Another "I can't breath" death: Police Reform & Protests in the USA

[Shadowferal]

Humans on another continent are not humans, is basically what your stance is saying.

How often do you protest the ongoing ethnic discrimination in various EU countries?

[Kiri]

We have our own issues here. Why should people here have to protest against police brutality? At this point they're just doing it because 'Americans do it and we wanne be woke too'. There is literally no police violence here, on the contrary, our issue is that the police is too soft and regulary get their asses beaten.

Also, glorifying a criminal is not the right thing to do. He did not deserve to die, but the way people are turning him in some kind of saint is ridiculous.

That's kind of the natural result of the US creating that dominant position in the world, really. People can easily get swept up in these things, especially if their care of other people and justice doesn't stop at the border.
Now, naturally, we also have issues elsewhere in the world that get ignored. But The US has, for a long long time, positioned itself at the center of world culture and politics. And it has significant spillover in these regards towards other countries. If there are systemic issues in a country most people can't even find on a map, it is sad as well, but generally ignored. But if there are systemic issues in the US and people indicate they are essentially fine with those, there is a non-zero chance of spillover.

I mean, you yourself said that your police is too soft. That's kind of what people in the US said at some point, too. Police violence begins with considerations like this. And if the US were to lead with president "police, don't be too nice, feel free to hit them", then that could relatively easily change towards the other extreme. Pretending the US and its leadership has no effect on other countries would be silly. The protesters here in Europe might well be trying to use that channel in the other direction.

[Krastyn]

Yes, the person was in the driver's seat; there was damage to the car from actually having hit something (nobody knows what); the cops knew the person had been drinking and driving because they told me as much, and took and kept their keys to be picked up the next day. It was arguably more serious. Other differences seem to be car make and model, and color of skin. If for whatever reason you are committed to pretending that laws in this country are applied equally to black people and white people, I'm sure you will find some other way to falsely reassure yourself, regardless of the details.

It's not arguably more serious. By your description the person drove the car hit something, parked in a spot, and then the cops found them. You also didn't state if the car was running at the time, or stopped. The cops likely assumed he was drinking and driving, which was probably correct. What could they prove in a court of law? A lot of this comes down to the officers choice, and when it happened. Years ago it was pretty common for police to just put people in a drunk tank and release them the next day. Not surprisingly though, this doesn't do much to stop people for drinking and driving

The police literally witnessed the guy driving in this case. So aside from "car make and mode, and color of skin", there is also circumstance, location, and officers involved.

[Elegiac]

I hope the death of this man won't trigger yet another protest here in Europe. We still have a virus to deal with. I never understood protesting for something that happened on another continent.

Police brutality and racism aren't just an American thing.

[Shadowferal]

In related news; Supreme Court declines to hear cases over legal doctrine qualified immunity, which shields police from lawsuits

The Supreme Court said that it will not hear cases that asked the court to revisit a doctrine which shields police from lawsuits for conduct that does not involve a "clearly established" violation of the law.
The doctrine was established by the Supreme Court in 1982 and has been expanded over time. Increasingly, the top court has required victims to cite a case with precisely the same detailed facts as their own in order to prove that the action against them was a "clearly established" violation of the law.
.

[Elegiac]

In related news; Supreme Court declines to hear cases over legal doctrine qualified immunity, which shields police from lawsuits

The Supreme Court said that it will not hear cases that asked the court to revisit a doctrine which shields police from lawsuits for conduct that does not involve a "clearly established" violation of the law.
The doctrine was established by the Supreme Court in 1982 and has been expanded over time. Increasingly, the top court has required victims to cite a case with precisely the same detailed facts as their own in order to prove that the action against them was a "clearly established" violation of the law.
.

Go figure, SCOTUS are part of the problem. Just look at Georgia's primaries.

[Levelfive]

It's not arguably more serious. By your description the person drove the car hit something, parked in a spot, and then the cops found them. You also didn't state if the car was running at the time, or stopped. The cops likely assumed he was drinking and driving, which was probably correct. What could they prove in a court of law? A lot of this comes down to the officers choice, and when it happened. Years ago it was pretty common for police to just put people in a drunk tank and release them the next day. Not surprisingly though, this doesn't do much to stop people for drinking and driving

The police literally witnessed the guy driving in this case. So aside from "car make and mode, and color of skin", there is also circumstance, location, and officers involved.

