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

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Is it just me or am I wrong to be worried about what this means? Has this kind of thing ever been done before and worked? While I am very happy that this movement is truly making a difference on paper it just seems like they are throwing everything out and replacing it with something both unknown and untested..... and to abruptly do that just seems like a bad idea.

I really hope this works out well because it just seems like this was a reactionary judgement call... and not one that was given enough thought before implementing (if anyone disagrees... please share your view... would love to get more insight on this matter).

It's actually has been given alot of thought the problem is implementing any of the needed change's isn't gonna happen with the current people in charge so it needs to be done from the ground up.

rather they will use these methods or not is up in the air but they really should follow this lay out.

https://www.joincampaignzero.org/sol...utionsoverview

[Easo]

I really would like to know what does disbanding means in this case.
Do not forget that police does not consist from only cops on the street, there are many more layers - people actually investigating crime scenes and gathering evidence, people in the labs/coroners, people keeping the servers running, etc.
So, what does the disbanding means? Fire everyone and... then what? Too many questions, too little answers.

[Elegiac]

While the institution of police is bastardly, let's take a moment to commend some actual instances of restraint, like this one.

How to Police Good, as presented by a Bristol constable who observed protesters pulling down a statue of an English slaveowner and throwing it in the harbor.

Constable: "We know that he being a historical figure that has caused the black community quite a lot of angst over the last couple of years. So whilst I am disappointed that people have damaged one of our statues, I do understand why this happened; it's very symbolic. You might wonder why we didn't intervene and why we just allowed people to put [the statue] in the docks; we made a very tactical decision that to stop people from doing that act may have caused further disorder, and we decided the safest thing to do in terms of our peaceful tactics was to allow it to take place."

Interviewer: "Should you have stopped this from happening? Should you have protected the statue?"

Constable: "So our policing style was from the outset, low-key. We were not able to get to the statue in time to protect it, and once it had actually been toppled there was clearly a pre-planned attempt to bring that down. They had grappling ropes, they had the right tools. So once that was done we made the decision to allow it to happen, because what we did not want is tension."

Interviewer: "Some people might say that maybe that is the wrong strategy, that you should have intervened and challenged this behavior."

Constable: "So I understand why people think we should have intervened and challenged, but this was a very difficult policing operation. There is a lot of context surrounding it, and I believe we did the right thing."

Interviewer: "So, no regrets?"

Constable: "No regrets."

More of this and less tear gas please.

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I really would like to know what does disbanding means in this case.
Do not forget that police does not consist from only cops on the street, there are many more layers - people actually investigating crime scenes and gathering evidence, people in the labs/coroners, people keeping the servers running, etc.
So, what does the disbanding means? Fire everyone and... then what? Too many questions, too little answers.

There are two threads full of posts discussing policing alternatives and what disbandment would look like, one of which you started.

Why feign ignorance?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

These muggers, looters, and arsonists are bandits.

Remember the good ole' days, when the local lord rounded up the knights to clear out bandits?

What kind of knight kneels to bandits?

That's still rioting. That's still the voice of the unheard.

They're dumb and useless to society but we can't complain about rioting. Plus, it's only property damage, right?

There isn't a difference between the right to life and the right to property when you consider that person's property is their livelihood. To take a man's millstone for debt is to kill him. If you take away a man's ability to make a living, that's the same as killing them. And then there is property that men accumulate not just to sustain themselves, but to feed and house their families. If you can't defend your property, you can't defend your livelihood, and you can't defend your life. An assault on your property is an assault on your life. You should be permitted to defend your property with as much force as necessary, just as you should be permitted to defend yourself.

Gosh, how many people's lives have been ruined by these bandits?

[Themius]

I really would like to know what does disbanding means in this case.
Do not forget that police does not consist from only cops on the street, there are many more layers - people actually investigating crime scenes and gathering evidence, people in the labs/coroners, people keeping the servers running, etc.
So, what does the disbanding means? Fire everyone and... then what? Too many questions, too little answers.

Criminal investigators often enough are not in the department itself but a separate organisation used by the department, they wouldn't disappear...

Frankly this has been said multiple times but you do know we still have county and state police right?

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These muggers, looters, and arsonists are bandits.

Remember the good ole' days, when the local lord rounded up the knights to clear out bandits?

What kind of knight kneels to bandits?



There isn't a difference between the right to life and the right to property when you consider that person's property is their livelihood. To take a man's millstone for debt is to kill him. If you take away a man's ability to make a living, that's the same as killing them. And then there is property that men accumulate not just to sustain themselves, but to feed and house their families. If you can't defend your property, you can't defend your livelihood, and you can't defend your life. An assault on your property is an assault on your life. You should be permitted to defend your property with as much force as necessary, just as you should be permitted to defend yourself.

Gosh, how many people's lives have been ruined by these bandits?

"There isn't a difference between the right to life and property"

I mean it sounds like the 1700s and you still think people should be allowed to own black and brown bodies.

