This triggers riots and protests, which require the police to work overtime.
They get paid for causing all these problems, and well paid. Their overtime costs must be tremendous. And who ends up paying? We do.
We should claw back police overtime pay for any protests or riots that are caused by the police themselves. I think that's fair and equitable.
I’ve had friends who’ve been pulled over while passing through Illinois and asked to hand over their wallets just so the cops can count their money. They only had a few bucks and were let go, but I’m sure if it was a little too much, the cops would’ve claimed it was drug money and taken it. The cops didn’t mention speeding or any sort of crime, so their reason for pulling them over was pretty clear. They probably target non-local people because nobody is going to come back just for a hundred bucks or so, and if they need to make up a ticket on the spot, few people will bother to fight it.
It’s like the Police has a letter of Marque to do piracy. [0] Except that means they are at war with you, not a foreign country.
The police department will determine if it is worth ‘paying off’ the remaining loan amount, so they can seize the car and sell it at auction.
This is a problem that could be easily greatly improved with legislation (and without requiring the more radical and controversial step of abolishing civil forfeiture entirely) - each state could legislate that civil forfeiture proceeds are to be paid into the general state budget not kept by the local police forces. This would remove much of the incentive for overuse of civil forfeiture.
"When a nation hoards weapons, troubles arise from within and from without.
When its leaders try to be cunning and clever, the situation spins further out of control.
When they try to fix things by passing more laws, they only increase the number of outlaws."
民多利器、國家滋昏。
人多伎巧、奇物滋起。
法令滋彰、盜賊多有。
It would have to be a lifelong pursuit like a real monk, without much financial incentive. The problem is without trust and respect it wouldn't work since no one would enlist. I'm not sure how you would bootstrap something like that.
On the flip side I'd like to point out that this increased OT often has downstream effects as well, most notably in pensions which are typically based on your last n months of pay. Some contracts include OT in this and some do not. So soon-to-be-retired officers could literally be increasing their pay for the rest of their lives based on increased pay due to working a riot.
It’s not wise to tear gas the people who are going to pay for your retirement.
They're not putting their financial future at risk.
Free will is a thing, and the police cannot make you go out and commit vandalism, mayhem, and murder.
BTW these are all things that protesters experience, as the police as trained in "crowd control" techniques which involve kettling and provoking masses of people so they can exert force to teach them a lesson.
And judging by the pictures, very few of the protesters were desperate, tired, hungry, downtrodden, etc. For most, it's an opportunity to virtue signal for a day or two, and then go back to their relatively affluent lives and forget about all of this.
Hardly a one would be caught dead tutoring some inner city kid with their algebra. Far more fun to taunt cops in an impossible position.
Their abuse is literally publicly subsidized.
Lawsuit settlements for the police committing human rights abuses should come out of the police pension fund.
No, they should come out of taxpayer funds. The principal is responsible for the actions of their agents.
If the public authority doesn't properly screen, train, supervise, and discipline police to protect civil rights, it is their responsibility and the responsibility of the public who chooses that authority.
Absolving the public authority and the public of responsibility just means that there is reduced incentives to address systemic problems.
I'm pretty sure that that's what I just proposed, by causing the results of supervision and discipline to trigger negative consequences.
You may be mistakenly assuming that exhausting the pension fund directly cuts pensions for those covered, which would still be remote just in targeted individuals and time, but there is no necessary relationship there. It just makes it more likely that the public authority would be forced to declare bankruptcy because it can't meet it's pension obligations, at which point it might be able to shed pension obligations for employees (not just those covered by the fund, if the police have a distinct fund!) as part of the bankruptcy, but that could happen as a result of direct settlement payments, as well.
In the fairly common case where the police don't even have even have their own pension fund but contribute to a common fund with other employees, perhaps not even from the same local jurisdiction (e.g., California local governments where often both police and other employees are covered by CalPERS), taking it out of the fund would even lack the symbolic sense that it has in the more simple case.
If you want direct liability for the people doing the immediate wrong, you want an end to, or limitations on, qualified immunity, not redirecting public authoriry liability to pension funds. That, of course, would make the public authority not responsible, but to would mean that individual cops would also be responsible on civil suits.
The deep seated issue is the principle agent problem around elected officials. The police threaten the politicians, who don't want to rock the boat, to get a lopsided contract that makes them virtually immune to any oversight. This is why we're literally at "defund the police" - citizens are finally crying uncle and demanding that their city's entire contract be thrown away and redesigned.
Most people don't want to defund their police. Per the latest Monmouth poll, about 60% favor the police (compared to ~11% for congress) and most people see the police as their protectors.