No, they didn't "park in a spot" and no, the cops didn't "find them"--the cops were called because of it, the person admitted to the cops they'd been drinking, as if they needed to, so give it a rest with whatever desperate attempt this is to excuse the cops in both situations. Yes, it absolutely is arguably more serious. I realize people have some pathetic need to cling to BuT iT wAsN't RaCiSM, but it is. You merely have to cope with the "stress" of realizing it, while it costs black people their lives.

[Elegiac]

I mean, learning how to interact with authority figures is a part of functioning in society.

I absolutely believe that:

1. Police who are shown to have been completely negligent, like the killer of Floyd, should be charged with a crime.
2. Police who overreact and use deadly force, like the Atlanta cop, should be fired.
3. The cops should keep much better, standardized records about the number of suspects shot/killed so we have a better handle on this problem.

BUT:

I also believe that the bigger issue here is the cycle of poverty and ignorance that millions of Americans are trapped in. Floyd's bio sounds depressingly familiar - single mom, 9 arrests, father to 5 children with multiple women, drugs in his system when he was killed, college athlete but presumably didn't graduate or develop any skills that would lead to a career, unemployed. That's the bigger issue here. If we fix that issue, we don't have people who are constantly interacting with the police, barely earning enough food to eat, homeless (Floyd was homeless at one point in his 20s). Reducing the number of interactions like this by an order of magnitude probably does better at reducing the body count than any police reform, and it also means that the quality of life is better for Americans like Floyd.

I don't know how to fix it, but that's the issue. My opinion is:

1. School reform. Stop trying to get every kid ready for college. Teach trades to those who can't, and get them out of the way for those who can.
2. Zoning/housing reform. There's way too many 80% minority cities surrounded by 90% white towns, and way too little affordable housing as real estate owners work hard to make sure property values and rents stay high.
3. College cost reform. Student loans by the government have just allowed colleges to raise tuition too high. Government should impose cost controls through student loans... i.e. we will only give loans to students going to your school if the tuition is less than x, and x increases by inflation each year, not by 10% like every college loves to do.

But I don't know how much all that helps, because we still have a lot of young single women having too many babies that they can't properly raise, with fathers who abandon their kids, and we still have a massive drug problem. The US has incredibly more single parents than any other developed country, and an incredibly high drug abuse problem. Those are things that require community efforts, not government, to fix, and I don't know how that happens organically.

Allow me to give you a good starting point, then:



"Learning how to act around authority figures" is a) victim blaming, and b) misses the point that 'acceptable' behavior around law enforcement differs between people of different skin colors which is the result of systemic racism.

As are all the things you mentioned; poverty, lack of education, malnutrition, familial instability. It is all part of a system designed to oppress, exploit, and erase.

[PosPosPos]

How often do you protest the ongoing ethnic discrimination in various EU countries?

[Moonrage]

Oh, so you are really upset because it's not about you for once. Why didn't you just say you have attention-seeking issues from the start?

What do you even mean? It's always about the US. One black guy was killed by the police and suddenly the entire world needs to get involved. My country has the most Corona deaths per capita, but now every woke moron thinks protesting in close groups is a good idea.

Last week a boy got released by his kidnappers after 42 days of being held hostage. This would normally be big news, because barely anything happens here, but it isn't because it gets drowned out by the protests.

Oh look, the usual racist dogwhistle. Combined with the abovementioned, I guess it's obvious it's not that much you are apathetic, but rather actively racist.

Yes, I'm racist for saying that protesting against something that happened on another continent, while there is still a very deadly virus raging across the country, is a dumb idea. Calling everyone you have an argument with racist is the reason the word is losing its meaning.

[PosPosPos]

-snipped nonsense-

Congrats, you are the implicit racist guy with the dry rot in his house in the comic I just linked earlier.

[Moonrage]

Police brutality and racism aren't just an American thing.

Well it isn't a thing here either. This is how the police gets treated in our capital city. This was a month before George Floyd was killed for context.
https://twitter.com/SafaiDarya/statu...25711913480194

None of these people are natives if you're wondering.
And this happened during the protests in Brussels.
https://twitter.com/JefDweislap/stat...76846003752960

[Thekri]

Allow me to give you a good starting point, then:



"Learning how to act around authority figures" is a) victim blaming, and b) misses the point that 'acceptable' behavior around law enforcement differs between people of different skin colors which is the result of systemic racism.

