US CE Spring 2022: I'm convinced it's useless which is why I argue about it all day every day

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > US CE Spring 2022: I'm convinced it's useless which is why I argue about it all day every day

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Jarmak: Jan 24, 2005

Gumball Gumption posted:

We really lost the plot on the original discussion about why children are open season in America if we think the shiftless left who can't organize and only love in-fighting, drama, and hot chip are somehow responsible for it. It's real "all my enemies are weak feckless idiots and also control my life" poo poo. Either the left are so useless they can't organize a trip to the grocery store or they're responsible for failing to save kids, you can't have both.

Literally no one has argued this

# ? Jun 13, 2022 15:26

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# ? May 25, 2024 08:59

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

So far, the Democrats' success in allowing the CDC to study gun violence has mostly just been to make even more depressing discoveries.

Preliminary data shows that the huge rise in shootings and murders in 2020 and 2021 is continuing through 2022 and isn't just in cities. Rural murders and shootings are also up almost as much as urban murders and shootings in the past year.

Basically, everything we thought we knew about crime has imploded in the last two years.

- The rural/urban divide has a minimal impact on crime rates.
- Crime went up the same amount regardless of "tough on crime" or "progressive" criminal justice policies.
- Violent crime went up, but property crime went down during tough economic times.
- When the economy and personal incomes rose, property crime didn't go down and violent crime rose even further.
- Most of the increase in shootings and murders are not from domestic incidents.
- More/less police, more/less economic aid, and racial/poverty/geographic demographics all had no significant impact on the rise in murders or shootings.
- How strict their Covid-19 protocols were had no significant impact on violent crime.
- Most of the increase in shootings and murders are not drug related.

The only real common thread was the presence of guns, but the guns primarily escalated the assaults/crimes/disputes into murders and shootings, but didn't necessarily cause them.

https://twitter.com/BradWilcoxIFS/status/1535244050663624706

quote:

Rural America Reels From Violent Crime. �People Lost Their Ever-Lovin� Minds.�

Murder rates didn�t soar only in cities during the pandemic; small-town sheriffs and prosecutors are overwhelmed with homicide cases

Local prosecutor Rebecca McCoy used to think of her home in central Arkansas as a place where the worst crimes were usually stolen tractors and lawn mowers.

In March 2020, she was called to the trailer of a 72-year-old man who had been bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat. It was White County�s first homicide in almost two years. By that December, there were 11 more.

In Marion County, a swampy stretch of South Carolina, Sheriff Brian Wallace and his deputies worked nine killings in 2021, including the execution-style shooting of an 80-year-old retired teacher whose family the sheriff knew personally. It was the highest annual body count he had seen since he joined the small department more than two decades earlier.

For ranchers Bill and Diana Beck, the violence arrived in their mountain community in northwest Montana in April when a friend texted them a picture of blood in the snow. A local bar owner had been shot to death. It was Flathead County�s 12th homicide since the start of 2020, one of the region�s most violent periods in recent memory.

�I was floored that something like that happened a mile down the road,� said Ms. Beck.

Violent crime isn�t just rising in the nation�s cities. Murder rates across the rural U.S. have soared during the pandemic, data show, bringing the kind of extreme violence long associated with major metropolises to America�s smallest communities.

Homicide rates in rural America rose 25% in 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It was the largest rural increase since the agency began tracking such data in 1999. The CDC considers counties rural if they are located outside metropolitan areas defined by the federal government.

The rise came close to the 30% spike in homicide rates in metropolitan areas in 2020.

The CDC hasn�t analyzed 2021 homicide data yet. In some rural counties, murder rates remained high last year, while in others they have begun to recede along with Covid, data from local law-enforcement agencies shows.

County sheriffs are trying to hire more deputies. Small-town prosecutors, unaccustomed to handling numerous homicides cases, find themselves overwhelmed with them.

In cities, law enforcement and civic leaders have blamed the increase in violent crime on factors such as police pulling back after racial-justice protests, the proliferation of guns, initiatives to release more criminal suspects without bail and a pandemic pause in gang-violence prevention programs.

In rural counties, where ties between police and locals are often less fraught, officials say the reasons for the rising violence are hard to pinpoint. They speculate that the breakdown of deeply rooted social connections that bind together many small communities, coupled with the stress of the pandemic, played a role.

Pastors point to the suspension of rituals such as in-person church services, town gatherings and everyday exchanges between neighbors. Such interactions can serve as guardrails, helping to prevent conflicts from turning violent. The psychological and financial stress due to isolation and job loss were especially pronounced in remote areas, where social services were limited even before Covid-19 struck, local leaders say.

As the pandemic took hold in the spring of 2020, fights between family members, acquaintances and even strangers escalated more frequently into deadly confrontations, authorities in some rural counties said.

�You saw the shutdown, crime started increasing, people were on edge, mental-health problems increased, more alcohol was sold,� said Brian Heino, sheriff of Flathead County in Montana.

An American Farm Bureau Federation poll taken in December 2020 found that two-thirds of adults in rural America between the ages of 18 and 44 said they experienced more mental-health challenges than in the prior year. According to a CDC survey conducted in June 2020, 12% of responding adults in rural areas reported starting or increasing their use of drugs or alcohol to cope with pandemic-related stress.

The homicides have been challenging for law enforcement to address. Small numbers of deputies must patrol expansive geographic areas, and the killings were often not connected to each other, making it more difficult to target particular criminal groups or devise effective prevention strategies.

�It�s not like you got gang members dealing drugs, and you can get boots on the ground, and undercover buys and prosecutions,� Marion County�s Sheriff Wallace said. �These are really tough to stop.�

Veteran law-enforcement officials said they had never before witnessed the level of violence of the past two years.

�It was like people lost their ever-lovin� minds,� said Ms. McCoy, the prosecuting attorney in White County, a dry county in central Arkansas with poultry farms and a Christian university.

