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Tags police incidents , police issues , police misconduct charges

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Old 4th July 2018, 12:21 PM   #441
Steve
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Originally Posted by Ranb View Post
The behavior of a police officer in Killeen TX.
http://www.kwtx.com/content/news/Kil...486994721.html

That's my daughter (middle) in the photo.

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Old 5th July 2018, 03:01 AM   #442
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Originally Posted by Wolrab View Post
Not only does a proud parent and forum member get to show off a bit, it demonstrates the behavior of the vast majority of police officers in the US. What more needs to be in the story?
Yep they really need to put down those people canvasing neighborhoods much harder.
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Old 5th July 2018, 03:45 AM   #443
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Originally Posted by Ranb View Post
I think that's it.
Seems a little paranoid telling kids to call the Police just because a stranger knocks on the door.
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Old 5th July 2018, 03:48 AM   #444
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Originally Posted by PhantomWolf View Post
Seems a little paranoid telling kids to call the Police just because a stranger knocks on the door.
Yea the real american solution to that is teaching your kids to shoot first, then call the police. That way we can get rid of problematic people like the cop who was in uniform searching for suspects.
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Old 5th July 2018, 04:25 AM   #445
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Originally Posted by ponderingturtle View Post
Yea the real american solution to that is teaching your kids to shoot first, then call the police. That way we can get rid of problematic people like the cop who was in uniform searching for suspects.
Your constant hyperbolic rhetoric shtick gets old really fast, how about toning the hate back and returning to the real world?
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Old 5th July 2018, 05:28 AM   #446
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Originally Posted by PhantomWolf View Post
Your constant hyperbolic rhetoric shtick gets old really fast, how about toning the hate back and returning to the real world?
Except of course how easy it is to get away will simply shooting people for knocking on your door. Like when you knock on doors after a car accident then the police shoot you. That is perfectly acceptable behavior of course.

https://news.vice.com/article/dashca...shown-at-trial

How often does it need to happen to not qualify as hyperbole?
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Old 5th July 2018, 08:17 AM   #447
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Originally Posted by ponderingturtle View Post
Yep they really need to put down those people canvasing neighborhoods much harder.
Scared kids and a friendly officer means nothing to you? Whatever, rant away.
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Old 5th July 2018, 08:32 AM   #448
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Originally Posted by PhantomWolf View Post
Your constant hyperbolic rhetoric shtick gets old really fast, how about toning the hate back and returning to the real world?
Um, people just outright shooting (black) people for knocking on their door has happened, though, several times in recent years.

And actually, an Asian immigrant was shot the same way a while back, as well.

ETA: I'm not, in any way, convinced that this is some vanishingly small percentage of police, apart from actual shootings of course. Eric Garner was choked out for standing around (he wasn't selling cigarettes that day), Freddie Grey for not wanting to be near the now-notorious Baltimore police - oddly, the disgraced Gun Trace Task Force outright admitted that a tactic was to nearly drive into a group of black people, and arrest anyone who ran away, we've seen several professional athletes attacked by police in recent years as well.

Last edited by Mumbles; 5th July 2018 at 08:36 AM.
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Old 5th July 2018, 08:35 AM   #449
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Originally Posted by Wolrab View Post
Scared kids and a friendly officer means nothing to you? Whatever, rant away.
Exactly they feared for their life all that was needed to open fire. When the police do not beat and shoot people just going about their daily life we will be getting somewhere.
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Old 5th July 2018, 08:38 AM   #450
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Originally Posted by Mumbles View Post
Um, people just outright shooting (black) people for knocking on their door has happened, though, several times in recent years.

And actually, an Asian immigrant was shot the same way a while back, as well.
Or a favorite of mine, the black woman who called the cops because a white man assaulted her child, the woman was of course arrested.

And there is nothing more fun that setting the dogs on suicidal teens, that is policing 101 folks. Though in that case it was a white teen, though the towns in question do disproportionately set them on blacks.

http://watchdogsarasota.heraldtribun...e-get-ur-bite/

Just what his sister who was worried about him hurting himself wanted, the cops hurting him.
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Old 5th July 2018, 09:22 AM   #451
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Hero cop pulls gun on man with bike!


