Slashdot Mirror
FBI Chief Links Video Scrutiny of Police To Rise In Violent Crime (nytimes.com)
HughPickens.com writes: This year, murders have spiked in major cities across America. According to FBI director James B. Comey the additional scrutiny and criticism of police officers that has come in the wake of highly publicized incidents of police brutality may be the main reason for the recent increase in violent crime. "I don't know whether that explains it entirely, but I do have a strong sense that some part of the explanation is a chill wind that has blown through American law enforcement over the last year," says Comey. He says he's been told by many police leaders that officers who normally would stop to question suspicious people are opting to stay in their patrol cars for fear of having their encounters recorded and become video sensations.
That hesitancy has led to missed opportunities to apprehend suspects and has decreased the police presence on the streets of the country's most violent cities. Officers tell Comey that youths surround police when they get out of their vehicles, taunting them and making videos of the spectacle with their cell phones. "In today's YouTube world, there are officers reluctant to get out of their cars and do the work that controls violent crime," says Comey. "Our officers are answering 911 calls, but avoiding the informal contact that keeps bad guys from standing around, especially with guns."
That hesitancy has led to missed opportunities to apprehend suspects and has decreased the police presence on the streets of the country's most violent cities. Officers tell Comey that youths surround police when they get out of their vehicles, taunting them and making videos of the spectacle with their cell phones. "In today's YouTube world, there are officers reluctant to get out of their cars and do the work that controls violent crime," says Comey. "Our officers are answering 911 calls, but avoiding the informal contact that keeps bad guys from standing around, especially with guns."
If the police acted respectfully during encounters with private citizens, I doubt there would be much need to record these encounters. I know I don't record my neighbor getting his mail or washing his car, because I don't consider either behavior threatening. Police have abused their positions of trust and the recording is one of many symptoms of this fact.
Sorry, but do your job withing the confines of the law (including the constitution). You get no free pass. If you cannot do your job within those confines, then press to have those laws changed, in an open and democratic manner. If you do not, you are little (or no) better than the thugs and gangsters you wish to imprison.
Silence is a state of mime.
Lack of respect slowly eroding civilization.
Here is a radical proposal:
don't choke to death petty criminals, don't shoot fleeing suspects in the back. Don't kill people in the vans on their way to the police station, etc... And more importantly: don't support the police officers who do this!
And finally, actually discipline officers for their misdeeds.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
The first police department in LA was a gang. We've been fighting crime with paid criminals since then.
Crime is down. He's lying. End of story. We don't have to consider to a word this person says.
Yes. It's the evil stoners. Aggressive lot. They'd kill for their fix on junk food...tomorrow!
The problem isn't just with police only, or politicians, or public figures... it's mostly everyone. People are too literal in their intepretation of procedures. There is such a thing as leniency, giving someone the benefit of the doubt. Unfortunately, and I speak mostly for my generation (~20-35 yrs), there is little there. It's always black and white.
If a person even looks suspicious, then it's cause to question them, assume they're a bad person, and treat them as such.
That's the typical attitude, to varying degrees. Too much drama in television, movies, and the media. It's more a psychological influence of how to behave: everything has to be intense. Everything is critical, because it _could_ become critical... though less than 0.001% of the time, it actually is critical.
Then you have the other side: the criminals who aren't afraid to commit the crime, but are afraid of the punishment. A conflict, I suppose, of moral judgement of behavior. Again, influence of dramatic behavior and examples, and language. News, and marketing, and advertising, make things seem so much better / worse than they really are.
This, in turn, has given us a generation of people who think things _are_ or _have to be_ dramatic... and thus, the literal interpretation and unmoving nature has come about.
Take a homeless guy who looks like he's been making some really stupid decisions. Some dumbass young cop might equate his unclean looks, ragged clothes, bad teeth, and putrid smell, as, "fuck, this guy must be a bad person," when in reality, he was a former engineer who helped build the very roads and bridges this cop patrols. But the cop don't give a shit. He's made up his mind that, because this homeless guy is simply _talking_ to people, that they need to be "asked to leave."