In Marion County, S.C., which has about 28,700 residents and more than 100 churches, pews used to be packed every Sunday. After services, people would pour into restaurants to eat seafood and Southern cooking.

When Covid struck, some churches stopped in-person services, and restaurants shut down. Walmart started closing early. People no longer stopped to socialize in the grocery store.

Authorities in rural counties said that as the pandemic wore on, troubled individuals became even more isolated, and in some cases, tipped over the edge.

�There are parts of our county that don�t even have internet service,� said Tammy Erwin, a victims� advocate for the Marion County Sheriff�s Office. �So it�s not like everyone could just jump on Zoom.�

Just before midnight on Oct. 28, 2020, one of Sheriff Wallace�s deputies came upon an SUV with its windows fogged outside the Park & Blow Handi Mart. He could make out a man inside sweating heavily and sitting on something. When he looked closer, he saw the body of a woman, eyes bulging. She had been stabbed multiple times with an ice pick.

Johnny Michael Dillard, 57, was charged with killing Kemethia Spain, 51, whom he had known for a few years. Several people came forward to say Mr. Dillard had talked openly about wanting to know what it was like to kill someone. He was found not competent to stand trial and has been committed to a facility for the mentally ill.

Ms. Spain�s homicide was one of 15 that Marion County deputies responded to over the past two years, equal to the previous 10 years combined. �I�ve never seen these numbers before, nothing even really close to that,� said Sheriff Wallace.

As lockdowns took hold, the sequestering of family members inflamed household tensions. In Montana, domestic-violence incidents reached a record high in 2020, then jumped even higher in 2021, according to state crime data.

In June 2020, Josh Buls, a detective in the sheriff�s office in Flathead County, arrived at a home in Olney to find the bodies of a woman, her 3-year-old daughter and a male friend. All had been stabbed to death. The perpetrator, the woman�s estranged husband, had shot himself in the head before deputies arrived.

The killings shocked not only the 146 residents of the mountain town, but many in the sheriff�s office, which patrols more than 5,000 square miles of rugged territory bordering Canada. One deputy who responded to the 911 call that day decided to leave the profession, said Mr. Buls.

The six homicides in 2020 in this county of 108,000 were a record, as were the 51 statewide, according to state crime analysts.

Flathead County�s Sheriff Heino said rising methamphetamine use and mental-health problems during the pandemic contributed to more erratic behavior and more violent interactions between officers and suspects. Law enforcement in the county was involved in six shootings since May 2020, including four fatal ones. Before then, the last time a Flathead County deputy had killed anyone was 2007.

When the owner of Snow Slip Motel Bar & Cafe near Essex, Mont., was shot dead in April, news spread quickly among those living near the peaks and forests of Glacier National Park. Jim Noffsinger, a 57-year-old construction superintendent and rancher, locked his front doors for the first time.

�I�ve been accused of many things in my life, but being scared was never one of them,� he said. �Such a place of serenity has taken on a dark shadow.�

For Ms. McCoy, the prosecutor from White County, Ark., the unprecedented string of homicides in 2020 began the same month that Covid hit. Over a nightmarish 10 weeks starting that March 4, six people were murdered in the small towns that dot the county of 77,000, about 60 miles northeast of Little Rock.

Ms. McCoy searched for any common thread. Three of the victims were men in their 70s who lived alone, including one who was shot in the face when he opened his front door.

�At first we�re thinking, wow, if you�re an older man living by yourself, you might want to move out of county, because apparently it�s not safe in White County for you,� said Ms. McCoy.

To keep the cases straight, Ms. McCoy took out a white board she hadn�t used in years. As the killings continued, her �murder board� filled up, and she finally had to rewrite the names of victims and suspects and hearing dates in smaller letters to fit. It was the deadliest stretch of her 23-year career.

She said she felt helpless. �I don�t know what to say, besides y�all stop killing each other,� said Ms. McCoy.

With homicide cases mounting, Ms. McCoy told her staff of prosecutors who had little experience with murder cases to focus on their families when the workday ended. For the first time in her career, she said, she had trouble clearing her mind of gruesome crime-scene images when she returned home to her own family each night.

During an interview in her office in Searcy, Ark., as a rescue cat named Catticus maneuvered between murder case files stacked on the floor, Ms. McCoy shed tears recalling the day in June 2020 when she and county detectives arrived at a house in the town of Bald Knob to find the body of a 5-year-old girl whose throat had been slit by her father. They found the father overdosed in his car in a nearby state park a few hours later. Attempts to revive him failed.

Prosecutors in rural areas have struggled to identify motives behind many of the murders. Ms. McCoy concluded that the stress of the pandemic had contributed to disagreements escalating into violence.

That spring, 77-year-old Julius Williams Jr. was killed in what appears to have been a dispute about his lawn. Mr. Williams had lived much of his life in Kensett, a town of about 1,500 with weathered houses, weedy yards and a single main intersection.

Jason Baxter, a 26-year-old resident of a nearby trailer park, asked Mr. Williams if he could mow the older man�s yard, according to court records. Mr. Williams declined.

Days later, police found him lying inside his front door in a pool of blood. Mr. Baxter admitted to police that he had shot Mr. Williams, who was Black, �right in the eye,� according to a transcript of his police interview.

Investigators found rambling notes written by Mr. Baxter, who is white, about protecting white children.

Lee Short, a lawyer appointed by the state to represent three White County murder suspects, including Mr. Baxter, said Mr. Baxter had mental-health issues.

Mr. Williams�s daughter Thunder Nkere said she couldn�t believe he was killed in the tiny town where she grew up. �It�s one of those little country bumpkin places where everyone knows each other,� she said.

Last year, the number of homicides in White County declined to four. Ms. McCoy said she hoped the easing of the pandemic would help continue the decrease in numbers.

Killings in the county haven�t yet fallen to prepandemic levels, and the sheriff�s office has strained to keep up, even after more than doubling the number of detectives. It recently converted a donated ambulance into a crime-scene vehicle. It also bought new equipment, including a machine that can extract cellphone data in hours, compared with waiting months for a state lab to process such data.

