Haven’t posted here in a while, but we’re in a bad place. Everyone please vote. Everyone please band together and remove the GOP from power. Convince your friends that living in a “blue state” doesn’t mean you don’t have to vote, it means you have free time to work on battleground races.
Everybody’s tired. Tired people make mistakes. Add that on top of those with malice in their hearts and you have a very dangerous situation.
6.
aliasofwestgate
@Kelly: Dude has to be. *grins* Hilarious seeing the whole unit go WTF? oh….um…
7.
Brachiator
Double damn. Some amazing editorial cartoons.
I’ve been reading recently that police unions are moving away from Biden because he is advocating justice for victims of police brutality.
With us or against us. Police unions believe that police officers must have absolute discretion over how they do their jobs on the street, and that the occasional murder of a suspect is just the cost of doing business.
Just a few bad apples? A recent episode of the “Politics! Politics! Politics?” podcast hosted by Justin Robert Young points out that Qualified Immunity gives cops a license to kill. And in a number of states, records and other information about police misconduct are sealed or otherwise not available to the public. So the public has no idea how their police are doing, and no way to find out.
8.
PsiFighter37
So far, two peaceful protests on 6th Avenue…one that stretched about 15 blocks long head south, and another one (about a block long) that was part-BLM protest, part New Orleans street parade (folks playing brass instruments and drums). Anticipate it won’t be the last, but everything looks peaceful to me. The NYPD is behaving here (so far).
9.
Scout211
It’s your blog, Cole, and I do understand what you may be trying to convey. But prejudging people because of the color of their skin, their gender, or the uniform that they wear, is well, prejudiced.
Please be careful posting these inflammatory images. Maybe post some sort of comment or trigger warning of some sort? Right now it feels needlessly inflammatory. But that’s just me, maybe. Feel free to ignore.
10.
Miss Bianca
Hope it’s ok to repost this from an earlier thread, but just had to share, and this seemed like an appropriate spot:
listen up y’all. Just went to the Black Lives Matter rally and march in my little frontier, ruby red county. Pissing down rain in the beginning. I was afraid I’d be one of about seven people when I got there, but no, OVER ONE HUNDRED PEOPLE. And terrific support from local law enforcement – the sheriff issued a powerful statement on social media about “these are our friends and neighbors, they are NOT ‘outside agitators’ (the right-wing groups had apparently been having a mass freakout online, unbeknownst to me), and they have a right to do this.’ And he MARCHED with us, and had all his deputies in line along the route.
This…this is huge. I can’t tell you how huge. I’m almost shaky.
I have photos and video footage, will try to submit some to WaterGirl at some point.
To give you some perspective, there are only 4,000-5,000 people in my *entire county*. And the sheriff is a 2nd A absolutist. No elected officials that I could see, but I think this is a warning shot across the bows to the forces of political reaction which till recently have been running rampant: A tide is turning, assholes. A change is coming. WE SEE YOU, and judging from the relative turnouts of the protest and the counterprotest,* more importantly, WE OUTNUMBER YOU.
*(because naturally, the right-wing newsletter had a group of MAGAts outside, all unmasked, of course)
MARGA!!**
(Make America Really Great Again)
11.
aliasofwestgate
Also, these graphics are lit. Hit exactly the way they’re supposed to. The second illustrating Rage Against The Machine’s lyrics impeccably. “Some of those who work Forces. Are the same who burn crosses.” It hasn’t changed since they wrote and performed that song, and it’s grown worse.
12.
Emma from FL
@Kelly: If he isn’t he’s been studying them hard. He had the rhythm and the words down pat.
@Emma from FL: I think they’re all trying to say we were hypocrites to complain about the lack of social distancing (and the danger of the spread of the virus) when they had their temper tantrums a couple of weeks ago, and now to be marching in such great numbers against injustice. Showing, once again, that they really don’t get it at all.
Well, endorse who they will, I think the police unions are – in the election – going to find themselves on the same (wrong) side of the narrative as they are right now: As long as the narrative they are seen to be pushing is “police ought to be able to abuse/beat/gas/kill anyone they want to without consequences“, it’s likely to be a losing proposition.
That first one would be even better with another cop standing next to the cop whose”skirt” (KKK robe) is blown up – with the second cop looking forward, pretending not to notice the guy next to him is KKK.
It’s your blog, Cole, and I do understand what you may be trying to convey. But prejudging people because of the color of their skin, their gender, or the uniform that they wear, is well, prejudiced.
Please be careful posting these inflammatory images. Maybe post some sort of comment or trigger warning of some sort? Right now it feels needlessly inflammatory. But that’s just me, maybe. Feel free to ignore.
I know a few cops who all seem like good folks. And come into contact with some really good ones from time to time professionally. So I tend to think that the majority are pretty good folks and it is a minority of racist assholes who are ruining it.
That said, I think we are in a situation like with the Catholic church and pedophilia. If there are a few bad priests but the rest of the institution goes out of its way to coddle and protect them rather than rooting them out then is is just ‘a few bad priests’ or is the entire institution corrupt beyond repair?
Similarly with policing. If it is just a few bad cops but the rest of the institution through its unions and command structure protects and insulates them from accountability instead of rooting them out. Then is the entire institution corrupt beyond repair?
We aren’t prejudging all cops INDIVIDUALLY based on the actions of a few. But we can judge the institution as a whole based on how it responds on behalf of all cops.
School shooting drills have radicalized America’s youth. Looking at how much of this is driven by teens and young people and everyone’s amazement at how these protests are happening in the lily whitest suburbs and rural towns, I’m surprised more people haven’t seen the link to the lockdown drills all these kids have had to endure. No, they haven’t been hurt. Yes, black people and kids have it far, far worse in every way. But they’ve had a taste of it. They’ve been terrified by cops who don’t have any real reason to be actually inflicting this yelling and gunfire upon them. Coming out of the schools with their hands up, surrounded by armed men.
Their mothers hate it too. And their fathers. But the kids aren’t stupid. They know the cops are doing these for their own kicks. This just came to me, so I haven’t talked about it with friends. But I’m sure if you make the argument that it will mean no more lock down drills, you’d have lots of parents voting to defund and abolish the police.
ETA: tldr; I think the lock down drill experience has made kids and their mothers relate to police brutality against Black people in ways that the rural and suburban white cops running them could not have imagined.
29.
Martin
@Brachiator: Police unions have never been with Dems. Fire department unions largely pro GOP as well.
I’m objectively pro-labor, but there are some really shit unions out there. Good ideas don’t ensure good implementation.
I’d like to see the DOJ civil rights division and congress work on ways to protect law enforcement workers while outlawing the ‘let’s wipe every misconduct claim off the books every 3 years’ components of these contracts.
There’s been a march of some sort in my Manhattan neighborhood almost every evening (Park Ave. So) – anywhere from 2-300 people to 2000 or so – and EVERYONE (except for some of the escorting police) were wearing masks. And keeping as much space as possible in a street march.
@Kent: As white people, we don’t get to see that side of cops very often, if at all. So I have no idea if an individual cop is “good” or “bad”. Doesn’t really matter – the system needs fundamental reform. Change the incentives and stop protecting the abusers. Then see who sticks around.
36.
Feathers
@Martin: I posted this at the end of the dying Buffalo 2020 thread, but it fits here as well, so I’m reposting. The discussion was about using RICO against the police unions. If we’re looking to salt the earth, it’s a good start.
It almost happened. There was a huge ticket fixing scandal back in the Bronx in 2011. Hundreds of officers involved. Although the focus was on the cops, how the scheme actually worked was that someone looking to get a ticket “taken care of” asked an officer, that officer called the union, who decided if it was worth fixing. If it was, they then tracked down where the ticket was physically located and had another officer destroy it. In the end, 16 officers were criminally charged. However, the DA (AG?) decided not to bring RICO charges against the union. Part of the issue is that there were hundreds of officers involved and all of their cases since forever would have to be reviewed. Defense attorneys for the accused officers (and it was a dream team, included one guy who had played himself in Goodfellas) demanded that the names of all the officers involved be made public. That seems to have sort of ended the whole thing.
To bring up an old friend, when he worked for Boston Mayor Kevin White in the 70s, Barney Frank tangled with the Boston police union. He came to the opinion that police should either have a union or civil service protections, but not both.
37.
otmar
FWIW, there was a really big protest march in Vienna on Thursday in the city center, and another, smaller one, yesterday in front of the us embassy.
38.
Martin
@Kent: The adage is ‘a few bad apples spoils the barrel’. The last part never seems to get mentioned. If the union or the city protect the bad cops, then they all become bad cops in the eyes of the public.
39.
Nora
@Jay C: That’s been my experience, too, but I don’t think the right wingers are paying attention to that.
40.
Benw
On the second image: I despise the “blue lives matter” flag and love the takedown.
I went to a local protest in my burb yesterday that was organized by and heavily attended by high school girls. Lots of honking and cheering from passing cars: very heartening. The few asshats who tried to yell at us got absolutely ratioed by trash talk from the young women. It was hysterical. The kids are alright.
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:@Kent: As white people, we don’t get to see that side of cops very often, if at all. So I have no idea if an individual cop is “good” or “bad”. Doesn’t really matter – the system needs fundamental reform. Change the incentives and stop protecting the abusers. Then see who sticks around.
I’m a HS teacher and I’ve taught for years in a diverse urban school district with lots of black and Hispanic students. So I think I have seen how individual cops interact for better or worse with students of mine. Some to their credit REALLY go out of their way to keep black kids out of the system. The problem is that they aren’t any more representative of the “institution” as the bad cops are. What represents the “institution” are the actual institutions like the unions that are elected to represent it.
I think we are in agreement though. It isn’t a question about whether an individual cop is bad or good. We can’t easily judge that. But we can judge the institution itself by its actions.
the bishops knew about sexual abuse, but only reassigned the culprits. Now they have the lawsuits holding them, and not just the organizations, responsible.
a lot of the bad cops have a long list of complaints filed against them. And yet, they haven’t been taken off the street. so: at what point will the police chiefs be personally responsible for the murders and the abuse?
I’ll be damned. I’m sitting in the shade outside City Hall in my small ranch-redneck town (central valley CA), and all of a sudden a block away: protest march! All appear to be white or pale-brownish (not surprising that it’s not a diverse crowd, there is a big percentage of Latinx local/immigrant ag labor, but they won’t be here today). There is someone leading the chant “I can’t breathe” alternately with “No Justice, No Peace” and everyone is walking peacefully while chanting. NO police presence visible. Well, that’s one way to keep things peaceful.
Still going on while I type this. Must have been at least a thousand people passing by the corner so far. That’s a huge percentage of the total population.
The decent people are going to win this one. Really, we are. If you can get a percentage of the cowboys in my town out on the street for justice, you’re surely winning the whole nation.
Oh, bullshit. There are many, many bad cops out there. But what’s worse, their “brothers” cover for them. So lemme ask you: you’re a member of a gang, and you see one of your members commit a crime: say, murder a member of a competing gang. [ETA: You say nothing, indeed you clean up and hide any evidence, threaten witnesses, etc.] Are you: (1) a stalwart brother and innocent bystander, or (2) accomplice ? Let’s add in that you are sworn to uphold the law when you see this murder go down. Again, (1) innocent bystander, or (2) accomplice?
But we can go futher: for decades black Americans (right up to our President, Barack Obama) have pointed out that black people are not afforded a presumption of innocence. Right down to “he fits the description”. They have complained that they must go to extraordinary measures to assure white people that they’re harmless.
So …. I see a cop, wearing the uniform. He “fits the description” of a thug who will beat the living shit out of me because I’m a brown man. So …. how is this different from what white people do every day to black people? And why SHOUDN’T we demand that cops go above and beyond to prove that they’re harmless to our lives and bodies?
And we haven’t even GOTTEN to abominations like “qualified immunity”.
the good applesGermans applauding the rotten ones?
FTFY.
Narrator: those were different times, when Germans were bad guys, instead of the people who might be able to teach us how to atone for world-historical sins.
I don’t think I understand your comment. That is, I am not sure how any person is being “prejudged” at all. Indeed, neither, as far as I can tell, is about any individuals at all.
Like pretty much every political cartoon what is being judged, not prejudged, are the failings of a particular institution. And the judgement that American policing is rife with fascist and racist tendencies beneath its surface would seem to be on pretty solid ground.
But setting that argument aside for the moment, my point is that anyone, of course, can feel free to agree or disagree with that judgement as they see fit. But to address that judgement as if its some sort of personal attack seems, at best, a pretty significant category error.
54.
Martin
@Feathers: The police situation has a different public policy problem – if you root out all of the actual wrongdoing, do you have a plan to solve it?
There have been suggestions from lawmakers that some police departments may need to be completely rebuilt. And I agree with that. But at the same time, I have NO idea how to actually pull that off. Lots of public policy problems run up against this – the solution requires a larger scope than you can pull off. I’m deep in the middle of that with Covid reopening plans. I can see a solution, but I simply don’t have access to the tools I need to implement it.
I just watched this video, of ABC 7 Chicago news coverage, of the family who parked at a mall to shop when their car is attacked by a gang of Chicago PD officers, who smash their windows and pull two women from the car (one by the hair) and violently throw them to the ground. One officer then kneels on one woman’s neck. The news says the filming witness told them the police arrived looking for looters who’d left, and the police attacked the women’s car because it was red. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmjGbcoNynQ
I’ve been watching the many videos of police brutality (it’s destroying me) but hadn’t seen this one until I saw the Chicago FOP President denouncing the mayor for speaking out about this police violence. Two officers have been “relieved of police duties,” which has him all upset.
My god, the absolute least they can do is take violent officers off the street to calm down instead of risking that they’ll injure more people.
58.
Kent
@Martin:@Kent: The adage is ‘a few bad apples spoils the barrel’. The last part never seems to get mentioned. If the union or the city protect the bad cops, then they all become bad cops in the eyes of the public.
Yes. And it doesn’t have to be that way. I’m a teacher and you don’t see teachers lining up to protect pedophile teachers. There isn’t any closing of ranks around horrible teachers when, on rare occasions one pops up. And teacher’s don’t waste their union negotiating efforts trying to insulate teachers from accountability. They focus on wages, benefits, and working conditions that benefit students such as class size.
But then teachers don’t look at their jobs as “us vs them” like cops do. It’s just “us” both teachers and students. The only “them” involved in teaching is sometimes school district administration.
59.
hueyplong
@Aleta: Let’s say the cops really did believe the family was “looters.”
So why not just tell them to step out of the car, search it if they have probable cause, and then let them leave if they’ve got receipts?
