Damn it, Baltimore

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Re: Damn it, Baltimore

Postby iMURDAu » Fri Aug 12, 2016 4:15 am

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Its almost like nobody in the Baltimore PD thought to pay attention to metrics. Maybe hire someone to sound the alarm? Like have a Dr. Nick come in and say Hey Everybody We're Letting The Most Rapists Get Away!
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Re: Damn it, Baltimore

Postby iMURDAu » Sun Aug 12, 2018 2:02 pm

Here we go, yet again.

Video shows a man getting loud with an officer who proceeds to make a punching bag out of the guy.

Apparently the punching bag had previously been charged with assaulting this same officer in June. The officer saw the guy sitting on steps while he was driving, stopped his car, saw the guy walking and decided to stop him without probable cause. He just wanted revenge.

The department is reviewing the totality of the incident while the officer is suspended. With pay. And his partner who stood there and watched an assault occur is getting desk duty.

Seems rather simple to me. The officer escalated the situation through violence against an unarmed person who wasn't guilty of anything except living in Baltimore.

From the same article:

Police said late last month that they were reviewing a different piece of viral civilian footage depicting a tense interaction with officers. The video shows a young boy being forcefully brought to the ground and handcuffed by an officer.

As the officer puts the boy into a police car, he is recorded saying, “I’m about to send this kid to the [expletive] hospital.”


That's rather heroic. Nothing says protecting the community like proclaiming your desire to harm children.
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Re: Damn it, Baltimore

Postby Ceiling_Squid » Mon Aug 13, 2018 9:53 pm

This kind of shit is why those "thin blue line" stickers I see slapped on people's cars just gall me. It's practically rolling out the red carpet for this kind of abuse. Cops don't need the support or hero worship, they do a fine enough job themselves, by closing ranks to protect their worst.

We are well-past "a few bad apples". This is institutional rot. They enable their own bad actors with a slap on the wrist at best.

Suspension with pay and desk duty...spineless.
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Re: Damn it, Baltimore

Postby Crimson847 » Mon Aug 13, 2018 11:50 pm

Ah, but they do need that support and respect. Not for the sake of their precious feelings, but to do their jobs properly--officers who have better rapport with the public and strong ties to the community make much better cops than a force full of harassed and alienated officers with a siege mentality. The worst police forces aren't in the neighborhoods where everyone tips their hat to the sheriff as he or she drives by; they're in the neighborhoods where people oink or curse instead.

The rub, of course, is that such mutual respect must be earned by both the community and the department. If the cops treat their community like crap, they can hardly expect said community to respect them, and in turn the community can hardly expect much respect from the police if they treat them like salty garbage.
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"If it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them; but the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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Re: Damn it, Baltimore

Postby Ceiling_Squid » Tue Aug 14, 2018 12:12 am

I'd appreciate if my fellow citizens gave them the right type of earned respect, instead of reflexively shouting down their fellow citizens whenever someone criticizes police overreach and militarization. The right-wing, divisive "blue line" narrative has done a lot to sour that relationship in the first place, by framing it as supporting the cops against a nebulous sea of undesireables. And it's gone very far to both enable and ignore the problem with police misconduct.

But I work at a gun store, and see this sentiment all the time... I suppose I'm resentful when coworkers and customers roll over for the jackboots every single damn time there's a police shooting or beating. Always with the excuses, or naked disgust for brutality victims that "deserved it".

That kind of support only further embitters the siege mentality. And it's hard not to see it as morally repugnant, where I'm standing.

Edit: and oinking and cursing is tame. These are public servants, they don't get to keep killing people and seizing property without earning the ire of the populace.

The Portland PD just last week marched alongside a demonstration of armed neo-Nazi and white supremacist thugs, and tear-gassed unarmed counter-protesters. This shit can't keep happening. It looks like the police largely have solidarity with citizens who approve of their excesses.

Edit 2: Also, what do those neighborhoods where people "tip their hat to the sheriff" look like? My gut says overwhelmingly affluent and white.

I don't think it's a mutual respect problem. You can't expect the community to have to hold an olive branch. They're not the ones with the power. They're the ones being stepped on.

The police need to fix their own professional culture first. They need to be held accountable. I'm not going to go tell people to be nicer to the armed, law-immune men who occasionally flip out and crush their vertebrae, or shoot their neighbors.
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Re: Damn it, Baltimore

Postby Crimson847 » Tue Aug 14, 2018 3:44 pm

Ceiling_Squid wrote:I'd appreciate if my fellow citizens gave them the right type of earned respect, instead of reflexively shouting down their fellow citizens whenever someone criticizes police overreach and militarization. The right-wing, divisive "blue line" narrative has done a lot to sour that relationship in the first place, by framing it as supporting the cops against a nebulous sea of undesireables.


Of course they do; that's their experience. When police have a good relationship with the local community, you know which group still hates them anyway? Criminals, and those inclined toward criminality. I used to work private security out in the suburbs, and almost every time someone was arrested for committing a crime on the property, they started ranting about "pigs", how unfair we were being for daring to stop them from assaulting people or stealing, how racist law enforcement is (even if they were white, oddly enough), and so on. The entire job description of cops is to make life difficult for criminals, and criminals are generally keen to blame their difficulties on everyone but themselves, so criminals hating cops is as natural as sunset following sunrise.

If you're acquainted with (and have the trust of) black people who live in the city and aren't criminals, you'll probably notice that many talk much the same way about cops, but with greater justification. So you won't assume this kind of insulting talk about cops is limited to criminals. However, rural conservatives overwhelmingly haven't had such an experience, possibly because they're racist, but also possibly because it's so white where they live you could blind people by holding up the demographic data. So when they hear some stranger talk about police that way, based on their own experience with that sort of behavior they assume they're a criminal or someone who hangs out with criminals, because in their experience criminals are the only people who act that way toward police.
And it's gone very far to both enable and ignore the problem with police misconduct.

