6 ms·

I kind of share the sentiment expressed in the final quote of the article. From the way the dataset is described this could be really helpful to criminals and r

I kind of share the sentiment expressed in the final quote of the article. From the way the dataset is described this could be really helpful to criminals and really harmful and dangerous for other folks - police and civilian alike.

sschueller 6y ago
I would rather have an extra criminal on the streets than risk ruining someones live that is innocent because some cop planted evidence. Just this week a bodycam from NYC officer shows him planting drugs over 2 years ago. The person who's involved took a plea deal because they didn't want to risk going to jail for many years. The cop still has his job and this wasn't the first time. Try getting a job in the US with a criminal record.
- alharith 6y ago
  It's always the big liberal cities, with majority democratic councils, and a legacy of democratic mayors and govenors with the worse police departments: Chicago, Atlanta, D.C., NYC, Baltimore, LA, etc. But somehow the "redneck trumpers in flyover states" get blamed for everything. It's really hilarious at this point. In my city of Charlotte, with the Keith Scott shooting, it was: 9 democratic council members to 1 republican, democratic mayor, democratic governor, black police chief, and a black police officer that did the shooting, but somehow it was institutional racism. There is a policing problem in this country. Period. Color of your skin be damned. If people started from there, things might have been a little different at this point. I am sure this will get flagged, but it really needs to be said at this point. Hopefully some of you see the truth. I sure see it, and I am a middle eastern immigrant.
  - non-entity 6y ago
    This is just political flamebait. If you think this is some phenomena purely constrained to cities you're being lazy at best or wilfully ignorant and driven by ideology, which is probably more accurate.
    - alharith 6y ago
      Throwing generalized insults is easy. Projection is a hell of a drug. I don't think it's constrained to cities. I hold to no ideology. I said the _worse_ of them are usually big blue cities.
      - knowaveragejoe 6y ago
        As someone else so eloquently explained, this is a form of(perhaps inadvertent) bias given the comparative scale of what we're talking about.
  - danharaj 6y ago
    Let me try to clear something up for you. The people protesting on the streets right now don't give a shit what color the boot on their neck is. Systemic racism doesn't just mean the system is full of racist individuals. It means that processes that make up the system lead to racist outcomes. And, yes, Black individuals can participate in racist power structures that hurt Black populations, and of course racism doesn't have a particular political party. Stop treating politics as a game of football and look at how power is distributed and who benefits from that distribution. Material analysis, not color coded appearances.
    - LycheeKing 6y ago
      >And, yes, Black individuals can participate in racist power structures that hurt Black populations, and of course racism doesn't have a particular political party. You should try to broadcast this on your personal social media accounts and see how long you will keep your job. The BLM mob and their "cancel culture"-enablers unbfortunately lack your nuance. In their rhetoric "police" is just a stand-in for "white" and laws are "white" too and therefore by defintion racist. If the whole affair actually were about justice, the fact that "martyr" George Floyd had a Fentanyl overdose and died from a heart-attack (not asphyxation) inside the hospital several hours(!) after the police encounter would be quite relevant to measure the involved officer's actual guilt, don't you think? Instead the mob is out for blood and payback, demanding to defund the police, so they can loot, defraud, rob, sell crack and murder unhindered, The movement is about revenge not justice, lionizing habitual criminals like George Floyd.
    - tonyarkles 6y ago
      In Canada, we have at least 4 major political parties, and a few others that usually get a seat or two in parliament. The NDP is the third party (one time they had enough seats to form the official opposition). Anyway, only the Liberals and the Conservatives have ever been in power; every 10 years it seems to swing back and forth. Jagmeet Singh, current leader of the NDP, tweeted the other day something along the lines of "Systemic racism comes from the power structures in place. If you want to find the source of systemic racism in Canada, you have to look at the parties who have been in power for the last 150 years: the Liberals and the Conservatives."
  - TulliusCicero 6y ago
    The big cities are the ones most known for being terrible because they're big: reputational risk is always higher for bigger organizations than small ones, because it's easier to be aware of the problems in one big org than twenty small ones that add up to the same size. This is because we extrapolate any incident within the big org to apply to the whole organization, whereas we obviously don't extrapolate out incidents in small orgs to apply to different small orgs. So if you have 1 big police department with 5 fatal shootings, and 20 small police departments with 5 fatal shootings in total, all in different departments, people will think, "wow, that big police department is trash, but 15 out of the 20 small police departments are good! Small police departments are so much better!"
