1. The "broken windows" fallacy taken to its extreme:
> The broken windows theory is a criminological theory that states that visible signs of crime, anti-social behavior, and civil disorder create an urban environment that encourages further crime and disorder, including serious crimes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory
Police see themselves as the "thin blue line" between chaos and social order, and believe that they must put down and resistence, immediately, decisively, and violently.
But, this is a fallacy. In NYC, for example, major crimes fell when the NYPD stopped is "proactive policing" policy.
https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-proacti...
2. Militarization. The police are no longer trained to "protect and serve;" they're trained to occupy and battle. They see citizens as the enemy, and treat them as such. They are being told to "dominate the battlespace," which is what you say about an enemy you want to destroy, not a community you want to protect.
This extends to their equipment, as well. There are too many SWAT teams, too many tanks, too many tools of violence, and when you have those tools, they will be used. Part of this is because of government budgeting - if you don't use it, why should they give you more money - and part of this is because we have fetishised violent police action.
A lot of this started with COPS, but "police being action heroes" is an entire genre of reality TV now. You can find videos of the police officers gleefully destroying buildings because a suspect might be inside.
3. Personal immunity. Police face no repercussions for their actions. If a police office targets the wrong house, tosses a flashbang into a baby's crib, and shoots the mother ... nothing happens. There is no justice, there is no recourse. Police are violent because they can be violent, with impunity.
This is driven in large part by police unions, who make it essentially impossible to fire a police officer, even for the worst behavior.
4. Personality. The job of police officer attracts the kind of person who should not be a police officer. People who want power over others, people who want a license to use violence, simply cannot be trusted with that power.
This issue is greatly compounded by the above points; if you take someone with violent fantasies, give them military grade weaponry, teach them that their neighbors are an enemy who will murder them with the slightest provocation,and tell them that they will never face any consequences for their actions, what do you expect to happen?
City leadership doesn't have control. Fired cops get reinstated. When criticized or acted against, they retaliate against civilian leadership.
https://twitter.com/MplsWard3/status/1267891878801915904
> Politicians who cross the MPD find slowdowns in their wards. After the first time I cut money from the proposed police budget, I had an uptick in calls taking forever to get a response, and MPD officers telling business owners to call their councilman about why it took so long.
https://gizmodo.com/nypd-union-doxes-mayors-daughter-on-twit...
> A New York City Police Department union known for its controversial attacks against Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted out the personally identifying information of his daughter on Sunday night, including a residential address and her New York State ID number.
https://www.cityandstateny.com/articles/politics/new-york-ci...
> Lynch’s most infamous comment, the one that many believe set New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio running scared from the cause of police reform, came after a man shot two NYPD officers in Brooklyn in 2014. The slain officers’ “blood on the hands starts at City Hall in the Office of the Mayor,” Lynch said. The PBA president blamed de Blasio because the mayor acknowledged, in the wake of Garner’s death, that racially disparate policing exists in New York City. Cops subsequently turned their back on de Blasio at the slain officers’ funeral, and the mayor has sided with the cops ever since.
> But to understand why the mayor does what he does, one must understand what he’s up against. On Monday, The City reported that since 2015 the PBA has spent upwards of $1.4 million on lobbying and campaign contributions. In addition to conventional political advocacy for their interests, as City & State noted in a 2019 cover story, “the cops also have the power to undermine a mayor by refusing to do their job.” In December 2014, when Lynch blamed the two officers’ murders on de Blasio, NYPD officers made two-thirds fewer arrests and wrote 94% fewer tickets than they had during the same period the year before. The PBA has also moved to block new policies intended to increase transparency and accountability, for example by suing to prevent the release of body camera footage.
https://www.pix11.com/news/local-news/manhattan/mayor-blasts...
> Mayor Bill de Blasio spoke out overnight after videos went viral on social media Thursday appearing to show a delivery worker being arrested by police in Manhattan while making a delivery past the city's 8 p.m. curfew.
"2-54. Scalable effects concepts are a measured approach in response to a crowd gathering. By recognizing a use-of-force policy, soldiers must be taught and understand that they use the minimum force necessary. Without the appearance of a graduated response, the gathering crowd may consider actions as excessive, causing a possible escalation of hostilities or violence."
