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Thread: Why is the US ok with having an inept police force?

  1. #61
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    Default Re: Why is the US ok with having an inept police force?

    Quote Originally Posted by Gaidin View Post
    No. I was talking about a person charging with a knife. Now you're moving the goal post to a totally different hundred vague things that adjusts the protocols to determine when you draw the gun. Don't try this crap with me.
    Yeah. I noticed. That's why I said "you're stuck on a specific example that doesn't reflect the problem." And then I gave data and examples of different situations, that are problematic. When a police officer kills someone under the circumstances you're talking about, nothing bad happens to them. It's uncontroversial, unless there's some kind of bizarre extenuating circumstances.

    My argument here is not and has never been that police don't have the right to use deadly force to protect their own lives or the lives of others. Joe Blow on the street has a right to use deadly force if his life is in danger. My argument is that it should be a professional value for police to not kill unless absolutely necessary. I think police should be willing to accept more personal risk than Joe Blow does. And yes, I do think an attitude of playing fast and loose with deadly force contributes to police brutality, which I think is usually a twitch reaction and not premeditated. You can call this "moving the goalposts" but frankly I don't know what your point is other than that you're really, really insistent on shooting this hypothetical guy.

  2. #62
    mrmouth's Avatar flaxen haired argonaut
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    Default Re: Why is the US ok with having an inept police force?

    Quote Originally Posted by The spartan View Post
    Because that is incredibly immoral, not to mention illegal. Police don't get to decide on what information they report.
    Where is the morality in any of this? We ask armed people to police neighborhoods that have lost their humanity, while they are expected to keep theirs. It's ridiculous. So we need to get down to the root causes of this stuff but a lot of it has been deemed off limits once it becomes a matter of race. So dozens have died in Chicago since this kid gets shot, young black people engage in acts of civil disobedience over a cop killing a black kid, older black people march with signs about the need for young black kids to stop shooting each other, and the wheel keeps spinning.

    It is totally understandable why police would want to cover up their mistakes in an untenable situation.

    Quote Originally Posted by The spartan View Post
    I am glad you are happy about that? That is still dreadful compared to our 1st world allies. What I want to know is why we look so much worse in terms of police conduct?
    Why are you confused about the differences in policing a Western European country, for instance? This isnt difficult.

    We have had this thread before, many times and in different forms, and my attempt to actually boil it down to one thing is that our police are all armed, and they 'teach' the 21 foot rule, that was a response to the high levels of violence against Los Angeles police when they were being openly targeted by street gangs.

    If you enter that 21 foot bubble, in a manner deemed threatening, you have a good chance of getting shot, right or wrong. And as I have tried to say, once you make that decision to shoot, it isnt the movies where you aim to take out a guys kneecaps or something. You are going to aim for center mass and look to put the person down.

    Quote Originally Posted by The spartan View Post
    I am well aware of a bullet's effect on the body. I would hope that you know that firing exorbitant numbers of rounds into an unsecured location is incredibly dangerous. Sometimes, you shoot something/someone you didn't mean to hit.
    That has nothing to do with what I was saying. I was simply providing an example of the lack of proper debate over this. If the media wants to highlight the fact the kid was shot 16 times, then they should do their homework as to why that might be, and we are then all smarter for it.

    Unloading a magazine on the kid, a good portion of which was while he was on the ground, can be explained for reasons other than lack of training, hatred, or race. It doesn't make it any prettier but it goes a long way to making us less ignorant.
    Last edited by mrmouth; February 07, 2016 at 11:36 PM.
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  3. #63
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    Default Re: Why is the US ok with having an inept police force?

    Quote Originally Posted by Stavroforos View Post
    Still not sure what the point in that would be as long as there's oversight from their locality.
    .

    That type of oversight has proven it does not work.
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  4. #64

    Default Re: Why is the US ok with having an inept police force?

