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When the Police Get Filmed, Is There More Accountability? (msn.com) 194
The Post even spoke to the executive director of one of America’s national police officer labor unions, who conceded their profession has been “diminished by events that have been witnessed on video over the course of the last couple of weeks.”
Here’s one of the Post’s examples:
Evan Gorski, 21, a protester in Philadelphia, was arrested on an allegation he pushed an officer off a bike on Monday, authorities told his attorney. But video circulated on social media painted a much different picture of how Gorski, a Temple University student, tangled with police. In the moment captured by others, Gorski reached between another demonstrator and an officer to separate them.
A moment later, Philadelphia Police officer Joseph Bologna Jr. struck Gorski with a baton, chased him down and straddled him as another officer pressed his face on the asphalt. Other officers swung their batons at others gathered around. Gorski’s attorney, R. Emmett Madden, told the Philadelphia Inquirer that prosecutors dropped charges and released him Wednesday after reviewing video from the scene. “The police were lying,” Madden said. “We had a protest police brutality, and then police brutalize my client and try to frame him for a crime he didn’t commit.”
Officer Bologna is now facing charges of aggravated assault.
Meanwhile CNN report that in the last week at least 8 instances of police using excessive force. were caught on camera, while Vox argue that videos going viral “have been crucial in keeping the police accountable.”
- by zenlessyank ( 748553 ) on Sunday June 07, 2020 @03:43AM (#60155286)
A picture is worth a thousand words, and, well, a moving picture is worth the shutter speed times a thousand words.
Maybe. Sometimes it makes copy behave better, but recently we have seen them largely ignoring cameras or even arresting the journalists carrying them. Often they cover their faces and other identification.
- by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Sunday June 07, 2020 @05:01AM (#60155378)
If there had been no cameras in Minneapolis, George Floyd would have just been yet another dead black guy in the morgue, killed by courageous officers while resisting arrest.
- by thesupraman ( 179040 ) on Sunday June 07, 2020 @07:52AM (#60155576)
While I do agree with you, can you name a White person killed by police lately?
Remember, they kill more of them than Black people.. (and of course, killing either unnecessarily is horrible)What disappoints me is how this is ‘Police are oppressing to Black people’ rather than ‘American Police have being over-militarized control freaks’
From where I sit, there is a LARGER problem that Police Racism, and that is Police Brutality.
If you think thats ALL Racist based, then you obviously dont get out enough..IMHO there are arseholes in all colors, creeds, and genders… Thankfully there are a LOT MORE good people in all colors, creeds, and genders..
Well there was this one (Score:5, Insightful)
by NotSoHeavyD3 ( 1400425 ) on Sunday June 07, 2020 @09:35AM (#60155778) Journalhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/… [wikipedia.org] But in this case the cop actually got convicted and it didn’t even need video.- As in, has the media blown up police killings against white people? The answer is no. He was trying to say police kill people, not just black people.
- by MrL0G1C ( 867445 ) on Sunday June 07, 2020 @10:28AM (#60155910) Journal
I agree that police brutality is a problem that isn’t dealt with adequately. The cop that murdered George Floyd had been investigated 17 times with only 1 reprimand. I get the impression that police in most countries in the world can act badly with no reprimands or just a slap on the wrist when caught.
Body cams are very much useful for determining whether complaints against police are justified. But they won’t be much of a help if police forces can’t discipline or fire their police when appropriate.
- Countering the racism claim with “there’s brutality against whites too” does nothing to help the situation. Do you also go up to those holding “Save the Whales” signs and complain that they should save all the animals? Police accountability is a problem for all people, sure, but there is clearly a disproportionate impact of police brutality on people of color. Doesn’t it stand to reason that if you focus on fixing the worst of the problems (police brutality vs people of color) it is likely to positively
- by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Sunday June 07, 2020 @08:38AM (#60155654) Journal
Tell me what you think of this plan for reducing police violence:
1. Outlaw police unions.
2. All settlements to victims and families of police violence should come out of the police pension fund.
3. Stop the DoD program of sending military hardware to local police departments.I really believe that would make a big difference. When consequences are more direct, behavior changes. There has to be some very serious alterations to how policing is done in the US.
- by HiThere ( 15173 ) <charleshixsn@ear … t [‘ink’ in gap]> on Sunday June 07, 2020 @09:02AM (#60155710)
More important would be to require that the police have their cameras on, and to create a strong barrier between the prosecution and the police such that the defense and the prosecution have verified equal access to all evidence. Also something separating the public defender from the police, so that they don’t have any incentive to plead guilty when the accused is innocent. Also totally do away with plea bargaining.
“More important would be to require that the police have their cameras on”
Indeed. At least two measures should be used to ensure this. One, penalties for not having the camera on during an altercation. Two, assumption that the cop is lying under those circumstances, and consequent invalidation of their testimony. If the cameras are somehow unreliable then the police will thus be motivated to get that situation corrected.
