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Defund the Police


406W30th

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I'm not the smartest person in the world, but even I can see the power of this messaging and the shifting it makes people do towards justice.

Either support the people in the streets, support the cops, or shut the fuck up. If you want to elect yourself the Sainted White Messenger no one cares go fuck yourself forever.

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4 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

I'm not the smartest person in the world, but even I can see the power of this messaging and the shifting it makes people do towards justice.

Either support the people in the streets, support the cops, or shut the fuck up. If you want to elect yourself the Sainted White Messenger no one cares go fuck yourself forever.

Better way to ask those questions:

Do you favor:

1) rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic again, or

2) getting on a different ship with a different captain and crew?

Fucking "reform the police."  That's as hollow as Scott Walker's fucking dome.  We've tried "reform" before.  They won't have it.  Fuck, we're trying it RIGHT NOW, IN THIS INSTANCE (see disciplinary action against the bad cops in MN and Buffalo), and they won't have it, they are in open revolt against ANY ACCOUNTABILITY.  What in the BLUE fuck makes you think imposing accountability will work when they are actively resisting it right now, after all of this shit has gone down?  They will never accept it.  Ever.

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13 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Fucking "reform the police."  That's as hollow as Scott Walker's fucking dome.  We've tried "reform" before.  They won't have it.

Exactly.

If we tell them to reform, they won't. If we threaten their existence, they might. And if they don't, we've already told them the fucking consequences.

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3 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

Exactly.

If we tell them to reform, they won't. If we threaten their existence, they might. And if they don't, we've already told them the fucking consequences.

I negotiate for a living.

I've negotiated with fuckers like the police plenty of times (entities that had never settled a claim, who were the 800 pound gorilla and can't conceive of a world where everyone doesn't bend to their will, etc.).

Hopeful half measures are a complete waste of time.  They will negotiate only when faced with an existential threat -- until then, you're wasting your time and breath.  And even then, you still might be.  Sometimes, they'd rather go down in flames with middle finger extended than to EVER do the right and smart thing. That's the message a crapton of them are sending, unambiguously, right now.  So be it.

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1 hour ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Personally I would go with, “Fuck the Police.”  

Just lean into something once Dems, show them you’re not afraid. Stop playing defense.

Fuck the police! Fuck the police!

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New York Crime stats:

https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/nypd/downloads/pdf/analysis_and_planning/historical-crime-data/seven-major-felony-offenses-2000-2019.pdf

 

Dallas Crime Stats;

https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/us/tx/dallas/crime-rate-statistics

 

There is not going to be a one size fits all plan for police departments.  NYC is going to go medieval on people if their crime rate has any kind of serious uptick.  

Most cities are going to take a more holistic approach to crime, and that is fantastic.  Some of the ideas will be great, and some will fail.  The point is, shit is going to get tried.  But because minorities make up most of the poor, and the poor are going to bear the brunt of mistakes, the poor are going to be the first to want to revisit old methods if our stats don't improve.

Fucking covid is going to chase good people away from cities just when we need them to be part of the solution. 

 

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“Defund the police” didn’t strike me as meaning to literally abolish them when I first heard it.

I just figured it was similar to how the Republicans defunded the education system. Gut it down to the barebones. Trim the fat. You know, they’ll probably figure out how to run themselves even better than before, and all that jazz.

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3 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

hat in the BLUE fuck makes you think imposing accountability will work when they are actively resisting it right now, after all of this shit has gone down?  They will never accept it.  Ever.

Well, that's kind of how it works.  You impose the accountability by imposing the sanctions (laws). 

There is no other way than to "impose accountability".  That's exactly what these protests are trying to accomplish.

 

 

Trumps retaliation against whistleblowers and police brutality seem to me to be reflections of the same attitude.  Fuck you -- I'm not accountable.

Unless you have ethics codes which empower companies to fire leaders, you don't have an ethics program.

Unless you have rules that allow you to remove shitty teachers, you can't have a great public education system.

Unless you have someone who can remove bad cops, you won't have justice. 

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They gave police body cameras but they either shut them off or tell others with them on to turn away from them.  That should be an automatic firing.  At this point, there's no accidents.  The camera may be faulty-have them tested like they do fire extinguishers, and if it leads to an automatic termination, then maybe officers will keep on top of their camera like they do their firearms.  

Edited by Mdhorn
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I'm sending this out to all the Boomers in my family and a few dumb HS friends I'm reluctantly still friends with.
 
A nice explainer on "Defund the Police".
Unrolled (or for those not on Twitter):
 
I think for many people the talk about defunding is (completely understandably) overwhelming and hard to imagine. I really do get that. And what I also get is that many people know and/or have interacted with "good apples" and this answer seems extreme. So let's talk about that.
 
