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> But the combination of the economic ills and social malaise lingering since the pandemic and soaring demand for metals, especially for copper, has brought thi

> But the combination of the economic ills and social malaise lingering since the pandemic and soaring demand for metals, especially for copper, has brought this street crime to new levels. Hmmm. There's something missing from this explanation. While I don't think these reasons are wrong, we are being gaslit about some of the knock-on effects of our sudden cultural attitude towards our justice system that happened at this time. Young people don't want to become police anymore and police don't want to police anymore.

monkmartinez 2y ago
> Young people don't want to become police anymore and police don't want to police anymore. For good reasons too! It F**ing sucks dealing with ALL the problems of a city. Ask me how I know! None of us, first responders, are allowed/empowered to do our damn jobs. We have been effectively neutered by woke activists that think everyone is out to get them. All hell breaks loose when you ask, demand or otherwise force people to take responsibility for themselves and/or own their mistakes.
- BadHumans 2y ago
  Blaming the "woke" people and not corrupt police officers that indiscriminately murder people or the system that protects them is pretty telling.
  - mythrwy 2y ago
    Can we blame both, but not use the term "woke"? Just "activists" is fine.
    - MisterBastahrd 2y ago
      It certainly makes it easier to ignore the people doing the complaining.
      - anthony_d 2y ago
        I guess that depends who you want to ignore.
    - krapp 2y ago
      No, because despite how effective the establishment has been at co-opting and poisoning the term, "woke" comes directly from the black activist community, and pretending that legacy and context doesn't exist and isn't relevant to the conversation would be... tone deaf at best? "Wokeness," in the original intended sense - the sense for which people have given their lives in the streets and suffered the arbitrary brutality of American policing for decades, not the sense that incels and racist shitbags use for irony - is the entire point. As soon as your worldview and vocabulary erase the former and continue to normalize the latter you've become part of the problem.
      - mythrwy 2y ago
        But what about people with sleep disorders or narcolepsy? Use of this word could be a microaggression causing them severe mental stress possibly leading to suicide! And all because you wanted to keyboard social justice warrior! Which, BTW, has not helped, in any way, one person or thing yet and it does cause problems. Also not what this site is for.
        krapp 2y ago
        You should try to put more effort into expressing intelligence than cleverness, because this is just juvenile.
- spankalee 2y ago
  [flagged]
- Cthulhu_ 2y ago
  > All hell breaks loose when you ask, demand or otherwise force people to take responsibility for themselves and/or own their mistakes. But if you're police or some other first response, your job is literally to take responsibility for other people?
  - recursive 2y ago
    It's very hard to help people that don't want to be helped.
- insane_dreamer 2y ago
  Maybe if so many people who have been granted significant authority over others, aka "police", hadn't abused their power over a long period of time, to the point of causing significant harm, including death, of presumed innocent people, those "woke activists" wouldn't be calling for limits on those powers.
- DEADMEAT 2y ago
  Could you explain more about how first responders are not empowered at their jobs? I'm mostly curious if you see the cause as something local, or more like national policy that changes your ability to do your job.
- muststopmyths 2y ago
  > All hell breaks loose when you ask, demand or otherwise force people to take responsibility for themselves and/or own their mistakes. Said without any irony whatsoever
- iamacyborg 2y ago
  > We have been effectively neutered by woke activists that think everyone is out to get them Do you actually believe that or do you think there are perhaps broader issues at play?
  - recursive 2y ago
    Both can be true.
- legitster 2y ago
