Of course there won't be ONE, because each situation has to be taken individually. The ONE thing should be the policies and procedures that dictate how and when force is applied. You do understand the concept of nuance right?
Aurora Police Defend ‘Stand Down’ Orders; Twice Walked Away From Arresting Man Who Terrorized Apartment Residents
- Thread starter Houseman
- Start date
Obviously, the balance is somewhere in the middle and on a case-by-case situation. Reform would adequately arms our police force to recognize where that balance is and simultaneous weed out officers with no respect for that balance. Because it's difficult doesn't mean it's something that shouldn't happen.
And that's why we can't have a honest discussion; you always assume "the officers were doing everything right," and as long as that's the case, there' really no point in talking to you about any of this. No one, well, FEW people have argued the cops are always wrong, but those people are ignored in lieu of pursuing straw men that paint the cops as the eternal victims.
It is a fact that police in the US kill more people per capita than in most other developed nations, so there must be something that needs fixing in the US. Most of us are not saying to fire officers at the first complaint about force, we are saying that we want accountability when it is demonstrated that the officer did not try to deescalate and used force beyond what was necessary to control the situation.
Is it a difficult balancing act? Sure, but it would still be better than what is currently happening.
And on the rioting. There might be something to that, but isn't it possible that people are rioting because we cannot actually trust the system to tell us whether officers were doing everything right, since they never seem to be found in the wrong?
- Nov 27, 2009
- 5,792
- 712
- 118
- Country
- The Dreamlands
- Gender
- Lose 1d20 sanity points.
I'm an anarchist dude, I think that the whole system is inherently corrupt and flawed and that the only solution is to tear it down completely and establiish a new one from the ground up, that is to say revolution, I think you're all too naive by thinking that the problem can be solved peacefully even though it has been demonstrated time and time again that it won't, because the system as is currently benefits the people in power far too much for them to accept the change, hate to break it to you housey but I'm not moderate at all, I'm pretty much as radical as one can be, I've openly endorsed a separatist army, which by the way has no police in their state and have practically non-existent problems with organised crime under an Anarchosocialist regime.
Well, these existing policies and procedures already exist, so they are either A) not being followed, or B) not sufficient.
I don't always think that the police always do everything right, and regarding the events that started these multiple riots, I don't think that the police were always in the right.
I don't do what you're accusing me of doing.
is it though? A difficult balancing act I mean. I mean most other countries don't have this issue, so it doesn't appear to be a rampant, inherent problem to the concept of law enforcement. If it was, you'd think it would be more widespread. The fact that it's isolated to the US suggests it's something fundamentally flawed in our setup.
It's both. There are clearly examples of people not following them, and fairly clear evidence that the policies as written aren't sufficient to the task. That's why people are calling for accountability and more transparency. Because under the current system, the police don't appear to have any checks and balances to their behavior. They just take whatever level of force they think is appropriate, ignore regulations, and often suffer zero punishment, either internally or from the justice system, even when they are deemed to have acted out of turn.
So yeah, that's a fucking problem. When the people who are supposed to protect us, see us as threats to themselves, and feel justified to take whatever actions they want, and the people in place to police THEM, actively favor them with their decisions, that's not a good system.
You...are aware that excessive force is an actual concept used in law and law enforcement, are you not? There's no solid line for it because - as implied by the name - what constitutes excessive force varies based on the amount of force the situation warranted. However, it can adequately be summed up as being "violent acts beyond what a reasonable third party would recognize as necessary to safely end the situation".
For instance: Let's say that you had a streaker. Is chasing after and tackling the streaker unnecessarily violent? Not really. What if the chaser started beating up the streaker after tackling him. Yes. That would be excessive force. What about if instead of chasing the streaker they opted to shoot them instead? Yes. A reasonable third party would say that absolutely that was more force than the situation required. What if our streaker was running at someone while brandishing a butcher knife? In those circumstances, lethal force would be warranted as a means of protecting someone who a reasonable third party would assume was in life-threatening danger.
This is not a difficult concept so long as you avoid overly simplistic and/or tribalistic thinking. It boils down to two questions: "What was the amount of force that the situation warranted" and "what was the amount of force applied?" If the answers to the two questions are markedly different, then the situation was handled poorly.