For me, I am deeply deeply uninterested in categorizing police (or people more generally) into good and bad. It's not a useful binary for me, and it allows people to escape accountability. That's just a personal practice of mine. People are complicated. Police included.
 
I also don't think most people who do heinous things are "just wired" to commit harm. Often, who someone becomes in these roles is very, very different than what they imagined. Some of these people came into this job swearing they would never do things they've done.
 
None of this is to absolve bad behavior, or focus excessively on the internal motivations of police, who ultimately have a responsibility to act with integrity, especially as armed state actors. But it is to make an important point, which is that policing today hurts everyone.
 
We have encouraged and perpetuated a system that allows, and even incentivizes, police to be their absolute worst selves. Their least empathetic. Their least dignified. Their most brutal. Extremely unwilling to speak up against the powers that be.
 
Policing also incentivizes failure. Right now, as I and many others have pointed out over the past few days, we solve approximately 40% of murders in many major cities in america. 40%. And that's more than the percentage of rapes and other serious crimes we solve.
 
The bottom line is this: policing doesn't work for people, but it also largely does not work for police.
 
We are asking police to do too much. We are asking them to be mental health professionals. We are asking them to be addiction experts. We are asking them to address issues rooted in poverty, we are asking them to be trauma experts.
 
And, unsurprisingly, it isn't working. Even if you take brutality and killing people out of the picture entirely - even if the cops were not explicitly harming people every day - we would still have to reckon with the fact that police don't even solve crimes!
 
So who is this system good for? If the police in this country drew up a public safety system from scratch, is this what they would draw? Why can't we create better systems that incentivize the people involved to access their humanity?
 
So yes, defunding the police is a necessary response to years of brutality and harm caused by policing in America. But the end goal is not to punish the police. The end goal is healthier systems, healthier communities, and healthier people - both civilians and cops.
 
Public safety does not have to look like a war. Do we have the courage to imagine something different?
 
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I have exactly zero issues with protesters and activists using the "Defund the Police" language. This is a serious issue, and strong language is needed to truly get the point across. 

All the hand wringing from Dems and Never Trumpers is misguided. Biden is not proposing to defund the police. Dem politicians in general are not proposing to defund the police. Yes, Trump and the GOP will try to weaponize it. But it won't work. 

When you're down by 7-8+ points in the general election and in danger of losing the Senate, you'll become desperate and throw the kitchen sink hoping something will stick. Let them. It will backfire. 

 

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I thought about it and I think Joe or someone in his campaign is being smart because he is after all running against the Devil and the Devil keeps his messages short and sweet for his dimwitted hoard. And in truth, we are all a bit dimwitted in this country. Preferring sound bites to detailed analysis for the most part.

So for now Joe says, I don't believe in Defunding the Police and he takes away the quiver of arrows that Trump has ready to use to shovel his horse shit of "Law & Order" President who believes we need Police in the streets or we all will die in arson fires set crazed criminals. Biden says no to Defund the Police but espouses every single good idea of BLM activists to make into policy. It looks like Bernie is employing the same strategy. He is saying, "I don't believe in defunding the police and abolishing them altogether" and then espousing everything the Defund the Police people are pushing, for the most part. They are trying to keep Trump from using their endorsement of "Defund the police" out of their mouths so that Trump can't hammer that into the heads of jittery whites and use it to bludgeon them too. They need people to understand what it means first before they use the phrase as something they endorse.

That is what I think is happening anyway, so I'm not going to sweat it because both Biden and Bernie are on the better side of the history we all want. We just don't have a pretty sweet and simple way of explaining it since there has never been a TV show called "Defund the Police".

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Just now, Chuckie Finster said:

A month ago I subscribed to the "only a few bad apples theory."  The last few weeks have radicalized me.  Fuck 'em all.

 

Cool.  Legal counsel should be down at the Portland Federal courthouse filing a section 1983 action seeking an immediate TRO, followed by full injunctive relief and an action for damages, including punitive damages, against each officer involved individually and the Portland PD as a whole.  Seriously, the petition can be prepped, filed, and the TRO heard in the next 45 minutes.

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Maybe I don’t understand it completely. Maybe there are multiple definitions. But I kind of see “Defund the police” as the starting point of a negotiation. You start with an extreme position and stick with it until the other side starts feeling pressure to budge. Then once you’ve established your leverage, you try to settle somewhere in between. You end up getting the reforms that you’ve been seeking for decades. “Reform the police” or some such never worked. You can’t start negotiating with exactly what you want because the other side is always going to chip away at it. Then you’re only left with meaningless concessions, if anything at all.