  - Kednicma 6y ago
    Part of the problem is that cops are usually not living inside their precincts, and they are trained to think of themselves as bringing law and order to a lawless metropolis. This is, of course, silly nonsense, but they believe and practice it nonetheless. In this way, it's possible for rural counties surrounding a city to contribute cops, violence, and hate to the city itself.
    - knowaveragejoe 6y ago
      In many ways, the worst kind of people to be police become police.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - gonational 6y ago
    This is a truth nobody is willing to hear or accept. Thanks for saying it. Another part of the story that nobody is willing to accept into their egocentric reality is that there actually is no problem to begin with. A quick look at FBI statistics will show you that many fewer unarmed black folks are killed by police than white folks. The higher per-capita rate for black folks is easily explained by the higher crime rate exhibited in their communities... which are almost entirely run by democrats. In fact, when you look at the crime statistics, black people are technically under policed (fewer police incidents of nearly every kind, per crime committed). I know tons of black people who don’t go around committing crimes, and I know none who do. The crime rates in these large cities has nothing to do with race, and everything to do with Democrat governance (welfare, immigration (sanctuary status), other economic policies, etc.).
    - someguydave 6y ago
      https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-2018/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-3.xls https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-... Of the 11,514 murder offenders in 2018 where the race of the offender is known by now, 6,318 of the offenders were black: 54.9%. Blacks make up 13.4% of the us population. I don’t get how growing up in a city with a poor economic policy causes one to become a murderer.
      - bobbean 6y ago
        Are you saying that people are more likely to be murderers if their skin is black? If you took someone who was black and raised them in a world where racism never existed, would they still be more likely to be murderers than someone who was, for example, white?
        someguydave 6y ago
        >Are you saying that people are more likely to be murderers if their skin is black? No, I think that personality traits are inherited. There are genes which are correlated with aggression in the phenotype. There are other genes that are correlated with the expression of black skin the phenotype. >If you took someone who was black and raised them in a world where racism never existed, would they still be more likely to be murderers than someone who was, for example, white? Are you asking that question in good faith? See this and tell me what your conclusions are: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...
  - marcinzm 6y ago
    Cities just happen to have a majority of the population and a lot of minorities. It's also harder to hide things in cities. Small red towns are generally much worse and things rarely come to light. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/police-are-killing-fewer-people-in-big-cities-but-more-in-suburban-and-rural-america/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/police-are-killing-fewe... edit: Regarding cities having a much larger percentage of minorities: https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2018/05/22/demographic-and-economic-trends-in-urban-suburban-and-rural-communities/ https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2018/05/22/demographic-and-e... It took me all of 2 minutes to look these things up, the fact that you didn't just shows that you care more about a particular ideology than facts.
  - effable 6y ago
    I have a few questions: > "In my city of Charlotte, with the Keith Scott shooting, it was: 9 democratic council members to 1 republican, democratic mayor, democratic governor, black police chief, and a black police officer that did the shooting, but somehow it was institutional racism." Why does the political affiliation or the colour of the people involved mean that it cannot be institutional racism. Isn't the idea that the racism is baked into the policies, the modus operandi of the police and judicial system? > "There is a policing problem in this country. Period. Color of your skin be damned. If people started from there, things might have been a little different at this point." Let's assume that this was the case. How will this improve things compared to now?
- peterwwillis 6y ago
  This won't expose cops planting evidence, it's more like 10,000 criminals going free, and your direct example isn't related to this story.
- zrth 6y ago
  holy fuck. do you have a url for me?
  - __alexs 6y ago
    https://theintercept.com/2020/03/18/nypd-misconduct-body-cameras-marijuana/ https://theintercept.com/2020/03/18/nypd-misconduct-body-cam...
    - blunte 6y ago
      Do the cops not comprehend that they were recording themselves while committing crimes against the people they are sworn to protect?
