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> 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 acc

> 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...
    - wpietri 3y ago
      I looked through all 47 pages of the document linked, and I didn't see any numbers on homicide convictions by race. Would you be so kind as to clarify your citation?
      - lm28469 3y ago
        Sure, page 22: https://sfgov.org/sfreentry/sites/default/files/FileCenter/Documents/2899-SF%20JRI%20report_FINAL_7-21.pdf https://sfgov.org/sfreentry/sites/default/files/FileCenter/D...
        wpietri 3y ago
        You're citing an entirely different document now? No wonder I couldn't find it.
      - d1sxeyes 3y ago
        Page 15 has a table where of 164 homicide suspects 46.6% were Black, despite making up only 5.2% of the population. While it is possible that these suspects are all incorrectly accused, it does indeed seem to support OP’s conclusion. Now the question comes: why is this the case, and how can we address it? I don’t have evidence to support this, but I would imagine that race is an unfortunate proxy for socioeconomic status, and that, rather than race, is the main driver for these homicides. The report goes on to link drugs, gang membership, and other factors which are more significant issues in more deprived communities to these homicides, which suggest at least a reasonably circumspect approach to the problem.
- lm28469 3y ago
  > I mean, I'm sure there's at least a few cities for which this statement is not accurate Probably most cities which aren't absolute shit holes like LA, yes indeed...
deleted 3y ago
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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...
  - wpietri 3y ago
    I looked through all 47 pages of the document linked, and I didn't see any numbers on homicide convictions by race. Would you be so kind as to clarify your citation?
    - lm28469 3y ago
      Sure, page 22: https://sfgov.org/sfreentry/sites/default/files/FileCenter/Documents/2899-SF%20JRI%20report_FINAL_7-21.pdf https://sfgov.org/sfreentry/sites/default/files/FileCenter/D...
      - wpietri 3y ago
        You're citing an entirely different document now? No wonder I couldn't find it.
    - d1sxeyes 3y ago
      Page 15 has a table where of 164 homicide suspects 46.6% were Black, despite making up only 5.2% of the population. While it is possible that these suspects are all incorrectly accused, it does indeed seem to support OP’s conclusion. Now the question comes: why is this the case, and how can we address it? I don’t have evidence to support this, but I would imagine that race is an unfortunate proxy for socioeconomic status, and that, rather than race, is the main driver for these homicides. The report goes on to link drugs, gang membership, and other factors which are more significant issues in more deprived communities to these homicides, which suggest at least a reasonably circumspect approach to the problem.
lm28469 3y ago
> I mean, I'm sure there's at least a few cities for which this statement is not accurate Probably most cities which aren't absolute shit holes like LA, yes indeed...

deleted 3y ago

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