Arguably it should not even be possible for police to turn off the cameras. If some vide
Outlawing police unions is heading in the wrong direction. Instead, hold them ACCOUNTABLE when they deliberately help to pervert justice — Just like we need to do with police themselves. Attacking collective bargaining is not the solution.
I understand the impulse. I’m from a union family and believe in organized labor. But police unions are used to protect the worst offenders. If a member of the projectionist union knocks a 75 year old man to the ground and busts his head open, he would be arrested. The projectionist union wouldn’t circle the wagons.
It’s complicated. But at least police unions have to be dramatically changed.
- I have a #4 #4. Cameras cannot and should not be off while on duty. Cameras should live stream (and live record) to hq and a superior office should be available to ‘approve’ escalation of force.
- 1. Unions are useful, we need some way for workers to negotiate – the employers have a lot of power, and employees need some representation, too. Yes, the police unions have gone too far, but getting rid of all worker negotiation power is not the answer.
2. Interesting, but bankrupting pensions would hurt a lot of police not involved in these situations. And I get the ‘all police are bad b/c they don’t stand up against the bad ones’, but I’m not sure young and violent people who become police so they get to The police aren’t behaving badly because they have unions, nor because they have retirement money saved up, nor because they have military equipment. None of these things make people behave badly, so taking them away won’t improve behavior. Nor will making the job suck even more attract the right kind of person to that line of work.
The only reason we are even talking about this is because of the widespread availability of video evidence. We now have proof of police brutality, whereas previously we only h
Hey, I’ve got a great idea for increased productivity in business.
1) Outlaw unions.
2) All issues with clients that need remediation and correction come out of workers pension pots, so the company doesn’t have to pay.
3) Stop the workers being able to to configure things to be similar to clients.Doesn’t sound too great does it?
The issue essentially boils down to:
* The police are under more and more scrutiny, so any action is more likely to be captures.
* There are billions of minutes of police engagement every- 1. No. We should encourage unions in general
2. Probably not, since this punishes the group for actions of individuals
3. Sure. If the hardware still has a valuable shelf-life, why isn’t the military keeping it for themselves?
What would really make a difference is setting up levels of police, similar to how the medical profession operates. A barely trained nurse can take a pulse and administer vaccines. A well-trained nurse or physician’s assistant can handle more urgent situations or assist doctors in com
- The whole modern police reform movement was really created by the availability of video recording equipment, with the Rodney King video in 1991. No video, no movement.
…ignoring the black protesters begging them to stop.
Funny, I haven’t seen a single instance of that happening. The vast majority of people looting / etc are not extremely well tanned white guys with dreads. Can you link me two videos where this actually occurred? There is one white guy with a skateboard here but I’m not sure the black people are begging him to stop. They seem too busy loading large screen TVs on that dolly. [youtube.com] Who the hell does this woman [twitter.com] think she is? She’s clearly antagonizing those white skateboarders, right?
- I have a couple Native American friends who seem to think that giving up private gun ownership and relying on the government for protection is a Bad Idea. Can’t imagine where they got that idea.
- by fph il quozientatore ( 971015 ) on Sunday June 07, 2020 @03:43AM (#60155288)Lol if there could be a more appropriate name…
And commissioner Outlaw.
Also – a fair number of police are obese. Are these no fitness standards in the police? No wonder they are so ready to shoot -= hey’d never catch anyone on foot!
- If the perp is caught on video or the license plate is recorded, they can go get picked up at a later time. No need to escalate force to arrest someone then and there unless there’s imminent danger to other people.
When the Police Get Filmed, Is There More Accountability?
Could there be much less accountability than we have now? Hence the protests. So yeah, more eyes should provide more clarity, and that should lead to more accountability.
- by Cyberax ( 705495 ) on Sunday June 07, 2020 @04:28AM (#60155334)Nope. Body cameras haven’t reduced the amount of shooting and have not resulted in increased accountability. Mostly because up until this protests most people thought that the police are angels.
Cases in point:
1. My favorite one – a judge dismissing a manslaughter case against a policeman because it should have been a first degree murder case.
2. Jury letting go an officer who planted fake evidence after shooting a fleeing man. One juror said that he couldn’t see himself convicting an officer.
3. Police caught planting drugs on video. Whoopsie. Of course, nothing resulted out of that. The sheriff was re-elected during the next election.Fortunately, popular opinion is finally moving towards increasing police oversight.
- by Kjella ( 173770 ) on Sunday June 07, 2020 @06:18AM (#60155446) Homepage
Nope. Body cameras haven’t reduced the amount of shooting and have not resulted in increased accountability.
That it’s bad now does not exclude the possibility that it was worse before. We’ll never have good data on that, but human beings tend to be a lot shittier when they think nobody will know and it’s strange to think policemen are an exception. Even if said shitty behavior would get covered up and you’d face no real punishments most like to pretend not seeing it.
- by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Sunday June 07, 2020 @06:18AM (#60155448)
Mostly because up until this protests most people thought that the police are angels.
Sorry but this is horseshit. America’s history of police and citizens adverserial and not functioning the way you expect in a civilised society has international fame, and has had for a long time. We’ve been mocking you for decades about the “don’t talk to the police” mantra you drill learn at a young age. This isn’t even the first time there were protests or riots that made international news about it.
