If you’ve seen any of my other posts related to policing, you’ll know that I am pretty pro-police. Having spent 25 years as an LEO including long stints in narcotics, gang investigations and homicide tends to skew ones view. However, I am not knee jerk pro-cop. In all cases, I preach to let the investigations play out. What seems obvious at first is often not the case. The "preliminary autopsy report’ that many articles cited had some gaping holes including cause and manner of death. I cautioned to not reach any conclusions without knowing the full story. Now, there are two somewhat conflicting post mortem reports out but both conclude it was a homicide. You may say, “Duh, its obvious”. But, to my eye, it wasn’t. Excited Delirium Syndrome (ExDS)is real and not a made up thing to cover up abuse. In virtually all cases of ExDS deaths there was a protracted, violent physical struggle prior to suspect going into cardiac arrest. While the video released so far doesn’t support a claim of violent resistance, there is a gap between Floyd sitting on the ground and him, apparently, not willingly getting into the back of the car. There is commonly a history of drug abuse, usually a stimulant or PCP and drugs are usually found in the system of the deceased. Underlying medical conditions are also the norm - obesity, cardiac and hypertension. The Floyd killing seems to fit the general pattern associated with excited delirium with one exception. These subjects normally exhibit psychotic characteristics - getting naked, unresponsive to verbal contact, making guttural animal noises etc. Officers are trained to treat this as a medical not a criminal matter and to get the subject medical aid ASAP. The fact that Floyd wasn’t exhibiting these traits may have lulled the officers to think his complaints were no big deal. So, if the ME says it was suffocation, I won’t dispute that conclusion. I’ve said from the beginning that Chauvin was wrong. Once Floyd starting complaining about breathing difficulty he and the other officers had a legal obligation to render aid - regardless of what was causing the problem.
What you and other LEO apologists fail (refuse?) to understand is that we’re way past taking these one case at a time. There is a significant portion of the law enforcement community who treat a certain portion of the citizenry as if they are dangerous criminals (regardless of the situation) and with a wanton disregard for their safety.
IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT THE SPECIFICS OF THIS CASE ARE!
The Law enforcement community as a whole, through the explicit actions of some of its members and the complicit action of the rest, have shown that they are completely incompetent to do the job that they’ve been hired to do.
You and your cohort are a blight on society and it needs to be dealt with. No matter what your intentions are you do more harm than good and your time is up.
mc
oops
New York cops force Associated Press reporters to leave the scene of a demonstration, literally dragging them to their car and forcing them to drive away.
Some of you probably didn’t realize that a hammer looks like a gun:
That explains why all the protestors storming the state capitol weren’t shot. They weren’t carrying hammers.
The guys who shot Ahmaud Arbery hit him with a truck first.
The guys who shot Ahmaud Arbery hit him with a truck first.
A. I am not a police apologist. I can be critical of police, as I am in this particular case. Nor do I believe whatever I see on social media without questioning the source and motives of the people posting.
B. The specifics of EVERY case matter. Many cases have been cited as examples of incorrect use of force that, upon closer examination are nothing of the sort. Michael Brown and Terrence Crutcher being prime examples.
C. I implore you to come up with a better way. And I means specifics. Not “hire better candidates” or “Do better training”. Talk is cheap. Put up or shut up.
D. And, since this is The Pit, get back into your mom’s basement and come back when you have some street experience.
C.
C(1) - Quit treating police departments like they are a branch of the military.
C(1)(a) - Quit giving police departments military gear.
C(1)(b) - Quit treating police like a junior branch of the military
C(1)(c) - Quit dressing police in military gear for routine daily wear. Go back to traditional police uniforms.
C(1)(d) - Do away with ‘boot camp’ style police academies. A ‘college’ type setting is perfectly adequate, and actually preferable when it comes to instilling a mindset.
C(2) - Quit treating law enforcement as “heroes who risk their life on a daily basis”.
