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An Anonymous Coward writes:
Camden, New Jersey is a very low income neighborhood. According to this NY Times article, until recently it had typical low income policing--heavy on corruption and violence and low on compassion.
But now they have a new chief and things have changed --
"Handing a $250 ticket to someone who is making $13,000 a year" — around the per capita income in the city — "can be life altering," Chief Thomson said in an interview last year, noting that it can make car insurance unaffordable or result in the loss of a driver's license. "Taxing a poor community is not going to make it stronger."
Handling more vehicle stops with a warning, rather than a ticket, is one element of Chief Thomson's new approach, which, for lack of another name, might be called the Hippocratic ethos of policing: Minimize harm, and try to save lives.
Officers are trained to hold their fire when possible, especially when confronting people wielding knives and showing signs of mental illness, and to engage them in conversation when commands of "drop the knife" don't work. This sometimes requires backing up to a safer distance. Or relying on patience rather than anything on an officer's gun belt.
While not out of the woods yet, it sounds like there is hope for Camden and maybe it won't just continue to be written off as a war zone.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Grishnakh on Monday April 03 2017, @08:33PM (2 children)
Telling cops to hold their fire when possible (esp. when people seem to be mentally ill)? Avoiding giving huge tickets to people making $13k/year? Telling cops to be more patient? This is totally unAmerican!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 03 2017, @09:40PM
Here's what it looked like in Camden in August 2012, lots of rack and ruin photos, and very few people out on the streets,
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2184246/Americas-dangerous-city-Camden-New-Jersey-39-people-murdered-year.html [dailymail.co.uk]
Probably doesn't look any better now, but if the NY Times story is correct and they are turning the tide on violence...then some of the surviving industrial buildings look like they would make great (and currently very cheap) artist lofts or maker spaces.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 03 2017, @09:44PM
And an update from 2015 when Obama visited and spoke about limiting sales of surplus military equipment to police forces,
https://newsone.com/3115808/camden-nj-america-poorest-city-obama-police-initiative/ [newsone.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 03 2017, @08:33PM
VIOLENCE IS OUT OF CONTROL IN *****URBAN***** NEIGHBORHOODS!!!!! MORAL DECLINE, MEXICANS, DRUG GANGS, ETC.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111111111
Brains' gonna splode over this. On your head be it, Mr. Ex-Chief Thomson.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by edIII on Monday April 03 2017, @08:37PM (20 children)
I'm glad it's April 3rd. This is certainly a start on the road back to Mayberry. Treating people with compassion and empathy, plus engaging in communication is the way to heal the relationship between the police and the community. Previously it had been cops running around like scared pussies gunning down teenage boys in the back. This is certainly a different paradigm being put forth.
Not treating tickets as an income stream, but evaluating how they truly impact the community is also a cause for enthusiasm here.
Somebody needs to send this chief a Hallmark card.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 03 2017, @08:55PM (2 children)
But wheeeere's the personal responsibility? You are just encouraging the criminals.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 03 2017, @10:01PM
I think they just staple it to their bootstraps which kills two poor people with one stone!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 03 2017, @10:27PM
But wheeeere's the personal responsibility?
Republicans got this!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 03 2017, @09:50PM (13 children)
This isn't inherently wrong. Suppose the person escapes, then goes on to kill and rape and maim and torture. Cops are hired because we want that shit stopped. Back, front, side... it doesn't matter where the bullets go.
It is good to be less trigger-happy. It is good to make a strong attempt to have people face trial in a courthouse. It is good to have accountability for shootings, generally including video. It is good to try to talk people into surrendering. It is good to wait, relying on hunger and sleepiness instead of going in with flash-bang grenades and M-4 rifles.
That said, running from the cops means you welcome getting shot. We pay the cops to do that. It's all on you when it happens -- you made the choice to run while suspected of a crime. Fortunately, those who get shot are almost never fine upstanding citizens with bright futures. Some people need killing.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 03 2017, @09:59PM (5 children)
What planet are you from?
Running at someone pointing a gun suggests that you want to get shot. Running away from someone pointing a gun suggests that you don't want to be shot.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04 2017, @12:07AM (4 children)
Any response other than freezing in place and obeying orders: yes, you are willing to get shot.
Running toward the cop is obvious. You're trying to kill him. You need to die ASAP.
