Cop Shooting Thread

Not shooting, but actually even worse.

didn’t act with premeditation, malice, recklessness, ill-will, hatred or evil intent.

How do you lock someone in a shower for 2 hours without these things in your heart? That fact that it was scalding hot killed him, but why even do this in the first place. These people are sick.

Agreed. But we create a culture that tells the people who work in corrections that the people they are guarding are less than human, and that the overriding priority of their job is personal protection–theirs. Same in some ways as with law enforcement. There, it’s gone from preserve and protect to cover your ass. And we can’t just blame the cops or the prison system, either; we, as a population, have endorsed the view that everyone in jail or even arrested is somehow deserving of anything that happens to them. It’s as if we’ve given up on actually having a functioning society and are settling for making other people’s lives worse than ours as a compensation.



Clearly.

It is a tough problem in some ways, in that law officers do have to be able to do their jobs without constant fear of being sued, but there have to be limits, and this from the face of it certainly seems to push or exceed such limits. Though truthfully, the department should be sued; they train and sign off on the training, and it’s the training and organizational culture that is responsible for the hair-trigger neuroses that police are increasingly afflicted by. Until we as a nation accept that the price of actual security for the majority of people is some insecurity for law enforcement, we’ll never resolve this sort of thing. And that won’t happen unless we can figure out how to actually make being a police officer a job a non sociopath would want.

I had a a couple friends who spent 20 years working in the Calif state prison system, and having heard some of their stories that feeling goes both ways.

Absolutely, I have several friends in corrections as well and hearing them talk just makes me sad. The entire incarceration exercise is dehumanizing and barbaric for everyone involved. The sooner America can face its own unhealthy incarceration habits the sooner America can start on a path back towards sanity.

As long as the news media can generate fear, viewers and profits from scaring people, and as long as politicians leverage that into votes, that seems an unlikely turn for our culture to take. I don’t see the “tough on crime” stuff ending. The countervailing forces are weak and poorly funded.

Last I checked, only one side of this is being paid, public or privately, to do this job. Keeping someone in a shower for two hours is not something we should be paying anyone to do. Just imagine sending your child over to one of those individual’s house and wondering how long it takes before they decide someone else isn’t human.

Yea, let’s stereotype a whole group based on the acts of a few. That has gone well over the course of history.

You’re right it’s better to completely ignore it and smile and nod when they cover for each other. These sorts of things aren’t even that rare really. I could post some new incident basically every other day forever.

The Blue Wall of Silence is a thing and a massive reason we have so many issues.

My standards for the guards is higher than the standards for the prisoners… there’s nothing stereotypical about that. One is being paid to do work for the community or a company, the other broke laws and is in prison. If a guard can’t remain objective, remove them.

Or put another way, if you are going to kill someone with a 2 hour scalding hot shower, you’ve become a monster. I’ll be fine labeling anyone with that mindset that label, sick monster.

They boiled a man to death.

It seems topical now… this article was really good:

The Zimbardo experiment is just one example of how things like prison dehumanize all sides; the phenomenon is pretty well documented. And yes, prisoners often regard the guards with as much contempt and hatred as the guards view them. But the power differential and the onus of responsibility is not symmetrical. Only one side has any power, and only one side represents society’s interest and in effect carries the burden of society’s ethical obligations.

It’s certainly true that many corrections officers do as good a job as they can in a difficult environment. But it’s also quite well documented that many…don’t. And private for-profit prisons certainly don’t do much to help this.

And all guards are now guilty of that crime. I don’t buy that and neither would any sensible person. The guys who did it should be in jail themselves, no doubt about it. But being a guard doesn’t make you guilty of the same crime.

The problem with the “bad apples” excuse is that they quite literally spoil the whole bunch. And no, those guards are not being found guilty of any crime.

As long as law enforcement in general makes excuses for and covers up their own by refusing punishment where due, by refusing to bring charges when applicable, then all of them are guilty by association no matter who does anything.

It’s the same thing as the “Not All Men!!” bullshit. Yeah, no fucking shit that not all men are rapists and not all men are disgusting, but the problem is that women have no way to know who is who. And until men in society as a whole own up to the fact that many men cover up the disgusting actions of a few, women have no reason to trust anyone.

Why should any African American trust any police officer by default at this point?

That’s a reasonable question. People in the aggregate have to judge others in the aggregate, because we don’t usually get the chance to learn about each individual before it’s too late. So yeah, there’s no reason at all for an African-American to trust the police, in general, though in specific cases or areas they may develop enough familiarity to come to a different conclusion.

And also, I agree with the bad apples comments you make. Too often, and for too long, law enforcement has stonewalled the rest of society and refused, categorically, to deal with its problems. One reason is pretty simple, though: it’s hard to find people who want the shitty job of being a cop.

I mean I could probably post one of these every day until the day I die and I’m not even actively looking for the things.

The problem here is that those specific guards boiled a man to death, and yet are not facing any repercussions at all.