Serious Police Brutality in the U.S.

Do you believe the U.S. has a problem with police brutality?

  • Yes, especially towards black men

    Votes: 187 53.3%

  • Yes, but not specifically biased against black men

    Votes: 101 28.8%

  • No

    Votes: 63 17.9%
  • Total voters
    351
ManOfMany

ManOfMany

I can make anything real
is a Tiering Contributor
This isn’t a thread yet, and I thought it was important enough to make one especially in the wake of the Dallas violence. As many people know, incidents of police shootings in the U.S. are really high, and a lot of those are definitely preventable.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shootings/

Here’s a nice graphic showing the kinds of shootings in 2015. You can also read about each individual case there. Although a lot of them were certainly the police protecting themselves, there are also plenty of shocking, preventable incidents. The good news is the rate of fatal shootings by police has actually improved a lot in 2016 if you look at data, but this may just be coincidental variation.

Many people are also concerned about there being systemic racism in the police system against black people. It’s hard to know whether this is or not the case, and how widespread the problem is. What we do know, however, is there have been many publicized cases of black men being shot in cases where they should have been merely arrested or apprehended. I personally believe there is definitely some police racism in many communities, as you can see in so many incidents where young black men have been shot without much warning (for example, Philando Castile, that was one of the worst).

You can use this thread to talk about such cases, and whether the police were justified. Also you could use this thread to brainstorm solutions to the problem of police using excessive force or how they would fix their relations with a fragmented community. Or talk about your personal incidents with the police or your relations with the police in your community. please no "fuck the police" kind of posts though
 
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Thanks for the thread. I'm very interested in this issue too.

So in USA, the police are allowed to use guns to shoot people, when they feel there's a need.
They can even kill people and get away with it.

Meanwhile in Hong Kong, the police gets criticized for using guns, even when not aimed at anyone.
The police also gets criticized for using pepper spray when there was no violence in the protests.
Oh, and they are apparently not even allowed to physically attack any citizens unless the citizen attacked first.
Sometimes it feels like Hongkongers are pussies compared to Americans.

On the other hand, I feel really frightened by the fact that American police can just shoot you when they have a reason.
I mean, what if a policeman simply doesn't like you?
Or if, some policeman might be racist and just want to kill someone of a certain race?

I see people keep bringing the BlackLivesMatter up when discussing about Policeman in USA.
I would like to ask, has the American police killed people from other ethnic minorities? Is it really just black people?

EDIT: I read your website link, and I see that a lot of people are Hispanics.
So it isn't just black people.
In other words, BlackLivesMatter is kind of selfish.
 
It's pretty much impossible to deny that the US has a major problem with police brutality. I mean, shit, the Bahamas issued a travel advisory over it and the UN has condemned the level of police brutality in the US. While it does have a disproportionate effect on the African-American population (iirc 1/4th of police shooting victims are black compared to 1/8th of the general US population), we certainly shouldn't be talking solely about those. For instance, there is a pretty significant chunk of Hispanic police shooting victims, and I also don't see anyone talking about how police shooting victims are disproportionately male (we're talking a ratio of roughly 96 male victims per 100 victims).

But, just for a second, let's set aside who's disproportionately targeted by what. Ever notice how police officers very rarely even get indicted for use of lethal force, even when any reasonable person watching whatever video got posted would say the use of lethal force was unjustified? I think this may be the root of the problem. The standards for use of lethal force by police officers is extremely low - for a little perspective, for a court in the US to rule that a civilian was justified in the use of lethal force, something called the lethal force (or imminent danger, depending on who you talk to) triangle is used:
  • Intent - the alleged attacker must be acting such that any reasonable person would conclude they have intent to do harm. This would include forced entry and threatening to do harm to the person.
  • Capability - the alleged attacker must possess the ability to do harm. This usually means they must be armed in some way.
  • Opportunity - the alleged attacker must be able to do harm, i.e. something like a car in between the parties means they can't do harm.
As you can see, based on the capability part alone, police shootings of any unarmed civilian would fail this test, thus failing to meet the criteria for justifiable homicide. So why is it that the police keep getting away with shootings? Well, it turns out, police are held to a lower standard. Police simply have to demonstrate an "objectively reasonable" belief that their lives were endangered - notice it doesn't even require a plausible belief. So maybe if we hold police to a higher standard regarding when use of lethal force is justified, we may see the problem alleviate a bit.

