You're speculating. Try harder.

I made a bold claim. I can be falsified with a quote from a single cop who spoke out against police abuse and didn't get fired. I will add the qualifier that I don't consider statements by cops outside the department of the abuser to be particularly interesting, but if you have several of those I'll eat some crow. I'm mainly interested in statements from cops in the department of the abuser.

Here's an incomplete list of names of people killed by police, where the police stood up for their killers.



In support of my claim, I point to the 50-some cops in Buffalo who resigned not from being police officers but merely from some special subset because they were upset that a couple cops who shoved down a guy to the tune of life threatening injuries got charged with a crime, the dozens of cops defending the home of Chauvin, and the Seattle PD assaulting peaceful protesters unprovoked and tweeting out pics of candles to prove that they were under assault from explosive devices. If one bad cop is abusive and 1000 cops knowingly do nothing, you have 1001 bad cops.

Serpico seemed like a decent guy. Just sayin'

unbundle the police

@well named

On the surface that seems good. I'm assuming the alternative is an unarmed set of government officials?

Cursory concern: What would happen when these officials are put into dangerous situations? IE true suspects in a violent crime. Much less likely to happen in a restaurant inspection

oh yeah, I forgot I need to go back and re-read your post. Sorry, I'm scatterbrained

I think we'll know when policing reform has taken place when there are systemic changes made to the police and justice system. This is not meant to be an exhaustive list, but are some things i would personally need to see in order to believe the police are putting in honest effort to improve.

1) Bring in police consultants from countries like Denmark where they have much stricter laws about the use of police firearms. At the end of this post, I list the rules from Denmark.

2) Any use of a firearm should result in an immediate independent investigation by NON-police personnel. Time to stop letting the abusers investigate themselves.

3) Criminal investigations against police should proceed just like any other citizen. They should get no special treatment. Prosecutors need to be protected from retribution.

4) No paid administrative leaves. It's ridiculous that cops should get a paid vacation after committing crimes.

5) An anonymous reporting system like that used by NASA for aviation incidents.

6) If a police officer has multiple complaints, then their supervisor goes on the hot seat to explain why the office is kept on duty.

7) Require monthly meetings between the police force and the community, where the community members get to speak without being interrupted. The police can then respond while keeping in mind that they work for us.

8) Stop hiding behind the flag and stop changing the flag to suit your purposes. You are not a victim.

9) Much longer training period. More training in deescalation techniques. When an officer fails to use those techniques, then they're fired.

10) If you turn off your body cam without specific approval from your supervisor, you're fired. Period. And the supervisor better have a good excuse for making that call.

There's a lot more, but this would be a good start.











-------------------
Denmark Police Firearms Use Rules:

The appropriate use of firearms is described in the Act on Police Activities regulations, section 16 and 17 is translated into English in.[6]

16. (1) The police may use force only if necessary and justified and only by such means and to such extent as are reasonable relative to the interest which the police seek to protect. Any assessment of the justifiability of such force must also take into account whether the use of force involves any risk of bodily harm to third parties.

(2) Force must be used as considerately as possible under the circumstances and so as to minimise any bodily harm.

17. (1) Firearms may only be used: (i) to avert an on-going or imminent dangerous assault on a person; (ii) to avert other imminent danger to the lives of persons or of such persons incurring grievous bodily harm […] (iv) to secure the apprehension of persons who have or are suspected on reasonable grounds of having commenced or committed a dangerous assault on another person unless the risk that such persons will commit another such assault is deemed not to exist;

(2) Before the police fire shots involving a risk of harm to a person, the person must be informed in so far as possible, first by shouted warnings and then by warning shots, that the police intend to fire if police orders are not observed. It must also be ensured, in so far as possible, that the person is able to observe the order.

(3) In case of an obvious risk of hitting third parties, shots may only be fired as a last resort […]

(5) If police shooting has caused harm to a person, the person must immediately be examined by a doctor.

So, kelhus said a lot of things. I'm not sure I entirely agree with any of his statements that weren't just about stats, but I think there's enough validity to some of it, though I would state things differently. It is certainly true, for example, that the problems are complex and that the simple versions of arguments on both sides miss the complexity.

I said he missed the point of my post, because I was not arguing for a conclusion based on simple statistics, I was pointing out the flaws with those arguments in general, and trying to point back to the larger issue. In other words, I think he's missing the forest for the trees.

