The Shooting Gallery: Police Violence MEGATHREAD

[Liep]

Plus, basic police training in the US is very sketchy by European standards.  In the US, the standard for the police academy is 10 weeks.  In Germany, it is 1.5 years.

It's 3 years here and there's currently a heated debate to cut it down to 2 years.

[Berkut]

They aren't.

I saw an interview recently that Sam harris did with an ex-SWAT guy, and he made a good point in regards to training, and the use of deadly force.

We require police officers to have training in a LOT of stuff. Weapons use, first aid, the law, martial arts, procedures, paperwork, evidence handling, etc., etc., etc. All within the context of police departments with limited budgets and limited training resources, including officer time. Every hour an officer spends training is an hour they are not actually being a police officer.

How much training can we really expect them to have in any particular area? How much are we willing to pay for?

Plus, basic police training in the US is very sketchy by European standards.  In the US, the standard for the police academy is 10 weeks.  In Germany, it is 1.5 years.

Yeah, he actually brought that up specifically now that you mention it. Basically, our rookie cops would not be allowed to direct traffic in most European countries.

[Berkut]

How the fuck they training these guys.

They aren't.

I saw an interview recently that Sam harris did with an ex-SWAT guy, and he made a good point in regards to training, and the use of deadly force.

We require police officers to have training in a LOT of stuff. Weapons use, first aid, the law, martial arts, procedures, paperwork, evidence handling, etc., etc., etc. All within the context of police departments with limited budgets and limited training resources, including officer time. Every hour an officer spends training is an hour they are not actually being a police officer.

How much training can we really expect them to have in any particular area? How much are we willing to pay for?

While I don't disagree with the above, it's rather disingenuous. Cops have a culture now of going for the gun first when lesser means would have been more prudent. So, I don't buy what ex swat boy is selling. A complete jump to the highest level of force is not just a training issue, but also an internal culture issue. In general they have lost the ability/talent to use their best weapon....the one below their nose.

Come on, shooting a guy who's holding a knife to his own throat? What, were they trying to save him from hurting himself by shooting him. Christ, common sense. Kind of the reminds me of the SPD wood carver shooting.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=UA0v1TF4Q34

I don't disagree with anything you say, except that whenever you talk about systemic problems, it isn't really useful to discuss particular examples. The reason there are *systemic* problems comes from systemic policies - like training, or the lack thereof.

I absolutely agree that the particular problem is as you describe - this escalation of force straight to deadly when other options (even if in some cases more risky) are not even considered. But THAT problem exists in great part because of a lack of training, IMO, which drives right back into culture.

I also think that we (as a society) do our normal stupid shit evaluating processes and policies emotionally, which in some cases results in us removing potential tools from the force spectrum as being too dangerous, when in fact it is entirely likely that statistically they are actually fine. We bitch about cops going right for the gun, but freak out when cops engage manually and there is a bad outcome.

[DGuller]

Another problem is our aversion to having federal standards.  Germany can mandate that all police officers train for 1.5 years, but US cannot, at least not without all the usual paranoia that goes with everything that has "federal" in it.  So pretty much every locality is free to choose whether they want an old geezer insurance executive to go out and play with a gun in exchange for a donation, and it doesn't take many bad apple departments to give all the cops in US a bad name.  And even if some departments do set high standards, like many state police divisions, you're just pushing the bad apples over to some department with lower standards.

[Berkut]

Another problem is our aversion to having federal standards.  Germany can mandate that all police officers train for 1.5 years, but US cannot, at least not without all the usual paranoia that goes with everything that has "federal" in it.  So pretty much every locality is free to choose whether they want an old geezer insurance executive to go out and play with a gun in exchange for a donation, and it doesn't take many bad apple departments to give all the cops in US a bad name.  And even if some departments do set high standards, like many state police divisions, you're just pushing the bad apples over to some department with lower standards.

That is a huge problem.

We've seen that locally, with a cop that was indicted on sexual assault charges having been fired from a police department in the next suburb over for incompetence and significant deficiencies in judgment getting hired almost immediately without any apparent ability for the new department to even check on his background with the old department. He ends up raping several women, basically.

Of course, that is what you get with police unions demanding that such checks be not allowed, because that would be unfairly targeting their members.

[11B4V]

Another problem is our aversion to having federal standards.  Germany can mandate that all police officers train for 1.5 years, but US cannot, at least not without all the usual paranoia that goes with everything that has "federal" in it.  So pretty much every locality is free to choose whether they want an old geezer insurance executive to go out and play with a gun in exchange for a donation, and it doesn't take many bad apple departments to give all the cops in US a bad name.  And even if some departments do set high standards, like many state police divisions, you're just pushing the bad apples over to some department with lower standards.

That is a huge problem.

We've seen that locally, with a cop that was indicted on sexual assault charges having been fired from a police department in the next suburb over for incompetence and significant deficiencies in judgment getting hired almost immediately without any apparent ability for the new department to even check on his background with the old department. He ends up raping several women, basically.

