4 ms·

This is incredible. Imagine if you can see local cops' complaint records just like your neighbor's arrest records. Downside is this might encourage more fake a

This is incredible. Imagine if you can see local cops' complaint records just like your neighbor's arrest records. Downside is this might encourage more fake and petty complaints.

Zigurd 12y ago
Everyone who sells products or interacts with the public has to deal with "fake" and "petty." Cops don't need exceptional treatment.
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  Sure because cops don't deal with the public in the same way as, say, an Avon representative. Attempts to blur this are doing cops an injustice. They are a special case in almost every way.
  - angersock 12y ago
    I absolutely agree. And that's why they should have fewer rights and more oversight than the Avon lady. The Avon lady has never burned an infant with a flashbang. Or shot a dog. Or shot an owner. Or shot a homeless person. Or shot another Avon lady.
    - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
      ...or had to deal with violent offenders on a daily basis. Yes, different in every way. It doesn't work to cherry-pick examples, you don't draw very good conclusions from that.
      - rmxt 12y ago
        Do you think your median cop in the US actually deals with "violent offenders" on a daily basis? If so, who defines what a "violent offender" is? (Hint: it's probably the police officer him/herself, a pretty self-serving situation.) The point in all of this is that we no longer have to rely on such inconsistent and inaccurate first-hand definitions: body-cams, dash-cams and public access records would allow for a re-evaluation of all such interactions. If only police departments actually had the public's best interest in mind...
        JoeAltmaier 12y ago
        I live in a college town, so maybe I have a biased sample. But yes, I do believe so. A suggestion: could you do what you need to do, if someone were looking over your shoulder at all times? There is a chilling effect on good cops too - if anything at all they say and do results in a personal lawsuit, they stop being effective at all. A ride-along some Friday night has been known to change the opinion of many a critic. See what a cop has to deal with, no room for preconceived notions or idealistic predictions. As for the public interest - we don't want to live in a world without policemen. There is a wide literature on that subject.
        VLM 12y ago
        "we don't want to live in a world without policemen" No need for binary thinking. We already no longer have policemen, we have infantry soldiers trained in urban combat with "shoot first ask questions later" rules of engagement and military weapons, deployed with an us vs them attitude, considerable deeply embedded racism issues, and a strong organizational opposition to respecting the occupied area's resident's civil rights. Or, in summary, it sucks. I agree with you, in part, its not as bad as having no order at all, which is hardly the only alternative to what we have now. I'd like living in an area with a police force. Military occupation force, not so good. But "real cops" would be OK.
        rmxt 12y ago
        I don't do my job with a gun or a mandate to maintain law and order. To reiterate your earlier point: any comparison to any other job is an unfair one. It doesn't matter how I would behave if someone were looking over my shoulder, it only matters how much more insight and oversight the general public would have into those who supposedly serve them. To be cliche: "With great power comes great responsibility." We don't need to go on an in-person ride along on Friday night: we can put cameras on them and let the whole of posterity go on every ride-along. Your point about a chilling effect on good cops due to lawsuits seems flimsy. Potentially frivolous lawsuits won't be resource intensive because they would have hard and fast evidence (video) for a prosecutor or jury to make a decision on. Good cops that know they are good cops could act confidently, reassured that their protocol-following actions are recorded. Citizens that might otherwise be mouthy, physically resistant, or whatever else might behave better knowing that the camera is watching. It really seems like a win-win for all parties involved, except for the "bad apples" and their supporters. Also, I don't suggest that we disband police forces. I do believe that policing in the United States needs to be more "peace officer"-like rather than SWAT-like. I feel that we are trending towards the latter.
      - VLM 12y ago
        "deal with violent offenders on a daily basis" A hunting, or a genocidal, relationship involves one side gunning down the other while sustaining minimal casualties. An infantry war relationship as often proposed as the model for America's Police (which in itself is pretty screwed up, implying we as tax payers are the bad guy enemies that the good blue guys need to kill) involves about the same number of body bags on both sides. Oh sure Alexander the Great or Caesar or Rommel could have done 10:1 ratio of body bags, but there aren't many military commanders like that. Not in most police forces anyway. Observationally the general public has FAR more to fear from cops than cops have to fear from the general public. The bodies, mostly minority boys, are stacked like cordwood on one scale of justice and other other has a very small handful of coffins, very small indeed. Its inappropriate to describe a huntsmans relationship to his meat in terms of nobility that make it sound like a brave infantry soldier on the front lines.
jrs235 12y ago
There's a civil and criminal procedure for making and filing false claims.
- Bill_Dimm 12y ago
  Did you perhaps mean "penalty" rather than "procedure"?
  - anonbanker 12y ago
    I understood what he said. Do you?
alexqgb 12y ago
There's no downside if the complaints come from real people. An individual filing a series of spurious and unsubstantiated claims can be charged with libel, or safely disregarded. After all, problem cops tend to be systematic about their abuse. The red-flag pattern you want to watch out for is lots of otherwise unconnected individuals all registering similar complaints about the same person. Also, an effective rating system doesn't need to contain every unsubstantiated mark against a cop. It can aggregate results and compare them against an acceptable baseline and / or a rolling average. The real point of accountability rests with their superiors, who should be dismissed from their positions if they persist in putting cops with bad records out on the street. In essence, they're placing the public in harms way, which is diametrically opposed to their official role as senior public safety officers. If that's not a firing offense, I can't imagine what would be.

