Commenting on a profession is not derogatory. Its not attacking a specific race/gender or religion. When the tax dollars pay for the profession people are allowed to be open to criticism whether it is positive or negative.
No, you're a right, attacking a profession is not like attacking race, gender or religion. In fact, on CP, it's accepted despite the relative poor understanding of police training, tactics, etc, etc.
I was more commenting on the irony of using the term, "blanketed statements" that is used so commonly in this thread (you use one in your original post, "police tactics"- what exactly are you referring to and what is your understanding of those "tactics"?)
Being funded by the public certainly gives the public the right to question how funds are delegated or how police respond to particular events. That doesn't mean public input is based on anything other than opinion and certainly doesn't provide them any sort of insight into policing.
Last edited by Bent Wookie; 12-27-2014 at 02:06 PM.
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The 1,217 deadly police shootings from 2010 to 2012 captured in the federal data show that blacks, age 15 to 19, were killed at a rate of 31.17 per million, while just 1.47 per million white males in that age range died at the hands of police.
And this here sums up a lot of what bothers me about police in the US:
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The data, for instance, is terribly incomplete. Vast numbers of the country's 17,000 police departments don't file fatal police shooting reports at all, and many have filed reports for some years but not others. Florida departments haven't filed reports since 1997 and New York City last reported in 2007. Information contained in the individual reports can also be flawed. Still, lots of the reporting police departments are in larger cities, and at least 1000 police departments filed a report or reports over the 33 years.
How is it even slightly acceptable that police departments aren't required to keep data on how many civilians are killed at their hands? How can you attempt to keep track of the "bad apples" among various police forces if you don't even keep track of cases of unnecessary and/or deadly force?
Police do a very hard job and there are tens of thousands of them in this country that are wonderful people doing their best to keep their communities safe. But there are also a whole lot of idiots using their authority to quite literally get away with murder, and this country needs some way to better weed out characters like that
Last edited by wittynickname; 12-27-2014 at 09:59 AM.
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Cool so when will athletes, rap artists and the general black guy start saying Thug every two seconds?
I'm surprised a comment like this avoided scrutiny. I know I'm petty, but this is such a brutal post. "The general black guy"? Seriously?
And then to feign concern over others perpetuating a racial divide? Rich.
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Originally Posted by PIMking
there have been white people killed by cops since brown and no riots have happened.
Sad fact is the "black lives matter" group is continuing pushing a racial divide
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I'm surprised a comment like this avoided scrutiny. I know I'm petty, but this is such a brutal post. "The general black guy"? Seriously?
And then to feign concern over others perpetuating a racial divide? Rich.
your point being?
the n bomb is dropped every other word in rap and by athletes all the time. Then you have groups like "black lives matter" that are pushing a racist agenda that only white people can be racist.
all lives matter, simply put.
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Police do a very hard job and there are tens of thousands of them in this country that are wonderful people doing their best to keep their communities safe. But there are also a whole lot of idiots using their authority to quite literally get away with murder, and this country needs some way to better weed out characters like that
What's a whole lot? This is what blows my mind, do you know the number? Or are you just throwing down a blanket asumption. You say tens of thousands are doing a wonderful job, I would say, in North America its hundreds of thousands of LEO are doing a hell of a job under intense public scrutiny. I am not naive enough to think that there arent bad cops out there, but the number of bad are not even close to use the term "a whole lot".
the n bomb is dropped every other word in rap and by athletes all the time. Then you have groups like "black lives matter" that are pushing a racist agenda that only white people can be racist.
What's a whole lot? This is what blows my mind, do you know the number? Or are you just throwing down a blanket asumption. You say tens of thousands are doing a wonderful job, I would say, in North America its hundreds of thousands of LEO are doing a hell of a job under intense public scrutiny. I am not naive enough to think that there arent bad cops out there, but the number of bad are not even close to use the term "a whole lot".
How often in the US does a week go by where there isn't at least one case where an officer is shown using unnecessary force to make an arrest? Shooting first and asking questions later?
It happens with frightening regularity in this US. And it's not the same 2 or 3 police officers each time. It's different officers from different precincts from different states. This happens all over the US on a regular basis.
And sorry if I'm not jumping to give it a number. I'll give it a number when police properly report killings/excessive use of force numbers. Then I can point to "hey, this group of x-number of police officers are power tripping jerkoffs who need to lose their jobs." Until then, I'll look at the frequency with which these events occur to back up my point.
These are men who are entrusted with the responsibility to keep myself and my family and my friends safe. I'm going to hold them to a far higher standard than your basic civilian. And given how there are police forces in pretty much every other industrialized nation on the planet who are capable of doing their job with a lot less bloodshed, I think I'm well within my rights to be skeptical.
How often in the US does a week go by where there isn't at least one case where an officer is shown using unnecessary force to make an arrest? Shooting first and asking questions later?
