Ferguson conflict - What is the problem, and how to solve it?

[MigL]

The 'system' is not bigoted or racist, Ten oz.

There are no laws that specify a certain action if the perpetrator is black, and other actions if white.

 

The problem is individual's interpretations of the 'system', at every level.

It is the individuals who are racist, and changing the 'system' will not affect that mind-set.

Education and understanding, on both sides ( as blacks can be racist also ) is the only solution.

 

And there I go again with the two 'sides'.

 

I would be interested to know, as the OP is about solutions, how exactly you would change the 'system'.

What laws or rules you would toss, and which ones would you implement to make things 'better' ?

 

I'll propose an example clearly related to the Brown incident and the stop and detain policies towards Black Americans...

If a police officer has a certain 'threshold' for investigating 'suspicious' activity, yet he is a suburban white, such that the activities of inner-city black youths appears to him as being above the threshold, should he detain and investigate ?

Or should there be a different threshold depending on skin colour of the suspect ?

Or should he be more educated and understanding of the habits and challenges of inner-city black youths ?

Or should the police officers patrolling those areas, be from that area, so that they understand the circumstances ?

 

Note that here I am assuming no racism on the part of the officer, which may not be the case in the Brown incident.

[overtone]

Why not just replace the officers with a record of racial oppression and bigotry?

Every officer on the Ferguson police force has a record of tolerating racism and bigotry in the enforcement of the law - on the job.

 

 

 

 

There are no laws that specify a certain action if the perpetrator is black, and other actions if white.

The problem is individual's interpretations of the 'system', at every level.

It is the individuals who are racist, and changing the 'system' will not affect that mind-set.

There are systems that enforce obedience to strictures on their representatives's behavior - that, for example, forbid a police officer from drawing his gun unless firing that gun is indicated to protect a life. That not only forbid chokeholds of certain kinds, but actually punish any system representatives who employ them.

Systems may not be able to change "mindsets", but they can protect other people from behaviors otherwise inevitable in those sharing them.

Edited March 22, 2015 by overtone

[iNow]

Every officer on the Ferguson police force has a record of tolerating racism and bigotry in the enforcement of the law - on the job.

Citation needed.

 

You may believe your point is self-evidently true, but I assure you it's not, nor will I accept some tautology as if that alone is evidence in support of your point.

 

You've struggled in the past rather frequently when asked to supply evidence of your assertions. Will this time be different?

Edited March 22, 2015 by iNow

[Ten oz]

@ MigL, pretend for a moment you owned a store in a mall and every afternoon following the floors being cleaned and wet floor signs being prominently placed but two people on average slip, fall, and hurt themselves. Now, you are not legally liable because you had all the proper warning signs up. However the injuries do effect business as some people are afraid to shop in your store while the ones who do are often inconvenienced by paramedics rushing around. You ask around other store owners in the mall and find you have multiple times more slip and falls as any other store your size. What do you do? Just assume your customers make worse choices or accept that something is wrong with your system?

The United States has a problem. The incarceration rate for blacks is world beating. We have more prison inmates than any other country on earth and they are predominantly minorities. Police in the United States shoot and kill at significantly higher rates than any other remotely comparable country. You chalk it all up to individual choice? Nothing wrong with the system? Individual officers simply need to do better jobs severing the community?

I see the world very differently. When a problem is as pervasive and widespread as what we are dicussing and the trends far worse than in other places I think the issue is clearly systematic. If I was that store owner in the mall I would change the way I went about cleaning the floor until I found a way to get it done that brought down the number of slip and falls I have.

 

 

 

I went with an analogy to change things up. I know that can be tedious as power points. So I thank you for making it through.

 

I would be interested to know, as the OP is about solutions, how exactly you would change the 'system'.

What laws or rules you would toss, and which ones would you implement to make things 'better' ?

 

 

This is a terrific question. You have hit an angle most of us have been trimming around the hedges on. Unfortunately I will continue to trim for now as I believe a full response would create too many side debates about our (USA's) drug laws, gun control, definition of Jurror of one peers, the definition of justifiable homicide, what should be a felony, what rights felons have, private vs public prisons, and etc, etc, etc. Several of us are currently engage is a specific line of discussion and I don't want to completely derail it.