  Believe me, I see it from both sides. We need police who are empowered to do their own jobs. However... > All hell breaks loose when you ask, demand or otherwise force people to take responsibility for themselves and/or own their mistakes. The irony of this statement is that the entire collapse of trust with police in America was refusal for departments or unions to hold individual bad actors responsible. The reactionary response of police unions and the whole "thin blue line/sheepdog" attitude made it clear that also police don't want to take responsibility for mistakes.
  - Ferret7446 2y ago
    The entire collapse of trust with police in America was the media narrative. "Brainwashing", to use a strong term. The overwhelming majority of police were fine the majority of the time. Doesn't make for a very good news headline: "Police carry out their job reasonably today, the same as the past X days."
- octopoc 2y ago
  These woke activists go by the term "community organizers," which is especially ironic considering how dysfunctional they make communities. Multicultural societies are easy prey for them.
- 486sx33 2y ago
  Exactly.
- lotsofpulp 2y ago
  Speaking of people not taking responsibility: https://www.divestspd.com/p/no-discipline-for-detective-arrested https://www.divestspd.com/p/no-discipline-for-detective-arre... > The OPA could not sustain any allegations against Belgarde because the four-year deadline for discipline established in the police guild contract had passed. When police unions decide to protect the bad ones, it obviously reduces their credibility and hence society’s trust in them. Might have worked for decades in the past due to lack of information, but people know this stuff now.
  - anthony_d 2y ago
    If everything is as clear cut as that article contends, then why do they gloss over the 4 year gap between crime and an attempt to do anything? I would expect some sort of explanation. Pretty much everything has a statute of limitations. I would rather err on the side of letting the guilty go free than convicting someone wrongly. Due process is more important than any individual crime.
    - lotsofpulp 2y ago
      Given the well known corruption and “professional courtesy” within police organizations, I would err on the side of a drunk driver avoiding punishment because they were police. Not only were they driving drunk, but they attempted to evade the police by speeding away. That would have landed anyone else in jail, so there was obviously corruption from the very beginning. Their subsequent newsworthy act of aggression by the same cop this year also makes me err that way.
      - anthony_d 2y ago
        Sounds like it was one officers word against another. If there was a corruption aspect to this, I didn’t see proof of where it was. It might look a certain way from our point of view now, but at the time I’m not sure it was so clear. I very much like the concept of innocent until proven guilty and I want “proven” to be a very high bar.
- yard2010 2y ago
  I always find it amusing that everyone hates the police but no one hates the firefighters. They both save people lives, yet some are bastards and some are heroes.
  - spdustin 2y ago
    Firefighters aren't empowered to rescind your civil liberties. And they're not armed.
    - fireaway 2y ago
      They absolutely are empowered to abridge your civil liberties. Firefighters can break into your home, smash out the windows, cut holes in the roof and leave you with the bill without ever asking your permission. Not to mention what they can do to your vehicle it happens to be in the way of their engines. Then they and the city can prevent you from re-entering your home until they consider it safe.
      - reverius42 2y ago
        Interesting point. Firefighters don't carry guns, so they can't literally shoot you, but they can probably take your property and run over your dog with just as much impunity as police. So why is it the police are the only ones who are known for taking your property and killing your dog? Maybe the property-takers and dog-killers are naturally drawn to that profession more?
      - shiroiushi 2y ago
        They only have that power when there's an actual emergency, such as a fire. That doesn't happen too often. Also, whatever power they do have, they don't seem to abuse, because no one ever complains about the firefighters abusing power.
        fireaway 2y ago
        They have the power to declare the emergency, or in Carl Schmitt's terms, the state of exception.
Cthulhu_ 2y ago
