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Mark McKay
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Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 2239
Posted: 09 June 2020 at 7:31am | IP Logged | 1 post reply

I am all in on ways of restructuring the policing system from the ground up, but there is definitely a component of Defund the Police that wants to abolish the police force. Here in Minneapolis, that is how it’s being interpreted.

Mayor Frey is a pretty liberal guy by most people’s standards, but look at how this played out:


I understand there is so much pain and need for change, but I fear we’re entering into an irrational phase here, and it’ll get in in the way of needed reform.
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Vinny Valenti
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Joined: 17 April 2004
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Posted: 09 June 2020 at 8:18am | IP Logged | 2 post reply

^ And again, it runs the risk of handing Trump another victory if the message gets out of hand.
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David Allen Perrin
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Joined: 15 April 2009
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Posted: 09 June 2020 at 8:31am | IP Logged | 3 post reply

“As long as every police officer knows that anyone they stop for any reason can potentially pull a gun and shoot them, there is going to be overreaction.”

Except for times like this.... 


When the cops shoot you while you are LAYING ON THE GROUND WITH YOUR HANDS UP......something is really...really wrong.  


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James Johnson
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Joined: 16 March 2009
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Posted: 09 June 2020 at 8:39am | IP Logged | 4 post reply

When police unions have more power than most municipalities,  there is a problem. 

A very big problem. 
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John Byrne

Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132132
Posted: 09 June 2020 at 8:41am | IP Logged | 5 post reply

When the cops shoot you while you are LAYING ON THE GROUND WITH YOUR HANDS UP......something is really...really wrong.

••

Agreed. But that in no way alters my point. This is a flawed system, and within that flawed system bad things happen.

There are, according to what I could find on Google, 10,000,000 arrests every year in this country. That horrors like this are not perpetrated even MORE often is a testament to those who are doing their job properly. The good cops. We should not allow them to be swept away with the garbage.

(It is unfortunately representative of the problem that we even need the term "good cop".)

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Peter Hicks
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Joined: 30 April 2004
Location: Canada
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Posted: 09 June 2020 at 9:29am | IP Logged | 6 post reply

Unfortunately, the good cops are silent about the bad cops. They always want to feel that if they do something questionable one day, the Blue Wall of Silence will work for them too. And so the violent and racist cops (which are a minority) remain on the job. Police unions negotiate contracts that make it nearly impossible to ever fire a cop no matter how bad the performance is. The situation would be a lot better if the public and the police understood that the worst 1% would get fired each year. That is the way most work places operate, and is required to make people embrace that incompetence will not be tolerated.
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Andy Mokler
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Joined: 20 January 2006
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Posted: 09 June 2020 at 9:52am | IP Logged | 7 post reply

I'm assuming that he was trying to say that more white men are killed by cops. Which is true by virtue of them making up a larger share of the population. But that's not the same thing as saying that white men are more likely to be killed than black men.

The most recent stats I can find:
2018 Violent Crimes
Whites - 288,620.  Shot to death by police - 399 = .0014%
Blacks - 187,420.  Shot to death by police - 209 = .0011%

Statistically, that's 21.5% more likely whites are shot than blacks.



I can only assume that shooting deaths are most often related to violent crimes but they don't seem to categorize that number.
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Andy Mokler
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Posted: 09 June 2020 at 10:00am | IP Logged | 8 post reply

Agreed. But that in no way alters my point. This is a flawed system, and within that flawed system bad things happen.

There are, according to what I could find on Google, 10,000,000 arrests every year in this country. That horrors like this are not perpetrated even MORE often is a testament to those who are doing their job properly. The good cops. We should not allow them to be swept away with the garbage.

(It is unfortunately representative of the problem that we even need the term "good cop".)

I also pointed this out in one of the threads that was talking about police shootings.  The one with the Washington Post tracker I believe.  It's pretty consistent over the course of the last 5 years.  Just under 1,000 fatal shootings each year.  Out of 10,000,000 arrests, that's .0001 % of arrests ending in a fatal shooting.  

Maybe that's too much?  I don't know.  It seems like a pretty small percentage out of the number of arrests.  Is there an acceptable % or total?  Should no criminal ever be shot?  If zero isn't a realistic number, what number should we strive toward?

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Eric Sofer
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Joined: 31 January 2014
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Posted: 09 June 2020 at 10:13am | IP Logged | 9 post reply

Miss Jansen: "Is there some white man saying hey, my opinion about black or women's experiences is important..."

I think it could be. I feel my opinion is pretty important; I believe in equal rights, fair treatment, and the same justice for anyone. I've spoken about it and while I could do more to support it, I've done a little in my time.

Call me a bigot, but I believe it should be about the issue and not the nature of the subject/victim. Black lives do matter. Harassment has run rampant for far too long. There's no place for either in today's society, or as we step into the future.

Andy Mokler: "If there are truly hundreds or thousands of examples of innocent bystanders being targeted and harassed and abused by the police, I haven't seen them."

Watch the news over the last two weeks. Or the last year. Or the last two hundred and fifty years. A history book might help. Or the nightly news. On the assumption that innocent bystanders include American Indians, Jews, Italians, "hillbillies", Germans, and especially Blacks - you have to be blind to NOT see it. And that's CENTURIES of occurrences. CENTURIES!

Andy Mokler again: "Black on black crime.  Fatherless homes.  Crime.  Drugs.  All of these things are much bigger problems than a supposed systemic problem with the police specifically targeting blacks"

These are not independent events. They can ALL be occurring. A house fire can occur in the north part of town while two policemen have stopped and searched a black pedestrian, and now have their guns drawn and cocked because he jaywalked. There are bigger problems and lesser problems, and they vary at different times. Drug abuse is indeed a horrible affair - but it's hard to focus on that when one is targeted by three magnum guns.

Mr. Byrne: " As long as every police officer knows that anyone they stop for any reason can potentially pull a gun and shoot them, there is going to be overreaction."

Or if I might quote to you sir: With great power, there must also come... great responsibility.

"Defund" may be too vague a term. I still believe that adjusting the law forces is the solution, not just taking away funding.

Police forces are being overtasked, beyond a doubt. Perhaps the solution is a change to responses from calls in. "A man with guns ran into an abandoned factory" - send a SWAT team. "A family thought they heard someone break into their house" - send a police team. "A homeless woman is running around Main Street, screaming and obviously in pain" - send a medical unit (perhaps trained with non-lethal weapons.) It may be time to start sending the right group for the right problem, instead of laying everything at the police's feet.

And again... this problem is dirty cops. Fix that and the problem is addressed considerably (but not totally... we all have a lot of learning and growing to do also.)




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Eric Ladd
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Joined: 16 August 2004
Location: Canada
Posts: 4506
Posted: 09 June 2020 at 10:16am | IP Logged | 10 post reply

It is all in how you interpret the data. If you look at the data per capita then black people are killed three times more than whites.

Mapping Police Violence

Edited by Eric Ladd on 09 June 2020 at 10:21am
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Eric Sofer
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Joined: 31 January 2014
Location: United States
Posts: 4789
Posted: 09 June 2020 at 10:26am | IP Logged | 11 post reply

Eric L. - entirely germane to the discussion.

And yet, I see a bigger one. We should not have enough data to note how many people are killed by police. There should be so few deaths that - tragic as they are - they are too minimal to track any data from them.
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Kevin Brown
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Joined: 31 May 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 8838
Posted: 09 June 2020 at 11:14am | IP Logged | 12 post reply

Defunding the police?  No.  Major reforms?  Yes.
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