How many police/citizen interactions in the US per day are there? How many of those end up in violence (one way or another). I've heard numbers tossed around that end up around 1-2%. The thing is, you HEAR about all of them. They make good copy. No one cares to hear about people behaving/doing things right/well.
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It happens with frightening regularity in this US. And it's not the same 2 or 3 police officers each time. It's different officers from different precincts from different states. This happens all over the US on a regular basis.
You realize that each State could have 1 fatal police/civilian incident a week (most have less), and that's still a statistically insignificant number when measured, right?
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These are men who are entrusted with the responsibility to keep myself and my family and my friends safe. I'm going to hold them to a far higher standard than your basic civilian. And given how there are police forces in pretty much every other industrialized nation on the planet who are capable of doing their job with a lot less bloodshed, I think I'm well within my rights to be skeptical.
Right. They are asked, day in and day out to go out and face the worst elements in society, becuase society doesn't want to face them. They are expected to be perfect, more than human, and to never f*** up. And when they do, they will be thrown under the bus and/or to the wolves. Why aren't people lining up to be police officers again?
Also, to your last statement...I have lived in both the US and elsewhere in the world for significant portions of time. I don't think that you can fully appreciate how gun-psycho the States are. With living in the States, my fear would be being shot period, not WHO did it. Everyone seems to have a gun up there, and everyone seems incredibly willing to use it at the slightest provocation. Is it any wonder that police shoot first and ask questions later? I'm not saying that's the RIGHT approach, but I can sure understand why it's the currently employed approach.
Also, given how different "movie guns" and "reality guns" are, none of this is a big shock, either.
Last edited by WhiteTiger; 12-27-2014 at 12:35 PM.
The unfortunate reality of policing in the US is while they have some very good police, the FBI etc the average municipal police are utterly dreadful, I'll trained, I'll led and not particularly well recruited either. They are all strongly politically influenced as well, their leadership being elected.
Most municipal police forces especially in the south are operating at third world levels of incompetence and corruption.
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Just some food for thought. This guy is retired CPS and speaks all over North America.
Thanks for posting this UnderGRAD.
Brian Willis is well known and well respected in the law enforcement community. He echoes many lessons put forth by other professionals in the community that I have linked in this thread and others.
Hopefully, it will provide some insight to some in this thread.
Officers fired guns at people who did not pose "an immediate threat of death or serious bodily injury to officers or others."
Officers used guns in a "careless and dangerous manner," including hitting suspects in the head with their firearms and firing in ways that place innocent bystanders in danger.
Officers used stun guns and pepper spray instead of trying to de-escalate situations.
Officers punched suspects who have been handcuffed "as punishment" after a person struggled with an officer or did not comply with demands.
Officers arrested and assaulted mentally ill people after family members called police for help.
Officers reported receiving little supervision, guidance, and support, leaving them to determine for themselves how to perform their jobs.
Supervisors endorse questionable and unlawful conduct. Investigations of officers' use of force appear to be designed to justify officers' actions.
The department is often antagonistic toward the community it serves. A large sign hanging in one station identified it as a "forward operating base," a war zone military term.
How often in the US does a week go by where there isn't at least one case where an officer is shown using unnecessary force to make an arrest? Shooting first and asking questions later?
It happens with frightening regularity in this US. And it's not the same 2 or 3 police officers each time. It's different officers from different precincts from different states. This happens all over the US on a regular basis.
And sorry if I'm not jumping to give it a number. I'll give it a number when police properly report killings/excessive use of force numbers. Then I can point to "hey, this group of x-number of police officers are power tripping jerkoffs who need to lose their jobs." Until then, I'll look at the frequency with which these events occur to back up my point.
These are men who are entrusted with the responsibility to keep myself and my family and my friends safe. I'm going to hold them to a far higher standard than your basic civilian. And given how there are police forces in pretty much every other industrialized nation on the planet who are capable of doing their job with a lot less bloodshed, I think I'm well within my rights to be skeptical.
Witty, the only explanation I have for a lot of the comments in support of police and that are dismissive of everything against law enforcement is that they're thinking of Canadian Law enforcement when posting.
Because a lot of their posts make sense and are something I'd post myself, if we were talking anywhere in Canada. But all the **** that goes on down in the States in terms of institutionalized racism, poor leadership, poor funding, approved questionable police behavior, cover-ups, etc.
It's just a whole different ball game, and I'm not sure some of these posters understand just truly how bad it is down there.
Canadian law enforcement does not = American law enforcement.
^^ It also really depends on the city in Canada. I've only had one really negative incident with CPS and they're generally fairly laid back and approachable. VanPD and VicPD/SaanichPD on the other hand seem to go out of their way to be #######s towards the general public. All of this is completely anecdotal of course, although I haven't seen any reports of CPS exploiting prostitutes like VanPD has done in the past.