I’m not sure who you think had the opinion that the police in the USA were angels. Pointing to a technicality of a botched case, a retard on a jury, a case of a police officer getting away with planting evidence does not show in general that people think American police are angels. Heck even in theses cherry picked examples only one of them supports your point, and honestly in a country of 370million people I’m surprised you couldn’t find more examples.
People aren’t “finally” moving towards supporting police oversight. People have been asking for reforms for literally decades. Why do I know this about your country as an outsider?
Police during the Greet Depression used to beat the shit out of homeless jobless people and dump them on the edge of town. It was a *regular* thing. They wouldn’t even arrest them.
The myth of the jovial local policeman was a *myth* made by movies that were being actively censored by the government to only portray positive messages.
My own interactions with the police tend to bear this out. Certainly there have been a few policemen I’ve encountered that have been worthy of respect, but more than not have shown themselves to be unfit for the job, IMO.
And it’s not just about race relations, or how they deal with protesters, or other stuff like that. I mean just in the course of doing (or not doing) their jobs. I know a cop whose wife got pulled over by a co-worker when she was driving drunk. The officer that pulled her over called hi
- by Ormy ( 1430821 )
Nope. Body cameras haven’t reduced the amount of shooting and have not resulted in increased accountability.
Perhaps this is true in the US where police shootings are relatively common and many police forces exist to serve themselves rather than protect the general public. But we know the US is not representative of police forces in other first world nations, as illustrated by your three examples. In other countries however, widespread (and often compulsory) usage of body cameras by police has drastically reduced the number of complaints against the police.
The US police force actions are a mild warning to the rest of the world to pay attention to structural incentives.
OTOH, https://www.cbc.ca/news/politi… [www.cbc.ca] (among many similar stories from other countries). So don’t feel to secure just because there aren’t any riots in your country at the moment. There’s lots of oppression going around in the putatively “free world”.
1. My favorite one – a judge dismissing a manslaughter case against a policeman because it should have been a first degree murder case.
While I agree with your other two examples, I can’t agree here. Manslaughter has a legal definition. So does Murder 1. They don’t overlap – if the defendant was guilty of the one, he could NOT be guilty of the other (in other words, manslaughter is NOT a “lesser included offense” of “murder 1”).
Note that the specific definitions of those crimes vary slightly from State t
- They are both subsets of ending someone’s life. And practically speaking, manslaughter IS a subset of murder 1. Judges don’t let someone charged with the latter to plea bargain down to felony robbery.
- by NormalVisual ( 565491 ) on Sunday June 07, 2020 @08:27AM (#60155632)
It’s not always the DA being an ass, though. He’s going to charge as much as and up to the limit of what he thinks he can prove. If he thinks he can prove manslaughter but not murder, then that’s what he’s going with. Conversely, it’s not unknown for a DA to overcharge, knowing that he can’t prove the case and providing plausible deniability for letting a guilty person escape accountability.
- by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <martin.espinoza@gmail.com> on Sunday June 07, 2020 @09:58AM (#60155842) Homepage Journal
“It’s not always the DA being an ass, though. He’s going to charge as much as and up to the limit of what he thinks he can prove.”
Sure, once there is rioting going on in the streets demanding it.
I’ll be more inclined to believe in justice when it doesn’t take a riot to get charges filed.
- by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Sunday June 07, 2020 @11:05AM (#60156030)The bigger issue is the Constitution’s prohibition against double-jeopardy – trying someone twice for the same crime. If the officer really should have been charged for first degree murder, and is instead charged of manslaughter and convicted or acquitted, you can never try him for first degree murder. If the judge felt there was sufficient evidence for a first degree murder conviction, dismissing the case was the proper thing to do. A dismissal (without prejudice) is not considered a resolution of the case and so does not trigger double-jeopardy, and the DA can file charges again.
(Of course the reverse is also true. If DA tries for first degree murder and loses the case, double-jeopardy prohibits you from charging the officer again but for manslaughter. We don’t have crystal balls to tell us which charges will stick and which will fail. So everyone tries their best to pick the highest charges they think will stick.)
The bigger issue is the Constitution’s prohibition against double-jeopardy – trying someone twice for the same crime. If the officer really should have been charged for first degree murder, and is instead charged of manslaughter and convicted or acquitted, you can never try him for first degree murder. If the judge felt there was sufficient evidence for a first degree murder conviction, dismissing the case was the proper thing to do. A dismissal (without prejudice) is not considered a resolution of the case and so does not trigger double-jeopardy, and the DA can file charges again. (Of course the reverse is also true. If DA tries for first degree murder and loses the case, double-jeopardy prohibits you from charging the officer again but for manslaughter. We don’t have crystal balls to tell us which charges will stick and which will fail. So everyone tries their best to pick the highest charges they think will stick.)
