[News] The USA Police State will never satisfy its lust for beating, gassing, and imprisoning minorities

Good cop: "Can't call attention to it, it would ruin my credibility."
(incident gets found out anyway)
Good cop: "Dangit. There goes my credibility."

--Patrick
Which is the situation our society finds itself in now. I know that the vast majority of police are honest, hard-working, brave men and women doing one of the most difficult jobs there is. But there have been too many incidents of police literally and figuratively getting away with murder for police to have any credibility at all.
 

Dave

Staff member
Which is the situation our society finds itself in now. I know that the vast majority of police are honest, hard-working, brave men and women doing one of the most difficult jobs there is. But there have been too many incidents of police literally and figuratively getting away with murder for police to have any credibility at all.
The problem is, unless there's buy-in from management, saying anything can and does harm your career. Look at it this way, if you had to say something about something that was happening in your job but you knew that you could potentially lose your gig, would you say anything? For those of us who just have a job (like retail or at a college, etc.) we might not care. But a police officer is not just a career - it's a mindset and way of life. Like the military or health care profession that takes a lot of schooling and training, losing your job can be like losing yourself. So again it's not the individual but the institutionalized racism that does in the good guys.
 
if you had to say something about something that was happening in your job but you knew that you could potentially lose your gig, would you say anything?
Yes, and I have. Co-worker and then-superior who played together to get up to some not-so-acceptable habits. Got most of them thrown out of the company. Like health professionals and the military, these are people who are supposed to be the epitome of Good, people we place trust in - often Life-or-Death. Especially in this sort of functions, the good guys have to dare to stand up. Yes, I understand feeling like shutting up if you're the only one who thinks something is wrong. That's what IA and similar are for. That such departments tend to get cast as the "bad guys" in cop shows irks me to no end.

The "bad guys" are great at forming self-protecting circles and covering for each other. The "good guys" don't dare protect one another or show each other support because they feel like they're the minority. And even if, they still feel like playing everything down all the time to avoid being the "narc", the "tattletale", the "loser" who calls in the teacher when they can't get their own way. Either the good guys are actually in the minority, and we're all fucked, and all the anti-police LeQuacks are right; or they're the majority, and they need to own up to the bad apples in the bunch, and weed them out.

Compare/contrast pedophile priests: they're supposed to be a group of people with the highest moral standards, the ones you can trust, the ones you can have faith it. That there were decades of pedophile scandals hushed up by hundreds of them completely destroyed any trust people had in them, and I doubt the Catholic Church will quickly recover. Dozens/hundreds kept quiet out of fear - either for the name of the profession, or for higher-ups who knew and didn't act and thus passively allowed it. Some who were guilty were sort-of demoted or pushed out of view, many more were just rotated around and never called on it. Some of the good guys who tried to talk were silenced and professionally kalt gestellt, but...they're still the only truly "good" ones.
 
Being the good guy priest can get you kicked out of the church.

Being the good cop can get you murdered.

I'm not saying it's right, but because police depend so much on each other to stay alive, being the one who exposes others can mean you're in a situation where you need help and you don't get it. I think someone earlier in the thread linked an article about Serpico; that's a good example of what happens when a police officer goes against the grain.

The police won't expose each other, police management won't handle it, and the courts won't hold them accountable.
 
I'd rather be kicked out than have to rely on Douchebag McAbuse or Asshole DeThief having my back. The fact that the "good guys" let themselves get bullied into inaction, reinforces time and again that this is" just the way it works" and they are the minority; so they suck it up and make it ever harder and more difficult for others to speak up - and, after a while, the profession suffers because the general opinion of the job declines, and ever more of the wrong type get attracted to the job while the good guys search elsewhere for ways to make a difference. Priests clearly and obviously went over the line. As a result, well - would you leave your kids in the care of a priest?
Police are arguably approaching the line or have already crossed it. Large parts of the population already don't have any faith in cops, and with every incident ignored or mistreated this idea gets worse. Once you've lost this sort of trust, though, it's very, very hard to win back. It might involve kicking 10% of the force out, but if everyone, including poor black people in Buttsville Nowhere, genuinely believe they can trust the cops again, it would be well worth it. It won't happen, though, because like any group in power, many of the higher ups are more concerned with their power ad reputation tha nwith what would be best in the long run.
 
The problem here is that people think that this attitude is limited to the police. Let's simplify the argument to how it's phrased with children: is telling on somebody bad?


That's as simple as it gets. In our society (Europe is no exception here, nor is just about anywhere else) one of the worst possible labels is "tattler", "shit disturber", "whistleblower", "rat", or anything else related. "If it's not your problem, stay out of it" is pervasive everywhere. And people get surprised when anywhere in authority it happens as well? We are trained nearly from birth to act this way, and then act SO surprised when bullies are also the popular ones in school-age children.


Until that underlying attitude changes all the way down into childhood, nothing will change on these bigger issues either IMO.
 
