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[martinuzz]

You raise a good point.

Most current and former military are better trained in the use of force than police officers

Also, damn. It's that bad? Perhaps I should change my stance from 'completely abolishing the police is not the answer' to 'go ahead and abolish the police, replace them with the army until a new police have been created that actually protects all citizens'.
Only use military that have never been deployed to war though. Everyone loses at least part of their sanity when killing people (especially if half of the people you kill are children)

EDIT: I might need to clarify my last remark. It's not an accusation. It's just that... What do you think the average age of an 'enemy terrorist IS combatant' is, especially in the later phase of the war?
Many are just 14-15 year old kids.
War is nasty and terrible.
Is a US soldier killing a 14 year old (that points a gun at him) a child murderer? No he is not. The people who send children into the war are guilty of their deaths, not the soldier pulling the trigger in a 'it's him or me' situation.

EDIT2: In a hypothetical situation, where the only recruits available to create a police force from, are two groups of war veterans..
One group goes to PTTS therapy, and/or trauma councelling, the other group says 'Don't worry, I'm fine'.
I'd choose the group that goes to therapy for police training.

[Cthulhu]

You cannot use the military for police actions, domestically or abroad.  The military's job is to kill people and break their shit, full stop.  They can't enforce the law, they can't win hearts and minds, they can kill people and they can break shit.  That's why we've been embroiled in these counterinsurgencies for the last twenty years.

[hector13]

It's not that it doesn't happen to white people, it's that it disproportionately happens to non-whites. If a person walk into a room of 100 people, 80 white and 20 black, and shoots 20 people, and it turns out 18 of those shot are black and 2 are white....then it's probably true that there was some racism going on there in that shooting. After 100 shootings with the same ratio, then it becomes ridculous to argue racism isn't a factor.

Other people: This argument doesn't need a devil's advocate

Me, a contrarian: But what if it's the event organisers that are racist and have placed all the black people by the door

It’s their fault for being late then, though that is of course nothing to do with the very circuitous route/obstacle course they were forced to take in order to get there.

[martinuzz]

You cannot use the military for police actions, domestically or abroad.  The military's job is to kill people and break their shit, full stop.  They can't enforce the law, they can't win hearts and minds, they can kill people and they can break shit.  That's why we've been embroiled in these counterinsurgencies for the last twenty years.

I totally agree. But when the situation is as dire as nenjin says it is, namely that, to transcribe it to your words, the police's modus operandi is even more 'kill people and break their shit' than it is the military's.... Houston.. We have a problem.

[Frumple]

Lot more places than just Houston has the problem, really. It's harder to find a precinct in the US that doesn't have a history of nasty shit than to find one that does. A lot harder. Nearly impossible, and usually when it's not public record locals are well able (if not always willing) to inform you that's just because the area's cops are better at keeping it out of the news

Whole goddamn institution is rotten as hell.

[martinuzz]

Uhmmm. Movie reference. (Houston being used by me as a methaphor for the entire USA)

[Vector]

I guess statistically it would be more like:

Room of 100 people. 20 are Black, 80 are not (and are mostly white).

Cops shoot 20 of the people. If race doesn't influence who the cops shoot, should be four Black people and sixteen white people.

Instead, say that it's 8 Black people and 12 white people. More white people are being shot in absolute terms, but 12/80 = 3/20 = 15% are being shot, whereas 8/20 = 2/5 = 40% of the Black people are being shot. 8 and 12 are pretty close if you're just looking at a pile of bodies on the floor, but if you think "hmm, I have a 40% chance to get shot, as opposed to a 15% chance of getting shot," maybe the next thing you think is, "hey, why don't I get only a 15% chance of getting shot too???"

Ouch!

[martinuzz]

Scriver's methapor (if I understood it correctly) just points out the institutional racism that puts black people into the line of police fire more often than it does white people.
The police being racist or not is inconsequential. They're a symptom of an underlying issue. Poverty and hopelesness affecting black people disproportionally.

EDIT: to put it in other words. The police being racist is not the problem. The problem is company X rather hiring or promoting John McWhiteface than John McBlackface, when both have equal credentials.

[delphonso]

Why not both?

[martinuzz]

Cut a tree's leaves, they will regrow.
Cut a tree's roots, and it will wither.

[Iduno]

It's not that it doesn't happen to white people, it's that it disproportionately happens to non-whites. If a person walk into a room of 100 people, 80 white and 20 black, and shoots 20 people, and it turns out 18 of those shot are black and 2 are white....then it's probably true that there was some racism going on there in that shooting. After 100 shootings with the same ratio, then it becomes ridculous to argue racism isn't a factor.

Other people: This argument doesn't need a devil's advocate

Me, a contrarian: But what if it's the event organisers that are racist and have placed all the black people by the door

They put them all by the door, and also made sure the police were all violent racists.

[delphonso]

Cut a tree's leaves, they will regrow.
Cut a tree's roots, and it will wither.

Fair, but in this case the purpose of the leaves is to be the weapon of the roots. This is all that "protecting private property" stuff from police violence during the protests last summer.

[MorleyDev]

The police being racist is not the problem. The problem is company X rather hiring or promoting John McWhiteface than John McBlackface, when both have equal credentials.

Which is an argument that falls down when you break the rates down by race and poverty and find that poor black people are 1.5x as likely to be killed by police than poor white people, and 'least-poor' black people are 3.35x more likely to be killed than least-poor white people. The second one especially shoots a big hole in the argument.

I know it's not an argument you were actually making, but it's still worth noting this argument isn't a good one.

That there are more poor black people could be making police more likely to treat a black person like they do a poor person even if that black person isn't a poor person, but that's the inherent problem and literal body count associated with racial profiling and why police...ya know, shouldn't do that.

[hector13]

Another day, another police killing.

This time a 13 year old boy.

[nenjin]

19 seconds. That's all the time he gave that kid.