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https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/01/us/rochester-police-pepper-spray-child/index.html

Without question what the police did was wrong.  They should be fired, they should be criminally prosecuted.

But that won’t solve the problem.  The cops should not have been the ones in charge of transporting the girl.  It should have been an unarmed caseworker. Maybe cops needed to be present in case an adult became violent, but the situation should have been under the control of a mental health professional not a police officer.  This means less cops and more caseworkers.  Mental health professionals on standby 24/7, ones that are authorized to have flashing lights and a sirens to respond quickly to emergencies.  

Call this “defund the police” if you want but it is about using the right tool for the job.  Police are not the right tool for suicide prevention.  They are in fact worse than nothing.

Yep.

Nope, unless there are other circumstances like this is 2nd offense or something like that. First offense, nope. Suspended yes. Get some training, yes.

That is the problem.  This was a premeditated assault on a handcuffed child.  There needs to be zero tolerance and a clear message to all other cops that there will be zero tolerance, they need to spend time in jail.   

Ah yes the old argument that you can teach tolerance with zero tolerance. No the way you teach tolerance is by using some tolerance. Teach our cops how to have empathy by having some empathy with them instead of treating them like they are the bad guys...unless of course they are the bad guys which is where you get 1 do-over but if you don't learn anything then get rid of them.

These two are beyond hope.  As are many cops. This wasn’t a lack of training issue, this was a poor hiring decision.

“Is there any situation in which it is appropriate to to mace a handcuffed child?” If the response isn’t an immediate “absolutely none”. You shouldn’t be allowed to attend police academy or even be allowed to work security at a construction site.  

We need to weed out the bad cops.  And if that means firing 75% or more  of them that is fine.  The remaining  can handle tiny fraction  of the work that actually requires cops.  The rest of the work can be shifted to mental health professionals and social workers.  

Once we start ending up with some dead social workers what are we going to do?  Mentally ill people are some of the most dangerous people that cops come across because they are unpredictable, and can be violent towards themselves, other citizens, or the police.

I would agree that there are a lot of unqualified police officers out there, but that's because the pay and job risk do not attract qualified candidates; or they retire as soon as possible because of the risk.  The answer is continuous training, there ought to be mandatory annual training just like there is for many other professions.

Since this philosophy clearly did not take root in the cops using pepper spray on a handcuffed child (i.e. displaying less than zero tolerance), I submit that the notion of teaching them tolerance by example has proven ineffective, and they need to be replaced with people capable of displaying tolerance.

With the mentality ill (and others) more often than not the police turn a relatively peaceful situation into one that becomes violent. 


That is bullshit. 

Police is not one of the top ten most dangerous jobs in the USA but pays better than all of them. 

Problem is that the culture recruits and encourages bullies and egotistical power hungry assholes rather than people with a desire to actually serve their community.   

LMBO ... if it weren't for these alpha male types you'd be speaking German or some other language. Some jobs actually require men to be men and

I'm not defending the officer but I've been in enough new and strange emergency situations that I know it's hard to know what someone will do at that time. that goes for the person themselves. Situations escalate quickly and I don't know if the mind comprehends it as fast. Based on this I think it would be impossible to weed out people who are going to make bad decisions under duress because we have no way of knowing what that duress will be. Each event is different.

I would think that choosing people who are caught acting poorly under duress would be a good place to start determining who to remove for acting poorly under duress.

That's after the fact. It seems like many people have this grand idea we can predict that before they are even hired. Without a history that's hard to do.

The problem is that even if there's a history, it's ignored .. oh .. cop X got fired from city Y because he sprayed bear mace into a pediatric ICU .. well he can just go apply to city Z and he'll get a job.

I agree Fau. Same with bad teachers with a history. I don't understand how they slip through undetected in this day and age.

If you made cops carry personal insurance, capitalism would weed this out naturally.

Police had zero impact on WWII.  Military does a much better, but not perfect, job at weeding out and punishing bad actors than the police.  If this had been an MP on a military base they would be court marshaled.  The cops that failed to act at Parkland would have been court marshaled for dereliction of duty.  We need to hold the police to the same standards we hold soldiers. 

