Police State USA

[MNIrishman]

Cool story, bro.

Being serious for a second, thread title was chosen because of the website dedicated to police brutality/rights abuse in this country of the same name, and was simpler than typing "A Nuanced Discussion on the Recent Influx of Recorded Incidents of Police Malfeasance".

Of course the United States isn't a totalitarian regime secretly spying on citizens and... oh wait, yeah it sorta is.

I've said this before, but if I ever run for major office, I'll do it on a platform that includes a focus on privacy rights.

 

[NDRock]

As a firefighter, I get to work with cops on a regular basis. The vast majority are good guys/gals. One thing I must say is that they keep us entertained. Their last two Chiefs were fired/demoted for having improper sexual relations. The first got caught having sex in a climate controlled storage unit. The latest one got caught in a car with the wife of another cop (the day after he was sworn in as Chief).

There have been two incidents of cops getting caught in church parking lots having sex. Once, a jogger caught them. The other time, an outdoor camera the church had installed videoed sex that took place on the hood of a patrol car. Several years ago a few cops got busted for providing drugs to local high school girls in exchange for sex. I think they all went to jail for that one. There are more stories and most of them involve the boys and girls in blue being a little too horny.

I will say that police work appears to be very difficult (IMO) and would be the last thing I would ever do. I think one of the issues that happens is that police officers spend a lot of time training for physical confrontations. So when things start to go down, they quickly go to those skills instead of perhaps defusing the situation. Same thing happens in the fire service, you train for fires and guys want to use that training so they start rooting for fires. This mostly occurs with younger FFs. I'm sure this same phenomenon happens in the military as well. Anyway, there are fuck ups in every profession, just look at our past coaches.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

The leaks regarding NSA's mass domestic surveillance are important not because they prove that we're currently living in a totalitarian police state, but because that's the direction things are trending.

Similarly, these videos of police brutality are important not because they're widespread and common, or because the majority of cops are cowboys looking to put someone down, but because we're heading in that direction.

If our collective reaction is to yawn at such violations of civil liberty, the Orwellian nightmare is an inevitability. This brings to mind Hannah Arendt's concept of the "Banality of Evil":

Published in the same year as On Revolution, Arendt's book about the Eichmann trial presents both a continuity with her previous works, but also a change in emphasis that would continue to the end of her life. This work marks a shift in her concerns from the nature of political action, to a concern with the faculties that underpin it - the interrelated activities of thinking and judging.

She controversially uses the phrase "the banality of evil" to characterize Eichmann's actions as a member of the Nazi regime, in particular his role as chief architect and executioner of Hitler's genocidal "final solution" (Endlosung) for the "Jewish problem." Her characterization of these actions, so obscene in their nature and consequences, as "banal" is not meant to position them as workaday. Rather it is meant to contest the prevalent depictions of the Nazi's inexplicable atrocities as having emanated from a malevolent will to do evil, a delight in murder. As far as Arendt could discern, Eichmann came to his willing involvement with the program of genocide through a failure or absence of the faculties of sound thinking and judgement. From Eichmann's trial in Jerusalem (where he had been brought after Israeli agents found him in hiding in Argentina), Arendt concluded that far from exhibiting a malevolent hatred of Jews which could have accounted psychologically for his participation in the Holocaust, Eichmann was an utterly innocuous individual. He operated unthinkingly, following orders, efficiently carrying them out, with no consideration of their effects upon those he targeted. The human dimension of these activities were not entertained, so the extermination of the Jews became indistinguishable from any other bureaucratically assigned and discharged responsibility for Eichmann and his cohorts.

Arendt concluded that Eichmann was constitutively incapable of exercising the kind of judgement that would have made his victims' suffering real or apparent for him. It was not the presence of hatred that enabled Eichmann to perpetrate the genocide, but the absence of the imaginative capacities that would have made the human and moral dimensions of his activities tangible for him. Eichmann failed to exercise his capacity of thinking, of having an internal dialogue with himself, which would have permitted self-awareness of the evil nature of his deeds. This amounted to a failure to use self-reflection as a basis forjudgement, the faculty that would have required Eichmann to exercise his imagination so as to contemplate the nature of his deeds from the experiential standpoint of his victims. This connection between the complicity with political evil and the failure of thinking and judgement inspired the last phase of Arendt's work, which sought to explicate the nature of these faculties and their constitutive role for politically and morally responsible choices.