Police don't get a lopsided contract by threatening politicians and that's a grossly inflammatory claim. Contracts are negotiated like any other, and given that most people don't want to spend their time being spit on and attacked, it turns out you get to ask for a fair bit of protection in that contract.
> Blaming voters is a fallacy of late-stage Democracy
Blaming anyone else is a fundamental misunderstanding of Democracy. Everyone pretends to like Democracy until they realize not everyone shares their opinion, and then all of a sudden pull out the insults and attacks on fellow voters.
> Per the latest Monmouth poll, about 60% favor the police (compared to ~11% for congress) and most people see the police as their protectors
Unfortunately this instance of corruption is a tough nut to crack. The sheer majority of people will never be victims of the police, just as most people will never be victims of any violent criminal. Hence the focus on video evidence and actually discussing the issue now that it has the spotlight, getting more people to care about these unaccountable criminal gangs calling themselves police. It's called solidarity and the rule of law - caring about what is right even when it does not affect you personally.
>> Blaming voters is a fallacy of late-stage Democracy
> Everyone pretends to like Democracy until they realize not everyone shares their opinion
You just seem to be going on a tangential rant here. I was referring specifically to this tendency to ascribe a democratically-chosen action as the responsibility of everyone who was given a chance to vote. I personally do not hold up Democracy as some sort of ideal, but rather Liberty.
That's false. Qualified immunity is a result of a supreme court decision and not part of police contracts. The only thing in most contracts is that police officers who are fired get a chance at mediation for firing disputes.
Police officers do get legal protections, the same way you and I get them. You can't release private records of a police officer, you can't sacrifice them publically to appease an angry group, etc etc.
In general you're repeating talking points about fragments of what I said, while ignoring my substantive points. For instance, explaining QI doesn't address how the police have also been able to weasel out of criminal and administrative penalties - eg why haven't Breonna Taylor's killers been charged and put in jail, or at the very least quickly fired? There are obviously mundane procedural answers for these, but added up it's a very lopsided contract allowing the police to play Rambo with impunity.
QI is irrelevant to crimes, it applies to torts. And when carrying out their explicit duties, police are performing ministerial tasks for which government employees, including police, have absolute immunity; it is only outside that space where they enjoy qualified immunity, and whether the requisite nexus to their official duties for QI exists is a legal question for the courts, not a matter which the city can declare dispositively after the fact.
> For instance, explaining QI doesn't address how the police have also been able to weasel out of criminal and administrative penalties
That's not contract, especially for criminal penalties, it's prosecutorial discretion which is entirely a matter of what the public looks for in choosing the (almost invariably locally elected) head public prosecutor who sets prosecutorial policy.
When the most important fact voters weigh in electing a DA is police union endorsements, they literally have no one else to blame but themselves for police impunity before criminal law.
Because they are "innocent until proven guilty". It's not as if they've been going on calls and continuing to kick in doors - the investigation was handed to the FBI (a federal body) and the officers were put on leave until that investigation is finished.
If they are fired and it turns out they were acting lawfully, then the people who fired them will get sued and lose.
> In general you're repeating talking points about fragments of what I said
I'm addressing specific cases and claims you make. We can argue loudly about whether or not the police play Rambo but that's not a productive thing we can debate. I can make specific claims about what is in police contracts versus what it is not and falls under QI or other federal law which supersedes local authority.
The issue is that you feel you are correct, and to that end you're making broad unspecific claims that aren't factual - literally not a matter of true or false but fundamentally so vague so as to not have meaning.
> There are obviously mundane procedural answers for these, but added up it's a very lopsided contract allowing the police to play Rambo with impunity.
That's a great example of exactly what I'm talking about. We have to care about mundane procedural answers. We can't just sacrifice someone to appease the angry mob.
No, I made general claims about a larger pattern. If you don't agree that police have managed to weasel out of most accountability, then there's really no discussion to be had. Yet you jumped in anyway to push some police-justifying nonsense ("Contracts are negotiated like any other") that grossly contradicts the events under discussion.
>> why haven't Breonna Taylor's killers been charged and put in jail, or at the very least quickly fired?
>Because they are "innocent until proven guilty".
The first step is charging someone, which has not been done. Everyone in jail is innocent - guilty people go to prison. Once again, procedural details that sound sensible while adding up into a constructively corrupt system. The case has been turned over to the FBI precisely due to the local corruption.
