9 ms·

Changing the laws to end 'qualified immunity' is much more important. Demilitarizing the police is also important. Maybe defunding would help with that. Watchi

Changing the laws to end 'qualified immunity' is much more important. Demilitarizing the police is also important. Maybe defunding would help with that. Watching police impose an excessive curfew on 10 million people (LA county) and then round up hundreds of peaceful protesters last night was sickening. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_cDengPeSY&t=2240 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_cDengPeSY&t=2240 These people expressing their first amendment right to assemble should have been protected not persecuted. Police are out of control.

justchilly 6y ago
The curfew was ordered by the mayor, an elected official (LA in the case of the video you linked), not the police.
- Alkhwarizmi 6y ago
  The mayor was not the one out there mercilessly beating down civil protestors, rather it was the police and militarized animals!
- enraged_camel 6y ago
  Curfews are ordered by mayors and enforced by the police. The distinction, in this case, isn’t very relevant.
  - skrtskrt 6y ago
    Especially when you watch the press conferences you can practically see the mayors’ puppet strings being pulled by the police chief standing next to them. Chicago was exactly the same. They know who the real power is.
    - garmaine 6y ago
      Police chiefs are also elected.
      - jeffbee 6y ago
        Name any US jurisdiction with an elected chief of police.
        garmaine 6y ago
        The city I live in, Santa Clara, has an elected police chief. It's common, though not universal.
        tzs 6y ago
        San Angelo, Texas. It used to be more common, but most places switched to appointment by the mayor or city council or city manager. Now it is mostly just a handful of scattered cities in a few states, with the exception of Louisiana where I believe they are still mostly elected.
      - anigbrowl 6y ago
        You are confusing police chiefs with county sheriffs.
        garmaine 6y ago
        I am not. It's not universal, but many municipalities have an elected police chief.
        anigbrowl 6y ago
        Overall, it seems less common than you aver. What percentage of cities do you think have elected police chiefs?
thoraway1010 6y ago
The curfews in our area were put in place by elected officials as the violence was out of control at night. This was not a police action. The Constitution provides a right to peaceful assembly. It does not provide a right to violence and looting. During the day people who wanted were and are generally able to march and peacefully express their views.
- trixie_ 6y ago
  The violence was not out of control last night. Case in point the video above showing hundreds of police officers surrounding peaceful protesters. I am offended by the massive waste of resources. Case in point news helicopters not filming looting (as they would rather do) . The only thing left to film that night was the true protest. Made so so clear in the video above. The abuse of power if you can't see it you're blind. This proves the curfew was ordered under false pretenses. And demonstrates a complete lack of judgement and common sense by law enforcement.
  - strbean 6y ago
    I mean, I'm very much in support of the protestors, but... They can't exactly institute a curfew after things get out of control. And they have gotten out of control across the country in the previous nights.
  - kyleee 6y ago
    No doubt there were a lot of good faith / peaceful protests that were shut down and hindered, but there has also been a lot of looting. Here are couple good long form videos showing some of the looting in and around Santa Monica on a couple of the days: https://www.invidio.us/watch?v=vr3LrRUfJsY https://www.invidio.us/watch?v=vr3LrRUfJsY https://www.invidio.us/watch?v=PbxTqyW8yI0 https://www.invidio.us/watch?v=PbxTqyW8yI0
    - basch 6y ago
      You don't just get to ban good behavior to stop bad behavior. The presence of illegal looting does not take away constitutional rights. If it did, the government would have incentive to incite riots and looting to force the breakup of peaceful protest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strict_scrutiny https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strict_scrutiny
Ericson2314 6y ago
Funding brings the police to the negotiating table faster and harder than some years-off change in law/precedent or union contract negotiation. That is as valuable as the actual defunding. The right has defunded programs they couldn't abolish for years. It's a tried and proven strategy.
- trixie_ 6y ago
  But how does defunding actually change the rules? The police still seem to be above the law even after defunding.
  - anigbrowl 6y ago
    It's not the only thing to do, it's one of several things to do. Defunding reduces their access to weaponry and equipment and hinders recruiting. It's a big step toward abolition.
  - Ericson2314 6y ago
    We live under Capitalism---let's use that to our advantage. Less money begets less power. It's like energy in physics. You can worry about all the (perhaps more fundamental) mechanical, chemical, etc. interactions, or you can trust the conservation of energy and not fret over the details. The abstraction works pretty well. Use it.
