> But the combination of the economic ills and social malaise lingering since the pandemic and soaring demand for metals, especially for copper, has brought this street crime to new levels.
Hmmm. There's something missing from this explanation.
While I don't think these reasons are wrong, we are being gaslit about some of the knock-on effects of our sudden cultural attitude towards our justice system that happened at this time.
Young people don't want to become police anymore and police don't want to police anymore.
Part of the original problem was too many of the wrong kind of people becoming -- or remaining -- police in the first place.
For example, we go through great lengths to ensure that doctors are suited to their job. Why? Because they have the power to kill people with their mistakes or poor judgement.
It's reasonable to apply that same high bar to police, who have much greater latitude in exercising that power, up to and including the power to kill their fellow citizens, than doctors do.
I don't think any young person who likes the idea of being able to walk around with a gun on their hip, being a police officer, anymore than I think any young person who likes cutting people open should become a surgeon.
The original problem is that news consumers and police spend the majority of their time scrutinizing the smallest and most radically terrible segments of each other's populations
The police in my western town began as a protection racket. Businesses wanted someone(s) to do something about drunks and brawling. So they deputized some bouncers. But they couldn't (wouldn't) pay much. So these newly minted cops got entrepreneurial. Then they branched out into prostitution. /1
Sheriffs in the South started as militia and slave catchers.
Texas Rangers started as body guards and quickly transmuted into a paramilitary unit to hunt and kill Comanche people.
Thru the North East and Rust Belt, the robber barons paid cops to violently suppress labor.
The solution needs to be some sort of "Teach for America" equivalent for police where non-traditional, college-bound candidates receive funding to be placed in under-served communities.
>Part of the original problem was too many of the wrong kind of people becoming -- or remaining -- police in the first place.
There are always going to be some bad actors in any profession. Being violent to an appropriate extent is part of being a cop. When billionaires fund social media psyops to convince people that their friendly neighborhood cops are out to get them, and they'd be better off without police protection, that distorts public perception of police performance.
Perceived problems with police need to be investigated carefully. Stirring the public into a frenzy every time some cop looks bad on video is harmful to everyone.
>It's reasonable to apply that same high bar to police, who have much greater latitude in exercising that power, up to and including the power to kill their fellow citizens, than doctors do.
No, it's not reasonable to expect police to go through a similar amount of rigor as a doctor. The job just isn't that complex, and there is nothing inherent about possibly killing people that requires a comparable amount of training. If being a cop did require such rigors, we couldn't afford to have police at all.
>I don't think any young person who likes the idea of being able to walk around with a gun on their hip, being a police officer, anymore than I think any young person who likes cutting people open should become a surgeon.
There's nothing wrong with walking around with a gun on your hip, whether you're a cop or not. I get what you're trying to say but there's only so much anyone can do to discern anyone's internal motivations for picking a career. As long as those motivations aren't evil or likely to interfere with their job performance, I don't care.
> There's nothing wrong with walking around with a gun on your hip, whether you're a cop or not.
I happen to think that there is.
If you have a gun on your hip you probably won't shoot anyone with a gun. But the chances of shooting someone with a gun are non-zero. If you don't have a gun on your hip, the chances of shooting someone with that gun are zero. I like those chances better.
(The 2A was good for its time and make sense in the context in which it was written; it has no place in today's world.)
On-duty police fatally shoot about 1,000 people every year.[0] That's in the US. Guess how many on-duty police in the U.K. or Japan fatally shoot every year? [1][2]
I always have to think of this one episode of A Touch of Frost I believe where a murdering gunman was on the loose in the UK. And it triggered this big mobilisation where suddenly all the cops had to be equipped with pistols. Because the typical cop would just have a billystick to go on patrol with.
At some point in time this stopped being normal. AFAIK nowadays every cop in Europe has a pistol on themselves. Surely that's not actually necessary ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
In such situations it's possible to bring in special police units with guns; that doesn't mean you now have to equip every bobby with one. Thankfully in the UK regular police still don't carry a gun (except for NI, but that's historical), and, unsurprisingly, the number of people killed by police in orders of magnitude lower than the US. And the UK homicide rate is 4 times lower than the US, which proves that having more cops with guns does _not_ reduce violent crime.
If you want to point to a single factor as having / not having an effect between 2 groups you need to account for other factors. You could setup a statistical model.
So to be clear, the fact that policemen in the US/UK do/don’t carry guns and have higher/lower crime rate doesn’t prove anything on its own.
> AFAIK nowadays every cop in Europe has a pistol on themselves. Surely that's not actually necessary ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Once even a small fraction of criminals starts to have guns and use those to kill cops to get away that becomes necessary, yes. Then once cops starts to have guns the criminals stops shooting them as much, the transition is very quick as once police has a gun the criminal risks his life by shooting, while before the police had guns the criminal was perfectly safe using his gun.
