How about the time officers of the Lethbridge, Alberta, police department stalked a member of the (minority, NDP) political party while on-duty? [1]
[1] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/british-columbia/arti...
[1] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/british-columbia/arti...
If you can demonstrate an unusual percentage of bad behavior, compared to other developed nations, that'd be more interesting. Either way we could talk about potential ways to improve the situation.
When bad behaviour is detected within a police force, they don’t eliminate the “bad apple” they protect them. No other “good apple” speaks up against the behaviour. Thus — in line with the metaphor - the rot affects the whole barrel.
His comparison of how errors in policing are treated compared to how plane crashes are treated is very apt. I've used this lens to look at many situations since. The lack of impartiality displayed in the face of an "officer involved" incident is glaring.
Police officers and other people in that branch of government never display the kind of serious investigative interest that a plane crash investigator applies. They never approach it with fresh eyes, hoping to uncover and fix root causes.
In IT we talk about "the 5 whys" for trying to get past superficial reasons for an incident. But you can't expect to ever see that kind of approach when everything is quickly hidden behind a "blue wall of silence."
And the two aren't investigated by the same body of government NTSB investigates plane crashes in the US (federally created).
In some departments there exists Civilian Review Boards [0] IMO better than an internal investigations department and delegating to a federally created agency. But do they work in reality?
0: Civilian Review Boards https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_affairs_(law_enforc....
(And I think you misunderstood something I wrote, but I'm not sure what.
I didn't mean that the same body of government investigate both crashes and police misconduct...
I meant that very often police misconduct is investigated by groups that are adjacent to the police, not impartial.
Even if/when it is a separate group, the 'blue wall of silence' is an effect deterrent to investigation and there doesn't seem to be any interest in counter-acting this.)
The point I was making is that a federally created agency conducts investigations completely different than state police departments. (Not all state police departments are funded the same and share the same information about investigations especially internal) they aren't a single entity nor should they be.
The comedian takes two very different things and combines them as one and then tells the audience how absurd his creation is as if it is reality.
And to the "blue wall of silence", from the one study I scanned [0]. I think it exists, but not in all departments as the study finds too. And the only way to combat it (just like with civilians in gang ridden communities) is to have more transparency measures (body cams, anonymous reporting systems etc) and obviously more officers/civilians need to come forward with those experiences in their department/jurisdiction.
0: The Measurement of Police Integrity - National Criminal Justice Reference [PDF] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https:/...
This despite police having supposedly extensive training on what is lawful and protesters being regular citizens.
Right off the bat making it a race issue is divisive and misleading - when the statistics show people of color are no more likely than anyone else to be a victim of police violence, when considering the number of police interactions. Blacks and latinos commit more crimes. That's the uncomfortable truth.
Then they have no serious or well thought out plan to improve things - so what do they hope to gain from protesting? Abolish the police is pure nonsense. Awareness of the issue is the best they can hope for.
Do you think the system is more fair for all people regardless of skin color? Or that crime has little relation to poverty? Or that people of color are inherently more likely to commit crime whether by genetics or culture? Then you won’t be able to follow that chain. There are a lot of interacting systems. Not questioning as an attack, just pointing out that the logic makes lots of assumptions.
Consider the problems with our algorithm for determining recidivism rates. The data shows people of color return to crime more when released. So the algorithm assigns them higher jail time before parole, which means more time out of society and among criminals, which leads to more crime when released!
That statistic, “people of color commit more crime” is a self-fulfilling prophecy or recursion of some sort, it’s harmful unless we’re using it to determine a “why” that isn’t just “because of their skin color or culture”.
To justify these protests, you would have to make the case that it's police conduct that causes black people to commit so many more crimes.
But even in your post here, you're pointing to sentencing, not policing. (Also worth noting that this doesn't explain differentials in first offense rates at all).
However, that there's a good reason for it doesn't change the statistics. Police violence against black people seems to be a non issue by the numbers. Police violence in general is an issue, making it racial is counterproductive. The protest would be better focused on things that are real, like poverty, or poor social mobility. And instead of people just aimlessly letting off steam, it should have leadership and clear goals that can actually be implemented - then maybe there's a chance they could get congress to listen to them. Right now they're accomplishing nothing and this whole movement will fade away without any real change just like the Occupy Wall Street movement.
In the United States poverty in Black communities is a consequence of systemic racism, which continues to this day.
W/the “drug war” examples further below, there’s a direct link between systemic racism and police behavior in black communities. Which admittedly cannot be blamed entirely on the police. But they certainly don’t help.