    Quote Originally Posted by mrmouth View Post
    Unloading a magazine on the kid, a good portion of which was while he was on the ground, can be explained for reasons other than lack of training, hatred, or race. It doesn't make it any prettier but it goes a long way to making us less ignorant.
    My personal thought was fear and his over reaction to it. Your reactions, memory and perception change when you get into a life and death situation, and this guy I think just couldn't handle it, period. I think its going to get worse before it gets better, as from what I've been told by some veteran police I know the quality of recruits is going down for a number of reasons and morale is quite low. Police are having a hard time doing their jobs and some of the solutions to what politicians perceive as problems make it easier now to do nothing than do something positive. For example to combat the evil that is racial profiling, now every time the police in my area have an "interaction" with someone, even walking down the street they have to give them a form with the officers name etc on it. The citizen can then turn them in and if it seems he talks to too many black people he gets written up. I'm sure that will help with neighborhood safety and crime.
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  5. #65
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    Default Re: Why is the US ok with having an inept police force?

    Quote Originally Posted by Doctor Shuu View Post
    .

    That type of oversight has proven it does not work.
    Assuming your statement is true, what makes you think that federal oversight would work? Furthermore, it raises some questions on constitutionality, as policing is the purview of each state, not of the federal government.

  6. #66

    Default Re: Why is the US ok with having an inept police force?

    Quote Originally Posted by Stavroforos View Post
    Assuming your statement is true, what makes you think that federal oversight would work? Furthermore, it raises some questions on constitutionality, as policing is the purview of each state, not of the federal government.
    Dude hasn't even addressed important things like budget issues and how he's going to assram that thing through congress. Let's not get into pithy little things like the 10th Amendment.
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  7. #67

    Default Re: Why is the US ok with having an inept police force?

    Quote Originally Posted by Stavroforos View Post
    Assuming your statement is true, what makes you think that federal oversight would work? Furthermore, it raises some questions on constitutionality, as policing is the purview of each state, not of the federal government.
    I think you are missing the point, he is advocating have someone provide oversight, it doesn't necessarily have to be Federal. A few departments already have a civilian complaint review board, for example, and they seem to be somewhat effective. He is just saying more oversight in general is needed.
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  8. #68
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    Default Re: Why is the US ok with having an inept police force?

    Quote Originally Posted by The spartan View Post
    I think you are missing the point, he is advocating have someone provide oversight, it doesn't necessarily have to be Federal. A few departments already have a civilian complaint review board, for example, and they seem to be somewhat effective. He is just saying more oversight in general is needed.
    Civilian boards are local, and they are the ones Adrian said were ineffective, and this whole thread he has been advocating for federal policies and telling us how things are done in Romania, as if that matters.

  9. #69

    Default Re: Why is the US ok with having an inept police force?

    Quote Originally Posted by Stavroforos View Post
    Civilian boards are local,
    Obviously?
    Quote Originally Posted by Stavroforos View Post
    and they are the ones Adrian said were ineffective, and this whole thread he has been advocating for federal policies and telling us how things are done in Romania, as if that matters.
    [/quote]
    I think he was saying internal investigations were ineffective. Also, you point that a federal committee would suck because they are federal is a lazy point.
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  10. #70
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    Default Re: Why is the US ok with having an inept police force?

    I'm not saying that they would suck...I'm saying that they could be unconstitutional. I'm sure in your country the constitution doesn't matter, but that's not the case in the US.

  11. #71

    Default Re: Why is the US ok with having an inept police force?

    Quote Originally Posted by Stavroforos View Post
    I'm not saying that they would suck...I'm saying that they could be unconstitutional. I'm sure in your country the constitution doesn't matter, but that's not the case in the US.
    The constitution can be changed, you know.
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  12. #72
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    Default Re: Why is the US ok with having an inept police force?

    Quote Originally Posted by The spartan View Post
    The constitution can be changed, you know.
    Again, this isn't the constitution of whatever country you're from. Changing the US Constitution in order to change the balance of federal vs. state's rights would be a fundamental change, changing its very nature and that of the entire United States.

    I have the feeling you have no idea what you're talking about and are simply using the experiences of whatever country you're from as a template.

  13. #73

    Default Re: Why is the US ok with having an inept police force?

    Changing that particular Amendment isn't something you're going to convince the states to sign. Of the methods to Amend the Constitution, there is one consistency. You must have state approval.
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  14. #74

    Default Re: Why is the US ok with having an inept police force?

