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Yep. The murder of a cop is often automatically 1st degree regardless of pre-meditation, I believe, and while that's not completely unreasonable in an ideal society, the flipside of the argument that allows for that -- namely, that the murder of someone acting with the authority of the state is an especially serious crime -- is that one who murders while acting with the authority of the state is guilty of the most serious of crimes: a violation of the public trust and an absolute perversion of the authority they've been entrusted with. That's far, far more destructive and heinous a crime than any single act of murder, and that's why there's such anger being generated from this specific death. If George Floyd had been hit and killed by a drunk driver, he would be equally innocent, and equally dead, and there wouldn't be protests against drunk driving sweeping the nation.
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Jun 4, 2020 02:53
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Crumbskull posted:I also want to point out, before a certain class of poster shows up: you can absolutely believe in and demand police abolition/reform without personally being able to explain every single detail of what it would like. The people asking you to can't even accurately describe the system we currently have. I also think that the solution can look very different in different places. In Minneapolis or NYC: yeah, a huge part of the problem is that the police force doesn't represent the will or makeup of the community it serves. In MAGA territory, the problem is that it probably does represent the community it serves a bit too much. God knows Maricopa County did not do so well with having law enforcement officials elected by the population. So, reasonably, I think you can always point out a counterexample for which a given plan will not work; that should be a given in a diverse nation of hundreds of millions of people.
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Jun 4, 2020 03:15
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The noise complaint issue brought to mind something I've been thinking about with regards to the abolition of police over the past few days. Part of the reason some people feel uncomfortable about the abolition of police is that we're trained to think of police as the only form of lawful authority, but if you stop and think about it, that's not really the case. There are tons of industries which have laws that regulate them, and enforcement is done by government agencies and not uniformed assholes with guns and handcuffs. The burden of dealing with armed police officers for even minor crimes is placed on the less-privileged exclusively, even though the sorts of laws enforced by government agencies like the FAA or the USDA can often have huge, huge public safety implications.
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Jun 7, 2020 20:43
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Well, as an example, one time I phoned the police non-emergency line because there was a truck (I assume) that had dropped some wooden shipping crates in the middle of the road and it was creating a traffic hazard. My reaction was to call the police, because they are the ones I associate most strongly with the idea of "making sure the roads are safe and traffic laws are being obeyed." They said "we'll refer your request to the roads department and they'll go round and clear the debris." Most of the poo poo we call the cops for does not actually require the cops. In some cases, they won't even do it! If "the police" continue to exist as a concept, and reasonably speaking I can't see a way to get rid of them entirely, immediately, it should be as a very small, elite agency which is called to deal with things that other agencies cannot handle; in a sense, they should operate like the FBI does relative to police departments in the US right now, subject to strict oversight. Expand the availability of highly trained and specialized law enforcement officers to deal with the 5% of cases that actually require expert, armed intervention, and get rid of local police departments. Relative to my earlier example: yes, you may have a person who refuses to pay a traffic fine, then drives without registration after they've been disallowed from renewing their registration, etc., etc., but those people are a tiny fraction of the total number of people pulled over for a traffic infraction. Further: a lot of cops will say "well, you never know what's going to happen during a routine traffic stop," but that's only because, at the same time, the police officer is running warrants, and looking for other offenses. If everyone knew, as your average white guy knows, that a traffic stop will result in nothing more than a lovely fine you have to pay, would anyone ever pull a gun during a traffic stop? Would anyone bother running from the cops? If you have 10 kilos of cocaine in the trunk, let's say, and you got pulled over by a traffic enforcement official who was not a cop and was only able to give you a $200 fine for speeding or whatever, isn't it logical to believe that would be a much safer experience for everyone than if you were worried about catching decades in prison for a drug trafficking charge? No, you'd just pull over, get your fine, and some higher level of law enforcement agency would be responsible for making the legal case that you're a drug trafficker rather than relying on dumb luck during a traffic stop. Just look at all the good results that have come from police departments having a no-pursuit policy: fewer accidents, fewer people put in danger, no real difference in the general level of crime.
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Jun 8, 2020 02:39
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UnknownTarget posted:What it comes down to is "what happens when there's an active shooter or threat on my life". That's what gets people hung up. So I think any discussion of abolition should really lead with that to get doubters on board. What happened in Parkland, FL? The school resource officer sat on his loving rear end and did jack poo poo, because of course your average donut jockey isn't going to be capable of dealing with a spree shooter in any event. That prick was only ever there to gently caress students over, and likely minority students for the most part. The question of "if the police are abolished, who will protect me from dangerous lunatics?" is only reasonable if you accept axiomatically that the police will, in fact, protect you from dangerous lunatics. They will mostly not protect you from that, and depending on the circumstance, they may work against protecting you from dangerous lunatics, or they may be the dangerous lunatic who is threatening you (as we've seen recently) so that question is based on a false premise.