Look at redlining in the 50s:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article...
Or the response to the opioid epidemic - prevalent in white communities - as opposed to how they responded to the crack/cocaine epidemic (prevalent in black communities) in the 80s. A medical response for white people - a criminal response for black people.
https://petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/resources/article/crimina...
Or the sentencing disparities between crack (prevalently used in poorer black communities) vs cocaine use/dealing.
https://www.aclu.org/other/cracks-system-20-years-unjust-fed...
https://religionnews.com/2020/06/09/racial-resentment-varies...
Larry Elder has a better handle on it than the people who perpetuate this.
Let’s be clear. There is systemic racism within law enforcement and our system of justice in the US.
It’s easy to go online and find reputable, fact-based sources verifying this; the Wikipedia article I linked to linked to some.
It’s also easy to find reputable sources online which can help explain what systemic racism is and provide historical context, for those who may be unaware.
Put simply; you are wrong, sir.
“ Institutional racism (also known as systemic racism) is a form of racism that is embedded as normal practice within society or an organization. It can lead to such issues as discrimination in criminal justice, employment, housing, health care, political power, and education, among other issues.”
You have not provided any examples of systemic racism that exist in the US today. Redlining is systemic racism, but it is illegal everywhere in the US. We are talking about whether it exists, not whether it has ever existed. Obviously there was horrible systemic racism in the past.
I’m aware that there are a lot of (frankly, garbage) articles online that claim this, but the data says otherwise. Again, Larry Elder pretty thoroughly debunks this, but if you have a counter argument, I’d love to hear it.
I know you are smart and capable enough to find sources / evidence about those things as it’s been a huge topic of conversation across the nation for the past few months.
Any reputable newspaper. Any reputable university. The Federal Government itself.
Or simply using your eyes and ears and heart and Occam’s razor.
So, if you don’t want to see, acknowledge, or believe it, that’s on you.
I’m not going to play the game where it’s my job to convince the skeptic that the sky is blue when they say “oh but it’s night right now and it sure doesn’t look blue to me.”
If you want to share a link to a reputable source mentioned by Larry Elder I’ll take a quick look but I’m not watching a video.
Also the idea that “the horrible systemic racism in the past” is all gone now, when “the past“ was only 70 years ago (1960), is silly, when you consider how entrenched racism is in America here since day one.
If only the world changed that quickly.
No that is not an example of systemic racism. If you look up the data separated by race, you’ll see that it’s also factually not true. It doesn’t matter how many times BLM or other politically or profit motivated entities shout their slogan, that doesn’t make it true.
It’s weird to me that you refuse to watch the video. I’m not able to identify with people who reject new information that may disrupt their worldview. I watch/listen to people I disagree with all the time. I have learned a lot from them.
I’m pointing out that the sky is blue. You are the one ignoring facts. And nobody is arguing that racism doesn’t exist. That isn’t the same thing.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/criminal-justice/ct-jon-...
"Scores of African American men have accused Burge, who is white, and detectives working under him of torturing or abusing them during the 1970s and ’80s on the South Side. The scandal has stained the city’s reputation and cost taxpayers well in excess of $100 million in lawsuit settlements, judgments, other compensation to victims and legal fees ... In 2013, then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel issued an unexpected public apology for the damage done by Burge to the city, calling the era a “dark chapter” that needed to be put in the past. In 2015, a reparations settlement with some Burge victims mandated that Chicago Public Schools teach eighth graders and high school sophomores about Burge’s crimes. The curriculum went into effect in 2017."
The Chicago Tribune is not a liberal newspaper; it trends center to center-right.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Burge
"In 2009, the state legislature passed a bill authorizing creation of the Illinois Torture Inquiry Relief Commission (TIRC) to investigate cases of people "in which police torture might have resulted in wrongful convictions". In some cases, allegedly coerced confessions were the only evidence leading to convictions. Its scope is limited to people tortured by Burge or by other officers under his authority, as made explicit in the law and by an appellate court review in March 2016."
Or the murder of LaQuan McDonald in 2014 and the attempted cover-up?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Laquan_McDonald
"At the request of Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, the United States Department of Justice initiated a civil rights investigation into McDonald's death and the activities of the Chicago Police Department. It released its report in January 2017, describing the police as having a culture of "excessive violence," especially against minority suspects, and of having poor training and supervision. DOJ and city officials signed a consent decree for a plan for improvement to be overseen by the courts. Moreover, three Chicago police officers were tried for allegedly attempting to cover up events related to the shooting and were found not guilty by the Cook County Circuit Court on January 17, 2019"
If nothing else the above shows us there is systemic racism in Chicago's police.
