When Defending Cops Becomes Impossible

[TBeyer]

On 2/7/2022 at 10:52 PM, Ivanhoe said:

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/02/the-lonesome-death-of-amir-locke.php

At first blush, sounds like a world-class F-up.

Early in the story, but one thing that struck me (i.e. the curious case of the dog that didn't bark) is why a law-abiding young guy was sleeping on someone's couch with a gun under the blanket. My guess at this point is that the neighborhood has gone to hell and he was there to protect some relative(s). Minneapolis being Minneapolis, it seems probable they will pull the police back further, with ensuing rise in violent crime. Lather, rinse, repeat.

 

 

More details are here - Locke was the cousin of a 17-year old the police were looking for in connection with a murder in St. Paul.  The 3 apartments that police were watching and where members of the 17-year-olds family were staying are all in Minneapolis - and the Minneapolis police requested the no-knock warrant (St. Paul does not allow no-knock warrants).  The 17-year-old has now been arrested in another city (he was carrying a loaded gun) and charged with the murder in St. Paul.      

https://www.startribune.com/17-year-old-arrested-in-st-paul-homicide-that-prompted-no-knock-warrant-leading-to-amir-lockes-death/600144372/

[TBeyer]

Kim Potter, the former Brooklyn Center, MN police officer who confused her gun and taser while arresting Daunte Wright, was sentenced to 2 years (minus 2 months already served, and 1/3 of the remaining may be on supervised release):

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/18/us/kim-potter-sentence-manslaughter.html

[lucklucky]

That is too low.

[Skywalkre]

2 hours ago, lucklucky said:

That is too low.

I'd agree... but she was never going to serve long regardless.  A lot of commentary on this is coming from folks looking at max sentencing possibility without knowing the realities of what actually happens in these instances.  There was some good commentary on this trial (since it got a fraction of the coverage of other recent cases) on the Minneapolis subreddit and a defense attorney there linked to an article that at most she was likely going to see less than 4 years.  She got less than that... but I'd argue even 4 years doesn't seem right.  /shrugs

[Skywalkre]

On 12/1/2021 at 4:49 PM, Daan said:

Arizona officer using overwhelming force to stop a thief, possibly armed with a knife, in a wheelchair:

 

The officer has been fired. 

Update on this.  He was only officially fired earlier this year.  Also... still not charged with anything.  The DA office has had the case for two months now and... nothing.

[TBeyer]

1 hour ago, Skywalkre said:

I'd agree... but she was never going to serve long regardless.  A lot of commentary on this is coming from folks looking at max sentencing possibility without knowing the realities of what actually happens in these instances.  There was some good commentary on this trial (since it got a fraction of the coverage of other recent cases) on the Minneapolis subreddit and a defense attorney there linked to an article that at most she was likely going to see less than 4 years.  She got less than that... but I'd argue even 4 years doesn't seem right.  /shrugs

You can see the Judge's reasoning here, starting about 3:30.  Before that is Kim Potter's statement.  You can the statements by Daunte Wright's family on Youtube too, all are hard to listen to:

 

[lucklucky]

If the officer was not a woman would the sentence be different?

[NickM]

4 hours ago, lucklucky said:

If the officer was not a woman would the sentence be different?

If the officer wasn't a woman, in all probability she would not have even been hired; she was just a 'diversity check box'.

[rmgill]

I want to say that she was mostly a desk jockey and was put on the street because many officers had quit...

[EchoFiveMike]

9 hours ago, lucklucky said:

If the officer was not a woman would the sentence be different?

Of course it would.  No one with a functional brain actually pretends women are competent at violence.  S/F...Ken M  

[Skywalkre]

13 hours ago, lucklucky said:

If the officer was not a woman would the sentence be different?

That's a great question.  Commentary on reddit yesterday highlighted some studies showing the gender gap in sentencing is 6x worse than the racial gap!

[NickM]

12 hours ago, rmgill said:

I want to say that she was mostly a desk jockey and was put on the street because many officers had quit...

Ah, now THAT makes sense why she seemed to 'flighty'--clearly she hasn't been on 'the sharp end' for a while, if ever.

[rmgill]

 

[rmgill]

This looks good....

https://www.rebelnews.com/leaked_rcmp_messages_time_for_the_protesters_to_hear_our_jackboots_on_the_ground

[nitflegal]

It  is utterly fascinating to me how in 2 years the liberals and conservatives have flipped places in how they feel about cops.  Long term I am genuinely curious how this plays out as both sides have learned that police officers, by and large, will do what they are told by their superiors regardless of what it is.  I have noticed that the whole "soldiers and police are gun-owning conservatives and when the liberals finally overreach they will find their enforcers will not follow orders" stuff that the right has been repeating for my lifetime has faded away rather a lot. . .

