This pretty much exactly matches how I feel about the police.
Sure they aren’t all assholes with god complexes, or former schoolyard bullies. But there’s so many authoritarians out to rape my ass and make it look like a suicide by cop that I can’t feel safe interacting with any police officer I don’t know personally.
The whole policing system has worked itself into being a device for skimming the worst fascists and psychopaths out of the population and giving them guns and fast cars so they can better exercise street justice against “bad guys”. And of course, “bad guys” are anyone they feel like fucking with. Otherwise they’d be “little people” and not “bad guys”.
It used to be that it wasn’t necessary. Because police officers lived in the communities they served, they used to be able to spend 5 minutes helping a random kid get their frisbee off a roof, they used to know people’s names, they used to ask questions and figure out what the situation was, they used to know their job was protecting the community rather than covering their asses and oppressing minorities.
Cops also used to be put on trial for unlawful imprisonment and killing.
Communities used to run bad cops out of town on a rail, or tar and feather them.
Now they’re given paid time off when they abuse their authority. Or otherwise resign and get the same job as a cop a few counties or states over, where they can continue to abuse.
TL;DR cops used to be held to standards. Now they can literally get away with murder when they themselves cause situations where they feel unsafe. Whenever I’m pulled over the first thing I think is “I really hope this cop doesn’t feel like killing me” because that’s a legitimate concern.
If you hire a cop that is excessively fearful, you get innocent people shot in the chest for no reason. Is there such a thing as excessive compassion? What could an excessively compassionate cop do wrong? He hugged me too tight? he’s wasting gas giving people rides everywhere.
How do you test for compassion? I don’t know. I’m not a neurologist. I’d guess a battery of psychological testing several times a year?
I’m not the greatest at reading people. In fact I’m pretty bad at it. I’d rather rely on me being civil to a cop and exercising my rights when I feel like it being a good guarantee that I won’t be shot and killed.
I don’t think we’re in disagreement… I’d rather have compassionate cops who know their duty is to serve their communities and to protect people.
We don’t have that now. So it’s reasonable to treat every interaction with a cop as if they could at any moment decide to pull their gun on you and shoot you to death. Because they don’t have accountability and aren’t being held to the very high standards of conduct demanded of the authority they supposedly need to do their job.
Police officers are not individuals. They do not have names. They are representatives of a single organization. The actions of a few define the public’s perception of the whole. That’s how it works.
Non-whites in America must ALWAYS assume they are dealing with a bad police officer. To do otherwise is deadly. Even assuming the officer has intent to kill them may not be enough to prevent it.
This video was very difficult to watch, and I couldn’t watch the whole thing. It filled me with rage that the officer’s FIRST concern after shooting someone was to see if his ass was covered, not if there was anything he could do to prevent the man he shot from dying.
The shooting itself was a catch-22 for the victim. If he didn’t remove his hands from his pants, he was dead. And as we saw, when he did remove them, he was dead. I understand the officer was responding to a call that someone had a gun, and he was naturally expecting to see one. I don’t think he was justified in using deadly force when he did. I don’t think he did anything to try to deescalate the situation. He certainly didn’t try to save the man’s life. His actions, like those of many officers before him, did nothing to restore my faith in those who are ‘sworn to protect and serve’.
I know there are good police officers out there. I’ve dealt with a few. I’ve been supremely lucky not to come into contact with any of the bad ones, and I hope I never do. But I will be on the defensive in ANY interaction I have with the police. I will not be able to treat an officer with respect or trust, only fear.
And it makes me very sad that I have to, because that’s not how it should be, and it’s not fair to the good ones.
Even granting that Dillon was uncooperative, drunk, distracted by music, and slow to obey, I don’t understand the cops’ behavior after Dillon is down and shot. They just stand there.
He’s bleeding profusely and obviously going to die without first aid. But the cops are acting like “Oh, that’s the EMT’s job. When he gets here.” Dillon’s almost completely bled out by the time the EMTs get there 4 minutes later. They just stand there even after he’s cuffed him and known to be unarmed-- and then he goes through Dillon’s pockets again? Are they keeping alert as to possible reprisals from neighborhood friends?
I don’t understand why the cops in these videos never seem to render first aid? Is it that they’re so inculcated in an us/them duality that even when someone is dying in front of them, they cannot bother to help “the bad guy”?
Do they not train cops to render first aid? They’ve just shot the guy. 4 minutes is way too long to wait. He should’ve been applying and keeping pressure immediately. With his hands. But he didn’t seem to want to get his hands dirty.
And, really, once he’s proven to be unarmed and bleeding out-- you can’t remove the handcuffs?? I’m not a doctor/physiologist, but holding his hands back like that has got to increase the tightness on his torso, with the tendency to make him bleed out faster.
I don’t think all cops are bad but this is a terrible analogy. For one thing, people choose to be cops but they can’t choose their race. Also, unlike black people or Muslims every single police officer in the United States IS actually armed. *
I think that you are very much missing the point here. I understand that you want people to consider that not all police are the same. I agree, I have met some intelligent, courteous, and helpful cops. I have also some who have threatened to kill me for witnessing them getting into trouble. I have seen local departments gutted by +50% corruption. And I have witnessed from the inside a major city department promoting targeting and harassment of innocent people to further their agenda.
The difference between generalizing about “black people” or “muslims” is that these do not represent unified institutions. While the police climate - at least in the US - basically does. If the institution allows so many to get away with murder, it is worth questioning how and why. The claims that collateral damage must be expected are deliberately used to explain away grey dealings and avoid procedural accountability. One might suppose that if you were defending actual good police people, that you would not want them to be subject to institutional negligence and/or corruption. But if you are suggesting that the institution must be considered as beyond reproach, I’d suggest this is either naive or deceptive.
I know a couple of cops and have attempted to talk with them about shit like this and my experience was remarkably similar to yours. The near instant reply was to tell me stories of the truly terrible people they sometimes have to deal with. “If only you knew!”
Why? The problem here in the U.S. is that cops go for the gun instantly and assume a lethal posture within seconds. This leads to fatal mistakes. I got the impression that was not a problem in the UK since cops are not generally armed, or if they are, would go with non lethal options first like pepper, taser, billy club, etc.
I had a cop explain this to me nearly verbatim once while he was shaking, and pressing the muzzle of his gun into the side of my head. “DO YOU KNOW?!?! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA THE KIND OF PEOPLE I HAVE TO DEAL WITH?!?!” He let me go, but I was such a threat that I was mailed court summons to face charges of having assaulted him.
Yeah, cops don’t generally shoot people in the UK (actually, my sister’s told me she wouldn’t stay in the police if she had to carry a gun). But you can still get the easy generalizations leading to lazy policing, and closing of ranks.
It was the Michael Brown case I asked my sister’s opinion of and while I don’t know what the UK reporting of that case was like, I got the impression that the UK police were largely taking the ‘he was a criminal, he got what he had coming, he got killed because he attacked the policeman’ line. She doesn’t work for the Met but she was roped in to help during some of the riots and that’s where she felt the race card was being played. the police don’t hold much truck with the idea of institutional racism. Very defensive about it.
Whereas everything that I’ve heard about how she deals with the normal (if depressing) cases of drunks beating up their wives sounds like she does a sensitive, good job.
