The police-abuse-of-power thread

It's an interesting issue. For what it's worth, I think a police force's behavior has a very real impact on the results it gets back. For a police force to function properly, it needs the cooperation of the citizens and non-citizens. You need the home owners on your side, you need trust from youths, from business owners, the cashier at the local deli, not to mention more specialized professionals like security guards and bouncers.

Part of this is how people experience everyday interactions with the police. It's a very difficult thing to get right, and it's very easy to do wrong. Studies also show that it's a much more pleasant experience for civilians when they contact police, compared to the police contacting them.

Anyhoo. It's also about legislation. I am led to believe that in some parts of the United States, you'll get arrested for being a minor and intoxicated (please correct me if I'm wrong). An arrest can be a very damaging thing for a youth, it can impact college applications and in some cases barr him or her from recieving certain federal scholarships (I'm, again, led to believe). If the arrest leads to an overnite stay in a cell (in itself a very degrading and damaging thing), they might get subjected to a strip search as well.

The arrest is key. Every single arrest risks the subject resisting. Anyone who's ever taken any course relating to placing someone under arrest or gaining control of a resistant subject learns that any arrest is risky. If the subject resists, the police offier can use force to effect the arrest. This risks the subject getting injured. At every stage, the use of additional force is a possibility, because the subject may become resistant.

The result will in at least a considerable number of cases be that the police become the villains to the arrested youth, and depending on how dumb the teenager is (drunk teens are always dumb as fuck), it might end up as a very traumatizing experience.

So in that particular case, it's not the use of force that's the issue, it's the legislation. A better way to deal with it? Drive the young idiot home and tell his parents. It also risks resistance from the youth, but it has a lower chance, as the youth can be told he's just being sent home, not to county jail.

It's also a question of body language. If people feel police officers are approachable in day to day living, they're more likely to help the police. I have no problem with police using force to uphold the law. And if police are to be armed in response to a realistic threat, I don't mind SWAT tactics, weapons and equipment either. I think most officers will find an MP5 an easier weapon to fire accurately, and provide a more stable platform than a sidearm.

Conversations with serving officers from the level of rookie to a regional commander and a member of the local armed response specialist unit hasn't led me to believe differently.

Funnily enough, I'm vehemently opposed to the arming of the Norwegian police on a general basis. We have a very good police force, and I don't see any reasons for it to be armed day-to-day. So when they do arm themselves in response to something, using SWAT tactics makes sense. It's safer for them, and probably safer for the subject.

I generally don't like no-knock raids, but they're really not common anyway. I've not come across any in recent years.

I do have a lot of reservations about public order policing in large scale, mass arrests, baton charging, kettling and unnecessary use of pepper spray and other chemical sprays. And I believe any peace officer caught misusing his or her power should be prosecuted.

That said, 19 out of 20 videos I ever see labeled "police violence" ends up not coming close to my definition of police violence. Forcing cuffs on someone is never a pleasant experience for the subject, and it does look brutal.
 
VIDEO: Citizens Take Over Albuquerque City Council, Call For the Arrest of Chief

Angry protesters took over Albuquerque City Council Monday night calling for immediate change at APD and the ousting of both Albuquerque?s Police Chief, Mayor and more.

Protesters even called for the arrest and issued a ?people?s warrant? to APD Chief Gordon Eden.

?This is no longer your meeting, this is the people?s meeting,? protester David Correia, an assistant professor at the University of New Mexico, said into a commandeered microphone as shown in the KRQE video below. ?We now serve a people?s warrant for arrest on Albuquerque Police Chief Gordon Eden.?

This type of action is incredibly heartening! As more and more people refuse to accept such brutality, we will begin to see some very real change.

These protests stem from a string of police involved shootings, and the subsequent Justice Department investigation.

?Officers used deadly force against people who posed a minimal threat, including individuals who posed a threat only to themselves or who were unarmed,? the report stated. ?Officers also used deadly force in situations where the conduct of the officers heightened the danger and contributed to the need to use force.?

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Whenever you're armed in any situation requiring use of force, that increases the chance of deadly force being used, wether it is warranted or not. This gets less true with extensive training, but it'll still be true to a certain extent.

Part of the reason I like an unarmed police force. I do, however, see the futility in having an unarmed police force in society where firearms - and handguns in particular - aren't just common, but where carrying them in public is - some places - common place, and where criminals are, quite often, armed. Pity.

It is absolutely crucial to have mechanism in place to safeguard the rights of normal people in the face of the governments instruments of use of force. It seems very few societies are good at this.
 
nomix said:
Whenever you're armed in any situation requiring use of force, that increases the chance of deadly force being used, wether it is warranted or not. This gets less true with extensive training, but it'll still be true to a certain extent.