[Harold Jones]

1 hour ago, nitflegal said:

...I have noticed that the whole "soldiers and police are gun-owning conservatives and when the liberals finally overreach they will find their enforcers will not follow orders" stuff that the right has been repeating for my lifetime has faded away rather a lot. . .

I think law enforcement's generally low view of 'civilians' and especially ones who are not compliant trumps any political leanings.  Based on what I see here and on various social media sites, whether the cops breaking up a protest are heroes or jack booted thugs pretty much depends on whether or not the poster agrees with protesters.

[Ivanhoe]

1 hour ago, nitflegal said:

It  is utterly fascinating to me how in 2 years the liberals and conservatives have flipped places in how they feel about cops.  Long term I am genuinely curious how this plays out as both sides have learned that police officers, by and large, will do what they are told by their superiors regardless of what it is.  I have noticed that the whole "soldiers and police are gun-owning conservatives and when the liberals finally overreach they will find their enforcers will not follow orders" stuff that the right has been repeating for my lifetime has faded away rather a lot. . .

“There are no principles; there are only events. There is no good and bad, there are only circumstances. The superior man espouses events and circumstances in order to guide them. If there were principles and fixed laws, nations would not change them as we change our shirts and a man can not be expected to be wiser than an entire nation.”
― Honoré de Balzac

[BansheeOne]

Maybe it's more of a fringe vs. mainstream thing, and the former bleeding into the latter; but even locally I'm getting the impression that attitudes and language are slowly reversing between the Left and Right, both on domestic and foreign issues. The New Right here (Alt-Right for USians) has of course deliberately taken over successful tactics and action forms of the Left since maybe six or seven years, particularly visible in the Identitarian Movement which rose to some prominence during the 2015/16 refugee crisis; I've also noted for some time that globalism is the new imperialism, and a good current right-wing rant against the elites of the former is indistinguishable from a left-wing one against the elites of the latter from 25-30 years ago if you switch those terms.

However I suspect there's a greater generational change at work - politically speaking rather than determined by date of birth, as a lot of the current activism on the Right here seems to be by middle-aged folks who appear to have missed out on rebelling at the more usual young age. While they might sound like orthodox leftists of the previous millenium, including an anti-capitalist streak and gullibleness to Eastern authoritarianism, the younger political generation of left-wingers not formed by the bi-polar ideology of the Cold War who grew into power in those last 25-30 years find themselves in a society that has actually achieved many of the aims regarding equality, environmentalism, gender roles etc. claimed by their predecessors.

Sure, there's always politically even younger, more radical social justice warriors, but for now the generation of left-wingers at the age of power largely represent the status quo, and to right-wingers for whom change has gone too far they're the establishment. We can debate all day about the differences and similarities between reactionaries and revolutionaries, but as far as The System and The Rebels go, the roles have largely switched between the Left and Right. So it's probably unsurprising that their respective views of the state's authority and its tools have, too.

 

[rmgill]

5 hours ago, nitflegal said:

It  is utterly fascinating to me how in 2 years the liberals and conservatives have flipped places in how they feel about cops. 

Have they though? It's question of who the cops work for I think. 

I have no problems with cops responding with violene to violence. I have a problem with cops using excessive force where its not warranted. 

I know cops who are aghast at what's going on in Canada. One makes a differentiation between ages of officers, young ones willing to do anything they're told and older, wiser officers having to hold them back or insert some sanity. 
 

5 hours ago, nitflegal said:

 I have noticed that the whole "soldiers and police are gun-owning conservatives and when the liberals finally overreach they will find their enforcers will not follow orders" stuff that the right has been repeating for my lifetime has faded away rather a lot. . .

It's age striated. 

[nitflegal]

35 minutes ago, rmgill said:

Have they though? It's question of who the cops work for I think. 

I have no problems with cops responding with violene to violence. I have a problem with cops using excessive force where its not warranted. 

I know cops who are aghast at what's going on in Canada. One makes a differentiation between ages of officers, young ones willing to do anything they're told and older, wiser officers having to hold them back or insert some sanity. 
 

It's age striated. 

