The Shooting Gallery: Police Violence MEGATHREAD

[Oexmelin]

Obviously, protests should have elected representatives, a clear, five-year plan for the future, a law-enforcement arm, also an official notary on hand to draft binding agreements, and should only shout nuanced, 1000-word essays that extol the virtues of pragmatism.

[merithyn]

I just read an article on what the "defund the police" really means, and how it means not defunding the police.  That may indicate the problem with using this as a slogan.  This is like watching a soccer game where both teams are trying to score into their own goals.

Yeah, it's kind of like that thing with abolishing ICE.  A rhetorical trick so that people who really want zero cops can make happy with people who want to hire two social workers and put them in cop uniforms.  I am not expecting any revolutionary changes in policing in Minneapolis.

The problem is that then we'll be right back here in a year or two when the next black person is killed on camera.

[DGuller]

I do see an argument for defunding and disbanding some of police.  It's generally been my observation that the higher up you go with police, the more professionalism is baked into the culture, and the less prevalent issues like "professional courtesy" are.  I don't know why that is, but it seems like state police is usually the most reputed police force in the state, although still not without their problems. 

Maybe cutting down on various police fiefdoms would be helpful.  Where I live, there are at least five different police departments all having jurisdiction in normal times, and more if neighboring towns are asked for help on a temporary basis.

[Sheilbh]

Obviously, protests should have elected representatives, a clear, five-year plan for the future, a law-enforcement arm, also an official notary on hand to draft binding agreements, and should only shout nuanced, 1000-word essays that extol the virtues of pragmatism.

Yeah - protests are always nebulous and have loads of competing, often personal, sometimes violently esoteric motivations. I always think of umbrella man at the JFK assasination. A man who was the centre of years of conspiracy theories because why was he, on a sunny day in Dallas, stood in a square where the President was shot, with his umbrella up. It turns out he was a vehement anti-Nazi and was protesting Joseph Kennedy's pro-appeasement views, which he did through an umbrella as a clear symbol of London where Kennedy was ambassador in the run up to war. It's a reason that was absolutely true but, somehow, less likely than him being a CIA plant.

This is where the leadership comes in - can you identify a cause that is deeply and widely felt enough to bring out enough people; once you've done that, can you leverage it for change. It can be easier if you've got a single narrow point of contention (boycott South Africa, say), but even without that with skilful, opportunistic leaders you can still get results.

So far I'm more impressed with the protesters doing this - they've got the veto-proof councillors in Minnesota behind their "goals" - than I am by the Democratic leadership who mainly seem to be doing stuff like posing with Bibles and taking the knee, which I would characterise as virtue signalling

[Barrister]

Obviously, protests should have elected representatives, a clear, five-year plan for the future, a law-enforcement arm, also an official notary on hand to draft binding agreements, and should only shout nuanced, 1000-word essays that extol the virtues of pragmatism.

You mock, but protests are more effective if that have a simple and direct demand.

MLK used a tactic of campaigning for small specific steps.  He went to Birmingham with Rosa Parks to demand simple equality on public transit, for example.  The march from Selma to Montgomery was to demand equality in voting.  Compare that to the mess that was Occupy Wall Street, that never could really decide what it is they wanted.

[Valmy]

Obviously, protests should have elected representatives, a clear, five-year plan for the future, a law-enforcement arm, also an official notary on hand to draft binding agreements, and should only shout nuanced, 1000-word essays that extol the virtues of pragmatism.

Well sure that would be unreasonable in the heat of the moment but eventually they need to get to this point or the protest will have been meaningless. But how do you produce these kinds of concrete results that people in the protest will generally agree to? This is why the 1848 Revolutions failed.

[Sheilbh]

I do see an argument for defunding and disbanding some of police.  It's generally been my observation that the higher up you go with police, the more professionalism is baked into the culture, and the less prevalent issues like "professional courtesy" are.  I don't know why that is, but it seems like state police is usually the most reputed police force in the state, although still not without their problems. 

I don't know if it still happens but I wonder if part of that is to do with police forces discriminating against people who do too well in tests (I remember reading about this years ago and thought it was the craziest thing). I think the theory was they wanted people who scored within certain bounds because their concern was that people who did too well might get bored of police work and leave despite the expensive training, so hiring only the mediocre would reduce turnover.

I imagine that's more likely to happen at lower levels, whereas at state or federal levels you'll want better officers and they are less likely to get bored because there's more to do, more interesting work etc.

[Admiral Yi]

The problem is that then we'll be right back here in a year or two when the next black person is killed on camera.

Sure, and that's the difficult part of this issue, which slogans don't address.