[MigL]

@ten oz

OK, so in the example I gave which is somewhat more applicable to the Ferguson incident, which of the four choices I presented, or any others you may think of, do you think would put an end to the excessive stop and detain actions against Black Americans ?

[Ten oz]

@ten oz

OK, so in the example I gave which is somewhat more applicable to the Ferguson incident, which of the four choices I presented, or any others you may think of, do you think would put an end to the excessive stop and detain actions against Black Americans ?

None if the 4 would be helpful and as explained I don't wish to explore what I believe would be helpful until we all finish our current line of discusion. I dont think a cure needs to be found before the disease is established.

[overtone]

 

 

Every officer on the Ferguson police force has a record of tolerating racism and bigotry in the enforcement of the law - on the job.

Citation needed.

The DOJ report, referred to above and cited by several.

 

The behavior of the officers who responded to Brown's shooting. The public statements of their supervisors and responsible officials in Ferguson. The statements of every single black person involved or interviewed who lived in Ferguson. The fact that Wilson was hired, as someone who would fit in.

 

The idea that any police officer in Ferguson was unaware of these department-wide and officially supported patterns of behavior would be an extraordinary claim, requiring the identification of those officers and some explanation for their obliviousness.

 

 

You've struggled in the past rather frequently when asked to supply evidence of your assertions. Will this time be different?

That never happened. And I think you know it, if you are honest with yourself.

[zapatos]

The DOJ report, referred to above and cited by several.

 

...

 

That never happened. And I think you know it, if you are honest with yourself.

 

 

Which part of the report were you referring to?

[iNow]

The DOJ report, referred to above and cited by several.

 

The report does not support your claim. If you feel otherwise, the next appropriate step is to cite the relevant passage. I suspect you will fail at this task since the report does not refer to EVERY officer. I'm happy to be proven wrong, but hyperbole and exaggeration aren't going to be enough to make that happen.

.

 

The idea that any police officer in Ferguson was unaware of these...

Stop moving the goalposts. Awareness is not the metric we were discussing.

.

 

That never happened. And I think you know it, if you are honest with yourself.

As hard as this may be for you to hear, accept, or comprehend, you've just done it again right here.

[overtone]

The report does not support your claim. If you feel otherwise, the next appropriate step is to cite the relevant passage.

The report fully supports my claim, in the number and volume of incidents involved, the extent and duration of the patterns described. There is no such thing as "the relevant passage" in it.

 

I suspect you will fail at this task since the report does not refer to EVERY officer.

It describes patterns of behavior carried on for years in public, involving officers at every level of command and throughout the force. These patterns were known not only to the entire police force, but to the community at large - the judges, the fee collectors, the administrative personnel, the treasurers and accountants, the politicians writing the budgets, the court reporters, any local journalists, and of course the entire community of victims.

 

 

 

Stop moving the goalposts. Awareness is not the metric we were discussing.

We weren't discussing a metric, we were using it. We were measuring a situation. Those are the goalposts. Here is the quote:

"Every officer on the Ferguson police force has a record of tolerating racism and bigotry in the enforcement of the law - on the job."

 

Notice: Awareness is a key feature of "tolerance" - it's directly relevant to any assessment of whether there are Ferguson officers who did not tolerate the behavior described in the DOJ report. Nobody is "discussing" that, I hope - I wasn't. I was taking the English meaning of "tolerance" for granted - meaning 1)awareness, and 2) inaction.

 

You objected to my assertion of tolerance - there are only a couple of possible grounds: you thought some individual policemen unaware, you thought some individual policemen did something about it. I dealt with both, partly by referring to the DOJ report, partly by reminding you of several circumstances of common knowledge (you seem to have overlooked that part). Recall:

 

The behavior of the officers who responded to Brown's shooting. The public statements of their supervisors and responsible officials in Ferguson. The statements of every single black person involved or interviewed who lived in Ferguson. The fact that Wilson was hired, as someone who would fit in.

 

Again: We know two things, beyond reasonable doubt: every officer in Ferguson knew of the doings described in the DOJ report; no officer did anything substantial to stop them. ( We see no evidence of casual vocal remonstration even, let alone lawsuit, arrest, formal complaint, or physical interference with injustice.) That requires no mindreading, no ascription of racism or bigotry to any individual officer, no speculation whatsoever.

