About Police Shootings (in America, Duh)

Lightstrider wrote: Yeah that's crazy. That officer totally let his anger take over his actions.

exactly - he hit someone with his car because he was angry

if he wasnt a cop that would be something like "vehicular assault with bodily injury" which and everyone would agree that the criminal was a dangerous and violent person who deserved to be punished and no one would ask how much pressure he was under at work, or what good things he might have done in the past when he was in a better mood

if this exact same kind of hit happened to a motorcycle cop, the charge would be "attempted murder on a law enforcement officer"

and the thing is, i dont believe this guy is that much of an exception, not in america

if he were, why wouldnt all those other good cops get rid of him?

how many bad apples does it take before we admit that its a serious problem?

if you have 1000 police in your city, and 1 out of every 20 is like this, then you have 50 lunatics running around with guns, who hit people with cars and kick them down because they cant control their tempers, almost every day of the week

multiply that by just five years and ask how many people got assaulted inappropriately by those fifty cops in five years?

how many people in those five years decide, as a result of personal experience, that cops are monsters?

is this what it means to be a sheep dog?

sheep act up too, and the way i see it, the guy on the motorcycle was one of the sheep

so, i dont see a sheep dog, i see a wolf in a sheep dog outfit

you want to be respected by the community?
you want to be given a fair shake by the media?
do something about the wolves in your ranks

this was kind of interesting
the cops show up at the two minute mark

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBrN-ax2eJA

Firstly - This appears to be trying to sell me something

Secondly - Minto is a goddamn hole of a place anyway* (From an objective statistical standpoint :huh: )

Thirdly - ACA (the show they use the footage from) is sensationalist crap, so there's no real integrity in their "source" for the footage.



(Strange that I'm arguing against this when it appears to be saying that Aussie cops are not bad folks.
Yes, I'm sure our laws are different and they have different approaches to certain situations, *this particular* source however is not any real indicator of that)




*My point being, the local coppers probably have a bit of experience with managing drug and alcohol related fracas, domestic violence, and the like, without panicing and aerating someone.

If you can stand to read to sludge that the ACA calls an article on this - Once the police engaged the man with the knife, they used a tazer, the tale continues that the Tazer did not fully neutralise his belligerance and they had to tackle him and restrain him (the tazing did cause him to drop the knife)

The accuracy of the article is, as always, questionable.

when the guy with the knife charged at the police car, the police backed up and drove away, drawing him away from the area where he had been attacking people

they used a taser to subdue him and he was taken into custody, alive

i posted it because it was an example of police not killing someone who was definitely violent and dangerous

in juxtaposition to the many examples we have of american police shooting people who have their hands up or are not trying to harm anyone, like this guy , who was laying on the ground with his hands up, explaining that he is a behavior therapist and that his autistic patient (sitting next to him) does not ave a gun, but a toy truck, and that there is no need to shoot anyone

when the police shot him he asked "why did you shoot me"

the officer responded "i dont know"

now, these are both single incidents and it is not fair to take any single incident and say "this is the norm"

i also dont want to simplify american law enforcement into just being "bad guys", because i dont believe that

it is complicated situation and leos definitely get too much bad press, but i believe that if we take a "big picture" view, our officers do use violence too freely - way too freely- and thats what this thread is about

now, these are both single incidents and it is not fair to take any single incident and say "this is the norm"

i also dont want to simplify american law enforcement into just being "bad guys", because i dont believe that

I don't know what the "Culture" is for USA Police - I've never been there, I've never been to a USA Police school.


I've dealt with Australian police, and they are not trained to protect the world from evil, or to act as a vaguely vigilante domestic militia force - They are trained to make money.

You can't give a ticket to a dead man.