How dare he ride a bike!

https://blavity.com/im-just-riding-m...in-parking-lot
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Old 5th July 2018, 03:24 PM   #452
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Originally Posted by ponderingturtle View Post
Except of course how easy it is to get away will simply shooting people for knocking on your door. Like when you knock on doors after a car accident then the police shoot you. That is perfectly acceptable behavior of course.

https://news.vice.com/article/dashca...shown-at-trial

How often does it need to happen to not qualify as hyperbole?
Originally Posted by Mumbles View Post
Um, people just outright shooting (black) people for knocking on their door has happened, though, several times in recent years.

And actually, an Asian immigrant was shot the same way a while back, as well.
This is the point though, these incidents are incredibly rare. In a country with 300,000,000 people and hundreds of thousands of interactions every day, exceedingly rare things are going to happen a few times a year, just because of probability. The annual average of people getting struck by lightning in the US is about 500 people a year, with 51 of them dying. Think about that, your odds of getting killed by being struck by lightning are 27 times higher than being shot because you knocked on a door!!! It's about twice that chance of being shot by the police while being totally innocent!

To try and paint this picture of it being so common that every American is out to blast anyone that dares knock on their door, or every police officer is just waiting to gun down some black dude at the first opportunity is hyperbole because you are treating fractions of a fraction of 1% of interactions as if they are commonplace. They aren't.
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Old 5th July 2018, 03:51 PM   #453
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Originally Posted by PhantomWolf View Post
Seems a little paranoid telling kids to call the Police just because a stranger knocks on the door.
It might be more than that. I think the gist of the story was that the boy kept his cool and was able to give 911 the info they wanted. I'm asking my daughter for more info on the story.

ETA; According to my daughter, the boy felt threatened by the man's behavior at the door.

Last edited by Ranb; 5th July 2018 at 04:35 PM.
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Old 5th July 2018, 04:52 PM   #454
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Originally Posted by ponderingturtle View Post
Exactly they feared for their life all that was needed to open fire. When the police do not beat and shoot people just going about their daily life we will be getting somewhere.
Since absolutely none of that happened in this example, are you sure it's worthy of your diatribe?

If you are going to criticize ANY interaction between the public and law enforcement, don't be surprised when people stop taking you seriously.

Which seems to be well on it's way.
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Old 5th July 2018, 05:14 PM   #455
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Originally Posted by Mumbles View Post
Um, people just outright shooting (black) people for knocking on their door has happened, though, several times in recent years.

And actually, an Asian immigrant was shot the same way a while back, as well.

ETA: I'm not, in any way, convinced that this is some vanishingly small percentage of police, apart from actual shootings of course. Eric Garner was choked out for standing around (he wasn't selling cigarettes that day), Freddie Grey for not wanting to be near the now-notorious Baltimore police - oddly, the disgraced Gun Trace Task Force outright admitted that a tactic was to nearly drive into a group of black people, and arrest anyone who ran away, we've seen several professional athletes attacked by police in recent years as well.
I remember those incidents, and I agree with what you said.

But if EVERY incident involving a black person and LEOs is treated with immediate condemnation and vitriol, it makes it that much more difficult to separate "the chaff from the wheat." or decreases the signal/static ratio, as I hear often.
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Old 5th July 2018, 05:35 PM   #456
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Originally Posted by PhantomWolf View Post
This is the point though, these incidents are incredibly rare. In a country with 300,000,000 people and hundreds of thousands of interactions every day, exceedingly rare things are going to happen a few times a year, just because of probability. The annual average of people getting struck by lightning in the US is about 500 people a year, with 51 of them dying. Think about that, your odds of getting killed by being struck by lightning are 27 times higher than being shot because you knocked on a door!!! It's about twice that chance of being shot by the police while being totally innocent!

To try and paint this picture of it being so common that every American is out to blast anyone that dares knock on their door, or every police officer is just waiting to gun down some black dude at the first opportunity is hyperbole because you are treating fractions of a fraction of 1% of interactions as if they are commonplace. They aren't.

How often is too often?