Instead they assault them.
My only problem with the second of Cole’s cartoons is that it’s too fucking subtle.
60.
Iamhbomb
This image brought to mind the great song by the Dicks, “Anti Klan (part 1)”.
We aren’t prejudging all cops INDIVIDUALLY based on the actions of a few.
During the Nazi regime, they went out of their way to recruit and promote solid fatherly types, the sort who help little old ladies cross the street. These traits were not at odds with being murderous kllers of “undesirables”. Indeed, those solid types made better leaders, because less mercurial.
The police riots show us that the Fascists have their Sturmabteilung in every one of our population centers. Those cartoons John posted are spot-on accurate.
It’s their behavior that is inflammatory. These images should be everywhere.
66.
Martin
@Kent: An observation could be made of the gender that typically makes up the ranks of the two professions and how that both might cause a different set of behaviors within the profession as well as a different type of treatment from policy makers and the public.
67.
Aleta
@hueyplong: Maybe even ask a question first. But no, too busy swarming the car to break its windows. If we don’t stop this they’ll be blowing cars up remotely with police department drones, the better to avoid all responsibility.
68.
Just Chuck
People trotting out that “few bad apples” argument need to remember how the rest of the saying goes. The whole bunch has indeed spoiled.
@TaMara (HFG): Interesting how one message is invited by the institution in the photo, and in another case, the message is directed at the institution in the photo.
Nice, too, to see Sacramento adopting its own water policies.
@rikyrah: I agree, and financial accountability is not enough, because it will never cover the lifelong effects on children and witnesses. Every incident can destroy lives by harming people’s nervous system and reflex reactions for years.
75.
Ken
@germy: The protest zone near the White House is now a dance party with a dj! I wonder if Fatso can hear us!
Somewhere, Manuel Noriega smiles.
76.
Avalune
In our tiny borough, a senator did a nice little peaceful march today. I had no idea it was going to happen until I was driving past it or I’d have joined. :( I did give them a healthy lot of honking as the police were redirecting me from Main Street.
If it wasn’t my life’s work to avoid city center I’d go march with them ?
77.
Martin
@Aleta: When all you have is riot gear, everyone looks like a looter.
78.
Just Chuck
@Martin: You don’t “solve” wrongdoing without fixing human nature. You punish it, the same as anyone else. We’re asking that cops be applied the same standard of justice we all get.
Actually, we’re not even asking that, since no one is asking for cops to be summarily executed, unlike their SOP.
A&E has decided not to run new episodes of “Live PD” this Friday and Saturday, while Paramount Network has delayed the Season 33 launch of “Cops,” the long-running reality series that was scheduled to return on Monday.
The decision to hold “Live PD” and “Cops” comes as protests over police brutality continue across the nation following the killing of George Floyd by Minnesota police officers, shining a spotlight on the widespread abuse by law enforcement against African Americans. This weekend A&E will air episodes of “Live Rescue” in its place.
“Out of respect for the families of George Floyd and others who have lost their lives, in consultation with the departments we follow, and in consideration for the safety of all involved, we have made the decision not to broadcast ‘Live PD’ this weekend,” A&E said in a statement.
80.
Kent
@Martin:@Kent: An observation could be made of the gender that typically makes up the ranks of the two professions and how that both might cause a different set of behaviors within the profession as well as a different type of treatment from policy makers and the public.
Perhaps. Although I don’t think male teachers are necessarily any more “disciplinarian than female teachers. In fact, over my years of teaching, most of the hardest core “battle axe” disciplinarian teachers I have known have been women.
But there is a very professional difference between how teachers and how cops treat the same population. And it is the same population. Teachers have the very same kids in their classrooms that cops deal with on the street. Sometimes they are a couple years older when cops deal with them. But often it is the same exact kids.
And of course, teaching isn’t perfect. We see videos of out of control teachers too. But honestly there are tens of thousands of schools across the country in every single neighborhood were there are often older women alone in a class with 30 kids and they have no trouble whatsoever keeping order. And if they can’t do that they are in the wrong job. But one of those same kids on the street and the cops think it takes 10 of them with clubs to violently take down two girls as is shown in the Chicago video above.
81.
Aleta
@Martin: Some of them are so revved up by individual combinations of racism, fear, group pressure, training, military PTSD, sadism, and detachment, and perhaps steroids or other medications, that even their visual field is narrowed, not to mention the impairment of their range of judgement and options.
One fucking weekend. But sure, A&E, promote the cops every other day of the year. I’m totally sold on how woke you are.
83.
Martin
@Just Chuck: This is the same sort of deterrence theory as capital punishment. It doesn’t work. Of course you punish, but punishment is small consolation when your dad was just murdered by a cop. The goal needs to be to change the culture of these institutions so that this behavior doesn’t manifest. As Kent notes above, not all professions do this, even professions doing dangerous jobs or interacting with unstable individuals.
You can build respectful and responsible cultures. We have simply failed to create the conditions for that to happen inside the police. And yes, accountability is part of it, but just a part.
You would hope that the police would be embarrassed by their colleagues who pushed an old man into the ground so that he started bleeding from his head. Instead, they’re cheering for them. https://t.co/KcP6HbgyyN
Is “wokewashing” a term? I use it to mean when corporations make little empty gestures to show their support for social justice.
86.
Just Chuck
@Martin: I didn’t say punishment was the only thing, but when there isn’t any at all, it’s hard to call it justice.
If we had a cure for wrongdoing, we’d be living in a utopian paradise.
87.
a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio
@WaterGirl: That was not a police unit. It was National Guard; one of the things he told them was to do what their Staff Sergeant was telling them to do. (The Staff Sergeant was the poor bastard in the middle of the group jerking guys into proper position.)
88.
germy
In Delaware County, Pa., where I live, the police union VP posted to FB: “If you choose to speak out against the police or our members, we will do everything in our power to not support your business.”
People protested and his borough has suspended him
The cop then posted it again to his personal FB page, adding the caption, “”Try us. We’ll destroy you.”
Police unions are an organized crime racket. Break them all up, and defund the police
— Will Bunch Sign Up For My Newsletter (@Will_Bunch) June 6, 2020
89.
trollhattan
Looks like they’ll be removing our curfew, later today at a city council meeting.
“It is my intention to recommend to the council that the curfew be lifted immediately and that the National Guard no longer be deployed in our city,” Steinberg said in a statement released earlier in the morning. “Last night’s peaceful and powerful demonstrations give me confidence that these steps, which we took reluctantly, are no longer necessary.” https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article243333631.html#storylink=cpy
Any situation where a large group is treated badly by a few with power is going to be a powder keg. As long as that keg is small enough, only the people involved will suffer. As soon as the vast majority gets treated wrongly the dynamic changes. This can be seen in the military. If a mid level person is shit, it will affect usually only a small segment and that segment will be controlled, even if the control is done badly. A ships captain/base commander makes or breaks the atmosphere, the really bad apples can break the entire command. The police can do the same because they also set the tone of life in and around the city/town.
It -is- hard to call it justice. And for myself, if someone I knew were hurt by a cop, I’d want retribution. But I remember when Mike Dukakis got asked a related question, and he was able to distinguish between his response as a husband, and as an official. [Sadly, too few viewers understood him.] Our “justice” system ought to be about reducing crime, criminals, and their harm. Not exacting vengeance. And if the way to do that is thru things like financial penalties, then huzzah, bring on the green eyeshades!
It’s hard to remember, and certainly I’d have trouble, if something awful happened to me or one of mine, that consistent, thorough gentleness can sometimes be more effective than a mailed fist.
Perhaps. Although I don’t think male teachers are necessarily any more “disciplinarian than female teachers. In fact, over my years of teaching, most of the hardest core “battle axe” disciplinarian teachers I have known have been women.
Of course, you chose that profession for a reason. You had your own personal notion of what role you wanted to play, and you chose teacher. That’s why CBP is such a problem – you generally don’t choose that occupation unless you have a certain notion of what the job allows you to do. It’s a feedback loop – if we cast the police as the ones who bust heads (as the GOP often does – tough on crime) and you are an individual who wants to bust heads, well, we have a match. You as a male teacher align with ‘what’s a good occupation for me as a compassionate male’. And my experience in K-12 matches yours – the male teachers were all chill as hell. The small number of problem teachers were always female. It was their authoritarian space. Male authoritarians joined the military or law enforcement. My grandmother noted that a certain number of her fellow female nurses had the same authoritarian tendencies, but the male nurses were all chill.
This comes from my academic work on understanding why gender disparities develop within academic disciplines. Even in highly gendered disciplines like engineering, there are a few sub-disciplines that are female dominated, and yet women are wildly underrepresented in others. It’s a complicated mix of how the public perceives the function of the discipline, as well as whether the discipline presents as a place where they fit in. Teaching, nursing, policing, are all case studies for how gender and professions interact.
@germy: Not yet, but there ought to be a term for it besides “utter bullshit” and “do they think we’re stupid?” and “do they think we’re not paying attention?”
96.
Mike in NC
Those black and white flags with either a red stripe for firefighters or a blue one for police are a fairly recent development, I believe, and they annoy the crap out of me. I guess the message is “Us vs. Them”.
He was talking/yelling like a drill instructor. Depending on how long ago they’d been to boot camp that could trigger exactly the reaction he was looking for. They listened because he said exactly what and how he’d either heard it or spoken it before. Man knew his way around a group of military people.
Dang kids these days, and vast majority of ordinary people, fiddling with their cell phones and taking pix and vids doing a lot of good. Too many people can see with their lying eyes what has been going on for years.
102.
frosty
@Scout211: @Kent: Thank you both for this perspective. One of my sons has just started his career as a big city cop, in a city which had riots the first night or two. He’s a great young man and I worry that the Thin Blue Line will turn him. I worry about that more than about his physical safety.
@Miss Bianca: That’s fantastic — thank you for sharing it. There was a BLM march in my tiny, 90% white, gun nut town too. Amazing. It’s almost like America is about to vomit up the poison that has made us sick for so long. God, I hope so.
105.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@germy: As I live in Delaware County, I clicked on the story to get down in the weeds and see exactly what borough this guy was from. I was expecting Ridley, an area south of us. When you cross the main road between our area and Ridley, there’s a marked change in lawn signs from predominantly Dem to fire-breathing GOP at election time. The Ridley cops have a reputation for racist behavior.
Nope, it was Media, the county seat, and what I consider a pretty friendly liberal area. They proudly declare themselves “America’s First Free Trade Town”.
There are decent cops, I know that. The videos and reports of protests are showing us some of the good ones along with the brown shirts. But there is a deep-seated illness in police unions across this country that has to be rooted out.
106.
Served
There is an impressive size BLM protest in Winnetka, Illinois. Which, if you’re unfamiliar with Chicago and the North Shore, is 95% white and one of the wealthiest communities in the state. Things have changed.
107.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@rikyrah: Right on, Rikyrah. Money speaks a language that even these fuckers can understand.
108.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Scout211: It’s your blog, Cole, and I do understand what you may be trying to convey. But prejudging people because of the color of their skin, their gender, or the uniform that they wear, is well, prejudiced.
Perhaps you should read up on the history of the policing in the US, like the NYPD started out as the rich’s street gang.
@Ruckus: If he had yelled “tighten up” I probably would have stood up and moved myself.
111.
Ken
@jl: Dang kids these days, and vast majority of ordinary people, fiddling with their cell phones and taking pix and vids doing a lot of good.
Some years ago, I think on this very blog around the first BLM protests, someone noted that there wasn’t some mysterious sudden upsurge of police violence. It was just that now we were actually seeing it, thanks to the phones.
Also addressed by xkcd some time ago, though on different subjects.
@Kent: “when a man puts that uniform on that he is the paid protector of things of the present time. he is here to see that things stay the way they are. if you like the way things are, then all cops are good cops. if you don’t like the way things are, then all cops are bad cops.”
-Bukowski
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I’m just gonna raise my hand here and say that Scout211 has several times in this thread acknowledged the points people have made. #49, #51, #53.
I’m sure people are still responding to the original comment, so no ill will is intended, but it’s got to feel like piling on for Scout211.
@frosty: You should worry. My brother got his criminal justice degree with a final project on helping the homeless. He is now full MAGA with some variation on blue lives matter as his license plate on his huge black SUV.
I gotta wonder if the police officers involved and the people who think they are being unfairly treated would feel differently if the shoved/injured man was their 70+ year old dad or grampa.
A conservative mind set will only get it into their heads when it touches them personally; empathy and extracting the abstract thought to generalize it simply isn’t part of their world view.
119.
Dan B
@germy: Dance Party! That’s how many of the protests in Chicago from ’68 to ’70 were. It’s much easier to organize when people enjoy the experience. Non stop anger is impossible to maintain.
@Nora: and some legitimate concern – these are big, tight crowds in places. Given the importance of speaking out in these circumstances, most people are masking up and accepting the risk but we have no idea what the impact will be.
121.
frosty
@Feathers: Not a MAGA, not a Fox News watcher so far. He’s got the blue line flag flying in front of the house and a sticker on his black pickup truck, though.
OTOH, since there are only four colors for cars any more, (white, black, silver, and red) the black could be coincidental.
Thank you for pointing this out, WaterGirl. I noticed that Scout211 had acknowleded these things, and that’s excellent. It’s a crazy, crazy time, and we’re all afraid and angry. Scared we’re going to lose our democracy, scared we’re going to lose loved ones in an interaction with unreviewable summary street justice. It’s a lot scarier than any time in my adult life.
Remember after 9/11? Some saner heads tried to point out that 19 guys with boxcutters wasn’t exactly a serious threat to our country. But we went insane. And now, we have police rioting all over the country, busting heads, daring us to stop them.
123.
JMG
Privilege is hard to give up. Police officers, good, bad and the ones just muddling though (the majority) have foolishly been given the privilege of almost total unaccountability by our society. They can screw up completely and get away it, up to and including actual crimes. The prospect of losing this huge privilege of course terrifies the bad cops, seems a threat to the muddlers, and even causes the good ones to resent it because “hey, I’ve never done anything wrong.” But no democracy can exist if any segment of government gets no consequences for its actions, let alone an armed segment.
124.
Kent
@Mike in NC:Those black and white flags with either a red stripe for firefighters or a blue one for police are a fairly recent development, I believe, and they annoy the crap out of me. I guess the message is “Us vs. Them”.
I think they came out of Ferguson when people first started putting a line of blue tape on the back side of their cars and then it evolved into a blue stripe on the flag.
I could be wrong about that, but it’s my recollection.
125.