But we don’t hold them responsible even after the fact.  Let’s assume there was zero reason to suspect anything was wrong with these two before this incident (doubtful) the fact they haven’t been arrested for assaulting this 9 year old, but rather are still collecting a pay check is proof of a failed system.

What exactly was their dereliction of duty?

Taking a defensive position outside the building rather than attempting to engage the shooter. 

Many court decisions, The Supreme Court, and the Constitution would disagree with you on that point.

Not the constitution.  It would be perfectly constitutional for the state legislature or federal government to hold police to the same standards as we hold the military for cowardice.   Politicians protect cops from having a duty to do their job.

We need to change the laws so police are held to the same standards as soldiers.  Perfectly constitutional. 

seeing as the modern concept of police didn't exist when the constitution was written, the closest analogue would be a militia member you are correct .. also there is no subsequent amendment that covers it

on the topic of bad cops moving around and bad teachers moving around .. i would also like to point out that this happens with bad clergy moving around ..  most famously within the catholic church .. but i'm sure it goes the same way with protestant pastors .. any position that has undue power and influence over people needs to have undue oversight to prevent abuses of that power

Correct.  This is the larger point.  Any system where there is a large amount of power on one side and small on the other, you have to have big oversight or you get bad shit.

I think you're missing the point. The judicial branch of the government all the way up to the SC have ruled that law enforcement have no constitutional duty to protect the public.


They do have a duty to protect someone in their custody though. So, as far as the original topic of this post. Absent of me knowing all the details, yes they do have a duty to protect. And they should be held accountable if they are determined to have done something wrong.

Here, I'm discussing a bigger problem. That's when you lump all law enforcement together. It's clear that in the case of Parkland, the officers did nothing legally wrong. Was it morally wrong? That can be debated. But legally, nope. You don't have a leg to stand on if you want to argue that point. Amazing how some people will agree with the SC when it fits their agenda and then turn around and complain when another decision doesn't line up with their agenda.

I'm non religious and don't give a shit about abortion either way. But your, "Politicians protect cops from having a duty to do their job". Could be turned into, "Politicians protect baby murderers". So until they reverse themselves on law enforcement responsibilities (and/or abortions), you might want to not say "dereliction of duty" unless it actually legally applies. 

I am aware what current law is.  And current practice.  And it is a horrible injustice. 

I am advocating for change.

Sometimes people need a 2nd chance. People can change. Not all of them will but some do. I don't know the circumstances around these officers. If they been model cops up till this incident, I say give them a 2nd chance to hopefully grow. If they've not been model cops, then remove them. You might end up with a better police force that way. Use them as examples, but use them as examples in the right way. Show that we can get better and you will have to get better or you're out.

This is the problem. This should never happen, but it does. Fix this problem and you will have fixed your police force.

Set an example.  Step one.  If they have children make them handcuff and mace their own children.   And then after they watch their own children cry in pain make them mace their children a second time.  if that sounds like a cruel and unusual punishment, then you understand why I don’t just want them fired but in jail.

In this exact instance, you have people like Hoodie or myself calling for these cops to be fired after the fact, while Pappy13 is preaching tolerance and a do-over.

People who are authorized to exercise lethal violence on behalf of the state should not get a do-over when it comes to police brutality.

This is the nature of the problem with police in this country:

- the bad apples are protected and given every chance to coordinate their stories when charged with misconduct
- the "good" (or: not "bad") apples passively stand by, and do nothing to stop or remove the bad apples
- even when caught red-handed, the bad apples are given the most lenient of punishments and allowed to continue to work in law enforcement

I totally agree with you on this.  I rarely weigh in on law enforcement threads because I work in the field and I have come to realize that much like politics, everyone has pretty much made up their minds about how they feel about law enforcement and no amount of discussion is going to change anyone's mind.  Hoodie, even though I'm replying on your comment, I'm not just directing this at you, but pretty much to everyone.  There are bad cops.  Absolutely.  But I kind of use the analogy of the offensive lineman.  They always say that you know an offensive lineman is doing his job when you don't call his name during the game.  The only time you hear about an offensive lineman is when he commits a penalty.  If he blocks his man, nothing noteworthy really shows up.  If he blows a block or commits a penalty, they isolate him on instant replay.  There is a certain similarity with police work.  The vast majority of cops are good cops and good people.  They do small things that help people or do acts of kindness every day.  But there is nothing worthy of an instant replay in that.  When cops fuck up and are caught on film or whatever, that is what you see on the news.  And rightly so.  Bad cops need to be outed and dealt with properly up to and including getting fired or having criminal charges filed.  But because the bad is what people see, it makes it easy to paint with a broad brush and make assumptions about the majority of cops based on what you see on the news. 