      - freeone3000 6y ago
        He's still on the job, and the person he wanted in prison is still in prison, so it's more that it doesn't matter he was on video, because not even video evidence is enough to get him fired, let alone arrested.
      - ta17711771 6y ago
        > against the people they are sworn to protect? This is a misnomer. Cops are not actually "to protect and serve", and this has been proven in court. Their function is to uphold the law. That's it.
      - dragonwriter 6y ago
        Cops are sworn to the law, not the people, but, in any case oaths, absent effective accountability to them, only matter to the people that didn't need to take them in the first place.
      - wonderwonder 6y ago
        Based on history, why would they care? Cameras or no, it appears that there are almost no consequences for their breaking of the law. Generally worst case scenario is that the residents of the city they work in pay a large fine to the victims. QI means the cops suffer no harm. Most of the time the department and prosecution conspires to ensure the video and crime never sees the light of day. And if they do end up going to court: " the court held that California police who stand accused of stealing $225,000 cannot be sued because they never were told specifically that stealing money from people’s homes violates the Constitution" https://www.ocregister.com/2020/05/14/high-court-to-decide-if-police-can-enter-your-home-and-steal-from-you/ https://www.ocregister.com/2020/05/14/high-court-to-decide-i...
- readarticle 6y ago
  I don’t think that’s the bargain here. Fusion centers seem to be shared databases of threats that federal, state, and local agencies all contribute to. Given the scale, it’s likely more of the focus is on organizations, not individuals. Given the nature of internal misconduct, I think it’s safe to assume that wouldn’t be shared period, let alone in venues such as these. In cases where it does need to be shared, e.g. covered up NYPD misconduct affects FBI case, I’d assume they have alternative means to this sort of spreadsheet-broadcast impression I’m getting of the centers. Could be totally off, either way I suppose we’ll find out now.
- raxxorrax 6y ago
  Not if you are in a witness protection program against a drug mafia. They will take their opportunity to send a message. Overall I agree though. This is the same baseless defense used against leaking of info on war crimes. I doubt planting evidence is common, but it will nevertheless be interesting to dig through that. If it is true the cop is still serving, it should be a huge scandal. These practices need to be stomped out immediately.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    > If it is true the cop is still serving, it should be a huge scandal. Who cares if it’s a huge scandal? I remember reading about the “scandal” years ago. The cop is still has his job and was never charged with a crime. The cop broke the law multiple times on video, an innocent person suffered physical and mental harm. The cop caused harm to all of society by reducing the trust between members of society. Yet he has a job, one with power over others where his word matters more than others. Hence the protests.
  - shadowgovt 6y ago
    > If it is true the cop is still serving, it should be a huge scandal One of the reasons that the protests in the US are so widespread right now is that, fundamentally, this is the issue: that cop still serving isn't a scandal at all. The police look out for their own, and internal accountability for violating procedure is an absolute farce.
tom_ 6y ago
The police are civilians.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
  True. But when you hear cops talk about non cops, they will call non cops civilians.
  - goliatone 6y ago
    This [1] gave me an idea of how some police might see their role. [1] http://mwkworks.com/onsheepwolvesandsheepdogs.html http://mwkworks.com/onsheepwolvesandsheepdogs.html
    - A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
      That is definitely an interesting perspective. It seems somewhat idealized, but if we accept the premise of the author, then sheepdogs that hurt lambs are not removed in US making sheep go 'Baa'. Still, a worthwhile read.
  - MrZongle2 6y ago
    As a veteran, my blood boils when I hear that. As I am no longer a member of the military, I am a civilian. My neighbors are civilians. And regardless of a badge or uniform or firearm or SWAT teams or Pentagon-surplus armored vehicles, cops are civilians. Feeling otherwise merely reinforces the "us-versus-them" mentality that leads to the current crisis.
- SigmundA 6y ago
  The common definition of civilian is "a person who is not a member of the police, the armed forces, or a fire department". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian So sworn police officers are not normally considered civilians, while non-sworn personel are: https://www.discoverpolicing.org/explore-the-field/types-of-sworn-law-enforcement/ https://www.discoverpolicing.org/explore-the-field/types-of-... https://www.discoverpolicing.org/explore-the-field/civilian-law-enforcement/ https://www.discoverpolicing.org/explore-the-field/civilian-... https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/topic-pages/police-employee-browse-by/status-sworn-civilian https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-...

