General Police Abuse Thread

[TheFeniX]

So this happened:

South Dakota Cops Used Forced Catheterization On Boy, 3

Assault and battery of a toddler: true heroes in the war on drugs. I also have to wonder about the quality of the medical "professionals" that would perform the procedure unnecessarily.

For reasons I don't care to go into, I had a catheter put in for a medical procedure when I was 5 years old. The nurses were absolutely terrible at it. The doctor finally got involved and did it with little issue. But at that point.... I've never had a shard of glass rammed up my dick-hole, but I'm pretty sure I've experienced 99% of what's involved. Not to mention the experience of pissing straight blood after the procedure.

BONUS ROUND: pissing blood had 0 pain involved. But afterward, when actual urine reentered the equation? Oh man. Holy shit. I still remember it. 30 years later, there are very few moments from that age I can remember clearly. That whole incident will be with me until the day I die. And I hope that kid is young enough to have it not register permanently because at least I had the IDEA the procedure was for my benefit even if I didn't fully understand why until year later.

You wouldn't think authorities could go further than trying to get a teenager to have a chemically induced erection so they could snap dick pics for comparison, but at least that kid was suspected of a crime, no matter how stupid that crime is. What's the toddler's crime? The case of the missing cookies?

There's obviously a line between "kid can't pee on command" and "jam a tube up his dick" and it was ignored by a whole lot of people I don't think should be in a position of power over a manhole, much less human beings. If every single person involved was charged with sexual assault and battery of a minor, I'd vote to convict instantly.

Anyone involved in this: doctor, nurse, cops, judges, prosecutors. They can go straight to Hell for all I care.

[Simon_Jester]

[runs through list of possible defenses in his head]

Yep. Voting to convict too.

There's not a lot else to say about a case like this, other than that this is right at the bottom of what looks like an actual real slippery slope, and not a made-up fallacious one. Give the police a routine reason to gather evidence from people's bodies, and then tell them it's okay to forcibly take evidence from people's bodies, and... Sooner or later some horrible thing in the legal system's clothing just completely erases the concept of "boundaries" in their mind, and starts viewing other people's bodies as big piles of evidence and not as people. And that includes children.

[Terralthra]

I don't know the race of the 3 year old, but I can guess.

30 seconds of Google would have shown you your attempts at race-baiting this would have been for naught.

If you're referring to the article published on the Argus Leader, the pictures therein are of Dirk Sparks (an adult who was forceably catheterized) and his family, not Kirsten Hunter and hers. I've been unable to find pictures of the Hunter family. If you've found them, I'd love to see.

[Dominus Atheos]

So this happened:

South Dakota Cops Used Forced Catheterization On Boy, 3

You wouldn't think authorities could go further than trying to get a teenager to have a chemically induced erection so they could snap dick pics for comparison, but at least that kid was suspected of a crime, no matter how stupid that crime is. What's the toddler's crime? The case of the missing cookies?

Do you really want to know? You'd probably sleep better not knowing.

The toddler's mother's boyfriend was being investigated for drug use. The police show up with Child Protective Services to demand a urine sample from every member of the house to see if they had any trace amounts of drugs in their systems so they could charge the boyfriend with child abuse for using drugs in the house.

I repeat, they jammed a catheter up a 3 year old's penis so they could investigate child abuse against that child.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Hi Flagg, this is not actually a quotation, but is directed at you as well

How about this: When cops get tried at the same rate as the average Joe, when cops take plea deals at the same rate as average Joes... Then we can start considering them trustworthy. At what rate would you consider cops to be untrustworthy?

Somewhere between what you propose and the status quo, we lack sufficient data to reach a conclusion as to exact rates. The average Joe does not often find themselves in a position to use lethal force at all and under such uncertain conditions, mistakes will happen and those mistakes do not always constitute a criminal act.

Here's the thing... We know cops can fuck up your life, or end it outright, and often suffer no significant consequences. The cost of running into one of the bad cops (and the rate varies by location) can be extremely high.

The ideal rate of "bad cops" would be zero. But if they were to have the same rate of going to trial and being convicted (with sentencing being the same as for an average Joe) I'd consider police to be no higher risk than the average person.

Here's the thing, though. With more power, there should be more responsibility.

Unless you want police dying in job lots, they will always be a higher risk than the average citizen. Again, they are exposed to danger and react accordingly (with varying degrees of accuracy depending on how good their training is). Training and oversight can be improved to increase their accuracy in threat-evaluation and reduce the degree to which they are cognitively disabled by threat-responses, but there will always be a chance for error that does not exist in the civilian world.

And that is leaving out the implicit racism in threat determination entirely.

There are some police that die on the job as it is, some due to someone with an intent to kill and some because of a crash while chasing a suspect.

Here's a fun little fact. EMTs and every other emergency response profession involves risk of being subject to violence, sometimes with the intent of ending a life. Should EMTs be given the leeway to carry weapons and use them as freely as the police? Alex the EMT might get knifed while trying to save someone's life. Being an EMT is fucking dangerous. But we don't let EMTs run around packing heat and taking down people who "look" like a threat.

People who work night shifts at a convenience store are more likely to be faced with an armed and potentially violent individual than someone working an office job. Should they be allowed to just blow someone away because "I thought he was going for a gun!"? Bank tellers?

In my opinion, a lot of self defense laws are fucking nuts. There seems to not be the "reasonable person" standard written into them for threat determination. Even if it's standard operating procedure and lawmakers figured it should be obvious that for self-defense to be valid it requires a reasonable person to feel there exists, the jurors may well lack the level of education needed to be aware of this standard. And this isn't even getting into racially-driven jury nullification.