In April, Mr. Baxter pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to 40 years in prison. Ms. McCoy wiped away one line on her murder board.

# ? Jun 13, 2022 15:54

AvesPKS: Sep 26, 2004; I don't dance unless I'm totally wasted.

quote:

deputies came upon an SUV with its windows fogged outside the Park & Blow Handi Mart.

# ? Jun 13, 2022 16:05

FLIPADELPHIA: Apr 27, 2007; Heavy Shit; Grimey Drawer

It's a pretty common refrain to hear about how crime in the US has increased significantly in the last few years. I'm wondering, is that trend (or anything comparable) found anywhere outside the US? If not, and the problem can't be neatly attributed to material issues (as the data posted by LT seems to suggest) then a dependent variable might be extremely difficult to find.

# ? Jun 13, 2022 16:51

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

FLIPADELPHIA posted:

It's a pretty common refrain to hear about how crime in the US has increased significantly in the last few years. I'm wondering, is that trend (or anything comparable) found anywhere outside the US? If not, and the problem can't be neatly attributed to material issues (as the data posted by LT seems to suggest) then a dependent variable might be extremely difficult to find.

According to a casual googling of Western European/Australian/New Zealand government sites, violent crime is also up significantly across those countries, but not close to levels in the U.S.

Australia had a 16% jump in their homicide rate in a year. The U.K. had a small increase in homicides, but about a 19% increase in overall violent crime. Most of the other western European countries had an increase in violent crime between 14% and 27%.

Canada had a 15-year high in murders, but according to Reuters, that is mostly because they had 3 mass shootings in 2020 and 2021.

So, it seems like violent crime has gone up a good bit throughout the OECD countries, but violent crime - murders and shootings in particular - are especially blowing up in the U.S.

Australia with a 16% increase in homicides seems to be the closest to the U.S., but they are still at about half the increase in homicides in the U.S. Violent crime overall (assaults, etc.) is actually higher in a few places outside of the U.S. But, the U.S. is blowing them away in murders.

# ? Jun 13, 2022 17:02

Gerund: Sep 12, 2007; He push a man

FLIPADELPHIA posted:

It's a pretty common refrain to hear about how crime in the US has increased significantly in the last few years. I'm wondering, is that trend (or anything comparable) found anywhere outside the US? If not, and the problem can't be neatly attributed to material issues (as the data posted by LT seems to suggest) then a dependent variable might be extremely difficult to find.

Canada saw a similar violent crime decrease in the 90s as the US and is relatively stable save for a few mass shootings.

# ? Jun 13, 2022 17:04

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

So far, the only thing that has stayed consistent/in line with what everyone thought they knew about crime is that the homicides are staying in the ~75% male/~25% female gender split.

Urban/rural, policing policies, criminal justice policies, gun control laws (although, local gun control laws hardly matter given how easy it is to get guns in the next town or state over), race, geography, change in personal income, length or severity of covid restrictions, and drug use all had small or no correlations with the increase in murders and shootings.

So, there isn't really any clear answer why. The obvious theory that people are working with is that the pandemic made everyone crazy for various reasons. But, there isn't really a direct causal thing you can point to and no evidence or data to prove that.

Basically, everything we thought we knew about crime doesn't seem to apply now (or from 2009 to 2017 when property crime and violent crime both kept going down during the second largest economic downturn in U.S. history even after following the historic drop in the 90's and early 2000's).

Leon Trotsky 2012 fucked around with this message at 17:24 on Jun 13, 2022

# ? Jun 13, 2022 17:21

Main Paineframe: Oct 27, 2010

Bellmaker posted:

Ferguson was barely a decade ago, it's never stopped.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/ct-ferguson-activist-deaths-black-lives-matter-20190317-story.html

Leftist organizations are also terminally online I agree, but both things can be happening.

Civil rights activists mysteriously turning up dead a few years after a protest movement is certainly bad, but I'm comparing it to a time period when Birmingham was derisively known as "Bombingham" due to how common it was for anti-segregationists' homes and organizations to be destroyed in bomb attacks. I'm talking about a time period when the local sheriff would organize armed vigilante mobs to storm buses in broad daylight to beat up the Freedom Riders. I'm talking about a time period when activists had to arrange their own transport to hospitals because ambulances would refuse to take them, a time period when they had to keep track of which hospitals were likely to refuse medical attention to them. KKK gangs would follow civil rights organizers and shoot at their cars, and then the FBI would smear the victims to cover up the fact that their own undercover informants were riding along with the KKK. Local cops would arrest activists and turn them over to lynch mobs. The FBI wiretapped MLK for years, and tried to blackmail him into committing suicide. Activists would be arrested on false charges, blamed for assaults and murders that authorities knew they couldn't possibly have committed, and in some cases sentenced to decades in prison. And all of that was in addition to the kind of stuff that still happens today, like riot police violently suppressing protests with tear gas and violence, police officers murdering people out of the public eye and claiming it was self-defense, and so on.

# ? Jun 13, 2022 17:30

HonorableTB: Dec 22, 2006

Violent crime has gone up a lot in Seattle, along with property crime (which was already high). What is to be done when the police literally refuse to do their jobs?

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattl...nal-memo-shows/

Seattle police stopped investigating new adult sexual assaults this year posted:

Seattle polices sexual assault and child abuse unit staff has been so depleted that it stopped assigning to detectives this year new cases with adult victims, according to an internal memo sent to interim police Chief Adrian Diaz in April.

The units sergeant put her staffing crisis in stark terms.

The community expects our agency to respond to reports of sexual violence, Sgt. Pamela St. John wrote, and at current staffing levels that objective is unattainable.

Law enforcement agencies here and across the country have grappled with labor shortages during the pandemic and since the 2020 protests following the murder of George Floyd. But Seattles failure to staff its sexual assault unit stands out from other local police departments and raises questions about the Seattle Police Departments priorities, advocates say.

