Law Enforcement Discussion (Statistics, ideology)

[Nephlite]

Glad we agree, i hope now you can stop defending their big mistakes now.

I never said they made a mistake

[Melena]

Fuck any other issues, such as issuing minor moving violation tickets to bring in revenue? We don't live in a post-apocalyptic universe like Judge Dredd where cops are dealing with violent criminals 100% of the time. In the U.S., it's probably more like 3% of the time, and that's being generous I feel.

You do realize that most crime is not violent right? Can't be all those parking tickets being written or moving violations......

[Priran]

Also, why did all the pro-police people suddenly start talking about taking guns from cops in the usa? No one is suggesting that.

Lots of people are suggesting that, I posted an image of some in the late great feminism thread. Or you could do some basic googling.

[hey]

Sorry, no one here is suggesting it.

[Pirian]

You can't jump straight from how much crime is violent to how many officers are dealing with violent crime. A lot of these counted statistics are reported violent crimes that didn't have any police action until after it was already over.

You also can't put forward what you "feel" as an argument for anything without backing it up with numbers.

When someone says, "off by magnitude x" isn't it commonplace to be talking about x factors of 10? "Order of Magnitude"? So, magnitude of 4 would be x10000 off of your answer. He was off by a magnitude of 1. If you still wanna make it look egregious you could of have said off by a factor of 4

Sry4 offtopic and nitpick, but I think it's cool to know

You are 100% correct, whoops. Man, what an oversight

[Blubbartron]

You also can't put forward what you "feel" as an argument for anything without backing it up with numbers.

Would you prefer SWAG or educated guess to "feel"? There probably aren't any official statistics out there for this type of thing, but that doesn't make it automatically wrong. ~12% of all crime is violent, and the majority of crime does not have police involvement except in the reporting of that crime after the fact. For these reasons, I'd say cops dealing with violent crime 3% of the time they're doing stuff is an extremely generous estimate.

The point is, in case people are missing it, that cops do not have absurdly dangerous jobs. The overwhelming majority of the time things are pretty peaceful. That means it generally wouldn't be a problem to have 10 cops respond to a guy with a knife.

[quannum]

What you completely overlooked is in one of those videos, that would be the entire police force in some communities. So what you are saying is that they should say fuck any other issues, just go all korean zug zug zerg the machete threat and hope no one gets killed. Got it.

A problem of not enough resources, or resources being wasted is not a reason to murder blacks. It's not csi 100% of the time.

Murder is a pretty strong word. Justified killing is better.

And yes, sometimes, there's nothing you can do. However, if you have an alternative, I would like to see you attempt to do so.

Additionally, you speak in absolutes, as if every EDP with a knife is killed by the police here in the US. For every one that is killed, try to make an argument for the hundreds that aren't, and safely taken in to custody. It's only when someone dies is it an issue, and it's easy to Monday Morning Quarterback and say "Things could have been different." Well of course! There's always room for improvement. Knee jerk and screaming brutality is not the case, as you're putting an unfair generalization on the dynamics of the situation. What's reasonable to you, may not in fact be reasonable to someone else.

It's not justified, so no.

"don't necessarily need " is not speaking in absolutes, so no.

How is this a knee jerk reaction? While violent crime has been decreasing, American police brutality has increased since 9/11 at least.

And that's okay, because the only thing you need to do is prove the officer was in reasonable fear of his life or another.

Officers Americans are more likely to be fearful of blacks, which leads to more "reasonable" deaths of unarmed black teens.

[quannum]

Being a cop showed me just how racist and violent the police are. There’s only one fix.

...

This attitude corrodes the way policing is done.

As a cop, it shouldn’t surprise you that people will curse at you, or be disappointed by your arrival. That’s part of the job. But too many times, officers saw young black and brown men as targets. They would respond with force to even minor offenses. And because cops are rarely held accountable for their actions, they didn’t think too hard about the consequences.

...
It became clear to us that he was dealing with mental illness. So eventually, we convinced him to come to the hospital with us.

I’m certain many other officers in the department would have escalated the situation fast. They would have screamed at him, gotten close to him, threatened him. And then, any movement from him, even an effort to drop the knife, would have been treated as an excuse to shoot until their clips were empty.

[Pirian]

Would you prefer SWAG or educated guess to "feel"?

I'd prefer you say nothing at all, in this regard.

There probably aren't any official statistics out there for this type of thing, but that doesn't make it automatically wrong. ~12% of all crime is violent, and the majority of crime does not have police involvement except in the reporting of that crime after the fact. For these reasons, I'd say cops dealing with violent crime 3% of the time they're doing stuff is an extremely generous estimate.

The point is, in case people are missing it, that cops do not have absurdly dangerous jobs. The overwhelming majority of the time things are pretty peaceful. That means it generally wouldn't be a problem to have 10 cops respond to a guy with a knife.

Except that you're assigning a numerical value which implies some sort of knowledge of the subject beyond an armchair reasoning. If you were an authority on the subject then it would be a different story, but right now it is safe to say that any number you come up with is absolutely baseless, and the absolute best you can do is say that it is a number somewhere between 0% and the rate of violent crime, which is about 12%. Until you can come up with actual data or reasons, all this is simply extemporaneous pandering, and that, my friend, is the point.

[Melena]

A problem of not enough resources, or resources being wasted is not a reason to murder blacks. It's not csi 100% of the time.

And where is a city of fifteen thousand going to magically have enough resources to hire enough cops to bum rush every threat? Hell the town I live in isn't even a city, has to contract with the county for law enforcement coverage and at any time unless there is an emergency that necessitates pulling other deputies off of their beat to respond, has no more than 3-4 patrol cars covering the area at any given time. Sending 30 people to tackle someone running around with a machete and hoping no one gets hurt in the process is a waste of resources.