Or some shit.
the best part is that the director of the FBI says police are afraid of kids with phones who mock them. the police should resign if they are so afraid.
2012 had the lowest crime rate since 1970 and even with the so called spike, the murder rate stills remains far below the record marks witnessed two to three decades ago, in the late 1980s and early ’90s. Can someone in the media call bullshit ?
Whether or not to stop, detain, punch or shoot a suspect is always a judgement call — calculations weighting pros and cons, risk and reward are automatically made in our heads.
The additional scrutiny — and TFA talks about all kinds of scrutiny, not just video, that's Hugh Pickens' manipulations — shifts that balance towards the safer (for the policeman) course of action. Because if they do apprehend a dangerous criminal cleanly, at most, they'll get a pat on the back. But if they screw up, or even if they don't, but merely appear to — the entire "Hands up don't shoot" meme is based on a lie, remember? — their lives will change dramatically. For the worse.
The scrutiny is not going anywhere and that, on balance, is a good thing, in my opinion. The public — and the police — just need to learn not to rush to judgement. And the wronged cops need to receive their days in court — of public opinion — not merely "left alone", when they are exonerated. That might push the balance back a little...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Its simple: "If the police don't obey the law, why the hell should anybody else?"
is a license to break the law. Cops need to be held accountable for their misdeeds, just like everyone else. Maybe the cops that are afraid to be recorded don't know how to do their jobs while following the law.
In other words, police have no idea how to do their job without being able to assault people, racially profile them, and generally be dicks. If these police are afraid to do their jobs because they might be filmed, the easiest solution is to hire police officers who don't do anything wrong that will be an issue if it ends up on tape. The reason people are taping the police constantly now is because they expect the police to do something wrong because they have shown in a lot of cases they do. If the police get better and stop setting the expectation they will treat people like garbage, then people won;t expect it and won't feel the need to film them constantly.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
To get any reforms through you'll need approval of the unions. The unions will say no. You aren't anti-union, are you?
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
"In today's YouTube world, there are officers reluctant to get out of their cars and do the work that controls violent crime," says Comey.
If they have nothing to hide, why are they afraid of being recorded? If they aren't breaking the law, then they should not fear to do their jobs. That's what they've been telling us all along; if we have nothing to hide, we shouldn't fear their disregard for the fourth amendment. But if the cops have to break the law to save it, what are they fighting for anyway?
The cops are still playing this issue like it's part of the non-existent "war on cops". There is no such thing. Instead, there's a ground swell of support for the idea that the cops should be made to follow the law just like the rest of us, or even moreso. With great power comes great responsibility.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
But he acknowledged that there is so far no data to back up his assertion
Now there's a surprise.
Since wer're posting anecdotes and vague "feelings", here's what I've noticed.
I've lived in my neighborhood for decades, and haven't had any problem with police... except this year, in which I was stopped and questioned three times. Make that "stopped, handcuffed, searched, ID'd, and questioned" three times. One time I had a prescription in my jacket pocket (antibiotic), and the officer jotted down the drug, my name, and the prescription number in his notebook.
We're supposed to be free to go about our business, and we're not required to interact with police when they call out to us. Police can walk up to someone and try to start a conversation, but I've always been told that they are like any citizen, and you can choose not to interact with them.
In all three cases I *could not* avoid interacting with the police despite trying, and all three situations ended in a confrontation. The officer *began* the encounter visibly irate, and escalated to *enraged* when I wouldn't interact. (Yes, I'm aware of my state's "must identify" law. I don't/didn't lie to them, but I don't show ID when asked.)
One told me he was going to taser me if I didn't show ID, one actually arrested me for not having ID (while hiking on a public trail), but then changed the charge at the last minute. On that last one, the officer stated that not carrying an ID was illegal.
I'm white, elderly, and live in a low-crime bedroom community, and I can't take a walk at night without fear of being randomly intimidated by an angry cop.
A neighboring town had a pumpkin festival last year, and the police had snipers out during the event.
I don't know what it is with America these days, but we're definitely seeing more angry police, and this is reflected in the public's perception.
