4 ms·

In Minneapolis, where Floyd died, a duty to intervene policy has been on the books since 2016, according to the city’s website. The policy reads: “It shall be

In Minneapolis, where Floyd died, a duty to intervene policy has been on the books since 2016, according to the city’s website. The policy reads: “It shall be the duty of every sworn employee present at any scene where physical force is being applied to either stop or attempt to stop another sworn employee when force is being inappropriately applied or is no longer required,” — word for word the same language used by the Dallas Police Department in defining its new order. Seeing how well that has worked in Minneapolis, what are the chances that this will work in Dallas?

grensley 6y ago
The officers were all arrested and the entire MPD is potentially getting dismantled, so Dallas might take the policy a bit more seriously.
- andi999 6y ago
  What does getting dismantled mean? You close and reopen with the same people? Or you close and start from scratch with unexperienced ppl (assuming a large pool of applicants)?
  - derefr 6y ago
    One obvious option is to build a new police department entirely out of officers poached from the police departments of other counties/states—preferably from cities that manage to have both high racial diversity and low rates of questionable police violence. Other public-servant roles (e.g. postal workers) get relocated between cities this way all the time, being moved to where there’s demand. Another option is to just have no official city police department (i.e. a group with warranted immunity from criminal prosecution for “exercising one’s duties”), only an informal community watch/militia of regular citizens entirely out of the hands of top-down municipal control. There are functional communities that operate this way, e.g. Cheran in Mexico (https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-37612083 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-37612083)
    - raxxorrax 6y ago
      I doubt that scales beyond small cities. You would get something far worse with private security. If you have Amazon Prime, you will get the right to refuse to testify though. Fun aside, it should also be noted that the people in your example are armed. I don't think that will meet any love with city dwellers.
    - andi999 6y ago
      One worry is, that looking at Franco Spain, he introduced the Guardia Civil to oppress ppl, and one mechanism was that no officer from the local community was allowed (at that community). That prevented police to fraternize with the local people. Also, could it not be perceived as a punishment for the police officers to get transfered, like: you did good work so please change city.
  - virgilp 6y ago
    https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2020/06/07/Minneapolis-City-Council-majority-announces-plan-to-disband-police-department/3371591568764/ https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2020/06/07/Minneapolis-City-...
  - hav 6y ago
    Reduction of capacity, narrowing of capability and resources diverted to other services intended for situations where (armed) police aren’t required.
  - jakelazaroff 6y ago
    The idea is to close it and not replace it. The only tool in the police toolbox is violence; despite this, they have become catchall first responders despite being wholly unequipped for most scenarios. We should treat drug use and mental illness as public health issues. We should treat homelessness by housing and feeding those who want help. We should treat domestic disputes with social work. These are complex issues that deserve specialized responses.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - andi999 6y ago
      Let me get this right: so no police in that city? Seriously?
      - jakelazaroff 6y ago
        Yes. Why is this crazy? There’s no natural law that says a society needs a police force as it exists today. Police in the US have only existed since the mid–1800s. In the South, they rose from the ashes of runaway slave patrols; in the North, they were created to quell labor organizing [0]. So the issue is that police as we know it today is intrinsically racist and classist, and we need to entirely reimagine it. [0] https://time.com/4779112/police-history-origins/ https://time.com/4779112/police-history-origins/
        andi999 6y ago
        This is just a perspective from a foreign country. My worry would be would I trust armed neighbourhood vigilantes more than the regular police. I dont know enough about the US, but do you think that would be better?
    - Yetanfou 6y ago
      How are you going to treat violent crime? What are you going to do about street gangs? No amount of social work, hand-holding or counselling will get at those.
- jdsully 6y ago
  Would they have been arrested were it not for the national uproar?
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    Almost certainly not.
- slg 6y ago
  That was only after days of national and international protests demanding such actions. The entire system is too far gone and needs to be torn down if anyone inside it legitimately views this as a success story.
decebalus1 6y ago
> Seeing how well that has worked in Minneapolis, what are the chances that this will work in Dallas? I think we can all agree that until there's actually some accountability enforced continuously by civilian oversight, this will not help.
onetimemanytime 6y ago
>>Seeing how well that has worked in Minneapolis, what are the chances that this will work in Dallas? We have laws against murder and people still do it. But life in jail crosses their mind or at least should before doing it. Another thing they should do is make it a bit easier to sue them individually for clearly violating civil rights.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  > Another thing they should do is make it a bit easier to sue them individually for clearly violating civil rights. I don't follow this. If it wasn't clearly established that Officer 1 violated your rights by excessive use of force, how could it be clearly established that Officer 2 violated your rights by not preventing Officer 1 from doing whatever he did? By hypothesis, he couldn't reasonably have known that Officer 1 was committing a violation.
jakelazaroff 6y ago
Chokeholds were also banned by the NYPD since 1993, decades before Daniel Pantaleo used one to murder Eric Garner. Policies to improve the police’s war on us will be wholly ineffective. We need drastic changes, such as what it looks like Minneapolis is poised to do.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  It is stunning at how effective the crackdowns have been at radicalizing the population against the police. Thoughts that were the absolute unthinkable left edge of political discourse are now policy in one city within a week. That’s lightning fast.
  - jakelazaroff 6y ago
    It’s true. I tend to be on that far left edge of political discourse, but had you asked me three weeks ago I would have bet a lot of money against the Overton window shifting so much and so quickly.
ashtonkem 6y ago
It’s kind of fascinating seeing people create new rules for cops, when the problem is that cops don’t follow rules. What’s needed is an accountability system for cops. Someone capable of punishing cops when they transgress, someone who is not beholden to cops for their day to day operations like local DAs.
est31 6y ago
This is unfair due to the selection bias of news. If such a policy works in 99 cases out of 100, that 1 case makes it into news and skews perception of the policy. Sure, there are people who break out of prisons. But that doesn't mean that prisons can't keep people inside.