LuciaMia
situation like with the Catholic church and pedophilia. If there are a few bad priests but the rest of the institution goes out of its way to coddle and protect them rather than rooting them out
Police unions have never been with Dems. Fire department unions largely pro GOP as well.
From a Politico story
Though many police tend to lean to the right politically, the criticism from the National Association of Police Organizations is new. NAPO endorsed Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 because of Biden’s presence on the ticket, Johnson said.
The police unions viewed Biden as a stand-up guy. Now, they are unhappy with him.
@Kent: no, they were around much earlier than that.
130.
JMG
Police unions are a powerful political bloc because they are monolithic and police are generally popular. The demonstrations are threatening to them because they indicate their are losing that popularity, which is what makes elected officials loath to cross them.
It’s an interview (post-Freddie Gray) with David Simon (the Wire, Treme, Deuce) on how Baltimore’s civilian power structure ruined effective policing and substituted a thirst for arrest statistics over good police work, to the detriment of good policing, community relations, and crime-solving.
Aside from being (to me) essential for an informed perspective on police-civilian relations, Simon’s interview makes one indelible point: cops only do what they are INCENTIVIZED to do; nothing more and nothing less. To change police behavior, change their incentives–which can be both simple and incredibly nuanced, but which makes demands FIRST on civilian leadership (to be crystal-clear about policing goals for the community RATHER than for a pol’s career advancement) and then on police rank and file, to follow the new regime or be assigned to the graveyard shift patrolling a distant landfill.
I wonder if it’s going to require a courageous pol out there somewhere who’s willing to torch his/her career and take on the police unions and police culture till one of them cries ‘uncle’–up to and including laying off the entire force if necessary, replacing them with National Guard units plus screened current cops willing to commit to a different police culture. (Sort of like what Reagan–ptui!–did with the Air Traffic Controllers.)
Of course it wouldn’t be that easy, it never is–but hey: status quo’s got to go.
133.
Cameron
While there need to be consequences for abusive behavior, I wonder if a restorative-justice program would help change police culture. If it works for convicted criminals….
134.
Baud
A sweeping new police reform bill being drafted by House and Senate Democrats would ban chokeholds, limit “qualified immunity” for police officers, create a national misconduct registry, end the use of no-knock warrants in drug cases and make lynching a federal crime among other dramatic changes, according to an outline being circulated on Capitol Hill.
135.
RSA
@WaterGirl: That first one would be even better with another cop standing next to the cop whose”skirt” (KKK robe) is blown up – with the second cop looking forward, pretending not to notice the guy next to him is KKK>
Yes.
Another challenge with this representation, I think, is that the outer versus inner costumes are reversed. The police uniform is notionally about (and should be about) “to serve and to protect,” but underneath there can be a white robe. For non-POC in our society, it’s been easy to accept the surface representation over the decades.
@Kelly: That man is definitely army (or recently ex-army). And what he’s doing is brilliant.
I remember in the graphic novel “The March” (John Lewis’s memoir) one of the things the civil rights protestors trained themselves to do was to make eye contact, even when they were getting beaten up. Human beings are social creatures and making a human connected is possible even in the most inhuman moments.
This guy shouting at the National Guard? He’s making that connection. He’s speaking their language (angry NCO) and showing them that he’s one of them. We’re all the same, he’s telling them. And the fact that they’re reacting to his words suggests that the message is getting through.
Best of all, because he’s telling them to close up, no one can accuse him of uttering threats or being disruptive or uncooperative. He’s literally telling them to listen to their Staff Sgt!
This is something that’s going to leave a mark on a lot of those kids in the ranks. In the long run, it might even save some lives. My hat goes off to this man.
138.
John Fremont
@germy: Lurker here. COPS should switch over from patrolmen and follow the activities of Internal Affairs detectives.
Totally OT, but in an item discussing the “killing Negroes juices the market” abomination, there was a screen shot of Tucker Carlson. He looked orange, with the areas around his eyes lighter.
Am I losing it in a time of isolation and outrages, or is he going full-on Trump with the makeup?
(Don’t watch Fox so don’t know if that physical appearance was a one-off)
@Omnes Omnibus: For a split second there I was like, “DUDE – trigger warning!” just because of POTUS’s ugly mug. Then I saw what he was holding. Clever, but I’m still a little twitchy.
144.
ziggy
@Scout211: Thank you scout, I’m super uncomfortable with the anti-police sentiment here lately. Can’t even bear to read the blog most days, or even much news at all. Is this really the message we want to promote?
I gotta wonder if the police officers involved and the people who think they are being unfairly treated would feel differently if the shoved/injured man was their 70+ year old dad or grampa.
They never see themselves in other people outside their little tribe. Conservatism is all about “I’m special so I get privileged treatment”, or “I’m special so Jeebus would magically never let bad things happen to me.”
In this case it would be “My grandpa wouldn’t be there”, or “My grandpa would tell them his kid’s a cop and they’d leave him alone.”
@ziggy: The message from the police is not something I’m comfortable with.
And it’s been consistent for the last decade or so, if people were paying attention.
148.
Zinsky
Police have a tough job and get paid diddley squat, as well. I would not want the job! Most cops are strong, decent people who want to help their community. That said, there are a very small percentage who are brutal psychopaths who enjoy hurting people. These are the cops we need to identify and remove before they get on the street and yank them off quickly if they do. This is where the good cops come in – they HAVE to rat out the bad cops and have them removed from the system, or the whole system becomes tainted!
149.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@ziggy: as someone who is temperamentally moderate and pragmatic in my approach to politics, I’d say it’s up to the good cops to drive out the bad. The sight of those people, I gather mostly other police, applauding the two Buffalo cops who assaulted a 75 year-old man on their release on bail, I am not optimistic. Those police union guys who are making my flesh crawl with their rhetoric seem to have the enthusiastic support of the rank and file.
This thread looks at the police and union reaction to Springsteen’s “41 Shots”, which is now 20 years old.
Over at LG&M, a commenter (from NYC, I think) said he knew “good cops”. I asked him
Have you asked them how many times they reported their fellow bad cops? How many times they’ve heard of it happening? How many times their superiors have stressed the importance of zero tolerance? I’ll bet dollars to donuts they stop talking to you, if you ask ’em.
(1) The “thin blue line” (that even “good cops” will refuse to bear witness against their criminal colleagues) is pretty much accepted truth at this point. Do you dispute this? Because if you don’t, then I don’t see how you can claim that there is “anti-police” sentiment here. The sentiment is simply “pro-facts”.
(2) do you dispute that what we’re seeing is a “police riot”? That where the police treat protestors with respect, the protests stay peaceful, and where police treat protestors like criminals, violence breaks out? So here again, is it “anti-police” to point out the facts?
Look: lots of people on this blog have lived respectable lives, some of having never gotten arrested, etc. But we can see the writing on the wall, the blood smeared on the pavement. It’s pretty damn obvious.
And let’s remember where this all started: Mike Brown, John Crawford, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, Stephon Clark, Laquan McDonald, Oskar Grant, Breana Tayor (sp?), Trayvon Martin, George Floyd, and on and on and on.
Most cops are strong, decent people who want to help their community. That said, there are a very small percentage who are brutal psychopaths who enjoy hurting people. These are the cops we need to identify and remove before they get on the street and yank them off quickly if they do. This is where the good cops come in – they HAVE to rat out the bad cops and have them removed from the system, or the whole system becomes tainted!
(1) Serpico was shot in the face.
(2) much more recently, wasn’t there a cop in Baltimore who was murdered just days before he was to testify against his colleagues?
(3) Do you dispute the existence of the “thin blue line”? That cops do not rat out their colleagues’ criminality? And if you do not dispute it, what should we call them? [noting well that they are officers sworn to uphold the law]
I call them “accomplices”. So sure, go ahead and call them “good cops”. But until they start -acting- like good cops, they’re just as bad as their criminal brethren.
152.
The Thin Black Duke
@ziggy: Watching the videos, the cops aren’t exactly being their own best advocates right now. It’s hard to see the difference between the good cops and the bad cops, to be honest. Then again, if you think it’s fake news, that’s a problem.
Fifth carefully crafted comment in three days that has been eated. Didn’t like my email. Sigh.
156.
Chetan Murthy
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m reminded that the man who tortured Abner Louima, Justin Volpe, was not well-liked in his precinct. But when the time came (so I have read) somebody in his precinct went and cleaned out his locker, removing anything that might be incriminating including Volpe’s collection of dreadlocks he’d taken from black suspects and others he’d encountered.
The “thin blue line” exists. Until it’s eradicated, every cop is a suspect.
157.
Matt McIrvin
@Kent: For a while there was a popular bumper sticker that was just a solid black flag with a blue stripe through it. The version that was a defaced black-and-white US flag was a later evolution of it.
The only time I’ve seen the firefighter version with a red stripe in place of the blue one was at a St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Lawrence, where they were handing out both versions in honor of “first responders” (I declined to wave one). I think it’s a much more recent variant and much less popular, because there’s no movement to support firefighters murdering black people.
@Chetan Murthy: I know the story of every single one of the people in your list, black people dead before their time. Without having to google. Need to add Philando Castile. And there are so many people dead whose names are not on that list. It’s hard to keep up.
… once again we heard the words, and they heard them, “I can’t breathe” — an act of brutality so elemental, it did more than deny one more black man in America his civil rights and his human rights. It denied him of his very humanity. It denied him of his life, depriving George Floyd as it deprived Eric Garner of one of the things every human being must be able to do: breathe. So simple, so basic, so brutal.
You know, the same thing happened with [Ahmaud] Arbery, the same thing happened with Breonna Taylor, the same thing with George Floyd. We’ve spoken their names aloud. We’ve cried them out in pain and in horror. We’ve chiseled them into long-suffering hearts. They’re the latest additions to the endless list of stolen potential wiped out unnecessarily. You know, it’s a list that dates back more than 400 years. Black men, black women, black children.
The original sin of this country still stains our nation today, and sometimes we manage to overlook it.
Glad that we have VP Biden to say that, because it is beyond the capacity of our their fuckwit president.
Hmmm… A profession whose practitioners in my personal experience suck up to people like me in public then trash talk me behind my back while trash talking POC to their faces when they aren’t beating and killing them? #NotAllCops #AFewBadApples #ThereAreAlwaysExceptionButJesusJustLookAtTheFuckingNews
As long as the police in multiple cities are inciting riots, assaulting peaceful protestors and reporters and photographers, and lying about their actions, damned straight this is the message we must promote.
If the cops want respect and admiration, let them earn it.
162.
Feathers
@Cameron: The problem with restorative justice is that it requires participation and emotional involvement from victims. Fine if people want to be involved with something like this, but activists pushing for it to go mainstream can come across as really creepy.
It reminds me too much of the stories I’ve heard where rape victims are shamed into publicly forgiving their rapists so they don’t face eternal damnation.
163.
Dave
@Chetan Murthy: It probably can be, at least at times, an enormously stressful job. Made worse by the fear based narrative, the war on xxxxx, that seems to be entirely to ubquitous in police culture.
I’m not as sympathetic as I could be primarily because cops do it to themselves and seem to want to be afraid so they can feel special and use it as an excuse to behave poorly but that takes a job that can be stressful and super charges that portion of it.
I’ve lived that life but we werein at least small fire fights nearly every day so it at least was rational. Too many police institutions bare steadfastly opposed to reforms that would actually in the end make the lives of most officers better because they’d have to change or would lose power ultimately they would have to give up their narrative of being special. And that refusal is ultimately pathetic.
Yes, this is the worst part. If there were this many white people who were killed unjustly by po-po, we’d know about it. We. Would. Know. It would be a national outrage. The only case I can remember (Justine Diamond) the (black) cop got 12yr in prison:
Officers Noor and Harrity, after driving through an alley with the lights on their police Ford Explorer off, heard no signs of criminal activity.[27] As the two partners prepared to leave, Noor “entered ‘Code Four’ into the cruiser’s computer, meaning the scene was safe.”[27] Harrity would indicate “that he was startled by a loud sound near the squad,” and immediately, then, Damond approached the police car’s driver-side window.[29] Harrity drew his weapon, but, pointed it downward, did not fire.[30] Noor, however, fired once through the open window, fatally striking Damond in the chest.[27][29] Damond was unarmed and barefoot.[27] The officers attempted CPR to no avail; Damond died 20 minutes later.[31]
I’m not going to defend Officer Noor: what he did was wrong. But the idea that somehow he gets 12yr in prison, when the cop who murdered Philando Castile got -nuthin-, when the murderer of Tamir Rice got -nuthin-, that’s incompatible with a just system.
166.
Barbara
@Feathers: Restorative justice is often highly selective.
167.
evodevo
@gwangung: YES. I am currently arguing with a RWNJ Facebook acquaintance over that very thing…he is quite incensed lol – I also said conservatives don’t have a sense of humor, other than cruel remakrs, sex jokes or Hee Haw. He didn’t take that very well either…
168.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
The Hoarse Whisperer has gone to Washington, with picture:
The Hoarse Whisperer @HoarseWisperer 2 I’ve been here since 11:00 or so. The crowd is at least 20x larger than when I got here and at least double what it was an hour ago and still growing. I had to go a 1/2 mile back from the White House to get the full crowd. It is a glorious outpouring.
Has anyone seen crowd estimates for the DC march? Washington Post just says “thousands”.
169.
Elizabelle
@Chetan Murthy: He did not say “dangerous.” He said “tough.”
The tragedies that police see, day in and day out. First at a fatal car crash. Scraping people off the pavement. Domestic violence. Dead children. People at their very worst, sometimes on the worst day of their lives, on the last day of their lives; people who are genuinely dangerous.
I am not with the “All Cops Are Bad” — the ACAB — school. That’s simplistic.
But way too many are complicit, and too many find themselves confronting a terrible system. Kay has had a lot to say about institutional rot within organizations. How the bad recruit and promote bad; how they discourage those who are not actively bad from reporting, or from staying. How people looking in are surprised at how bad the office/department has become, but that did not happen accidentally.
We are going to have to insist that the police change themselves from within, and provide serious outside help and oversight as they do.
Maybe we need fewer actual sworn police officers– spread their duties around to social workers, administrators, investigators, etc. — and pay the police much better, and invest in more training. Recruit them more carefully, and maybe from some unusual sources, and separate them from the police force way sooner if they prove not suited to the job. It’s a very hard one.
Focus on de-escalation and community policing.
And policing might suffer from the same problem as education: the promotion path can take the good ones OUT of the classroom. Administration and classroom/field operations are different skill sets.
