zlacker

>>h3cate+(OP)
As always, you have to ask, compared to what? Are the majority of police actions brutality, or only a miniscule fraction? This is the crucial question, and a site like this provides no insight at all. (or so I imagine, since site is down)

If you want to fan the flames, though, add a section for protesters savagely kicking unconscious victims in the head.

>>downer+J6
> As always, you have to ask, compared to what?

What would you even compare instances of police brutality against? Is there some kind of threshold under which you think police brutality is okay? Should there be a rule that each police force gets one free brutalising a year? Or is it just that if their actions are only a little bit of brutality, just a pinch, that they should get away with it?

No one has to ask what to compare it to, because in this circumstance it's a stupid question that distracts from the immediate reality of the situation: Anything adequately described as police brutality that goes uninvestigated & unpunished is unacceptable.

>>hug+aa
As a programmer, I accept that I'll make mistakes from time to time. Excoriating me for doing so would not help.

The bad apples should be removed. Riots and mayhem work against that goal.

>>downer+ud
That doesn't answer a single one of my questions, doesn't expand upon your original point, and doesn't bear on the situation in the slightest. Unless you're implying that your job as a programmer and the job of a police officer are similar in consequences when you "make a mistake".

But as to the second part of your comment, the bad apples should be removed, but are not. So what do you do about it? Put videos of the internet maybe so it's more public?

Maybe you also go out and protest about it. Maybe that causes more videos to show up. Who knows.

>>hug+Oh
I don't commit crimes. And I certainly don't commit aggravated assault on helpless people. Do people even need to be told not to do that?

>>downer+Yn
Pithy answer: Apparently police do, otherwise the US wouldn't have so many deaths in custody or complaints of police brutality.

Less pithy answer: The protests, and the videos, are not examples of regular crimes or regular criminals. They're about criminal actions by police, two circles in a venn diagram that should never be crossed without black & yellow stripes and giant red "WARNING" text. It needs highlighting due to how much of an exceptional circumstance it should be.

Yes, normal people commit crimes and yes, those people should be punished harshly for them, but those normal people are not people put in positions of power over others by the state, which is why you don't see quite so many protests against them. (You do see protests about them, though: Zimmerman wasn't exactly seen in a positive light, for example.)

Asking "but what about regular Joe Criminal" in the face of protests about police is like a poor diversionary tactic. It's essentially just whataboutism.

>>hug+Ap
> whataboutism

This is the second time I've heard this word this week (the first had to do with bicycle laws). As far as I can tell, the point seems to be to shame the target into turning off their brain. Hope this obnoxious neologism dies out soon. It's certainly a showstopper for rational conversation.