Police Reform

Mierin

Mierin

New member
I've been thinking a lot about this the past couple days. Being pissed off is all well and good. What needs to be done about it and who will actually do it? We've definitely moved in the wrong direction the last several years.

In his final hours as U.S. Attorney General last month, Jeff Sessions issued a memo limiting the Justice Department’s power to pursue and enforce federal consent decrees with local police departments.

These court-enforced arrangements were a major tool for the Obama administration to curb patterns of police abuse and misconduct during a time of heightened national attention on the issue. The Obama administration launched "pattern or practice" investigations into 25 police departments and entered into 14 consent decrees. By comparison, the Trump administration has initiated zero.
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“The Department of Justice under this administration will never negotiate or sign a consent decree that could reduce the lawful powers of the police department,” said a DOJ spokesman last year.
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https://www.governing.com/topics/public-justice-safety/gov-trump-sessions-consent-decrees-police-reform.html

Another thing I've noticed is that if anyone ever questions any police behavior of any kind, there is always a group of Republicans who starts questioning whether they're true Americans and accuses them of hating the police. Because of this I think any other Republican politicians who think things should change are too scared to say or try anything. I have no idea whether Democrats are doing anything right now but at the very least they don't instantly jump to defending police no matter what.

Lastly, I would think police officers would want this so they can get rid of the bad eggs, but the good ones would need to be a part of it because it could get out of hand going the other direction.

 
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The Dude said:
I've always felt the police should be held to a higher standard of obeying the law, compared to the rest of the citizenry.   When in reality they're held to a much lower standard.
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Yes, definitely. They work for the government. They are supposed to be someone you can trust. When you have incidents like this and no repercussions it destroys that for a lot of people.

 
Thought I read somewhere of some places not taking police because they were overqualified. I think they did this to move these people into detective work or higher than an officer.

I would say 98 percent or so of cops are good. The less than 2 percent of bad police bring the attention to them all. Even if they do not fire the bad 2 percent, which they should, at least give them a job where they don't leave the station at all. Or discipline them in some way so they are held accountable for their actions. 

I have no problem with them training and trying to prevent violence against civilians. I think being a police officer can be difficult because so many people challenge your authority etc. Any cop that kills an unarmed civilian should lose their badge and cause the department to investigate and explain and educate the consequences of this to other officers. In 2019, 1099 people were killed by officers and 24 percent of them were black. Those numbers need to decrease in all categories as our protectors should not kill that many civilians. 

 
HuskermanMike said:
Thought I read somewhere of some places not taking police because they were overqualified. I think they did this to move these people into detective work or higher than an officer.

I would say 98 percent or so of cops are good. The less than 2 percent of bad police bring the attention to them all. Even if they do not fire the bad 2 percent, which they should, at least give them a job where they don't leave the station at all. Or discipline them in some way so they are held accountable for their actions. 

I have no problem with them training and trying to prevent violence against civilians. I think being a police officer can be difficult because so many people challenge your authority etc. Any cop that kills an unarmed civilian should lose their badge and cause the department to investigate and explain and educate the consequences of this to other officers. In 2019, 1099 people were killed by officers and 24 percent of them were black. Those numbers need to decrease in all categories as our protectors should not kill that many civilians.
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I think one problem is a good % of the 98% of good police officers don't want outsiders to be involved at all, which means no reform. Then you also have a big % of the population that refuse to hear anything at all negative said about any police officer ever, which means any talk of reform is a nonstarter with them.

 
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HuskermanMike said:
Thought I read somewhere of some places not taking police because they were overqualified. I think they did this to move these people into detective work or higher than an officer.

I would say 98 percent or so of cops are good. The less than 2 percent of bad police bring the attention to them all. Even if they do not fire the bad 2 percent, which they should, at least give them a job where they don't leave the station at all. Or discipline them in some way so they are held accountable for their actions. 

I have no problem with them training and trying to prevent violence against civilians. I think being a police officer can be difficult because so many people challenge your authority etc. Any cop that kills an unarmed civilian should lose their badge and cause the department to investigate and explain and educate the consequences of this to other officers. In 2019, 1099 people were killed by officers and 24 percent of them were black. Those numbers need to decrease in all categories as our protectors should not kill that many civilians. 
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Look up Nate Lyday and Cody Holte...from this weekend. 

I agree with you in that 98%, or even higher, are good citizens and good officers. I also agree that roughly a thousand people per year, for the past four years specifically, are too many deaths. But, in the vast majority of those incidents, it would have been the officer joining Lyday and Holte...

 
Qualified Immunity doesn't just give cops a blanket way to violate people's rights like this guy is making it sound. So from my standpoint he's just trying to be dramatic.  <_<  Sure it's been used in the past on some henious things,  but it's also protected good officers from bad laws, bad policies, and bad training. End qualified immunity completely not only will you lose ALOT of good police officers....... you'll need to pay them a SIGNIFICANT amount more to stay in this profession. Just saying....

 
BIGREDIOWAN said:
Qualified Immunity doesn't just give cops a blanket way to violate people's rights like this guy is making it sound. So from my standpoint he's just trying to be dramatic.  <_<  Sure it's been used in the past on some henious things,  but it's also protected good officers from bad laws, bad policies, and bad training. End qualified immunity completely not only will you lose ALOT of good police officers....... you'll need to pay them a SIGNIFICANT amount more to stay in this profession. Just saying....
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I've wondered in recent years why anyone would become a police officer. To some it's a calling, like being a chef or a teacher. But that is a tough damned job, you put your life on the line every day, and it doesn't pay that much. Thank god for people like you who do it, BRI, but I sometimes wonder if maybe you shouldn't get into a safer profession. I know a lot of us would like to not worry about you when we read about police stuff from Des Moines.

 
knapplc said:
I've wondered in recent years why anyone would become a police officer. To some it's a calling, like being a chef or a teacher. But that is a tough damned job, you put your life on the line every day, and it doesn't pay that much. Thank god for people like you who do it, BRI, but I sometimes wonder if maybe you shouldn't get into a safer profession. I know a lot of us would like to not worry about you when we read about police stuff from Des Moines.
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I appreciate the kind words and I'm not meaning to derail the thread, but I'm hopeful this is my last year in law enforcement. Trying to find a corporate fraud investigator job now, but the whole COVID thing has really put a damper on that search.  Only time will tell if it will be my last year doing this or not. 

 
Shooting them, even with bean bags or rubber bullets, is not the correct reaction to two people standing peacefully on a street, even after curfew.

This is exactly the kind of thing police need to be trained NOT to do, and need to be disciplined for when they do.


 
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