The Shooting Gallery: Police Violence MEGATHREAD

[Tonitrus]

The lesser degree is the critical point.  Grumbler's argument falls apart when he tries to suggest there is an equivalency between the powers of the police and the powers of a person who gives out fines.

That is probably our point of departure then.  I don't think it can be that critical, otherwise surely it would then make sense for those we often consider "higher" in the food chain of exercising the coercive power of the state (e.g. prosecutors, judges, even some politicians) etc.), even if not in a "hands on" way, would also easily fall on the non-civilian divide of this distinction.  But we don't usually consider them so.

And still, I think, not necessary or useful in either case.

[crazy canuck]

The lesser degree is the critical point.  Grumbler's argument falls apart when he tries to suggest there is an equivalency between the powers of the police and the powers of a person who gives out fines.

That is probably our point of departure then.  I don't think it can be that critical, otherwise surely it would then make sense for those we often consider "higher" in the food chain of exercising the coercive power of the state (e.g. prosecutors, judges, even some politicians) etc.), even if not in a "hands on" way, would also easily fall on the non-civilian divide of this distinction.  But we don't usually consider them so.

And still, I think, not necessary or useful in either case.

Let's explore that.  The police are given the power to exercise their discretion to use force (up to and including lethal force) that no one else is given.  I am becoming confused by the very wide definition you are using for coercive force.  I am no longer sure what you mean by that term when you include politicians.  I am also not sure what you mean by "even if not in a hands on way".  The hands on aspect of the powers given to police is exactly what I am talking about.  The only way in which all those others could fall into the same categorie is if one ignores the special powers given to police.

As Malthus points out, you may want to gloss over those differences - but I think you make a significant mistake by doing so.  The use and abuse of the powers given to the police are an important issue and too easy to gloss over if one takes the view they are the same as a dog catcher. 

[Tonitrus]

The lesser degree is the critical point.  Grumbler's argument falls apart when he tries to suggest there is an equivalency between the powers of the police and the powers of a person who gives out fines.

That is probably our point of departure then.  I don't think it can be that critical, otherwise surely it would then make sense for those we often consider "higher" in the food chain of exercising the coercive power of the state (e.g. prosecutors, judges, even some politicians) etc.), even if not in a "hands on" way, would also easily fall on the non-civilian divide of this distinction.  But we don't usually consider them so.

And still, I think, not necessary or useful in either case.

Let's explore that.  The police are given the power to exercise their discretion to use force (up to and including lethal force) that no one else is given.  I am becoming confused by the very wide definition you are using for coercive force.  I am no longer sure what you mean by that term when you include politicians.  I am also not sure what you mean by "even if not in a hands on way".  The hands on aspect of the powers given to police is exactly what I am talking about.  The only way in which all those others could fall into the same categories is if one ignores the special powers given to police.

As Malthus points out, you may want to gloss over those differences - but I think you make a significant mistake by doing so.  The use and abuse of the powers given to the police are an important issue and too easy to gloss over if one takes the view they are the same as a dog catcher.

Politicians (and of course, not all), in that sense that in many jurisdictions, prosecutors/judges/district attorneys/mayors seem to have the power and authority to give "orders" (for example, in the form of arrest warrants, etc.). to police officers, if not doing the "hands on" job personally.

Again, I'll easily concede that the hands-on aspect is important, but again, why does that create a need for a police/civilian distinction?  It seems one could easily just have the understanding that one employed as a police officer has that power/authority/discretion without a "they are not civilians, but something special" distinction.  They could just as easily be civilians that have the aforementioned special authority as a nature of their job.

This special, and artificial police/civilian distinction just looks an attempt to intentionally create a divisive us vs. them construct that serves no useful purpose.  Obviously it seems BB and yourself thinks it has a useful purpose, but it evades me what that is?

It seems to have obviously expanded beyond any innocuous administrative distinction of what powers police have over others, but as one intentionally used, mostly by police themselves, to say "we are not just them, we are special".

[crazy canuck]

Here politicians, including mayors, do not have the power to order the police to carry out a specific act.  For example no politician could tell the police - go arrest so and so.  The police must determine whether their actions are appropriate.  That is an important safeguard against political interference that is in our law - and I assume it is part of the law in the US. 

The Courts do issue orders, as we have discussed, but never tell the police how to carry out those orders.  The distinction is important - here in some high profile cases involving injunctions the court has demanded the attendance of the RCMP to explain to the court why its injunction orders were not being enforced by the police.

My argument is that it is important to separate the police from all others in society (civilians) because the police have a significant amount of power that is not given to any others.  Once we start thinking of the police as being in the same categorie as a dog catcher we lose focus of the important ways in which they are different from all other governmental actors.  When that occurs we might also think that police should have similar oversight.  My argument is that oversight of the police should be much greater because of the significant power they have.

I think that where this debate went wrong is trying to make them like the military on the reasoning that only the military are not civilians.  If that is so, then we are left with trying to come up with some other distinction to separate the police from civilians.  Probably just more analytically correct to separate police and the military from civilians.

[grumbler]

Again, I'll easily concede that the hands-on aspect is important, but again, why does that create a need for a police/civilian distinction?  It seems one could easily just have the understanding that one employed as a police officer has that power/authority/discretion without a "they are not civilians, but something special" distinction.  They could just as easily be civilians that have the aforementioned special authority as a nature of their job.

