Police reform, but first why not "criminal" reform?

It's hard to argue that we don't have an issue in the US with regard to some police encounters. When you look at the Floyd Chauvin thing from an unbiased lens, you may see that Chauvin let his ego drive and override his brain. He likely knew he should get off of Floyds neck, but with bystanders screaming at him to do just that, he may have obstinately continued out of spite. I think even an officer there requested that he get off him, But I could be wrong.

Regardless, this case, and others show that at the very least, we need to relook at some policing efforts. But wait, there's more.

In any encounter, there is a yin and a yang. A plus and a minus. A good and a bad. In order for a cop to have a reason to be there, with a criminal doing criminal things, there had to be something bad that happened. There is always a catalyst. Why is the aggressor, the criminal never spoke of as the problem? If Floyd would have not resisted, he would be alive today. Sure his family would still be poor, and not visiting with the President of the United States, but I'm sure they would rather have George back, than all those perks.

If a criminal who is caught doesn't just submit to the fact that this is the case, he risks the bad stuff. You can't wear a red shirt, go up and kick the bull in the balls, and not expect the bull to gore you with his horns. nature doesn't work that way. Conversely, neither does policing. I know we have all seen the Chris Rock skit on how not to get your ass kicked by the police. While it's satire, it's factual, really factual. Most have no idea what happens to a police officer during "routine" traffic stops. Some go smoothly, while others may be a bit squirrely. The officer has no idea if you are going to be nice, or be an asshole, until one or the other happens. So he's already on edge, hyped on adrenalin. It's part of the job, and not optional.

So what responsibility does the bad guy have in all this? Up till now, he gets a pass if he gets killed. Why should that be the case? Couldn't we do some educating for the folks that might find themselves on the business end of a cop's gun? If it just saved one life.........

Criminals, know your place, know your responsibilities, and know your limitations. And always remember, there are three sides to every story, His side, your side, and the truth. let's try to save lives, not end them.

Well, today our HR rep sent out a communication about it being the anniversary of GF's death and it read "Today we honor George Floyd's life and the lives that have been taken by racially-motivated violence."

I mean, honor his life? What is there to honor exactly? His drug use, armed robbery of a pregnant woman? Using counterfeit money?

As long as people trade good for evil and evil for good, no one will expect criminals to take any responsibility, especially if they are non-white.

a reply to: network dude

I agree with the Police reform part for the very obvious reasons you point out.

Good luck getting bad people to play nice all the same aka the criminals.

As to them knowing there place, responsibilities, and limitations, they generally do hence the reason they thrive under certain circumstance, and the stupid ones get wide, get caught and go to jail.

Vicious circle topped up with pain and human misery really.

originally posted by: SideEyeEverything
Well, today our HR rep sent out a communication about it being the anniversary of GF's death and it read "Today we honor George Floyd's life and the lives that have been taken by racially-motivated violence."

I mean, honor his life? What is there to honor exactly? His drug use, armed robbery of a pregnant woman? Using counterfeit money?

As long as people trade good for evil and evil for good, no one will expect criminals to take any responsibility, especially if they are non-white.

If my place of work sent out a communication saying that, I would have taken a large, steaming dump on the desk and walked out.
These companies and people have gone insane in a misguided effort to coddle these assholes.

Police officers have to be held to higher standards. However, we cannot absolve criminals and idiots of their responsibility either.

It really isn't rocket science.

Cops just want to make it home to their families each night. When you resist arrest, you are escalating a situation where a cop might need to make a life and death decision that the will probably not be in the criminals favor.

originally posted by: Edumakated
Police officers have to be held to higher standards. However, we cannot absolve criminals and idiots of their responsibility either.

It really isn't rocket science.

Cops just want to make it home to their families each night. When you resist arrest, you are escalating a situation where a cop might need to make a life and death decision that the will probably not be in the criminals favor.

Yes, and until everyone factors that part in to the equation, we will be stuck in the whack-o-mole game, looking for cops that had to resort to killing a suspect, and vilifying them, even if they were in the right.

I think that real problem lies in rewarding the kind of people who want power and authority over other people in the first place instead of recognizing them as the threat they are.

I'm not just talking about the boys in blue though.

"Great men do not seek power, they have power thrust upon them."
~Kah'less the Unforgettable

America still "grappling" with police reform.

