For those who think this case will be a slam dunk, don't be so sure. SCOTUS recently rejected an appeal from a man who was arrested for making a parody FB page of his local police department, then denied the right to sue on the grounds of 'qualified immunity'.[0] As a side note, this was the case where The Onion submitted a humorous amicus brief;[1] it's worth a read.
> SCOTUS recently rejected an appeal from a man who was arrested for making a parody FB page of his local police department
The police in Novak v. Parma were executing search and arrest warrants [1]. There was no judicial oversight in this case.
Also, Novak established (EDIT: reaffirmed) "protected speech cannot serve as the basis for probable cause." The court was unclear "whether [his] actions—deleting comments that made clear the page was fake and reposting the Department’s warning message—[were] protected speech." Very different from reading a prepared statement at a city council meeting [2].
The important part is the use of protected speech as probable cause to seek the warrant. If officers are shielded from accountability for illegally using protected speech as a basis for probable cause, then the lack of a warrant doesn't help Petersen.
> Novak established "protected speech cannot serve as the basis for probable cause."
It did not establish this; this was long standing case law, as the opinion points out. What it established was that police have qualified immunity from being sued for illegally using protected speech as probable cause if 'judges could “reasonably disagree”' about whether or not the speech is protected. In this case, if the PD can convince a judge that there was any room at all for 'reasonable disagreement' about whether or not a council rule that prohibits "derogatory statements or comments about any individual" is unconstitutional, then the PD will get let off the hook, even if the speech ends up being unambiguously protected. All that is needed is the 'reasonable disagreement' to immunize the officers, even if the conclusion is foregone.
> important part is the use of protected speech as probable cause to seek the warrant
Sure. But Novak didn't just speak. He also moderated comments, et cetera, in a way that made the court unsure if he was solely participating in protected speech. That ambiguity doesn't exist here.
> this was long standing case law
Sorry, I should have said reaffirmed.
> then the PD will get let off the hook
The mayor ordered the police to arrest Petersen. There might be disagreement as to the police officer's liability. But the ambiguity around whether there was an "order" (per Pembaur) authorizing action isn't there. The municipal liability is just much clearer.
One more thing: Novak didn't seek to overturn the Ohio law that "makes it illegal to use a computer to disrupt or impair police functions." In this case, the town's law is itself being challenged. Again, much clearer.
The bar is much lower than whether or not the court thinks the speech is protected or not. The court could unambiguously believe the rule is unconstitutional and the speech was protected, but if they believe there's any room at all for 'reasonable disagreement' on the matter among other judges, then the officers and officials get immunized.
> The municipal liability is just much clearer.
This would be nice, assuming courts agree, but until officers and officials start getting held personally liable for these events, they will never stop happening. If the PD and officials are shielded from liability but the municipality isn't, then all that happens is that taxpayers will continue to pick up the tab for police misconduct.
> In this case, the town's law is itself being challenged. Again, much clearer.
Well, he's seeking damages from the mayor, officers, and municipality first and foremost; the council rule has actually already been removed. I hope you're right that he might get something from the municipality, but I doubt he'll get anything from the mayor or PD.
> if they believe there's any room at all for 'reasonable disagreement' on the matter among other judges
Sure. And given the officers consulted the "City’s Law Director and the judges who issued the warrants," there was evidence of that disagreement. There were no similar consultations in Petersen's case.
> until officers and officials start getting held personally liable for these events, they will never stop happening
I don't believe there is evidence for this. Municipalities vigorously defend themselves for a reason. Yes, in large systems, the cost gets baked in--but Newton isn't a big nor rich town.
> he might get something from the municipality, but I doubt he'll get anything from the mayor or PD
I agree. And I think that could even be fair, especially if the mayor and cop thought they were acting according to the law. The law they relied on didn't come out of nowhere, after all.
In the end, if the only thing that comes out of this is the non-disparagement rule being struck down, I think that's a win. (I generally believe we need qualified immunity reform. But that needs to happen through statute.)
>given the officers consulted the "City’s Law Director and the judges who issued the warrants," there was evidence of that disagreement.
Based on the CiC. v. Husted opinion that the judges cited in Novak, the officers don't need to consult anybody or be aware of a disagreement; there just needs to be the possibility of one, the argument being that we shouldn't hold public officals to a higher standard than judges, so if judges could disagree about the constitutionality of sonething then the officials should be able to as well. This seems like a comically low bar to me that could easily be met here.
> Municipalities vigorously defend themselves for a reason.
Of course they'll defend themselves vigorously in court, but will it change the behavior of the officers and officials in question if they're shielded from liability? I doubt it, though I hope I'm wrong.
> And I think that could even be fair, especially if the mayor and cop thought they were acting according to the law. The law they relied on didn't come out of nowhere, after all.
Well, I suppose if you think that, then you agree about the liklihood of qualified immunity getting applied here. But I can't imagine that the mayor or police believed this rule was constitutional, and I think that shows in their rapid and discrete removal of the rule following Petersen's acquittal.
> the city council delegated
authority to the mayor. For instance, if the mayor thought a comment or question
was “derogatory,” the mayor could enforce the city’s policy however he saw fit . . . Conversely, if someone else thought a
comment or question was “derogatory,” but not the mayor, nothing would happen.
> For instance, if the mayor thought a comment or question was “derogatory,” the mayor could enforce the city’s policy however he saw fit
The mayor doesn't get to define statutory law, though.
Leaving aside "was this comment a problem or not", stopping someone from speaking at a council meeting is one thing, "and then having them arrested for disorderly conduct" is quite another.
> The mayor ordered the police to arrest Petersen.
In most (I'd venture the very very vast majority) of cities, the Mayor is not in the PD chain of command. In fact, generally, the Mayor is a largely ceremonial and strategic role, and if anything, I'd expect the City Operations Manager to be the one.
In fact, here (Washington state), during a lot of the BLM protests and the "take a knee" stance, there was coverage of our Mayor asking the Sheriff to take a knee with her during a protest. He refused. The Mayor also asked the Sheriff (who is considered the senior LEO in the county, for all agencies other than state/federal) to withdraw officers into the City offices as a show of de-escalation, etc. He also declined.
Apropos of anything else, I can't see how that would be a valid order, anyway. It doesn't free anyone from the need for probable cause, for a start. "Officer, what was your cause for arresting this man?" "Well, the mayor ordered me to."
I think your comment is the only one here mentioning qualified immunity. This is definitely another qualified immunity case disguised as a free speech case, I'd expect the outcome to be similar on that alone. Until qualified immunity for police is done away with, police essentially have carte-blanche to do what they want without consequence (barring extraordinary incidents of violence).
> circumstances I can understand generation of fury
The officer sticking to his original, faulty and increasingly untenable hypothesis is frustrating to watch--it's stupidity and stubbornness from a position of power.
Wow, we’ve really set the bar for law enforcement low. “Sure, he’s arresting a guy who obviously hasn’t committed a crime, but it’s not like he beat the guy up.”
Even if he wins, the harm is done, Police wants to spread fear to make people submissive and not criticize their actions. They are not going to pay. It will pay the city, the policemen will continue with their abuses of power.
Which is why the officers involved should pay, with their jobs. The department should fire them to demonstrate to the public that the officer's actions were unacceptable and won't be tolerated. I'm sure they won't, but if they care about about improving how they're viewed by the public they're going to have to start holding their own responsible for abuses of power.
