Sure. But if we make the story “Violent individuals resign because they want to be able to hit old people against policy”, it lets the people who gave the orders off the hook, and makes this a story about how the rank and file are just sadists. If the orders are basically "fuck people up, but if you get caught, we will fire you in order to maintain the charade that we aren’t a violent organization ", well, we need to hear that.
Exactly. Better to punish one commander who gave an order, than ten grunts who followed it. They’re all guilty, of course, but if you want to change things you have to start from the top.
He’s been arrested, and he’s not a former police officer. He is (or apparently, now, was) an executive at a company called MadeToOrder.
These riots are different than those of the past. Those blaming “the blacks” need to read the news more carefully. Cops and white-supremacist assholes seem to be a big part of the problem.
The cops and assholes are sometimes cooperating:
In another thread, Dopers asked how America’s New Civil War would develop. (Red states vs Blue states? No. Farms vs cities? No.) Perhaps we’re seeing a model of the war now.
I object to the use of “resign”. The 57 officers did not resign from the force (as they probably should have), they just said “we’re not doing this duty anymore”. I understand how it is not like industry, but imagine if you told your boss that you would no longer work on a project that you had been assigned to because, reasons. If those officers are not suspended without pay, their “resignations” are meaningless.
I’d be really interested in hearing the man’s reason for his behavior. Will he claim the flyers were going to harm the trees? Seriously, other than “I don’t like people with more melanin than me” how will he explain his actions?
If my boss tells me to do a certain task a certain specific way, orders me to do it, and then fires two of my coworkers for doing exactly what he ordered us all to do, me saying “OK, then, I won’t do that task”, is daring them to fire me so that I can file a suit bringing all that to light.
Don’t be mad they aren’t being fired. They didn’t quit because they were ordered not to hit old people and they want to hit old people. They quit because they were ORDERED to hit old people and then fired for it. This doesn’t make them the good guys . . .there are no good guys. But they are resisting being made the scapegoats for an evil system, and that’s actually awesome. We have to get at the system and quit just culling “bad apples”.
I know the police are on the fascist side of the antifa/fascist battle, but the “We were only following orders” shtick went out of style in Nuremburg around 75 years ago. They need some better material.
True, but if you have to choose, isn’t it better to go after the guys *giving *the orders?
Bullshit.
- They didn’t “quit”-they walked away from that particular assignment.
- You have no evidence that they were ordered to hit old people.
- They are NOT " resisting being made the scapegoats for an evil system"-they are protesting because they want to get away with being part of the evil system.
Ordered to hit old people?
It appears that they were ordered to go out and be out-of-control-assholes.
That’s not my point at all. “I was only following orders” is not a defense, but “They shouldn’t have followed my orders” isn’t one, either. The cops shouldn’t have followed bad orders–but that doesn’t mean that the person following the orders is off the hook. Hitler wasn’t less guilty just because he never personally killed a Jew.
The other 50+ resigning from the team makes no sense if the two people who attacked the guy were acting against explicit orders. You don’t quit in protest because your coworkers who broke the rules got fired. You quit in protest because you feel like you’ve been done wrong by your institution. They thought they had reason to believe they would be protected by their institution if they violently roughed up protesters. When the institution proved unwilling to protect them, they quit.
None of us know exactly why they quit the team because they haven’t said. But I think the explanation that “the rank and file really want to rough up protesters but the noble authorities won’t let them so they quit in protest” seems very improbable given everything else. It seems more likely this is a conspiracy of criminals who are forming a circular firing squad. We should let them.
The other 50+ resigning from the team makes perfect sense if they were instructed by their police union to do so to put across that fucking with them will not be tolerated.
We have exactly zero evidence that those to cops were ordered to rough up protesters. We have verifiable evidence that they knocked an old man down and cracked his skull. They should be fired and charged with assault. There may be additional people who should be charged. If they were ordered by their superiors to knock down old men then those superiors should be charged as well, not instead of.
The officers who quit the riot squad are accomplices after the fact. They are attempting to enable those two to evade prosecution fer a felony. Unless you’re admitted to the bar that is also illegal. I’d fire the lot of them. Too lazy to work, and too cowardly to steal without the color of authority. They will not be missed.
The two Buffalo cops have been charged with assault. Will the other 57 now raid the jail to release their maligned brothers?
Portland police have been ordered to stop using sound cannon against protesters.
This is a good thing isn’t it? Almost 60 assholes won’t be in that job. Next step is watch everything they do on the job they have.
We have lots of evidence that they were following orders. We don’t have proof. But it’s pretty damning that no one intervened and that they quit the team after the fact. And I never, ever said “instead of”.
Look, mass resignations are really rare, especially on this scale. They speak to a sense of deep outrage, of betrayal. I just can’t imagine you’d get that sort of reaction in support of this brutality if they didn’t feel they had been wronged. They must have felt the cops who assaulted this poor man were entitled to the administration’s support. That sense of entitlement came from somewhere.
Again, not saying it’s justified. But do you really feel like the 50+ members of the riot team are just some “bad apples” and somehow NOT representative of the culture of the Buffalo Police Department as a whole? They put all the bad apples on the riot team?
Red Forman?
That’s exactly how I read it.
They could have quit because their institution is asking them to be thugs, and they’d prefer to be police officers. They didn’t, they’re fine with being thugs, as long as the people in charge protect them from the consequences.
Also, the entire concept of “bad apples” is that they “spoil the bunch”. I’m seeing 57 spoiled apples here.