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from the Who-LiveStream's-the-Watchmen? dept.
The Root reports that “Almost half of Americans hate their police department:”
[DrugAbuse.com] examined over 766,000 tweets about sentiment toward law enforcement in each state. The state with the most positive perception of police was New Hampshire. The most negative: Arkansas. The city with the most positive perception of police was Columbus, Ohio, while the one with the most negative was, not surprisingly, Ferguson, Mo. Other “failing” city police departments included Los Angeles, Miami, Phoenix, New York and Denver. Baltimore, a city still reeling from recent unrest, received a D grade….
“If you talk to young people in Baltimore, I don’t think their feelings about police have changed at all in the last five to seven years,” says [Philip Leaf, a Johns Hopkins University professor]. “There has been a negative perception of police in many communities for a long time. There just haven’t been conversations with these young people or in the media about it until recently. There hasn’t been an upsurge of disconnect with the police. With cellphones, there has been documentation of things that people have been talking about for a long time. People haven’t been believed, and now it’s hard not to believe it, if you see it on TV.…”
“It’s not as if this stuff hasn’t been going on all along for decades, but now it’s being captured for the world to see, and the few bad apples being captured on camera are ruining the entire tree of law enforcement,” says Hassan Giordano, 39, and a candidate for Baltimore City Council. “However, those very same people who have a negative opinion of police will also be the same ones calling 911 when they find themselves in an unsafe situation. It’s a catch-22.”
It's important to note that on the graphs shown in the article, even an A grade represents negative sentiment.
More data and a description of the methodology are available at DrugAbuse.com, including graphs of tweet sentiment involving alcohol, drugs, and marijuana. DrugAbuse.com used the commercial IBM service AlchemyAPI to analyze the tweets.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by TrumpetPower! on Wednesday August 26 2015, @09:10PM
So long as the "thin blue line" holds fast, the "good" cops are knowing accomplices in the crimes of their "bad" brothers. When fucking up, even slightly, results in both the guilty taking full responsibility and the rest holding the guilty to the highest standards, then I'll buy the "few bad apples" line. Not before.
Alas, I'm sure lots of people don't call 9-1-1, because they fear the cops more than they fear whatever's going on. Imagine a domestic violence situation where the one being abused has been taking drugs, for example. Which would you pick: being beaten bloody by your spouse, or being beaten and arrested by the cops and then having them confiscate everything you own and take your children away while you rot in prison?
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2015, @09:20PM
Fuck you feminist cunt.
Hans Reiser did nothing wrong.
Marry girl children.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Wednesday August 26 2015, @09:51PM
Aside from that, who else is there call except the cops? It isn't like there are two competing police organizations, one inept, violent, and bullying, and the other skilled, rational, and fair-minded. When you're car gets stolen and you need to make an insurance claim, you have to file a police report to get your insurance benefits even if the police are crap.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2015, @10:06PM
> When you're car gets stolen and you need to make an insurance claim, you have to file a police report
The people with the most to fear from the cops are the least likely to have any kind of insurance beyond liability, if they can afford insurance at all.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by TheGratefulNet on Thursday August 27 2015, @12:06AM
I think it was the old comedian, jackie mason (?) who had a schtick about 'cops and crooks'. something along the lines of:
"I worry more about cops than crooks. if I have a problem with a crook, I can call the cops; but if I have a problem with the cops, who do I call, a crook?"
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Wednesday August 26 2015, @09:59PM
Regarding your last point: http://www.nationofchange.org/2015/08/26/family-releases-video-of-police-killing-their-mentally-ill-son/ [nationofchange.org]
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Wednesday August 26 2015, @10:05PM
That video is so fucked up. Pigs -- the lot of them. It's things like this make me feel as much sympathy for the cops I hear about getting killed in the line of duty, as I feel when I hear about some violent gang-banger getting killed in the line of his duty.
(Score: 2) by zugedneb on Thursday August 27 2015, @03:03PM
holy shit...
what a fucked up nation...
in other parts of the world, they have generations old conflicts/poverty/criminality, so they have an excuse...
but only in US get random people executed like this...
old saying: "a troll is a window into the soul of humanity" + also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Wednesday August 26 2015, @10:57PM
So long as the "thin blue line" holds fast, the "good" cops are knowing accomplices in the crimes of their "bad" brothers.
Came here to say the same thing!!
Just about every other profession steps up and gets rid of the delinquent Nurse, the craptastic coder, the dangerous electrician, and the such.
It might take another 50 years, but with a video camera in every pocket pointing out the corruption and abuse, cops are either going to suffer collective punishment or they are going to clean up their act.
Part of this is a significant number of people entering police work are control freaks, with significant personality disorders, and would probably be gang members if they had taken a slightly different path in life. They were probably bullies in junior high school, and still are. We've got to find a way to weed these guys out.
Maybe we should experiment with un-armed (or tazer only) cops like These Countries [washingtonpost.com].
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday August 27 2015, @12:59AM
I'm not sure that the tazer is ANY improvement over the gun. The warning that "Since it's non-lethal, it will be used when it shouldn't be used" has proven true so very often that I generally think they should be restricted to animal control officers or some such. Or maybe just totally banned. (It's not that non-lethal if you misuse it, as has frequently been shown to happen.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday August 27 2015, @01:14AM
Its pretty non-lethal, as long as there is only one available. When 4 or 6 cops all deploy them at once, you can kill people.
The battery should be limited, and logic built into it to prevent the abusive use you hear about.
With out tasers you have only truncheons and batons, which can be just as lethal.
Saw this big kid on PCP once, (football line backer) and it took 5 fat cops to hold him down.
He was tearing up the building, and throwing freshmen like footballs.
Campus police at that school weren't allow to carry guns. The Taser had zero affect oh him.
Cops now days would have just shot him.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 27 2015, @10:18AM
Its pretty non-lethal, as long as there is only one available.
Or if you have a bad heart, a pacemaker, etc. etc.
(Score: 2) by tathra on Thursday August 27 2015, @03:18AM
what are you talking about? they are gang members.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 27 2015, @02:20AM
It's basically a false dichotomy they're putting forth. 'Either you can criticize the cops for their actions and never call them, or you worship the cops and can call them without being a hypocrite.' It's obvious bullshit; too bad some people fall for it. They essentially just want cops to be above accountability, and to be able to violate people's rights with impunity.