This is incredible. Imagine if you can see local cops' complaint records just like your neighbor's arrest records. Downside is this might encourage more fake and petty complaints.

Zigurd 12y ago

Everyone who sells products or interacts with the public has to deal with "fake" and "petty." Cops don't need exceptional treatment.

JoeAltmaier 12y ago
Sure because cops don't deal with the public in the same way as, say, an Avon representative. Attempts to blur this are doing cops an injustice. They are a special case in almost every way.
- angersock 12y ago
  I absolutely agree. And that's why they should have fewer rights and more oversight than the Avon lady. The Avon lady has never burned an infant with a flashbang. Or shot a dog. Or shot an owner. Or shot a homeless person. Or shot another Avon lady.
  - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
    ...or had to deal with violent offenders on a daily basis. Yes, different in every way. It doesn't work to cherry-pick examples, you don't draw very good conclusions from that.
    - rmxt 12y ago
      Do you think your median cop in the US actually deals with "violent offenders" on a daily basis? If so, who defines what a "violent offender" is? (Hint: it's probably the police officer him/herself, a pretty self-serving situation.) The point in all of this is that we no longer have to rely on such inconsistent and inaccurate first-hand definitions: body-cams, dash-cams and public access records would allow for a re-evaluation of all such interactions. If only police departments actually had the public's best interest in mind...
      - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
        I live in a college town, so maybe I have a biased sample. But yes, I do believe so. A suggestion: could you do what you need to do, if someone were looking over your shoulder at all times? There is a chilling effect on good cops too - if anything at all they say and do results in a personal lawsuit, they stop being effective at all. A ride-along some Friday night has been known to change the opinion of many a critic. See what a cop has to deal with, no room for preconceived notions or idealistic predictions. As for the public interest - we don't want to live in a world without policemen. There is a wide literature on that subject.
        VLM 12y ago
        "we don't want to live in a world without policemen" No need for binary thinking. We already no longer have policemen, we have infantry soldiers trained in urban combat with "shoot first ask questions later" rules of engagement and military weapons, deployed with an us vs them attitude, considerable deeply embedded racism issues, and a strong organizational opposition to respecting the occupied area's resident's civil rights. Or, in summary, it sucks. I agree with you, in part, its not as bad as having no order at all, which is hardly the only alternative to what we have now. I'd like living in an area with a police force. Military occupation force, not so good. But "real cops" would be OK.
        rmxt 12y ago
        I don't do my job with a gun or a mandate to maintain law and order. To reiterate your earlier point: any comparison to any other job is an unfair one. It doesn't matter how I would behave if someone were looking over my shoulder, it only matters how much more insight and oversight the general public would have into those who supposedly serve them. To be cliche: "With great power comes great responsibility." We don't need to go on an in-person ride along on Friday night: we can put cameras on them and let the whole of posterity go on every ride-along. Your point about a chilling effect on good cops due to lawsuits seems flimsy. Potentially frivolous lawsuits won't be resource intensive because they would have hard and fast evidence (video) for a prosecutor or jury to make a decision on. Good cops that know they are good cops could act confidently, reassured that their protocol-following actions are recorded. Citizens that might otherwise be mouthy, physically resistant, or whatever else might behave better knowing that the camera is watching. It really seems like a win-win for all parties involved, except for the "bad apples" and their supporters. Also, I don't suggest that we disband police forces. I do believe that policing in the United States needs to be more "peace officer"-like rather than SWAT-like. I feel that we are trending towards the latter.
    - VLM 12y ago
      "deal with violent offenders on a daily basis" A hunting, or a genocidal, relationship involves one side gunning down the other while sustaining minimal casualties. An infantry war relationship as often proposed as the model for America's Police (which in itself is pretty screwed up, implying we as tax payers are the bad guy enemies that the good blue guys need to kill) involves about the same number of body bags on both sides. Oh sure Alexander the Great or Caesar or Rommel could have done 10:1 ratio of body bags, but there aren't many military commanders like that. Not in most police forces anyway. Observationally the general public has FAR more to fear from cops than cops have to fear from the general public. The bodies, mostly minority boys, are stacked like cordwood on one scale of justice and other other has a very small handful of coffins, very small indeed. Its inappropriate to describe a huntsmans relationship to his meat in terms of nobility that make it sound like a brave infantry soldier on the front lines.

jrs235 12y ago

There's a civil and criminal procedure for making and filing false claims.

Bill_Dimm 12y ago
Did you perhaps mean "penalty" rather than "procedure"?
- anonbanker 12y ago
  I understood what he said. Do you?

alexqgb 12y ago

There's no downside if the complaints come from real people. An individual filing a series of spurious and unsubstantiated claims can be charged with libel, or safely disregarded. After all, problem cops tend to be systematic about their abuse. The red-flag pattern you want to watch out for is lots of otherwise unconnected individuals all registering similar complaints about the same person. Also, an effective rating system doesn't need to contain every unsubstantiated mark against a cop. It can aggregate results and compare them against an acceptable baseline and / or a rolling average. The real point of accountability rests with their superiors, who should be dismissed from their positions if they persist in putting cops with bad records out on the street. In essence, they're placing the public in harms way, which is diametrically opposed to their official role as senior public safety officers. If that's not a firing offense, I can't imagine what would be.