US police & murders of black men

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Woodchopper
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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by Woodchopper » Mon Apr 12, 2021 8:14 pm

sTeamTraen wrote:
Mon Apr 12, 2021 7:08 pm
Cardinal Fang wrote:
Mon Apr 12, 2021 6:56 pm
sTeamTraen wrote:
Mon Apr 12, 2021 6:01 pm
Apparently the officer meant to fire her taser but fired her gun by accident.
That in itself is worrying. I would have thought that it should be difficult to draw a gun save by conscious and deliberate action. "Ooops I picked up the wrong thing" is not something that should happen
It would be worrying in an ergonomic sense if I thought it was even remotely true, which I don't.
Here's a picture of a US police officer
US police.jpg
US police.jpg (52.38 KiB) Viewed 3483 times
Attached to the belt are a gun in black and a Tazer in yellow. Someone should be able to remember which side is which. But in a moment of very high stress maybe not. I've definitely made more foolish mistakes than that. Though not while holding a deadly weapon.

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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by sTeamTraen » Mon Apr 12, 2021 8:35 pm

Woodchopper wrote:
Mon Apr 12, 2021 8:14 pm
Attached to the belt are a gun in black and a Tazer in yellow. Someone should be able to remember which side is which. But in a moment of very high stress maybe not. I've definitely made more foolish mistakes than that. Though not while holding a deadly weapon.
Seriously, how incompetent do you have to be to not remember where your gun is? Your gun is going to be under your best hand (right, for most people), because it's your most important weapon. You remember that getting your taser out is a little bit more complex.

And aren't cops supposed to be able to cope with "stress" anyway? Hasn't somebody thought to train them in how to deal with people who may or may not be criminals without being a millisecond away from killing them at every single f.cking interaction? If the victim had been holding a gun to a hostage's head in a stand-off situation then maybe, but this was a traffic stop. And if traffic stops are habitually this fraught then they should have protocols to take that into account (IDK, "exit the police car with your taser in your hand so you don't 'accidentally' draw the gun instead" or whatever).

If this was a genuine mistake then the prior reports on this officer will show that she was on the verge of being taken off active duty many times due to inability to cope under pressure. But I don't believe a word of it.
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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by bolo » Mon Apr 12, 2021 8:46 pm

Standard police practice during traffic stops is to have your hand on your firearm. At least that's what I've seen done. I have no idea what their training says.

I presume that this is (at least theoretically) because, if the driver pulls a gun, you don't have much time to react.

Not to condone any of the appalling actions in the not-a-taser case or the other cases in this thread, but from outside the US it may be hard to internalize the actual likelihood that, e.g., a random driver stopped for speeding will have a gun in the glove compartment.

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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by Fishnut » Mon Apr 12, 2021 8:51 pm

I remember reading in a book (The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande, I think) about how a patient died because they were connected to the wrong gas during surgery, and how it resulted in different connections being developed for different bottles so that even in an emergency/stressful situations a mistake couldn't be made - only the O2 bottle would connect to the O2 line, etc. In life-and-death situations as little as possible should be left to chance and as few opportunities for 'mistakes' to be made should be allowed. Carrying a taser and a gun on the same belt seems ripe for 'mistakes' to be made (or claimed).
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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by monkey » Mon Apr 12, 2021 8:53 pm

sTeamTraen wrote:
Mon Apr 12, 2021 8:35 pm
Woodchopper wrote:
Mon Apr 12, 2021 8:14 pm
Attached to the belt are a gun in black and a Tazer in yellow. Someone should be able to remember which side is which. But in a moment of very high stress maybe not. I've definitely made more foolish mistakes than that. Though not while holding a deadly weapon.
Seriously, how incompetent do you have to be to not remember where your gun is? Your gun is going to be under your best hand (right, for most people), because it's your most important weapon. You remember that getting your taser out is a little bit more complex.

And aren't cops supposed to be able to cope with "stress" anyway? Hasn't somebody thought to train them in how to deal with people who may or may not be criminals without being a millisecond away from killing them at every single f.cking interaction? If the victim had been holding a gun to a hostage's head in a stand-off situation then maybe, but this was a traffic stop. And if traffic stops are habitually this fraught then they should have protocols to take that into account (IDK, "exit the police car with your taser in your hand so you don't 'accidentally' draw the gun instead" or whatever).

If this was a genuine mistake then the prior reports on this officer will show that she was on the verge of being taken off active duty many times due to inability to cope under pressure. But I don't believe a word of it.
In the article I posted above, the cop was breaking the rules/not following guidelines in having his taser holstered next to his gun. It's possible recent cop did something similar. But also, training for most USian cops is piss poor, so there's that too.

I've always thought the colours were the wrong way round. To avoid deadly mistakes, surely you need to be warned when you have the more deadly thing in your hand. It seems USian cops prefer it the other way round, which seems to be being warned when the thing in your hand is less likely to kill. You could of course, have two different bright colors and drill recognition into them.