 

To repeat, since you are very hard of hearing: I did not move the goalposts. I moved no goalposts. I remained directly and completely and relevantly within the framework of my posts throughout this thread, including the one at issue. Period. When you suggested, there, that I had moved the goalposts, you revealed that you were - once again - confused about a very simple, very obvious, very clear argument laid out for you in plain English. Please 1) correct your error, reread with comprehension, respond to my argument as made, or 2) ignore my posting. Trolling my posts, compounding weird incomprehension with personal attack, is a waste of your time.

 

 

 

As hard as this may be for you to hear, accept, or comprehend, you've just done it again right here.

Please. Just let it go. You were wrong, you are wrong, it happens, quit posting this irrelevant personal bullshit.

Edited March 25, 2015 by overtone

[iNow]

The report fully supports my claim, in the number and volume of incidents involved, the extent and duration of the patterns described. There is no such thing as "the relevant passage" in it.

That's essentially my point. There is no relevant passage you can cite because your claim was wrong.

 

A high volume and high number of incidents across an extended period of time and consistent patterns of long duration are unacceptable and awful, but is NOT the same as every officer engaging in racist activities or being tolerant of them and being deserving of involuntary termination.

 

It describes patterns of behavior carried on for years in public, involving officers at every level of command and throughout the force.

Again, unacceptable and awful, but NOT the same as every officer engaging in racist activities or being tolerant of them and being deserving of involuntary termination.

 

We weren't discussing a metric, we were using it. We were measuring a situation. Those are the goalposts. Here is the quote:

"Every officer on the Ferguson police force has a record of tolerating racism and bigotry in the enforcement of the law - on the job."

Notice: Awareness is a key feature of "tolerance"

You are now trying to conflate awareness with tolerance. As you well know, while these two things are related, they are still distinct and are not the same thing. One can be aware without being tolerant, but one cannot be tolerant without being aware. You were discussing tolerance, but then tried to move the goalposts to awareness. This is where I've called you out.

 

You objected to my assertion of tolerance - there are only a couple of possible grounds

Correction: I objected to your implication that every officer engaged in racist activities, and/or was complicit and/or tolerant of said activities, and is deserving of involuntary termination.

 

When I then asked you to support with evidence this assertion, you evaded by citing an entire report, but not any specific passage (Zapatos was, however, kind enough to cite a passage that directly contradicted your claim, so we at least have that).

 

Coming up short in your first attempt, you then tried to move the goalposts away from tolerance and instead toward awareness, and I challenged you on that since it was unrelated to what you specifically claimed. Now, here we are yet again with you playing games and ignoring repeated and direct requests for you to support your assertions where you do little more than evade and dance around an issue like a wet noodle instead of just acknowledging the fault in your original statement and updating it accordingly like any other intellectually honest and mature human being would.

 

you thought some individual policemen unaware

Well, no. It's of course possible some weren't aware, but since that was never my position here it's moot and there is no onus on me to defend it. You've either miscomprehended what I said or are intentionally arguing a strawman, neither of which speak well to the veracity of your position.

 

To repeat, since you are very hard of hearing: I did not move the goalposts. I moved no goalposts. I remained directly and completely and relevantly within the framework of my posts throughout this thread, including the one at issue. Period. When you suggested, there, that I had moved the goalposts, you revealed that you were - once again - confused about a very simple, very obvious, very clear argument laid out for you in plain English. Please 1) correct your error, reread with comprehension, respond to my argument as made, or 2) ignore my posting. Trolling my posts, compounding weird incomprehension with personal attack, is a waste of your time. Please. Just let it go. You were wrong, you are wrong, it happens, quit posting this irrelevant personal bullshit.

Thanks for keeping it classy, overtone. At least you're consistent across different threads and topics.

 

You know the worst part about all of this? We largely agree on this situation. We both find ourselves disgusted by this pattern and feel it needs to be remedied and we are both tired of the poor and the minorities in our country being disproportionately abused by those individuals in place to protect and serve us all equitably.

 

I guess the difference here is that I feel the facts and actual merits involved are bad enough on their own to justify and motivate the changes we must enact. Further, I don't feel we do ourselves any favors when we exaggerate, engage in hyperbole, or misrepresent the actual situation and I suggest we lose credibility when we ideologically recommend that even the innocent should be punished or that every officer should be painted with the same broad indistinguishing brush.