It shouldn't end with the police either. That mayor needs to be voted out next election if not sooner.
That is a start but won’t help as it is common knowledge that police often move a county over and get hired for another department after getting fired. What would actually help us is they were personally sued and handed a bill for $50,000 paid by their own money.
Perhaps there should be some form of register for police, that tracks officers dismissed, or who resigned to avoid termination, etc., so that cities and departments could use that to inform hiring decisions.
Oh, wait, there absolutely is such a thing! That's great!
Except a large number (majority, even) of police unions around the country have it written into their CBA that this register cannot be used for hiring decisions... Well, shit.
I don't have the same last name as my parents. My mother doesn't have the same last name as her parents. Why would you think this alone indicates anything about their relationships?
We live in an immature emotionally driven "civilization" of adult children that is a stalemate of ever present war: given the identification of any nation having any economic weakness, every other nation capable exploits that weakness in an effort to improve their own situation, while loudly executing playground games in society distraction. The United States is one of the dominant power brokers, most adept at that distraction game, and extremely corrupt, to the degree the corruption is argued to be the state of the nature of man.
I remember a discussion about 'Uber for police' and just thinking 'boy, that would be so much better than what we have now'. Imagine being able to rate your responding officer and they couldn't carry a weapon below a certain number of stars.
I remember reading something from a UCLA military science guy who approached it another way and independently came to the same conclusion. I forget the name. He also did propaganda and disinformation studies. Can't seem to find him. Maybe it's like UCL and I'm misremembering something foundational.
I find it interesting that everyone immediately assumed I was talking only about guns. The advantage includes the right to peaceably assemble and speak freely, and petition the government for a redress of grievances. But to think that will always work out without a too-significant crackdown by the government hampering the process, is totally utterly ridiculous.
It continues to fascinate me that people have already forgotten, or never heard, the stories of the foundations of the country. We asked the existing government multiple times to allow us to handle ourselves, and give us more autonomy. They outright said no. And what was one of their first actions in response? Go take the plebs' guns. Now, if controlling the arms, ordnance, and munitions isn't important, why is that?
And no, our government being a republic rather than a monarchy does not make this time any different than the last. It should be evident by now that all it does is slow down the inevitable, and prevent us from pointing the finger at any one specific person. Which is to say, it'll be even harder this time. And that is not an excuse to give us less advantages. It is a reason we need more, or our future generations are more doomed than we already have allowed ourselves to be.
> It continues to fascinate me that people have already forgotten, or never heard, the stories of the foundations of the country.
You can't transpose the context of colonial america to contemporary life. Even nearly 200 year old inventions like the gatling gun, professional policing, penny press, telegraph and car dilute the predictive power of conflict analysis of the 1700s to apply it to the 21st century. Yet alone say, apache helicopters and SAMs.
> And what was one of their first actions in response? Go take the plebs' guns.
The volumes that chronicle these histories are deeply ahistorical. Every one I've seen is actually about arming favored groups and disarming unfavored ones.
It's not about taking away guns, it's about making them plentiful for a group driven by fear and anger and making them scarce for the designated scapegoat.
Unless you think AR-15s and ammunition for homeless, pedophiles, illegal immigrants, and woke mobs is part of your strategy, you are in effect, doing exactly what you are accusing these other societies of doing because you are inherently carving out a group that should and a group that should not have access to guns - which is precisely what all those historical groups did.
> Unless you think AR-15s and ammunition for homeless, pedophiles, illegal immigrants, and woke mobs is part of your strategy, you are in effect, doing exactly what you are accusing these other societies of doing because you are inherently carving out a group that should and a group that should not have access to guns - which is precisely what all those historical groups did.
If you're a US citizen, you have a right to keep and bear arms. That is my only "carve out". Homeless, poor, gay, vegan, etc. all count. Yes, illegal immigrants are a carve out. They are not US citizens, and they therefore don't enjoy full protection of the law here. Well, shouldn't. Get your citizenship and I don't care anymore. This used to be a given before the globalist agenda.
> They are not US citizens, and they therefore don't enjoy full protection of the law here. Well, shouldn't. Get your citizenship and I don't care anymore. This used to be a given before the globalist agenda.
Right. For the Nazis, the often go-to for the gun grabbing argument, this was the reich citizenship law of 1935.
By clamping down on citizenship definitions and who's allowed to have papers, they did the carve out
That's the exact strategy they took - right to bear arms was reserved for reich citizens.
That wasn't quite what the 2nd Amendment was originally about; nobody back then could foresee modern policing; if the police or the United States government have it out for you, good luck fighting them off with an M16 or AK-47 or even like an RPG. The most likely case is that they just kill you; the best case is, what, that you become a white Ahmed Shah Massoud, maintaining an insurgency in the Appalachias or something?
There was a lot of concern about slave uprisings and indigenous insurgencies and there were precedents in the laws of individual colonies, such as Virginia's, where white men were required to own guns for these purposes.
Since armed Choctaw rebellions and plantation slave uprisings are of course still a very legitimate concern buying assault rifles at the gun store should be a sacrosanct holy right. We certainly don't want another Haitian revolution on our hands.
Insurgencies have a recent track record of being quite effective. So, yes.
Also, I never said you'd survive such a scenario. Not everyone survived the first revolution. Did that make it a bad idea?
Also x2, why do people I speak to about this always get the impression that everyone in the military will unanimously agree that drone striking and nuking its land, resources, and people is a beneficial strategy? Not to mention the immorality of it. There will be splintering. It will be civil war. There's a great chance there will be two US armies, two presidents, etc. when the time comes.
> Also x2, why do people I speak to about this always get the impression that everyone in the military will unanimously agree that drone striking and nuking its land, resources, and people is a beneficial strategy? Not to mention the immorality of it. There will be splintering. It will be civil war. There's a great chance there will be two US armies, two presidents, etc. when the time comes.
Because we are thinking about randoms with guns and other weaponry, not organized rebellion/treason a la the Confederacy.
edit: wouldn't, in the case of such a massive organized rebellion, engaging in even more brutal and aggressive tactics actually make more sense? The stakes are much higher in that scenario, and wouldn't the United States want to decimate the enemy's supply, etc., as it partly did during the original Civil War?
What comes after one side wins? Half the land, resources, population, and production? Collateral damage is in both sides' interest to avoid. We can use those tactics in other countries because we don't really care. That all changes on home soil.
The term they use is "you can beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride". Which means, we can screw with you enough just by arresting you even if nothing comes of it.
I hope this city learns its lesson after being sued.
Separate but related, I'm actually sort of sad about the "defund the police" movement. While it's catchy, it's pretty unhelpful. We don't need less funds, we need different use of funds. Deescalation training would be a massive one.
From my understanding that's a core goal of the "defund the police" movement. The police as it exists in this country right now is a state militia. We need more 911 respondents that are not armed to the teeth, to join the corpus of medics and firefighters, replacing the police in 80% of use cases. Noise complaint? Homeless person shooting up? Car accident? Cops are over-equipped and undertrained in most of these cases. They respectively need negotiation, compassion and first-aid, and a logistics/insurance official.