User23 6y ago
My personal view is that police should maintain their qualified immunity, because unfortunately sometimes the use of force is necessary to enforce the law. However, they should also have a duty of care toward citizens that overrides that immunity in addition to mandating that they actually do protect and serve. Castle Rock v. Gonzales[1][2] really needs to be reversed or legislatively overturned. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Rock_v._Gonzales https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Rock_v._Gonzales [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/justices-rule-police-do-not-have-a-constitutional-duty-to-protect.html https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/justices-rule-po...
- garlicGum 6y ago
  I disagree. Police should never be the aggressors, and force should be proportional. Otherwise, they are legal bullies.
mwigdahl 6y ago
Curtailment of QI should come first, but defunding the police in a vacuum will be very dangerous as long as the power of civil asset forfeiture exists. You may remove tax money from the police budget, but that just sets up a perverse incentive to confiscate more cash and property to make up the difference. Curtail QI _and_ civil asset forfeiture, and we will have set the stage for real policing reform.
- Ericson2314 6y ago
  Civil forfeiture works "best" in small jurisdictions harassing driver-bys who aren't constituents, right? I think we can go for defunding in the major metros (which also have the more powerful police departments in absolute terms), and then go after the smaller jurisdiction police (with more relative power) with/after fixed laws. Also, if the police are curtailed in the urban areas, and Covid fear lowers the rent, poor persons of color can "vote with their feet" and move from Fergusons to Saint Louises. Not the best solution, but I can't imagine a friendly supreme court too soon so this is better than nothing.
toofy 6y ago
Yeah. After the onslaught of videos over the past few days and seeing, over and over again, how the police have so terribly dehumanized people (i mean, they’ve absolutely taken the mask off and are straight abusing people with no shame, everywhere, across the whole country) I can’t help but wonder what kind of slow but steady damage they’ve done to communities over the years. I mean, I’m decently well off and spend most of time in pretty well off areas, but if the cops are combative in well off areas, you know it’s just so much more awful in other areas. Seeing the Minneapolis council members say the police regularly directly retaliate against them if they don’t offer full unwavering support [1] shows we have a very very big problem on our hands. And Im seeing similar messaging from mayors and council members from towns all across the country. I’ve always known they were abusive and needed to be dealt with, but this may even be much worse than I ever would have thought. Between officers placing their union leader’s orders as a higher priority than actual appointed police chiefs and then these pleas from the council members, Im not yet sure how we should address this. [1] https://www.twitter.com/MplsWard3/status/1267891878801915904 https://www.twitter.com/MplsWard3/status/1267891878801915904 and another council member simply affirming that it’s true. [2] https://www.twitter.com/CunninghamMPLS/status/1267920374207037448 https://www.twitter.com/CunninghamMPLS/status/12679203742070...
- rootusrootus 6y ago
  > Im not yet sure how we should address this We could start by banning police unions. Make individual officers accountable for their own behavior. Fully transparent data collection on everything they do. Turn some of our fancy machining learning technology loose on that data to identify the bad seeds and weed them out. How about a separate agency that is accountable to citizens who has the power and mandate to police the police? Not just another department of the existing police, but someone accountable to the governor, or the citizens directly. At some level I would expect that good cops want this accountability as much as the general public does. Is it really true that cops are predominantly bad? I sincerely hope that is not true.
  - jdkee 6y ago
    Also, stop expecting police officers to be social workers. Police officers project force, power and violence on behalf of the state. Migrate a subset of law enforcement officers to social work positions. That is assuming that crime doesn't spike in the process.
anigbrowl 6y ago
Walk, chew gum
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
devwastaken 6y ago
Qualified immunity is only civil. Individuals should have the right to file criminal charges against those with special legal privledges, overriding the DA.
Balgair 6y ago
Questions to Non-US based HNers: Does your country/locality have something like Quantified Immunity? What does your area do about police brutality if/when it occurs?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- pasabagi 6y ago
