Who would have felt comfortable in these circumstances?
A Massachusetts man was driving in the town of Medford last Saturday night. He admits he took a wrong turn and ended up going the wrong way down a traffic circle. The angry man steps out of a truck and approaches him. Michael, seemingly -- and perhaps understandably -- frightened, reverses. The angry man follows him and Michael stops.
The angry man appears to show his badge and identifies himself as a police officer. Some, though, might be troubled by the officer's greeting: "I'll put a hole in your head." Michael is apologetic and explains to the officer -- now identified as Det. Stephen LeBert -- that he is being recorded. LeBert suggests that he will seize the camera.
"I'm a f***ing Medford detective and you went through that f***ing rotary," says LeBert. As Michael insists he didn't see a sign, LeBert demands his license. "You're lucky I'm a cop, otherwise I'd be beating the f***ing piss out of you right now," LeBert adds, shortly after calling the driver an a**hole. LeBert ultimately calls for on-duty cops who at least do a little to calm the situation. However, the fact that Michael posted his video to YouTube has led to an investigation.
Medford Police Chief Leo Sacco told MyFoxBoston: "It's not the proper behavior, but we only know about it when people tell us. And unfortunately, we had to get up this morning and see it on a YouTube video."
In the days before cameras proliferated, you had to rely on witnesses and hearsay. The police were more likely to be believed by those in authority. Cameras have begun to change that -- on both sides.
Sacco told the Medford Transcript: "The video is troubling enough, and it requires investigation just based on what we see here. The driver does not have to file his own complaint. He may, but he does not have to."
[...] Sacco told the Medford Transcript that LeBert was a good policeman. He added, perhaps unfortunately: "If you work hard you do step on people's toes, which generates complaints."
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2015, @04:54AM
It is good that the guy told the cop he was recording. Massachusetts has a law against secretly recording audio that cops have tried to use against people recording them.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2015, @04:59AM
Ha ha ha oh yeah. That reminds me of the time some panhandler was asking for money outside a convenience store, in view of a camera. I didn't give him any money, so he told me, "Hey! You know you're on camera right now!" I just said, "Yeah! And so are you, fucker!"
(Score: 5, Funny) by davester666 on Saturday August 01 2015, @07:56AM
Good thing you aren't a cop, otherwise you would have shot him.
(Score: 1) by eof on Saturday August 01 2015, @09:42PM
Apparently, due to the fact that it was a dashcam in plain sight, and in public, that law does not apply in this case, at least according to recent articles in the Boston press.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2015, @04:56AM
That's the way you do it! Threaten them in the streets! We will have orderly traffic or the streets will run red with blood! God Bless Zero Tolerant America!!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2015, @05:16PM
You joke, but this is not far from the actual police procedure occasionally used by Massachusetts law enforcement. They make it a point to overuse command presence and/or coerce people into unconscious self-incrimination. The Massachusetts State Police are very notable abusers of command presence, and demonstrated their zeal when they were able to break out all of their militaristic toys for the April 2013 blockade of Watertown when Dzokhar Tsarnaev was being tracked down.
The Massachusetts State Police are also militaristically protective of their turf, especially the Boston Seaport District, which is MSP jurisdiction thanks to a 1998 law defining jurisdiction for Massport properties (which also includes Logan Airport). MSP Colonel Alben sent a belligerent letter to Boston Police chief Evans regarding the turf war: https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2015/06/02/the-boston-police-department-jurisdiction-should-extend-seaport-district/8WWFDSJ97UhSoK33Dq469L/story.html [bostonglobe.com]
Also, there's a very prominent drunk driving problem among law enforcement staff, as highlighted by the Globe last December: https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/12/06/police-officers-accused-drunken-driving/SIQjxLuYvsE3661oqWHoLJ/story.html [bostonglobe.com] This includes the former police chief in Sudbury, who in May 2013 tailgated a motorist, threatened him, followed him, and crashed into his car, shouting threats to kill him. http://www.lowellsun.com/ci_23199416/victim-alleges-road-rage-led-sudbury-police-chiefs [lowellsun.com]
They found three empty bottles of Smirnoff vodka in his state-issued Ford Fusion. His driver's license was taken away for a year; at least this is in line with the Massachusetts OUI law, but the Globe article above contains examples of law enforcement officers receiving punishment less than that which would be meted out to civilians.