The other thing I want to say is that I get it why people think they have the answers of how to "fix" law enforcement problems.  This speaks to the social workers versus cops, and other things that people say need to happen in law enforcement.  Interestingly, sports and police work seem to be the two big professions where people who have never done it seem to "have all the answers".   We all have watched games and yelled "Why did you call a run play there you idiot!"   Even though the vast majority of us have never coached football above the little league level and not played above the high school level.  We all have the answers for our teams even though we really don't have much of a clue as to what is actually going on beneath the surface of what we see on tv.  People do the same thing with cop work.  Everyone critiques law enforcement without ever having done the job and understanding it.  Don't get me wrong, some of the criticism is valid.  But "fixing things" is a lot easier from the couch than from the football field or the street.  We would never watch a guy working for FPL in a bucket truck working on a transformer and think to ourselves, "No no, you idiot.  You can't use a 27B routing switch on that.  You need to use a 44R double switch!"    We haven't done that job so we have very little insight into it.  Just like most people have not been offensive linemen or cops and have very little insight into either of those jobs, but everyone is an expert on them. 

Sorry that this is turning into a novel but one last thing.  Someone else made a comment about how cops can get fired from a department and they seem to easily get hired by another department.  That is a HUGE problem.  That should never happen.  HR departments need to do their due diligence in properly vetting job applicants.  And that goes for cops who were fired by another department right on down the the recruitment of candidates to hire and send to the police academy as cadets.  I absolutely support reform in the hiring processes.

Dolphster I am glad you posted that. 

 There is two ways to fix this problem: One of these ways is to have non-police officers impose a solution.  The other is for police officers to fix it.  I am a strong supporter of the first, only because to date most police absolutely refuse to even acknowledge a problem. If 95% of the Rochester police force was to sign a statement demanding that these two police officers be fired and criminally prosecuted and stating they refuse to serve with such individuals and will quit if they are reinstated they will quit, then I would agree with the “few bad ones” claim.  But as it is very few officers have condemned their actions. 

I disagree with a few of your analogies, however. The local media seems to out of their way to complement local police for anything that is even slightly goes above and beyond.  I remember a few years ago a front page story about a police department had a toy drive that got about 200 toys buried  in the article on a later page they mentioned that 180 of those toys all came from a single drop off center at an elementary school.  I knew a kid at that elementary school and the back story.  The real driving force was a second grade teacher that wasn’t mentioned in the article not the chief of the police whose photo was on page one.  Also why should police get praise for doing there job?  I never read about a mailman,  garbage collector or town clerk.  They have the offensive line standard but unlike the police they aren’t screwing up daily.

As for my thinking I can do a police officer job better than them or a sports person better than them.  I would note I don’t criticize Belichick’s play calling nor make fun of Drew Brees when he throws an interception.  Nor do I second guess Candem, NJ.  But I have criticized Dan Snyder and the Rochester, NY police.  One group actually competent.  And this is not limited to just sports and police.  I am certain I could have been a better president than Trump.  I know I could not have done as good of a job as Obama.

I am glad we agree on the not hiring of police officers fired for misbehavior.  Any chance you could convince your union to include a provision in the next contract banning the hiring of previously disciplined  officers from other departments? 

I won’t believe that is “a few bad ones” until I believe there are many good ones.  And condemning these two won’t alone convince me a cop is a good cop.  But refusing to condemn them is absolute proof of being a horrible cop. 

Hoodie, I appreciate you being open minded and engaging in a good conversation about this.  See comments below.

It's funny that you say this, because I think that law enforcement is one huge gray area for me and I bounce all around in how to approach it.  I have lots of "all cops are bastards" friends and "law and order" friends and I often agree with neither.

