First thing that cones to my head is “this person is a fascist.”
I generally have no other thoughts on the matter. If someone has this fascist sticker on their car, they have shown me who they are, and I choose to believe them.
11 Likes
Nah, they’ll cut funding to schools and libraries to pay the settlement.
And increase funding for the police so that they have the resources to better handle these situations in the future.
1 Like
Really, you don’t even need to peel it off, though. I have said before, but the literal symbolism of that flag is “police state”.
9 Likes
That’s basically my exact thinking at this point too.
The restaurant near me that regularly puts on their electronic marquee “support and defend law enforcement” while simultaneously leading the local charge against health and safety orders for people capacity and is on the news for it regularly just shows me these people are a joke.
If you specifically need to ask people to not only support something but defend it too, you know damn well something indefensible is already happening.
The police who pull atrocious shit like this don’t need a defense except the one they are legally entitled to in a court in front of an open jury. And whenever I see one of these stupid special flags, I just see another special kind of jackbooted shitheel
4 Likes
Yeah. It blows my mind every year when the passing of the school budget is a huge contentious issue, and then there’s one, maybe two lines about the police budget in the local paper. Basically always passes as asked, no debate or contention, no discussion about crime rates or rates of solving cases. Or even the number of traffic accidents due in part (I would argue) at the lax enforcement of traffic laws.
4 Likes
…dammit
Okay. Now let’s fix this!
7 Likes
Literally named for the type of wood used in the clubs they beat minorities with.
2 Likes
What I wish and hope for…
3 Likes
You get a like, but that asshole cop gets a flag for victim-blaming.
5 Likes
Or a biblical plague. Hmmm…
3 Likes
I mean, how they treated that kid before they pepper sprayed her was abuse, in my opinion. His trying to justify this is utterly monstrous.
8 Likes
Right? Like most cops, he got hung up on the idea that they needed to get her in the car and compliant, but completely skips over that they never needed to get her in the car in the first place. Every violent action taken to detain her and force compliance started from the mistake that it was necessary in the first place. Call for a fucking social worker, you dumbasses!
As we progress through defunding the police, I think there will be calls where the (defunded) Police May be necessary for some domestic disturbance calls, but they should be under the direct and specific command of a social case worker. Escalate the situation against the orders of the case worker and face consequences including termination and jail time.
13 Likes
Their whole approach to this traumatized child witness was to treat like like an adult criminal, from the very beginning. That feels like it should be a fireable offense, and at the very least a slam-dunk argument for defunding the police. (The actual pepper-spraying, and being complicit in that, was a criminal offense.)
My neighbor is a mental health counselor who actually works for the local PD - she goes out with them on domestic and mental health calls. That’s really the most basic step in the right direction that should be mandatory for police departments at this point.
10 Likes
he made a big point of “this stuff doesn’t happen in a vacuum – think of all the other calls that officer had to take that day.”
and he’s right. cops have to do less. they are overworked, ill trained, and the wrong type of individual to respond to many daily situations.
his complete lack of empathy for the girl – even basically blaming her parents for the way the cops “had” to treat her – let’s hope the cuts hit his job first.
[eta]
i know that adding this sort of role to the police departments is the easier sell for people – but i think it’s still wrong. it’d be better to pair mental health counselors with paramedics. let that group call the police for backup if its needed.
the presence of cops – what with the guns and implied threats of legal and physical force – is itself an escalation.
6 Likes
At the very least, make the counselors in direct command when they know the situation they are walking into is already violent.
4 Likes
No amount of “training” is going to disabuse someone of the thought that pepper-spraying a 9-year-old is a good idea if that’s really what they want to do. They’ve been “trained” to hell and back. This is what they’re trained to do.
5 Likes
That’s why they only should be sent to the 1 out of 20 calls that need that training.
The rest can be responded to by appropriate experts in counseling, community relations, mental health, animal control, investigation and forensics, child psychology, and traffic control.
Otherwise we’re going to keep getting violent responses to non-violent, non-emergencies.
6 Likes
Yeah. I mean, having the counselor there is substantially better than just sending cops (to go and do the absolutely wrong things on their own), but the whole approach is still backwards.
5 Likes
my governor, greg abbott, in his recent state of the state address said he wants the legislature to make it illegal for localities to move money from police budgets into social workers, psychologists, etc. so texas can be an example to the nation in taking a stand against “defunding the police”.
3 Likes