This transition happened in most European countries, but not all. And this costs basically nothing, the amount of deaths from police shootings in Europe is minimal even if you include warranted police shootings.
> Once even a small fraction of criminals starts to have guns and use those to kill cops to get away that becomes necessary, yes.
This is false. Police in the UK and Japan don't carry guns. And their violent crime rates are significantly lower than the US where police do carry guns.
Now granted, in the US everyone can carry a gun, so yeah, the police need them too. That's why the root of the problem is the fact that everyone, with minimal checks and balances, has the right to carry a gun and it's embedded into US culture as part of "being American".
Require insurance for gun owners, like we do for vehicles, and the problem largely goes away.
(Hardened criminals and gangs will always find access to guns, as they can in the UK or Japan. That's a separate issue that is conflated with but actually orthogonal to gun control and police carrying weapons.)
Also police in Sweden and almost all other European countries carry guns, and they have much less levels of violence than USA as well, guns are illegal yet still a very small fraction of criminals have guns. A police doesn't get to decide when they meet a criminal with guns, when they do the police really really need a gun, and they need the protection of the criminal knowing that the police has a gun.
There's a reason that you think the cops are friendly and other people don't. But the reason is not distorted media consumption. It's because the cops actually treat different people very differently.
Many people who are routinely harassed and abused by police would be similarly surprised to learn that you find them to be so friendly. What seems to you to be an elaborate psyop conspiracy to demonize the police is actually just ordinary people in different social circumstances from you showing what reality looks like in their position.
>What seems to you to be an elaborate psyop conspiracy to demonize the police is actually just ordinary people in different social circumstances from you showing what reality looks like in their position.
No, what I'm talking about is a very well-funded campaign with support from the richest people. They have little interest in you having adequate police protection. They are sabotaging each other and the public at large by making people think the problems with police are far more severe and widespread than they are.
this reads like pure conjecture; more importantly, a motivation is lacking. I don't like wealthly billionaires, but I do know they aren't afraid of the police (which can be paid off), so there's not really a motivation to rally the public to reduce police power.
It's not conjecture, you can see the minions of certain rich people talking about it. Of course these people aren't afraid of police. They have top police protection as well as private armed security. There are many ways to make money from destabilization of cities or countries. For example, you could play real estate in "distressed" areas, bet against businesses that can't possibly stay open in the face of crime, and also fund politicians that claim to have a solution to the problem you are creating.
A few years ago, a friend of mine taught creative writing and literature at a state college. Her class was one of the requirements for the criminal justice program. Just by observing the students, she could tell which ones were in criminal justice. Her observation was that the criminal justice students were, at best, bullies and had no respect for fellow students or teachers.
You're right. We don't have to have cops go through the same rigorous training as surgeons, but at least we should make sure that they are not sociopaths and have empathy and compassion for other beings (the cops, not the surgeons).
There's another problem though: if you only allow compassionate, empathic people to be police, you won't have any police in America. Those kinds of people don't want to be police, especially in a country with so much gun violence and much of the population armed and apparently having sporadic mental problems and where violence is such a normal part of daily life. It takes a "special" kind of person to want to be a cop in that kind of environment.
It's very different in peaceful, gun-free countries.
>It's very different in peaceful, gun-free countries.
You think gun-free countries have no criminals or violence? They certainly do, and it is often far more brutal because individuals cannot defend themselves from groups and knives are everywhere.
Spoken like an American who's never left his country, or even flown on an airplane. I live in a gun-free country, and it's quite peaceful, completely unlike America with all its mass shootings.
You've probably never been to America or shot a gun. I have been abroad to some of the most gun-free places in the world and I'm quite pleased with how we live in the US. There aren't as many shootings as the media would have you believe. The people at the top who cry about guns really just want you to be a helpless sheep. They have an imperative which is to maintain power, even if it costs you your life.
> There aren't as many shootings as the media would have you believe
Regardless of the media (and I agree TV news amplify all this stuff which is why we don't even have TV in our house), the statistics (not generated by the media) show much, much higher rates of homocide, both by individuals and police officers, in the US than any other industrialized country.
Regardless of you how you personally feel, the US is inherently statistically unsafe compared to other industrialized nations, especially wealthier ones like Japan, Switzerland, the Nordic countries, etc.
>Regardless of you how you personally feel, the US is inherently statistically unsafe compared to other industrialized nations, especially wealthier ones like Japan, Switzerland, the Nordic countries, etc.
That may be but I don't think homicide is common in the US, even if it is more frequent than elsewhere. 5 in 100k is not common. I don't believe guns are to blame. I also think there are other cultural factors in play as the US is very culturally diverse compared to Nordic countries or Japan. I would be interested to know the number and severity of drug addictions per capita before considering that.
