[News] Protests Against Police Violence After Death of George Floyd

Discuss police violence, the victims of police violence (including George Floyd and Breonna Taylor), the Black-led protests against said violence, and related topics.

JC wrote:
Amoebic wrote:

It's performative. https://twitter.com/DMVBlackLives/st...

Technically... Protest marches are performative as well, no? In my book, any form of protest is a good thing. Especially things that get people to take notice.

The state has the ability to enact meaningful change. So when they’re engaging in performative acts I assume they’re simply trying to dissipate the anger of the masses without being forced to enact change.

farley3k wrote:
Amoebic wrote:

Let's shift focus off individuals here, please. There's something to be learned here that'll go out the window if people start getting personal and emotional.

But I am not trying to single r013nt0 out I am trying to look at the idea that a whole profession is bad and serves no purpose.

I don't think I'm the one being singled out in that request.

As for what I said and your reply, it's a conversation I'm well prepared to have, but will drop it as was requested.

Meanwhile:
BREAKING: Minneapolis City Council President says that the Minneapolis Police Department will be dismantled and replaced with a ‘transformative new model of public safety’.

DSGamer wrote:

It would be career suicide *not* to beat peaceful protestors with clubs if everyone else is doing it.

Last year a cop was fired for [b]NOT/b] shooting someone. He correctly believed he could get the guy under control without killing him.

r013nt0 wrote:

Again, imo if you want to serve and protect, you don't choose to become a cop. Is writing people tickets for...parking somewhere... protecting? How about tearing down the tents of homeless people? Who does that serve or protect? The racist and classist war on drugs... is that serving, or protecting?

The firefighters are the ones who rescue you from your crushed car. The EMTs keep you alive on your way to the hospital. Social workers rescue battered women and children. In the US, cops are there to punish. No surprise, as the entire profession is born of the slave hunters.

Also, if you really need to stop and think when your options are career suicide vs. participating in murdering an innocent, you're not a good person! HTH!

There is a truth to what you say, but it’s not absolute. And it ignores the inherent complications of police work that regularly puts officers in opposition to those they serve and protect.

We do need police. But we also need a massive reform that should alter their recruitment, training, mission, and accountability. We also may need significantly fewer police on the streets.

If you want to denigrate anyone that wants to be a cop for good reasons, you help support the culture that privileges bad cops over good ones.

And believe me, I live in the city of St. Louis, and my wife has worked with Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner who is getting trashed by the police union. The state of police here is gut-wrenchingly terrible, and the solution, like in Minneapolis, is probably to disband and rebuild.

But we need cops to be good guys, but not because they get better PR, but because we push for reforms that allow them to be good cops. What happens in places like Ferguson is that the cops are treated like bag men for the mob, where they are evaluated on how much money they bring in, whether it is fines or forfeiture.

Also, ban handguns and anything but a limited number of hunting rifles for civilian use. One way to make their job easier is to demonize gun in addition to cutting off sales and beginning the painfully slow process of buying or seizing the guns out there from citizens.

I agree with most of that. But I don't think they can be reformed in their current incarnation.

The entire idea or public safety needs to be completely built up anew from a fresh foundation. We have many other countries we could reference for ideas.

Let's try to avoid "not all _____" reactive statements. Like we know not all men/whitepeople/cops/etc. It's about, among a variety of other extremely nuanced things, complicity or inaction regarding the general systemic role.

Edit: to clarify, this is not a mod request, but a request from someone who has had to explain this distinction in other contexts.

They need state and voter approval to make some of the changes, but it looks like an effective step.

There are other models of law enforcement, which don't involve the thing we currently label as 'police'.

The Week: What America can learn from Nordic police
They're far more effective, too: in the U.S. the murder clearance rate is 62%, in Norway it's 97%.

WP: D.C. protests over the death of George Floyd have grown bigger and more diverse. That’s not an accident, experts say.

They didn’t have a plan at first. Five friends determined to join protests over the police killing of George Floyd arrived in downtown Washington on Saturday with one goal: Get to the White House.

As they walked south toward the bright white pillars in the distance, the group began to call out to passersby — people out for walks or jogs, some curiously eyeing the young people brandishing signs and face masks, marching with their fists held high.

“Walk with us,” called Jasmine Grobes, 27. “Come on! Walk with us.”