Running away means that you prefer to be out on the streets committing crimes. Jail would limit you to hurting cellmates and the occasional distracted guard, so you run from the cop. Your decision is to evade justice so that you can keep hurting people. You need to die ASAP.
Either way, you are making a decision. You'd rather be shot than be peacefully arrested. As long as the cop fairly dishes it out, your death is a benefit to society.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Justin Case on Tuesday April 04 2017, @12:15AM (3 children)
Running away [from a cop] means ... You need to die ASAP.
Only in a mythical world where cops are always good guys.
As long as the cop fairly dishes it out
And that's a hell of a stretch for your high-and-mighty life-or-death pronouncements.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04 2017, @12:51AM (1 child)
Yes indeed, there are bad cops. There are really bad ones and regular bad ones.
Still, you need to freeze and then obey orders. Anything else is incredibly stupid. This is your life, not a video game. You have a choice...
Fight or run: You will likely get hurt very badly, if not killed.
Surrender: Minor bruises would be unsurprising. Death is extremely rare. Many people are totally unhurt. Sometimes you even get to go free.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04 2017, @01:47AM
Still, you need to freeze and then obey orders.
If you're black, as a bonus, you get shot anyway.
Last year a guy who sits by me got oddly bent out of shape about one person who was doing just that, but the cops gunned down him down anyway.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04 2017, @05:27AM
It's a hell of a thing killing a man. You take away all he's got and all he's ever gonna have. [youtu.be] (Unforgiven, 1992)
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 03 2017, @10:30PM (2 children)
> Suppose the person escapes, then goes on to kill and rape and maim and torture
Maybe I ought to shoot you, just in case you might go on to kill and rape.
Unless he's already tried to kill and rape then shooting him as he flees is a totally disproportionate escalation of force.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04 2017, @12:12AM (1 child)
Running from a cop is about as dumb as it gets... unless you're already going down for decades in prison because of your crimes.
The cop can and should assume that you are running due to a horrific felony. (Why else would you run?) Since you have committed a horrific felony and are trying to escape, the cop has every right to shoot you.
Not guilty of that? Don't run. It's that simple. Everybody knows this.
(Score: 4, Informative) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Tuesday April 04 2017, @04:35AM
...Since you have committed a horrific felony and are trying to escape, the cop has every right to shoot you...
What an inconveniently large consignment of bovine excrement.
I would have included a reference to Judge Dredd, except that someone else beat me to it.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 03 2017, @10:51PM (2 children)
Holey Shit! We got Pres. Dueterte posting as AC right here in river city! Extrajudicial killings are the way to go! Maybe if we integrated the police and the courts, and just called the cops "Judge", like in "Judge Dredd". . . . oh, been done already? How'd it work out?
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04 2017, @01:00AM (1 child)
As bad as they are, the US courts are more-or-less working. This is because the US is a wealthy country with low crime -- yes really.
Dueterte doesn't have that kind of luxury. In a nation that faces poverty and high crime, such niceties go out the window. You have to get shit done, sometimes in a very ugly way. Life is cheap in these places. Someday, perhaps as a result of brutally fighting crime, there may be an ability to be kind and gentle. Until then, you do what you must.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04 2017, @01:53AM
Ah yes, drug crime.
"Drugs," the magic word that makes violence against innocents acceptable.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04 2017, @04:08PM
No, it doesn't, you blithering fool! There are any number of reasons why someone might decide that running from the cops was the best (i.e., the least-bad) option.
I, for one, object to cops shooting people in the back while they are running away. In fact, back in the day, it was considered the type of thing that only a low-life would do. But that was back in the day when people cared about things like honour. My, how times have changed!
Yes, indeed, some people do need killing. In fact, I think I might have just spotted someone who needs killing. Care to guess who that might be?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Monday April 03 2017, @10:11PM (2 children)
a start on the road back to Mayberry
Lovely turn of phrase. Can I borrow it sometimes?
Treating people with compassion and empathy, plus engaging in communication... Not treating tickets as an income stream, but evaluating how they truly impact the community
AKA "policing as it should be done". Not just hope for Camden, but for everybody.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday April 04 2017, @03:53AM (1 child)
Sure, borrow it anytime.