The memo, sent April 11, emerged amid a wave of new political promises for policing in Seattle. Last fall, Seattle voters elected a new mayor who rejected calls to defund the police and campaigned on a platform to clear public spaces of homeless encampments and strengthen public safety.

Behind the scenes, police leaders confronting an ongoing staffing crisis shored up patrol and positions that respond to homeless encampments, while some investigative units shrunk.

Now the departments lack of attention to its sexual assault unit is threatening the viability of cases, as delayed investigations and evidence collection possibly hinder their outcomes.

In the memo, St. John went on to say that she was not able to assign adult sexual assault cases that came into her unit. Cases involving children and adult cases that had a suspect in custody a fraction of adult sexual assaults reported to police were being prioritized. The unit just had too few detectives.

Those concerns bear out in fewer referrals from the sexual assault unit to prosecutors. King County prosecutors say theyve communicated with the sexual assault unit about understaffing concerns, but little has changed.

Assistant Chief Deanna Nollette in an interview with The Seattle Times and KUOW this week dismissed St. Johns portrayal of what was happening in her unit as not accurate and a gross oversimplification.

Sexual assault cases are still being assigned, but the workload is being triaged based on a number of factors that we would traditionally use to triage those cases, Nollette said.

Nollette emphasized that staffing shortages were being felt across the department. She did not provide an up-to-date count of how many adult sexual assault cases were on hold, although detectives in the unit are keeping a list with dozens of cases.

Other political leaders expressed skepticism at the idea that departmentwide understaffing was to blame for the sexual assault units predicament.

Sen. Manka Dhingra, D-Redmond, a senior deputy King County prosecutor who has led efforts in the Legislature to improve treatment of sexual assault victims, said the sexual assault units problems were about priorities, not adequate staffing.

I cannot really tell you how pissed I am about this, Dhingra said. Because it is completely unacceptable. This is 2022. We should not be having this conversation about allocating resources for survivors.

The staffing crisis at the Seattle Police Department is not new.

The department has been losing officers since the beginning of 2020, and staff levels plummeted to a new low at the end of 2021. Whereas 2020 began with 1,290 officers in service, by March 2022 those numbers dropped to 968 well below the departments own projections and what the city expected to spend on salaries.

Nollette defended the sexual assault units low staff numbers, saying units across the department felt the impact of the losses. The sexual assault unit wasnt even the most affected, she said.

I could bring anybody in here from anywhere in the department and they would tell you the same story, Nollette said.

Seattle police staffing numbers presented to the Seattle City Council on April 26 show that the reductions in the workforce have not been felt evenly across the department.

According to council central staff, the percent of the force in operations support which includes training and personnel on extended leave and the patrol division has increased while investigative units have thinned. Diaz explained that maintaining patrol numbers wasnt just important for trying to control 911 response times, but also for taking in reports of rape and sexual assault.

If we dont have an officer to respond to sexual assault, were never going to have the followup to be able to investigate it, Diaz told the council. So Ive tried to make sure weve maintained our patrol staffing levels.

At the top of the departments priorities for investigating adult sexual assault cases are those with suspects in custody, according to an internal response to St. Johns memo a small portion of the cases the unit typically sees.

Now, the unit maintains a list of new adult sexual assault cases its simply unable to investigate for lack of detectives, according to internal communications at the department obtained by KUOW.

Currently, the sexual assault unit has five detectives to respond to sexual assault and child abuse reports for the entire city, which has had 225 sex offenses reported so far this year, according to the departments crime data. Yet other units that dont investigate violent crime have more staff.

The departments Alternative Response Team the unit that responds to homeless encampment removals is now staffed by twice the number of officers on the sexual assault unit after an additional seven patrol officers were added to the unit this year. The departments general investigations unit, which investigates property crime, has 12 detectives. Far more property crimes are reported to Seattle police each year than sexual assault, but they are simpler to investigate.

When you have businesses that are the single biggest loss leaders in the country telling you, We are going to close our businesses and leave the city of Seattle if we dont do something about the crime, we have a responsibility as a department to try to do what we can do to support them with policing, Nollette said.

The department has allowed investigative units, including the sexual assault unit, to fall from 16% of the total sworn force in 2020 to 14% currently, while the proportion of police in areas including patrol, leadership and operations support has increased.

The understaffing in the sexual assault unit has drained the morale of its employees, most of whom are overworked and burned out, according to a detective in the unit who requested anonymity because SPD policy prohibited them from speaking with the media. While detectives struggle to make a dent in large child abuse and sexual assault caseloads, the department has also drafted them to work security and traffic control at sporting events.

Sgt. St. John wrote the memo after a KUOW story in April that showed Seattle police were investigating few adult sexual assault cases while struggling to meet the demand required by law to quickly resolve cases involving children. St. John declined to comment for this story.

At the time St. John wrote the memo, 30 adult cases were waiting to be assigned to detectives, and 116 alerts showing that identifiable DNA from rape kits had been uploaded to a federal database and needed attention, St. John wrote to Diaz.

The sexual assault unit had historically been staffed with 10 to 12 detectives, St. John wrote, but that the unit could start chipping away at the backlog of adult sexual assault cases with eight.

Mayor Bruce Harrell declined to be interviewed for this story, though mayoral spokesperson Jamie Housen said that a detective had been added to the sexual assault unit this year.

Mayor Harrell has been unequivocal that SPD needs more officers to ensure specialty units are well staffed so that investigations are completed swiftly and thoroughly, Housen said by email.

Since St. Johns April 11 memo, detectives have started to receive assignments for new cases with adult victims, but the number of cases that are waiting to be investigated has grown. Even with an added detective, adult assignments are still falling by the wayside, according to the detective inside the sexual assault and child abuse unit.

There are now 48 adult assault cases that arent being investigated, according to the detective.

Since 2020, King County prosecutors have seen fewer sexual assault cases referred to their office from Seattle police. Between January and April of 2020, Seattle police referred 123 sexual assault and child abuse cases to prosecutors. In the same time period this year, prosecutors have received just 72 cases from Seattle police.

