4 ms·

If there is one group of people who are constitutionally (heh) ill-equipped to monitor free citizens who are exercising their constitutional rights to petition

If there is one group of people who are constitutionally (heh) ill-equipped to monitor free citizens who are exercising their constitutional rights to petition their government for redress of grievances, it's people whose entire job history has been the exercise of power over incarcerated federal offenders, who do not have the right to peaceably assemble. Doubly so when they're prison riot control officers who all look like they're clones of Byron Hadley, The Screw Everyone Hates from "Shawshank Redemption". When a prison guard sees a crowd chanting protests, they are going to react very badly. Get them out. And get badges on the rest of them. Then get them out, too.

Gibbon1 6y ago
My feeling is being in uniform and acting under color of authority without a badge and name tag should be a felony.
- dragontamer 6y ago
  Even if it were a felony, who would enforce it? Consider that NYPD, for all of its faults, actually has the Civilian Complaint Review Board. Which provides citizens the ability to officially complain about bad behaviors of various cops. However, review boards do not exist for all police forces. And many review boards have insufficient power to properly reprimand a specific cop who does a bad job. We need a specific organization to police the police. FBI kinda-sorta does it (but not under this administration. Under Obama, the FBI was charged with investigating police brutality). Since the FBI's orders changes with the whims of the President, it is clear we need a long-lasting organization that provides oversight even when a Republican is in office.
  - beojan 6y ago
    > Since the FBI's orders changes with the whims of the President, it is clear we need a long-lasting organization that provides oversight even when a Republican is in office. That would require a constitutional amendment, right?
    - dragontamer 6y ago
      No. Just an act of Congress. Its actually relatively easy to change the structure of the executive branch. An executive order would do, but each President can overturn executive orders as they get elected. So it needs to be an Act of Congress if we want the organization to last between presidential terms. Of course, a future act of Congress could wipe it out, but that seems like a hard sell if we ensure that Americans remember the lessons from today's unrest.
  - Gibbon1 6y ago
    > Even if it were a felony, who would enforce it? What if the law says explicitly that an officer in uniform without a badge and name tag has no legal authority and can be presumed to be committing a felony?
    - dragontamer 6y ago
      The law can set the speed limit whatever it wants. If there's no police officer there enforcing the speed limit, I'll drive at whatever speed I care to. The most important part of law, is law ENFORCEMENT. If you do not assign someone to enforce a law that is written, then it will be ignored.
      - thechao 6y ago
        It seems we need parallel executive branches. The second which is beholden to the polity, and who’s job is to police the former. That way we don’t have an automatic “regulatory capture”, which we currently have. Heck, let them go after each other: divide & conquer style. Maybe have the top-level official be elected at a very-fine granularity, but with the power to enforce across locality lines? Like—elect at the county level, but can enforce anywhere in the State?
        dragontamer 6y ago
        I disagree. Frankly, the American people don't care enough to know their own President, Representative, Senator, Mayor, Governor, Sheriff, School Board, HOA committee members, county commission, and PTA board. If anything, we need more power consolidated into fewer people. So that Americans know who to blame. In many cases, these "police brutality" issues are extremely local, caused by the local Sheriffs of each individual location. And yet, people don't know who to blame when these things happen. There are too many positions, so officials can hide behind the confusion and avoid responsibility.
        thechao 6y ago
        That's the whole point of elect local, enforce non-locally. I trust that there's enough people in Austin to elect a secondary prosecutorial staff to go after bad actors through Travis & its surrounding counties. The idea is to give voters a bunch of chances to enforce this stuff.
- SauciestGNU 6y ago
  More than that, I would honestly be unsurprised if they are resisted with deadly force, because of the impossibility of distinguishing them from a right wing militia. Were I serving on a jury for someone who killed one of these agents in self-defense there's not even a slight chance I would convict.
- grecy 6y ago
  Better yet, the person that ordered them to do it gets charged with a felony. And so on upwards.
- jakeogh 6y ago
  There are extra protections for law enforcement; that should be debated. Ultimately anyone can arrest anyone comitting a felony. Lighting a habitable structure on fire, or causing great bodily harm are ethical reasons to use any force necessary.
crocodiletears 6y ago
The lack of badging is unconsciounable, that shit needs to be fixed. But I would argue that Bureau of Prisons riot units may well be better equipped to handle civil unrest of this sort than most conventional police depts on the following grounds: The US doesn't have much institutional experience dealing with rioters or massive protests of this nature. What little there is, is in the hands of local agencies, and hasn't necessarily spread to other departments. The closest thing to a law enforcement agency with significant crowd control experience is the Bureau of Prisons. Your average beat cop is trained for day-to-day enforcement actions, and is accustomed to a certain level of respect or deference not typically granted to prison guards. They're also accustomed to significantly outnumbering the belligerent actors they encounter. The stress of operating in situations where you're significantly outnumbered by contemptuous and openly hostile people is more than likely alien to them. Conventional police forces - to my knowledge - do not train riot control techniques with any regularity. Comparing livestreams of the Floyd protests with Greek and German crowd control operations, the American police tend to be less coordinated in their advances (more gaps in their lines, they tend to be spread out from one another, they respond less quickly in a coordinated manner), and are quicker to react to potentially hostile actions with violence. Though I'll admit that this could be a difference of crowd control philosophy, or an adaptation to America's wider streets but it does strike me as being more likely to result in unnecessary injury to protestors, and vulnerable to charges by rioters. I believe that the near ubiquitous misuse of rubber bullets by LEOs during the protests are evidence of this. The Bureau of prisons riot control units may not be accustomed to the scale of the current protests and unrest, but I expect them to be better equipped to coordinate police actions, and operate on the front lines than somebody that writes tickets, and occasionally has to deal with Karen, or an angry junky.
- LiquidSky 6y ago
  >The US doesn't have much institutional experience dealing with rioters or massive protests of this nature. I am guessing by your spelling that you are not American so maybe you are not familiar with American history or politics, but this statement could not be more wrong.
  - 6y ago
Balgair 6y ago
> When a prison guard sees a crowd chanting protests, they are going to react very badly. I fear that is the exact point of putting them there in the first place.
onetimemanytime 6y ago
>>When a prison guard sees a crowd chanting protests, they are going to react very badly. Get them out. Well, I doubt they have better options avail. I doubt active soldiers trained to kill as fast as possible would be any better. Let's be honest, they cannot let major buildings and institutions in DC get overrun...
- irscott 6y ago
  The use of force guidelines in prison vs use of force guidelines for free civilians are totally different. These BoP guards might treat a situation a certain way and not even know they're violating someone's civil rights while doing it.
  - onetimemanytime 6y ago
    Oh, I know. They'll break your bones and suffer no consequences because "he resisted." On the other hand: the White House perimeter is gone...100's of angry people are running towards it. What does the government do?
- schrodinger 6y ago
  Idk, soldiers are extremely patriotic, principled, and disciplined. I actually think they’d probably be better than police, even though I think it’s abhorrent to direct the military against citizens.