Yes, it does give hope for policing done sanely in the U.S
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Tuesday April 04 2017, @04:40AM
it does give hope for policing done sanely in the U.S
And on this side of the pond - some of ours are OK, but a lot need to return to people school.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by ollonk on Monday April 03 2017, @08:56PM (18 children)
Thanks for submitting something positive. It's nice to see something about government that isn't divisive or sad.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 03 2017, @09:02PM (13 children)
When I read this, I thought to myself: Those who depend on a violently imposed monopoly must hope and pray for a Dear Leader who is benevolent.
The solutions put in place here will be as transient as the police chief; it would be better to implement the "policing" service with competing service providers within a market of voluntary trade—that would be a true separation of powers.
Fine, fine. Let the "legislators" stroke their egos by allowing them to write the "policing" standards, certification process, etc. But in time, people will see that there's no need for their monopoly on "law" either.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 03 2017, @09:05PM
Will we all get a pony too?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Joe Desertrat on Monday April 03 2017, @09:21PM (11 children)
it would be better to implement the "policing" service with competing service providers within a market of voluntary trade—that would be a true separation of powers.
As soon as you privatize government services, profit becomes the ruling guideline, not service.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday April 03 2017, @09:49PM (7 children)
I'm looking forward to private police forces fighting over who gets to arrest me, as it will decide which private prison I get sent to, and therefore their bonus check...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04 2017, @12:10AM (6 children)
I have no idea what a functioning market for "policing" would actually look like; I imagine it would be surprising to both of us—as is often the case for evolutionary solutions to complex problems.
Nevertheless, your scenario indicates that it would be in the interest of competing organizations to establish contractual agreements and protocols, including robust data-collection with regard to policing actions. That might make policing a lot more transparent, and the need to justify actions might temper brutality.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday April 04 2017, @12:30AM (5 children)
Fuck no. You need a major clue brick to the forehead, whether you're a highly persistent troll or actually fundamentally delusional!
If private prisons paying^W bribing^W offering campaign contributions to judges who send the most people to the slammer isn't enough of a lesson to you, I don't know what will teach you.
Now instead of three city cop cars trying to maintain the peace, you want three private cop cars trying to cover their expenses by arresting or fining anyone they can find in the vicinity? Why would a private cop ever let someone off with a warning?
The ideal societal Demand for policing service is ZERO. Where's the market incentive for private competition to drive towards that goal?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04 2017, @01:57AM
Oh don't worry about him. He breathed a few too many chemtrails during the weather war.
He'll find something else to post about in good time as he always does.
Weather war was my favorite. Hopefully he'll do ancient aliens next and tie it in with the Anunnaki.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday April 04 2017, @02:41AM (2 children)
We've already tried the private police force route. We called it the local mob. Protection for a price.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 4, Informative) by dry on Tuesday April 04 2017, @06:09AM (1 child)
Need to go back further to the era of the Pinkerton Private Security Agency. Out numbered the US army at one point.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday April 04 2017, @07:59AM
Yeah, I was thinking of that too, but they were soon joined by others who followed a different, uh, business ethic.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 4, Informative) by NotSanguine on Tuesday April 04 2017, @05:32AM
If private prisons paying^W bribing^W offering campaign contributions to judges who send the most people to the slammer isn't enough of a lesson to you, I don't know what will teach you.
And in case you don't know what Bob is talking about, This is what you get when you privatize the criminal justice system. [wikipedia.org]
There are other examples, but this one is particularly horrendous.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04 2017, @12:04AM (2 children)
... is if you stole the money from me to pay for it... which is what you do.
In other words, what could you possibly be saying? Certainly, the current system doesn't place "service" as the ruling guideline; that "service" is total trash.
Here's a thought: There is no such thing as a service which isn't profit-driven.
Profit is the only reason any action ever happens—it just so happens that there are very many forms of "profit" (for instance, establishing a safe place to live is an example of profit, provided that the costs of doing so don't outweigh the benefits). So, achieving good "policing" is a matter of establishing the correct incentives; why, oh, why would you ever expect to be able to establish the correct incentives when your solution depends upon a violently imposed monopoly?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04 2017, @03:21AM
I got your "violently imposed monopoly" right here, moron.
(Score: 3, Touché) by NotSanguine on Tuesday April 04 2017, @05:46AM
... is if you stole the money from me to pay for it... which is what you do.
