Changing the laws to end 'qualified immunity' is much more important. Demilitarizing the police is also important. Maybe defunding would help with that.
Watching police impose an excessive curfew on 10 million people (LA county) and then round up hundreds of peaceful protesters last night was sickening.
Yeah. After the onslaught of videos over the past few days and seeing, over and over again, how the police have so terribly dehumanized people (i mean, they’ve absolutely taken the mask off and are straight abusing people with no shame, everywhere, across the whole country) I can’t help but wonder what kind of slow but steady damage they’ve done to communities over the years.
I mean, I’m decently well off and spend most of time in pretty well off areas, but if the cops are combative in well off areas, you know it’s just so much more awful in other areas.
Seeing the Minneapolis council members say the police regularly directly retaliate against them if they don’t offer full unwavering support [1] shows we have a very very big problem on our hands. And Im seeing similar messaging from mayors and council members from towns all across the country. I’ve always known they were abusive and needed to be dealt with, but this may even be much worse than I ever would have thought. Between officers placing their union leader’s orders as a higher priority than actual appointed police chiefs and then these pleas from the council members, Im not yet sure how we should address this.
We could start by banning police unions. Make individual officers accountable for their own behavior. Fully transparent data collection on everything they do. Turn some of our fancy machining learning technology loose on that data to identify the bad seeds and weed them out.
How about a separate agency that is accountable to citizens who has the power and mandate to police the police? Not just another department of the existing police, but someone accountable to the governor, or the citizens directly.
At some level I would expect that good cops want this accountability as much as the general public does. Is it really true that cops are predominantly bad? I sincerely hope that is not true.
Also, stop expecting police officers to be social workers. Police officers project force, power and violence on behalf of the state. Migrate a subset of law enforcement officers to social work positions. That is assuming that crime doesn't spike in the process.
Was speaking with my Co-worker from Beijing earlier today, apparently many (all?) neighborhoods have dedicated officers that focus just on solving social problems in that community. Seems like a great idea in theory.
That’s a good idea as well. I just read a couple of articles (They’re back at my computer so I don’t have links handy, sorry) and apparently the Minneapolis mayor has put together a task force on different ways to completely dismantle their police force and build it from scratch–I suspect an idea like yours would fit in nicely, take some of the current forces overblown budget and redirect a bit more of the funds towards programs which are aimed at making a community healthier rather than an enemy.
I think these are absolutely all things which need to be included in the (likely long) list of things to be done, but my suspicions are that the most difficult thing to address is going to be that a tremendous fraction of the police view american citizens as an enemy (And no, I don’t think that’s hyperbolic, I think these past few days demonstrate this pretty clearly.)
And I’m absolutely not discounting your thoughts, those need to be done as well.
When you mentioned retaliation, I assumed the police would be roughing people up or harassing them over trivial offences or something. (Classic TV examples: going wild on parking or DUI enforcement at a targeted politician's fundraisers).
But this is a work slowdown.
"We should have less policing."
"Okay, here's less policing."
Isn't it the point of "defund the police" that fewer incidents get a police response?
I have seen examples where the police union was able to turn off the 911 service and simply give a phone message that said something to the effect of, "we wish we could help you, but your city council has denied us funding".
The curfews in our area were put in place by elected officials as the violence was out of control at night. This was not a police action.
The Constitution provides a right to peaceful assembly. It does not provide a right to violence and looting. During the day people who wanted were and are generally able to march and peacefully express their views.
Case in point the video above showing hundreds of police officers surrounding peaceful protesters. I am offended by the massive waste of resources.
Case in point news helicopters not filming looting (as they would rather do) . The only thing left to film that night was the true protest. Made so so clear in the video above. The abuse of power if you can't see it you're blind.
This proves the curfew was ordered under false pretenses. And demonstrates a complete lack of judgement and common sense by law enforcement.
No doubt there were a lot of good faith / peaceful protests that were shut down and hindered, but there has also been a lot of looting. Here are couple good long form videos showing some of the looting in and around Santa Monica on a couple of the days:
You don't just get to ban good behavior to stop bad behavior. The presence of illegal looting does not take away constitutional rights. If it did, the government would have incentive to incite riots and looting to force the breakup of peaceful protest.