One of my 3 closest friends (and longest known) is a cop so I'm not reflexively anti-police.  However, even to me it seems obvious that as a group, they will do what they are directed to do.  How many cops refused to enforce Covid policy?  How many in Canada are refusing to break up anti-government peaceful protests?  How many refused to back away from the widespread stand-down order with the BLM riots?  One realization that has come with maturity to me is that people like Jordan Peterson are dead right when they state that with similar events as happened in late-1930's Germany the vast majority of people would have actively supported the Nazis or at the least done nothing to hinder them.  Maybe 1 percent (wishful thinking that it would be that high) of people would have harbored Anne Frank, the rest would have turned her and her family in.  People expecting cops, soldiers, politicians, truck drivers or anyone as a group to put their careers and families on the line for people they have never known is as delusional as believing that communism can work if it is just applied by the right people.

[rmgill]

8 minutes ago, nitflegal said:

One of my 3 closest friends (and longest known) is a cop so I'm not reflexively anti-police.  However, even to me it seems obvious that as a group, they will do what they are directed to do.  How many cops refused to enforce Covid policy? 

Well, a good cop is going to ask what he's enforcing and if it's even constitutional. My friend brought this up as a clear point of contention. But this is also because he's an older cop and thinks not about what he was told to do but what the long term implications are. Just because a politician SAYS enforce X doesn't make it legal and if you, as a cop, bust someone's head over orders that were never legally founded in the first place you're the one who's holding the bag of liability.

 This is as  simple as comparisons between departments that are fine with officers searching someone because they have a gun and need to check for a license (a search that is factually speaking lacking in RAS or PC for the stop in the first place) vs departments that tell the officers that if they get a man with a gun call, to show up, look to see what the subject is doing, and if they're say sitting eating food and you can kinda see a handgun that's properly holstered to not even make contact with the subject and to treat it as a false alarm. 

I'm personally, quite particular in my criticism of cops. I'll look at the situation and the details and decide from the details including the idea of what would happen if a regular person was in the same position. 

8 minutes ago, nitflegal said:

How many in Canada are refusing to break up anti-government peaceful protests?  How many refused to back away from the widespread stand-down order with the BLM riots? 

There have been cops that have posted on twitter, etc refusing to do anything and expressing support. Likely they were set aside in this or they were from rural areas which tend more to the peace officer mindset vs the law enforcement officer mindset. 

8 minutes ago, nitflegal said:

One realization that has come with maturity to me is that people like Jordan Peterson are dead right when they state that with similar events as happened in late-1930's Germany the vast majority of people would have actively supported the Nazis or at the least done nothing to hinder them. 

Yep. His foray into this was through psychological means in that he was trying to figure out the mindset of folks doing such things and how they make such a jump. The extreme example is older German Cops sent to the Ost Front who worked as Feldgendarmerie and who several years before were hunting down murderers, and somehow, they had transmuted to the sort of person that would drag a naked woman into a field and shoot her in the head. 

The drive to not leave your comrades in the lurch is a point that's raised. 

8 minutes ago, nitflegal said:

People expecting cops, soldiers, politicians, truck drivers or anyone as a group to put their careers and families on the line for people they have never known is as delusional as believing that communism can work if it is just applied by the right people.

I think it'll be one of those things that's going to have people flipping sides when push comes to shove. The best parallel I can think of is the heat being turned up with the Protestant Reformation and the banning of printing presses. The 30 years war as a thing on our horizon is not a good thing.

[JWB]

Police offered teen McDonald's in exchange for confession to crime someone else committed:

https://abc7chicago.com/waukegan-il-police-department-wrongfully-accused-shooting/11587147/

[MiloMorai]

Anyone see the cops breaking up the mall fight between 2 teenagers. Female cop crabs the white guy and puts him in a chair. The male cop throws the dark skinned kid to the floor and attempts to cuff him.

Lots of complaints of racial profiling.

The fight between the Uni basketball coaches, one white, the other of colour, shows why the dark skinned kid was hand cuffed.

[Skywalkre]

22 hours ago, MiloMorai said:

Anyone see the cops breaking up the mall fight between 2 teenagers. Female cop crabs the white guy and puts him in a chair. The male cop throws the dark skinned kid to the floor and attempts to cuff him.

Lots of complaints of racial profiling.

Hadn't heard of it.  Just watched it.  Yeah... it's fucked up... but also par the course.  Perfect example of why the protests happened back in '20.

[DB]

The video I saw starts with the "white" guy on top and the police apparently just reaching the scene. He's pulled off and pushed back into the seating. He's immediately calm, and follows orders to stay put. The other guy is kicking and flailing and not calming down.

I want to see the previous few minutes to see how it kicked off. It's also impossible for me to tell from the potato cam compressed imagery whether the guy on top was beating the snot out of the other one, or whether he was just holding him down.

Not that what actually happened matters - it's what people are claiming happened that causes the riots, whether it's true or not.