 

tl;dr? If we are going to hold others to high standards, then we must lead by example and also hold ourselves to high standards first. If you think that is irrelevant bullshit, then you're a fool.

Edited March 25, 2015 by iNow

[overtone]

A high volume and high number of incidents across an extended period of time and consistent patterns of long duration are unacceptable and awful, but is NOT the same as every officer engaging in racist activities or being tolerant of them and being deserving of involuntary termination.

It is the same as every officer having tolerated them. Actually tolerated them, in physical fact. The rest of that is chaff, included by you to misrepresent my argument.

 

What they "deserve", what they did badly themselves, what they approve of in their heart of hearts or whatever, etc, is another matter, not addressed by me. I never brought it up. Even the alteration to "being tolerant of" misleads, and indicates that you have missed the point. They did, in fact, tolerate them. They may not have liked the situation, they may have felt bad and disapproved and griped in their beer after work, but they knew about it, and they did nothing about it, on the job.

 

 

 

 

Again, unacceptable and awful, but NOT the same as every officer engaging in racist activities or being tolerant of them and being deserving of involuntary termination.

You continue to misrepresent. I said nothing about what anyone personally "deserved" in some moral sense, based on reading their minds or evaluating their characters individually. As far as not "deserving" to be removed from the force, technically, that's beside the point - we have cause to replace the entire force, as a whole. But more than that: They knowingly allowed their fellow officers to commit serious crimes, to betray their office and the community they were policing. That's cause for dismissal, if you need any. And in this situation, we don't - we have cause for dissolution of the force as a unit.

 

 

 

 

You are now trying to conflate awareness with tolerance.

No, I'm not. Not even close. Reread, with comprehension, the simple sentences of the actual posts, please.

 

- - - one cannot be tolerant without being aware

Or in this case one cannot be said to have "tolerated" without awareness, a point handled three times now by me. That is of course - for the fourth time - the reason I dealt with awareness in defense of my claim of tolerance, the reason I used the word. You will note that it does not "conflate" awareness with tolerance.

 

 

 

 

I objected to your implication that every officer engaged in racist activities, and/or was complicit and/or tolerant of said activities,

And in doing so, in making that flagrantly misleading "objection" to what clearly and explicitly and specifically said nothing of the kind, you misrepresented my posting and my argument. And you continue to do so after being corrected, in plain English, more than once.

 

I speak English. If I had wanted to say that every officer engaged in racist activities, I would have. If I had wanted to say "complicit", I would have said "complicit". I said "tolerated" for good reasons, among them the fact that it does not imply "complicit" or make any claims about personal racism on the part of individual officers. I specifically did not say or imply that all officers engaged in racist behavior, or were "complicit", I specifically and deliberately avoided that in my arguments, and I'll thank you to quit claiming otherwise.

 

Seriously: What is your problem here? These are not complex matters of argument. This is simple stuff.

 

 

 

 

You know the worst part about all of this? - -

The worst part of this situation is the repetitiveness of your personal attacks, your tracking your feces into one thread after another.

 

LIke this:

 

 

 

Now, here we are yet again with you playing games and ignoring repeated and direct requests for you to support your assertions

That's trolling. Pure and simple.

 

I directly supported my argument with a citation, to the whole of the DOJ report. That is what supports my assertions - the whole thing, the collective implication of the entire contents of the report. There can be no passage in it that supports my argument, and no passage in it that contradicts my argument. There can be no such thing. It's impossible, to find such a passage, even in theory, because the argument rests solely on the collective implications of the entire report together. Zapatos cannot provide one, you cannot provide one, I cannot provide one. Nobody can. This has been pointed out to you three times now. Your request for such a passage, having been answered thus, with reasonableness, twice, is therefore answered again, as follows: go away, troll.

 

 

 

If we are going to hold others to high standards, then we must lead by example and also hold ourselves to high standards first.

The standards you are failing here are not high. You are committing very basic, bottom level offenses against reason and good faith in argument. Edited March 25, 2015 by overtone

[iNow]

They did, in fact, tolerate them. They may not have liked the situation, they may have felt bad and disapproved and griped in their beer after work, but they knew about it, and they did nothing about it, on the job.

Citation needed.

 

we have cause to replace the entire force, as a whole. They knowingly allowed their fellow officers to commit serious crimes, to betray their office and the community they were policing.

