Appears the feeling was mutal.
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Another example of how police practices run contrary to the way things naturally work.
This kid got defensive when the cop grabbed him and tried to remove the copās hand. Thatās a natural reaction. Considering that resisting arrest is like considering bleeding on a cop after they beat you to be assault (oh wait, cops have actually charged people with thatā¦).
Itās similar to the way some cops seem to take any opportunity to shoot a dog, even if itās tied up and/or not a threat otherwise, because dogs naturally donāt know to not be protective of their territory and owners when cops are around.
When your practices (and training) run contrary to natural human behavior, youāre creating the circumstances under which those actions become crimes. How do you train someone to override their natural, base instincts just because a cop is around? That requires some serious Clockwork Orange brainwashing.
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Nah, you only get riots when itās a questionable, ambiguous situation where all the facts arenāt available and the victim has a substantial criminal record. Clear-cut, indisputable cases of police brutality or outright murder? People talk about it for a day and then move on.
Precisely. We do not. It is not our responsibility as citizens to train the other citizens to comply with police no matter what!
It is our duty to promote civility and getting along. Thatās what civilization is. Civility is what defines civilization. It goes for the police, too. And I would say, it especially goes for the police because they are given a special standing in society; so they also should be held to an equally higher standard.
Beating unarmed kids in the street for petty non-crime stands in direct contrast to the very definition of civilization. Itās the undoing of civilization.
So, itās not our duty to train people to cower and accept any police action. Itās our duty to train the police to act with regard to an extreme definition of civility at all times, no matter what. And to ensure that force is applied only in proportion to bringing any situation back into alignment with civility. And once itās there, back in alignment, to cease the use of force and let the justice department handle the rest.
Hereās a scenario. Cops are chasing an armed suspect. Suspect turns aggressively and pulls a weapon. What is civility? Civility requires those cops to shoot, taze or otherwise arrest the suspect and protect themselves and society at large. Why? The suspect who pulled the weapon is in direct violation of civility: we do not allow people to kill others for any reason but defense. Police must kill or stop that person, without question.
Hereās another scenario. Cops are chasing a questionably armed/unarmed suspect. Suspect turns aggressively andā¦ doesnāt pull a weapon. What is civility here? Civility here means the police have received enough training to be able to know in a split second that the person is unarmed, and therefore possibly a threat but not an armed threat. There will be no weapons fire from that person coming their way. And so civility requires that they use other means to arrest that person. Instant death is crossed off the list of actions that remain within the bounds of civility.
Police should be trained enough to be discerning. Yes, there is a gray area, such as the suspect puts his hand in his pocket to make it look like a gunā¦ guy has a thing that looks like a knifeā¦ all kinds of other complications can come in. But the basic standard of civility is that an unarmed person is not subject to a trial in the street and therefore will face an instant death penalty. Police are always in the wrong to kill unarmed people who do not pose an immediate threat and the degree to which they are wrong is adjusted by the number of complications that were introduced to the situation.
There are many other scenarios, and lots of things we could discuss about this. And the laws do not reflect this definition of civility. Police are empowered in so many ways to violate civility. But it comes down to basics:
Police should not be allowed to beat children.
Police should be trained not to beat children.
Police should be fired if they beat children.
Police should learn the proper conduct of civility.
Police who violate basic civility should be relieved of duty and punished for any breaches of civility.
People should not fear police or feel the need to comply with unnecessary demands by police. This is civilization, after all. The great majority of us are civilized.
Police departments who are continual violators of the rules of civility should be punished at the municipal level and have their ranks refilled with people who will observe civility.
People who are violators of civility should be brought to justice at a level commensurate with the level of their breach of civility and the amount of trust civilization has in them not to repeat their actions.
&c.
/rant, itās beer:thirty.
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A+ would read again
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Depends on skin colour.
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I think the reason it needs to be a crime is that if the pedestrian is ākingā when it comes to car-pedestrian interaction then the pedestrians need to be held to some rules as well. Otherwise every idiot that gets hit while crossing in non-standard areas or crossing without looking is going to be suing someone else for his stupidity.
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did your read the article @Terrorpin posted above? it addresses your points and has imo very good arguments why they are invalid
And there is the problem. The video doesnāt really support most of the comments found here. I am not taking the copās side necessarily. Iām just more interested in not making knee-jerk reactions myself.