By the time they reached the metal barricades around Lafayette Square, that group of five had swelled to nearly 50 times that number. Many returned the next day. More arrived the next and the day after that.

farley3k wrote:
r013nt0 wrote:

Again, imo if you want to serve and protect, you don't choose to become a cop. Is writing people tickets for...parking somewhere... protecting? How about tearing down the tents of homeless people? Who does that serve or protect? The racist and classist war on drugs... is that serving, or protecting?

Huh? You could just as easily make a list of important and helpful, heck needed things that police do.

Is breaking up a human trafficking ring protecting? Is stopping a domestic abuser from killing their partner protecting?

"Crime control is a small part of policing, and it always has been. Felony arrests of any kind are a rarity for uniformed officers, with most making no more than one a year. When a patrol officer actually apprehends a violent criminal in the act, it is a major moment in their career. The bulk of police officers work in patrol. They take reports, engage in random patrol, address parking and driving violations and noise complaints, issue tickets, and make misdemeanor arrests for drinking in public, possession of small amounts of drugs, or the vague 'disorderly conduct.' Officers I’ve shadowed on patrol describe their days as '99 percent boredom and 1 percent sheer terror'—and even that 1 percent is a bit of an exaggeration for most officers."

-- Alex Vitale, "The End of Policing"

Still making my way through the book; some of the points it makes are made more succinctly in a recent NPR interview.

r013nt0 wrote:

There's no such thing as a good cop. You'd never have signed up to be one in the first place if you were a good person. Good people, the ones who actually want to help, become firefighters. EMTs. Social workers.

I've said it before, I'll say it again. The type of person who wants to become a cop is exactly the type of person who should never, ever, be a cop.

In summary, #ACAB

(the people quitting aren't good cops, they're individuals maybe waking up to becoming good PEOPLE...which is why they are no longer cops)

Since this post hasn't been deleted or edited, I am responding.

My uncle was not a bastard. Nor was he a bad cop. He was a cop for the right reasons.

I am not merely showing blind loyalty to family -- I don't believe in loyalty by virtue of genetics. His son went on to be a cop too. He was and still is a bully, a bigot, and overall an arrogant asshole with Napoleon Syndrome.

I get your anger, I'm absolutely livid about the abuses that have been and continue to be perpetrated by far too much of our police force in the US (and at this point, it saddens me to see that it's quite likely a significant majority of them).

But to declare them all bastards, all evil, none good? That kind of all-or-nothing us-vs-them absolutism? That's no better than the thought process of a brainwashed MAGA-cult member.

Edit: changed final sentence because upon re-reading, it was a direct and unfair attack and not communicating my actual intent.

Farscry, at this point, with the way the police have been structured, the abuses of power, the clear and obvious racism, the complete dereliction of duty, the failure to serve and protect the community, the lack of understanding what a community is, there is no such thing as a good cop. There can be a good person who happens to be a cop but they are still a part of the problem.

Buffalo News: Protester pushed to ground by police is longtime peace activist from Amherst

The protester who was pushed to the ground by Buffalo police Thursday night in front of City Hall in a video seen by more than 58 million is a longtime peace activist from Amherst.

Martin Gugino, 75, was in serious but stable condition at Erie County Medical Center as of Thursday night, according to police.

"He’s a gentle person who really believes that he must stand up for what he thinks is right," said his friend Terrence Bisson, who has worked with Gugino on Latin American issues through the Western New York Peace Center.

"That’s why he went to the demonstration. He would never resist physically any kind of orders," Bisson said. "He’s a bit frail, not because of his age. He has some health problems."

Gugino grew up in Buffalo, moved to Cleveland where he worked in computer technology, before returning to Western New York where he has been involved in a broad array of issues ranging from nuclear disarmament to climate change and Guantanamo. He has a YouTube channel with 35 subscribers in which he discusses such issues.

Structural issues aren't addressed by individual benevolence

DSGamer wrote:
JC wrote:
Amoebic wrote:

It's performative. https://twitter.com/DMVBlackLives/st...

Technically... Protest marches are performative as well, no? In my book, any form of protest is a good thing. Especially things that get people to take notice.

The state has the ability to enact meaningful change. So when they’re engaging in performative acts I assume they’re simply trying to dissipate the anger of the masses without being forced to enact change.

I hope that isn't the case. Can we not do both? Change is definitely needed, and righteous anger is definitely required. If someone says, "Look, they painted a giant sign, we're all good now." That's a problem.

If the giant sign serves to pull more people into the conversation and helps to enact true change I don't think it's bad. I guess I don't view it as an effort to distract from the true problem, but instead to call it out.

