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While the acab is kind of rough, I'm absolutely with you on police accountability. If there was open and honest accountability, I don't think people would have

While the acab is kind of rough, I'm absolutely with you on police accountability. If there was open and honest accountability, I don't think people would have as many problems with the police. The issue is that police operate in extremely high pressure novel situations all the time. Training only goes so far. After that, you're investigating mistakes versus violent intent. I'm not sure that's easy to do, and I'm certain the public would never accept the finding that a police officer made an honest mistake, and won't be punished, but somebody got killed.

rendall 2y ago
> The issue is that police operate in extremely high pressure novel situations all the time. In the US, police officer does not even rise to top 10 most dangerous jobs. Groundskeeper is a more dangerous job than being a cop. The lack of training and toxic culture of policing is far more dangerous to cops than criminals are. The average US citizen simply does not, and should not, trust the average cop.
- potato3732842 2y ago
  >In the US, police officer does not even rise to top 10 most dangerous jobs. Which is really impressive for how much time cops spend standing on the side of highways.
- slothtrop 2y ago
  Danger =/= high stress/pressure situations
  - rendall 2y ago
    Even if that were true, and it's not, it would be mitigated by better training and careful psychological filtering.
    - slothtrop 2y ago
      > and it's not At least try to be persuasive. There are a myriad of ways that jobs can be stressful without endangering your life, that should not be difficult for you to imagine. Shift work, demands for quotas and metrics (sales people can tell you this), dealing with violent and erratic individuals in the public with sometimes insufficient support, etc. Correctional Officers face similar circumstances and have a life expectancy of 58-59 years old. High divorce rate too, but people want to content themselves with the truism that "only bad people work these jobs", with no consideration for environmental effects. The divorce rate is higher among medical assistants and some skilled trades, for reasons that can just as easily apply: long hours, on-call, fatigue, etc. > it would be mitigated by better training and careful psychological filtering. Only on the conceit that any and all stress is imposed by lack of training and bad psychology.
      - rendall 2y ago
        You're not demanding evidence that the job of police officer is high stress. Interesting, that bias. On what basis do you support that claim?
        slothtrop 2y ago
        All of which would be self-reported and not persuade you. But behaviors that correlate with stress (like I provided) are present.
  - danaris 2y ago
    But a very large percentage of the "high stress/pressure" of being a police officer in the US is literally manufactured by the police themselves. For instance, several officers have been treated for severe symptoms after coming into contact with fentanyl. Except that there is no way, biochemically speaking, the kind of contact they had with fentanyl could have produced anything resembling those symptoms. It was an entirely psychosomatic reaction, brought on by the police's own utterly false propaganda about how terrifyingly dangerous fentanyl is. Similarly, so much of their "high stress" is because they expect to be attacked/shot/killed at any given moment even when, by any reasonable analysis, they are 100% safe. Furthermore, a lot of the actual danger to them is manufactured by this exact phenomenon: they expect a physical confrontation, so, in order to ensure they "win" it, they create it, striking preemptively in one fashion or another.
    - slothtrop 2y ago
      > But a very large percentage of the "high stress/pressure" of being a police officer in the US is literally manufactured by the police themselves. This is conjecture with no measurable basis.
      - danaris 2y ago
        ....It is supported by specific facts in the rest of my post. I'll grant I didn't cite sources, because this is HN, not a scientific journal, and if you're interested enough you can Google it (or DDG it, or Kagi it) for yourself, but the basis really is right there in my post.
        slothtrop 2y ago
        None of your "facts" support your claim that the large majority of stress is manufactured by the police.
coldpie 2y ago
> While the acab is kind of rough > If there was open and honest accountability, I don't think people would have as many problems with the police. To be clear, your 2nd statement is why ACAB. The police are the people fighting against the open & honest accountability you are asking for. When accountability comes up, they refuse to do their jobs[1], inflate crime numbers & incident severity[2], harass the few cops trying to improve accountability until they quit[3], and actively campaign against accountability[4]. If some cops are bastards, and people who shield those bastards from accountability are also bastards, then all cops are bastards. ACAB is not rough, it exactly describes the situation. [1] https://minnesotareformer.com/2021/10/20/mpd-cop-says-officers-have-taken-hands-off-approach-to-crime-fighting-blames-politicians-media/ https://minnesotareformer.com/2021/10/20/mpd-cop-says-office... [2] https://minnesotareformer.com/2020/12/15/the-bad-cops-how-minneapolis-protects-its-worst-police-officers-until-its-too-late/ https://minnesotareformer.com/2020/12/15/the-bad-cops-how-mi... [3] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/only-minneapolis-police-officer-formally-disciplined-for-misconduct-tied-to-the-departments-riot-response-has-left-job/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/only-minneapolis-... [4] https://apnews.com/article/elections-police-minneapolis-a1ce8d162c6c2fa2e50f3d34248985e7 https://apnews.com/article/elections-police-minneapolis-a1ce...
potato3732842 2y ago
>The issue is that police operate in extremely high pressure novel situations all the time. Police mostly act as professional witnesses taking reports and engage in revenue generating law enforcement. The most high pressure situations they deal with with any regularity involve mediating domestic disputes or wrestling angry drunks. Police absolutely are not dealing with violent criminals on the daily. And when they do go out of their way to deal with people who many become violent they show up with the kind numerical advantage that would make Stalin proud. Your average beat cop probably un-holsters their handgun once a month to once a year depending on where and when they patrol. These high stress high stakes split second judgement call situations are not a daily or weekly thing. >I'm not sure that's easy to do, and I'm certain the public would never accept the finding that a police officer made an honest mistake, and won't be punished, but somebody got killed. They do accept this and did for decades. The only reason it's no longer being blanked accepted is because the modern media landscape makes it much harder to hide the fact that a huge fraction of these "honest mistakes" were in fact not so honest and not so mistaken. Basically nobody has a problem with honest mistakes by themselves. What people have a problem with is thug behavior. Spending decades classifying various degrees of thug behavior as honest mistakes is why nobody wants to tolerate honest mistakes.
jonp888 2y ago
> Training only goes so far Compared to other countries American cops aren't really trained at all. In Germany the training period for a police officer is 2 to 3 years, in the US it's usually less then 6 months.
- Aloisius 2y ago
  It's not quite that bad. That US 6 month number excludes field training (typically 1 year) whereas the 2-3 year German number includes it (6 months I believe). This largely stems from a difference in how academies work. In many countries, field training is required to graduate. In the US, field training is required after you graduate in order to get a permanent job. This skews the total training time numbers. That said, American police are still undertrained by comparison.