You seem to make the point that the problem will be solved with more police, even though part of the cultural attitude you mention vs police has been a direct response to the militarization and brutality, yet at the same time indifference of the police force. The BLM movement was triggered by police brutality, but your take is that we need more and more active police?
- DeRock 2y ago
  I don't know where you got the argument for "more police", but the direct quote from the GP: > police don't want to police anymore Seems to contradict that being an argument.
  - legitster 2y ago
    Bingo.
  - 486sx33 2y ago
    This is true. More work a desk than anything anymore and when they are on patrol or driving too and from the station they try very hard not to look at anything. A horse with blinders on The courts are a mess, people get 1 overnight and get back out. There are no penalties anymore for crime so we get this.
- legitster 2y ago
  It was always a false dichotomy. The core issue was America needing better and more accountable policing. "Defunding" the police was an extremist, fringe position that hijacked the situation.
  - krapp 2y ago
    No one would even be talking about "needing better and more accountable policing" if "defund the police" as a position didn't shock people who have no reason to fear the police into realizing how dire the situation was for those who do. The "hijack" is walking back a revolutionary ideal to something palatable for the mainstream that doesn't threaten the status quo. It isn't a false dichotomy, but simply a difference in interpreting what the core issue is. Some believe the police can't be reformed and can't be held accountable, because the core issue is systemic racism and white supremacy, and the only option is to tear the entire system down and rebuild it from scratch around truly anti-racist principles. Obviously if you don't accept the thesis, you can't accept the conclusion.
insane_dreamer 2y ago
Part of the original problem was too many of the wrong kind of people becoming -- or remaining -- police in the first place. For example, we go through great lengths to ensure that doctors are suited to their job. Why? Because they have the power to kill people with their mistakes or poor judgement. It's reasonable to apply that same high bar to police, who have much greater latitude in exercising that power, up to and including the power to kill their fellow citizens, than doctors do. I don't think any young person who likes the idea of being able to walk around with a gun on their hip, being a police officer, anymore than I think any young person who likes cutting people open should become a surgeon.
- legitster 2y ago
  The solution needs to be some sort of "Teach for America" equivalent for police where non-traditional, college-bound candidates receive funding to be placed in under-served communities.
- gmd63 2y ago
  The original problem is that news consumers and police spend the majority of their time scrutinizing the smallest and most radically terrible segments of each other's populations
  - insane_dreamer 2y ago
    I disagree that this is the "original" problem. Police misuse of power has been a problem long before the current era of mass/social media. I do however agree that it's a problem (it's just an orthogonal one).
    - specialist 2y ago
      Culture is hard to change. The police in my western town began as a protection racket. Businesses wanted someone(s) to do something about drunks and brawling. So they deputized some bouncers. But they couldn't (wouldn't) pay much. So these newly minted cops got entrepreneurial. Then they branched out into prostitution. /1 Sheriffs in the South started as militia and slave catchers. Texas Rangers started as body guards and quickly transmuted into a paramilitary unit to hunt and kill Comanche people. Thru the North East and Rust Belt, the robber barons paid cops to violently suppress labor. Etc. Old habits die hard. -- 1/ Seattle Justice: The Rise and Fall of the Police Payoff System in Seattle https://www.amazon.com/Seattle-Justice-Police-Payoff-System/dp/1632170299/ https://www.amazon.com/Seattle-Justice-Police-Payoff-System/...
kristianp 2y ago
I agree that the article is ascribing some meaning to the crimes that doesn't exist. It is simply that the offenders found out about this method of making money. Even though it's a pittance. Perhaps a better theory is simply lack of social safety net.