I agree to a point, but I do think depending on the scale of the lawlessness that temporary measures such as a curfew can be reasonable in order to avoid large scale destruction and violence
Perhaps the violence was not out of control because the police were better enabled by the curfew
in previous days and apprehended/scared off most of the troublemakers? The rioters and looters proved the curfew was necessary. The video seems like it is proof the police are more than willing to treat people with respect if they themselves are not being violent or enabling of those who are being violent.
In Chicago, they were looting. They were burning things. They set over 80 fires and killed 20 people over the weekend. Not a single one of those fatalities was caused by a police officer.
>The Constitution provides a right to peaceful assembly. It does not provide a right to violence and looting.
Looting and violence are already illegal. Catching the peaceful right to assembly, and arresting otherwise law abiding citizens, as collateral damage does not make those people trust the system more, who were already civilly disobeying the curfew order.
Someone will fight the citation on constitutional grounds. Did the ends justify the means? Could the police and national guard handle looting and rioting without curfew? If peaceful protesters are out at night causing cover and distraction for looting and rioting, is the only answer curfew?
Is your suggestion that the rioters and looters (and I make a strong distinction here between those people and peaceful protesters) are in fact an attempted insurrection and should be responded to as such?
I'm saying the fact one is looting does not a priori mean one is not making an effective, coherent, justified political argument. Wealth distribution is political. Property is political.
FWIW, arguments like this come across as a craven justification that is motivated by pure partisanship. We've all seen the videos. Trying to justify looting only undermines the defense of peaceful protest.
At what point is looting the response to wealth inequality. Does looting ever become justified when the feedback loop of lobbying, plutocracy, and tax code get out of control?
Looters, rioters, and arsonists would have a stronger arguments if their attacks were targeted, and not against small businesses and local grocery stores. Vandalizing Gucci and Dior sends a very different message than destroying single location restaurants.
Comparisons of this to the Boston Tea Party omit that it was an extremely targeted attack that allegedly self policed against collateral damage to other businesses.
"The People should never rise, without doing something to be remembered—something notable And striking." - John Adams
How is my justification craven - "lacking in courage or cowardly"? What do you think I am hiding from? I am open and forward about my desire to abolish cops and prisons to anyone who asks.
What is willfully ignorant is pretending violent protest does not (also) achieve results, or that violence can never be justified without "undermining" peaceful protest. Both are legitimate.
> We've all seen the videos.
Yeah, of cops murdering people for decades. You want craven? It's anyone who capes for anything the cops are doing now, including any negative discussion of looters.
Fuck the police. Once we're done with that, we can talk about your broken window.
Street violence always ends up benefiting the State. Looting plays right into the hands of the State justifying a military response to civil unrest. Nothing’s going to push a moderate to the right like an angry mob outside their door. And there are a lot more of them than there are of you.
Especially when you watch the press conferences you can practically see the mayors’ puppet strings being pulled by the police chief standing next to them. Chicago was exactly the same. They know who the real power is.
It used to be more common, but most places switched to appointment by the mayor or city council or city manager. Now it is mostly just a handful of scattered cities in a few states, with the exception of Louisiana where I believe they are still mostly elected.
My personal view is that police should maintain their qualified immunity, because unfortunately sometimes the use of force is necessary to enforce the law. However, they should also have a duty of care toward citizens that overrides that immunity in addition to mandating that they actually do protect and serve. Castle Rock v. Gonzales[1][2] really needs to be reversed or legislatively overturned.
Curtailment of QI should come first, but defunding the police in a vacuum will be very dangerous as long as the power of civil asset forfeiture exists. You may remove tax money from the police budget, but that just sets up a perverse incentive to confiscate more cash and property to make up the difference.
Curtail QI _and_ civil asset forfeiture, and we will have set the stage for real policing reform.
Civil forfeiture works "best" in small jurisdictions harassing driver-bys who aren't constituents, right?
I think we can go for defunding in the major metros (which also have the more powerful police departments in absolute terms), and then go after the smaller jurisdiction police (with more relative power) with/after fixed laws.