The issue isn't how often it happens It's that it happens at all. It's that it happens often enough to be a regular, almost common occurrence. Just the ones we know about, with the coverage which the Internet provides, happen too often. If we read about a new one every week, is that often enough? Every month?

They may not be as frequent as people getting hit by lightning, but they are frequent enough to be noticeable ... and a problem which needs to addressed, not shrugged off.

And another way that they are different than lightning strikes. We can do something about it.

If we choose to.

And then it is also needful to include the officers and departments which try desperately to cover them up or misrepresent them whenever they do happen.

Abuse by authority is a disease. You don't cure a disease, or prevent its spread by shrugging your shoulders and saying, 'Well, it doesn't happen very often.'

That's how epidemics get started. And spread.
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Old 6th July 2018, 01:05 AM   #457
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Originally Posted by quadraginta View Post
How often is too often?
While we'd all like the answer to be one incident is too much, we have to recognize that we're dealing with flawed emotional humans. Things happen sometimes, mistakes get made. In a huge population, those mistakes crop up more, it's the law of big numbers.

Quote:
The issue isn't how often it happens It's that it happens at all. It's that it happens often enough to be a regular, almost common occurrence. Just the ones we know about, with the coverage which the Internet provides, happen too often. If we read about a new one every week, is that often enough? Every month?
Again, it's the numbers that we're dealing with, if the US only had a population of 30 million then you'd be getting these incidents at once or twice a year. It'd be the same rate, but would anyone be wetting themselves over it and accusing all cops of being evil and just waiting to shoot themselves a black guy?

Quote:
They may not be as frequent as people getting hit by lightning, but they are frequent enough to be noticeable ... and a problem which needs to addressed, not shrugged off.
Again, it falls into the category of dealing with big numbers. With massive numbers, and over the course of a year we're literally talking hundreds of millions police interactions. We're talking tens of thousands of assaults on officers with deadly weapons and guns, and we're still talking just a fraction of those ending up with the civilian dead, and less than 0.5% of those being cases where something really went wrong and an innocent person died.

The thing is that no-one tells you about the ones and the times that the police get it right, but they cream in your face every time they get it wrong. It biases the samples.

Quote:
And another way that they are different than lightning strikes. We can do something about it.

If we choose to.
I disagree actually. No matter the training, no matter how careful everyone is, through the sheer force of numbers there are going to be mistakes made and innocent people will end up dead. It's something that has to be accepted with a massive population, many of whom are armed, and an armed police force. We can learn a lesson from each one and try and do it better next time, but as long as you have those three things, mistakes and dead innocent people is an inevitable cost. Heck, even here and in the UK where most officers are unarmed there have been mistakes made and innocent people have died as a result. It happens, and the more people you have in a country, the more often it will happen, that's simply the math.

Quote:
And then it is also needful to include the officers and departments which try desperately to cover them up or misrepresent them whenever they do happen.
And yes when cops try and cover things up, that does need to be dealt with, but the issue currently is that the hyperbole and rhetoric of all cops being evil and just wanting to kill people doesn't help that cause. It makes the police feel under attack and they close ranks. When ever police shooting is called a murder and protested then you lose sight of the reality that 99%+ of police shootings result from the person getting shoot trying to kill someone, be it the police or another person. By demanding that Police put themselves into extreme danger without being allowed to protect themselves and their colleagues without being accused of being killers who should be locked up, then you're contributing to them shutting the public out because they can't get a fair trial in the court of public opinion, let alone a legal court.

Case in point, there was a police shooting near where I live many years back. The police refused to prosecute, and after many years of protests and false information about the cased the family brought private prosecution. The cop was found not guilty because it was self defense. The thing is that reading through the reports would have shown that to any open minded person, but people that wanted to hate the police listened to the stories and fake narratives, misinterpreted police procedure, and convicted a guy in their minds for just doing his job on the worst night of his life.

Are there bad cops out there. yeah, any organisation with 100,000's of people in it is going to have some bad ones, but in general they don't last. The reality is that the 99% of cops who are the good ones do the job to make the streets better and safer for everyone and they don't like the 1% that are there for the power trip either, they want rid of them and usually they get forced out, or arrested and sent to jail when they get found breaking the law. And who arrests them? It's the 99% of good cops out there.