As you are implying some alternative justice path for cops, I'll be explicit: To evaluate how well the rule of law is working, you only have to ask yourself what would happen to a non-cop who performed the exact same actions. Specifically, what would have happened to a group of non-cops that committed a home invasion resulting in murder?
That...doesn't stop people from being arrested. Proof of guilt is required before imposing sentence, but arrest happens way before that.
No, they don't. You can't contract out of criminal sanction, for one thing. You could be indemnified from civil sanction, but QI makes that mostly moot anyway.
And, to the extent they do, those contracts are negotiated with and approved by local elected officials. Work—and, yes, this takes convincing others—to change those officials minds or change the officials, and you change what contracts get negotiated, or even of the police department continues to exist. Cf. Minneapolis (especially, but not exclusivelt) right now, Camden in 2012, etc.
The idea that citizens don't have control of local police through local government is wrong. Normally, local citizens are between actively approving and tacitly tolerating the behavior of police rather than actively seeking change, but they absolutely do have the power should they choose to exert it.
You're just nitpicking the word "contract". The arrangement with the cities generally result in public prosecutors do not bring charges against the police. That's part of the de-facto contract, even if it is not written down.
> The idea that citizens don't have control of local police through local government is wrong. Normally, local citizens are between actively approving and tacitly tolerating the behavior of police rather than actively seeking change, but they absolutely do have the power should they choose to exert it.
I've been caring about unaccountable police for well over a decade, so forgive me if I don't see myself as having much power to change anything. The vast majority of people will never be victims of the police, so as long as police keep up the illusion of providing safety, they will continue to be supported by the masses.
For what I was referencing specifically, look at Minneapolis city council members' descriptions of what happened to their districts when they previously tried to reign in the police. Yes, those same council members are now at a breaking point where enough is enough, and do actually have the power to act in concert and change things. This doesn't invalidate my description of where the vast majority of cities are with respect to the police unions. And the police unions know this, which is why their instinct is to start riots when citizens protest.
It's not part of a contract, which is binding and enforceable, and which once and while in place, citizens have very restricted ability to change via the political process. It's part of the policy of the existing elected officials, which is very much amenable to public pressure and elections. Given the context of the discussion is whether or not citizens have the power to effect these things through the political process, pointing out this difference is not “nitpicking”, as the difference is on the exact question being discussed.
Examining the problem constructively, then each aspect does have different details to pay attention to. But they also have similar shapes with momentum and indirection. Civil and administrative penalties need to be fixed through the explicit contract, which takes a contract cycle and can be derailed behind the scenes by corrupt officials. Criminal penalties need DAs willing to uphold the law, which takes an election cycle and can be derailed behind the scenes by corrupt officials. Analogously to what you said - once a DA is in place, "citizens have very restricted ability to change via the political process".
The biggest issue is that a small chance of a twenty million dollar payout in case of an egregious murder isn't worrisome to a municipality, and specifically to its politicians who's liability is limited to possibly losing their job. Meanwhile if they do advocate for reigning in the police, the union will most certainly make them lose their job at the next election. So while we can talk about municipalities being responsible for the paramilitary forces they're creating in the abstract, this is clearly not an effective mechanism for reigning them in.
It does not appear that this is money well spent.
Simply put, the defund the police slogans are damaging to the DNC outlooks in November and three major unions basically read the riot act to the DNC and members in Congress that no talk that can come back to collective bargaining being a reason police get away with so much abuse is allowed. Instead it must be that they lack training, the security of their pension system raises anxiety among the forces, and lack of officers incurs overtime furthering anxiety. So the only solution is more money for training, propping up their pension systems, and more money for community policing.
just put it this way, when that was dropped on me from a relative as their new marching orders I thought they were joking.
tl;dr the whole defund the police calling is poison in November and the big influences in politics has called their party to the carpet to change the direction of the debate
You have some outliers that are violent and the rest just does their job - keeping the city more safe.
Also don't assume all cases of police officer shooting a person are cases of police brutality - this is for court to prove.
That it does not seem to be happening unless there is video and public outcry suggest the issue is cultural and institutional, not just individual. The good cop is not reporting bad cop and is not testifying against him. Maybe the good cop would be retaliated against, maybe nothing would be done, and all of those are reasons why bad cops are empowered.
This is similar, if you know someone you have less incentive to report on one.
The better you know them, the higher is the bar for reporting.
I don't think this comparison is as good as you think it is.
I think we need some massive overhauling of how accountability works in police situations and I think that will have to start with shit rolling uphill.
If the police were genuinely "good", they would act as a unit and reject the bad ones. In fact, the opposite happens, and they keep silent when bad cops commit crimes, and they reject the good ones who try to actually try to be good.
