zlacker

There's two sides to every story. And every business/organization has bad apples. Achieving perfection becomes order of magnitudes more expensive the closer you are to achieving it, so some level of acceptance that factors economic cost must be reached. The police are humans too. Knowing people are throwing Molotov Cocktails and bricks at police cars, I wouldn't sit still in my car if people, I mean, a mob (mentality) surrounded it. Self preservation.

My theory on why the police need to use some level of brutality is because a mob mentality is an animal. It's an amorphous mammalian manifestation that is afraid of loud noises, pain, and losing it's ability to breath easily. So they use counterpart tools to control it, because when this animal cant be controlled, the whole city could be be razed in flames. (As an example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Los_Angeles_riots#Destruc... )

Im not excusing shitty behavior, but it's worth considering there are millions of events going on in these protests, and all the excess force ones fit in a bullet list on my monitor. Also, in many of the listed events, the cops told people to move away or go back inside repeatedly before taking action. From their perspective, keeping battle formation is necessary to success. And lawfully, you are supposed to comply with this demand.

Just things to consider. I hope I'm not gut-reaction-down voted for taking the middle ground.

>>eezurr+(OP)
The problem is that, by your definition, the police are turning into an animal too. They're supposed to be better than that and work to lower the tension, but instead they react and escalate things. If they can't be better than that, we shouldn't be paying them and giving them guns. And we shouldn't be exempting them from prosecution for their actions.

>>eezurr+(OP)
You know where the expression "bad apples" came from, right? A few bad apples spoil the bunch. In other words, if there are a couple of rotten apples in a barrel, it spreads quickly to the whole barrel. In other words, it's important to find and throw out the bad apples immediately or you'll have to throw out the whole barrel a few days later.

>>eezurr+(OP)
Keep in mind, the middle might be very narorw.

Just last year, in the official Christmas Tree in Minneapolis precinct 4 headquarters, discarded malt liquor containers and menthol cigarette packages were used as ornaments:

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/12/racist-christmas...

What perspective make you happy about taking a middle road around a police force, and society, that tolerated this? The police haven’t needed to hide their outright motives: it’s race, whether it’s killing someone or decorating a Christmas tree. Other officers don’t speak up. Enjoy the privilege, I do and am more than aware.

>>_bxg1+z
The police are too organized IMO to be acting like an animal (barring the bad apples). I also don't view the police force as one identity, just like (I imagine) you don't view the protesters by the actions of the rioters. It doesn't help that the police all dress the same, so the brain lumps all of them into one identity, and people focus on the bad actions of the few.

They are in an incredibly difficult situation, and putting their lives at risk. I think there are plenty of cops who care about their community, but they do what they have to do because there is no efficient way to communicate to or painlessly control an emotional mob of people (plus bad actors climbing out of the woodwork to cause harm to the community). When you talk to a mob, you aren't talking to anyone.

>>eezurr+(OP)
I don't know man, it really doesn't have to be this way. Look at how people respond when authority figures act like human beings: https://twitter.com/RexChapman/status/1267107339833925634

Imagine if the police showed up and started handing out water bottles, rather than assaulting unarmed (but angry) citizens. I think you'd see a different response.

Imagine if the police were trained to remain passive even when struck. A few violent protesters would strike the police, but if they remained passive I don't think it would take the sight of very many passive cops getting beaten up before the crowd would turn on the violent protesters and protect the cops. Seeing someone getting beaten without defending themselves triggers a very powerful gut reaction in people, even when the victim is 'the enemy'.

>>bryanl+y2
People are not apples obviously. Bad people may influence bad behavior, but the reverse it true too. Good behavior may influence good behavior. Some people are independent and are less influenced by others.

And, in organizations, change comes from the top. As I said, reaching perfection is prohibitively expensive.

>>eezurr+(OP)
This is not a gut reaction, this is as calm as I can be:

You're justifying police brutality. Period.

Cops don't get to brutally assault us citizens because they're not complying. That's some third world behavior and your comment, under the guise of considering both sides, is tacitly condoning this.

For the record, I don't condone looting or property desctruction. But there are plenty of videos circulating right now that have peaceful protestors that are being assault by cops, cause they make their job a bit harder.

>>eezurr+w3
> I also don't view the police force as one identity

I'm sorry, what? They are literally an organization. With uniforms. The entire point is that they're supposed to be one entity. If they can't even act as one entity - much less one that, I don't know, helps people - then why do they get to wear the uniform at all?

> When you talk to a mob, you aren't talking to anyone.

They don't have to talk. They can show through their actions that they're willing to de-escalate the violence. Here's one that did: https://twitter.com/SCr_conserv/status/1266885805328355333

>>eezurr+b4
>People are not apples

Indeed. With our greater-than-apple intelligence, we should expect cops to sort out the bad apples themselves. Not close ranks and ostracize colleagues who speak up against the bad apples.

When you have great power and knowledge, inaction is being complicit.

>>eezurr+(OP)
Great, so, let's ask an important question: Why were the cops there at all? Apparently, as videos come out, every protest was peaceful until the cops turned up in avenger armor.

>>bryanl+y2
I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone defend police and not use the "bad apples" expression for some reason.

>>cellul+a4
It appears that officer is not talking to a mob, but to dozens of calm people. Different situation. If people are already screaming and shouting, or worse, breaking things, and there are hundreds of them, that wont work.

>Imagine if the police were trained to remain passive even when struck.

Tell me how much it would cost to train a police force to that level of self control, and to be able identify, in a split second, if the person is attempting to do serious harm to you or is just blowing off steam. Once a person is close enough, there are plenty of blind spots to pull a knife out of.

>the crowd would turn on the violent protesters and protect the cops

Crowd psychology overrides individual identity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowd_psychology

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_mentality

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_intelligence

>>eezurr+(OP)
So, there you go. This explains it. Police now has the license for whatever because battle formation is needed. That's what they needed to do to pin down George Floyd. Teach others a lesson

>>eezurr+fb
It's interesting to compare the present issues with policing with those of about a month ago:

https://twitter.com/TyreeBP/status/1256813343764918272

Granted, the number of people is ~100x different. Still, examples like the tweet above illustrate that the needed 'self control' has existed within about a pay-period or two.

>>kingof+6a
I think the expression "it's only a few bad apples" started out as an ironic expression but got picked up by those who missed the irony. You're right, I do see it applied this way to police everywhere. And it's a self-defeating argument every time.