zlacker

The protests in the wake of George Floyd’s murder are currently tapering off, but I don’t see any evidence at all that substantive changes have been made, which means that this is all going to happen again, and soon, and the protests will be bigger, the police response more violent. The black lives matter organization in my city presented a list of demands to the city council and every one of them was ignored, instead the council promised sensitivity training. This is nowhere close to over.

>>fallin+(OP)
> The black lives matter organization in my city presented a list of demands to the city council and every one of them was ignored

What were the demands?

>>fallin+(OP)
In terms of sweeping reforms, no – especially re: qualified immunity with SCOTUS recently declining to reexamine it [0]. But I would venture to claim that the Overton window on what police can be held accountable has certainly changed. That all 4 police in the George Floyd case were arrested and charged was unexpected, given the lack of consequences in the Eric Garner case. The arrests and assault charges for officers who attacked protesters in Atlanta [1] and Buffalo [2] is the kind of thing I never thought we'd see, and signals an opportunity (albeit unguaranteed) for the balance to change. The change in public perception is quite striking – including a doubling of white Americans since 2015 who think police brutality is a "very serious problem [3]. And this shift is happening under a presidential administration that is one of the least likely to take federal action against or even just criticize law enforcement.

[0] https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-qualified-immunity-p...

[1] https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/03/us/atlanta-police-booked-felo...

[2] https://abcnews.go.com/US/buffalo-police-officers-arrested-s...

[3] https://apnews.com/728b414b8742129329081f7092179d1f

>>pdonis+Ub
https://www.joincampaignzero.org/

>>danso+uc
It changes because of overwhelming evidence, public outcry and protests. We shouldn’t need to have to protest for that!! Maybe ubiquitous incident footage will make the window shift. Maybe we’ll end up self surveilling any encounter we may have with police but also with crime.

Imagine we’re all streaming to a personal blackbox in the could that gets overwritten say every month or every hour or however we set it up.

>>fallin+(OP)
Don't underestimate how much local impact the protests are having.

In my town, the police chief noped out. A rather startled black lieutenant has found himself in the role now. AFAIK he's got a genuine desire to improve things, but I'm not holding my breath.

Meanwhile, 3 proposals to defund some programs like in school officers have been repeatedly proposed by our only black city councillor for the last couple years, always blocked by the majority of the council. The protests changed that in ONE WEEK.

We may not be getting the sweeping reform we want at the national level, but this absolutely has had a huge impact. And looking at the pooling, there's been a fundamental change in how many people agree there's a real problem.

>>danso+uc
Colorado abolished qualified immunity. Other states still could.

>>uoaei+Zh
Thanks for the link.