Guys, I think we can all agree that the cops killing people for no reason in broad daylight is worth protesting about, after so many people, white and black have been killed. We’ve seen other cops join the protestors, so obviously they’re concerned by what’s going on.

What I do not understand is why the peaceful protestor’s reasonable demands of increased police accountability are not being met by US state and federal government/s. I thought the USA was founded on libertarian principles like small government, where the people’s voices were more important than the government’s? Where the power resided with “we the people”?

I think we all agree with that. I question the immediate jump to the racial element. Calling it police brutality, I understand.

One does not see much when living one's life with eyes shut. Those willing to see racism where it exists, do see it. Those determined to deny its existence, will not see it.

But like in Germany the new Libertarians did themselves no favour by not wiping out the Nazi influence within their rows that now takes their party over more and more, anti-racism movements in America did themselves no favour by allowign to get hijacked by far-left ideologists and socialists, environmentalists, gender-activists and fascismo-feminists.


Justified topics get hijacked this way, distorted and watered down until they cannot be recognised anymore. That way, the hijackers corrupt them.

And the original topic becomes unsupportable that way.


On the police itself, usually there are great differences being seen between polices in Europe or Japan, Australia - and the US. In the US the training is much shorter and the focus is more on combat fighting it gets reported again and again this way, as if the police were a military unit going to battles. Soft skills (psychology, communication, conflict management), are undervalued, where in othe Wetsenr cioutnries the yget much more time to be learne dand trained. Also many police units have been militarised also materialistically, with equipping them with military equipment. Finally, many former soldiers and ex military people go to the police after they left the armed forces. That attitude no doubt carries over.

There are definitely some cases of police brutality that are motivated by racism or other forms of prejudice, but then there are others like Justine Damond (another case of the MPD unreasonably killing someone), and almost certainly the cases of Jessica Boynton or Thomas Brown, which seem to be motivated by a variety of different reasons.

Which raises the issue of what exactly is wrong with these departments. Is there improper training, or some kind of “us vs them” mentality when it comes to dealing with the public? Or is it simply that some people trip on power (which in some cases emboldens them to act on their prejudices), and most of the department chooses to stand by a colleague rather than investigate properly? Or is it a mix of all those factors?

I'm no expert, but I think it is "some kind of “us vs them” mentality when it comes to dealing with the public" to a large degree. Our society is changing, people in big cities, and the cops change with them.

I know, someone will be clever and post Aristotle or someone from 2000BC commenting on how civilization is going to ruin, etc. Regardless, that's how I see it. My short stint teaching school confirmed a lot of that thinking. I certainly know in 1969 if I had said F --- this in a classroom, I wouldn't be able to sit down for a week. Today it's different. Society is different. And people who are tasked with dealing with the bottom feeders of society are probably becoming jaded and coarse too.

There is probably no single reason but you make some valid points. With regards to training I cannot believe that police officers cannot be trained to not do what these guys did. What possible reason is there for these guys to not put handcuffs on Mr. Floyd and put him in a cruiser? There's four of them and they have mace and tasers. It has to be bad training combined with bad personel. Hopefully this case will spark a change in that kind of behavior.

The “us vs them” mentality is also a real problem. A big contributing factor is police unions. Many times efforts to reform police behavior are resisted by powerful unions. The current head of the Minneapolis police union is Bob Kroll. He has a record of disciplinary actions against him including a couple of suspensions and a lawsuit against him. Why is this guy in charge of that union?

The war on drugs, the war on crime, the war on gangs, the war on terror, the war against poverty....., anybody else see a common theme? those phrases make for good sound bytes by both the media and politicians, People have been using the phrases since at least 06/18/1971. (Nixon first used the term "war on drugs"). So it's only natural for police depts. to incorporate military gear & tactics to fight these "wars". This moment has been 50 yrs in the making, and there is no "quick fix". You can make a start by demilitarizing the police and the politicians need to repeal all the various laws put in place to fight all those different "wars".

American English uses the term and the word fight for everything. Fight cancer, fight poverty, etc., never help cure or help eliminate.

