Ongoing U.S Police Brutality and Corruption Discussion Thread

I did find an article accusing him of being a revolving-door prosecutor who isn't incarcerating enough people but I don't think that's your problem with him

i don't know anything about philadelphia but i have observed myself the contrast between what is reported by papers/tv news and reality and i'd assume the same thing goes on there. we have a "progressive" prosecutor who goes on tv and holds press conferences to brag about her progressiveness, saying we should legalize marijuana, end cash bail, prosecute cops, etc., but has prosecutors in court doing the same old shit. which does not end up in the paper, so people who are not lawyers or people personally affected by it goes on believing she's progressive. it's really hard to get the full story since crime reporters don't sit in court watching what happens every day, they mostly regurgitate press releases.

So… we are supposed to look up information on what a failure the allegedly progressive reformer DA in Philadelphia is but not trust any sources that represent his record in a positive light because they’re just regurgitating spin that masks the failure to change anything?

i don't know what anyone is supposed to do, i'm just saying in my experience most news stories about what prosecutors are doing are derived from, or at least initiated by, press releases, i.e., what the office wants people to hear about. you pasted a wikipedia article which is presumably linking to news stories as "his record," i am suggesting that is what his office would like the record to be.

Right but… the assertion was that this guy is 100% bullshit and all we had to do was “look him up” and so I did, and everything I found across left and right sources was a confirmation of what was in the Wikipedia article, so either “look it up” isn’t helpful or useful because the sources won’t show the evidence of his failures or his failures are being overstated. I can imagine that Krasner’s DA office would have a record that was not as good as the picture painted by his campaign because no one ever matches their campaign rhetoric from the simple fact that interacting with other people by definition creates compromise. Table is calling this dude an outright failure and telling other people it’s easy to see why, and I’m saying I looked through an array of sources across the political spectrum and, from the outside at least, nothing that is being complained about from either the left or the right points to him being an abject failure and asking for clarification since it was his assertion.

So... what did he do wrong?

― Totino's Fortnite Training Room (DJP), Tuesday, January 5, 2021 9:28 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

well, I do see cars with "Fuck Krasner" bumper stickers, but since the cars usually also have a bunch of pro-cop stickers I figure they don't have the same beef as table.

The issue is that he claims to be this lefty-left guy, but cops are still harassing and arresting people for no reason, violating protestors' civil rights, and shooting people in mental health crises.

There are NO GOOD DISTRICT ATTORNEYS. PERIOD.

So yes, my "look it up" statement was kind of useless, and I apologize for that inutility

But it just boggles my mind that anyone can buy a single word out of a DA's mouth. They're all snakes.

Does Krasner have power over the Philly PD to actually stop arrests or their procedures in general?

This is a bit like when AOC didn't give us Medicare for All

structural argument abt the nature of DA's vs being about that guy as an individual actor

Yean, this is more the story of individuals v. systems and systems almost always win.

I guess Krasner could step up prosecute cops breaking the law or refuse to prosecute people who have dubious reasons for arrest—but I don’t see how much immediate effect he could have on police practices that don’t necessarily mean “breaking the law” that a police chief or the Mayor/ city Council could have.

Cops are basically a shadow government, a praetorian guard, and I am totally pessimistic that any civilian no matter how well intentioned can reform them.

Yeah that’s why we need to defund them until you can drown what’s left in the bathtub

to harbl's point, I just saw this on twitter:

I love running news stories through a plagiarism checker, comparing to the prosecutor's press release. KARE 11, please report to the principal's office. pic.twitter.com/CJfI7gwISG

— Tony Webster (@webster) January 5, 2021

IIRC WCCO is the only Twin Cities news channel worth paying attention to

IIRC WCCO is the only Twin Cities news channel worth paying attention to

The issue is that he claims to be this lefty-left guy, but cops are still harassing and arresting people for no reason, violating protestors' civil rights, and shooting people in mental health crises.

So, Krasner is a failure because he is the DA and not the mayor?

He's a failure because he claims a mantle of leftism for a position that can't possibly be one of the left. So, I mean, maybe it's better to call him a liar?

So your position is that the left should concede every DA position to the hard right, because the hard right are the only legitimate heirs to that power?

So there can never, ever possibly be a left leaning DA? Well, fuck, let's all just give up then.

I’m suspicious that Krasner hasn’t called himself a “leftist.”

no charges in the WI David Blake case

sorry Jacob blake

Curious to know table's thoughts on the newly elected Washtenaw County county prosecutor that immediately ended cash bail after his swearing in. I mean, he hasn't yet disbanded the police, so I guess fuck that guy, right? Even though he made a tangible step towards an ostensibly better future?

