So now the cops want violence against them to be classified as
hate crimes.
And of course the violence that they perpetrate on others (who
disproportionately happen to be brown/black) are not. I don't know the
full history, but I think hate crimes laws were created (on top of
regular criminal laws) as an extra deterrent against such bias-driven
crimes.
But there is already
a ton of deterrent to
violent crimes against cops: (a) angry cops will kill you with great
prejudice (remember Dorner), and may kill you first before you have the
chance to shoot them, (b) cops have a lot of protection and weapons, (c)
the justice system will already come down on you like a ton of bricks
(and maybe your family too). So I don't think the extra risk of a hate
crime conviction on top of that will affect anyone's behavior.
You know what will stop people from attacking cops? Cops behaving better.
It's not the only way, but it's probably the most impactful one, and
one that they can control without asking the Feds to change the laws
(which is slow and uncertain).
“Enough is enough! It’s time for Congress to do something to protect the
men and women who protect us,” Chuck Canterbury, the president of the
[police] union, said in a statement Monday. The group has long lobbied for
harsher punishment for those who harm law enforcement officers.
Ah,
so now the cops are the ones saying "enough is enough"? That's pretty
insulting, since that slogan was recently used by the victims of cop
violence (that greatly outnumber cop deaths)?
----
This is so dumb on so many levels I don't know where to begin. I did
some cursory research on the typical punishment for killing a cop, and
(correct me if I'm wrong) but it appears that in most states this is
punish-able basically by only a life sentence or death penalty. Hate
crime laws tend to "only" add 5-10 years to sentences, so I don't really
get the point of this.
But this also speaks to what
police/police apologists don't get about this whole conversation. If
you kill a cop, you get punished. I know in the more recent case the guy
shot himself, but people don't get to kill cops and walk away
scot-free. Cops on the other hand, as we have seen, kill people in
unjust situations and receive no punishment or even the slightest bit of
accountability. The delicate flowers that cops have turned into when it
comes to any sort of criticism is crazy.
Quick
thing on hate crime laws: my understanding is that they are applied to
crimes that affect communities, not just the person
injured/murdered/whatever. For example, if it's determined that a gay
person was murdered for being gay, that's classified as a hate crime
because that sends a threatening message to the whole gay community, not
just the person killed. So based on my understanding, it's even more
than just an extra deterrent against bias driven crimes.
----
Some statistics from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics 2012.
Law Enforcement Workers: 97 deaths, 30 from homicide, the rest from roadway accidents and slips & trips
Supervisors, Sales workers: 100 deaths, 46 from homicide, the rest from roadway accidents and slips & trips
Police
apparently kill at least ~400 people per year in the US. About 100 of
those black. This is excluding justifiable homicide and unreported
killings.
Law enforcement is not in the top
10 most dangerous occupations. And it is worse if you include
compensation for the risk since police are relatively well compensated
(compared to say, fisherman or agriculture workers).
---
Agreed with both of you.
Yeah being a cop is
statistically a better-than-average job for fatality risk. And as you
said, they get huge risk comp in the form of earlier retirement (after
15-20 years I think), generous pensions (except broke places like San
Jose and Detroit), and a lot of time off (to "de-stress" - I guess that
is good for public safety). I hate to sound so harsh, but they are
acting like "cry babies" as D alluded to. It's sadly getting to be like
the police are a separate society/class with their own interests and
rules. In no job should you have to put up with being shot at, but cops
were not conscripted into the force - they volunteered with eyes open.
OTOH, the uneducated poor more-or-less have no choice but to join the
armed forces.
As D said, try to kill a cop or actually
kill a cop, you are finished. Get beaten or killed by a cop, he probably
won't be affected much, or he might get "early retirement" if there is
enough media attention.
This is probably too expensive and
controversial to implement, but why should cops have a monopoly on law
enforcement? Even in wars, the US hires allies and mercs. Should we be
able to pay for private professional security to keep the peace, as well
as protect us from and watch the cops? I guess the rich can and already
do have that, but the most at-risk communities can't afford it.
---
"Law Enforcement Workers: 97 deaths, 30 from homicide, the rest from roadway accidents and slips & trips
Supervisors, Sales workers: 100 deaths, 46 from homicide, the rest from roadway accidents and slips & trips
Police
apparently kill at least ~400 people per year in the US. About 100 of
those black. This is excluding justifiable homicide and unreported killings. "
I
want to emphasize that last part, because the more people look into it
the more it seems that there is a significant number of unreported
killings, the very idea of which is insane to me.
