What it’s like being a black person ‘caught’ outside your own house, even after you show a picture of your ID on your phone showing it’s your address.
Yeah, but it’s undeniable. He was black.
Another bury-it-on-a-weekend-press-release by the police.
This time it is in Sacramento. Audio captured on a police cruiser shows and records the actions of the police trying to apprehend a mentally ill man. As the cops drive up they say “fuck this guy” and “I am going to hit him” (with the car). The guy leaps out of the way twice and so the police park the car, run after him and shoot him 14 times while he was over 20 feet away from the officers. No firearm was ever found on the suspect.
The Greensboro PD posted above has really been legitimately trying to fix their culture- and they responded well to what did happen- they posted unedited footage, they fired the officer responsible after an investigation (they tried to press charges but it was going to be rough so they bargained that for the officer not contesting the firing at all) and were open and transparent about the whole thing.
They deserve a good bit of praise, even if one of their officers was a dirtbag. You’re always going to get a few of those.
I’m very critical of the issues with police in this country, but the good PDs have to be praised or else it just comes off as a war against police.
I keep coming back to the inherent problem of recruiting the right people for a job that is structurally biased against getting the exact people it needs. Ideally ,police officers would be some of the more intelligent, well-educated, emotionally stable, mature, and creative people around, given the ever-changing, diverse, and challenging environment they work in, and the myriad of laws and regulations they have to enforce and oversee. Yet, the pay, the culture, the bureaucracy, and the working conditions, as well as the general stigma (among many people) of being a cop combine to make it nearly impossible to recruit this type of person.
I’ve been teaching college students for a long time now, and usually there are several in the criminal justice program in my classes. While generalizations are risky, I’d have to say that in my experience the majority of the students who plan to go into actual law enforcement, instead of say law school or a CSI type thing, tend to share a similar profile. They think literally, they see everything as black and white, and they generally have a hard time understanding the concept of innocent until proven guilty. In their minds, if the police stop you or arrest you, you must be guilty of something. They already are developing the attitude of us vs. them, even before they hit the police academy. And they are, often, weak in conceptual or abstract thought and prone to view rules that apply to the police as mostly guidelines, not laws.
I once had a long time veteran of the police and DEA tell me that there are only three reasons people go into law enforcement: they have a family history of being cops, and thus it’s a tradition, usually without much introspection; they watched too many cop shows on TV, and hence have a soon-to-be-disabused romantic notion of the job; or they are sociopaths who want to get authority and abuse it. Anecdotal and no doubt highly debatable notions, but they do fit in a lot of ways.
As a society, we want police with qualities we’re certainly not willing to pay for or shape the culture to encourage.
Are they cleaning house because they need to clean house or are they cleaning house because they were caught on camera. I’m not convinced these places are trying to fix their department. What makes you think they are? Because they let go of someone who was caught on camera. What if they’re not caught on camera. Is that my only defense now. If i get roughed up unjustly by a police officer, I better hope this person who is going to abuse did everything else right so the camera is on can capture it. Is there anything preventing this person from be hired by another department? I’m under the impression it’s pretty easy for some of these individuals to just jump from one place to another leaving behind something that is just a firing but was probably worthy of a criminal charge.
If the police are in their positions to be praised, there in that line of work for the wrong reason.
The Washington Post has become my favourite newspaper with their work recently. I need to aim some money their direction.
They were cleaning horse beforehand. I live here.
They could have suppressed or edited this video, but they chose not to on purpose.
Even a PD that does things the right way is going to have folks who do not do things the right way.
They shouldn’t have a choice. Those videos should always be reviewed by someone not beholden to the police, whether that’s the public of something federal.
Not killing someone or not abusing someone is a very low standard to set. Praise should be attributed to the extraordinary, not the hey look they didn’t fuck up this time moments.
There is a good case to be made that every major advance in human history has been an attempt to clear this bar by just a little more.
Cain: Hey, Abel, come over here!
Abel: Yeah, wha…(thunk)
I do not see anything worthy of praise by the Greensboro PD in this case.
Not prosecuting is not something to be praised nor the hallmark of a good PD. Furthermore the Greensboro PD did not fire the employee. He was allowed to resign and was not prosecuted. So not only did they fail to do their jobs, they simply pushed this particular problem down the road. Of course this was not the first time this officer had this particular problem. He was disciplined for similar circumstances in 2014. Now this “dirtbag” is free to get another job with another police department because he was not terminated for wrongdoing and not charged with any crime.
Furthermore, the PD did not release the footage. The City Council voted to release the footage three months after the incident.
Your entire post is an example of how problems become endemic in the system. Here we have a problem cop that somehow kept his job, did it again, the PD kept the footage under wraps, when it finally came out the officer was not prosecuted, was not terminated and now the officer is free to get hired on to do it again. To cap this all off, the state they work in just passed a law so that all future such footage requires a court order to be seen to make it even easier to cover up future incidents.
Getting an actual prosecution would be difficult, and they asked the state to do it. There was enough doubt in the video that getting a conviction in NC would be difficult. Also passed a resolution asked no other jurisdiction to hire the dirtbag.
Yes, there are problems, but Greensboro really is trying, and there are bigger problems. The police chief is also on board with the city council’s actions. (I’ve heard other things being from Greensboro, they really are trying- this is why they’re getting more benefit of the doubt then I’d normally give)
How apt given this is the year of the Donald.
This isn’t related to the specific discussions, but absolutely belongs here.
I would argue we’re past that though and the police and their supporters are trying to claim otherwise.
There was an article floating around the other day about a woman who saw a cop pull over and approach someone in a wheelchair. She pulls out her phone to document the incident “just in case.” Turns out the police officer assisted with that person getting across the street. That’s worth praise. The fact he didn’t beat or kill this guy in a wheelchair… no that’s not praise worthy. That’s human decency, that’s being a cop. That’s not being a murderer.
Speaking of cultural issues in some police departments… so what’s the chance of this guy getting hired at a different department in another city?
Note he hasn’t exactly shot anyone yet but he could work his way up.
He’s a lightweight chocker.
There was a case here recently (Burlington VT area, but in the suburb/town of Winooski) of a police officer fatally shooting a man. Turns out the officer had been fired from not one, but two, other Vermont departments before being hired again in a third jurisdiction.
Finding people to be police officers sometimes turns into a race to the bottom because, among other things, the number of people willing to put up with being a cop to begin with isn’t that high, and the number of those who aren’t somehow unsuited for the job seems even more limited.