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Perhaps it could also be at least partly related to the systemic and indiscriminate killing of people of color by police forces across the entire country. I ca

by nrb 8y ago

Perhaps it could also be at least partly related to the systemic and indiscriminate killing of people of color by police forces across the entire country. I can't say I blame would-be "good cop" cadets deciding not to join the force to be associated with these acts; the willingness to protect bad cops by leadership seems, from the outside, to mean the entire system is rotten and impossible to change from within.

AmericanChopper 8y ago
Well that's certainly the narrative that drives it. However for something to be systemic, it has to be happening regularly everywhere. The people who promote this narrative can only really point to a couple of unjustified office involved shootings (which are of course a tragedies, but are in no way 'systemic'), and in reality spend most of their time complaining about perfectly justified shootings as a scapegoat for all of the genuine problems in their communities.
- chipotle_coyote 8y ago
  In 2017, police killed 1,129 people. Were the vast majority of those "perfectly justified?" How about the vast majority of the 718 that were suspects in nonviolent offenses? Or the 147 that were unarmed? Are you sure? I'm not. The reason "the narrative" exists, I think, is that there's a widespread perception that regardless of the circumstances of the shooting -- even if the evidence clearly shows the police shot an unarmed victim in the back multiple times, for instance -- the police tend to get off on the grounds that they "felt threatened." This contributes to a feeling that the police are held to a lesser standard than non-police suspects, rather than the same standard.
  - AmericanChopper 8y ago
    The vast majority absolutely are. There are some examples that are not, and whenever something even remotely questionable happens, the narrative pushers jump on it immediately. If you think the vast majority aren't, then go find some examples. You won't be able to come up with more than a couple.
    - forapurpose 8y ago
      It would be good if either of you could back up your claims. People in minority communities around the U.S. have said for generations that the police abused them; I give that some serious credibility. Also, there is much more to abuse than killings; there are many reports on widespread abuses by police departments, such as Baltimore and New Orleans. I will add that in at least some other countries police do their job and shoot hardly anyone; I think in Scotland it's on the order of one per decade.
      - AmericanChopper 8y ago
        The claim that there is systemic racially motivated killings carried out by police is the claim that needs to be backed up. This is a claim that is not supported by facts. There is a small number of officer involved shootings that are found to be unjustified, and there are entire communities of people who will jump at the chance to report on them, so it’s not like they can slip under the radar on a massive scale. The crime rates in different countries have absolutely 0 bearing on whether office involved shootings in the US are justified. The occurrences of unjustified office involved shootings in the US don’t come even remotely close to anything that could be considered ‘systemic’, the whole narrative is an outright lie.
      - tzs 8y ago
        > It would be good if either of you could back up your claims If any of the people in this thread wish to have a go at that, try here: http://www.killedbypolice.net/kbp2018 http://www.killedbypolice.net/kbp2018 Pick a year, note how many police shootings are listed there for that year, then generate 20 random numbers in the range [1, N] where N is the number of said shootings, and look at the corresponding killings. That should give some reasonable insights.

by nrb 8y ago

AmericanChopper 8y ago

Well that's certainly the narrative that drives it. However for something to be systemic, it has to be happening regularly everywhere. The people who promote this narrative can only really point to a couple of unjustified office involved shootings (which are of course a tragedies, but are in no way 'systemic'), and in reality spend most of their time complaining about perfectly justified shootings as a scapegoat for all of the genuine problems in their communities.

chipotle_coyote 8y ago
In 2017, police killed 1,129 people. Were the vast majority of those "perfectly justified?" How about the vast majority of the 718 that were suspects in nonviolent offenses? Or the 147 that were unarmed? Are you sure? I'm not. The reason "the narrative" exists, I think, is that there's a widespread perception that regardless of the circumstances of the shooting -- even if the evidence clearly shows the police shot an unarmed victim in the back multiple times, for instance -- the police tend to get off on the grounds that they "felt threatened." This contributes to a feeling that the police are held to a lesser standard than non-police suspects, rather than the same standard.
- AmericanChopper 8y ago
  The vast majority absolutely are. There are some examples that are not, and whenever something even remotely questionable happens, the narrative pushers jump on it immediately. If you think the vast majority aren't, then go find some examples. You won't be able to come up with more than a couple.
  - forapurpose 8y ago
    It would be good if either of you could back up your claims. People in minority communities around the U.S. have said for generations that the police abused them; I give that some serious credibility. Also, there is much more to abuse than killings; there are many reports on widespread abuses by police departments, such as Baltimore and New Orleans. I will add that in at least some other countries police do their job and shoot hardly anyone; I think in Scotland it's on the order of one per decade.
    - AmericanChopper 8y ago
      The claim that there is systemic racially motivated killings carried out by police is the claim that needs to be backed up. This is a claim that is not supported by facts. There is a small number of officer involved shootings that are found to be unjustified, and there are entire communities of people who will jump at the chance to report on them, so it’s not like they can slip under the radar on a massive scale. The crime rates in different countries have absolutely 0 bearing on whether office involved shootings in the US are justified. The occurrences of unjustified office involved shootings in the US don’t come even remotely close to anything that could be considered ‘systemic’, the whole narrative is an outright lie.
    - tzs 8y ago
      > It would be good if either of you could back up your claims If any of the people in this thread wish to have a go at that, try here: http://www.killedbypolice.net/kbp2018 http://www.killedbypolice.net/kbp2018 Pick a year, note how many police shootings are listed there for that year, then generate 20 random numbers in the range [1, N] where N is the number of said shootings, and look at the corresponding killings. That should give some reasonable insights.