  In the UK, there's the IPCC (Independent Police Complaints Commission). Unfortunately, it's not all that independent, since it's generally staffed by ex-police officers. So the outcome of police brutality is more or less the same as it is everywhere - a lot of smearing, lying, then ultimately, either a slap on the wrist, or a promotion, for the culprit. I think the problem is ultimately deeper than police culture and/or lack of checks and balances. The problem is simply that police, by the very nature of their job, must be violent. There is simply no other way to deal with the level of desperation a society like the US causes. They live and work every day in a milieu of all the worst, most desperate behaviours capitalism has to offer. Untreated mental illness, drug problems, dysfunction of every kind - all articulated in a completely insane legal system that seems almost purposely designed to consume vast numbers of people and vast quantities of money while doing nothing but harm. So when people get upset with police for their brutality, it's easy to understand why they are outraged - it is simply impossible to do their job without violence. When people point at German police, or UK police, and say, they're not so bad - what they're really pointing at is a different job. German police kill people, or turn out to have connections to far-right groups, or beat people at protests - but ultimately, the average german is less desperate, less well armed, and simply less dangerous than the average person an american police officer must work with. That's simple statistics. That American police have built a culture around violence (the 'warrior' thing) is a pretty obvious result of the fact that they are caught in this bind, where violence is necessary for the society to stay in its current state, but where they are constantly castigated for its use.
  - ryandrake 6y ago
    > So when people get upset with police for their brutality, it's easy to understand why they are outraged - it is simply impossible to do their job without violence. I think you need to distinguish between force and violence. I expect the police to occasionally need to use force to do their job, but I never want them to use violence. What we have been seeing during the past few days is totally out-of-control violence conducted by the police on non-violent people.
zaroth 6y ago
I think it’s a crucial distinction that the police did not impose the curfew. The politicians imposed the curfew and ordered the police to enforce it. After the multi-month long shutdown for COVID (and the very questionable justification for pushing 40 million healthy people out of their jobs) I think a several day curfew to limit widespread rioting and looting is both relatively minor and highly targeted by comparison. But even if you disagree with the curfew, it’s not the police that imposed it.
morelisp 6y ago
I am wondering to what degree would actually work. As I understand it, lots of the most egregious equipment is picked up essentially as federal gov't / military "leftovers", and while it's nominally sold or auctioned off there's not exactly a lot of potential buyers. So cutting your local police force would just mean the one next door buys twice as much, and cutting everywhere just decreases every buyer's budget so the price just drops. I suppose in this case we see the money going to programs that would, y'know, maybe at least help some people - assuming it doesn't get pitched directly into middle-class tax cuts, which seems more likely to me in any large city. But I don't see exactly how budget reduction would have any noticable impact on militarization.
agensaequivocum 6y ago
> These people expressing their first amendment right to assemble should have been protected not persecuted. I'm against the curfews, but where was everyone defending the right of people to protest the covid-19 lock-downs? I'm against a curfew in principle > Police are out of control. No they are not.
staticautomatic 6y ago
Are the proposed laws out to eliminate it fully or just for police officers? As a general matter, qualified immunity is an important protection for some kinds of government activities.
js2 6y ago
15 steps from a defense attorney including ending QI: 1. Abolish qualified immunity 2. Require police for carry malpractice insurance 3. Use pay incentives to get a better breed of police officer 4. Incentivize community policing 5. Make "Brady lists" public record 6. Abolish cities' sweetheart deals with police unions 7. Require de-escalation in Use of Force policies alongside public, transparent training on de-escalation 8. End "tail-light policing" entirely 9. Mandate a separation between the crime response units and investigative units in a department 10. Automatic special prosecutors for all police brutality incidents 11. More frequent USDOJ intervention 12. Expand data collection and mandatory reporting on use-of-force incidents (and other police activity generally) 13. Enact statutory protections to restore the 4th / 5th / 6th / 8th Amendments 14. Scale back, or eliminate entirely, "contempt of cop" statutes 15. Stronger sentencing for police misconduct offenses https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1266053291684827138.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1266053291684827138.html

