The one time I was arrested (for illegal use of a roadway during a protest), during the post arrest search of my belongings, the cop searching made some comment about something in my bag and I turned my head (I was facing a wall) to reply, for which he immediately shoved my face back into the wall and said "You're not allowed to move - my safety is more important than yours". Keep in mind, this is in a police station surrounded by other cops, he already body searched me, and I was a 5'10, 120 pound nerdy teenager.
Of course, this is just an anecdotal, singular data point, but it strongly accords with the sense I get watching videos of police shootings that many if not most police officers today are in fact trained to put their safety and the safety of their fellow officers above that of civilians.
It is a collection of dashcam/bodycam videos of US police involved in some kind of shooting/assault. They are not edited down to fit a news report so videos usually last 10-30 minutes. Some show cops stealing money/drug from suspects and US media actually showed such clips in news reports. But lots of the videos show actual circumstances leading up to shooting by police. Some clips show cops getting shot at by suspects. And even some getting killed. I have a whole new perspective on cops after watching the videos.
I have a relative who was arrested (due to his own fault) and got roughed up by police and he HATES cops. And I kinda used to shared his sentiment.
But after watching the clips on the channel, I feel somewhat less animosity.
When scums of earth are around, most of us have a choice of moving away. But these cops don't have the choice.
Why wouldn't they? They do have a choice. Of course it's more complicated than simply saying that, but it's ridiculous to suggest a cop doesn't have a choice in where they work or live or even the field in which they work. Being a cop is not compulsory and even offers more opportunities for movement than many other professions.
I was actually watching a bunch of videos on this very channel the day before last. And I totally agree with your characterization of it. It did make me more sympathetic to cops as individual people with hard jobs, seeing all the crazy bullshit people put cops through on a daily basis.
But it doesn't negate my critique that there's a systematic flaw in the way police are trained. I don't hold the individual cops to blame for acting as they've been trained. but in watching a lot of the videos I get the sense that because of the warrior mentality of the cop, they simply cannot allow themselves to opt for the de-escalatory path, because they think failing to dominate a situation will put themselves at risk. Which may be true in many of the situations!
But why is this? Why are there criminals who are willing to initiate gun violence against police, despite the overwhelmingly bad odds against that ending well for them?
It's a complex question, but I suspect one significant factor is because they have also been trained indirectly by the warrior mentality of other police they've encountered or observed. I think it's fair to say almost all people who pull guns on cops are not having their first brush with the law. They know that once a encounter with a police officer becomes adversarial, the only possible outcomes are: suspect in custody, suspect dead, or suspect escaped by incapacitating the officer. People hate to lose control, and being seconds away from indefinite, total loss of control over your life on the shoulder of a road creates a situation quite analogous to the first strike problem in nuclear strategy. Except unlike in potential nuclear conflicts, the initial deployment of force is a very common eventuality so the perceived need for counterforce is that much higher.
Now admittedly, the warrior mentality isn't the root cause of this dynamic - criminals on the run would still have a first strike incentive during encounters with police, but the presence of a warrior officer ratchets up the potential for escalation nonetheless, because the criminal is now credibly worried about losing their life in addition to losing their freedom.
I don't know where to go with this, but, the point I wanted to make is we can both maintain respect for police as individuals and critique the aspects of police institutional culture that exacerbate these problems.
Cops act like thugs because the overwhelming majority of people they arrest/hassle/shoot are guilty. Period.
However, this does not justify any of the collateral damage to the ones who are innocent - the scales of justice are not a probability distribution! The entire point of the rule of law is to have a clear dividing line between the acceptable and the unacceptable - every innocent person assaulted by the police is a victim of a freshly-committed crime, and should be entitled to (at the very least) civil recompense.
I 100% agree with your second paragraph but as for the idea that most people hassled by the cops are not guilty, well publicized stop and frisk statistics in NYC indicate the opposite. Besides, why does that even matter? Even if most alleged perps are guilty of something, that "something" isn't usually a violent crime, it's a traffic violation or public drinking or selling pot or a minor domestic disturbance. And I would argue that cops should not act like thugs in any circumstance. That comes from the attitude that asserting control over the situation is more important than protecting and serving the citizenry as the cop was hired to do. It comes from the attitude that some people are intrinsically less worthy of protection than others.
In the case of this SWAT call, the cops had plenty of time to secure their own safety and to wait out the hostage taker. First and foremost they did not even confirm what the situation was before rushing to action. And now the citizen is dead.
My first paragraph wasn't describing what ought, but what is.
> stop and frisk statistics in NYC indicate the opposite. Besides, why does that even matter? Even if most alleged perps are guilty of something, that "something" isn't usually a violent crime, it's a traffic violation or public drinking or selling pot or a minor domestic disturbance
Without refuting either of these points, I stand by the intuition of my comment. Stop and frisk seems more like an exception that proves the rule, showing just how bad the narrative of "good guys" "inspecting subjects" has gotten.
> That comes from the attitude that asserting control over the situation is more important than protecting and serving the citizenry as the cop was hired to do
I totally agree - focusing on their desire for control, and the injustice committed when they demand that control over an innocent person, is a good way of analyzing it.
> the case of this SWAT call, the cops had plenty of time to secure their own safety and to wait out the hostage taker. First and foremost they did not even confirm
IMHO, the "in-situation" framing is heading down the wrong path. Primarily worrying about what the police department policy is, how much of a paid staycation a murderer will get, etc is buying into the corrupt idea that cops aren't subject to the laws themselves. Under the actual rule of law, murderers go to prison no matter what costume they wore. And if policy department policy encouraged/defended the murder, we call that conspiracy.
> You realize that judging acts is not within their domain and sphere of interest, right?
Wat? Judging acts is in the "domain and sphere of interest" of any person.
Please note (if you can avoid shooting from the hip) that I'm making this point to criticize police overreach - even a perfectly "clean slate" cop with no peer pressure will develop a bias towards thinking of everybody as a criminal! Similarly, a cop that lives in a White community and works in a Black neighborhood is going to find it awfully hard to not develop a bias of thinking Black people are more likely to be dangerous. (and, in case it's not clear, vice-versa)
If you cannot bear to entertain thoughts like the above, then you really aren't interested in analyzing the problem. Because all of the "training" in the world isn't going to counteract a bias that is reinforced every single day!
What is needed are actual real incentives to not murder people, but fortunately this is a pretty old problem. Apart from responding to a rare overt attack (eg aiming a gun or charging the cop), any cop that shoots someone is themselves committing a crime (somewhere between voluntary manslaughter and second degree murder) - undermining that very "law and order" that police purport to uphold! The routine and casual corruption that allows these crimes to go unpunished needs to be rooted out.
A ride-along is easy to arrange, that’s true. I’ve had the chance to take advantage of the opportunity a few different times. Twice with officers from the LAPD (Rampart and Olympic divisions), and once after I moved back to the East Coast when I spent three hours riding with officers from the Loudoun County Sheriff’s department.
Perhaps my experiences were exceptional examples and everywhere else across the United States, a majority of LE interactions are between officers and “guilty” people, but that’s not what I saw.
I’m open to the possibility, of course, but I’d still like to see a citation backing up the statement I was responding to.
Of course, this is just an anecdotal, singular data point, but it strongly accords with the sense I get watching videos of police shootings that many if not most police officers today are in fact trained to put their safety and the safety of their fellow officers above that of civilians.