The George Floyd/Black Lives Matter protests and police conduct

[DevoHusker]

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/500328-national-security-adviser-blames-a-few-bad-apples-says-theres-not?rnd=1590935249

[FrantzHardySwag]

10 minutes ago, DevoHusker said:

Lincoln businesses damaged as well...didnt hear of any looting, but definitely criminal mischief 

These people are having their worst years on record and at risk or losing their businesses. Can’t we leave them alone?

[knapplc]

43 minutes ago, DevoHusker said:

...kind of similar to police officers...

 

Reporters aren't attacking police officers. But police officers are attacking reporters. And random people. And there's video of it from multiple cities. This is egregious.

 

Just sift through this thread.

 

 

[Guy Chamberlin]

16 minutes ago, DevoHusker said:

What steps would you promote to fix the issue?

 

I would propose that America stop promoting a binary reaction to every problem in this country. As we've already established in this thread, echoed in pretty much every conversation I've had, there are good cops and bad cops, there are thoughtful protestors and there are looters, there are opportunistic media personalities and there are journalists doing a great job of collecting and vetting information, and there are another 90 degrees of variations among them.

 

Basically, there are no sides in a clusterf#&%.  

 

Police shouldn't feel they are betraying the profession or putting themselves at risk for reporting fellow officers who cross a line. They've had codified internal review processes for years, but they are as different as each locale and the ingrained culture typically overrides them. Some departments and individual precincts do a great job of community outreach. Cops walk a beat and get to know people by name. It makes a difference. What you DON"T do is stock up on military vehicles and riot gear sold to you at discount rates by the U.S. military, then look for an excuse to use them. You do take charges of racial bias and profiling seriously, especially when the evidence is overwhelming. It's learned behavior, so it can be unlearned. 

 

You take the "serve and protect" job description seriously and try to restore some nobility to law enforcement careers. The entire community commits to treating police officers and public school teachers as valued and appropriately compensated professions, including a higher standard of training and qualification. In return they do everything they can to earn that trust. One of the ways to earn that trust is to convict police who break the law.

[teachercd]

Anyone ever been around tear gas?  I always wondered how nasty that stuff is.

[mrandyk]

Frankly, I'm glad that Minneapolis police and the national guard weren't taking any s#!t last night. Four nights of burning the city is enough. I can't even count how many businesses I saw burn down, let alone the number that have been smashed and looted and may not recover. The people need to be heard, but destroying other peoples' livelihood is not the answer.

 

I'd bet if Minnesota took a hard line a couple days earlier that the damage across the country would be drastically reduced. 

[teachercd]

1 minute ago, mrandyk said:

Frankly, I'm glad that Minneapolis police and the national guard weren't taking any s#!t last night. Four nights of burning the city is enough. I can't even count how many businesses I saw burn down, let alone the number that have been smashed and looted and may not recover. The people need to be heard, but destroying other peoples' livelihood is not the answer.

 

I'd bet if Minnesota took a hard line a couple days earlier that the damage across the country would be drastically reduced. 

Very well said.

[DevoHusker]

4 minutes ago, Guy Chamberlin said:

 

I would propose that America stop promoting a binary reaction to every problem in this country. As we've already established in this thread, echoed in pretty much every conversation I've had, there are good cops and bad cops, there are thoughtful protestors and there are looters, there are opportunistic media personalities and there are journalists doing a great job of collecting and vetting information, and there are another 90 degrees of variations among them.

 

Basically, there are no sides in a clusterf#&%.  

 

Police shouldn't feel they are betraying the profession or putting themselves at risk for reporting fellow officers who cross a line. They've had codified internal review processes for years, but they are as different as each locale and the ingrained culture typically overrides them. Some departments and individual precincts do a great job of community outreach. Cops walk a beat and get to know people by name. It makes a difference. What you DON"T do is stock up on military vehicles and riot gear sold to you at discount rates by the U.S. military, then look for an excuse to use them. You do take charges of racial bias and profiling seriously, especially when the evidence is overwhelming. It's learned behavior, so it can be unlearned. 