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Jun 8, 2020 02:46
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CelestialScribe posted:Right! But for some reason, no one wants to answer what we do with these people. quote:What do we do with folks who refuse to stop making noise at 2am? Add a fine to their property taxes or the property taxes of their landlord if they do not respond to a warning. That poo poo will be dealt with in either event. quote:What about people who drive unregistered vehicles? Boot/confiscate the vehicle. quote:What about people who stalk women? If they refuse to stop, this is a situation where a state law enforcement agency under the direct supervision of the judicial system could be used. I mean, this already exists in a sense. I think Alaska has a system of community public safety officers in remote locations who aren't armed, and can deal with minor disputes, and if they reach the point that they cannot handle the situation, then they summon the state troopers to deal with the problem. How many problems do you think they've solved in a constructive fashion, compared to a situation where the state troopers have an outpost in every village and have the authority to immediately crank everything up to 12?
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Jun 8, 2020 02:54
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Cpt_Obvious posted:Serious question: Another serious question: why, in Mexico and Brazil and Colombia and probably some places in the US, do we see "organized crime" acting as a more responsible steward of the community than the government? In Rio, when the coronavirus hit, the "gangs" that control the slums instituted curfews and distributed food when the government did not. Pablo Escobar invested in his community. Mexican cartels have been ensuring the basic needs of their citizens when the government has failed. Meanwhile, the NYPD and other police departments are acting like a protection racket both now and in the past (but just the bad parts). Organized crime can only operate effectively with the consent of the communities they operate in, and if you think for the average person they are meaningfully worse than the police, you're delusional. There was a criminal organization that tried to sell hard drugs in a self-policed area of, I believe, Denmark, and they got kicked the gently caress out by the residents. Why? Because ultimately it's easier to fight against a smattering of state agents than a united community who wants you the gently caress out of there.
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Jun 8, 2020 04:02
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Crumbskull posted:Violence is not the primary lever of organized crime though. In a community where people's basic needs were met and participation in the permitted fornal economy is low barrier I really don't imagine this situation taking hold, especially with sensible rules regarding things like drug use. Look at the cops' reaction to literally any criticism: violence and extortion. I mean, I don't think a organized crime ring not backed by the power of the state could possibly be worse in a meaningful way. Yeah I guess it's more shocking to see a bunch of bodies decapitated and dumped in a ditch by a cartel, but is it really worse than those victims being involved in a gun-discharge-related incident with the police, to use the past exhonorative tense?
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Jun 8, 2020 04:16
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karthun posted:For domestic violence have the social worker engage with the people and have an armed officer back in the parking lot in case things get out of hand. Seems like a decent compromise. I think having the police as a service that anyone can call, is a bad idea. Inasmuch as there may remain a need for armed response, it should only be allowed to be dispatched based on the request of a first responder like a social worker or a bylaw enforcement officer or whatever, and any such incidents should be subject to independent review on a regular basis to make sure the request was justified.
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Jun 8, 2020 19:46
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Sedisp posted:There should not be a class of people above the law that holds the power of life and death that also are the ones to respond to a snickers bar being taken off the shelf. There is no actual alternative to salvaging the current system that would work better than simply abolishing the police and replacing them. At a certain point a system has become so broken that it is simpler and faster to simply dismantle it and police certainly qualify. Yeah, a lot of the things we accept as being part of the profession of policing make absolutely no sense and if you explained them to someone completely unfamiliar with "the police" they'd tell you, "wow, that's loving stupid!" We, collectively, only put up with that poo poo because that's the way we've always done it.
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Apr 28, 2021 13:59
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fool of sound posted:Things like these are the one type of situation where, even with an ideal police force, you'd actually want trained and armed police. Obviously the preferred solution is reducing the number of murder sprees in the first place by tackling the problems of alienation both structurally and professionally and , you know, preventing at-risk people from buying weapons. No poo poo. But we're always going to need people equipped and trained to enter dangerous situations and save as many lives as they can: firefighters knowingly sign up to do this, and theoretically so do cops. If cops aren't willing to do that, then they really do only exist to hassle guys with hoodies and eat doughnuts. The solution, in my mind, is that most cops should not be armed. A standard police handgun, with the average level of proficiency required by police departments, is going to be worse than useless in situations like the Uvalde shooting. The cops that are armed should be equipped and proficient enough that they can deal with a situation like this with one hand tied behind their back, so to speak, and every incident where those officers are dispatched should be subject to public inquiry afterward to determine whether it was necessary and whether they acted appropriately, no matter how the situation is resolved.
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May 28, 2022 14:47
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Jaxyon posted:The white cop involved in the murder in Memphis has been put on paid leave and not fired and also good luck finding his picture. The amazing thing is there was a whole bunch of commentary about "if the cops were white, would they have been fired and charged that quickly?" and they assured everyone, no, this is so egregious that this would've happened regardless of the cops' skin colour, and then... this happens. One might have reasonably thought they would not do this exact thing, simply because everyone said they would and it would be clever to "prove them wrong", but the racism runs so deep that of course they do it anyway.
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Jan 31, 2023 19:23
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