justchilly 6y ago

The curfew was ordered by the mayor, an elected official (LA in the case of the video you linked), not the police.

Alkhwarizmi 6y ago
The mayor was not the one out there mercilessly beating down civil protestors, rather it was the police and militarized animals!
enraged_camel 6y ago
Curfews are ordered by mayors and enforced by the police. The distinction, in this case, isn’t very relevant.
- skrtskrt 6y ago
  Especially when you watch the press conferences you can practically see the mayors’ puppet strings being pulled by the police chief standing next to them. Chicago was exactly the same. They know who the real power is.
  - garmaine 6y ago
    Police chiefs are also elected.
    - jeffbee 6y ago
      Name any US jurisdiction with an elected chief of police.
      - garmaine 6y ago
        The city I live in, Santa Clara, has an elected police chief. It's common, though not universal.
      - tzs 6y ago
        San Angelo, Texas. It used to be more common, but most places switched to appointment by the mayor or city council or city manager. Now it is mostly just a handful of scattered cities in a few states, with the exception of Louisiana where I believe they are still mostly elected.
    - anigbrowl 6y ago
      You are confusing police chiefs with county sheriffs.
      - garmaine 6y ago
        I am not. It's not universal, but many municipalities have an elected police chief.
        anigbrowl 6y ago
        Overall, it seems less common than you aver. What percentage of cities do you think have elected police chiefs?

thoraway1010 6y ago

The curfews in our area were put in place by elected officials as the violence was out of control at night. This was not a police action. The Constitution provides a right to peaceful assembly. It does not provide a right to violence and looting. During the day people who wanted were and are generally able to march and peacefully express their views.

trixie_ 6y ago
The violence was not out of control last night. Case in point the video above showing hundreds of police officers surrounding peaceful protesters. I am offended by the massive waste of resources. Case in point news helicopters not filming looting (as they would rather do) . The only thing left to film that night was the true protest. Made so so clear in the video above. The abuse of power if you can't see it you're blind. This proves the curfew was ordered under false pretenses. And demonstrates a complete lack of judgement and common sense by law enforcement.
- strbean 6y ago
  I mean, I'm very much in support of the protestors, but... They can't exactly institute a curfew after things get out of control. And they have gotten out of control across the country in the previous nights.
- kyleee 6y ago
  No doubt there were a lot of good faith / peaceful protests that were shut down and hindered, but there has also been a lot of looting. Here are couple good long form videos showing some of the looting in and around Santa Monica on a couple of the days: https://www.invidio.us/watch?v=vr3LrRUfJsY https://www.invidio.us/watch?v=vr3LrRUfJsY https://www.invidio.us/watch?v=PbxTqyW8yI0 https://www.invidio.us/watch?v=PbxTqyW8yI0
  - basch 6y ago
    You don't just get to ban good behavior to stop bad behavior. The presence of illegal looting does not take away constitutional rights. If it did, the government would have incentive to incite riots and looting to force the breakup of peaceful protest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strict_scrutiny https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strict_scrutiny

Ericson2314 6y ago

Funding brings the police to the negotiating table faster and harder than some years-off change in law/precedent or union contract negotiation. That is as valuable as the actual defunding. The right has defunded programs they couldn't abolish for years. It's a tried and proven strategy.

trixie_ 6y ago
But how does defunding actually change the rules? The police still seem to be above the law even after defunding.
- anigbrowl 6y ago
  It's not the only thing to do, it's one of several things to do. Defunding reduces their access to weaponry and equipment and hinders recruiting. It's a big step toward abolition.
- Ericson2314 6y ago
  We live under Capitalism---let's use that to our advantage. Less money begets less power. It's like energy in physics. You can worry about all the (perhaps more fundamental) mechanical, chemical, etc. interactions, or you can trust the conservation of energy and not fret over the details. The abstraction works pretty well. Use it.

