> The police have all the responsibility to de-escalate situations. If they're not doing that then they're the ones in the wrong.
I strongly disagree, and submit that a big part of the problem is this exact mentality.
Police should get gobs of training, they have to take the high road, they have to learn to not let their buttons get pushed, etc., etc. - all of those things are true. But the primary responsibility has always rested and should always rest on the shoulders of individual citizens that the police are interacting with. People need to be accountable for their actions.
I'm very sorry when anyone loses their life due to an altercation with the police, but the elephant in the room is that pretty much all of these are completely and easily preventable if people show even a smidgen of accountability for their actions. The common factors across victims of police shooting is not race, but (a) commission of a crime and (b) resisting arrest. Remove either from the equation and the death rate drops dramatically; remove both and it's virtually zero.
Yes, let's continue to figure out how to improve law enforcement. If we find actual instances of racism, let's work to eradicate them. Whatever problems exist in policing, let's study them and fix them. But let's not pretend for a moment that any real progress will be made while there is a pervasive attitude that crime and/or belligerence towards cops isn't a massive part of the problem.
Why does this study show that so many black people want the same or more police presence? Because the overwhelming majority of them (and everyone else) obey the law and, in the event they do interact with the police, refrain from punching them, fleeing the scene, etc.
> Police should get gobs of training, they have to take the high road, they have to learn to not let their buttons get pushed, etc., etc. - all of those things are true. But the primary responsibility has always rested and should always rest on the shoulders of individual citizens that the police are interacting with. People need to be accountable for their actions.
Maybe if cops can't control their emotions they shouldn't be given a gun and then immune to essentially any misuse of the gun?
> (a) commission of a crime and (b) resisting arrest.
We have a judicial system for a reason. The police isn't the arbiter of justice. Especially when the historical reasons for the formation of police in many countries and the US was to control slaves, former slaves, and economic activists.
> Whatever problems exist in policing, let's study them and fix them.
The studies are all out there. Are you refusing to take a look?
> while there is a pervasive attitude that crime and/or belligerence towards cops isn't a massive part of the problem.
You're trying to shine a piece of turd and say it'll get better. A piece of turd, no matter how shiny, is going to be a piece of turd. Police, the way & the numbers they have today, are not necessary for a functioning society.
meanwhile study:
Results are based on a Gallup Panel web study completed by 36,463 U.S. adults, aged 18 and older, fielded June 23-July 6, 2020. The survey was conducted in English. Individuals without internet access were not covered by this study. The Gallup Panel is a probability-based panel of U.S. adults whom Gallup selects using address-based sampling methods and random-digit-dial phone interviews that cover landlines and cellphones. The sample for this study was weighted to be demographically representative of the U.S. adult population, using the most recent Current Population Survey figures.
So they excluded the lowest income Black Americans.
And the issue here is that the question just asked "should there be less police" - that's not what the police abolition movement is arguing for.
How would've the results been if the question asked:
"Should we reduce police force presence in your neighbourhood by 90% while also ensuring that you will get more grants for education, healthcare, and housing"
Or even:
"Should we abolish policing (while still maintaining a skeleton force to respond to aggressive incidents) in exchange for providing housing for everyone making below a certain amount of money?"
>> (a) commission of a crime and (b) resisting arrest.
> We have a judicial system for a reason.
I don't disagree; I'm actually making a different point, a pragmatic one, that it is really easy to almost entirely eliminate the risk of dying at the hands of the police, and that it is completely within one's own power.
I'm all for doing what we can to do to improve the police to make an already rare problem (relatively speaking) even more rare, but if the objective is to reduce deaths at the hands of the police, that's not where the low hanging fruit is.
I strongly disagree, and submit that a big part of the problem is this exact mentality.
Police should get gobs of training, they have to take the high road, they have to learn to not let their buttons get pushed, etc., etc. - all of those things are true. But the primary responsibility has always rested and should always rest on the shoulders of individual citizens that the police are interacting with. People need to be accountable for their actions.
I'm very sorry when anyone loses their life due to an altercation with the police, but the elephant in the room is that pretty much all of these are completely and easily preventable if people show even a smidgen of accountability for their actions. The common factors across victims of police shooting is not race, but (a) commission of a crime and (b) resisting arrest. Remove either from the equation and the death rate drops dramatically; remove both and it's virtually zero.
Yes, let's continue to figure out how to improve law enforcement. If we find actual instances of racism, let's work to eradicate them. Whatever problems exist in policing, let's study them and fix them. But let's not pretend for a moment that any real progress will be made while there is a pervasive attitude that crime and/or belligerence towards cops isn't a massive part of the problem.
Why does this study show that so many black people want the same or more police presence? Because the overwhelming majority of them (and everyone else) obey the law and, in the event they do interact with the police, refrain from punching them, fleeing the scene, etc.