Don't like it? There are a bunch of places that don't have, as you put it, "violently imposed monopolies" (which is disingenous at best). Places like Somalia, the Pakistan/Afghanistan borderlands and the high seas, to name a few.
Why don't you go to one of those places and live out your fantasy?
There are no "violently imposed monopolies" in those places. There's just a whole raft of violent factions. Why don't you negotiate some detailed, fine-grained contracts with them. I'm sure that would work out swimmingly.
The best part is that I wouldn't need to see you posting the same thing over and over and over again.
As Oliver Wendell Holmes put it:
The more you post your unrealistic (and mostly untenable) pipe dreams, the more I wonder if you're one of these whack jobs [wikipedia.org].
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 03 2017, @09:07PM (2 children)
Positive?? You don't seem to realize approximately 50% of the country sees this as the epitome of all that's wrong with America.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 03 2017, @10:59PM (1 child)
The other 48 percent sees it as what's right.
That 4 percent left over is 1 percent ruling class, 2 percent IDGAF, 0.9 percent stoners, and 0.1 percent suitcase packers :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04 2017, @09:00PM
The other 48 percent sees it as what's right.
That 4 percent left over is 1 percent ruling class, 2 percent IDGAF, 0.9 percent stoners, and 0.1 percent suitcase packers :)
That adds up to 102%, friend. I'm glad you decided to include all the illegals who voted for Hillary Clinton!
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Tuesday April 04 2017, @02:26AM
Shame about the AC comments to this story though.
(Score: 2) by Celestial on Monday April 03 2017, @08:59PM
"Philadelphia merely seems dull because it's next to exciting Camden, New Jersey." - Robert Anton Wilson
(Score: 1) by mechanicjay on Monday April 03 2017, @09:04PM
As a NJ native, it would be good to see Camden be something other than a war-zone. Of course, it's been regarded as such for the entirety of my now 35 year long life. Don't let the nicely manicured route to the State Aquarium fool you -- One or two blocks off the route and it's an eye opening experience as to what happens when a every aspect of governance fails in a city. For some reason, other no-go zones from the 80's in Jersey, like parts of Newark and even Paterson have managed to kinda turn things around -- I guess people cared enough to do the work to get there. Camden is like a city of lost souls.
My VMS box beat up your Windows box.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Entropy on Monday April 03 2017, @09:07PM (27 children)
Because a sane person with a knife is more dangerous than a crazy person? Seriously? How about deal with your own knife-wielding crazy person relative, and don't call the cops--if you do call the cops don't whine when the knife wielding crazy person gets shot.
As to tickets, speeding fines should pretty much be abolished.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 03 2017, @09:28PM (2 children)
Because a sane person with a knife is more dangerous than a crazy person? Seriously? How about deal with your own knife-wielding crazy person relative, and don't call the cops--if you do call the cops don't whine when the knife wielding crazy person gets shot.
As to tickets, speeding fines should pretty much be abolished.
As with everything it depends on the person. Some mentally ill people can be really dangerous (I've seen it) depending on the nature of their psychosis, however, most I suspect are very confused (much more common in my experience). A mentally ill person might be really paranoid and carrying the knife simply to defend themselves (against ninjas, aliens, unicorns, or whatever). If an officer can recognize that the person's perceptions are wonky, they can try to convince the person that they are on their side, and then get them the help they need. The truth is that most mentally ill people are more of a danger to themselves than anyone else.
(Note: I am a survivor of major mental illness)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 03 2017, @10:32PM
I just watched a movie about exactly that: Man Down (2015) [imdb.com] with Shia LaBeouf, Jay Courtney and Gary Oldman.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 03 2017, @11:19PM
This begs the question: so what do we do about this Entropy user?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bob_super on Monday April 03 2017, @09:52PM (17 children)
> As to tickets, speeding fines should pretty much be abolished.
You do need incentives for people to respect the rules. If you abolish the fines, you have to abolish the "limit".
But fines should be like in Northern Europe, proportional to your income (or at least the value of your car). We have the tech.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 03 2017, @10:03PM (4 children)
Fines based on income of the accused would make sense. That's why we won't ever see it in America. We never want any sense in our laws. Senseless laws are easier to write and to exploit.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Monday April 03 2017, @10:18PM (2 children)
While computers could safely compute your fine without telling the cops exactly how much you make, I like the simpler idea of traffic fines based on your vehicle value (which most states compute already yearly for your license plate renewal).