I think most people would agree that double jeopardy is a bad thing – the police would be able to effectively keep someone in prison indefinitely by trying them over and over again for the exact same crime just with slightly different charges. The problem here is the DA who sounds like he is not treating all crimes equally. Same with the current case in Minneapolis. I think it’s pretty evident to everyone that the officer who killed Floyd should have been hit with first degree murder from the start. The
If your criteria is, have body cameras made police accountability *perfect*, well sure. But even in the latest round of protest you can see instances where charges are dropped because bystander video disproves police reports of an incident.
That’s an improvement.
Dropping fake charges is the low-hanging fruit; changing peoples’ attitudes is harder, and takes longer. I think the George Floyd murder was a watershed in that. Even though the public still overwhelmingly supports the police, nearly 2/3 of white people now think the police treat black people unfairly. Even 39% of *Republicans* think race was a factor in Floyd’s death.
Here is where I think this is leading us: I think people still support the police, but understand policing is broken and needs to be fixed.
“The police were lying” (Score:5, Insightful)
by Generic User Account ( 6782004 ) on Sunday June 07, 2020 @04:29AM (#60155338)If nothing is done about lying police, then they’re just paid thugs.It’s done a very big thing about police lying — it’s convinced the public that police sometimes lie.
double edged sword (Score:4, Informative)
by arbiter1 ( 1204146 ) on Sunday June 07, 2020 @04:35AM (#60155348)Being filmed is a double edge sword. Yea you can catch police doing bad things on film HOWEVER as i said its double edge sword in that you more likely to catch people that make up bs and claim cops did something. I remember a story not to many years back where a women claims a cop sexual assaulted her. The claim alone was enough for media to parrot it nation wide. Then the department released body and dash cam of the WHO interaction and he was completely professional. She got exposed to be a liar to get her 15min of fame. Everything being filmed works both ways but remember when you watch these “video’s” always remember that its possible the person that uploaded the video cropped off important parts to make it look bad for 1 side aka removing context of what happened to cause the reaction they are using to push an agenda.Re:double edged sword (Score:5, Insightful)
by AleRunner ( 4556245 ) on Sunday June 07, 2020 @05:15AM (#60155396)Being filmed is a double edge sword. Yea you can catch police doing bad things on film HOWEVER as i said its double edge sword in that you more likely to catch people that make up bs and claim cops did something.
That’s not a double edged sword. In each case the video of the incident is protecting the good, innocent people and identifying the bad criminal people. Sometimes, maybe not always, possibly not too often in the USA, the cops are the innocent party too.
The double edged sword bit is when the police can edit the videos they release to make it seem like innocent people are guilty. For example if you release a film of someone hitting an officer without releasing the bit where the officer hit her first. The way to deal with this is to make laws so that police suspects and their lawyers get automatic access to body cam film too and are allowed to release at the same time as the police (subject to judicial review for special situations where release might be dangerous).
Body Cams should be mandatory, tamper proof, and failure to catch an incident on film should be grounds for a week’s suspension without pay.
Make that a week this month, a month for the next year. After than an increasing amount of time since the policy went into effect….possibly a month per month.
OTOH, tamper proof is difficult, and it’s even more important that the recorded data be immutable. So while the idea is good, there’s lots of rough edges that need to be worked on.
And, yes, I agree with the other poster that it’s important to have the evidence about what happened before the critical incident. Context is important…and both sides
I agree. Two cams with 180 degree of vision front and back. Full 360 field of footage. Each cam uses flash cards in RAID1. With accelerometer tech (with software), a backup battery can engage to ensure video is being captured in the heat of the moment.
I’ll add that the video should be captured 24/7 with action being indexed. At the end of the shift, cards and batts are swapped, data dumped into a media server for retention per a specified holding period.
- Exactly, and here is where this becomes an issue of technology.
I would like to see, as an outcome of these protests, mandatory nationwide body cams, including penalties for officers who do not comply. However, the cams should record encrypted files that only a judge – not the police of their own volition – can unlock. There should be a legal process like a freedom of information act where the press or a citizen can have the video released, even if it is also evidence in a current or possible case, and t
And the question is always “why was it cropped?”. Sometimes the answer is “to enhance view-ability” or “to save transmission fees”, but sometimes it’s to frame the incident. News crews do that all the time, and consider it a part of their job. And it’s one of the reasons I don’t trust even nominally unbiased news. I’ve seen news of a fire being manipulated that way to “enhance viewer appeal” (well, that’s my guess at the reason) in a way that totally distorted how significant the fire was. Yes, everyth
- by Zumbs ( 1241138 )
Courts have a long history of seeing police testimonies as absolute truth. On top of that, the police force closes ranks when facing complaints, so all the cops on the scene can end up lying to protect their colleague. In some instances, e.g. the recent murder, even the coroner appears to be in on the coverup. This has the effect that anyone complaining ends up being viewed as crook and a liar by the courts, making it immensely difficult to make a truthful complaint stick.
It doesn’t mean that police office
And this is why, during my last jury service, I was pleased that during voir dire, the defense attorney was hammering on the potential jurors about whether they’d automatically trust a policeman’s testimony more than anyone else’s. Cops are people too, and a badge isn’t some magical talisman that guarantees truth.
