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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   36940 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 22, 2024

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Except with this footage those officers are wildly overreacting and escalating a benign incident to literal murder. As a general fan and supporter of cops I hope more footage with relevant information comes to light.

With supporters like these, who needs enemies. The point is that you don't cave in, instead you show you actually stand behind the thing in its moment of weakness. Precisely because it's being attacked by your enemy.

We're public citizens, not defense lawyers.

Is it constitutively part of policing to kill someone because they threaten you with being scalded?

If not, it's not defending the "sacred institution" of policing to defend these officers. I think it's the opposite: if police officers can't handle situations involving crazy old ladies, then this will encourage many people to avoid bringing them into situations, undermining policing and supporting crime. "Should we call the cops? Well, she's acting crazy, but I don't want them to gun her down and maybe us too."

All sources report her as being 36 (e.g. here). She does seem much older in the videos.

"threaten" doesn't really do it justice. She was mid-throw in an attempt to do so.

Is it constitutively part of policing to kill someone because they threaten you with being scalded?

Hard to tell if this is a rhetorical question, but in the interests of speaking plainly: Yea, of course. Police officers killing people who attempt to harm them is a shitty system, but it's better than all the alternatives.

You can argue that policing is better this way, but in the context of that discussion, my point was that you don't have to oppose the institution of policing to think that the officer should have acted differently.

Most people would prefer the police shooting someone than being scalded, yes. I don't know how or if that fits your 'constitutional' priors.

Policing is whatever it has become. Its sanctity lies in its foundations and principles, not individual events.

Policing in the US has degenerated a lot to face third world challenges. Sometimes old ladies get shot. The police are still sacred, though, for all the old ladies that don't get shot. Or so goes the tale of why we need police in the first place.

Constitutive, not constitutional.

Its sanctity lies in its foundations and principles, not individual events.

Exactly my point. It's not defending the foundations and principles of policing to defend each and every thing that police officers do. That's like, given an incompetent president, saying "I'm rallying round democracy."

Note I'm also not criticising US policing in general. I don't know the statistics well enough, and I suspect even they skirt over a lot of circumstances. For all I know, maybe more info. will come to light that exonerates this officer. What I can say is that, from the info provided, he acted incompetently (I see no evidence of racism, personal vendetta etc.) and unfortunately if you act incompetently when wielding a gun, you can end up going to prison. Maybe his hormones were wrong that day. Maybe he found out that morning that he was being cucked. That's tough on police officers, but it's the law, and it's that way for a reason.

You are defending the foundations and principles when you stand against politically motivated mass media attempts at smearing and weakening the institution. You do the opposite when you don't. Officers will make mistakes. You don't crucify those who make them in media.

If the institution itself is deteriorated and bad, you need to cast a light on that, but the fake news narrative of racist police and black victims is a lie, so this event is very clearly not it.

I disagree. Egregious violations of public trust should not be glossed over or hidden for political reasons. That's the essence of corruption. A "moment of weakness" is an understatement here.

I am not advocating some bizarre defunding or excoriation of law enforcement as a social institution. I am suggesting that to condone wanton abuse of life-and-death power and reckless escalation is irresponsibly dangerous, immoral, and corrupt. Thus my desire that there is more to the story.

How would you suggest "standing by" the officer(s) here if what we see is an accurate depiction of events? Would any behavior by a police officer cause you to question his/her judgment or censure/punish/fire/prosecute?

I disagree. Egregious violations of public trust should not be glossed over or hidden for political reasons.

No one said this should be done. No one said this should be 'condoned', no one said anything about what you advocate.

By the same token I can accuse you of a similar thing. Hyperbolizing an event like this in an effort to throw a bunch of gasoline on an ACAB fire and then say you back the boys in blue. Which seems counter intuitive to me, but you do you.

You can stand by officers in cases like these by letting due process run its course, or by recognizing these cases as statistical outliers, or by recognizing that policing a third world population with a first world police force simply doesn't work. Not by swirling around in a media fueled frenzy. If your takeaway from any of the previous media fueled ACAB frenzies was that policing got improved or things got better in some way I'm not sure what planet you are coming from.

You and I are talking (typing) at cross-purposes. And for my part I'm not "accusing" you of anything, except possible pointless hostility. Maybe not even that. You're looking at this as a political strategist. I'm simply making a comment in due process and justice (though again, I don't yet know what that should be as I just clicked in and still haven't watched the full video and do not necessarily think my armchair opinion should be the last word anyway. I've made that caveat.). I agree that releasing this footage was shittily political.

You and I are talking (typing) at cross-purposes. And for my part I'm not "accusing" you of anything, except possible pointless hostility.

You wrote: "I disagree. Egregious violations of public trust should not be glossed over or hidden for political reasons." Insinuating I believe or said something to the tune that glossing over violations of public trust is preferable or in some way good. I did not say anything of the sort. I would in fact argue that it's near impossible for the public to determine whether something was a violation or not in a media landscape as toxic as the one we have.

How do you want me to reply to such behavior on your part? You do this again here:

I agree that releasing this footage was shittily political.

I never said anything about releasing the footage or not. Like, what are you doing?

But enough of that. You replied to a comment of mine that was very expressly about the political angle of this. You take a personal stance. My point would be that your personal stance is counterproductive to your stated support of the police. Your personal feelings towards a specific incident are irrelevant. The broader context is shaped by a political media machine that is propping up specific cases at specific times for their own gain.

If you don't realize that political reality I don't know what to tell you. Why bother stating your political stance of generally favoring the police if you don't care enough to stand against a force that very recently dealt some very serious blows to policing in the US off the back of exactly this type of situation?

I'm done. I'm not going to argue.

But that we are spending this amount of time taking about it is a problem. Bad case of the Chinese robber fallacy.

Honestly that’s a bad question. I don’t think the court of public opinion is the place to try these kinds of issues. Most people don’t have the background to even begin to assess whether or not it’s a “good shoot” or not. So allowing the institution to be dragged before the court of public opinion to score political points is not going to do good, and in fact erodes the credibility and legitimacy of that institution. There’s no gain to be made for police to be judged by Monday Quarterbacks who have no understanding of the work involved and can sit around in air conditioned homes and offices playing the videos and debating what the officers who had mere seconds to decide on their actions and carry them out in a situation full of unknowns.

I think review boards are a better bet. They would know what the risks are, what the procedures are, and any other factors influencing the event. They could actually talk to the officers and dispatch and get a much firmer grasp of the entire situation. The best civilians can do is “they shouldn’t have done that” based on movies, tv shows, and political commentary.

Sure, and I didn't say public opinion was the proper forum Certainly the footage being released was a devious political maneuver. Transparently. I'm not suggesting otherwise.

But I think that’s exactly how to defend the institution. The issue isn’t the shooting and the debate about the shooting, the issue is an attempt to discredit the institution by dragging an incident to the public square completely without context and using it to heavily imply that cops make a sport of this kind of thing. I think defending the institution requires making exactly that point. We, as the general public, have no background for understanding this. Even the participants are unknown. This woman might have a long history of attacking people. This might be a neighborhood full of drug users and dealers. There might have been things happening before the recording started.

I gurss guess I'm not being clear. I'm happy to defend the institution. And I've already suggested there's hopefully a story here that we cannot glean from just viewing the bodycam. I'm suggesting that this appears to be a needless killing and if it is, that should be acknowledged unflinchingly.

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