Of course, we can't explain all of it away based on the low standards. There's also just plain old abuse of power and racial profiling (see: African-Americans disproportionately affected by police violence), and for that, I think we should at least try using police body cameras for the purpose of having evidence when these things occur, because with the way things are now, it's kind of difficult to get evidence.
 
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apt-get said:
I've heard that BLM deliberately ignores black-on-black violence, which is far more prevalent than police violence. Is that true?
Click to expand...

True in that it's an easily searchable fact that while blacks tend to be violent toward blacks, whites tend to be violent toward whites. So what was whoever "you heard" suggesting, that anyone thinks police violence outnumbers violence in general? Or that blacks are barbarians who deserve to die cause apparently they like killing each other? Cause neither really hold up to scrutiny. And in which case, seem to be worth ignoring.
 
vonFiedler said:
True in that it's an easily searchable fact that while blacks tend to be violent toward blacks, whites tend to be violent toward whites. So what was whoever "you heard" suggesting, that anyone thinks police violence outnumbers violence in general? Or that blacks are barbarians who deserve to die cause apparently they like killing each other? Cause neither really hold up to scrutiny. And in which case, seem to be worth ignoring.
Click to expand...
So there's no prove that whites are more violent against blacks than whites on whites?
Yet they refuse to change the name to All Lives Matter.
 
Cresselia~~ said:
So there's no prove that whites are more violent against blacks than whites on whites?
Yet they refuse to change the name to All Lives Matter.
Click to expand...

What the fuck kind of lame hippy movement is "All Lives Matter"?

Of course All Lives Matter. But Perhaps Due To Media Silence On A Disproportionate Amount Of Homicides Partially Committed By Police You Were Not Aware That Black Lives Matter? Or, Black Lives Sure Don't Seem To Matter When Nobody Even Knew They Were Getting Killed Over Nothing, But Indeed Black Lives Matter. I think Black Lives Matter for short works best.

It's the end of all fucking rationalism when complex matters become about semantics smh
 
Cresselia~~ said:
So there's no prove that whites are more violent against blacks than whites on whites?
Yet they refuse to change the name to All Lives Matter.
Click to expand...
African Americans face the most prejudice from the police force, the term "Black Lives Matter" isn't meant to take away from people of other races it's meant to put spotlight on those most in danger. Shoutouts to King UU for addressing this immediately
 
Cresselia~~ said:
Thanks for the thread. I'm very interested in this issue too.

So in USA, the police are allowed to use guns to shoot people, when they feel there's a need.
They can even kill people and get away with it.

Meanwhile in Hong Kong, the police gets criticized for using guns, even when not aimed at anyone.
The police also gets criticized for using pepper spray when there was no violence in the protests.
Oh, and they are apparently not even allowed to physically attack any citizens unless the citizen attacked first.
Sometimes it feels like Hongkongers are pussies compared to Americans.

On the other hand, I feel really frightened by the fact that American police can just shoot you when they have a reason.
I mean, what if a policeman simply doesn't like you?
Or if, some policeman might be racist and just want to kill someone of a certain race?

I see people keep bringing the BlackLivesMatter up when discussing about Policeman in USA.
I would like to ask, has the American police killed people from other ethnic minorities? Is it really just black people?

EDIT: I read your website link, and I see that a lot of people are Hispanics.
So it isn't just black people.
In other words, BlackLivesMatter is kind of selfish.
Click to expand...

That's really interesting that the police force in Hong Kong are subject to such tight restrictions. In the U.S. it's obviously very different. There are some good reasons for why police are given so much leniency- for example, the U.S. has a comparatively high concentration of dangerous criminals, especially in poor neighborhoods. However, I think it has gone too far. As Adamant Zoroark said, it's a travesty that when a recorded act of police incompetence or prejudice leads to a dead citizen, the police rarely face legal consequences for that action. You rarely even hear of them getting fired from the police force.

