I respect the military much more than I do the police, but it would still be a good idea to cut down on the fetish made at least of militarism for its own sake (a big, though probably not the main, part of the problem with US police forces).
What I find funny if not sad is when both law enforcement and militia types follow suit, or at least try to.
There's nothing more pathetic than overweight law enforcement that can't even run a mile decked out in camouflage tactical gear they barely know how to use, with the wrong attitude thinking they're an operator or some such.
It's like institutionalized stolen valor almost, they want the honor and respect without the level of hard work actual Special Forces put into it.
The military is a tool wielded by the government. They don't go anywhere without being ordered.
I don't see (the United States of) America being referenced at all. Even with the context of the parent comments, it's fairly easy to mistake this typical HN comment as referring to wider in scope at a first reading.
Your sarcasm also isn't in line with the HN commenting guidelines.
> I can't possibly imagine how anyone thinks this is a good idea. US police are already over-militarized and under-accountable. We as Americans need to stop worshiping "men in uniform" including all levels of law enforcement and military and hold them to the same standard as any other member of society -- stop giving them everything they want and stop spoiling them when they call us unpatriotic.
Maybe Ctrl + f next time
See also quite a few murdering of civilians conducted by private military contractors such as Blackwater (now Constellis; in particular the Nisour Square massacre). Some were charged for the crime they committed (or for a lesser crime of manslaughter) but were later pardoned.
Since this is HN it is also obligatory to mention Chelsea Manning who leaked many crimes committed by the military (in particular the murdering of the journalists Saeed Chmagh and Namir Noor-Eldeen from an attack helicopter). She was the only person convicted for that incident. Nobody was charged with the murder of the journalists. (But they did [finally] charge Julian Assange for helping Chelsea Manning reveal these crimes to the public).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%E1%BB%B9_Lai_massacre
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007,_Baghdad_airstri...
Asking a cop to walk into an active shooter situation isn’t great either.
https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RBA654-1.html
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/02/us-rejects-c...
https://www.uclalawreview.org/policing-police-robots/
abstract:
Just as they will change healthcare, manufacturing, and the military, robots have the potential to produce big changes in policing. We can expect that at least some robots used by the police in the future will be artificially intelligent machines capable of using legitimate coercive force against human beings. Police robots may decrease dangers to police officers by removing them from potentially volatile situations. Those suspected of crimes may also risk less injury if robots can assist the police in conducting safer detentions, arrests, and searches. At the same time, however, the use of robots introduces new questions about how the law and democratic norms should guide policing decisions—questions which have yet to be addressed in any systematic way. How we design, regulate, or even prohibit some uses of police robots requires a regulatory agenda now to address foreseeable problems of the future.
"The future of robotic policing can now be found in developments within the military.(54) The military has used remote controlled robots for more than a decade.(55) The Department of Defense is preparing for a future in which nearly autonomous robots will play a central role in warfare.(56) Consequently, the military is spending the most money and attention on robotics."
(54). [P.W. Singer, Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the Twenty-First Century (2009)], supra note 20, at 78 (observing that the “military sets the agenda in AI”).
But this tells you the real story: an expensive robot is more valuable then a human life.
Indeed, cops are just humans, and we correctly think of them as such when asking them to perform duties on behalf of the citizens they are supposed to protect. But somehow, when it comes time to holding them accountable for misdeeds carried out in the course of their professional duties, they are held apart from other humans. At least one side of this imbalance should be rectified.
SCOTUS has ruled that police have no duty to protect citizens. "Protect and serve" is just a marketing slogan, just like "Don't be evil".
> SCOTUS has ruled that police have no duty to protect citizens. "Protect and serve" is just a marketing slogan, just like "Don't be evil".
Right, I meant "supposed" in the notional sense, like the average citizen supposes that they are going to be protected by the police, though I agree it was very confusing wording. I was referring exactly to decisions like the one you cite as evidence of cops receiving a double standard of treatment.
That is not remotely true. What SCOTUS has ruled is that police have no constitutional duty to protect citizens, i.e. the Constitution doesn't say anything about it one way or another. The actual duty of police to protect citizens arises from state law, departmental policies, and/or employment contracts. If you are so unfortunate as to live in a municipality that imposes no duties on their employees, perhaps you should vote for someone who will.
No, you are misinformed. That is, in fact, what SCOTUS ruled, not that "the Constitution doesn't say anything about it one way or the other."
> The actual duty of police to protect citizens arises from state law, departmental policies, and/or employment contracts. If you are so unfortunate as to live in a municipality that imposes no duties on their employees, perhaps you should vote for someone who will.
