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The PoliceActivity youtube channel is interesting for this. https://www.youtube.com/c/PoliceActivity/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/PoliceActivity/videos (Fo

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.
      - pstuart 4y ago
        Yep. There are "simple" things we can do that will make things better but that can't happen until we agree to do it. And for that to happen we need to understand it. And for that to happen we need to talk about it.
  - sbierwagen 4y ago
int_19h 4y ago
The problem with those ostensibly rare "bad cops" is that the supposed "good cops" tend to look the other way at best, and tacitly support them at worst. Cops who actually try to call their colleagues out tend to be heckled or worse. Here's a documented case of an entire police department ganging up against one whistleblower to the point of involuntarily committing him to a mental institution, with full knowledge, approval, and cooperation of higher-ups all the way to police commissioner. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Schoolcraft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Schoolcraft
fao_ 4y ago
That's interesting -- but it certainly conflicts with macro-view analysis of the data[0][1][2] (I could link more, but there are more research links in the first linked thread and I do not wish to waste your most valuable time). It seems to me that the only way to explain this is the lack of publishing of damaging videos by the youtube account -- i.e. the usual thing you need to pay attention to in the social sciences -- a) who chooses to release the data, b) the conditions under which they choose to release the data. On the side of the YouTube channel -- based on the patreon channel, it seems to me that they are most likely not part of the police, or the judicial system. Thus they must obtain body camera footage from freedom of information requests. This means that that information request is subject to filtering on the side of law enforcement, who can almost arbitrarily choose what videos they want to release -- while there are guidelines present, they really only apply if you can prove them being broken, which... due to the nature of FoI requests... you can't... So, just as a baseline, legal advice holds that data that is currently being pursued legally should be held off from release to a general audience, and court cases can take many years to be processed. So it seems to me that that is one main reason that videos that show misconduct by police offers would be failed to be released, or would otherwise be redacted. On top of that, you have whether officers themselves working in the police administration care to release the footage. It seems reasonable that an officer may be subject to workplace-based social pressure, and not wish to release footage of wrongdoing by one of his coworkers, it also seems reasonable that in some cases, they might indeed feel departmental pressure to not release footage that displays such wrongdoing, so that the department as a whole does not come under flak. You have cases in the UK where officers themselves deleted videos that would prove wrongdoing on their part[3]. Either way, this is inherently impossible to prove either way. And then you have whether or not the police officer was recording at all, regardless of what regulations state. There have been a few cases recently where police officers thought that their body camera was off, and used that time to break the law[4][5]. Indeed, in some states, it's entirely up to the officers whether to turn them on in the first place, based on what they consider as "an incident". And then finally, as a youtube channel accepting donations, they are heavily incentivized to draw "engagement" and game the algorithm, so what they release is not just going to be based both on the political opinions of those within the organization, but also will heavily cater to whatever established audience they have, to ensure that each video is liked and that they gain subscribers, so they can drive donations to keep on doing what they are doing. So to me it seems that this isn't as nearly cut-and-dry as you assume to think that it is. At the very least, a random youtube channel that releases police video, cannot be thought of as a proper or correct sample from which to draw correctly proportioned information from -- as we can see, there are many reasons why it would misrepresent the number of cases of each involved. While research in this area is perhaps uncomfortable for people to accept, it broadly shows that police -- at least how they behave at the moment -- are universally flawed. I myself would prefer to trust the data. [0]: https://twitter.com/equalityAlec/status/1571898316295643136 https://twitter.com/equalityAlec/status/1571898316295643136 [1]: https://resistancelab.network/our-work/taser-report/index.html https://resistancelab.network/our-work/taser-report/index.ht... (Disclaimer: I know some of the people who worked on this. Interesting Note: 118 cases of taser use against children, 8 against children aged under 11) [2]: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/28/hunted-one-in-three-people-killed-by-us-police-were-fleeing-data-reveals https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/28/hunted-one-i... [3]: https://www.policeconduct.gov.uk/sites/default/files/Documents/Learningthelessons/37/Issue_37_Case7.pdf https://www.policeconduct.gov.uk/sites/default/files/Documen... [4]: https://www.thedailybeast.com/baltimore-cops-turned-off-body-cameras-before-finding-drugs https://www.thedailybeast.com/baltimore-cops-turned-off-body... (I admit this is rather a famous case!) [5]: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/broward/article243932047.html https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/broward/art...
pjc50 4y ago
The problem is the ""good"" kills should also be regarded as failures of the system in a lot of cases. > They don't want the rate to be low, they want it to be zero Well, yes. "Thou shalt not kill" does not have an "unless you're a cop" footnote. There is no acceptable number of your children you would tolerate the shooting of.
jen20 4y ago
> They don't want the rate to be low, they want it to be zero As someone that cannot even vote in the US (and is therefore neither red nor blue) - that seems _eminently fucking reasonable_. This kind of thing just does not happen in the UK. I'd wager there have been fewer police killings (let along just shootings) in the past two decades in the UK than just this weekend in the US. For anyone that actually believes in small, limited government, the idea that government agents can wander around shooting effectively at will is so ridiculous that anyone claiming to be "red team" should hang their heads in shame.
- sbierwagen 4y ago
  >This kind of thing just does not happen in the UK. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/chris-kaba-protests-police-shooting-b2169476.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/chris-kaba-p... >Chris Kaba: Protests held across UK after unarmed black man shot dead by police. Crowd of more than 1,000 demonstrators brandished ‘fight racism’ signs following the death of unarmed 24-year-old
  - jen20 4y ago
    Fewer in the last two decades than this weekend in the US.
    - sbierwagen 4y ago
      What happened to "just does not happen"?