Cops don't necessarily need to be trained in all these things, because cops suck up so much funding to deal with the few cases they might actually be necessary (gang shootout, protest security, armed robbery, etc), and one official can only be reliably trained in so many things. They just need to not be sent for these non-violent cases in favor of specialized unarmed social workers.
In the UK the police are generally armed only with a lightweight baton and cs spray. That forces you to deescalate.
There are specialist armed officers to respond to serious incidents, terrorism, guarding public buildings etc. In my view these are becoming far too common and visible.
I work as a paramedic-firefighter. I've had multiple instances where police "are not our friends". There's far more egregious examples, but even smaller things.
Get called to an obviously mentally disturbed person who is agitated and such. Successfully talk to him over a period of time, calm him down, start a plan for getting him some assistance. There's a couple of police on scene, but they're hanging back. No crime has been committed and this is a medical issue, not a law enforcement issue. Really just there "for our safety". So far so good.
Until along comes another cop, who sees a broken glass in the gutter nearby our patient (who has a couple of minor lacerations on his hand), and comes barreling over to us and shouting and gesticulating at him for breaking the glass, littering, danger to people and potential damage to cars driving/parking there, etc., and asks "why shouldn't I take you to jail after they're done with you?"
Thanks, cop, now my patient is all agitated again and you've undone 20 minutes of my effort trying to help him.
And while the cops hanging back aren't contributing (directly) to the situation, they're obviously visible to said patient, and they definitely have no intention of trying to shut down their fellow officer.
In Japan, police carry pistols, as well as other things (baton etc.). They're trained in de-escalation from what I've read, and it's extremely rare that they ever use their guns. When they do, it's apparently a huge paperwork headache, and every round absolutely must be accounted for, so police avoid it if at all possible.
You don't need to disarm cops to keep them from escalating unnecessarily; you just to have proper procedures and training.
Perhaps it also helps that cops here are dressed as professionals, with shirts and ties, rather than as paramilitary troopers.
>Perhaps it also helps that cops here are dressed as professionals, with shirts and ties, rather than as paramilitary troopers.
100% it helps! That is how police were dressed in the UK when I was young. They were known as the 'boys in blue'. Now it is all swat team black. If you dress someone as a soldier and equip them as a soldier, we shouldn't be suprised if they act like one.
Hah, here the cops get a choice of that black, or a camo-green style uniform that is very Army-eque (not full blown camo, but from not much of a distance you'd assume they were military, not LE).
> we shouldn't be suprised if they act like one
I'd love it if cops were held to the same rules of engagement as the military.
You, as a civilian, are expected to remain calm while LE is aggressive and shouting at you.
You, untrained, are expected to remain unafraid with guns pointing at you, but a trained cop can "fear for his life"...
Given the off-duty soldiers and off-duty police I've interacted with, I'd prefer a soldier over a police officer any day. I know you mean 'a soldier in enemy territory' but it's worth highlighting.
Oh? 50 years ago, the Lakewood, Colorado, police were called the "blue blazers" because they dressed with jacket and tie. I never heard they were better thought of locally.
I'm only 42.... police in the UK got their perpetual guns and SWAT outfits post 'war on terror' iirc. I remember clearly seeing the first 'bobby on the beat' in my home town wearing a stab vest over his white shirt and tie. He had traditional dark blue trousers and shoes (rather than combat boots). It is a rural town. I never heard of a knife crime. We thought it was health and safety nonsense. This would be mid 2000s.
I told a policemen friend (non uniform) that i didn't like that they moved someone after to black polo shirts. He said it was because sweat made the colour run from the stab vests into their white shirts...
The situation on the ground is very different in Japan. Rarely do you have mass shootings or gang and drug violence. Those problems are a daily reality in the U.S.
American police officers would never wear a tie. They’d (rightly) fear that someone would try to strangle them with it.
> The situation on the ground is very different in Japan. Rarely do you have mass shootings or gang and drug violence. Those problems are a daily reality in the U.S.
The vast majority to US police offers will never encounter these situations in their careers. There’s no reason to have every officer armed to teeth just in case they’re blind sided gang violence, or a mass shooting. Besides we also know that most U.S. officers have no interest in responding to types of incidents, preferring to sit it out until someone else comes a deals with their mess.
> American police officers would never wear a tie. They’d (rightly) fear that someone would try to strangle them with it.
That’s why police officers in other countries wear clip-on ties that are specifically designed to breakaway if yanked on. Nobody wears a real tie.
I do want to add, I know Newton, Iowa--the town this article takes place in--and they do not have any mass shooting or gang violence. There is drug use, but barely any drug-related violence (unless you count alcohol, I guess).
I know you are talking about police in general, not this specific town, but I wanted to make clear that none of those are a daily reality in Newton.
I still think it would be a totally different story if it were Newton, Japan rather than Newton, Iowa. Police culture doesn't stop at city limits. It permeates a society. The police in Newton, Iowa likely have the same warrior mindset as the ones in Baltimore, they just don't see nearly as much action.
But every police officer in Newton knows that there's nothing stopping a criminal from another state just showing up in town, heavily armed, and robbing a liquor store. Whereas doing that in Japan would be far more difficult.
Heck, when the former president of Japan (Shinzo Abe) was assassinated the shooter used a home-made gun.
You think a lot of people can figure out how to build their own guns and ammunition from raw materials? The shooter in this case used some metal pipes from a hardware store, a piece of wood, some duct tape, and an electrical igniter he made himself. He had to make his own ammunition and gunpowder from raw materials too. Moreover, the guy wasn't some random idiot; he was in the army before and had some kind of technical job there.
As for "moving around Japan", in case you've never looked at a map, Japan is an island (or more properly, an archipelago). You can't just import guns there. And buying a gun is very difficult and will put you on a first-name basis with the local cops, and even here all you can buy is a hunting rifle or shotgun, and you better have a good reason to own it. Handguns are completely prohibited. The idea that some criminal could just show up in town, heavily armed, is utter fantasy.
Japan does have drug violence. Also, being a cop in an America is fairly safe occupation. And most deaths are from traffic accidents - cops mortality is mostly because they are a lot on the streets and get killed by cars.
To play Devil’s Advocate here, could it be safe because they’re able to defend themselves against grievous injury and death?
Instead of looking at death, we should look at overall incidents of violence for an honest measure of the danger involved. There are somewhat controversial figures in the civilian world around “Defensive Gun Use,” including non-lethal acts ending possible or would-be violent encounters that, if true, speak to guns leading to less death and injury than the current ~10,000 number we suffer as a nation.
I’ve heard a similar argument that we shouldn’t look at the murder rate as a measure of inner city violence, but attempted murder type charges for the fact that casualty care in hospitals is so much better these days that would-have-been murders are now only attempts.
An interesting stats rabbit hole I have, sadly, not the time to explore.
A costume absolutely can affect the attitude and behavior of the person wearing it. You should try an experiment yourself: go to work one day in your usual outfit. Then, the next day, dress up in drag (assuming you're male) or a furry costume and see if you behave the same.
The costume changes how people perceive you, the assumptions they make about you, and by extension the way you interact with those people.
There is no such thing as "the police" in the USA. In my immediate area there are (the ones I see regularly): City police (the major presence), Public school police, Transit System police, State Patrol, and County police.
Every department will have different policies, leadership, departments (like SWAT), etc.