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No one is saying "defund public safety", we're saying defund the POLICE, as in the armed, insufficiently-trained, and ill-equipped-to-handle-most-situations-that-they-get-called-to police force. I am 100% in favor of funding public safety.

 

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US population by year:

  •  

     

    Year

    Population Yearly %
    Change
    Yearly
    Change
    Migrants (net) Median Age Fertility Rate Density (P/Km²) Urban
    Pop %
    Urban Population Country's Share of
    World Pop
    World Population U.S.
    Global Rank
    2020 331,002,651 0.59 % 1,937,734 954,806 38.3 1.78 36 82.8 % 273,975,139 4.25 % 7,794,798,739 3
    2019 329,064,917 0.60 % 1,968,652 954,806 37.7 1.85 36 82.5 % 271,365,914 4.27 % 7,713,468,100 3
    2018 327,096,265 0.62 % 2,011,509 954,806 37.7 1.85 36 82.2 % 268,786,714 4.29 % 7,631,091,040 3
    2017 325,084,756 0.64 % 2,068,761 954,806 37.7 1.85 36 81.9 % 266,243,516 4.31 % 7,547,858,925 3
    2016 323,015,995 0.67 % 2,137,685 954,806 37.7 1.85 35 81.7 % 263,743,312 4.33 % 7,464,022,049 3
    2015 320,878,310 0.76 % 2,373,367 992,343 37.6 1.88 35 81.4 % 261,287,811 4.35 % 7,379,797,139 3

Deaths caused by cop by year, as reported by WaPo:

2020   465

2019   1003

2018   991

2017   986

2016   962

2015    994

Yearly police caused shootings/deaths per year divided by yearly estimated USA population

(to true up shootings/deaths and population covered)

(wapo tracker started in 2015):

2020   465    indeterminate

2019   1003   .000003048

2018   991      .000003029

2017   986     .000003014

2016   962    .000002978

2015    994   .000003097

 

Of the 5401 people killed caused by the police in that time period since 2015

(according to the WaPo database):

3101 had a gun or  57.4%

933 had a knife or 17.27%

143 presumably used their vehicle as a weapon  or 2.64%

193 had a toy weapon or 3.57%

352 were unarmed or 6.51%

 

Gender breakdown of the 5401 people killed by police nationwide from 2015 till present according to WaPo:

5162 were male

237 were female

2  were unknown gender

Police must really hate men.  /S

 

There is more here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/

https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/us-population/

 

 

 

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I don't know if it's been mentioned much as I haven't read all of this but Camden discarded their police force almost a decade ago and started from scratch with a new model and went from one of the most violent places in the country to cutting violent crime in half. 

The model is there. If we want less crime, safer cities, and less fear mongering we have a model to follow. Just have to scale up. 

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55 minutes ago, zork said:

US population by year:

  •  

     

    Year

    Population Yearly %
    Change
    Yearly
    Change
    Migrants (net) Median Age Fertility Rate Density (P/Km²) Urban
    Pop %
    Urban Population Country's Share of
    World Pop
    World Population U.S.
    Global Rank
    2020 331,002,651 0.59 % 1,937,734 954,806 38.3 1.78 36 82.8 % 273,975,139 4.25 % 7,794,798,739 3
    2019 329,064,917 0.60 % 1,968,652 954,806 37.7 1.85 36 82.5 % 271,365,914 4.27 % 7,713,468,100 3
    2018 327,096,265 0.62 % 2,011,509 954,806 37.7 1.85 36 82.2 % 268,786,714 4.29 % 7,631,091,040 3
    2017 325,084,756 0.64 % 2,068,761 954,806 37.7 1.85 36 81.9 % 266,243,516 4.31 % 7,547,858,925 3
    2016 323,015,995 0.67 % 2,137,685 954,806 37.7 1.85 35 81.7 % 263,743,312 4.33 % 7,464,022,049 3
    2015 320,878,310 0.76 % 2,373,367 992,343 37.6 1.88 35 81.4 % 261,287,811 4.35 % 7,379,797,139 3

Deaths caused by cop by year, as reported by WaPo:

2020   465

2019   1003

2018   991

2017   986

2016   962

2015    994

Yearly police caused shootings/deaths per year divided by yearly estimated USA population

(to true up shootings/deaths and population covered)

(wapo tracker started in 2015):

2020   465    indeterminate

2019   1003   .000003048

2018   991      .000003029

2017   986     .000003014

2016   962    .000002978

2015    994   .000003097

 

Of the 5401 people killed caused by the police in that time period since 2015

(according to the WaPo database):

3101 had a gun or  57.4%

933 had a knife or 17.27%

143 presumably used their vehicle as a weapon  or 2.64%

193 had a toy weapon or 3.57%

352 were unarmed or 6.51%

 

Gender breakdown of the 5401 people killed by police nationwide from 2015 till present according to WaPo:

5162 were male

237 were female

2  were unknown gender

Police must really hate men.  /S

 

There is more here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/

https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/us-population/

 

 

 

Maybe you missed my earlier post. I'll post it again for you:

Quote

I worked a couple years in a courthouse that served primarily a Latino area of town.