User23 6y ago

My personal view is that police should maintain their qualified immunity, because unfortunately sometimes the use of force is necessary to enforce the law. However, they should also have a duty of care toward citizens that overrides that immunity in addition to mandating that they actually do protect and serve. Castle Rock v. Gonzales[1][2] really needs to be reversed or legislatively overturned. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Rock_v._Gonzales https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Rock_v._Gonzales [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/justices-rule-police-do-not-have-a-constitutional-duty-to-protect.html https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/justices-rule-po...

garlicGum 6y ago
I disagree. Police should never be the aggressors, and force should be proportional. Otherwise, they are legal bullies.

mwigdahl 6y ago

Curtailment of QI should come first, but defunding the police in a vacuum will be very dangerous as long as the power of civil asset forfeiture exists. You may remove tax money from the police budget, but that just sets up a perverse incentive to confiscate more cash and property to make up the difference. Curtail QI _and_ civil asset forfeiture, and we will have set the stage for real policing reform.

Ericson2314 6y ago
Civil forfeiture works "best" in small jurisdictions harassing driver-bys who aren't constituents, right? I think we can go for defunding in the major metros (which also have the more powerful police departments in absolute terms), and then go after the smaller jurisdiction police (with more relative power) with/after fixed laws. Also, if the police are curtailed in the urban areas, and Covid fear lowers the rent, poor persons of color can "vote with their feet" and move from Fergusons to Saint Louises. Not the best solution, but I can't imagine a friendly supreme court too soon so this is better than nothing.

toofy 6y ago

Yeah. After the onslaught of videos over the past few days and seeing, over and over again, how the police have so terribly dehumanized people (i mean, they’ve absolutely taken the mask off and are straight abusing people with no shame, everywhere, across the whole country) I can’t help but wonder what kind of slow but steady damage they’ve done to communities over the years. I mean, I’m decently well off and spend most of time in pretty well off areas, but if the cops are combative in well off areas, you know it’s just so much more awful in other areas. Seeing the Minneapolis council members say the police regularly directly retaliate against them if they don’t offer full unwavering support [1] shows we have a very very big problem on our hands. And Im seeing similar messaging from mayors and council members from towns all across the country. I’ve always known they were abusive and needed to be dealt with, but this may even be much worse than I ever would have thought. Between officers placing their union leader’s orders as a higher priority than actual appointed police chiefs and then these pleas from the council members, Im not yet sure how we should address this. [1] https://www.twitter.com/MplsWard3/status/1267891878801915904 https://www.twitter.com/MplsWard3/status/1267891878801915904 and another council member simply affirming that it’s true. [2] https://www.twitter.com/CunninghamMPLS/status/1267920374207037448 https://www.twitter.com/CunninghamMPLS/status/12679203742070...

rootusrootus 6y ago
> Im not yet sure how we should address this We could start by banning police unions. Make individual officers accountable for their own behavior. Fully transparent data collection on everything they do. Turn some of our fancy machining learning technology loose on that data to identify the bad seeds and weed them out. How about a separate agency that is accountable to citizens who has the power and mandate to police the police? Not just another department of the existing police, but someone accountable to the governor, or the citizens directly. At some level I would expect that good cops want this accountability as much as the general public does. Is it really true that cops are predominantly bad? I sincerely hope that is not true.
- jdkee 6y ago
  Also, stop expecting police officers to be social workers. Police officers project force, power and violence on behalf of the state. Migrate a subset of law enforcement officers to social work positions. That is assuming that crime doesn't spike in the process.

anigbrowl 6y ago

Walk, chew gum

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

devwastaken 6y ago

Qualified immunity is only civil. Individuals should have the right to file criminal charges against those with special legal privledges, overriding the DA.