Quote:
Abuse by authority is a disease. You don't cure a disease, or prevent its spread by shrugging your shoulders and saying, 'Well, it doesn't happen very often.'

That's how epidemics get started. And spread.
It is getting dealt with though, that's the thing. There seems to be this lie out there that Cops don't ever go to jail, and that's exactly what it is, a lie. They do, for all sorts of reasons. Here's a small sample. Here's some more that actually made it onto Wikipedia. Here's a couple more. These cases aren't hard to find.

So then if Cops are willing to take cops down for crimes, what is it about shootings? Why do so few get charged and even fewer get convicted.

The answer is stupidly simple, and no it's not because the cops are corrupt, it's because the public isn't interested in the truth of what really happened during a police shooting, they just want vengeance on the cop for pulling the trigger regardless of the truth. We find that quickly by the myths and lies about shootings, myths and lies that persist long after the real truth has been uncovered. And because the myths and lies have sunk in so deep by the time the truth comes out, people refuse to believe or accept the truth, they would rather cling to the falsehoods just like a No-Planer does their 9/11 C/Ts and the JKF true believers hold to the Grassy knoll shooter. Anyone that says otherwise, especially the police, are lying and covering it up and just plain all around corrupt. Damn this reality, it's time to insert their own and head full speed to the Alternative Facts pile.

The problem is that in a court of law, those Alternative facts just don't stack up and so the Jury can't convict beyond reasonable doubt, but that's just more fuel for the conspiratists, more reason to believe that the entire system is corrupt. But the truth is that they never wants the truth and justice based on the truth, they wanted a Kangaroo court that just listened to the same lies and myths that they have and will only ever convict anyone brought before it. That's the only form of Justice they will accept and anything else is just proof of corruption and cover up.

Yes there are problems in the fabric of the US police, and there are a lot of things that they can work on, but this constant accusing of cops of being racist and evil isn't going to help that, it's just increases the division between the cops and the community. It makes things worse.

It goes both ways too. Cops have to be aware how their actions look, but communities have to stop jumping to the worse conclusions. You know, when 95% of gun murders in a community are committed by Blacks and Hispanics against other Blacks and Hispanics, then accusing the cops of racism because they target those demographic to try and bring down the murders rather than targeting a proportional bunch of whites in neighbourhoods were the gun violence is near zero, just so that they can square the race ledgers is stupid.

If the US wants to move on and become truly great, then both sides, both the Police and the Communities need to work together, get to understand each other, put themselves in each other's shoes, learn about the other, and be willing to accept some hard truths, on both sides. Because until that changes, nothing else will.
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Old 11th July 2018, 09:33 PM   #458
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There's a Radley Balko piece in the Washinton Post about a man (sorry, he's not black, but I think it still counts) who had a rather unpleasant run in with the police.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/ampht...uined-his-life

A former police officer who wishes to remain anonymous says: "This is very common in policing. Looking back on my career, I realize just how often I acted similarly and didn’t even realize it. It was subconscious. I was trained and subtly incentivized to do so. You intentionally create conflict and manufacture noncompliance in order to build your stop into an arrest situation. Because that’s what generations of law enforcers who have been steeped in a fear-based, comply or else, us-vs.-them mind-set do. They arrest people. Arrests are a primary measure of productivity and gives the appearance your department has solved a problem."
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Old 11th July 2018, 09:44 PM   #459
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Just read that this evening. What's as important, if not more so, than the behavior of the cop, is the doubling-down by his superiors, including destroying the guy's marriage.
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Old 11th July 2018, 09:58 PM   #460
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It's obviously a complicated situation and American cops are operating in very weaponized and unpredictable circumstances often risking their lifes (though partly this seems also a deliberate political choice by the American electorate) - nevertheless I find this show rather amusing and thank - the likely non-existant - god that I live in a Nordic country where things are more relaxed and civilized. Some of the American cop's reactions are really priceless...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbM9uCxEJDM
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Old 11th July 2018, 10:25 PM   #461
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Originally Posted by Trebuchet View Post
Just read that this evening. What's as important, if not more so, than the behavior of the cop, is the doubling-down by his superiors, including destroying the guy's marriage.
It is the system that is broken. As I have said before - with literally thousands of one-person police forces, it is inevitable that many won't have decent managerial oversight.
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Old 12th July 2018, 01:45 AM   #462
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Originally Posted by llwyd View Post
It's obviously a complicated situation and American cops are operating in very weaponized and unpredictable circumstances often risking their lifes (though partly this seems also a deliberate political choice by the American electorate) - nevertheless I find this show rather amusing and thank - the likely non-existant - god that I live in a Nordic country where things are more relaxed and civilized. Some of the American cop's reactions are really priceless...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbM9uCxEJDM
Scotland is far more like Umea, where the US cop comments on not seeing any police or hearing any sirens and it is a Friday night.