Last, in view of all the terrible stuff they do see, maybe they should be able to retire with a pension even sooner.
And — as rikyrah said — endanger those pensions if the department is having to pay out major $$$ for their own bad actions.
170.
Elizabelle
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Trump within the confines of his Chicken Coop today?? He tweeting squawking much?
171.
Cameron
@Feathers: I’m certainly not in favor of re-victimizing people; that doesn’t restore anything, it just makes it worse. I think restorative justice can be one tool (not the only one) in rebuilding law enforcement culture into one that fits in with a healthy society. The worst actors are probably unreachable, so punishment of some kind is necessary.
Yes. (Speaking as a civilian in the U.S. Army who’s worked with active military officers.) I’m not defending bad police officers, who should be identified and punished. But death rate per job category doesn’t give the complete picture of danger—one might argue by analogy that smoking is a more dangerous habit than being a soldier or a police officer. Here’s a relevant difference: Some jobs are dangerous because of an unpredictable environment, accidents, or coworkers’ unintentional actions. Other jobs are dangerous because people are trying to harm you.
Yaroslav Trofimov @yarotrof 7h Trump visits the coronavirus swab production line in Maine, without a mask, and the manufacturer says it will now have to throw away the day’s output.
Somebody said earlier in the week he was supposed to go to the New Jersy golf course this weekend. I don’t know if he went. Can’t have helped his mood if he counting on a day of cheating at golf.
174.
Ladyraxterinok
Thanks to everyone who took part in this discussion. It was enlightening and helpful. It also gave me some foundation for hope we may get some actual change.
But honestly there are tens of thousands of schools across the country in every single neighborhood were there are often older women alone in a class with 30 kids and they have no trouble whatsoever keeping order.
there are also tens of thousands of fire houses across the country in every single neighborhood. Those firefighters also deal with exactly the same population as the cops. but somehow they manage to do their jobs without routinely murdering black citizens. Hmmmmm? what is the main difference between the tools that cops use and the ones firefighters use?
If police brutality weren’t racially biased, we’d know: there’d be pictures&video to prove it. Black Americans were right all along, and the police were, WERE lying all along.
Look: I get that that you wanna say #NotAllCops. But ALL cops cover for their brethren. The ones that don’t are so rare that they become subjects of movies and such. Until and unless they change that, their reputation will continue to drop.
I remember speaking with a security guard at work not long after Tamir Rice. She was an ex-cop with 20 years’ experience. She’d only used her gun a couple of times, but she said she always aimed for the guy’s thigh, even when one guy attacked and knocked her down. She said she was sure the switch to lethal force was going to ruin law enforcement.
Haven’t read the thread yet (sorry), but another issue for police is that they’re probably afraid of the communities they police. They know that guns have flooded the populace, and perhaps assume that everyone they find threatening carries one. Or, just plain everyone. How can you tell? Being in a macho profession, though, they are not going to admit that.
So: the NRA has made their job immeasurably harder too, while we’re all under threat. School shootings. Store shootings. Church shootings. Mall shootings. Concert shootings. Theatre shootings. Airports. Parking lots. Parks. Military bases.
I guess the only place we’re safe is in a Congressional office. In a courtroom. In an airport after security screening.
I hope that at some point we can revisit the Second Amendment and the ridiculous right to own arsenals.
Police should know if the people they’re dealing with own arms. Because: registration and insurance, and safe storage, and a huge fine for having a gun without those conditions in place.
Did you enjoy seeing those weaponized bozos in camo at the Michigan legislature? (And the Virginia capitol, before that.) I sure didn’t. That is evidence of a failed state, right there.
I think a lot of us said “Enough with this shit. This is done.”
They know that guns have flooded the populace, and perhaps assume that everyone they find threatening carries one. Being in a macho profession, though, they are not going to admit that.
Two data-points tell me that this isn’t explanatory:
(1) the po-po are invariably polite to the point of nauseating, towards these Moron Labe freaks. We’ve all seen the vids of the po-po alerting the Proud Boys to take cover; we’ve also read about how the Portland po-po protected the right-wingers at the demos and riots up there. It seems clear that the po-po don’t actually fear the guns: the fear the wrong people having the guns.
(2) these are unarmed protestors, and we’ve all seen the vids and pictures of po-po assaulting people with their hands up, children old people, women.
This isn’t about guns. This is about “who controls these streets? WE control these streets”. These are fascists, making sure all of us get the message, that we better not step outta line, or we’ll get the boot, good and hard.
187.
LaenCleardale
If bad cops are such a very small percentage of the force, why can’t the good cops stop them? How much longer do we have to wait for them to fix it? How many more dead innocents? I’ve been hearing this exact same story since Rodney King. If thirty fucking years isn’t enough time for them to fix the system, then either they can’t, or they won’t. So yeah, burn the whole fucking thing down and try something different.
188.
Chetan Murthy
BREAKING: Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown claims that the 75-year-old protestor violently pushed to the ground by two police officers was an “agitator” and a “key and major instigator” of activities such as vandalism and looting— US Protests: News & Updates (@USAProtests) June 6, 2020
So yeah, burn the whole fucking thing down and try something different.
Another thing to note: the center of mass of protestors aren’t calling for “burn it all down”; they’re instead calling for reforms, like Deray McKesson’s 8 Steps. I think they understand that what is achievable -today-, must be what we demand. Get it done -today-. And then work for more. I noticed in those 8 steps, even “end qualified immunity” wasn’t listed. Which surprised me, b/c it seems to me like that’s an enormous part of the problem.
Which (to me) shows just how restrained and measured people like Deray McKesson and some of the other protestors, really are.
190.
Aleta
The US right now. Right wing: demonstrating to get haircuts and their beer and fries brought to them in public, no masks, few in number. Left wing and others: demonstrating against racism and police violence, to show Black Lives Matter, wearing masks, in the tens of thousands and counting.
191.
rita rippetoe
@Scout211:
You are born with a skin color or other racial characteristics–you choose what uniform to wear. Is it unfair to judge someone with gang tattoos and colors? Of course not; they are declaring their beliefs by their garb. If an officer realizes that the police department they serve in has become corrupt they can take off that uniform. If they don’t they are declaring alleigance to their armed gang instead of to the citizens.
192.
Aleta
Imagine the numbers if the threat of covid was not deterring people.
193.
Elizabelle
@Chetan Murthy: And Mayor Byron Brown is African American and a Democrat. Serious about reducing number of illegal guns. Seems to have been Mayor since 2005; don’t know if that’s been continuous; seems to be. Wiki.
Maybe you are at the wrong blog, ziggy, ’cause we’re talking about the news in front of our eyes!
If you have a problem with that I have a problem with you!
199.
Chetan Murthy
@WaterGirl: A-yup. Outside agitator. Mountebank. Known stirrer-up-of-things-that-should-be-left-unstirred, one supposes. OK, can’t manage sarcasm. It’s horrible, isn’t it? He’s trashing the poor man’s reputation and for what? For a bunch of thugs? He’s daring us to disbelieve our lyin’ eyes.
200.
J R in WV
Deleted accidental duplicate…
201.
Feathers
@Chetan Murthy: He’s with Christian Workers, the radical Catholic group founded by Dorothy Day, so he’s undoubtedly an agitator. That he was returning a dropped helmet to the police tends towards my disbelieving the looting. If vandalizing is graffiti, maybe.
Methinks the Mayor has the same problem De Blasio and Cuomo do. Making decisions based on briefings from law enforcement and what they see on the news.
Yeah, nah. Prejudice against a uniform is not like the others. One chooses to put that uniform on, and one can choose to take that uniform off. Especially when the negative activity associated with the uniform is condoned at the highest levels of the organisation.
203.
The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@Kent: Exactly. I’ve been a special ed teacher for kids with behavior disorders for decades. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had cops tell me “I couldn’t do what you do!” I always wanted to respond with “If I treated them the way you do, I couldn’t, either!”
@Kent: This is a fantastic way of putting it. The example of the Catholic Church is perfect. It doesn’t matter if individual police are ok if the institution is corrupt and fascist.
207.
Chetan Murthy
@sdhays: Not being Catholic (or religious) I have no idea how Catholic families deal with this today. If you have children, how do you deal with the -possibility- that your parish priest is a pedophile? I mean, sure, probably they’re not. But you can’t take that risk, can you? How do Catholic parents (I mean, devout Catholic parents who aren’t in denial about the entire history) deal with it? What steps do they take? What steps do congregations take, to ensure that not merely is there nothing untoward going on, but it is made clear to parents that nothing untoward *could* be going on? Asking seriously.
208.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Cheryl Rofer: my god…. “two and a half” inspections
“it was during the daiyyy”— it’s like a tour of the clutter and cobwebs of that bat-infested belfry
209.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Sarah Cooper was the guest on Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me today
I’ve worked decades in a job that rarely kills but can easily harm you if you don’t pay attention and respect what is going on around you and the equipment you are using. And even doing all that, one can be injured quite easily. It’s not like commercial fishing or logging, but that one word is actually critical in all dangerous jobs, respect. Respect the process, respect the tools, respect the others around you, give them something to respect in you. Cops, for the most part only seem to respect their ideals, not the supposed ideals of the profession, and it’s to the detriment of the job and their safety. They seem to do this because they can, because they very, very rarely get into trouble for it. They seem to think it makes them stronger but it really doesn’t, it makes them irresponsible. Other countries seem to not have the issues but those countries don’t have as much a level of haves and have nots, have laws that respect the people and ways to get rid of bad apples. We have a system of rotating bad cops, often we hear of bad cops that have been on several forces, never actually charged with a crime they committed because that might wreak their lives. But like politicians they work for us, we do not work for them. And there is a reason that a bedrock of our country is that the military can not police the public, because the military is more often than not about stopping a country at whatever cost, not about effectively keeping people from harm.
Our police forces do not have to act the way a lot of them do on a regular basis. Looking at the videos of the way police have acted over the last couple of weeks shows that cops are, for the most part out of control and have been for my entire life. I used to have a friend who was a deputy and I rode with him one night. He stopped and talked to a man not breaking any laws, a hippy at the time when that was against the cop code. He did an illegal search, found a roach so small it couldn’t be lit and arrested the guy. I was astounded and later asked him about it. His answer was “I got his dope, he’s in my jail and that’s all that matters.” I asked what was going to happen to the guy, he said, “The DA won’t charge him but he gets to spend 3 days in my jail.” He played judge, jury and jailer all at the same time. I’ve not talked to him since and that was almost 50 yrs ago. My expectations from cops hasn’t changed in that time.
You are right, firefighter tools are not designed to be used on humans to kill/stop them, as weapons.
But I’d guess you’ve never held a large fire hose with full pressure coming out. I’ve done that in the navy. You point that at someone and it is going to do damage. A lot of damage. Might not kill someone nearly as easily as a gun or a taser or even one of those rubber pellet guns, like was used to put out a woman’s eye 2 or 3 days ago. But you can hurt someone. Drown them even. But that’s not a firefighter’s job, and they are trained not to do that.
212.
RSA
@Ruckus: Thanks for sharing your experience and your views. I can’t disagree with anything you’ve written.
I’d go if it wasn’t for COVID. In a heartbeat. I’m 4-5 yrs younger than that man in Buffalo. I’m in decent shape for someone my age. That said, with COVID I’m not going to be in a crowd or around people any more than I have to, it’s just too dangerous. I worry about it more than the cops. Not sure that’s totally realistic but I see it as a lot higher risk to the virus than to cop disease.
214.
Aleta
@Ruckus: You’re absolutely doing the right thing. For health care workers and hospital functions as well as your health and voting.
Some 150-200 people at a BLM rally in Vidor, an East Texas town that’s infamously associated with racism and the Klan
Handful of nutballs counter-protesting and pickup trucks keep circling the parking lot with confederate flags, but they’re vastly outnumbered
216.
trnc
@Chetan Murthy: Do you think cops would be in the top ten if the criteria were death as a result of your primary task? According to the list you linked, most of the deaths are not from what you would think just looking at the job title, but rather from all the driving required. The roofers, construction workers and steel workers are the only ones on the list whose actual job is killing them and for whom transportation isn’t their primary task.
I would think that using just deaths from the actual job title, cops and firefighters would be on it.
217.
jayjaybear
@Chetan Murthy: Most large-city mayors are hostages to their police forces and/or police unions. There are certainly exceptions, but it appears that NYC and Buffalo are not among them (DeBlasio has had a really stupid relationship with the NYPD since early in his term, when the force literally turned its back on him).
218.
ziggy
@J R in WV: Wow, thanks for being so welcoming and open-minded!
Do you think cops would be in the top ten if the criteria were death as a result of your primary task?
Well, the thing is, driving -is- a primary part of the job function of many of these jobs. I mean, if all it took to be a trashman was to heave barrels, it wouldn’t be called “garbage truck driver”. And trucking is on the list, too.
Law enforcement is a very hazardous profession, but not entirely for the reasons most people believe. [….] When the Bureau of Labor Statistics rates professions in terms of fatalities in the workplace, law enforcement usually comes in somewhere in the high 20s/low 30s. The number one most hazardous job usually rotates between lumberjack, commercial fisherman, and construction trades. Taxi drivers and convenience store clerks usually make it into the top ten.
The larger hazards lie with non-fatal on-the-job injuries and psychological issues. […] Perhaps an even bigger issue is the prevalence of stress-related and traumatic disorder. Roughly three times as many law enforcement officers take their own lives as are killed in the line of duty …
Now, one way to look at this is “gee, the stress must be awful”. Another is “gee, maybe don’t be such colossal dicks, and the public might cooperate with you more”. Either way, the -job- itself is even -less- dangerous when compared with other jobs.
220.
Chetan Murthy
@ziggy: Homes, maybe you’re confusing “open-minded” with “empty-headed”. Also, “sealioning” is a thing, go look it up [another form of “pretend to be open-minded”.] The sentiment here hasn’t been “anti-police”. It’s been “anti-police-brutality” and “anti-police-criminality”. Show me police who aren’t criminals and don’t protect their criminal colleagues, and I’m sure they’ll get a standing ovation.
Photos: Utah Marine stands alone at Utah Capitol with ‘I can’t breathe’ covering his mouth
In a one-man demonstration, a Utah Marine stood outside the Utah State Capitol for more than three hours on Friday to show support for the Black Lives Matter movement.
According to photographer Robin Pendergrast, who captured the event, this Utah Marine was decorated with two Marine Purple Hearts. Only identified as Todd, the Marine was captured with a thick piece of black tape covering his mouth that read “I can’t breathe.”
