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[ChairmanPoo]

And tbh while I can condemn  particular incidents, I can hardly blame the mindset, given the prevalence of armed crime.

Someone mentioned before the example of healthcare personnel. Well, let me tell you that

-in no small measure protocols concerning aggressive people are "survive until the cops arrive"

- healthcare personnel, particularily those in primary care, feel helpless in regards to patient aggression, and its an ongoing cause for burnout. Though not the only one or the most common one.
So not a really good example in that regard. And while you can try to defuse some situations through dialogue, it's hardly representative to compare what goes on in a hospital.with what goes on in the streets.

[scriver]

I actually had a thing written up about exact thay sentence. Hospital workers "cope" with violent patients by getting beat up on a regular basis.

[TD1]

I am racist against blue people, and white people suck too.

My racism doesn't kill unarmed civilians engaging in minor scuffles or nonviolent crimes, it is less of a pressing issue than the institutionalized racism which is police culture in the US, arguably it is a complete nonissue by comparison. My distrust of old white dudes and cops hurts nobody, cops kill black dudes for no reason all the goddamn time.

Ah, see, I condemn racism even when it doesn't involve bloody violence. Same with ageism. But each to their own.

I have kept my arguments about this incident's details colorblind.  I understand that others do not.  I can see this happening to a white suspect, and in fact recognize that it does.  The racial aspect is statistical.

Defund the police (in favor of mediators who can do a better job with less violent tactics).

We agree in the broad strokes then. We both condemn the violence. The main difference is that I can see it from their POV to some degree.

As for mediators, I don't think they're a viable option. You're just sending squishier, unarmed police towards criminals.

[Robsoie]

As long as everyone and their neighbor's cat is still armed, police will keep being trained to enter a warzone.

From someone like me that isn't living in the USA, it has always seemed to me that the primary source of your police excessive use of lethal action has always been that everyone in the usa is allowed to carry a gun at all time.

That to me seems the biggest issue of them all, much more than racism (that is still an issue of course), as cases of police killing someone of every color (not only black people) instead of normally handling them is very far from 0 from what i see on statistics.
And indeed it seems logical that if a cop fear that everyone he interacts with can pull out a gun at anyytime i don't see how you can expect those US cops to behave like cops in other countries that have much different laws regarding guns.
And if you add a layer on racism on top of that constant fear, it's a recipe for disaster and murders as seen in the media.

[TamerVirus]

I am racist against blue people

What do you have against the Smurfs, the Na'vi, and the Blue Man Group?!?

[wobbly]

American gun culture seems a problem irregardless of what the real risks of being shot at are. If its a normal idea to carry a gun to protect yourself then it's normal for people who join the police force to think that way, normal for people running departments and making decisions, normal for people reading the news & posting on social media about it etc. etc.

[Kagus]

As for mediators, I don't think they're a viable option. You're just sending squishier, unarmed police towards criminals.

Bit of an oversimplification though, is it not? A graffiti tagger is a criminal. A drug lord is also a criminal. A cop does not need a pistol for the tagger, and will need a lot more against the kingpin.

Beat cops aren't SWAT, and shouldn't be equipped as such. There's a distinction between nonviolent crime and violent crime, and significantly varying degrees of violence within "violent crime" as well.


For that matter... If it's entirely likely that you'll get shot if you're caught doing something criminal, regardless of how severe or aggressive that crime may be, would it be entirely unreasonable to assume that the criminal might attempt to arm themselves against the cops then as a method of self-preservation?

[McTraveller]

I think "gun culture" is something from the media that isn't really as prevalent in the way you see on TV.  There are basically three or four mixed cultures regarding guns in the US:

A) Rural / Hunter / Recreational culture.  Guns are tools, I like to hunt, shoot targets, etc.

B) "Criminal" gun culture - gangs, drugs, etc. where people use guns to actively threaten people. I also include in here the "I'm afraid of criminals so I'm going to carry too." This is a mostly urban culture.

C) Resist the Government culture - keep guns in case the government tries to use oppressive force. This is the main intent of the Second Amendment, by the way, if you read the federalist papers and other supporting information.  Note that even back then, they knew the debates this would prompt, including "but there's no way a state militia could defeat a federal military."  The point is deterrent, as in "The feds will count the cost of oppression, instead of just saying oh hey here's this area we can just go and occupy."  Compare to all of history where an armed group meets a defenseless group versus one that may be defeated but only after a long battle.

D) All Guns are Bad culture - "if we just outlawed guns, we'd be crime free".  The cost of this would be high though, see C above.

The media is hyper-focused on gun violence, because it gets them advertising eyeballs, so selection bias makes it seem like we have constant gun crime.  We do have a lot of gun violence and it would be great if we could reduce it.  But I'm in the camp that says you reduce it through education and cultural change, not by taking away legitimate tools.  Sadly, cultural change is a lot harder to implement (and takes longer) than "ban all the things!"

[TD1]

The distinction between non-violent and violent crime is that in the former instance no one has attempted to stop the criminal.

Even in the UK, police have batons and body armour. Because no one in their right mind sends undefended, unarmed people to gamble their lives telling criminals what to do.

[Cthulhu]

A critical first step here, which solves a lot of these police altercation problems, is to decriminalize like 90% of the things people get arrested for.  Recreational drug use is probably the biggest one.  Drug transportation you might still ban (I guess...) but it shouldn't be a random traffic officer's prerogative.  What motivation will you have to get in a shootout with the cop who pulled you over if he's not capable of ruining your life?