Ben Santos, chair of the King County Prosecuting Attorneys Special Assault Unit, said hes discussed the problem with St. John. He said on more than one occasion shes described dozens of cases sitting on her desk, unable to be assigned because of a lack of detectives.

[Seattle police leaders] are having to make really difficult choices right now, given that homicide and violent crime rates are up, Santos said. We have done our best to try and let people know what that means on the sexual assault side it means that these cases are not being investigated the way they should be.

He said if detectives are getting assigned a case later than they normally would, it makes it challenging to collect evidence thats temporary in nature, including surveillance video, third-party witnesses, and physical evidence.

I really think that to a degree the investigations themselves suffer, he said.

As do the victims. Santos said hes received reports that victims who go to Harborview Medical Center for treatment after being sexually assaulted can end up waiting hours to file a report with a Seattle officer.

Increasingly, victims of sexual assault who report their cases to Seattle police arent hearing anything back, said Mary Ellen Stone, CEO of the King County Sexual Assault Resource Center.

Seattles slowdown in investigating adult rape cases doesnt match what Stone has seen from other local law enforcement agencies.

We work with 38 jurisdictions, and while everybodys dealing with backlogs and everybodys dealing with staffing shortages, were not seeing something similar from other jurisdictions, Stone said.

Seattle City Council public safety committee chair Lisa Herbold said in an email she had been communicating with advocates who have raised the alarm about victims whose cases are not being investigated, though she was unaware of any policy within Seattle police to stop assigning adult rape cases to detectives.

The police department has planned to add yet another detective to the sexual assault unit this month to deal with caseload and staffing concerns, according to Nollette. But the long-term solution to understaffing in the sexual assault unit was to increase hiring across the department, Nollette said.

To that end, Harrell announced an initiative to increase police hires last month, while last week the council approved a proposal from Herbold to free up more than $1 million in unspent salary savings to fund new police hiring incentives and recruitment.

Advocates have stressed, however, that theyd like to see more transparency in how SPD allocates the resources it already has.

On Tuesday, a man reported to police that he had been raped at knifepoint.

His report was added to the list of stalled cases.

# ? Jun 13, 2022 17:37

Heck Yes! Loam!: Nov 15, 2004; a rich, friable soil containing a relatively equal mixture of sand and silt and a somewhat smaller proportion of clay.

HonorableTB posted:

Violent crime has gone up a lot in Seattle, along with property crime (which was already high). What is to be done when the police literally refuse to do their jobs?

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattl...nal-memo-shows/

take away their money and give it to people and departments that actually help people :ssh:

# ? Jun 13, 2022 17:38

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

Heck Yes! Loam! posted:

take away their money and give it to people and departments that actually help people

According to the CDC data, policing policies and funding have almost no correlation with shootings/homicides. They might for other crimes, but cities with the most police and the toughest on crime policies had almost the exact same rise in murders as cities with the fewest police or the most reformist policing policies.

The downside seems to be that reformist/progressive policing policies and defunding the police don't do much to lower violent crime either, but (according to the CDC data at least) you can probably remove a large chunk of the police budget with a very minimal change in violent crime.

# ? Jun 13, 2022 17:41

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

The January 6th testimony today revealed that Trump and his lawyers were diverting money promised to go to legal funds to challenge election results into his personal accounts, his hotel, and PAC. Approximately $7.2 million in total is confirmed to have been illegally embezzled and up to $233.5 million is unaccounted for.

His campaign lawyer had admitted it and is now testifying.

lol that someone in the Trump inner circle finally flipped and provided evidence of criminal wrongdoing and conspiracy related to January 6th, but it was wire fraud, bank fraud, campaign finance violations, and embezzlement.

# ? Jun 13, 2022 17:52

Heck Yes! Loam!: Nov 15, 2004; a rich, friable soil containing a relatively equal mixture of sand and silt and a somewhat smaller proportion of clay.

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

The January 6th testimony today revealed that Trump and his lawyers were diverting money promised to go to legal funds to challenge election results into his personal accounts, his hotel, and PAC. Approximately $7.2 million in total.

His campaign lawyer had admitted it and is now testifying.

lol that someone in the Trump inner circle finally flipped and provided evidence of criminal wrongdoing and conspiracy related to January 6th, but it was wire fraud, bank fraud, campaign finance violations, and embezzlement.

Lol if they get him on taxes and fundraising

# ? Jun 13, 2022 17:54

Gumball Gumption: Jan 7, 2012

Main Paineframe posted:

Civil rights activists mysteriously turning up dead a few years after a protest movement is certainly bad, but I'm comparing it to a time period when Birmingham was derisively known as "Bombingham" due to how common it was for anti-segregationists' homes and organizations to be destroyed in bomb attacks. I'm talking about a time period when the local sheriff would organize armed vigilante mobs to storm buses in broad daylight to beat up the Freedom Riders. I'm talking about a time period when activists had to arrange their own transport to hospitals because ambulances would refuse to take them, a time period when they had to keep track of which hospitals were likely to refuse medical attention to them. KKK gangs would follow civil rights organizers and shoot at their cars, and then the FBI would smear the victims to cover up the fact that their own undercover informants were riding along with the KKK. Local cops would arrest activists and turn them over to lynch mobs. The FBI wiretapped MLK for years, and tried to blackmail him into committing suicide. Activists would be arrested on false charges, blamed for assaults and murders that authorities knew they couldn't possibly have committed, and in some cases sentenced to decades in prison. And all of that was in addition to the kind of stuff that still happens today, like riot police violently suppressing protests with tear gas and violence, police officers murdering people out of the public eye and claiming it was self-defense, and so on.

Just shrugging and going "yeah but you're failing because you're not trying hard enough" in the face of murders of people for the crime of thinking black lives matter is some unhinged psycho poo poo dude.

