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> Cops act like thugs because the overwhelming majority of people they arrest/hassle/shoot are guilty. Period. You realize that judging acts is not within thei

by Mtinie 9y ago

> Cops act like thugs because the overwhelming majority of people they arrest/hassle/shoot are guilty. Period. You realize that judging acts is not within their domain and sphere of interest, right? Also, I’d love to see your reference citation(s) to back up this statement.

jack9 9y ago
Do one ride along. It's not hard to arrange.
- Mtinie 9y ago
  A ride-along is easy to arrange, that’s true. I’ve had the chance to take advantage of the opportunity a few different times. Twice with officers from the LAPD (Rampart and Olympic divisions), and once after I moved back to the East Coast when I spent three hours riding with officers from the Loudoun County Sheriff’s department. Perhaps my experiences were exceptional examples and everywhere else across the United States, a majority of LE interactions are between officers and “guilty” people, but that’s not what I saw. I’m open to the possibility, of course, but I’d still like to see a citation backing up the statement I was responding to.
mindslight 9y ago
> You realize that judging acts is not within their domain and sphere of interest, right? Wat? Judging acts is in the "domain and sphere of interest" of any person. Please note (if you can avoid shooting from the hip) that I'm making this point to criticize police overreach - even a perfectly "clean slate" cop with no peer pressure will develop a bias towards thinking of everybody as a criminal! Similarly, a cop that lives in a White community and works in a Black neighborhood is going to find it awfully hard to not develop a bias of thinking Black people are more likely to be dangerous. (and, in case it's not clear, vice-versa) If you cannot bear to entertain thoughts like the above, then you really aren't interested in analyzing the problem. Because all of the "training" in the world isn't going to counteract a bias that is reinforced every single day! What is needed are actual real incentives to not murder people, but fortunately this is a pretty old problem. Apart from responding to a rare overt attack (eg aiming a gun or charging the cop), any cop that shoots someone is themselves committing a crime (somewhere between voluntary manslaughter and second degree murder) - undermining that very "law and order" that police purport to uphold! The routine and casual corruption that allows these crimes to go unpunished needs to be rooted out.

by Mtinie 9y ago

jack9 9y ago

Do one ride along. It's not hard to arrange.

Mtinie 9y ago
A ride-along is easy to arrange, that’s true. I’ve had the chance to take advantage of the opportunity a few different times. Twice with officers from the LAPD (Rampart and Olympic divisions), and once after I moved back to the East Coast when I spent three hours riding with officers from the Loudoun County Sheriff’s department. Perhaps my experiences were exceptional examples and everywhere else across the United States, a majority of LE interactions are between officers and “guilty” people, but that’s not what I saw. I’m open to the possibility, of course, but I’d still like to see a citation backing up the statement I was responding to.

mindslight 9y ago

> You realize that judging acts is not within their domain and sphere of interest, right? Wat? Judging acts is in the "domain and sphere of interest" of any person. Please note (if you can avoid shooting from the hip) that I'm making this point to criticize police overreach - even a perfectly "clean slate" cop with no peer pressure will develop a bias towards thinking of everybody as a criminal! Similarly, a cop that lives in a White community and works in a Black neighborhood is going to find it awfully hard to not develop a bias of thinking Black people are more likely to be dangerous. (and, in case it's not clear, vice-versa) If you cannot bear to entertain thoughts like the above, then you really aren't interested in analyzing the problem. Because all of the "training" in the world isn't going to counteract a bias that is reinforced every single day! What is needed are actual real incentives to not murder people, but fortunately this is a pretty old problem. Apart from responding to a rare overt attack (eg aiming a gun or charging the cop), any cop that shoots someone is themselves committing a crime (somewhere between voluntary manslaughter and second degree murder) - undermining that very "law and order" that police purport to uphold! The routine and casual corruption that allows these crimes to go unpunished needs to be rooted out.