Also the American police has killed people from all races and ethnic groups, some just some unjust. But Black Lives Matter is upset because black people are targeted at a higher ratio than other groups.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_in_the_United_States has links to a lot of statistics you can look up.) Additionally, even if that was not the case, they shouldn't be frowned upon or thought of as selfish for trying to protect the people in their specific communities.
 
I salute you for posting this thread here, we really need to address this topic.
It's actually kind of sad that even more lives had to be taken unnecessarily in order to raise awareness.
This problem has been around for too long, but now politicians can't ignore the facts anymore and have to face what they created.

We have to deal with two incontrovertibly interlinked problems here:

Xenophobia / Racism. Due to the abstract nature of xenophobia and racism, it seems impossible to get it under control. This ideology has poisoned the minds of people since the earliest dawning of mankind and has since spread like a disease. It seems to be an incontrovertible part of human nature, which is the sad prerequisite for the need of a police in the first place after all. I personally believe that, even if we might be able to reduce it to some degree, it'll probably never fully go away.

Police authority. While we sadly need the police to basically protect us against ourselves, irresponsible police officers, that are unable to fulfill their duty should be supervised and eventually punished. Individuals, aiming to become police officers should be supervised to detect potential racist tendencies at an early stage already. With great power comes great responsibility (Yes, yes, we all know the quote).

Weapons. The seemingly endless spiral of violence in which we try to protect us from weapons with even more weapons is kind of a farce. Again, I agree to some extent that we need protectors like the police, but we should be more careful which persons we entrust with this duty and hence also the guns.

Politics. This problem didn't just magically appear over night. Spewing the same old standard statements about how there's a need for stricter laws won't bring about any changes either. The weapon industry has gained too much influence over a long period of time to the point where stricter gun laws remain just a noble Utopian vision. Weapons earn the industry a lot of money, which has seemingly become far more valuable than human lives to an alarming degree. While the Roman saying "Si vis pacem, para bellum" (Engl. If you strive for peace, prepare for war) was coined in ancient times, it's sadly still relevant to modern times.

While this topic has clearly grown out of proportion, it might still not be too late just yet.
While we won't be able to get rid of this problem entirely, we must place the emphasis on communication to help prevent misunderstanding and overgeneralizing. Racism exists everywhere in many different shapes and forms and can't be associated with just one race. While the police officers in questions belong to the white ethnicity, it's still important to not subconsciously slip into stigmatizing the white race in it's entirety. By doing so we'd just start this vicious circle all over again. Injustice can't be fixed with even more injustice.

While my argument has an undeniably defeatist connotation, there's still a part inside of me that believes in the positive aspects of humanity as well. We need to focus on what we have in common, rather than what makes us different, and try to find solutions. It won't be easy, but you can achieve goals even by taking small consecutive steps.
 
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Adamant Zoroark said:
But, just for a second, let's set aside who's disproportionately targeted by what. Ever notice how police officers very rarely even get indicted for use of lethal force, even when any reasonable person watching whatever video got posted would say the use of lethal force was unjustified?
Click to expand...

I'll be writing more about this issue later when I have access to a computer, but I'd like to address this:

In the United States Criminal Justice system, indictments (determining whether or not there is EVIDENCE to charge someone in a trial, as opposed to guilty/not guilty) are decided by a Grand Jury, which is basically the same thing as a jury in a trial. These jurors are reasonable people, and not some establishment-type government organization that you'd like to believe it was.

(I probably forgot to write some stuff but yeah free to ask questions)

EDIT: Evidence is important because the government has to prove the guilt of the defendant using factual evidence, not the other way around, where the defendant would have had to prove their innocence.
 