To be fair Hoodie is calling for them to be jailed, not just fired. And I didn't say nothing should happen to them, I said a suspension would be appropriate, but not fired. So yes I'm more lenient then you or Hoodie, but not terribly and only if this is a first offense type of thing for the officers. If they've already been suspended or reprimanded for something like this then absolutely not just fire them but prevent them from ever being cops again.

Not condemning someone or something proves nothing. You want to label them as horrible people because they aren't doing what YOU want them to do. If they weren't involved in the situation then it's not their job to condone or condemn anyone unless they want to. That's what the judicial system is for. Minding your own business doesn't make you horrible.

Another thing you might be overlooking is training. There have been several instances in the past where there was social outcry over an incident and later to find out that the officers involved actually followed SOP and/or their training. You can't fire and jail people for doing what you trained them to do. Most of the time there are too many variables and unknowns involved for people to just jump to conclusions. I'm pretty sure that the rest of the Rochester police force understands these things better than you and can't make their own decisions.  

 

Actually, ignoring a co-worker who maced an innocent child does kinda make you pretty horrible. Perhaps you should see someone about your long-overdue moral compass recalibration...

I'm going to give Pondwater the benefit of the doubt that maybe he didn't mean it the way that came across.  But I agree with you, Stroke.  There is the good kind of minding your own business and then there is looking the other way when something bad is happening and that is not the good kind of minding your own business. 

Dave, I think all of us have at least some amount of inherent bias in us because we are all products of our life experiences.  When I was a teenager, the big thing was to "cruise" the Ft. Lauderdale Beach strip along AIA.  Yeah, I am so old that this was the thing back then.  Like most kids, I played my car stereo too loud.  One time I of course got pulled over for it being too loud.  The cop was super cool about it.  He essentially said that he likes loud music too but there is an ordinance against it in your car and explained to my young dumb azz about how if your stereo is so loud you might not hear emergency vehicles or other car's honking or something and that loud stereos led to distracted driving and accidents, etc etc.  He didn't give me a ticket (thankful because my parents would have killed me) and tried to make the traffic stop about educating me and treating me with respect and listening to me.  I thought that was really cool and maybe it planted some seed that led to my future career.  Maybe not, I dunno.  But I think that if he had been a jerk about it, hassled me, tried to find everything he possible could to write me a citation for, etc. then maybe I would have thought "Cops are jerks" and that would have planted to seed for me to never trust or like cops.  All of this is just speculation of course, but I think there might be some validity to it.  Point being, I think that our feelings about cops and just about everything else in life is pretty much a direct result of our own personal interactions (especially if they were at a young age). 

It's not looking the other way when everyone already knows about it. Also, it's not like all of the rest of the officers on the force were there to intervene in the situation. If other officers were involved or knew about the situation and tried to hide it. Then yes, they are complicit and should be held accountable.

If my coworkers are stealing shit from my company, then yes I'll report it. But if the company and everyone else already knows about it, then there's no point for me to get involved just to force my opinions down people's throats to force an outcome. There's a process in place to deal with situations like this. There also may be facts or circumstances that haven't been disclosed that may come into play.

Fair enough, thanks for clarifying.  I just didn't want to make assumptions on what you were trying to say when Sunstroke responded to you. 

It's more than that.

Suffice it to say that every officer in that force is aware of that act of police brutality today.  What will they do about it?

Will they lobby for those offending officers to be fired or arrested?  No.
Will they support efforts to strengthen accountability, so that future instances of police brutality will be dealt with harshly? No.

Instead, what will happen is what always happens: the police union fights against civilian leadership, in an effort to protect the bad apples and make sure they suffer the fewest consequences possible.

You don't see teachers' unions aggressively attacking City Hall in defense of teachers accused of child abuse.  You don't see nurses' unions publicly bashing hospital management on behalf of nurses accused of molesting patients.  This sick behavior only happens with police unions.

You cannot be a "good apple" if you defend and support a system that insulates the bad apples from the consequences of their misdeeds.  Police officers who support union leadership that work the system to protect egregious police abuse of power... they are themselves complicit in the abuse.

