What Dog Shootings Reveal About American Policing.

"

Daiena wrote:

Americans or anyone really who has had face to face personal experience with cops over there, have almost entirely only decent experience to report.

"

Daiena wrote:

Americans or anyone really who haven't had face to face personal experience, but are basing their opinion on general media, are under the assumption that every cop in states is an asshole on powertrip.

"

Daiena wrote:

But then again you also live in a country that has managed to turn incarceration and facilities necessary to accommodate them, into a full blown national busyness.

"

Daiena wrote:

So in short - Hear evil, see evil, do evil.

"

鬼殺し wrote:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40661873

'Police officers feared ambush'.

And you want to pretend this isn't an issue of armed citizenry?

This woman grew up in a culture where police don't shoot citizens because police don't fear citizens because citizens by and large don't want to or can't shoot police.

In other words, a relatively sane fucking culture.

That got her killed because for whatever reason, she forgot in her panic, terror, upset, adrenalised state, that she does not live in a sane fucking culture in that regard.

I am beyond words enraged.

"

鬼殺し wrote:

I just can't talk about it anymore right now. I've been bombarded with it for a day now. It makes no sense. I hope this is the straw, but I doubt it. The amount of American responses I've seen saying, 'good, we don't want gun-hating Australians here anyway' is...beyond comprehension.

"

鬼殺し wrote:

No, I don't call them pussies. Ambushes are real, as the article also shows. I deeply respect US police for their work and feel bad for what they're facing right now. I'd quit asap were I a US cop right now and flip burgers or shovel shit. Honestly better, safer jobs and you'll get more genuine respect for how you earn your bucks.

Hell I'd GO ON THE DOLE rather than be a US cop right now. Except you don't have the dole because you're anti-socialism. So most of them have to keep plugging away.

I've had great interactions with US cops, in and out of uniform. They're people. Of course.

They're just fucking afraid.

Everyone over there is afraid right now, everyone except the idiots who genuinely believe carrying a gun makes them safe...until all that does is get them shot by the police or arrested for surviving such an encounter.

You've sacrificed so many freedoms for just the one. And that one is killing you guys.

This won't end well.

"

鬼殺し wrote:

Hey I posted that in my last DTrump thread rant. :)

Great video. And from 1995. So far back...it's been that long coming.

"

sherkhan wrote:

I think making generalizations about any group is something we need to avoid. Between the throes of PC/anti-PC culture in the wake of 9/11, I've noticed a trend towards tribal definitions: all Muslims are terrorists, all Republicans are fascists, all US liberals are SJWs, all blacks are criminals, all police are murderers.

Identifying groups by the characteristics of a vocal minority push the group to make identity choices that might move the mean towards that extreme. However - assuming that it's recognized that the extremes are a negative for society - it would be more productive to recognize the extremists as an aberration within each group that needs to be addressed, and encourage identities where it's the rest of us + the majority of the group vs the extremists of the group.

As it pertains to this conversation: it's not an issue of general police militarization. It's specific bad cops (who need to be properly punished rather than be defended by police unions), and specific cities / situations (NYPD as it pertains to Trump) where there are certain senior officials who endorse aberrant behavior.

"

sherkhan wrote:

Problematic systems have people at the root of the issues. Address the people.

"

Mark_GGG wrote:

This story is one that really stuck out to me. I remember reading an article about it where he said it was partially his military training that led him to see the man wasn't a threat, although I can't find that one any more, so take that with a grain of salt.

I do wonder, however, whether the problem isn't that the US police are becoming more and more like the military, but that they're getting armed in a manner similar to the military without getting the kind of training the military get to drill into them the safe use of those weapons, and the correct ways to judge threats.

While my own (admittedly very brief) interactions with US police were perfectly reasonable, and I suspect that's true for the majority of the time, it does seem like there's serious problems over there.

"

innervation wrote:

I listened to a podcast some months ago with a guy who has trained cadets in city police forces for decades. He suggested that there are three main problems:

1. Cops don't get enough time off - on a daily or yearly basis. They too often have to work 10 hour days, or double shifts of 16 hours, or weird things like 6 days on, 2 off, 5 on, 1 off, etc and that in the middle and at the end of these shifts, they get frazzled. They lose energy, both mental and physical, and it affects both empathy and decision making skills.

2. Cops don't get trained (because they don't have time, see above) on some critical things he thought were lacking, like hand to hand combat and judo, which would help resolve some situations that otherwise get solved with guns, or at least the pulling of a gun.

3. The public isn't educated enough about police, their role in the community, and who they are as individuals. People ought to know who their local police are. It's humanizing. And when plainclothes folks know who the officers are, and vice versa, you can start from a position of trust and respect (if even a little), instead of starting from the opposite and having to work extremely hard to earn either over the stereotypes and anecdotes people hear.