As for the lack of a reasonable person standard in self-defense, it is absolutely there. It is a basic principle of common law cooked into our legal system and upheld by the courts. Juries are instructed as to how that standard applies. The problem with police-related cases is that they are given more latitude by juries, not less. This is for two reasons.

1) Most people have a deep respect for law enforcement, and tend to give officers very wide margins of "benefit of the doubt".
2) For most people, dangerous situation are an outside context problem, and so they don't have much of a baseline for what "reasonable" means in functional terms.

The standard that should exist ideally is one of a "reasonable officer", much like how doctors and EMTs have higher standards of behavior if they stop (while not on the clock) to assist at a car accident. What is reasonable for a layperson and what is reasonable for a surgeon (in terms of mistakes allowable before it becomes negligence) are two entirely different things, and this is codified by statute specifically for this purpose. The same should be done with police involved shootings. That way, mistakes like what Officer Yanez made in that stop would legally constitute reckless negligence and legally qualify him for a manslaughter charge. As it stands in MN... the jury was probably not-wrong (as opposed to correct) to acquit Yanez given the state's laws with respect to what reckless negligence constitutes, while applying the usual "reasonable person" standard. Not that he was was certainly innocent mind you, just that there was enough reasonable doubt to not send him to prison. I probably would have voted to convict, but I can see where the jury is coming from there and a rational argument can be made in that case.

As to other people with dangerous professions... are you high? Most bank tellers and store clerks never get robbed at gunpoint, and when they are, their best option is to give the thief what they want and hit the silent alarm. And when it comes down to it, by the time they know they are being robbed at gunpoint, YES they should be and are permitted by law to blow the fucker away with the shotgun they have loaded just behind the counter because at that point their life is in imminent risk.

EMTs don't usually get attacked at all (except by someone high on drugs or insane) and they are trained in how to deal with that. If it comes down to it, they are permitted to defend themselves, but the need to do so with lethal force is vanishingly rare and they are not issued with weapons. In some /really/ dangerous areas they might get some light body armor.

Police by contrast have to deal with potentially dangerous people over and over again on a daily basis. They don't really have the option of giving the person they are tasked with arresting what they want and waiting to be rescued by...themselves. And unlike cases of store clerks being robbed, the police don't know. They don't know if the people they are serving a search warrant on are going to respond violently. They don't know if the car they just stopped is full of drugs, or has a dude high on meth and armed in the driver's seat. Hell, this is America. Just having a gun is not a reliable indicator of criminality. So police have to make threat-determination decisions very fast (because as we have mentioned before, by the time they are absolutely certain, reaction time means it is going to be too late to save themselves or someone else) and as a result, there will be some uncertainty and error.

When those errors happen the following needs to be sorted:

Is it an honest mistake that could have happened to any officer under similar conditions? Then it is a justified but incorrect shooting.
[Example: Getting into a physical confrontation with a suspect, the officer thinks the guy is going for his gun, gets to it first, and puts him down. Turns out it was just arms flailing. Easy mistake to make when the adrenaline is up. Sad, but it happens.]

Was it the result of negligence or gross incompetence? Unjustified shooting, possible criminal charges and probable termination (we hope, and this is where institutionally things need to change).
[Example: Tamir Rice, or that dude who was killed buying a toy gun at walmart]

Was it the result of malice? Alarm Bells! Alarm Bells! Typically, the legal system deals with this pretty well because outright malice is obvious. The only real sticky part being racist juries in South Carolina and the like or places that are just...broken...like L.A. and Baltimore.
[Example: We had a cop here in AZ who was executing suspects... he is now in prison.]

But sorting that out can be very very difficult. Especially the first two.

Better training can reduce the error rate in threat determination and appropriate response, as well as reduce the likelihood of that becoming relevant thanks to better de-escalation training. Better oversight can deal with some of the structural problems (like conflicts of interest with the DA's office), and provide better evidence (body cams, and draconian regs regarding their proper use)

But you know what the one thing you don't want to do is? Demonize the police as an institution, or suggest "solutions" that do not appear to have regard for their safety, or that are too-broadly punitive. This is for a few reasons.

1. Practical
1a. You wont get police support (which you will need to get anything done, given that this shit has to be voted on etc) because officers do not want to die. Police forces are also institutions. They tend to close ranks if they feel like they are under attack from outsiders. This isn't good, it isn't bad. It is just how people behave. This is one of the reasons why barring police from Gay Pride events is a bad idea (beyond the temerity of coming into OUR house and fucking with OUR relationship with local police, which is the result of decades of hard work). They feel like outsiders are attacking them, and stubbornly resist even good ideas regarding reform, up to and including denying the existence of the problem. My cousin works with KS (entirely hilarious coincidence. KS has delivered "Ben says hello" messages for the sake of hilarity before. My cousin was confused. It was beautiful), and while he is usually reasonable... well lets just say he has adopted something of a siege mentality. I can get through to him because he has known me since I was a goofy little thing who just got his first set of glasses and I am practically his little brother. I come at the question from a calm and rational position, from a loving place. But the activists? Fuuuuck. Talk about counter-productive.

What is worse, if you do that shit, all you do is provide an active incentive for police departments to cover shit up even more than they already do, to only go through the motions of doing their jobs, and to be as corrupt as possible.

1b. You wont get public support. Virtually everyone knows a police officer they like. Either a friend, or family member. Maybe a neighbor. In my family there are three generations of police, all in Salt Lake (grandfather, uncle, aforementioned cousin) and then there is KS, who has become a really good friend in the past few years. I don't want to go to their funerals because they were not allowed to defend themselves. I do not want to see them wracked with guilt because they were not permitted to defend someone else. I don't want to see them punished unnecessarily because they made a tragic but innocent mistake. I do not want them to be metaphorically shat upon from a great height because someone decided to punish our civil servants as a class for a structural problem within our society. If you take the positions you have, I--someone who agrees with you that there is a problem that needs to be fixed--will not be supporting your proposals. What the fuck chance do you think there is that someone who needs to be convinced of the existence of a problem is going to come around to your line of thinking? None.

