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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: 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.