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[Reelya]

That's not bad MSH, but a really important point is that forensics should not be under the police umbrella.

Britain did away with that years ago. After the string of wrongful convictions in the 1970s such as the Birmingham 6, the UK reformed policing including that forensics was a separate department altogether and it's heavily against the rules to feed them info about the prosecution case you're running.

Under the old system, forensics was basically under the prosecutors department (who were also the police) so the whole thing was effectively put into action on the basis of "finding evidence to support the case" rather than finding evidence, full stop. So they already had a person in mind who they wanted to convict then the pressure was on the forensics department to "generate" evidence that would back that up. Whether or not there is openly malicious intent, such a system heavily compromises the type of results they get and the avenues of research they follow. So if the prosecutors think one guy did it, and they control the forensic investigation as well, and find someone else's fingerprints, they're much more likely to go "oh that fingerprint doesn't match, it must be bogus, keep looking" rather than treating it as a valid lead in itself. And of course if the prosecutors control the forensics then they get to decide both what gets followed up and what gets shown to the defense counsel.

So it's very important that the police just note that a crime may have been committed, then that should be pretty much where the police end of their involvement. Investigators should then come in, and they call in an independent forensics unit (who get to decide how to collect evidence), and both the prosecution and defense are developed simultaneously with equal access to the forensic evidence. The prosecution strategizing with the forensic investigators should be as illegal as tampering with a jury.

[Cthulhu]

The Seattle driver is the brother of somebody who works at the station.  The PD says he was afraid for his life.  The ground truth seems to be his gun jammed, he looks like he's trying to clear it as he gets out of the car.

So...

• Drove into a protest
• In an area that, had the barriers been erected properly, would've confined the protesters to his direct path
• With a jungle-taped extended mag pistol
• Shot a guy
• Got out, gun jammed, went back to the police
• Possibly gave the police a thumbs up, though it also looks like he may have been gesturing back at the protesters
• Has family ties to the PD

So the spread gets more complicated, update your bets accordingly:

• The police are telling the truth, was just an accident (lol)
• Random crazy guy, it's a coincidence
• Guy directly working for the PD on this
• Crazy guy incited by PD

Personally my money is on option 4.  The FBI especially fucking loves to radicalize vulnerable crazy people and then arrest them.  Seattle also appears to be prepping the local precinct for abandonment and subsequent burn-down.

[scriver]

So what are the functions which are unique to a police force, which wouldn't be better served by some other type of professional?  I recognize the following.

1.  Arresting suspects following a report of a crime, which should only be necessary in a minority of cases in our modern age of surveillance.  Can be revisited if we dismantle the surveillance state.
2.  Responding to reports of violence in progress, with the intent to minimize harm to everyone as much as possible, including suspects
3.  Partial involvement in investigation

As I understand, this is a minority of what police actually do, and it seems to me like restricting them to specifically these duties with appropriate cuts to size/funding would be incredibly dramatic.  Not abolition, no.  But it would be a dramatic departure from police in their current form.

As somebody from a country where administratives/bureaucrats are expected to handle a lot of sensitive cases:

4. Back up civil employees for delivering outcomes/enacting decisions on persons.

Ie, my father was a state vet. They handle the main lot of animal health and abuse cases and are the ones who pass judgement on whether or not you get an animal forbidding. Most of the time they just need help from animal catchers and the like. But getting an animal forbidding can be sensitive things. Some people get very upset. Some people rely on animals for their living, like farmers. They can get very upset. Both of these are examples where the presence of police can be needed when enacting decisions (confiscating animals) to keep the animal owner from threatening the civil workers. And lastly, sometimes they have to get involved with people who breed animals to abuse them. For example, dog fight breeders or "watch dog" (more like attack dogs) breeders. My dad had to be the guy responsible for forbidding a local guy with mc-gang connections from keeping dogs. He wouldn't have been able to do shit about that if the police weren't there to back him up.

[Kagus]

if the police weren't there to back him up.

Pssh, just hire a mercenary to guard you, like the rest of us!