Absolutely, I’d hope that many people fully support the police having body cameras as it protects officers from malicious complaints.
In theory they should also temper a heavy-handed officer’s conduct, but as we’ve seen they can have a habit of failing in the most inopportune times. I guess this is the reason that so many people are filming their interactions with the police nowadays as testimony from the police is taken as gospel, with or without video evidence.
its double edge sword
This phrase “double edge(sic) sword”, I don’t think it means what you think it means.
Being filmed is a double edge sword only for those keen on lying and getting away with something illegal, be they civilians or cops. The issue is that when it is civilians behaving badly, the account given by the cops matches the video, whereas when it is cops behaving badly, the account given by the cops all too often does not match the video.
American cops tend to behave in a thuggish way, and the American police corps culture encourages such a behavior. They are particularly nasty to blacks because blacks
It helps when the footage is available (Score:5, Informative)
by Antique Geekmeister ( 740220 ) on Sunday June 07, 2020 @04:44AM (#60155368)Part of the danger of the “50a” law that people are demanding be repealed in New York is that it has prevented bodycam footage from being available to defendants in court. So the footage is effectively only available to prosecutors for convicting citizens, not for proving their innocence or proving police abuse.
Re:It helps when the footage is available (Score:5, Informative)
by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 07, 2020 @05:30AM (#60155418)This is part the cultural problem the US has, in most other Western countries not only does the bodycam footage have to be made available, but if there isn’t any because it got mysteriously turned off at the time of the incident, the officer will face suspension and a full investigation. If there’s evidence the camera was faulty and no evidence of wrongdoing they’ll be back on duty, but if it was just switched off then they’ll potentially be fired, or at least penalised depending on the severity of the incident in question.
The point being, that failing to take steps to document an incident is seen as a failing worthy of disciplinary measures in itself. In the US, it’s just a par for the course thing you do when you want to evade accountability for engaging in an act of brutality.
Until the US forces this mindset change, forces officers to be accountable, treats them as equals and gets rid of this assumption that the police are right, they’ll keep having these problems. The police should be treated as equals – they have as much obligation to prove their case as the citizen does theirs. If an officer can’t prove that someone punched them in the face because they intentionally turned their camera off or covered it up, then not only should the case not proceed, but their superior should be in a mindset of disciplining them for incompetence. If the subject has baton wounds and as such can prove the officer beat them, in the absence of evidence in the officers favour, it should be assumed it was an unprovoked assault.
Enforce the law in this way, and you can be rest assured that suddenly all the police officer’s cameras will suddenly start working and be made available to the courts, because as they keep telling us, they’ll have nothing to hide.
- by Ormy ( 1430821 )Couldn’t agree more with this. Would mod you up but I already posted on this topic.
Sadly it’s not like that in the UK, camera footage often goes missing or gets “corrupted”. It’s always advisable to film any interaction with the police yourself. Consider live streaming it to YouTube or similar in case they try to steal your phone. Also learn to use the camera shortcut (double tap the power button on Pixel phones) because then you can record but your your phone locked at the same time.
Apparently not in Indiana (Score:4, Interesting)
by spiritplumber ( 1944222 ) on Sunday June 07, 2020 @05:29AM (#60155414) Homepagehttps://www.techdirt.com/artic… [techdirt.com] I don’t understand how this one even works.Global Surveillance (Score:4, Interesting)
by Joe2020 ( 6760092 ) on Sunday June 07, 2020 @05:29AM (#60155416)Just shows that the number of cameras surveying our everyday life doesn’t matter as much as who is in control of them.
>”Just shows that the number of cameras surveying our everyday life doesn’t matter as much as who is in control of them.”
Well, it DOES matter how many, but your point is valid. But it is only one of many points. It also matters:
* Where the cameras are
* Who has access to the video
* Under what circumstances access to video is granted
* How long the video is being retained
* Where the video is being stored and how securely
* If the video is being automatically analyzed by AI
* The interpretation of what was f
- by MikeRT ( 947531 ) on Sunday June 07, 2020 @05:34AM (#60155420)
Gorski reached between another demonstrator and an officer to separate them.
If the officer is acting lawfully, there is no positive outcome for you to be had here. That includes if they are lawfully using a baton to compel compliance with orders. Contrary to what a lot of folks think, while many forces are stepping up into “too much force,” the police do have a legal right to use force rather than just yelling orders at you and hoping you will listen. If they tell you to move and you tell them to fuck off, they can hit you or arrest you. Interfere with that at your own peril.
- Yeah, and if you look at the video, it’s almost a brawl between the police and protestors. They are all pushing each other.
You want to be in the clear there? Be the guy the police see pulling a rioter/protester off of them. Do not be the idiot trying to place peacemaker between rioters and cops.