If our po-po had one percent of the decency of this man, we’d be a different country.
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JohnMCinNc
@Scout211: Just want to respectfully point out that gender and skin color are not choices.
223.
CODave (pka NJDave)
@Martin: Camden, NJ fired their entire police force and rebuilt. Check it out!
224.
Salvatore Napoli
Mark Zuckonit and his millennial scumbag thought police removed the top cartoon from my timeline (violated “community policy”)
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Unabogie
Haven’t posted here in a while, but we’re in a bad place. Everyone please vote. Everyone please band together and remove the GOP from power. Convince your friends that living in a “blue state” doesn’t mean you don’t have to vote, it means you have free time to work on battleground races.
stibbert
whoa, those graphics are pow.
Kelly
Is this protester a retired NCO?
https://twitter.com/CongBaseballFan/status/1268484778405158913
debbie
That second graphic nails it.
trollhattan
@Kelly:
That was really something to see.
Everybody’s tired. Tired people make mistakes. Add that on top of those with malice in their hearts and you have a very dangerous situation.
aliasofwestgate
@Kelly: Dude has to be. *grins* Hilarious seeing the whole unit go WTF? oh….um…
Brachiator
Double damn. Some amazing editorial cartoons.
I’ve been reading recently that police unions are moving away from Biden because he is advocating justice for victims of police brutality.
With us or against us. Police unions believe that police officers must have absolute discretion over how they do their jobs on the street, and that the occasional murder of a suspect is just the cost of doing business.
Just a few bad apples? A recent episode of the “Politics! Politics! Politics?” podcast hosted by Justin Robert Young points out that Qualified Immunity gives cops a license to kill. And in a number of states, records and other information about police misconduct are sealed or otherwise not available to the public. So the public has no idea how their police are doing, and no way to find out.
PsiFighter37
So far, two peaceful protests on 6th Avenue…one that stretched about 15 blocks long head south, and another one (about a block long) that was part-BLM protest, part New Orleans street parade (folks playing brass instruments and drums). Anticipate it won’t be the last, but everything looks peaceful to me. The NYPD is behaving here (so far).
Scout211
It’s your blog, Cole, and I do understand what you may be trying to convey. But prejudging people because of the color of their skin, their gender, or the uniform that they wear, is well, prejudiced.
Please be careful posting these inflammatory images. Maybe post some sort of comment or trigger warning of some sort? Right now it feels needlessly inflammatory. But that’s just me, maybe. Feel free to ignore.
Miss Bianca
Hope it’s ok to repost this from an earlier thread, but just had to share, and this seemed like an appropriate spot:
To give you some perspective, there are only 4,000-5,000 people in my *entire county*. And the sheriff is a 2nd A absolutist. No elected officials that I could see, but I think this is a warning shot across the bows to the forces of political reaction which till recently have been running rampant: A tide is turning, assholes. A change is coming. WE SEE YOU, and judging from the relative turnouts of the protest and the counterprotest,* more importantly, WE OUTNUMBER YOU.
*(because naturally, the right-wing newsletter had a group of MAGAts outside, all unmasked, of course)
MARGA!!**
(Make America Really Great Again)
aliasofwestgate
Also, these graphics are lit. Hit exactly the way they’re supposed to. The second illustrating Rage Against The Machine’s lyrics impeccably. “Some of those who work Forces. Are the same who burn crosses.” It hasn’t changed since they wrote and performed that song, and it’s grown worse.
Emma from FL
@Kelly: If he isn’t he’s been studying them hard. He had the rhythm and the words down pat.
lamh36
WHOA the protest in PHILLY!
https://twitter.com/Mikel_Jollett/status/1269340938763034625
bluehill
Looking at the protests around the world and it amazes me how much goodwill the US still has despite Trump’s FUs.
raven
@Emma from FL: Yea,”close up the gap motherfuckers” takes practice.
Emma from FL
Is it me or are there suddenly a lot of posters in twitter “concerned” about the rise of coronavirus cases among the protestors?
raven
You can watch the Athens demo here live.
Martin
@lamh36: Philly police have been making an excellent case for the need to protest this week. Not to mention the fuckers in Fishtown.
Nora
@Emma from FL: I think they’re all trying to say we were hypocrites to complain about the lack of social distancing (and the danger of the spread of the virus) when they had their temper tantrums a couple of weeks ago, and now to be marching in such great numbers against injustice. Showing, once again, that they really don’t get it at all.
TaMara (HFG)
@Miss Bianca: That is amazing. Very encouraging.
Jay C
@Brachiator:
Well, endorse who they will, I think the police unions are – in the election – going to find themselves on the same (wrong) side of the narrative as they are right now: As long as the narrative they are seen to be pushing is “police ought to be able to abuse/beat/gas/kill anyone they want to without consequences“, it’s likely to be a losing proposition.
TaMara (HFG)
@lamh36: OMG!
WaterGirl
That first one would be even better with another cop standing next to the cop whose”skirt” (KKK robe) is blown up – with the second cop looking forward, pretending not to notice the guy next to him is KKK.
Lavocat
Nailed it.
WaterGirl
@raven: The
copsguys in uniform were listening to him and doing what they were told. Crazy times.Kent
I know a few cops who all seem like good folks. And come into contact with some really good ones from time to time professionally. So I tend to think that the majority are pretty good folks and it is a minority of racist assholes who are ruining it.
That said, I think we are in a situation like with the Catholic church and pedophilia. If there are a few bad priests but the rest of the institution goes out of its way to coddle and protect them rather than rooting them out then is is just ‘a few bad priests’ or is the entire institution corrupt beyond repair?
Similarly with policing. If it is just a few bad cops but the rest of the institution through its unions and command structure protects and insulates them from accountability instead of rooting them out. Then is the entire institution corrupt beyond repair?
We aren’t prejudging all cops INDIVIDUALLY based on the actions of a few. But we can judge the institution as a whole based on how it responds on behalf of all cops.
Another Scott
@Kelly: :-)
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Feathers
School shooting drills have radicalized America’s youth. Looking at how much of this is driven by teens and young people and everyone’s amazement at how these protests are happening in the lily whitest suburbs and rural towns, I’m surprised more people haven’t seen the link to the lockdown drills all these kids have had to endure. No, they haven’t been hurt. Yes, black people and kids have it far, far worse in every way. But they’ve had a taste of it. They’ve been terrified by cops who don’t have any real reason to be actually inflicting this yelling and gunfire upon them. Coming out of the schools with their hands up, surrounded by armed men.
Their mothers hate it too. And their fathers. But the kids aren’t stupid. They know the cops are doing these for their own kicks. This just came to me, so I haven’t talked about it with friends. But I’m sure if you make the argument that it will mean no more lock down drills, you’d have lots of parents voting to defund and abolish the police.
ETA: tldr; I think the lock down drill experience has made kids and their mothers relate to police brutality against Black people in ways that the rural and suburban white cops running them could not have imagined.
Martin
@Brachiator: Police unions have never been with Dems. Fire department unions largely pro GOP as well.
I’m objectively pro-labor, but there are some really shit unions out there. Good ideas don’t ensure good implementation.
I’d like to see the DOJ civil rights division and congress work on ways to protect law enforcement workers while outlawing the ‘let’s wipe every misconduct claim off the books every 3 years’ components of these contracts.
Baud
@bluehill:
Yeah. I’m hoping this all makes restoring our respectability on the world stage a tad easier.
Jay C
@Nora:
There’s been a march of some sort in my Manhattan neighborhood almost every evening (Park Ave. So) – anywhere from 2-300 people to 2000 or so – and EVERYONE (except for some of the escorting police) were wearing masks. And keeping as much space as possible in a street march.
Maybe it’s just us….
Baud
@raven:
How’s Athens? I assume it’s still standing.
prostratedragon
@Miss Bianca:
Or maybe MARGAL: Make America Really Great At Last?
Good to see your town’s turnout.
John Cole
@Scout211: The good cops won’t mind.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Kent: As white people, we don’t get to see that side of cops very often, if at all. So I have no idea if an individual cop is “good” or “bad”. Doesn’t really matter – the system needs fundamental reform. Change the incentives and stop protecting the abusers. Then see who sticks around.
Feathers
@Martin: I posted this at the end of the dying Buffalo 2020 thread, but it fits here as well, so I’m reposting. The discussion was about using RICO against the police unions. If we’re looking to salt the earth, it’s a good start.
otmar
FWIW, there was a really big protest march in Vienna on Thursday in the city center, and another, smaller one, yesterday in front of the us embassy.
Martin
@Kent: The adage is ‘a few bad apples spoils the barrel’. The last part never seems to get mentioned. If the union or the city protect the bad cops, then they all become bad cops in the eyes of the public.
Nora
@Jay C: That’s been my experience, too, but I don’t think the right wingers are paying attention to that.
Benw
On the second image: I despise the “blue lives matter” flag and love the takedown.
I went to a local protest in my burb yesterday that was organized by and heavily attended by high school girls. Lots of honking and cheering from passing cars: very heartening. The few asshats who tried to yell at us got absolutely ratioed by trash talk from the young women. It was hysterical. The kids are alright.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Baud:
@bluehill:
This gives me hope as well
germy
Kent
I’m a HS teacher and I’ve taught for years in a diverse urban school district with lots of black and Hispanic students. So I think I have seen how individual cops interact for better or worse with students of mine. Some to their credit REALLY go out of their way to keep black kids out of the system. The problem is that they aren’t any more representative of the “institution” as the bad cops are. What represents the “institution” are the actual institutions like the unions that are elected to represent it.
I think we are in agreement though. It isn’t a question about whether an individual cop is bad or good. We can’t easily judge that. But we can judge the institution itself by its actions.
otmar
@Kent: this is actually a really good point:
the bishops knew about sexual abuse, but only reassigned the culprits. Now they have the lawsuits holding them, and not just the organizations, responsible.
a lot of the bad cops have a long list of complaints filed against them. And yet, they haven’t been taken off the street. so: at what point will the police chiefs be personally responsible for the murders and the abuse?
Edmund Dantes
@Kent: winner winner chicken dinner
germy
the good apples applauding the rotten ones?
hotshoe
I’ll be damned. I’m sitting in the shade outside City Hall in my small ranch-redneck town (central valley CA), and all of a sudden a block away: protest march! All appear to be white or pale-brownish (not surprising that it’s not a diverse crowd, there is a big percentage of Latinx local/immigrant ag labor, but they won’t be here today). There is someone leading the chant “I can’t breathe” alternately with “No Justice, No Peace” and everyone is walking peacefully while chanting. NO police presence visible. Well, that’s one way to keep things peaceful.
Still going on while I type this. Must have been at least a thousand people passing by the corner so far. That’s a huge percentage of the total population.
The decent people are going to win this one. Really, we are. If you can get a percentage of the cowboys in my town out on the street for justice, you’re surely winning the whole nation.
Chetan Murthy
@Scout211:
Oh, bullshit. There are many, many bad cops out there. But what’s worse, their “brothers” cover for them. So lemme ask you: you’re a member of a gang, and you see one of your members commit a crime: say, murder a member of a competing gang. [ETA: You say nothing, indeed you clean up and hide any evidence, threaten witnesses, etc.] Are you: (1) a stalwart brother and innocent bystander, or (2) accomplice ? Let’s add in that you are sworn to uphold the law when you see this murder go down. Again, (1) innocent bystander, or (2) accomplice?
But we can go futher: for decades black Americans (right up to our President, Barack Obama) have pointed out that black people are not afforded a presumption of innocence. Right down to “he fits the description”. They have complained that they must go to extraordinary measures to assure white people that they’re harmless.
So …. I see a cop, wearing the uniform. He “fits the description” of a thug who will beat the living shit out of me because I’m a brown man. So …. how is this different from what white people do every day to black people? And why SHOUDN’T we demand that cops go above and beyond to prove that they’re harmless to our lives and bodies?
And we haven’t even GOTTEN to abominations like “qualified immunity”.
Dude, you need to siddown and shaddup.
Scout211
@Kent:
Thank you. Your words make so much sense and I really appreciate your response.
Miss Bianca
@hotshoe: Word.
Scout211
@Chetan Murthy:
Point taken.
Chetan Murthy
@germy:
FTFY.
Narrator: those were different times, when Germans were bad guys, instead of the people who might be able to teach us how to atone for world-historical sins.
Brent
@Scout211:
I don’t think I understand your comment. That is, I am not sure how any person is being “prejudged” at all. Indeed, neither, as far as I can tell, is about any individuals at all.
Like pretty much every political cartoon what is being judged, not prejudged, are the failings of a particular institution. And the judgement that American policing is rife with fascist and racist tendencies beneath its surface would seem to be on pretty solid ground.
But setting that argument aside for the moment, my point is that anyone, of course, can feel free to agree or disagree with that judgement as they see fit. But to address that judgement as if its some sort of personal attack seems, at best, a pretty significant category error.
Martin
@Feathers: The police situation has a different public policy problem – if you root out all of the actual wrongdoing, do you have a plan to solve it?
There have been suggestions from lawmakers that some police departments may need to be completely rebuilt. And I agree with that. But at the same time, I have NO idea how to actually pull that off. Lots of public policy problems run up against this – the solution requires a larger scope than you can pull off. I’m deep in the middle of that with Covid reopening plans. I can see a solution, but I simply don’t have access to the tools I need to implement it.
Mohagan
@Kelly: Fabulous video!
Scout211
@Brent:
Got it.
Aleta
I just watched this video, of ABC 7 Chicago news coverage, of the family who parked at a mall to shop when their car is attacked by a gang of Chicago PD officers, who smash their windows and pull two women from the car (one by the hair) and violently throw them to the ground. One officer then kneels on one woman’s neck. The news says the filming witness told them the police arrived looking for looters who’d left, and the police attacked the women’s car because it was red. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmjGbcoNynQ
I’ve been watching the many videos of police brutality (it’s destroying me) but hadn’t seen this one until I saw the Chicago FOP President denouncing the mayor for speaking out about this police violence. Two officers have been “relieved of police duties,” which has him all upset.
My god, the absolute least they can do is take violent officers off the street to calm down instead of risking that they’ll injure more people.
Kent
Yes. And it doesn’t have to be that way. I’m a teacher and you don’t see teachers lining up to protect pedophile teachers. There isn’t any closing of ranks around horrible teachers when, on rare occasions one pops up. And teacher’s don’t waste their union negotiating efforts trying to insulate teachers from accountability. They focus on wages, benefits, and working conditions that benefit students such as class size.