C(2)(a) - Being a police officer is a job. Most cops aren’t heroes, and one most certainly isn’t a hero by virtue of simply being a cop.
C(2)(b) - Cops don’t risk their lives on a daily basis; if they do, they don’t to a greater extent than many other professions.
C(2)(c) - No more free McDonald’s.
C(3) - End the War on Drugs.
C(3)(a) - Disband all narcotics squads and put them on patrol duty. Preferably foot or bike patrol in neighborhoods where it’s needed most.
C(4) - BOOM
C(5) - Limit the use of SWAT/tactical teams to instances where they are absolutely necessary.
C(5)(a) - Disband tactical units in small agencies. They simply don’t have the time or competent personnel to field a decent unit.
C(5)(b) - Legally regulate the use of tactical teams to situations where there is no other option, such as hostage situations or active shooters.
C(5)(c) - Cease the use of tactical teams for service of routine warrants. Since most of these are related to drugs, see C(3).
C(6) - Adjust recruiting tools to attract better candidates.
C(6)(a) - Remove all imagery of tactical units or aggressive policing from recruiting materials.
C(6)(b) - Don’t automatically give preference to those with military experience. Rather, give preference to those who do not have military experience.
C(6)(c) - Give realistic projections of career path. Yes, you may be eligible to move to K9, narcotics, homicide, aviation, etc. after 4 years…but you’re not gonna get it.
C(7) - Stop disqualifying candidates who aren’t stereotypical cop personalities.
C(7)(a) - Not type A? Great. Keep them. They’re usually disqualified.
C(7)(b) - Really smart? Great. Keep them. They’re usually disqualified.
C(7)(c) - Personality test said they may tend to think for themselves? Fucking keep them. They’re usually disqualified.
I could go on, but…any questions?
Not that I disagree, but what is the alternative?
Sicks Ate, that is actually a very good outline. I’m struggling to see anything I disagree with. Did you come up with all of that just now, or is there some sort of coherent, organized group you used as a source?
Defunding or disbanding the police, on the other hand, seems like pie in the sky, feel good, namby pamby, leftist nonsense. You need police to deal with the miscreants, thugs and psychopaths amongst us.
Your C(7) group is pretty good, but what about:
(d) stop qualifying officers who live in a location significantly distant from where they patrol – perhaps scaling their pay based on how close they live to their bailiwick such that it becomes economically untenable to live in the suburb 20 miles from where they work.
Move liability up the chain of command. If patrolmen screw up, punish their captains. If captains screw up, punish the chief. You can’t fix an organizational structure by targeting the grunts - you have to go after the people who can actually change things.
Another one: don’t just train cops - *license *them, like you would a doctor or a lawyer. Have them pass State-level exams before they’re licensed to practice law enforcement, have them re-certify every few years, and establish independent, civilian ethics committees that can revoke those licenses as needed.
See also theACLU’s Criminal Law Reform Project:
All of these issues involve manifold infringements of civil liberties, and you can’t really reform public/police interactions without addressing the rest of the CJ system’s failures.
I am FORCED to agree. Each and EVERY time, they trot out the same old dog shit.
Just a few bad apples
Just an outlier
OUR (blue) lives matter
He had a weapon (no the fuck they TOO often didn’t)
He was resisting too often the VIDEO proves that is a damn lie).
Or they busted into the WRONG house on a no-knock and shoot someone SLEEPING IN BED
And then
The cop camera was off (AGAIN)
Internal Affairs does nothing
The DA does not prosecute
Or the cop actually gets “dismissed” or “asked” to leave and joins some force DOWN THE FUCKING STREET.
ENOUGH OF THIS SHIT.
I don’t give a flying FUCK about any supposed details anymore when this happens. I don’t want any lying and excuses. Wading through that is like picking pepper out of fly shit and nothing ever gets fixed.
ENOUGH. IT NEVER FUCKING ENDS.