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WampaLord posted:Seems like they're only cutting it from a planned increase so it's not actually reduced in any real way. Actually I looked into it further. The proposed budget increase for the LAPD was 122 million. They're both NOT doing that increase, and also cutting 150 million, so it's a net cut of 270. The LASD budget will also be cut by about 140 million. Supposedly some of the cut money is going to furloughed teachers and other government employees.
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Jul 2, 2020 23:47
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After lurking this thread for a while there seem to me to be two distinct questions: 1 is the police force as currently operating in the US a danger to society that should be ideally disbanded and at the least sharply curtailed? 2 is law enforcement by a state always and everywhere illegitimate because it inevitably will become a danger to society? The answer to 1 seems very clearly to be yes. I think the question now is less “should it be abolished?” and more “how can it be abolished safely?”, both in terms of how do you absorb large numbers of ex-police back into society, what do these violent people do next, and also in terms of how do you ensure that the gap left by removing one gang doesn’t trigger a wave of violence by other gangs as there’s now a power vacuum. Also the pragmatic question of how far you can actually achieve abolition given political constraints. These aren’t theoretical questions, they are real ones and IMO a lot more interesting than “but who will investigate crimes” because that doesn’t require a police force. The answer to 2 may be different. Lots of people ITT have noted that police are enforcers of capitalist rules, but it’s also been pointed out that in the world before police, powerful people had even fewer checks on their power. Like GK Chesterton said, aristocrats are always anarchists, because they object to being governed at all. IMO in a capitalist society, the real role of law enforcement isn’t to be the most effective way of enforcing the will of the rich and the powerful. The best way for them to do that, hands down, is to have a private army (or to ensure the national army is controlled by them and then regularly use it to protect their property, cf Peterloo Massacre). The real social role of law enforcement is to be a watered down version of the private army of the rich that sometimes applies the law to them (instead of never) and sometimes resolves disputes between the rest, so that they stand down their actual private armies/stop using the national army to shoot citizens. It’s a compromise so that the 99% don’t riot and nobody has to find out whether the private army was strong enough. The reason I think abolition is a realistic goal in the US right now is that the police there have so little credibility with POC, and POC are such a significant part of the country, that the police no longer serve this function well. They’re not more effective than a private army because nobody trusts them any more. If they don’t take flak for capital then they are useless to it. So there is an opportunity to extract another compromise that gives up even more power to the 99%. “Reforms” in a US context aren’t this, they’re a patching up of the old bargain. I fully support people trying to get rid of the US police. I don’t, however think that the abolition of all police forces everywhere is a possible outcome, because existing power structures haven’t changed.
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Jul 3, 2020 10:05
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Good! Fuckers. https://twitter.com/Phil_Lewis_/status/1279149178283835394
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Jul 4, 2020 16:52
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"Stop saying the quiet part loud."
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Jul 4, 2020 16:54
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CocoaNuts posted:That's one helluva hook, officer! Either that was a weak punch or she's got a strong jaw. Still, the fact that was provoked it was "you acting like you white" is hilarious. White-passing minorites get real upset when you remind them they're not actually part of the club over there. If the LAPD cut is actually a cut that's good but it's not enough to stop poo poo like this: https://twitter.com/SamTLevin/status/1278804770275250176?s=19 Just a couple of buds here, catching up! https://twitter.com/MsLisaHendricks/status/1279637036605927428?s=19 Mat Cauthon fucked around with this message at 18:56 on Jul 5, 2020 |
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Jul 5, 2020 18:53
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Eugene, Oregon has been doing a little something, something for decades that might serve as an example to cities looking for moderate reform: This town of 170,000 replaced some cops with medics and mental health workers. It's worked for over 30 years https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/05/us/cahoots-replace-police-mental-health-trnd/index.html
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Jul 6, 2020 11:27
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cross posting some stuff from the general thread: The police shot a disabled Black child with rubber bullets, detained him illegally, and left him in a cell to die. He will require heart surgery as a result of what they did and their deliberate callous negligence. https://twitter.com/blackphxoc/status/1281303169549492225?s=19 https://twitter.com/blackphxoc/status/1281303177267015680?s=19 And good news on some fronts, however small. https://twitter.com/Terrence_STR/status/1281425476708438018?s=19 Mat Cauthon fucked around with this message at 16:42 on Jul 10, 2020 |
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Jul 10, 2020 16:40
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It feels like most people already forgot about the riots. The attention span of an average American is not that long.