Yes even in the West Country tasers are routinely carried and in cities firearms are very visibly carried. Seems like quite a change in the last ten/fifteen years.
Tasers were brought in with the excuse that they would replace the need for guns and reduce how many officers would carry guns. Tasers would, as argued when they were introduced, only be used by specialists in cases where previously they would have to use lethal force.
And yet here we are ~20 years later and tasers have started to become part of a routine carry.
In Q2 2018, Avon and Somerset police record 1 use of taser for the whole quarter.
In 2022, they recorded between 80 and 120 uses of taser per month. Although I suspect "use" in the 2023 report may be drawn not fired, the Q2 2021 reports 230 uses of taser with 51 firings, so applying a similar ratio is still an escalation of 100x over a few years.
Tasers are interesting one, I’m not a huge fan of them myself.
But I did have a very interesting conversation with a Met Police Officer while he was escorting me to hospital. He pointed out that without the Taser, his only other option was his baton. He frequently used the threat of the Taser to deal with situations where he would be forced to use a baton instead, and noted most of the simply the threat of a Taser was enough to get people to reconsider their actions, and accept arrest more peacefully.
Obviously there are places where the presence of Tasers have resulting an increase an escalation which wouldn’t have otherwise, and no doubt there are some officers that abuse their Tasers, but I don’t removing Tasers would be a clear cut improvement. But I would be in favour of more technical controls (automatic logging of a Taser being upholstered, automatic trigging of body-worn cameras, simple method for the public to request footage etc) to prevent abuses.
Edit:
> In Q2 2018, Avon and Somerset police record 1 use of taser for the whole quarter.
I would be very careful reading this data. Looking through what’s available it’s clear to me something significant changed in either police behaviour or, more likely, data collection.
According to the data, Tasers were used only 15 times in 2018/2019 Q4, but in 2019/2020 Q1 usage shot up to 201. They were fired 0 times in 2018/2019 Q4 and fired 30 times in 2019/2020 Q1.
Additionally “tactical communication” was used 1,865 times in 2018/2019 Q4, but only 515 times in 2019/2020 Q1.
So either the Avon and Somerset Police got a lot less talkative, and lot more trigger happy after the 2019 easter holiday, or the 2018/2019 data was collected using a different methodology, and appears to be wildly inaccurate. If we exclude the 2018/2019 data, the increase in Taser usage is still there, but it’s not a 100X increase, more like a 10X increase. Not great I agree, but still an order of magnitude lower than your original analysis.
I’m pretty sure their body-worn cameras are automatically enabled (or tag the current time window to be retained?) when the officer’s taser is activated in at least some constabularies.
Unfortunately the best source I have is a vague memory of some tv documentary. Some light searching didn’t come up with much[1] but digging a little deeper I found mentions of a few external sources than can enable the BWCs in the Axon documentation[2].
And I've seen cops in my local shop wandering up and down the sandwich aisle, packing pistols. Really, if they're on lunch-break, they could just leave the ratchet in their desk (this shop is literally across the road from the station).
Basically, if there are cops with pistols in my local shop, it should be safe to assume they're chasing an armed criminal, and that therefore I should leave not just the shop, but the the whole area.
I complained; complaint rejected without investigation by the Chief Constable (and he was pretty rude about it).
Carrying pistols in the UK? I didn’t think firearms offices carried pistols at all in the UK, I’m also surprised they’re carrying any firearm when they’re off duty.
Authorised firearms officers will generally carry some form of rifle (or submachine gun?) as their primary firearm but will also carry a sidearm, most commonly a Glock 17 I think but I do know my local constabulary issue a SIG Sauer P320 (and a SIG Sauer MCX as their primary, but again this varies by constabulary).
It was GB. They were in uniform, and with all the macho shit - cuffs, collapsible nightsticks, tasers, flak jackets. I said it was "lunch-break", because they were clearly shopping for sandwiches. But that doesn't mean they were off-duty.
Yeah, I'm not used to seeing coppers packing pistols. I think there was some political march that day, but in this town marches and protests don't turn into riots. And I don't think it's appropriate for gunmen to serve as march stewards.
Yes same thing in Germany and france especially. I See cops way more armed than bevor. In south France you see the “gendarmerie” everywhere with heavy weapons. It wasn’t the case 10 years ago. Sad to see this. One of the downside of this is a little story of a friend. He was a year in ,i think Mexico, and there were military people with arms everywhere. At first he kind of freaked out but after beeing back to Germany he said he feel less safe hier because of the lack of weapons. He knew there was no rationally to it but still he felt this way
While in Germany police are routinely armed with pistols, heavier weapons like MPs are used for serious incidents only, usually. This includes soccer games, and transport to/from those (my main encounters with MP-wielding police officers is when I happen to go to the train station while there’s a local soccer game where others arrive, or one where the fans go to via train)
In the U.K., they’re a regular fixture (cops with SMGs) - train stations, street corners, shopping centres, supermarkets, the beach, you name it, they’re there, and armed to the teeth. Football match, you’ll have hundreds of them, often pre-emptively in riot gear.
The football always annoyed me. The riot great I can understand, the SMGs are inexcusable. I always felt it was an excuse for the police to bill the club for their most expensive personnel.
Can find anything completely declarative on this subject, but everything I’m seeing suggests you’re right. Football clubs only pay for officers within the stadium, and it’s seems UK case law prevents the police for charging stadiums for officers one public grounds in the surrounding area [1].
There is also an ongoing debate about how policing costs of football matches are funded, given all police forces have seen huge cuts in budgets over the past few years. But equally football matches are much less violent than they used to be, and some question if the police tactics used today are the right approach (police seem to expect the worst, despite evidence suggesting their own tactics might be enabling bad behaviour).
> The term can also be used to describe a stockless handgun-style submachine gun. The term is a calque of Maschinenpistole, the German word for submachine guns.
I fully agree with what you've said, but it's worth pointing out that there are a bunch of different movements all using the "defund the police" moniker. That leads to a lot of disagreement about what it means, and the most extreme types (who really mean eliminate the police) use it too. I stopped using it to avoid confusion after the anarchists adopted it, and would encourage others to do so as well.
> there are a bunch of different movements all using the "defund the police" moniker. That leads to a lot of disagreement about what it means, and the most extreme types (who really mean eliminate the police) use it too.
It might be worth checking the history there. I read that the anarchists who want to eliminate the police are the origin of the specific phrase "defund the police", and the less "extreme" types are the ones who attempted to expand/dilute the meaning. Saying that the anarchists "use it too" and "adopted it" is, I think, a little unfair.
See also the discussions around r/antiwork a couple of years ago, where the subreddit had been pretty anarchist since its inception, before it suddenly got popular and watered down, and suddenly the original regulars who'd been there for years were being labelled as extremists who didn't fit in and shouldn't even be there.
Fair, I haven't checked the history so I could have it backwards. I've read and studied a lot of anarchist stuff over the years (it appeals to me greatly on an emotional/philosopical level, though I'm unconvinced of it's pragmatic utility) and hadn't encountered "defund the police" prior to that, but it's a deep and wide field so easy to miss things. I would expect "defund everything" rather than "defund the police" though certainly they would agree that the latter is a great step toward the former.
lol, I checked out r/antiwork and nobody there seems to be rooting to abolish wage work altogether. Most are just complaining about their job and commenters tell them to fight for their rights or search another job.