 

You take the "serve and protect" job description seriously and try to restore some nobility to law enforcement careers. The entire community commits to treating police officers and public school teachers as valued and appropriately compensated professions, including a higher standard of training and qualification. In return they do everything they can to earn that trust. One of the ways to earn that trust is to convict police who break the law.

Very thoughtful and insightful, thanks. How do we get it to happen?

[Guy Chamberlin]

8 minutes ago, DevoHusker said:

Very thoughtful and insightful, thanks. How do we get it to happen?

 

Do I have to do everything around this place?

 

 

 

https://nbc25news.com/news/local/justice-for-george-floyd-protest-in-flint-twp

[The Dude]

5 hours ago, ZRod said:

I don't condone the violence,  but there's pretty massive difference between people being upset that they can't buy grass seed at Home Depot, go boating, or go out to eat for a month and walking through a capitol building with ARs; compared to people with no firearms who have been speaking out for literally decades against systemic issues with no changes.

 

Yep, and the lockdowns ended pretty quickly after the actual peaceful protests 

[funhusker]

I need to catch up on several pages, so forgive me if this has been covered.

 

But I've seen a reference to teachers.  One bad teacher doesn't make the rest of us bad.  Okay, let's unpack that.

 

If a teacher at a school molests a student and other teachers know, they will report and expect that teacher to face the law.  If they don't they are complicit. They would also be brought up on charges.

 

If police officers don't speak up, they are complicit in my eyes.  Credit to @BIGREDIOWAN for speaking up.  This isn't okay.  No need to defend the "good cops", but the focus absolutely needs to be on the bad ones before it even gets to this.  If a policeman knows of a coworker mingling in hate groups, it needs to be reported.  If a coworker hears "passing comments" it needs to be reported.  

 

I know for damn sure if I heard a coworker talk about how "sexy" a student looks, I would not only speak up with a WTF!!!! but also report it to the office.  This s#!t isn't that complicated! If there are far more good cops than bad, this should be easy.

[funhusker]

7 minutes ago, The Dude said:

 

Yep, and the lockdowns ended pretty quickly after the actual peaceful protests 

Hmm...wonder why "kneeling" didn't garner the same results...

 

weird....

[Cdog923]

1 hour ago, DevoHusker said:

...kind of similar to police officers...

 

Do you understand the imbalance of power and responsibility between the two groups? 

 

1 hour ago, DevoHusker said:

What steps would you promote to fix the issue?

 

The obvious would be "don't let racists ****bags be police officers", but that's beyond the scope of my influence. At the base level, in regards to the systemic problems of police brutality? Police officers should be required to go through much, much, much more de-escalation training than what they currently do. Start there, and let's get serious about race as a society. 

[Moiraine]

There need to be independent groups (or more of them across the board) that monitor police departments that have a certain % of incidents. I can't remember the #s now but this officer had like 15 different incidents before this one and was only punished for 1 of them. I read about some of them and more should have happened to stop the behavior including possibly firing him.

People, including politicians, need to stop attacking anyone who ever dares to say anything negative about the police. We should all want to get rid of the bad eggs so more people trust the police.

Of course there needs to be balance so police don't have to be too scared to do their jobs, but right now it's unbalanced in the opposite direction. The racist/sadistic police officers usually get off easy.

[Cdog923]

3 minutes ago, Moiraine said:

There need to be independent groups (or more of them across the board) that monitor police departments that have a certain % of incidents. I can't remember the #s now but this officer had like 15 different incidents before this one and was only punished for 1 of them. I read about some of them and more should have happened to stop the behavior including possibly firing him.

People, including politicians, need to stop attacking anyone who ever dares to say anything negative about the police. We should all want to get rid of the bad eggs so more people trust the police.

Of course there needs to be balance so police don't have to be too scared to do their jobs, but right now it's unbalanced in the opposite direction. The racist/sadistic police officers usually get off easy.

 

Obama established something similar to this, but Trump got rid of it. 

 

https://www.governing.com/topics/public-justice-safety/lc-sessions-justice-police-reforms-trump-doj-milwaukee.html