Controversial encounters between law-enforcement and civilians - the omnibus thread #2

The BBQ Pit
3628

Preface: I’m not advocating calling the police for mental health events, my point here is that I, and I suspect a lot of us, don’t know what else to do.

It’s not just that, it’s that most of us don’t know who else to call and certainly don’t have the resources to deal with these situations on our own.

If you see someone that appears to be mentally ill running around on a busy road, what do you do?
If you see someone behaving in a way that suggests they might be getting ready to jump off that freeway overpass, what do you do?

Plus, in cases like this, time is important. Even if you had the number for the ‘right’ person, it’s likely going to take longer for them to get there than someone with lights and sirens.

But even in more minor/less dangerous situations, most of us don’t have the tools necessary to handle these things on our own (those tools including knowing who to call).
I’ve been in retail all my life and from time to time we get people causing problems, that while it appears to be due to a mental illness, it still needs to stop.

I called the police, but what should I have done with the woman who stood around for a half hour eating cheese. Like, blocks of cheese, and doing it like she was eating an apple. She didn’t even take the plastic off first, nor did she seem to be aware that it’s something she shouldn’t be doing and the only thing she’d tell us is that “WEPCO will pay for it”. WEPCO being our local energy/utility company. This woman, so far as we could tell, was not going to leave on her own.
In that situation, the police got a hold of a relative to come pick her up (who happens to work for WEPCO, so that explained that). .

Maybe when these mental health calls come in to 911, EMS could respond first and the police can avoid the scene unless EMS requests their assistance. But trying to get civilians to do something other than calling 911 is going to be a hard sell.

3629

Right, because for some reason people seem to assume that the police are ‘trained to deal with that sort of thing’. Some times they are trained for it, far too few IMO. Most are just trained to assert authority and then move directly to force for non-compliance.

3630

I’ve found that the various occasions I’ve had to call 911 were not conducive to any detached reflection on my part as to whether I was doing the right thing. There was a legitimate emergency with people in danger and I didn’t have time to weigh my options.

In large part that’s because of concerted efforts to channel all emergency calls through one route. When I was younger, much younger, it wasn’t uncommon for people to have a list of emergency numbers by the phone that included police, fire, ambulance, etc., etc., but 911 replaced the need for us to keep track of all those numbers.

While I do think it’s a problem with how we’ve designated the police to deal with pretty much all calls, especially calls that aren’t really an emergency, I think it’s important to note that when you call 911 you’re not necessarily calling for the police. When I witnessed an automobile accident a few years back I called 911 to get medical help not to summon the police.

3631

The charge was attempted manslaughter, the woman in the car somehow survived. To my layperson’s understanding of the manslaughter this seems weird - how do you attempt to kill somebody by accident? Also, it was a judge and not a jury who let the officer off the hook.

3632

While this happened in 2021, new lawsuit:

A mental health situation:

Officer Mason Roth fatally shot Klum on Oct. 13, 2021, as Klum walked the streets in the area of the 800 block of Iowa Street with what would later be found to be a BB gun pointed at his own head, according to previous reporting.

3633

At Burning Man a larger percentage of the population not operating on the same plane as the rest of us is larger than it is in the default world (although still small) there is a multi-tiered approach. Yes, contrary to popular belief, there is a police presence, typically a Pershing county deputy and a BLM ranger pair in a truck, four to six of them on a typical day.

This is far smaller than the typical police presence in a typical city of 70,000 but it is because the slack is picked up by the Black Rock Rangers, a volunteer force of mediators and assistance-givers. Armed with only a radio, rangers on a ‘dirt shift’ are also in pairs, typically 8 to 30 of them, on foot or bicycle, patrolling their area of Black Rock City, interacting with participants, passing out information (There is a whiteout expected in the next couple hours), and being the first responder in an emergency.