Point being, it's important to identify and address structural injustice because the majority of people (especially those working in government) are naturally deferential toward the bureaucracies in which they operate. If such bureaucracies happen to dehumanize certain groups of people, or to normalize behavior that would in other contexts be shocking, then incredible atrocity can result because many individuals lack either the moral imagination to empathize with others or the courage to risk their careers by speaking out.

 

[IrishJayhawk]

Absolutely. Personally I'm not looking to be called a good cop, I'm just a cop. However I'm sick to death of people who know absolutely nothing about me nor what I have done in my career as a LEO lumping me into the "bad cop" group just because of the actions of a hand full of dip s***s.

A very fine post.

This is EXACTLY what I think about the people who take the few examples of bad teachers and use it as an excuse to cut teacher job security and pensions.

 

[jerboski]

My job is probably comparably dangerous* to being a cop. No italics.

*When I'm in the field, which is about half the time, obviously not when I'm in the office. Per the link above about "10 most dangerous jobs" construction is #10 and roofing is #4. Cop isn't even on there. For my current repair projects I'm engineering, 3 out of 4 involve some sort of roofing replacement or waterproofing and involve me hanging off buildings at times for inspection.

That list is ridiculous, cops deal with drunks every night and societies worst, hanging off a roof with harnesses and strap doesn't come remotely close to what cops face.... Let's no kid ourselves here lax

 

[IrishJayhawk]

That list is ridiculous, cops deal with drunks every night and societies worst, hanging off a roof with harnesses and strap doesn't come remotely close to what cops face.... Let's no kid ourselves here lax

Construction is very dangerous. I would just argue that it's more predictable than being a cop.

 

[jerboski]

Construction is very dangerous. I would just argue that it's more predictable than being a cop.

Dangerous absolutely but I don't think its anywhere close to a cops job.... Look up some videos of cops getting shot at or some of the fights they get into, I'm sorry but everytime a cop pulls a vehicle over it can turn into a life or death situation, I'll go a step farther when they put on the uniform and begin their shift they have the possibility of a life and death situation..... Construction can't say that, I'm not advocating construction isn't dangerous but firemen and Espicially cops are in a differnt arena

 

[MNIrishman]

Dangerous absolutely but I don't think its anywhere close to a cops job.... Look up some videos of cops getting shot at or some of the fights they get into, I'm sorry but everytime a cop pulls a vehicle over it can turn into a life or death situation, I'll go a step farther when they put on the uniform and begin their shift they have the possibility of a life and death situation..... Construction can't say that, I'm not advocating construction isn't dangerous but firemen and Espicially cops are in a differnt arena

Anecdote and personal experience don't trump statistics. By the same token, I could say look up videos of construction workers getting hit by cars or walls collapsing onto people. I don't have experience with either field, but IS a logical fallacy to assume that anecdote is generalizable.

 

[IrishLax]

That list is ridiculous, cops deal with drunks every night and societies worst, hanging off a roof with harnesses and strap doesn't come remotely close to what cops face.... Let's no kid ourselves here lax

I don't get your point. I'm not grandstanding saying "oh look how dangerous my job is" or anything like that. I was just referencing the list.

The list provided by Huntr simply lists the most dangerous occupations by fatality rate as recorded by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. You cannot argue with those numbers, and it proves that the "dangers" of being a cop are not unique to the job. When you wake up and head to work, you are literally more likely to die going to work on a job site than you are putting on a badge. The numbers are inarguable. It doesn't matter what you think or believe is the case, statistics show being a cop is NOT more dangerous than any of the listed occupations.

 

[jerboski]

I don't get your point. I'm not grandstanding saying "oh look how dangerous my job is" or anything like that. I was just referencing the list.