Part of the reason I like an unarmed police force. I do, however, see the futility in having an unarmed police force in society where firearms - and handguns in particular - aren't just common, but where carrying them in public is - some places - common place, and where criminals are, quite often, armed. Pity.

It is absolutely crucial to have mechanism in place to safeguard the rights of normal people in the face of the governments instruments of use of force. It seems very few societies are good at this.
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If basically everybody carries a weapon or is at least allowed to, and if you have laws or constitutional rights that not only allow but even encourage you to own guns, when practically everybody you meet on the street could be someone who can shoot at you, then as a policeman you automatically go into over-protective mode - with the known side-effects.

Every action provokes a reaction. Or to put it simpler: Any problem with police violence in a democracy is just a matter of cause and effect.

It's one of those contradictions within the US society - which craves safety like probably no other nation on Earth - that in order to achieve that savety they're willing to put practically everyone at a higher risk of getting killed.
 
I was only saying that the aggression had to come from somewhere... It doesn't come just out of the blue but has to be triggered by something.
 
MacGuffin said:
I was only saying that the aggression had to come from somewhere... It doesn't come just out of the blue but has to be triggered by something.
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People don?t go into conflicts neutral, they aren?t machines. They bring stuff in that must not even have something to do with the specific conflict. True, agression doesn?t come from nothing - but looking for the cause of that agression, it?s a mistake to only look for it in the conflict at hand ... people are complex. One may bring all the anger from his or her divorce into something like that, another maybe a racist, or another bringing in the anger of being discriminated against ...
What I?m saying is - the "why" Question is often not answered by just looking at a few seconds of a conflict when something happens ... like a thunderstorm it all begins quite a time in the past with actions that have (on the surface) nothing to do with Lightning striking ...

And I?m saying that not to excuse police-officers or so - that can be generally said about every conflict between people.
 
A police officer must remain impartial and leave all off his anger at home when performing his duties. That's his job.

When coked up Rodney King tried to evade officers, of course they were angry at him - yet there is no justification for brutally beating him.
 
The police-abuse-of-power thread

Interrobang said:
People don?t go into conflicts neutral, they aren?t machines. They bring stuff in that must not even have something to do with the specific conflict. True, agression doesn?t come from nothing - but looking for the cause of that agression, it?s a mistake to only look for it in the conflict at hand ... people are complex. One may bring all the anger from his or her divorce into something like that, another maybe a racist, or another bringing in the anger of being discriminated against ...
What I?m saying is - the "why" Question is often not answered by just looking at a few seconds of a conflict when something happens ... like a thunderstorm it all begins quite a time in the past with actions that have (on the surface) nothing to do with Lightning striking ...

And I?m saying that not to excuse police-officers or so - that can be generally said about every conflict between people.
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Oh, I fully agree with you but then why do you hardly find such behavior here? I mean I remember very well, how we were warned about the American policemen back when we were sent to the USA...

We were explicitly told not to make funny remarks when you were stopped, not to take our hands off the steering wheel or rummage around in the car, to only do something when the officer tells you so and in general remain very calm and act non-provocative or else "it might be the last thing you do". That was in 1991 and it seems like it has gotten worse since then...
 
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A message from Canada:


Anyhow, as the Stanford prison experiment showed, if you give someone authority they are inclined to abuse it. Not that all cops are bad, but they are fighting a human instinct of dominance.
 
MacGuffin said:
not to make funny remarks
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Not sure why a German would need to be told that :p

You are falling into generalizations and stereotypes here (as were your supervisors/whoever was telling you that). Of all the times I was stopped (driving never walking) I had encountered one cop who was a dick and the rest were pretty neutral. Not one of them exhibited any kind of hostility toward me that made me think I was going to get my ass kicked.

What you have to keep in mind is that US is a very large country, much bigger than any in Europe, hell it's bigger than all of Europe really and as such there are many very different areas. For example if you look at crime rates and break them down geographically you will see that there are areas with a lot of violent crime and areas with almost none. In the former LEOs tend to be a lot more twitchy and suspicious when making stops (logical IMO) and latter quite a bit more laid back. There are also issues of something that stands out being suspicious, for an example a couple of friends of mine were going from NYC to North Carolina and got stopped almost as soon as they got into NC. The cop grilled them for a while and plain told them that many NY'ers go down there to get drugs, hence the interrogation.

The other side of this is personality, just like with politicians there are certain personality traits that make people go into law enforcement, not saying that this means all cops are aggressive but meek people don't generally join the force.
 
argatoga said:
Anyhow, as the Stanford prison experiment showed, if you give someone authority they are inclined to abuse it. Not that all cops are bad, but they are fighting a human instinct of dominance.
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Excellent point. Hopefully body cameras will become more widespread and courts will actually take notice.
 