But then teachers don’t look at their jobs as “us vs them” like cops do. It’s just “us” both teachers and students. The only “them” involved in teaching is sometimes school district administration.
hueyplong
@Aleta: Let’s say the cops really did believe the family was “looters.”
So why not just tell them to step out of the car, search it if they have probable cause, and then let them leave if they’ve got receipts?
Instead they assault them.
My only problem with the second of Cole’s cartoons is that it’s too fucking subtle.
Iamhbomb
This image brought to mind the great song by the Dicks, “Anti Klan (part 1)”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JcAgxodW9Y
Check it out. The whole record is still 100% relevant.
Chetan Murthy
@Kent:
During the Nazi regime, they went out of their way to recruit and promote solid fatherly types, the sort who help little old ladies cross the street. These traits were not at odds with being murderous kllers of “undesirables”. Indeed, those solid types made better leaders, because less mercurial.
The police riots show us that the Fascists have their Sturmabteilung in every one of our population centers. Those cartoons John posted are spot-on accurate.
HumboldtBlue
This guy is a foreseer
hueyplong
@Kent: “The only ‘them’ involved in teaching is sometimes school district administration.”
And I’m guessing you don’t club the administrators to the pavement.
TaMara (HFG)
An artist, with permission and volunteers, painted BLM on the grass leading up to the capitol in Sacramento
debbie
@Scout211:
It’s their behavior that is inflammatory. These images should be everywhere.
Martin
@Kent: An observation could be made of the gender that typically makes up the ranks of the two professions and how that both might cause a different set of behaviors within the profession as well as a different type of treatment from policy makers and the public.
Aleta
@hueyplong: Maybe even ask a question first. But no, too busy swarming the car to break its windows. If we don’t stop this they’ll be blowing cars up remotely with police department drones, the better to avoid all responsibility.
Just Chuck
People trotting out that “few bad apples” argument need to remember how the rest of the saying goes. The whole bunch has indeed spoiled.
(and Martin beat me to it)
chopper
@Iamhbomb:
i’ve been diving back into a lot of MDC recently and it’s still as brutally relevant as it was in the early 80’s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYvdwlcFJdk
Martin
@TaMara (HFG): Interesting how one message is invited by the institution in the photo, and in another case, the message is directed at the institution in the photo.
Nice, too, to see Sacramento adopting its own water policies.
rikyrah
I believe that FINANCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY is the beginning of dealing with the Police Unions.
The Police Unions are like big corporations. They place the responsibility of what they do on the taxpayer.
I don’t want individual policeman to be accountable.
You want police misconduct financial settlements.
No more of the taxpayers funding them. Take the money out of the POLICE PENSION FUND.
They want to have a blue wall of silence.
Then, they can ALL take the hit when one of their ‘ bad apples’ gets a huge settlement payout.
I am from a city that has paid out a HALF BILLION DOLLARS in police misconduct settlements.
A HALF BILLION DOLLARS?
Do you know what we could have done for the city with a HALF BILLION DOLLARS?
And, I’m not talking over 20-30 years.
I’m talking about over a period of FIVE years.
Take the money out of their pension fund – with no replenishment. And, shyt will get very real for them.
Aleta
@Just Chuck: well said
Martin
@chopper: John Wayne really was a Nazi.
Aleta
@rikyrah: I agree, and financial accountability is not enough, because it will never cover the lifelong effects on children and witnesses. Every incident can destroy lives by harming people’s nervous system and reflex reactions for years.
Ken
Somewhere, Manuel Noriega smiles.
Avalune
In our tiny borough, a senator did a nice little peaceful march today. I had no idea it was going to happen until I was driving past it or I’d have joined. :( I did give them a healthy lot of honking as the police were redirecting me from Main Street.
If it wasn’t my life’s work to avoid city center I’d go march with them ?
Martin
@Aleta: When all you have is riot gear, everyone looks like a looter.
Just Chuck
@Martin: You don’t “solve” wrongdoing without fixing human nature. You punish it, the same as anyone else. We’re asking that cops be applied the same standard of justice we all get.
Actually, we’re not even asking that, since no one is asking for cops to be summarily executed, unlike their SOP.
germy
Kent
Perhaps. Although I don’t think male teachers are necessarily any more “disciplinarian than female teachers. In fact, over my years of teaching, most of the hardest core “battle axe” disciplinarian teachers I have known have been women.
But there is a very professional difference between how teachers and how cops treat the same population. And it is the same population. Teachers have the very same kids in their classrooms that cops deal with on the street. Sometimes they are a couple years older when cops deal with them. But often it is the same exact kids.
And of course, teaching isn’t perfect. We see videos of out of control teachers too. But honestly there are tens of thousands of schools across the country in every single neighborhood were there are often older women alone in a class with 30 kids and they have no trouble whatsoever keeping order. And if they can’t do that they are in the wrong job. But one of those same kids on the street and the cops think it takes 10 of them with clubs to violently take down two girls as is shown in the Chicago video above.
Aleta
@Martin: Some of them are so revved up by individual combinations of racism, fear, group pressure, training, military PTSD, sadism, and detachment, and perhaps steroids or other medications, that even their visual field is narrowed, not to mention the impairment of their range of judgement and options.
WaterGirl
@germy:
One fucking weekend. But sure, A&E, promote the cops every other day of the year. I’m totally sold on how woke you are.
Martin
@Just Chuck: This is the same sort of deterrence theory as capital punishment. It doesn’t work. Of course you punish, but punishment is small consolation when your dad was just murdered by a cop. The goal needs to be to change the culture of these institutions so that this behavior doesn’t manifest. As Kent notes above, not all professions do this, even professions doing dangerous jobs or interacting with unstable individuals.
You can build respectful and responsible cultures. We have simply failed to create the conditions for that to happen inside the police. And yes, accountability is part of it, but just a part.
germy
@Chetan Murthy:
germy
@WaterGirl:
Is “wokewashing” a term? I use it to mean when corporations make little empty gestures to show their support for social justice.
Just Chuck
@Martin: I didn’t say punishment was the only thing, but when there isn’t any at all, it’s hard to call it justice.
If we had a cure for wrongdoing, we’d be living in a utopian paradise.
a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio
@WaterGirl: That was not a police unit. It was National Guard; one of the things he told them was to do what their Staff Sergeant was telling them to do. (The Staff Sergeant was the poor bastard in the middle of the group jerking guys into proper position.)
germy
trollhattan
Looks like they’ll be removing our curfew, later today at a city council meeting.
Chris Johnson
@rikyrah: I like the way you’re thinking, rikyrah
debbie
@rikyrah:
I’d love to know the salaries and benefits the FOP award themselves.
Ruckus
@Kent:
Any situation where a large group is treated badly by a few with power is going to be a powder keg. As long as that keg is small enough, only the people involved will suffer. As soon as the vast majority gets treated wrongly the dynamic changes. This can be seen in the military. If a mid level person is shit, it will affect usually only a small segment and that segment will be controlled, even if the control is done badly. A ships captain/base commander makes or breaks the atmosphere, the really bad apples can break the entire command. The police can do the same because they also set the tone of life in and around the city/town.
Chetan Murthy
@Just Chuck:
It -is- hard to call it justice. And for myself, if someone I knew were hurt by a cop, I’d want retribution. But I remember when Mike Dukakis got asked a related question, and he was able to distinguish between his response as a husband, and as an official. [Sadly, too few viewers understood him.] Our “justice” system ought to be about reducing crime, criminals, and their harm. Not exacting vengeance. And if the way to do that is thru things like financial penalties, then huzzah, bring on the green eyeshades!
It’s hard to remember, and certainly I’d have trouble, if something awful happened to me or one of mine, that consistent, thorough gentleness can sometimes be more effective than a mailed fist.
Martin
@Kent:
Of course, you chose that profession for a reason. You had your own personal notion of what role you wanted to play, and you chose teacher. That’s why CBP is such a problem – you generally don’t choose that occupation unless you have a certain notion of what the job allows you to do. It’s a feedback loop – if we cast the police as the ones who bust heads (as the GOP often does – tough on crime) and you are an individual who wants to bust heads, well, we have a match. You as a male teacher align with ‘what’s a good occupation for me as a compassionate male’. And my experience in K-12 matches yours – the male teachers were all chill as hell. The small number of problem teachers were always female. It was their authoritarian space. Male authoritarians joined the military or law enforcement. My grandmother noted that a certain number of her fellow female nurses had the same authoritarian tendencies, but the male nurses were all chill.
This comes from my academic work on understanding why gender disparities develop within academic disciplines. Even in highly gendered disciplines like engineering, there are a few sub-disciplines that are female dominated, and yet women are wildly underrepresented in others. It’s a complicated mix of how the public perceives the function of the discipline, as well as whether the discipline presents as a place where they fit in. Teaching, nursing, policing, are all case studies for how gender and professions interact.
WaterGirl
@germy: Not yet, but there ought to be a term for it besides “utter bullshit” and “do they think we’re stupid?” and “do they think we’re not paying attention?”
Mike in NC
Those black and white flags with either a red stripe for firefighters or a blue one for police are a fairly recent development, I believe, and they annoy the crap out of me. I guess the message is “Us vs. Them”.
Ruckus
@a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio:
He was talking/yelling like a drill instructor. Depending on how long ago they’d been to boot camp that could trigger exactly the reaction he was looking for. They listened because he said exactly what and how he’d either heard it or spoken it before. Man knew his way around a group of military people.
zhena gogolia
@Emma from FL:
I don’t know, but I’m certainly concerned. And I mean that sincerely.
Just Chuck
@WaterGirl:
“Don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining.”
“Don’t blow smoke up my ass.”
But my favorite is: “Talk is cheap.”
WaterGirl
@a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio: I corrected my comment to reflect the guys in uniform instead of cops.
jl
Dang kids these days, and vast majority of ordinary people, fiddling with their cell phones and taking pix and vids doing a lot of good. Too many people can see with their lying eyes what has been going on for years.
frosty
@Scout211: @Kent: Thank you both for this perspective. One of my sons has just started his career as a big city cop, in a city which had riots the first night or two. He’s a great young man and I worry that the Thin Blue Line will turn him. I worry about that more than about his physical safety.
WaterGirl
@Just Chuck: All of those get my vote.
Betty Cracker
@Miss Bianca: That’s fantastic — thank you for sharing it. There was a BLM march in my tiny, 90% white, gun nut town too. Amazing. It’s almost like America is about to vomit up the poison that has made us sick for so long. God, I hope so.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@germy: As I live in Delaware County, I clicked on the story to get down in the weeds and see exactly what borough this guy was from. I was expecting Ridley, an area south of us. When you cross the main road between our area and Ridley, there’s a marked change in lawn signs from predominantly Dem to fire-breathing GOP at election time. The Ridley cops have a reputation for racist behavior.
Nope, it was Media, the county seat, and what I consider a pretty friendly liberal area. They proudly declare themselves “America’s First Free Trade Town”.
There are decent cops, I know that. The videos and reports of protests are showing us some of the good ones along with the brown shirts. But there is a deep-seated illness in police unions across this country that has to be rooted out.
Served
There is an impressive size BLM protest in Winnetka, Illinois. Which, if you’re unfamiliar with Chicago and the North Shore, is 95% white and one of the wealthiest communities in the state. Things have changed.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@rikyrah: Right on, Rikyrah. Money speaks a language that even these fuckers can understand.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Perhaps you should read up on the history of the policing in the US, like the NYPD started out as the rich’s street gang.
Yutsano
@Kelly: Drill sergeant. I’d bet my life on it.
LaenCleardale
@Ruckus: If he had yelled “tighten up” I probably would have stood up and moved myself.
Ken
Some years ago, I think on this very blog around the first BLM protests, someone noted that there wasn’t some mysterious sudden upsurge of police violence. It was just that now we were actually seeing it, thanks to the phones.
Also addressed by xkcd some time ago, though on different subjects.
John Revolta
WaterGirl
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I’m just gonna raise my hand here and say that Scout211 has several times in this thread acknowledged the points people have made. #49, #51, #53.
I’m sure people are still responding to the original comment, so no ill will is intended, but it’s got to feel like piling on for Scout211.
jayjaybear
@hueyplong: Pity, that…
Feathers
@frosty: You should worry. My brother got his criminal justice degree with a final project on helping the homeless. He is now full MAGA with some variation on blue lives matter as his license plate on his huge black SUV.
bemused
@germy:
I gotta wonder if the police officers involved and the people who think they are being unfairly treated would feel differently if the shoved/injured man was their 70+ year old dad or grampa.
WaterGirl
@Feathers: That is very sad.
gwangung
@bemused: Of course they would.
A conservative mind set will only get it into their heads when it touches them personally; empathy and extracting the abstract thought to generalize it simply isn’t part of their world view.
Dan B
@germy: Dance Party! That’s how many of the protests in Chicago from ’68 to ’70 were. It’s much easier to organize when people enjoy the experience. Non stop anger is impossible to maintain.
spc123
@bluehill:
@Nora: and some legitimate concern – these are big, tight crowds in places. Given the importance of speaking out in these circumstances, most people are masking up and accepting the risk but we have no idea what the impact will be.
frosty
@Feathers: Not a MAGA, not a Fox News watcher so far. He’s got the blue line flag flying in front of the house and a sticker on his black pickup truck, though.
OTOH, since there are only four colors for cars any more, (white, black, silver, and red) the black could be coincidental.
Chetan Murthy
@WaterGirl:
Thank you for pointing this out, WaterGirl. I noticed that Scout211 had acknowleded these things, and that’s excellent. It’s a crazy, crazy time, and we’re all afraid and angry. Scared we’re going to lose our democracy, scared we’re going to lose loved ones in an interaction with unreviewable summary street justice. It’s a lot scarier than any time in my adult life.
Remember after 9/11? Some saner heads tried to point out that 19 guys with boxcutters wasn’t exactly a serious threat to our country. But we went insane. And now, we have police rioting all over the country, busting heads, daring us to stop them.
JMG
Privilege is hard to give up. Police officers, good, bad and the ones just muddling though (the majority) have foolishly been given the privilege of almost total unaccountability by our society. They can screw up completely and get away it, up to and including actual crimes. The prospect of losing this huge privilege of course terrifies the bad cops, seems a threat to the muddlers, and even causes the good ones to resent it because “hey, I’ve never done anything wrong.” But no democracy can exist if any segment of government gets no consequences for its actions, let alone an armed segment.
Kent
I think they came out of Ferguson when people first started putting a line of blue tape on the back side of their cars and then it evolved into a blue stripe on the flag.
I could be wrong about that, but it’s my recollection.
LuciaMia
Much truth there.
