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There are ~10 million arrests per year in the US. That google doc includes non-US cases as well (but is also limited by what’s caught on camera). Still, 0.0007%
by jsf01 6y ago
There are ~10 million arrests per year in the US. That google doc includes non-US cases as well (but is also limited by what’s caught on camera). Still, 0.0007% of arrests leading to a case like this doesn’t seem as horrible as the raw total in isolation.
- stbtrax 6y agoare you comparing a year timeframe (10 mil) to that of incidents recorded in the scale of a few days/weeks?
- fnord123 6y agoThere is one UK example which is actually a counter example where the police allowed a statue to be destroyed instead of intervening and creating a potentially dangerous altercation.
- jpxw 6y agoOh yeah, we should just let the rioters destroy public property. If the police just didn’t enforce the laws, there’d be no problems!
- fnord123 6y agoThat's right. Depending on the law and the context, if the police don't enforce it then there are fewer problems. That's pretty much what Superintendent Andy Bennett said in the video.
- bazzert 6y agoThe police did that in Portsmouth, VA ie. stood back and allowed a mob to pull down a statue which struck a man causing what is probably a life long injury.
- pjc50 6y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Edward_Colston https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Edward_Colston The statue of a slaver and mass murderer had been controversial for the past 30 years. I wonder if things would have gone differently if the "recontextualisation" plaque had been allowed. There has, predictably, been a backlash. Resulting in this fiasco where a guy came from Essex to defend some statues he didn't understand ended up urinating on a monument he didn't notice. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-53040301 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-53040301
- UncleMeat 6y agoSymbols are more powerful than words. Statues have always existed to project values. A plaque adding context won’t actually achieve the goal.
- Chris2048 6y ago> a guy came from Essex to defend some statues he didn't understand ended up urinating on a monument he didn't notice That article doesn't say much about the guy who urinate, how do you know what he knew/understood, or where he came from?
- pjc50 6y agovia https://twitter.com/CourtNewsUK/status/1272478151143313408 https://twitter.com/CourtNewsUK/status/1272478151143313408
- koheripbal 6y agoSo they allowed a mob to circumvent the legislative/democratic process of monument removal and it's an example of a "good" action? Mobs are not the law.
- hef19898 6y agoRisk management. Allowing htem to tear it down vs. intervening with force to safe a piece of metal on a piece of rock. The latter can be put back up. The former carrers quite a risk for everyone involved. Sunds like a reasonable call to me.
- koheripbal 6y agoIf this were a one-time event, I suppose that might be true. ...but the unfortunate reality is that allowing mobs to destroy property become a feedback loop because they then realize that mobs can destroy anything they like with impunity. That's no way to run a civilization.
- fnord123 6y agoSafely allowing protests to take place and let people have their say without fear of rubber bullets in their faces is a fantastic way to run a civilization.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- lagadu 6y agoThe alternative would be intervening and things possibly getting violent. The well-being of a statue isn't worth the possibility of causing harm to someone.
- koheripbal 6y agoI suppose then I could organize a mob to vandalize anything I want because the police should prioritize the well being of the mob over that of property? Seems like that would embolden mobs to destroy whatever they want. Doesn't seem like an intelligent or sustainable strategy.
- alkonaut 6y agoThat's one in 30 being arrested in the US every year. How does that compare to other countries? Is that something that could be improved? It sounds like a lot.
- newacct583 6y agoExactly. I genuinely don't think US police are individually that much worse than they are in other industrial nations (though obviously they have abusable tools available that many other regimes don't). But the US does an extraordinarily large amount of policing. On average, a US resident is far, far more likely to be confronted by police in routine circumstances where they would be ignored in the rest of the world. Which at the end of the day is what BLM is about, not so much the individual abuses. All that extra policing isn't distributed fairly. There are some communities in the US where the police are the kind of hands-off/come-only-when-called benefactors people expect, and there are some communities where they act more like a street gang controlling their territory, stopping and confronting anyone who seems likely to challenge their authority.
- pjc50 6y agoGiven that's not going to be evenly distributed, there will be a chunk of people who are never arrested in their lives and another group of people who get arrested all the time.