Senate No Donuts For You: The U.S. Police Brutality Thread

Advocating for the police to selectively ignore laws while the institution still exist is wildly different than thinking there should be no police. Putting aside that whole can of worms, those two have very different implications.

 

My goal is to keep cops from murdering people as much as possible. If the police are less active, there's less chance for someone to get hurt or killed. Less active police is a pathway to the dissolution of them as an institution.

 

Question: Are you for the dissolution of all policing institutions in total (local, state, and federal, including investigatory agencies), or just the patrol apparatus that generally comes into contact with citizens?

 

In this instance, I'm exclusively talking about local and state agencies. The people we tend to associate most directly with "Police". I feel like getting higher than that into Federal agencies starts opening up a whole other can of worms in regards to issues inherent with the way modern governmental institutions operate. I'd really like to say that I'm only in favor of dissolving the patrol apparatus, but the inherent corruption of these groups means that it's just not possible to cleanly separate them like that.

 

What I find ridiculous is that a cop can arrest you for doing absolutely nothing. And then if you resist that arrest in any way, you'll likely then be charged with resisting arrest. Even though there is nothing you could have been charged with in the first place leading up to that arrest. Or that a cop can just declare that what you are doing is disrupting their job, even if you're literally just standing there, and arrest you for it. And any attempt to refute that claim is met with extreme aggression and added charges. It's truly mind boggling that this is the system law enforcement has carved out for themselves to act without any restrictions whatsoever.

Cops have also taken any danger out of the job by just immediately firing on anything that moves in a tense situation. It's astounding how an average person is required to completely keep their composure around a cop or else they risk being fired on. And yet a jumpy cop can literally murder somebody and get away with it and claim they feared for their life. How are cops not held to the same standard that the very citizens they police are held to?

I recently became legitimately concerned about my dog. I have a dopey looking basset hound who can put up a good fight with a bee, but that's about it. However, she can look and sound really aggressive from a distance, and her instinct is usually to run towards somebody she's not familiar with. But the moment she gets close to anybody, she will immediately cower and lay on her back and be a complete softy 100% of the time. But a cop would never know that. And if a situation ever came about where a cop encountered my dog, even if the situation had nothing to do with me but was just something happening in my vicinity, all the cop would see is a potentially aggressive dog, and would more than likely fire on my dog. And that would just kill me knowing how completely not a threat my dog actually is. I feel terribly when this happens to people because I know full well how easily a dog can appear aggressive, but is completely not aggressive. And the fact that I would have to take extra precautions if a cop came anywhere near my dog out of fear of the likelihood of that cop killing my dog just says so much about their utter incompetence as well as their sense of knowing they won't be held accountable for their actions.

 

@MotivateR5D4 Police shot my bothers dog. Our neighbor never walked his dog or put it on a chain. He would let it out of the house and run around.The dog came into our yard and my bothers dog(who was on a chain) and it fought. Chain broke and they ended up in the front yard. Police came and shot him from their car. He had won the fight and killed the neighbors dog. His name was Scouter.

 

Sorry to hear that. I can't even imagine how that must feel.

You really can't just assume that the dog you know and love and are absolutely certain wouldn't hurt anybody, isn't just going to be shot indiscriminately by a bumbling idiot of a police officer.

 

https://www.npr.org/2020/12/08/9443...-join-probe-into-casey-goodson-shooting-death


This one I came across via someone else’s social media but it very much resembles both the Jacob Blake and the Arthur Keith cases in the sense that he was shot in the back. Confirmed not to be the suspect.

 

Isn't it just wild that someone holding a sandwich and doing nothing wrong can be shot three time in the back by police, and the response is not "One of our officers murdered a man and has been taken into custody pending a complete investigation", but "We will be looking into the circumstances of the incident to try and ascertain whether any laws were broken." This doesn't happen in any other profession.

 

They will cover for their own.

 

Which is ridiculous. Do you see any other profession doing this? When a teacher has inappropriate relations with a student, do all the other teachers jump to their defense? When builders construct something faulty and people are hurt by it, do all the other construction workers just shrug and cover it up? This. Is. Not. Normal.

 

This is a good idea

One small issue:

"just-proposed bill that would mandate all incoming police officers in the state of California possess a bachelor's degree, or be at least 25 years old."

I think that should be and 25 years old.

 

That's so weird to me. Like what is five years going to do exactly, especially when the alternative is a full 4 year degree?

 

I have presumed that that age requirement was meant to cover everyone currently employed.

What do you have them do after they have a degree but before they're allowed to work?

 

What does any kid fresh out of college do?

 

Ideally, get a job in their desired career path.

 

But what actually happens to most people out of college?

 

Of those that actually got a degree for a career, I think most I know did that.

 

That's really not the climate anymore. Most college grads I know end up having to do something that doesn't align with their major at all, at least for a while. I'm lucky in that I have a job tangentially related to my field, but I have friends who graduated from the same program I'm currently in who are doing retail jobs and living with their parents because having a college degree at this point just doesn't cut it anymore.

 

And you advocate that as the way it's supposed to be?

 

Not at all. But it's weird that police should just be an exception while literally every other person just has to suck it up and deal with it, no?

 

Here's a great one; an officer didn't know he was talking to someone with a live bodycam, and was gleefully talking about how he was hitting protesters with a car:


I figure we should take him at his word about what he did when he was first talking.

 

Incidents like this are the sort of reason why there should be a camera running any time cops interact with people:
https://www.kiro7.com/news/trending...r-holding-shotgun/YTZBUAPMVNETDG2UUCE55YOVC4/

91-year-old reports her house is being broken into, has a gun, and is shot when she goes outside with that gun. And well past the point where I think cops get the 'benefit of the doubt' on these interactions.