The US police misconduct thread

[Incandenza]

Yes...YESSSSS

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/o...nd-police.html

Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police


Because reform won’t happen.

By Mariame Kaba
...
The philosophy undergirding these reforms is that more rules will mean less violence. But police officers break rules all the time. Look what has happened over the past few weeks — police officers slashing tires, shoving old men on camera, and arresting and injuring journalists and protesters. These officers are not worried about repercussions any more than Daniel Pantaleo, the former New York City police officer whose chokehold led to Eric Garner’s death; he waved to a camera filming the incident. He knew that the police union would back him up and he was right. He stayed on the job for five more years.

Minneapolis had instituted many of these “best practices” but failed to remove Derek Chauvin from the force despite 17 misconduct complaints over nearly two decades, culminating in the entire world watching as he knelt on George Floyd’s neck for almost nine minutes.

Why on earth would we think the same reforms would work now? We need to change our demands. The surest way of reducing police violence is to reduce the power of the police, by cutting budgets and the number of officers.

[ursus arctos]

[San Bernardhinault]

It took me a moment to spot the hidden word "schools" in that headline.

Even with the mis-reading, the idea that LAPD had grenade launchers and a tank seemed completely deranged.

Because nobody in their right mind thinks that a school district should have a police force at all, let alone one with tanks and grenade launchers.

[ursus arctos]

We live in a profoundly fucked up country, SB

[ursus arctos]

For those fortunate enough to live elsewhere, while the posting of cops in schools is relatively commonplace in US cities, separate "School Police Departments" are not.

Their iconography is rather chilling

[Hot Pepsi]

Universities have their own police so I can see how an enormous school district might. Though I’ve never heard of it.

I’m not sure of the history of all of that, but I suspect it’s about budgets. Communities wanted to shift the burden of paying to police the students onto the university which isn’t paying taxes. Perhaps something like that happened in LA.


My recollection is that the push to have a “real cop” in the school was the complete dissatisfaction with the “rentacop” security guards so many schools had, mainly to catch kids skipping out. They were always such dicks and yet completely ineffective at their primary job.

Maybe that wasn’t true everywhere, but around here, the belief was that a real cop getting a decent wage would be better trained and more “professional.” And that may be true, but as we’ve seen in so many places around the country, that’s setting the bar way too low.

And of course, after Columbine, nobody really questioned it.

But just because rentacops suck doesn’t mean “real police” are the only alternative. If the issue is CPR and first aid, train everyone on that. If the issue is mental health crises, there already are supposed to be people in schools for that.

I don’t know what should be done to keep kids in school, but it shouldn’t require a weapon, let alone a tank.

I suppose “but Columbine” is the retort to all of that and yet I see no evidence that having real police in schools has done much to prevent those kinds of shootings.

[ursus arctos]

At least in the case of the Ivies, the major rationale behind having a separate police force was to protect students from police who were very much more "town" than "gown".

This was made manifest to me in my first month atwat uni, when a friend got a visit from the campus cops, who told him to move his pot plants from a window where they were visible from Massachusetts Avenue to one that only faced onto the Yard (while at the same time telling him that they understood that would somewhat impede their growth).

[Hot Pepsi]

I can see that how that dynamic could emerge, especially in Boston or Cambridge.

I recall from whatever documentary that was how what kicked everything off in Madison in the 60s was when the Madison cops decided the UW cops were not busting enough heads and beat the shit out of a bunch of kids doing a sit in (I think the issue was Dow recruiting on campus, but I’m not sure.)

[ursus arctos]

Relations between the City of Cambridge and the universities were absolutely awful, and for good reason.

They have since improved, but the schools will always be extremely protective of their own.

[Hot Pepsi]

”Fucking. All. Of. It.”

[ursus arctos]

In a pandemic that has hit prisons especially hard

https://twitter.com/theappeal/status/1271556467557052416

[Hot Pepsi]

I didn’t know they could delay trials by just not showing up.

[ursus arctos]

They run a risk that a pissed off judge dismisses the case,.but that happens relatively rarely, especially in the first instance.

[ursus arctos]

https://twitter.com/JYSexton/status/1272878977565233152

[Incandenza]

https://twitter.com/JYSexton/status/1272878977565233152

Seems like a lot of circumstances there unique to New Mexico.

[caja-dglh]

I remember driving through Stamford, CT (scenes of nothing really, ever) and looking in the rear view mirror to see the local police Bearcat. I crapped my pants a little. Below is the Boston one, cos I can't get the exact one in a format to post.

[Antepli Ejderha]

I remember driving through Stamford, CT (scenes of nothing really, ever) and looking in the rear view mirror to see the local police Bearcat. I crapped my pants a little. Below is the Boston one, cos I can't get the exact one in a format to post.

WTF

[ursus arctos]

Stamford is absolutely rammed with investment bankers. They can't be too careful.

[Paul S]

Stamford? In Rutland?

[caja-dglh]

Stamford, Connecticut. A 45 minute train from NYC with lower taxes and relatively younger lifestyle (versus other Connecticut towns, not NYC, but cheaper / more accessible new apartments to younger folk - there is a decision you make young in NYC, live somewhere shit you can afford or require luxuries, which pushes you out to Connecticut. There is a generational shift that doesn't want to deal with 300sq ft studios next door to heroin addicts).

A Bearcat runs at about $200-$300k. There are at least 500 in US Police ownership (I have a feeling that number is low). There was a guy in the turret when I saw them. They are a very interesting policing need, for sure.

[caja-dglh]

Part of what is lost in that picture is that the truck behind it (which looks small in comparison) is an F150, which could fit at least 50% of UK cars in its load bay.

[Incandenza]

I remember driving through Stamford, CT (scenes of nothing really, ever) and looking in the rear view mirror to see the local police Bearcat. I crapped my pants a little. Below is the Boston one, cos I can't get the exact one in a format to post.

There's no reforming that.

Also, I'm reminded how much I hate the typeface in the Boston Police logo that they use.



Office supply store-lookin' ass font.

[Nocturnal Submission]

I'm finding these posts about police weaponry in the US quite eye-opening.

[Cal Alamein]

https://twitter.com/JYSexton/status/1272878977565233152

FWIW, the NM militia disassociates themselves from the shooter.

Police found 20 weapons and 34 magazines in the militia's van. This is from a group of five people.

https://www.koat.com/article/man-sho...-town/32874448

[ursus arctos]

Are these muppets from ABQ?

They are certainly skilled at telling people not to trust their lyin' eyes