I’ll get hate but… (Score:3, Interesting)
by hairyfeet ( 841228 ) <bassbeast1968@gm … m minus language> on Sunday June 07, 2020 @06:18AM (#60155444) JournalUS cities deserve every bad cop. I mean has nobody heard of “Ya get what ya pay for” but then everyone acts fricking SHOCKED, SHOCKED I TELL YOU! when guys that get paid less then the guy that picks up your trash turns out to be there to crack heads?
If you raised pay along with accountability guess what? You’d get good cops because the job would be attractive to people with an IQ higher than neanderthal, but nobody wants to spend the money so every time a pay increase gets on a ballot that shit is gonna get shot down by John Q Public. So surprise surprise you offer shitty pay ya get shitty workers, its econ 101 as the brighter people will go to where the better pay is leaving you the bottom of the barrel for an employee pool.
It’s not about pay. (Score:5, Insightful)
by Thruen ( 753567 ) on Sunday June 07, 2020 @07:00AM (#60155506)It isn’t about the pay. We actively discourage and reject overqualified applicants, and discrimination against higher IQs has been ruled legal. [go.com] Old case, but the ruling still stands and the rules remain. Those candidates you’re talking about with a higher IQ are already trying to join the force, the police do not want them. Most departments also use psychological screening, so the officers they hire are exactly the officers they’re aiming to hire. When you have a situation like Minneapolis, where cops stand by and watch another cop murder a man [wikipedia.org], where they’re pepper spraying peaceful protestors exercising their rights [citypages.com], where they’re attacking the press for covering their actions [gizmodo.com], it becomes pretty clear their screening methods can and do result in departments dominated by violent thugs. Their own police chief has previously sued the city over the racial discrimination prevalent in the department, and he’s been trying to improve things, but the police union has been fighting against reform [businessinsider.com]. The head of the police union is one officer who was originally named in the chief’s discrimination suit, for using a slur to refer to the now attorney general, because that’s the guy the police chose to represent them.
Generally speaking, I’d agree that officers aren’t paid enough to put their lives on the line for the rest of us. That said, I can’t support rewarding decades of bad behavior and systemic racism by increasing their wages now. Reform needs to happen first; you pay someone more for doing a good job, not in the hopes that they’ll grow into the employee you needed all along.
- by Thruen ( 753567 )
Can you point me to any of those studies that aren’t based on information provided by the police themselves? That’s the problem I see with most arguments suggesting the police aren’t racist: it’s based on information provided by the police themselves. It’s always factoring in things like arrest numbers, but statistically there wouldn’t be a difference between police targeting minorities and minorities committing more crimes. This is why there’s been people pushing for additional oversight and transparency f
honestly it cuts both ways, if the police wore body camera’s and cars constantly recorded 360 constantly then released the footage regardless in 6 months unless there was a case (and should be released during/after the case) then I personally think it would end a LOT of this “they said” BS
Bystanders filming is NOT a good primary source… providence is hard.
Body Camera’s should be mandatory for all police who wear a uniform and they should be paid decently.
The average salary for a police officer is $52,052/year [payscale.com]
The average salary for a sanitation worker is $39,773/year [payscale.com]
Yet we don’t see videos of sanitation workers randomly killing unarmed black people. It’s almost like your point is bullshit.
- Like ‘overtime’ which is abused to the point police make 200-300k per year. They have defined benefit pensions which are sucking the life out of city budgets.
- by jythie ( 914043 )Which is weird since huge amounts of public money flow into law enforcement, so much that they cut the funding of the people who should be doing a lot of the work that has fallen on police.
One of the big problems is graft, law enforcement is both easily scammed and tends to be fairly corrupt. It is one of the costs of their ‘cops stick together’ mantra.
While getting better cops would be worth every penny, from a purely financial standpoint being a big city cop is already a pretty good job considering it doesn’t require a degree. An average cop in Minneapolis makes a base salary of $70K, and with overtime and paid details that can top $100K. I don’t think pay is the issue here.
If you really want to be unpopular consider this problem: veterans’s preferences.
Now I’m not against them in principle, but if they’re too big you end up picking minimally qualifi
Sounds like a state or maybe even HR issue at that one department/agency.
I know at the college I work for, Veterans Preference simply moves you to the next stage of the application process. IE, if you meet the min requirements (needed degree/experience whatever) then you are guaranteed at least a phone interview, etc. no matter what your resume or college transcript (yes, we get those for all applicants) says.
And why yes, our college does have its own police force and they all go through the same HR proces
No, it’s not just one agency; it’s written into state law. Veterans have absolute preference for police positions provided they meet minimal qualifications.
- But in our town cops start at high 5 figures and end up making 6 figures quickly while their pensions are being padded so that they can retire in 20 yrs. How many professions can allow people to retire after 20 yrs?
- Filming _anyone_ committing a crime is a good start towards accountability, but it’s only a start. If officers committing egregious assault are filmed and then not fired and convicted then no, filming the police did not lead to more accountability.
Tucson passes ordinance against filming cops (Score:3, Interesting)
by gavron ( 1300111 ) on Sunday June 07, 2020 @06:39AM (#60155476)https://tucson.com/news/local/… [tucson.com]
Sure, it says “boundaries” but cops set those wherever they want. 10ft, 20ft, 50ft, 100ft, wherever.