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Jul 10, 2020 19:30
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The protests are still going, albeit in a smaller capacity, but the media stopped covering them and a lot of states stupidly reopened, forcing people to make a choice between being in the streets or going back to work (if they still had a job to go to). The cops unfortunately have not stopped throwing their tantrum. https://twitter.com/scumbelievable/status/1281649929782468608
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Jul 10, 2020 19:38
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Mat Cauthon posted:The protests are still going, albeit in a smaller capacity, but the media stopped covering them and a lot of states stupidly reopened, forcing people to make a choice between being in the streets or going back to work (if they still had a job to go to). The wording on that tweet is atrocious.  "This is a kneejerk reaction to an event that happened across the country." - Why, yes, sir. Police brutality does occur across the country.
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Jul 11, 2020 11:57
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I still want to know what gets done with all the police when they’ve been defunded and sacked. A lot of angry young men trained to use weapons suddenly being unemployed is usually a problem in itself.
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Jul 11, 2020 12:22
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Beefeater1980 posted:I still want to know what gets done with all the police when they’ve been defunded and sacked. A lot of angry young men trained to use weapons suddenly being unemployed is usually a problem in itself. Use that money to maintain/build infrastructure and employ those cops to do it. There, are we done with this nonsense yet?
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Jul 11, 2020 12:58
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Beefeater1980 posted:I still want to know what gets done with all the police when they’ve been defunded and sacked. A lot of angry young men trained to use weapons suddenly being unemployed is usually a problem in itself. They are forced to join the job market like anyone else. They no longer have the legal right to use any weapons so they would be just like every other gun nut, and get to struggle like everyone else. They can shout into the clouds for all I care Cpt_Obvious posted:Use that money to maintain/build infrastructure and employ those cops to do it. There are plenty of regularly unemployed people who need these jobs, they get to compete with them, they aren't a veteran they don't get preference.
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Jul 11, 2020 13:31
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Yuzenn posted:There are plenty of regularly unemployed people who need these jobs, they get to compete with them, they aren't a veteran they don't get preference. Look, if the state is going to create a bunch of unemployment, it is the state's responsibility to fix that unemployment. Frankly, I'd be happier to exile the pigs or prosecute them for the crimes they committed while on the force.
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Jul 11, 2020 13:46
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Beefeater1980 posted:I still want to know what gets done with all the police when they’ve been defunded and sacked. A lot of angry young men trained to use weapons suddenly being unemployed is usually a problem in itself. There's approximately zero chance that any city immediately abolishes 100% of their police force all at the same time. Even in a super-aggressive defunding / abolishing process, you'd have layoffs here and there but never enough that you need to worry about ex-police gangs suddenly forming and roaming the streets or something. Even if you did somehow fire every single police officer simultaneously, a big part of the reason police brutality is a problem is because they have power and the system protects them. Take that away, and the brutality will largely go away with it.
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Jul 11, 2020 14:36
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Mat Cauthon posted:The protests are still going, albeit in a smaller capacity, but the media stopped covering them and a lot of states stupidly reopened, forcing people to make a choice between being in the streets or going back to work (if they still had a job to go to). The Massachusetts State Senate voted to reform qualified immunity in the Commonwealth, it now goes to the state house. quote:The Senate overcame a difficult rollout and several false starts to pass a far-reaching reform of policing in Massachusetts on Tuesday that would ban chokeholds, limit the use of tear gas, license all law enforcement officers and train them in the history of racism. So if you live in Massachusetts call your state rep.
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Jul 14, 2020 15:21
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Cross post from the general thread: Black veteran who legally uses medical marijuana (in Arizona where he lived) to treat his PTSD and service- caused brain injury that left him with mental disabilities gets his car searched on a bullshit pretext while visiting family in Alabama. He gets arrested. His wife gets arrested for having prescription meds in the wrong bottle. He gets railroaded into taking a plea to spare his wife. His wife loses her job anyway because of the charges. Eventually they end up homeless, penniless, and he's facing half a decade in prison over a bunch of bullshit and the system doing it's usual thing. Now his wife needs heart surgery to live and they have nothing. https://twitter.com/BarackOMamba/status/1283028747675930632?s=19 A legal nonprofit is trying to help them and get more attention for their cases, and there's a GoFundMe by the wife as well. https://twitter.com/AlaAppleseed/status/1281036694972780546?s=19 Please amplify and donate if you can.