Traffic cops should not carry guns.  Traffic cops should also not be carrying out arrests, searching cars, etc.  Of course traffic enforcement is frequently a pretext for getting into your car to find juicier offenses, so maybe just get rid of traffic cops altogether.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

A thing that people should always be reminded of is that the drug war is directly and undeniably the successor policy to segregation, as segregation was the successor to the black codes, and the black codes to slavery. If you've ever wondered why the segregationist political bloc just seems to evaporate despite having plenty of strength left around the time of the Nixon administration, that's why.

[martinuzz]

C) Resist the Government culture - keep guns in case the government tries to use oppressive force. This is the main intent of the Second Amendment, by the way, if you read the federalist papers and other supporting information.  Note that even back then, they knew the debates this would prompt, including "but there's no way a state militia could defeat a federal military."  The point is deterrent, as in "The feds will count the cost of oppression, instead of just saying oh hey here's this area we can just go and occupy."  Compare to all of history where an armed group meets a defenseless group versus one that may be defeated but only after a long battle.

D) All Guns are Bad culture - "if we just outlawed guns, we'd be crime free".  The cost of this would be high though, see C above.

The media is hyper-focused on gun violence, because it gets them advertising eyeballs, so selection bias makes it seem like we have constant gun crime.  We do have a lot of gun violence and it would be great if we could reduce it.  But I'm in the camp that says you reduce it through education and cultural change, not by taking away legitimate tools.  Sadly, cultural change is a lot harder to implement (and takes longer) than "ban all the things!"

Good luck have fun with your semi-automatic toys when the government has reaper drones. Guns in the hands of civilians, allowed to be carried in public are the problem. The second amendment is the problem. Your option 'C' is a dangerous mass psychosis.

Racism is a problem too, obviously, but that would not be as lethal in 90+% of the cases if cops weren't constantly fearing to get shot.

[Bumber]

Officer Devin Brosnan (the one that didn't shoot Brooks) may have received a concussion in the scuffle:

Brosnan suffered bruises to his arms and legs in the scuffle, as well as a concussion when he hit his head on the pavement, his defense team said.

If true, that underlines my earlier point:

Spoiler: Context: (click to show/hide)

A running target is not threatening, it's as non-threatening as it gets, really, the fuck
They frisked him before cuffs came out, he magically got a gun out of his butt? Both cops had theirs, are they just being careful in case their buddy ALSO lost their gun instead of one of them losing their taser? Why the assumption he's a criminal automatically? He's what you call a murder victim, he was murdered by two cowards who had him outnumbered, outgunned, and believed they were justified in murdering him.

The shooting officer doesn't know that the other officer still has his gun, or isn't incapacitated from being tased in the head or being knocked to the ground. [...]

The article also indicates that officer Brosnan isn't a "state witness" against officer Rolfe, like the DA had previously stated. He's a defendant in his own case and an ordinary witness to the events.

The DA has also asserted that a frame from footage proves officer Brosnan kicked Brooks after he was shot, but Brosnan's lawyers state that it doesn't actually show that, and asked why the actual footage hasn't been released.

The same DA, in another case just 10 days before the Brooks shooting, stated that "A taser is considered as a deadly weapon under Georgia law."

[Doomblade187]

One thing I'm not sure people realize is that sending mediators out makes a lot of sense, because many calls for police are non-criminal social issues - domestic disputes, mental health crises, etc. It doesn't make sense to send police out to these.

[Cthulhu]

C) Resist the Government culture - keep guns in case the government tries to use oppressive force. This is the main intent of the Second Amendment, by the way, if you read the federalist papers and other supporting information.  Note that even back then, they knew the debates this would prompt, including "but there's no way a state militia could defeat a federal military."  The point is deterrent, as in "The feds will count the cost of oppression, instead of just saying oh hey here's this area we can just go and occupy."  Compare to all of history where an armed group meets a defenseless group versus one that may be defeated but only after a long battle.

D) All Guns are Bad culture - "if we just outlawed guns, we'd be crime free".  The cost of this would be high though, see C above.

The media is hyper-focused on gun violence, because it gets them advertising eyeballs, so selection bias makes it seem like we have constant gun crime.  We do have a lot of gun violence and it would be great if we could reduce it.  But I'm in the camp that says you reduce it through education and cultural change, not by taking away legitimate tools.  Sadly, cultural change is a lot harder to implement (and takes longer) than "ban all the things!"

Good luck have fun with your semi-automatic toys when the government has reaper drones. Guns in the hands of civilians, allowed to be carried in public are the problem. The second amendment is the problem. Your option 'C' is a dangerous mass psychosis.

Racism is a problem too, obviously, but that would not be as lethal in 90+% of the cases if cops weren't constantly fearing to get shot.

Civilians are also fearing to get shot.  Why are cops allowed to resort to deadly force whenever they're scared, while Daniel Shaver is forced to crawl across the floor weeping in sheer terror while a squad of cops point guns at him, then shoot him for trying to pull his pants up? 

And we are still going about this as if the problem is police shooting people.  Police shooting people is a high-visibility section of a systemic problem that goes deeper than just the police.  Unilateral civilian disarmament will not fix it and thankfully it's a non-starter anyway.