2. Ethical (for these, do let me know if you want to contest the underlying assumptions, this post is already very long and I don't really feel like working on it for another three hours, but I will be happy to devote another block of time if you want to challenge me on the ethics themselves)

2a. Being a public servant is not a suicide pact, and just because someone works for us does not give us license to devalue or shit all over them. Just the opposite actually. Police officers work their asses off and put themselves at risk so that the rest of us can sleep at night, or walk in the park without having to feel fear. We owe it to them to make sure they are taken care of in turn. We cannot be cavalier with their lives and safety, or take an institutional dump all over them. Doing that is just wrong.

2b. Punishing a group for the actions of an individual or a structural problem is not just. The structural problem cannot be dealt with using punishment at all because who do you punish, exactly? You have to fix the underlying causes and change the structures that allow the problem to persist. And you cannot do that in such a way that it creates other unacceptable problems. Individual bad actors have to be punished as individuals.

In conclusion, I suck at concluding statements, so I wont even bother. Just end it abruptly.

[Napoleon the Clown]

So long as the police are given carte blanche for killing people they cannot be trusted. When the Fraternal Order of Police endorsed Donald Trump, members that remained mum gave up their capacity to be trusted. So long as dirty cops are protected the police are a danger to the innocent.

*cough*

Violence against EMS practitioners takes many forms. Most acts of violence are less than deadly. The risk of non-fatal assault resulting in lost work time among EMS workers is 0.6 cases per 100 workers a year; the national average is about 1.8 per 10,000 workers. Thus the relative risk of non-fatal assault for EMS workers is roughly 30 times higher than the national average. Over a five-year period during which 91 line-of-duty fatalities were identified, 10 (9%) were violence-related.1 The relative risk of fatal assaults for EMS workers is about three times higher than the national average.

The National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians (NAEMT) found four in five medics have experienced some form of injury as a result of the job. The majority, 52%, claimed to have been injured by assault. More than 20% ranked personal safety as a primary concern.2 Yet this issue is not widely discussed and not considered a priority by EMS executives, researchers, educators or practitioners. This attitude lies in stark contrast to those of our law enforcement and fire suppression colleagues, whose culture, training, equipment selection and daily activities focus first on survival. “Everybody goes home intact at the end of the shift” is deeply ingrained in the culture of the police and fire communities.

A majority (54%) of respondents to a recent survey of rural EMS practitioners reported they had not received any employer-sponsored training on dealing with potentially violent situations, although 25% said they had been physically assaulted while performing their duties.3 A study in Australia found that rural ambulance officers reported nearly twice the instances of violent encounters as their urban counterparts.4 Recent articles, papers and programs in Canada,5 the United Kingdom,6 France7 and Australia8 address this issue in a variety of ways and demonstrate that it’s a universal phenomenon.

*further coughing*

Officers killed by firearms accounted for 50 deaths in the 12 months ended Monday, an increase of 56 percent from the previous year, when 32 officers were killed by firearms, based on the report released by the nonprofit National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.

In total, 126 peace officers died this year, with 15 of those deaths occurring as a result of ambushed attacks with a firearm, the report concluded. In 2013, 102 officers died.

...vs people fatally shot by police...

Sadly, we know Brown and Garner were just one of many people who died at the hands of police this year. But a dearth of national data on fatalities caused by police makes it difficult to pinpoint the exact number of deaths. One site put the total at 1,039.

What we do know is that police-related deaths follow certain patterns. A 2012 study found that about half of those killed by the police each year are mentally ill, a problem that the Supreme Court will consider 2015. Young black men are also 21 times more likely to be killed by cops than young white men, according to one ProPublica analysis of the data we have. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also compiled data which shows that people of color are most likely to be killed by cops overall. In short, people who belong to marginalized communities are at a higher risk of being shot than those who are not.

The 2014 statistics for officers killed is just over a tenth of the purported number of people killed by the police. Doesn't sound like police are at especially huge risk, to me.

By the same token as not wanting to have friends and family who are police killed and then attend the funeral, how do you think it feels for people whose family members get killed by the police?

Until something changes, police should be considered armed and extremely dangerous. Because they're armed, and they certainly seem able to get away with doing whatever the hell they want. A given cop probably wouldn't go apeshit on you. But if they do? You're fucked.

Anger is probably pushing my views to the extreme end, I admit. I honestly do not know what can be done about the massive problems with police corruption without somehow breaking tribal mentality among the police. And make no mistake, hiding the wrong-doing of bad cops is corruption just as much as taking a bribe. Serpico wasn't pulling shit out of its ass, resentment of police who try and do something about corruption is a real thing. Glorification of cops who violate due process or use excessive force is glorified in a lot of media. Many of the groups who outright resent or even despise police have just as much justification, if not more, than the police who get defensive when problems with the police are pointed out. Careful consideration- by a group that involves current LEOs, retired LEOs, non-LEOs-for what kinds of policies and training are necessary should happen. Independent investigation should be a thing, with full anonymity for police who wish to testify. I get that a certain degree of fear of speaking out can come from peer pressure or not wanting to turn your coworkers against you.

I want bodycams on every cop, and the bodycams must be running every second the cop is on the clock. Doing anything to interfere with the operation of the bodycam should, in and of itself, be a criminal offense. KS has expressed a desire for bodycams. I've worked multiple places that video recorded me the entire time I was in the building and not in the restroom, customer service agents almost always are subject to audio recording on the phone. Because of the nature of police work, and because other professions are subjected to it, it is not onerous in the least for police to be held to this standard. Hell, it can help good cops that get accused of wrong-doing. It can help provide evidence, help track down cop-killers (and murder of the police is definitely a horrible thing that should be punished-I would argue more severely than most other murders)... It's a net win for everyone.