monkmartinez 2y ago

> Young people don't want to become police anymore and police don't want to police anymore. For good reasons too! It F**ing sucks dealing with ALL the problems of a city. Ask me how I know! None of us, first responders, are allowed/empowered to do our damn jobs. We have been effectively neutered by woke activists that think everyone is out to get them. All hell breaks loose when you ask, demand or otherwise force people to take responsibility for themselves and/or own their mistakes.

BadHumans 2y ago
Blaming the "woke" people and not corrupt police officers that indiscriminately murder people or the system that protects them is pretty telling.
- mythrwy 2y ago
  Can we blame both, but not use the term "woke"? Just "activists" is fine.
  - MisterBastahrd 2y ago
    It certainly makes it easier to ignore the people doing the complaining.
    - anthony_d 2y ago
      I guess that depends who you want to ignore.
  - krapp 2y ago
    No, because despite how effective the establishment has been at co-opting and poisoning the term, "woke" comes directly from the black activist community, and pretending that legacy and context doesn't exist and isn't relevant to the conversation would be... tone deaf at best? "Wokeness," in the original intended sense - the sense for which people have given their lives in the streets and suffered the arbitrary brutality of American policing for decades, not the sense that incels and racist shitbags use for irony - is the entire point. As soon as your worldview and vocabulary erase the former and continue to normalize the latter you've become part of the problem.
    - mythrwy 2y ago
      But what about people with sleep disorders or narcolepsy? Use of this word could be a microaggression causing them severe mental stress possibly leading to suicide! And all because you wanted to keyboard social justice warrior! Which, BTW, has not helped, in any way, one person or thing yet and it does cause problems. Also not what this site is for.
      - krapp 2y ago
        You should try to put more effort into expressing intelligence than cleverness, because this is just juvenile.
spankalee 2y ago
[flagged]
Cthulhu_ 2y ago
> All hell breaks loose when you ask, demand or otherwise force people to take responsibility for themselves and/or own their mistakes. But if you're police or some other first response, your job is literally to take responsibility for other people?
- recursive 2y ago
  It's very hard to help people that don't want to be helped.
insane_dreamer 2y ago
Maybe if so many people who have been granted significant authority over others, aka "police", hadn't abused their power over a long period of time, to the point of causing significant harm, including death, of presumed innocent people, those "woke activists" wouldn't be calling for limits on those powers.
DEADMEAT 2y ago
Could you explain more about how first responders are not empowered at their jobs? I'm mostly curious if you see the cause as something local, or more like national policy that changes your ability to do your job.
muststopmyths 2y ago
> All hell breaks loose when you ask, demand or otherwise force people to take responsibility for themselves and/or own their mistakes. Said without any irony whatsoever
iamacyborg 2y ago
> We have been effectively neutered by woke activists that think everyone is out to get them Do you actually believe that or do you think there are perhaps broader issues at play?
- recursive 2y ago
  Both can be true.
legitster 2y ago
Believe me, I see it from both sides. We need police who are empowered to do their own jobs. However... > All hell breaks loose when you ask, demand or otherwise force people to take responsibility for themselves and/or own their mistakes. The irony of this statement is that the entire collapse of trust with police in America was refusal for departments or unions to hold individual bad actors responsible. The reactionary response of police unions and the whole "thin blue line/sheepdog" attitude made it clear that also police don't want to take responsibility for mistakes.
- Ferret7446 2y ago
  The entire collapse of trust with police in America was the media narrative. "Brainwashing", to use a strong term. The overwhelming majority of police were fine the majority of the time. Doesn't make for a very good news headline: "Police carry out their job reasonably today, the same as the past X days."
octopoc 2y ago
These woke activists go by the term "community organizers," which is especially ironic considering how dysfunctional they make communities. Multicultural societies are easy prey for them.
486sx33 2y ago
Exactly.
lotsofpulp 2y ago
Speaking of people not taking responsibility: https://www.divestspd.com/p/no-discipline-for-detective-arrested https://www.divestspd.com/p/no-discipline-for-detective-arre... > The OPA could not sustain any allegations against Belgarde because the four-year deadline for discipline established in the police guild contract had passed. When police unions decide to protect the bad ones, it obviously reduces their credibility and hence society’s trust in them. Might have worked for decades in the past due to lack of information, but people know this stuff now.
- anthony_d 2y ago
  If everything is as clear cut as that article contends, then why do they gloss over the 4 year gap between crime and an attempt to do anything? I would expect some sort of explanation. Pretty much everything has a statute of limitations. I would rather err on the side of letting the guilty go free than convicting someone wrongly. Due process is more important than any individual crime.
  - lotsofpulp 2y ago
    Given the well known corruption and “professional courtesy” within police organizations, I would err on the side of a drunk driver avoiding punishment because they were police. Not only were they driving drunk, but they attempted to evade the police by speeding away. That would have landed anyone else in jail, so there was obviously corruption from the very beginning. Their subsequent newsworthy act of aggression by the same cop this year also makes me err that way.
    - anthony_d 2y ago
      Sounds like it was one officers word against another. If there was a corruption aspect to this, I didn’t see proof of where it was. It might look a certain way from our point of view now, but at the time I’m not sure it was so clear. I very much like the concept of innocent until proven guilty and I want “proven” to be a very high bar.
yard2010 2y ago
I always find it amusing that everyone hates the police but no one hates the firefighters. They both save people lives, yet some are bastards and some are heroes.
- spdustin 2y ago
  Firefighters aren't empowered to rescind your civil liberties. And they're not armed.
  - fireaway 2y ago
    They absolutely are empowered to abridge your civil liberties. Firefighters can break into your home, smash out the windows, cut holes in the roof and leave you with the bill without ever asking your permission. Not to mention what they can do to your vehicle it happens to be in the way of their engines. Then they and the city can prevent you from re-entering your home until they consider it safe.
    - reverius42 2y ago
      Interesting point. Firefighters don't carry guns, so they can't literally shoot you, but they can probably take your property and run over your dog with just as much impunity as police. So why is it the police are the only ones who are known for taking your property and killing your dog? Maybe the property-takers and dog-killers are naturally drawn to that profession more?
    - shiroiushi 2y ago
      They only have that power when there's an actual emergency, such as a fire. That doesn't happen too often. Also, whatever power they do have, they don't seem to abuse, because no one ever complains about the firefighters abusing power.
      - fireaway 2y ago
        They have the power to declare the emergency, or in Carl Schmitt's terms, the state of exception.