Two separate sections from that last article:
"The
biggest thing I've taken away from this project is something I'll never
be able to prove, but I'm convinced to my core: The lack of such a
database is intentional. No government—not the federal government, and
not the thousands of municipalities that give their police forces
license to use deadly force—wants you to know how many people it kills
and why.
It's
the only conclusion that can be drawn from the evidence. What evidence?
In attempting to collect this information, I was lied to and delayed by
the FBI, even when I was only trying to find out the addresses of
police departments to make public records requests. The government
collects millions of bits of data annually about law enforcement in its
Uniform Crime Report, but it doesn't collect information about the most
consequential act a law enforcer can do.
...
This
is the most most heinous thing I've learned in my two years compiling
Fatal Encounters. You know who dies in the most population-dense areas?
Black men. You know who dies in the least population dense areas?
Mentally ill men. It's not to say there aren't dangerous and desperate
criminals killed across the line. But African-Americans and the mentally
ill people make up a huge percentage of people killed by police.
And
if you want to get down to nut-cuttin' time, across the board, it's
poor people who are killed by police. (And by the way, around 96 percent
of people killed by police are men.)"
----
Yeah I don't think it would work out well - look at the case of private prisons in the US:
https://www.aclu.org/prisoners-rights/private-prisons
I'm not sure what the answer is either. But overseas generally cops are a
lot better behaved than in the US. Part of it I think is the training
culture. They are trained as and are seen as a customer service job, not
a paramilitary job where you occasionally have to talk to the plebs,
and have much more oversight:
http://www.quora.com/How-do-UK-police-compare-to-US-police
I know everyone is for states rights or whatever, but I honestly think
they ought to federalize police or at least turn it over to the states
and increase the professionalism of the police force.
Another aspect to look at is that if you give officers the option of
deadly force, some will resort to it as a first resort rather than a
last resort. They did a study where solo cops were much less likely to
get into firefights with the bad guys and wait for backup than when cops
went together, as one officer alone is more cautious. Likewise, when
things get rough in the field (say a crazy guy that isn't listening to
commands reaches into his pants), if you have a gun some will use it.
Result: crazy guy dead because he was pulling a toothbrush out. A good
cop would assess the situation, try to reason with him, and defuse it.
Rambo cops will just shoot and claim they felt threatened (which is the
bar for use of deadly force).
I'd think that increased professionalism, breaking down of old boy cop
networks (in the UK they rotate police, for example), and tighter
control over implements of deadly force would be really helpful here.
----
I guess when the public is dependent on some sort of paid entity
with little oversight (whether it be for a ride home or law
enforcement), corruption and abuse are bound to occur. For the more
recent police killing in STL (of an armed black teen this time), I think
the cop had a body cam but it wasn't on. I don't understand why the
officer should have the ability to control the camera - that defeats the
purpose.
That is a good initiative about
compiling shooting data. If Waze & its users can track all the car
accidents in the US, then the crowd should be able to do the same for
shootings (that usually attract onlookers, unless it's a corrupt
cover-up
killing). I agree with you that the lack of transparency is likely
deliberate. Just as the gun lobby has blocked most efforts to create a
national gun registry/database/etc. Ironically the cops are against the
gun lobby on that issue, but likely engage in the same practices when it
suits them.
----
I totally agree with you about the
private prisons (and
also mercs) - but remember that those "service providers" were hired
because the gov't orgs were not equipped to do the job on their own.
They were called in as spare capacity. But for the "private cops", they
would be a hedge or alternative to the public cops. And since they would
be hired by the community, they could be fired at any time. Of course
all this sounds wonderful and perfectly smooth on paper, like
libertarianism in general. :)
Ah - I forgot to make a joke about M's comments on
mercs:
Blackstone and Treadrock... "Treadstone" was the illegal CIA program in
the "Bourne" movies, and BlackRock are the guys who have all our
retirement cash. :) Blackwater are the corrupt mercs from Iraq, but they
have been renamed to Xe, and then Academi (gotta love rebranding).