The police college was similar to the Scottish one.

The idea of a village with one cop and sometimes none at all is also very similar.
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Old 12th July 2018, 02:51 AM   #463
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Originally Posted by PhantomWolf View Post
This is the point though, these incidents are incredibly rare. In a country with 300,000,000 people and hundreds of thousands of interactions every day, exceedingly rare things are going to happen a few times a year, just because of probability. The annual average of people getting struck by lightning in the US is about 500 people a year, with 51 of them dying. Think about that, your odds of getting killed by being struck by lightning are 27 times higher than being shot because you knocked on a door!!! It's about twice that chance of being shot by the police while being totally innocent!

To try and paint this picture of it being so common that every American is out to blast anyone that dares knock on their door, or every police officer is just waiting to gun down some black dude at the first opportunity is hyperbole because you are treating fractions of a fraction of 1% of interactions as if they are commonplace. They aren't.
And yet these fears are totally legally justified and accepted when they are used by the police to kill at the drop of a hat. I know I know we hold police to a much lower standard than the general public but still.
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Old 12th July 2018, 02:53 AM   #464
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Originally Posted by TheGoldcountry View Post
Since absolutely none of that happened in this example, are you sure it's worthy of your diatribe?

If you are going to criticize ANY interaction between the public and law enforcement, don't be surprised when people stop taking you seriously.

Which seems to be well on it's way.
Or you could accept that all interactions with law enforcement are highly threatening. I mean we see how afraid for their life cops get at the merest mention of say a legal gun, well blacks can get the same by simply having the cops called on them for no reason. Of course they are held to much higher standards of behavior as well.
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Old 12th July 2018, 03:50 AM   #465
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Originally Posted by PhantomWolf View Post
While we'd all like the answer to be one incident is too much, we have to recognize that we're dealing with flawed emotional humans. Things happen sometimes, mistakes get made. In a huge population, those mistakes crop up more, it's the law of big numbers.



Again, it's the numbers that we're dealing with, if the US only had a population of 30 million then you'd be getting these incidents at once or twice a year. It'd be the same rate, but would anyone be wetting themselves over it and accusing all cops of being evil and just waiting to shoot themselves a black guy?

.....

Compare the USA with the entire of Europe. The USA has a huge problem with the police shooting its citizens compared to the entire of Europe.
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Old 12th July 2018, 11:34 PM   #466
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Originally Posted by ponderingturtle View Post
Hero cop pulls gun on man with bike!


How dare he ride a bike!

https://blavity.com/im-just-riding-m...in-parking-lot
Clearly, we have a crisis in this country on how we train our police.
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Old 13th July 2018, 01:52 AM   #467
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Plus, who gets recruited.
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Old 13th July 2018, 04:27 PM   #468
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Originally Posted by Nessie View Post
Plus, who gets recruited.
That's a really hard fix. We've trained our police the way we have for so long, the people doing the hiring are looking for people who live in the us vs them paradigm. Hiring may need to go to a system where the a citizen's advisory board clears candidates. That would be a good step to transition to a "police by consent" model which is where we really need to be heading.
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Old 13th July 2018, 04:41 PM   #469
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Oh and for all the departments who are trying to appear more personable and human by putting out lip-sync videos on Facebook, we're good. No need to continue. If you could please stop shooting us though, that would be awesome.
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Old 16th July 2018, 06:42 AM   #470
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Originally Posted by Craig4 View Post
Clearly, we have a crisis in this country on how we train our police.
Nonsense, there was a black man with large metal object in his hands, it could be a gun totally a good reason to shoot. We should be applauding this cop for his remarkable restraint.
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Old 29th July 2018, 07:27 AM   #471
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Mississippi police officer used his stun gun on a Black man who was already handcuffed and complying with officers' commands.
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Old 30th July 2018, 03:10 AM   #473
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Originally Posted by bluesjnr View Post
Officer has been fired but no mention of criminal charges.
Don't worry he will be back, the Union will not stand for this kind of rampant ethics breaking out.
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Old 30th July 2018, 04:06 AM   #474
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Originally Posted by ponderingturtle View Post
Don't worry he will be back, the Union will not stand for this kind of rampant ethics breaking out.