But we still need a way to somehow address when police do horrible things or make egregious mistakes that result in drastic harm.

I can't say I'm a fan of fining a police department, because often the expense gets passed on to tax payers. The guilty cop(s) don't really suffer for it. Punishment of the guilty individual(s) should be the focus. I also favor praise of police who go above and beyond, be it a risky situation or just giving a minor act of kindness.

tl;dr: I'm probably going overboard on how to handle it, but there are plenty of professions that are at higher-than-average risk of being attacked by someone with a lethal weapon. These groups are given nowhere near the leeway police are given, even when they're expected to go into potentially dangerous situations. There needs to be independent oversight, bodycams, and total anonymity in reporting bad behavior.

[Flagg]

Give me a fucking break. 80%, (because I'm being generous) of the mouth breathing liquid brain brigade of the "should be put in a mental health facility with the key thrown away" fuckwits whom all got a class D (unarmed, thank the Jesi, well over 60% of the class asking about when they could shoot "niggers", their words, not mine) security license recipients passed what I guess was supposed to be a test weeding the fucking racist crazies out passed easily. The other 20% were mentally disabled and the morally bankrupt instructor should be ashamed to take their money knowing passing for them was impossible but he was a former cop so no surprise.

Frankly, cops shouldn't be allowed the "reasonable defense" standard given to every non- police academy graduate because they are, as is prohibited in many states to civilians, allowed to wear body armor and are allegedly trained to be able to handle armed suspects without resorting to blowing them away. Like I've said time and again, they should be held to a higher standard. So excuse me if I don't think prosecutors (who should be on the police payroll since they are on the same "team") should be allowed to purposely make weak cases against the children in blue in order to pacify the aggrieved while throwing the case to not cause more issues with the police.

[Alyrium Denryle]

First of all, apples to oranges comparisons.

Violence against EMS practitioners takes many forms. Most acts of violence are less than deadly. The risk of non-fatal assault resulting in lost work time among EMS workers is 0.6 cases per 100 workers a year; the national average is about 1.8 per 10,000 workers. Thus the relative risk of non-fatal assault for EMS workers is roughly 30 times higher than the national average. Over a five-year period during which 91 line-of-duty fatalities were identified, 10 (9%) were violence-related.1 The relative risk of fatal assaults for EMS workers is about three times higher than the national average.

The National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians (NAEMT) found four in five medics have experienced some form of injury as a result of the job. The majority, 52%, claimed to have been injured by assault. More than 20% ranked personal safety as a primary concern.2 Yet this issue is not widely discussed and not considered a priority by EMS executives, researchers, educators or practitioners. This attitude lies in stark contrast to those of our law enforcement and fire suppression colleagues, whose culture, training, equipment selection and daily activities focus first on survival. “Everybody goes home intact at the end of the shift” is deeply ingrained in the culture of the police and fire communities.

A majority (54%) of respondents to a recent survey of rural EMS practitioners reported they had not received any employer-sponsored training on dealing with potentially violent situations, although 25% said they had been physically assaulted while performing their duties.3 A study in Australia found that rural ambulance officers reported nearly twice the instances of violent encounters as their urban counterparts.4 Recent articles, papers and programs in Canada,5 the United Kingdom,6 France7 and Australia8 address this issue in a variety of ways and demonstrate that it’s a universal phenomenon.

Here you are quoting injuries and comparing them to deaths. Almost by-definition, EMS is going to deal with agitated crazy people, addled drug addicts, disoriented people. They get assaulted (hence the stipulation I made about drugged and insane people), and yeah, they *are* trained to deal with that. It is just not training in "how to react to assault", it is "how to deal with a crazy person". Though they often don't get the professional development post-hiring training that they should get, and that good police departments get. So there is that.

Now, lets take a look at injuries delivered to police.

https://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/poli ... s-2014.htm

Non-fatal injuries among police forces strictly due to violence occured at a rate of 131.05 per 10k officers, double that of EMS workers, and 60 times the national average. Fatal injuries are much higher. There are approximately 840k EMS workers in the US, in a five year period there were 91 deaths, for a rate of fatal injury of approximately 18.2 per year, or 2.16 per 100k per year, distributed across all possible causes. For police, the rate is 13.5 per 100k, spread across all possible causes. Violence alone is 55.7% of that, or 7.5 per 100k per year.

If you think you can school me with statistics, you are incorrect.

The 2014 statistics for officers killed is just over a tenth of the purported number of people killed by the police. Doesn't sound like police are at especially huge risk, to me.

There are only 765 thousand sworn law enforcement officers in the US. There are, by contrast, 321.4 million people in the US. Risk of officer being murdered by suspects per year: 7.5 per 100k, risk of being killed by an officer (justified or not) in the US according to your own fucking numbers is .3 per 100k per year.

By the same token as not wanting to have friends and family who are police killed and then attend the funeral, how do you think it feels for people whose family members get killed by the police?

It fucking sucks, and the problem needs to be fixed. You don't fix it by making officers unsafe or putting them under threat of patently unjust prosecution though.

Anger is probably pushing my views to the extreme end, I admit.

Then take a deep breath, and think for five minutes.

I honestly do not know what can be done about the massive problems with police corruption without somehow breaking tribal mentality among the police. And make no mistake, hiding the wrong-doing of bad cops is corruption just as much as taking a bribe.