sschueller 6y ago

I would rather have an extra criminal on the streets than risk ruining someones live that is innocent because some cop planted evidence. Just this week a bodycam from NYC officer shows him planting drugs over 2 years ago. The person who's involved took a plea deal because they didn't want to risk going to jail for many years. The cop still has his job and this wasn't the first time. Try getting a job in the US with a criminal record.

alharith 6y ago
It's always the big liberal cities, with majority democratic councils, and a legacy of democratic mayors and govenors with the worse police departments: Chicago, Atlanta, D.C., NYC, Baltimore, LA, etc. But somehow the "redneck trumpers in flyover states" get blamed for everything. It's really hilarious at this point. In my city of Charlotte, with the Keith Scott shooting, it was: 9 democratic council members to 1 republican, democratic mayor, democratic governor, black police chief, and a black police officer that did the shooting, but somehow it was institutional racism. There is a policing problem in this country. Period. Color of your skin be damned. If people started from there, things might have been a little different at this point. I am sure this will get flagged, but it really needs to be said at this point. Hopefully some of you see the truth. I sure see it, and I am a middle eastern immigrant.
- non-entity 6y ago
  This is just political flamebait. If you think this is some phenomena purely constrained to cities you're being lazy at best or wilfully ignorant and driven by ideology, which is probably more accurate.
  - alharith 6y ago
    Throwing generalized insults is easy. Projection is a hell of a drug. I don't think it's constrained to cities. I hold to no ideology. I said the _worse_ of them are usually big blue cities.
    - knowaveragejoe 6y ago
      As someone else so eloquently explained, this is a form of(perhaps inadvertent) bias given the comparative scale of what we're talking about.
- danharaj 6y ago
  Let me try to clear something up for you. The people protesting on the streets right now don't give a shit what color the boot on their neck is. Systemic racism doesn't just mean the system is full of racist individuals. It means that processes that make up the system lead to racist outcomes. And, yes, Black individuals can participate in racist power structures that hurt Black populations, and of course racism doesn't have a particular political party. Stop treating politics as a game of football and look at how power is distributed and who benefits from that distribution. Material analysis, not color coded appearances.
  - LycheeKing 6y ago
    >And, yes, Black individuals can participate in racist power structures that hurt Black populations, and of course racism doesn't have a particular political party. You should try to broadcast this on your personal social media accounts and see how long you will keep your job. The BLM mob and their "cancel culture"-enablers unbfortunately lack your nuance. In their rhetoric "police" is just a stand-in for "white" and laws are "white" too and therefore by defintion racist. If the whole affair actually were about justice, the fact that "martyr" George Floyd had a Fentanyl overdose and died from a heart-attack (not asphyxation) inside the hospital several hours(!) after the police encounter would be quite relevant to measure the involved officer's actual guilt, don't you think? Instead the mob is out for blood and payback, demanding to defund the police, so they can loot, defraud, rob, sell crack and murder unhindered, The movement is about revenge not justice, lionizing habitual criminals like George Floyd.
  - tonyarkles 6y ago
    In Canada, we have at least 4 major political parties, and a few others that usually get a seat or two in parliament. The NDP is the third party (one time they had enough seats to form the official opposition). Anyway, only the Liberals and the Conservatives have ever been in power; every 10 years it seems to swing back and forth. Jagmeet Singh, current leader of the NDP, tweeted the other day something along the lines of "Systemic racism comes from the power structures in place. If you want to find the source of systemic racism in Canada, you have to look at the parties who have been in power for the last 150 years: the Liberals and the Conservatives."
- TulliusCicero 6y ago
  The big cities are the ones most known for being terrible because they're big: reputational risk is always higher for bigger organizations than small ones, because it's easier to be aware of the problems in one big org than twenty small ones that add up to the same size. This is because we extrapolate any incident within the big org to apply to the whole organization, whereas we obviously don't extrapolate out incidents in small orgs to apply to different small orgs. So if you have 1 big police department with 5 fatal shootings, and 20 small police departments with 5 fatal shootings in total, all in different departments, people will think, "wow, that big police department is trash, but 15 out of the 20 small police departments are good! Small police departments are so much better!"
