Ongoing U.S Police Brutality and Corruption Discussion Thread

i can make pivot tables. does that count?

I understand these readings of his statement but the most charitable reading of that is "the door is not closed to you." Increased diversity in the Blue Clan - perhaps including skeptics and critics of current police practice - would be a step in the direction of truer community policing and better police-community relations.

As the police become (even more of) a closed, set-apart tribe - as the military has largely become - it will be harder and harder for "them" to understand/sympathize with "us" and "us" to understand/sympathize with "them." And yes I understand that just getting to a point of "not killing quite so many black people" is the more urgent goal - fostering inter-tribal understanding is a kind of airy hazy thing off in the future.

I personally have no interest in joining the police or the military. But I do sometimes think about how the draft-enhanced armies of the past produced a closer resemblance between the military and the population they were ostensibly fighting for. If the police/military hold the populations they serve in contempt (and vice versa), that's a recipe for continued conflict.

How in the hell do these little piss-pants shrinking violets ever become police officers in the first place?

http://www.startribune.com/minneapolis-cops-working-lynx-game-walk-out-over-player-comments-warm-up-jerseys/386373171/

Four off-duty Minneapolis police officers working the Minnesota Lynx game at Target Center on Saturday night walked off the job after the players held a news conference denouncing racial profiling, then wore Black Lives Matter pregame warm-up jerseys.

Lt. Bob Kroll, president of the Minneapolis Police Federation, the union that represents rank-and-file officers, praised them for quitting. “I commend them for it,” he said.

Kroll said the four officers also removed themselves from a list of officers working future games. He did not know who the officers were. “Others said they heard about it and they were not going to work Lynx games,” he said.

Asked if other officers will fill in for those who quit, Kroll said, “If [the players] are going to keep their stance, all officers may refuse to work there.”

The three-time WNBA champions wore black T-shirts that read “Change starts with us, justice and accountability” and on the back had Philando Castile’s and Alton Sterling’s names along with “Black Lives Matter” and a Dallas Police Department emblem.

The other thing is that the police in Dallas might be hiring, and might be willing to do community policing, but departments all over the US aren't. A giant part of what BlackLivesMatter says is that police departments should look like the areas they are policing, which they weren't in Ferguson, and aren't in Baton Rouge, just for two examples. And these departments seem more interested in hiring outsiders from white suburbs, then black locals, even of people with bad histories (iirc Darren Wilson had already been part of a local police force that had been completely disbanded due to massive problems including racism, but he was still hired by Ferguson).

giant elephant in the room: how much do cop salaries vary, on a let's say county to county basis, within a typical metro area?

the reason I'm asking is: did anybody see the viral facebook vid of the black female police officer, where at one point she mentions that "I didn't have to" work in the community she lived in (I think this was suburban Cleveland, or some midwestern US city, but I could be wrong), that she could've gone to work in [NEARBY SUBURB, SAFER & WHITER I ASSUME] instead, & they would've been jumped at the chance to improve *two* of their diversity metrics -- honestly this logic made a lot of sense to me given what I've been learning about American "metropolitics" (short version: war of all suburbs against all to have the lowest property & business taxes, meaning some places have ample budgets for municipal services while their neighbors up the road are scrambling)

To bernard snowy's point: local governments within St. Louis County (including Ferguson) are particularly fly-by-night.

Consider Kinlock, which doesn't own, register, or insure its police cars. http://fox2now.com/2016/06/29/st-louis-area-police-department-has-no-insurance-no-registration-and-no-apologies/

There are tons of dinky municipalities in greater St. Louis where the mayor, police chief, and judge are all the same guy. When he drives drunk he has to arrest himself, which is okay because the jail and city hall are both located in his living room (exaggerating only slightly).

xxp from this article it sounds like a significant amount is easily possible. the case made about dallas here is probably not unique: http://www.npr.org/2016/07/11/485512674/in-dallas-tragedy-falls-on-already-embattled-police-department

Dallas police are so underpaid that they routinely flee the force for smaller, neighboring departments or to cities such as Austin and Fort Worth, where starting pay at a lower rank is $10,000 to $15,000 better and health benefits are more generous.

The Dallas department — with about 3,500 sworn personnel — is currently short at least 200 officers.

"We're the lowest-paid department in the Metroplex. We're losing officers to suburbs at a tremendous rate," says Det. Ron Pinkston, president of the Dallas Police Association.