I agree about the
rush to deadly force
- when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Of course cops
aren't shooting indiscriminately into crowds (usually), but they are
empowered (and probably encouraged) to forgo de-escalation and end
conflicts with guns. I guess a similar pathology to the
stand-your-ground and mass-shootings phenomena in the US. So it comes
back to the 2nd Amendment issue - fewer guns on the street and better
regs will reduce the violence potential of the public. That in turn will
likely make the cops less paranoid and trigger happy, or even justify
patrolmen to be unarmed and backed up by armed specialists for hostile
situations (like the UK). Maybe the gutting of public services and
budget cuts are also contributing to this problem. Cops are the last
ones to endure cuts, but they have had them. Now maybe more patrolmen
have to go on duty solo. I would be curious to know what % of
questionable cop shootings occurred when the cop was solo (but as we now
know, stats are hard to come by).
A
major reform is
needed; I think the cop-first mentality and culture is too deeply
ingrained that small changes won't help (esp. if they turn off their
body cams). New training, hiring criteria, and oversight are needed -
but who is going to write those laws? Any change-oriented candidate
would get a lot of heat from the cop lobby, and his/her opponent would
get their contributions.
I agree with you about
federalizing
the cops, since smaller police forces have poorer training/oversight,
and likely contribute disproportionately to misconduct problems.
Standardizing the police would create a lot of efficiencies (and sharing
of best practices, etc.), but the states rights crowd would raise hell
as you said.
Also agreed about changing the mentality from occupying army to
service provider.
Very few people complain about FDs, and there is much less misconduct.
The PDs that have the best rep with the public (even among minorities),
fewer violent incidents, and have shown the most reforms/improvements,
all have robust community outreach programs. But currently they are
recruiting and giving badges to macho/meathead/blindly loyal types, not
empathetic/thoughtful/fair types.
http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201412230900
---
It seems like somehow police have been lumped in with the
military as a must support or no chance of political office entity. On
the radio this morning Ryan seacrest (don't judge me!) Was complaining
that there was crazy pressure to wear some "I support the police" hat
during his new years eve show. And subsequent death threats when he
didn't. If even seacrest thinks it is overboard imagine what your
everyday douchebag must think.
And if you were an app maker, Waze for cop shootings would
be a great release about now. Now we just need a catchy name. Raze?
hYelp?
I'm hopeful that mandatory body cameras help and Los Angeles is implementing them which might help on the national level.
----
That's an interesting observation. I think it's very offensive (and
undemocratic) for special interest groups to "pressure" the general
public to show support for them - lest we be labeled as unpatriotic,
soft on crime, etc. "If you're not with us, you're against us." That is
another form of intolerant bullying. If you are so great, you don't need
to convince anyone with slogans and shirts. It reminds me of a
dictator's thugs forcing the citizens at gunpoint to come out and cheer
at the dictator's parade, when they all actually hate his guts.
Already
the cops get disproportionate support, resources, and political power.
They want our love and admiration too? During the War on Terror, I
didn't like those bumper stickers that said something like "USMC, thank
me for protecting your freedom." My freedom was in pretty good shape
without you shooting and bombing anyone. I didn't ask you to go over
there, and I do show my thanks by paying taxes and doing other civic
duties (incl. protesting when some leaders want to send soldiers to
fight unnecessarily).
Cops mostly take evidence after crimes
occurred, harass suspicious looking people, and enforce traffic laws.
They rarely "prevent crime", except for the deterrent effect of their
presence. It's not like Batman swooping in to thwart a bank robbery. So
for the cops to imply that they are heroes tirelessly watching over the
helpless masses, and keeping the rapists/murderers at bay, is getting it
twisted. Violent crime has been on the decline in the US for the past
60 years or more, and policing may not be even a top 3 driver of that
(more like economics and other social forces). But still, our gun
violence rates are much worse than the EU and east Asia, but as we've
discussed, it's concentrated on mostly poor minorities and not the rich
(or the cops). If the police go out of their way to protect those folks
with the least power, and who are the most at risk, then I would give
them props. But they mostly just leave those "animals" to their own
devices, keep the riffraff caged in prisons/ghettos and away from the
suburbs and malls.
Yeah for all of the LAPD's past sins
(and they still have many lingering problems), they have shown a lot of
leadership in reforms like community policing, hiring and promoting
minorities/women, and the use of some technologies.