# ? Jun 13, 2022 17:57

HonorableTB: Dec 22, 2006

Heck Yes! Loam! posted:

take away their money and give it to people and departments that actually help people

We did. We defunded them by a poo poo ton in 2020 and guess what happened

the libs voted to give it all right back to them in the most recent elections by electing a pro-cop mayor who is determined to hire 30% more cops, say hello to mayor bruce harrell

https://mynorthwest.com/3407618/mayor-harrell-seattle-comprehensive-plan-police-officers-hiring/

Mayor Bootlicker posted:

As the Seattle Police Department has continued to struggle with low staffing and high turnover amid growing concerns over public safety, Mayor Bruce Harrell believes that bringing more officers into the fold will require a multi-faceted approach in the months ahead.

Mayor Harrell unveils plan to ramp up police presence downtown amid surge in violence

Currently, SPD has over 900 sworn officers on duty, well short of its goal of having between 1,400 and 1,600. And while offering hiring bonuses was a sizable focus of the previous mayoral administration, Harrell believes those types of financial incentives are a small piece of a larger puzzle.

�The notion of incentive bonuses has come up � I�m not fully convinced that is the enticer,� he told KIRO Newsradio�s Gee Scott and Ursula Reutin. �We�re talking to the officers themselves and talking to public safety advocates. What is it that motivates you? Is it being on a great team, being appreciated, being respected, having the opportunity to build trust in schools with children?�

�What we�re looking at is a comprehensive package that we�ll develop before the budget,� he added. �We want to know that.�

And as Harrell pointed out, based on his own conversations with officers, �sometimes it�s not the money, it�s the other intangibles.�

So, what will entice officers to come to Seattle from other departments? Harrell says the city itself should be a significant selling point.

�This is still a phenomenal city,� he noted. �You want an industry, whether it�s high-tech, or biotech, or maritime, or port, or manufacturing, we have it here; freshwater, saltwater, mountains. We compete because we are the best city in this country and that�s not me being an evangelist, that�s just data.�

As for the officers who either left the department or were terminated as part of the COVID vaccine mandate for city employees, Harrell expressed that hiring them back is not currently under consideration.

�On the vaccine issue, I believe that we mandated it for a reason,� he explained. �I understand why someone may not want it and I support our first responders, make no mistake about this, but I think the data and the science would suggest that the vaccine is the way to go, and so I expect to lead by example.�

�I�m going to make this clear too, I don�t beg police officers to come back � I�m not in the begging business,� Harrell added. �We�re giving you an opportunity to protect and serve, if that�s what you want to do, in one of the greatest cities.�

That said, the mayor acknowledged concerns among many departing officers who have cited low morale and a lack of support from city hall as a reason for leaving the department, while stressing that improving morale is a two-way street.

�There�s one thing you have control of � you know what that is? Your own attitude, your own morale,� Harrell said. �When organizations say, �Well, we�ve got a morale problem,� that�s something you have control over every single day you get out the bed. You have the ability to control your own attitude.�

�So I�m not begging officers to come back,� he clarified. �I�m inspiring them to come back.�

Seattle is not as progressive as many believe, it's every bit as liberal and NIMBY as San Francisco, quite possibly more so.

HonorableTB fucked around with this message at 18:02 on Jun 13, 2022

# ? Jun 13, 2022 17:59

Gerund: Sep 12, 2007; He push a man

Main Paineframe posted:

Civil rights activists mysteriously turning up dead a few years after a protest movement is certainly bad, but I'm comparing it to a time period when Birmingham was derisively known as "Bombingham" due to how common it was for anti-segregationists' homes and organizations to be destroyed in bomb attacks. I'm talking about a time period when the local sheriff would organize armed vigilante mobs to storm buses in broad daylight to beat up the Freedom Riders. I'm talking about a time period when activists had to arrange their own transport to hospitals because ambulances would refuse to take them, a time period when they had to keep track of which hospitals were likely to refuse medical attention to them. KKK gangs would follow civil rights organizers and shoot at their cars, and then the FBI would smear the victims to cover up the fact that their own undercover informants were riding along with the KKK. Local cops would arrest activists and turn them over to lynch mobs. The FBI wiretapped MLK for years, and tried to blackmail him into committing suicide. Activists would be arrested on false charges, blamed for assaults and murders that authorities knew they couldn't possibly have committed, and in some cases sentenced to decades in prison. And all of that was in addition to the kind of stuff that still happens today, like riot police violently suppressing protests with tear gas and violence, police officers murdering people out of the public eye and claiming it was self-defense, and so on.

It is convenient to compare the modern suppression of political organization to the suppression of past progressive social-political leaders when you are allowed to use revelations and confessions that occurred decades after the fact.

Churchs are firebombed and shot up today, violent gangs of young men kill and maim in the name of fash ideology today, bullshit charges are brought on activists today, medical services for activists are entrusted only to those same activist groups today.

In full, it is simpler to note that the suppression of now and the suppression of then are likely similar and for similar reasons.

# ? Jun 13, 2022 18:01

FLIPADELPHIA: Apr 27, 2007; Heavy Shit; Grimey Drawer

Mitch is PRAYING he gets indicted. It would be the ideal outcome for him and his faction within the GOP.

# ? Jun 13, 2022 18:01

FlamingLiberal: Jan 18, 2009; Would you like to play a game?

FLIPADELPHIA posted:

Mitch is PRAYING he gets indicted. It would be the ideal outcome for him and his faction within the GOP.

After Trump got all of those judges he wanted confirmed?

# ? Jun 13, 2022 18:03

Gumball Gumption: Jan 7, 2012

Gerund posted:

It is convenient to compare the modern suppression of political organization to the suppression of past progressive social-political leaders when you are allowed to use revelations and confessions that occurred decades after the fact.

Churchs are firebombed and shot up today, violent gangs of young men kill and maim in the name of fash ideology today, bullshit charges are brought on activists today, medical services for activists are entrusted only to those same activist groups today.

In full, it is simpler to note that the suppression of now and the suppression of then are likely similar and for similar reasons.

