George Floyd

MaeZe

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There are safety documentaries that show people who are afraid or hesitate to confront a superior leads to things like air crashes. For example:

Tipping Point author Malcolm Gladwell in his new book.
G: Korean Air had more plane crashes than almost any other airline in the world for a period at the end of the 1990s. When we think of airline crashes, we think, Oh, they must have had old planes. They must have had badly trained pilots. No. What they were struggling with was a cultural legacy, that Korean culture is hierarchical. You are obliged to be deferential toward your elders and superiors in a way that would be unimaginable in the U.S.

But Boeing (BA, Fortune 500) and Airbus design modern, complex airplanes to be flown by two equals. That works beautifully in low-power-distance cultures [like the U.S., where hierarchies aren't as relevant]. But in cultures that have high power distance, it's very difficult.

I use the case study of a very famous plane crash in Guam of Korean Air. They're flying along, and they run into a little bit of trouble, the weather's bad. The pilot makes an error, and the co-pilot doesn't correct him. But once Korean Air figured out that their problem was cultural, they fixed it.

Individuals can do this as well but it's a bit different situation, maybe off topic. But I can give you a first hand example because I have never been one afraid to speak up or afraid to take an action when no one else is moving.

When my son was young we had a party at Zones, kind of like a Chucky Cheeses but with more games, some that kids sit inside a booth to drive cars in a video game. The fire alarm went off. There was an alarm plus a strobe light. None of the staff reacted, they just kind of looked around.

Well I sure didn't! I told them that was the fire alarm and myself and the other parents started getting the kids out. It was a big place. I went to the different game booths to make sure anyone that couldn't hear the alarm got out.

When the fire department arrived they went to the upper level (street level on one side) because that was a furniture store. Street level on the lower level was Zones (building built on a hill). The alarm didn't tell the fire department which level the alarm was on. It was a minor delay but it could have mattered if we hadn't acted to get the kids out and the fire was worse. Turned out there was a ball stuck in the pitching machine in the batting cages and it was heating up from the friction, enough to start smoking.

You've got to speak up when you see something wrong even if that means speaking up to one's boss, or speaking up when your colleagues don't.

I have a slide I end some of my classes with. It's a comic of a bunch of lemmings headed for the water. (I know it's a myth.) One of them has an inner tube. I tell the class, don't let peer pressure stop you from speaking up. Don't know if it's an effective ending, I hope it is.

You have to speak up when you can see it is wrong.
 

Belle_91

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My best friend is a police officer. He told me today that what has helped him out more than anything as a police officer was that he used to sell cars. He says all police officers should have some expierence in customer service.

If you want to be a police officer, you have to work the holiday season at Target.
 

JJ Litke

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Yes. True. But where and when do you draw the line? Not always so simple. Conversely, if people disregard anything and everything their supervisors and leaders tell them, nothing gets done and there's chaos in the world.

I’m sure I must be misunderstanding you, because this seems as if you are justifying the idea that following orders that would be in clear violation of the law, the constitution, and basic human decency. You can’t really be suggesting that following such orders is preferable to the “chaos” that may ensue by behaving in a moral and ethical manner.

If police had orders that implied in any way it was acceptable to abuse people and leave them bleeding on the street, they have a moral obligation to defy those orders. If they do not have it within them to stand up to their own leaders in the face of such orders, they absolutely should not be in any position of authority, especially not as police officers. And anyone who defends their actions, as you surely can’t truly be doing here in spite of appearances, should go sit somewhere and reexamine their life choices and their entire moral framework.
 

frimble3

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Well, as ElaineA's clip shows, they seem good at obeying loud, firm orders. From anyone, it seems. So, maybe their bosses were either not specific enough, or too specific.
BTW, I wonder what would have happened if, at the end of whipping them into shape (and, why wasn't one of their own doing that?) he had said "Good job. DISMISSED!"
How many of them would have listened to that decisive, confident voice and gone home? Or at least, milled around awkwardly?
 

frimble3

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My best friend is a police officer. He told me today that what has helped him out more than anything as a police officer was that he used to sell cars. He says all police officers should have some expierence in customer service.