Indeed. I am also of the opinion that, in many cases, tattling is the right response. But there's differences in what is or isn't tattling, is or isn't whistle blowing, and so forth.
Do I think my neighbors should call the cops because I smoke the occasional illegal substance? No. Do I think they should call the cops if I tried to sell that stuff to their 14 year old? Yes. If/when I see/saw someone bullying another kid, I did and still would tell the teacher. Gentle ribbing and joking, fun. Throwing out clothes, setting on fire, destroying homework? Yeah, I'm going to inform the authorities. And yes, sadly, that usually just got me beat up too, but it was still the right move. You drive 150 kph? Fine, don't come near me and you can do that. You drive 150 kph with kids in the car? You deserve to have your license revoked.
 
NYPD Officer Peter Liang found guilty of manslaughter in fatal shooting of Akai Gurley

Peter Liang, a rookie police officer, and his partner were on the top floor of a housing project and about to begin a vertical patrol of the stairwell. Liang had his weapon drawn and accidentally fired a round into the stairwell. The bullet ricocheted and hit Akai Gurley on the floor below. Gurley bled out while a neighbor rendered aid. Neither Liang nor his partner made a proper radio call to report the incident. Reportedly, the two officers were not supposed to be conducting a vertical patrol. (Daily News)
 
NYPD Officer Peter Liang found guilty of manslaughter in fatal shooting of Akai Gurley

Peter Liang, a rookie police officer, and his partner were on the top floor of a housing project and about to begin a vertical patrol of the stairwell. Liang had his weapon drawn and accidentally fired a round into the stairwell. The bullet ricocheted and hit Akai Gurley on the floor below. Gurley bled out while a neighbor rendered aid. Neither Liang nor his partner made a proper radio call to report the incident. Reportedly, the two officers were not supposed to be conducting a vertical patrol. (Daily News)
This was just the dumbest, most senseless death ever...

- Cop shouldn't have had his weapon drawn. He had no reason for it.
- Cop shouldn't have been in the stairwell period. They weren't supposed to be patrolling it.
- Cop should have called for help the second the man was shot. It might not have saved him, but it's his duty and job. Plus it would have shown that he was actually thinking about the man he had just fucking shot.

Instead this man died for nothing. It's not even that I don't feel bad for the officer: he clearly wasn't ready to be out on patrol and THIS happened. Hopefully IA fucking busts the partner down. It was his responsibility to prevent shit like this from happening with his rookie.
 
Ok, so obviously they're horrible people. Was there really no one smart enough to say "hey guys...this will make us look really bad"?
I'm assuming it is the same mindset that led the NYPD to start #myNYPD and encouraged people to send in stories of their favorite NYPD interactions.
 
The family accepted a settlement which permits the city and police to claim no wrongdoing in the civil suit. Lots of people, after suffering terrible loss, start foundations and organizations intended to help prevent others from similar loss. The police, who believe they could have done better but also believe they weren't at fault, are suggesting the family, who accepted the police and city's settlement which states the police and city are not at fault, consider using some of that money to educate youth that playing with toy guns in public areas has significant risks.

The chain of logic doesn't suggest that this is a horrible statement, but I certainly understand the people who feel the police are wrong, and the family is wrong to accept a plea of no wrongdoing, and that the subsequent statement is thus not only unkind, but passive-aggressive if you believe they are both wrong and know they are wrong.

However, this s a significant problem for law enforcement, and this is certainly not the first death due to a youth who was playing with a realistic weapon with the orange safety cap removed, who chose to reach for the weapon when approached by police rather than obey their commands to keep their hands away from the weapon. Real or fake, the police have to treat the weapon as real, in the same way that you should treat a weapon as real if brandished against you when you are uncertain that it's fake or real.

http://time.com/3603087/tamir-rice-shooting-toy-gun/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/life...494ea8-86f8-11e4-9534-f79a23c40e6c_story.html
http://www.iherc.org/facts.html
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/29/28-people-killed-bb-pellet-guns-police-tamir-rice

Whether the family takes the advice or not is up to them.

Whether you choose to take offense or not at the suggestion is up to you.
 
who chose to reach for the weapon when approached by police rather than obey their commands to keep their hands away from the weapon
I don't know if you watched the video (don't blame you if you didn't) but there was no time for Tamir to put the weapon down between when the cop left the car and when he was killed.
 
steinman, with all due respect, you're completely fucking wrong about everything regarding this case and every time you've posted about police abuse/brutality in general. I'm sure your #BlueLivesMatter facebook group is missing you, though
 

GasBandit

Staff member
steinman, with all due respect, you're completely fucking wrong about everything regarding this case and every time you've posted about police abuse/brutality in general. I'm sure your #BlueLivesMatter facebook group is missing you, though
And here we see the common Leftist Ideologue, unable to cope with any information not in lockstep with its worldview, viciously lashing out in an attempt not to settle or address disparity, but to silence the disagreement. Let us attempt to speak to it in its own language:

 
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/05/02/the-torturing-of-mentally-ill-prisoners

This is a brutal read. I don't think anyone arrested deserves this torturous, cruel, and unusual punishment.