LeVeL said:
Hopefully body cameras will become more widespread and courts will actually take notice.
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Around here, the police films at protests, football games etc. anyway. Strangely, their video cameras experience "empty batteries" or something else regularly when they film police brutality.
The rules for the body-cams some police now wear (test stage, I think) give the officer in question basically a free pass to delete whatever is not convenient, too. That's of course in full accord with the intended purpose of those cameras: to grab violence against police on film.

I hope other countries fare better with this, but for Germany I don't have any hope.
 
Massachusetts SWAT teams claim they?re private corporations, immune from open records laws
As part of the American Civil Liberties Union?s recent report on police militarization, the Massachusetts chapter of the organization sent open records requests to SWAT teams across that state. It received an interesting response.

As it turns out, a number of SWAT teams in the Bay State are operated by what are called law enforcement councils, or LECs. These LECs are funded by several police agencies in a given geographic area and overseen by an executive board, which is usually made up of police chiefs from member police departments. In 2012, for example, the Tewksbury Police Department paid about $4,600 in annual membership dues to the North Eastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council, or NEMLEC. (See page 36 of linked PDF.) That LEC has about 50 member agencies. In addition to operating a regional SWAT team, the LECs also facilitate technology and information sharing and oversee other specialized units, such as crime scene investigators and computer crime specialists.

Some of these LECs have also apparently incorporated as 501(c)(3) organizations. And it?s here that we run into problems. According to the ACLU, the LECs are claiming that the 501(c)(3) status means that they?re private corporations, not government agencies. And therefore, they say they?re immune from open records requests. Let?s be clear. These agencies oversee police activities. They employ cops who carry guns, wear badges, collect paychecks provided by taxpayers and have the power to detain, arrest, injure and kill. They operate SWAT teams, which conduct raids on private residences. And yet they say that because they?ve incorporated, they?re immune to Massachusetts open records laws. The state?s residents aren?t permitted to know how often the SWAT teams are used, what they?re used for, what sort of training they get or who they?re primarily used against.

Approximately 240 of the 351 police departments in Massachusetts belong to an LEC. While set up as ?corporations,? LECs are funded by local and federal taxpayer money, are composed exclusively of public police officers and sheriffs, and carry out traditional law enforcement functions through specialized units such as SWAT teams . . .

Due to the weakness of Massachusetts public records law and the culture of secrecy that has infected local police departments and Law Enforcement Councils, procuring empirical records from police departments and regional SWAT teams in Massachusetts about police militarization was universally difficult and, in most instances, impossible . . .

Police departments and regional SWAT teams are public institutions, working with public money, meant to protect and serve the public?s interest. If these institutions do not maintain and make public comprehensive and comprehensible documents pertaining to their operations and tactics, the people cannot judge whether officials are acting appropriately or make needed policy changes when problems arise . . .



Hiding behind the argument that they are private corporations not subject to the public records laws, the LECs have refused to provide documents regarding their SWAT team policies and procedures. They have also failed to disclose anything about their operations, including how many raids they have executed or for what purpose . . .
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More at the link.
 
MacGuffin said:
If basically everybody carries a weapon or is at least allowed to, and if you have laws or constitutional rights that not only allow but even encourage you to own guns, when practically everybody you meet on the street could be someone who can shoot at you, then as a policeman you automatically go into over-protective mode - with the known side-effects.

Every action provokes a reaction. Or to put it simpler: Any problem with police violence in a democracy is just a matter of cause and effect.

It's one of those contradictions within the US society - which craves safety like probably no other nation on Earth - that in order to achieve that savety they're willing to put practically everyone at a higher risk of getting killed.
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It's very true. Another point I'd like to make is that a Norwegian police officer has the formal, legal right to arrest you, detain you and do things to you for a lot less than an American police officer. Your constitution would never accept some of the rights the Norwegian police have.

But I have a contention: Norwegian police have the rights, but don't use them to their full extent all the time. US police have less rights, and excercise them all, most of the time. Anyone disagree?

LeVeL said:
Let's not turn this into another gun argument. In many of the cases posted so far, there was absolutely no threat of violence towards the police officer(s).
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You started a thread about police abusing power. Now, what MacGuffin is arguing is that US police are naturally more edgy because of the number of guns. Which would at least partly explain what you say in the latter part of your post (which I've bolded).

If you're afraid someone is carrying a gun, you're going to react different to how you react if it's not really a day to day reality.
 
nomix said:
IYou started a thread about police abusing power. Now, what MacGuffin is arguing is that US police are naturally more edgy because of the number of guns. Which would at least partly explain what you say in the latter part of your post (which I've bolded).

If you're afraid someone is carrying a gun, you're going to react different to how you react if it's not really a day to day reality.
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I don't necessarily disagree but no-knock raids and beating defenseless individuals who aren't even resisting often to death, cannot be excused as oh, just officers being extra cautious because some people own guns. You'll notice that I haven't posted any stories about officers simply being on edge because a firearm may or may not be present.
 
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