If you want to be a police officer, you have to work the holiday season at Target.
Part of the problem is that the police seem to be turning into a paramilitary force, instead of public servants. And, if you hire based on that, you get a lot of people joining who think of themselves that way, and are wanting to play soldier. Which makes the rest of us 'the enemy'. Being black, visibly different, just makes up for the fact that they can't get the populace to wear uniforms.
And, I suspect this is partly because of the use of patrol cars - the police ride through, in their own little bubble, no contact with actual human beings unless it's 'police business'.
And somehow it's gone from squad cars to military surplus equipment.
 

Bufty

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I'm not clear why these 57 officers resigned. They apparently only resigned from the riot squad - not the force. And was it because they objected to their colleague's behaviour or because the pay was suspended?
 

RedRajah

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Because pay was suspended, not for any actual pang of conscience.
 

ElaineA

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Anyway, in the specific situation at hand, I'd want to know what exactly the cops were told to do. What were their precise orders? Also, what was said by the victim and the cops involved right before the attack?

In any event, the Buffalo PD clearly needs to change its protocols and training.

I am assuming a good faith question here, and I can answer this. The mayor of Buffalo (a Black man, for context), came on the Rachel Maddow Show to defend his police force and "explain" how this team operated. They are trained, he said, to push forward, to stop for nothing and no one. They have medics embedded with the team. When someone is hurt, be it a member of the team or a protester, they are to call for the medic and continue forward. That is why we saw the one who had an attack of conscience be pulled upright.

This is how they're trained. As a paramilitary operation. And therein lies one very deep and abiding problem with policing in America. They have received some day-long tactical training, they receive the hardware of war, but they have not been trained as SOLDIERS. They lack the intense discipline--both physical and psychological--of actual military training, yet they are given all the tools to play with. They look at citizens of their cities/counties/jurisdictions as enemy combatants or worse, Call of Duty or Fallout opponents. Pixels they can blast away at.

This Black mayor of a conservative city sat on camera and said all of this (here is a piece of his interview). But I was struck by the very rote way he delivered his comments, as if he's had to defend them a lot. And at the very end of the interview, he rushed in a statement about how the police union was a real problem in Buffalo and then it ended abruptly. I turned to my husband and said, "That was like a hostage video, and that last line was the 'blink twice if you need help'."

Police forces across this country need to change their protocols and training. None of it will happen until the power of police unions, both political and internal, is decimated. Personally, I simultaneously believe America needs to re-unionize across multiple fronts, but that every single police union needs to be de-certified. The police work for the taxpayer, and we should not have to pay for this. Unless and until we strip power from the union, no real reforms are possible. All reasonable solutions to reform policing flow from making abusive policing a risk to the cop, not the taxpayer.

Once the house is swept clean, if cops need a union, we can revisit.
 

Lyv

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Law Enforcement Seized Masks Meant To Protect Anti-Racist Protesters From COVID-19

The Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) spent tens of thousands of dollars on the masks they had planned to send all over the country. The first four boxes, each containing 500 masks, were mailed from Oakland, California, and were destined for Washington, St. Louis, New York City and Minneapolis, where on May 25 a white police officer killed George Floyd, a 46-year-old handcuffed Black man, setting off a wave of protests across the country.

But the items never left the state. The U.S. Postal Service tracking numbers for the packages indicate they were “Seized by Law Enforcement” and urge the mailer to “contact the U.S. Postal Inspection Service for further information.”

How did the feds know what was in those packages? They've since released the masks, but this is some chilling stuff.
 

RedRajah

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I fear this may be a preview for mail-in ballots for November (that is, if there's actually an election).
 

Brightdreamer

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I fear this may be a preview for mail-in ballots for November (that is, if there's actually an election).

