Emotions get the better of people. It happens all the time. What they needed was a superior commander to come in and order them to stop. This was the lesson learned with Rodney King in Los angeles so many years ago. It's a true shame that the same mistakes get repeated over and over again.
Sounds about right. There seems to be an underlying belief by many police that they have some right to mete out their own perceived justice— human nature not curbed by training or supervising or even body cams
Oh no, there is training. Specifically there are courses that tell police that every interaction may be their last and they should be ready to shoot anyone immediately.
Oh I know, I just didn’t want to have to search for sufficient citations as you did - I assumed in the absence of such id have a bunch of pro police at all cost assholes saying I was making shit up :-:
It's this. The only reason why they're not getting away with this murder is because they got filmed in such an unambiguous way that barely anyone can defend their actions. There is no 'remaining context' or 'he was asking for it' wriggle room for neither the police organizations or their defenders.
The fact that it wasn't just one cop but an entire group of them should also indicate that this isn't just one guy going rogue. It's a systemic problem.
We’ll see if they go to jail: the la riots were the result of a jury saying that Rodney king deserved his beating.
Personally I think the most effective step would be to make funds for civil payouts come out of police retirement and overtime budgets. Relying on policing of the police stopping anything is unlikely: just last year a group of police murdered the officer who was investigating them, and had no meaningful consequences.
Most effective would be to remove the USSC policy of qualified immunity, which USSC basically made up in the 1970s. It makes it ridiculously difficult to successfully sue for damages.
The States could start to change this, but that would require activists to stop the racial arguments and go after the State laws.
What’s absurd is not only was QI completely invented, but that police apparently successfully argue “I didn’t know that I wasn’t allowed to break the law”, “I thought the law says being a police officer means you can beat people to death”, etc
Yep. Imagine they beat Tyre only 20% as badly. He didn't die, but it was still a brutal beating. Would anything have come of it? The only punishment comes when cops go many levels beyond what is already grossly unacceptable behavior, and even then this punishment is far from guaranteed.
It's culture. Everyone has "emotions" but, at least in my country, police officers don't regular beat/choke/shoot hundreds of people to death each year.
Most countries (of which I am aware) have similar issues, in proportion to their population, and its diversity. What makes the USA stand out is that it has a large population, high level of cultural/economic diversity, and very sensationalistic, highly funded media.
Maybe you should check again, the US has around 28 police killings per 10m people. Far more than any other 1st world country. For example the UK has 0.5 / 10m.
But if your main argument is saying that police everywhere are terrible Id agree.
The US also has around 6x the intentional homicides per capita, compared to the UK. That should probably be taken into account, since a more violent population means police have to use lethal force more frequently.
So .. you're saying that the US population is more intrinsically violent than the UK population with a few thousand years of clan warfare and civil unrest, more violent than the New Zealand population of Maori warriors and colonizing invaders, more violent than the Australian population of criminals, soldiers, and aboriginals, etc?
It's pretty basic.
More violent policing leads to a violent population.
Lack of social support leads to a more violent populations.
Stop making excuses and look to root causes - why are there so many intentional homicides in the US? Perhaps predatory capitalism extending a slave economy isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Damn, dude, you literally could not be more wrong. I suggest that you are very much unaware and owe it to yourself to become much, much more aware. It’s pretty easy, too: there’s this thing called “the internet” that you can use to self-educate.
Ya this is utterly untrue. The US has orders of magnitude more police violence than most other developed nations. British cops don't even have guns ffs.
If you are mad at somebody at work and you hit them a little bit that is egregious and completely unacceptable behavior that should end your career and is an actual crime. Even just hitting somebody a little bit is wildly off base for ordinary and healthy human interaction when angry.
Beating somebody to death is many levels of escalation beyond that. You don't need a superior to tell you not to do that. I am extremely confident that there will be exactly zero situations in my entire life where I am so angry at somebody that I even want to beat them this badly, let alone actually act on it.
This is about police institutionally seeing the populace as inhuman worms who deserve to suffer. This is not about emotions running wild.