This is the problem:
https://i.redd.it/dt0mybnnr1351.jpg


And this isn't a singular case, the police seem to be aiming their less-lethal rounds to the head area all too often.


Another example, here a 16yo is shot in the head with a less-lethal round, he wasn't being violent.
https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreak...tice_for_levi/

You should check in more often Dowly :yep: ... How's it going over in Finland?

"This is the problem" 1st, glad to see you back. But I dont get the picture. Is it trying to get across how cops shot a guy in the head with a 40mm BIP? Then from a distance removed him from his wheel chair and took his pants down to his knee caps using telekinesis? Or was the guy in the wheelchair the victim of a crime committed by rioters and looters?

Geez, I wasn't away that long.

I couldn't tell you how his pants got to where they are, he is a homeless man from what I've seen written.
You can see the wound in the following photo better:
https://www.dailynews.com/wp-content...03-31-SR-1.jpg


EDIT: Oh, and yes, he was apparently shot at by the cops.

:o Wtf and why did they do that? There is blood coming out of his ear, he surely has suffered a basal skull fracture. I hope he survives.

I've twice been in riots in the past and I can honestly say I never targeted one single individual who wasn't posing a threat to myself, a colleague, any individual or piece of property.

It shouldn't be hard to identify those responsible but there has to be a will there by the authorities :nope:

(I haven't tried Edge yet)

The is a saying

the straw that broke the camel's back.

To use this as some kind of metaphor

The Camel is USA the straw who are loaded on this camel is all the problems which have been luring in the society for years.

The killing of George Floyd was the straw that...

I interpret this demonstration and riot as a common denominator of all the problems the American citizen is struggling with

Markus

White House fortifies its perimeter as if it were the Alamo, extending the barriers and fences outward further at least twice. A "president" connecting to his people... And free of any instincts cautioning him, Trump in words again today has spilled oil into the fire. This man's head is so deeply stuck in its mad mind, it will never find back into the normal world again.

Run, rabbit, run,
dig that hole, forget the sun,
and when at least the work is done,
don't sit down, its time to dig another one.
For long you live, and high you fly,
but only if you ride the tide,
and balanced on the biggest wave
you race towards an early grave.

This is disgraceful. This older gentleman was hardly a threat to these officers. The 2 police officers identified in the video have been suspended. 57 members of the emergency response team resigned in support of these 2 officers. This video took place in Buffalo, New York.


The elderly man in the video is in the hospital in serious condition but he is alive. Hopefully with good hospital care, he will be alright.

There are immense differences in training quality between US and European polices. The focus also is different, and most likely far more complex and complete in Europe.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/more-tr...95546384791691

That article describes an incident from 2015, mentioning that the involved officers got training for just 9 or 11 weeks!

In Germany, it depends whether you become a police officer bei "Ausbildung" or "Studium". It lasts 2.5 and 3 years.

One can expect that in Europe the focus is far more inclusive of soft skills and psychological conflict (and stress) management.

Jim can tell how training is in the UK, I found no real helpful numbers on total training times. Just several courses listed that lasted from several weeks to up to one year, with most or all of them needing to be taken and passed.

It also gets said over here time and again that by comparison a tremendously higher ammount of ex-soldiers join the police in the US. I strongly suspect the military, combat-focussed attitude taught in the military, gets carried over then, including that strongly competitive team spriit of "us against them". Just that warriors should be left in the army, not being put into the civil police force that makes the cops you see on the streets. SWAT and special teams , counter terror and such, okay. But the ordinary police cop? "Soft" may have a foul taste for some, but "soft skills", communication, stress management, psychological handling of people and situation, is important for police work. After all, the streets are not Normandy beach.

That those 57 others quit the emergency support team in solidarity with those two colleagues, by all what is known I conclude shows a troubling mindset and a wrong attitude. They should be removed from police service if supporting the two is their consequence of this action. By all what is known so far.

Warriors into the army, but not into the police. Solidarity and loyalty can be misled. And as my grandfather used to say: there can be no such thing as a "corrupt cop". There only are cops, and corrupt people. Corrupt people are no cops, even if they wear a uniform or have a badge.

Yep, the public deserve better but there is more to this story apparently.