This whole thing - armed troops in the streets given implicit orders to treat civilians as hostiles, open violence on the press, ability to seize supplies at random for no reason and with no justification or consequences, brazen displays and abuses of power because they own all the judges and the police and everything, the bogeyman "antifa" as an excuse to target anyone they choose, even the threats to voting itself - feels like a dry run for the future.

Not even a dry run. Dipping their toes in up to the thighs...

And there are still too many people insisting that we can just sit tight and go home and we'll all be saved by (fill in the person or institution or election or realignment of astrological bodies)...
 

mccardey

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I am assuming a good faith question here, and I can answer this.
<<snip, but only because the post is just up there ^ >>
Once the house is swept clean, if cops need a union, we can revisit.

This is quite extraordinary. Thank you, Elaine. I hadn't understood your policing at all - in fact the second post in this thread was meant to signify how stupefying it is that a march against police brutality is labelled a "riot" and treated with well, police brutality.

For context, we had big protests marches down here yesterday, to echo and support yours, but primarily against the appalling treatment of Aboriginal people by many of our police down here, and to highlight over-incarceration of Aboriginal people, and deaths in custody. The night before the marches in my state, they were declared unlawful gatherings (due to coronavirus) - but the largely Aboriginal organising group and a lot of the marchers said they would go ahead anyway. There was all sorts of bluster by the chief of police and the police minister, but fifteen minutes before the start of the protest (which had tens of thousands of protestors on the street by that time) it was declared lawful after all, and senior police marched in solidarity up at the front.

A guy who turned up with an "All Lives Matter" sign got yelled at by a teenager and the police arrested the guy with the sign, but I think that was the only trouble. (Some people were tear-gassed hours after the march when they wouldn't leave Central Station, but I'm not sure what the details on that are, yet. We'll watch for more news there.)
 
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SAWeiner

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I’m sure I must be misunderstanding you, because this seems as if you are justifying the idea that following orders that would be in clear violation of the law, the constitution, and basic human decency. You can’t really be suggesting that following such orders is preferable to the “chaos” that may ensue by behaving in a moral and ethical manner.

If police had orders that implied in any way it was acceptable to abuse people and leave them bleeding on the street, they have a moral obligation to defy those orders. If they do not have it within them to stand up to their own leaders in the face of such orders, they absolutely should not be in any position of authority, especially not as police officers. And anyone who defends their actions, as you surely can’t truly be doing here in spite of appearances, should go sit somewhere and reexamine their life choices and their entire moral framework.

FYI. I have deleted my posts on the subject. I didn't think out things enough before posting--a bad habit of mine. This was exacerbated here since I then had to leave and couldn't delete until now, over 24 hours later.
 
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Kjbartolotta

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Went to the DTLA march on Saturday (6/6) and it is a wild scene. No instigators, no disorder, all the crusties/Black Bloc/ Antifa people were doing what they usually do at protests, which is show up and express support, while handing out water and literature. The BLM bikers were the best part, I wish I got footage because they were preposterously cool (especially the ladies). The Guard was there and 50% looked like they wanted to shoot us while the other 50 were trying their hardest not to drop their gear and join the march. We kneeled en masse for about 20 minutes in the middle of Downtown, and about a mile of the march was through a major tunnel and my mom will *never* forgive me if she knew I was doing that.

It was wonderful. It was also loud, somber, and intense, as someone with sensory issues it was *a lot*. Don't bring your dog.
 
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Introversion

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Video Shows Law Enforcement Officers Slashing Tires at Minneapolis Protests

Slate said:
A week ago, there were many reports out of Minneapolis that protesters, reporters, and even medics had found that the tires of their cars were slashed at some point during a night of protest. Witnesses said at the time that law enforcement officers had carried out the act. And now there is clear evidence to support that claim. Mother Jones located video footage that shows officers slashing tires at a highway overpass. The officers at the scene appear to be a mixture of state troopers and county police.

...
 

MaeZe

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Vandalism with immunity. And it's not just one, they're all there laughing about it if not participating. These cops are angry their colleagues are being charged with murder. That's the mentality. They feel they are entitled to murder without consequences so these BLM protests are personal in all the wrong ways.
 