This is the culture that needs to be destroyed and rebuilt.
Those two scenarios are so far apart, attempting to draw a comparison is disturbing.
Let's assume two cases:
1. A programmer, his work involves programming (obvious), going to meetings, printing some reports/codes etc.
The biggest problem he can do is introduce bugs in code by mistake (yes, lives can be lost that way), would you expect his peers to tell on him that he was the guy that introduced a bug that killed 300 people in a plane crash?
2. A cop, his job involves preventing crimes, event violent ones, so he sometimes need to use his gun to prevent some of it, and sometimes he has to shoot a criminal.
His mistakes might be killing innocent person. Same thing can happen to his colleagues, so they protect him (just like any sane community would, like your family) - at least unless he turns out to be some sick sociopath.
Do you see relevance now? If you play with code you can just break code, if you play with guns you can break lives.
A side from that I don't get it why there are so many people that trash cops, but don't say a bad word about looters.
Cops protect us from crimes, small and big. They provide order, there are always black sheep, but there are less of those than you think - good guys also make mistakes.
Without a force that provides protection from crimes we would turn into vendetta like justice - have you been to countries that just went out of war? e.g. after the fall of Yugoslavia, there was no police there only tribe and vendetta justice.
Each utopia turns into dystopia sooner or later (CHAZ).
If I thought my coworker had deliberately introduced a bug that killed 300 people, I would absolutely turn them in. There is absolutely no question in my mind that I would do that.
But cops do not turn in their own when they deliberately abuse their power. They in fact resign in protest when their own are investigated (Buffalo, NY), and turn out in support when their own are arraigned for abuses of power (Philadelphia, PA).
Intent to kill is something a sociopath does, do you think police force has more of them than the rest of society?
There was a time when vigilant justice didn't need court, but I don't think we want that to return (witch hunts in middle ages or lynching in 19th and early 20th century USA).
Actually, yes, they are filled with sociopaths. It's well known that lower-intelligence people become police. The police actively reject candidates with higher intelligence because the theory is that they become bored.
Also, it's well known that the occupation attracts bullies, who love the idea of bullying people and having power over regular citizens.
What you end up having is a group of low-IQ bullies, and they control the entire police force, because the "good" cops don't want to rock the boat. The stupid, boisterous bullies are the ones that create the culture of silence and complicity, and ultimately violence. I believe that cops love the idea that they are at war against the common citizen, which is why they draw their guns and escalate situations even before anything has happened.
Any data?
> Also, it's well known that the occupation attracts bullies, who love the idea of bullying people and having power over regular citizens.
Again, data? Isn't it easier to become crook? More pay, less control, more freedom.
I know they are not PhDs but come on.
What you are doing is exactly the same what others do to different races/genders/nationalities, just replace "police" in your sentences with "black", "yellow", "women", "jewish" etc.
Hate against whole occupation, thousands of people. People start poisoning them (have you seen what happened in NY?), their children are bullied at schools.
Pure and simple hate crime.
If I reported that someone is using corporate assets (printer, laptop) for personal things, my manager would consider me crazy. If I reported someone being bit late, it would be the same.
That is exactly the culture thing. The corporate printer or laptop being used is not being seen as an issue by me, you or anybody else, regardless of what official rules say.
I mean there’s even a “good cop/bad cop” trope that’s got to be the best example of this kind of behavior—I can’t count how many times police are complicit with straight up torture and abuse of rights on Law & Order.
"The 81st Precinct covers Bedford-Stuyvesant and Stuyvesant Heights. The NYPD Tapes were secret recordings made by whistleblower officer Adrian Schoolcraft in 2008-2009 proving widespread corruption and abuse in the precinct. After voicing his complaints internally, he faced harrassment by fellow officers. High-ranking NYPD officials eventually ordered an illegal SWAT raid on his apartment, physically abducting him and involuntarily committing him to a psychiatric facility for six days. The license plate “54-EDP” references a “10-54 EDP” call, in which a so-called “emotionally disturbed person” is taken to a hospital via ambulance. The quote is the Deputy Chief ’s recorded order to remove “rat” Schoolcraft to the hospital."
NYPD have made it very clear that if you're a "good" cop, the rest of the cops will destroy you.
There is some evil that is done by good guys, and a tribe/community protects them. This is normal human behavior.
Sociopaths are a minority.
Would you protect your child if he/she did a hit&run? Would you report him/her right away?
We've had children "protesting" here in the UK too despite the police not generally participating in brutality.