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Jul 14, 2020 22:46
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Very good piece on the "abolition looks like the suburbs" rhetoric making the rounds.posted:If, as Angela Y. Davis reminds us, we as a society avoid dealing with the structural dimensions of harm, when it is committed, by disappearing perpetrators in prisons, the other side of the coin is this privatization of accountability available to elites. There are notable differences, of course, as captivity in a cage is a much different and vicious form of being tucked away from public view. I would never confuse captivity with the privacy, money, and racial status shielding an affluent, white suburbanite. But a shared dimension is that each approach tries to make people, when they have committed harm, be disappeared from public view and consciousness while the structural roots of harm go unaddressed and society operates as normal. Again, abolition involves figuring out what nonpunitive accountability looks like in public. Affluent, white suburbanites being shielded from the violence of carceral systems while others are not offered the same opportunity is not a model of abolition. It is just an expression of relative power and racism. https://twitter.com/newinquiry/status/1283746110729854982?s=19
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Jul 16, 2020 14:18
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This guy takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin' https://twitter.com/PDXzane/status/1284726088187310080
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Jul 19, 2020 13:36
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This is the fellow from the post above. He just earns more and more respect. https://twitter.com/evanmcmurry/status/1285957415918276608
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Jul 23, 2020 00:18
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I think we definitely need to do something about the police in the US that radically shakes up how its existing today. A mix between the low barrier of entry, the gang mentality and the general immunity and favor they have in court is pretty self-evident that it can easily become incredibly corrupt. I think that some people do enter the position of being cops with good intentions, but that those become "corrupt" by the training, general impressionability of youth, gang mentality, and general immunity....unless they quit. Im not a professional by any means in designing a fool-proof body of law enforcement, but where I would at least start is : Make the police position tougher to get into. Qualifications, education, and more levels of "graduating" to the role. and a whole lot of focus on ethical development and psychological assessment. Create roles that cannot use the gun, and only those who are exemplary in self discipline and good judgement get the "privledge". Then accountability. Something like the cops have to have cameras on them in order to be able to argue they had to make a "tough decision". If they are accused of something and they were found to not have their cameras on, they'd be prosecuted as if they were an everyman. Last, the cop position is treated like something you are doing to help people and that being "thankless" is part of the job. You are (supposed to be) serving and protecting the people and thus you are supposed to be more interested in doing the right thing for the situation, not for your feelings, opinions or ego. Just some thoughts, i guess.
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Jul 26, 2020 05:19
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None of those do anything unless the police are disarmed and demilitarized, most of their funding is diverted to services that prevent crime from happening in the first place, the political power of their unions is destroyed, the criminal justice code is reformed, and oh yeah every single current police officer needs to be drummed out of the profession and investigated by a Truth & Reconciliation commission in every city. Otherwise you can just say you're doing it and go right back to killing black people. As they have done for fifty years. Seattle tried to do the absolute bare minimum of "reform" by banning the cops from using chemical weapons banned in war. Here's what the chief of police had to say - you can't reform a force that will only argue in bad faith and make every attempt to hold the people hostage when they don't get their way. https://twitter.com/MTaylorCanfield/status/1287089024247758855 Same police department today: https://twitter.com/ByMikeBaker/status/1287212851807940608?s=20 The Oldest Man fucked around with this message at 06:52 on Jul 26, 2020 |
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Jul 26, 2020 06:45
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That tackle is SWEET! Seems the woman that the police were going after may have been the wife of the linebacker dude who comes barreling into the frame. Unfortunately they both pay a price but imagine if people were fighting back en masse like this. https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1287275944047067136
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Jul 26, 2020 22:47
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https://twitter.com/AttorneyCrump/status/1289745932762791936
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Aug 2, 2020 12:37
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If one of the boys in blue suffered this sort of injury, the person who inflicted it would be dead and gone. https://twitter.com/MaidaNemeth9/status/1292296026028756997
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Aug 9, 2020 16:09
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Powerful! 