I think it's counter productive. I won't have anything to do with the police now, and I don't know anyone on my block who will. If they come door-to-door asking if we witnessed some crime, they get nothing from me.
The chance of abuse is too high for me to have any interaction with them. If they come door-to-door, I didn't see anything.
Seriously, how can we fuck around, beat you, shoot you, and violate your rights on a whim if you pesky citizens are going to video us all the time?
Signed,
The Police
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
538 recently ran a piece on this misguided and largely misleading storyline police are touting. It's worth a read if you like facts. But this is /.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/fea...
Citation needed, AC.
Let's use the usual police argument:
If you have nothing to hide and don't break any laws, why would you object to being recorded and scrutinized?
So the increase in crime should correlate with places that have relaxed drug laws. I didn't see that in the results. Where are you getting your statistics from?
Learn to love Alaska
The problem isn't that they're being filmed, its that people are trying to get them to do their job incorrectly.
Sandra Bland didn't.
Martin didn't interfere with police. He was stalked down a blind alley by an aggressive man with a gun who had indicated a desire to hunt. He defended himself when he thought himself cornered, according to the Stand your Ground laws, and was executed by Zimmerman.
Learn to love Alaska
If the police routinely harass, put in hospital, and arrest for "disrespect cop" random people, you would expect crime rates to go down. After all they'll get lucky occasionally and pick someone who was just about to rob a gas station or something.
Apparently the FBI thinks that's a great way to reduce crime. Which isn't unexpected given the FBI's views on warrantless surveillance.
and the people are NOT as afraid of the police as before !
They can't bully, beat, harass, shoot, stalk, etc the people without a witness anymore !
This is my opinion based on what little I know and understand of the rumors and lies Thanks, Randal
Our criminal justice system is biased in favor of Type II errors (false negatives), rather than Type I errors (false positives). We think it is worse to jail, kill, or harass an innocent person than to let a criminal go free. Recently, we have had a lot of Type I errors (false positives), and we have corrected our procedures to reduce this type of error. There is a corresponding rise in false negatives (criminals going free), but this is the way we have deliberately designed the system. We are going back to the way we want things to be.
there should be a record of EVERYTHING that goes on around a patrol car when either its stopped or the lights/sirens are going (full 360 coverage)
get clever and have it stamped with a running hash of timestamp/frame content (to prevent tampering) and things should calm down.
Of course part of this is in any case that the deciding evidence is the Video Record if that record is MISSING it should result in the LEO losing the case.
but in any case if you do film a LEO please
1 be respectful
2 make it available when asked
... is that we citizens are filming it more, and thus able to back up claims of police violence.
Violence AGAINST police, on the other hand, is down. (Watch! While authority cherry picks data and adjusts charts to reflect their narrative! More at 11!)
Martin wasn't "cornered". His body was not found in a corner or in any place where he wasn't readily able to flee from.
He attacked Zimmerman, Zimmerman defended himself. Nothing in the forensic evidence suggests that Zimmerman instigated the violence.
The FBI is telling me that taking pictures of the people who MURDER unarmed men and get away with it means I have to tolerate being MURDERED by people who will not get away with it?
Can you say "PROPAGANDA"?
I can!
Correlation is not causation.
For example, murders are typically not stopped by police at all as they are very rarely crimes of opportunity. This person must know that. That he choses to ignore this knowledge is is a very bad sign, but what do you expect from the chief official of a police-state. What he also completely ignores is that some of the officers that have become "video sensations" are cold-blooded murderers. He seems to imply that these scum being caught is somehow a bad thing. Another strong indicator the US is a de-facto police-state, because only in a police-state is catching criminal policemen a bad thing.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
They are now using SWAT teams to deal with unlicensed SERVICE operations.
Running a barber shop without the appropriate license and fees? They will bust down your door, weapons drawn. Don't resist. Don't try to run. They are authorized to use lethal force.
Remember, they are on the side of the Law.
Could it be that so much police work is done illegally or in violation of policy that they have trouble doing their job unless they can commit criminal acts? And it is racist as it can be. How much stop and frisk and the like goes on in wealthy, white neighborhoods? If cops acted the same way with wealthy people that they do with poor people every cop on the force would get fired quite quickly.