[Egan_BW]

Hmm yeah, let's make more work for mercenaries. That would be a massive waste of money create new jobs for young people like me!

[JoshuaFH]

Well you know what they say, the more windows you break, the better the economy gets!

[scriver]

I'd hire you as a mercenary Egan but only if you showed up in those cat ears

[martinuzz]

Volkskrant / New York Times correspondent Micheal Persson won this year's 'de Tegel' (the Tile), the Netherlands' most important prize for excellent journalism with his ' Mississippi hanging' report, which tries to find the truth about the hanging of 21-year old Willie Jones.
https://www.volkskrant.nl/kijkverder/v/2019/mississippi-hanging-en/

We are no racists. My own stepfather is black. We live here surrounded by black people. I think what actually caused the racist situation with me is when we moved out there and the kids started seeing the black folks and they started dating, I was against it. Not because I’m racist but because it ain’t right in Gods eyes. It ain’t right there. There aren’t red birds and blue birds fucking out there.

[Naturegirl1999]

Volkskrant / New York Times correspondent Micheal Persson won this year's 'de Tegel' (the Tile), the Netherlands' most important prize for excellent journalism with his ' Mississippi hanging' report, which tries to find the truth about the hanging of 21-year old Willie Jones.
https://www.volkskrant.nl/kijkverder/v/2019/mississippi-hanging-en/

We are no racists. My own stepfather is black. We live here surrounded by black people. I think what actually caused the racist situation with me is when we moved out there and the kids started seeing the black folks and they started dating, I was against it. Not because I’m racist but because it ain’t right in Gods eyes. It ain’t right there. There aren’t red birds and blue birds fucking out there.

Humans are the same species. Birds of different species tend to have different plumage. If the birds are of the same species, then it wouldn’t matter what color of feathers they have. Cardinals and Bluejays are not the same species. Humans are the same species. Human skin color does not affect whether they can mate.

[martinuzz]

Well, yeah, duh, obviously.The quote is just an illustration of how messed up the mind of a racist works

[Naturegirl1999]

Well, yeah, duh, obviously.The quote is just an illustration of how messed up the mind of a racist works

yes. It’s unfortunate that there are still racists. I would have thought we learned by now, but apparently it hasn’t reached some that humans are humans, regardless of skin color

[Red Diamond]

Well, yeah, duh, obviously.The quote is just an illustration of how messed up the mind of a racist works

yes. It’s unfortunate that there are still racists. I would have thought we learned by now, but apparently it hasn’t reached some that humans are humans, regardless of skin color

Racism is the norm, most people are racists even if not aware of it.  That is why human society behaves in such a racist way.

Volkskrant / New York Times correspondent Micheal Persson won this year's 'de Tegel' (the Tile), the Netherlands' most important prize for excellent journalism with his ' Mississippi hanging' report, which tries to find the truth about the hanging of 21-year old Willie Jones.
https://www.volkskrant.nl/kijkverder/v/2019/mississippi-hanging-en/

We are no racists. My own stepfather is black. We live here surrounded by black people. I think what actually caused the racist situation with me is when we moved out there and the kids started seeing the black folks and they started dating, I was against it. Not because I’m racist but because it ain’t right in Gods eyes. It ain’t right there. There aren’t red birds and blue birds fucking out there.

Humans are the same species. Birds of different species tend to have different plumage. If the birds are of the same species, then it wouldn’t matter what color of feathers they have. Cardinals and Bluejays are not the same species. Humans are the same species. Human skin color does not affect whether they can mate.

Unfortunately Darwin disposed of that kinds of thinking back in the 19th Century.  The difference between two species of birds is merely a quantitive increase on the difference between two races of humans.  Given enough time and seperation the different human races would become different species.

[Vector]

True, but we need to understand that this would be true for any subsets of human beings who could not communicate with each other genetically.

[scriver]

Birds like. Literally only fuck birds with different colours. Males and females have separate coats like all the time. The only exception are penguins and birds of a feather.

[scriver]

I'd hire you as a mercenary Egan but only if you showed up in those cat ears

I made a visualisation



I'd hire that. Branding is important.