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Police used to be very popular/trustworthy (in the public imagination) until recently.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> Police used to be very popular/trustworthy (in the public imagination) until recently. The people who are most consistently and vividly at the receiving end of the untrustworthiness of police (whether racial minorities or otherwise) tend to be politically and socially marginalized, as historically has been support for their interests. For the less marginalized, if they were in the receiving end of police injustice, it was usually at least masked in a more convincing veil of plausible deniability. But those people who get the worst of it haven't seen police as trustworthy for, well, as long as there have been police. For the simple reason that police have never been, even in a simulated way, trustworthy for them.
Kapura 6y ago
That public perception has a lot to do with Dick Wolf creating the Law & Order television series. Historically, cops have not been loved by their communities (one of the reasons the supreme court saw fit to introduce the absurd doctrine of "qualified immunity" was because cops had it hard enough without also being legally on the hook for every action they take). The L.A. times had a very interesting piece on the topic of cops in the media: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2020-06-09/dick-wolf-law-and-order-chicago-pd-fbi-color-of-change https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2020-06-...
- scarface74 6y ago
  Police are very loved by groups of people who are not targeted unfairly. Have you not seen the whole “Back the Blue” and “Blue Lives Matter”?
  - Kapura 6y ago
    I think that the popularisation of hero cops in media leads directly into these movements. I believe people would be more willing to examine the actions of police critically if they weren't being sold as "the good guys" for several hours of primetime television a week.
    - scarface74 6y ago
      Why would the people who are treated fairly and protected by police care if the police are treating “them” unfairly?
scarface74 6y ago
The same people who didn’t trust the police “until recently” never trusted the police. It was not until police misconduct started being filmed that people learned the truth - and many still don’t care and make excuses for police misconduct as long as it isn’t happening to someone that looks like them.
Pfhreak 6y ago
If you review the history of police in America, this is definitely incorrect. Police evolved out of night watches, slave patrols, and a variety of other loose organizations meant to guard capital. In the mid 1800s, the first patrolling police departments were formed in the northeast, and the practice spread across the country. The police very much operated like a gang through to the early 20th century. There are many, many documented instances of police attacking, eg, the Irish in Boston. They often made allies with organized crime, and corruption was commonplace. Later, the police were literally fighting unions. Again, there are many instances of police disrupting union events with violence including open gunfire on union members. The Jim Crow era certainly had police doing innumerable, terrible things. Through the later parts of the 20th century the police were arresting, beating, and extorting people for being gay. The modern Pride parades trace their origins to a riot against police violence. Over the decades that followed, police got more and more military equipment, no knock raids became more common, and police became considerably more militarised. Fast forward to today, where police are regularly killing unarmed, fleeing, or otherwise unthreatening black men and women. There's no era in American history where the police were the good guys. Maybe to the straight white land owning folk, but police boots have always been on the neck of someone in this country.
- imtringued 6y ago
  >Later, the police were literally fighting unions. Again, there are many instances of police disrupting union events with violence including open gunfire on union members. This reminds me of the luddites. Everyone thinks Luddites are an example old fashioned people trying to hold back progress when it was more like what happens when you have a large unemployed group of people protesting on the streets. Some of them started a riot against factories but not because they hated technology, they hated the business owners. The way the government decided to deal with the Luddites is by suppressing them through police and military violence. The moral of the story isn't "get with the times", it's that business interests take priority over human lives.

> Police used to be very popular/trustworthy (in the public imagination) until recently. The people who are most consistently and vividly at the receiving end of the untrustworthiness of police (whether racial minorities or otherwise) tend to be politically and socially marginalized, as historically has been support for their interests. For the less marginalized, if they were in the receiving end of police injustice, it was usually at least masked in a more convincing veil of plausible deniability. But those people who get the worst of it haven't seen police as trustworthy for, well, as long as there have been police. For the simple reason that police have never been, even in a simulated way, trustworthy for them.

Kapura 6y ago

That public perception has a lot to do with Dick Wolf creating the Law & Order television series. Historically, cops have not been loved by their communities (one of the reasons the supreme court saw fit to introduce the absurd doctrine of "qualified immunity" was because cops had it hard enough without also being legally on the hook for every action they take). The L.A. times had a very interesting piece on the topic of cops in the media: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2020-06-09/dick-wolf-law-and-order-chicago-pd-fbi-color-of-change https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2020-06-...

scarface74 6y ago
Police are very loved by groups of people who are not targeted unfairly. Have you not seen the whole “Back the Blue” and “Blue Lives Matter”?
- Kapura 6y ago
  I think that the popularisation of hero cops in media leads directly into these movements. I believe people would be more willing to examine the actions of police critically if they weren't being sold as "the good guys" for several hours of primetime television a week.
  - scarface74 6y ago
    Why would the people who are treated fairly and protected by police care if the police are treating “them” unfairly?

scarface74 6y ago

The same people who didn’t trust the police “until recently” never trusted the police. It was not until police misconduct started being filmed that people learned the truth - and many still don’t care and make excuses for police misconduct as long as it isn’t happening to someone that looks like them.

Pfhreak 6y ago

If you review the history of police in America, this is definitely incorrect. Police evolved out of night watches, slave patrols, and a variety of other loose organizations meant to guard capital. In the mid 1800s, the first patrolling police departments were formed in the northeast, and the practice spread across the country. The police very much operated like a gang through to the early 20th century. There are many, many documented instances of police attacking, eg, the Irish in Boston. They often made allies with organized crime, and corruption was commonplace. Later, the police were literally fighting unions. Again, there are many instances of police disrupting union events with violence including open gunfire on union members. The Jim Crow era certainly had police doing innumerable, terrible things. Through the later parts of the 20th century the police were arresting, beating, and extorting people for being gay. The modern Pride parades trace their origins to a riot against police violence. Over the decades that followed, police got more and more military equipment, no knock raids became more common, and police became considerably more militarised. Fast forward to today, where police are regularly killing unarmed, fleeing, or otherwise unthreatening black men and women. There's no era in American history where the police were the good guys. Maybe to the straight white land owning folk, but police boots have always been on the neck of someone in this country.

imtringued 6y ago
>Later, the police were literally fighting unions. Again, there are many instances of police disrupting union events with violence including open gunfire on union members. This reminds me of the luddites. Everyone thinks Luddites are an example old fashioned people trying to hold back progress when it was more like what happens when you have a large unemployed group of people protesting on the streets. Some of them started a riot against factories but not because they hated technology, they hated the business owners. The way the government decided to deal with the Luddites is by suppressing them through police and military violence. The moral of the story isn't "get with the times", it's that business interests take priority over human lives.