4 ms·

We're now at the stage where any police arrest, seizure or action should be completely thrown out if there's no bodycam footage. Second, any actions by officer

by jmyeet 3y ago

We're now at the stage where any police arrest, seizure or action should be completely thrown out if there's no bodycam footage. Second, any actions by officers without bodycam footage should invalidate qualified immunity and any officers' testimony should be largely disregarded. Third, lack of bodycam footage should give strong negative inferences in any civil trial where the police are defendants. The police are incredibly bad at their job, when they even do it, which isn't that often. They are vastly overpaid. They routinely lie on the stand. This happens so often there's a term for it: testalying. They plant evidence. They routinely kill bystanders and then 19 of them cower in fear while one gunman is allowed to keep killing children (ie Uvalde). They steal from suspects. They abuse civil asset forfeiture for more (legalized) theft. Pretty much all they do is harass and commit violence towards minorities. If any prosecutors dare prosecute any police for their crimes, they'll suddenly find that police witnesses in their case mysteriously start missing court appearances, tanking that prosecutor's conviction rates, which is really the only thing they care about. Some police (eg the LA County Sheriff's Department) are essentially criminal gangs [1]. [1]: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/06/06/the-la-county-sheriffs-deputy-gang-crisis https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/06/06/the-la-county-...

freedomben 3y ago
> Pretty much all they do is harass and commit violence towards minorities. The hyperbole around police is getting a bit ridiculous. We need way, way more accountability for police, but being so absurdly extremist, particularly with rhetoric like that which is so easily disprovable, is not going to move us in that direction. It's just going to make proponents of police reform (like both of us and many others here) be dismissed as ridiculous crazy people.
- PaulHoule 3y ago
  ... there was that time I rolled my car and the police came to help. Granted some kind of unarmed response would have been just as good, but in a case like that I am grateful for whoever shows up.
- holmesworcester 3y ago
  It's not so implausible, actually. "In 2019, 88% of the time L.A. County sheriff’s officers spent on stops was for officer-initiated stops rather than in response to calls. The overwhelming majority of that time – 79% – was spent on traffic violations. By contrast, just 11% of those hours was spent on stops based on reasonable suspicion of a crime." [1] If police are mostly spending their time doing discretionary traffic stops, and using a criteria for those stops that ignores most white drivers, then "Pretty much all they do is harass and commit violence towards minorities" is accurate, at least in terms of time spent. It could be simultaneously true that LA County sheriffs spend somewhere between 0.1% and 5% of their time playing a crucial role in society. It would be great to know whether this was true! 1. https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/police-are-not-primarily-crime-fighters-according-data-2022-11-02/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/police-are-not-prim...
  - renewiltord 3y ago
    LA Sheriffs are the group with their own gangs. Check it out on Wikipedia. Crazy stuff.
  - wpietri 3y ago
    Yeah, the racial disparities in police use of force in San Francisco are incredible: https://missionlocal.org/2023/07/sfpd-use-of-force-racial-disparities-skyrocket/ https://missionlocal.org/2023/07/sfpd-use-of-force-racial-di... Black people get force used 12-15x more often. Hispanic, 2-3x. In historical context, this isn't particularly surprising. What's different about our modern era is the extent to which we're finally talking about it.
    - lm28469 3y ago
      > Black people get force used 12-15x more often. And they're committing ~50% of homicides and shootings while being 5% of the SF population. Stats are a funny things, they say a lot of things depending on which ones you look at https://sfgov.org/policecommission//sites/default/files/Documents/PoliceCommission/PoliceCommission031021-CPSC%20SFPD_ProbAnalysisExecSummary.pdf https://sfgov.org/policecommission//sites/default/files/Docu...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
gustavus 3y ago
Maybe it's like that in LA or something, but in my samllish town in rural America the police are pretty upstanding great guys. They help do crosswalk duty for the kids going to school, they help people out who need a tire changed. I'm not saying policing doesn't have problems, but going from LAPD bad -> All police everywhere bad. Seems like a bit of a leap.
- don_neufeld 3y ago
  The history of police departments in small towns would like a word.
  - btilly 3y ago
    That's a fallacy. There are good and bad police departments in small towns. Most of what is notable enough to show up in that history are the bad ones. That doesn't mean that all departments are bad, or even most of them. It just means that there are bad ones, and they are newsworthy. Back when the Ferguson riots happened, I ran across a good article about this. In something like 10% of small towns, Ferguson included, police were seen as revenue generators. And, of course, the more fines that they handed out, the more money they made. For obvious political reasons the police prefer handing out questionable fines out to those with the least political power, which in Ferguson meant blacks. Which is why the local black population was ready to explode when FPD officer Darren Wilson shot Michael Brown. The problems that exploded into the first wave of the Black Lives Matter movement were important. The incident was historic. But when you focus on them, you miss the fact that most small towns did not do that.
- Racing0461 3y ago
  It's more likely that small town police pulls over out of state license plate cars for speeding as revenue (those might even be doing the same thing) whilee acting properly for people that live there.
- asfgiposnio 3y ago
  Most people are pleasant most of the time, but all people are corruptible and most people are capable of great evil in the wrong circumstances. The LAPD would help you change a tire, and you might find your local police brutal if you were pulled over with out-of-state plates while black. They're just people.