The list provided by Huntr simply lists the most dangerous occupations by fatality rate as recorded by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. You cannot argue with those numbers, and it proves that the "dangers" of being a cop are not unique to the job. When you wake up and head to work, you are literally more likely to die going to work on a job site than you are putting on a badge. The numbers are inarguable. It doesn't matter what you think or believe is the case, statistics show being a cop is NOT more dangerous than any of the listed occupations.

if fatalities is the only measure then maybe you have an argument however an argument could be made that a cop endures much more emotional and physical stress than construction and I'll also say this, give me an option of doing construction or working a night shift, I'm taking the construction. I would also say construction probably has many more people doing the job which brings up the numbers. You can point to statistics all you want but given a choice which would you think is safer for your son???

 

[IrishLax]

Dangerous absolutely but I don't think its anywhere close to a cops job.... Look up some videos of cops getting shot at or some of the fights they get into, I'm sorry but everytime a cop pulls a vehicle over it can turn into a life or death situation, I'll go a step farther when they put on the uniform and begin their shift they have the possibility of a life and death situation..... Construction can't say that, I'm not advocating construction isn't dangerous but firemen and Espicially cops are in a differnt arena

This is just not correct. Going off LBS data from a couple years ago (first to pop up from Google search, probably still accurate) a roofer is roughly 8x more likely to die than a fireman and 3x more likely to die than a police officer.

 

[IrishLax]

if fatalities is the only measure then maybe you have an argument however an argument could be made that a cop endures much more emotional and physical stress than construction and I'll also say this, give me an option of doing construction or working a night shift, I'm taking the construction.

Sure, but we were discussing "life and death"... if we change the terms, no doubt being a cop is more stressful. I'd bet that cops have more "injuries" too from scuffles and things like that. I do get where you're coming from. Being a cop is dangerous.

But yeah... in terms of "taking your life into your hands" and the other hyperbole people use for cops the facts just do not support it relative to other professions that are more high risk.

I would also say construction probably has many more people doing the job which brings up the numbers. You can point to statistics all you want but given a choice which would you think is safer for your son???

No, the numbers are a fatality rate. It's the number of workers that die per 100,000. So the total number of workers has no effect.

I don't have children but if they asked me for advice on what's safer I'd certainly go with statistics over anecdotes and feelings and let them make their own decision once they have all the information.

 

[NDRock]

This is just not correct. Going off LBS data from a couple years ago (first to pop up from Google search, probably still accurate) a roofer is roughly 8x more likely to die than a fireman and 3x more likely to die than a police officer.

That because most roofers are high while at work.

 

[jerboski]

This is just not correct. Going off LBS data from a couple years ago (first to pop up from Google search, probably still accurate) a roofer is roughly 8x more likely to die than a fireman and 3x more likely to die than a police officer.

Are all construction workers roofers?? My point is all cops face the threat of violence upon entering their shift as well the word being dangerous just being linked to death is absurd. A roofer is more likely to fall to his death however does that statistic include the scenarios where an officer isn't killed but may have been assaulted or in a bad car accident... We go back to the word "dangerous" and what that means if it is just who is more likely to die on shift then your statistic holds weight but to not look at other "dangerous" things an officer encounters is absurd

 

[woolybug25]

This is just not correct. Going off LBS data from a couple years ago (first to pop up from Google search, probably still accurate) a roofer is roughly 8x more likely to die than a fireman and 3x more likely to die than a police officer.

I think what Jerboski is trying to say is that they are put in more situations than construction workers. I would bet that the fatality per dangerous incident rate is significantly higher for construction workers. But policemen are put in dangerous situations every day. They just have the advantages of being armed, having a team , etc that lower the likelihood of their demise.

He's just saying that total fatality rates don't show the entire picture. It doesn't reflect the differences in the amount of positions, frequency of encounters, training for said encounters, etc. It is simply a "how many people die per year" tally. Which probably isn't the end-all statistic in overall danger of a job. Policemen are trained to "not die" and practice techniques for avoiding bodily harm in the dangerous situations they put themselves into. Their incidents are vastly different in scope than the incidents (ie accidents) that cause fatalities in other industries.