That seems pretty similar to people interpreting "defund the police" as anything else than "abolish the police in it's current form"
From what I understand, that sub used to be anarchists and kind of exploded into just general distaste for modern working conditions and pushed out the regular anarchists. The death of that side of anti-work was probably when that highly publicized Fox interview with one of its mods happened
The anarchist position is generally for the abolition of policing, and "defund the police" was a compromise position once it became clear the liberals would not join any coalition calling for outright abolition.
A small point, just one that recently ground my gears...
My step-daughter was recently in a collision. Her car and someone else's collided in the middle of a traffic lighted intersection. No intersection cameras, dash cameras, or nearby business security cameras, no witnesses.
Officer, "Did you have a green light?"
Step-daughter: "Yes, I believe so, I was moving with traffic."
Other party: "Yes, I definitely did."
Officer to step-daughter: "I am issuing you with a citation for failure to obey a traffic control device."
On what grounds? The other party was more ... adamant? The other party, who is biased (just as my step-daughter is, to be clear), who is also a potentially liable party?
Thankfully, that got contested and dismissed, but in the process caused a whole slew of insurance-related drama, and then court cases, where the other party attempted to sue her, and because she is a minor, it couldn't be in small claims court, etc., etc.
The vast majority of noise complaints shouldn't require deadly force or any weapon at all. It's exactly the kind of work that police shouldn't even be involved in. I suppose it would be a massive improvement if they even kept their weapons in the trunk of their cars, but ideally you'd have someone qualified responding to noise complaints who could request police backup when needed.
>The vast majority of noise complaints shouldn't require deadly force or any weapon at all. It's exactly the kind of work that police shouldn't even be involved in.
The problem is many Americans will become violent when told by someone they're being too loud. I had a neighbor in college threaten to shoot me once because I complained about their noise. Police can't be expected to run to their car when some nutcase pulls a gun on them. In other countries this might be ok, but in the land of extremist individualism where there's far more guns than people, it's a bad idea.
Very true. The whole trope of "I will not be disrespected" is a huge US character trait.
The problem is for a notable segment of the populace, "disrespect" can be as minor as "looking bemusedly at you" or having the audacity to have a different opinion.
If a police officer came to your door to tell you that you were being too loud would you ignore them unless they had a gun pointed at you? I'm guessing that you wouldn't and neither would your neighbor. Almost no one would. Yes, crazy people do exist, but the overwhelming majority are not psychopaths who would shoot anyone who knocks on their door. Most people understand that if you shoot at the unarmed cop, you'll be quickly surrounded by large numbers of armed ones who will come to lock you away.
Very few people will choose to go to prison instead of turning down their music or calming down their guests.
> Most people understand that if you shoot at the unarmed cop, you'll be quickly surrounded by large numbers of armed ones who will come to lock you away.
In many situations, you'll be quickly surrounded by large numbers of armed ones looking to shoot back at you, but if they're forced to accept arresting you unharmed, they will...
The problem is that you don’t know what noise complaints are dangerous or not.
> but ideally you'd have someone qualified responding to noise complaints who could request police backup when needed.
I don’t think you are going to get any takers for that job. “You only are going to get shot at 1% of the time, if you survive you can call for police backup.”
> I don’t think you are going to get any takers for that job. “You only are going to get shot at 1% of the time, if you survive you can call for police backup.”
Thanks for elaborating the point, this is exactly what I was trying to get at with the "you go do it then". How are you going to convince people to join the police knowing they'll be going into places where people will be armed but you yourself are not armed and somehow need to enforce the law and project some level of authority if the situation is hairy.
> I don’t think you are going to get any takers for that job. “You only are going to get shot at 1% of the time, if you survive you can call for police backup.”
If that were true, unarmed security guards wouldn't exist yet we have no problems finding people willing to do that job.
They're often in places more dangerous including patrolling neighborhoods (the kinds neighborhoods that need extra paid security) full of 'random houses' and they investigate suspicious noises every one of which is an unknown situation. I'd rather tell people having parties to turn down their music than confront people breaking into places and committing crimes with nothing but a flashlight and a radio.
As long as they aren't opening doors, its not the same thing. Security guards are making the rounds in places they know well, they aren't engaging with dangerous situations (e.g. physically confronting a shoplifter at QFC or Fred Myer is a huge no no).
> I'd rather tell people having parties to turn down their music than confront people breaking into places and committing crimes with nothing but a flashlight and a radio.
You only think that a few times before you realize the first situation will sometimes lead to a lot more trouble than the first.
It seems that being unarmed in that situation would be safer, wouldn't it? One doesn't 'win' a gunfight so being armed is just a provocation - unless there's a strategy and intent to disable/kill right off the bat in which case the police should be coming in as a coordinated SWAT team.
When citizens have the right to bear arms, any sort of domestic violence complaint (the most dangerous for police) can turn into an armed confrontation. Social workers tasked with dealing with unhoused in our area often want police escorts anyway for their own safety as they don’t know what they are getting into (just as the police wouldn’t).
We aren’t Europe, our murder and violent crime rate are way above them.
I want the police to be equipped for the situations they might or will encounter, and that includes surplus military gear sold down to them. What they need is better training, discipline, and accountability and for that we absolutely should not be "defunding" them.
Most G20 countries have front line first responding police that can handle most calls without resorting to military gear, and call on specialised SWAT teams for ecounters that escalate.
Having every officer primed to be a para military kill machine is exactly the wrong approach.
You're in agreement with the original core "defund the police" groups when you want first responders to be trained to de-escalate mental health crisis situations, they want the same if not more money in public facing response, but a whole lot less going to the haress the public we view as bad divisions.
Literally the first sentence of your article: “32% of U.S. adults say they personally own a gun”.
I agree that there’s a steel-manned version of the original statement which is valid. You’re definitely getting a lot closer to it. I mean we can keep splitting hairs (I own guns, but only for sport not defense, I never carry, and they're stored field stripped with uppers and lowers in two separate safes and all ammunition in a third safe in a separate room). But of course after additional back-forth we’ll reach a point where we all eventually mostly agree with the intended sentiment of the GP’s comment.
I just thought it was important to clarify to the audience that the “average” american is not, in fact, armed with a firearm.
Not sure your point. The very first sentence says both:
> Thirty-two percent of U.S. adults say they personally own a gun, while a larger percentage, 44%, report living in a gun household
If my wife owns a gun and I "don't," we both still have access to firearms. 44% of households have a similar dynamic. The American population is more armed than Europe. And it is close to half the population. I'm not making a value judgement. I own guns. Multiple of them. I guess I'm not sure what your point was. Mine is saying that nearly half of all households have a firearm.
> Sadly the people they confront in those european countries are significantly less armed than your average american.
Assuming that some reasonable percentage of "confrontations" occur outside the home, if you're being confronted while commuting to work, it's not always relevant that your wife owns a gun. It only matters whether you personally own & carry.
> Not sure your point.
> I guess I'm not sure what your point was.
I've honestly been doing a pretty solid job being intentional and respectful to all views here. I don't think it's much intellectual work to try to do the best you can at imagining some reasonable point that can be made with the "32%" statistic and acknowledging some of those likely "points" in your post. It would feel much less dismissive, and show that you at least tried to figure out some points that I might be making while maybe still asking for clarification or confirmation. It demonstrates intellectual honesty.