The trees are things like media criticism, arguments about which slogans are or should be popular, and debates about the varying usefulness of different stats presented as movement frames. The forest is extreme inequality and all the negative consequences of it, in all of the forms those consequences take. Hence:

My view is that social movements are inherently chaotic, messy, human phenomena. BLM is a pretty organic movement, and that is reflected in both the slogans (#blacklivesmatter, #defundthepolice) which come to be popular, and the fact that people are advocating for and arguing about many different problems and proposed solutions. It's a mistake to think that the energy in BLM as a movement is only narrowly about very specific issues involving the police.

From a social science perspective I am very interested in thinking about what makes social movements succeed, and that definitely means thinking critically about framing, slogans, and how movement actors present arguments. But from a political perspective, in a Democracy, I think change happens as a result of messy coalitions forming around unpredictable bursts of energy to address social problems. We're always going to argue about the exact nature of the problems and the best solutions, but if you agree with this:

Then I think you ought to consider yourself at least an ally of BLM, and want to see the energy of the movement actually lead to change. That doesn't mean uncritically supporting any and all ideas associated with BLM, nor does it mean avoiding criticism of those ideas. But I think in the larger context the way BLM frames the issues is less wrong than the counter-movement, and I think that is important. Particularly it means that I would rather try to refine and clarify the goals of the movement than amplify the arguments of the counter-movement.

If there is a culture for not speaking up, then very few people will speak up.

My experience is limited, but I spent some years in (military, not police) uniform when I was younger. It would have been very tough to speak up on a fellow soldier out some personal initiative, and I'm an outspoken person.

Things like that rely on a healthy culture and leadership that invite honesty. These are not buzzwords and it can be brutal. I was lucky enough to experience an officer like that. A debrief could make you feel elevated, but also gutted. Not because he was aggressive or overly tough, but because you knew it was true. He did make us good at our job, however.

your 10 rules are quite well thought out. but they cannot be enforced due to the union. therefore the way to solve this problem is simple. get rid of the union. but the democrats cant afford that because they need that money and those votes. so in the end this will all be a jolly ride down the f..k the poor folks again trolley. it is the only way. maybe we at 2+2 who know better can reach out to our politicians and get them in on this idea. cuz i know trump would be on this bus in a second.

The Danish rules don't look very different from what a lot of major cities have.

We need to instill a "see something, say something" attitude in police departments. It is not okay even the one Buffalo riot police officer that bent over to look at the old man felt compelled to stand up and keep walking as soon as someone taps him on the shoulder.

I don't know how we can do that. A complete dismantling (at least on paper) and reassembly of police forces (basically Camden PD, Ford, GM style reorgs), getting rid of all the officers with questionable disciplinary records, rehiring all the good (at least not known to be bad yet) may really be the way to go.

As for people really calling for the abolishment of police departments... get a grip.

There is really only one way to know for sure how that will play out. I say we let Minneapolis, Seattle and Portland experiment sans police forces, and we will have a pretty good idea one way or another how well it works. If we never even try, there will always be an argument it would work we just gave it a chance.

I don't know if you can do one without the other.

Police unions are extremely strong and always have the backs of every officer regardless of their racist behavior.

What I heard the City Council President in Minneapolis saying was that she could no longer see negotiating with the police union. Anything short of disbanding the police dept. would mean that union rules prevail. Including last in first out.

In New York I see that they have passed a law requiring that all records of police officers abusive behavior that is turned up in investigations can be made public (i.e., can be used to get officers to resign and/or would be made public if officer is fired and objects). Not sure whether that is city or state. And it will be interesting to see courts rule on whether the law is allowed to override union negotiated contracts.

.
Cops don't catch crimes in the act 99% of the time - they get there AFTER the fact... So our system of having cops ride around in expensive SUV's when everyone knows they don't catch criminals in the act is at the root of the the waste..

And this core inefficiency of the police department explains why the "defund police" story is being misreported

That movement doesn't want zero police - every city needs the capability to respond to emergencies and send out units for domestic situations or other crimes.. But that's ALL we should be paying for - we don't need half the city's budget for that. We have too many fancy SUV cop cars riding around this city doing nothing. Consequently, they're almost forced to harass people and police for profit because they're overstaffed. Defunding the police is absolutely the answer, and diverting 30-50% of their budget to mental health treatment, education reform and community improvement.. that would solve the homeless problem and help our inner cities, thus reducing the need for so many police.. Unfortunately, we've invested in arresting people instead of helping them.