Witty, the only explanation I have for a lot of the comments in support of police and that are dismissive of everything against law enforcement is that they're thinking of Canadian Law enforcement when posting.
Because a lot of their posts make sense and are something I'd post myself, if we were talking anywhere in Canada. But all the **** that goes on down in the States in terms of institutionalized racism, poor leadership, poor funding, approved questionable police behavior, cover-ups, etc.
It's just a whole different ball game, and I'm not sure some of these posters understand just truly how bad it is down there.
Canadian law enforcement does not = American law enforcement.
And this is the part that drives me crazy. I comment on the fact that it is indeed a very difficult job and that there are a lot of officers who do their jobs well and have the best intentions, but even a little bit of skepticism means that I'm anti-cop. I'm not anti-cop. I'm against cops who use their power to beat down the citizens they're expected to "serve and protect."
You can't look at the way law enforcement is practiced by certain officers/precincts in the US and honestly tell me there isn't something wrong. The DoJ findings about Cleveland police sums that up easily. The NYPD's "stop and frisk" policy sums it up. Hell, the LAPD song about Michael Brown is proof of some pretty strong issues.
Officers are capable of deescalating situations. They are capable of taking even extremely violent criminals into custody without resorting to deadly force. No, those stories don't get told. If you want to keep the bad news out of the media--stop giving the media things to report on. Stop going into an apartment stairwell and opening fire without even being able to see who you're shooting at. Don't jump out of a car at a 12 year old with a BB gun and level him with gunfire in two seconds before attempting to figure out what's going on.
Report when your actions result in a death or injury. Report accusations of excessive force. Have a complete separate entity to deal with cases of suspected police brutality, don't let your buddy DA lob softball questions at your officer so he can get off easy. If your officers don't use their dash cams and body cams? Suspend them without pay.
Really, just having a better system of checks and balances, just keeping an eye on the police, would go a really long way to lowering people's suspicions about the police and the kind of force they use.
And this here sums up a lot of what bothers me about police in the US:
How is it even slightly acceptable that police departments aren't required to keep data on how many civilians are killed at their hands? How can you attempt to keep track of the "bad apples" among various police forces if you don't even keep track of cases of unnecessary and/or deadly force?
Police do a very hard job and there are tens of thousands of them in this country that are wonderful people doing their best to keep their communities safe. But there are also a whole lot of idiots using their authority to quite literally get away with murder, and this country needs some way to better weed out characters like that
Just as an aside, that article has received a lot of scrutiny. So much so, they followed up the article with an explanation:
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That finding has received criticism, as is often the case when a number draws a spotlight. As with any analysis, our analysis arose from a series of judgments.
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It was clear from the outset, for example, that the data from the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Report, which underlies our assessment, is deeply flawed. This has been well-documented by us and others. In fact, we characterized the data as “terribly incomplete” and said its shortcomings were “inarguable.” But the FBI database stands as the most complete national record of deaths at the hands of police.
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There were, generally speaking, three arguments contesting our analysis: That we should have included men of all ages, that we should not have excluded Hispanics from our analysis, and that we should have calculated rates for a longer period of time.
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As a final note, many have pointed to our reporting as proof of police bias. That overstates our case; ProPublica found evidence of a disparity in the risks faced by young black and white men. This does not prove that police officers target any age or racial group – the data is far too limited to point to a cause for the disparity. We hoped that our analysis would spur further inquiry into why this disparity exists, which it has done, and we stand by it.
I guess my point is, while the stats presented MAY raise some interesting questions, I am not so sure the analysis, by a couple of reporters could be considered an expert analysis. They use words like assumption and selection when they source their data. Again, I am not so sure it should be taken as gospel.
No, you're a right, attacking a profession is not like attacking race, gender or religion. In fact, on CP, it's accepted despite the relative poor understanding of police training, tactics, etc, etc.
I was more commenting on the irony of using the term, "blanketed statements" that is used so commonly in this thread (you use one in your original post, "police tactics"- what exactly are you referring to and what is your understanding of those "tactics"?)
Being funded by the public certainly gives the public the right to question how funds are delegated or how police respond to particular events. That doesn't mean public input is based on anything other than opinion and certainly doesn't provide them any sort of insight into policing.
Witty, the only explanation I have for a lot of the comments in support of police and that are dismissive of everything against law enforcement is that they're thinking of Canadian Law enforcement when posting.
Because a lot of their posts make sense and are something I'd post myself, if we were talking anywhere in Canada. But all the **** that goes on down in the States in terms of institutionalized racism, poor leadership, poor funding, approved questionable police behavior, cover-ups, etc.
It's just a whole different ball game, and I'm not sure some of these posters understand just truly how bad it is down there.
Canadian law enforcement does not = American law enforcement.
