on various sovereign citizen clips.  Those clips are sometimes filmed and posted by the sovereign citizens themselves to show the world how terrible and unlawful the cops treated them, and they usually show the opposite.  A lot of patience and a good deal of humor about these jackasses.

Now you can argue that it's different for blacks (although a good number of sovereign citizens are black) or when the camera video is not rolling and I can't dispute that, but I can say at the very least your generalization is a little broad.

This podcast about Cops is pretty interesting https://www.lamag.com/culturefiles/cops-podcast/.

They argue that the show has normalized what is essentially unacceptable police behavior - which has an eerie fit with your post above.

[jimmy olsen]

Minneapolis is only a small part of the overall Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area:



It's the urban core, that will have more blacks, and more upscale whites.  It votes overwhelmingly democratic.

But "defund the police" will be toxic in the suburbs.

But in middle class to upper class white suburbs the police are already scaled way back compared to cities. If Johnny has a weed problem, there isn't a SWAT team busting through his door.  And if Johnny does end up in front of a judge, he's given second or third chances.

[jimmy olsen]

Just had a look, because the number seemed insane. Based on the 2020-21 budget for LA, 41% of the city's budget goes to the police ($1.857B out of $4.486B): http://cao.lacity.org/budget20-21/2020-21Budget_Summary.pdf (page 12)

They make up 44% of the city's salary budget.

No wonder new infrastructure is hardly ever built in this country.

[Syt]

I saw a WaPo number that over 1,000 people were killed by police in the USA in 2019. For comparison, in Germany that number was between 7 and 14 p.a. between 2014 and 2018. In Austria (ca. 10% the size of Germany) police shot 37 times at persons between 2012 and 2018, killing 6.

Also:

[The Brain]

More detailed numbers for Sweden (number of people shot to death by cops per year). For 2019 the number is 1. Sweden has a population of roughly 10 million.