I'm not talking about a union defending a member accused of using the department expense account on personal items, or taking sick days when they weren't actually sick.  I'm talking about physical violence perpetrated under the authority of the state.  It's a gross and disgusting abuse of power, and police unions have absolutely no shame in defending even the worst perpetrators.

I support you 100% with that.  Police unions protect the bad apples and make it very difficult to fire people who should be fired.  I'm not saying that they don't do any good at all.  But the bad they do way outweighs the good they do.  I have seen it personally from the inside.  Even at the federal level.  Last year a coworker verbally threatened to shoot me and he did it in front of witnesses.  The agency immediately suspended him pending investigation and the agency took steps to have him fired.  The union came in and after 6 months, they reinstated him.  His "punishment" for threatening to kill me essentially became 6 months of fully paid administrative leave.  Instead of getting fired, he got a 6 month paid vacation. 

For sure, when you're in need, there's nothing like having a police officer to help you.  When I've dealt with break-ins and stuff, cops really help when you feel vulnerable.

I've had a few not so good incidents as well.  But I think that personally, my personal interactions with the police have been largely positive, aside from one big incident where the cops had the wrong guy and a few minor gripes with behavior.

I've gotten a ticket before where in addition to the ticket, the guy was just a dick about it like he was personally scolding or mocking me.  That made me lose faith in the system a little bit and made me feel kinda belitted because I had no power to defend myself....normally, when a guy is chippy with you, you stand your ground and get chippy back -- but you can't really do that with police...or at least you shouldn't.

That sucks and I hate that crap like that happens.  What should happen during a routine traffic stop where there is no reason for the cop to assume that the person he pulled over is a "bad actor", the cop should be professional and courteous.  And as long as the person you pulled over is responding in a like manner, you keep it that way.  Now if the person you pulled over starts with an attitude, you need to escalate your approach (not physically, but verbally and with non verbal messaging).  But if you are dealing with someone you show the citizen respect until they give you a reason not to.   And I totally believe your story because 7 or 8 years ago I was pulled over for speeding in my personal car, I was off duty, and nothing on or in my vehicle gives any indication that I am law enforcement.  The cop immediately starts in with a terrible attitude and being a smartass.  I let him go on for about a full minute and a half and then I identify myself as a federal agent.  He immediately turned into my best buddy.  There was absolutely no reason for him to initiate contact with me in the manner that he did.  I still maintain that this is more of the exception than the rule, but it shouldn't happen at all. 

I was working for the County when I came upon a County speed trap on a rural empty road and was motioned to pull over. The deputy who walked over realized I was county as he walked up to the truck so he knew he wasn't going to write me a speeding ticket. What this very young deputy did do was berate me for what seemed like 5 minutes about what would my boss think and how could I speed in a work vehicle, how dangerous it was etc. He was as lecturing and condescending of an officer as I have ever seen. I swear it took everything in me to not say "just write me a f'ing ticket and shut up" but I didn't. It's funny because I came away thinking he was an a-hole but it never affected the way I see police.  As well I've had other negative experiences but I judge the person and not position.

Not condemning something doesn't mean you support it. In fact it doesn't mean anything. If the rest of the force wasn't actively involved or didn't try to cover it up, then it's really not up to them to say anything unless they want to. You have an agenda and the people opposite of you have an agenda. The problem is that you're trying to pressure and intimidate people do what you want them to do through ridicule and mockery. Trying to bully people into your moral belief system is far from a good thing

There's also the argument that even if you wanted to speak up, the organization's internal power structure doesn't allow for it.  So, maybe it's better to rebuild that structure.

Not to sound like a broken record, but you really need to repair or get a new moral compass. You see, Pond, someone macing a child isn't a matter of a moral belief system, it is a matter of wrong vs right.

To quote a semi-wise young poet, who once said "We are born with the natural ability to recognize right from wrong. Heeding that recognition is where people too-often go wrong."

Again, a simple dictionary search would help your comprehension. A person's moral belief system literally means their personal view of right vs wrong. It means the same damn thing.


Anyhow, I think you know I'm not talking about macing a child. I'm talking about trying to shame all of the officers not involved in the incident to form some sort of social justice protest. If they want to get speak out and get involved, then fine. If they don't, that's their choice. That doesn't make them horrible people. Funny how this whole society has turned into "if you don't agree with me, you're bad".