Yesterday, the Louisville division of the FBI announced a campaign seeking public assistance for public corruption in Kentucky. The Boston FBI should follow suit. Massachusetts politics and government has had corruption deeply rooted for decades (and yes, this includes corruption rooted in the Boston FBI during the criminal activities of James "Whitey" Bulger). However, with the law enforcement military complex recently brought on by the 9/11 obsession, as well as law enforcement departments running training similar to miltary boot camp (the MSP is legendary for this, as well as letting loose hotheaded rookies among the state-owned universities).
The Department of Justice is responsible for regulating anyone operating under "the color of law". The FBI is that enforcement arm, but currently they only seem to be stepping in for egregious incidents involving loss of life directly caused by law enforcement officers. Unfortunately, they are the only agency with the jurisdiction to handle this problem in a (relatively) impartial manner, as there's an inherent bias with any "Internal Affairs" office of any police department (especially when officers in IA are born from the same culture as the average 21st-century Johnny Law who obsesses over the next opportunity to use their black SWAT uniform and M4).
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Whoever on Saturday August 01 2015, @04:58AM
I'm struggling to see the work that this cop was doing while threating someone.
If he had written up a citation for driving the wrong way round a traffic circle, that would be work. Threatening someone's life, not so much.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2015, @05:28AM
They've probably got some sort of 'hole in a head' (or functional equivalent) quota they have to maintain, otherwise they get poor performance reviews, etc.
The hard work part could be finding appropriate contributing clients where any stink is sufficiently contained that the department doesn't have to go through that extra process of saying "We are investigating" before declaring everything's hunky dory.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2015, @05:40AM
Strangely I couldn't find that quote in the wickedlocal link.
It did, however, have:
So where did the purported quote in the summary come from?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @07:58PM
I just can't square in my mind the following two things from the article
He’s an active and aggressive police officer
[Sunday’s incident] is not characteristic of the way he is.
Sure thing man
(Score: 5, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Saturday August 01 2015, @04:59AM
Uh no actually. Normal people would think "what a dick" and keep on driving. Maybe the only reason you're thinking of beating the piss out of him, is because you are the kind of person who would become a cop or join a gang.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2015, @05:34AM
Are you really so naive that you think there's a difference?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2015, @11:19AM
Are you really so naive that you think there's a difference?
There's a minor difference in the way they are viewed by the legal system, otherwise, no, not really..
(Score: 4, Touché) by Grishnakh on Saturday August 01 2015, @01:43PM
-1 Poor reading comprehension
No, he's not that naive. That's exactly why he wrote them right next to each other like that.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday August 01 2015, @01:58PM
Of course there is at least one difference. Cops get the blessing of the local p̶r̶i̶e̶s̶t̶h̶o̶o̶d̶ court. Gangs get sentences to prison.
(Score: 3, Informative) by naubol on Saturday August 01 2015, @04:15PM
Rational self-control in the pursuit of externally supplied duties is the foundation for law and order. Police officers should, without exception, have the ability to maintain rigid self control in all situations, even if they are tired, stressed, offended, over-worked, in personal crisis, or their lives are on the line.
This should differentiate them from gangs. I will grant you that it does not always seem to be the case on an individual basis, and, more rarely, on a departmental basis. I would counter that it would be naive to think that gangs have this mission statement, that many police departments do not have this quality in abundance, and that this is not an essential difference between them.
An article about the Sarah Bland situation remonstrated the duty-bound, weapon-wielding agent of the force for failing to defuse the situation, as he should have been trained to do. The policemen was not able to fulfill his duty because he lost control of himself possibly because he was part of a culture which exculpates police officers when they make things personal.
For us to return to a state of faith in the force, we need to see two things: that the police officers demonstrate the capacity to control themselves in difficult situations and, when they fail to do so in spectacular ways as we have lately been made aware, that they are smoothly held accountable by their superiors.
Unfortunately, the subtext of the police chief's comments in the article suggests to me that he does not see this as a fundamental violation of police decorum. In this case, I believe it is our duty as members of the body politic to relieve the police chief of his post.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2015, @11:11PM
Are you really so naive that you think there's a difference?