Of course, that is what you get with police unions demanding that such checks be not allowed, because that would be unfairly targeting their members.

Did he get fired or did he resign? I've seen that happen with a bad Apple being allowed to resign, then get higher ed on elsewhere. Not for rape though, that's a Major oversight

[Berkut]

Another problem is our aversion to having federal standards.  Germany can mandate that all police officers train for 1.5 years, but US cannot, at least not without all the usual paranoia that goes with everything that has "federal" in it.  So pretty much every locality is free to choose whether they want an old geezer insurance executive to go out and play with a gun in exchange for a donation, and it doesn't take many bad apple departments to give all the cops in US a bad name.  And even if some departments do set high standards, like many state police divisions, you're just pushing the bad apples over to some department with lower standards.

That is a huge problem.

We've seen that locally, with a cop that was indicted on sexual assault charges having been fired from a police department in the next suburb over for incompetence and significant deficiencies in judgment getting hired almost immediately without any apparent ability for the new department to even check on his background with the old department. He ends up raping several women, basically.

Of course, that is what you get with police unions demanding that such checks be not allowed, because that would be unfairly targeting their members.

Did he get fired or did he resign? I've seen that happen with a bad Apple being allowed to resign, then get higher ed on elsewhere. Not for rape though, that's a Major oversight

Sorry, I did not explain that well.

In department A, he got terribly bad performance evaluations. Like, really really bad. Questioned his training, and most of all basically said he had terrible judgment and no business being a police officer. He left (of course) -not sure if he was actually fired, or just realized he needed to leave and resigned.

He was then hired by department B, literally in the next suburb over, and then proceeded to sexually assault several women who he pulled over and told they would be arrested if they did not do X, Y, and Z.

After he was indicted, some journalist checked his background, and the question arose "How the fuck did this guy get hired with a evaluation from his previous job that basically said he was terrible, and had no business being a police officer????"

Answer: Because department B was presumably not allowed to check department A. Although, to be fair, I am not sure if that was actually true, or that was just the spin the reporters put on it, and maybe department B just didn't bother to check?

[grumbler]

It's 3 years here and there's currently a heated debate to cut it down to 2 years.

The three years number includes some high school time.  Someone entering the system with a high school diploma does 1.5 years in the academy, according to official stats.

[Barrister]

I just checked - city cops have a 5 month training program, while RCMP have 6 months.

But really - the majority of cops have a two year criminal justice diploma, or something equivalent, before being hired.

[garbon]

We bitch about cops going right for the gun, but freak out when cops engage manually and there is a bad outcome.

True though I'm struggling to think of a recent example of collective bitching about that type of handling. Well maybe that school girl yanked out of her desk...though that would have been a bit extreme if the cop had shot her too.

[DGuller]

Eric Garner?

[garbon]

Eric Garner?

True

Though I don't really understand how one could not be outraged by that.

[Berkut]

Eric Garner?

True

Though I don't really understand how one could not be outraged by that.

I don't like the outcome, but I recognize that any time your actions result in the police having to engage manually with you, there is going to be a percentage of outcomes that are not good.

As an example, we decided that police should never employ chokeholds, as they are too dangerous. Are they really though? I don't know - but I do know it *seems* like the decision to not use them is not really based on a sober analysis of the pros and cons of using them against some other option that meets the same force level and risk profile, but rather "ZOMG SOMEONE DIED STOP DOING THAT!"

Now, to the extent (IMO) there is legit outrage, it is over the choice to escalate that encounter to a point where taking Garner under control became necessary to begin with...once it was decided that such a response was needed, the outcome sucks, but isn't particularly outrageous. Bad things become very possible when you start resisting police officers to the extent that they reach the point where they decide they need to engage with you manually. That is an inherently very dangerous proposition for everyone involved.

[Berkut]

So we are supposed to just wipe our hands clean and say, oh well, death is always an outcome if you don't do what the police tell you to?

Of course not - how in the world did you get that out of what I posted?

I do think we should say "When you force the police to exercise option Y to deal with you, then there is a chance that the outcome could be terrible for you. The fact that out of some set of interactions it turns out that in fact said bad outcome happens does not invalidate the use of that option in all cases".

If tasing someone, as an example, has a 1% chance of simply killing them due to some interaction with the particulars of the target (bad heart, pacemaker, whatever), then we should not all act stunned when in 1% of the cases that a taser is used someone dies, nor should we then conclude that nobody should use tasers anymore because it turns out they are not all that non-lethal after all.

Especially if that means that in some percentage if interactions that COULD have been handled with a taser, now will be handled with a pistol instead, which has more like a 70% fatality rate.

The police, regardless, are still responsible for exercising reasonable judgement in the use of whatever continuum of force options they elect. My point is simply that reducing the number of options should be done carefully, and will have consequences.

[garbon]

Sorry, I deleted that post, though clearly not quick enough, as I fundamentally disagree with what you posted in that post I replied to, so I don't find there to be much use in discussing further.