I can just hear "The government isn't interfering with MLK the way they used to mess with unionizing miners. They used to bring in the Pinkerton's and drop bombs on those guys." echoing through history.

# ? Jun 13, 2022 18:03

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

The absolutely wildest thing is that they apparently raised almost a quarter of a billion dollars from several million donors for the election legal fund.

That is bonkers that so many people could shovel so much money into it. I honestly feel bad for the few million people who were throwing several thousand dollars at the election fund all the way through the end of 2021.

# ? Jun 13, 2022 18:04

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Heck Yes! Loam! posted:

Lol if they get him on taxes and fundraising

Well, it's how they got Capone.

# ? Jun 13, 2022 18:20

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

Technically, this doesn't have to do with taxes.

It is fraud and embezzlement. Seems unlikely that any potentially taxable income was reported, but we don't actually know if there were any tax violations.

The information and documentation they have shows that about $17 million of the almost $250 million they raised went directly to the legal fund. At least $7.2 million went directly to Trump's PAC, as revenue for his hotel, and to "The America First Policy Institute" that he set up.

They said that "most" of the money was fraudulently raised and did not go to the election legal fund. But, they only showed 5 examples and didn't put out the specific information on where the other ~$200 million went except "not the election legal fund."

# ? Jun 13, 2022 18:26

Heck Yes! Loam!: Nov 15, 2004; a rich, friable soil containing a relatively equal mixture of sand and silt and a somewhat smaller proportion of clay.

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

Technically, this doesn't have to do with taxes.

It is fraud and embezzlement. Seems unlikely that any potentially taxable income was reported, but we don't actually know if there were any tax violations.

The information and documentation they have shows that about $17 million of the almost $250 million they raised went directly to the legal fund. At least $7.2 million went directly to Trump's PAC, as revenue for his hotel, and to "The America First Policy Institute" that he set up.

They said that "most" of the money was fraudulently raised and did not go to the election legal fund. But, they only showed 5 examples and didn't put out the specific information on where the other ~$200 million went except "not the election legal fund."

He didn't pay taxes on that fraudulent income :colbert:

Sodomy Hussein posted:

Well, it's how they got Capone.

# ? Jun 13, 2022 18:30

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

Trump's campaign lawyer is now saying that ~$17 million went to "election related spending," but not to the election legal defense fund because... the election legal defense fund never actually existed.

https://twitter.com/ZcohenCNN/status/1536397555474567168

# ? Jun 13, 2022 18:30

Lemming: Apr 21, 2008

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

According to the CDC data, policing policies and funding have almost no correlation with shootings/homicides. They might for other crimes, but cities with the most police and the toughest on crime policies had almost the exact same rise in murders as cities with the fewest police or the most reformist policing policies.

The downside seems to be that reformist/progressive policing policies and defunding the police don't do much to lower violent crime either, but (according to the CDC data at least) you can probably remove a large chunk of the police budget with a very minimal change in violent crime.

Interestingly there was a lot of crowing during the "defund the police" discussions about how that was untenable, but that position is definitely looking stronger in the case of evidence that various configurations of policing are all equally bad at addressing any of the issues. It seems like this would be a pretty powerful data point to justify, if not that specific rhetoric, that approach of spending money and resources in a saner way

# ? Jun 13, 2022 18:35

FizFashizzle: Mar 30, 2005

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

Trump's campaign lawyer is now saying that ~$17 million went to "election related spending," but not to the election legal defense fund because... the election legal defense fund never actually existed.

https://twitter.com/ZcohenCNN/status/1536397555474567168

Does he have the books to prove it?

# ? Jun 13, 2022 18:36

CommieGIR: Aug 22, 2006; The blue glow is a feature, not a bug; Pillbug

FizFashizzle posted:

Does he have the books to prove it?

This was from the testimony this morning, but its also not unusual because this is how Trump has always done business even prior to the presidency: Grift and funnel founds out of projects into his pockets and the pockets of those close to him.

# ? Jun 13, 2022 18:38

some plague rats: Jun 5, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

The January 6th testimony today revealed that Trump and his lawyers were diverting money promised to go to legal funds to challenge election results into his personal accounts, his hotel, and PAC. Approximately $7.2 million in total is confirmed to have been illegally embezzled and up to $233.5 million is unaccounted for.

His campaign lawyer had admitted it and is now testifying.

lol that someone in the Trump inner circle finally flipped and provided evidence of criminal wrongdoing and conspiracy related to January 6th, but it was wire fraud, bank fraud, campaign finance violations, and embezzlement.

The fact that all this is going on and Trump can't tweet about it is an unbelievable injustice

# ? Jun 13, 2022 18:46

Kanos: Sep 6, 2006; was there a time when speedwagon didn't get trolled

FlamingLiberal posted:

After Trump got all of those judges he wanted confirmed?

McConnell can get judges confirmed by a President DeSantis or whatever other ghoul steps up to claim the Trumpian throne just as well as he could with Trump, and any of the potential Trump successors would likely be on better personal terms with McConnell.

# ? Jun 13, 2022 18:59

Jaxyon: Mar 7, 2016; I’m just saying I would like to see a man beat a woman in a cage. Just to be sure.

McConnell wants someone he can predict and influence 100% of the time, not an egomaniac who sometimes goes off in a weird direction that hurts other party projects.

# ? Jun 13, 2022 19:08

Bar Ran Dun: Jan 22, 2006

Timeless Appeal posted:

Honestly, I think the broader issue with Leftist movements is that the US has really eradicated the ability for authentic coalition building.

There is a clear blueprint for organizing leftist movements in the US from the civil rights movement, religion.

There is no desire by the left to use that and the ability to organize in that realm has been pretty much ceded entirely to the right.

Like it or not large portions of Americans probably aren�t going to be Marxist and atheists. But they might have the potential to be Christian Socialists. But nobody speaks to them in those terms with that language.