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Aug 27, 2020 01:41
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My sincere thanks for the informative (and often heartbreaking) thread. Until quite recently I was of the "a few bad apples" mindset but in the past few years, thanks to the hard work of many individuals, the inconvenient truths cannot be hidden any longer.
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Sep 6, 2020 09:59
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El Seven posted:My sincere thanks for the informative (and often heartbreaking) thread. Until quite recently I was of the "a few bad apples" mindset but in the past few years, thanks to the hard work of many individuals, the inconvenient truths cannot be hidden any longer. That's a very important point to take away on this issue. A lot of people are going to tell you "buuuuut my uncle is a cop and he's a good guy and volunteers with the boy scouts" or whatever. The point is that it's an institutional problem, not an individual one. The issue is the entire thing, even if some are good people and some are bad. My cousin's husband supposedly got hit by a thrown item at a protest as an officer and took a minor injury. He seems nice. How many people did he beat the poo poo out of because he was told to? Probably a lot.
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Sep 10, 2020 21:15
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ACAB is about the institution. A lot of people seem to havr a hard time with it because they read it as Every Single Cop Is Hitler. No. I personally know some very decent cops. That isn’t the point. Point is that being professional and not-poo poo isn’t some achievement, it is the goddamn bare minimum, and the institution is still flawed as gently caress and ACAB.
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Sep 11, 2020 02:40
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Vahakyla posted:ACAB is about the institution. A lot of people seem to havr a hard time with it because they read it as Every Single Cop Is Hitler. It's also about the actual individuals. If your job is to brutalize human beings, then you are a bastard. Anyone who isn't a bastard is chased out of the institution because they would be unable to do their job. The institution itself selects and shapes the individual into a bastard. So, to clarify, let's play a game called Find the Decent Cop: https://twitter.com/WBFO/status/1268712530358292484 That's a line of 30 individuals who watched an old man nearly bleed to death out of his ears. In fact, when one tried to stop and help, he was shoved away. They are ALL bastards. Every loving one of them.
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Sep 11, 2020 03:15
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And if you think "well the one I know wouldn't do that" then give it time. Cos I'll bet you they will.
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Sep 11, 2020 03:58
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Vahakyla posted:ACAB is about the institution. A lot of people seem to havr a hard time with it because they read it as Every Single Cop Is Hitler. Same cop who had me shoot hoops with him in the "community policing rec league" is the same guy who slammed me against a wall and frisked me for no reason other than I was wearing a puffy jacket and I fit a description in the early 2000's (news flash every single black youth looked the exact same then). Did I mention he was black too? The institution requires indoctrination and compliance with the ACAB lifestyle and you buy in or you get ousted or you walk a beat your whole life. It's a loving sick culture and I'm not on speaking terms with any of the cops in my family over their willingness to continue to support a system that directly and intentionally terrorizes us.
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Sep 11, 2020 12:50
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El Seven posted:I was of the "a few bad apples" mindset This phrasing always surprises me when it's used as a defense of good police. The idea is that the bad apples spoil the other apples. A few bad apples spoil the bunch. Its an effective metaphor, because we've all purchased fruits and vegetables and seen how quickly rot spreads. If you have a bad apple and you don't purge it quickly, all of your apples are going to be rotten.
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Sep 12, 2020 02:09
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Vahakyla posted:ACAB is about the institution. A lot of people seem to havr a hard time with it because they read it as Every Single Cop Is Hitler. Sorry, but no. Being a cop means being a bastard and I don't mean that in the abstract. Good cops end up quitting, being turned on by their compatriots (as was the whistleblower NYPD cop who was involuntarily committed to a mental institution by his "comrades" to silence him) or dead. Every single cop is a bastard and works every day to silence, fire, or kill the odd good person who finds their way into the job. It's in the job description to destroy good cops as is executing unjust laws and killing black people if they so much as look at you sideways. If the people you know aren't in the process of quitting, contemplating suicide over what pieces of poo poo they are, or being framed by their colleagues then they're not just "complicit with a bad institution" they're working their asses off every loving day to make sure that institution cannot be dismantled or improved. The fact that you don't see them doing this at the Saturday barbecue or whatever is completely irrelevant.
