Comment by ericmay
5 years ago
Yea... but let’s dive into the statistics. 1,200 deaths from cops - some unknown number justified (a shootout or whatever) and quite literally millions or tens of millions of interactions.
I think we need police reform. As a military veteran I think there is no reason that an MRAP should be on American streets, but I also think the police have pretty large responsibilities and need more training too.
We also (and I’ll say that I am a 2nd Amendment proponent - within reason) have police who have to enter into situations where the other person may be armed, which adds to the stress level.
Frankly, if you look at the stats I’m not even sure we have a police brutality problem; instead we have more of a police abuse of power problem.
Solutions that come to mind:
More training
More pay
More strict hiring requirements
Abolition of police unions
Requiring police to carry insurance
No-hire once fired or terminated from a department (generally but there are specifics here to be discussed)
Sell off and no more spending on war equipment (MRAPs, assault rifles, smoke grenades, whatever)
Mandatory body cams, lack of use results in immediate suspension without pay while an investigation takes place, and if the camera is intentionally turned off immediate termination and no ability to be rehired anywhere in the country
That’s what I would start with
Police reform stopped during the current administration as the Department of Justice backed off from enforcing various court orders on some truly inept police departments. It will probably start up shortly after the current administration departs. How well it will be done remains to be seen.
Interesting it just stopped during this administration after not having been 100% fixed in previous ones.
There is no "100% fixed", only forward progress or regression. Forward progress was being made before the current administration; forward progress was stopped during this administration.
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There's a whole host of tasks given to the police that they're completely unsuitable for. People keep getting shot when armed police attend wellness checks. Same with traffic stops. A lot of police interactions are with homeless, mentally ill people and/or addicts in need of care, not a damned bullet. The rare cases of active shooters do justify an armed response, but let's be honest, cops rarely respond quickly enough to make a difference in many of those situations.
> no reason that an MRAP should be on American streets
It's not _on_ American streets. I lived in the US for 20 years and I've never seen one. Likely some SWAT teams purchased them for pennies on the dollar, but I'd argue SWAT teams need them, to reduce casualties when getting close to violent action.
> assault rifles
To the best of my knowledge assault rifles are not in use by US police. AR15 is not an assault rifle.
I saw plenty in London though.
But that's nuance - people younger than, say, 35, won't understand any of it. Literally nobody is interested in the actual reform at the moment. If they were, we'd see some serious proposals by now.
> But that's nuance - people younger than, say, 35, won't understand any of it.
Check yourself, pot, that's an awfully broad brush to be calling a kettle incapable of nuance with.
That's what I thought: unable to engage on the substance of the nuance.
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> AR15 is not an assault rifle
Means you don't know what and assault riffle is.
Assault rifles have selective fire (i.e. they can fire multiple bullets with each pull of the trigger). An AR15 is semi-automatic, which means only one bullet for each pull of the trigger.
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