If you have a car way above your income level, and use it like an idiot, you probably deserve a bigger fine than your neighbor driving a junker. This way, you always have the option of selling the car to pay your XL fine, and buy a cheaper one.
It's less fair than income-based, because very rich people only care about income-based fines.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by mhajicek on Monday April 03 2017, @10:54PM (1 child)
Personally I think moving violations should be proportional to your vehicle's mass, since your potential for causing damage is already. But yes, any fine which is not made proportional to a person's financial status is discriminatory.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 4, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Tuesday April 04 2017, @02:49AM
And velocity -- the energy imparted in any crash is a function of both mass and velocity.
For example, a 440 pound motorcycle going 150 mph, has about 449 kJ of kinetic energy. A 2200 pound car going 67 mph has 447 kJ.
https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/kinetic-energy [omnicalculator.com]
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday April 04 2017, @05:14AM
Fines based on income of the accused would make sense. That's why we won't ever see it in America. We never want any sense in our laws. Senseless laws are easier to write and to exploit.
Sadly, this one never gets old:
--Anatole France
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Monday April 03 2017, @10:18PM (8 children)
If you abolish the fines, you have to abolish the "limit".
There's no problem with that, if the "limit" is inappropriate. Which happens when legislators pull numbers out of their arses. There are ways of setting "limits" (actually "guidelines" is a better word if you're trying to minimise the road incident rate) but they're avoided because they reduce the appearance of legislators' omniscience.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Monday April 03 2017, @10:52PM (6 children)
In Canada, if the "limit" is printed on a orange sign (instead of a white one), it is merely a guideline.
Often used for poorly banked or narrow sections of road.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday April 04 2017, @12:09AM
In Europe, the round red sign with black-on-white number in the middle is a strict limit.
Anything advisory is white or blue or yellow, usually in a square.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04 2017, @01:52AM
The more you know.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Tuesday April 04 2017, @04:49AM (3 children)
In Canada, if the "limit" is printed on a orange sign (instead of a white one), it is merely a guideline.
Same here in Oz (yellow-orange). I'm suggesting maybe we should scrap the white ones altogether since they're just being used as revenue raisers (at least over here) and the connection between speed limit and safety depends an awful lot on conditions (weather, traffic density etc).
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by darnkitten on Tuesday April 04 2017, @05:21PM (2 children)
Here in my state (US), we tried "reasonable and prudent" for a highway speed limit, twice. Both times, the legislature bowed to outside pressure and replaced it with numerical limits.
The first numerical limit was imposed under the threat of the withholding of federal highway funds, so the legislature "enforced" the limit with a US$5 fine, which could be paid to the ticketing officer on the spot. Motorists would often keep a few fivers in the glove box, just in case.
The second limit was instated after the state's restoration of "reasonable and prudent" was roundly mocked on late-night talk shows, especially after a noted racer sped across the state, and successfully argued that, due to his experience and skills, he was within the "reasonable and prudent" limits. Now our limits and fines are in line with surrounding states.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Tuesday April 04 2017, @10:13PM (1 child)
Here in my state (US), we tried "reasonable and prudent" for a highway speed limit, twice. Both times, the legislature bowed to outside pressure and replaced it with numerical limits.
Were the "reasonable and prudent" times long enough to get any meaningful incident rate data?
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by darnkitten on Friday April 07 2017, @02:22AM
Sorry it took so long to respond--its been a busy week.
"Reasonable and prudent" [missoulian.com] was in place until 1974, and then for 5 years from 1995-99, and traffic fatalities went down [motorists.org] during the latter period; however, statistics at the time weren't fine-grained enough [missoulian.com] to definitively show that the policy was responsible. [mediatrackers.org]
I haven't been able to find statistics prior to 1978 online, and none of the stories I've seen about the policy talk about the period before 1974, so I can't tell you the effect of the first "reasonable and prudent" period.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04 2017, @04:42AM
Like the street that is 45 mph for its entire run through the various cities, except for 600 feet. For that stretch, which makes up its entire portion through a particular city, it is 25. Not hard to figure out where the city gets a full 20% of its revenue.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday April 04 2017, @12:11PM (2 children)
Even the car value doesn't work in the frozen north "many" people have a beater pickup truck with a snow blade on it and at least half have all the legal and insurance stuff and a speeding ticket for 1/50th the cost of their vehicle would be like $20.