Most of the time, it is denial not an active cover up. No one wants to think that their buddy Steve murdered a dude. Most people, even police, will reflexively believe their friend and cover for them, without any kind of intentional wrong-doing whatsoever. Most of the time, it is not deliberately hiding physical evidence or anything like that. It is just stone-walling internal affairs. If you Can't Believe Steve Murdered a Dude, it is easy to think that IA are engaged in a witch hunt.

There are places where that sort of wrongdoing DOES exist (L.A., Baltimore, Chicago, and Fergusson to name a few), but all that is needed for that shit is baseline human normal behavior, and you can't break that without preventing police from interacting with each-other socially...

As for the Fraternal Order of Police... they are a union. They are doing their job when they go full Baghdad Bob to defend an officer. We can get into the reasons for their Trump endorsement... but ultimately it comes down to A) the fact that republicans have been running an elaborate shell game with police for some time (saying the right things while gutting public sector unions...) and B) the siege mentality discussed above. A change in rhetoric would go a long way to fixing that.

Serpico wasn't pulling shit out of its ass, resentment of police who try and do something about corruption is a real thing. Glorification of cops who violate due process or use excessive force is glorified in a lot of media.

Both of these need to change, yes.

Careful consideration- by a group that involves current LEOs, retired LEOs, non-LEOs-for what kinds of policies and training are necessary should happen. Independent investigation should be a thing, with full anonymity for police who wish to testify. I get that a certain degree of fear of speaking out can come from peer pressure or not wanting to turn your coworkers against you.

Full agreement here. What I would actually do is create a separate investigative branch of the state AG's office that has its own police specifically to investigate the police. Civil service branch, no elected officials. Like the NTSB for police, with powers of arrest. Most of the time, they would be doing after action and "what went wrong" investigations just like the NTSB does for plane crashes... but in the event of criminal liability, well...

I want bodycams on every cop, and the bodycams must be running every second the cop is on the clock. Doing anything to interfere with the operation of the bodycam should, in and of itself, be a criminal offense. KS has expressed a desire for bodycams. I've worked multiple places that video recorded me the entire time I was in the building and not in the restroom, customer service agents almost always are subject to audio recording on the phone. Because of the nature of police work, and because other professions are subjected to it, it is not onerous in the least for police to be held to this standard. Hell, it can help good cops that get accused of wrong-doing. It can help provide evidence, help track down cop-killers (and murder of the police is definitely a horrible thing that should be punished-I would argue more severely than most other murders)... It's a net win for everyone.

Also, full agreement.

I can't say I'm a fan of fining a police department, because often the expense gets passed on to tax payers. The guilty cop(s) don't really suffer for it. Punishment of the guilty individual(s) should be the focus. I also favor praise of police who go above and beyond, be it a risky situation or just giving a minor act of kindness.

Insurance policies paid out of a paycheck witholding are actually a really good idea, because the premiums incentivize a safety culture from the ground up without being directly punitive. Take advantage of the group identity that inevitably forms in a department to encourage them to self-police.

"This precinct has gone three years without an unjustified shooting, lets make it to 2022 and do better than those fuckups at precinct 4!", maybe have a fund set up to give a nice little bonus to well-performing precincts.

You deal with the cover-up incentive that provides by considering stonewalling and missing evidence a violation of best-practices for the purpose of insurance premiums.

[Flagg]

Yeah, let's give bonuss to pigs who do exactly what they're supposed to do! That sure won't encourage the corrupt bitches in blue from covering up even more unconstitutional bullshit in order to get a bigger bonus!

Penalize police who don't do their job, don't give bonuses to the ones that do.

Expecting personal attacks and whiny children saying I hate all police...

[Alyrium Denryle]

Yeah, let's give bonuss to pigs who do exactly what they're supposed to do! That sure won't encourage the corrupt bitches in blue from covering up even more unconstitutional bullshit in order to get a bigger bonus!

Penalize police who don't do their job, don't give bonuses to the ones that do.

Expecting personal attacks and whiny children saying I hate all police...

Given you are calling even the good ones pigs, sure! You've earned it!

You want institutional change? You have to create a system the police might want. Like with everything else, you use a carrot in addition to the stick. You want the police to *like* obeying Best Practice guidelines, or they won't fucking do it. You worry about covering things up? That is what independent oversight, audits, body cams, and anonymous whistleblowers are for.

[Flagg]

Yeah, let's give bonuss to pigs who do exactly what they're supposed to do! That sure won't encourage the corrupt bitches in blue from covering up even more unconstitutional bullshit in order to get a bigger bonus!

Penalize police who don't do their job, don't give bonuses to the ones that do.

Expecting personal attacks and whiny children saying I hate all police...

Given you are calling even the good ones pigs, sure! You've earned it!

You want institutional change? You have to create a system the police might want. Like with everything else, you use a carrot in addition to the stick. You want the police to *like* obeying Best Practice guidelines, or they won't fucking do it. You worry about covering things up? That is what independent oversight, audits, body cams, and anonymous whistleblowers are for.

And I've called for all of the above. But that gets willfully ignored by the bottom of the barrel mod crew of this half-dead (I know., I'm being generous, but I'm a nice person and can't help it) forum know that. Frankly if you institute a system the police want, nothing will change for the better and will get far worse. In you purpose a system that scares the shit out of police with their accesory to murder blue wall lawyers shitting their pants, then you are moving in the right direction. There is no valid argument against this. But I sure the mouthbreathers will try.

[Flagg]

Yeah, let's give bonuss to pigs who do exactly what they're supposed to do! That sure won't encourage the corrupt bitches in blue from covering up even more unconstitutional bullshit in order to get a bigger bonus!

Penalize police who don't do their job, don't give bonuses to the ones that do.

Expecting personal attacks and whiny children saying I hate all police...