There's a big difference. Cops will only become a LEO if they get a lot of benefits, a big pension and a free pass to act violently & commit crimes. Gang members do it because they feel the hatred in their hearts.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2015, @05:09AM
We pay thugs in hope that they keep other thugs in line. Problem is, we have to pay somebody else to keep the paid thugs in line. And the chain continues.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2015, @05:26AM
> Problem is, we have to pay somebody else to keep the paid thugs in line.
The problem is in expecting them to be kept in line in private. They are public servants, they must be held accountable in public. Given enough eyeballs, all corruption is shallow.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by kurenai.tsubasa on Saturday August 01 2015, @05:38AM
We really haven't evolved from warlords, have we?
I fear for this species. The Amazon Nation is scattered. The man's world showed quite a bit of hope for a while. It even realized Amazon truths about liberty and justice (granted, some of the Amazon laws are kinda funky and not quite just imo). There was Voltaire, Bacon, Franklin, Jefferson, etc. What happened? Did Hamilton win the argument in the long run?
Yet, we have petty foot soldiers badgering the “citizenry.”
At least this man was willing to be a citizen!
“Something given has no basis in value.”
Heinlein wrote that, and the Amazons added it to their philosophy, at least my tribe, because it represents an insight into Truth,
Where do we go from here? Will the common man (or woman) begin to awaken to his/her inherent rights as the creation of the goddess (Don't get me wrong, Amazon traditions are divergent: Hera? Artemis? Athena? Where to begin?) It seems more likely they will all become as slaves to some demiurge.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @08:01PM
Coast Guard?
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2015, @05:23AM
...but we only know about it when people tell us.
...but we only admit it when people film us.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by anubi on Saturday August 01 2015, @05:40AM
This story gives good reason why we all should have cameras.
There is going to be a helluva lot of splainin' to do back at the station.
I believe this is the video [youtube.com]. Imagine explaining this to your boss.
God only knows how many times I have screwed up behind the wheel myself. Not because of intoxication, but because of non-familiarity with the environment. It sounded like this almost got out of control. Big time.
One exposes oneself to a helluva lot of risk by not running from what gives all initial appearances of making contact with a loony.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday August 01 2015, @06:42AM
but they don't have enough cash to install toilets in the bare concrete cells where they imprison without recourse those who are perceived as mentally ill.
I wrote this a couple months ago, intended to send it but hesitated while I discussed with a friend who is a professional legal research consultant. That is, he is not an attorney but attorneys pay him to write briefs for them.
I do the same kind of research he does, not for pay but so as to advise others about the law. My friend and I both regard attorneys as total slackers.
To Wit:
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 4, Funny) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday August 01 2015, @06:51AM
... in legitimate self-defense.
Had I been threatened by that cop, I would have killed him.
And yes I do not hesitate to say that.
Do not think I don't know how to do that. Do not think I am unprepared to do so.
Not long after I moved here, the city of Portland lost a lawsuit - or maybe they settled, I don't clearly recall - a wrongful death lawsuit that was the result of two Portland Police Bureau officers murdering a man in cold blood. Two PPB officers shot that poor fucker in the back as he held his hands behind them then walked backwards - slowly - toward them.
Around that same time, two other PPB officers beat a homeless man to death. They claimed that they did so because he was urinating on a tree but the investigation found that he did not.
A while back, for no apparent reason two Fullerton, California police offers beat a schizophrenic man to death as he desperately begged his father to save his life. Seeing photographs of his face after he died was what convinced me to prepare to defend my life from the police.
To be clear: many of my best friends are police officers, sheriff's deputies, even an FBI agent.
But look at what I just posted about spending three days in a coma because I was not prepared to defend myself.
Had I carried a gun when Officer Angel locked me in that concrete cell, I would have pointed it just to the side of his head then released the safety while he and I discussed his request.
I have an Idaho State Gun Safety card and I am trained in the use of single-shot bolt-action military rifles.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1, Troll) by wonkey_monkey on Saturday August 01 2015, @08:21AM
And yes I do not hesitate to say that.
Nor do hundreds of other blowhards (on the internet, no less) every time a story like this comes along.
Not that it's likely to happen - I think you'd more likely piss your pants like 99.99% of the rest of us, a perfectly natural human reaction - but I wouldn't hesitate to find you guilty of murder in that situation.
