Yup, and the vast majority of Chauvin’s arrests went just fine, too. Until he murdered a guy.
If busting the bad cops means you no longer get to be a cop, and you genuinely want to try and stop criminals and protect people, is it fair to say you’re bad for not reporting them?
The system is definitely corrupt. But I think it can be so even while good cops exist. The problem isn’t a few bad cops, but it’s also not that all cops are bad people.
That is why I find “Dedund the police” interesting. It’s about resetting that system, removing the entrenched bad cops by starting over rather than expecting those with less power to out them. It’s similar to the dissolution proposal to deal with the corrupt NRA leadership, rather than going after lower management who didn’t rat them out.
You might say he was a ‘mostly peaceful’ police officer.
I’d like to ask some of his previous arrestees if they would agree.
You don’t just one day decide to kneel on someone’s neck until they die.
You work up to it.
I see what you’re implying there, @Sam_Stone. But it points out a relevant contrast: Most of the peaceful protestors don’t like the rioters, and in many cases even try to stop them, even though that’s not actually their job. Can you say the same for police officers?
I, like most of us, have watched the videos of George Floyd’s death numerous times. And it’s quite clear to me that it wasn’t about Floyd. Floyd was just some dude who needed arrestin’ and alittle attitude adjustment, as part of the process, to Chauvin. The 8 minutes and 46 seconds was a blatant “fuck you” to the bystanders. “i’m in charge here, not you. You dont like how I’m arresting this guy? Too bad. I dont give a fuck. And just to show you how much I dont give a fuck i’ll just keep kneeling on this guy until I’m good and ready to stop and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
There was nothing to work up to. It’s how all cops think. “I’m the authority, and you’re nothing”. most cops make it through their careers without anything too bad arising from that attitude, but they’re all just 8 minutes and 46 seconds away from doing something horrible to someone.
There is no such thing as a good cop. They’re all just cops.
Here’s a good place to start–as you can imagine, statistics on this are very hard to figure and compile, but one thing I found rather damning was a self report:
An FBI advisory board later found that roughly 40 percent of officers who filled out questionnaires in a number of different settings admitted to being physically violent with their spouse in the previous six months. The general population data for self-reported abuse is closer to 4 percent when people are asked to report on the last 12 months.
Well, y’know, unless you ignore the 18 previous complaints filed against him and the previous shootings that were…dubious. Declining to prosecute this asshole in a previous shooting is pretty much what torpedoed Amy Klobuchar’s presidential and then vice presidential hopes.
Would Mr. Floyd be alive today if the witnesses just ignored the arrest and silently went on their way?
That’s one of the things that I wondered while watching the video.
Was the cop trying to make a point to them? Did he kill Floyd in order to show off how bad ass he was in front of an audience?
Is it the cops trying to tell us that we should just ignore the abuse of our fellow citizens, and silently go on our way?
The message is “shut up or you’ll be next, motherfucker. We do this shit for fun!”
I believe many see themselves as Judge jury and sometimes executioner within their communities.
I don’t believe this is true, the overwhelming evidence is that decent people don’t last long in police work. Are they willing to use chemical weapons against people who are not even threatening violence against them? Note that would be a war crime if they were soldiers dealing with a hostile army that was shooting at them. Are they willing to threaten deadly force against people for anything other than posing a direct threat to them? Are they willing to arrest someone for anything less than actual probable cause or a warrant? Are they willing to make blatantly illegal arrests, for example of medics, journalists, or legal observers? Are they willing to protect people from being kidnapped by thugs in camoflague gear driving vans around grabbing people off the street and arrest said thugs?Are they willing to beat, torture, or kill someone for being disrespectful to them? Are they willing to arrest any cops they see who beat, torture, rape, or kill someone for being disrespectful to that cop?
To put it simply, decent people don’t torture other people if they feel disrespected. Decent people don’t use chemical weapons against peaceful protesters. Decent people don’t arrest people on bogus charges because handling the paperwork lets them get more overtime. Decent people don’t protect their buddies when they commit torture, assault, rape, and murder. But cops do this consistently.
What do you REALLY think your hardworking, decent, misunderstood cop buddies would actually do if they pulled a black guy over, and the guy kept up a string of ‘fuck you pigs’ while not making any threatening moves? Do you really, deep down, believe that the guy would come out of the situation alive and unharmed, or would these decent, hardworking guys actually torture, kill, or invent a reason for arresting him? Because I think it’s been made pretty clear on video, by police statements, and by police supporter statements that there’s at the very least torture in store for anyone, especially a black guy, who dares to mouth off to cops.
I was watching an interview with Ronnie Coleman, yes the bodybuilder. He used to be a police officer in Dallas for a pretty long while. He said he thought their police department had less problems with abuse from police because the department required all officers to have a 4 year degree, he had a bachelor’s in accounting for instance.
Decent people don’t shoot your dog.
The 4 year degree aspect is interesting. Many other European countries have similar requirements. Setting aside that people can go through a 4 year university program and come out as an asshole, at the basic level pursuing and achieving a university education is a sorting mechanism. I would say that currently in the US, police/firefighter jobs are traditionally considered by people who do not pursue higher education. Since we in the US do not have an abundance of decent paying union labor any more, police/fire becomes a more attractive option. If we start requiring a university education (which I am all for, btw), where will everyone else go for work? Contruction?
What, so higher standards on police hiring results in higher quality police?
Whooda thunk it?
Degree inflation is an issue, and one that needs to be addressed on either the supply or demand side of the issue.
But it shouldn’t be used as a reason to choose poor candidates for the purpose of keeping our communities safe and secure.
Well, one of my friends got a degree in social work before joining. His education is probably atypical. I think having a few classes on race relations will not solve problems it has not already solved. I do think requiring experience in social work or any other practical degree (at college or university) where one works in the community would be very helpful.
Based on what I’ve seen and heard, cops view themselves as some sort of last bastion between howling chaos and disorder and nice, orderly peaceful civilization. And they’re well aware that they’re the state’s primary domestic instrument in applying its monopoly on violence. This is a pretty powerful combination, and I imagine it’s easier to succumb to the power trip mentality- to some degree, you ARE the law, and people can’t really argue with you in the moment without consequences. I mean, they can, but you can also beat them down and haul them in, and then let the courts settle it, with some (at least until recently) confidence that you’ll be let off the hook.
So you have the ‘good’ cops feeling like their brother ‘bad’ cops are still part of that “thin blue line” against crime and chaos, and they feel like they have to defend the group, even if they know intellectually and in their guts that the other guys are in the wrong. It’s the same mentality I suspect that you see in the military where war crimes perpetrators are defended because they’re on “our side”.
Combine that with a highly mobile police force where most cops are individual and cover a relatively large geographic area in their cars, and you have a recipe for disconnection from the greater community, and a lack of accountability.
IMO, the real fix is to get the cops more involved in the community, so that when someone calls the cops, it’s not some random cop showing up- it’s Officer Jim, or Sergeant Jamal or whoever- someone who the community is familiar with and hopefully trusts. And someone who hopefully has respect and is invested in that particular community. As long as the cops see themselves as a breed apart from “civilians”, then we’re always going to have these problems. Even that usage of “civilians” is telling; the cops are ALSO civilians (i.e. not military), but it shows they consider themselves separate.
That IMO, is the issue- they see themselves as a breed apart and not part of the communities they police.