by jmyeet 3y ago

freedomben 3y ago

> Pretty much all they do is harass and commit violence towards minorities. The hyperbole around police is getting a bit ridiculous. We need way, way more accountability for police, but being so absurdly extremist, particularly with rhetoric like that which is so easily disprovable, is not going to move us in that direction. It's just going to make proponents of police reform (like both of us and many others here) be dismissed as ridiculous crazy people.

PaulHoule 3y ago
... there was that time I rolled my car and the police came to help. Granted some kind of unarmed response would have been just as good, but in a case like that I am grateful for whoever shows up.
holmesworcester 3y ago
It's not so implausible, actually. "In 2019, 88% of the time L.A. County sheriff’s officers spent on stops was for officer-initiated stops rather than in response to calls. The overwhelming majority of that time – 79% – was spent on traffic violations. By contrast, just 11% of those hours was spent on stops based on reasonable suspicion of a crime." [1] If police are mostly spending their time doing discretionary traffic stops, and using a criteria for those stops that ignores most white drivers, then "Pretty much all they do is harass and commit violence towards minorities" is accurate, at least in terms of time spent. It could be simultaneously true that LA County sheriffs spend somewhere between 0.1% and 5% of their time playing a crucial role in society. It would be great to know whether this was true! 1. https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/police-are-not-primarily-crime-fighters-according-data-2022-11-02/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/police-are-not-prim...
- renewiltord 3y ago
  LA Sheriffs are the group with their own gangs. Check it out on Wikipedia. Crazy stuff.
- wpietri 3y ago
  Yeah, the racial disparities in police use of force in San Francisco are incredible: https://missionlocal.org/2023/07/sfpd-use-of-force-racial-disparities-skyrocket/ https://missionlocal.org/2023/07/sfpd-use-of-force-racial-di... Black people get force used 12-15x more often. Hispanic, 2-3x. In historical context, this isn't particularly surprising. What's different about our modern era is the extent to which we're finally talking about it.
  - lm28469 3y ago
    > Black people get force used 12-15x more often. And they're committing ~50% of homicides and shootings while being 5% of the SF population. Stats are a funny things, they say a lot of things depending on which ones you look at https://sfgov.org/policecommission//sites/default/files/Documents/PoliceCommission/PoliceCommission031021-CPSC%20SFPD_ProbAnalysisExecSummary.pdf https://sfgov.org/policecommission//sites/default/files/Docu...
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

gustavus 3y ago

Maybe it's like that in LA or something, but in my samllish town in rural America the police are pretty upstanding great guys. They help do crosswalk duty for the kids going to school, they help people out who need a tire changed. I'm not saying policing doesn't have problems, but going from LAPD bad -> All police everywhere bad. Seems like a bit of a leap.

don_neufeld 3y ago
The history of police departments in small towns would like a word.
- btilly 3y ago
  That's a fallacy. There are good and bad police departments in small towns. Most of what is notable enough to show up in that history are the bad ones. That doesn't mean that all departments are bad, or even most of them. It just means that there are bad ones, and they are newsworthy. Back when the Ferguson riots happened, I ran across a good article about this. In something like 10% of small towns, Ferguson included, police were seen as revenue generators. And, of course, the more fines that they handed out, the more money they made. For obvious political reasons the police prefer handing out questionable fines out to those with the least political power, which in Ferguson meant blacks. Which is why the local black population was ready to explode when FPD officer Darren Wilson shot Michael Brown. The problems that exploded into the first wave of the Black Lives Matter movement were important. The incident was historic. But when you focus on them, you miss the fact that most small towns did not do that.
Racing0461 3y ago
It's more likely that small town police pulls over out of state license plate cars for speeding as revenue (those might even be doing the same thing) whilee acting properly for people that live there.
asfgiposnio 3y ago
Most people are pleasant most of the time, but all people are corruptible and most people are capable of great evil in the wrong circumstances. The LAPD would help you change a tire, and you might find your local police brutal if you were pulled over with out-of-state plates while black. They're just people.