This is precisely why the argument that "police are not civilians" because [difference] is merely special pleading.  Police exercised that power as civilians for centuries while being considered civilians.  Other [difference]s don't seem to create a civilians/special divide, so why should the police differences create such a divide?  Especially when the proponents of such a divide cannot articulate which specific differences actually create such a divide.

This special, and artificial police/civilian distinction just looks an attempt to intentionally create a divisive us vs. them construct that serves no useful purpose.  Obviously it seems BB and yourself thinks it has a useful purpose, but it evades me what that is?

It seems to have obviously expanded beyond any innocuous administrative distinction of what powers police have over others, but as one intentionally used, mostly by police themselves, to say "we are not just them, we are special".

My points precisely.  This artificial divide seems almost all downside, with the only upside being feeding police egos.

[crazy canuck]

Special pleading means ignoring an important distinction - which is what I say your argument does.

[garbon]

[Habbaku]

I had multiple tabs open. 

[Razgovory]

In Missouri at least, I have the right to shoot someone if I feel my life is endangered. 

[Razgovory]

Maxine Waters is not helping the situation...

[The Brain]

In Missouri at least, I have the right to shoot someone if I feel my life is endangered.

Are you an airborne ranger?

[Barrister]

This special, and artificial police/civilian distinction just looks an attempt to intentionally create a divisive us vs. them construct that serves no useful purpose.  Obviously it seems BB and yourself thinks it has a useful purpose, but it evades me what that is?

It seems to have obviously expanded beyond any innocuous administrative distinction of what powers police have over others, but as one intentionally used, mostly by police themselves, to say "we are not just them, we are special".

Okay, so I'm the one who keeps bringing up the police / civilian divide for witnesses in court.  So let me explain why it's useful.

Police are just very different from other witnesses.  They're being paid to be there, for starters.  This is part of their duties.  They have certainly obligations such as note-taking that other witnesses don't have.  And once they have some experience most of them tend to be really, really good witnesses.  And they mostly can be counted on to show up and be on time.

Then we have other witnesses.  They're not being paid to be there.  They've never been to court in their life most of the time.  They aren't trained to take notes.  And while some can be very good, others can be very bad witnesses.  And their attendance can be very hit-or-miss (just today I had the victim of a air pistol shooting show up nearly 2 hours late).

So it's useful to divide up between the police witnesses, and the non-police witnesses.  And an easier word for 'non-police' is civilian.

And yes, you can also get into some odd edge cases.  There's lots of investigative agencies that aren't strictly speaking police.  Some may not even wear uniforms.  But it's still a useful distinction for us.  Just because there are tricky edge cases for any kind of categorization doesn't make the process ot putting things into categories useless.

And like I said earlier,  in this context, if I had to call a member of the Canadian Forces as a witness I'd list them as a civilian.  Because if this had something to do with while they were on active duty a military court would almost certainly have jurisdiction.  And I have rarely seen files where off-duty police officers get involved in a file, but they still tend to go into "cop mode" so I'd still list them as police, not civilian.

[crazy canuck]

I had multiple tabs open. 

I thought it was a brilliant non sequitur 

[Razgovory]

Out of curiosity I thought I'd look up the etymology of Civilian to find out how it was originally used (Obviously it's from the Latin word 'civis'.  I don't need to look that up).

late 14c., "judge or authority on civil law," from noun use of Old French civilien "of the civil law," created from Latin civilis "relating to a citizen, relating to public life, befitting a citizen; popular, affable, courteous," alternative adjectival derivative of civis "townsman" (see city). Sense of "non-military and non-clerical person, one whose pursuits are those of civilian life" is attested by 1766. As an adjective, "pertaining to or characteristic of a civilian," from 1640s.

Why would it refer to soldiers, police and priests?  Best guess: It corresponds to Durkenheim's Dumezil trifunctional theory.

EDIT:  I'm an idiot, I confused Durkheim with Dumezil.

[grumbler]

From https://www.fallacyfiles.org/specplea.html

Special Pleading
Taxonomy: Logical Fallacy > Informal Fallacy > Special Pleading

Form:
Rule: Xs are generally Ys.
x is an X.
x is an exception to the rule because it is I (where I is an irrelevant characteristic).
Therefore, x is not a Y.

Example:
The law requires everyone to follow the speed limit and other traffic regulations, but in Suffolk County, exceptions should be made for cops and their families, police union officials say.

Police Benevolent Association president Jeff Frayler said Thursday it has been union policy to discourage Suffolk police officers from issuing tickets to fellow officers, regardless of where they work.

"Police officers have discretion whenever they stop anyone, but they should particularly extend that courtesy in the case of other police officers and their families," Frayler said in a brief telephone interview Thursday. "It is a professional courtesy."

Lots of equivalent entries, but since this one directly uses CC's argument as an example of the fallacy, I used this one.

BB:  when do you "list" witnesses as civilian or police?  Why is it necessary to distinguish them in such a way?  Aren't expert witnesses also paid, also usually experienced in court appearances, known for being on-time for appearances, and also required to provide written support for their testimony (i.e. notes")? Are they then police, civilians, or some other, new category?  If the latter, how many categories are there?