5 ms·

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

by 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.

by dolni 4y ago

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.