I have an Idaho State Gun Safety card and I am trained in the use of single-shot bolt-action military rifles.
And don't you just seem to relish the opportunity to tell us about it?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday August 01 2015, @01:11PM
The ones that were used to fight The War To End All Wars.
You know, From The Trenches.
My having survived the OHSU Campus Police's attempt on my life yields the insight required not to piss my pants.
Have A Nice Day.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2015, @11:15PM
Is it the 1st of the month already? Don't forget to pay your rent, and take your meds!*
* this message brought to you by Krusty Low Income Housing, and Krusty Pharmaceuticals. We make your life hell, and then help you forget it.
(Score: -1, Troll) by macson_g on Saturday August 01 2015, @07:53AM
Now, on earth, can one "take a wrong turn" and go the wrong way on a roundabout? I would be pissed off that such an idiot is allowed to drive.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2015, @09:48AM
the roads are not nearly as perfectly marked as you seem to think. it can easily happen when you are in an unfamiliar neighbourhood that you miss something that for the locals is natural and well known. not all rotaries have roads leading to it pointing at the centre of it. I've seen rotaries where you come to it so that the road is pretty much tangent to it and you have to back right to get on it. first reaction is to go direct, straight ahead. so I can totally see how this could happen.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Saturday August 01 2015, @11:32PM
In such cases, it is the civil engineer's fault. The point of civil engineering is to make sure such things Just Work without anything thinking about it consciously.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 1) by PistonRing on Saturday August 01 2015, @11:00AM
It is actually very easy.
Ok, I come from the UK where we have lots of roundabouts. The first time I encountered one in MA (on Rt 2 IIRC) I automatically went round it Clockwise instead of Anti-Clockwise. Thankfully it was early on a Sunday morning and there was no other traffic about.
It is easy believe me. Now I am always much more alert when I come upon a 'Rotary' in the US or in other parts of Europe.
The Cop clearly did wrong by threatening to kill the man and should be punished.
That is beyond the pale.
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Saturday August 01 2015, @04:06PM
OT from me but “beyond the pale [wikipedia.org]” fits well i.e. “into lawless territory” (ignore the obvious historical bias of definition, no offense intended to the Irish). Cops shouldn't be crooks.
Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday August 01 2015, @02:27PM
Been there, done that. I didn't grow up with roundabouts. The damned things are strange, exotic, unusual, and totally unexpected if you don't live in a country or region where they are commonly used. The first time I came to a roundabout (in Massachussets) I was EXPECTING to see something, that I never did see - that is, the sign with the highway number with an arrow to the left never appeared. Instead, there was a confusing bunch of arrows indicating that my highway, and a half dozen others all turned to the right. I slowed down to about five mph, trying to figure out what the hell I was supposed to do. I went right with the sign, and then all those arrows got freaking goofy - and I went round the roudabout again before I finally figured out that it WAS a roundabout.
I've never gotten used to them, but I can deal with them. But, they can STILL be terribly unexpected. Driving through Waco, Texas, you can find a roundabout. You SURE as hell don't expect to see a roundabout in TEXAS, of all places. But, there it is. And again, it was late at night when I found it. Again, I'm expecting a sign pointing left, and never did see that highway sign. Just all of a sudden there were half a dozen OTHER highway signs pointing straight ahead - and my highway was missing. It started to soak in that maybe this was another roundabout when two of the highways turned right, then another one turned right, and finally I saw the sign I was looking for.
Damned roundabouts ought to be clearly marked. A common crossroads sign, with a circle in the center of the "+" sign or something.
It's all well and good for people who grew up with roundabouts to make fun of those who never saw one before. Put a sign up, so that a reasonably intelligent person KNOWS what he is getting into!
(Score: 1) by DrkShadow on Saturday August 01 2015, @02:53PM
https://www.google.com/maps/@42.4087017,-71.0008423,17z [google.com]
Suppose you're driving West on highway 1A on the right-hand portion, and you want to _continue_ West on highway 1A, which becomes the yellow, lower portion.
Would you please describe how you would navigate the Bell Circle Rotary? Keep in mind, there are no bridges or tunnels -- all of these lines, white and yellow, intersect. With a highway running right through the middle.
