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[RedKing]

Wonder how much of it becomes a "Keeping up with the Joneses" phenomenon.

"Awwww....Podunkville got a Bradley! We should have a Bradley too! We're way better than them...."

[Frumple]

Culture is something entirely different. Culture says "do the exact opposite of what you've been trained to do and I give you a pass for doing it." I suppose you can put that under the very utilitarian title of "Human Resource Management" but I prefer to call it what it is: corruption.

Naaah, human resource management is what's supposed to take that kind of crap out behind the shed and hit it with things until it stops. Corruption is one of things people screwing it up (either by plain maybe intentional incompetence or not having proper resources to do it right) contributes to.

Get the point you're making, but training or that kind of thing are the primary (mostly) internal tools for making the shit stop. If your culture has reached that point, someone keeping an eye on your organization's members has screwed the pooch. Possibly literally depending on why they're letting folks get away with it.

[sluissa]

So, some random internet person, (so take with as much salt as necessary), pointed out that illegally drawn blood is only inadmissible in a criminal case. In a civil case, such as one the truck driver might have against the police department for driving a high speed chase suspect into his truck, blood drawn could be admissible, and might help defend the police department if the truck driver was found to have had drugs or alcohol in his system.

So... it goes deeper. They know they screwed up on the chase, and are grasping at straws so hard that they're willing to push around innocent nurses to try to cover their own butts.

Assuming random internet people are to be trusted with regards to law matters. (They frequently aren't, but occasionally you'll get someone who knows what they're talking about.) Someone feel free to correct me and I'll be willing strike this post from the record.

[wierd]

Cornel U. weighs on on the Exclusionary Rule.

Yup, turns out the fruit of the poisonous tree is good eating at civil cases. Moreover, Qualified Immunity might even make an appearance, as the detective might assert that he felt his actions were reasonable and justified, and the thin blue line might form ranks. (never mind that this is indeed first rate gestapo crap.)

It's partially the whole "They have better guns and equipment, we need better guns and equipment" cycle.

Like I quipped earlier, This is shit straight out of Dominion Tank Police-- it's the damn setup for the opening act!!

[nenjin]

I think it's called the Good Faith exception or something in some jurisdictions. Where if the officer believed they were acting in good faith, then they acted in good faith and even the fruits of a poisoned tree are admissible.

Which is the biggest crock of legal BS ever. You can't rely on what people say they were thinking as the basis for if what they were doing is illegal or not.

[Paxiecrunchle]

I only hope that this case makes it into national headlines, and that it might lead to a shift in legal policy, as unlikely as that is.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

(Nenjin, did you have a different avatar before? I think I sort of recognize you, but not much.)

Nenjin, you have a good argument wrt police, and I think we share a common viewpoint on police corruption. I looked at some statistics to see if they would back you up, and at a brief glance it seems they do. I'm just curious - what are you basing these arguments on? In other words: How did you come to the conclusion that police officers are corrupt? What was your reasoning?

[Max™]

Goes deeper than just corruption of officers, the article LW posted hits on it: we've been telling little boys that the tip-top peak of manhood is shit like action heroes. We've got a near religious reverence for soldiers too, so you get a couple of cases where cops end up outgunned and it becomes easy to sell the "we need to be prepared" angle to the citizens while you can lure in kids who wanted the same sort of respect as a soldier gets without  needing to go overseas and shit. Someone says cops fucked up and handled a situation wrong, internally it gets turned into "we aren't respected enough, but soldiers are... WE NEED TO BE MORE LIKE SOLDIERS!" type of mindsets.

Warrior cops treat everything as a potential battle, guardian cops who are trained to react calmly by calming shit down when appropriate and only preventing shit from going down when they can't do it another way, that shit just seems right to someone who grew up as a big brother to a gaggle of girls. If I'm having to directly defend one of my sisters then I already fucked up by not fixing the situation beforehand.

Protect and serve, not observe and intimidate, right?

hmmmmm

As an experimentally confirmed Texan I have to ask: why not both, same time, same place, let them slug it out?

