All jobs that you should try paying more before blaming society.

If you’re asking people to police the most heavily armed society on earth, pay them like it. Pay them well enough to live in the city they patrol. It’s silly to act like the quickest way to improve recruitment problems, retention problems, and candidate quality problems isn’t an increase in pay.

If you want to advocate for the police, advocate for that. People’s attitudes are never going to change as long as stories like this one keep happening. And stories like this one keep happening until we pay cops better and hold them to a higher standard. Without that we are stuck in a perpetual loop, and will still be doing this twenty years from now.

I mentioned in my response to bi that these stories always have a “has a history of…” portion to them. It seems like most of these headline incidents were forewarned by previous violent behaviors, and were only not prevented due to a need for reliable and capable staff. So pay for one?

You can’t come in here and tell me that nobody wants to be cops because the community didn’t choose to like them enough. What do you think you’re going to resolve with that argument? What is actionable about it? People’s attitudes towards cops will not change until stories like this are less often, less brutal, and less obviously preventable. You’ll never scold them away from that.

Here’s what immediately pops into my head whenever I hear “so-and-so has 17 prior complaints filed against them for unnecessary use of force”: a complaint isn’t filed every time it happens. In fact I have no idea how many times it happened. So many other cops must’ve seen it at some point. Seen and not done or said a thing. If good cops can be that at ease with bad cops, then there are no good cops. It’s like saying “she was a great teacher, other than helping to cover up whenever a colleague touched a kid.”

Now, I don’t really feel that way. But every time I hear a new story about a cop with prior reports hurting someone, you bet your ass I do for a few seconds. Every time.

That’s why the way to advocate for cops is to advocate for ways to stop these things from happening. That’s why people’s attitudes can’t change until the stories stop feeling like they are a part of our routines. None of this can stop happening until the people with 17 prior complaints are rendered unemployable. The people with 17 prior complaints won’t be unemployable until the job pays competitively. The resolution you want starts here.

Bammer and Bi_3 a point. This sort of thing never happened until the pandemic shrunk the work force and police forces had all the funding they asked for. It's probably just desperate hiring practices.

Heh, I laughed a little when I implied that police forces don't currently have all the funding they ask for.

Who is going to be successful going around telling predominantly Black communities that we need to pay cops more when the chattering class still all in on BLM?

The Memphis cops had prior convictions. Its not clear we can compare that to Chauvin unless those complaints were substantiated (must be some form of due process). Is this the one situation where mere accusations are acceptable for termination?

I'm sure most cops receive at least a few scurrilous formal complaints, the population that they most interact with has a strained relationship with the truth. Curiously, complaints against cops went down when body worn cameras were introduced, but Chauvin's career probably started before their introduction in his department. Is 17 a lot? Probably.

Minneapolis apparently doesn't publicly release police misconduct records, so unless something came out after the trial we don't know how many were substantiated (the formal response to substantiated complaints is coaching, which might be appropriate for a first offense, but something more substantial should occur after multiple offenses).

It's not pleasant to be arrested, handcuffed on your stomach, etc. People are going to complain. There's a bizarre notion floating around some progressive circles that cops can receive this magical training where they can get uncooperative people into custody without risk of injury to anyone involved.

cops also have a strained relationship with the truth, which is much more evident with the use of body cameras.

how DARE you accuse cops of not telling the truth. why i never!

I bet those cops in Memphis forgot that they beat Tyre to death.

Both cops and criminals are acting in stressful and heighten situations ('Why didnt he just comply' isn't that different than 'why didnt they follow their training'). People go into fight-or-flight mode so it's no surprise that they both get details about what happened wrong, hence the need for always-on body cams. Not sure what you are expecting here.

getting details wrong is, the suspect had a purple shirt on when the suspect had a purple rain shirt on

not, I did not punch, choke or kick the suspect when the body cam footage clearly shows something else

Sorry, didnt realize you two were on a first name basis.

Apologies! That the kind of social slight that could get a Black man killed by a cop. I should be more careful.

Picture B snickering to himself while posting this thinking it was clever

this is what the rest of us do after bammer posts