[Elegiac]

These muggers, looters, and arsonists are bandits.

Remember the good ole' days, when the local lord rounded up the knights to clear out bandits?

What kind of knight kneels to bandits?

And you don't even see the irony in comparing police to knights who were, in historical reality, armed thugs acting on behalf of their wealthy lords. Lol.

Speaking of which, a recent poll found that nearly two thirds of Americans are more concerned with police violence against protesters than they were about violence from protesters.

Welcome to the silent minority, hun.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

"There isn't a difference between the right to life and property"

I mean it sounds like the 1700s and you still think people should be allowed to own black and brown bodies.

Where in my post did I advocate for slavery?

I advocated for one's essential right to defend their livelihood from encroaching bandits by whatever means necessary.

If the local knights can't protect you, then you must do it yourself.

[Edge-]

These muggers, looters, and arsonists are bandits.

Remember the good ole' days, when the local lord rounded up the knights to clear out bandits?

What kind of knight kneels to bandits?

Yeah, let's return to the days of feudalism where the law of the land was whatever the local lord said, and whoever he wanted to enforce it could do so however they so chose.

Stole an apple? Welp, guess it's time to put you to death.

There isn't a difference between the right to life and the right to property when you consider that person's property is their livelihood. To take a man's millstone for debt is to kill him. If you take away a man's ability to make a living, that's the same as killing them.

This is positively unhinged and I doubt you will find anyone even in these forums to agree with this absolute nonsense.

An assault on your property is an assault on your life.

I don't want to live in your dystopic, completely fucking insane reality where this is the case. You will find no legal scholar worth their salt that would back up such a completely unhinged position.

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If the local knights can't protect you, then you must do it yourself.

We don't live in a feudalistic society dude, this is a fucking terrible attempt at an analogy.

[Elegiac]

There isn't a difference between the right to life and the right to property when you consider that person's property is their livelihood. To take a man's millstone for debt is to kill him. If you take away a man's ability to make a living, that's the same as killing them. And then there is property that men accumulate not just to sustain themselves, but to feed and house their families. If you can't defend your property, you can't defend your livelihood, and you can't defend your life. An assault on your property is an assault on your life. You should be permitted to defend your property with as much force as necessary, just as you should be permitted to defend yourself.

Gosh, how many people's lives have been ruined by these bandits?

Probably fewer than the number of black lives ruined by police and American society in general.

In the words of Kimberly Jones: "They're lucky Black people are looking for equality, and not revenge. Fuck your Target."

[s_bushido]

These muggers, looters, and arsonists are bandits.

Remember the good ole' days, when the local lord rounded up the knights to clear out bandits?

What kind of knight kneels to bandits?

The police aren't goddamned knights, and leaders of governments aren't goddamned lords. You can pretend you're being tongue-in-cheek all you want, but this mentality is the fucking problem.

[Endus]

These muggers, looters, and arsonists are bandits.

Remember the good ole' days, when the local lord rounded up the knights to clear out bandits?

What kind of knight kneels to bandits?

That moment when you unironically side entirely with the Sheriff of Nottingham and Prince John, rather than Robin Hood.

Injustice is injustice. It doesn't become "okay" just because it's enforced by the state. All that means is that the state is abusive and illegitimate and deserving of being torn down. Violently, if it will not allow itself to go quietly, or to amend its conduct to remove the injustice.

There isn't a difference between the right to life and the right to property when you consider that person's property is their livelihood. To take a man's millstone for debt is to kill him. If you take away a man's ability to make a living, that's the same as killing them. And then there is property that men accumulate not just to sustain themselves, but to feed and house their families. If you can't defend your property, you can't defend your livelihood, and you can't defend your life. An assault on your property is an assault on your life. You should be permitted to defend your property with as much force as necessary, just as you should be permitted to defend yourself.

1> If this were remotely true, in a legal sense, then vandalism would be treated as if it were aggravated assault. It flatly isn't. Because you're wrong.

2> Your argument is a straight-up admission that capitalism is an exploitative, abusive economic system that leaves many at great personal risk, to enrich the few beyond reason. And yet, you're taking your time to target those who are abused by that system and do not wish to continue being so abused, rather than the architects of that abuse; the wealthy. You've been misled by capitalist propaganda into directing your ire at the very victims you claim to be concerned about.

[Evielution93]

There isn't a difference between the right to life and the right to property when you consider that person's property is their livelihood. To take a man's millstone for debt is to kill him. If you take away a man's ability to make a living, that's the same as killing them.

You're right. We should put an end to debt. Take money away from these 'noble knights' who really, if they were so noble, would work for the chivalry of their station, and redistribute it amongst those who are needy and so close to death that having the windows of their building smashed in is akin to death due to the devil that is debt.

To bad it's the "knights" causing the destruction, but don't worry comrade, our communist ideal of no man being put to death simply because they could not pay an unjust tax shall see itself through soon.

[Saltysquidoon]

The prosecutorial immunity should not extend to active and intentional misconduct.