If your goal is changing behavior, people speed to "save time" so the logical punishment is wasting their time in community service. Go work at the recycling center on Saturday and we'll see how much time you "saved".
Another interesting way to F with speeders "saving time" is to stop giving tickets and let them drive away in a couple minutes, instead haul them down to jail for a couple hours until a judge charges them and releases them. I'm not saying make speeding a federal felony level of punishment but simply let the wheels of justice grind slowly as they usually do. Oh you're in a big hurry? Try hurrying from jail for a couple hours.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday April 04 2017, @04:45PM
Let's not waste too much cop time either...
I see your community service and I raise you a "stand at the edge of the exact road you were speeding on, for two hours for every extra 5 mph, holding a big sign that says "don't hit me, like you, I was only speeding"". Might teach a few people a good lesson.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday April 05 2017, @12:00PM
I don't do it to save time; I do it because it converts driving from a chore into entertainment! A fine usually changes my behavior for a couple months, because I could have bought a half dozen video games for that money. Community service would be a win/win as far as I'm concerned: no fine plus a free warm fuzzy feeling! ;)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by sjames on Tuesday April 04 2017, @02:36AM (5 children)
The police are supposed to be professionals trained to deal with mentally ill people who have a weapon. Most people do not have that training and probably don't have the sort of less lethal weapons that will control a mentally ill person in mid-freakout.
If police just go around killing people, they will come to be treated as an under-powered occupying force. That would be unfortunate for the cops and then the community.
(Score: 2) by Entropy on Tuesday April 04 2017, @03:55PM (4 children)
They are. They receive quite a bit of firearms training. You can try to cuddle a crazy knife wielding maniac from far away, via a loud speaker..But if they come close it's time to end it. Someone can close the distance and start stabbing with a knife in a disturbingly short time, and people don't just "switch off" when they are shot.
21 feet and you're stabbed with a knife, even if you start shooting immediately. You seriously expect them to play that game?
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday April 04 2017, @06:36PM (3 children)
Yes, in fact I do. While wearing soft armor, of course. They should save the rubber bullets and nets they use on protesters for violently disturbed mentally ill subjects.
If you just want to kill, become an exterminator.
(Score: 2) by Entropy on Wednesday April 05 2017, @04:39AM (2 children)
If a bullet won't stop a knife wielding maniac in 21 feet, why would a rubber bullet? Did you spend any time at all thinking of what it would be like to be in a house(with rooms measuring 8-16 feet) with a knife wielding maniac that can kill you if you're within 21 feet of him?
Also--A net? Are you serious? Did you get that from a video game or something?
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday April 05 2017, @12:45PM
Actually, a bullet will stop someone if you hit them in a critical area. The 21 feet figure assumes you have to draw the weapon, take aim and fire. It's more like 10 if you have the gun out and safety off. You did note the part where I mentioned soft armor, didn't you?
And yes, a net. I have seen them demonstrated by police. Other options include keeping them bottled up until they fall asleep or calm down.
Perhaps the cowards should consider another line of work.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday April 05 2017, @12:48PM
1) At that range, a rubber bullet will go right through the skin and shatter bones, with potentially lethal results. So while it's not *quite* as deadly as a real gun, the initial result will be pretty similar. Anywhere that a gunshot would incapacitate someone, a close range rubber bullet would too.
2) The bullet most likely won't be effective at such short range not because they'll take the hit and keep coming, but because you won't be able to fire before they reach you. So you can argue all day about whether or not they should try to save that life, but either they have time to fire or they don't. If they have time, rubber bullets or real ones both probably work; and if not then neither one will do a damn thing. Standard police body armor should help here though -- that 20 foot range is for an attacker frantically charging a large, central target. Which is where the armor is.
So probably what you want is a weapon you can have trained on the suspect ready to fire, that isn't going to end up as a homicide if you accidentally bump the trigger, and which doesn't look so threatening that it's going to cause an attack in the first place. Taser sounds like the best option IMO, although it's still pretty far from ideal. Some cops also carry what seem to basically be blindingly bright flashlights, those *might* help depending on the situation, though only being blinded would still leave the suspect quite dangerous. If you can get something less lethal than a taser that still disables the suspect it could potentially be acceptable to use in a preemptive strike. But I think even tasers are too risky for any situation where the officer isn't in immediate danger.