Given you are calling even the good ones pigs, sure! You've earned it!

You want institutional change? You have to create a system the police might want. Like with everything else, you use a carrot in addition to the stick. You want the police to *like* obeying Best Practice guidelines, or they won't fucking do it. You worry about covering things up? That is what independent oversight, audits, body cams, and anonymous whistleblowers are for.

Yet you have that and zero gets done. Funny how that works, pig apologist.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Yeah, let's give bonuss to pigs who do exactly what they're supposed to do! That sure won't encourage the corrupt bitches in blue from covering up even more unconstitutional bullshit in order to get a bigger bonus!

Penalize police who don't do their job, don't give bonuses to the ones that do.

Expecting personal attacks and whiny children saying I hate all police...

Given you are calling even the good ones pigs, sure! You've earned it!

You want institutional change? You have to create a system the police might want. Like with everything else, you use a carrot in addition to the stick. You want the police to *like* obeying Best Practice guidelines, or they won't fucking do it. You worry about covering things up? That is what independent oversight, audits, body cams, and anonymous whistleblowers are for.

Yet you have that and zero gets done. Funny how that works, pig apologist.

What the fuck do you even mean? We don't have universal Best Practices guidelines, we don't have independent oversight, we don't have universal body cams or a fully anonymous whistleblower channel to an independent authority.

Politically, only some of these proposals are being spun up.

Frankly if you institute a system the police want, nothing will change for the better and will get far worse.

What percentage of police do you think are rotten to the core such that they don't want to see improvements to their profession?

In you purpose a system that scares the shit out of police with their accesory to murder blue wall lawyers shitting their pants, then you are moving in the right direction. There is no valid argument against this. But I sure the mouthbreathers will try.

Really? I have argued against this very position, and you have not done anything to actually refute it. You think an insurance scheme will encourage cover-ups, but don't think that throwing basic legal principles out the window is going to do that?

Also, are ALL defense lawyers accessories to murder, or only the ones who defend police officers?

[Flagg]

Given you are calling even the good ones pigs, sure! You've earned it!

You want institutional change? You have to create a system the police might want. Like with everything else, you use a carrot in addition to the stick. You want the police to *like* obeying Best Practice guidelines, or they won't fucking do it. You worry about covering things up? That is what independent oversight, audits, body cams, and anonymous whistleblowers are for.

Yet you have that and zero gets done. Funny how that works, pig apologist.

What the fuck do you even mean? We don't have universal Best Practices guidelines, we don't have independent oversight, we don't have universal body cams or a fully anonymous whistleblower channel to an independent authority.

Politically, only some of these proposals are being spun up.

Frankly if you institute a system the police want, nothing will change for the better and will get far worse.

What percentage of police do you think are rotten to the core such that they don't want to see improvements to their profession?

In you purpose a system that scares the shit out of police with their accesory to murder blue wall lawyers shitting their pants, then you are moving in the right direction. There is no valid argument against this. But I sure the mouthbreathers will try.

Really? I have argued against this very position, and you have not done anything to actually refute it. You think an insurance scheme will encourage cover-ups, but don't think that throwing basic legal principles out the window is going to do that?

Also, are ALL defense lawyers accessories to murder, or only the ones who defend police officers?

Same tired bullshit from same tired bullshiiter(s), yawn. If you apply standards to police similar to the standards applied to the US military as far asrules of engagement. Only stricter since the only war zones in the US are those designated by the cowards with a blue uniform who have an agenda and thus murder people based on it fail to comprehend (willfully) that I'm suggesting no less than a similar system. So if Deputy Dipshit Billy Bob shoots an African American despite that person being unarmed, Deputy Billy Bob gets put on trial for second degree murder, hopefully gets convicted and sent to make toilet paper and feces sculptures taken away and incinerated until they die.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Yet you have that and zero gets done. Funny how that works, pig apologist.

What the fuck do you even mean? We don't have universal Best Practices guidelines, we don't have independent oversight, we don't have universal body cams or a fully anonymous whistleblower channel to an independent authority.

Politically, only some of these proposals are being spun up.

Frankly if you institute a system the police want, nothing will change for the better and will get far worse.

What percentage of police do you think are rotten to the core such that they don't want to see improvements to their profession?

In you purpose a system that scares the shit out of police with their accesory to murder blue wall lawyers shitting their pants, then you are moving in the right direction. There is no valid argument against this. But I sure the mouthbreathers will try.

Really? I have argued against this very position, and you have not done anything to actually refute it. You think an insurance scheme will encourage cover-ups, but don't think that throwing basic legal principles out the window is going to do that?

Also, are ALL defense lawyers accessories to murder, or only the ones who defend police officers?

Same tired bullshit from same tired bullshiiter(s), yawn. If you apply standards to police similar to the standards applied to the US military as far asrules of engagement. Only stricter since the only war zones in the US are those designated by the cowards with a blue uniform who have an agenda and thus murder people based on it fail to comprehend (willfully) that I'm suggesting no less than a similar system. So if Deputy Dipshit Billy Bob shoots an African American despite that person being unarmed, Deputy Billy Bob gets put on trial for second degree murder, hopefully gets convicted and sent to make toilet paper and feces sculptures taken away and incinerated until they die.

You are not providing an argument or even a fucking response to what I am telling you. Do I need to bring in one of the other mods? I would rather not do that.

I could get flippant. In fact, I think I just might. ROE in Iraq were constantly changing, and varied from a "most strict" of "could not leave camp, even if you hear combat in the streets" to a "least strict" option of "could consider an armed man threatening enough to be shot if they were talking on the phone". Which rules of engagement are you referring to?

I could go on, but at this point you are not even making a pretense at rational argument.