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.
    - pstuart 4y ago
      Yep. There are "simple" things we can do that will make things better but that can't happen until we agree to do it. And for that to happen we need to understand it. And for that to happen we need to talk about it.
- sbierwagen 4y ago

int_19h 4y ago

The problem with those ostensibly rare "bad cops" is that the supposed "good cops" tend to look the other way at best, and tacitly support them at worst. Cops who actually try to call their colleagues out tend to be heckled or worse. Here's a documented case of an entire police department ganging up against one whistleblower to the point of involuntarily committing him to a mental institution, with full knowledge, approval, and cooperation of higher-ups all the way to police commissioner. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Schoolcraft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Schoolcraft

fao_ 4y ago

That's interesting -- but it certainly conflicts with macro-view analysis of the data[0][1][2] (I could link more, but there are more research links in the first linked thread and I do not wish to waste your most valuable time). It seems to me that the only way to explain this is the lack of publishing of damaging videos by the youtube account -- i.e. the usual thing you need to pay attention to in the social sciences -- a) who chooses to release the data, b) the conditions under which they choose to release the data. On the side of the YouTube channel -- based on the patreon channel, it seems to me that they are most likely not part of the police, or the judicial system. Thus they must obtain body camera footage from freedom of information requests. This means that that information request is subject to filtering on the side of law enforcement, who can almost arbitrarily choose what videos they want to release -- while there are guidelines present, they really only apply if you can prove them being broken, which... due to the nature of FoI requests... you can't... So, just as a baseline, legal advice holds that data that is currently being pursued legally should be held off from release to a general audience, and court cases can take many years to be processed. So it seems to me that that is one main reason that videos that show misconduct by police offers would be failed to be released, or would otherwise be redacted. On top of that, you have whether officers themselves working in the police administration care to release the footage. It seems reasonable that an officer may be subject to workplace-based social pressure, and not wish to release footage of wrongdoing by one of his coworkers, it also seems reasonable that in some cases, they might indeed feel departmental pressure to not release footage that displays such wrongdoing, so that the department as a whole does not come under flak. You have cases in the UK where officers themselves deleted videos that would prove wrongdoing on their part[3]. Either way, this is inherently impossible to prove either way. And then you have whether or not the police officer was recording at all, regardless of what regulations state. There have been a few cases recently where police officers thought that their body camera was off, and used that time to break the law[4][5]. Indeed, in some states, it's entirely up to the officers whether to turn them on in the first place, based on what they consider as "an incident". And then finally, as a youtube channel accepting donations, they are heavily incentivized to draw "engagement" and game the algorithm, so what they release is not just going to be based both on the political opinions of those within the organization, but also will heavily cater to whatever established audience they have, to ensure that each video is liked and that they gain subscribers, so they can drive donations to keep on doing what they are doing. So to me it seems that this isn't as nearly cut-and-dry as you assume to think that it is. At the very least, a random youtube channel that releases police video, cannot be thought of as a proper or correct sample from which to draw correctly proportioned information from -- as we can see, there are many reasons why it would misrepresent the number of cases of each involved. While research in this area is perhaps uncomfortable for people to accept, it broadly shows that police -- at least how they behave at the moment -- are universally flawed. I myself would prefer to trust the data. [0]: https://twitter.com/equalityAlec/status/1571898316295643136 https://twitter.com/equalityAlec/status/1571898316295643136 [1]: https://resistancelab.network/our-work/taser-report/index.html https://resistancelab.network/our-work/taser-report/index.ht... (Disclaimer: I know some of the people who worked on this. Interesting Note: 118 cases of taser use against children, 8 against children aged under 11) [2]: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/28/hunted-one-in-three-people-killed-by-us-police-were-fleeing-data-reveals https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/28/hunted-one-i... [3]: https://www.policeconduct.gov.uk/sites/default/files/Documents/Learningthelessons/37/Issue_37_Case7.pdf https://www.policeconduct.gov.uk/sites/default/files/Documen... [4]: https://www.thedailybeast.com/baltimore-cops-turned-off-body-cameras-before-finding-drugs https://www.thedailybeast.com/baltimore-cops-turned-off-body... (I admit this is rather a famous case!) [5]: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/broward/article243932047.html https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/broward/art...

pjc50 4y ago

The problem is the ""good"" kills should also be regarded as failures of the system in a lot of cases. > They don't want the rate to be low, they want it to be zero Well, yes. "Thou shalt not kill" does not have an "unless you're a cop" footnote. There is no acceptable number of your children you would tolerate the shooting of.

jen20 4y ago

> They don't want the rate to be low, they want it to be zero As someone that cannot even vote in the US (and is therefore neither red nor blue) - that seems _eminently fucking reasonable_. This kind of thing just does not happen in the UK. I'd wager there have been fewer police killings (let along just shootings) in the past two decades in the UK than just this weekend in the US. For anyone that actually believes in small, limited government, the idea that government agents can wander around shooting effectively at will is so ridiculous that anyone claiming to be "red team" should hang their heads in shame.

sbierwagen 4y ago
>This kind of thing just does not happen in the UK. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/chris-kaba-protests-police-shooting-b2169476.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/chris-kaba-p... >Chris Kaba: Protests held across UK after unarmed black man shot dead by police. Crowd of more than 1,000 demonstrators brandished ‘fight racism’ signs following the death of unarmed 24-year-old
- jen20 4y ago
  Fewer in the last two decades than this weekend in the US.
  - sbierwagen 4y ago
    What happened to "just does not happen"?