The Minneapolis police chief has resigned after being asked to by the mayor (after the killing by a cop of an Australian woman):
A> Good riddance, but
B> Won’t make a damned bit of difference until we break the fucking Minneapolis PD Union and make some major policy changes. The police will fight this tooth and nail and paint their opponents with all sorts of lies and slander, make anonymous death threats and even openly harass people to stop it. Yes, they’ve done it before.
Great news. All shootings of unarmed civilians will now be treated seriously and not just ones about pretty blond women, right? Right?
Not such a broad scope as unarmed pretty white women – limited to unarmed pretty white women in pyjamas.
Breaking unions and forcing policy changes upon workers? I didn’t realize you’d joined the Republican Party.
No, attacking the union is not the right idea at all. Police cultures in specific departments can be reformed without attacking officers politically economically, which is a terrible idea. If you think police conduct is inconsistent now, just wait until we make the job so unappealing that the wrong people apply. We need to do the opposite: raise salaries and devote more resources so that it becomes a very appealing job and that only the very best applicants are screened and hired. And trained. The problem we have with officers is the same one we have with school teachers. They’re under-resourced, under-trained, and become fodder for political debate.
Sorry, no.
The Union is the source of all issues with them accepting civilian oversight and reforms. The union fights tooth and nail to keep bad cops on the force. I don’t want to eliminate the union, I want to force them to accept civilian oversight and reforms. If they can’t do it, then they need to go.
And no, raising their salary won’t change anything. They’re already well paid and many officers make well over $100k with voluntary overtime.
Our police are NOT underpaid and under-resourced. They’re under managed by our civilian government and allowed to do things contrary to the public good. As the sides of their cars say;
TO PROTECT WITH COURAGE
TO SERVE WITH COMPASSION
They are NOT serving our community with compassion and they are not protecting us. They’re only protecting themselves.
“Minneapolis Police Officer Salary and Job Outlook. Police officers in Minneapolis earn an annual mean salary of $64,160 according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. The starting salary for new officers is between $54,504 and $69,565, depending on experience and qualifications.”
Not high enough?
Badges, guns, the promise of “power”, a chance to be a bully, already attract the wrong people.
That’s why police departments try so damn hard screen them out. They know the wrong kind of people want the power. Unfortunately, some still slip through and get in.
This isn’t the first police chief to resign after a shooting. Brief googling yields resignations in Chicago, San Francisco, and Miami, among others.
This might be some progress
except, maybe not
Still seems a tad insider-ish, to me at least.
Someone on the state level is going to be preferable to the local prosecutors. They may be “on the same side” and there may be a conflict there, but it is going to be much less so than when you are prosecuting someone you’ve worked with before.
It’s a step in the right direction, I won’t criticize it unless it seems to be as problematic as when local prosecutors have the job.
Mississippi cops go to wrong address, kill man who answered door
This poor guy has a nice Hispanic - sounding name. The Usual Suspects can go back to victim blamimg.
And of course,
Saw this on the same news website.
Basically, they saw she was carrying a gun while they were talking to someone else nearby, asked her for her permit, which she had, asked to “hold onto the weapon”,but when they ran the serial number of her gun, it came back as stolen. They went ahead and charged her and booked her. It was only a month later and because the news media got involved, it seems that they realized that they had read the serial number incorrectly, and that the gun was not in fact stolen.
I wonder if the NRA has anything to say about this.
Question for gun folks who carry. Can the police actually require you to provide permit and serial numbers for your gun at any time, or do they have to have any sort of probable cause?
Apparently they have X-Ray vision, though, as they were able to “see” that the victim had a gun despite the fact that there was a door between them and him when they fired. Fuckers.
We are on the same page.
Back in New York there was an expression “alibi gun”. it was a well known “secret” that some cops carried a cheap Saturday Night Special just for those embarrassing moments WHEN YOU KILL THE WRONG GUY.
Fortunately, they don’t need to do that anymore.
You just claim that you were scared for your life.
It must vary per state, but if your jurisdiction requires a carry permit it will also require that you have it whenever carrying ,and most often that if so then you must present it upon LEA request.
Some jurisdictions issue permits for a specific individual firearm, so a number match would be in order. But I’d imagine there should be some sort of reason for the LEA to “ask to hold your gun for a bit”.