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Yes sunny your poor about grand juries would be pertinent if in fact there was 0 bias in the people of America and only bias in the justice system itself. But there is bias in America and its pretty blatantly extenuated by the media. Watch the Dallas coverage as opposed to the Charleston shooting coverage or the myriad of shooting coverages else where. If it's a cop you learn he was Scott mcleary father of 4 recently married was a Boy Scout owned a dog and did bbq at the church as opposed to unnamed black man #16 whose descriptors are "unarmed", and "fleeing" and is also followed by either a rap sheet or the suspected crime he had committed.


Also shoutout to the liberally moderate crowd who have out intellectualed the entirety of the black liberation movement in calling them out for saying black lives matter while they ignore black on black crime. Except for they don't and they talk about it all the time. Everyday of every week I log into Twitter and see prominent figures retweet discourse about all sorts of violence and critiques on both black on black violence the causes of the solutions to etc etc as well as police brutality. They also talk about art and work and math and what the fuck ever because they're actual fucking people not some bullshit caricature of ignorant hypocrites like those who ignore their existence and tell them that what they see isn't real. On top of all the intracommunity critique I also see an interest in exposing police brutality as it effects all races but maybe this shit is too hard to keep track of given it doesn't fit your précis ting narrative. Meanwhile "AllLivesMatter" lives on as a fucking meaningless counterpoint offered as some high philosophical art form of a turn of phrase that is trying to invalidate a movement that is actually taking real proactive steps towards getting shit done for the better.

Man fuck this shit I'm too tired. Maybe someone learned something maybe they didn't. I'm just so damn tired of the petty thinly veiled racist bullshit.
 
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The police are the slave catchers of the 21st century wage slaves and mainly exist to protect a system whose fruit is accumulations of property within an aristocratic political regime. Violence against peaceful protestors and police retaliation against people who document police abuses all go to show that the police strictly enforce a caste/class system, one of benefits of which is the extraction of labor. A militarized police primarily act to bring the threat of imminent legalized death into situations where it otherwise would not exist, thus allowing the regime to exert control in a powerful way. Where as perhaps at one point, if a subject chose to not sell their life for a wage, and/or had their labor forced at the hand of a violent overseer, (the origin of the word 'officer'), they could in theory just wander around doing god knows what as long as they didn't bother anyone. Now police move transient bodies into prisons, into skid rows, into graves, and away from the shielded of eyes of the propertied suburban classes who would rather not see the price of their 'prosperity'. The ugly political task of cleaning up after, and enforcing, 'the economy' and property arrangements belongs to the modern militarized police force. There are even for-profit corporate prisons that require increasing criminalization in order to meet the demands of shareholders.

Police departments all over the country obtain surplus gear from the military engagements we fight oversees. The same weapons used to kill palestinian protestors in Israel are turned against protestors in the US.

Idk how this became about blm, probably because it's easier for idiots to be racist or to have a conversation that really comes down to who can 'get it up' to educate their weird racism that somehow comes up, than it is to acknowledge how drastically fucked up your country is and how bad it's continuing to fuck up the rest of the world too. Ignorance is bliss.

"ironically, the people that insist on saying 'all lives matter' don't realize that it's the goal of saying 'black lives matter' to eventually make 'all lives matter' a true statement."

the slave catchers dont have a slave catching brutality problem, they are the brutality problem. the police are supposed to brutalize, keep the order. you cant have police without police brutality, you can't maintain the aristocracy in a democracy without the police.

don't get confused that police are protecting you from crazy people with guns, the police are the crazy people with the guns. We need to make our communities safe, which also means making them safe from police. Many localities are grappling with these questions in the aftermath of the string of recent incidents between police and protestors, regardless of how people spin these incidents, our communities will not remain blind to the inherent problems with contemporary policing methods and security apparatuses. Many communities will be attempting to imagine life without police, and how that might be handled. But this also means engaging with the fact of the police.