# ? Jun 13, 2022 19:23

Jaxyon: Mar 7, 2016; I’m just saying I would like to see a man beat a woman in a cage. Just to be sure.

Bar Ran Dun posted:

There is a clear blueprint for organizing leftist movements in the US from the civil rights movement, religion.

There is no desire by the left to use that and the ability to organize in that realm has been pretty much ceded entirely to the right.

Like it or not large portions of Americans probably aren�t going to be Marxist and atheists. But they might have the potential to be Christian Socialists. But nobody speaks to them in those terms with that language.

I don't know where you get this idea of a monolithic atheist left.

There's a lot of religious people and groups involved in leftist organizing and it sounds like you've only been exposed to online white leftists.

# ? Jun 13, 2022 19:25

Catgirl Al Capone: Dec 15, 2007

Bar Ran Dun posted:

There is a clear blueprint for organizing leftist movements in the US from the civil rights movement, religion.

There is no desire by the left to use that and the ability to organize in that realm has been pretty much ceded entirely to the right.

Like it or not large portions of Americans probably aren�t going to be Marxist and atheists. But they might have the potential to be Christian Socialists. But nobody speaks to them in those terms with that language.

hasn't Cornel West been doing that for a while

# ? Jun 13, 2022 19:26

Gumball Gumption: Jan 7, 2012

Bar Ran Dun posted:

There is a clear blueprint for organizing leftist movements in the US from the civil rights movement, religion.

There is no desire by the left to use that and the ability to organize in that realm has been pretty much ceded entirely to the right.

Like it or not large portions of Americans probably aren’t going to be Marxist and atheists. But they might have the potential to be Christian Socialists. But nobody speaks to them in those terms with that language.

There are lots of left wing religious charity groups in the US. Neither political party wants much to do with them and they themselves don't care about building political movements, they care about feeding hungry people on the street. One of the most radical housing groups I know, they literally just build shelters anywhere someone will let them, is connected to a church and does amazing work with almost no political help or outreach to them from political groups who supposedly say they want to house the homeless.

Hell, when I do street out reach with non-denominational groups the most common question we get is which church we're with.

At some point I feel like y'all have to figure out that it's more complicated than just "work harder" in a country where outlawing free food handouts is a bipartisan project. The left isn't failing because they have not found the one weird trick you have up your sleeve.

Gumball Gumption fucked around with this message at 19:38 on Jun 13, 2022

# ? Jun 13, 2022 19:36

some plague rats: Jun 5, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

Bar Ran Dun posted:

There is no desire by the left to use that and the ability to organize in that realm has been pretty much ceded entirely to the right.

What are you basing this on? Because that's a pretty wild claim to throw out there

# ? Jun 13, 2022 19:43

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

some plague rats posted:

The fact that all this is going on and Trump can't tweet about it is an unbelievable injustice

He has his own social media company - Truth social. No clue if he is posting anything there or not.

# ? Jun 13, 2022 19:47

Bar Ran Dun: Jan 22, 2006

CYBEReris posted:

hasn't Cornel West been doing that for a while

some plague rats posted:

What are you basing this on? Because that's a pretty wild claim to throw out there

Forgive me I�m working while doing this so I might not respond timely and I�m phone posting.

Actually Cornell West is a good example. Dr. West will appear on a program and will speak to a very specific audience in very specific mannerisms and specific language. He very definitely could tailor his language to a boarder audience and intentionally does not. In other words he uses the symbols for a smaller community on purpose. This has its uses and a purpose. But it�s counter productive to speaking to the larger community. I mean I watch it and follow, but lol I�m married to a religion scholar educated on the south side of Chicago. My parents or my wife�s parents do not follow.

So there is this tension, on one side of remaining true to ones specific community and language and symbols and the need of communication to occur to a broader community of people to build a broader movement and potentially to change the way the larger group thinks.

In some ways what we need is like a synthesis of West and Obama. Obama went too far to the other side of this tension.

# ? Jun 13, 2022 20:36

FLIPADELPHIA: Apr 27, 2007; Heavy Shit; Grimey Drawer

I think that's an extremely generous interpretation of Obama and his motives/actions. Obama built a "coalition" simply to get elected and once it served its purpose he purposefully destroyed it and spent all of his power doing either the absolute bare minimum (gay rights) or actively loving over the country in favor of capital (a thousand examples we're all familiar with).

I don't think you can put Obama and West on the same continuum here in terms of "leftist" philosophy. Obama isn't leftist at all and never has been. I don't think "language" was an issue. Language was just a tool for him- he perfected the Clintonesque triangulation technique and wrung every winnable vote out of the electorate, then poo poo on the people who put him in power.

FLIPADELPHIA fucked around with this message at 21:17 on Jun 13, 2022

# ? Jun 13, 2022 21:15

Jaxyon: Mar 7, 2016; I’m just saying I would like to see a man beat a woman in a cage. Just to be sure.

Bar Ran Dun posted:

Actually Cornell West is a good example. Dr. West will appear on a program and will speak to a very specific audience in very specific mannerisms and specific language. He very definitely could tailor his language to a boarder audience and intentionally does not. In other words he uses the symbols for a smaller community on purpose. This has its uses and a purpose. But it�s counter productive to speaking to the larger community. I mean I watch it and follow, but lol I�m married to a religion scholar educated on the south side of Chicago. My parents or my wife�s parents do not follow.

It sounds like you're upset that Cornel West won't code switch?

# ? Jun 13, 2022 21:15

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# ? May 25, 2024 08:59

VideoGameVet: May 14, 2005; It is by caffeine alone I set my bike in motion. It is by the juice of Java that pedaling acquires speed, the teeth acquire stains, stains become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my bike in motion.

Yinlock posted:

The Black Panthers are one of the most tragic examples. The U.S went to loving war against them.

... and MOVE in Philly, Cops literally dropped a bomb on them.

# ? Jun 13, 2022 21:48

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > US CE Spring 2022: I'm convinced it's useless which is why I argue about it all day every day

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