rendall 2y ago

> The issue is that police operate in extremely high pressure novel situations all the time. In the US, police officer does not even rise to top 10 most dangerous jobs. Groundskeeper is a more dangerous job than being a cop. The lack of training and toxic culture of policing is far more dangerous to cops than criminals are. The average US citizen simply does not, and should not, trust the average cop.

potato3732842 2y ago
>In the US, police officer does not even rise to top 10 most dangerous jobs. Which is really impressive for how much time cops spend standing on the side of highways.
slothtrop 2y ago
Danger =/= high stress/pressure situations
- rendall 2y ago
  Even if that were true, and it's not, it would be mitigated by better training and careful psychological filtering.
  - slothtrop 2y ago
    > and it's not At least try to be persuasive. There are a myriad of ways that jobs can be stressful without endangering your life, that should not be difficult for you to imagine. Shift work, demands for quotas and metrics (sales people can tell you this), dealing with violent and erratic individuals in the public with sometimes insufficient support, etc. Correctional Officers face similar circumstances and have a life expectancy of 58-59 years old. High divorce rate too, but people want to content themselves with the truism that "only bad people work these jobs", with no consideration for environmental effects. The divorce rate is higher among medical assistants and some skilled trades, for reasons that can just as easily apply: long hours, on-call, fatigue, etc. > it would be mitigated by better training and careful psychological filtering. Only on the conceit that any and all stress is imposed by lack of training and bad psychology.
    - rendall 2y ago
      You're not demanding evidence that the job of police officer is high stress. Interesting, that bias. On what basis do you support that claim?
      - slothtrop 2y ago
        All of which would be self-reported and not persuade you. But behaviors that correlate with stress (like I provided) are present.
- danaris 2y ago
  But a very large percentage of the "high stress/pressure" of being a police officer in the US is literally manufactured by the police themselves. For instance, several officers have been treated for severe symptoms after coming into contact with fentanyl. Except that there is no way, biochemically speaking, the kind of contact they had with fentanyl could have produced anything resembling those symptoms. It was an entirely psychosomatic reaction, brought on by the police's own utterly false propaganda about how terrifyingly dangerous fentanyl is. Similarly, so much of their "high stress" is because they expect to be attacked/shot/killed at any given moment even when, by any reasonable analysis, they are 100% safe. Furthermore, a lot of the actual danger to them is manufactured by this exact phenomenon: they expect a physical confrontation, so, in order to ensure they "win" it, they create it, striking preemptively in one fashion or another.
  - slothtrop 2y ago
    > But a very large percentage of the "high stress/pressure" of being a police officer in the US is literally manufactured by the police themselves. This is conjecture with no measurable basis.
    - danaris 2y ago
      ....It is supported by specific facts in the rest of my post. I'll grant I didn't cite sources, because this is HN, not a scientific journal, and if you're interested enough you can Google it (or DDG it, or Kagi it) for yourself, but the basis really is right there in my post.
      - slothtrop 2y ago
        None of your "facts" support your claim that the large majority of stress is manufactured by the police.