Even reducing my risk of homicide from 5 in 100k to zero would not change my mind about guns. We need them to defend against all aggressors, even government actors. The police do not have a duty to protect you in the US, and even if they did they cannot be everywhere. People are quick to ridicule the idea that guns can protect you against the government these days but the logic is totally sound and has been proven again and again throughout history.
> People are quick to ridicule the idea that guns can protect you against the government these days
I think what happened in Waco TX showed that having a bunch of guns to protect yourself from the government is 1) ineffective, and 2) a really bad idea.
It made sense in the 1700s but those were different times.
Obviously one family or small group camping on their property cannot stand up to a seige by the government. But has there ever been a revolution without guns since they became common? You can hardly dream of any kind of resistance against real tyranny without guns. It is foolish to think that tyranny is a thing of the past, and that guns might not defend you or at least aid your escape from such a government. People are fighting tyranny around the world right now with guns.
I agree the US is not immune to tyranny—one need look no further than Trump for that , though thankfully the checks and balances of democracy held. My point is that 200 years ago civilians with guns could stand up to a tyrannical government as there wasn’t much else more advanced weaponry that would give the gov an unassailable advantage. Civilians would have no hope of a chance today regardless of how many guns they had. So the main original purpose of the 2A, which was necessary at the time, is no longer feasible. All that remains are the downsides of the 2A.
> we should make sure that they are not sociopaths and have empathy and compassion for other beings (the cops, not the surgeons)
Exactly. And to be clear. I wasn't suggesting that cops go through the equivalent of 10 years of college + medical school. But now they get, what, 2-4 months training, in some cases just straight out of high school? But even more important is the screening -- and that's a lot of what those years of the medical school process does.
>When billionaires fund social media psyops to convince people that their friendly neighborhood cops are out to get them, and they'd be better off without police protection, that distorts public perception of police performance.
You seem to make the point that the problem will be solved with more police, even though part of the cultural attitude you mention vs police has been a direct response to the militarization and brutality, yet at the same time indifference of the police force. The BLM movement was triggered by police brutality, but your take is that we need more and more active police?
> "Defunding" the police was an extremist, fringe position that hijacked the situation.
I think it sounded extremist and fringe, if you assumed it meant completely gutting their budget and placing police officers on a trebuchet aimed at the nearest shoreline.
But the actual "Defund the Police" proposal tried to shift some of that funding to non-armed responders, to better community services, and other things that have been proven to work better at improving outcomes and preventing crimes than a man with a gun showing up to deal with every conceivable scenario that someone found unpleasant.
Do you actually believe this NYT opinion article speaks for everybody on this topic or is that just convenient to the argument you're trying to make right now?
It reminds me of CX debate in high school. It was a pretty formalized thing, and to "defeat" an argument the other team had, all you had to do was come up with some citation to refute it.
Barely mattered what it was, it just had to be Good Enough for a judge (sometimes another high school kid who was grabbed out of the hall) to accept.
You're allowed to have your own mental idea of what a slogan represents, even if it doesn't match the varied and complicated reality of multiple people attempting to fix a wrong.
no proposal any political side wants will get anywhere without accountable police.
less beating of black men? accountability.
more convictions of thieves? accountability.
more presence in disorderly areas? accountability.
equality before the law? accountability.
Pick anything you want, any political position, and if the cops are unaccountable, its a dead letter. Except for one: no more cops.
"defunding" is, perhaps, the worst political slogan I've heard of in my _life_, as it implies yeeting the cops out of the city, with prejudice. Most people didn't want that. (Some did). So that was a cluster.
I think that all Americans need to step out of their houses and shake hands with their neighbors, look around, and realize we live next to each other, all of us. And we have to make this a society we can all live in, rather than griping online.
No one would even be talking about "needing better and more accountable policing" if "defund the police" as a position didn't shock people who have no reason to fear the police into realizing how dire the situation was for those who do. The "hijack" is walking back a revolutionary ideal to something palatable for the mainstream that doesn't threaten the status quo.
It isn't a false dichotomy, but simply a difference in interpreting what the core issue is. Some believe the police can't be reformed and can't be held accountable, because the core issue is systemic racism and white supremacy, and the only option is to tear the entire system down and rebuild it from scratch around truly anti-racist principles.
Obviously if you don't accept the thesis, you can't accept the conclusion.
This is true. More work a desk than anything anymore and when they are on patrol or driving too and from the station they try very hard not to look at anything. A horse with blinders on
The courts are a mess, people get 1 overnight and get back out. There are no penalties anymore for crime so we get this.
> Young people don't want to become police anymore and police don't want to police anymore.
For good reasons too! It F**ing sucks dealing with ALL the problems of a city. Ask me how I know!
