This doesn’t go along exactly with the Memphis murder of the young man.
What I would like is some perspective from knowledgeable folks here on those who perpetrate such public crimes in front of a camera they are wearing.
Psychologically, what is the mindset of a cop who is fully aware of public opinion, yet beats a person in front of a camera?
If somebody points a weapon at an officer, I don’t think the public would howl if the perpetrator were shot or violently subdued.
But what is the persoanality, integrity, caution, or any other trait of a public servant who would beat somebody to death in front of a camera.
I, for one, appreciate the police in general. It is a job I know I could not do, and we surely need police. I have friends who are police, my neighbor is a state policeman, and I genuinely worry about them in their work. It is unsafe, and I couldn’t do it.
But, for crying out loud, what is the personality that beats a person like happened in Memphis and wearing cameras?
Do we have any professionals who could speak to this in general, this personality type.
Are professionals able to identify in advance those who would beat people who would not be deterred by a camera?
Is this something that can be identified before hiring this type of personality? Or are where going to be on this nightmare merry-go-round forever?
I recently watched one YT video of a cop talking to a fellow officer on the phone. He was talking about how he beat the snot out of someone and was looking for advice on what to say to justify the beating.
The cop on the other line said. “Is your camera on”? And that’s when the video ended bc the officer realized his cam was still on.
Even so, I strongly suspect they figured they’d be just fine as long as he didn’t die. Only… he died.
Police feel empowered to oppress the poor and minorities. As long as the press doesn’t get wind of it, they know they’ll be just fine. And the press isn’t going to get wind of it unless something undeniably heinous (not just heinous, but undeniably heinous) happens. You can throw sand and hold off the press long enough if the victim doesn’t die–just understate the injuries and over state their level of resistance–but dead bodies don’t get better after three days.
I think it would depend on whether I was surrounded by colleagues who beat people up in front of a camera and faced no consequences.
I mean, if you’re speaking in total hypotheticals. If you’re asking if I would personally do it, no, I don’t engage in violence unless it’s in self defense and fortunately it has been decades since I’ve needed to.
They get away with it far too often, even with the camera on, and that encourages them to continue. Also the verbal narration that seems to imply that the suspect isn’t cooperating, even if the video doesn’t directly show noncompliance, gives them reasonable doubt a lot of the time. Repeatedly shouting (sometimes contrary) commands that have already been complied with to the best of a suspect’s ability, telling a suspect to stay down and still while being tazed or beaten, partially blocking the view while yelling “He’s got a weapon”, shooting someone in the back while they are running away while yelling that the suspect is charging them, etc.
This is true. Two things make the death of Tyre Nichols stand out. One is that most of the police officers involved were of the same minority as him. That didn’t stop them from seeing him as the other, as less than them, as something they didn’t emphasize with. The other is that the authorities are moving much faster than usual take action against the officers involved (yet it still took more time to take action against their white colleague).
They probably forget the camera is on, and in the heat of the moment of an arrest, if the person being arrested does not comply, instantly, with commands and the officer becomes scared, or otherwise concerned for his/her safety and adrenaline kicks-in, they could start beating on someone.
I guess I assumed, wrongly, that cops are supposed to be trained how to handle those feelings and impulses, and I thought, wrongly, having more cops around as “back-up”, and the video cameras, would mitigate the risk of one cop’s inability to handle a situation like that.
I guess when they are beating the pulp out of someone they are feeling it’s justified, and in the back of thier mind they are confident the system and the union will back them up, no matter what the camera shows, and the police control the cameras, right? Someone in the other thread pointed out the one camera out of the police control was the one with the most damaging evidence of what happened to Mr. Nichols
Police have been caught beating or shooting people on camera for at least 3 decades and very rarely have they been held accountable at all. The mainstream public outrage is very recent, and even then with clear proof there are many apologists who make every excuse possible (say that a clearly incapacitated man was “resisting,” cops won’t kill you if you weren’t doing something wrong in the first place, etc). For a long time the whole police brutality thing was a niche interest, and frankly I think it was politically inconvenient and a lot of the ones who wanted accountability were fringy types included right-wing small govt types and an-caps, etc. There’s a journalist who has been on this beat well over 20 years and I first found him on the Fox News website. I remember writing my US Senator, a well-known long-time Dem with a great reputation for caring about issues of the oppressed, after the Diallo murder. She responded that I need to respect cops more. At that point, at least in my experience, if you didn’t worship cops you were more likely to be considered a rightwing extremist like Randy Weaver or something because you hated state agents. If you were a mainstream fan of “good government” you had to love cops.