What would it take to guarantee zero black deaths at the hands of police in perpetuity?  Something closer to true defunding IMO.  Take away firearms, tasers, batons, pepper spray, etc. no touching allowed.  Basically mall cops, who could only ask nicely that people stop committing a crime or voluntarily accompany them to a jail cell.

At some point slogans need to be translated into concrete policies in order for their to be real change.  Laws changed, money spent, that sort of thing.  So somebody somewhere has to start putting forward policy proposals, and most importantly IMO, the protest movement has to start discussing these proposals and buying in or not.  Because if the whole point of doing something is to please a group of people, then it's important that what you do actually does please people.

[Sheilbh]

You mock, but protests are more effective if that have a simple and direct demand.

MLK used a tactic of campaigning for small specific steps.  He went to Birmingham with Rosa Parks to demand simple equality on public transit, for example.  The march from Selma to Montgomery was to demand equality in voting.  Compare that to the mess that was Occupy Wall Street, that never could really decide what it is they wanted.

I think that ignores the role of LBJ. With MLK you had a leader of the protest movement who knew and used his leverage plus a political leader who knew and used his leverage. Occupy had neither - though I think has become important in other ways, especially in Europe - a lot of the new left parties have origins or were re-made in those months. But then compare that with the Tea Party, nebulous as fuck and no real protest leaders, but quite effective in leveraging their power politically and their political representatives were reasonably successful in leveraging a sort-of halt to Obama's program after two years.

At this stage I'd say BLM have been effective and able to leverage their power, I don't think Democrats/the political leadership have been as effective yet.

[Zoupa]

Obviously, protests should have elected representatives, a clear, five-year plan for the future, a law-enforcement arm, also an official notary on hand to draft binding agreements, and should only shout nuanced, 1000-word essays that extol the virtues of pragmatism.

You mock, but protests are more effective if that have a simple and direct demand.

Stop killing us over bullshit not simple enough?

[Barrister]

Obviously, protests should have elected representatives, a clear, five-year plan for the future, a law-enforcement arm, also an official notary on hand to draft binding agreements, and should only shout nuanced, 1000-word essays that extol the virtues of pragmatism.

You mock, but protests are more effective if that have a simple and direct demand.

Stop killing us over bullshit not simple enough?

What specific policies would you like to see implemented that will ensure that happens?

[alfred russel]

The problem is that then we'll be right back here in a year or two when the next black person is killed on camera.

Of course we will (well not exactly, because people won't be pissed off after a month in quarantine and economic strain). This is a cycle that has been repeating for half a century. None of the issues are new, the police departments in the urban environments with most of the protesting are run by people sensitive to the issues, and you have police chiefs and mayors marching along side the protesters.

[merithyn]

The problem is that then we'll be right back here in a year or two when the next black person is killed on camera.

Sure, and that's the difficult part of this issue, which slogans don't address.

What would it take to guarantee zero black deaths at the hands of police in perpetuity?  Something closer to true defunding IMO.  Take away firearms, tasers, batons, pepper spray, etc. no touching allowed.  Basically mall cops, who could only ask nicely that people stop committing a crime or voluntarily accompany them to a jail cell.

At some point slogans need to be translated into concrete policies in order for their to be real change.  Laws changed, money spent, that sort of thing.  So somebody somewhere has to start putting forward policy proposals, and most importantly IMO, the protest movement has to start discussing these proposals and buying in or not.  Because if the whole point of doing something is to please a group of people, then it's important that what you do actually does please people.

House Democrats just put a bill forward to outlaw choke-holds and several other police tactics that have proven problematic in the past.

IMO, the absolute best thing that can come from all of this is completely abolishing police unions. It's essential for forward progress.

[The Brain]

Obviously, protests should have elected representatives, a clear, five-year plan for the future, a law-enforcement arm, also an official notary on hand to draft binding agreements, and should only shout nuanced, 1000-word essays that extol the virtues of pragmatism.

You mock, but protests are more effective if that have a simple and direct demand.

Stop killing us over bullshit not simple enough?

No, you have to spell out a detailed solution to the professionals who already get paid to deliver law enforcement without significant numbers of BS killings. Duh.

[Valmy]

Stop killing us over bullshit not simple enough?

One would think not. But how to achieve that is difficult because it is a result of decades of police militarization and centuries of racial strife.

But it is not like those kinds of things are not uncommon in other western countries yet they don't tend to kill people very often. So it is not like there are no concrete examples out there.

And finally the big fucking problem is our decentralized federal system. There is not a national police force to reform but thousands. However, it is not like the priorities and policies of the Federal Government has not produced many of these problems. So that is one fairly obvious thing to solve but no...like most bad and counterproductive federal policies it just seems to linger forever in intertia.