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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by dyqik » Mon Apr 12, 2021 8:56 pm

bolo wrote:
Mon Apr 12, 2021 8:46 pm
Standard police practice during traffic stops is to have your hand on your firearm. At least that's what I've seen done. I have no idea what their training says.

I presume that this is (at least theoretically) because, if the driver pulls a gun, you don't have much time to react.

Not to condone any of the appalling actions in the not-a-taser case or the other cases in this thread, but from outside the US it may be hard to internalize the actual likelihood that, e.g., a random driver stopped for speeding will have a gun in the glove compartment.
...or under the seat, or on their belt, or in a shoulder holster, or in a quick access mounting point under the dash. Or in all five places.

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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by Sciolus » Mon Apr 12, 2021 9:04 pm

Lew Dolby wrote:
Mon Apr 12, 2021 8:07 pm
sTeamTraen wrote:
Mon Apr 12, 2021 7:08 pm
One of the more endearing features (heaven knows they need them) of the UK police is the regular surveys that show that lots of them, perhaps even a majority, don't want to be armed, not least because I suspect many of them would sh.t themselves if they had to draw their gun.
maybe they've come across the "fact" (I don't know if it's true or not) that a good percentage of US police who get shot on duty are shot with their own gun.
Or they're smart enough to realise that a gun is not a defensive weapon but a purely offensive one; that if police are routinely armed, then criminals will figure out that they're likely to get shot; and that criminals will then figure out that the best way not to get shot by the police is to carry a gun and shoot them first.

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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by jimbob » Mon Apr 12, 2021 10:32 pm

Woodchopper wrote:
Mon Apr 12, 2021 8:14 pm
sTeamTraen wrote:
Mon Apr 12, 2021 7:08 pm
Cardinal Fang wrote:
Mon Apr 12, 2021 6:56 pm


That in itself is worrying. I would have thought that it should be difficult to draw a gun save by conscious and deliberate action. "Ooops I picked up the wrong thing" is not something that should happen
It would be worrying in an ergonomic sense if I thought it was even remotely true, which I don't.
Here's a picture of a US police officer

US police.jpg

Attached to the belt are a gun in black and a Tazer in yellow. Someone should be able to remember which side is which. But in a moment of very high stress maybe not. I've definitely made more foolish mistakes than that. Though not while holding a deadly weapon.
And part of the problem is that the police are trained to view every encounter as potentially lethal.

And the civilians are supposed to be more responsible than the supposedly trained police officers in such situations.
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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by Millennie Al » Tue Apr 13, 2021 1:34 am

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Mon Apr 12, 2021 6:10 pm
bolo wrote:
Mon Apr 12, 2021 5:58 pm
Officer Gutierrez has been fired.
Well that's a start, as long as he doesn't just get re-hired by a different force up the road. Obviously he should be charged with assault.
In the UK, I'd say Actual Bodily Harm would be appropriate (max sentence five years): https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/o ... oc27668461 I don't know what the equivalent is in Virginia.

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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by Millennie Al » Tue Apr 13, 2021 1:41 am

Lew Dolby wrote:
Mon Apr 12, 2021 8:07 pm
maybe they've come across the "fact" (I don't know if it's true or not) that a good percentage of US police who get shot on duty are shot with their own gun.
Apparently, it's about 10% - https://hub.jhu.edu/magazine/2013/fall/ ... tatistics/

I suspect that the situation is greatly aggravated by the U.S. accpetance of shooting people who are running away. In all but the most exceptional cases, this is murder, and the practice means that criminals will shoot the police officers before trying to run away out of fear of being shot themselves.

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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by Woodchopper » Tue Apr 13, 2021 6:52 am

bolo wrote:
Mon Apr 12, 2021 8:46 pm
Standard police practice during traffic stops is to have your hand on your firearm. At least that's what I've seen done. I have no idea what their training says.

I presume that this is (at least theoretically) because, if the driver pulls a gun, you don't have much time to react.

Not to condone any of the appalling actions in the not-a-taser case or the other cases in this thread, but from outside the US it may be hard to internalize the actual likelihood that, e.g., a random driver stopped for speeding will have a gun in the glove compartment.
Yes, indeed. A US police officer should assume that any interaction could very rapidly escalate into a shooting.

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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by Woodchopper » Tue Apr 13, 2021 7:04 am

monkey wrote:
Mon Apr 12, 2021 8:53 pm

In the article I posted above, the cop was breaking the rules/not following guidelines in having his taser holstered next to his gun. It's possible recent cop did something similar. But also, training for most USian cops is piss poor, so there's that too.
Indeed. I don't have time to look up this force. But as we discussed in another thread, European police officers usually get about three years of training. In the US its a few months or even none at all (just pass an exam). US police lack skills, and operate in a far more life threatening environment than their European counterparts.