And one final thought -- perhaps the primary focus of the officer under attack shouldn't be to incapacitate the attacker, but instead to get out of their partner's line of fire. I realize that's gonna be easier said than done, particularly while under attack and particularly indoors. But they've got better armor, more manpower, better weapons, and if something does go wrong they've got some medical training and a direct line to backup and an ambulance. Surely with all of that we can come up with a better solution than "Fuck it, just kill 'em."
(Score: 2) by Justin Case on Tuesday April 04 2017, @12:12AM (5 children)
So glad to hear a story of cops behaving like something other than self-important jackasses who think they're above the law. Thanks to all involved.
relying on patience rather than anything on an officer's gun belt
Serious question - maybe there is an officer among us who can answer...
Why aren't cops trained to use non-lethal force as much as possible? Drop the suspect with a taser. Then they live, and we have plenty of time to sort out the situation.
OK if someone is shooting real bullets at you of course you're going to shoot back. Otherwise, if they're out of range of a taser they're probably not an instant life-or-death threat.
Can someone explain?
(Score: 1) by tftp on Tuesday April 04 2017, @12:34AM (1 child)
I'm certainly not a police officer, but from what I heard Taser does not guarantee termination of the attack. If the electrodes do not penetrate clothing (say, a leather jacket), then it's not going to work. The wires can be also damaged, needles torn from the skin... some people (on drugs) do not feel pain. I'm not saying that the LEO should always empty the mag at any grandmother who is lost on a sidewalk, but a serious conflict forces the officer to think fast - and the Taser, if he picks it, may be inadequate. As it often happens, Taser is mostly used by the police for torturing the suspects - in situations where the officers are not threatened.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday April 04 2017, @02:40AM
While painful, the taser doesn't depend on pain to work. It works by disrupting the nervous sustem and making the muscles contract out of control.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04 2017, @07:27AM
Why aren't cops trained to use non-lethal force as much as possible? Drop the suspect with a taser. Then they live, and we have plenty of time to sort out the situation.
Not necessarily. What if a person has a pacemaker? How about a not-yet-visibly-pregnant woman (here I'm assuming cops are trained well enough to not tase visibly pregnant women)? Or a bunch of other cases that can result in death or serious injury. Cops think "non-lethal" is exactly that, so they overuse tasers even when they don't really need them. Calling tasers "less-lethal" would be more accurate.
Also, why couldn't cops try to sort out the situation before using force? Most policing is not exactly all that time sensitive. "Just tase him and be done with it" is equivalent to "just nuke the entire disk and reinstall from scratch", except with people instead of the machines.
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Tuesday April 04 2017, @12:43PM
the problems with a taser:
1) It might be completely ineffective, not immediately dropping the subject. Therefore it should not be used in life threatening situations.
2) A taser can easily kill or permanently maim the receiver. It is also incredibly inaccurate, so hitting the wrong person is very easy. Therefore it should only be used in life threatening situations as a last ditch effort to avoid loss of life.
Tasers make sense in theory, but it is the wrong choice in every situation, at least when you factor in the possibility of an innocent's ability to sue and the bad press of allowing a raging maniac to continue killing people when the police are given and trained with a tool (a gun) that could easily of ended the situation.
(Score: 2) by Entropy on Tuesday April 04 2017, @04:04PM
It isn't always bullets. I think we tend in discussions to focus on the bad of a situation. If the mentally ill person
doesn't have a knife in their hand, or is far away(say 50 feet) then there's no need for bullets. Cops are not snipers.
So there's really two cases--
1. The mentally ill person has an immediate potential TO KILL SOMEONE.(cops, family, whatever) -> Bullets.
2. The mentally ill person doesn't have an immediate potential TO KILL SOMEONE. -> Words. (This basically means if they have a knife, they are significantly over 21 feet away from people.)
#2 for someone armed with a knife seems like it'd be kind of hard, unless they are outside.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04 2017, @12:46AM (5 children)
Intelligence as in being smart, a good learner, having knowledge, reading books etc.
This intelligence is missing in almost all police forces, especially in the US of A. According to people in-the-know, police was intentionally dumbed down so they would follow orders and are totally unable to think. The proposed rules in this article would have worked if the police persons were smart and intelligent and able to think for themselves.