Brachiator
@Martin:
From a Politico story
The police unions viewed Biden as a stand-up guy. Now, they are unhappy with him.
Linking on the fly:
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/04/police-groups-joe-biden-300222
bemused
@gwangung:
Yup, true as always. They only care about their own hides and second their own families.
Omnes Omnibus
https://gfycat.com/colossalangelicimperialeagle
Gvg
@Kent: no, they were around much earlier than that.
JMG
Police unions are a powerful political bloc because they are monolithic and police are generally popular. The demonstrations are threatening to them because they indicate their are losing that popularity, which is what makes elected officials loath to cross them.
WaterGirl
@Brachiator: Dare I say it?
dimmsdale
I’m just going to put this link here; it may seem a little tangential to the immediate subject, but I don’t think so. https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/04/29/david-simon-on-baltimore-s-anguish
It’s an interview (post-Freddie Gray) with David Simon (the Wire, Treme, Deuce) on how Baltimore’s civilian power structure ruined effective policing and substituted a thirst for arrest statistics over good police work, to the detriment of good policing, community relations, and crime-solving.
Aside from being (to me) essential for an informed perspective on police-civilian relations, Simon’s interview makes one indelible point: cops only do what they are INCENTIVIZED to do; nothing more and nothing less. To change police behavior, change their incentives–which can be both simple and incredibly nuanced, but which makes demands FIRST on civilian leadership (to be crystal-clear about policing goals for the community RATHER than for a pol’s career advancement) and then on police rank and file, to follow the new regime or be assigned to the graveyard shift patrolling a distant landfill.
I wonder if it’s going to require a courageous pol out there somewhere who’s willing to torch his/her career and take on the police unions and police culture till one of them cries ‘uncle’–up to and including laying off the entire force if necessary, replacing them with National Guard units plus screened current cops willing to commit to a different police culture. (Sort of like what Reagan–ptui!–did with the Air Traffic Controllers.)
Of course it wouldn’t be that easy, it never is–but hey: status quo’s got to go.
Cameron
While there need to be consequences for abusive behavior, I wonder if a restorative-justice program would help change police culture. If it works for convicted criminals….
Baud
RSA
Yes.
Another challenge with this representation, I think, is that the outer versus inner costumes are reversed. The police uniform is notionally about (and should be about) “to serve and to protect,” but underneath there can be a white robe. For non-POC in our society, it’s been easy to accept the surface representation over the decades.
Omnes Omnibus
https://twitter.com/KngHnryVIII/status/1269082414472560640?s=20
Evil_Paul
@Kelly: That man is definitely army (or recently ex-army). And what he’s doing is brilliant.
I remember in the graphic novel “The March” (John Lewis’s memoir) one of the things the civil rights protestors trained themselves to do was to make eye contact, even when they were getting beaten up. Human beings are social creatures and making a human connected is possible even in the most inhuman moments.
This guy shouting at the National Guard? He’s making that connection. He’s speaking their language (angry NCO) and showing them that he’s one of them. We’re all the same, he’s telling them. And the fact that they’re reacting to his words suggests that the message is getting through.
Best of all, because he’s telling them to close up, no one can accuse him of uttering threats or being disruptive or uncooperative. He’s literally telling them to listen to their Staff Sgt!
This is something that’s going to leave a mark on a lot of those kids in the ranks. In the long run, it might even save some lives. My hat goes off to this man.
John Fremont
@germy: Lurker here. COPS should switch over from patrolmen and follow the activities of Internal Affairs detectives.
Miss Bianca
@Feathers: Very interesting point.
@prostratedragon: Ooh, I like “MARGAL”!
I may have to commission a MARGAL hat – navy blue, of course.
Miss Bianca
@Kent: Wow, love this whole comment.
@rikyrah: Wow, love this comment too!
hueyplong
Totally OT, but in an item discussing the “killing Negroes juices the market” abomination, there was a screen shot of Tucker Carlson. He looked orange, with the areas around his eyes lighter.
Am I losing it in a time of isolation and outrages, or is he going full-on Trump with the makeup?
(Don’t watch Fox so don’t know if that physical appearance was a one-off)
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: I laughed.
Miss Bianca
@Omnes Omnibus: For a split second there I was like, “DUDE – trigger warning!” just because of POTUS’s ugly mug. Then I saw what he was holding. Clever, but I’m still a little twitchy.
ziggy
@Scout211: Thank you scout, I’m super uncomfortable with the anti-police sentiment here lately. Can’t even bear to read the blog most days, or even much news at all. Is this really the message we want to promote?
Omnes Omnibus
@Miss Bianca: Sorry, not sorry.
Mike G
@bemused:
They never see themselves in other people outside their little tribe. Conservatism is all about “I’m special so I get privileged treatment”, or “I’m special so Jeebus would magically never let bad things happen to me.”
In this case it would be “My grandpa wouldn’t be there”, or “My grandpa would tell them his kid’s a cop and they’d leave him alone.”
gwangung
@ziggy: The message from the police is not something I’m comfortable with.
And it’s been consistent for the last decade or so, if people were paying attention.
Zinsky
Police have a tough job and get paid diddley squat, as well. I would not want the job! Most cops are strong, decent people who want to help their community. That said, there are a very small percentage who are brutal psychopaths who enjoy hurting people. These are the cops we need to identify and remove before they get on the street and yank them off quickly if they do. This is where the good cops come in – they HAVE to rat out the bad cops and have them removed from the system, or the whole system becomes tainted!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@ziggy: as someone who is temperamentally moderate and pragmatic in my approach to politics, I’d say it’s up to the good cops to drive out the bad. The sight of those people, I gather mostly other police, applauding the two Buffalo cops who assaulted a 75 year-old man on their release on bail, I am not optimistic. Those police union guys who are making my flesh crawl with their rhetoric seem to have the enthusiastic support of the rank and file.
This thread looks at the police and union reaction to Springsteen’s “41 Shots”, which is now 20 years old.
Chetan Murthy
@ziggy:
Over at LG&M, a commenter (from NYC, I think) said he knew “good cops”. I asked him
(1) The “thin blue line” (that even “good cops” will refuse to bear witness against their criminal colleagues) is pretty much accepted truth at this point. Do you dispute this? Because if you don’t, then I don’t see how you can claim that there is “anti-police” sentiment here. The sentiment is simply “pro-facts”.
(2) do you dispute that what we’re seeing is a “police riot”? That where the police treat protestors with respect, the protests stay peaceful, and where police treat protestors like criminals, violence breaks out? So here again, is it “anti-police” to point out the facts?
Look: lots of people on this blog have lived respectable lives, some of having never gotten arrested, etc. But we can see the writing on the wall, the blood smeared on the pavement. It’s pretty damn obvious.
And let’s remember where this all started: Mike Brown, John Crawford, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, Stephon Clark, Laquan McDonald, Oskar Grant, Breana Tayor (sp?), Trayvon Martin, George Floyd, and on and on and on.
Chetan Murthy
@Zinsky:
(1) Serpico was shot in the face.
(2) much more recently, wasn’t there a cop in Baltimore who was murdered just days before he was to testify against his colleagues?
(3) Do you dispute the existence of the “thin blue line”? That cops do not rat out their colleagues’ criminality? And if you do not dispute it, what should we call them? [noting well that they are officers sworn to uphold the law]
I call them “accomplices”. So sure, go ahead and call them “good cops”. But until they start -acting- like good cops, they’re just as bad as their criminal brethren.
The Thin Black Duke
@ziggy: Watching the videos, the cops aren’t exactly being their own best advocates right now. It’s hard to see the difference between the good cops and the bad cops, to be honest. Then again, if you think it’s fake news, that’s a problem.
Chetan Murthy
@Zinsky:
Bullshit: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/27/the-10-most-dangerous-jobs-in-america-according-to-bls-data.html
You want a dangerous job? Roofing. Or trashman. Or logger. Cop? Not a chance.
“Oh, it’s such a dangerous job, we have to make allowances for the stress they’re under, and it’s so ill-paid!”
“Children, be quiet, daddy’s had a bad day, don’t make him upset? We don’t want him to be upset!”
Baud
@Chetan Murthy:
FWIW, dangerous ≠ stressful.
Sab
Fifth carefully crafted comment in three days that has been eated. Didn’t like my email. Sigh.
Chetan Murthy
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m reminded that the man who tortured Abner Louima, Justin Volpe, was not well-liked in his precinct. But when the time came (so I have read) somebody in his precinct went and cleaned out his locker, removing anything that might be incriminating including Volpe’s collection of dreadlocks he’d taken from black suspects and others he’d encountered.
The “thin blue line” exists. Until it’s eradicated, every cop is a suspect.
Matt McIrvin
@Kent: For a while there was a popular bumper sticker that was just a solid black flag with a blue stripe through it. The version that was a defaced black-and-white US flag was a later evolution of it.
The only time I’ve seen the firefighter version with a red stripe in place of the blue one was at a St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Lawrence, where they were handing out both versions in honor of “first responders” (I declined to wave one). I think it’s a much more recent variant and much less popular, because there’s no movement to support firefighters murdering black people.
Chetan Murthy
@Zinsky: Daddy’s had a hard day, we can excuse him deciding to slash a buncha car tires, sure we can. https://feedly.com/i/entry/ayfIKqHkjSfJclBFehVTXYUMKIDi1dICDtCZfX0dcdk=_1728ba1c2d8:6650f4:96295333
Elizabelle
@Chetan Murthy: I know the story of every single one of the people in your list, black people dead before their time. Without having to google. Need to add Philando Castile. And there are so many people dead whose names are not on that list. It’s hard to keep up.
From Biden’s speech about George Floyd’s death: NY Times link; transcript is halfway down.
Glad that we have VP Biden to say that, because it is beyond the capacity of
ourtheir fuckwit president.Omnes Omnibus
@ziggy:
Hmmm… A profession whose practitioners in my personal experience suck up to people like me in public then trash talk me behind my back while trash talking POC to their faces when they aren’t beating and killing them? #NotAllCops #AFewBadApples #ThereAreAlwaysExceptionButJesusJustLookAtTheFuckingNews
joel hanes
@ziggy:
Is this really the message we want to promote?
As long as the police in multiple cities are inciting riots, assaulting peaceful protestors and reporters and photographers, and lying about their actions, damned straight this is the message we must promote.
If the cops want respect and admiration, let them earn it.
Feathers
@Cameron: The problem with restorative justice is that it requires participation and emotional involvement from victims. Fine if people want to be involved with something like this, but activists pushing for it to go mainstream can come across as really creepy.
It reminds me too much of the stories I’ve heard where rape victims are shamed into publicly forgiving their rapists so they don’t face eternal damnation.
Dave
@Chetan Murthy: It probably can be, at least at times, an enormously stressful job. Made worse by the fear based narrative, the war on xxxxx, that seems to be entirely to ubquitous in police culture.
I’m not as sympathetic as I could be primarily because cops do it to themselves and seem to want to be afraid so they can feel special and use it as an excuse to behave poorly but that takes a job that can be stressful and super charges that portion of it.
I’ve lived that life but we werein at least small fire fights nearly every day so it at least was rational. Too many police institutions bare steadfastly opposed to reforms that would actually in the end make the lives of most officers better because they’d have to change or would lose power ultimately they would have to give up their narrative of being special. And that refusal is ultimately pathetic.
gwangung
More relevant…I think they had it…and they lost it through their action (and inaction).
And because they lost that way, they are going to have to do a lot, lot, lot more to regain it.
Chetan Murthy
@Elizabelle:
Yes, this is the worst part. If there were this many white people who were killed unjustly by po-po, we’d know about it. We. Would. Know. It would be a national outrage. The only case I can remember (Justine Diamond) the (black) cop got 12yr in prison:
I’m not going to defend Officer Noor: what he did was wrong. But the idea that somehow he gets 12yr in prison, when the cop who murdered Philando Castile got -nuthin-, when the murderer of Tamir Rice got -nuthin-, that’s incompatible with a just system.
Barbara
@Feathers: Restorative justice is often highly selective.
evodevo
@gwangung: YES. I am currently arguing with a RWNJ Facebook acquaintance over that very thing…he is quite incensed lol – I also said conservatives don’t have a sense of humor, other than cruel remakrs, sex jokes or Hee Haw. He didn’t take that very well either…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
The Hoarse Whisperer has gone to Washington, with picture:
Has anyone seen crowd estimates for the DC march? Washington Post just says “thousands”.
Elizabelle
@Chetan Murthy: He did not say “dangerous.” He said “tough.”
The tragedies that police see, day in and day out. First at a fatal car crash. Scraping people off the pavement. Domestic violence. Dead children. People at their very worst, sometimes on the worst day of their lives, on the last day of their lives; people who are genuinely dangerous.
I am not with the “All Cops Are Bad” — the ACAB — school. That’s simplistic.
But way too many are complicit, and too many find themselves confronting a terrible system. Kay has had a lot to say about institutional rot within organizations. How the bad recruit and promote bad; how they discourage those who are not actively bad from reporting, or from staying. How people looking in are surprised at how bad the office/department has become, but that did not happen accidentally.
We are going to have to insist that the police change themselves from within, and provide serious outside help and oversight as they do.
Maybe we need fewer actual sworn police officers– spread their duties around to social workers, administrators, investigators, etc. — and pay the police much better, and invest in more training. Recruit them more carefully, and maybe from some unusual sources, and separate them from the police force way sooner if they prove not suited to the job. It’s a very hard one.
Focus on de-escalation and community policing.
And policing might suffer from the same problem as education: the promotion path can take the good ones OUT of the classroom. Administration and classroom/field operations are different skill sets.
Last, in view of all the terrible stuff they do see, maybe they should be able to retire with a pension even sooner.
And — as rikyrah said — endanger those pensions if the department is having to pay out major $$$ for their own bad actions.
Elizabelle
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Trump within the confines of his Chicken Coop today?? He
tweetingsquawking much?Cameron
@Feathers: I’m certainly not in favor of re-victimizing people; that doesn’t restore anything, it just makes it worse. I think restorative justice can be one tool (not the only one) in rebuilding law enforcement culture into one that fits in with a healthy society. The worst actors are probably unreachable, so punishment of some kind is necessary.
RSA
Yes. (Speaking as a civilian in the U.S. Army who’s worked with active military officers.) I’m not defending bad police officers, who should be identified and punished. But death rate per job category doesn’t give the complete picture of danger—one might argue by analogy that smoking is a more dangerous habit than being a soldier or a police officer. Here’s a relevant difference: Some jobs are dangerous because of an unpredictable environment, accidents, or coworkers’ unintentional actions. Other jobs are dangerous because people are trying to harm you.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Elizabelle: only three, one of them bragging about his popularity with Republicans. I think yesterday he set a record with 200 tweets and retweets, and that included his trip to Maine where he contaminated a bunch of testing swabs.