- Kednicma 6y ago
  Part of the problem is that cops are usually not living inside their precincts, and they are trained to think of themselves as bringing law and order to a lawless metropolis. This is, of course, silly nonsense, but they believe and practice it nonetheless. In this way, it's possible for rural counties surrounding a city to contribute cops, violence, and hate to the city itself.
  - knowaveragejoe 6y ago
    In many ways, the worst kind of people to be police become police.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- gonational 6y ago
  This is a truth nobody is willing to hear or accept. Thanks for saying it. Another part of the story that nobody is willing to accept into their egocentric reality is that there actually is no problem to begin with. A quick look at FBI statistics will show you that many fewer unarmed black folks are killed by police than white folks. The higher per-capita rate for black folks is easily explained by the higher crime rate exhibited in their communities... which are almost entirely run by democrats. In fact, when you look at the crime statistics, black people are technically under policed (fewer police incidents of nearly every kind, per crime committed). I know tons of black people who don’t go around committing crimes, and I know none who do. The crime rates in these large cities has nothing to do with race, and everything to do with Democrat governance (welfare, immigration (sanctuary status), other economic policies, etc.).
  - someguydave 6y ago
    https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-2018/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-3.xls https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-... Of the 11,514 murder offenders in 2018 where the race of the offender is known by now, 6,318 of the offenders were black: 54.9%. Blacks make up 13.4% of the us population. I don’t get how growing up in a city with a poor economic policy causes one to become a murderer.
    - bobbean 6y ago
      Are you saying that people are more likely to be murderers if their skin is black? If you took someone who was black and raised them in a world where racism never existed, would they still be more likely to be murderers than someone who was, for example, white?
      - someguydave 6y ago
        >Are you saying that people are more likely to be murderers if their skin is black? No, I think that personality traits are inherited. There are genes which are correlated with aggression in the phenotype. There are other genes that are correlated with the expression of black skin the phenotype. >If you took someone who was black and raised them in a world where racism never existed, would they still be more likely to be murderers than someone who was, for example, white? Are you asking that question in good faith? See this and tell me what your conclusions are: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...
- marcinzm 6y ago
  Cities just happen to have a majority of the population and a lot of minorities. It's also harder to hide things in cities. Small red towns are generally much worse and things rarely come to light. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/police-are-killing-fewer-people-in-big-cities-but-more-in-suburban-and-rural-america/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/police-are-killing-fewe... edit: Regarding cities having a much larger percentage of minorities: https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2018/05/22/demographic-and-economic-trends-in-urban-suburban-and-rural-communities/ https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2018/05/22/demographic-and-e... It took me all of 2 minutes to look these things up, the fact that you didn't just shows that you care more about a particular ideology than facts.
- effable 6y ago
  I have a few questions: > "In my city of Charlotte, with the Keith Scott shooting, it was: 9 democratic council members to 1 republican, democratic mayor, democratic governor, black police chief, and a black police officer that did the shooting, but somehow it was institutional racism." Why does the political affiliation or the colour of the people involved mean that it cannot be institutional racism. Isn't the idea that the racism is baked into the policies, the modus operandi of the police and judicial system? > "There is a policing problem in this country. Period. Color of your skin be damned. If people started from there, things might have been a little different at this point." Let's assume that this was the case. How will this improve things compared to now?
peterwwillis 6y ago
This won't expose cops planting evidence, it's more like 10,000 criminals going free, and your direct example isn't related to this story.
zrth 6y ago
holy fuck. do you have a url for me?
- __alexs 6y ago
  https://theintercept.com/2020/03/18/nypd-misconduct-body-cameras-marijuana/ https://theintercept.com/2020/03/18/nypd-misconduct-body-cam...
  - blunte 6y ago
    Do the cops not comprehend that they were recording themselves while committing crimes against the people they are sworn to protect?
    - freeone3000 6y ago
      He's still on the job, and the person he wanted in prison is still in prison, so it's more that it doesn't matter he was on video, because not even video evidence is enough to get him fired, let alone arrested.