Y'all are simply much less pessimistic than I am. I've given up any hope of reform, and while I think that changes that cause less suffering (such as ending cash bail, ending marijuana arrests) are good, the carceral state remains. If you're helping to put people in prison, then you're not "good." There is no "good DA."

If you're helping to put people in prison, then you're not "good." There is no "good DA."

Yeah, this is a fair point. I wouldn't argue that any of these guys are "good", but they are sometimes, very rarely capable to doing "good" things within the absolutely shitty system they are also propping up. Short of the wholesale tearing down of the carceral state and obliterating of the police we need, I'm trying to keep these little steps in mind. Because there are definitely people who will not have their lives as disastrously ruined as they would under a cash bail system.

there is no "good person"

there is no "good person"

Hard agree. Just as there are criminal activities, but no criminal people.

I'm NAL but that Washtenaw policy looks good. If nothing else I was glad to see no mention of replacing cash bail with an algorithmic assessment like they did in New Jersey to deleterious effect.

To table's point though, that ending $$$-for-liberty is a big win right now (and I'm not denying that it is a win) despite months of nationwide protests this summer is bleak.

Exactly. What's been happening in Columbus or Minneapolis or any number of other places *just in the last month* is absolutely appalling, for example, and so while these incremental reforms are good insofar as they lessen the severity of the blunt force trauma of the carceral state on the populace, it's still blunt force trauma.

Exactly. What's been happening in Columbus or Minneapolis or any number of other places *just in the last month* is absolutely appalling, for example, and so while these incremental reforms are good insofar as they lessen the severity of the blunt force trauma of the carceral state on the populace, it's still blunt force trauma.

― Pere Legume (the table is the table), Tuesday, January 5, 2021 5:00 PM (forty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I don't think it's an either/or proposition, in that you can work towards defunding the police all the while make sure that some incremental reforms are being made to lessen the blunt force. There's enough bright minds and energy to go around and work on both counts.

Tell that to the people I know who have Covid in prison.

Like we're legit dealing with legalized slavery, and people are like, "it's so great that some people are able to use credit cards to escape slavery!! wow!"

like excuse me wtf, that's bullshit, we all know it's bullshit. That's why I sigh and accept incremental reforms that happen, but am not like jumping up and down for joy when such incremental crumbs are thrown at us.

I think lots of people don't know it's bullshit which is why it's important to have both a large and smaller picture of the necessary activism to build change.

in a way it's even more harrowing that SO MANY PEOPLE don't know. so goddamn many

If you think the US government and the corporations that own it are going to stop using a huge source of essentially free labor, then you've got another thing coming.

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/884989263

Heh I give up, what's the point. If we suggest any other type of activism than your preferred way, it's not good enough and we are horrible people, and then in any case, the situation is doomed and we are naive to think otherwise. There's no attempt at understanding or having a discussion.

I never said anything about you or anyone on this thread being horrible people. And I never suggested anything about activism in this particular discussion.

I am being realistic, which one needs to do in order to properly assess the situation.

I understand the incrementalist view, and I find it insufficient in addressing the substance of the issue, which is the way in which legalized slavery is a huge part of the apparatus of the way this country and its economy are run.

I want people out of jail. I donate 10% of all the money from the workshops I facilitate to bail-out funds.

But recognizing these things as what they are— incremental steps that won't change the substance of the main issue— isn't some sort of affront to decency, and I don't understand why people think that it is.

Some confusion probably draws from your first 'look at Philadelphia just look at it' post, as if Krasner actually made things worse in Philly... when he has been objectively less bad than his predecessors or alternatives.

True, and I guess I didn't clarify that bit about Krasner enough.

Of course Krasner is better than anyone who's come before him— Lynn fucking Abraham was a goddamn monster— but that isn't saying much, and I think it's important to be clear-headed about this stuff.

Big steps are better than no steps, and much better than "let's form a committee to evaluate the efficacy of making a plan for potential incremental steps."

In 2020, not a single officer in Newark fired his or her weapon while on duty - a remarkable milestone. De-escalation training is proven and effective.

Alongside our new use-of-force policy, we are building a stronger and fairer New Jersey for all. https://t.co/sI9WWvpqjP

— Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) January 3, 2021

that's... kind of amazing? even with the pandemic, which surely contributed to fewer confrontations.

otm

if you can do it in newark, there's no reason you can't do it in any us city.

Weirdly proud of NJ government lately. Legal pot (I don't smoke but still), I'm now getting health insurance from the state instead of the feds, police de-escalation training...

Yeah, stop embarrassing us up in NY already!

it's a little weird to see people suddenly cheering on the cops, I'm not saying they are wrong, but definitely feeling some cognitive dissonance and not sure what to think about it