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This is important. Locally, we had a sheriff who was being heavily, heavily criticized due to several deaths at the county facility. This was at the height of t

This is important. Locally, we had a sheriff who was being heavily, heavily criticized due to several deaths at the county facility. This was at the height of the protests a few years ago. It was a lot of work to find data on policing nationwide, because the question really was "Is the sheriff doing a bad job, or do bad things happen sometimes?" After some hard work trying to identify other cities with similar socioeconomic circumstances and populations, it became clear that our local sheriff was actually better than average, and that much of the outrage was fabricated. That's also when I learned that many people don't want to listen to statistics unless they agree with their own preconceptions.

deleted 4y ago
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notacop31337 4y ago
> That's also when I learned that many people don't want to listen to statistics unless they agree with their own preconceptions. This has been my experience with bodycam footage, I've found that there's been quite a few heavily protested police involved shootings that when looking over the footage and the facts of the situation, were by the book and completely justified, yet no matter how many times you say to someone "you do know there's footage of the entire event, uncut and unfiltered", it doesn't seem to matter. EDIT: I just remembered what my throwaway username is.
- sbierwagen 4y ago
  The PoliceActivity youtube channel is interesting for this. https://www.youtube.com/c/PoliceActivity/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/PoliceActivity/videos (For most of the videos, which show people dying, you must be logged into a youtube account to pass the "violent content" prompt) Maybe 9 out of 10 videos are "good kills". Officer says something like "hey, stop committing a crime", the suspect says something along the lines of "fuck you pig!", pulls a gun, and is swiftly shot to death by the 50 SWAT guys surrounding him. These videos get around 100K views, and the comments are full of hooting MAGA types. 1 out of 10 show an officer doing something completely inexcusable, (Shouting "I love being racist!" and then hitting an infant with a baseball bat) and the video has 100M views. The tens of thousands of comments then act out the exact same conversation every single time: the red team says something like "but it happens very rarely" and the blue team is outraged that it happens at all. They don't want the rate to be low, they want it to be zero. This is how you end up with blue-aligned media earnestly and in good faith calling for the police and all prisons to be abolished: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/abolishing-police-prisons-lot-more-practical-critics-claim-ncna1258659 https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/abolishing-police-pris... https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-emerging-movement-for-police-and-prison-abolition https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-emerging-m... I say "conversation" up there, which is of course incorrect. They're talking right past each other, since they come from two separate and completely divorced epistemological universes.
  - pstuart 4y ago
    > They don't want the rate to be low, they want it to be zero I'm not sure what the problem is with that. Of course mistakes happen but it should be the goal. The red team also seems to have less of those "oopsie I just killed you" moments, so perhaps that might color things there. And then you go on to the far end that calls for abolishing police/prisons and make that the general team blue zeitgeist. There's low hanging fruit of reform that needs more focus, e.g., not using police for mental health emergencies. Anyway, your framing of the situation as a non-conversation is kind of meta -- it feels like you talked right past the problems.
    - foomatic 4y ago
      Guy shouting fuck you pig while surrounded by 50 SWAT guys sounds like a mental health emergency. Can't do much about that. Ain't called first respondersfor nothing.
      - pstuart 4y ago
        Yeah, suicide by cop is a thing. My point was that the comment about divisiveness between teams red and blue in this regard was divisive as well in how it was framed. Police are granted incredible powers and have historically not had the best oversight, let alone relations with "minorities". There are real problems and they can be addressed but that will never happen as long as we can't even agree that the "what" exists, let alone if the "how" is correct.
      - pstuart 4y ago
        Second comment because I was responding without addressing your point properly: somebody in a crisis like that could possibly be helped if there weren't 50 SWAT guys eager to take target practice. There's obviously violent scenarios that can only be addressed with violence, but bringing that on should be a last resort.
        banannaise 4y ago
        Putting someone already in crisis into a dangerous situation (surrounding them with SWAT) is going to make the crisis much worse. The film we see of people having a mental health crisis always comes from after the cops have shown up; they may have been much less agitated beforehand.
gonzo41 4y ago
It's the same sort of thing with body cameras. If anything they capture a lot more context about situations. Generally I think the police will start to want to have the safety of the record keeping rather than not.
- throwaway894345 4y ago
  I sort of agree, but one thing the last few years showed me was how little people (especially in the media and parts of the academy) care about the truth. overwhelming, easily accessible, incontrovertible evidence might save you from the law, but the media, activists, and other partisans are still happy to make your life hell.
- banannaise 4y ago
  Police are already notorious for turning off their body cameras when it's convenient for them. Some police shootings result in no bodycam footage at all even though most or all officers were wearing one.
josh-pdap 4y ago
Tougher to answer, but maybe more useful, would be “What harm reduction strategies are being tried in other cities? Are they working?” this is at the intersection of policy and outcome and takes a lot of context.