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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by discovolante » Tue Apr 13, 2021 7:38 am

Millennie Al wrote:
Tue Apr 13, 2021 1:34 am
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Mon Apr 12, 2021 6:10 pm
bolo wrote:
Mon Apr 12, 2021 5:58 pm
Officer Gutierrez has been fired.
Well that's a start, as long as he doesn't just get re-hired by a different force up the road. Obviously he should be charged with assault.
In the UK, I'd say Actual Bodily Harm would be appropriate (max sentence five years): https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/o ... oc27668461 I don't know what the equivalent is in Virginia.
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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by TopBadger » Tue Apr 13, 2021 3:42 pm

What gets me about the Lt Nazario incident is that he's clearly a serving solder (and an officer at that). Its pretty easy to tell the difference between a soldier and a civvy wearing some camo (pressed uniform, rank and divisional badges, demeanor).

I don't understand how police officers could perceive a serving soldier, who has sworn an oath to protect their country, as a threat let alone treat them so awfully.

US police officers seem to react to every situation, including those they instigate, as if they're the ones who lives are in danger / under attack. Does their training consist of watching Southpark Episode 3, Season 1?

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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by Bird on a Fire » Tue Apr 13, 2021 4:04 pm

He was black.

HTH.
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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by monkey » Tue Apr 13, 2021 4:35 pm

TopBadger wrote:
Tue Apr 13, 2021 3:42 pm
What gets me about the Lt Nazario incident is that he's clearly a serving solder (and an officer at that). Its pretty easy to tell the difference between a soldier and a civvy wearing some camo (pressed uniform, rank and divisional badges, demeanor).

I don't understand how police officers could perceive a serving soldier, who has sworn an oath to protect their country, as a threat let alone treat them so awfully.

US police officers seem to react to every situation, including those they instigate, as if they're the ones who lives are in danger / under attack. Does their training consist of watching Southpark Episode 3, Season 1?
There is a huge amount of variation across forces, but yeah, there's definitely been more wrong generalisations made for humor. ETA: But I don't think anywhere trains as well as would be typical for western Europe.

Here's a recent article that covers some of the structural problems in the way police are trained, which allow that sort of mindset to embed itself. You should note that cops that were trained badly can end up being the trainers too: clicky

Also, while good training is massively important, problems with USian policing are bigger than just how well trained they are. Their militarization is one of the biggest problems (and I'm pretty sure contributes to the mindset that they are always in danger, but it seems a bit chicken-egg as to which came first).

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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by jimbob » Tue Apr 13, 2021 5:07 pm

monkey wrote:
Tue Apr 13, 2021 4:35 pm
TopBadger wrote:
Tue Apr 13, 2021 3:42 pm
What gets me about the Lt Nazario incident is that he's clearly a serving solder (and an officer at that). Its pretty easy to tell the difference between a soldier and a civvy wearing some camo (pressed uniform, rank and divisional badges, demeanor).

I don't understand how police officers could perceive a serving soldier, who has sworn an oath to protect their country, as a threat let alone treat them so awfully.

US police officers seem to react to every situation, including those they instigate, as if they're the ones who lives are in danger / under attack. Does their training consist of watching Southpark Episode 3, Season 1?
There is a huge amount of variation across forces, but yeah, there's definitely been more wrong generalisations made for humor. ETA: But I don't think anywhere trains as well as would be typical for western Europe.

Here's a recent article that covers some of the structural problems in the way police are trained, which allow that sort of mindset to embed itself. You should note that cops that were trained badly can end up being the trainers too: clicky

Also, while good training is massively important, problems with USian policing are bigger than just how well trained they are. Their militarization is one of the biggest problems (and I'm pretty sure contributes to the mindset that they are always in danger, but it seems a bit chicken-egg as to which came first).
Also there are 12 *thousand* police forces, and about 18 thousand forces with police powers in the US. And about 6000 have fewer than 10 full time staff. That's a lot of organisations with little oversight or ability to train people.
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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by dyqik » Tue Apr 13, 2021 5:14 pm

Here we've got the problem of the former head of the Boston police union having been investigated for a child molestation allegation, which concluded that he likely did do it, and who then remained on the force for 25 years, including investigating child sex crimes. Then he was arrested for molesting six other children.

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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by shpalman » Tue Apr 13, 2021 5:25 pm

According to Windsor, Virginia PD's 2018 report their entire staff fits on one page with very wide spacing. They get called out a few times a day (but there are ~50 "self initiated" activities per day). Page 9 indicates that in the period 2014-2018 there have been zero murders.

This is a town with an estimated population of 2758.

So perfectly normal and proportionate that two officers should carry out a traffic stop as if they're in an episode of f.cking CSI New York or something.