That doesn't make sense. Relaxed drug laws don't mean people do more drugs - they mean that people don't go to jail for doing the drugs they are doing. In fact, you'd expect more crime where the tougher drug laws are as people are going to drugs regardless. If people couldn't get drugs we'd not have a "drug problem." It's not like lax drug laws means people will suddenly decide to go do heroin. If they want drugs they can already get them.
So, no, the crime rate will not correlate with lax drug laws. And the GPP was a moron but we knew that. Weed doesn't usually make you go out and commit additional crimes in and of itself.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
'Zeno Effect' Verified: Police Officers Won't Move While You Watch
I'd much rather have my ass beat or murdered by a criminal who likely will do hard time for it, than by a cop who gets away with it 'because he's a cop'.
This sig intentionally left blank.
There is no "rise in violent crime". It's still lower than it was in the '90s, and one data point does not a trend make.
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
Also,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10...
So really, it could very well be that the rise in violent crime is the result of increased surveillance on the general population rather than increased surveillance on police.
You don't have to be dishonest to be in law enforcement, but it helps.
You are welcome on my lawn.
It depends on the department, I suppose. In my middle-class and rather quiet neighborhood, the police actually tracked down and caught a kid who ran into my lawn with this car, damaging some shrubbery, then fled the scene. They then stopped by and asked if I would like to press charged, and I got the officer's advice on whether or not I should do so. All very polite, professional, and efficient.
I think what's really different in today's society is that *everyone* has a camera now, and we all have access to worldwide media, both as a consumer and as a publisher, via the internet. Any story can become a national story this way, and as such, it feels like we're seeing a lot more bad things happen, when in reality, those same things probably just never made the news before for lack of evidence or, more realistically, no one to tell the story to in the media.
Nowadays, you really can't expect any event to occur in public and *not* have it filmed and "published", where the entire world can see it uncensored. The police should simply embrace this reality and record everything themselves. This will help to protect both themselves and civilians, as well as provide important evidence (either way) in the case of wrongdoing.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Rodney King has crack cocaine in his system too.
Still? After all these years? Wow, must have been some party.
Okay, with that out of the way I'll try to be serious.
Nobody talks about the fact Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and *ALL* of the recent highly-publicized decedents that interfered with police had marijuana in their blood.
Some surveys of Americans show regular marijuana use as high as 25% of the population. Few will show marijuana use lower than 10%. Marijuana users tend to be the kind of people that would find themselves running into police. Marijuana can be detected in the blood and urine of casual users for days, perhaps weeks, after last use. Regular users will show detectable amounts of marijuana metabolites for a month or more.
Warning, sloppy use of statistics follows....
Assuming 25% of the population has used marijuana in the last year, and marijuana use can be detected for a week, then my math tells me that picking 50 people at random will show a high probability of finding someone with THC detectable in their blood or urine. If 10% of the population are regular users where marijuana can be detected for a month then just pulling 10 people at random and you'll find someone with THC in their system. Add on top of that selection bias, people that don't have marijuana in their system after getting arrested or killed don't make the news, and you have a recipe for equating marijuana use with criminal behavior.
While we're at it lets test these people for alcohol. Alcohol use can also be detected for a long time after use, as long as four days. If you pick up someone for speeding on a Monday morning, and test them for alcohol use like we do for marijuana, then we're going to have to clear out a lot of prison space for all of those "drunk" drivers.
Having read the history of marijuana prohibition I see that the prohibition was not based on anything scientific. What it was based on was racism, immigrants from Mexico brought their marijuana habit with them and people were looking for ways to make them look like the bad guys. Same goes for opiates, the Chinese brought opium with them and that scared people. Considering the damage alcohol does to society I think we did Prohibition all wrong, keep the alcohol ban but let people get their weed and heroin. However, Prohibition was doomed to fail, it's not like it takes a chemical engineering degree to make a moonshine still. Same goes for marijuana, it grows every where, why else do you think it's called "weed"?
