Police Reform

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Police Reform

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

Rent-A-Cop posted:

It's helpful to remember that one of the major problems with policing is voters. Turnout in municipal elections is generally abysmal and the people who do turn out would often prefer Judge Dredd to Andy Griffith. The general opinion of people for whom policing is an issue at the voting booth is "There are too many criminals/coloreds in my neighborhood and I wish somebody would crack their skulls." This is why we still have the death penalty in 2014 and why three strikes laws exist.

Yeah, the explanation I heard was the ratchet effect; no politician can appear to be softer on crime than their opponent and win, regardless of their party affiliation or whatever. The police can't be warmer and friendlier if the laws they have to enforce keep getting crueler and less flexible.

Honestly, outside of that though, the personal cameras seem like a huge boon, to both us for reducing police misconduct, and for them for reducing false accusations of police misconduct. Is anyone still seriously arguing against them?

# ¿ Jun 29, 2014 19:38

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 06:31

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

GaussianCopula posted:

Yes, the AFL-CIO

Oh? What's the basis of their opposition?

# ¿ Jun 29, 2014 20:08

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

Rent-A-Cop posted:

They represent the cop when the cop decides to put the boot to someone and gets a complaint/lawsuit filed against him. Presumably they'd prefer not to have those incidents recorded because it makes representing their members more difficult.

That seems kind of indirect to me; have they come out and said that these cameras would be bad because of x?

# ¿ Jun 29, 2014 20:48

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

Pohl posted:

There are a ton of statistics. Cops are completely safe, but some of them face dangerous situations everyday.
We need to get past this idea that cops are completely safe or cops are loving going to die every time they blink, idea. It isn't that easy.

One thing I've never known is, how are cop jobs doled out? How is it decided who gets the dangerous jobs/areas and who gets the safe jobs/areas? Volunteering? The say-so of their boss? Dumb luck?

# ¿ Jun 30, 2014 02:38

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

Pohl posted:

It has mostly to do with job status, but that doesn't matter.

The thing to understand is, as a cop, you are not going to die today. When you wake up, put on your uniform and gun, you are not going to die.
The statistics show that, what they don't show is the toll that cops experience day in and day out thinking they may die. Because they might. I mean, we all might, but cops have a job that puts them at a supposedly higher risk than everybody else. It doesn't matter if they are going to die, they all actually believe they might. That is how we train them, because we train them like soldiers. Never let your guard down, everyone is a scumbag.

Do you think that kind of training should change? I have to be honest, I cringed a bit at the part where you said police are trained like soldiers.

# ¿ Jun 30, 2014 03:27

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

Honestly, I question the value of a civilian oversight council as well. Why would the same people who make criminal laws so bad in the first place (by voting for "tough on crime" local politicians over and over again) have anything different to say in that setting?

The root problem seems elsewhere to me. Like, deep down, a majority of people in most communities WANT police to be an unassailable authority figure.

# ¿ Jun 30, 2014 06:23

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

justsharkbait posted:

To go even further, you are subject to be on duty whenever you are needed, whether you are at home or not. You can be called in on off days, during storms, during special events, etc. You are considered on duty even if you are driving your car from your house to the DOT shop for an oil change, or going to court to sit in a trial. If you are in your car you are considered on duty and if anything serious happens you are required by law and policy to respond.

Does it really have to be this way, or is it just the tradition of the profession? Is it like that in other countries too?

Being able to be called on at any time seems like it would be a major source of stress to me, and people are arguing that stress contributes heavily to bad outcomes in police work.

Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 06:02 on Jul 1, 2014

# ¿ Jul 1, 2014 06:00

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

justsharkbait posted:

Law enforcement across the world is very similar. There is just not a better way to deal with emergencies, which can happen at any time and literally be anything from shooting to bombing to major accident, and not have legal power to compel those in that profession to come help. We know it going into the job.

I'm not really following you here. Why are police officers who are completely outside of work, just sitting in their house or walking down the street or whatever, compelled to help? Why can't it be handled by cops who are on duty? I mean, if the distribution of currently working cops is such that no currently working cop can be there in time, isn't that a problem with the distribution of cops?

edit: wouldn't that be something that cop unions would be fighting against tooth and nail, the right of their members to relax on their time off?