Prosecuting should not be a full-time job, prosecutors and public defence counsel should be rolled into one office.

Prosecutors should not be rewarded for conviction rates they achieve as it incentivises charge stacking and trial by plea deal.

Mandatory minimum sentences should be abolished

Civil asset forfeiture should be abolished

Police (or any part of the state but that's a separate issue) should investigate their own misdeeds, no matter how fair (kek) or transparent the procedure justice will never be seen to be done.

Qualified immunity should not exist (and as a non us lawyer I'm baffled how it exists).

All rinky-dink metropolitan police forces (and sheriffs departments) should be disbanded and their funding given to the state police and their purview should be extended to the policing of all domestic crime within a state. Police should at a minimum have a bachelors degree in a law enforcement speciality and 14 weeks of active training before becoming officers.

Possibly a new force or subsection of a force should be created to deal with mental health concerns and nonviolent offenses.

[Zinstorm]

It's actually has been given alot of thought the problem is implementing any of the needed change's isn't gonna happen with the current people in charge so it needs to be done from the ground up.

rather they will use these methods or not is up in the air but they really should follow this lay out.

https://www.joincampaignzero.org/sol...utionsoverview

Thank you very much for the link... its a good read.

[Yuujin]

These muggers, looters, and arsonists are bandits.

Remember the good ole' days, when the local lord rounded up the knights to clear out bandits?

What kind of knight kneels to bandits?

I'd of assumed this was a joke, making fun of how tyrannical the current system is by comparing it to feudalism, but then you kept going on.

[Elegiac]

Qualified immunity should not exist (and as a non us lawyer I'm baffled how it exists).

Same reason there's a very common unspoken belief in the medical profession here that Black people "don't feel pain as much as other races" which a) isn't supported at all, and b) is a holdover from the days when they would perform experiments and vivisections on enslaved peoples which needed justification for not giving them anaesthetic or subjecting them to these procedures in the first place (e.g. "We wouldn't do this on a white person but Black people have thicker skin and don't feel as much pain so this is totally fine.)

Again, none of this is codified practice, it's just beliefs passed around in a culture where there isn't an active effort to check personal bias; and yet despite being "just beliefs" it often leads to misdiagnosis or, worse, malpractice.

Qualified immunity and other doctrines of that sort can be traced to...big fucking surprise....slavery and its aftermath in the south. Funnily enough, the statute in the US is thus:

In the Civil Rights Act of 1871 (also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act), Congress gave Americans the right to sue public officials who violate their legal rights. In Section 1983 of the U.S. Code (the modern analogue of the 1871 Civil Rights Act), Congress said that if a public official violates your rights—whether via police brutality, an illegal search, or an unlawful arrest—you can file a lawsuit to hold that public official financially accountable for his conduct. The language Congress used was unequivocal: “Every” state official who causes a “deprivation of any rights” guaranteed by the Constitution and laws “shall be liable to the party injured.”

However, this was undermined starting in the late civil rights era with the invention of qualified immunity in 1967 by the Supreme Court, which was originally stated to be a defense of public officials from frivolous lawsuits, but was then expanded as requiring the public to have the burden of proof in demonstrating misconduct.

So yeah. Ending the problem of police brutality isn't just about police departments, or even about police brutality. We are entering a reexamination of all our social and legal systems.

[pathora44]

These muggers, looters, and arsonists are bandits.

Remember the good ole' days, when the local lord rounded up the knights to clear out bandits?

What kind of knight kneels to bandits?

So you want to go back to the the days of Feudal Europe? Okay sure so you ready to give up your wife, girlfriend, daughter or yourself if your a woman to the local lord when he comes a calling for his Prima Nocta or "Right of First Night"? Oh you would try to stop it or fight back? Well then you are probably killed or beaten severely by the guards as your wife, girlfriend, daughter is still taken or if your a woman still taken and raped and probably given to the lord's guards after he was done with you. So ya you may want to rethink wanting to go back to ye ole days of knights and ladies.

[Antipathy1018]

Has anyone mentioned that a veto proof majority of the Minneapolis city council has pledged today to get rid of the police department of Minneapolis? Sorry but this thread moves to fast for me to look through 15 - 20 pages of posts.

And yes this is real.

You can just google Minneapolis police department and about a dozen news sites, left and right, verify it.

[-aiko-]

^Yep we talked about it, but it's also sort of still in the air? I want it to be tomorrow already for some followup, because it seems (according to the stories I'm able to read) that the mayor says it won't happen, but they have a veto-proof majority from the council?

[Elegiac]

Has anyone mentioned that a veto proof majority of the Minneapolis city council has pledged today to get rid of the police department of Minneapolis? Sorry but this thread moves to fast for me to look through 15 - 20 pages of posts.

And yes this is real.

You can just google Minneapolis police department and about a dozen news sites, left and right, verify it.

Yes, it's been mentioned.

Good riddance to bad rubbish, honestly.