Or he'll get hired by the next PD down the road.
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Old 6th September 2018, 01:53 PM   #475
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-45429185

"A Cincinnati police officer who deployed a stun gun on a 11-year-old girl suspected of shoplifting violated department policy, investigators say.

Officer Kevin Brown, 55, was also heard on bodycam video telling the girl that actions like hers were "why there's no grocery stores in the black community".

I agree with this...

"The girl's mother Donna Gowdy told CBS that his job is "to protect these kids".

"If you can't handle an 11-year-old child, then you really need to get off the police force," she said. "
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Old 6th September 2018, 06:09 PM   #476
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Originally Posted by Nessie View Post
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-45429185

"A Cincinnati police officer who deployed a stun gun on a 11-year-old girl suspected of shoplifting violated department policy, investigators say.

Officer Kevin Brown, 55, was also heard on bodycam video telling the girl that actions like hers were "why there's no grocery stores in the black community".

I agree with this...

"The girl's mother Donna Gowdy told CBS that his job is "to protect these kids".

"If you can't handle an 11-year-old child, then you really need to get off the police force," she said. "

Obviously he "felt threatened".

Eleven yr. old girls can be quite intimidating.
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Old 6th September 2018, 07:34 PM   #477
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Originally Posted by Nessie View Post
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-45429185

"A Cincinnati police officer who deployed a stun gun on a 11-year-old girl suspected of shoplifting violated department policy, investigators say.

Officer Kevin Brown, 55, was also heard on bodycam video telling the girl that actions like hers were "why there's no grocery stores in the black community".

I agree with this...

"The girl's mother Donna Gowdy told CBS that his job is "to protect these kids".

"If you can't handle an 11-year-old child, then you really need to get off the police force," she said. "
I'll put this here in case I have to repeat myself on something.

In any case, this guy clearly does not belong on the force, if he has to taze a child. Also, I haven't seen the bodycam footage yet, but I do have to wonder if he actually tried to specify that the girl should stop, made sure she could see he was a cop, and so forth. Just shouting "Stop. Stop. STOP!" Isn't going to cut it.
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Old 6th September 2018, 07:55 PM   #478
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Originally Posted by Mumbles View Post
I'll put this here in case I have to repeat myself on something.

In any case, this guy clearly does not belong on the force, if he has to taze a child. Also, I haven't seen the bodycam footage yet, but I do have to wonder if he actually tried to specify that the girl should stop, made sure she could see he was a cop, and so forth. Just shouting "Stop. Stop. STOP!" Isn't going to cut it.
It doesn't matter. A cop's weapons are supposed to be used when suspects are presenting a danger to people, not just to stop them from running away. Looking at him, I think he went to the taser because he's too out of shape to chase down a suspect briskly walking away, let alone one who runs.
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Old 7th September 2018, 10:21 AM   #479
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I'm being completely serious when I say the thieving little **** didn't deserve to be tased, the cop is an idiot. Furthermore, I don't believe the theft charges should have been dropped.
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Old 7th September 2018, 10:28 AM   #480
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Originally Posted by Babbylonian View Post
It doesn't matter. A cop's weapons are supposed to be used when suspects are presenting a danger to people, not just to stop them from running away. Looking at him, I think he went to the taser because he's too out of shape to chase down a suspect briskly walking away, let alone one who runs.

I think this is serious issue in US policing, that a great many officers really do not understand this distinction.
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