Opium, on the other hand, doesn't grow well in the USA so banning it here may have worked in the age of sail. Now, with two day express shipping from China, there is no hope to contain it.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
"I don't know whether that explains it entirely, but I do have a strong sense that some part of the explanation is a chill wind that has blown through American law enforcement over the last year," says Comey. He says he's been told by many police leaders that officers who normally would stop to question suspicious people are opting to stay in their patrol cars for fear of having their encounters recorded and become video sensations.
Then you fucking fire them from their 100K + a year jobs.
And Comey is some useless fascist left over from the "Dubya" era of idiocy.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Trayvon Martin also owned an illegal pistol, and had pictures of himself posing all "gangsta" with it on Facebook. They sure took *that* picture down a hury.
Mainly because it's irrelevant to all except those that mistakenly think that justifies Martin's death.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
The AC's assertion was that using drugs results in higher violent crime. AC implied usage increases as legalization increases. Using the AC's own assumptions, violent crime should be higher in places where legalization has hit.
Learn to love Alaska
Which is why I pointed out that the AC was a moron.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
really? thats what happened?
because his girlfriend said, in court, under oath, that trayvon made it home, and then went back out to confront "that cracker"
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
thats some great fan fiction there
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
All this shows is just how far out of touch police have become with the communities they're supposed to be serving. The problem isn't the videos, it's the police. They need to de-militarize and become community officers who not only get out of their patrol cars, but don't even patrol in a car in the first place, instead choosing to walk among and be friends with the people they're supposed to be a part of and protecting.
Or you could do a martial arts somersault to free yourself.
Lets hope someone's videoing when you try that one!
It was not an "alley" with only one "exit", but a paved walk between the backyards of homes on different streets;
"alley - a narrow passageway between or behind buildings." - a dictionary
So why would you put alley in quotes? Because you are unable to accept words you don't like the "feel" of, despite them being used exactly to the dictionary definition? Sounds like you have an emotional problem related to this issue.
There was no evidence that Zimmerman threatened Martin, and the mere act of following does not in itself constitute a threat
Is that your legal opinion? It's wrong. Following someone is a threat. Oh, and Zimmerman had made numerous comments that indicated he was "hunting", which wasn't a specific threat, but a more generic threat.
There was no evidence supporting self-defense on Martin's part during the altercation
Yeah, he was dead, thus unable to stage the scene before police responded, and unable to give testimony on his behalf.
Killing someone during a physical fight, even an avoidable one, clearly does not accord with the usual concept of "in cold blood"
Zimmerman was hunting. Zimmerman killed his unarmed prey. That's cold blood.
Zimmerman made several foolish choices that night, and his life since is clearly fubar based on news reports,
Zimmerman's life is fubar based on his statements, and his statements alone. He followed a "suspect". He didn't try to follow him, but was lost one block from his house, and thought he best way to find an address was to chase the dangerous person he just called in to the police down a blind alley, looking for street signs and addresses to give to 911. After chasing the suspect into the blind alley, he lost him, and was walking back to his vehicle when the prey, who realized he was being stalked, defended himself from the armed pursuer.
Learn to love Alaska
Slightly colored language, consistent with Zimmerman's testimony. I believe Zimmerman, and would have convicted based on his own accounts, were I on the Jury.
Learn to love Alaska
And Zimmerman claimed he left his car to look for a house number to give 911, and walked down the blind alley to Martin's house. Who walks down a blind alley to find a house number for where they are parked on the street? Who gets lost one block from their house?
Learn to love Alaska
Now now, don't go bringing FACTS of all things into this. This is about FEELINGS, and it FEELS better to be righteously indignant over a non-story that's been manipulated into national news.
But that means I can't be righteously indignant about it, so it must be wrong.
"Don't like it? Get another job."
And when no one steps in to do the job? I guess things will just fall in line and everyone will be nice and wonderful to each other if we just get rid of those evil cops, right?
That is largely the difference, yes. Every little bad thing goes viral on Facebook, so despite violent crime being lower than it has been for decades we have a ton of people afraid to go outside because some nut shot a few people on the other side of the country. People are trained and conditioned to be afraid constantly be cause that sells advertising space on the news and makes political control easier.