There are at least two lanes on each road. Be sure to stay in the correct lane! Oh, and from experience -- there are no lines. None.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2015, @05:46PM
From the linked newspaper article this looks to be the roundabout in question https://www.google.com/maps/@42.421631,-71.118314,3a,75y,146.92h,65.91t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sgrOk_4pwlVanuG1Yq0ZlfQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 [google.com] and it seems as though the driver was attempting to effectively continue straight. While in daylight this would be less understandable, a night I could see myself doing it especially if I was unfamiliar with the neighborhood. He deserved a ticket, but not to be threatened with bodily force by an off duty and unidentified police officer.
(Score: 2) by zugedneb on Saturday August 01 2015, @06:55PM
In Sweden, when you take the final exam for the drivers license, you can fail it for such a reason.
If you have to circle one extra time to figure out a sign, or take the wrong turn in it, you are toast.
old saying: "a troll is a window into the soul of humanity" + also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
(Score: 5, Insightful) by hankwang on Saturday August 01 2015, @12:42PM
Hey, I'm seeing this happen all the time on SN: long blurbs that are a copy-paste of almost the entire article. Only a couple of sentences from the article are left out and not a single original word appears in the summary. I don't think this is the way to go; you're opening yourself to DMCA takedown requests and in any case it reflects bad on SN.
Avantslash: SoylentNews for mobile [avantslash.org]
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Saturday August 01 2015, @04:12PM
Good points.
The problem is we're not submitting enough stories. I myself am guilty of this, I've had one I've been meaning to complete for almost a week now but never gotten around to it.
Often when one finds something interesting it's something one doesn't know all that much about, then one starts digging a bit (which can be a challenge in itself like using Google translate to parse broken Chinese) and things can get complicated and lock up as one feels one has to extract context and stuff to do a good job.
Maybe we should all submit more and lower our expectations a bit, I don't know.
Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Saturday August 01 2015, @05:45PM
I didn't submit this article, but I've been trying to keep the queue as full as I can since this spring when LaminatorX (I think it was LamX) sent up the cry for help with editing. Enough new editors were certified before I had finished the training, so I opted to help with submissions.
I do employ the copy & paste method for two reasons, though. First, I'm not an expert on everything and I don't want to mis-summarize an article or put words in the mouth of the article. Second, I don't have time to spend 30 minutes on a single submission; I scan a dozen sources I like, pick out the ones I think would be interesting or educational or fodder for a good discussion for the Soylent community, and throw it into the hopper.
In an ideal world we'd have an expert on gene therapy submitting an article on a new DNA manipulation technique and putting it into layman's terms for all of us non-geneticists, a rocket scientist submitting something about a new drive technology, etc. But we don't yet. I'd say about half of what you're seeing in the submission queue have been submitted by the editors, not by submitters, so they're actually doing double duty.
There have been a couple other prolific submitters who are not editors like HughPickens and gewg, but there have been so many slamming them for what & how they've submitted that their output has fallen off significantly. I too have been drawing a lot of flak recently from a couple of users for what & how I submit, too. Alas for them I have 25 years of grassroots activism under my belt and am long since inured to mewling, haha.
The absolute best way for submissions on SN to get "better" (for some value of "better") is for those who want things to be better to step up and make it so. It's a community site. If the community doesn't build it, then it will be built by a handful and the rest will have to content themselves with the maxim taught to my children in preschool: "You get what you get, and you don't get upset."
That sounds a bit vituperative, and it is. But for me it's more a plea and collegial invitation to pitch in and help make it better. I know what I read and where I get articles from, but I hunger to learn about more and see things in a way I haven't done before. That only happens when the rest of SN digs in.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by BK on Saturday August 01 2015, @05:59PM
I've pointed this out before:
Ex: here [soylentnews.org]
It seems to me that a paragraph or so from TFA should be direct quoted and the rest should be summary, commentary, or analysis.
We could blame this on bad submissions or lack of submissions, but this is a editorial function. Submitters should be able to send TMI and the editors should feel confident in pruning this a little (or more) to meet aesthetic, journalistic, organizational, or legal standards.
I know that we have a couple of cases in the past where editors have been criticized for doing this. This is not an excuse to not attempting to be good editors. Since we have added links to original submissions, the OP can always point to the original submission if he/she feels misrepresented.