Vector wrote:

Farscry, at this point, with the way the police have been structured, the abuses of power, the clear and obvious racism, the complete dereliction of duty, the failure to serve and protect the community, the lack of understanding what a community is, there is no such thing as a good cop. There can be a good person who happens to be a cop but they are still a part of the problem.

I agree with you, but that's not the message to which I was replying, which laid out explicitly -- multiple times -- that you can't be a cop and a good person.

If this were a regular "not all _____" comment I'd have let it slide. Hell, I'm guilty of it as well, even regarding the police lately.

It also doesn't help that much of the time these days I'm working on a VPN connection that blocks GWJ so I'm often very late to the party on these discussions. There are a lot of posts I don't write because the discussion has been resolved. I made an exception in this case. I'm editing the final statement of my post though because it was too broad.

boogle wrote:

Structural issues aren't addressed by individual benevolence

Yup. There's the distinction between "the police" and "a cop".

boogle wrote:

Structural issues aren't addressed by individual benevolence

but structural issues are perpetuated by individual acceptance.

Farscry wrote:

I get your anger, I'm absolutely livid about the abuses that have been and continue to be perpetrated by far too much of our police force in the US (and at this point, it saddens me to see that it's quite likely a significant majority of them).

But to declare them all bastards, all evil, none good? That kind of all-or-nothing us-vs-them absolutism? That's no better than the thought process of a brainwashed MAGA-cult member.

A major issue is the continual public claim that there's only a few bad cops.

But everything we're seeing points to the opposite: that there's only a few good cops. And they either remain silent out of fear, or to not rock the boat, or they go Serpico and get crushed by their fellow cops and police management.

Either good cops are going to have to grow a pair and speak up--loudly--to let the public know that 1) they're more numerous than unicorns, and 2) that they're as mad--or madder--about bad cops as everyone else or we have to assume that they don't exist or, even if they do, that they're not willing to do anything to change the status quo.

And that means any reform has to get rid of all of them because a so-called good cop who's too scared to speak up about injustice or corruption within their ranks shouldn't continue to be allowed to be a cop as they've already shown that they'll let bad behavior slide.

It may sound harsh, but police have way too much power for them not to be held accountable to a higher standard.

Police unions need to be dismantled

The only thing less helpful than broad generalizations like the one I made are "not all!" responses, honestly.

Of course there are, presumably, decent people who also happen to be cops. They should quit and retrain in a more helpful, less destructive, less outdated profession.

And to be clear, I have three of them in my family. An uncle and 2 cousins. Water cops, to be precise, not land-based cops. And not the cool search and rescue kind, mind you, they are the DEA variety.
None of them were raised to be overtly racist, and my cousin Trey was a close friend of mine growing up. Yet years in the service has turned them all into MAGAts, because that's the culture they have chosen to surround themselves with, and so that's what they have become.

I have blocked all three of them on social media. They are not welcome in my home. They are not even welcome to talk to me should our paths ever cross, and they know this.

Immortal Technique - The Poverty of Philosophy wrote:

[People] talk about change and working within the system to achieve that. The problem with always being a conformist is that when you try to change the system from within, it's not you who changes the system; it's the system that will eventually change you.

Chairman_Mao wrote:

Police unions need to be dismantled

Fify

r013nt0 wrote:

The only thing less helpful than broad generalizations like the one I made are "not all!" responses, honestly.

"Not all absolutist declarations!", eh?

I made my point already, I'll drop it from here.

I believe this whole discussion is a distraction. The past few pages have zeroed in with a laser focus on the police. Sure, the recent awakening of masses of Americans was caused by yet another cop murdering yet another black man (it pains me more than I can say to use the phrase "yet another"). And yes, the city of Minneapolis reworking policing in their city is a big step in the right direction.

But nothing is going to change significantly for the average black person until the fundamental social issues change. This country was BUILT on the notion that some humans are chattel and some humans are people. Gradually, over the years, that has changed into what we have today (some humans are people and some humans are there to be abused). It took over a hundred years for people who were literal chattel to be recognized as free people, and even then black people weren't treated by the law as free people. Not even Federal law. What good is it to be "free" when carpetbaggers could still round you up and return you to be a serf on some white man's plantation. Or worse.