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I didnāt see anything in the article that addressed my only point, which is that pedestrians who get hit will sue no matter how stupid and unsafe they were.
If you liked that article, however, you should check out the 99 Percent Invisible podcast about the same thing. Itās very good.
Sorry if this a bit long, but an anecdote from when I was a white 17 year old (at the Detroit airport):
(FWIW, I was skinny as a bean pole, 6ā-1" tall & had a 4" red mohawkā¦)
I had driven my mother, my older sister & myself to the airport to see my sister off on her way back to college from break. Rather than just drop her off at the door, we parked and accompanied her inside. It is relevant that my mother was confined to a wheelchair (in this case one of those 3-wheeled scooters), because there was a little basket on the handlebars in which she always carried her purseā¦
Skipping past the hugs & long goodbye; my mother and I are back out on the sidewalk at the entrance and she decides that rather than ride her scooter back to the parking garage over the rough, bumpy & uncomfortable sidewalk, she would wait there while I go get the car and come back to pick her up at the doors.
Okay, so Iāll need some money to pay for the 30 minutes or whatever of parking & she tells me to just take some out of her purse. I do; & as soon as I put the purse back & start to walk away; Iām accosted from behind by (fucked if I know until I turn around & see right!) an airport cop. I donāt recall what he said or what I said, but I was automatically trying to do nothing but turn around & face him while he was trying to push me up to a curb service podium or something. I knew I hadnāt done anything wrong & wasnāt okay with being accosted for it.
My point here isnāt so much that he acted poorly. He didnāt try to tase me, bludgeon me, or try to throw me to the ground & after enough protestation from me & my mom (& him realizing that I was not just some punk trying to steel from an old woman) it quickly became a non-incident, he was apologetic, friendly and stayed & chatted with my mom while I went to get the car.
My point is that my natural reaction was not to āOBEYā & that I did & probably would still react defensively if it werenāt for the more stable emotions that come with age.
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Itās circumferential - jaywalkers are not the problem for vehicle/pedestrian accidents, the article has the Seattle example and the much lower rate of such accidents in the UK without jaywalking regulations.
My experience with US law is nearly nil, but in Germany (were generally the driver in a vehicel/pedestrian crash is at least partly responsible in the eyes of the law) the concept of gross negligence exists and stupid pedestrians will lose when sueing.
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Well, thatās nice and thatās how it should be. But thatās not how it is in the US. Lawsuits are a form of recreation here.
wow! i didnāt even have time to offer my welcome message.
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They grow up so quickly.
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@headcode : walking is naturally āat your own riskāā¦ when there are rules for right of way then there is liability. there shouldnāt be laws either condoning or disallowing walking, period. but there should be laws disallowing reckless endangerment; and there are. and there are also laws against obstructing the flow of traffic, in most placesā¦ so if you lay down on the highway somebody can come do something about it.
of course, anybody driving a heavy metal deathtrap at high speeds should also be held accountable for intentionally, or neglectfully, not trying to avoid a pedestrian. you can just run over a cat if it darts into the road, but you canāt just run over a child or depressed old man, you gotta try and avoid them, even if they arenāt supposed to be there.
Resisting arrest. When the kid was curled up in fetal position, wailing, āDonāt touch me!ā
Apparently, the only way to beat a resisting arrest charge is to thank the policeman politely for defending society from you and beg him to please hurt you some more.
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Why are you even here? Did you join just to stand up for the poor police officers who couldnāt handle a little black kid?
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This is from a post made in another forum by a UK policeman talking about his training (my emphasis):
There was a constant theme of de-escalation and using your mouth to talk people into compliance, and understanding concepts like Betariās Box (my attitude affects my behaviour which affects your attitude which affects your behaviour). There wasnāt really any divide between using offensive/defensive techniques and de-escalation, we were expected to try and start off by calming things down and stay talking throughout. They also stressed that itās a lot better to start off at a low level and work up rather than come in high and then have to calm things down.
I keep reading various apologists claiming that US cops are highly trained; if so, I think theyāre being trained in the wrong things.
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ā¦ which makes it wrong.
Iād like to see it engraved on a plaque on the front of every speakerās podium in Police Academy.
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