    Quote Originally Posted by Stavroforos View Post
    Again, this isn't the constitution of whatever country you're from. Changing the US Constitution in order to change the balance of federal vs. state's rights would be a fundamental change, changing its very nature and that of the entire United States.
    You really think an amendment that has a federal police standard would change the very nature of the Constitution?
    Quote Originally Posted by Stavroforos View Post
    I have the feeling you have no idea what you're talking about and are simply using the experiences of whatever country you're from as a template.
    I feel like you have no idea whether or not I have an idea what I am talking about.
    Quote Originally Posted by Stavroforos View Post
    using the experiences of whatever country you're from as a template.
    You mean the United States?

    Quote Originally Posted by Gaidin View Post
    Changing that particular Amendment isn't something you're going to convince the states to sign. Of the methods to Amend the Constitution, there is one consistency. You must have state approval.
    Your sure 3/4 approval couldn't be garnered for ANY amendment that introduces oversight?


    I am really curious about this, since both of you seem to dance around the issue: do you honestly think that self-accountability is not open for abuse? Like, really, it seems like you are defending that type of system.
    Last edited by The spartan; February 09, 2016 at 05:28 PM.
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  15. #75

    Default Re: Why is the US ok with having an inept police force?

    Hmm, it seems to me that the real topic of this thread is implied in its title ; " why is the US........"

    That is, the topic is the United States in general, its people generally and its culture generally, and not really the police.

    Now if you are interested in the news , then read a history book or something. That is about as close to it as you are going to get.

    The " News" is really a peculiar form of entertainment , one of its obvious primary characteristics being that it is decidedly macabre entertainment. And even when it doesn't blatantly revel in and fixate on violence , its general tone is mean-spirited and sadistic, like using aggressive and militaristic terms to describe.........a church bake sale.
    ( Hey, don't ask me, I just live here. )
    We can't very well slaughter criminals , or merely people we arbitrarily don't like, in the arena , like in old Rome, because that would be too honest , too blatant . ( But You can sure tell they envy old Rome its entertainments. )
    So this oblique sick pantomime was invented.

    Now near as I can tell in my wanderings around the internet, reporters in other parts of the world are as lazy as their American counterparts . That is, they don't spend ten years in an American Trailer park researching the strait dope. What they do most of the time is merely copy-paste the contents of these American news articles into their own articles and present as real what is entertainment , either because they ignorantly assume the picture is real, mistake the window-dressing for the content, or because the rest of the world is just as corrupt, I can't say.

    All of this is to say that , even given how crudely authoritarian American culture is, and how inherently equivocal an occupation policing is, I really don't think American police are particularly trigger - happy , or even at all.
    On the contrary, and surprisingly, given the circumstances, they are remarkably restrained.

    What is going on is that the news business ( i.e. the entertainment business ) feels, and maybe they are correct, that people are not going to sit through tampon and baking soda commercials for a fascinating story about cattle futures , or the interesting logistics of repairing potholes in the road in Hamblen county.
    They need blood and glamour.

    The trouble is earthquakes don't happen every day, or if they do, they just happened in Nepal and we don't even know where that is and don't care. Plagues typically aren't flashy and exciting, they are actually mundane , slow, personal , ( personal that is typically to some entirely unimportant nobody ) and dull.
    Even wars are problematical. If you focus on them too closely you might find out that the funding is largely coming from civilized recreational activities , and the weapons purchased from civilized countries, and the action largely consisting of malnutrition and lost opportunities for 8 year olds , ( Boring. ) and the soldiers largely engaged in doing their very best to AVOID heroic and bloody spectacles like frontal assaults while consuming enormous amounts of resources to produce nothing.
    We don't really want to know what the CIA is up to , we don't want detailed demonstrations of how our solutions repeatedly only seem to show we aren't very good at playing God, and so on.
    No, it's better to confine analysis of war to video games and movies.
    Serial killers and terrorists aren't overrunning the world. Or, if they are, they actually seem to be on break more often than they are out doing something photogenic or sickeningly interesting.

    Fortunately for these bloody porn merchants the United States isn't Romania. It is the equivalent of 40 or so Romania's. Given so much area, and so many people , something is bound to happen here or there , or somewhere. And enough of it to make it look like something significant.