Not about median. About absolute probability. In europe whats the probability as a policeman to run into someone who is armed with a handgun. I imagine it's very low. In american is still might be under 50% but even if it's 15-25% that's a lot of cops that are 'caught bringing pepper spray to a gunfight'.
Yeah but most situations where cops are called don’t need guns but still they are trained to use them and more or less nothing else. Yea the should wear guns. But wearing gun is not the solution to most problem they need more of a skillset
I sincerely believe that the police officers who carry a gun must demonstrate fitness -- physical, mental, psychologically, target practice, gun safety, etc at least once a month from an independent third party.
There is no way all these police officers are all fit to carry a gun.
> I sincerely believe that the police officers who carry a gun must demonstrate fitness -- physical, mental, psychologically, target practice, gun safety, etc at least once a month from an independent third party.
I work for a Fire Department. Have seen first-hand the vehement push back both fire and police unions have had when departments/cities have suggested that the CPAT (candidate physical ability test) used at hiring time become an annual requirement.
I know of two firefighters who were rejected from multiple police departments, with at least one being explicitly because they failed the psych assessment...
>Most G20 countries have front line first responding police that can handle most calls without resorting to military gear, and call on specialised SWAT teams for ecounters that escalate.
Yes, but most G20 countries also don't have a population armed to the teeth with military-grade weaponry, and who believe in insane conspiracy theories about Bill Gates microchips in vaccines and Jewish space lasers.
The US is unique, however, in that the police receive generally much less training than in other G20 countries.
Which raises the question why the US doesn't arm its EMT and firefighters.
The bit that many seem to overlook is that the US police are being called out for all manner of first response calls and traffic management that are essentially equivilant to fire and ambulance calls, the strategy should be to investigate the issue and then bring in the heavy handed response if required.
There seems to be a very general blinkered view that is unable to break out of the "this is how we've always done it, there is no better way".
As "the police" are so strongly identified with violence the best interpretation of "defund the police" is to break out "incidence response | community assistance" away from "armed thuggery" and work to get some respect back from the broader public.
> Which raises the question why the US doesn't arm its EMT and firefighters.
As a firefighter, please, no. And as someone who educates future EMTs and paramedics, I've taken to telling students that if you think you need to be armed to do this job or to "deal" with some of your patients, it may be a clue that you may be dealing with compassion fatigue, burnout or PTSD. Certainly not the only reason, to be clear - we are often in less than ideal situations with less than ideal patients, but that's what you sign up for.
In our county (not known for high crime) we are issued ballistic vests but they're not worn on every call (and when we expect to have to wear them for a call, there's additional resources sent), and there are other "rules" - we have to wear our bunker (structural firefighting) pants, and our helmets, and our vests have "FIRE" printed in large white letters, because our management is adamant about doing everything possible from differentiating Fire/EMS on a scene like that from being confused with LE, for all manner of reasons.
Disagree on the surplus military gear point. Are they fighting a war? No, they are serving a community. I think they would do well to split the police and tactical response forces into different concepts entirely.
Citizens are armed and that complicates things. But there are still two different tasks being done, one is supporting the community on a local level, and the other is exceptional uses of force to apply law. You shouldn't have the same forces doing both, which is more like how police were prior 9/11, if I had to put a date on it.
What I want is for the "we just need better training" folks to define some sort of end point where they will admit that they've failed. Otherwise, we can keep shouting "we just need better training" until the end of time while cops regularly violate people's rights.
There's zero practical means to hold police accountable.
The reality is that we managed to create a social mechanism that's beyond our ability to control and that alone means we aren't ready to employ it. We have to understand our natural limits as a species and come to terms that having police is beyond them. There's no shame in that. In fact, that's the most mature outcome.
At least in my experience, most of the 'defund the police' people I've talked to wanted the money to instead be given to social services that the police were ill-equipped and ill-trained to perform. If anything, they were the biggest proponents of letting police get back to policing, and wanting to move the 'softer' social services aspect to other organizations better trained to handle those kinds of situations without resorting to their service weapon.
Alas, "Defund the Police" is a much catchier headline than "Redistribute funding to better provide for necessary social services"
> Alas, "Defund the Police" is a much catchier headline than "Redistribute funding to better provide for necessary social services"
Catchier but also misleading. It's allowed certain media to push the narrative that everyone supporting "Defund the Police" wants to eliminate police entirely and that lie resonates very strongly with the fearful people being manipulated.
As a slogan, it's probably done more harm than good to its cause.
They've had their moments too. "Read my lips: no new taxes","Whip inflation now","Lock Her Up","Strong and stable","In your heart, you know he's right", "Drill, baby, drill"
No, its not. Its a problem for progressives. But mostly that's because, in the US, progressives are stuck (to have any meaningful impact at all) in a big-tent party with liberals, who actually oppose most progressive policy goals and methods, and align with conservatives in undermining them most of the time, except when they decide to tolerate them to get support for a liberal goal against conservative opposition.
It's a fairly big practical difference between the right-to-further-right coalition in the GOP vs. the center-right-to-center-left coalition in the Democratic Party that the main factional differences in the former coalition are matters of degree and those in the latter are of opposing ideological principles.
Because it has nothing to do with slogans themselves. It has to do with double standards whereas whatever conservatives do is always interpreted in the most favorable way and what libs do in the least favorable way.
Most catchy phrases can’t acutely articulate the meaning behind the message.
People who argue to “defund the police” also mean use the funds meant to be distributed to the police force to other services that serve the same role, in a less harmful manner.
But that messaging doesn’t stick as easily.
I think you'll find a lot of people who say "defund the police" quite literally mean it. Why do you need armed individuals with qualified immunity out there performing wellness checks, guiding traffic, taking statements, and doing investigative work? Why should these roles continue to fall under "the police"? And especially why should they continue to be done by an organization that continues to show just how disastrously poor they are at such things, when at least any other organization would at least start at zero, not negative?
The funds should quite literally be taken from the police and given to other organizations, even newly-created ones, that do not suffer from the baggage and the history of the police.
> I hope this city learns its lesson after being sued
Government entities don’t generally learn a thing from being sued. The problem is that it’s not their money: it’s the taxpayers’ money, so no pain is felt. This is also the source of many other problems with government.
This matches my experiences. On my ~10th FOIA lawsuit against gov agencies and I don't expect to stop anytime soon. They just keep going, seemingly under the reckless guise of "risk management".
You write as if there is no accountability in a democracy. The mayor can be voted out if he or she wants to use municipal funds to settle lawsuits due to poor judgement.
There is no accountability in representative democracy.
"Voted out?" You mean "not voted back in" again. During their term officials can do whatever they want and they know it. "We won't re-elect you" is a completely toothless threat.
Dismantling the police union would do wonders for law enforcement in this country. It’s the only union that needs dismantling and the movement should have used that as their leading catchphrase.
Police need unions too, for the same reasons everyone else does. Police deserve pay increases that keep pace with the rising cost of living, limits on how many hours or days they can be forced to work without rest, time off for training, sick time, family leave, workplace safety etc.