coldpie 2y ago

> While the acab is kind of rough > If there was open and honest accountability, I don't think people would have as many problems with the police. To be clear, your 2nd statement is why ACAB. The police are the people fighting against the open & honest accountability you are asking for. When accountability comes up, they refuse to do their jobs[1], inflate crime numbers & incident severity[2], harass the few cops trying to improve accountability until they quit[3], and actively campaign against accountability[4]. If some cops are bastards, and people who shield those bastards from accountability are also bastards, then all cops are bastards. ACAB is not rough, it exactly describes the situation. [1] https://minnesotareformer.com/2021/10/20/mpd-cop-says-officers-have-taken-hands-off-approach-to-crime-fighting-blames-politicians-media/ https://minnesotareformer.com/2021/10/20/mpd-cop-says-office... [2] https://minnesotareformer.com/2020/12/15/the-bad-cops-how-minneapolis-protects-its-worst-police-officers-until-its-too-late/ https://minnesotareformer.com/2020/12/15/the-bad-cops-how-mi... [3] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/only-minneapolis-police-officer-formally-disciplined-for-misconduct-tied-to-the-departments-riot-response-has-left-job/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/only-minneapolis-... [4] https://apnews.com/article/elections-police-minneapolis-a1ce8d162c6c2fa2e50f3d34248985e7 https://apnews.com/article/elections-police-minneapolis-a1ce...

potato3732842 2y ago

>The issue is that police operate in extremely high pressure novel situations all the time. Police mostly act as professional witnesses taking reports and engage in revenue generating law enforcement. The most high pressure situations they deal with with any regularity involve mediating domestic disputes or wrestling angry drunks. Police absolutely are not dealing with violent criminals on the daily. And when they do go out of their way to deal with people who many become violent they show up with the kind numerical advantage that would make Stalin proud. Your average beat cop probably un-holsters their handgun once a month to once a year depending on where and when they patrol. These high stress high stakes split second judgement call situations are not a daily or weekly thing. >I'm not sure that's easy to do, and I'm certain the public would never accept the finding that a police officer made an honest mistake, and won't be punished, but somebody got killed. They do accept this and did for decades. The only reason it's no longer being blanked accepted is because the modern media landscape makes it much harder to hide the fact that a huge fraction of these "honest mistakes" were in fact not so honest and not so mistaken. Basically nobody has a problem with honest mistakes by themselves. What people have a problem with is thug behavior. Spending decades classifying various degrees of thug behavior as honest mistakes is why nobody wants to tolerate honest mistakes.

jonp888 2y ago

> Training only goes so far Compared to other countries American cops aren't really trained at all. In Germany the training period for a police officer is 2 to 3 years, in the US it's usually less then 6 months.

Aloisius 2y ago
It's not quite that bad. That US 6 month number excludes field training (typically 1 year) whereas the 2-3 year German number includes it (6 months I believe). This largely stems from a difference in how academies work. In many countries, field training is required to graduate. In the US, field training is required after you graduate in order to get a permanent job. This skews the total training time numbers. That said, American police are still undertrained by comparison.