Then again, even within the LE world, the information is available, eg https://www.chirontraining.com
Imagine this scenario: Maybe 80% of the protesters are totally planning on going home at 8pm. You have 15% who are stubborn and don't like to be told what to do; they'll go home at 9pm if they're asked to insistently, just to show that you're not their boss. And 5% who are downright looking for a confrontation and won't go home until it's clear they won't get one.
What happens when you apply your rubric?
Well, when you apply your force at 8:30, those 15% move from the "stubborn" camp to the "confrontational" camp. In the 80%, there will be people who see the unnecessary violence, and move to the "stubborn" camp; in addition to people who tried to get home by 8:30 but couldn't for whatever reason.
Now you've got 30% of your protesters in the "confrontational" camp. The police get more defensive, and start doing stupid things like shooting people before 7:30. Congrats, now 40% of the people are in the confrontational camp.
Malcolm Gladwell recently posted a chapter from a book he wrote, concerning The Troubles in Northern Ireland, as a podcast recently; it addresses one of the core assumptions in your suggestion, that people are simple cost-benefit calculators, and so that with enough force, you can make impose your will on people. It never really turns out the way people think it will.
I think you're getting wires severely crossed there. The National Guard is staying at hotels, but the government'll certainly be paying for that lodging.
https://dcist.com/story/20/06/03/federal-troop-lodging-at-ma...
There's a dispute over who pays (Feds vs DC):
https://twitter.com/sunriseon7/status/1267587976986427393
Same incident, different camera angle: https://twitter.com/benyc/status/1267587033783992322 . We can see the first officer shield-bashing the crew unprovoked, and a 2nd officer come in to baton-smack the reporter.
As members of the press, they are morally obligated to be there, recording what is going on. And it is pretty clear that the Police charge and attack the cameracrew in this instance.
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This was the stupid decision of two officers. However, we can bet that this "stupid decision" will go unpunished. Which is the entire point of the protests. The Police do not seem to have any mechanism for feedback in these circumstances, and can do whatever they want.
The protesters now want this officer to be punished. But once again, we have no mechanism to punish police officers in the USA.
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A few more aggravating factors:
* DC has a ton of different police departments due to the confusing structure of the city / not a state / seat of the federal government. Case in point: were these officers Secret Service? DC Park police? Metropolitan Police Department ? Unclear who to blame right now.
* Its unclear because these officers in this instance taped over their badges and identification. We don't know the names of the cops in riot gear, we don't know who they were working for. We don't know the chain of command.
* This happened roughly 45-minutes BEFORE curfew. The President (or really: Attorney General Barr) seemed to want the area cleared for a Press Briefing on Monday, but this fact was not clearly communicated to the protesters, nor to members of the press.
* Given all the advantages Police officers have in the justice system, it is unlikely that if we press charges (even if we managed to get the names of the officers in this incident) that the courts would ever be on our side. The courts overwhelmingly take the side of officers.
I will note: there's clearly one officer who is holding back his colleague in this instance, who provides room for the cameraman and the reporter to escape. There are "good guys" in the police department, but it is increasingly looking like a minority.
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The "Go home before curfew" argument doesn't work in these circumstances. With protesters (and reporters) getting bashed long before the curfew, its only natural for the protesters to not respect the curfew anymore.
Cops seem to enjoy beating up protesters, and I think that's the real problem.
Miller has some thoughts on the sheepdog metaphor: http://chirontraining.blogspot.com/2017/11/sheepdogs.html
(he has thoughts on lots of things, up to and including how to deescalate when one is amped on adrenaline. I sometimes think that in a more just world, he'd have been an academic intellectual, but am glad that in ours, he choose his parents poorly, and wound up working in law enforcement —due to a financial glass ceiling— otherwise we'd probably have no one who is both familiar with the problems LE practitioners face and has the inclination to theorise upon how the approaches might be improved)
King (Martin, not Rodney) said[1] "[a]ll we say to America is to be true to what you said on paper".
Kennedy suggested[2] a world "where the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved".
If he were alive today, I'm sure JFK would have half a mind to ask "how could you elect such a schoolyahd president?"
[1] https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/ive...
[2] https://nationalcenter.org/KennedyInaugural.html (incidentally, Earl Warren has an interesting history; he once became Governor of California by winning both the D and R primaries)