Gibbon1 6y ago

My feeling is being in uniform and acting under color of authority without a badge and name tag should be a felony.

dragontamer 6y ago
Even if it were a felony, who would enforce it? Consider that NYPD, for all of its faults, actually has the Civilian Complaint Review Board. Which provides citizens the ability to officially complain about bad behaviors of various cops. However, review boards do not exist for all police forces. And many review boards have insufficient power to properly reprimand a specific cop who does a bad job. We need a specific organization to police the police. FBI kinda-sorta does it (but not under this administration. Under Obama, the FBI was charged with investigating police brutality). Since the FBI's orders changes with the whims of the President, it is clear we need a long-lasting organization that provides oversight even when a Republican is in office.
- beojan 6y ago
  > Since the FBI's orders changes with the whims of the President, it is clear we need a long-lasting organization that provides oversight even when a Republican is in office. That would require a constitutional amendment, right?
  - dragontamer 6y ago
    No. Just an act of Congress. Its actually relatively easy to change the structure of the executive branch. An executive order would do, but each President can overturn executive orders as they get elected. So it needs to be an Act of Congress if we want the organization to last between presidential terms. Of course, a future act of Congress could wipe it out, but that seems like a hard sell if we ensure that Americans remember the lessons from today's unrest.
- Gibbon1 6y ago
  > Even if it were a felony, who would enforce it? What if the law says explicitly that an officer in uniform without a badge and name tag has no legal authority and can be presumed to be committing a felony?
  - dragontamer 6y ago
    The law can set the speed limit whatever it wants. If there's no police officer there enforcing the speed limit, I'll drive at whatever speed I care to. The most important part of law, is law ENFORCEMENT. If you do not assign someone to enforce a law that is written, then it will be ignored.
    - thechao 6y ago
      It seems we need parallel executive branches. The second which is beholden to the polity, and who’s job is to police the former. That way we don’t have an automatic “regulatory capture”, which we currently have. Heck, let them go after each other: divide & conquer style. Maybe have the top-level official be elected at a very-fine granularity, but with the power to enforce across locality lines? Like—elect at the county level, but can enforce anywhere in the State?
      - dragontamer 6y ago
        I disagree. Frankly, the American people don't care enough to know their own President, Representative, Senator, Mayor, Governor, Sheriff, School Board, HOA committee members, county commission, and PTA board. If anything, we need more power consolidated into fewer people. So that Americans know who to blame. In many cases, these "police brutality" issues are extremely local, caused by the local Sheriffs of each individual location. And yet, people don't know who to blame when these things happen. There are too many positions, so officials can hide behind the confusion and avoid responsibility.
        thechao 6y ago
        That's the whole point of elect local, enforce non-locally. I trust that there's enough people in Austin to elect a secondary prosecutorial staff to go after bad actors through Travis & its surrounding counties. The idea is to give voters a bunch of chances to enforce this stuff.
SauciestGNU 6y ago
More than that, I would honestly be unsurprised if they are resisted with deadly force, because of the impossibility of distinguishing them from a right wing militia. Were I serving on a jury for someone who killed one of these agents in self-defense there's not even a slight chance I would convict.
grecy 6y ago
Better yet, the person that ordered them to do it gets charged with a felony. And so on upwards.
jakeogh 6y ago
There are extra protections for law enforcement; that should be debated. Ultimately anyone can arrest anyone comitting a felony. Lighting a habitable structure on fire, or causing great bodily harm are ethical reasons to use any force necessary.