None of us, first responders, are allowed/empowered to do our damn jobs. We have been effectively neutered by woke activists that think everyone is out to get them. All hell breaks loose when you ask, demand or otherwise force people to take responsibility for themselves and/or own their mistakes.
Believe me, I see it from both sides. We need police who are empowered to do their own jobs.
However...
> All hell breaks loose when you ask, demand or otherwise force people to take responsibility for themselves and/or own their mistakes.
The irony of this statement is that the entire collapse of trust with police in America was refusal for departments or unions to hold individual bad actors responsible. The reactionary response of police unions and the whole "thin blue line/sheepdog" attitude made it clear that also police don't want to take responsibility for mistakes.
The entire collapse of trust with police in America was the media narrative. "Brainwashing", to use a strong term. The overwhelming majority of police were fine the majority of the time. Doesn't make for a very good news headline: "Police carry out their job reasonably today, the same as the past X days."
> The OPA could not sustain any allegations against Belgarde because the four-year deadline for discipline established in the police guild contract had passed.
When police unions decide to protect the bad ones, it obviously reduces their credibility and hence society’s trust in them. Might have worked for decades in the past due to lack of information, but people know this stuff now.
If everything is as clear cut as that article contends, then why do they gloss over the 4 year gap between crime and an attempt to do anything? I would expect some sort of explanation. Pretty much everything has a statute of limitations.
I would rather err on the side of letting the guilty go free than convicting someone wrongly. Due process is more important than any individual crime.
Given the well known corruption and “professional courtesy” within police organizations, I would err on the side of a drunk driver avoiding punishment because they were police. Not only were they driving drunk, but they attempted to evade the police by speeding away. That would have landed anyone else in jail, so there was obviously corruption from the very beginning.
Their subsequent newsworthy act of aggression by the same cop this year also makes me err that way.
Sounds like it was one officers word against another. If there was a corruption aspect to this, I didn’t see proof of where it was. It might look a certain way from our point of view now, but at the time I’m not sure it was so clear.
I very much like the concept of innocent until proven guilty and I want “proven” to be a very high bar.
I didn’t research the details of this specific case, but the point is police unions are known to defend bad people who abuse power.
Also, the guy in the link above also has a 3rd incident in 2015 where he admits to assaulting someone and got a slap on the wrist. Also, it’s 2020, and cops have body cameras and police car cameras, so there presumably is evidence of a DUI. Highly unlikely that another cop pulled him over and cited him for nothing.
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Could you explain more about how first responders are not empowered at their jobs? I'm mostly curious if you see the cause as something local, or more like national policy that changes your ability to do your job.
I always find it amusing that everyone hates the police but no one hates the firefighters. They both save people lives, yet some are bastards and some are heroes.
They absolutely are empowered to abridge your civil liberties. Firefighters can break into your home, smash out the windows, cut holes in the roof and leave you with the bill without ever asking your permission. Not to mention what they can do to your vehicle it happens to be in the way of their engines. Then they and the city can prevent you from re-entering your home until they consider it safe.
Interesting point. Firefighters don't carry guns, so they can't literally shoot you, but they can probably take your property and run over your dog with just as much impunity as police.
So why is it the police are the only ones who are known for taking your property and killing your dog? Maybe the property-takers and dog-killers are naturally drawn to that profession more?
Maybe if so many people who have been granted significant authority over others, aka "police", hadn't abused their power over a long period of time, to the point of causing significant harm, including death, of presumed innocent people, those "woke activists" wouldn't be calling for limits on those powers.
These woke activists go by the term "community organizers," which is especially ironic considering how dysfunctional they make communities. Multicultural societies are easy prey for them.
No, because despite how effective the establishment has been at co-opting and poisoning the term, "woke" comes directly from the black activist community, and pretending that legacy and context doesn't exist and isn't relevant to the conversation would be... tone deaf at best?
"Wokeness," in the original intended sense - the sense for which people have given their lives in the streets and suffered the arbitrary brutality of American policing for decades, not the sense that incels and racist shitbags use for irony - is the entire point. As soon as your worldview and vocabulary erase the former and continue to normalize the latter you've become part of the problem.
But what about people with sleep disorders or narcolepsy?
Use of this word could be a microaggression causing them severe mental stress possibly leading to suicide!
And all because you wanted to keyboard social justice warrior! Which, BTW, has not helped, in any way, one person or thing yet and it does cause problems. Also not what this site is for.
I agree that the article is ascribing some meaning to the crimes that doesn't exist. It is simply that the offenders found out about this method of making money. Even though it's a pittance. Perhaps a better theory is simply lack of social safety net.
Hmmm. There's something missing from this explanation.
While I don't think these reasons are wrong, we are being gaslit about some of the knock-on effects of our sudden cultural attitude towards our justice system that happened at this time.
Young people don't want to become police anymore and police don't want to police anymore.