“Iceland enjoys a low crime rate – a unique product of its large, stable middle class…”
What is this “middle-class” they speak of? Some quaint European tradition?
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I think its possible to isolate the problem to the manner in which we run policing institutions.
The first duty of police is to protect themselves.
Generally they are told they can and should shoot people who they believe are a danger to themselves or others.
Dude dancing in traffic, throwing himself in front of cars reached into his pocket. Did the officer’s have reason to believe he was about to harm them or others? They say yes. Cops then shoot and miss. They shoot the program director of a mental health program in Brooklyn. Thats not because they were acting illegally, but because they were bad shots.
DA gets called. DA has to do SOMETHING. So DA charges a suicidal schizophrenic with a BS charge, and will likely offer a generous plea bargain to reflect just how trumped up these charges are… because the chance of conviction is quite low.
This is not the same thing as murderous cops open fire on a crowd while trying to kill a mentally ill person. That would be a problem with the people who are police. We have a different problem… the policies of police, and how we handle criminals in the courts lead to this.
These are the rules we have. This is their result. Its not as small a problem as two bad cops, and not as large as the culture and everyone in it.
Nathan scores a snark point!
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Only cops can make cops look bad. It’s not really our job to give them the benefit of the doubt when that happens. It’s our job to remain vigilant and ensure someone is watching the watchmen. For each of the 93 cops killed in a year, there are tens of citizens who are subjected to police abuse of power. More if you consider the impact of ill-conceived laws like just about every pot bust.
Meanwhile, for all the talk about culture, people are still responsible for their own actions. Don’t believe me? Ask a cop who arrests someone for any crime.
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Thats where it went wrong. Shooting as the only option to deal with aberrant behavior?
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Oh hey watchmen of the watchers… does your police department use an arbitration process for complaints about officers? Does your police union have an agreement with the department?
At this point you´d have to be really fucking rich not to get at least a little uneasy whenever you spot an American cop.
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I think my Asshole-Meter just exploded. Make an actual point, don’t be tiresome.
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Crazy right? Good old tackling seems to be out of fashion due to all of the blood borne diseases. So I’m told by an MP as I discussed the tasing of a very old harmless guy in our neighborhood by the cops. Training now isn’t to physically touch a dude. Tasing fits in the restrain a subject catergory of that whole appropriate force chart.
If an officer thinks they can’t physically control you and need to, they tase you.
Why they didn’t tase this dude before they shot is another question.
The police wounded several by-standers. They didn’t miss once, they missed several times. Keep those shitegobs off the street, they’re dangerous and out of control.
You might not be so eager to blindly defend authority if you lived somewhere that has cops with twitchy trigger fingers and a municipal administration that turns a blind eye to it. Your cute story about an old man getting tased isn’t on the same order of magnitude as ‘shot several by-standers, but not the mentally ill and unarmed suspect who wasn’t suspected of having committed any crimes, he just looked and acted odd.’
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.[quote=“xzzy, post:2, topic:15752, full:true”]
They should also send an invoice for the bullets, just to make sure they recoup their costs.
[/quote]
Hey - bullets are expensive and harder to come by lately.
Some people naively think that cops are well trained with their weapons. Some are. Some perform amazingly, place well in competition, run classes, and write the books on tactical shooting.
Some treat their gun as a tool like a pen or flashlight and give them about as much though. As long as they can re-qualify every year or whatever, they are good to go. On more than one occasion I’ve seen cops scoring all over their targets while I have a neat little group in the center, and I am by no means exceptionally skilled.
I guess having an American movie night at the precinct the night before wasn’t such a great idea, now was it?
China used to do that for executions. The NYPD could follow in their footsteps.
The city of NY appears to have instituted a “Stop Hitting Yourself” policy.
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Ironically going to prison is the main way for the destitute and mentally ill to get treatment now. Prisons have become de facto mental institutions.
Speaking of bleeding he was also charged with vandalism by getting his blood all over the pavement.
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I think the nicked him for littering too.
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You would THINK that the cops would at LEAST be sufficiently skilled with their firearms to actually HIT their targets.
However, that would require regular range time and repeated practice, and there’s no budget for that these days. Some cops I know either practice with a personal weapon on personal time at personal expense. But most just rely on their annual qualification shoots, 50 rounds a year, and otherwise the only “practice” they get, is in incidents like this one. . . .
Gee, two hours on the range a week and a ten dollar box of ammo a week, is that too much to pay ???
It’s obscene for a state to penny pinch like that. The state should accept that such expenses are a necessary sacrifice for its conception of law and order.