    Why the police especially ? Well, every 4th TV show is about police, and generally it has been 30 years of , " Hey !! Look at Me !! "
    Status and fame are fickle, in hindsight it really isn't surprising they have become victims of their own propaganda.

  16. #76

    Default Re: Why is the US ok with having an inept police force?

    You really think an amendment that has a federal police standard would change the very nature of the Constitution?
    The 10th Amendment (state/popular sovereignty) is part of the Bill of Rights, which has never been touched and is borderline sacred. Until the 14th Amendment (equal protection) the Federal Courts/government actually couldn't even enforce basic notions of freedom of speech, freedom of religion etc. as extending these rights where contingent on State Constitutions. I.e. States could (and often did) violate things like the 1st Amendment because the 1st Amendment didn't apply to State governments. And even getting the 14th Amendment past, and ensuring that states couldn't choose to restrict freedom of speech freedom of religion etc., required a very bloody Civil War.

    Nowadays Federal oversight of ordinary policing can basically only be done when the 14th Amendment is violated (which usually means something in the Bill of Rights has been violated). The Feds have no constitutional control over police policy if it doesn't rise to to this level. They could set up a commitee, offer recommendations etc. But at the end of the day the States don't have to listen to any of it.
    Last edited by Sphere; February 10, 2016 at 10:33 AM.

  17. #77
    mrmouth's Avatar flaxen haired argonaut
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    Default Re: Why is the US ok with having an inept police force?

    Quote Originally Posted by Phier View Post
    My personal thought was fear and his over reaction to it. Your reactions, memory and perception change when you get into a life and death situation, and this guy I think just couldn't handle it, period. I think its going to get worse before it gets better, as from what I've been told by some veteran police I know the quality of recruits is going down for a number of reasons and morale is quite low. Police are having a hard time doing their jobs and some of the solutions to what politicians perceive as problems make it easier now to do nothing than do something positive. For example to combat the evil that is racial profiling, now every time the police in my area have an "interaction" with someone, even walking down the street they have to give them a form with the officers name etc on it. The citizen can then turn them in and if it seems he talks to too many black people he gets written up. I'm sure that will help with neighborhood safety and crime.
    He certainly didn't have a particularly impressive record, in retrospect, but we are not going to find the brightest of the bunch to do this job. And even if we paid them like Europe, and initially trained them like Europe, you still have to get guys to go police extraordinarily difficult neighborhoods, for years, and be expected to be perfect every time, in a sea of people who have no morals. People who see themselves as dead already and know exactly what buttons to push to get a reaction from police.

    Now, it isnt so much about running from police as a matter of bragging rights but pushing a cop to a point that you can get a settlement from the city. They are literally teaching that to Chicago Police because it is a tactic used against them. Instead of needed interaction, it involves almost complete disengagement from the community.

    These neighborhoods are dead, both economically and morally, on a level that makes Gaza look somewhat alive. The only thing that will turn this around is a realization of the destructive nature of the martyr complex, and investment. Money will only come when these people are 'worth' investing in.
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  18. #78

    Default Re: Why is the US ok with having an inept police force?

    Quote Originally Posted by The spartan View Post
    Your sure 3/4 approval couldn't be garnered for ANY amendment that introduces oversight?


    I am really curious about this, since both of you seem to dance around the issue: do you honestly think that self-accountability is not open for abuse? Like, really, it seems like you are defending that type of system.
    It's already pretty clear you're intent on making a broad stroke argument that bad policing in certain departments should be blamed on the entire country. States that would have to vote for this amendment that are doing a perfectly fine job controlling their policing agencies would not accept this amendment. All you need is 1/4 states to reject it.
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  19. #79

    Default Re: Why is the US ok with having an inept police force?

    Quote Originally Posted by Sphere View Post
    The 10th Amendment (state/popular sovereignty) is part of the Bill of Rights, which has never been touched and is borderline sacred. Until the 14th Amendment (equal protection) the Federal Courts/government actually couldn't even enforce basic notions of freedom of speech, freedom of religion etc. as extending these rights where contingent on State Constitutions. I.e. States could (and often did) violate things like the 1st Amendment because the 1st Amendment didn't apply to State governments. And even getting the 14th Amendment past, and ensuring that states couldn't choose to restrict freedom of speech freedom of religion etc., required a very bloody Civil War.