[smjjames]

Changing culture can't be the only method of change since there are other tried and true methods of making things better, like community policing, and there are plenty of ideas out there on how to fix things. Just that the politicians aren't listening.

[Loud Whispers]

Warrior cops treat everything as a potential battle, guardian cops who are trained to react calmly by calming shit down when appropriate and only preventing shit from going down when they can't do it another way, that shit just seems right to someone who grew up as a big brother to a gaggle of girls. If I'm having to directly defend one of my sisters then I already fucked up by not fixing the situation beforehand.
Protect and serve, not observe and intimidate, right?

I suppose it boils down to wanting police to be primarily in the business of policing and not in the business of warfare; having units of paramilitary police for the odd bank robbers and mass killers is all right, but having it as standard seems to completely void the point of having police and military even be separate entities. I don't know American culture enough to say whether this is rooted even deeper in sports, soldier reverence and dude patriotism lmao, but from the way US police have tended to respond to provocations with violence, there is definitely a deeper issue in the Police being a warrior class culture. That is something I'm not sure politicians could change, so the alternative would be to convince the police themselves that there is a better way for everyone to get along and not die

[Egan_BW]

The military are better at policing than the police at this point. And obviously better at militarying, too.

[EnigmaticHat]

Mattis for Ferguson Police Chief!

[SalmonGod]

I think American culture has a fucking DEEP authoritarian streak, and police culture feeds off of that.  I wouldn't tie it to any specific issue of toxic masculinity or sports or soldier reverence.  Just authoritarianism in general.  We like to market ourselves as being a rebellious culture because we fought a war for independence hundreds of years ago.  But we're very much not.  We tend not to have any care whatsoever about what's actually right or humane.  Whoever walks into the room with the biggest hat, loudest voice, and "fuck you I'm the boss" mannerism tends to get the most respect around here, even if it's glaringly obvious that there's zero substance behind the act.  Whatever they do, no matter how horrible, will be justified after the fact by mental gymnastics.  We worship money because "fuck you I can buy you" is just another large boss hat.  And Americans are gullible as all hell when it comes to their overworked consumerist lifestyles being designed for them, because it plays off their authoritarian streak.  Big hat boss people tell them they need to work, and conspicuous consumption is just pursuit of big hat.

So police officer in a uniform executes people crying "I AM THE LAW AND YOU ARE CRIMINAL SCUM" plays right into what Americans worship.

[Tawa]

And Americans are gullible as all hell when it comes to their overworked consumerist lifestyles being designed for them, because it plays off their authoritarian streak.  Big hat boss people tell them they need to work, and conspicuous consumption is just pursuit of big hat.

Reminds me of a time I saw a slavery apologist who claimed that guaranteed employment for slaves was a good thing.

[Karnewarrior]

I just want to jump in here and say that it's definitely not an issue of training: I was a cop for 4 years, and while I was shitty at most of it, I do remember having to take training on not shooting black people at least twice a quarter.

I think it's the issue that being in the police is taken to mean that you have the power to make people do what you want, so that attracts bullies, which pushes out people who aren't bullies, and then the cycle grows. I know I never saw anyone abusing their authority except once, and when I did I spoke up and shut them down, even though they were my supervisor.

One also has to remember that we have bias due to the way the media works - the problem isn't non-existent by any means, but you aren't going to hear about the "Good" cops because it doesn't make for a good story if they deescalate the situation and everyone leaves peacefully. You only have a story, something that will stick in your head, if something goes wrong. I forget the exact term for it, but it's an established psychological thing.

And of course it all folds back into the identity politics the U.S is drowning in. Most cops identify as right-wing, and therefore basically follow whatever the party line is. The left-wing cops tend to be similar, but have a better chance of not being radicals.

Also relevant is that the cops I met tended to be a bit dull. They weren't exactly the most rational people -  a consequence of rational people not wanting to be cops because then they would be surrounded by irrational people.