Cthulhu_ 2y ago

You seem to make the point that the problem will be solved with more police, even though part of the cultural attitude you mention vs police has been a direct response to the militarization and brutality, yet at the same time indifference of the police force. The BLM movement was triggered by police brutality, but your take is that we need more and more active police?

DeRock 2y ago
I don't know where you got the argument for "more police", but the direct quote from the GP: > police don't want to police anymore Seems to contradict that being an argument.
- legitster 2y ago
  Bingo.
- 486sx33 2y ago
  This is true. More work a desk than anything anymore and when they are on patrol or driving too and from the station they try very hard not to look at anything. A horse with blinders on The courts are a mess, people get 1 overnight and get back out. There are no penalties anymore for crime so we get this.
legitster 2y ago
It was always a false dichotomy. The core issue was America needing better and more accountable policing. "Defunding" the police was an extremist, fringe position that hijacked the situation.
- krapp 2y ago
  No one would even be talking about "needing better and more accountable policing" if "defund the police" as a position didn't shock people who have no reason to fear the police into realizing how dire the situation was for those who do. The "hijack" is walking back a revolutionary ideal to something palatable for the mainstream that doesn't threaten the status quo. It isn't a false dichotomy, but simply a difference in interpreting what the core issue is. Some believe the police can't be reformed and can't be held accountable, because the core issue is systemic racism and white supremacy, and the only option is to tear the entire system down and rebuild it from scratch around truly anti-racist principles. Obviously if you don't accept the thesis, you can't accept the conclusion.

insane_dreamer 2y ago

Part of the original problem was too many of the wrong kind of people becoming -- or remaining -- police in the first place. For example, we go through great lengths to ensure that doctors are suited to their job. Why? Because they have the power to kill people with their mistakes or poor judgement. It's reasonable to apply that same high bar to police, who have much greater latitude in exercising that power, up to and including the power to kill their fellow citizens, than doctors do. I don't think any young person who likes the idea of being able to walk around with a gun on their hip, being a police officer, anymore than I think any young person who likes cutting people open should become a surgeon.

legitster 2y ago
The solution needs to be some sort of "Teach for America" equivalent for police where non-traditional, college-bound candidates receive funding to be placed in under-served communities.
gmd63 2y ago
The original problem is that news consumers and police spend the majority of their time scrutinizing the smallest and most radically terrible segments of each other's populations
- insane_dreamer 2y ago
  I disagree that this is the "original" problem. Police misuse of power has been a problem long before the current era of mass/social media. I do however agree that it's a problem (it's just an orthogonal one).
  - specialist 2y ago
    Culture is hard to change. The police in my western town began as a protection racket. Businesses wanted someone(s) to do something about drunks and brawling. So they deputized some bouncers. But they couldn't (wouldn't) pay much. So these newly minted cops got entrepreneurial. Then they branched out into prostitution. /1 Sheriffs in the South started as militia and slave catchers. Texas Rangers started as body guards and quickly transmuted into a paramilitary unit to hunt and kill Comanche people. Thru the North East and Rust Belt, the robber barons paid cops to violently suppress labor. Etc. Old habits die hard. -- 1/ Seattle Justice: The Rise and Fall of the Police Payoff System in Seattle https://www.amazon.com/Seattle-Justice-Police-Payoff-System/dp/1632170299/ https://www.amazon.com/Seattle-Justice-Police-Payoff-System/...

kristianp 2y ago

I agree that the article is ascribing some meaning to the crimes that doesn't exist. It is simply that the offenders found out about this method of making money. Even though it's a pittance. Perhaps a better theory is simply lack of social safety net.