    - ta17711771 6y ago
      > against the people they are sworn to protect? This is a misnomer. Cops are not actually "to protect and serve", and this has been proven in court. Their function is to uphold the law. That's it.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      Cops are sworn to the law, not the people, but, in any case oaths, absent effective accountability to them, only matter to the people that didn't need to take them in the first place.
    - wonderwonder 6y ago
      Based on history, why would they care? Cameras or no, it appears that there are almost no consequences for their breaking of the law. Generally worst case scenario is that the residents of the city they work in pay a large fine to the victims. QI means the cops suffer no harm. Most of the time the department and prosecution conspires to ensure the video and crime never sees the light of day. And if they do end up going to court: " the court held that California police who stand accused of stealing $225,000 cannot be sued because they never were told specifically that stealing money from people’s homes violates the Constitution" https://www.ocregister.com/2020/05/14/high-court-to-decide-if-police-can-enter-your-home-and-steal-from-you/ https://www.ocregister.com/2020/05/14/high-court-to-decide-i...
readarticle 6y ago
I don’t think that’s the bargain here. Fusion centers seem to be shared databases of threats that federal, state, and local agencies all contribute to. Given the scale, it’s likely more of the focus is on organizations, not individuals. Given the nature of internal misconduct, I think it’s safe to assume that wouldn’t be shared period, let alone in venues such as these. In cases where it does need to be shared, e.g. covered up NYPD misconduct affects FBI case, I’d assume they have alternative means to this sort of spreadsheet-broadcast impression I’m getting of the centers. Could be totally off, either way I suppose we’ll find out now.
raxxorrax 6y ago
Not if you are in a witness protection program against a drug mafia. They will take their opportunity to send a message. Overall I agree though. This is the same baseless defense used against leaking of info on war crimes. I doubt planting evidence is common, but it will nevertheless be interesting to dig through that. If it is true the cop is still serving, it should be a huge scandal. These practices need to be stomped out immediately.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  > If it is true the cop is still serving, it should be a huge scandal. Who cares if it’s a huge scandal? I remember reading about the “scandal” years ago. The cop is still has his job and was never charged with a crime. The cop broke the law multiple times on video, an innocent person suffered physical and mental harm. The cop caused harm to all of society by reducing the trust between members of society. Yet he has a job, one with power over others where his word matters more than others. Hence the protests.
- shadowgovt 6y ago
  > If it is true the cop is still serving, it should be a huge scandal One of the reasons that the protests in the US are so widespread right now is that, fundamentally, this is the issue: that cop still serving isn't a scandal at all. The police look out for their own, and internal accountability for violating procedure is an absolute farce.

tom_ 6y ago

The police are civilians.

A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
True. But when you hear cops talk about non cops, they will call non cops civilians.
- goliatone 6y ago
  This [1] gave me an idea of how some police might see their role. [1] http://mwkworks.com/onsheepwolvesandsheepdogs.html http://mwkworks.com/onsheepwolvesandsheepdogs.html
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
    That is definitely an interesting perspective. It seems somewhat idealized, but if we accept the premise of the author, then sheepdogs that hurt lambs are not removed in US making sheep go 'Baa'. Still, a worthwhile read.
- MrZongle2 6y ago
  As a veteran, my blood boils when I hear that. As I am no longer a member of the military, I am a civilian. My neighbors are civilians. And regardless of a badge or uniform or firearm or SWAT teams or Pentagon-surplus armored vehicles, cops are civilians. Feeling otherwise merely reinforces the "us-versus-them" mentality that leads to the current crisis.
SigmundA 6y ago
The common definition of civilian is "a person who is not a member of the police, the armed forces, or a fire department". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian So sworn police officers are not normally considered civilians, while non-sworn personel are: https://www.discoverpolicing.org/explore-the-field/types-of-sworn-law-enforcement/ https://www.discoverpolicing.org/explore-the-field/types-of-... https://www.discoverpolicing.org/explore-the-field/civilian-law-enforcement/ https://www.discoverpolicing.org/explore-the-field/civilian-... https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/topic-pages/police-employee-browse-by/status-sworn-civilian https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-...