 

[kmoose]

This is just not correct. Going off LBS data from a couple years ago (first to pop up from Google search, probably still accurate) a roofer is roughly 8x more likely to die than a fireman and 3x more likely to die than a police officer.

On the job? Or just die? I think, too, that an argument could be made that the police officer faces more danger, each day, than a construction guy. The statistics might simply show that the danger is less often realized on the beat. And that could be because cops are more cautious than other occupations. Just throwing that out there.

 

[jerboski]

I think what Jerboski is trying to say is that they are put in more situations than construction workers. I would bet that the fatality per dangerous incident rate is significantly higher for construction workers. But policemen are put in dangerous situations every day. They just have the advantages of being armed, having a team , etc that lower the likelihood of their demise.

He's just saying that total fatality rates don't show the entire picture. It doesn't reflect the differences in the amount of positions, frequency of encounters, training for said encounters, etc. It is simply a "how many people die per year" tally. Which probably isn't the end-all statistic in overall danger of a job. Policemen are trained to "not die" and practice techniques for avoiding bodily harm in the dangerous situations they put themselves into. Their incidents are vastly different in scope than the incidents (ie accidents) that cause fatalities in other industries.

Thank you, you worded much better than I...

 

[IrishLax]

Are all construction workers roofers?? My point is all cops face the threat of violence upon entering their shift as well the word being dangerous just being linked to death is absurd. A roofer is more likely to fall to his death however does that statistic include the scenarios where an officer isn't killed but may have been assaulted or in a bad car accident... We go back to the word "dangerous" and what that means if it is just who is more likely to die on shift then your statistic holds weight but to not look at other "dangerous" things an officer encounters is absurd

In the discussion before you hopped, we were discussing roofers and construction workers... two separate categories on the list. The post you quoted I specifically mentioned roofing.

And to the bolded... no, that's not true. There are many cops in desk jobs or who patrol low-crime areas that face little to no risk.

I think what Jerboski is trying to say is that they are put in more situations than construction workers. I would bet that the fatality per dangerous incident rate is significantly higher for construction workers. But policemen are put in dangerous situations every day. They just have the advantages of being armed, having a team , etc that lower the likelihood of their demise.

He's just saying that total fatality rates don't show the entire picture. It doesn't reflect the differences in the amount of positions, frequency of encounters, training for said encounters, etc. It is simply a "how many people die per year" tally. Which probably isn't the end-all statistic in overall danger of a job. Policemen are trained to "not die" and practice techniques for avoiding bodily harm in the dangerous situations they put themselves into. Their incidents are vastly different in scope than the incidents (ie accidents) that cause fatalities in other industries.

1) Absolutely. Fatalities is not the whole picture. But we were discussing the idea of life-and-death situations, which is how this all started.

2) I don't understand the second sentence I bolded. Every construction worker receives safety training. Every worker on big jobs goes through a safety briefing every morning before starting work. Every construction worker wears PPE specific to their task. OSHA takes great lengths to ensure that no one works in an unsafe way, and if someone is observed being unsafe fines are issued... as such, there are safety personnel on every job responsible for ensuring that corners aren't cut. So you can't really say that policemen being trained to "not die" is anything different than laborers who also receive instruction+equipment to ensure safety.

 

[jerboski]

In the discussion before you hopped, we were discussing roofers and construction workers... two separate categories on the list. The post you quoted I specifically mentioned roofing.

And to the bolded... no, that's not true. There are many cops in desk jobs or who patrol low-crime areas that face little to no risk.



1) Absolutely. Fatalities is not the whole picture. But we were discussing the idea of life-and-death situations, which is how this all started.

2) I don't understand the second sentence I bolded. Every construction worker receives safety training. Every worker on big jobs goes through a safety briefing every morning before starting work. Every construction worker wears PPE specific to their task. OSHA takes great lengths to ensure that no one works in an unsafe way, and if someone is observed being unsafe fines are issued... as such, there are safety personnel on every job responsible for ensuring that corners aren't cut. So you can't really say that policemen being trained to "not die" is anything different than laborers who also receive instruction+equipment to ensure safety.

We will agree to disagree, I find it hard to believe a roofer has the same training a cop has... A cop has to complete an academy, have some sort of an education, complete and FTO program as well a firearms training, I've seen plenty of roofers with faulty/old equipment up on roofs. I find it hard to believe their training is comparable but I know this will go round and round. My bottom line point is an officer is more likely to face dangerous situations more often than not and the word dangerous shouldn't just be linked to fatality if you cant grasp that then why should we continue this debate.

Also there are plenty of desk cops however every area has a possibility for violence so I don't put much thought in your argument on that point

 

[NDRock]

2) I don't understand the second sentence I bolded. Every construction worker receives safety training. Every worker on big jobs goes through a safety briefing every morning before starting work. Every construction worker wears PPE specific to their task. OSHA takes great lengths to ensure that no one works in an unsafe way, and if someone is observed being unsafe fines are issued... as such, there are safety personnel on every job responsible for ensuring that corners aren't cut. So you can't really say that policemen being trained to "not die" is anything different than laborers who also receive instruction+equipment to ensure safety.

That may be true on commercial sites but not even close for residential. At least on the job sites I have been on. Almost laughable what I have seen, nowhere near what you described here. Again, I'm sure commercial is different.

 

[IrishLax]

On the job? Or just die? I think, too, that an argument could be made that the police officer faces more danger, each day, than a construction guy. The statistics might simply show that the danger is less often realized on the beat. And that could be because cops are more cautious than other occupations. Just throwing that out there.

I think it's tricky because the types of danger are almost polar opposites.

With cops the job is apparent. You perform a traffic stop, you know XYZ are dangerous possibilities. You go out on patrol in a bad area, you know someone could pull a gun on you. The danger is by design because it's part of your job description to respond to dangerous situations like robberies/shots fired/drug activity/etc.

With construction the danger is latent. Someone drops a bucket off a crane and a worker gets flattened. A harness breaks and someone plummets to their death. Someone strips forms and shores too quickly and a building collapses. The danger is because something went wrong and the steps taken to remove all danger from the job description failed.

I think it says a lot about threats you expect vs don't expect that the professions where something can "go wrong" have the higher fatality rates, and the ones where you know a situation is dangerous have higher non-fatal injury rates.

 

[IrishLax]

That may be true on commercial sites but not even close for residential. At least on the job sites I have been on. Almost laughable what I have seen, nowhere near what you described here. Again, I'm sure commercial is different.

Yeah I don't do residential (well, I do some large multi-family dwellings but that's usually considered "commercial"). On Government projects safety is insane... way over the top and actually hinders work. On commercial jobs it's all by-the-book to not get sued/fined.

 

[woolybug25]

2) I don't understand the second sentence I bolded. Every construction worker receives safety training. Every worker on big jobs goes through a safety briefing every morning before starting work. Every construction worker wears PPE specific to their task. OSHA takes great lengths to ensure that no one works in an unsafe way, and if someone is observed being unsafe fines are issued... as such, there are safety personnel on every job responsible for ensuring that corners aren't cut. So you can't really say that policemen being trained to "not die" is anything different than laborers who also receive instruction+equipment to ensure safety.

They receive safety training, yes. But their danger scenarios come specifically from accidents. Policemen not only have to deal with accidents, but also the day to day dangers of the interactions they have to put themselves into. Like breaking up fights, arresting armed criminals, arresting aggressive people under the influence, etc.

The training "not to die" is regarding the training they receive on how to mitigate dangerous situations where the risk of bodily harm isn't coming from the same place as the dangers on a construction site. The latter is more likely caused by accidents stemming from failure of equipment, not paying attention, using heavy equipment, etc. The incidents policemen face are ones where they know of the inherent danger beforehand. Many police officer deaths aren't caused by an accident, but rather by the wrong outcome of a situation the police officer knew was possible, ie getting shot by a suspect.

There is a significant difference between the training a police officer goes through in order to protect himself and others while in the midst of an already dangerous situation, than the training a construction worker goes through to make them precatious of falling off a ladder or getting crushed by a backhoe. One is preventing an accident and the other is managing the inherent danger of the job. Apples and Oranges, imo.