The problem isn't that police have unions, it's that police are allowed to police themselves. If we take that ability away, police unions won't have any say in how officers are investigated or disciplined. The other major problem are the district/state attorneys and judges who refuse (or are unable) to charge police with crimes and hold them accountable.
I'm "convinced" that the "defund the police" was planted to discredit the movement to reform the police. Ugh, what shitty messaging.
My understanding is that police reform is impossible because the system is so corrupt there's no way to make it happen. I've seen many accounts of the good cops quitting because they got harassed out.
Perhaps we should instead focus on messaging for "are the police above the law?" and if not what does that look like? And "why should taxpayers pay for police fuck ups?"
I dunno, just tossing stuff out there. But it's clear that policing is broken and needs fixing, and that won't happen until there's enough unity in wanting to see it happen.
> I'm "convinced" that the "defund the police" was planted to discredit the movement to reform the police.
"Reform"? You mean spend billions more on training so they can ignore all the criticisms levied at the institution? By any metric defund" is bad, reform is worse. Unless the goal is to change nothing of course, in which case "reform" is clearly preferable.
God forbid we agree on any kind of concrete, measurable policy goal....
The “unhelpful” part is that people take the 3-word slogan and assume they know what it means. to pretend like “Defund the Police” ever meant “stop paying all police and don’t do anything different” is purposeful ignorance at this point (2.5 years after it was popularized).
In practice, it is a call for lots of changes in the US legal/policing system and government responses to requests from residents.
The best enumeration I have seen of these policies is CampaignZero[1]. You may not like their policies (they align with lefty prosecutors/DAs like Chesa Boudin), but they exist and there are specific policy proposals.
And cities don’t learn from what police officers do. Most large cities have city attorneys who are required to clean up the lawsuit messes that the police department makes and larger cities have a city manager that insulates the police department from the political side of city government. Neither the city attorney nor the city manager are responsive to voter demands nor do they have the legal authority to tell the police to do anything differently (except during the labor negotiations phase, when they are almost always outmaneuvered by police union negotiators).
> to pretend like “Defund the Police” ever meant “stop paying all police and don’t do anything different” is purposeful ignorance at this point (2.5 years after it was popularized).
You may not like it, but you don't control what "defund the police" means to everyone. There absolutely are people who mean it different ways, and it's not "willful ignorance", it's just the standard linguistic challenge of using an ambiguous pithy expression which then becomes overloaded as different people try to declare "what it really means."
But it's not ambiguous. It has a literal meaning, which is zero funding for police. That the activists using it are trying to act smart with Humpty Dumpty wordplay [1] doesn't change its well-established meaning. Especially when related activists get NY Times opinion columns doubling down on that meaning [2].
See how many other movements you can think of, that can make such outrageous claims, only for the journalist class to massage their words and bend the rules of language past their breaking point, to make the movement palatable to the masses.
[1] ’When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
Reform the police, demilitarize the police, deescalation for police, stop police violence, accountability for police, teach cops to be kind, etc... Of course they're not "critic proof" - someone motivated to twist words will find a way. But they'll have to twist words, whereas now they just use their plain, literal, unambiguous meaning.
But there's a good reason why defund/abolish the police is sticking around - because a significant part of the activists do mean it [1] (ACAB didn't come from nowhere), and the moderate faction that doesn't mean it literally is unwilling to part from the radical faction that does.
Anyone supporting the moderate faction is in a thorny position - do they think the moderates will grow a spine and stand up to the radicals once they've achieved their goals, or will they continue to meekly let the radicals set the agenda?
[1] Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police [..] There is not a single era in United States history in which the police were not a force of violence against black people. Policing in the South emerged from the slave patrols in the 1700 and 1800s that caught and returned runaway slaves. In the North, the first municipal police departments in the mid-1800s helped quash labor strikes and riots against the rich. Everywhere, they have suppressed marginalized populations to protect the status quo. - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abol...
I agree that we need different use of funds, but it's worse than you're implying: we need to replace the "Killology" escalation training with something sane, like transition to the sorely needed explanations of the 1st Amendment.
I don't think de-escalation training would actually achieve much. The folks saying that we should defund the police think that the system and its incentive structures are broken. Training cops to resist those incentives is a losing battle.
Deescalation training is widespread, and doesn't work. It's the cop equivalent of phishing training: something everyone knows is silly you click through to get over with.
Do you have a source for that? It seems like a problematic measure to use absolute dollars spent as it had to be normalized per capita and to cost of living.
In just officers per capita the US more or less middle of the pack.
why are the "free speech absolutists" so transparently awful on actual assaults on actual free speech, rather than people being socially excluded for being arseholes?
Because most "free speech absolutists" don't actually care about free speech; they just want to be arseholes without consequences, and "but muh freeze peach!" is a handy rallying cry.
"Free speech absolutists" are always unpopular because they tend to be the only ones supporting the rights of detestable individuals. That's probably why you notice them and it's probably why you're seemingly critical of their character.
You seem to be suggesting that "free speech absolutists" don't care about "actual free speech". I'm not sure how you're defining "actual free speech" here, but I'll assume it's state suppression of speech. I can only speak for myself, but personally I am concerned about all suppression of speech. Perhaps where we differ is that I don't really care if it's a mega corp suppressing speech or a government. I don't care if 99% of people disagree with what's being said. I think the fact we culturally compromising our position on free speech today is what gives governments the power to suppress speech. If it's wrong to say something on Facebook, then perhaps its wrong to say it generally?
If I can't call you something derogatory on Facebook, then why should I be able allowed to say derogatory things to the police? If derogatory language is unacceptable, then it's unacceptable. This is the position European countries have now taken on speech because culturally that is now what people want. If people were tolerant of speech as a principle then this would never have happened.
I don't have an argument, you're just wrong because I dislike your point.
But seriously: apparently the logic is that we can say almost whatever we want to the police, whom we interact with less. But we can't freely speak towards our peers, which is the larger of the two issues, because we speak to them daily. Makes no sense.
> "Free speech absolutists" are always unpopular because they tend to be the only ones supporting the rights of detestable individuals. That's probably why you notice them and it's probably why you're seemingly critical of their character.
Here's an interview with Silverglate where he discusses being an "absolutist" right in the introduction to the interview (briefly): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgTjSrrf6GQ
The OP, insofar as I can tell is looking at the apparent inconsistencies of a single person that claims that title and is extrapolating from there. Thus their closing question. I'm making some assumption there, but there are enough clues in the OPs text to make that a reasonable assumption. My point is that, without too much effort, you can find others that don't fit that implicit premise.
I think your assumptions about OPs arguments are correct. I think a more charitable way of looking at it though is that one must confront what loudest people with a following are doing with a public issue, because regardless of who is or is not the 'true' representative, the loud ones with the followings are going to end up (have ended up?) defining it.
Perhaps a better take than to limit arguing on the point of what is actually 'free speech absolutism' would be to argue that those to whom the OP refers are not actually representatives are are bad faith actors? After such one can define it, or, better yet, come up with a new set of terms not yet defined out of bounds.
"Free speech" in relation to constitutional law, and "free speech" in the sense of what people appeal to when getting in trouble with a fellow member of civil society for something they've said have absolutely nothing to do with each other. When I encounter someone on the internet who doesn't know the difference (or, worse, doesn't think there is or should be a difference), I immediately picture that person as a teenager.