Roxxsmom

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And it's not just police either.

A West Virginia fire chief is fired after making a number of inflammatory and inappropriate social media posts, including one of him wearing a tee shirt showing a car running over protesters with the caption "all lives splatter."

https://www.newsweek.com/west-virginia-fire-chief-martin-hess-george-floyd-protests-1508996

From which slime pit do these people spawn? It's scary it takes something like this to expose them.
 

Lyv

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Google Doc spreadsheet of police brutality incidents with links to videos, tweets, sound files. There are over 300 at the moment.

Minneapolis City Council announces intent to disband police department

A veto-proof majority of Minneapolis City Council members announced Sunday during a rally at Powderhorn that they are planning to disband the police department.

City Council members said they will invest in community-led safety initiatives instead of the police department.

"Our commitment is to end our city’s toxic relationship with the Minneapolis Police Department, to end policing as we know it, and to re-create systems of public safety that actually keep us safe," Minneapolis City Council President Lisa Bender said at Sunday’s community meeting.

And a man I screamed "bigot" at years ago on a cold, rainy November afternoon joined a protest and said, "Black Lives Matter." That man is Mitt Romney. I still think he's a bigot (that November afternoon he had a rally on the Massachusetts State House steps to oppose marriage equality, and if he thought it would help him politically, he'd do it again), but I'm glad he took a stand on the right side of an issue for a change, even if this, too, is motivated by political ambition (not saying it is, not saying it's not, just hope it helps some).
 

frimble3

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And it's not just police either.

A West Virginia fire chief is fired after making a number of inflammatory and inappropriate social media posts, including one of him wearing a tee shirt showing a car running over protesters with the caption "all lives splatter."

https://www.newsweek.com/west-virginia-fire-chief-martin-hess-george-floyd-protests-1508996

From which slime pit do these people spawn? It's scary it takes something like this to expose them.
But, not only are they being exposed, they're exposing themselves! Social media for the win! These swine are so sure of themselves, probably because they have been like this on social media with no consequences, that they will post their innermost selves.
And then, doubtless, act surprised when there are consequences.

Like cops beating people while they are being filmed. And, if there's a youngish person anywhere near you, you're being filmed and will shortly be on-line! Be aware. Better yet, be less of a swine.
 

MaeZe

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Bigot or not, I'm glad to see prominent Republicans publicly coming out saying they will be voting for Biden.

Mitt Romney
Colin Powell
Hopefully Mattus
 

MaeZe

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But, not only are they being exposed, they're exposing themselves! Social media for the win! These swine are so sure of themselves, probably because they have been like this on social media with no consequences, that they will post their innermost selves.
And then, doubtless, act surprised when there are consequences.

Like cops beating people while they are being filmed. And, if there's a youngish person anywhere near you, you're being filmed and will shortly be on-line! Be aware. Better yet, be less of a swine.

These are important points.
 

ElaineA

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We had a crowd-plower here in Seattle Sunday, as well. When protesters approached his car, he shot one through the car window, then got out and waved his gun around and ran for the police line, where he was absorbed without being taken down or a knee to his neck.

I still cannot look at that footage of the cops plowing the crowd in Brooklyn without a visceral, nauseous response. It absolutely gave a law-enforcement permission slip to these violent extremists, who took the message and drove with it. I'm disgusted.
 

Introversion

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Regards police reforms: If Congressional Democrats were smart, they'd learn a branding lesson from the GOP. It's clear that police forces must be rethought and rebuilt in the US, but "Defund the Police" is a terrible message. It's "bad branding". It allows people like Tucker Carlson to furrow his brow and ask with faux concern how Democrats can possibly be serious about wanting more women to be raped, more people killed, more kittens eaten alive?

No need to go full GOP and call it "Police Who Love Kittens and Black People and Jesus Too", but how about "Rebuild the Police" or "Police 2.0"?