It's been a year, what's taking so long?: www.msn.com...

Let people in "woke" communities see what it's like with no police.

If they want the police back at some point, make sure they beg...loudly, and its broadcasted in a high-profile manner.

a reply to: carewemust

I feel like until we bring the other side of this into the discussion, it will never change.

a reply to: SideEyeEverything

Saint George of fentanyl.

Sir Michael of swisher sweet

Lord trayvon of Skittles

The glorification of criminal behavior is a beautiful thing.

originally posted by: RazorV66

originally posted by: SideEyeEverything
Well, today our HR rep sent out a communication about it being the anniversary of GF's death and it read "Today we honor George Floyd's life and the lives that have been taken by racially-motivated violence."

I mean, honor his life? What is there to honor exactly? His drug use, armed robbery of a pregnant woman? Using counterfeit money?

As long as people trade good for evil and evil for good, no one will expect criminals to take any responsibility, especially if they are non-white.

If my place of work sent out a communication saying that, I would have taken a large, steaming dump on the desk and walked out.
These companies and people have gone insane in a misguided effort to coddle these assholes.

Sort of OT, but speaking of companies & their BS, interestingly enough, I'm going to break a study rule and let folks know I'm doing a long-term forum-style group feedback dealio for a company. No names or industries, sorry, not spilling those. Anyway, the apparent goal is to cherry-pick social issues to use to milk & sell the company image/product via -- I mean, erm, be...socially....something-something.

I called bull# on intentions so fast that I think they were a little taken aback. You would not BELIEVE the number of participants who outright echoed, "Just sell your #, I'm not paying for activism. And nobody cares what you or your employees like or think off the clock anyway."

Unsurprisingly, I had a one-week lock-out for that, to "cool down". Slimy bastards they are, call 'em out when the attempt is so transparent it might as well be invisible, and everyone else took their chomp at it, too. But paddle the folks who aired their grievances?

Some feedback research, eh? Good thing they're paying damn well. At least I can bilk THEM.

a reply to: Nyiah

The apple cult! Just hit me like lightning strike.

That's when this all first started, when I think back. When people started to suck Job's toes and started to adopt or try to copy his slight eccentric style because they thought it's cool or "in". Now ten years later, other startups or younger management wants to have the other side. That customers follow them, like they did Steve Jobs. So they virtue signal along the mainstream cult to not get cancled by that cult(ure).

I've done similar with Ptreon but they supported what I think are terrorist so slight difference.

a reply to: network dude

Come on, Dude, you know very well that none of this--the education, the knowing of responsibilities and limitations, etc.--it doesn't matter if we can't fix the problem in some of these American sub-cultures that have been driving the ideas of victimhood and no personal accountability into the heads of their children and adults. And that idea infiltrates all races and all socioeconomic sectors, although certain ones do have such concepts driven into their belief systems almost by force.

Of course you're correct in that 99.999999% of police interactions would go very smoothly if the citizen would be respectful and act appropriately in front of a person with lethal and non-lethal weapons who are charged with enforcing laws and arresting suspects, but that's not how human nature works. But LEOs generally deal with confrontational and defensive people very well, but it's that small percentage who take it beyond the realm of "normal" disdain who end up getting injured or killed (or injuring or killing a LEO). And then there is the even smaller percentage who are basically "mistakes," such as Tamir Rice and the mis-identification of an altered toy gun as a real one--but mistakes don't mean that the end result, as unfortunate as it can be, isn't justified based on what the LEOs know at the time of the incident (the officers were told by dispatch that there was a guy with a gun at the rec center pointing it at people, but didn't share that the 911 caller said that the "guy" was a probably a juvenile and that the gun was probably fake). (no, I'm not interested in discussing the Tamir Rice case further, I'm just using that as an example, folks)

So, those small percentages get the most coverage in the news and in turn results in the bulk of the issues and movements that we see, like "defund the police" and calls for mental-health professionals instead of LEOs to arrive to on-scene first, and the creation of these very silly "autonomous zones." But the problem is that these small percentages of police interactions could be avoided if, like you say, these suspects would be taught how to interact with police, and how to take accountability for their own actions, and how to have things like self-respect and personal integrity. There are a lot of reasons as to why this doesn't happen in these communities, but the end result is what it is.