Opium, or more precisely, the plant which it is harvested from, groes quite nicely in the USA.
However people using Marihuana are usually not the same people taking Opium.
In deed I would not care about an alcohol ban much if Marihuana or Hashisch would be available legaly at low cost.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Yes, yes, a handful of police officers breaking the law means all police officers are assholes. Just like a couple of citizens breaking the law means all citizens are assholes. Great job, everyone.
Honestly, this is simple to solve. The police should start taking videos of everything they do as well. If an edited video pops up of them doing bad things, then they can simply post the video from their perspective. Now no more "look at this video of a cop beating this innocent man" AFTER the supposed "innocent man" kicks the officer, except not on camera or edited out. Mass surveillance works in every way. Govt. -> public -> police -> public.
Their "jobs" were never to break the law. All this whining about pressure on cops is utter BS. If they had been doing their actual jobs, instead of being criminals, they'd be fine. This is simply their own malfeasance coming back to bite everyone -- us and them -- in the ass.
Every cop that breaks the law is a criminal. Every cop that knows about such things and does not turn the criminal in is a criminal accessory. That's cop culture. They think they are above the law, instead of its servants. I have no sympathy for their current situation at all. I do regret that they have been allowed, both by their internal culture and by the courts, to screw the public over so badly. And that the courts, in particular the supreme court, has failed to obey their oaths to uphold the constitution, instead wreaking sophist havoc on its meaning and intent.
I honestly do not think there is any chance at all of fixing this. The downhill slide is too profound; the public almost completely unaware of the issues at hand until they too are caught in the toxic, broken gears of the system. When that happens, they often disappear into the depths of the world's largest imprisonment undertaking. When (if) they come out of that, they're treated as unemployable and sometimes worse.
The "retribution, not rehabilitation" mindset the media has inculcated into the American public and to which their legislators pander, creates a permanent lower class whose only hope for advance is more lawbreaking, and this constrains almost all of those who actually pursue an upwards economic path. The rest are hopeless, and rightfully so. There is little hope to be had.
The root cause is bad legislators, bad law, bad police, and bad courts. There's actually no reason to expect this to work well. Nor does it.
Now the cops are paying for it, a little bit, as the Internet makes public what used to be a quiet secret known only to the cops themselves and their victims. It won't be enough, though. Because it isn't just the cops. The entire system reinforces these results, from top to bottom.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
i watched the entire trial live (out of work at the time) go watch it yourself if you dont believe me. the information is there for those who actually want it
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
...Links Public Oversight of Said Police State to All Kinds of Bad Stuff" Also see: "Abusive Advertisers Link Doom, End Of World, to use of Ad Blockers"
That is not a good state of affairs. One can only sympathise with the owners of donut stores - perhaps they are eligible for bail-out money?
Fortunately for crime-prevention stats, history has shown that even the fastest unarmed suspicious black youths can be shot through the window of a police cruiser.
Requiem for the American Dream
What a load of shit!
To say that increased visibility of those responsible for our safety and security when they perform their duties leads to danger is a non sequitur.
I don't worry about additional audits or information on any process for business or manufacture. If fear is they only conclusion they have, their premise is false.
"Don't fear death... fear not living..." -me
IIUC, opium poppies are (were?) white. During pioneer days every household grew them, as they were an effective pain medication.
OTOH, L. Frank Baum, in The Wizard of Oz, said they were red, and also said that smelling their perfume would send you to sleep. Perhaps he was right...
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Well, users of marijuana are generally safer drivers than users of alcohol...but I'm not sure whether that would change if it were legal.
Still, the social effects of drug prohibition are so bad that I'd be in favor of legalizing ALL drug use, if you could just keep people from advertising brands of them.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
So the increase in crime should correlate with places that have relaxed drug laws. I didn't see that in the results. Where are you getting your statistics from?
Fox News and the 700 Club.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I guess we could use the old "NSA logic".
If they've done nothing wrong, they have nothing to hide.
Recording admirable actions should have no negative reactions.