What are the police? I have told you already they are a leftover from slavery, the overseer and the slave-catcher. The police enforce the economic order, property claims are backed by the sword or the gun of the state's security apparatus through its system of laws. The ugly fact of the police is that they exist at all in the first place, that they can retaliate with seemingly legalized violence against any movement that attempts to reduce them. That they exist, also makes it seem more natural for them to exist, after all it is hard to change, and it would be easier at this point to let doubts creep in and perhaps concede to fear, "maybe the police do protect us from something, surely we can think of some scary things that might happen without police". This is the fundamental play that neoconservatives use: say that a threat exists and that you will solve it, then do whatever you want and when the threat doesnt appear say it was because of what you did. Anything can be justified when you start from nothing. Bush jr was the king of this play.


that it is more thinkable that cycles of violence will continue, that it is more thinkable that the world will end (climate change), than that capitalism will end makes me sad.

there is no such thing as a good cop, a good cop is a bad cop, one that betrays the police, one that quits. one that sues, that obstructs policing in the interests of justice, I would even say, in the interests of democracy.

Btw, Modern American criminal law amounts to a profit incentive to start killing brown people while theyre still young, criminalize asap. the community isn't controlling the prison, the prison controls the community. Histories of prisons and police departments would be illuminating to instances of organized crime beginning in prisons and infiltrating police departments.

my proposal is we convert police into social and environmental services and simultaneously create new safety response systems that have adequate civilian oversight.

as for bias in the american legal system, have you ever read the constitution or declaration of independence? lol.

just some thoughts i have.

as we can see itt, many privileged people really don't have a problem with police. at least, I would say, they don't know that they do yet.

#burnitdown
 
Looking up the figures it is frightening how violent the American police are. From what I've seen, it seems more an issue of class rather than race - blacks and hispanics are the ones most frequently targeted, but homeless people and the mentally ill are common victims too. Feel free to take my opinion with a pinch of salt as I'm an outsider - I believe there are 3 main reasons why the American police are so violent compared to other 1st world countries.

1. They get away with it. In the UK (and most other countries too probably) it would be a national scandal if a cop killed an unarmed person. There'd be a national enquiry, and it would most likely end with the cop losing his or her badge. From what I've seen, even if there is an enquiry in the US it usually just ends with the cop getting a week or 2 paid leave as "punishment".
2. They see the public as their enemy. To Protect and Serve is the mantra of many police departments, but in the US cops seem to think that everyone is an enemy out to get them. As a result they seem to be more paranoid, and a lot of time paranoid people attack before they think
3. Way too many guns. Legally and illegally, it's pretty easy to get a gun in America. And I'm not talking pistols either - you can get full on automatic assault rifles. So the cops always assume (not unreasonably) that the perp is going to have a gun, which leads to the point I bought up in no 2 about paranoia.

Here's a few interesting videos regarding police brutality in the US:

Compares the kill rate of US cops with those of other 1st world nations
Compares how the US police tackle criminals compared to the UK police, specifically knife wielders
US cops killed more people in March 2015 than the UK police did in the entire 20th century
 
I challenge all of smogon to go get a full automatic assault rifle

Also any cop would see said full automatic assault rifle they're kinda difficult to conceal

Edit: also regarding cops assuming people are reaching for a gun, if a cop tells you to put your hands up or something, it's generally not the best idea to reach for something. Want to avoid a problem? Do what the cop says to do, because if there isn't any real problem, then you're not going to suffer any repercussions
 
Ununhexium said:
I challenge all of smogon to go get a full automatic assault rifle

Also any cop would see said full automatic assault rifle they're kinda difficult to conceal

Edit: also regarding cops assuming people are reaching for a gun, if a cop tells you to put your hands up or something, it's generally not the best idea to reach for something. Want to avoid a problem? Do what the cop says to do, because if there isn't any real problem, then you're not going to suffer any repercussions
Click to expand...

No one's saying that people who disobey the cops shouldn't be punished - they're saying the police shouldn't kill them on the spot. What's wrong with tasers, pepper spray, batons etc.?
 