All criminal fillings were misdemeanors in this particular courthouse.

What I saw was a systematic war waged on that community. I saw hundreds (yes hundreds) of criminal arrests that began with stops for bicycle code violations - riding the wrong way on the street, riding a bike on a sidewalk, or riding without a headlight.

I saw pretextual stops of both pedestrians and cars daily.

I saw police and sheriffs routinely lie in reports. I caught two cops on the stand committing perjury. When they realized they were busted (by their own dashcam nonetheless) they laughed on the stand. Quick NG verdicts and cops were back on the street that day. Defendants spent over a month in jail waiting for those verdicts. DAs office does nothing to lying cops because their union pumps money into the DA's election war-chest.

Fuck police

They've waged an insidious war for decades. Sorry your feelings are getting hurt.

Notice how I didnt come across a single case of police murdering someone. Would you say the above is acceptable?  Would you say that its police brutality?

My experience is the norm is minority majority communities. 

The police target people of color. End of story.

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4 hours ago, FondrenRoad said:

No, its off.  Its not centered with the building. 

 

4 hours ago, Hiphopopotamos said:

It would have been fine if they had written 'THE' - were they low on paint?

They're Badgers. The 'THE' is underground.

 

 

Seriously. Brutality doesn't have to be just about death by cop, Zork. A systemic targeting of a population that leads to every interaction being negative is not healthy for a community nor a country. It's treating humans like the abused creatures you see at the shelter. Somehow, 'they' didn't deserve to be treated well and now they cower in fear as people walk by their cages. It's assuming that 'other' is worthless: kids in cages and housing projects become adults in cages. One might take your statistic of how many people are killed by police and then look at how many children are unable to escape poverty and see how punishing the lords of discipline are.  Barr was fine with locking up everyone from low level offenders to the most violent in society. Look at the demographics for who that is. It's a cage that we have built over decades.

 

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Oh oh oh does it suck to be stereotyped and profiled and have people in power think you are expendable???





AND WHY DO THEY ALL LOOK LIKE CLONES OF EACH OTHER?

Gosh...shoe on the other foot and all that.

Fuck ‘em. Deal with it for a couple hundred years, then maybe we can call it even.
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16 hours ago, Horn Dogg said:

Here’s a good place to cut funding, no need to let them use an expensive car to keep the disabled from parking close.

 

spacer.png

 

 

That was donated to the LAPD.  Donations to PDs and unions should be outlawed as well.

Does Houston still have those bullshit HPD union donation rear windshield stickers?

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I said in another thread that I'd disarm the police. Let them have a low-power taser, maybe. I keep seeing people asking "What if they get into a shoot out???". How many times do cops get in a "Shoot-out" that they didn't start themselves? Or worse yet, they're the only actual shooters? I'd imagine it's pretty rare. Have an on-call SWAT team waiting at the station, like fireman do. Call them in when the shit hits the fan. 

1. No more firearms. 

2. No more military surplus vehicles/weapons. My rural county has a huge APC, for what? Such a joke.

3. No more military-style uniforms. When I worked at my county sheriff's office 20+ years ago, we had stupid brown slacks and a tan shirt. The changed over to all black BDU trousers and blouses, then to a polo shirt. Guy were creaming themselves because they got to look like Rambo instead of Barney Fife. It was pretty pathetic. Humble them with an old school uniform, that takes a lot of starch out of a certain type of guy.

4. I'd like to see a disciplinary panel to look into charges of excessive force, brutality, etc. Make it professionally diverse, put a LEO supervisor, a social worker, mental health worker, local attorney, whatever. Just not a bunch of cops judging one of their own. I think you need one so they can explain procedures or how the law would apply to a certain situation but one is enough.

 

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2 hours ago, Sandman said:

No more military-style uniforms. When I worked at my county sheriff's office 20+ years ago, we had stupid brown slacks and a tan shirt. The changed over to all black BDU trousers and blouses, then to a polo shirt. Guy were creaming themselves because they got to look like Rambo instead of Barney Fife. It was pretty pathetic. Humble them with an old school uniform, that takes a lot of starch out of a certain type of guy.

 

Carolla- You get sized for your bullet-proof vest when you finish the academy, and that's your size for your career. Stay fit or get your love handles shot off.

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