deleted 4y ago

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notacop31337 4y ago

> That's also when I learned that many people don't want to listen to statistics unless they agree with their own preconceptions. This has been my experience with bodycam footage, I've found that there's been quite a few heavily protested police involved shootings that when looking over the footage and the facts of the situation, were by the book and completely justified, yet no matter how many times you say to someone "you do know there's footage of the entire event, uncut and unfiltered", it doesn't seem to matter. EDIT: I just remembered what my throwaway username is.

sbierwagen 4y ago
The PoliceActivity youtube channel is interesting for this. https://www.youtube.com/c/PoliceActivity/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/PoliceActivity/videos (For most of the videos, which show people dying, you must be logged into a youtube account to pass the "violent content" prompt) Maybe 9 out of 10 videos are "good kills". Officer says something like "hey, stop committing a crime", the suspect says something along the lines of "fuck you pig!", pulls a gun, and is swiftly shot to death by the 50 SWAT guys surrounding him. These videos get around 100K views, and the comments are full of hooting MAGA types. 1 out of 10 show an officer doing something completely inexcusable, (Shouting "I love being racist!" and then hitting an infant with a baseball bat) and the video has 100M views. The tens of thousands of comments then act out the exact same conversation every single time: the red team says something like "but it happens very rarely" and the blue team is outraged that it happens at all. They don't want the rate to be low, they want it to be zero. This is how you end up with blue-aligned media earnestly and in good faith calling for the police and all prisons to be abolished: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/abolishing-police-prisons-lot-more-practical-critics-claim-ncna1258659 https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/abolishing-police-pris... https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-emerging-movement-for-police-and-prison-abolition https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-emerging-m... I say "conversation" up there, which is of course incorrect. They're talking right past each other, since they come from two separate and completely divorced epistemological universes.
- pstuart 4y ago
  > They don't want the rate to be low, they want it to be zero I'm not sure what the problem is with that. Of course mistakes happen but it should be the goal. The red team also seems to have less of those "oopsie I just killed you" moments, so perhaps that might color things there. And then you go on to the far end that calls for abolishing police/prisons and make that the general team blue zeitgeist. There's low hanging fruit of reform that needs more focus, e.g., not using police for mental health emergencies. Anyway, your framing of the situation as a non-conversation is kind of meta -- it feels like you talked right past the problems.
  - foomatic 4y ago
    Guy shouting fuck you pig while surrounded by 50 SWAT guys sounds like a mental health emergency. Can't do much about that. Ain't called first respondersfor nothing.
    - pstuart 4y ago
      Yeah, suicide by cop is a thing. My point was that the comment about divisiveness between teams red and blue in this regard was divisive as well in how it was framed. Police are granted incredible powers and have historically not had the best oversight, let alone relations with "minorities". There are real problems and they can be addressed but that will never happen as long as we can't even agree that the "what" exists, let alone if the "how" is correct.
    - pstuart 4y ago
      Second comment because I was responding without addressing your point properly: somebody in a crisis like that could possibly be helped if there weren't 50 SWAT guys eager to take target practice. There's obviously violent scenarios that can only be addressed with violence, but bringing that on should be a last resort.
      - banannaise 4y ago
        Putting someone already in crisis into a dangerous situation (surrounding them with SWAT) is going to make the crisis much worse. The film we see of people having a mental health crisis always comes from after the cops have shown up; they may have been much less agitated beforehand.

gonzo41 4y ago

It's the same sort of thing with body cameras. If anything they capture a lot more context about situations. Generally I think the police will start to want to have the safety of the record keeping rather than not.

throwaway894345 4y ago
I sort of agree, but one thing the last few years showed me was how little people (especially in the media and parts of the academy) care about the truth. overwhelming, easily accessible, incontrovertible evidence might save you from the law, but the media, activists, and other partisans are still happy to make your life hell.
banannaise 4y ago
Police are already notorious for turning off their body cameras when it's convenient for them. Some police shootings result in no bodycam footage at all even though most or all officers were wearing one.

josh-pdap 4y ago

Tougher to answer, but maybe more useful, would be “What harm reduction strategies are being tried in other cities? Are they working?” this is at the intersection of policy and outcome and takes a lot of context.