But I work at a gun store, and see this sentiment all the time... I suppose I'm resentful when coworkers and customers roll over for the jackboots every single damn time there's a police shooting or beating. Always with the excuses, or naked disgust for brutality victims that "deserved it".

That kind of support only further embitters the siege mentality. And it's hard not to see it as morally repugnant, where I'm standing.


Yep, their presumptions about their opponents' moral character do only further divide people. And it is definitely hard to avoid returning the favor; harder than a priest at a playground (thanks to Ted McCarrick we get to make those jokes again). Of course it is; if it were easy someone would have solved the problem already.


Edit: and oinking and cursing is tame. These are public servants, they don't get to keep killing people and seizing property without earning the ire of the populace.

The Portland PD just last week marched alongside a demonstration of armed neo-Nazi and white supremacist thugs, and tear-gassed unarmed counter-protesters. This shit can't keep happening. It looks like the police largely have solidarity with citizens who approve of their excesses.


I live in Portland. PPD fucked up last week, no question. However, your description misses a few key facts, most important being that some of the "unarmed counter-protesters" were behaving violently long before the police turned on the crowd. Here's antifa trying to take an American flag from one of the marchers, then clubbing him in the back of the head when he resists:



Here's a reporter who was hit in the head by a thrown bottle as the cops started trying to clear out the counterprotesters:

Image

I can't find video or images right now, but other people were assaulted by antifa as well, almost all before the police intervened, including some who were bleeding from the eyes because they were gouged at in a scuffle. That wasn't the fault of the majority of peaceful counterprotesters, and I agree the police overreacted, but the idea that they forcibly dispersed the counterprotesters for no good reason is wrong. My aunt was at the protest, and she's hardcore liberal, but even she said ashamedly that "their side" was being more or less peaceful while "our side" wasn't.

As for the "armed" Patriot Prayer folks, I've seen one viral image of a guy who clearly has a handgun in his back pocket, but for all I know he's a CHL holder who is legally entitled to carry a concealed handgun, even to such an event. I also know that at one point the police apparently made a deal with the Patriot Prayer folks, in which the cops agreed not to take away their shields and potential melee weapons (like big flags with heavy poles, which they were upset at having taken from them) if the demonstrators agreed to stay in Waterfront Park with a solid cordon of riot cops between them and the counter-protesters rather than go out marching around Portland. If you have any additional information on that subject, please let me know.

Edit 2: Also, what do those neighborhoods where people "tip their hat to the sheriff" look like? My gut says overwhelmingly affluent and white.


No need to be affluent and white specifically--there are working class and mixed-race neighborhoods where the police get along well with the community. It is pretty rare for impoverished neighborhoods, though, and very rare in impoverished neighborhoods full of black folks or unassimilated immigrants. Even leaving aside bona fide racism, cultural distance between cops and their communities is great at widening divides.

I don't think it's a mutual respect problem. You can't expect the community to have to hold an olive branch. They're not the ones with the power. They're the ones being stepped on.

The police need to fix their own professional culture first. They need to be held accountable. I'm not going to go tell people to be nicer to the armed, law-immune men who occasionally flip out and crush their vertebrae, or shoot their neighbors.


Good, because they probably won't listen to you. Again, true respect has to be earned, and until their local police earn the respect of these folks they won't be granted it.
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"If it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them; but the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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Re: Damn it, Baltimore

Postby Ceiling_Squid » Tue Aug 14, 2018 6:07 pm

Thank you for a more-nuanced on-the-ground view of the events in Portland.

I'm not going to try to justify counter-protester behavior. Two years in and things look bleaker than ever, and it's harder and harder for me to care.

I'll leave it at that. It's not a happy place to be, but it's where I am.
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Re: Damn it, Baltimore

Postby iMURDAu » Tue Aug 14, 2018 9:23 pm

The officer resigned.

I'm speculating that it is because that will allow him to both avoid being charged criminally and apply for another policing job without the stigma of having been fired as a police officer.

Fired = bad. Go away.

Resigned = eh, you just didn't want to work there anymore. When can you start?

I don't like the Thin Blue Line paraphernalia either. Reminds me of "Support the Troops" as if you not having magnets or stickers on your car means you're against the troops. No Jesus fish on your car? You're going to hell! Fuck your lifetime of service in the name of the Lord!
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Re: Damn it, Baltimore

Postby Crimson847 » Tue Aug 14, 2018 9:58 pm

An Iraq war vet I knew years ago had an interesting take on "support the troops". He saw it as essentially right-wing "slacktivism": people slapping a pretty bumper sticker on their car to virtue-signal as they ignore homeless veterans on the street on their way to vote for reckless warmongers who spend untold trillions on fancy high-tech toys but can't be bothered with healthcare or decent body armor for soldiers. Generally he didn't experience a "support the troops" sticker as a sign of sincere concern for his well-being or that of his comrades, so much as a way to support them in word so they wouldn't have to do so in deed.

I disagreed with some of that, but I can't help wondering how many cops have the same viewpoint regarding the folks who pat themselves on the back for tweeting "#bluelivesmatter" while blocking any action on guns and voting for yet another ill-considered tax cut that will result in their budget for silly things like equipment or training being cut yet again.
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"If it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them; but the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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Re: Damn it, Baltimore

Postby iMURDAu » Wed Aug 15, 2018 12:20 am

Seems that an arrest warrant for the officer has been issued.

That's good.
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