[Flagg]

What the fuck do you even mean? We don't have universal Best Practices guidelines, we don't have independent oversight, we don't have universal body cams or a fully anonymous whistleblower channel to an independent authority.

Politically, only some of these proposals are being spun up.



What percentage of police do you think are rotten to the core such that they don't want to see improvements to their profession?



Really? I have argued against this very position, and you have not done anything to actually refute it. You think an insurance scheme will encourage cover-ups, but don't think that throwing basic legal principles out the window is going to do that?

Also, are ALL defense lawyers accessories to murder, or only the ones who defend police officers?

Same tired bullshit from same tired bullshiiter(s), yawn. If you apply standards to police similar to the standards applied to the US military as far asrules of engagement. Only stricter since the only war zones in the US are those designated by the cowards with a blue uniform who have an agenda and thus murder people based on it fail to comprehend (willfully) that I'm suggesting no less than a similar system. So if Deputy Dipshit Billy Bob shoots an African American despite that person being unarmed, Deputy Billy Bob gets put on trial for second degree murder, hopefully gets convicted and sent to make toilet paper and feces sculptures taken away and incinerated until they die.

You are not providing an argument or even a fucking response to what I am telling you. Do I need to bring in one of the other mods? I would rather not do that.

I could get flippant. In fact, I think I just might. ROE in Iraq were constantly changing, and varied from a "most strict" of "could not leave camp, even if you hear combat in the streets" to a "least strict" option of "could consider an armed man threatening enough to be shot if they were talking on the phone". Which rules of engagement are you referring to?

I could go on, but at this point you are not even making a pretense at rational argument.

I've provided a rational argument this entire time, your willfully ignoring it is the fucking problem. But since you're threatening to make this an issue with moderators, which I never win, by all means consider this a "go fuck yourself" and a concession because I don't need the headache. It's bad enough I flat out get accused of shit I didn't do in another thread with no recognition of the error or god fucking forbid an apology. I'm also unwilling to let vendettopaths like White Haven use my posts to pursue their issues with other members. So screw you guys, I'm going home. At least until tomorrow when another blue oinking coward blows away a minority for reaching for a pen to sign a speeding ticket.

[Kamakazie Sith]

And I've called for all of the above. But that gets willfully ignored by the bottom of the barrel mod crew of this half-dead (I know., I'm being generous, but I'm a nice person and can't help it) forum know that. Frankly if you institute a system the police want, nothing will change for the better and will get far worse. In you purpose a system that scares the shit out of police with their accesory to murder blue wall lawyers shitting their pants, then you are moving in the right direction.

Jesus man, you're just being carried away right now. It seems like you have other stuff on your plate that you're bringing into this discussion.

There is no valid argument against this. But I sure the mouthbreathers will try.

True. We all know how effective tough on crime laws have been. Clearly, that strategy will be just as effective against cops.

[Flagg]

Oh I'm sorry, did you not see the concession?

[Kamakazie Sith]

Oh I'm sorry, did you not see the concession?

Why do you think I care about such things? I do what I want. Never forget this.

[LadyTevar]

FLAGG? Take a Break from this thread. You too Alyrium.

[Terralthra]

Knoxville police investigating Charlotte woman’s complaint over officer pulling his gun
BY JOE MARUSAK
jmarusak@charlotteobserver.com
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Knoxville Police are looking into a patrol officer’s actions after a Charlotte woman said the officer kept her at gunpoint as she was changing a license plate on her newly purchased SUV.

[READ MORE: How buying a used car almost got me killed by an off-duty cop]
Tonya Jameson, 45, is a former Charlotte Observer reporter and columnist who worked at the paper from 1994 until late 2009. She covered police, courts, entertainment and general news, and launched the paper’s Paid to Party column.

The department will release no specifics about the complaint “until it has been completely and fairly investigated and all actions regarding the findings are resolved,” according to a statement

Jameson filed a complaint on May 8 against Officer Matthew Janish, saying he exhibited poor judgment and used excessive force in holding her at gunpoint, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported. “This is how people wind up dead,” she said, according to the newspaper.

The incident happened at the home of a woman in Jefferson City, Tenn., who sold the SUV to Jameson, the News Sentinel reported. The woman knew Jameson was going to the home but was not at home when Jameson arrived.

Jameson said she was removing the license plate to replace it when “I heard a voice behind me say, ‘I'm an off-duty police officer,’ ” according to the newspaper. “I turned around and realized he was holding a gun on me.”

The woman who sold the SUV to Jameson was the officer’s mother-in-law. He thought Jameson was trying to steal the vehicle, Janish told a dispatcher in a recording of the call he made to 911, the News Sentinel reported. Janish, who lives across the street from his mother-in-law, told the dispatcher he had a gun trained on Jameson.

Jameson said she told the officer that she had the vehicle’s registration in her bag and the keys in her pocket, but he wouldn’t let her move, she said. A Jefferson County sheriff’s deputy also arrived.

The incident ended when Janish finally got the seller’s daughter on the phone, Jameson said, and the daughter confirmed the car was sold to someone in North Carolina. “They let me go with a weak apology, and the typical, ‘There’ve been a lot of burglaries in the area,’ ” Jameson said.

“All of that talk about police de-escalating situations hasn’t reached Jefferson County, TN,” Jameson said in a blog in which she recounts the incident. “The Knoxville cop’s first inclination was to point a gun at me.”

A police spokesman contacted by the Observer declined to say whether police believe the encounter happened as reported by the News Sentinel. The department will release no specifics about the complaint “until it has been completely and fairly investigated and all actions regarding the findings are resolved,” according to a police statement.

Based on the preliminary investigation, Knoxville Police Chief David Rausch “has determined the officer’s work status remains unchanged,” according to the statement.

