What if police brutality in the US was seen as a crime, in the same way that “Black” street crime is seen?
1. There would be no paid vacation for killer cops. Instead, they would be immediately arrested and their names made public. There would be no need for protests. Or riots. Most killer cops would become “convicted felons” and be locked up for a long time to “keep them off the streets.” Some would be executed to “provide a deterrent.”
2. Killer cops would be arrested on the 11 o’clock news. We would not merely hear that they were “taken into custody”. We would see them try to hide their faces.
3. There would be a television show called “Cops”. It would show the FBI breaking into the homes of killer cops, who then try to run away in their underwear.
4. The press would not trust the police. Police lies would be seen for what they are.
5. Police brutality would be a crime trend. There are more than enough cases in enough states with enough loopable video for the press to make it into one. It puts knockout games to shame, particularly since it has a serious body count.
6. The US would be compared to Brazil, which has much the same history and also has a high rate of police brutality.
7. Killer cops would be called “thugs”, “lawless” and “violent”. We would see their mugshots. We would hear about every bad thing they ever did.
8. Police brutality would be racialized as a “White” thing, even though some killer cops are Black or Latino.
9. White community leaders would be expected to condemn police brutality. Those who defended it or remained silent would be seen as “part of the problem.”
10. Police brutality would be a White pathology. It would not be seen as just a matter of a few “rogue cops”, but something far more troubling. Among the things that would be blamed:
- A “lack of values” in the White community.
- Violent video games and Hollywood films.
- White people’s strange love of guns.
- White fathers, especially their absenteeism.
- The “no snitching” rule among police.
- The “culture of silence” by the White press and White community leaders.
- The “breakdown of the family structure”, as shown by high rates of White illegitimacy and divorce.
11. The president would scold White fathers.
12. The government would issue a report, “The White Family: The Case For National Action”. It would talk about the “tangle of pathologies” that leads to “antisocial behaviour”.
13. Police brutality would be a “national crisis”, a threat to the US Constitution, to “law and order”, to the moral fabric of America. If the police cannot be trusted to uphold the law, what is to become of the nation?
14. Politicians would use some unfortunate war metaphor, like a War on Police Brutality or, more accurately, the War on the War on Drugs. The military mindset would lead to fresh abuses. By 2040 there would be a War on the War on the War on Drugs.
– Abagond, 2015.
See also:
- police brutality in Baltimore
- The extremely incomplete list of unarmed Blacks killed by police
- The White racist guide to Black pathologies, Black crime, crime trends
- knockout games
- White in America
533
Seriously, unjustified police brutality is a crime, and should be considered as such.
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This is the best post I’ve read by you so far. This was awesome! Keep up the good work.
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Watch this if you haven’t seen it. I can’t imagine anyone would want to watch it twice. This will make you cry.
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I’d like to be fly on the wall of your brain Abagond, because nobody does it like you — succinct and to the damned point!
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I know this is half serious, half tongue-in-cheek, but looking at it seriously, esp. re:
it means that we need an organization to police the police. But how is it recommended that that be done?
So far it is mostly investigated internally. All I advocated before is having a federal agency in charge of doing this. Remove the policing the police job away from the police. But will that solve the problem?
The other thing is to stop having cops act as a military force in a state of war (ie, War on Drugs). Yes, we need a new campaign for the police. Why are they here?
Finally, we did have a situation similar to the case above – when the KKK was fulfilling the role of police brutality. But the organization policing them, the POLICE was just turning a blind eye. Look how well that worked!
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To have a justice system that is actually just, to have police who actually serve the public, what is needed is public transparency and accountability. The only way to accomplish that is to some degree democratize it.
Here are some examples. Public review boards of police activities should be required in every city or, in the cases of larger cities, in every precinct. Leadership positions in police departments should be elected by the local community, since it is the local community that is supposed to be served. It should be encouraged that police be hired from and live among the population they are policing.
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@ Benjamin
“Leadership positions in police departments should be elected by the local community, since it is the local community that is supposed to be served.”
I thought that is already the case in the US?
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@Kartoffel
“I thought that is already the case in the US?”
It is in some cases and not for others. It depends on the type of position, such as the differences between chiefs and sheriffs. But it is also depends on the different systems within states.
Another factor is how much other local elected officials have over the police.
http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/whos-charge-here-ferguson-and-st-louis-county-police-not-elected-officials
“Thanks to the way most cities like Ferguson are structured, the chief executives and city councils of most St. Louis-area cities can’t directly make changes to police departments. That’s the responsibility of either a city manager or, in the case the St. Louis County Police Department, a commission appointed by a county executive.
