Quote:
Originally Posted by Itse
The bolded part is to me kind of mind-boggling, because one common issue I see with basically all of these US police brutality videos, is just how [B]bad the average US cop seems to be at use of physical force. They are often clearly just pathetically unskilled considering use of force is their job.
Obviously the properly committed takedowns don't get shared in social media as police brutality, but it's still amazing to me. I would actually imagine that's one big reason why they're so prone to go for their guns or tasers. If you know you're about 50/50 to come out on top in a wrestling match, you really need to avoid them.
As I've sometimes mentioned, I drove in a cab in a nightshift in Helsinki for many years, and have seen more than my share of police taking down people for various reasons. Men, women, big guys, drunks, addicts. I've had to call the police to remove an aggressive client a few times. Seeing an experienced patrol officer wrap up a guy coming at them in a second never seizes to impress me.
But of course, every Finnish police officer has trained for years. As a result they're generally super good at what they do. They're also consistently the most trusted profession. (There's a national ranking every year.)
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I remember being in Cochem, Germany with 3 extended family members a couple years ago, sitting on patio overlooking a parking lot drinking wine. A drunk goon comes barreling into the parking lot, stumbling into cars, yelling at tourists watching him, and generally being a disruptive arsehole. He was a large dude, very intimidating physically and looked like he was ready to rumble with whomever crossed his path.
We see 2 squad cars pull up and I start to think this is it, he's gonna get taken down hard given the damage and disturbance he was causing. Even as the cops cops got out and began to approach him, the man took an aggressive stance and tone towards them. Us being North Americans, we wouldn't have blinked an eye if the cops had taken him down hard, beat him around a bit, then dragged his ass to the car. That's what we are used to seeing this side of the pond. I was 100% expecting it.
Instead the officers mostly sat back and 2 of them came forward to talk to the guy. They de-escalated the situation and within minutes the guy sat down on the ground against a car and was talking back and forth with them. The officers weren't being aggressive. They weren't ordering him around. Not a single weapon was drawn. The other officers let the 2 'negotiators' do their job and stood back calmly and just observed.
Eventually the man got up and willingly walked with them to one of the cars. No handcuffs, no violence, no aggression. They sat there with the door open for a bit with him in the back, talking to him, then eventually they all drove away with him in the back.
It was one of the calmest and coolest things I've ever witnessed. My aunt and uncle are both German citizens and were translating to us what they were talking about. They were talking with the guy about his life, his job, his evening. No one was reading him his rights, saying what a loser he was, or any of the other jabber you would hear in NA. Just calm and collected. Eventually they asked (!) the man politely if he would come to the station so they could sort it all out.
My aunt and uncle said this was typical of the German police. Very rarely do they pull out a weapon, and it's even rarer they actually use it. They also do quite a bit of training and many positions are required to have a post-secondary degree and they have a diligent process of filtering out inadequate trainees.
New Era's description of US police are quite different. Seems quite a few literal psychopaths make it onto the force. People who enjoy asserting dominance over others and take delight in causing pain. People with ties to white supremacy groups who see it as their god-given duty to fight the ''colors and blacks'' who they think are overtaking their country. Combine that with a massive weapons industry that caters to these department to supply all the tough-guy weapons they desire, it's a recipe for a disaster.
Canada lies somewhere between the middle of the US and EU model. However IMO it's more leaned towards the US model with the militarization of the police force, even here in Calgary. I hope that changes. Things like changing all the squad cars to look like military vehicles to match their NA counterparts was a stupid move.