My stance is simply this.  Police have two choices.  Take stance against these problems and fix them.  Or we will pass laws to fix the problems without you.  Either the police can fix the problems themselves or people who have never been in law enforcement will be writing the laws.Police have chosen against option one..  So I don’t care how much they cry that they view they are being treated unfairly or something won’t work. 

One of us has a reading comprehension issue, and the other one of us was a published writer at the age of 4 and a copy editor for over a decade.

Right vs Wrong isn't a belief system...it is right vs wrong.

Learn it, know it, live it...

It most certainly is. Everyone has their own beliefs about what is right or wrong in life. In other words, their moral belief system. Quit with the word spaghetti Mr. big shot 4 year old Pulitzer Prize winner.   

Is abortion right or wrong? Is religion right or wrong?

There are certain absolutes:

Macing someone in handcuffs is evil.

Lying to parents and children that you ate taking their children to the showers and then the children disappearing forever is evil.

Honoring a legacy of slavery is evil.

Honoring Nazism is evil.

Inciting a mob to attempt to kill your political opponents to overthrow an election is evil.

Claiming forest fires are caused by a Jewish Space laser is evil. 

Harassing victims of violent crimes and lying that it was staged is evil.

Lying about the election to undermine the election is evil.

Does not revolting against the wrongs of the world make you evil if you weren't involved in the evil? That's the question. So for sake of arguement let's say the officers that maced the kid in handcuffs are evil. The other officers on the force were not involved in the macing incident. How are they evil? 

There are plenty of evil things on this planet, most of them are subjective. Do you revolt against all of them? Half of the country thinks abortion is evil. Do you revolt against it? If not, are you evil too?

The thing you are describing is called "politics," where one tries to enforce one's personal belief system on the greater society.  I do this, you do this, we all do this.  Any attempt to advocate for (or against) a change in policy is necessarily trying to "bully people into your moral belief system."

The officers involved are represented by their union; the union acts on their behalf.  If their union leadership acts to protect these bad apples, and the union members continues to support the leadership, they are complicit.

Morality is the concern of right vs wrong. a moral belief system is the structure that provides the source for that morality.

To answer your question, a moral belief system rooted in a religion is wrong. (with perhaps 1 exception) but is religion itself wrong . .again that depends on the religion.  Is a hammer right or wrong ? it depends on how you use the hammer.

Abortion is an unfortunate side-effect of someone deciding they would not like to remain pregnant. Whether someone can force someone else to be pregnant or not seems to be to be the moral question.

anyways, back on topic .. this isn't a crazy hard thing to solve .. get rid of the war on drugs.. decriminalize the use and possession of these drugs for personal use and you'll see the need for bloated police forces start going down.

Reading comprehension, indeed... We aren't talking about abortion, or religion.

We were talking about macing a small child.

Now, we're not...


Exactly!

Unless you believe it isn't, of course, in which case, good and evil becomes a hazy belief system. Ask Pond...he'll tell you...about something else.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/02/06/denver-sent-mental-health-help-not-police-hundreds-calls/4421364001/

Hundreds of calls, zero dead social workers. We need more of this.

Looks like sending people specifically trained to work with people suffering mental health issues produces better - and safer! - results than sending a guy (with handcuffs and a gun) specifically trained to enforce compliance.

I think that's great. I question some of the calls from other stories I've read but obviously this is helpful to both public and police. 3% of the calls isn't like they are pushing police out.

Defund the police isn’t abolish the police.  It is reduce the funding for the police and shift that money to resources that would be more effective. 

We've been through this numerous times. It depends on who is saying it. Many of your political leader think otherwise and now places like Minneapolis are paying the price.

The people advocating for defunding the police are advocating for what Denver is doing.  It is only those trying to discredit the movement who are twisting it.  Just like those kneeling were clear that they weren’t protesting the military just the police.  Quit the bullshit of pretending the messaging isn’t clear.

And Minneapolis didn’t defund the police, the police refused to do their job to protest the public criticism of their brutality.  Minneapolis is an example of a department too corrupt to defund (ala Denver program)  but one that needs a full on Camden NJ fire everyone and then rebuild from square one.