WTF is wrong with police in the U.S.?

Both were fired, one is going to prison. They got rid of the two idiots. I would be more interested in who the third person is and how he found himself in that picture. Was he a policeman also? What is the background as to why? Was he coerced? What is his story? Who took the picture? Another policeman?

Bottom line, the whole thing might be a symptom of an even deeper problem in that department.

Very bad taste, and even if it was an attempt at a political statement or criticism of police brutality (I seriously hope it was, since the black man in the picture presumably went along with it voluntarily), it was a darn clumsy and inept one.

But does it strike anyone else as strange that the men were fired for a picture that, as awful as it was, didn't actually kill anyone, yet police who kill unarmed civilians often get to return to work?

To be clear, only one was fired because of that picture. The other is in prison and has been for several years for actual crimes (he was a dirty cop). The picture was taken between 1999 and 2003, according to the article in the OP.

So the picture is really unrelated to recent events.

I don't really have much to say on the pik in the OP, but as to the question posed, this Vox article presents a fairly harrowing answer. It's written by a black ex-cop, and while I'm usually skeptical of things that claim to be the 'real truth' about anything, he presents an interesting (and relatively balanced, IMO) case.

On any given day, in any police department in the nation, 15 percent of officers will do the right thing no matter what is happening. Fifteen percent of officers will abuse their authority at every opportunity. The remaining 70 percent could go either way depending on whom they are working with.

Click to expand...

On any given day, in any police department in the nation, 15 percent of officers will do the right thing no matter what is happening. Fifteen percent of officers will abuse their authority at every opportunity. The remaining 70 percent could go either way depending on whom they are working with.

Click to expand...

Huh. Just like the population at large (though I think it's closer to 20-20-60).

Yep. Though at the risk of sounding like Don, given the power these guys wield, I really think we have a responsibility and a right to do a better job of ensuring that the police force we have is drawn from the correct 15-20%. Pipe dream, probably, but the alternative is what we have.

I saw this story on the local news. As robvowels mentioned, it's old. ABC here in Chicago said 15 years old.

This is awful. No doubt. But not current.

A more current example is the Black Monopoly board meme uncovered in the Miami Police Department.

Edit: link

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/m...al&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

raburrell said:

I don't really have much to say on the pik in the OP, but as to the question posed, this Vox article presents a fairly harrowing answer. It's written by a black ex-cop, and while I'm usually skeptical of things that claim to be the 'real truth' about anything, he presents an interesting (and relatively balanced, IMO) case.

[/FONT][/COLOR]

Click to expand...

Thanks for the link, raburrell. It was equal parts sobering as it was horrific.

And no matter what an officer has done to a black person, that officer can always cover himself in the running narrative of heroism, risk, and sacrifice that is available to a uniformed police officer by virtue of simply reporting for duty. Cleveland police officer Michael Brelo was recently acquitted of all charges against him in the shooting deaths of Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams, both black and unarmed. Thirteen Cleveland police officers fired 137 shots at them. Brelo, having reloaded at some point during the shooting, fired 49 of the 137 shots. He took his final 15 shots at them after all the other officers stopped firing (122 shots at that point) and, "fearing for his life," he jumped onto the hood of the car and shot 15 times through the windshield.

Not only was this excessive, it was tactically asinine if Brelo believed they were armed and firing. But they weren't armed, and they weren't firing. Judge John O'Donnell acquitted Brelo under the rationale that because he couldn't determine which shots actually killed Russell and Williams, no one is guilty. Let's be clear: this is part of what the Department of Justice means when it describes a "pattern of unconstitutional policing and excessive force."



Nevertheless, many Americans believe that police officers are generally good, noble heroes. A Gallup poll from last year asked Americans to rate the honesty and ethical standards of people in various fields: police officers ranked in the top five, just above members of the clergy. The profession — the endeavor — is noble. But this myth about the general goodness of cops obscures the truth of what needs to be done to fix the system. It makes it look like all we need to do is hire good people, rather than fix the entire system. Institutional racism runs throughout our criminal justice system. Its presence in police culture, though often flatly denied by the many police apologists that appear in the media now, has been central to the breakdown in police-community relationships for decades in spite of good people doing police work.