You have failed to demonstrate that every officer knew these things and you have also failed to demonstrate that every officer failed to act or seek changes and improvements. It is not a personal attack to highlight that you continue arguing based on unfounded assumptions, generalizations, and hyperbole alone.

 

The worst part of this situation is the repetitiveness of your personal attacks, your tracking your feces into one thread after another.

An interesting comment. It seems clear that you've chosen to take the high ground here. [/sarcasm]

 

That's trolling. Pure and simple.

I encourage you to report my post if you feel there is any merit in this claim you've just made.

 

you are full of shit.

I suppose we're done here. This is going nowhere fast. You've essentially just conceded the argument by continually making comments like this instead of defending your stance or moving the discussion forward in any meaningful way.

[overtone]

They did, in fact, tolerate them. They may not have liked the situation, they may have felt bad and disapproved and griped in their beer after work, but they knew about it, and they did nothing about it, on the job.

Citation needed.

The DOJ report. Also the list provided above, of circumstances. As before.

 

 

 

You have failed to demonstrate that every officer knew these things and you have also failed to demonstrate that every officer failed to act or seek changes and improvements.

Now there, had you supported your claim, would have been your very first attempt at dealing with any of my actual posting.

 

I've been arguing that every officer knew of those things as follows:

by referring to the DOJ report and its statistics, myriad examples, volume of testimony, establishment of not only scale of abuse but duration of the pattern, and so forth, collectively establishing

 

pervasive patterns of long duration involving all command levels of the force (you responded by demanding I cite "the passage" or "a passage" I was using for support)

 

and by listing several other circumstances and items of common knowledge (ignored, completely, by you).

 

My assertion was that in such a situation the claim that any officer on the force was unaware of these abuses would be an extraordinary one, requiring extraordinary evidence. That's posted above.

 

Do you in fact think it reasonable, considering the DOJ report of scale and duration and the other circumstances listed above by me, that an officer of that force could be unaware of these behaviors by their supervisors and fellow officers, and uninformed by their dealings with the community and the government of the town in frequent contact with the misbehaving officers as well as themself?

 

Alternatively, do you feel there is evidence - of complaints pressed up the ladder, of lawsuits, of dissension and conflict, of officers restraining each other or supervisors meting out punishments or factions disparaging of Wilson, anything like that - that the abuses when known were actively opposed, curbed, prevented, fought?

 

Then argue your case.

Edited March 25, 2015 by overtone

[imatfaal]

!

Moderator Note

 

Two posts regarding overtone's and iNow's posting style split off to the trash. This is not the place for that discussion.

 

overtone - your comments (even if subsequantly edited out) are getting too personal.

 

[iNow]

I've been arguing that every officer knew of those things as follows:

by referring to the DOJ report and its statistics, myriad examples, volume of testimony...

We agree that MANY officers knew of these things. We agree that MANY officers tolerated these things. We agree that these problems were common and even systemic, but you lose me when you say EVERY officer and I cannot agree that EVERY officer should be involuntarily terminated as you continue to suggest.

 

My assertion was that in such a situation the claim that any officer on the force was unaware of these abuses would be an extraordinary one, requiring extraordinary evidence.

I agree, but since I never argued that any officers were "unaware of these abuses," I'm curious to know why you feel this is in any way relevant.

 

Alternatively, do you feel there is evidence - of complaints pressed up the ladder, of lawsuits, of dissension and conflict, of officers restraining each other or supervisors meting out punishments or factions disparaging of Wilson, anything like that - that the abuses when known were actively opposed, curbed, prevented, fought?

I'm unsure, but I certainly believe it's possible (potentially even likely) that there were some officers who tried to prevent these abuses, who tried to make changes, and who tried to help the citizens of Ferguson. That is what I think, and that is why I've continued challenging you when you argue the contrary.

[Ten oz]

We agree that MANY officers knew of these things. We agree that MANY officers tolerated these things. We agree that these problems were common and even systemic, but you lose me when you say EVERY officer and I cannot agree that EVERY officer should be involuntarily terminated as you continue to suggest.

When a business shuts its doors all the employees lose their jobs. Surely some employees were better than others but out of business is out of business. Companies lay people off in bulk for a variety of reasons all the time. The good go with the bad. Employment is often tied directly to he success of an organization. As an organization the Ferguson Police Dept. has failed. Assuming that police departments exists to serve the interests of their communities than the disturbance, distrust, anger, and insecurity felt throughout Ferguson should carry weight in determining the departments future. I think it could be argued that starting fresh with new personel would serve the publics best interest.

