4 ms·

I grew up very comfortably, and in general the police have never given me grief. They've always been helpful. However, throughout my life, I've spoken to those

by gaze 4y ago

I grew up very comfortably, and in general the police have never given me grief. They've always been helpful. However, throughout my life, I've spoken to those who have had less favorable interactions with the police, who, as far as I can tell, were not doing anything to be worthy of the treatment they received. These stories have been so plentiful and consistently bad that I can not possibly believe that the police are an overall force for good. At this point, you can turn on the news and the evidence is right there. Maybe I was primed to draw these conclusions from the news from my prior conversations, I don't know. Either way, there are so many people in this thread who are convinced that this is a good thing and that it won't be cynically abused, and that these abuses will not be supported by the criminal justice system. There are a handful of threads that terminate in "well if that's the case, then we've got a bigger problem." What do you mean "if?" is my feeling. I just don't understand it. If you see the abuses and think "well, they deserved it" or "ah it's a few bad apples" I'm not trying to speak to you. I don't think we'd really ever find common ground. I'm really trying to ask such questions to those of you out there who still seem surprised when the police do something bad, or those who just claim to be unaware. Do you or do you not talk to people who claim police are abusive? If you do talk to them, do you just not believe them? How many of such people have you talked to, and after talking to this many people, how many more people would have to confirm such abuses before you believed them? When you hear such stories, how do you discount them, or otherwise minimize them to the degree that your beliefs are not swayed?

dolni 4y ago
When I hear such stories, I always remember that there are two sides to a story and people often lie or embellish to make themselves look good. Police don't do everything right. But if you think that _everybody_ who had a bad interaction did nothing wrong, well, that's just foolish.
- jfengel 4y ago
  When police "don't do everything right", people die. They are given extraordinary leverage to use deadly force, and are assumed to be telling the truth in a court of law. And we have seen that almost universally, police will protect other police who abuse their power. These are not equivalent. Police who do bad things not only cause extreme harm, but terrorize people whose protection is the whole reason we gave police the monopoly on violence in the first place. This is not a "two sides to a story" situation. This is a situation where one side has all of the power and far, far too much documented abuse of it.
  - feet 4y ago
    It has also been shown that police lie constantly Not only to people in their daily business as police but also in court
    - jjtheblunt 4y ago
      where has that been shown?
      - feet 4y ago
        https://innocenceproject.org/prevalence-police-lying/ https://innocenceproject.org/prevalence-police-lying/ https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/06/us/police-reports-lying-videos-misconduct-trnd/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/06/us/police-reports-lying-video... https://www.rosenbergperry.com/blog/can-police-lie-to-you/ https://www.rosenbergperry.com/blog/can-police-lie-to-you/ They literally have their own term for lying under oath because its so common: testilying https://justice.gawker.com/ask-an-anonymous-cop-how-often-do-officers-lie-under-o-1699208586 https://justice.gawker.com/ask-an-anonymous-cop-how-often-do...
- gaze 4y ago
  So you suppose some, not all, people embellish. How many people telling you horror stories would it take before you thought “ok maybe there’s something seriously wrong here.” What would it realistically take for you to change your mind?
  - dolni 4y ago
    There are ten MILLION police arrests in the United States every year. The police kill roughly 1100 people every year. The entire job of police departments is to interact with people who are breaking the law. If 0.25% of police arrests turned violent, that means police have roughly 25,000 violent arrest incidents each year. This is a number I am coming up with on my own, but if you actually grew up in a bad neighborhood you will see this as a conservative estimate. So, if you're looking at this from a raw numbers "how many people die" perspective -- it's actually low. All that said: cops aren't perfect. I have had bad experiences with them. I think some changes need to be made. But the idea that there is an epidemic of police killings is not supported by the numbers.
- genocidicbunny 4y ago
  Except somehow they seem to be exempt from the consequences of their mistakes. And just because some of the people they interact with did something wrong does not give the police carte blanche to do whatever they want. With how often the police lie, it is foolish to give them any benefit of the doubt.