# ¿ Jul 1, 2014 08:46

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

on the left posted:

You don't understand why some jobs are never completely off-duty?

Well, I know how because of tradition, lots of jobs ARE that way, but I don't see why it inherently HAS to be that way. Teaching used to be an around the clock job too, but it's moving away from that, and I'm happy for it.

edit: The news occasionally has news stories about off-duty police officers saving someone, but up until this thread I assumed that they had simply volunteered, as any citizen has the option to volunteer, to help out. I had no idea before this thread that they had a duty to do that.

Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 09:11 on Jul 1, 2014

# ¿ Jul 1, 2014 08:58

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

falcon2424 posted:

What I'd really want would be something like a legal defence like, "repeal by abandonment of enforcement" to protect people who've been singled out for breaking laws that are generally ignored. That would be a thing for legislatures to deal with.

In the whole tradition of the laws that we have, surely that has been used before? I mean, ignorance of the law is one thing, but ignorance because the police never enforce the law other than against people they don't like is something else.

edit: actually, more in general, how do the courts deal with laws that have clear ulterior motives? Like, for example, here in Honolulu it's illegal to drink in the park/on the beach, but everyone does it. What the law is REALLY for is for giving the police a tool to get rid of people who are being obnoxious, but not yet doing something that breaks another law.

Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Jul 4, 2014

# ¿ Jul 4, 2014 19:25

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

The problem I have is, we've already seen that police reserve the right to interpret, or in some cases, ignore laws based on the situation. If that's the case, then changing laws can't be the entire solution.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2014 23:43

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

In general, it's really hard for me to buy any denial of the old adage "when you have a shiny new hammer, everything looks like a nail". It seems central to human nature to me.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2014 00:32

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

justsharkbait posted:

the main problem i have with that is civilians do not know or are trained in police procedure, criminal law, rules of evidence, etc. They will have very little influence over it because that comes from federal law and state law mainly. So the only thing the could do is make stricter policies, which sometimes can be negated by case law, so in the end they would just go around the civ review board.

edit: never mind, misread you.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2014 01:14

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

How effective are internal affairs people in police departments, anyway? Are there shining success stories of them getting bad cops fired left and right, or anything like that?

But more in general, the idea of an organization as horribly beweaponed as the police in charge of their own oversight has always seemed very strange to me.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2014 04:55

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

anonumos posted:

Banning tobacco would cause the same problems that Prohibition on alcohol created, and the same problems we see now with illegal drugs. Don't you doubt it. Not only would thousands be sent to jail for copping a nicotine buzz, but the prices would skyrocket and quality would dip. Imagine all the cheap-n-dirty additives that bootleggers would add to a tobacco crop as they harvest, dry, and roll it into cigarettes.

Not opposing your argument but tobacco already has all kinds of awful additives, only put there by giant, legal companies.

# ¿ Jul 10, 2014 17:06

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

paragon1 posted:

Wonder why people came up with the phrase "You don't shoot a dog for barking."

I mean, cops have pepper spray and tasers and hard blunt objects to strike with, but I guess that's just too drat hard to do.

I guess guns are more reliable than those things...except when they kill a child instead by accident.

# ¿ Jul 13, 2014 06:35

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

computer parts posted:

Urban areas aren't the ones with gun nuts stockpiling weapons.

It is if you watch lots of movies from the late 80s/early 90s I guess.

# ¿ Jul 13, 2014 19:29

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

ryonguy posted:

a tactic several lawyers say is illegal

Yeah...just a few, I am sure.

And honestly, I don't give a singe poo poo anymore what is official department policy and what isn't, since it's clear that doesn't matter to cops either.

edit: I mean, every workplace has official rules and then "wink wink" rules, but other workplaces don't have guns and power to get into people's houses like the police do.

Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 01:51 on Jul 14, 2014

# ¿ Jul 14, 2014 01:48

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

E-Tank posted:

I heard that police unions have already gotten it so that police can turn off the cameras whenever they goddamned feel like it.