This new ordinance creates a $750 fine for entering that boundary NOT FOR TRESPASSING but for recording cops’ actions.Thoughts?
E
- by MikeRT ( 947531 ) on Sunday June 07, 2020 @07:38AM (#60155558)
Is that activists are starting to turn against them in some areas because they’re starting to show that at worst, the cops are simply giving as good as they get. Sure, there’s plenty of police brutality out there, but it’s also showing that many cases where the suspect was lying or got what they deserved. For example this case [theroot.com] where a black pastor claimed THEY PROFILED ME!!! Civil Rights!!! Only to find out that the officer was polite to him. All of the black folks commenting were pissed as Hell at him and rightly made the connection that this reduces credibility and the pastor ought to have his ass kicked.
Similarly, watch this horrifying video [waynedupree.com] of people taking out their “righteous anger…” on a father taking his daughter out of a Children’s Hospital.
This is the side of America that Europeans virtue-signaling don’t typically see when tut-tutting us about police brutality. Most Americans would agree that if you are throwing bricks at a man’s car while he’s trying to get his kid home that the police should light you up with live ammunition. Anyone who wants to be that asshole who says “a brick doesn’t equal a bullet” would do well to explain away all of the people maimed or killed at riots by a brick to the head or people who’ve been killed over the years by young punks throwing rocks and bricks off of bridges onto a highyway (turns out hitting a brick at 75-80mph on a highway is about like getting shot in the face with a bullet).
This is the side of America that Europeans virtue-signaling don’t typically see when tut-tutting us about police brutality.
We actually have the same thing happening in Europe as well which is why our police also wear bodycams.
>”Racism is not getting worse. It’s getting filmed,” Will Smith said in 2016. And this week the Washington Post noted a parallel pattern emerging: videos of violent police encounters which “contrast sharply with accounts by the departments or their unions.”
Police brutality is a problem and people should, indeed, “film” it and report it. But equating that with “racism” is a mistake. A small number of police officers commit brutality and they absolutely should be identified and disciplined/fired/trained/
- by Thruen ( 753567 )
adjusted for the numbers of who is committing crimes.
Where do those numbers come from? Oh, right, the official police reports that these videos “contrast sharply with.” There wouldn’t be a statistical difference between minorities committing more crimes and minorities being targeted more by the police, because those statistics are based on who the police arrest. I’m not saying it’s definitely one way or the other, just pointing out you’re basing this on information provided by a group that’s been shown to provide false information to make themselves look bett
>”Where do those numbers come from? Oh, right, the official police reports that these videos “contrast sharply with.” “
Well, no, these are studies conducted outside the police departments. The FBI one is a good example, focused on shootings- something that can’t really be covered up. What matters is the percent (not total number) of bad encounters with each race, and that clearly shows there is little difference (and what difference there is, leans toward it being LESS a problem for minorities).
>”Pe
- by jythie ( 914043 )Actually, shootings do not even need to be covered up. There is currently no reporting requirement for such things going up stream, meaning the FBI and DoJ have always had a difficult time gathering such data without going to every department individually and collecting it. So departments that are under investigation might finally show up in data, outside that it is whatever state/county governments feel like sharing.
- by Thruen ( 753567 )
Studies conducted outside the departments, but where does their data come from? The FBI doesn’t collect any of that themselves, they’re just aggregating data provided by departments on an at-will basis. Attempts have been made to standardize data collection nationally, guess who has been against it? Law enforcement. So you are still basing this on data controlled by the people that are accused of bias. This is why they never should have fought so hard against oversight, now we simply do not have reliable nu
>”Regarding the fact that nothing will prevent racism, sure that’s true, but touting that as a reason to not fight against it is ridiculous.”
I never made that assertion. I abhor racism, and we should fight against it. But lots of what people point to as “racism” isn’t “racism.” So the fight has to be very careful, otherwise we will end up with lots of unintended consequences and even worse race relations.
>”And it’s important to go after what’s motivating people to commit crimes, whether it’s racism
- by Thruen ( 753567 )
If you abhor racism and believe we should fight against it, what’s the point of saying we can’t fully eliminate it to someone who is saying we should be fighting against it? I’m a little confused by that, you presented it as if it were a counterpoint to my statement that protecting other officers has allowed racism to survive and thrive. Are you suggesting those actions don’t help racism survive and thrive, or just that it doesn’t matter since it’ll survive anyway? Seems like at best a pointless statement.
It’s my feeling that it’s not generally racially motivated, but rather motivated by the desire to pick on the weak rather than the powerful. It’s much safer to attack someone who isn’t likely to be able to respond. That this appears to be racism is because minority groups are generally in a much weaker position.
That said, there are also clear examples of racially motivated police actions. *I* may think it’s uncommon, but certainly many minority groups don’t see this in the same way, and they’ve got evide
- Here in the UK we have a reverse of the situation. Police are wearing body cameras so they can be protected against false claims by members of the public, we have the polar reverse of the problem that the US has.