> If you are mad at somebody at work and you hit them a little bit that is egregious and completely unacceptable behavior
The difference is that under no circumstances does an office job require violent interaction where as for a police officer, their job does sometimes require violent interaction. And in that sense, what these officers did is even worse and should be punished worse than if an office worker used the same violence: we empower police officers to use violence to intervene when necessary. We give them weapons and leeway to use force. To take advantage of that power could arguably be considered worse that if a civilian does it.
A police officer's job only very rarely requires a violent interaction. A reckless driving stop doesn't require that. Even a suspect fleeing from the police doesn't require that. The only time a violent interaction is required is if somebody is actively and imminently threatening other people.
I absolutely agree with you that we grant absolutely immense power to the police and they must use it with the most extreme possible care. Instead, we've created a system where cops see regular people as enemies to be crushed and where they can solve every one of their problems with extreme violence.
Tyre was viciously beaten to death for running, for aggravating the cops.
I've never understood why they even chase these people. They have their damned car and are able to identify them. Just go to their house afterwards and pick them up? They can run but they can't hide, and using violence like if they get away they are gone forever is just ridiculous.
I also don't understand it. I can only imagine that cops have internalized this sort of action as an ordinary expectation for them. I don't know if that is caused by their own training and culture - but I wouldn't be surprised if media plays a role. How often does a cop dramatically chase down a criminal in a TV show? All the time. And they are always considered right to do so in those stories.
If we can't train police officers without turning them into rabid attack dogs that need to be leashed at all times, then you've just made the best argument that I've ever heard of for abolishing the police. Try to guess again.
Law enforcement is one of, if not the most, riskiest professions in the world - moreso than loggers, fishermen and even pilots. The stress that comes with that job is unpalatable - we should be saluting our community's law enforcement rather than scrutinizing them. Try to guess again.
That's objectively not true, in all rankings of things such as total deaths, fatal injury per 100k workers etc police officers as a whole don't even breach the top 20. #1 is logging, and #2 is aircraft pilot / engineer. You need to realign with the reality of the job.
Also more dangerous than being a cop: roofers, garbage collectors, iron and steel workers, truck drivers, farmers/agricultural, construction/extraction, grounds maintenance, mechanics/installers/repairers.
That’s not true at all, especially in countries outside the USA.
There’s a lot of fetishised, institutionalised propaganda out there regarding the noble policeman, putting themselves in supreme danger every day to hold back the tides of evil that threaten to destroy society.
If it takes a superior officer telling 5 others to stop beating someone who poses no threat to anyone we’re way too far gone.
If an employee at a store steals a bunch of merchandise do you say “what was needed was a supervisor to come in and order them to stop”? No, it’s understood that stealing is bad and employees shouldn’t do it.
For some reason some folks think cops are like feral dogs and should not have any moral compass of their own or be held to any particular moral standards. It’s a ridiculous take.
strange behavior all around... the pelosi video was weird too
heck, so was the dance hall confrontation and the mushroom farmer arrest... please 2023, give us some inspiration
>A grand jury returned indictments Thursday against Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills Jr., Emmitt Martin III, Justin Smith and Tadarrius Bean
Are these guys all black? I could watch the video on WP but I couldn't scroll down because of the paywall. The CNN article didn't even show the perpetrators faces which made me assume they were all white cops.
I don't understand the use of that level of force for a traffic stop. That being said most of those stories of people unlawfully killed by the police have in common that they started with resisting arrest which is not a great idea in the first place, it invites the use of more force and the suspicion by the police that they are facing a criminal, and that's when the fuckups happen.
He didn’t resist arrest, he was trying to comply with impossible orders.
They then immediately escalated to pepper spraying him, except they screwed up and got themselves instead (which enraged them). They also Tazered him and scared him badly enough he stopped attempting to comply and instead ran for his life.
I haven’t watched the videos, but from commentary I understand he repeatedly tries to de-escalate the situation and is bewildered at how angry the cops are at him. Police department has subsequently said there wasn’t even a valid reason to pull him over.
Does police brutality have a good chance of affecting a case in such a way where it could potentially be thrown out.