Wouldn't that hurt them just as much as it helps them? They'd go back to having no defense against false complaints from people they deal with.

# ¿ Jul 14, 2014 05:07

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

TLM3101 posted:

So, this seems to belong here.

Now, please, before everyone goes into full on "burn everything to the ground" mode, I would respectfully ask you to take into consideration that the county and state did take action on this. Of course, that's kind of marred by the Chief Deputy State Attorney going all "that's not illegal", which while it may be entirely factual really isn't the clever thing to say in this instance.

...Also, I'm mildly amused that there's a place in Florida called Fruitland Park.

Edit: Seems that this has happened before, when another cop on the same force got fired for the same reason. As reported here.

I hope they scrutinize the HELL out of every arrest he has ever made. It's what the public deserves and what is necessary to maintain any level of respect for police work.

edit: I guess "they" = some hypothetical body that investigates the police and yet are not police themselves...

Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 09:11 on Jul 15, 2014

# ¿ Jul 15, 2014 09:04

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

Zesty Mordant posted:

Could it be that a cop in jail is basically a death sentence, a kind of indirect acknowledgement that prisons are hell?

Yeah, this logic makes sense to me. But I think that if you're willing to do something horrible to someone else, you'd better be prepared to have it happen to you too, and that clearly isn't the case with cops and prison.

Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 17:09 on Jul 17, 2014

# ¿ Jul 17, 2014 17:06

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

LorneReams posted:

It's our (people's) fault. There are many cases where DAs can't even get out of a grand jury with solid video evidence of police misconduct. This leads to much more cautious prosecution. Which leads to police believing that it's better to err on the side of more force/control.

Is it because the DA's office slacks off on cases where the suspect is a police officer, or something else?

# ¿ Jul 17, 2014 17:28

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

SubponticatePoster posted:

I used to work animal control.

I'm curious, what happens when you pepper spray a horse?

# ¿ Jul 17, 2014 18:29

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

This conversation reminded me of when I last lived in Seattle several years ago. I saw news that the FBI had audited the police there and found them greatly lacking in many areas (as I imagine they would to almost any police department), and the SPD's first response was to negotiate with the FBI about which areas they would reform and which were just too hard. What was THAT poo poo? Also, I never heard the end of it, I wonder if they actually reformed anything?

# ¿ Jul 19, 2014 00:40

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

Randbrick posted:

I recall in the jurisdition where I practice..

The District Attorney's race was against a guy who has held the following positions: cop, district attorney, defense attorney, and some rear end in a top hat who's never been anything but a prosecutor.

And yes, there were attack ads against that first guy based on defending bad people. It was disturbing. Every time a defense attorney is questioned on those grounds, the local bar association steps up and says that's not cool.

And we ignore them, because the local bar association is meaningless.

Don't leave us in suspense, which one got the job?

Also who is the "we" in "we ignore them"?

# ¿ Jul 21, 2014 04:52

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

In a better world, cops wouldn't have to monitor and suspect each other like this, because there'd be a strong regulatory body on top of them watching them all the time. That clearly isn't the case though.

# ¿ Jul 25, 2014 17:57

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

How does one measure corruption in a police department anyway? I bet so much of it happens in one-on-one interactions between the police and the public, and not in recorded ways like arrests and stuff. For example, a cop here in Honolulu was recently caught recommending a store owner hire a private security guy who happens to be his friend. Who knows what other secret deals are made between the police and the public when no one else is watching? Do we know for sure that the supposed low corruption police departments aren't just better at keeping it outside of the office and off the records?

Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 20:28 on Jul 26, 2014

# ¿ Jul 26, 2014 20:22

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

ryonguy posted:

Hey whadya know, that's literally what they did in Georgia:

Apparently it worked great because, surprise, the police were the problem, not the citizens. So maybe stripping departments in the US of all the wannabe soldiers is a good idea.

Wow. What the hell happens to 30,000 suddenly out of work traffic cops, anyway?

Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 01:36 on Jul 27, 2014

# ¿ Jul 27, 2014 01:30

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

He's not exactly police, but was anyone following this story before? A state department special agent was here in Honolulu for a diplomatic conference in 2011, got drunk, went to a McDonald's, got involved in an argument between two locals, and shot one of them. It was a hung jury and a mistrial. Given that apparently none of the things I just said are in dispute, I wish I knew more about how it turned out the way it did.

# ¿ Aug 4, 2014 16:56

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

Oh okay, I had trouble finding a collected article about the whole thing, so I didn't hear that. Anyway yeah, it was only as of the Zimmerman incident that I found out that there was any scenario where someone with a gun could shoot someone who is unarmed and not go to prison. I mean, other than being a cop.

# ¿ Aug 4, 2014 17:28

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

Phoenixan posted:

This was an interesting series of tweets on the level of militarization here.

The more hosed up thing is when we treat the citizens of countries we invade with more respect than our own.

What I got out of it is that to the police all these new weapons are exciting new toys to play with, while for actual soldiers they are the tools that you do the job with.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2014 06:29

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

Rent-A-Cop posted:

Everybody loves the LRAD. I'm sure it's hilarious when you're the one standing behind it. (Most of those cops are probably former soldiers.)

They can point their guns at fellow citizens as easily as they did enemies in a foreign country? Goddamn.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2014 06:41

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

By the way, is there evidence that black COPS are more scrutinized for shooting incidents than their white colleagues?

# ¿ Aug 22, 2014 18:15

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

E-Tank posted:

just so this doesn't get lost in the new page:

So this happened in Atlanta. It's a pretty big thing, they're calling murder, an actual loving murder. Cops are all in a tizzy, but at least the Coroner's doing his job.

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/death-man-stunned-while-custody-ruled-homicide/ngXbt/

As it says in the article homicide isn't the same thing as murder, since homicide can be justified. So no, they are not calling it murder.

efb

# ¿ Aug 28, 2014 03:40

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

At least this time it's documented with video, even if there's no useful audio. I look forward to a future where that's a regular, unremarkable part of deciding whether a police officer was justified in a shooting.

edit: I'm trying to say "drop the gun or I'll shoot" three times in one and a half seconds and it just isn't working.

Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 04:30 on Nov 27, 2014

# ¿ Nov 27, 2014 04:27

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

I'd say that incident is significantly further on the tragic accident side than other recent events, except for the sheer quickness that the officer decided that the kid had to die. EXCEPT for that.

edit: the news article I read earlier today just said that they told him multiple times to drop it and he didn't. As far as I know that would, sadly, be the police functioning as required. If the kid didn't hear or understand the instructions that's a whole other ballgame.

Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 07:49 on Nov 27, 2014

# ¿ Nov 27, 2014 07:40

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

SedanChair posted:

Whatever else you can say about open-carry filth (and you can say a lot; you can pretty much say anything), they don't point their guns. They may hold them at low ready but they don't raise them to eye level and aim. And in any case an open carry reckoning is coming; somebody's going to get shot.

And I guess they'll be white, right? Are any black people dumb enough to be in a group like that?

# ¿ Nov 27, 2014 08:20

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

Vitamin P posted:

Cops wearing body cams would still mean they could control the release of the footage and it would be nothing but 'ran out of battery' for the important stuff anyway. And it could be a vehicle for facial recognition tools being used habitually.

Cops need to be filmed by neutral bystanders ideally.

A) Is there such a thing as a neutral bystander?
B) Same as with crimes NOT committed by the police, the really bad poo poo usually seems to happen when almost no one else is around.

# ¿ Nov 27, 2014 20:51

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

quote:

In an interview with the Northeast Ohio Media Group, Loehmann's father said that his son left Independence to pursue a job with Cleveland police because he wanted "more action."

I literally don't know how to interpret that other than him saying that he wanted to shoot people.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2014 03:59

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 06:31

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

Grand Theft Autobot posted:

He left Independence because his performance review recommended that he be terminated. He joined Cleveland because they are incompetent and didn't bother to read his review, which said he is poo poo with firearms, is emotionally immature, is unable to follow directions, and is an untrainable babby idiot.

Source.

Yes, that was the very source I just quoted.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2014 04:05

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