The only way to think that without lying through your teeth is to have not paid attention in the slightest when people told you what specific reforms they wanted.
.... That's what most of us have been saying!! Hence a call for reform!!I can't recall the exact post as it was a while ago in one of innumerable threads like this, so dismiss is it as anecdotal if you so choose, but you admitted directly to me that you defer to the police in instances of apparent excessive force, and countless times you advocated that the victims had possibly done something wrong to incite police ire or that the victims coulds/woulda/shoulda handled the situation differently. So yeah, as someone who defers to the police, even in situations where clear excessive force was used (I don't care how you try to obfuscate the meaning of "excessive") I'm going to assume you think they're in the right most of the time.
Are we really talking about this?
This is another failed effort by the police. How is this a point for the Pro-Police camp?
The police tazed a guy and left him for the people they were supposed to protect to deal with. This is a successful operation of duties? We came, we delivered force, and now you clean up the mess.
They can't even not do their duties without display of force.
This is everything we're talking about. You arrest the man. Without violence if necessary.
This is another failed effort by the police. How is this a point for the Pro-Police camp?
The police tazed a guy and left him for the people they were supposed to protect to deal with. This is a successful operation of duties? We came, we delivered force, and now you clean up the mess.
They can't even not do their duties without display of force.
This is everything we're talking about. You arrest the man. Without violence if necessary.
You can do that. That's different than saying "you always assume "the officers were doing everything right," "
In this case, I think they were doing what the protesters wanted them to do. Lo and behold, people still aren't happy.
Last edited:
I for one am glad the cops did not kill the man. I mean, that’s the alternative you’re after, right? This is the whole point. “Some people are just terrible and if we’re gonna enforce laws on em cops are gonna have to kill some of em.” If we are to operate in the binary reality you’re positing, then the cops can either do nothing or kill this guy for not complying. No other options. I’ll happily not favor the murder of a guy having a mental break so you can ignore the reality around you and live in a fantasy world. If I am left with two options, cops who kill or no cops, I will choose no cops.
Thank you for actually answering the question.
And yes, the cops did present it as binary. The article says: " Parker also explained his belief that had police taken more aggressive action and tried to take Thompson into custody, it could have led to the use of deadly force. He said escalation could have led to Thompson being hurt or killed and officers potentially being injured. "
No, they were clearly doing less than necessary, to spite protesters. They are doing, what people in this thread have done, and over-simplified/exaggerated the complaints of the public, about police behavior. They've translated "please stop fucking KILLING us unnecessarily" to "well, I guess they just don't want us around at all, so we'll show up and basically do a token response, and then leave, because if they aren't happy with us KILLING THEM unnecessarily, then we have no course of action."
And that's just fucking bullshit, and you know it.
It's like someone saying to a group of nurses. "Hey, stop juggling newborn babies around the delivery room, because you keep dropping them." and the nurses saying "Oh, well I guess they don't want me to stitch them up when they get shot in the ER!! I guess I'll just sit here on my phone then while they suffer from arterial spray!"
Which incidents?
Force isn't off the table. Nobody has been arguing that the police must never, in any circumstances, use any force. Criticism and protest have been provoked by excessive and/or misdirected force: lethal choke-holds used against nonviolent suspects; gunfire directed towards people who weren't suspects at all; violence used before any other approaches were attempted or before the police had identified themselves.
That seems like a serious accusation. Do you have any evidence for it?
A man is alive when he could have been dead, thanks to the de-escalation efforts of the officers, and you're still putting them down?
Yes, cops do think in incredibly simple binaries that do not accurately describe reality where their two options are (within their own minds) kill or do nothing. I am not at all surprised to see this and I thank you for confirming that these cops are in fact total idiots who should not be trusted with any authority whatsoever.
I love how you like to devolve a discussion into petty semantics. Fine, replace "always" with "frequently" and my point still stands and is still valid.
I don't engage you to "beat you" on niggling technicalities; I engage you because your viewpoints honestly befuddle me and I often wonder if you actually stand behind them, or if you just really get off playing devil's advocate, no matter the topic
And as to your second "point," hapyninja42 said exactly what I was going to say:
