Alex_Krycek

Her sign should read: "Untrained Cops Can Panic and Act on Impulse"

I stated before that the assumption was that the suspect is already intent on violence. If the suspect isn't intent on violence, then of course, no physical force from the officer should be used. What I stated was, WHEN the suspect is already physically attacking the officers they need to be prepared to deal with it and control the situation. Your position is unrealistic. If someone is intent on violently attacking another person, asking them nicely to stop simply isn't going to work. I agree with most of this. Over-policing needs to stop. Mass incarceration needs to stop. Racial profiling and systematic targeting of the poor needs to stop. Policing for profit needs to stop. Police brutality and use of excessive force definitely needs to stop. Significantly more resources need to be allocated to social work, mental health facilities, and PERMANENT economic stimulus for chronically depressed areas to alleviate the vicious cycle of crime and poverty. 100% yes to all of that. However, at the present time there is still a need for police. So the question is, what kind of police do we want? Effective police require an investment. Right now society isn't investing in police in the way it should. Even the admirable Scandinavian nations with abundant social programs still have police - and as we've discussed, they pay for it. Like it or not, American society in its present form is still extremely violent. There are numerous mafias and street gangs that would love to have complete autonomy if police are defunded and restricted in their ability to exercise authority, not to mention every two bit criminal with a grudge against society. I'm simply saying that violent confrontation is a part of policing, and how officers respond to violent confrontation matters a great deal. If they're untrained, they'll reach for their gun at the slightest provocation. If they're trained well, they will have a range of other options at their disposal to successfully diffuse the encounter. Just trying to be realistic given the context of the situation, that's all. ------ Here is an excerpt from Norway's 2020 budget whitepaper: Security Security is a prerequisite for freedom. Crime breeds insecurity. The population therefore needs to be protected by the rule of law, a strong and effective police force and a credible defence capability. This is reflected in the budget for 2020 with a NOK 2.5 billion increase in defence sector appropriations for, inter alia, investments in new submarines, maritime patrol aircraft and artillery for the Norwegian Armed Forces. We are preparing for an increase in military activity and strengthened emergency response preparedness. This meets the targets the Government has set in the 2017-2020 long-term plan for the defence sector, and will expand the defence budget by more than NOK 8 billion in real terms over the period covered in the long-term plan. The Government is planning for a continued increase in police presence. The budget proposal allows for the recruitment of graduates from the Norwegian Police University College in 2020. In addition, appropriations are increased to cover the full-year effect of the recruitment of graduates in 2019. More funds for the police will strengthen the capacity of police districts to prevent, investigate and prosecute crime. It is proposed to provide the police and the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration with funds in order to enable the implementation of new Schengen systems for border control and monitoring. These systems will improve capacity for detecting and preventing crime, ID fraud and illegal migration. To facilitate follow-up of the Security Act, the Government is proposing to increase appropriations for the Norwegian National Security Authority (NSM). The proposal facilitates digitalisation and improved efficiency and quality in the security clearance of personnel. Moreover, the Government proposes initiatives to improve the ability to prevent, detect and manage security incidents in emergency preparedness communications. Source: https://www.regjeringen.no/contentassets/09814fbc520946869d6eaa65099c2983/national_budget_2020.pdf Page 13. -------- Note: 2.5 billion Norwegian Kroner is approximately 262,000,000 USD ---- And from Sweden's 2020 budget whitepaper: The fight against crime and its causes will be intensified. Society must be strong enough to protect people from everything from petty crime to terrorism. The Swedish Police Service will be given additional resources. Work on employing 10 000 more people in the Police by 2024 will continue to strengthen the Police’s capacity to better fight serious organised crime, for instance. As the number of court cases is increasing and a larger number of criminals are being sentenced, the Swedish courts and the Swedish Prison and Probation Service will be allocated additional resources. The capacity to combat welfare crime and money laundering will be improved. The Swedish Prosecution Authority, the Swedish courts and Swedish Customs will be strengthened. Honour-related violence and oppression will be made visible, pre-empted, prevented and punished. The whole of society must play its part in combating and preventing crime. Source: https://www.government.se/4ad5f1/contentassets/e8bf49ea1bbe41fda780895657ae94e0/from-the-budget-bill-for-2020-budget-statement.pdf.pdf Page 5. ----- From the Finnish 2020 budget: PUBLIC ORDER AND SAFETY EUR 816 million is proposed to the police force. The appropriation is used to launch measures that aim at increasing the police officer person-years to the level determined in the Government Programme, 7,500 person-years, by the year 2023. To ensure the performance of the operators involved in preventing and solving criminal offenses and the implementation of prosecution services, additional funding amounting to EUR 5.2 million is allocated to the prosecution service, courts, legal aid, and the Criminal Sanctions Agency. A one-off addition of EUR 2 million is proposed to focusing evidence on the District Courts. Source: https://julkaisut.valtioneuvosto.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/161822/Budget review 2020 October 2019.pdf?sequence=4&isAllowed=y Page 15. ------ The point is, even as safe and prosperous as these Scandinavian nations are, non of them are thinking about defunding their police forces. US police by comparison are already woefully underfunded by State and local governments and we want to take more money away from them? It's not logical.

Sure, it would be great if we could hire Obi Wan Kenobi to teach the police some Jedi mind tricks so psychotic, drug addled, violent criminals would peaceably comply when verbally persuaded to do so. In all seriousness persuasion and deescalation should be the main focus of training. Physical force should be the last resort. Deadly force the absolute last resort. However, sometimes physical force can't be avoided and police need to be adequately trained to use it.

I'm not suggesting the casual level of training that you're referring to. I agree that the lack of training is systemic, and so the solution should be systemic as well, and that includes serious martial arts training, physical fitness standards, and generally significantly higher accountability for ALL police departments in America. Logically speaking, that would be fairly straightforward. Whether or not there's the political will to do it is another issue. PS: Thanks for clarifying what your avatar photo is. On first glance I thought it was a Mark Rothko painting.

Easy to set limitations on paper. What about when the situation actually happens in real life? There needs to be extensive conditioning in place so the officer can handle the situation while under extreme stress. One aspect of that is martial arts. It's not unrealistic or far-fetched to require law enforcement to be skilled in hand to hand combat or submission techniques. Many departments already teach these techniques to some extent. There just needs to be a higher standard and it needs to be done across the board. Absent martial arts, what do officers mainly rely on first? Their gun. Which should be the absolute last resort.

Ok, but we're assuming a situation where violent confrontation is occurring. What does the officer do when faced with a highly combative / violent suspect who isn't armed with a weapon but who is willing to physically fight an officer (potentially to the death), and who is potentially much stronger than the officer? Obviously the officer needs a high level of martial arts training to deal with hand to hand combat. Aikido (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aikido#Basic_techniques) (which relies on arm / shoulder / joint locks is used by many police departments and would be safer). Training officers to a purple / brown / or black belt in Judo / Brazilian jiu-jitsu would be other options. The martial arts training does need to be there though, if de-escalation is the goal. Trained martial artists know how to handle violent situations and don't overreact or panic, which IMO are the main causes of inadvertent injury / death. Norwegian police training education: Education of police officers is the responsibility of the Norwegian Police University College, which is subordinate to the National Police Directorate. The main campus is located at Majorstuen in Oslo, while the secondary campus is located at Mørkved in Bodø. In addition the college has training centers in Kongsvinger and Stavern.[39] Police officer training is a three-year bachelor's degree, where the first and third year take place at the college and the second year is on-the-ground training in police districts.[40] In 2009, 1990 people applied for 432 places at the college. From 2010, admission is administrated through the Norwegian Universities and Colleges Admission Service.[41] The college also has a three-year part-time master's degree in police science.[42] As the chief of police and deputy chief of police are part of the prosecuting authority, they must be a candidate of law to act in such a position.[7] Although there no longer is a formal requirement for such an education, the role as prosecutor effectively hinders others from holding the position.[43]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_Police_Service#Education_and_employment -------- Interesting - I agree and think that the United States should have similar requirements. However, this would require significantly more money and would be seemingly at odds with the "defund the police" objective.

It is important to distinguish an "air choke" from a "blood choke". In martial arts, the purpose of a blood choke is to quickly cut off blood supply to your opponents brain, rendering the opponent unconscious. If released immediately after the person loses consciousness, the person will pass out for a few minutes and then regain consciousness with no injury. This technique is common in judo and Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and is taught to most armed forces / police department around the world. In judo, there have never been any reported deaths from a blood choke. More information: "Blood chokes (or carotid restraints / sleeper holds) are a form of strangulation that compress one or both carotid arteries and/or the jugular veins without compressing the airway, hence causing cerebral ischemia and a temporary hypoxic condition in the brain.[6] A well applied blood choke may lead to unconsciousness in 10–20 seconds. Injury or death is plausible if the arteries remain constricted for more than 20 seconds. Compared to strangulation with the hands, properly applied blood chokes require little physical strength." Why is a blood choke used? When you have someone who is highly combative, how do you restrain them? An officer could apply a blood choke, hit them in the head or knock them out, or use Jiu-Jitsu or Judo to wrestle them to the ground and attempt to cuff hem. Another option would be shooting them with a tranquilizer dart (something I think would actually be the preferred option). Tasers in my opinion have been proven too far dangerous and are basically torture devices. The problem is again the lack of training. Any chokehold is extremely dangerous if the person applying the choke doesn't know what they are doing. This is what happened to Eric Garner and George Floyd, and numerous others. The officers in the Garner case applied an incorrect chokehold that was basically an air choke, leading to asphyxiation. George Floyd was the victim of an improperly applied blood and air choke, which Chauvin applied for far too long (possibly because of ignorance due to lack of training). So ultimately blood chokes (not air chokes) are effective if used by trained martial artists, but again, the US police do not have nearly enough training to attempt to apply these safely. So either they need to do significantly more combatives / martial arts training or just use something like a sedative projectile (tranquilizer dart) that renders the suspect compliant but wears of after a short time.

His name is Jocko Willink (I spelled his last name wrong). Here is the video. The part about training starts at 2:30.

There has been a big push lately to "defund the police". One problem that I see is that the police were never funded properly in the first place. Yes, they are given ridiculous and unnecessary amounts of military surplus vehicles (which they shouldn't have), but that actual salary for a full time officer is around 55,000 a year - quite low considering the cost of living these days and what their job demands. (Source:https://www.careerexplorer.com/careers/police-officer/salary/) The issue I see is police are woefully undertrained. Jocko Willik, a retired Navy SEAL, was on a podcast recently and pointed out that for a 6 month deployment in Afghanistan, the Navy SEALs train for 18 months prior to starting their deployment. That is not 18 months of BUDS or initial qualification to be a SEAL, but 18 months specifically for that deployment after they have already become SEALs. So they train 3 times longer than they are actually deployed. So how much training do police get, on average, each year? According to Willik, the average police officer (after going through 3 month police academy) trains for just 5 hours per year. In the vast majority of departments there is no minimum physical or psychological standard like there is in the military, so there is zero accountability. The point is, everyone is clamoring to take resources away from the police. Who are you going to get then, as officers? Only the worst of the worst. In fact I think funding needs to be increased, so that becoming an officer is a highly sought after job, and police are given significantly more training to deal with the constant barrage of threatening situations they face each day. Take a look at State and Local spending on police over the decades (source: https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiatives/state-and-local-finance-initiative/state-and-local-backgrounders/police-and-corrections-expenditures#Question1Police) From a purely objective standpoint, if you pay someone a marginal salary, expect them to work long hours in an extremely high stress environment, give them little to no training to deal with that stressful, environment, what should you really expect as to the quality of the personnel who will emerge from those parameters? So what is the solution? To make police better we need: 1. Higher compensation. Make it a highly sought after job with excellent benefits. 2. Accountability. There should be federal standards in place for police training that are substantially higher than they are now. There should be intense focus on officer conduct and a national database to record excessive use of force or abuse of power. This would include strict physical and psychological evaluations. 3. Specialization. The police should be highly specialized. Police aren't dog catchers, EMTs, or therapists. They should have a limited role and train specifically for that role. 4. Community Interaction. Police should be required to interact with the community they serve on a regular basis, in a cooperative role. This would include meeting members of the community, spending time doing community service work with low income people, etc. This would be part of the overall job description and would serve to build trust and respect.

Oh, I'm being completely serious. Half of them have no clue what positional asphyxiation is.

I actually believe that possibility 1 is very plausible, considering how untrained some police are. But both possibilities seem to work hand in hand: arrogance feeding ignorance, and vice versa.If there are no consequences or accountability for a person's actions, then they can afford to simply not care, either out of laziness, or egotism, or both. Case in point - Trump.