“This arrangement came about as a way of keeping politics out of the administration of government. And as a result, many local governments here were organized to make elected representatives of local cities and towns fairly weak – and give unelected administrators more power.”
I was thinking further about police review boards.
They should be elected positions and they would be useful for keeping tabs on unelected positions. These reviews boards would, of course, offer oversight for the policies of police departments and complaints against the police. But they could go further than that.
Maybe they should more importantly offer oversight to the hiring practices of police. It should be a public discussion about what kind of person a community wants policing their neighborhoods.
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I didn’t know how to take this serious until i started reading it’s kind of like satire. But it’s interesting and it provokes thought.
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Police brutality is one of the least worries of the black community. People are glad to give it a lot of attention because it diverts attention from the harsh realities of black social pathology and lack of social discipline. According to the FBI SHR data, in 2011 there were 6,309 black homicide victims in the United States- more than the US has lost in the Iraq war in just 2011 alone. 95% of those were murdered by other blacks. Do the math.
The primary enemy of black men, to a massive extent more than any white police, are other blacks. Black men are actually safer among white police than other black men- so-called “brothas.” Focusing on the cops is a diversionary way to excuse this mayhem, and avoid facing this hard reality. Black people can cut the amount of police brutality by 90% using one simple rule- OBEY THE LAW. Even better, they can save black lives even more.
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@mossrichjals
To make such an argument is either to be severely uninformed or disingenuous.
The stats don’t show who is committing the crimes.
One criminal could commit many crimes. So, it might just be a fraction of a percentage of blacks committing most black crimes. I can’t remember the exact numbers, but it isn’t a large part of the black population. I do know this much. The vast majority of blacks aren’t involved in crimes.
Knowing that, why does any intelligent person make sweeping generalizations about the black population and black communities?
It is also true that whites have historically committed most of the state-sanctioned violence in America, not just police brutality. That is also true for the entire world going back through the colonial period, with numerous genocides and mass enslavement, not to mention wars of aggression, invasions, occupations, covert military operations, support of authoritarian states, and various other forms of violent oppression.
On top of that, poor white communities are violent just like poor black communities. It’s just that white privilege has allowed more whites to escape poverty and racism has disallowed this for blacks. But it’s not just poverty, for even poor whites are more likely to live in wealthier communities, because they don’t experience racist practices like redlining. A poor white can blend in with wealthier white people in a way a poor black can’t. This allows whites to take advantage of the social capital and community resources of wealthier communities.
Furthermore, there is the legacy of white affirmative action (Katznelson), sundown towns (Loewen), etc.
Taken all together, it is obviously complex. It isn’t just race, just class, or just anything. It is the intersection of numerous forms of prejudice and oppression on one side and the intersection of numerous forms of privilege and opportunity on the other side.
We need to have a serious informed public discussion in this country.
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@mossrichjals
“95% of those were murdered by other blacks. Do the math.”—Actually it is 93%. The report you are referring to does not even mention the race of who killed those individuals, but it does break down the circumstances in which they did and common weapons used.
“Black men are actually safer among white police than other black men- so-called “brothas.””—That is funny considering, in most cases that fail to make the news the individuals are OBEYING THE LAW. Yet they are six feet under and their family is in court suing the state. What you and most Americans mean by “obey the law” is do what the cop says. Which is not always in line with your legal rights (law). You have the right to run from the cops. If you run you will suffer the consequences of being arrested, but not killed or beaten to death. There are certain things you can tell a cop no to. He does not then have the right to try to break your car window, drag you out of the car, and beat you before handcuffing you.
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Someone made a good point either here or on another board. America is a gun country. The average house wife has a gun, particularly in the south. All my housewife buddies carry. Because of this it is likely the cops are scared because you never know.
Though I have found that the area I live in does not seem to produce such scary cops. They are aware people carry and are aware how to calmly handle the situation. My husband gets pulled over for speeding quite often and each time he makes the cop aware of his gun, his right to carry, and the cop makes note of it without a flinch. Only the newbies seem to want to remove the gun from the vehicle and return it to him after the situation.
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@Benjamin David Steele
It will be a hot minute before I can respond because I have to leave, but I am curious on the matter of if the cops are doing their job then why has it been such a task to arrest and remove gangs and drug dealers from these poor neighborhoods? I have been wondering this for such a long time and yet I don’t understand their problem.
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@ mossrichjals
If black-on-black crime is high, that is the fault of the police.
Most of the crime in Baltimore is caused by repeat offenders. It is hard to keep them behind bars in part because juries are mostly Black AND THEY DO NOT TRUST THE COPS. Why? Because the police do not OBEY THE LAW. Because they LIE like it was nothing.
Until something is done about police brutality and the police gain the trust of the people they are supposed to be serving, then it will be hard for them to fight crime and black-on-black crime will remain high.
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@ mossrichjals
Some of the biggest criminals in the country are Wall Street bankers, yet they do not have to worry about police brutality. Why is that?
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@ mossrichjals
You mean like kneeling down and obeying the officers? (as they repay you by kicking you in head to unconsciousness)
http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/crime/2015/05/07/watch-video-dover-cop-kicks-suspect/70952718/
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@kartoffel local police departments are funded mostly by local tax, but with significant ‘bonuses’ and grants from the state and federal government. the mayor of any such jurisdiction is elected, but is considered a ‘civilian’ for all intents and purposes and should be considered a ‘policy influencer’ at best. Typically the sheriffs are a county wide organization or a coalition of counties, and serve towns and areas that are ‘unincorporated’ as well as security for courts and jails, in general. The main ‘sheriff’ is typically elected and would serve as ‘chief of police’ for a wider and typically mor rural area, although urban areas do all have sheriffs for the above mentioned reasons
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@sharinalr
“if the cops are doing their job then why has it been such a task to arrest and remove gangs and drug dealers from these poor neighborhoods?”
A good question. Some things come to mind, from what I’ve read over the years.
The War on Drugs has mostly targeted drug users and low-level dealers. Going after entire gangs and drug cartels is a lot of work. The police would rather make their stats look good by arresting a lot of people. The police go after the easiest targets, and so a lot of ordinary people get caught up in the system.
This is particularly true with how prosecutors can pile on false charges with threats of long sentences and so force false confessions. From the data I’ve seen, more than 1 in 20 people in prison are innocent of all charges and crimes (the lowest estimate is at 6%). Going after the actually guilty is unfortunately not as big of a priority in poor communities.
Plus, the police are making a lot of money from the drug business. It allows them to confiscate property and wealth, sometimes on false charges (it being nearly impossible to contest these confiscations and getting back what was taken, even after all charges are dropped). As long as the War on Drugs continues, the police have a steady stream of massive amounts of confiscations. The drug business is lucrative for the police.
They have no incentive to end it, which is what would happen if they actually went after the gangs and drug cartels. Also, police departments get a lot of money from the federal government for fighting the War on Drugs. It’s big money in so many ways, whether from tax funding or confiscations.
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You know, the discussion over this issue really causes one to wonder if phenomenon such as the Crack Epidemic were created primarily to demonstrate that politicians and local governments were effective in combating the War on Drugs. So, it was pushed most heavily in black neighborhoods to create more opportunities to arrest and convict black people and show that politicians are “tough on crime”.
I do know that this has been discussed extensively for the past 20-30 years, but will the truth ever be made known to the general public.
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On the issue of electing the chief of police.
I don’t think much of the idea of electing the chief of police. That would make him a seperate government in competition with the mayor (or whoever controls the budget on that level of government).
Generally speaking, who in american municipalities is in charge of controlling the police politically?
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@ Kartoffel
The police chief is often an appointee of the mayor. making him the mayor’s responsibility. So if he turns out to be a schnook, it can cost the mayor politically. Of course, this also means that the police chief will seldom disagree with the mayor.
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I think one needs another level between the head of government and the top police official. For example a minister of the interior. If I understood that correctly the Police Comissioner in New York has such a role.
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Wouldn’t it be interesting times if the police in the USA used the same extreme violence on white people?
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@ taotesan
I’m sure that they sometimes do, but it’s just far less often. The thing is that once you turn a blind eye to the police battering and murdering Black citizens, in tome it will always creep into how the police will treat ALL citizens.
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@Benjamin David Steele
Thank you for your response. I figured it had to be lucrative for them, but could not fully understand in what way. Does high crime not reflect bad on the police in anyway? Or atleast state officials?
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^EXACTLY!
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[…] Source: abagond.wordpress.com […]
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@sharinalr
“Does high crime not reflect bad on the police in anyway? Or atleast state officials?”
Not necessarily.
The police and politicians have perfected the art of blaming the poor and minorities, especially where they are concentrated in neighborhoods and communities. For a long time now, most Americans have taken these accusations against the poor and minorities at face value.
It is only as more whites have begun feeling the pinch of the drug wars and economic problems that they’ve increasingly questioned the official line. Another undermining factor is that a minority-majority is emerging.
The police and state officials would only get blamed if the American public was well informed. It has only been recently that some major scholarly works have come to public attention. An example of this is Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow. This isn’t the type of info that for decades most Americans were getting from the education system and from the MSM.