I saw a video recently of an incident where the police caught a murderer but then proceeded to kick the hell out of him while he was already down and no longer a threat while their police helicopter recorded the whole thing. Come to find out it was originated because the guy had killed a cop, but I was curious if there was a chance he’d walk free because people in position of authority can’t keep their emotions in check.
In that case probably not since the charges are completely unrelated to the incident.
It also depends on what evidence there is and how important is the testimony of the arresting officers to the case.
In general the prosecution would likely try to suppress the beating and the defense would have to make a case on why the police misconduct was relevant in this case.
Violation of Miranda Rights is also not a cause to get a case thrown out categorically it however can lead to any evidence such as an admission of guilt or any information the police has gained from the subject after their arrest being inadmissible.
TLDR if you are pulled over and beaten for no reason and then charged with resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer no prosecutor would likely take that to court.
If you got arrested for murder and there is a ton of other evidence there likely won’t be any impact. However you can still take the police to court in a civil law suit.
I have little interest in viewing an extended violent murder of a man. It’s not a matter of spending time to watch them, I don’t deal well emotionally with videos like this.
I didn’t watch ISIS execution videos either, but I trust there isn’t some conspiracy from everyone who did and summarized them.
If this is the first thought you felt the need to share after watching a helpless man crying for his mother being relentlessly beaten to death then you really need to re-evaluate your values and keep them to yourself in the meantime.
And before you reply that you’re “just sharing practical advice”, no what you’re actually doing is immediately taking the focus off of the police’s actions and putting blame onto the victim, and somehow making the discussion about his actions and what he did wrong. Not to mention reducing plain-as-day murder to simply a “fuckup”.
Police are professionals not wild animals. Their job involves taking people into custody, some of whom may be resisting. If they can’t accomplish that without killing the suspect they are not qualified.
I could see where that is coming from. Here in Mexico there's some sort of idea that people from outside Mexico, particularly Anericans or Canadians are "better" in some way just because... and it's a sentiment a lot of people IB the country share. Along with clasism.
I'm pretty white for a Mexican, and it boils my blood when I'm treated different than say, someone from Mayan descent in s restaurant. Shit, for all u know ge is more Mexican than me. My 23andMe says I'm of 50% portuguese Genes .
The cops were grossly incompetent, out of shape, spent 10 minutes panting after a 1 minute sprint, managed to mace themselves twice and then took it out on him by beating him to death. Every single one of them had at least 50 pounds on him, but somehow three of them couldn't manage to restrain him. And all he did was try to struggle and flee. The other cops who didn't beat him to death were joking about it later. One of them in the first interaction is hoping that they "beat his ass", and those cops are still on the force and not one of the 5 who are going to be seeing charges.
This wasn't a mistake, or emotions, this is training and group mentality. Cops in this country are just gang thugs.
And focusing entirely on race is missing the point. The race of a cop is 'cop'. And while black people disproportionately are on the wrong side of this, Daniel Shaver and Ryan Whitaker show it isn't exclusive.
It's also scary to think of the number of incidents like this that go unreported and unseen only because they don't result in death.
No idea if it's even possible fix this issue though... it would probably have to involve having more stringent aptitude tests, psychological evaluations, training (and a complete rewrite of that training), and subsequently higher pay, and this would have to happen in every state and in opposition to police unions.
Professional police, as a concept, had to be shoehorned into the Western legal system. It's not the default mode. It was introduced in this form as a way to subsidize the capture of fugitive slaves, because slavery was simply not profitable without violent help from the state.
And before you point to things like the London Metropolitan Police Service to suggest that professional police were a natural and widespread evolution, common to common-law democracies, remember that Robert Peel, partly in response to criticisms that professional police weren't fit for a slavery-free society, wrote the patrolman's instructions in part because he was concerned about the slave-patrol-into-police lineage.
This USA traditionally had elected Sheriffs, who served the courts rather than the prosecution, and who had no extra powers or arms granted them (in other words, they were tasked with catching fugitives by court order, although everyone can participate in that activity at their choosing).
Especially now, in the information age, when everyone can gather high-quality evidence using the tools in their pocket, and call for community help at a moment's notice, the benefits to continuing this experiment of having slave patrols in our communities are very near zero.