ChrystalFalchion said:
No one's saying that people who disobey the cops shouldn't be punished - they're saying the police shouldn't kill them on the spot. What's wrong with tasers, pepper spray, batons etc.?
Click to expand...
Tasers aren't always entirely effective, a person who has been pepper sprayed can still shoot and hit at point blank range (where most altercations occur), and if said person has a gun you're gonna be shot before you can hit them with a baton

If I felt my life was threatened they would have a chunk of lead in them so fast you'd blink and miss it

EDIT: basically there's a balance. If the people are armed but the police are not, the law has no authority. If the police are armed but the people are not, you are at risk of oppression. If neither can legally be armed, the crooks and criminals will have free reign to do whatever they desire.
 
Ununhexium said:
Tasers aren't always entirely effective, a person who has been pepper sprayed can still shoot and hit at point blank range (where most altercations occur), and if said person has a gun you're gonna be shot before you can hit them with a baton

If I felt my life was threatened they would have a chunk of lead in them so fast you'd blink and miss it

EDIT: basically there's a balance. If the people are armed but the police are not, the law has no authority. If the police are armed but the people are not, you are at risk of oppression. If neither can legally be armed, the crooks and criminals will have free reign to do whatever they desire.
Click to expand...

Police should treat all human life with respect, as people can change. They won't always, but they should be given a chance. Ultimately I agree with you that the people should just obey the law, but the reality is that people will always break it. If the cops just shoot people on the spot (cowardly IMO), then the people will see them as the enemy. They are paid for by the public's tax money, and thus they should serve the public, not kill them. If a gun was in my hand, and I felt my life was in danger I'd probably shoot. Which is precisely why I wouldn't be a good cop - good cops should kill only when there is no other option.

And about cops risking their life - it comes with the job. If you don't want to risk your life, get a job where you won't have to. Don't become a window cleaner if you're scared of heights.
 
So here's a relevant statistic, if it were actually available: Convictions based on race. The difference between a conviction and an arrest is that convictions are judgments after a trial with evidence presented. Unfortunately statistics like that are not easily researched, even with the FBI and BJS. You can find arrests, but not convictions.

My point being, it's inaccurate to compare general population numbers to altercations with police. The police are neither ordered, nor do they have the physical ability to keep tabs on the entire general population. Instead what good police work does is look at trends, respond reactively to immediate threats and try to proactively prevent new threats. A functional police force is focused on who provably commits serious crimes, not on chasing down jaywalkers.

I would generally agree that the police are too militarized, but not that there is a "brutality" problem. There's no need for them to be able to drive around Watertown, MA with an armored humvee like they did after the Boston Bombing. I do think that to the extent there is a high tension between police officers and the community they patrol, it's because the community gives the criminals living within it extremely broad latitude and the police extremely narrow latitude. Every drug dealer the police bust is just a poor mother's son trying to get by, even though he probably led two dozen others in the community to a life of addiction or worse. But if the cops so much as pin him to the ground during the arrest - which he is invariably physically resisting so they HAVE TO restrain him - it's "police brutality."

More black men are going to get shot by other black men on the streets of Chicago this month then will be shot by police officers in the entire United States over the course of this year. It's community brutality and not police brutality that should be getting the lion's share of our focus. But where you can rally 100,000 to protest the "other" police officers, getting even a fraction to take back their own community seems impossible.
 
Myzozoa said:
What are the police? I have told you already they are a leftover from slavery, the overseer and the slave-catcher. The police enforce the economic order, property claims are backed by the sword or the gun of the state's security apparatus through its system of laws. The ugly fact of the police is that they exist at all in the first place, that they can retaliate with seemingly legalized violence against any movement that attempts to reduce them. That they exist, also makes it seem more natural for them to exist, after all it is hard to change, and it would be easier at this point to let doubts creep in and perhaps concede to fear, "maybe the police do protect us from something, surely we can think of some scary things that might happen without police". This is the fundamental play that neoconservatives use: say that a threat exists and that you will solve it, then do whatever you want and when the threat doesnt appear say it was because of what you did. Anything can be justified when you start from nothing.

there is no such thing as a good cop, a good cop is a bad cop, one that betrays the police, one that quits. one that sues, that obstructs policing in the interests of justice, I would even say, in the interests of democracy.
Click to expand...
this is satire.............right....?
 
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