The reason that American public has remained ignorant so long is an amazing phenomenon. I’ve often wondered about it. I’ve noted how many people simultaneously know and don’t know all kinds of things, especially about race and racism. People don’t always connect the dots on their own, even when it seems like it should be obvious, but it only seems obvious once you see the patterns.
https://benjamindavidsteele.wordpress.com/2013/09/16/racism-without-racists-victimization-silence/
https://benjamindavidsteele.wordpress.com/2014/08/05/looking-the-other-way-willful-ignorance-and-intentional-blindness/
https://benjamindavidsteele.wordpress.com/2014/08/04/black-feminism-and-epistemology-of-ignorance/
https://benjamindavidsteele.wordpress.com/2014/08/02/why-are-blacks-concentrated-in-inner-cities/
https://benjamindavidsteele.wordpress.com/2014/04/15/a-divide-in-justice-a-divide-in-the-mind/
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“The reason that American public has remained ignorant so long is an amazing phenomenon. I’ve often wondered about it. I’ve noted how many people simultaneously know and don’t know all kinds of things, especially about race and racism. People don’t always connect the dots on their own, even when it seems like it should be obvious, but it only seems obvious once you see the patterns.”—I can’t deny that I have found myself in that category and may still be at some times. Even still some of the most obvious things, I find it jaw dropping how America will not get it.
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@sharinalr
“I can’t deny that I have found myself in that category and may still be at some times. Even still some of the most obvious things, I find it jaw dropping how America will not get it.”
We’ve all found ourselves in that category at some point or another. After all, we all begin in a state of ignorance.
Also, what is known changes over time. Part of what has been shifting in recent years is that more and better data is becoming, because of new media technology, more widely available and more easily accessible.
It takes a long time for the changing knowledge to sink in. As it has been noted before, most people don’t change their views. It’s just that most people holding old views grow old, retire, and die. Younger people with new views replace them.
We are experiencing such a generational shift right now. Boomers are on their way out. It has been pointed out that Boomers have been like the elephant being slowly digested by the python. They aren’t just a large generation, but also they’ve held onto power longer than any generation before.
As a GenXer, I constantly find myself arguing with my parents. My mother is on the older end of the Boomer generation (at 70 years old) and my father is on the younger end of the Silent generation (at 73 years old). Both are retired, but remain active in the community.
My father is a good example of how influence can last so long. He has always been well connected in whatever community he lives in. Even in retirement, he remains extremely active in social organizations and politics (he is president of a local chapter of Kiwanis, which is essentially the social networking organization for many of the major and well established business leaders and upper class families of the community). His influence as an older established community member is probably greater than the influence of all of his sons combined.
In generations past, people didn’t remain active for so long because most people didn’t remain (physically and mentally) healthy into older age. Still, even with increased health, there is an inevitable limit to the health and lifespan of those of the older generations. I don’t wish to see my parents decline, but at the same time I realize that our society won’t change until that generational shift happens.
I’ll be curious what will happen in the future. It seems to me that the younger generations take many of these problems a lot more seriously. For older people, they realize they likely will never have to deal with these problems because it won’t impact them personally. My parents won’t necessarily still be alive when social security runs out of funds or when the minority-majority finally comes to fruition. Likely, within a decade, they’ll be in a retirement home and they will just be watching from the sidelines.
These issues have been put off for generations. But they can’t be delayed forever. For example, at some point, the public will realize we can’t afford mass incarceration and endless wars abroad. All empires end up expanding beyond their means, and the American empire will be no different. Stark reality has a way of waking people up from the slumber of ignorance.
When enough people do get it, what will happen then?
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@Benjamin David Steele
“When enough people do get it, what will happen then?”—I guess I impatiently wait for people to get it. Things seem to be getting bad before it can get good. Now I have seen people make this slight realization, but then can’t seem to connect the dots to the rest of the much needed realization. The process seems to slow. 😦
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@mossrichjals
Why do you hold cops to the same standard as black criminals? And why is black-on-black crime not as serious a concern for you as white-on-white crime, given that whites are also mostly victimized by criminals of the same race.
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Wonderful post, Abagond!
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http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2016/05/17/ex-st-louis-cop-charged-with-murder.html?via=newsletter&source=CSPMedition
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Interesting video about what one video blogger sees as problems with the police:
Top 10 Problems the United States Police System Needs to Address — TopTenzNet
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP4qVZdSOPk)
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“The government would issue a report, “The White Family: The Case For National Action”. It would talk about the “tangle of pathologies” that leads to “antisocial behaviour”.
Long overdue (in a sane world).
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