The police and the tendency to never question their worthiness has allowed them to glad-hand their way to half the city's budget and a culture that uses poor people as their atm (aka ticketing people for something meaningless, and then keeping them in the system forever with repeat fines and arrests for non-payment... Rogan talks about it well here:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Vhu5GsaSGYs&t=02m26s..

time to end it - all rackets come to an end.
.

Police reform is progressing, while not at all accomplished, when extrajudicial killings cease to exist.

Rashard Brooks, RIP, most recently.

Yeah, he scuffled with the cops, but he's dead as a result; not an appropriate nor warranted outcome.

These officers, or to be fair, one of them, exhibited their inability to prevent their weapons from being taken by someone they were trying to get into custody. They shouldn't be armed if they fail to exhibit an abilty to maintain possession of those tools of escalation.

Brooks was unarmed. So in this situation, if the police weren't armed, fatal outcomes, mathematically, come waaaaay down.

Of course our lax gun "regulations", one might argue, have contributed to the militarization of our police forces in an effort to stay "at par" with the opposition.

So it's a 5-layer dilemma cake with lots of unsavory intermediary consequences. It would be wise for the police to just acknowledge the desire for reform and constructively join in the debate, as they have excellent insights to share, no doubt.

But, as of now, since there are so many of us and so few of them, police have come to the conclusion that the only way to control us is to use violent tactics, harassment, and imposition of fear.

So again, reform has begun to progress when we have zero extrajudicial killings.

Here's more police brutality than anybody has time to view. Mostly within the past few weeks. Kelhaus ofc has time bc he has over 1k posts since march, so I'm guessing he's a piss jug kinda guy

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...j9XWUp3Svb_KZA

Trump executive order on policing

I don't have much of a feel for what the impact of this is, but a few noteworthy sections:

The ban on choke-holds is very good. Choke-holds are unsafe, especially when both training and refresher training standards can vary in quality and oversight.

The last two points are very solid on paper, but will require a lot of money, time and effort. If those do not come about, it won't do much.

And of course, it ultimately all hinges whether federal resources are actually used towards implementing and overseeing these measures. The US for all its admirable "let's get it done"-mentality has this ironic glitch in the matrix where federal authorities hold extreme power with their ability to not enforce certain matters; "these regulations are ok to ignore for the next four years!"

The intricacies of American institutions / traditions are sometimes lost on me, but in my country the entire thing would be lifted in credibility if an expert independent body stood for the heavy lifting, more so than a political appointee. There is a lot of "certification by the Attorney General" and "The Attorney General shall, as appropriate" in this text.

It's an executive order, not legislation. So like some of the tariffs passed in this manner, they potentially mean nothing under a new administration.

This is a cop-out, dog and pony show.

It's like wearing a bandaid to the swimming pool, eventually it'll just be floating in the ether.

Yes, I know it is an executive order, so I used the more general term "regulation". I would agree that a proper law is necessary to handle a serious matter such as this, especially in the political climate the US currently suffers under.

An administration, a president and an AG who ordered an attack on demonstrators so the president could get his picture taken does not exactly inspire confidence in its executive orders to curtail unnecessary police violence either. Still, my comments were directed at the words and terms used.

these people def should have guns

Very lockbox conspiracy theorist thinking displayed by you. I suppose the protestors dreamed up citizen review boards, internal affairs departments, citizen complaint investigators and federal oversight consent agreements two weeks ago.

I think it would be fair, if not prudent, at this point to operate under the assumption that police will collaborate, sync stories and lie for one another whenever their is a situation that could compromise any member.

We have seen such a vast amount of video footage that contrasted what the police report said happened, and is only exposed because the cops did not know the video was taken.

There comes a point when the evidence is so vast that benefit of the doubt should not be given and instead the opposite should occur. Trust of such statements should only be given with verifiable proof.

IA cops are pretty much universally hated. Even if they switch out to another assignment the hate tends to continue for the rest of their careers

The Culture of Policing Is Broken

David Brooks, writing in the Atlantic: