iNow

There's a lot I agree with in your post, as well. What I wonder is if every single beat cop walking the streets and driving into the gas station for a soda needs to be that highly trained, or if we can instead have smaller units more like SWAT intended solely for those situations with gangs and mafias and the other specialized situations you cite. In fact, we already do have those units... they're called the FBI. No. I'm saying they can intervene without violence, and if things turn violent, then other solutions can be put in place. There will always be exceptions and needs for additional force. Those are marginal issues, though, relative to what we're seeing across our nation more broadly. Don't sacrifice the good in pursuit of the perfect.

More broadly, I'm hoping we can acknowledge the current framing of the situation is deeply flawed. You both continue thinking with a "police must be able to dominate any situation" mindset and keep suggesting we need to offer them additional tools to maintain that dominance. Sure... there will be examples of self-defense being needed, but in many/most cases it's simply not. The office could choose to walk away... re-engage another time in another way. We need to stop thinking of police as crowd control... stop thinking of control at all... and start thinking about creating a healthier society that helps people to find... well, to find... help. Not punishment, but assistance. Part of the issue IMO is the focus on dominance. Embedded in the culture of most police departments is a driving motivation to be always in control of any situation no matter what the cost, but look at the cost it's bringing us! People sworn to protect and serve are too often the ones doing the killing... the beating... the brutalization... and all in the name of dominating the streets and controlling the situation. Adding more physical control techniques and training itself based on being better at fighting is not a way out of a situation where there's already too much fighting and too much martial enforcement. We need to let it be okay for the police to sometimes walk away, or to bring in someone skilled in mental health issues, etc... after all, does it really matter that much if we don't catch the guy selling loose cigarettes for a buck a pop right there in that moment? Will society fail if we catch up to him later when moods have calmed? No, of course not. Years ago, cops were the primary people who brought hurt individuals to doctors and hospitals. Then, the decision was made to spend that same money instead on ambulances and paramedics, etc. and the system we have today is far better... even though it entailed defunding the police a bit. It's time to start thinking more like that (as continuing to dream up and offer new tools for dominating a free citizenry is part of what's allowing these problems to persist decade after decade after decade).

I’m a fan of martial arts. Used to teach them for years (my avatar is a picture of me proving I could do over 100 pushups consecutively the night before I tested from 3rd degree brown belt into my 1st degree black belt... where I also went through over 100 katas and demonstrated my abilities in 20 different weapons forms). But you’ve obviously never met a cop in NYC or middle America if you think this Joe Rogan idea of yours is gonna change the issues we’re facing. The cops and donuts joke exists for a reason. This problem is systemic, and teaching a few more dudes some arm bars ain’t gonna address it from the core or kill the weed at its root.

So basically you’re suggesting we can only fix this problem by hiring members of the Gracie family to police our streets? Seems unrealistic, but okay. I think more is needed, like federally set bare minimum standards about what is and is not allowed and what happens when those thresholds are crossed. The defund the police objective is a poorly framed way of asking for funds to be out to better uses. It’s not at odds, it’s exactly what they’re seeking. Yes, who wouldn’t? But why present a false choice / false dichotomy? It’s not like those are the only 2 options available. They could also buy me a cheeseburger or get me engaged with a social worker.

No choke holds. Full stop. Blood choke. Air choke. Artichoke. It doesn’t matter. If you’re a cop you don’t choke others. That has to be one of the rules of engagement. We’re citizens with rights in a free society. We’re not willing fighters entering an octagon for a paycheck.

The training point is about more than just "recertification" each year being only 5 hours. The US also badly fails up front in preparing cops for their jobs in the first place. https://work.chron.com/long-train-cop-21366.html https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/06/america-police-violence-germany-georgia-britain/612820/ The rest of that 2nd article from The Atlantic also has good ideas on how to begin repairing our broken system.

Our evolution as tribal primates / mostly hairless apes whose ancestors spent more time warring with non-kin than cooperating together for greater common good... cooperation being a relatively recent addition to our species toolkit.

Let me say this another way: Their disparate experience is directly tied to the numbers

Nobody here is speaking in absolutes, JCM. Also, the people calling to defund ir dismantle the police are doing so in order for us to focus MORE on poverty and social safety net programs, so that last sentence about “let’s not worry about poverty” rings off-key. The higher rates for blacks ties directly to the disparate experience with police and the justice system more broadly.

The fact that you mention black on black violence at all is itself a problem. Violence tends to be more common within neighborhoods and neighborhoods tend to group like ethnicities together. That’s the only explanation needed. Proximity. That means white on white crime is also more common than white in black crime or vice versa. It means Asian on Asian crime is also more common than Asian on white crime or Asian on black crime, etc. Its a function of proximity, not a function of ethnicity. And yet every time we speak of the disparate experience within the US “justice” system of our black neighbors and family, otherwise well intentioned people like yourself put forth the old canard of black on black crime. Ask yourself, how come nobody ever speaks of white on white crime or Asian on Asian crime even though those are also more common for the same proximity reasons cited above? It’s almost certainly because the black on black crime idea is yet another distraction that we’ve simply become desensitized to, and it’s a tangent which keeps us from focusing upon and solving the real problems at play within the system itself.

For at least some crimes, we do have that data and I’ve shared some of it here

As that’s not a claim I made, I feel no need to defend it.

https://www.hamiltonproject.org/charts/rates_of_drug_use_and_sales_by_race_rates_of_drug_related_criminal_justice

It? Why what might be lower?

Once correcting for SES, the rate of crimes committed is equivalent and/or lower for blacks. Is this more inline with your expectations (which strike me as needless pedantic since we largely agree)?

It doesn't, though, because if you continue reading you see that the bias persists even upon correcting for SES and poverty. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_crime_in_the_United_States https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/06/04/another-excuse-police-bias-bites-dust/ https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/05/chicago-police-department-consent-decree-black-lives-matter-resistance.html

It's not me doing the condemning, but the data. I don't know how else to explain this for you and folks similarly struggling to accept the point, but in terms of policing, sentencing, suspicion, jailing... on nearly every metric and across nearly every type of crime, the approach is asymmetric and disproportionate, and CANNOT be explained or handwaved away by socioeconomic considerations. A well-off black man is STILL more likely to be harmed by the current system than a poor uneducated white man. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/opinions/systemic-racism-police-evidence-criminal-justice-system/ https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/un-report-on-racial-disparities/ I could really keep going for hours given the bulk of evidence on this topic, but this feels like a topic where evidence simply isn't enough to make people realize how bad it is. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/11/16/black-men-sentenced-to-more-time-for-committing-the-exact-same-crime-as-a-white-person-study-finds/

Better screening of police officer candidates is surely a good idea, even necessary, but is not sufficient. Even people with stellar ethics and exemplary moral character will stray and behave within the confines of their local group or tribe. Their boundaries and guardrails of what is appropriate are set by local expectations and trends. What constitutes acceptable behavior is for the most part defined more by social norms than by personal principle. The system is stacked against people of color. The system is stacked in favor of qualified immunity for police. Not every interaction with police is a sign of systemic problems, and not every cop within the system is racist, but the system is currently unjust, the bad police are allowed to prosper and continue gainful employment even in the face of unacceptable behavior, and the problems are magnified for nonwhites... and have been for decades (centuries?). Blacks make up only 13% of the population, yet they are 25% of police killings, and worse still comprise 38% of those in prison, and all despite committing crimes at the same (or lower!) rate as their white peers. The system is broken and too many broken people are out policing our streets with qualified immunity instead of adequate qualifications for the job or appropriate behavioral expectations from their leadership. It’s harder getting a job as a hairdresser in the US than it is getting a job as a cop, and sadly that’s only a tiny part of the problem overall.

You ought to study human psychology and sociology more, then. It’s quite common.

We actually give 3 guns to anyone who wants one. Only the folks who don’t want one at all get a single one.

How would one conduct such a screening effectively?

Actually, he blamed protestors and left wing agents for blocking the streets and entrances.

Meanwhile, Trump signed an executive order yesterday while claiming Obama never did anything to address police brutality... which is a lie... as Trump overturned Obama’s order on exactly that topic upon entering office. Trumps order appears entirely symbolic and has no “teeth.” It’s said to ban choke holds unless officers life is in danger. It also calls for a national database to track police with a history of misconduct to help prevent them from being rehired in other precincts or by other departments. Not enough to address the depth and breadth of the current problems, but directionally correct... Unfortunately, policing is a local state-level issue, not a federal one. Trump can’t really don’t anything to enforce these orders. He’s also not put any mechanism or funding in place to implement a system for tracking. So, it’s all for show... a symbolic gesture... PT Barnum at his best... With an “order” that he signed with a bunch of police standing behind him for a photo op, instead of the families of people killed by police with whom he met earlier that same day. https://apnews.com/7f06786e118c4ca9d48b44dc224c3862

You mean the nice lady with dark skin who supports nazis? Yeah, okay.

Summarized: You and JCM did not actually introduce new points. Both were already included in the 2 proposed by MigL Which is the reason protests are so energetic and widespread. This has been the situation for decades, and John Q Public (even those who are less effected due to the whiteness of their skin) have decided that enough is enough and change is no longer optional.