grensley 6y ago

The officers were all arrested and the entire MPD is potentially getting dismantled, so Dallas might take the policy a bit more seriously.

andi999 6y ago
What does getting dismantled mean? You close and reopen with the same people? Or you close and start from scratch with unexperienced ppl (assuming a large pool of applicants)?
- derefr 6y ago
  One obvious option is to build a new police department entirely out of officers poached from the police departments of other counties/states—preferably from cities that manage to have both high racial diversity and low rates of questionable police violence. Other public-servant roles (e.g. postal workers) get relocated between cities this way all the time, being moved to where there’s demand. Another option is to just have no official city police department (i.e. a group with warranted immunity from criminal prosecution for “exercising one’s duties”), only an informal community watch/militia of regular citizens entirely out of the hands of top-down municipal control. There are functional communities that operate this way, e.g. Cheran in Mexico (https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-37612083 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-37612083)
  - raxxorrax 6y ago
    I doubt that scales beyond small cities. You would get something far worse with private security. If you have Amazon Prime, you will get the right to refuse to testify though. Fun aside, it should also be noted that the people in your example are armed. I don't think that will meet any love with city dwellers.
  - andi999 6y ago
    One worry is, that looking at Franco Spain, he introduced the Guardia Civil to oppress ppl, and one mechanism was that no officer from the local community was allowed (at that community). That prevented police to fraternize with the local people. Also, could it not be perceived as a punishment for the police officers to get transfered, like: you did good work so please change city.
- virgilp 6y ago
  https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2020/06/07/Minneapolis-City-Council-majority-announces-plan-to-disband-police-department/3371591568764/ https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2020/06/07/Minneapolis-City-...
- hav 6y ago
  Reduction of capacity, narrowing of capability and resources diverted to other services intended for situations where (armed) police aren’t required.
- jakelazaroff 6y ago
  The idea is to close it and not replace it. The only tool in the police toolbox is violence; despite this, they have become catchall first responders despite being wholly unequipped for most scenarios. We should treat drug use and mental illness as public health issues. We should treat homelessness by housing and feeding those who want help. We should treat domestic disputes with social work. These are complex issues that deserve specialized responses.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - andi999 6y ago
    Let me get this right: so no police in that city? Seriously?
    - jakelazaroff 6y ago
      Yes. Why is this crazy? There’s no natural law that says a society needs a police force as it exists today. Police in the US have only existed since the mid–1800s. In the South, they rose from the ashes of runaway slave patrols; in the North, they were created to quell labor organizing [0]. So the issue is that police as we know it today is intrinsically racist and classist, and we need to entirely reimagine it. [0] https://time.com/4779112/police-history-origins/ https://time.com/4779112/police-history-origins/
      - andi999 6y ago
        This is just a perspective from a foreign country. My worry would be would I trust armed neighbourhood vigilantes more than the regular police. I dont know enough about the US, but do you think that would be better?
  - Yetanfou 6y ago
    How are you going to treat violent crime? What are you going to do about street gangs? No amount of social work, hand-holding or counselling will get at those.
jdsully 6y ago
Would they have been arrested were it not for the national uproar?
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  Almost certainly not.
slg 6y ago
That was only after days of national and international protests demanding such actions. The entire system is too far gone and needs to be torn down if anyone inside it legitimately views this as a success story.

decebalus1 6y ago

> Seeing how well that has worked in Minneapolis, what are the chances that this will work in Dallas? I think we can all agree that until there's actually some accountability enforced continuously by civilian oversight, this will not help.

onetimemanytime 6y ago

>>Seeing how well that has worked in Minneapolis, what are the chances that this will work in Dallas? We have laws against murder and people still do it. But life in jail crosses their mind or at least should before doing it. Another thing they should do is make it a bit easier to sue them individually for clearly violating civil rights.

thaumasiotes 6y ago
> Another thing they should do is make it a bit easier to sue them individually for clearly violating civil rights. I don't follow this. If it wasn't clearly established that Officer 1 violated your rights by excessive use of force, how could it be clearly established that Officer 2 violated your rights by not preventing Officer 1 from doing whatever he did? By hypothesis, he couldn't reasonably have known that Officer 1 was committing a violation.

jakelazaroff 6y ago

Chokeholds were also banned by the NYPD since 1993, decades before Daniel Pantaleo used one to murder Eric Garner. Policies to improve the police’s war on us will be wholly ineffective. We need drastic changes, such as what it looks like Minneapolis is poised to do.

ashtonkem 6y ago
It is stunning at how effective the crackdowns have been at radicalizing the population against the police. Thoughts that were the absolute unthinkable left edge of political discourse are now policy in one city within a week. That’s lightning fast.
- jakelazaroff 6y ago
  It’s true. I tend to be on that far left edge of political discourse, but had you asked me three weeks ago I would have bet a lot of money against the Overton window shifting so much and so quickly.

ashtonkem 6y ago

It’s kind of fascinating seeing people create new rules for cops, when the problem is that cops don’t follow rules. What’s needed is an accountability system for cops. Someone capable of punishing cops when they transgress, someone who is not beholden to cops for their day to day operations like local DAs.

est31 6y ago

This is unfair due to the selection bias of news. If such a policy works in 99 cases out of 100, that 1 case makes it into news and skews perception of the policy. Sure, there are people who break out of prisons. But that doesn't mean that prisons can't keep people inside.