crocodiletears 6y ago

The lack of badging is unconsciounable, that shit needs to be fixed. But I would argue that Bureau of Prisons riot units may well be better equipped to handle civil unrest of this sort than most conventional police depts on the following grounds: The US doesn't have much institutional experience dealing with rioters or massive protests of this nature. What little there is, is in the hands of local agencies, and hasn't necessarily spread to other departments. The closest thing to a law enforcement agency with significant crowd control experience is the Bureau of Prisons. Your average beat cop is trained for day-to-day enforcement actions, and is accustomed to a certain level of respect or deference not typically granted to prison guards. They're also accustomed to significantly outnumbering the belligerent actors they encounter. The stress of operating in situations where you're significantly outnumbered by contemptuous and openly hostile people is more than likely alien to them. Conventional police forces - to my knowledge - do not train riot control techniques with any regularity. Comparing livestreams of the Floyd protests with Greek and German crowd control operations, the American police tend to be less coordinated in their advances (more gaps in their lines, they tend to be spread out from one another, they respond less quickly in a coordinated manner), and are quicker to react to potentially hostile actions with violence. Though I'll admit that this could be a difference of crowd control philosophy, or an adaptation to America's wider streets but it does strike me as being more likely to result in unnecessary injury to protestors, and vulnerable to charges by rioters. I believe that the near ubiquitous misuse of rubber bullets by LEOs during the protests are evidence of this. The Bureau of prisons riot control units may not be accustomed to the scale of the current protests and unrest, but I expect them to be better equipped to coordinate police actions, and operate on the front lines than somebody that writes tickets, and occasionally has to deal with Karen, or an angry junky.

LiquidSky 6y ago
>The US doesn't have much institutional experience dealing with rioters or massive protests of this nature. I am guessing by your spelling that you are not American so maybe you are not familiar with American history or politics, but this statement could not be more wrong.
- 6y ago

Balgair 6y ago

> When a prison guard sees a crowd chanting protests, they are going to react very badly. I fear that is the exact point of putting them there in the first place.

onetimemanytime 6y ago

>>When a prison guard sees a crowd chanting protests, they are going to react very badly. Get them out. Well, I doubt they have better options avail. I doubt active soldiers trained to kill as fast as possible would be any better. Let's be honest, they cannot let major buildings and institutions in DC get overrun...

irscott 6y ago
The use of force guidelines in prison vs use of force guidelines for free civilians are totally different. These BoP guards might treat a situation a certain way and not even know they're violating someone's civil rights while doing it.
- onetimemanytime 6y ago
  Oh, I know. They'll break your bones and suffer no consequences because "he resisted." On the other hand: the White House perimeter is gone...100's of angry people are running towards it. What does the government do?
schrodinger 6y ago
Idk, soldiers are extremely patriotic, principled, and disciplined. I actually think they’d probably be better than police, even though I think it’s abhorrent to direct the military against citizens.