Also, if the police are curtailed in the urban areas, and Covid fear lowers the rent, poor persons of color can "vote with their feet" and move from Fergusons to Saint Louises. Not the best solution, but I can't imagine a friendly supreme court too soon so this is better than nothing.
Funding brings the police to the negotiating table faster and harder than some years-off change in law/precedent or union contract negotiation. That is as valuable as the actual defunding.
The right has defunded programs they couldn't abolish for years. It's a tried and proven strategy.
It's not the only thing to do, it's one of several things to do. Defunding reduces their access to weaponry and equipment and hinders recruiting. It's a big step toward abolition.
We live under Capitalism---let's use that to our advantage. Less money begets less power.
It's like energy in physics. You can worry about all the (perhaps more fundamental) mechanical, chemical, etc. interactions, or you can trust the conservation of energy and not fret over the details.
Qualified immunity is only civil. Individuals should have the right to file criminal charges against those with special legal privledges, overriding the DA.
I am wondering to what degree would actually work. As I understand it, lots of the most egregious equipment is picked up essentially as federal gov't / military "leftovers", and while it's nominally sold or auctioned off there's not exactly a lot of potential buyers. So cutting your local police force would just mean the one next door buys twice as much, and cutting everywhere just decreases every buyer's budget so the price just drops.
I suppose in this case we see the money going to programs that would, y'know, maybe at least help some people - assuming it doesn't get pitched directly into middle-class tax cuts, which seems more likely to me in any large city. But I don't see exactly how budget reduction would have any noticable impact on militarization.
I think it’s a crucial distinction that the police did not impose the curfew. The politicians imposed the curfew and ordered the police to enforce it.
After the multi-month long shutdown for COVID (and the very questionable justification for pushing 40 million healthy people out of their jobs) I think a several day curfew to limit widespread rioting and looting is both relatively minor and highly targeted by comparison.
But even if you disagree with the curfew, it’s not the police that imposed it.
Are the proposed laws out to eliminate it fully or just for police officers? As a general matter, qualified immunity is an important protection for some kinds of government activities.
Questions to Non-US based HNers: Does your country/locality have something like Quantified Immunity? What does your area do about police brutality if/when it occurs?
In the UK, there's the IPCC (Independent Police Complaints Commission). Unfortunately, it's not all that independent, since it's generally staffed by ex-police officers. So the outcome of police brutality is more or less the same as it is everywhere - a lot of smearing, lying, then ultimately, either a slap on the wrist, or a promotion, for the culprit.
I think the problem is ultimately deeper than police culture and/or lack of checks and balances. The problem is simply that police, by the very nature of their job, must be violent. There is simply no other way to deal with the level of desperation a society like the US causes. They live and work every day in a milieu of all the worst, most desperate behaviours capitalism has to offer. Untreated mental illness, drug problems, dysfunction of every kind - all articulated in a completely insane legal system that seems almost purposely designed to consume vast numbers of people and vast quantities of money while doing nothing but harm.
So when people get upset with police for their brutality, it's easy to understand why they are outraged - it is simply impossible to do their job without violence.
When people point at German police, or UK police, and say, they're not so bad - what they're really pointing at is a different job. German police kill people, or turn out to have connections to far-right groups, or beat people at protests - but ultimately, the average german is less desperate, less well armed, and simply less dangerous than the average person an american police officer must work with. That's simple statistics. That American police have built a culture around violence (the 'warrior' thing) is a pretty obvious result of the fact that they are caught in this bind, where violence is necessary for the society to stay in its current state, but where they are constantly castigated for its use.
> So when people get upset with police for their brutality, it's easy to understand why they are outraged - it is simply impossible to do their job without violence.
I think you need to distinguish between force and violence. I expect the police to occasionally need to use force to do their job, but I never want them to use violence. What we have been seeing during the past few days is totally out-of-control violence conducted by the police on non-violent people.
Watching police impose an excessive curfew on 10 million people (LA county) and then round up hundreds of peaceful protesters last night was sickening.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_cDengPeSY&t=2240
These people expressing their first amendment right to assemble should have been protected not persecuted. Police are out of control.