>”Here in the UK we have a reverse of the situation. Police are wearing body cameras so they can be protected against false claims by members of the public,”
Many, if not most major police departments in the USA also use bodycams.
In 2013, about 25% of USA police departments already were using them. This increased to 45% in 2016, just 3 years later. I can’t find data for what it is now, 4 years later, but one can easily guess it is probably over 66%, if not much higher.
So who has access to those films under what conditions, and how is their availability guaranteed, and what protections are there against those records being edited?
That’s both a serious question, as sometimes the defense doesn’t have access to those records, and a list of matters that can be addressed…and need to be addressed where they haven’t been.
There are lots of valid arguments against those records being generally public, but I can’t think of any valid ones for why the defense shouldn’t have access,
>”There are lots of valid arguments against those records being generally public, but I can’t think of any valid ones for why the defense shouldn’t have access, as is sometimes the rule.”
I couldn’t agree more with that.
- Cops in the US have body cams too… one time a man was assaulted by a cop with five other cops nearby… all 6 body cams malfunctioned. The court actually accepted that the cams malfunctioned.
- Now that you mention it… I must have seen dozens of videos of cops getting caught doing wrong/unauthorized things. The problem is none of them got disciplined enough to actually teach them a lesson. That’s only what I’ve seen. There are thousands of videos like this on the internet.
– Cops get caught pulling guns on people who do absolutely nothing wrong
– Cops respond racist callers who claim their neighbor is behaving suspicious in their own home
– Cops makes up stupid laws that require a driver to com No: Police have a union and qualified immunity (Score:5, Insightful)
by schwit1 ( 797399 ) on Sunday June 07, 2020 @09:30AM (#60155762)Police unions protect bad cops. If the police policed their own ranks this wouldn’t be a problem. Not everyone is cut out to be a LEO.
Qualified immunity protects bad cops. QI is nowhere in the law. SCOTUS made it up out of thin air. Everyone, government employee or not, should be held to the same standards.Neither should exist.
Long term. (Score:5, Insightful)
by jythie ( 914043 ) on Sunday June 07, 2020 @09:52AM (#60155812)Thing is, police behave the way they do because the politics of policing reward it. Years ago the lab I work with did some case studies with the local police department involving things like community integration and services, stuff that the police were VERY interested in because it not only dropped crime rates but also dropped police brutality issues. It improved the police/community relationship and both sides gained something.The program was killed by politicians responding to fears of people living outside the area, who then pushed for more quotas and a hard line relationship between police and the communities they served.
THAT is what videos can influence. Police behavior is dictated by what politicians reward and punish. Politicians reward and punish police based off what voters reward and punish for them. Change what voters see, and what voters want to see, that changes the equation for politicians, and that changes the structure police operate in.
- there’s a study floating around out there that shows the most effective protests are ones where the protestors are peaceful but the Establishment is violent. So long as the public can see it happening then the end result is the protestors get public sympathy and their cause becomes popular. If the protests go violent then the public gets scared, demands “Law & Order” and there’s a crack down, shutting down the protests.
This is why Occupy Wall Street was swept away with a minimum of violence. It work
- by nehumanuscrede ( 624750 ) on Sunday June 07, 2020 @12:27PM (#60156324)
What really bugs me about all of this is the fact that the Police have to KNOW that there typically no fewer than a dozen cameras recording the entire incident at any given time, yet they’re arrogant enough to continue to behave in this manner. They just don’t fucking care because, in the past, they were untouchable.
Prior to technology putting a video camera on damn near everyone walking around, a Police Officers word in a court of Law was Gold.
Perhaps they just haven’t fully come to grips with how a video can show that their version of the story ( which is typically fabricated to justify their actions ) is total bullshit. Brings into question every other incident of where a civilian claimed Police Brutality but didn’t have the luxury of a video camera to back it up.
Some of them are a bit sharper than the rest.
These are the ones who are pushing / have pushed to make the recording of Police outright illegal.
Can’t have anyone questioning the word of Police Officer now can we.
They knew exactly what would happen.And here we are . . . .
We have such a small percentage of accountability, that the slight improvement is barely noticeable, but it is there.
We need at least 7 major changes in US law to fix the situation:
1) We need an agency (Federal or state) that SOLELY investigates cops and another that SOLELY prosecutes them. That way they will consider the cops the enemy, not an ally.
2) Make it illegal for the cops to gain any special rights when under investigation for a crime.
3) No bail. If they are dangerous, keep them in jail. If not
Beware of hypocrisy. For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known. Therefore whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Problematic police behavior may not seem to be getting better quickly, but the tide has changed.
- by Megol ( 3135005 )
is that some whataboutism?
To me it’s not whataboutism so much as a warning that you can’t trust either side. As such it’s quite a valid caution. And it’s why the police should be required to wear active body cameras while on duty and be disciplined if they are turned off…but the evidence has to be available to both sides of the case. And it has to be tamper-proof. (I.e. stream recorded to write-once media that are held by someone independent of the police department and the lawyers with dates and times embedded in the recordin
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