We should remember that while the Comments are the speech of users and SN is protected when posting them, the articles posted by the editors are the speech of SN and are held to a higher standard.
Food for thought.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 2) by Fnord666 on Saturday August 01 2015, @10:36PM
The story is being submitted using a bot that trolls rss feeds and posts stories via copypasta.
(Score: 2) by Fnord666 on Saturday August 01 2015, @10:47PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2015, @06:41PM
Nowdays, even tech sites start reporting on police executing black people, and other things like this...
In those videos, the people getting executed does not seem threatening...
On Arstechnica, just the other day...
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/07/body-cam-captures-cop-shooting-motorist-in-head-murders-charges-follow/ [arstechnica.com]
Can some US citizen leave a few words of explanation?
Is it poverty? To many guns? To much drugs? To much pressure on cops?
wtf?
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2015, @07:12PM
It is a cultural issue. All behavior issues are cultural issues. It has nothing to do with guns or drugs. Did we ban airplanes after 9/11? Did we ban fertilizer after Oklahoma city? How about backpacks after two bombings?
No it is cultural. In short: disenfranchisement, lack of life satisfaction, lack of dignity, and a culture of fear fueling a negative-reinforcement spiral. Granted the US isn't actually very dangerous at all when looking at all statistics. It is almost unheard of to ever get into a bar fight or be mugged or kidnapped in the US compared to other western nations. Still, things can go from calm to death pretty quick on occasion. Partially the problem has to do with how dangers are perceived.
The news agencies gobble up things like that and plaster it everywhere for views, even when nothing violent happened such as in this case. Do German newspapers have wall to wall coverage of "Crime almost happened"? Probably not. Politicians use it as their rallying cry here just like pedophile scares are the standard practice in the UK. So there are police and citizens out in the world that think there is a terrorist or an assault-rifle carrying maniac around every bush and tree. Unfortunately there is probably another citizen thinking the exact same thing on the other side.
The elephant in the room is that the US culture is one of protestant work ethic and justice. Work hard and be successful or else you are worthless. Punishment to the wicked should be swift and ferocious. Where does that leave the majority of citizens that do work hard and obey the law yet clearly never make it into the top 1%? They are treated like potential criminals, terrorists, and are clearly lazy, stupid, and fat. After all, if they weren't all those things they would be successfully in the 1% wouldn't they? It is even reinforced by stereotypes from abroad.
So there is this population that is obsessed with work, but rarely get the opportunity to succeed, a police force that believes nearly every one of them is out to murder, news organizations and politicians that pour kerosene over the whole situation for their own benefit, and overall low life satisfaction for all. I consider it a miracle the situation isn't any worse.
Nationally I have no idea what the solution is. Locally the solution has been made apparent to me via observational experimentation. People that don't pay attention to politics, government, or news tend to be happy and well adjusted. Local police that have no strong political or religious views are friendly and professional. Oddly what many people naturally do over time, become apathetic, seems to make the general population happier and safer. It took many years for me to accept that but have yet to do it myself.
If I was apathetic I would be fishing on a Saturday morning instead of reading the news and trying to convince a person I will never meet on several controversial and age old points in a futile attempt to make the world just a little more informed. I might even make the world just a little better. Nah, the truly wise people are completely ignorant of this news, line in a lake filled with bluegill, and a beer in their hand.
(Score: 2) by zugedneb on Saturday August 01 2015, @08:52PM
Nationally I have no idea what the solution is. Locally the solution has been made apparent to me via observational experimentation. People that don't pay attention to politics, government, or news tend to be happy and well adjusted.
This is a disaster. There is no way a democracy can survive this.
The only solutions would be to try to get people stop consuming, but don't know how.
Most people I know consume content and merchandise to patch up a broken family.
Wife sad? Buy some shit or go to theatre.
Kids cry? Buys some shit or download disney or similar...
Seems, only genetics and longevity will save us from this.
Until then, just dig into the shit.
old saying: "a troll is a window into the soul of humanity" + also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @12:03PM
This is a disaster. There is no way a democracy can survive this.
This is true, but I think the ruling powers no longer want a democracy. They have moved things to the edge of a police state where law enforcement openly refers to citizens as "civilians" and "the enemy". It is not a democracy they seek.