As it stands now, police are crazy criminals in uniforms who deserve to be put down immediately, preferably behind the house. Or dragged out of their homes and curb-stomped.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04 2017, @01:46AM
"In the end, the plague touched us all. It was not confined to the Oran of Camus. No. It turned up again in America, breeding in-a-compost of greed and uselessness and murder, in those places where statesmen and generals stash the bodies of the forever young. The plague ran in the blood of men in sharkskin suits, who ran for President promising life and delivering death. The infected young men machine-gunned babies in Asian ditches; they marshalled metal death through the mighty clouds, up above God's green earth, released it in silent streams, and moved on, while the hospitals exploded and green fields were churned to mud.
And here at home, something died. The bacillus moved among us, slaying that old America where the immigrants lit a million dreams in the shadows of the bridges, killing the great brawling country of barnstormers and wobblies and home-run hitters, the place of Betty Grable and Carl Furillo and heavyweight champions of the world. And through the fog of the plague, most art withered into journalism. Painters lift the easel to scrawl their innocence on walls and manifestos. Symphonies died on crowded roads. Novels served as furnished rooms for ideology.
And as the evidence piled up, as the rock was pushed back to reveal the worms, many retreated into that past that never was, the place of balcony dreams in Loew's Met, fair women and honorable men, where we browned ourselves in the Creamsicle summers, only faintly hearing the young men march to the troopships, while Jo Stafford gladly promised her fidelity. Poor America. Tossed on a pilgrim tide. Land where the poets died.
Except for Dylan."
Pete Hamill, back cover of Dy;an "Blood on the Tracks" copied from notes with https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5Px6Jtye60 [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday April 04 2017, @05:08AM
As it stands now, police are crazy criminals in uniforms who deserve to be put down immediately, preferably behind the house. Or dragged out of their homes and curb-stomped.
When I was growing up in NYC, we considered the cops to be just the best armed street gang. Not really sure how much that's changed, except there are fewer of the other street gangs these days.
What's more, I've noticed (although I am white, which makes a huge difference of course) that the NYC police are actually a lot better then many other places I've lived/visited. Which is a rather depressing thought. Sigh.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday April 05 2017, @12:59PM (2 children)
Just wanted to point out that police departments being "intentionally dumbed down" isn't just opinion or conspiracy theory. Here's one case where it went to court, the police department acknowledged that they refuse to even interview any candidate that scores highly on an intelligence test, and the courts ruled that it was perfectly legal for them to discriminate in that way:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836 [go.com]
(Score: 2) by Justin Case on Wednesday April 05 2017, @02:04PM (1 child)
Interesting link, but the judge's "reasoning" strongly suggests that he passed the same low-IQ requirement.
It was not discrimination because
the same standards were applied to everyone who took the test.
So, if we apply the same skin-color rule or genital exam to every applicant, that's OK?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by urza9814 on Wednesday April 05 2017, @05:45PM
Well, ultimately the point seems to be that the laws against discrimination don't mean the cops have to hire someone who is totally unfit for the occupation. Which isn't at all unreasonable. Where it gets absurd is that the judge accepted, without ANY evidence, the idea that high intelligence makes one unfit for that particular job. That was based on information -- which the plaintiff demonstrated to be inaccurate -- provided to the police force by a private consultant.
It's security through outsourcing -- the outsourcing firm can't be blamed because they only provide "opinions", while the police force can't be blamed because they're assumed to be acting in good faith when they blindly accepted those opinions as statements of fact.
The full ruling can be found at:
http://www.aele.org/apa/jordan-newlondon.html [aele.org]
Interesting side note, the ruling seems to be partially based on a case from the 80s, Harris v. McRae, which found that the government had a legitimate interest in promoting childbirth and for that reason they had a right to limit abortion access for low income women. Seems to me that they went further than they should have in order to punish the "immorality" of having sex while poor, and in doing so set the bar for proving discrimination extremely high. Providing medical treatment for anything except one specific class of illnesses seems a pretty clear case of discrimination IMO, and I REALLY don't like the idea that "the army needs more cannon fodder" can override a constitutional amendment against discrimination. But that's the existing case law and now the courts have to follow it:
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/448/297/case.html [justia.com]