Trained and encouraged to solve the minor issues themselves, if something above their paygrade is run into

the ten must-reports
  • Death
  • Child or elder abuse
  • Domestic violence
  • Sexual violence
  • Medical emergency
  • Psychiatric emergency
  • Lost or found child
  • Non-consensual violence
  • Any situation likely to put a participant in non-consensual grave danger
  • Any situation likely to put a Ranger in harm’s way

or the pair just doesn’t feel comfortable handling it due to trigger or other issues (“Kicking it sideways”) when they radio in the situation, the shift command will roll the appropriate response, fire or medical teams, the Crisis Intervention Team for the heavy-duty mental issues – not only the victim but also any members of their camp or witnesses – and the Survivor Advocacy Team for sexual violence victims. The LEOs (law enforcement officers) will show up as needed but do only what they are good at (Arrest that rapist over there!). They don’t even have to set up a safety perimeter around a large-scale fire; the Rangers handle that.

Now, being a temporary situation the BRRs do not have to deal with stuff that comes up in the default world, like answering the umpteenth call on a guy who’s been homeless under a bridge for the past six months, but so far nobody’s been shot for being off their meds or on a recreational pharmaceutical.

3634

A California man has settled for $20M after police paralyzed him from the neck down:

The victim was uncooperative, but he was handcuffed and posed no threat to anyone. Body cam video of the encounter is here; the paralyzing incident, a face-down slam to the ground that happens just off-camera, is at 2:00. An epilogue showing his life these days starts at 9:24.

3635

While I have no love for Ronny Jackson, this incident highlights one of the biggest problems with how police act.

3636

BRC isn’t the default world, though, and frankly there’s a lot of douchebaggery there that is given a pass that wouldn’t fly in the real world. I appreciate that BM tries alternative approaches to community policing, but I (and others) fear it’s an example of the paradox of tolerance in action.

3637

This is true, but a number of police departments – Berkeley CA to name one – have been studying and taking notes to see how they can translate that into their more real-world situations. Note that there are more teams, without guns or arrest powers, standing by to handle a non-criminal crisis. It’s what defund the police* was supposed to be about.

*The world’s worst political slogan.

3638

Paywalled New York Times article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/07/us/border-patrol-killing-raymond-mattia.html

The reservation is on the border with Mexico.

3639

Bumping this thread because it seems to be the place to post this controversy.

In every reported case where police mistakenly arrested someone using facial recognition, that person has been Black

For several years, civil liberties groups, tech experts, and activists have warned that the use of facial recognition technology will only increase racial inequities in policing. …

Porcha Woodruff — a mother from Detroit, Michigan — became the first woman to report that police falsely identified her as a suspect using faulty facial recognition, The New York Times reported.

She is now the sixth person to report a false accusation based on facial recognition technology — and every report that came before hers was filed by someone who is Black, according to the Times. …

The research also demonstrated that Black people are overrepresented in databases of mugshots, and that skews AI.

“Consequently AI is more likely to mark Black faces as criminal, leading to the targeting and arresting of innocent Black people,” they wrote.

3640

The issue is that they can be misused the same way as polygraph examinations are misused–with the assumption they are 100% accurate–but they are not.

3641

There’s also this:

The only events for which Metropolitan police chiefs authorised the potential use of baton rounds in the past six years were black-led gatherings, documents show.

3642

It is pretty well established that AIs tend to be racially biased. Because, after all, someone has to train it.

3643

Cops march into an Applebees and beat up a man holding a child. Turns out he wasn’t the person they were looking for. But, you don’t have to worry as “He was charged with Disorderly Conduct, Resisting, and Obstructing an officer”. Between the charges and the “internal investigation” I’m sure it’ll all turn out fine.
Video in the link:

3644

These charges are so bogus. They really need to up their game here, and charge him with “Being Beaten While Black” and “Making a Noise While Being Beaten” or possibly “Felonious Baby Holding”

I mean, they really need to use their imaginations here.

3645

He hit the officer in the knee with his testicles,

3646

His sweaty wrists put our valuable handcuffs at serious risk of rust.

3647

I haven’t even read the story but the headline makes it sound like it would have been alright if the police had beaten the correct suspect.