i find myself in agreement with almost everyone above, it is ridiculous, absurd, tragic, a sign of the encroaching fascism of the state, and yet . . .
given where we are right now, it is also needed.
edited to add–given the reputation of senator west, he is well aware of the contradictions requiring something like this and probably agrees with every aspect of mr. doctorow’s description.
2:30 of an ass pontificating. With a start like that who needs to watch the rest?
Allows the dead to be blamed for their own deaths, since they are now “on notice.” Wow, just wow.
the curriculum’s purpose is to end "distrust for law enforcement.
Yeah, I’m sure that’ll work.
I got some of that from what I watched of the video, and that is quite useful. However, it’s not going to do what the bill’s author intends for it, because if it’s actually working, it’ll make citizens more aware of cops not behaving as they should.
Right. This actually should be the point. Really, maybe the curriculum should be common–full transparency so that motorists know what the Police’s expectation is and vice versa. Rather than leaving it to us to speculate in an internet forum as to what’s in the law enforcement training program.
royce west is known for working toward getting people of color in law enforcement from patrol officers to prosecutors and judges to break past the fraternity of law enforcement and work for change in the racist and dangerous status quo. i would not be surprised to hear that one of the goals is exactly to make it clear what they should be doing.
13:17 Some subtle conditioning for letting the “good” cop work you. A gentle reminder that the correct answer to “Where you coming from tonight?” is never “I’m coming from…” and always “Am I under arrest? Am I free to go?”
Having spent time in actual fascist police states, I would count myself as one who doesn’t see it.
Americans?
Been watching The Man in The High Castle lately. It’s interesting to watch the American behavior in the Greater Nazi Reich (US east coast) and think about how a society could get to that point. And where we are now. And what it would take for us to get to that point.
So, like, did anyone actually WATCH the whole thing?
I can’t really get that upset over the concept of this. It should be something they show in like drivers ed. Getting pulled over, especially as a kid, can be stressful and knowing what to expect and show a walk through of a typical encounter doesn’t sound like a bad idea to me. Answering common questions like, “Why do I need to sign the ticket?” etc is probably good info to have before hand.
But… OMG the production value of that film was surprisingly bad. I am pretty sure someone’s cousin who took video class at community college made it. There are youtubers who could make a much better video. It wasn’t just stilted, but lacked a coherent flow. So it really wasn’t helpful, IMO, as an educational tool.
This is the best video. I still respect police officers because I know quite a few of them but this video is spot on and entertaining as hell. I’m going to watch it again right now.
It cannot be harmful to let kids know how to behave and what to expect if they get pulled over, and to review the behaviors that will result in the experience being as safe and stress-free as possible.
If you can make a public declaration that it is a “fascist police state”, and do so with zero expectation that someone is going to kick in your door and disappear you for making that statement, then not only do you not live in a police state, it is obvious that you don’t really believe it is, either.
it also cannot be harmful to kids if the heavily armed, easily-spooked texas law enforcement officers would get a fucking grip to reduce the risk of killing people during traffic stops. or does the responsibility of acting with restraint and control lie only with people being stopped in your opinion?
has no one heard of that old perennial rhetorical/literary device–hyperbole? and while it might be an exaggeration, it is an exaggeration with a grain of truth. things have change over the last two years and it hasn’t been in the direction of a freer, more democratic society.
In this particular forum, on this particular topic, it is hard to tell which is which.
Maybe we need people to start using the /hyperbole tag?
Of course, it would be ridiculous to ask that the heavily-armed pigs not look at everyone in view as their enemy, deserving of summary execution. We can’t have that!
Police officers do sometimes get shot during routine traffic stops. Today in NC, an NC State Trooper was killed while approaching a car he had stopped for speeding.
And when it does happen, it seems to happen very quickly. An officer who does not react equally quickly is not going to survive such an encounter. Even though such events are relatively rare, they are a thing that happens.
Police spend a lot of time on duty driving around, but on-duty death by deliberate gunfire is more than twice as prevalent as accidental death by automobile accident. https://www.odmp.org/search/year/2018
It also seems like the number of unarmed people shot and killed by police is smaller than the number of police shot and killed while on duty.
Just out of curiosity, I looked through the WaPo list of police shootings for 2018, to see how common it is for an unarmed person to be shot during a routine traffic stop. I found one, and another shooting where those details were not available.
Here is the one I found: https://5newsonline.com/2018/01/22/officer-involved-shooting-outside-sequoyah-memorial-hospital/ But he attacked the officer, and the backup who responded.
This one was pretty sketchy as well: https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-breaking/2018/01/07/u-s-forest-service-worker-fatally-shoots-unarmed-kansas-man-near-sedona/1011689001/, but not really a traffic stop.
The data I can find https://openpolicing.stanford.edu/ , indicate that there are 20 million traffic stops annually in the US. So, two out of 15 million so far this year, is a pretty small number. And that number could well be lower, if not for people that jump out of their car during the traffic stop and try to beat the officer up.
If my math is off, or if I missed some shootings, I will be glad to revise the numbers. But the numbers do not seem to support the claim of a police state with “summary executions”.
but don’t “avoid eye contact” either — that’s also suspicious
It may not be as common as the news media suggest, but you might want to look further for data. I found a news story about fatal police shootings in Idaho and there had been at least three in that state alone as of the date of the article (July 2018-- Idaho Statesman), so I suspect the list you found in WaPo is incomplete. Further, if you look at the list of people shot but not killed, it is likely a longer list.
Fred Hampton didn’t think it was an exaggeration