Click to expand...

And the people who need to read it the most will likely dismiss it outright or not read it at all. Ignorance is so blissful.

Roxxsmom said:

But does it strike anyone else as strange that the men were fired for a picture that, as awful as it was, didn't actually kill anyone, yet police who kill unarmed civilians often get to return to work?

Click to expand...

Unarmed doesn't mean harmless. Why should an officer lose his job over a justified shooting?

On any given day, in any police department in the nation, 15 percent of officers will do the right thing no matter what is happening. Fifteen percent of officers will abuse their authority at every opportunity. The remaining 70 percent could go either way depending on whom they are working with.

Click to expand...

That's not my experience at all. Twenty years ago, when he actually was a cop, I could see this being reasonably accurate, but policing has changed a lot in the last years. Hiring practices have changed. The pool of applicants has changed. The vast majority of officers I know are incredibly idealistic.

"The remaining 70 percent " <-- is how you ended up with Nazi Germany, IMO.

A sobering thought about our fellow humans.

I love this thread title, because I find myself asking the same thing every single time I see a news story involving US police.

The Vox article was really fascinating, and rings true about a lot of things in life: most people are easily swayed, and if bad eggs get into power the effect can be catastrophic.

asroc said:

Unarmed doesn't mean harmless. Why should an officer lose his job over a justified shooting?

Click to expand...

So to your mind, Officer Brelo's Dirty Harry act of jumping on top of the hood of a car hood and firing 15 rounds into two unarmed suspects is justified because he didn't know they were unarmed and therefore might not be harmless?

From this citizen's point of view it looks like some trigger-happy cowboy shit. Everything which can be "justified" isn't just.

asroc said:

That's not my experience at all. Twenty years ago, when he actually was a cop, I could see this being reasonably accurate, but policing has changed a lot in the last years. Hiring practices have changed. The pool of applicants has changed. The vast majority of officers I know are incredibly idealistic.

Click to expand...

In other words, your experience is as anecdotal and limited as Mr. Hudson's experience.

Even if policing has changed a lot over the last years and hiring practices and applicants have changed and most officers are idealistic, idealism gives way to skepticism and cynicism. Hiring practices and the pool of applicants may change, but human beings have not.

Cops come from the same world the rest of us do and carrying the same baggage.

nighttimer said:

So to your mind, Officer Brelo's Dirty Harry act of jumping on top of the hood of a car hood and firing 15 rounds into two unarmed suspects is justified because he didn't know they were unarmed and therefore might not be harmless?

From this citizen's point of view it looks like some trigger-happy cowboy shit.

Click to expand...

From this citizen's point of view it does, too. That doesn't mean that's the case every time a cop shoots an unarmed person.

nighttimer said:

In other words, your experience is as anecdotal and limited as Mr. Hudson's experience.

Click to expand...

Yes, that's my point. His experience is as anecdotal as mine. The article is not evidence of anything.

asroc said:

From this citizen's point of view it does, too. That doesn't mean that's the case every time a cop shoots an unarmed person.

Click to expand...

Yeah, but only because "most of the time" isn't the same thing as "every time." The FBI and Justice Department don't keep track of police shootings, so there is no national database for those statistics. What we do know is rare are the instances where a shooting incident is not ruled "justified."

One of the many disturbing facts that have come to light in the weeks since Michael Brown was killed by a police officer is that for all the crime data tracked by the government, there is no central record kept of law enforcement use of deadly force. Individuals and groups have been making their own databases, but a citizen would need to file open records requests to learn about his or her community.

You may have asked yourself, “Was Michael Brown’s killing lawful? And could an unlawful shooting happen in my hometown?”

Well, good news, if you live in Houston. The Texas Observer has looked at the numbers and the answer is, no. Your police force cannot wrongly shoot you.