A nauseating disregard for human life.

Yes, obviously.

When I was 24, a black coworker of mine told me a troubling story about an encounter he had with the police. It had happened 4 weeks prior at our warehouse facility in North Carolina. The police were investigating a burglary, and two beat cops showed up to our work to ask my black coworker questions about what he might have seen the night before in relation to the crime. He said he hadn't seen anything. The cops pressed him for information, but my coworker repeated that he had no knowledge of the burglary, because, well, he had no knowledge of the burglary. As the conversation was coming to a close, one of the officers said straight to my coworker's face: "You n-words are all the same." And then he and his partner walked off. Now, my coworker wasn't fabricating these events. He had two witnesses on site when it happened, (other coworkers: 1 black and 1 white) who heard the officer make the comment. It was enough evidence for him to sue the local police department and eventually get awarded a hefty settlement. He ended up quitting his job and starting his own business in his twenties. It goes to show how entrenched these behaviors are in many police departments. These weren't "good ole boy" cops in their late fifties. These were young officers in their late twenties / early thirties who saw fit to make such a racist comment right out in the open.

Yep - they worked together. Likely there was some beef, or Chauvin had it in for him for some unknown reason, and this was his opportunity. Unfortunately the protests have been infiltrated by those without peaceful intentions. Their only intention is to cause chaos and anarchy for their own gain.

America has seen yet another merciless killing of an unarmed person of color at the hands of police. This time though, it seems different. In the past, even with video tape, things happened quickly. An officer overreacted and shot an unarmed person. Sometimes the situation was ambiguous, sometimes not. But there was always a sense in previous police killings that somehow the officer had slipped up; gotten it wrong. Call it a lack of training, tunnel vision, PTSD - whatever term describes a person who under situations of extreme stress cannot act in good judgement and makes a fatal error, costing an innocent person their life. But George Floyd's killing wasn't ambiguous. It wasn't a quick mistake. It wasn't in any way a temporary lapse in judgement due to environmental confusion or overwhelm. This was an officer who pressed his knee, purposefully and carefully, into the neck of a man who had already been subdued and was lying on his stomach, handcuffed, on the ground. Protected by three fellow officers, Derek Chauvin painstakingly extinguished George Floyd's life over the course of seven long minutes, ignoring his pleas for help and deteriorating condition and the admonitions of bystanders to "let him breathe". As trivial as it may seem, it was the speed of the killing which sets this incident apart. Here was an officer, who through his willful and calculated actions told onlookers: "I will end this man's life in broad daylight, and you can do nothing to stop me." It was the slow deliberateness which makes this incident stand out, the remarkable brazenness and precision, that could leave no doubt that this officer had zero respect for George Floyd's life, and, zero fear for any kind of reprisal or punishment to himself or his colleagues. When the act was done, the paramedics came and George Floyd was dumped onto a stretcher like a bag of garbage. There have been so many of these incidents and people forget them. I think George Floyd is going to be the one that never leaves the public consciousness. Those seven long minutes cannot be forgotten. What is your take on police brutality in America? Is it relegated to only certain sections of the country, or is it more systemic? How can this issue be solved?

Well, I agree with you overall - things need to change in "normal" society. I just don't see things improving much when people are under such an increased level of duress.

Straw man. I never suggested that the previous scenario was a "utopia". This is a lesser of two evils situation. If given a choice between earning a living in a stressful environment as opposed to starving to death in anarchy, I would choose the former.

Just when you thought you could sleep at night... An asteroid more than a mile wide will pass by Earth on Wednesday while travelling at a speed of about 19,000 miles (30,578km) an hour. The space rock, known as (52768) 1998 OR2, is expected to make its closest approach at 10.56am BST, when it will be just 3.9m miles (6.3m km) away – about 16 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon. Although the asteroid is classified as a potentially hazardous object (PHO), scientists have said it will not pose a danger to the planet. Dr Brad Tucker, an astrophysicist at the Australian National University, said: “This asteroid poses no danger to the Earth and will not hit – it is one catastrophe we won’t have. While it is big, it is still smaller than the asteroid that impacted the Earth and wiped out the dinosaurs.” Source: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/apr/29/asteroid-passing-earth-1998-or2-wednesday-near-4m-miles-face-mask-fly-by