Had the department internally began removing bad apples on their own years ago that is one thing. Waiting until protesters are screaming in the streets around the country to assess a problem another. Now may be beyond the time to pick out the good from the bad. As an organization they had many years to clean themselves up and didn't. Hard to trust any attempt now that they have no choice.

[iNow]

When a business shuts its doors all the employees lose their jobs. Surely some employees were better than others but out of business is out of business.

Are you suggesting that there will be no police department in Ferguson in the future? If not, then the comparison to a sinking company fails.

 

You should know that I'm well familiar with huge corporate divestitures, reductions in force, and extreme cost cutting measures, but even there it's the low performing employees or unprofitable subgroups that get let go first, not everyone blindly all at once (in context of a company that will in some small part remain in business overall into the future, that is).

 

It's surprising that this has been so contentious and I struggle to understand this slash and burn mentality being so forcefully advocated. I suspect I'm not the only one who strongly supports change and improvement, but who refuses to get onboard with the willy-nilly firing of police who haven't done anything wrong whatsoever.

 

This is not an extreme stance by any stretch of the imagination. I'm not a supporter of guilt by association, and the Ferguson police department is not "going out of business." IMO, "it's too hard to know the good from the bad" isn't a good enough reason to punish the officers who stood up for their community and who are guilty of nothing more than having shitty colleagues and supervisors.

Edited March 26, 2015 by iNow

[MigL]

No, you are certainly not the only one, iNow; association does not imply wrongdoing.

 

If we extrapoplate their reasoning to groups of higher and higher authority, simply because 'they let things happen', then we would also need to fire the DA's office, the judges, the lawmakers, the government and even the people who elected that government..

Not just the police department.

[Ten oz]

@ iNow, I am not advocating for it. I am simplying pointing out the the argument is not without merit. I am also not suggesting that there would not be a Police Department at all. Departments have been disbanned in the past. They are replaced not simply removed.

 

I don't think guilt by association is the proper perspective. Any number of organizations succeed or fail as a whole. If I go to a restaurant and the food is bad I probably won't go back. Perhaps my bad experience was the fault of a single employee. Does not matter. The whole organization will suffer. Yelp, consumer Reports, and an endless list of comparison/review sources hold organizations responsible not individuals. We see it when families make decisions about where to raise their children. Parents look at overall ratings of schools and districts. They don't look for great individual teachers and ignore the school, district, and surrounding community. A cycle of property values and tax revnue raising in neighborhoods with better rated schools is perpetuatesd which maintains the better schools along with who can afford to attend them. It isn't about guilt by association. It is about people feeling safe, convenient, and best able enjoy their lives.

 

The people in Ferguson have experienced many bad interactions with the police. Per Michael Brown Ferguson was not Mayberry. How does the public's trust get regained? What is best for the community? Those questions IMO out weigh concern for any of the individual officers careers. Especial the ones who don't even live in Ferguson. Civil servents work for the good of the public. Military members find themselves deployed to places they don't want to go for periods of time they don't want to be gone for just to be forced out of the service later during times of budget cut backs. It is what the people ask and not what individual members want. That is what police sign up for.

 

MigL mentioned holding the DA and judges accountable too. In the big scheme of things I believe they will be. The events that unfolded will impact future elections in the area for sometime to come. Many if not all the positions above the Police Department are either elected positions or appointed by elected officials. So that battle is 100% going to be had. No point is saying "if we extrapolate out". It will be extapolated out. People running for office won't waste a good crisis.

 

Again, I am not saying I hope the entire Ferguson Department is disbanned. I am merely defending the notion. There is some precedence in the area for it and it may be cathartic for the community if managed properly.

[Willie71]

When corruption runs that deep, that systemically, it would be very difficult to rebuild from within. The most cost effective solution, if you truly want to get rid of the racism is to disband, and bring in a new force. Of course that is more expensive than pretending to fix the problem.

[zapatos]

When corruption runs that deep, that systemically, it would be very difficult to rebuild from within.

What are you basing this statement on? A previous event, or is it more of a 'gut feel'?

 

The most cost effective solution, if you truly want to get rid of the racism is to disband, and bring in a new force.