More and more of these unwarranted killings by the police are coming to light. We are seeing a few a month now. Before you know it there will be too many to keep track of, the pubic will become desensitized to it, and the media will stop reporting on them because they don't get enough viewers or clicks. When faced with reality that is overwhelming the public tends to carry on so they will not become part of the next trending topic of oppression or violence by the State.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday August 01 2015, @08:57PM
Authority worshipers in positions with limited power, but few repercussions over misuse of that power. And it appears that "limited" includes the right to kill people because you feel like it.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by BK on Saturday August 01 2015, @10:43PM
1) American police have always harassed "outsiders". In their time Germans, Irish, Italians, Puerto Ricans, Cambodians, Japanese, and more have all been outsiders. Black people have been the ultimate outsiders having only escaped the system of 'separate but equal' around 1970. American police are not unique. European police do the same thing. Roma and transient people are treated badly everywhere. Migrants are forced to work their way through a stagnant class system that is seldom acknowledged and the police enforce "the rules".
2) The police have always behaved as though they were above the law. There are too many set asides and too many "rights" for police-persons. The law grants them the benefits of doubts even when there are no reasonable doubts.
3) The internal investigation _always_ says that the police did nothing wrong. The set-asides mentioned in the law grant huge leeway for an officer to make a judgement call -- even a _wrong_ judgement call. Internal investigations go further and establish that these legal but questionable actions are compatible with local policy. This is precedent setting! This is how it has become OK to electrocute a person who poses no danger if they do not follow a command. Don't taze me bro!
4) Police have been taught to put safety first -- their own personal safety is considered above the safety of those they interact with or the public at large. This has lead to police blindly throwing grenades into babys' cribs, botched no-knock raids with fatalities (sometimes at the wrong address), and to suspects being shot because "they might have been reaching for a weapon". Police consider the people disposable and the people increasingly know it.
5) Black people have started to be considered just "regular" people by the mainstream population but the police have been slow to adjust. This does not mean that racism is dead, but rather that public racism is no longer acceptable and that even private racism is finding a smaller audience. It will never end... there are still those that hate Italians out there, they just mostly keep it to themselves (except in Germany...).
6) Since 2001, the police and their related agencies (TSA, NSA, etc.) have increasingly alienated their traditional support bases. White people with jobs and kids are considered threats and have felt what it's like to be treated as guilty-until-innocent and disposable by them. There is new empathy for the outsiders...
7) Just as TV brought the war in Vietnam into living rooms and changed popular opinion, so the dash-cam and the go-pro and the smartphone have brought police behavior to the attention of the masses. The technology brings it to Ars. Maybe change will happen.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @01:33AM
In the US, the first police forces were slave patrols. They rounded up / killed escaped slaves for the wealthy land/slave owners. So, the police exclusively served the rich elite.
Modern US police exist to protect property, so they still primarily server the rich elite. Also, most modern police are racist assholes (a generalization born out by abundant evidence), so they still murder, torture and harass black people more than others. They also know they are more likely to get away with killing some black teenager in a hoodie than some white suburban kid, because most Americans are closet racists.
In the US, police rarely get charged, and almost never get convicted for their crimes. US police killed 3 people per day in the in the first two months of 2015 http://thefreethoughtproject.com/cops-killed-8-hours-2015-early-graves-day/ [thefreethoughtproject.com]. I am unaware of even one cop that was tried, let alone convicted during that same period.
They murder, torture and rape with impunity. The rich parasitic class that runs everything in the US provides (official and unofficial) immunity from prosecution to the police in exchange for the police (when not acting upon sadistic impulses) serving the interests of the rich elites to the exclusion of all others (whenever a conflict exists between the interests of the two). The rich parasitic class controls the US media, so most Americans believe the victims "deserved it" because of the character assassinations the US media engages in against the victims.
Really, the root of the problem is the class war that the rich parasites have been engaged in since the founding of the country. End that, and we can start putting cops away for their crimes-- jail 3 cops a day for murder, and 30 cops a day for accessory to murder, and they will start behaving themselves pretty quickly.
(Score: 2, Informative) by eof on Saturday August 01 2015, @09:57PM
The same officer had a previous encounter with a citizen with camera. In that case he tried to prevent the recording of officers arresting someone on a public street. [boston.com] According to the article he was later informed of the public's right to record.