It just doesn’t happen. Well, deadly police shootings do happen in Houston at an average of one every three weeks. But none of them is inappropriate. Every shooting by a Houston Police Department officer is investigated by HPD’s Internal Affairs and Homicide divisions. Between 2007 and 2012, according to HPD records, officers killed citizens in 109 shootings. Every killing was ruled justified.


The 112 instances of an officer shooting and injuring a person were justified, too.

So were the 104 times an officer wounded an animal, and the 225 times an officer killed an animal.

There were 16 shootings found “not justified,” but they were all ruled accidental.

Click to expand...

It's not only the nation's fourth largest city where a cop is never wrong if he shoots a civilian. It's no different in Tacoma, Washington.

In the past 10 years, officers from Pierce County law enforcement agencies have killed 36 people.
All were fatally shot after tense confrontations. Some were in cities, some in the county’s unincorporated suburbs and outskirts. All but three of the people shot were men. Most (27) were white. Four were African American.


No involved officers were charged with crimes in connection with the incidents. All the shootings were deemed justified under state law, after multiple independent reviews and formal findings from Pierce County prosecutors present and past.

On its face, the tally is a clean score: 36-0 – every single shooting, every single fatality, justified and not a crime, according to public records.

Is it fair? Is it right? Is it legal?

Click to expand...

However, the song doesn't remain precisely the same in my hometown.

Gun in hand, the officer ran between houses on the South Side, chasing a man who’d just tried to hit another officer with a stolen car and now was running away.

Officer Anthony Sebastiano was running at full speed when he saw David Richardson slow and reach toward his waistband. Richardson locked eyes with the officer, who thought he was going to get shot for the second time in less than 18 months.

“At that point, it was my understanding that he had already hit an officer,” Sebastiano told an investigator two weeks after the Aug. 30, 2012, shooting. “It just seemed at that point he had no regard for anybody’s life.”

In fear for his own life, as he later told a detective, Sebastiano fired one shot at Richardson. He missed, then fell. Other officers found and arrested Richardson about 100 yards away. He didn’t have a weapon.

Almost a year later, an internal-review board ruled that Sebastiano made the wrong decision, according to Columbus Police Division policies. The commanders on the review board voted 2-1 that he should not have pulled the trigger.

The policy they cited says that officers can use deadly force only when it’s reasonable to protect themselves or others from imminent death or serious physical harm.

The commander in the minority said Sebastiano made a “split-second decision during a tense and rapidly evolving situation.” But the chain of command agreed with the majority, and Sebastiano was suspended without pay for 16 hours.

Such an outcome — a decision by police brass that an officer wrongly fired at someone — is rare. Since 2004, Columbus officers have been involved in 174 shootings. Of the 160 in which there have been rulings, all but 10 have been ruled within policy. Fourteen others have yet to be ruled on, the oldest from April 2013.

Click to expand...

Without the statistical evidence to back up the assertion most applications of deadly force are justified, it's a bit presumptuous to state it as an unassailable fact. Personally, I believe most police shootings are indeed justified.

"Most" is not "all." And therein lies the heart of the matter. If Michael Slager had not been filmed shooting the fleeing Walter Scott, then dropping his Taser by Scott's body, it almost certainly would have been dismissed as a justified killing.

Where's the justice in that?

asroc said:

Yes, that's my point. His experience is as anecdotal as mine. The article is not evidence of anything.

Click to expand...

I disagree. I think it's evidence of quite a lot.

The article provides a perspective typically absent from these debates: that of an African American law enforcement member. That makes Hudson's experiences extremely interesting to me. While his "70 percent" number is purely anecdotal, I doubt the estimate is completely erroneous.

Hudson doesn't only present problems. He offers possible solutions to bring about greater transparency and accountability in the police. That's also valuable.

nighttimer said:

Without the statistical evidence to back up the assertion most applications of deadly force are justified, it's a bit presumptuous to state it as an unassailable fact. Personally, I believe most police shootings are indeed justified.