Basically what it comes down to: The French prime minister, Édouard Philippe, has begun outlining the schedule for the end of the coronavirus lockdown in France to MPs in the Assemblée Nationale. Philippe began saying the situation was unique. “Who could have envisaged a France where schools, universities, cafés, restaurants, the majority of businesses, libraries … beaches, stadia … would be closed. We have never known this situation in our country. Not during the war, not during the occupation, not during previous epidemics,” he said. “The country cannot be locked down for a long time … it is efficient against the virus, to stop its spread and the saturation of our hospitals and protect vulnerable people.” “An instrument is only useful if in the long term the positive effects are greater than the negative … We have to proceed to a progressive end of lockdown.” Philippe said he would outline the “national strategy” to end the lockdown. In medical terms “we have to learn to live with the virus …no vaccine will be available in the short term, there is no treatment and we don’t have what they call herd immunity”. Philippe said it was implausible to think the virus would just “disappear of it’s own accord”.

No need. We can already observe various strategies and the results. Sweden, for example, has implemented no such draconian restrictions: There is no official lockdown in Sweden and schools, restaurants and stores have stayed open during the pandemic. The government has issued social distancing guidelines and told citizens to avoid unnecessary travel. Gatherings of more than 50 people and visits to care homes have been banned. Karin Ulrika Olofsdotter, Swedish ambassador to the United States, told NPR: "About 30 percent of people in Stockholm have reached a level of immunity. We could reach herd immunity in the capital as early as next month." https://www.newsweek.com/sweden-stockholm-coronavirus-herd-immunity-reinfection-1500342

More people will die if you don't lift it, due to economic reasons. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Sacremento, for example, has reported a 40% rise in suicide hotline calls: https://www.sacbee.com/news/coronavirus/article241800966.html Telephone calls and texts to Wellspace Health’s Suicide Prevention and Crisis line from across California increased by 40 percent between February and March amid the coronavirus crisis, according to a news release. Just one of many articles on the mental health impact of the shutdown. Personally I support some form of UBI. However, systemic change takes time. This situation is an exigency. Yet again we return to the origin of the problem. Is that risk greater than the known risk of shutting down the economy? Highly debatable. Some experts would disagree with the direct causal link between lockdown and slowing the virus. Prof. Ben-Israel is the chairman of the Israeli Space Agency and the National Council for Research and Development, the head of the Security Studies program at Tel Aviv University, and a former MK for the Kadima party. He holds a PhD in Philosophy and a BSc in Physics and Mathematics from Tel Aviv University. Prof. Ben-Israel explained his position, pointing out that when measuring the rate of additional patients to existing patients, the trend can be clearly identified and adjusted in all countries. If, at the beginning of the epidemic, the rate of hospitalization was increasing at a rapid rate every day, this reality has since changed radically. "The incidence of patients was greater by the day. This was during the first four weeks after the epidemic was discovered in Israel. As of the sixth week, the increase in the number of patients has been moderate, peaking in the sixth week at 700 patients per day. Since then it has been declining, and today there are only 300 new patients. In two weeks it will reach zero and there will be no more new patients," Prof. Ben-Israel said. "This is how it is all over the world. Both in countries where they have taken closure steps like Italy and in countries that have not had closures like Taiwan or Singapore. In such and such countries there is an increase until the fourth to sixth week, and immediately thereafter moderation until during the eighth week it disappears." Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/278658 If you can clearly state the point you are referring to, please do so. For the moment. Let's see what those numbers look like after three more months.

This is speculation. Let's lift the lockdown and see what actually happens. I question this, I really do. I think most people are obeying the law just to obey the law - they fear punishment more than the coronavirus. They don't have a choice. However, given the choice between taking a risk with COVID-19 and resuming their normal life, or continuing to isolate themselves in fear, I think most people would choose the former.

Your comment came across as dismissive and specious. In a way it was very much a Trumpian statement. I could imagine him saying that at the podium of one of his daily press briefings when asked why he's extending the shut down: "Everything is temporary if it lasts long enough." he would blurt out. People are starving. People are committing suicide. Their lives are falling apart before their eyes; in some cases people have worked their entire lives for a business only to see it obliterated by this shutdown. "Everything is temporary if it lasts long enough." does nothing to solve actual problems. Such statements only reflect apathy and indifference to the suffering people are enduring in this situation.