- balderdash 4y ago
  Sure there undoubtedly many false claims made against police, that does not mean there are not many valid ones, and In all of the most egregious, proved (full video - no question of the facts) cases of misconduct (often times when the video comes out way later), how often was it that another police officer was the whistle blower, filed a report or complaint, or challenged the initial false narrative? I’m aware of few if any examples. If the police can’t be forthright when they are clearly wrong, they lose the presumption of trust.
- TomSwirly 4y ago
  I lived in America for thirty years. I've lived outside America for thirty years. American cops terrified me with their aggressive ineptitude and I'm a polite older white guy with an English accent with short hair and a jacket. They never fucked me up, but I certainly saw them fuck up loads of other people, accept bribes, refuse to investigate blatant drug houses for years, and the like. It took me quite a while to understand that cops here, while they do make mistakes sometime, are professional people with a sense of humor who aren't interested in displays of power.
frognumber 4y ago
aksss 4y ago
> I can not possibly believe that the police are an overall force for good. Simple test: will it hurt more _overall_ to suddenly lose them or keep them? > You can turn on the news and the evidence is right there. Selection bias is huge - not making the news are the vast, vast, majority of daily interactions that are net positives for society. I’m not saying everything is perfect, but talking about “the police” as if they are a monolith in a country of hundreds of millions spread across 50 states and innumerable local communities is never going to be a good starting point for analysis.
- Terr_ 4y ago
  > Simple test: will it hurt more _overall_ to suddenly lose them or keep them? So everything or nothing? Sounds like a false dilemma. Another problem with this decision-making approach is that anything can be un/justified simply by changing the unspoken timescale at which you measure outcomes. On a short timescale, a knife stabbed into my gut should stay, because removing it will cause blood-loss. However on a longer timescale where I'm in the hands of some doctors with bandages, it should absolutely be removed...
  - aksss 4y ago
    No, I think you’re missing the idea that this is a thought exercise to test the statement of police being “overall” bad.
    - TomSwirly 4y ago
      You live in a leaky tent with a lot of holes in it. Someone suggests you'd be better in a house. "Imagine where I would be without the tent! This is a thought experiment to test the statement of 'this tent being overall bad'. Therefore I won't move."
- kelseyfrog 4y ago
  > Simple test: will it hurt more _overall_ to suddenly lose them or keep them? Suddenly is doing a lot of the work here. Can police be unbundled over the course of years and result in an overall net good? Emphatically yes. We should examine the forces that prevent such an unbundling from taking place and work toward rendering them impotent.
eric_cc 4y ago
> I can not possibly believe that the police are an overall force for good So you’ve made a definitive conclusion and will now approach information with this bias. > At this point, you can turn on the news and the evidence is right there. > If you see the abuses and think "well, they deserved it" or "ah it's a few bad apples" I'm not trying to speak to you. I don't think we'd really ever find common ground. The media has a narrative. They push all anti-cop stories as part of their storyline. Every single day there are cops putting their lives on the line to do good. And you will never hear a single story of their heroics. The coverage is nearly 100% negative on the national level. I’ve personally dealt with horrible cops that should absolutely be fired and heroes that deserve community recognition for their bravery. I agree with you on one thing: we’d likely never find common ground. I cannot respect people that fall for the news storylines hook, line and sinker.
- gaze 4y ago
  Being a cop doesn't even break the top 20 most dangerous jobs. It's about 4 times more dangerous than the average job. I don't understand this "life on the line" nonsense
  - silpheed5 4y ago
    It's the mentality, they think police are in as much danger as Alaskan crab fisherman.
- TomSwirly 4y ago
  > The media has a narrative. You claim, without proof. > They push all anti-cop stories as part of their storyline. You claim without proof. > Every single day there are cops putting their lives on the line to do good. Every day there are cops killing Americans - at ten times the rate of any other country. > And you will never hear a single story of their heroics. This is provably false. Go to any news site you like. Search for "hero cop". You will find endless stories.