Teach your cops that every human life is a potential source of revenue, and you'll find yourself in a peaceful wonderland

(You'll also be reluctant to cross the road at anywhere other than a specific crossing location, unless you've got $75 you just can't find a good use for)

This is a society issue. This has been going on for a very long time. The word villain comes from the word "villager". 1275-1325; Middle English vilein, vilain < Middle French < Late Latin villānus a farm servant. See villa, -an The Us vs Them mentality is going to cause a "war". We need to stop seeing this as a divisive issue. We are the police. We need the police. We need to see this as Our problem. the police work for the people and we need to get them undercontrol as much as we need to get under-control.

If people regulated themselves, then we would not need police to do it. But since we don't we need police.

This is a cultural and societal issue.

If we hate the police, we are adding to the issue.

We need to work together as a society to address the crime of the police and of the people. We all need to come together. And we need to invite the police to help solve it.

I have discussed this with many people and have the utmost respect for all Police Officers. The best way to sum this up is in my childhood the police were known as Public Safety Officers, now we refer to them as Law Enforcement Officers (some officers agreed here, mainly older generations). Maybe we as a society should think about that how to turn reverse this movement, and it may help us learn to better trust, befriend and cooperate with police better. Citizens helping in nonviolent vigilantism may not be such a bad idea. However, it is also the public's responsibility to police their community meaning holding fellow citizens (this includes the general public as well as officers) accountable for their actions. This is only a thought because there was one this weekend in Chicago already drawing protesters. I will not decide where I stand on it, until information is clearly released but food for thought.

I think police also have an issue with teenagers too. My friend and i were hanging out and his neighbors thought i was a burglar so they called the police. When the police got there they put my friend in hand cuffs in his own home and even after they found out he lived there they didnt un cuff him, were still being very disrespectful, and wouldnt give him his phone back. Even if you are innocent, you are still in danger from the police.

Imagine being shot over a piece of candy?



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLzDGKp1myY

There are a lot of good things being said in this thread.

For me it's all about culture. For instance, Star Wars is part of pop(ular) culture. There are a lot of lessons that can be drawn from it which help to inform and instruct one's character. Who do we look up to? Luke? Yoda? Anakin? or Vader? SW even taught us to see the two as different men and in the end even Vader, lord of the Sith, was redeemed to the light. Salvation. Culture is kind of a programming that gives us a baseline for interacting with members of the same culture. It also, helps point out differences with people of "other" cultures.

Just as there is a culture around Washington politics that not everyone knows, it is simply by virtue of its existence as an organization that the police would naturally develop their own culture. And in that culture it is clear that they are influenced to believe a certain amount of criminal intent based on the numbers of certain demographics that they have arrested in the past. And the demographics arrested in the past make those same demographics more policed than others because the police are expecting more arrests to come from them. And this also creates a profit motive because often the dept gets money based on their stats. And their communities judge them by these stats. There is no statistic for innocent people doing the right thing; only how many people you arrest for doing the wrong thing.

Culture reinforces itself so the more they get used to locking up a certain demographic and associating them with specific patterns of crime and behavior the less they tolerate those same demographics and blame them for societal problems.

And perhaps, in their hero journey, they feel like a hero when they're locking people up so why wouldn't they get high and even addicted to that feeling and perhaps lose objectivity for when to turn on hero mode and when to relax because this person isn't a threat?

The main problem is that their training reinforces this Blue culture because the society lionizes the police like they do the military. So being critical of the police is politically untenable just as it is to criticize the military. These are things you simply cannot do in the US unless you want to be attacked. And as society protects the police they too take part in reinforcing that blue culture that seeks to erase certain demographics that their minds have associated with "bad". This is why they start acting before knowing what's going on because in their minds they already do know what's going on and their bodies carry out the sentence that their blue culture has pronounced against them.

As said earlier... if there is a clear guilty party, armed or not, that's not part of these targeted demographics they usually find some way to arrest that person without fatal injury. But with others they assume deadly force is necessary to their very survival. There are thousands upon thousands of instances where they do get it right. And that should be recognized. But it also needs to be recognized when they get it wrong so that positive changes can be made.