04-24-2015, 03:10 PM
(04-24-2015, 11:43 AM)Maggot Wrote: I know, I know but all this crap is getting on my nerves. There's 10 cases of police abuse for every 1000 of criminal abuse if not more. The spotlight is on and the roaches are coming out of the woodwork. I agree the cops are assholes sometimes and they are lazy mostly but this shit has been happening for ages, why all of a sudden is it in the crosshairs of the media? is it all racial?
Neither you nor I know how many cases of police abuse occur per 1,000 interfaces -- I don't think anybody does.
I don't know if it's happening more frequently, but certainly there are more videos and cameras around capturing some of it when it does go down. That raises public awareness of the problem and makes it much harder for police to lie about it, blame the victims, and keep doing it.
At any rate, police have a lot of leeway to use necessary force when making arrests. There should not be cops unloading their weapons into the backs of non-threatening citizens and lying about it. There should not be cops shooting subdued suspects to death because they don't know their tasers from their pistols. There should not be groups of cops taking turns kicking and beating the shit out of restrained homeless persons and horse thieves. And, so on.
So, I think it's a good thing that such police brutality is being exposed, protested and covered by the media. As a result, more cops are wearing body cams and will be required to have them turned on at all times. Pilot programs show that incidents of alleged and proven police brutality are significantly reduced when body cams are required. Positive change.
Also, increased public awareness and pressure for outside investigations has led to some police departments with terrible training/management processes and high incidents of brutality being mandated to make long-overdue improvements. Positive change.
Yeah, sometimes individuals, groups, and media present the brutality as being motivated by racial discrimination when there's no proof to support that contention. But, there's no proof of what was in the officer's mind when he/she felt motivated or entitled to kill or assault the person with no reasonable cause whatsoever, unless the officer admits intentional wrong-doing and explains it (which rarely happens). So, I consider all possible motives as being on the table during investigations and speculations.
At any rate, I don't think police officers illegally killing and assaulting any individuals should be condoned, in any numbers. Pretending like it's not a problem or allowing it to continue being swept under the rug is enabling it and that's some lazy bullshit, IMO.