I leave the research for Los Angeles, New York, Atlanta, Memphis, Missouri, Alabama, etc, to someone else.
Here's a more general article, not specific to Chicago:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-civil-rights-ex...
"There’s powerful data collection that happens in our criminal courts. There have been studies showing that, all factors being equal, judges are rendering longer and harsher sentences for black defendants."
And the study linked to in the quote above:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/320276?seq=1#metadata_i...
Here's another link to the same paper, w/an abstract: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/320276?jou...
Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Disparities in Sentencing: Evidence from the U.S. Federal Courts
"This paper examines 77,236 federal offenders sentenced under the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 and concludes the following. First, after controlling for extensive criminological, demographic, and socioeconomic variables, I found that blacks, males, and offenders with low levels of education and income receive substantially longer sentences. Second, disparities are primarily generated by departures from the guidelines, rather than differential sentencing within the guidelines ... Last, blacks and males are also less likely to get no prison term when that option is available; less likely to receive downward departures; and more likely to receive upward adjustments and, conditioned on having a downward departure, receive smaller reductions than whites and females. "
The author of the paper is an economist at the University of Georgia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Mustard_(economist)
Lastly - of course Black Lives Matter is politically motivated. That's the whole point! : )
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/15/nyregion/rochester-police...
"The June 4 exchange was contained in a mass of city documents released on Monday that show how the police chief, La’Ron Singletary, and other prominent Rochester officials did everything in their power to keep the troubling videos of the incident out of public view, and to prevent damaging fallout from Mr. Prude’s death.
The dozens of emails, police reports and internal reviews reveal an array of delay tactics — from citing hospital privacy laws to blaming an overworked employee’s backlog in processing videos — used in that mission.
The documents show how the police attempted to frame the narrative in the earliest hours, playing up Mr. Prude’s potential for danger and glossing over the tactics of the officers who pinned him, naked and hooded, to the ground before he stopped breathing.
In a police report on the confrontation, marking a box for “victim type,” an officer on the scene listed Mr. Prude — who the police believed had broken a store window that night — simply as an “individual.” But another officer circled the word in red and scribbled a note.
“Make him a suspect,” it read."
This is not a universal opinion, nor is it universal among people who think most cops aren't murderers. When you say the standard isn't equally applied, who is the person or group applying it?
Just the narrative pushed by the political party in control of 2.5/3 branches of the US government.
Furthermore, if that group is one of the only groups of people supposed to enforce what a society codified as its morals and ethics, there's a strong argument to be made to have a much, much lower threshold for the sample sizes needed to view problematic acts as unacceptable.
Trying to compare countries is an interesting remark.. how about this article, which will give a response to your "bad apples" rhethoric?[0]
The article is about Canada, so I guess if we set our gold standard to the US then everywhere in the world is a dreamland. How about if we compare it to the Netherlands or Norway though? Since arguably a lot of Canadian policies, the political compass, and the culture are at the very least in-between the US and those other developed nations.
Finally, striving for improvements in a system as a proportion of how badly everyone does when the enforcement of moral and social norms is pretty rarely negotiable for the majority of a population, seems to me like we're extending the benefit of the doubt to a privileged subset of a population that hasn't proven a satisfying-enough track record to deserve such gratitude.
[0] https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/06/05/policekillings/
Stop that. One, "Letting a demonstration be judged by its most violent participants but not judging a police force by its most violent cops is the language of the oppressor."
two, let's recall a Chris Rock joke you can hear in https://twitter.com/Baldilocks__/status/1266055148788494336 for example.
"Bad apple? That’s a lovely name for murderer. That almost sounds nice. I’ve had a bad apple. It was tart, but it didn’t choke me out. Here’s the thing. Here’s the thing. I know being a cop is hard. I know that shit’s dangerous. I know it is, okay? But some jobs can’t have bad apples."
"Some jobs, everybody gotta be good. Like … pilots. Ya know, American Airlines can’t be like, 'Most of our pilots like to land. We just got a few bad apples that like to crash into mountains. Please bear with us.'"
====
And this is not as much a joke as it sounds -- how many times have we found out the murderers have a long list of past complaints? The problem is the system doesn't exclude the "few bad apples" because it's not a few bad apples, it's a systemic problem.