To improve police presence and interactions wouldn't you actually want to fund the police and make sure they go through proper training to ensure they can handle difficult situations? A lack of funding would probably result in a worse trained police force, no?
I think the "defund the police" movement has a very unfortunate name. Many (hopefully most) people don't want to pull _all_ funding from the police. They want to appropriately redistribute funds. That means stopping spend on surplus military weapons and tanks, and instead put more money towards the proper training you mentioned.
This is not based in reality. How much money do you think police are spending on “surplus military weapons”? It is minimal and most of the purchase of surplus military items are mundane. They aren’t acquiring carriers and missiles. You mentioned tanks - are you literally claiming that local police departments are purchasing M1 Abrams battle tanks? Because that’s not happening.
Keep in mind the total transfer of military surplus equipment to police departments is just $5.1B over the entire lifetime of the program, since 1997 (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_Enforcement_Support_Offi...). The scale of this program has been completely blown out of proportion by activists.
There's no irony there and it was not a "screaming mob". I'm concerned about your sources of information.
Chief Best stepped down after constantly lying about the police actions and the protesters for months. Best was hired against the recommendations of the federal consent decree that SPD is under because of repeated excessive force and racial profiling issues, hand-picked by the mayor. The reasons given for her stepping down are relatively boring and unlikely to be the real reason, which probably involves political calculus and the mayor.
No, she didn’t lie, and yes, it was a screaming mob. A mob that literally showed up on city council members doorsteps, among others. I see you’re siding with the anarchists though, so this won’t be a productive conversation.
Accusing a black woman of racial profiling. Good lord. You people are more racist than anyone.
The consent decree did not recommend against hiring her (I just read it). It’s also over 8 years old, long before her time, and they have since found them compliant.
The data says they use force in only 0.3% of encounters, and significant force likely to cause injury is only a small fraction of that:
Further, the use of serious levels of force – force that causes or may be reasonably expected to cause substantial bodily injury – remained extraordinarily low, occurring in 21 of nearly 870,000 (0.0024% - or less than one quarter of one hundredth of a percent) of officer dispatches.
Considering how unwilling many perps are, 21 out of 870,000 is shockingly low. Well done on the reform!
There may be evidence of racism, but probably not the kind you think you are protesting. 42% of this force was used against white people, including 2 officer involved shootings, while 28% was against black people, including 0 officer involved shootings.
I watched her lie about something of which I have personal direct knowledge. Her claims have also been repeatedly contradicted by video evidence.
> and yes, it was a screaming mob. A mob that literally showed up on city council members doorsteps, among others.
Ah, the charged language. What's the difference between a "mob" and a protest making demands? This language reveals the sources you've been using for such information and they ain't great.
> I see you’re siding with the anarchists though, so this won’t be a productive conversation.
I would be curious to know what you think anarchists are.
> Accusing a black woman of racial profiling.
1. If this seems impossible to you, you should check out the actions of black cops. Profiling doesn't require the individual to be a white supremacist, e.g.
2. I didn't even claim that. I referred to the department.
> Good lord. You people are more racist than anyone.
In what way is anything I said racist?
> The consent decree did not recommend against hiring her (I just read it).
Ah, I misremembered which group it ran afoul of. Best's hiring was a mess. There was supposed to be a process: search committee finds options, Mayor makes a suggestion / selection, council confirms. What actually happened: search committee finds options, suggests hiring outside the department as the whole point was to institute reforms, and an outside hire would have no baggage in the department. The police union raises a ruckus about Best not being in the final 3 (she was already at SPD), this becomes news, and Durkan personally puts her on the finalist list, then selects her and council confirms.
> It’s also over 8 years old, long before her time, and they have since found them compliant.
The consent decree is a very low bar and the civilian oversight board has repeatedly stated that SPD is not following their recommendations or ready for end the consent decree. Despite this, Durkan and Best had applied for release from the consent decree in April. Part of that decree were issues regarding excessive force. As a reminder, SPD has been routinely beating protesters and indiscriminately teargassing protesters for nearly three months.
> The data says they use force in only 0.3% of encounters, and significant force likely to cause injury is only a small fraction of that:
> Further, the use of serious levels of force – force that causes or may be reasonably expected to cause substantial bodily injury – remained extraordinarily low, occurring in 21 of nearly 870,000 (0.0024% - or less than one quarter of one hundredth of a percent) of officer dispatches.
Based on police reporting. And remember, the vast majority of situations police are deployed to are in no way violent nor involve an arrest.
> Considering how unwilling many perps are, 21 out of 870,000 is shockingly low. Well done on the reform!
Uncritically accepting police number is going to lead you astray.
> There may be evidence of racism, but probably not the kind you think you are protesting. 42% of this force was used against white people, including 2 officer involved shootings, while 28% was against black people, including 0 officer involved shootings.
Those numbers imply a disproportionate racial impact already. Look at Seattle's demographics.
Unfortunately after all the lies and vitriol from activists, I don’t blame her for stepping down and quietly collecting her pension. Here, there have been weeks of mobs showing up at the homes of the mayor, city council, and the police chief, committing violence, destroying property, and threatening neighbors. Take a look at this account of what happened at the police chief’s neighborhood (https://lynnwoodtimes.com/2020/08/02/hundreds-of-blm-support...):
> A crowd of about 200 persons, mostly white men and women in their twenties, were dressed in black with masks and black hoods and carried signs that read “Black Lives Matter.” Black Lives Matter protestors shouted profanity and insults at neighbors, took license plate information on vehicles, took pictures of homes, and asked little kids who lived in the neighborhood what schools they attended.
You should look at how much of the budget the police dept takes of an average town. In my med-small town they're 50% of the city budget. Police depts are shockingly well funded compared to the problems they actually end up solving.
My town may have something atypicial about its finances at 50%, if you look at the budget of San Jose it seems about $400m for city services and $200m for police and fire. I didn't pick it apart further between police/fire, but IIRC fire tends to have much smaller budgets than police depts. But I would say that's still shockingly large vs the budget for other city services.. (that's setting aside some large chunks for airports etc..., I was also a bit surprised SJ had a $4B budget and how much was for airport services).
Edit: I guess looking at Oakland/Chicago, it's 50% or close to it too though.
"Oakland PD receives nearly half of the city's discretionary spending( $264 million out of $592 million), dwarfing every other expenditure, including human services, parks and recreation, and transportation combined. A whopping 39 percent of Chicago's 2017 budget went to police, and still the department got even more money, peaking in 2020 with a 7 percent increase to nearly $1.8 billion. "
Pretty much. I keep seeing people here use the multi-year police academies in Europe as an example of why they have less issues with police brutality, while at the same time saying that the police in the USA need less resources.
The police chief of the city in which I live, a suburb of Dallas, Texas, was asked why we haven't seen the sort of cases here that we've seen in Dallas and even other suburbs. His response was that we require all applicants to have a bachelors degree.
Could be correlation rather than causation, of course.
The same city where a police officer broke into the wrong apartment, thinking it was hers, and killed the man inside? Not sure I'd be pointing fingers if I were the Dallas PD.
The same city where a police officer broke into the wrong apartment, thinking it was hers, and killed an unarmed black man inside? Not sure I'd be pointing fingers if I were the Dallas PD.
Reading comprehension: I said I live in "a suburb of Dallas," while the incident you reference happened in the city of Dallas itself. I even drew a contrast between my city and what "we've seen in Dallas and even other suburbs."
You'd have been better off noticing the contrast I drew and talking about McKinney, another suburb of Dallas, in which a cop infamously stormed onto the scene and threw 15-year-old girl in a bikini to the concrete and pointed a gun at a teenage boy who objected.[0]
Ferguson is a suburb of St Louis. Kenosha is a suburb of either Milwaukee or Chicago, depending on who you ask. McKinney is a suburb of Dallas. Most of the footage from "Minneapolis" was actually from suburbs of Minneapolis. Current political advertising is heavily focused on using current footage from protests and warning that our suburbs are next if the other candidate is elected.
Police violence isn't only a suburban problem, but it is definitely also a suburban problem.
Defunding the police addresses the overspending. Despite millions of dollars for training, outcomes in police interactions haven't gotten better. Purchasing military surplus is another area they've spent increased budgets on as well.
>Purchasing military surplus is another area they've spent increased budgets on as well.
Police only pay for shipping. If those costs are swelling their expenses, they have a tiny budget.
The 1988 National Defense Authorization Act created a temporary program within the DoD to funnel surplus equipment to state law enforcement agencies involved in anti-drug activities at no cost other than shipping. The 1997 National Defense Authorization Act added anti-terrorism activities and made the program permanent.
Well, the number of people killed by officers, and the number of officers killed in the line of duty are both metrics that have remained fairly steady. Overall violent crime rate looks pretty steady as well over the past decade, though it's much decreased from the 2000-2010 rates.
It's not a single-metric question though. Probably not just a 10-20 metric question either.
The military connection is very interesting. You're right, of course. Military training is very rigorous and, more importantly, consistent. Police training is a wild hodgepodge and also sometimes basically non-existent.
The other thing I have seen talked about in this context, and which I agree with, is that in the military you are trained as part of a larger unit and loyal to an even larger cause/organization.
Police, on the other hand, are given a partner who they might serve with primarily for years almost-exclusivity. They become loyal to a very small group of people over their career and don't have the same esprit de corps as the military.
To some degree I think they both attract dangerous/violent people who are joining for the wrong reasons. (The desire to hold power over others or just flat-out hurt people). But the Military is more likely to drum these people out, especially before the worst happens, where police don't.
Have you noticed how the military - even up to the generals - are generally always publicly respectful to the civilian command whether or not they agree with them?
As a 23 year veteran, I can tell you that statement is missing a ton of context, and almost certainly is very inaccurate.
Most people in the military rarely if ever touch a firearm for their entire time in the military after they qualify with it in bootcamp - some don't even do that. De-escalation training? That's diametrically opposite of how an infantryman is trained, and totally irrelevant to anyone outside those combat arms fields. Most people in the military would never receive a single moment of training relevant to police work in their entire time in the military.
What you might be seeing is that most veterans tend to be a bit older, a bit more mature, and perhaps tend to view a badge less as a power trip and more of a responsibility due to the experiences they've had. I can't say that for sure, but it makes a bit more sense than saying military are better trained than police, when the vast majority of military members get absolutely no relevant training in anything related to police work.
I've seen cops get downright giddy over having an excuse to gas and beat a protest. One of them had a little smiley face on the end of their baton and was fully kitted in riot gear.
I see a lot of people lately citing the military as some bastion of self control when it comes to ROE too.
What they usually fail to see is that the military on patrol is usually in squads or at least in pairs, not alone like civilian officers. It's much easier to maintain control of a situation when you outnumber potential bad actors. When a normal beat cop is on patrol though they are usually alone (unless in a top 10 major city like NYC). That changes the dynamic as officers have to maintain the upper hand as if they get overpowered the suspect now has access to multiple firearms both on the officer and in a patrol vehicle.
That's also a fair point in a slightly different manner as well -- Soldiers on patrol are heavily supervised. They have an officer and usually a relatively senior NCO who directs the majority of their actions.
While training is important, the deeper problem is that of incentives. Our usual catchall way of discouraging uncivilized behavior is with the justice system - follow these laws or else. But when a perp can put on a uniform, commit violent crimes with impunity, and then not even be charged, the justice system has been coopted into something else.
(Or coming at it from the other direction, when a person can be destroyed by that "justice system" for simply smoking a plant. The war on drug users is also a large part of how the rule of law has been undermined)