    Nowadays Federal oversight of ordinary policing can basically only be done when the 14th Amendment is violated (which usually means something in the Bill of Rights has been violated). The Feds have no constitutional control over police policy if it doesn't rise to to this level. They could set up a commitee, offer recommendations etc. But at the end of the day the States don't have to listen to any of it.
    Yes, I am aware of the 10th amendment. Making a new amendment does not violate the 10th amendment, nor would it violate the "very nature of the Constitution".

    Quote Originally Posted by Gaidin View Post
    It's already pretty clear you're intent on making a broad stroke argument that bad policing in certain departments should be blamed on the entire country. States that would have to vote for this amendment that are doing a perfectly fine job controlling their policing agencies would not accept this amendment. All you need is 1/4 states to reject it.
    Well obviously it would depend on what was in the amendment. However, I fail to see why someone who currently follows the rules would object to oversight as a default position.

    We are kinda drifting off topic here. It seems like I am saying that I am saying our police force (that is, the law enforcement system as opposed to any individual officer) could be much better. I listed the complaints I had with common police practice (escalation vs deescalation) and the responses I am getting are along the lines of: "Why do you care if criminals die?" or "It isn't even possible to change these police practices". However, I think it illustrates rather well what I was discussing in my first post: a lot of people in the US are apathetic or even accepting of police misconduct. Like in the OP, there is the picture of an officer pointing his rifle at an unarmed protester. That is bad, like, straight out. No one who knows proper firearm conduct would consider that acceptable practice, especially by an representative of the government on its citizenry. Yet, meh, we talk instead about how criminals are a lost cause and false dichotomies that police have to kill people or get stabbed. Why is it so bad to point out misconduct?

    Quote Originally Posted by mrmouth View Post
    If you enter that 21 foot bubble, in a manner deemed threatening, you have a good chance of getting shot, right or wrong. And as I have tried to say, once you make that decision to shoot, it isnt the movies where you aim to take out a guys kneecaps or something. You are going to aim for center mass and look to put the person down.
    Please don't assume I am ignorant of firearm usage or etiquette, as I discuss it in the OP. You are also misrepresenting the 21-foot rule, which happens a lot. It is most certainly not a 21 foot bubble that police are allowed to shoot in when they feel threatened. The Tueller Drill (which established the rule) basically demonstrates that 21 feet is about the distance in which somebody can close in the time it takes a person (with a familiar firearm) to unholster, aim, and fire their weapon. If you are construing that to mean police can engage freely within 21 feet of a suspect given the officer feels threatened, that is a big problem.
    Last edited by The spartan; February 10, 2016 at 05:00 PM.
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  20. #80

    Default Re: Why is the US ok with having an inept police force?

    Quote Originally Posted by The spartan View Post
    Well obviously it would depend on what was in the amendment. However, I fail to see why someone who currently follows the rules would object to oversight as a default position.

    We are kinda drifting off topic here. It seems like I am saying that I am saying our police force (that is, the law enforcement system as opposed to any individual officer) could be much better. I listed the complaints I had with common police practice (escalation vs deescalation) and the responses I am getting are along the lines of: "Why do you care if criminals die?" or "It isn't even possible to change these police practices". However, I think it illustrates rather well what I was discussing in my first post: a lot of people in the US are apathetic or even accepting of police misconduct. Like in the OP, there is the picture of an officer pointing his rifle at an unarmed protester. That is bad, like, straight out. No one who knows proper firearm conduct would consider that acceptable practice, especially by an representative of the government on its citizenry. Yet, meh, we talk instead about how criminals are a lost cause and false dichotomies that police have to kill people or get stabbed. Why is it so bad to point out misconduct?
    We're not drifting off topic.

    You owe an answer. Why should states that are following the law perfectly fine be obligated to vote to pass this amendment? Hell why would states that have departments not following the law perfectly fine even want to vote to pass this amendment? You're failing to make your case. This is politics. This isn't 'why do the little people that aren't even people die?'. Make your point correctly.
    Last edited by Gaidin; February 10, 2016 at 06:23 PM.
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