No, the point is that the "free speech absolutists" don't show up in these sorts of cases. If it isn't about left wing college students, left wing professors, or social media companies then the "free speech absolutists" are typically nowhere to be found.
The strangest things for me about this case is that the police arrested a football player without apparent cause. But, then I looked him up and I think I understand what's happening now.
The city pays, some budget items get tweaked, and things pretty much go on as before. Taxpayers lose and people just reinforce whatever beliefs they had about police before...
Theoretically, whichever elected body that appoints the police captain will look into hiring one that won't cost so much in legal fees and compensations.
Because they don't face any repercussions for their actions.
Prosecutors won't prosecute because the police are their colleagues. The police feed them cases. The other police won't do anything other than a slap on the wrist, because those same police potentially do or will do the same thing. The SCOTUS invented qualified immunity in the 60s, so they can't even be successfully sued (or it's very rare and very expensive).
The reason we retain freedoms in our country to any extent is because we have checks and balances in government. The police have no checks and balances and therefore the ones who are abusive of power continue to work unabated.
Really all this would be solved if we just got rid of the bad ones, but the government won't even do that. The machine protects itself.
So it's a matter of the city appointing/the voters electing better DAs?
The fact that a cop can't be jailed due to qualified immunity is not directly related to the fact that he would be fired long before that for not behaving up to standards.
Police is subject to checks and balances, their transgressions just don't seem to be the priority for voters.
>So it's a matter of the city appointing/the voters electing better DAs?
Possibly, but they work on the same team.
>a cop can't be jailed due to qualified immunity
Qualified immunity protects them from getting sued directly in civil court by their victims for violating civil rights, etc. For example, if I ran you over and broke your leg, you could sue me for damages (medical bills, etc). You can't sue police (or judges or prosecutors for that matter). Nothing protects them from getting prosecuted except for lack of political will from DAs.
>the fact that he would be fired long before that for not behaving up to standards.
I wish that were true, but it's not. They investigate themselves and you know how that usually goes. If they do get found doing something unconstitutional, they usually get a half week suspension at most. Also, they are under no legal obligation to protect or help you. They are also not required to even know the law from a legal standpoint. Also the FOP is probably the most powerful, unabated by union busting unions in the country.
>Your points above boil down to "cities/voters are actually fine with the cops running wild".
I mean sure, if you oversimplify things, but you do have a point. The strange thing is both Democratic and Republican districts have pretty bad police. I don't recall any campaigns saying, "I vow to support constitutional violations from the police department."
Of course politicians aren't immune from things like the blue flu and concentrated efforts by the police unions to make them look bad. The quickest way to get beat in the polls is a crime wave.
The counterargument is that not-wildly-violent-and-corrupt police forces do actually exist. Clearly "giving them guns and fast cars" is not a sufficient condition for "they're going to escalate whenever possible".
It will accomplish that next time someone talk in the public comment period of their city council, they are less likely to use police force to shut up people they don't agree with.
But maybe they'll just stop having a public comment period...
One, it strikes the unconstitutional law from the town's books. Two, it sets a precedent in court that can be cited by the next person whose rights Newton, Iowa violates or a state or federal agency looking for a pattern of civil rights violations. And three, it gives this young man money damages.
US police forces should be nationalized. Having small fiefdoms just encourages bad and undisciplined police behavior. If you look at any US Federal staff, they're typically superior in their level of education, training and professionalism compared to their state counterparts.
Plus, having a national system would prevent small towns from answering to a single person with ultimate local authority.
But at least they would have a command structure to which they would be accountable. There's too many small, local police forces that are accountable to nobody. Without any checks on them, they run amok.
The checks are the legislatures that give them laws to enforce, and the courts/judges that constantly choose to allow their lack of education of the law they're enforcing. Ignorance of the law isn't an excuse, unless you're a cop. It's the judicial system's fault. This is one area where I heavily dislike the traditionally conservative brand of politics. Consistently pro-cop rulings, even in shady situations, under "qualified immunity." That crap needs to be abolished, or God save us all.
Luckily the pendulum seems to be swinging, finally. Ending qualified immunity used to be a left/liberal policy, but now I'm seeing more right-leaning people advocating for it. Maybe it'll only be a matter of time before we can have pro-2A rulings and pro-citizen/anti-cop-hypocrisy rulings. Just gotta get the boomers and old borderline millenials out of the courts first.
At some point the supervisor has no supervisor. I'm curious how you'd want that implemented.
> even though I'm a borderline millennial.
I simply say that because I dislike the establishment, and the majority of the establishment comprises currently of that age range. No insult meant to you.
That's how it works in many (most?) other countries. Police depends on a distant, more "neutral" authority. The system has also problems but making the police depend on local authorities has a very big one: the smaller the community, you're more in the hands of a very short list of persons that probably have reasons to prey on you unrelated to law.
It's a system that made sense when the US where in a revolutionary fight with the UK or later a new nation with isolated communities separated by huge distances. Not so much now.
I'd like to lower the Germany part to "okay". German police, and related to that secret services, have maybe not systematic but serious problems (racial issues, corruption, etc.). Public perception isnt great and any sort of internal investigation into these problems is being prevented. Of course the US is on another level, as they are so often, both positively and negatively
In the US, it would probably be enough to state-ise them, rather than nationalise them (and far easier constitutionally). The key thing is to remove the authority of tiny local government leaders over the police.
I think what he means is that anyone can be elected a local sheriff and because of that, you wind up with sheriffs who have no education or training in law enforcement. Often their lack of knowledge of the law creates situations where they violate other peoples rights.
There will always be situations where someone violates someone else's rights. At least sheriffs are representative of the preference of the people. They can be regular people. I'll gladly take that over a police chief any day.
"If you look at any US Federal staff, they're typically superior in their level of education, training and professionalism compared to their state counterparts"
I think they do receive more funds. And those funds go to training, education and oversight. We need more of that because many of our police really do not understand the roles of their job and the rights of the people they claim to serve and protect.
It happens in big cities just as much, perhaps even more. It's an epidemic. The only way to escape it is to have a decent amount of land in a rural area, and you still aren't 100% safe.
I hope he wins, but if the town gets a good lawyer a quite compelling argument can be made that calling them violent without proof of violence (was there any proof of injury in custody of that football player?), pro domestic-abuse for employing an abuser(can it be proven they knew and if so, do they have grounds for dismissal without that person being convicted of a crime?) is derogatory.
If it was derogatory he could've been asked to stop. When he didn't, I imagine he could've been arrested for trespassing and all the rest (including strip searching) can be explained as "normal procedure".
I'm not arguing it is right what the town did, it is obviously very wrong. Getting his case won might not be so easy, but it definitely succeeded in highlighting the problem in that town. Will it lead to change? I'm not sure.
I'm sure an enterprising attorney could use that "or" to great effect. Any comment about any individual could be forbidden. "Counselor Chris is a council member" could be forbidden.
I don't think any lawyer would take that route, because the town is not being sued for applying a constitutional policy incorrectly. It is being sued for applying an unconstitutional policy at all.
Proving that he did, indeed, violate the town's statute by calling the mayor and police chief fascists is no victory if the statute itself is found to be patently unconstitutional, which it is.
[0]https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court...
[1]https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22-293/242292/2022...