Dallas' elected leaders say they can't pay the cops more because of a looming police payroll lawsuit, a nearly broke pension fund and competing needs such as crumbling streets.

Fred Frazier, chairman of the Assist the Officer Foundation, says by his count, 94 officers have left DPD since October.

"I hate to see our profession in decline. We can't even get guys to come for recruiting. We've had to cancel the last two [police cadet academy] classes cause there's not enough guys who want to be police officers," Frazier says.

Anybody read this?

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, July 11, 2016 5:37 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

One of my good friends is an education policy guy with a strong emphasis on statistical analysis and he just posted the following:

Media confusion and/or misrepresentation of results:

WSJ: "Police shootings exhibit no bias against blacks, but blacks are more likely to be handled roughly when stopped by police."

Actually, the data underlying the main "shootings bias" finding (extensive margin) comes only from Houston - a fact buried in the article and not made entirely clear. The "rough handling" findings are based on a much broader set of data. A proper summary would be, "Police shootings IN HOUSTON appear to exhibit no bias..." (See Section IV and Table 5 of the paper.)

NYT: "But when it comes to the most lethal form of force — police shootings — the study finds no racial bias."

Both articles neglect to mention that the results are *conditional* on various forms of arrest or other police encounters. The author isn't asking, "If you're a random black man, are you more likely to be shot by police than a random white man?" - he's asking, "Once you've been stopped by (Houston) police, are you more likely to be shot if you're black instead of white?"

Fryer (in a follow-up interview) said, "I agree that blacks are more likely to be stopped, more likely to be harassed and more likely to be arrested." Higher encounter rates x Same shooting rates = Higher overall shooting rates.

The point is that the study is asking a narrow question regarding conditional shootings, but the media is being sloppy or misleading about reporting the "conditional" part.

Imagine if a study compared AIDS rates among Haitians to rates among Americans who regularly have sex with Haitians and found that rates are about the same between two groups. This would be similar to the media saying, "The study found no evidence that AIDS was more prevalent among Haitians than among Americans." The "conditional" part is critical.

IOW, rip van winko OTM

the woman whose post DJP shared seems intelligent and sincere and caring, but at the same time her post betrays -- perhaps vicariously -- some of the bent logic and worldview of many in law enforcement.

This is why one of my takeaways was that the training police officers receive merits some serious reconsideration.

https://www.minnpost.com/community-voices/2016/07/blueprint-better-policing-minnesota?utm_content=bufferdc6d3&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

reform suggestions by a couple local criminal justice profs

https://twitter.com/HIMANSHU/status/753363161839828992

http://gawker.com/heres-audio-of-what-sounds-like-an-nypd-captain-pressur-1783544682

Transit cop's chief straight up tells him, "Stop citing people you actually see jumping turnstile and harass more black males instead."

jesus christ

Trumppence

https://www.stpauls.co.uk/SM4/Mutable/Uploads/imported_media/Jane_Darwell_in_her_role_as_the_bird_woman.jpg

man, crazy. i never even heard about this NYPD 12 thing until now, and this happened months ago

http://i.imgur.com/TgpIeYx.gif

fuck the usa

http://www.wusa9.com/news/local/update-expected-in-death-officer-jacai-colson/274260312

come the fuck on

did they apply the ol 'in his mind at the time' standard?

previous story: http://www.wusa9.com/news/local/maryland/bond-hearing-in-prince-georges-co-officers-murder/84782698

UPPER MARLBORO, Md. (WUSA9) -- The shot that killed Officer Jacai Colson during a shootout Sunday at Prince George's County police headquarters was "deliberately aimed at him" by another officer, police officials announced Wednesday.

Prince George's County Police Chief Hank Stawinski said the officer fired at Colson, who was in plain clothes during the shootout, because they perceived him to be a threat.

"I do not believe for a second that a police officer intentionally fired at another police officer," Stawinski said.

so to answer your question: yes

were the cops all from the same precinct? what was the expectation that they knew each other?

i haven't read about this case beyond a few stories just now, but while there's some potential for implicit bias working (white cop sees colson, and shooters, thinks: one of them), the circumstances make it sound eligible to be a genuine accident, apart from that potential. which would mean the law would be hard to apply otherwise.

http://www.ajc.com/news/news/breaking-news/atlanta-cop-who-shot-unarmed-black-man-charged-wit/nry7G/

And here we go again.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/18/us/baton-rouge-shooting.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=span-ab-top-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

Strategically speaking, declaring war on the cops is not going to solve the problem of unprovoked police violence against black men. Then again, extreme passivity by black men during interactions with the police hasn't solved the problem, either.