Krzykowski mentioned that she had overheard security guards heckling prisoners. One officer had told an inmate, “Go ahead and kill yourself—no one will miss you.” Again, Perez seemed unfazed. “It’s just words,” she said. Then, as Krzykowski recalls it, Perez leaned forward and gave her some advice: “You have to remember that we have to have a good working relationship with security.”
Krzykowski discovered, however, that many inmates were locked up in single-person cells. Solitary confinement was supposed to be reserved for prisoners who had committed serious disciplinary infractions. In forced isolation, inmates often deteriorated rapidly. As Krzykowski put it, “So many guys would be mobile and interactive when they first came to the T.C.U., and then a few months later they would be sleeping in their cells in their own waste.”
“What’s going on with Rainey?” Krzykowski asked a guard.
“Oh, don’t worry, we’ll put him in the shower,” he told her.
Krzykowski remembers hearing this and feeling reassured. “I was thinking, O.K., lots of times people feel good after a shower, so maybe he will calm down. A nice, gentle shower with warm water.”
The next day, Krzykowski learned from some nurses that a couple of guards had indeed escorted Rainey to the shower at about eight the previous night. But he hadn’t made it back to his cell. He had collapsed while the water was running. At 10:07 P.M., he was pronounced dead.
Krzykowski assumed that he must have had a heart attack or somehow committed suicide. But the nurses said that Rainey had been locked in a stall whose water supply was delivered through a hose controlled by the guards. The water was a hundred and eighty degrees, hot enough to brew a cup of tea—or, as it soon occurred to Krzykowski, to cook a bowl of ramen noodles. (Someone had apparently tampered with the T.C.U.’s water heater.) It was later revealed that Rainey had burns on more than ninety per cent of his body, and that his skin fell off at the touch.
In a recent survey by the Bureau of Correctional Health Services, in New York City, more than a third of mental-health personnel working in prisons admitted to feeling “that their ethics were regularly compromised in their work setting.” There was a pervasive fear that “security staff might retaliate if health staff reported patient abuse.” Violence toward inmates flourished at the city’s main prison, Rikers Island, and it was often ignored by the dozens of counsellors and psychologists on staff. One counsellor who did not ignore it was Randi Cawley. In December, 2012, she reported having seen guards beat an adolescent inmate who was handcuffed to a gurney. But other witnesses refused to confirm her account, and Cawley began receiving threats: dead flowers placed on her computer, ominous phone calls. She felt so unsafe inside Rikers that she quit.
There's a lot more, and it's a lot worse.
 
I haven't heard stienman say there aren't abuses. I'm fairly sure he's all in favor of sacking any guard who boils an inmate alive. There are, however, also cases where people behave improperly towards police or other law officers and have to face consequences. You may not realize this, but we live in a shades-of-grey universe, not black-and-white. #notallcops and #notallmen are just as true as #notallwomen or #notallblacks or whatever today's hashtag is. I'll happily agree (and stienman may or may not! What wonders of this age, different people with different ideas!) there are much more cases of unwarranted police brutality than there are of people unjustly calling out for it when it's the other way around. However, being blind to a smaller injustice, or perpetrating one, for the cause of a bigger injustice still makes you an ass.
I have no specific insight in these specific cases. I don't know when or where or which ones are good or bad or what went wrong. I do know that assuming all cops are Evil and power abusers is just as bad a way of thinking as thinking all black people are criminals. All men are rapists is as wrong as assuming all women are easy and willing. All [group of people] are [negative stereotype] is the same way of thinking no matter what "cause" or "reason" you may think you have.
 
I'm pretty sure the inmate abuses is separate from the earlier Tamir posts, and not intended to be read as a rebuttal.

I've heard plenty of horror stories of inmate abuse, and agree that they are horrible.
 
Also, isn't Ohio an open-carry state?
We don't have laws regulating open carry, so yes... but it's also the kind of thing you don't do in the cities period. They'll usually haul you in for disturbing the peace if you do, assuming it's not an unloaded long arm slung on your shoulder (which is generally considered fine anywhere that isn't downtown).

Concealed carry is a whole other beast.
 
Well, I'm just thinking, if it's an open carry state, even if it was a real gun, would he have been committing a crime, much less one where he deserved to be IMMEDIATELY SHOT?
 

Dave

Staff member
I'm with Charlie 100% on this one. The police officer in question acted horrendously and shot without provocation or justification. The dispatcher was told this was a toy gun and did not relay the information to the police. But the car hadn't even fully stopped yet when the officer opened fire. NOTHING about this case gave a shadow of a doubt about the officer's guilt. I'm a big supporter of the police and without evidence I'm on their side. But not this time. The evidence is clear. This was not a good shoot.
 
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