AFAIK poppies come in a variety of colors and potencies. Here in the real Oz the red poppy means one thing, href="http://www.greatwar.co.uk/poems/john-mccrae-in-flanders-fields.htm">Flander's Field. Legend has it that all the poppies in Flanders Field where white, the bloodshed of WW1 turned them red. There is a national holiday where lots of people wear the (fake) red poppies that are sold by the 'RSL' - a highly regarded returned soldiers charity.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
How can violent crime be going up when you have these magical items that lower crime just by existing?
I sometimes wonder if the answer is something we don't want it to be -- that heavy handed policing is repugnant, but the nature of our society is that the poor, urban populations suffer from so much social malaise that without heavy handed policing they will tear themselves apart while inflicting collateral damage on the rest of society through crime and violence?
The causes of malaise are often unjust -- discrimination, lack of opportunity, but also include self-inflicted problems of unplanned/bad parenting, purposeful rejection of positive social choices (dropping out of school, etc) and so on. It's not completely their fault, but it's not completely a question of inescapable victimhood, either.
Heavy-handed policing is likely not the best course to *solve* these problems, but the scale and nature of them is such that the costs and scale of the social welfare solutions which could possibly be more effective are seen as an impossible burden (which itself is a byproduct of economic inequality and ineffective governance).
Heavy-handed policing is thus seen as the most obtainable possible solution -- the least worst possible alternative.
In other words, we may hate heavy handed policing because it also as collateral damage of all kinds, including gross injustices, but without it we may have a kind of chaos that ends up being worse.
I'm tired of hearing the term "Law Enforcement"... What happened to "Keeping the Peace"?
why must even the smallest infraction be prosecuted to the "Nth" degree of the letter of the law?
This only breeds hate and discontent.
Defuse! don't escalate the situation!
Too many "Barney Fife's" running around,but instead of 1 bullet, its 17 rounds in a Glock...
and too,too many police agencies, I can't even think of all the three letter acronyms there are ...
everybody's got their own police force, and its bringing out all the amateurs, (e.g. - Tesla dust-up)
so lets go back to "Peace Officers", and maybe it will change the mindset.
saying for decades.
The police are a criminal class.
I would normally just say fu$k this bull$hit, but then I saw it was a NYT piece, a newspaper which has turned into the onion, but without the self awareness.
Police officers are the new Mafia. They are an armed gang of thugs that are generally more interested in their own profit than the well-being of ordinary citizens. They pick and choose which laws to obey, and who to muscle in on. Now the interesting thing is that mob-run neighborhoods are generally pretty safe. The mob doesn't want rival criminals around, because it's bad for business. Cops don't like rival criminal gangs for much the same reason. The power of video-recording is that it brings 'heat' in the form of bad press, which everyone must pay lip service to. Of course, cops are basically the lowest paid foot soldiers in the Blue Mob, you've got judges, prosecutors, and politicians who really organize and run the system.
It's the typical point and dodge tactic. Blame something else for what you don't like. There was a floating argument that there was a spike in attacks on police and it was allegedly due to the increase in police surveillance, however statistics actually a decrease in attacks on police (possibly because they acted nicer? hmm). Now there is a spike in crime ('tis the season) and agents are trying to portray the innocent bystander as the culprit. I call BS on the "strong sense". I blame training (evangelized fear) on why police officers are "staying in their cars".
Are there any studies that look at the efficacy of police stops? That is, how useful are these opportunistic police efforts to stop and question someone, in terms of preventing crime? The FBI Director's claim relies on a belief that spontaneous stop-and-question interactions are responsible for preventing an extremely significant percentage of violent crimes.
Dave Crocker bbiw.net
Why should anyone listen to this Brownshirt-in-Chief, who finally reveals he has no evidence to support his ludicrous assertion?
'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
"In today's YouTube world, there are officers reluctant to get out of their cars and do the work that controls violent crime,""
No, this is evidence that they have already lost control of the situation. They were in danger before YouTube, already outmanned and outgunned, it just wasn't on display so readily.
Our largest cities are being lost to the welfare/gang/drug class. this isn't about race, per se, as any race caught in that trap would likely do the same things and be in the same situation. Blame the governmental responses that have created the conditions resulting in war zones.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.