[quannum]

murder blacks or waste resources. tough choice.

[Nephlite]

A problem of not enough resources, or resources being wasted is not a reason to murder blacks. It's not csi 100% of the time.



It's not justified, so no.

"don't necessarily need " is not speaking in absolutes, so no.

How is this a knee jerk reaction? While violent crime has been decreasing, American police brutality has increased since 9/11 at least.


Officers Americans are more likely to be fearful of blacks, which leads to more "reasonable" deaths of unarmed black teens.

Seems like people love ignoring the fact that just as many whites are "murdered" by the police than blacks. But, that's what your whole thing is about, just that one little thing, even if there's no solid proof or concrete evidence except anecdotal information cherry picked from the WAPO opinions section.

Additionally, a jury of our peers deciding it's justified seems pretty justified to me.

[quannum]

Blacks, mentally ill, people of low socioeconomic status ... it's a race issue, it's also not always a race issue.

Just because something is policy or a law does not mean it's just.

[Pirian]

]Seems like people love ignoring the fact that just as many whites are "murdered" by the police than blacks. [/b]But, that's what your whole thing is about, just that one little thing, even if there's no solid proof or concrete evidence except anecdotal information cherry picked from the WAPO opinions section.

Additionally, a jury of our peers deciding it's justified seems pretty justified to me.

Now, when you say this, do you mean the same amount or the same proportion? The implications should be obvious, but just so they're spelled out: if say, 10 black people were killed and 10 white people were killed then yes, just as many black people were killed as white people, but when you consider 13.2% of the population is black, that suddenly means that your chance of being killed by a police officer is much higher simply because you are black.

[Petitssk]

Blacks, mentally ill, people of low socioeconomic status ... it's a race issue, it's also not always a race issue.

Just because something is policy or a law does not mean it's just.

Considering that those specific groups are (probably) statistically more likely to get into situations in which they would require the attention of the police, I can kind of see why no white upper-class family fathers are gunned down by the dozen.

I'm not going to say that there is no police officer that isn't more cautious or prone to seemingly excessive retaliation when confronted with members of certain demographics, but unless it's purely because of racism, I'd actually say that it's as least as much a problem with society as it is a problem with the police, if not to an even greater extent.

[hey]

Now, when you say this, do you mean the same amount or the same proportion? The implications should be obvious, but just so they're spelled out: if say, 10 black people were killed and 10 white people were killed then yes, just as many black people were killed as white people, but when you consider 13.2% of the population is black, that suddenly means that your chance of being killed by a police officer is much higher simply because you are black.

Don't bother, i've already explained this to him, he doesn't get it.

[Melena]

murder blacks or waste resources. tough choice.

Just because the federal government can print money doesn't mean local agencies can. All across the bay area, Police agencies are under staffed in part due to the first things to ever get cut from a budget is emergency services. This is part of the reason why so many shit head cops are showing up on the streets. Just to reach minimal staffing issues people who may not have been qualified 5-10 years ago are now and why so many experienced law enforcement personal are retiring early before the pensions they work for get gutted. The Sheriff's office I worked for averaged about 30-40 separations a year from sworn and non sworn staff. Due to a law signed by our Governor which changed pension spiking, in the course of less than a month we had over 60 people retire, with about another 20+ who got out after the appeals were denied on the change. And this was just one agency. Next time where you live, when you see a massive change in the budget that depletes staff, watch how quickly the quality in Police and EMS deteriorates. Or hell, just do some lookup on Oakland PD and San Jose PD. Budgets get cut, good cops retire/get laid off, idiots left to pick up the slack and all of a sudden, controversy after controversy.

[noblemountain]

Kinda like taking numbers out of nowhere leads to false assumptions. Of the 59 officers killed in 2010, 27 were due to traffic accidents. 16 were not wearing seatbelts. 21 officers were killed by gunfire that year. Seems like forcing officers to wear their seatbelt would save almost as many lives as taking all the guns away from everyone.

[Melena]

Kinda like taking numbers out of nowhere leads to false assumptions. Of the 59 officers killed in 2010, 27 were due to traffic accidents. 16 were not wearing seatbelts. 21 officers were killed by gunfire that year. Seems like forcing officers to wear their seatbelt would save almost as many lives as taking all the guns away from everyone.

The not wearing seatbelt thing drives me insane, and drives our driver trainers insane (it's the same group that helped a lot with the driving tests on myth busters). The reason why so many cops don't wear there seatbelts is due to concerns of it getting hung on there badges when trying to exit a vehicle. So for whatever retarded reason, most states that have seatbelt laws have exceptions for Police. Yet if you ask any police driving instructor the #1 thing that drives them insane, they typically answer cops who don't wear their fucking seatbelts.

Actually let me be a bit more clear, it's not just the hanging on the badges, it's the duty belts, body armor, etc. Still don't agree with it though.

[Thunder]

Actually let me be a bit more clear, it's not just the hanging on the badges, it's the duty belts, body armor, etc. Still don't agree with it though.

With all the money spent on police stuff couldn't a product that "guards" against that be easy to commission? I never heard policemen dying due to not wearing seat belts. I bet if seat belt deaths rivaled gun deaths among cops and that was more talked about (rather than gun deaths) someone would have already invented this and hustled it into every dept.!

Currently seat belts lie flat, policemen could have an attachment on the seat belt that curves outward, away from the officer, on the left part of the seatbelt, so that when you unfasten it and it slides across your chest as you're getting out the curved part doesn't get caught on anything and guides the rest of the belt off of the officer.

If that's actually a big enough deal, anyway. Maybe you can invent it and make a lot of money! lol