"Most" is not "all." And therein lies the heart of the matter.

Click to expand...

I don't believe I stated that as an unassailable fact. "Most, not all," was actually supposed to be part of the point I was trying to make. The question was whether it was strange that most officers who kill an unarmed person get to go back to work, and my answer was that it's not. The implication is that if the shot person didn’t actually have a weapon the shooting must automatically be unjustified, but that's often not the case. Now, if every single shooting was always considered justified, that would be strange, but that's not the case either.

I don't think Hudson is generally wrong. His insight certainly has value, but perspective and potential solutions are all great things, but they're still not evidence. Statistics and data is evidence. If an op-ed doesn't present evidence but only anecdotes and opinions, I'm skeptical. They may be valid but I wonder what exactly the author's intent is. Does he want to educate, or shape public opinion? And how many people will consider it evidence anyway, and base their opinion on it, because it confirms their bias? It's too easy to jump to incorrect conclusions, which, IMO, is not just unhelpful but potentially dangerous.

I'm not denying that the problem exists. There are a lot of horrifying instances of police misconduct; Walter Scott, Tamir Rice, the Brelo case... But it's not the default and the current public narrative implies it is. If you only go by what's reported in the media it's easy to believe. But the media caters to biases. They report what they think is news and what people want to hear. Yet for every instance of police brutality there are tens of thousands of cops who just do their jobs. And many of them will, when they come across misconduct, do something about it. Most of those cases aren't overly outrageous, it's generally not interesting and also bad PR, so there won’t be any press releases, but the bulk of complaints our IAD investigates comes from other cops. But you don't hear about that.

My problem with these kinds of debates is the lack of nuance. Whether it's police brutality, systemic racism, militarization or gun control. Those are all real problems, but all too often it's presented as black and white. One side vs. the other. The reality is somewhere in between, but it gets buried under a mountain of catchy rhetoric, selective bias and faulty generalizations, obscuring the actual problem and making it difficult to impossible to come to solutions. We are all biased in some way and it's hard to be objective, especially when the subject is so emotionally charged. I can't claim objectivity myself; my hometown police has, over the past two decades or so, changed from a pretty corrupted cesspool to, IMO, one of the most professional and restrained large police departments in the country, I work with them every day and many of my friends and family are or were members of that police department, including my husband and my mother. If I lived in a place with a worse PD I'd probably have an easier time being outraged. But I don't, so I feel the need to defend the people I love when they're subject to unfair generalizations based on insufficient evidence. The thread title condemns all 800,000 American police officers based on two morons who already got fired. But you can't judge the character of many by the actions of few, especially if the actions of the few are the only thing you ever hear about. It creates stereotypes. It dehumanizes an entire group of people and creates a needless 'us-vs.-them'-mentality. That’s not going to lead to anything but violence.

Trying to find the newest thread to discuss this. The Guardian has been looking into putting together numbers of those killed by police officers in the US. Looking through the Guardian's numbers:

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...un/01/the-counted-police-killings-us-database

464 people killed by police officers so far in 2015. Number has been badied about: blacks are three times more likely to be killed than whites. But what else can be gleaned? I took a look at the by-state numbers.

The unit here is the anno-lakh, or 100 000 people per year.

On the death penalty:

There appears to be some association with the sanctioning of the death penalty.

States with death penalty before June 2015: 0.40 per 100 000
States with no death penalty before June 2015: 0.23 per 100 000

On gun sales:

The association with gun control is less obvious:

States with a formal regulation on the sale of firearms before June 2015: 0.37 per 100 000
States with no formal regulation on the sale of firearms before June 2015: 0.30 per 100 000

The death penalty sticks out quite a bit. If the general population is willing to accept the finality that is conferred by the death penalty via juries, that cops would be more willing to exercise that finality themselves. Will have to wait until more data is collected for that observation to bear out but I thought it might be something worth to consider.