(Yes, it's the right place: https://www.windsor-va.gov/page/police- ... (nazario)/ )
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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by shpalman » Tue Apr 13, 2021 5:34 pm

Brooklyn Center, MN is a city of ~30,000 inhabitants. Their police department's website (and its facebook page) seem to have been removed.
(here's what it looked like a couple of months ago: "49 licensed, full-time police officers and 22 full and part-time non-sworn staff".)
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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by Bird on a Fire » Tue Apr 13, 2021 5:43 pm

Look, I know my last post was flippant, but there's no getting around the fact that black people are overwhelmingly the victims of these kinds of police misconduct, nor that they occur within an institutionally racist "justice" system.

You can train people as much as you like. In most of these cases it turns out the cops weren't following their training anyway. It happens because of racism, not because cops don't know how to not mace somebody in the face or how to not shoot them or how to not kneel on their neck.
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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by monkey » Tue Apr 13, 2021 6:46 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Tue Apr 13, 2021 5:43 pm
Look, I know my last post was flippant, but there's no getting around the fact that black people are overwhelmingly the victims of these kinds of police misconduct, nor that they occur within an institutionally racist "justice" system.

You can train people as much as you like. In most of these cases it turns out the cops weren't following their training anyway. It happens because of racism, not because cops don't know how to not mace somebody in the face or how to not shoot them or how to not kneel on their neck.
I don't think anyone is claiming that USian police aren't racist. I'm certainly not. But the killing of Duante Wright has highlighted that the absolute bobbins training that the cops get is a contributory factor. You combine racism with bad training in your policing you are going to kill black people and other POC.

In fact, it is probable that the way USian police are trained is a cause of their racism (ETA: not the only one). For example here's some bits from the article I posted above.

It opens:
Until Earl McGhee was hired in 2018, Dodge County, Wisconsin, had never had a Black sheriff’s deputy, so when the county sent him to a police academy at a local technical college, McGhee wasn’t all that surprised to be the only Black cadet in the class.

But a few weeks into the course, McGhee was stunned when the instructor used the N-word during a lecture. “Out of nowhere he looks me in the eyes and points his index finger directly at me” while uttering the slur, McGhee wrote in a statement to the school, the Madison Area Technical College, shortly after the Jan. 25, 2019, incident. “The entire class was looking at me.”

The instructor apologized the next day, but only after McGhee spoke up in class and told him how offensive it was to hear that word coming from his teacher. Only two of the 24 classmates later said they’d had a problem with what happened.

The instructor later acknowledged during a school investigation that he used a variety of racist and sexist epithets in class, during discussions about some of the people and situations they may encounter on the job.
Another bit:
In Minnesota, which became the epicenter of protests about policing after the death in May of George Floyd, the majority of police officers pay their own way through training at a community or technical college. All of the officers present when Floyd was killed received their basic training from state community and technical colleges. (Minnesota is in the middle of a rulemaking audit that may change the way police are trained.) Officers currently being investigated for excessive use of force in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania also received their basic training at private universities and community and technical colleges.

Many programs at community and technical colleges are taught by retired cops who use a military-style teaching method that incorporates war stories from police work and warns recruits that they will face a choice on the streets: kill or be killed. That differs from the type of training that criminal-justice experts have called for, which emphasizes de-escalating confrontations, working with and listening to community members and teaching cadets to recognize signs of mental illness.

The old-school method can make it more difficult to attract women and candidates of color (like Earl McGhee) at a time when police departments, which remain disproportionately white and male, are under pressure to better reflect the communities they serve.

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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by Herainestold » Wed Apr 14, 2021 3:18 am

So a racist goes through racist indoctrination at a racist training centre and then is hired by a systemically racist organization and given a fire arm. What could possibly go wrong?
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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by Woodchopper » Wed Apr 14, 2021 7:19 am

In additon to what monkey writes, according to this, in Minnesota:
You need a two- or four-year post secondary degree from a regionally accredited college or university and must have successfully completed a board-approved peace officer education program. There are 30 such programs at colleges across Minnesota. To be admitted to a program, applicants must pass a psychological evaluation,a criminal history screening anda medical screening and physical fitness test.

Tom Draper, who coordinates the program at Hennepin Technical College, said that among the things his program teaches is criminal and traffic codes, the use of firearms, in-progress crimes, mental health calls, domestic conflicts, sexual assaults, traffic stops and evidence training. Students must also pass a POST test.

Later, new officers who are hired by departments get more training, Draper said. "Throughout an officers' career they are required to have 48 hours of additional training every three years," he said.

The Minneapolis field training program for new officers is five months long and is still in place, despite needing to make accommodations due to the pandemic.
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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by monkey » Wed Apr 14, 2021 4:22 pm

Duante Wright's killer has been charged with 2nd degree manslaughter.

clicky

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