Janish has been a Knoxville officer since June 2006. “Officer Janish has never been the subject of an Administrative investigation or criminal investigation and has never received a counseling form or any other disciplinary action,” according to the police statement.

After investigation, the Knoxville Police have, unsurprisingly, determined that Officer Janish's off-duty actions were "lawful and proper".

Feel free to guess at Mz. Jameson's skin color.

[Flagg]

FLAGG? Take a Break from this thread. You too Alyrium.

Already happening.

[Napoleon the Clown]

First of all, apples to oranges comparisons.

Violence against EMS practitioners takes many forms. Most acts of violence are less than deadly. The risk of non-fatal assault resulting in lost work time among EMS workers is 0.6 cases per 100 workers a year; the national average is about 1.8 per 10,000 workers. Thus the relative risk of non-fatal assault for EMS workers is roughly 30 times higher than the national average. Over a five-year period during which 91 line-of-duty fatalities were identified, 10 (9%) were violence-related.1 The relative risk of fatal assaults for EMS workers is about three times higher than the national average.

The National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians (NAEMT) found four in five medics have experienced some form of injury as a result of the job. The majority, 52%, claimed to have been injured by assault. More than 20% ranked personal safety as a primary concern.2 Yet this issue is not widely discussed and not considered a priority by EMS executives, researchers, educators or practitioners. This attitude lies in stark contrast to those of our law enforcement and fire suppression colleagues, whose culture, training, equipment selection and daily activities focus first on survival. “Everybody goes home intact at the end of the shift” is deeply ingrained in the culture of the police and fire communities.

A majority (54%) of respondents to a recent survey of rural EMS practitioners reported they had not received any employer-sponsored training on dealing with potentially violent situations, although 25% said they had been physically assaulted while performing their duties.3 A study in Australia found that rural ambulance officers reported nearly twice the instances of violent encounters as their urban counterparts.4 Recent articles, papers and programs in Canada,5 the United Kingdom,6 France7 and Australia8 address this issue in a variety of ways and demonstrate that it’s a universal phenomenon.

Here you are quoting injuries and comparing them to deaths. Almost by-definition, EMS is going to deal with agitated crazy people, addled drug addicts, disoriented people. They get assaulted (hence the stipulation I made about drugged and insane people), and yeah, they *are* trained to deal with that. It is just not training in "how to react to assault", it is "how to deal with a crazy person". Though they often don't get the professional development post-hiring training that they should get, and that good police departments get. So there is that.

Now, lets take a look at injuries delivered to police.

https://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/poli ... s-2014.htm

Non-fatal injuries among police forces strictly due to violence occured at a rate of 131.05 per 10k officers, double that of EMS workers, and 60 times the national average. Fatal injuries are much higher. There are approximately 840k EMS workers in the US, in a five year period there were 91 deaths, for a rate of fatal injury of approximately 18.2 per year, or 2.16 per 100k per year, distributed across all possible causes. For police, the rate is 13.5 per 100k, spread across all possible causes. Violence alone is 55.7% of that, or 7.5 per 100k per year.

If you think you can school me with statistics, you are incorrect.

The 2014 statistics for officers killed is just over a tenth of the purported number of people killed by the police. Doesn't sound like police are at especially huge risk, to me.

There are only 765 thousand sworn law enforcement officers in the US. There are, by contrast, 321.4 million people in the US. Risk of officer being murdered by suspects per year: 7.5 per 100k, risk of being killed by an officer (justified or not) in the US according to your own fucking numbers is .3 per 100k per year.

Snipping the stuff where we pretty much agree.

My point with EMS/EMT stats is that they have a dangerous job, too. Not that they're as at high a risk as police.

Regarding the police killed vs civilians killed: Per police/civilian interaction, more civilians are killed than police. It is more likely that a cop will shoot you than you will shoot him during an interaction. (I will note I don't especially trust the 1000+ figure to be terribly accurate. I expect the actual number is somewhere south of that. But not by a full order of magnitude.)


I acquiesce to what LadyTevar has said, so this is a "get back on the response" reply, not one made where I'm expecting immediate response. Context suggests Tevar's "take a break" suggests to me that it's more directed at AD/Flagg interactions, but I fully respect any and all mod discretion on the matter.

[TheFeniX]

I just would like to point out one thing about comparing civilians killed by police and vice-versa: Even the FBI admits they know less than news outlets. Which is troubling from a government that tracks fucking everything.

“It is unacceptable that The Washington Post and the Guardian newspaper from the U.K. are becoming the lead source of information about violent encounters between police and civilians. That is not good for anybody,” he said.

“You can get online today and figure out how many tickets were sold to ‘The Martian,’ which I saw this weekend. . . . The CDC can do the same with the flu,” he continued. “It’s ridiculous — it’s embarrassing and ridiculous — that we can’t talk about crime in the same way, especially in the high-stakes incidents when your officers have to use force.”

He doesn't go far enough when talking about "how many tickets" as the MPAA tracks damned-near everything about it's audiences: race, age, viewing habits.

I mean, no one wants to end up a statistic, but imagine you didn't even make it that far after you were gunned down? You just... poof... and no one cared.

[Gaidin]

I just would like to point out one thing about comparing civilians killed by police and vice-versa:

He doesn't go far enough when talking about "how many tickets" as the MPAA tracks damned-near everything about it's audiences: race, age, viewing habits.

I mean, no one wants to end up a statistic, but imagine you didn't even make it that far after you were gunned down? You just... poof... and no one cared.

That's a kind of conundrum as it begs the question of whether individual police departments track such numbers and the comparison to the MPAA is faulty given how overarcing the Association is. It might require a whole new federal agency riding every law enforcement organization from the federal on down to the local to do anything useful.