If anything is going to get assault rifles banned...

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/17/opinion/sunday/were-helping-deport-kids-to-die.html

this was a powerful piece about the Obama administration's complicity in Mexico's deportation program. basically, they are refusing to give asylum to people who aren't migrants but refugees, fleeing powerful gangs in el salvador and honduras.

i'm not always a big believe in national conversations, but i think America needs to start talking about the moral responsibility we have toward central america. these countries were directly devastated by US policy and not just economically. i don't think anyone here needs the reagan year footnotes

sorry wrong thread

why would we need Reagan-era footnotes when obv he was the GREATEST PRESIDENT EVER

this is the end (maybe) of a tweetstorm from journalist JJ McNab on the baton rouge shooter, who was a sovereign citizen

https://twitter.com/jjmacnab/status/755091929726001152

there's a KC star story linked in there too.

"Note that his given name GAVIN EUGENE LONG is in all capital letters while his "corrected" name Cosmo Ausar Setepenra, is mixed case."

man, jj's tweets = one helluva rabbithole

setep en ra = son of ra

hoooooo boy

*chosen by ra, sorry, not son of

I want to read more jj macnab now

many right-wing tweeters point out Long's involvement w/ Nation of Islam but don't mention his marine background

xpost: she's a good follow on twitter

i didn't know there was a significant black offshoot of the sovcit movement, or black-nationalist uptake of those ideas.

"I'm a sovereign human being, I stand under common law only" - Thread of Freemen

moorish science temple predates sovcit stuff, and actually NOI was an offshoot historically speaking.

that said, in that period the mst wasn't sovcit in ideology, closer to garveyism but without any repatriation stuff

or related to a black offshoot of freemasonry when that was still a prominent "civic society" force

Video Shows Unarmed Black Man Pleading With Arms Raised Before Getting Shot by Police

“I thought it was a mosquito bite, and when it hit me I had my hands in the air, and I’m thinking I just got shot!” Kinsey told WSVN. “And I’m saying, ‘Sir, why did you shoot me?’ and his words to me were, ‘I don’t know.’”

in my hometown too

the cynical part of me wonders how many white technocrats who previously underplayed this as a "problem" will start getting concerned now that the cops are shooting people who take care of their autistic kids

moorish science temple predates sovcit stuff, and actually NOI was an offshoot historically speaking.

^^^

mst/noi have all kinds of things that are weird and imperfect but they also have done a lot of good for people and should not be conflated w/freemen who're a narcissistic cult imo

And I’m saying, ‘Sir, why did you shoot me?’ and his words to me were, ‘I don’t know.’”

reminds me of the officer who shot philando castile desperately screaming "why did he move?" after pulling the trigger (uh, because you asked him for his id). suggests that a lot of cops out there shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a loaded gun.

so what i get from this is that when you militarize the police, they start acting like they're in nam? huh. didn't see that one coming.

Show me some ID! (But without moving your hands, or any other appendage, towards anyplace your ID might reasonably be located!)

It is just enraging and horrific to me that there is an actual existing human mindset that can't see the problem there.

we may be getting to the point where people will opt for scannable neck ID bar codes so they'll no longer have to chance reaching for their wallet

to what extent are officers, generally-speaking, exposed to high-stress situations in training? reminds me of something I read from Malcom Gladwell (I know, I know), which he alludes to here:

MG: I talked for a long time when I was doing "Blink" with a fascinating guy named Gavin deBecker, who runs one of the top personal security agencies in Los Angeles.

Basically, if you're a movie star or a billionaire or the Sultan of Brunei, he provides you with your bodyguard. DeBecker talked a lot about how rigorously he trains his people. If the quality of our coordination and instinctive reactions breaks down when our heart rate gets above 145, he wants to expose his people to stressful situations over and over and over again until they can face them at 130, 110 or 90.

So he fires bullets at people, and does these utterly terrifying exercises involving angry pit bulls. The first and second and third and fourth time you run through one of deBecker's training sessions you basically lose control of your bowels and take off like a scalded cat. By the fifth time, essential bodily functions start to return. By the 10th time, you can function as a normal human being.