That’s interesting because all the people with the “thin blue line” flag stickers on their trucks around here also have TFG stickers. ISTM the right wingers are in the “worship cops” camp now, probably as a culture war counter to BLM.
I agree this has been going on for while even with cameras, and the system, until recently, has been able to brush aside accusations of abuse.
I trace a significant component to the increased militarization after 9/11. Sure, cops beat on people before that, but after 9/11 the money flooded into law enforcement/education/equipment to support an attitude in which every fellow citizen was perceived as a potential threat. A FAR cry from the days of Officer Friendly, whose motto was to serve and protect.
I expect adrenaline played a huge part, but it started when they dragged the guy out of the car - when there was no indication so much force. was needed. Or those yahoos in Denver who killed that Kiwi in the stuck car, rather than just waiting him out. There is an attitude among so many cops that hey can escalate matters rather than de-escalate them - with no repercussions.
I agree with the OP - VERY hard for an average person to comprehend.
Good points. Perhaps another factor is cops expect everyone they encounter to be armed, so they need to proceed with utmost caution. And when someone is percieved to be uncooperative or belligerent, they put their hand on their own firearm and things escalate from there, with (now) predictable results.
They don’t care. Because they’re confident they can get away with it.
First of all, the cops know how to orchestrate it so it looks like the beating is justified. They will yell “Stop resisting!” even though the victim is not resisting. They will yell “He’s reaching for a weapon!” even though they’re not. They will also do things and yell things to provoke a certain response from the victim, and then beat them for it.
Secondly, no matter what happens, they know the union, their chief, and their fellow officers “have their back.”
Thirdly, they think they can get away with anything by simply claiming “qualified immunity.”
Remember, these people are not like you and me. They’re arrogant. They’re bullies. They’re narcissists. They’re sadists. Most suffer from an authoritarian complex. The are members of a gang, and their motto is “Us Against Them.”
Bingo! I, too, think this is a huge part of the program that has put our country into this untenable position today. But, how do we get out of it before we crumble?
I am not an expert, but I can offer some anecdotal insight from experience.
At one time my (now ex) brother-in-law had some drama going on which resulted in a visit from Health and Welfare and the local police. He ended up getting tazed. The police body cam video submitted to the court was heavily edited to make him look menacing and violent and needing tazing, his sister who was present was also recording with her phone and her video, along with depositions from both me and her exonerated him. The officer was fired and the city paid my (ex)bother-in-law some money.
They do it because they think they can get away with it, and some are not afraid to lie about it.
This. It’s really pretty simple. This is undoubtedly not the first time they beat someone they didn’t like, and it wouldn’t have been the last. As long as it doesn’t make national headlines – which it rarely does unless someone dies – they’re pretty confident about getting away with it, and if necessary they can try to justify the violence. This time their luck unexpectedly ran out, and there was not just the (often confusing) bodycam footage, but also a clear video from a stationary pole camera.
Because they don’t care. Let’s be frank, a police officer’s life is not a happy one. It’s long hours, comparatively low pay, hard on relationships, and on and on. It self selects for someone who is willing to put up with all of that - and very very few people are doing it out of family tradition or a sense of duty to the people.
They do it because they like the power, the authority, and the literal life and death control over others. Sure, it’s gotten harder to exert it in the last 2 decades where everyone has a camera the whole time, but it’s like driving a car. Sure, you might get in an accident, but it’s going to be rare, and you’ll probably be fine. You might get caught beating someone (to death), but it’s rare, and if so, you’ll probably be fine (thanks to omerta, unions, and qualified immunity, as well as no national DB).
I’m not saying all cops are psychopaths, but I’d bet the majority are somewhere on the spectrum at a much higher rate than the general population. They’ve found a placed where they feel valued and protected, and everyone once in a while, they… slip. And still, they mostly get away with it.
They also might expect that the videos will not be be released. I know there was a case in Chicago where it took several years and a court order to get the video public. Likely, they think that there will be only an internal investigation that after a year might result at worst in them getting a month’s suspension or something.
I am certainly not the only person who wonders whether the retributions would have been so fast and so strong had the officers been white.
Not here it isn’t, and that may be one reason that we have fewer problems with assholes in the police force. According to Glassdoor, “the typical Toronto Police Service Police Officer salary is $111,009 per year.” Which also includes a generous and secure retirement plan, and they can also make extra money on their own doing things like security and directing traffic for private facilities, using their police uniforms and police powers while doing so.