 

[IrishinSyria]

In the discussion before you hopped, we were discussing roofers and construction workers... two separate categories on the list. The post you quoted I specifically mentioned roofing.

And to the bolded... no, that's not true. There are many cops in desk jobs or who patrol low-crime areas that face little to no risk.

Right, but that just shows that those stats aren't really useful. Just because working the desk isn't dangerous doesn't mean that certain police functions aren't. These cases aren't happening during mundane daily police work- there usually situations that start out somewhat dangerous and then get escalated. Apples to oranges...

 

[GoIrish41]

That because most roofers are high while at work.

I see what you did there.

 

[GoIrish41]

Both police and construction workers accepted the risk of their chosen profession. They both knew that when the took their jobs. It makes little difference how dangerous they are relative to one another, or not. It does not excuse the excessive behavior of a cop does it? It certainly wouldn't for the construction worker ... Least not in the cop's eyes. There is no carpenter's code that they live by but there appears to be a cop's code to use their positions to protect their own. This is what enables them to needlessly escalate these situations. I would guess that significantly contributes to the danger of their job.

 

[kmoose]

Both police and construction workers accepted the risk of their chosen profession. They both knew that when the took their jobs. It makes little difference how dangerous they are relative to one another, or not. It does not excuse the excessive behavior of a cop does it? It certainly wouldn't for the construction worker ... Least not in the cop's eyes. There is no carpenter's code that they live by but there appears to be a cop's code to use their positions to protect their own. This is what enables them to needlessly escalate these situations. I would guess that significantly contributes to the danger of their job.

This cop screwed up big time. And he is (probably) rightly going to see jail time for it. But I don't think this appears to be a case of a cop with an attitude shooting a guy for not listening to him. Nothing in his demeanor during the dash cam video of the traffic stop would indicate that he had a short fuse.

I still wonder why there is not a deeper "investigation" into the training that these LEOs receive, and whether or not the training is creating these issues. But I guess most nature vs. nurture arguments just end up being circular...

 

[GoIrish41]

This cop screwed up big time. And he is (probably) rightly going to see jail time for it. But I don't think this appears to be a case of a cop with an attitude shooting a guy for not listening to him. Nothing in his demeanor during the dash cam video of the traffic stop would indicate that he had a short fuse.

I still wonder why there is not a deeper "investigation" into the training that these LEOs receive, and whether or not the training is creating these issues. But I guess most nature vs. nurture arguments just end up being circular...

I am not talking about this incident only so I was glad to see you talk about the training. I agree that s a likely contributor to the problem. But the looking the other way thing is I believe a larger issue.

 

[Redbar]

I think we all should keep this in mind, and it doesn't matter if the issue is drug laws or where your dog is allowed to take a shit:

the more laws we pass, the more law enforcement we're going to need. Every day I become a little more libertarian.

Sorry to derail from the, which job is more dangerous discussion, but Leppy finally said something I agree with although I disagree with his conclusion. The issue is that man's laws are essentially controls, and controls require enforcement. We all say we want order but controls, policing, surveillance will never lead to order. They can and are only leading to chaos. Freedom and the understanding of Natural Law Principles are the only conditions that can lead to order. The belief that a group has the authority to enact laws over an individual's inherently, universally granted, God given rights, and then the claim to force compliance to these constructs under duress is the principle problem. The solution is not a political one, regardless of party, the problem is a moral one and will require each of us to begin to think and behave in accordance with Natural Law Principles. We are a long way from Freedom, as Lax and Whiskey said we are moving in the wrong direction, but it is not out of the realm of possibility that we can one day see the Truth of our existence and get rid of all of these constructs that enslave us. As long as we allow institutions to exercise powers that we as individuals don't have (and therefore don't have the authority to give to them) and confuse and lose sight of the Principle, for the law (lower case l) we will continue to be dominated by the institutions we have created. They will dominate the weakest first but eventually as technology and apathy allow they will dominate us all.

 

[Huntr]

No, really, YOU NEVER KNOW if a black woman with a car full of kids you stopped for driving 58 in a 55 is gonna murder you by the side of the road.


Except, they evidently don't.