I’m not defending their authority. I think their authority is suspect from its very origins. I absolutely hate the fact that these abuses of police authority exist, and I come from Texas, so my disgust with cops is well ingrained. I’m not there anymore… in no small part due to the fact that absolutely insane and unbelievable things occur there, involving cops, and criminals, who are often the same thing.
Its beyond the point of pointing fingers and gasping however. I’m concerned enough to want to understand it, and find a way to change it… because I don’t see it getting any better. Just worse.
If we remove these “shitegobs” from the street, and it will happen again… because its a matter of training and policy. Training and policy that end up with people getting killed, and cops getting away with murder. Literally.
Problems I see…
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Deadly force isn’t acceptable. Ever. We need some method to stop people at range that doesn’t involve punching holes in their vital organs. Its barbaric and stupid. Its also 2013. Why doesn’t a non-lethal and effective solution exist? I’ve seen the research, and some fairly effective prototypes, but its not a priority for anyone, and it really REALLY should be.
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Cops vs. society. Police are told that civilians are dangerous to them, and told to always be cautious and aware. They are as afraid of us as we are of them. Cops get shot in the line of duty, and stabbed, and attacked, and see a whole host of nightmares. This affects them badly. They say things to one another like “There is no justice, Just us.” They get PTSD and turn into alcoholics. They are a closed off subculture, and maladaptive. They want to minimize the danger civilians pose to themselves, and are supported in this… so cops see civilians as a problem.
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Society vs. cops. Police talk about a war on police. Most people hate them… and for good reason. They ruin your day at best, and fucking murder you or your loved ones at worst. We see ‘administrative leave’ for police that shoot innocent bystanders and think “holy shit they shot civilians and get a vacation” and its true.
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Policing police. We get internal affairs. This results in every complaint being investigated. Most of the complaints about police come from other police. The police unions step in. They negotiate rules for arbitration. This is where the absolute worst abuses happen. The burden of proof is different… its not due process. Cops get administrative leave. IA builds a case against them. The officers in question see all the evidence against them, they then respond. If they can poke holes in the evidence… if they can game the system, they get away with little to no punishment. Officers who have been fired for gross misconduct by their direct superiors can appeal, and get reinstated.
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The district attorney, the justice system, and all its flaws. Its a political mess. The idea of justice is far removed from our legal system. Its just naive to think its about justice at this point. Its about a system and the laws that govern it… and how it can be twisted. Everyone within it knows how to game it too. Cops feed people to the system. This is the part that terrifies me the most. The system is more of a way to control and regulate people than anything else, disenfranchising people, making people plead guilty to charges they are innocent of, locking them in brutal prisons where they are abused in every way possible. Its a horror show. The thing I hope people look back on like we do the horrors of our last century.
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Systemic and widespread retaliation by police against people that fight these injustices… this I don’t know much about, but it seems to happen all the time. Anecdotes and reports make me think that these institutions are very good at protecting themselves from scrutiny and the ramifications of these actions… thus victims of our justice system bind together into activist groups.
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Origins of police in breaking civil unrest and unions. Many police forces got their start busting the heads of strikers, and were deputized to give them legal protection to do it. The Pennsylvania state police proudly flaunt this heritage. This is how I know I should avoid Pennsylvania at all costs.
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The militarization of police. I assume this is done to protect officers… at least ostensibly. Its results in more use of excessive force, and the rise of an industry… new markets for military gear, complete with lobbyists, pressure groups, and other terrifying things resulting in something akin to a police-industrial complex and soldiers rather than peace officers.
I’m now in the situation, like every American, that I could have a run in with the law and my life be ruined. Be forced to pick between being raped and beaten repeatedly or cop a plea and become a criminally convicted person with no job prospects and no right to vote, and never get to leave, or try to get away and flee the country. This could happen if I commit a crime, or I don’t. I could have my pets shot as a matter of procedure. I could lose a loved one, or have to watch their lives get ruined. And… also I could get shot as an innocent bystander.
Personally I have a list of things I will do if it ever happens to me. None of them are legal, all are desperate. I don’t like this fact, and its goddamn terrifying. Every time I see a cop I think about it… and I live in a heavenly place as far as the police are concerned.
I’ve watched as cops shot someone dead. Been drug to the police department as a witness, and saw firsthand how this all went down. Drank their horrible coffee (really indescribably bad). Got bored and erased and rewrote all the appointments on an particular detectives desk calendar, upon finding out I had been illegally detained as a witness and could have just gone home and done it all by phone.
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