Is it? I'm a Canadian and everything I hear about the US police terrifies me - SWATing leading to innocent people being killed, unarmed black men being shot, no-knock warrants, civil forfeiture, the impossibility of convicting police for just about anything. If the worst thing they were doing was selling drugs that'd be an improvement as far as I can tell.
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2012/06/29/saga_of_a_toront...
Here’s a reminder: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Dziekański_Taser_inci...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incidents_of_police_ex...
Is it really widespread in Canada?
Yah.
Here’s the video: https://youtu.be/1CR_k-dTnDU
One part of it is probably guns: even in states with strong gun control, there are plenty of them in the hands of hoodlums, so voters appreciate the Dirty Harry approach to dealing with them.
But to me that doesn't quite explain why cops seems to have such semi-formal impunity (see for example http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/01/get..., http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/01/pol... and http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/01/pol...).
Of course we can guess various reasons, voters like police, cops stick together etc, prosecutors and police work together etc. But those things are true in other countries too.
And the middle and upper classes--the only voices ever represented in media (excluding the current endless spate of articles interviewing poor Trump voters)--of course they not only have no problem with the police, they don't know anyone who's been shaken down. As a general rule, at least.
So, you look at the predominant voices in the media, and they have no problem with the corruption of cops, and they don't know anyone who does.
Gosh, even my nominally progressive sister goes into any discussion about police brutality with an assumption that whoever got shot deserved it. And she's generally aware of social issues!
The biases are baked in so deep, and so uncomfortable to unpack, it's easier to just to turn away from it all.
The Braidwood Inquiry concluded the use of Tasers in the case wasn't justified. The officers were charged with perjury (not murder, but at least something). The RCMP issued an apology to Dziekański's mother.
Compare this to the response to fatal shootings in the US, and it's very clear to me I prefer this line of the sand.
Whoa, those cops surely have a serious level of political backing.
This baffles me always to no end - the flame with which the officials would defend cops who went seriously out of borders. Every time in every locale.
That said, kids like to make things up too, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what happened here.
When I was in kindergarten, I once lied about seeing a snake in the schoolyard. I don't remember why or how, I just told a stupid lie like every stupid kid (which is the same thing as every kid) does all the time. Now, no one believed me and I don't think that anyone else in the world remembers what I said, but imagine if they did. Imagine the grown-ups had taken it seriously and called 911 (well, 125 realistically , it wasn't in North America). The city would have started a large investigation to find the missing killer snake, the media would have printed article after article reporting on how people should be scared of sending their kids to school when there are dangerous animals on the loose and no one does anything about it, recess would have been cancelled, ... Imagine a shark scare, but on a larger scale. Every now and then, some grown-up would have asked me if I was sure I saw a snake, and due to the aforementioned stupidity, plus the fact that I was afraid of getting in trouble, I would have nodded yes. It would have been The News until something else distracted people from it.
None of this happened because no one believed me in the first place. But if it had happened, should I have been held criminally responsible for all the trouble?
That's my point. Kids lie all the time for all sorts of reasons. If you want to start holding them responsible through criminal justice system, you would have to send every one of them to jail.
I recognize nothing in this story in my town's local police (we're about 65,000 population, and the cops are quite relaxed and civil as a default).
> I recognize nothing in this story in my town's local police (we're about 65,000 population, and the cops are quite relaxed and civil as a default).
I was stopped without explanation in Andover, KS (population < 12000 as of 2010). Officers harassed me and threatened to arrest me when I would not allow them to search my vehicle. They claimed that they smelled pot in the car. I Was not a pot smoker and was borrowing the vehicle from an anti drug family member while mine was in the shop. The claim was bogus and they were clearly trying to intimidate me.
In a neighboring city (Wichita), police responding to a 911 call that I placed after being robbed at gunpoint played good-cop-bad-cop with me. They suspected that my roommate and I were selling pot (we weren’t) and refused to press charges on the assailant because they assumed we were withholding information. I tried to call them on it, but I was unsuccessful. They didn’t give a shit about us because of the assumptions they made coming into the situation.
FWIW, I have two friends who are cops. I do not think all cops are bad people. Your dismissal of the issue is problematic.
In my situation, a young woman was killed by a car. So a person is dead, and neither the victim's family and friends, the perpetrator's family or others will really know if justice were served.
That's not making excuses for corruption or the despicable conduct in Baltimore. But sometimes our perception of police conduct goes one way because we haven't walked a mile in their shoes, and don't have the big picture of how their world works.
refused to press charges
You are allowing yourself to be misguided if you focus on what gets put on the front page of CNN.
No sane person would want to risk their life on a daily basis, wrestle people into their cars against their will on a daily basis, and be subject to the scrutiny you describe in your post, the hatred that is described in other posts, all for a policeman's salary. Literally no sane person would take that deal. Are you about to sign up to be a cop? Hell fucking no.
Without that- you would have died in that car-accident you sometimes get flashbacks to. There is a dentist effect here at work- everybody forgets the negative moments in live, everyone forgets about theire dentist until it hurts again. Police and Emergency services are socially isolated due to that effect.