Can you please tell me how you determined the relative costs between fixing the existing organization and a complete reboot in the case of Ferguson?

 

I'm also curious how you plan to avoid bringing in only people who are not prone to the types of behaviors you are trying to eliminate.

[overtone]

We agree that MANY officers knew of these things. We agree that MANY officers tolerated these things. We agree that these problems were common and even systemic, but you lose me when you say EVERY officer

The claim on the table was that the notion that any officer in the Ferguson police department could have been unaware of such pervasive, standard, widespread, long term, and commonly acknowledged behavior among his fellow officers, including his supervisors and subordinates if any, is an extraordinary one, requiring evidence and argument beyond the normal.

 

Asserting that you have thoughts is of course something you can do. But the matter of evidence and argument is not addressed thereby.

 

 

 

 

I agree, but since I never argued that any officers were "unaware of these abuses," I'm curious to know why you feel this is in any way relevant.

You have not actually argued anything at all. I was merely dealing with the two possible approaches you might, in the future, present, to support your claim there are police officers in the Ferguson force who did not tolerate the pattern of abuse and bigotry exhibited by the rest of the force: that some officers were unaware; that some officers acted in opposition somehow, did something to curb or interfere with these bad behaviors.

 

I didn't know which of those approaches you would take, or maybe both. Either would be relevant, of course.

 

 

 

 

IMO, "it's too hard to know the good from the bad" isn't a good enough reason to punish the officers who stood up for their community and who are guilty of nothing more than having shitty colleagues and supervisors.

If there are any officers who in fact "stood up for their community"(I listed some things we could look for, to demonstrate that) - and that community was Ferguson, including its black residents - nothing prevents us from hiring them into the new department or whatever entity takes over the work.

 

No one has presented any argument or evidence that such officers exist, but they might - we can certainly set up procedures for rehire. That would be standard practice in the corporate world, after all - it's normal procedure to deal with a systemically dysfunctional department or branch by dissolving the whole thing and reorganizing - with any particular employees one doesn't want to lose offered new positions in the new setup. That's routine.

 

 

 

 

="mgl"] No, you are certainly not the only one, iNow; association does not imply wrongdoing

In the case of police officers associated with criminal and abusive behavior they do nothing about, it does. It is wrong for police officers to associate themselves with criminal and abusive behavior. Joining the KKK and putting on the hood and attending crossburnings in black people's yards, for example, is wrong of police officers - even if they are not racist themselves, even if they never light any crosses on fire themselves, they are wrong simply by associating themselves with the people who are and do, and doing nothing about it. Edited March 26, 2015 by overtone

[MigL]

Well, now that he knows about the problem, and has done nothing about it other than rousing speeches, B. Obama is obviously also guilty by association, and should be fired.

These kind of solutions get silly pretty quick, don't they ?

Edited March 27, 2015 by MigL

[iNow]

How does the public's trust get regained? What is best for the community? Those questions IMO out weigh concern for any of the individual officers careers.

These are not mutually exclusive, though. Both can be addressed in parallel.

 

 

When corruption runs that deep, that systemically, it would be very difficult to rebuild from within. The most cost effective solution, if you truly want to get rid of the racism is to disband, and bring in a new force.

I agree that the majority of the future force will likely need to be brought in from elsewhere (like new cadets leaving academies, good officers from other cities and leaders from other precincts, etc.), but it remains unclear why anyone would argue that the good officers in place today shouldn't be a part of that team, as well.

 

In fact, I'd argue that the healing process would very probably be accelerated if the good officers were allowed to remain instead of just implementing a blind rip and replace of everyone en masse.

 

Further, just on principle alone, I argue that we have a choice here. It is well within our power to avoid punishing the innocent and we should actively make that choice. It is a moral one and even if it's a little bit harder to execute overall, it's still the right thing to do. We can do it and we should do it.

 

 

You have not actually argued anything at all.

<sigh>

 

If there are any officers who in fact "stood up for their community"(I listed some things we could look for, to demonstrate that) - and that community was Ferguson, including its black residents - nothing prevents us from hiring them into the new department or whatever entity takes over the work.

Finally, progress.

 

Now, let me ask you... What benefit is there in firing them and then just rehiring them back? What value is added by those additional transactions when instead of firing them then rehiring them we could just cutout the superfluous middle steps and allow them to keep their current positions as is?