Of course, I guess we have to accept that the types of people who are criminals (and most in these situations are repeat criminals) don't really care about the law nor those tasked with enforcing it, so the only real thing to do is address the societal issues that lead to this life so that the next generation doesn't perpetuate that lifestyle. That's much easier said than accomplished.

a reply to: carewemust

I'm sure that you saw this, but it's worth a reminder that it's already happening: Minneapolis Moves to 'Refund' Police

originally posted by: network dude
a reply to: carewemust

I feel like until we bring the other side of this into the discussion, it will never change.

IMO, we should let "The Left" have everything they want...making sure to give them "credit". So when taxes, and inflation, and crime really begin taking off, strapped individuals and families will know it's DEMOCRATS delivering on their promises.

Here in Liberal Democrat-controlled Chicago, the police are held on a tight leash. It's so tight, thugs are shooting tourists and residents just driving down the city expressways, for the fun of it.

The mayor gets really mad when reporters ask her about the 70+ shootings on the city expressways so far this year. She knows that if word got out, thousands of tourists and business meetings would stay the hell of away from this shooting gallery named Chicago, Illinois.

originally posted by: SlapMonkey
a reply to: carewemust

I'm sure that you saw this, but it's worth a reminder that it's already happening: Minneapolis Moves to 'Refund' Police

Yes...but as you can see in the article, Fox News is the national outlet who let the country know of this Minneapolis reversal.

The people who read/view Fox News are smart enough to know that communities in America cannot have peace-of-mind without law enforcement.

When a big "something" occurs in a city that has reduced or eliminated the police, ABC-CBS-CNN, etc., will report it. That will raise awareness that police are needed in adequate numbers, everywhere.

a reply to: SideEyeEverything

You could say to the HR rep, "why are you involving us in politics, this is more than racially motivated violence" lets face it there are forces that stand to benefit form this. That'll tie them (rep) up in knots

a reply to: network dude

We need to look at this from a realistic angle: the police are a service enacted by the citizenry. We will ignore the past use of police to enforce Jim Crow, or as tax collectors. For today, the purpose of the police is to investigate crime for prosecution, as a service the citizens have given themselves.

The criminal is a citizen too. And that fact must be kept in mind and at a front and center type of concept. The criminal is a citizen too. And no citizen should be paying for a service that results in their unnecessary demise.

We have quite a few examples of this, too. Most recent is the lady that thought she had pulled her tazer and gut shot someone instead of tasing them. But we all remember the dude laying prone in a hotel hallway begging for his life and being shot, too.

The reality of this is that police have a pretty solid record of acting inappropriately in situations that mean life and death. The lady a copule of months ago shot through the window while she is in her own home watching movies with a child relative....there is zero excuse for that.

I feel like everyone screams about big ideas...and the reality is lost in the middle. Recall the Tea party...was a great movement. Until all the morons came aboard and created so much noise that it was lost. The same thing happens with things like police reform.

How could anyone argue that our justice system doesn't need reform? We imprison more people than any other nation. Does that mean defund the police? No...thats idiocy that is only distracting from the real problems and the real solutions.

Someone the other day in another conversation mentioned that we had "lost our language". I think this is a very important concept for everyone to keep in mind. Debate tends to drift, and the drift can cause you to debate about something else entirely when you lose your language. Its how we find ourselves actually arguing common sense things like there being only 2 sexes....we lost our language and began discussing something else entirely. And look like lunatics doing so.

a reply to: carewemust

The mayor gets really mad when reporters ask her about the 70+ shootings on the city expressways so far this year. She knows that if word got out, thousands of tourists and business meetings would stay the hell of away from this shooting gallery named Chicago, Illinois.

Well you're always good at talking on here, maybe its time to translate that into action IRL and use that as leverage to get things that people need changed? Surely there must be heaps of people pissed at her. Have you tried some activism? Sometimes action is called for.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

you aren't wrong, but in order to have this conversation, we can't ignore 50% of the problem and think we can make any progress. If dickheads didn't break the law, cops would all be fat and happy in donut shops drinking coffee, like they used to do.

While the incidents you speak of happen, for every one of them, there are hundreds of thousands of positive interactions. If all those are ignored, how can we learn anything about fixing the one's that are broken? Short answer- we can't.

If people are going to break the law, they need to be more polite about it.