It took another hundred years for the law to finally catch up to the idea that black people are actually people. Codified in federal law in 1964, black people could no longer suffer legal discrimination. The problem is, the rest of the system still hadn't caught up with that idea. It wasn't taught in schools. It wasn't enforced by police, or lawyers. I was three years old when the Civil Rights Act passed, and all my life, I've still seen white people discriminate against black people in a million small ways, and in some very big ways. Employers, landlords, and police are among the worst. Or I don't know, because I'm not black. Maybe it's worse to see white women clutch their purses every time you walk down the street, or to be followed discreetly but obviously in a store when you're shopping for clothes. Those kinds of indignities still happen every day in America.

Extraordinary black men and women have made extraordinary impact on modern life, but the average black person suffers indignities every day.

That is what has to change.

Last night in the emergency department, we had our umpteenth case of "altered mental status," brought in via EMS.

This person is well-known to the hospital system, medics, and local law enforcement.

They are well known because they become nearly uncontrollably violent on methamphetamine.

This person was that way for several hours until medication kicked in.

After, me and my social worker shift partner were debating the relative merits and drawbacks of disbanding MPD.

This is sort of a broad summary of our conversation.

Violent, altered offenders are a real problem that won't magically go away. Nor are true anti-social criminals.

But how many are there, really? Do we need guns and batons to handle them? Maybe a small number. Maybe.

Minneapolis nicely demonstrated how wholly inadequate militarized forces are for anything but destruction.

Bob Kroll, the loudest advocate for cops, admitted in his bullsh*t letter that the MPD *needed* another ten thousand bodies to do it's job the way he thinks it needs to be done.

Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, etc etc prove how futile that method is.

We know that the current method of law enforcement doesn't work.

What's the worst that can happen? Looters and rioters burn our cities to the ground?

BadKen wrote:

Extraordinary black men and women have made extraordinary impact on modern life, but the average black person suffers indignities every day.

That is what has to change.

I think about this a lot. That some people see successful, respected, famous black Americans like LeBron James, Denzel Washington, Jay-Z and assume that because a black person in America *can* be successful, that that means we have equality in the country.

It's a ways, back, but I owe Clock a bit of an apology.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Sorry, Ken, but Obama's live town hall yesterday (the day before?) that was covered live by every news organization was an address to the nation. It was even referred to as such by non-conservative media organizations. You're welcome to accuse me of trying to start something, but that's what it was.

I am sorry, I didn't realize Obama's town hall was covered live via multiple channels. I thought it was mostly a web thing, and news channels ran interviews like the one I saw via MSNBC. I was off base there.

What I was more hoping to respond to was your message:

The former President leading a march against the current White House would be seen as a coup, domestically and internationally. That could escalate very, very quickly. As it is, Obama making national addresses on television is being interpreted as a sign of instability.

Agreed, Obama heading up a protest march on DC would be a very bad look.

However, Obama holding a national town hall via Zoom is pretty far from sedition. It shouldn't be interpreted as a sign of instability, no matter how much many news agencies around the world love to deservedly poke at the USA. It should instead be taken as a sign of how freedom is still working, despite our current crisis. The fact that Obama was able to do that, that it was covered by media of all stripes, and that there was no attempt from the current administration to shut it down, all that adds up to a (still barely) functioning free state.

Farscry wrote:

"Not all absolutist declarations!", eh?

I made my point already, I'll drop it from here.

Cool, because I'm not sure this is quite the gotcha you think it is.

Reaper81 wrote:

A good post I won't quote in its entirety for space considerations

Police shouldn't be responsible for a lot of the things people credit them with. That drug abuser needs help that the police can't give, for example. The problems we face with drug abuse and crime need to be addressed at a much lower, more fundamental level than punishment. And punishment is the primary function of the police.

Wife and I were watching a dumb show on Netflix (Somebody Feed Phil) and he was in a small town in Israel, though I don't recall the name. It is an integrated town. I believe they said that the population was split roughly equally between Jews and Arabs.

This town has no police force. No cop-soldiers. The town became more peaceful when the community began to care for itself. Because there was not a group asserting control. A group with power over others. It caused the community to have a dialog.

It was inspiring. You don't need to control your population.

Reaper81 wrote:

What's the worst that can happen? Looters and rioters burn our cities to the ground?

Fear is a great way to control the populace...

BadKen wrote:
The former President leading a march against the current White House would be seen as a coup, domestically and internationally. That could escalate very, very quickly. As it is, Obama making national addresses on television is being interpreted as a sign of instability.

Agreed, Obama heading up a protest march on DC would be a very bad look.

Your bolded line is going to look mighty prophetic should Trump not win a second term, cos you know he's going to try and pull something like that.