This is incorrect, and in fact directly backwards. SCOTUS used the premise that police don't have a Constitutional duty to protect citizens as the basis of their decision to overturn such a state law.
It's also a moot point, because state courts - including in California, which is what's relevant here - have treated the Castle ruling as binding precedent that police do not have a duty to protect citizens.
No, SCOTUS explicitly ruled otherwise. Colorado law said the cops had a duty to act in a certain scenario; SCOTUS said Colorado can't override police discretion.
https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/justices-rule-po...
"Although the protective order did mandate an arrest, or an arrest warrant, in so many words, Justice Scalia said, 'a well-established tradition of police discretion has long coexisted with apparently mandatory arrest statutes.'"
Empirically, they don't, so this is a straw man.
It has literally been three days since the last mass shooting in which cops waited outside until victims had subdued the attacker before entering.
And it's not like that's an isolated incident either - it's the de facto standard practice, even though officially all documents say otherwise.
That’s quite literally the job.
There’s a bunch of other stuff cops do, but at the end of the day, they exist to risk violence so the rest of us don’t have to - without that, there’s no point to a group of state-sanctioned violence dealers.
I don't think valuing a cop who doesn't want to do their job, but still demands to keep it, over innocent civilian lives that they were hired to protect is a great situation, either.
Delivery drivers have more dangerous jobs than police officers do, and they're asked to walk into situations where they can be murdered, and are statistically more likely to be than cops, literally everyday, multiple times a day.
Cops are often the highest paid employees on a government's payroll, and it is very common for over 50% of a municipality's total budget to go towards cop salaries and benefits. In my state, cops earn a median salary of over $105,000 a year before overtime, bonuses or benefits, and they can earn over $250,000 a year with overtime. They can retire after only 20 years of working with a full pension that they can draw from for life. In my area, they're also given special mortgage rates of about 2% versus the more common ~6%+ as of late. For comparison, software engineers in my state only have a median salary of $89,000.
Delivery drivers barely make minimum wage, they often have no benefits, and their employers tend either pay them off the books or classify them as independent contractors.
Cops are rewarded even more handsomely than military members are, for the very miniscule risk they take on. This is what they signed up for, often because the rewards are that good.
They aren't asked to. In the US, they have no legal obligation to protect children being murdered, or otherwise protect innocent civilians in any way.
Case and point, uvalde.
What's to point of arming some fragile white guy who peaked in high-school to the teeth if he's just gonna stand outside and watch kids get shot anyway.
You're telling me that even in an armored car, while wearing bullet proof plates, next to a whole squad of armed and armored dudes, cops still are soooo weak and scared to do their jobs we have to pay for them to have new gun robots?
Fuck that. ACAB
Cops have hands, less lethal, and lethal, because they should deal with different situations properly.
Can you explain what you mean by this? I've heard this term a lot, but it's not clear which aspect is the issue. For example, bullet proof vests: how is this bad? Similar with rifles such as the AR-15 - police already had pistols, nobody called them militarized for that. A riffle is just a more accurate pistol. I'd rather a cop have a riffle than a pistol for that reason: it's more safe. Beyond these two new things, I don't know what is new that should be called "over-militarized".
For the record, I'm not in favor of these robots and actualy I think this is an example of real militarization as it allows greater control by higher ups essentially turning cities into war games run by police generals. Police are meant to generally keep peace; a murder robot has a specific objective like a solder on the battlefield. I just mean this term as it has been used generally.
Plus things like grenade launchers are provided to police departments by the Department of Defense, at steep discounts or for free, through the 1033 Program: https://www.dla.mil/Disposition-Services/Offers/Law-Enforcem...
The article is also wrong about the military restraining from using .50 caliber machine guns on infantry... but it's very clear the person that wrote the article really doesn't know much about these things anyway.
I agree the uses for a .50 caliber machine gun for policing is very, very few if any. However, .50 caliber firearms are indeed used quite often, just not automatic ones.
Cities Under Siege: The New Military Urbanism by Stephen Graham
“ Drawing on a wealth of original research, Stephen Graham shows how Western militaries and security forces now perceive all urban terrain as a conflict zone inhabited by lurking shadow enemies. Urban inhabitants have become targets that need to be continually tracked, scanned and controlled. Graham examines the transformation of Western armies into high-tech urban counter-insurgency forces. He looks at the militarization and surveillance of international borders, the use of ‘security’ concerns to suppress democratic dissent, and the enacting of legislation to suspend civilian law. In doing so, he reveals how the New Military Urbanism permeates the entire fabric of urban life, from subway and transport networks hardwired with high-tech ‘command and control’ systems to the insidious militarization of a popular culture corrupted by the all-pervasive discourse of ‘terrorism”
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6499353-cities-under-sie...