Balgair 6y ago

Questions to Non-US based HNers: Does your country/locality have something like Quantified Immunity? What does your area do about police brutality if/when it occurs?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
pasabagi 6y ago
In the UK, there's the IPCC (Independent Police Complaints Commission). Unfortunately, it's not all that independent, since it's generally staffed by ex-police officers. So the outcome of police brutality is more or less the same as it is everywhere - a lot of smearing, lying, then ultimately, either a slap on the wrist, or a promotion, for the culprit. I think the problem is ultimately deeper than police culture and/or lack of checks and balances. The problem is simply that police, by the very nature of their job, must be violent. There is simply no other way to deal with the level of desperation a society like the US causes. They live and work every day in a milieu of all the worst, most desperate behaviours capitalism has to offer. Untreated mental illness, drug problems, dysfunction of every kind - all articulated in a completely insane legal system that seems almost purposely designed to consume vast numbers of people and vast quantities of money while doing nothing but harm. So when people get upset with police for their brutality, it's easy to understand why they are outraged - it is simply impossible to do their job without violence. When people point at German police, or UK police, and say, they're not so bad - what they're really pointing at is a different job. German police kill people, or turn out to have connections to far-right groups, or beat people at protests - but ultimately, the average german is less desperate, less well armed, and simply less dangerous than the average person an american police officer must work with. That's simple statistics. That American police have built a culture around violence (the 'warrior' thing) is a pretty obvious result of the fact that they are caught in this bind, where violence is necessary for the society to stay in its current state, but where they are constantly castigated for its use.
- ryandrake 6y ago
  > So when people get upset with police for their brutality, it's easy to understand why they are outraged - it is simply impossible to do their job without violence. I think you need to distinguish between force and violence. I expect the police to occasionally need to use force to do their job, but I never want them to use violence. What we have been seeing during the past few days is totally out-of-control violence conducted by the police on non-violent people.

zaroth 6y ago

I think it’s a crucial distinction that the police did not impose the curfew. The politicians imposed the curfew and ordered the police to enforce it. After the multi-month long shutdown for COVID (and the very questionable justification for pushing 40 million healthy people out of their jobs) I think a several day curfew to limit widespread rioting and looting is both relatively minor and highly targeted by comparison. But even if you disagree with the curfew, it’s not the police that imposed it.

morelisp 6y ago

I am wondering to what degree would actually work. As I understand it, lots of the most egregious equipment is picked up essentially as federal gov't / military "leftovers", and while it's nominally sold or auctioned off there's not exactly a lot of potential buyers. So cutting your local police force would just mean the one next door buys twice as much, and cutting everywhere just decreases every buyer's budget so the price just drops. I suppose in this case we see the money going to programs that would, y'know, maybe at least help some people - assuming it doesn't get pitched directly into middle-class tax cuts, which seems more likely to me in any large city. But I don't see exactly how budget reduction would have any noticable impact on militarization.

agensaequivocum 6y ago

> These people expressing their first amendment right to assemble should have been protected not persecuted. I'm against the curfews, but where was everyone defending the right of people to protest the covid-19 lock-downs? I'm against a curfew in principle > Police are out of control. No they are not.

staticautomatic 6y ago

Are the proposed laws out to eliminate it fully or just for police officers? As a general matter, qualified immunity is an important protection for some kinds of government activities.

js2 6y ago

15 steps from a defense attorney including ending QI: 1. Abolish qualified immunity 2. Require police for carry malpractice insurance 3. Use pay incentives to get a better breed of police officer 4. Incentivize community policing 5. Make "Brady lists" public record 6. Abolish cities' sweetheart deals with police unions 7. Require de-escalation in Use of Force policies alongside public, transparent training on de-escalation 8. End "tail-light policing" entirely 9. Mandate a separation between the crime response units and investigative units in a department 10. Automatic special prosecutors for all police brutality incidents 11. More frequent USDOJ intervention 12. Expand data collection and mandatory reporting on use-of-force incidents (and other police activity generally) 13. Enact statutory protections to restore the 4th / 5th / 6th / 8th Amendments 14. Scale back, or eliminate entirely, "contempt of cop" statutes 15. Stronger sentencing for police misconduct offenses https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1266053291684827138.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1266053291684827138.html