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Sep 12, 2020 03:37
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The Oldest Man posted:Every single cop is a bastard
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Sep 12, 2020 03:42
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The Oldest Man posted:Sorry, but no. Being a cop means being a bastard and I don't mean that in the abstract. Good cops end up quitting, being turned on by their compatriots (as was the whistleblower NYPD cop who was involuntarily committed to a mental institution by his "comrades" to silence him) or dead. Every single cop is a bastard and works every day to silence, fire, or kill the odd good person who finds their way into the job. It's in the job description to destroy good cops as is executing unjust laws and killing black people if they so much as look at you sideways. If the people you know aren't in the process of quitting, contemplating suicide over what pieces of poo poo they are, or being framed by their colleagues then they're not just "complicit with a bad institution" they're working their asses off every loving day to make sure that institution cannot be dismantled or improved. I think that’s the point they’re making. A person with good intentions will be at best marginalized and more likely run out or molded into a bastard. The person’s character outside their job is irrelevant. Also everyone should watch Serpico. Finding out that he still gets hate mail from active cops and union officials was one of the first reasons that pushed me from ever considering returning to law enforcement after my very brief time in that job.
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Sep 12, 2020 12:27
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That’s exactly what I was trying to say. I even ended with ACAB. I think the way some above posters started typing is exactly the reason what I pointed out as to why it is hard to penetrate some people’s skulls on it. You have to make the argument about the institution, because not every cop is a Hitler. People will always have cops they have good or very good interactions with. A close friend of mine simply will not get on the ACAB train because her life was fundamentally saved and changed by couple cops being really awesome when she was a victim of abuse. That doesn’t mean those cops aren’t bastards. There’s still no point in talking to her because she won’t engage it. That’s why some other people return with that, too. Their family member is a cop, or their good friend, or heck, it’s one of the goon cops here on discord or forums. The institution is what makes the ACAB and the person in itself matters less, even if their intentions are better, or their mannerism is good, or if they have issues with their own employment. Like poster above, at best a good cop is a cog in the machine, and while he doesn’t increase the abuse, he can’t do anything to lessen it, and becomes a faceless stormtrooper. Vahakyla fucked around with this message at 14:17 on Sep 12, 2020 |
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Sep 12, 2020 14:15
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Vahakyla posted:You have to make the argument about the institution, because not every cop is a Hitler. You literally don’t get it, all cops are a Hitler. Hitler wasn’t a cartoon villain, he just believed certain things that made him feel justified in his actions. All cops believe they are good but they are bastards.
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Sep 12, 2020 15:23
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Vahakyla posted:That’s exactly what I was trying to say. I even ended with ACAB. I think the way some above posters started typing is exactly the reason what I pointed out as to why it is hard to penetrate some people’s skulls on it. Every cop isn't Hitler directly but when you work for a regime and actively send people to the gas chamber, you aren't absconded from the horrors you've committed. At that point how different are you than him if you carry out his will? I really do not give a poo poo about the messaging because we simply do not need police, at least not the current iteration. Your friend that was a victim of abuse? Could have been helped by trained professionals. Those same cops were good to her during her abuse have undoubtedly done some horrible poo poo (likely to black people); it's just a part of the entire purpose of policing. Reform is too soft of a language when it comes to the real issue behind that we need to get rid of the entire institution and start over. I'm not interested in pearl clutching, it will be an uncomfortable but necessary transition. We have to get away to this romanticized view of cops, their jobs AREN'T dangerous in the scheme of actual dangerous jobs and they aren't some sort of group of heroes like we hold them up to be. They are the armed enforcement portion of the State's will to oppress, point blank, that's it. We gotta stop the cop porn TV shows, we gotta stop throwing parades for them and celebrating them as some sort of above the law other class of citizen. It's a profession, and it's one paid for by tax payers - at the very least they should be beholden to the taxpayer will but instead they do what they want and only report to the State. Yuzenn fucked around with this message at 15:36 on Sep 12, 2020 |
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Sep 12, 2020 15:34
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There are plenty of people in the world who will be perfectly nice to you outside of their job of killing you, a lot of them are politicians, and a lot of them are cops. That professional killers can be nice to people sometimes doesn't make them not professional killers. It just means you are not presently their target.
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Sep 12, 2020 15:37
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