by gaze 4y ago

dolni 4y ago

When I hear such stories, I always remember that there are two sides to a story and people often lie or embellish to make themselves look good. Police don't do everything right. But if you think that _everybody_ who had a bad interaction did nothing wrong, well, that's just foolish.

jfengel 4y ago
When police "don't do everything right", people die. They are given extraordinary leverage to use deadly force, and are assumed to be telling the truth in a court of law. And we have seen that almost universally, police will protect other police who abuse their power. These are not equivalent. Police who do bad things not only cause extreme harm, but terrorize people whose protection is the whole reason we gave police the monopoly on violence in the first place. This is not a "two sides to a story" situation. This is a situation where one side has all of the power and far, far too much documented abuse of it.
- feet 4y ago
  It has also been shown that police lie constantly Not only to people in their daily business as police but also in court
  - jjtheblunt 4y ago
    where has that been shown?
    - feet 4y ago
      https://innocenceproject.org/prevalence-police-lying/ https://innocenceproject.org/prevalence-police-lying/ https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/06/us/police-reports-lying-videos-misconduct-trnd/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/06/us/police-reports-lying-video... https://www.rosenbergperry.com/blog/can-police-lie-to-you/ https://www.rosenbergperry.com/blog/can-police-lie-to-you/ They literally have their own term for lying under oath because its so common: testilying https://justice.gawker.com/ask-an-anonymous-cop-how-often-do-officers-lie-under-o-1699208586 https://justice.gawker.com/ask-an-anonymous-cop-how-often-do...
gaze 4y ago
So you suppose some, not all, people embellish. How many people telling you horror stories would it take before you thought “ok maybe there’s something seriously wrong here.” What would it realistically take for you to change your mind?
- dolni 4y ago
  There are ten MILLION police arrests in the United States every year. The police kill roughly 1100 people every year. The entire job of police departments is to interact with people who are breaking the law. If 0.25% of police arrests turned violent, that means police have roughly 25,000 violent arrest incidents each year. This is a number I am coming up with on my own, but if you actually grew up in a bad neighborhood you will see this as a conservative estimate. So, if you're looking at this from a raw numbers "how many people die" perspective -- it's actually low. All that said: cops aren't perfect. I have had bad experiences with them. I think some changes need to be made. But the idea that there is an epidemic of police killings is not supported by the numbers.
genocidicbunny 4y ago
Except somehow they seem to be exempt from the consequences of their mistakes. And just because some of the people they interact with did something wrong does not give the police carte blanche to do whatever they want. With how often the police lie, it is foolish to give them any benefit of the doubt.
balderdash 4y ago
Sure there undoubtedly many false claims made against police, that does not mean there are not many valid ones, and In all of the most egregious, proved (full video - no question of the facts) cases of misconduct (often times when the video comes out way later), how often was it that another police officer was the whistle blower, filed a report or complaint, or challenged the initial false narrative? I’m aware of few if any examples. If the police can’t be forthright when they are clearly wrong, they lose the presumption of trust.
TomSwirly 4y ago
I lived in America for thirty years. I've lived outside America for thirty years. American cops terrified me with their aggressive ineptitude and I'm a polite older white guy with an English accent with short hair and a jacket. They never fucked me up, but I certainly saw them fuck up loads of other people, accept bribes, refuse to investigate blatant drug houses for years, and the like. It took me quite a while to understand that cops here, while they do make mistakes sometime, are professional people with a sense of humor who aren't interested in displays of power.

frognumber 4y ago

aksss 4y ago

> I can not possibly believe that the police are an overall force for good. Simple test: will it hurt more _overall_ to suddenly lose them or keep them? > You can turn on the news and the evidence is right there. Selection bias is huge - not making the news are the vast, vast, majority of daily interactions that are net positives for society. I’m not saying everything is perfect, but talking about “the police” as if they are a monolith in a country of hundreds of millions spread across 50 states and innumerable local communities is never going to be a good starting point for analysis.

Terr_ 4y ago
> Simple test: will it hurt more _overall_ to suddenly lose them or keep them? So everything or nothing? Sounds like a false dilemma. Another problem with this decision-making approach is that anything can be un/justified simply by changing the unspoken timescale at which you measure outcomes. On a short timescale, a knife stabbed into my gut should stay, because removing it will cause blood-loss. However on a longer timescale where I'm in the hands of some doctors with bandages, it should absolutely be removed...
- aksss 4y ago
  No, I think you’re missing the idea that this is a thought exercise to test the statement of police being “overall” bad.
  - TomSwirly 4y ago
    You live in a leaky tent with a lot of holes in it. Someone suggests you'd be better in a house. "Imagine where I would be without the tent! This is a thought experiment to test the statement of 'this tent being overall bad'. Therefore I won't move."
kelseyfrog 4y ago
> Simple test: will it hurt more _overall_ to suddenly lose them or keep them? Suddenly is doing a lot of the work here. Can police be unbundled over the course of years and result in an overall net good? Emphatically yes. We should examine the forces that prevent such an unbundling from taking place and work toward rendering them impotent.

eric_cc 4y ago

> I can not possibly believe that the police are an overall force for good So you’ve made a definitive conclusion and will now approach information with this bias. > At this point, you can turn on the news and the evidence is right there. > If you see the abuses and think "well, they deserved it" or "ah it's a few bad apples" I'm not trying to speak to you. I don't think we'd really ever find common ground. The media has a narrative. They push all anti-cop stories as part of their storyline. Every single day there are cops putting their lives on the line to do good. And you will never hear a single story of their heroics. The coverage is nearly 100% negative on the national level. I’ve personally dealt with horrible cops that should absolutely be fired and heroes that deserve community recognition for their bravery. I agree with you on one thing: we’d likely never find common ground. I cannot respect people that fall for the news storylines hook, line and sinker.

gaze 4y ago
Being a cop doesn't even break the top 20 most dangerous jobs. It's about 4 times more dangerous than the average job. I don't understand this "life on the line" nonsense
- silpheed5 4y ago
  It's the mentality, they think police are in as much danger as Alaskan crab fisherman.
TomSwirly 4y ago
> The media has a narrative. You claim, without proof. > They push all anti-cop stories as part of their storyline. You claim without proof. > Every single day there are cops putting their lives on the line to do good. Every day there are cops killing Americans - at ten times the rate of any other country. > And you will never hear a single story of their heroics. This is provably false. Go to any news site you like. Search for "hero cop". You will find endless stories.