Let's get serious about the next stage in our society - one that is free from police, and which thus allows the many good people who become police officers because they want to help others to actually do that, free from obligations to maintain an unjust world order.
76 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 55.6 ms ] threadhttps://youtu.be/ETf7NJOMS6Y
https://youtu.be/PwEYhIX4cbM
https://www.insider.com/bulletproof-dave-grossman-police-tra...
When the same mistakes get repeated over and over again like this, and get defended by the system, they aren't mistakes, they're policy.
The fact that it wasn't just one cop but an entire group of them should also indicate that this isn't just one guy going rogue. It's a systemic problem.
Personally I think the most effective step would be to make funds for civil payouts come out of police retirement and overtime budgets. Relying on policing of the police stopping anything is unlikely: just last year a group of police murdered the officer who was investigating them, and had no meaningful consequences.
The States could start to change this, but that would require activists to stop the racial arguments and go after the State laws.
It's culture. Everyone has "emotions" but, at least in my country, police officers don't regular beat/choke/shoot hundreds of people to death each year.
But if your main argument is saying that police everywhere are terrible Id agree.
US Population: 331.9 million (2021)
UK Population: 67.33 million (2021)
If True:Est UK Police Killings ~~ 67.33 / 331.9 * 1020 = 206.9 per annum.
It would appear that the US police kill more people by a factor of 10 than the police in the UK do.[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-de...
[2] https://www.policeconduct.gov.uk/research-and-learning/stati...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intenti...
It's pretty basic.
More violent policing leads to a violent population.
Lack of social support leads to a more violent populations.
Stop making excuses and look to root causes - why are there so many intentional homicides in the US? Perhaps predatory capitalism extending a slave economy isn't all it's cracked up to be.
If you are mad at somebody at work and you hit them a little bit that is egregious and completely unacceptable behavior that should end your career and is an actual crime. Even just hitting somebody a little bit is wildly off base for ordinary and healthy human interaction when angry.
Beating somebody to death is many levels of escalation beyond that. You don't need a superior to tell you not to do that. I am extremely confident that there will be exactly zero situations in my entire life where I am so angry at somebody that I even want to beat them this badly, let alone actually act on it.
This is about police institutionally seeing the populace as inhuman worms who deserve to suffer. This is not about emotions running wild.
The difference is that under no circumstances does an office job require violent interaction where as for a police officer, their job does sometimes require violent interaction. And in that sense, what these officers did is even worse and should be punished worse than if an office worker used the same violence: we empower police officers to use violence to intervene when necessary. We give them weapons and leeway to use force. To take advantage of that power could arguably be considered worse that if a civilian does it.
I absolutely agree with you that we grant absolutely immense power to the police and they must use it with the most extreme possible care. Instead, we've created a system where cops see regular people as enemies to be crushed and where they can solve every one of their problems with extreme violence.
Tyre was viciously beaten to death for running, for aggravating the cops.
fishermen: 86.0 annual deaths per 100k
pilots: 55.5 annual deaths per 100k
pizza delivery: 24.7 annual deaths per 100k
police: 14.6 annual deaths per 100k
Also more dangerous than being a cop: roofers, garbage collectors, iron and steel workers, truck drivers, farmers/agricultural, construction/extraction, grounds maintenance, mechanics/installers/repairers.
There’s a lot of fetishised, institutionalised propaganda out there regarding the noble policeman, putting themselves in supreme danger every day to hold back the tides of evil that threaten to destroy society.
Reality is quite different
If an employee at a store steals a bunch of merchandise do you say “what was needed was a supervisor to come in and order them to stop”? No, it’s understood that stealing is bad and employees shouldn’t do it.
For some reason some folks think cops are like feral dogs and should not have any moral compass of their own or be held to any particular moral standards. It’s a ridiculous take.
strange behavior all around... the pelosi video was weird too heck, so was the dance hall confrontation and the mushroom farmer arrest... please 2023, give us some inspiration
Above not complete
Are these guys all black? I could watch the video on WP but I couldn't scroll down because of the paywall. The CNN article didn't even show the perpetrators faces which made me assume they were all white cops.