Somebody said earlier in the week he was supposed to go to the New Jersy golf course this weekend. I don’t know if he went. Can’t have helped his mood if he counting on a day of cheating at golf.
Ladyraxterinok
Thanks to everyone who took part in this discussion. It was enlightening and helpful. It also gave me some foundation for hope we may get some actual change.
So thank you all again
debbie
@Zinsky:
There were a lot more than a very small percentage of cops spraying and firing pepper and wooden pellets at demonstrators here a few days ago.
artem1s
@Kent:
But honestly there are tens of thousands of schools across the country in every single neighborhood were there are often older women alone in a class with 30 kids and they have no trouble whatsoever keeping order.
there are also tens of thousands of fire houses across the country in every single neighborhood. Those firefighters also deal with exactly the same population as the cops. but somehow they manage to do their jobs without routinely murdering black citizens. Hmmmmm? what is the main difference between the tools that cops use and the ones firefighters use?
debbie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Check out a couple threads back. There’s a video of the crowds in Philadelphia. Massive.
Chetan Murthy
@Zinsky: [From a comment over at LG&M] XKCD subtly told us what the cops do, and how they do it, in this brilliant cartoon:
https://xkcd.com/1235/
If police brutality weren’t racially biased, we’d know: there’d be pictures&video to prove it. Black Americans were right all along, and the police were, WERE lying all along.
Look: I get that that you wanna say #NotAllCops. But ALL cops cover for their brethren. The ones that don’t are so rare that they become subjects of movies and such. Until and unless they change that, their reputation will continue to drop.
Aleta
A list of bail funds by state, and resources that offer support and accept donations https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-WreRnjy5zMXI1n2FUnf1e5p6lAvm-G5HF-2lVnj4RM/mobilebasic
debbie
@Elizabelle:
I remember speaking with a security guard at work not long after Tamir Rice. She was an ex-cop with 20 years’ experience. She’d only used her gun a couple of times, but she said she always aimed for the guy’s thigh, even when one guy attacked and knocked her down. She said she was sure the switch to lethal force was going to ruin law enforcement.
Chetan Murthy
@Aleta: Via our resident mild-manner accountant, Insurance Man [aka David Anderson] I donated using ActBlue: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/bailfunds
Elizabelle
Haven’t read the thread yet (sorry), but another issue for police is that they’re probably afraid of the communities they police. They know that guns have flooded the populace, and perhaps assume that everyone they find threatening carries one. Or, just plain everyone. How can you tell? Being in a macho profession, though, they are not going to admit that.
So: the NRA has made their job immeasurably harder too, while we’re all under threat. School shootings. Store shootings. Church shootings. Mall shootings. Concert shootings. Theatre shootings. Airports. Parking lots. Parks. Military bases.
I guess the only place we’re safe is in a Congressional office. In a courtroom. In an airport after security screening.
I hope that at some point we can revisit the Second Amendment and the ridiculous right to own arsenals.
Police should know if the people they’re dealing with own arms. Because: registration and insurance, and safe storage, and a huge fine for having a gun without those conditions in place.
Did you enjoy seeing those weaponized bozos in camo at the Michigan legislature? (And the Virginia capitol, before that.) I sure didn’t. That is evidence of a failed state, right there.
I think a lot of us said “Enough with this shit. This is done.”
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@aliasofwestgate:
There was no mistaking command tone. They knew it, too.
Elizabelle
@debbie: Yes. Use of lethal force when nonlethal would do it.
It’s a training issue. An attitude issue.
Elizabelle
@debbie: It made my day, seeing those Philly crowds. Wow.
All fifty states, and we really have not had a lot of deaths resulting from these protests, have we? It’s amazing.
Chetan Murthy
@Elizabelle:
Two data-points tell me that this isn’t explanatory:
(1) the po-po are invariably polite to the point of nauseating, towards these Moron Labe freaks. We’ve all seen the vids of the po-po alerting the Proud Boys to take cover; we’ve also read about how the Portland po-po protected the right-wingers at the demos and riots up there. It seems clear that the po-po don’t actually fear the guns: the fear the wrong people having the guns.
(2) these are unarmed protestors, and we’ve all seen the vids and pictures of po-po assaulting people with their hands up, children old people, women.
This isn’t about guns. This is about “who controls these streets? WE control these streets”. These are fascists, making sure all of us get the message, that we better not step outta line, or we’ll get the boot, good and hard.
LaenCleardale
If bad cops are such a very small percentage of the force, why can’t the good cops stop them? How much longer do we have to wait for them to fix it? How many more dead innocents? I’ve been hearing this exact same story since Rodney King. If thirty fucking years isn’t enough time for them to fix the system, then either they can’t, or they won’t. So yeah, burn the whole fucking thing down and try something different.
Chetan Murthy
Chetan Murthy
@LaenCleardale:
Another thing to note: the center of mass of protestors aren’t calling for “burn it all down”; they’re instead calling for reforms, like Deray McKesson’s 8 Steps. I think they understand that what is achievable -today-, must be what we demand. Get it done -today-. And then work for more. I noticed in those 8 steps, even “end qualified immunity” wasn’t listed. Which surprised me, b/c it seems to me like that’s an enormous part of the problem.
Which (to me) shows just how restrained and measured people like Deray McKesson and some of the other protestors, really are.
Aleta
The US right now. Right wing: demonstrating to get haircuts and their beer and fries brought to them in public, no masks, few in number. Left wing and others: demonstrating against racism and police violence, to show Black Lives Matter, wearing masks, in the tens of thousands and counting.
rita rippetoe
@Scout211:
You are born with a skin color or other racial characteristics–you choose what uniform to wear. Is it unfair to judge someone with gang tattoos and colors? Of course not; they are declaring their beliefs by their garb. If an officer realizes that the police department they serve in has become corrupt they can take off that uniform. If they don’t they are declaring alleigance to their armed gang instead of to the citizens.
Aleta
Imagine the numbers if the threat of covid was not deterring people.
Elizabelle
@Chetan Murthy: And Mayor Byron Brown is African American and a Democrat. Serious about reducing number of illegal guns. Seems to have been Mayor since 2005; don’t know if that’s been continuous; seems to be. Wiki.
Chetan Murthy
@Elizabelle: Hostage. Only explanation.
Elizabelle
@Aleta: You remind me that it might be fun to peek in on Fox News a bit. Which I never do. But they must be freaked.
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle: Isn’t squawking the technical term for tweeting in ALL CAPS? It should be!
WaterGirl
@Chetan Murthy: Is this the guy who “accidentally tripped and fell”?
J R in WV
@ziggy:
Maybe you are at the wrong blog, ziggy, ’cause we’re talking about the news in front of our eyes!
If you have a problem with that I have a problem with you!
Chetan Murthy
@WaterGirl: A-yup. Outside agitator. Mountebank. Known stirrer-up-of-things-that-should-be-left-unstirred, one supposes. OK, can’t manage sarcasm. It’s horrible, isn’t it? He’s trashing the poor man’s reputation and for what? For a bunch of thugs? He’s daring us to disbelieve our lyin’ eyes.
J R in WV
Deleted accidental duplicate…
Feathers
@Chetan Murthy: He’s with Christian Workers, the radical Catholic group founded by Dorothy Day, so he’s undoubtedly an agitator. That he was returning a dropped helmet to the police tends towards my disbelieving the looting. If vandalizing is graffiti, maybe.
Methinks the Mayor has the same problem De Blasio and Cuomo do. Making decisions based on briefings from law enforcement and what they see on the news.
slightly_peeved
@Scout211:
Yeah, nah. Prejudice against a uniform is not like the others. One chooses to put that uniform on, and one can choose to take that uniform off. Especially when the negative activity associated with the uniform is condoned at the highest levels of the organisation.
The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@Kent: Exactly. I’ve been a special ed teacher for kids with behavior disorders for decades. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had cops tell me “I couldn’t do what you do!” I always wanted to respond with “If I treated them the way you do, I couldn’t, either!”
Cheryl Rofer
Chetan Murthy
The busted phone is … *chef’s kiss
sdhays
@Kent: This is a fantastic way of putting it. The example of the Catholic Church is perfect. It doesn’t matter if individual police are ok if the institution is corrupt and fascist.
Chetan Murthy
@sdhays: Not being Catholic (or religious) I have no idea how Catholic families deal with this today. If you have children, how do you deal with the -possibility- that your parish priest is a pedophile? I mean, sure, probably they’re not. But you can’t take that risk, can you? How do Catholic parents (I mean, devout Catholic parents who aren’t in denial about the entire history) deal with it? What steps do they take? What steps do congregations take, to ensure that not merely is there nothing untoward going on, but it is made clear to parents that nothing untoward *could* be going on? Asking seriously.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Cheryl Rofer: my god…. “two and a half” inspections
“it was during the daiyyy”— it’s like a tour of the clutter and cobwebs of that bat-infested belfry
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Sarah Cooper was the guest on Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me today
Ruckus
@RSA:
I’ve worked decades in a job that rarely kills but can easily harm you if you don’t pay attention and respect what is going on around you and the equipment you are using. And even doing all that, one can be injured quite easily. It’s not like commercial fishing or logging, but that one word is actually critical in all dangerous jobs, respect. Respect the process, respect the tools, respect the others around you, give them something to respect in you. Cops, for the most part only seem to respect their ideals, not the supposed ideals of the profession, and it’s to the detriment of the job and their safety. They seem to do this because they can, because they very, very rarely get into trouble for it. They seem to think it makes them stronger but it really doesn’t, it makes them irresponsible. Other countries seem to not have the issues but those countries don’t have as much a level of haves and have nots, have laws that respect the people and ways to get rid of bad apples. We have a system of rotating bad cops, often we hear of bad cops that have been on several forces, never actually charged with a crime they committed because that might wreak their lives. But like politicians they work for us, we do not work for them. And there is a reason that a bedrock of our country is that the military can not police the public, because the military is more often than not about stopping a country at whatever cost, not about effectively keeping people from harm.
Our police forces do not have to act the way a lot of them do on a regular basis. Looking at the videos of the way police have acted over the last couple of weeks shows that cops are, for the most part out of control and have been for my entire life. I used to have a friend who was a deputy and I rode with him one night. He stopped and talked to a man not breaking any laws, a hippy at the time when that was against the cop code. He did an illegal search, found a roach so small it couldn’t be lit and arrested the guy. I was astounded and later asked him about it. His answer was “I got his dope, he’s in my jail and that’s all that matters.” I asked what was going to happen to the guy, he said, “The DA won’t charge him but he gets to spend 3 days in my jail.” He played judge, jury and jailer all at the same time. I’ve not talked to him since and that was almost 50 yrs ago. My expectations from cops hasn’t changed in that time.
Ruckus
@artem1s:
You are right, firefighter tools are not designed to be used on humans to kill/stop them, as weapons.
But I’d guess you’ve never held a large fire hose with full pressure coming out. I’ve done that in the navy. You point that at someone and it is going to do damage. A lot of damage. Might not kill someone nearly as easily as a gun or a taser or even one of those rubber pellet guns, like was used to put out a woman’s eye 2 or 3 days ago. But you can hurt someone. Drown them even. But that’s not a firefighter’s job, and they are trained not to do that.
RSA
@Ruckus: Thanks for sharing your experience and your views. I can’t disagree with anything you’ve written.
Ruckus
@Aleta:
I’d go if it wasn’t for COVID. In a heartbeat. I’m 4-5 yrs younger than that man in Buffalo. I’m in decent shape for someone my age. That said, with COVID I’m not going to be in a crowd or around people any more than I have to, it’s just too dangerous. I worry about it more than the cops. Not sure that’s totally realistic but I see it as a lot higher risk to the virus than to cop disease.
Aleta
@Ruckus: You’re absolutely doing the right thing. For health care workers and hospital functions as well as your health and voting.
Aleta
Christopher Hooks @cd_hooks
trnc
@Chetan Murthy: Do you think cops would be in the top ten if the criteria were death as a result of your primary task? According to the list you linked, most of the deaths are not from what you would think just looking at the job title, but rather from all the driving required. The roofers, construction workers and steel workers are the only ones on the list whose actual job is killing them and for whom transportation isn’t their primary task.
I would think that using just deaths from the actual job title, cops and firefighters would be on it.
jayjaybear
@Chetan Murthy: Most large-city mayors are hostages to their police forces and/or police unions. There are certainly exceptions, but it appears that NYC and Buffalo are not among them (DeBlasio has had a really stupid relationship with the NYPD since early in his term, when the force literally turned its back on him).
ziggy
@J R in WV: Wow, thanks for being so welcoming and open-minded!
Chetan Murthy
@trnc:
Well, the thing is, driving -is- a primary part of the job function of many of these jobs. I mean, if all it took to be a trashman was to heave barrels, it wouldn’t be called “garbage truck driver”. And trucking is on the list, too.
But to your Q, sure, let’s have a look: https://www.quora.com/How-dangerous-is-it-to-be-a-police-officer-in-the-U-S
Now, one way to look at this is “gee, the stress must be awful”. Another is “gee, maybe don’t be such colossal dicks, and the public might cooperate with you more”. Either way, the -job- itself is even -less- dangerous when compared with other jobs.
Chetan Murthy
@ziggy: Homes, maybe you’re confusing “open-minded” with “empty-headed”. Also, “sealioning” is a thing, go look it up [another form of “pretend to be open-minded”.] The sentiment here hasn’t been “anti-police”. It’s been “anti-police-brutality” and “anti-police-criminality”. Show me police who aren’t criminals and don’t protect their criminal colleagues, and I’m sure they’ll get a standing ovation.
Chetan Murthy
Via b…..l… over at LG&M:
https://kutv.com/news/local/utah-marine-stands-alone-at-utah-capitol-with-i-cant-breathe-covering-his-mouth
Photos: Utah Marine stands alone at Utah Capitol with ‘I can’t breathe’ covering his mouth
If our po-po had one percent of the decency of this man, we’d be a different country.
JohnMCinNc
@Scout211: Just want to respectfully point out that gender and skin color are not choices.
CODave (pka NJDave)
@Martin: Camden, NJ fired their entire police force and rebuilt. Check it out!
Salvatore Napoli
Mark Zuckonit and his millennial scumbag thought police removed the top cartoon from my timeline (violated “community policy”)