As are all the things you mentioned; poverty, lack of education, malnutrition, familial instability. It is all part of a system designed to oppress, exploit, and erase.

Well technically accurate, this is a pretty good example of charts saying anything you want them too. Here is the link to the budget that is the source of this Data. Go to page 34 to see all of it broken down. Police Spending is about 1/3 of total LA appropriations, it is the single largest line item, and approximately the same value as Fire and Sanitation combined.

Graphs are inherently misleading, they picked a few small line items and through them on a graph next to a very large budget item. It you put the same items on a graph, but replaced Police with fire Department (1.1 billion) it would look very similar, since all the others are less then 300 million.

I am not saying your point is wrong, I am just pointing out you should never believe graphs on the internet.

[Moonrage]

Congrats, you are the implicit racist guy with the dry rot in his house in the comic I just linked earlier.

You're calling me racist, yet did not address any of my arguments. The "snipped nonsense" also implies you think rather highly of yourself. Get off your high horse already.

[Thekri]

And obviously, that budget leaves out spending on education, which I'm sure is much larger than the police budget.

It isn't. Go check out the source document. There is no Education line item, because education is not a city responsibility, that is done mostly at the state level. But it does leave out about 50 other line items, none of which are bigger then the police budget, but all together the Police budget is about 1/3 of the total.

[Moonrage]

How often do you protest the ongoing ethnic discrimination in various EU countries?

Never, because most Americans don't really care about what's going on here.

[PosPosPos]

You're calling me racist, yet did not address any of my arguments. The "snipped nonsense" also implies you think rather highly of yourself. Get off your high horse already.

Your "arguments" aren't anything new, they are established dogwhistles used by racists over and over because they want to diminish the concerns of those they are racist against.

That I refuse to address your "points" isn't adding legitimacy to your brand of racism, but that I refuse to address something that has been thrown out of the window ad nauseam and the racists are throwing their rubbish back into the house.

[Elegiac]

c) An enormous problem because we have a large number of people who are not taught how to function in society. Yes, what happened to Floyd sucks, but my point is that when you have a huge number of people who are constantly on the verge of their next interaction with law enforcement because they live on the fringe, then things will happen.

Again, this is deliberate.

When you say the system is "designed" that way, I disagree. The issue is that the system is not designed to fix those problems, many of which are rooted in slavery and Jim Crow. Government is not the cause and solution to everything - better schools don't necessarily work. Basically 100% of successful students had their education supplemented at home. So a system that attempts to be agnostic to those problems still perpetuates the cycle.

This is a very verbose way of saying that you don't think systemic racism is a thing and are still pushing some libertarian "personal responsibility" nonsense that, ironically enough, is a political philosophy that is tailor made as a self-serving justification for opposing any changes to the status quo.

And obviously, that budget leaves out spending on education, which I'm sure is much larger than the police budget.

And obviously education is not the only factor that goes into poverty, nor does economic mobility fundamentally address the issue of race in America. Why Bernie Failed, in so many words.

[Thekri]

So? I don't care where the money comes from... the point remains, educational spending is far higher - around 10 billion.

Care to provide sources for that? It is irrelevant anyway, but that which is submitted without evidence can be disregarded without evidence. California education spending is 72 Billion, I have no idea how you are breaking it down to LA spending only.

[Elegiac]

Well technically accurate, this is a pretty good example of charts saying anything you want them too. Here is the link to the budget that is the source of this Data. Go to page 34 to see all of it broken down. Police Spending is about 1/3 of total LA appropriations, it is the single largest line item, and approximately the same value as Fire and Sanitation combined.

Graphs are inherently misleading, they picked a few small line items and through them on a graph next to a very large budget item. It you put the same items on a graph, but replaced Police with fire Department (1.1 billion) it would look very similar, since all the others are less then 300 million.

I am not saying your point is wrong, I am just pointing out you should never believe graphs on the internet.

And I'm just pointing out that "well they just picked some small line items" is isn't really germane because the actual issue is what those line items are; i.e. housing, public transportation, etc.

"Why don't we have cool trains like in Japan?" Here's one of the answers. Conservatives/Libertarians cut services, poverty and crime spikes, they cut services more to put more money into police, rinse and repeat until you have a crony capitalist white supremacist police state.