Why would you make that assumption?
They then immediately escalated to pepper spraying him, except they screwed up and got themselves instead (which enraged them). They also Tazered him and scared him badly enough he stopped attempting to comply and instead ran for his life.
I haven’t watched the videos, but from commentary I understand he repeatedly tries to de-escalate the situation and is bewildered at how angry the cops are at him. Police department has subsequently said there wasn’t even a valid reason to pull him over.
I saw a video recently of an incident where the police caught a murderer but then proceeded to kick the hell out of him while he was already down and no longer a threat while their police helicopter recorded the whole thing. Come to find out it was originated because the guy had killed a cop, but I was curious if there was a chance he’d walk free because people in position of authority can’t keep their emotions in check.
In that case probably not since the charges are completely unrelated to the incident.
It also depends on what evidence there is and how important is the testimony of the arresting officers to the case.
In general the prosecution would likely try to suppress the beating and the defense would have to make a case on why the police misconduct was relevant in this case.
Violation of Miranda Rights is also not a cause to get a case thrown out categorically it however can lead to any evidence such as an admission of guilt or any information the police has gained from the subject after their arrest being inadmissible.
TLDR if you are pulled over and beaten for no reason and then charged with resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer no prosecutor would likely take that to court.
If you got arrested for murder and there is a ton of other evidence there likely won’t be any impact. However you can still take the police to court in a civil law suit.
I have little interest in viewing an extended violent murder of a man. It’s not a matter of spending time to watch them, I don’t deal well emotionally with videos like this.
I didn’t watch ISIS execution videos either, but I trust there isn’t some conspiracy from everyone who did and summarized them.
And before you reply that you’re “just sharing practical advice”, no what you’re actually doing is immediately taking the focus off of the police’s actions and putting blame onto the victim, and somehow making the discussion about his actions and what he did wrong. Not to mention reducing plain-as-day murder to simply a “fuckup”.
They didn't need to serve a no knock warrant against someone they suspected was tangentially involved in drug crimes.
Beating a man to death is not a fuckup. That's a choice that was made over and over by the cops each time he was struck.
I'm pretty white for a Mexican, and it boils my blood when I'm treated different than say, someone from Mayan descent in s restaurant. Shit, for all u know ge is more Mexican than me. My 23andMe says I'm of 50% portuguese Genes .
This wasn't a mistake, or emotions, this is training and group mentality. Cops in this country are just gang thugs.
And focusing entirely on race is missing the point. The race of a cop is 'cop'. And while black people disproportionately are on the wrong side of this, Daniel Shaver and Ryan Whitaker show it isn't exclusive.
Even worse: they have the law on their side.
It's also scary to think of the number of incidents like this that go unreported and unseen only because they don't result in death.
No idea if it's even possible fix this issue though... it would probably have to involve having more stringent aptitude tests, psychological evaluations, training (and a complete rewrite of that training), and subsequently higher pay, and this would have to happen in every state and in opposition to police unions.
Professional police, as a concept, had to be shoehorned into the Western legal system. It's not the default mode. It was introduced in this form as a way to subsidize the capture of fugitive slaves, because slavery was simply not profitable without violent help from the state.
And before you point to things like the London Metropolitan Police Service to suggest that professional police were a natural and widespread evolution, common to common-law democracies, remember that Robert Peel, partly in response to criticisms that professional police weren't fit for a slavery-free society, wrote the patrolman's instructions in part because he was concerned about the slave-patrol-into-police lineage.
This USA traditionally had elected Sheriffs, who served the courts rather than the prosecution, and who had no extra powers or arms granted them (in other words, they were tasked with catching fugitives by court order, although everyone can participate in that activity at their choosing).
Especially now, in the information age, when everyone can gather high-quality evidence using the tools in their pocket, and call for community help at a moment's notice, the benefits to continuing this experiment of having slave patrols in our communities are very near zero.
Let's get serious about the next stage in our society - one that is free from police, and which thus allows the many good people who become police officers because they want to help others to actually do that, free from obligations to maintain an unjust world order.