Minneapolis

[living sounds]

It is unfortunate that the ones paying the price are not the ones making bad decisions at the top, the ones who are actually responsible for the bad outcomes.

Limitation of liability, a principle that can - applied correctly - spur growth and innovation in the economic real should not apply to politics. Here we need skin in the game. Those in power shouldn't be isolated from the consequences of their actions. But this is increasingly what has been happening.

Bad actors need to be held accountable. I hope this is what happens to Trump in the election, and in court after January 21...

 

[JohnRoberts]

Bad actors need to be held accountable. I hope this is what happens to Trump in the election, and in court after January 21...

You should be pleased President Trump is talking about pulling thousands of US troops out of Germany (almost 35k now, will be reduced to 25k).  The US troops were only supposed to remain 10 years after WWII ended.  : (now it is a NATO thing).

JR

 

[Gold]

If troop reduction came from the Pentagon no one would blink. That it came after Merkel dissed Trump by not attending the G7 looks less good.

 

[living sounds]

You should be pleased President Trump is talking about pulling thousands of US troops out of Germany (almost 35k now, will be reduced to 25k).  The US troops were only supposed to remain 10 years after WWII ended.  : (now it is a NATO thing).

JR

Non sequitur. I'm not taking the bait.  8)

 

[fazer]

Limitation of liability

If I understand this correctly, who will become police if they become Liable for any action including others.  My understanding of the Police in Minneapolis is the union leader defends police that should be let go and also  trains them in tactics that have been a cause of problems with white brown or black.  Like you say the higher ups should have skin in the game with the beat police.  The departments all need an overhaul on tactics but removing limited liability means what, separate insurance policies like doctors face in America.  After a while it becomes about money period, and not about helping people in the worst cases.   

 

[JohnRoberts]

If troop reduction came from the Pentagon no one would blink. That it came after Merkel dissed Trump by not attending the G7 looks less good.

That is my speculation..... it is part of a not so subtle negotiation.

How does it "look" to still have 34,500 US troops stationed in Germany, so many decades after WWII fighting ended?  President Trump promised to bring troops home, and rare for an elected leader he is actually keeping that promise (many more out there to go). 

I can imagine President Trump being criticized if he increased forces in Germany, or does just about anything anywhere.

I apologize for the veer... 

===

On topic,  charged ex-police officer Chauvin appears in court today. 

It sounds like MN city council is talking about defunding  their police force... that could be instructive to observe, from a safe distance.

Interesting times.

JR

 

[Scodiddly]

Don't think of it as "getting rid of the police".  Think of it as shopping for a better vendor, one that better fits your specific needs. 

If you happen to be a "free market" type, you could view it as making government smaller.

 

[OneRoomStudio]

Don't think of it as "getting rid of the police".  Think of it as shopping for a better vendor, one that better fits your specific needs. 

If you happen to be a "free market" type, you could view it as making government smaller.

Exactly. People seem to assume that Minneapolis is descending into anarchy. That's not the case at all. Disbanding a police department has been done by other cities before. Camden, NJ disbanded their police dept in 2012, and the county took over policing the city. The same thing happened in Compton, CA in 2000, with LA county taking over.

The point is that *this* police dept  is not working, not that police in general are not working. This may be one of the few ways to get Kroll and his ilk out of the way, while making room for good police to step in.

 

[living sounds]

If I understand this correctly, who will become police if they become Liable for any action including others.  My understanding of the Police in Minneapolis is the union leader defends police that should be let go and also  trains them in tactics that have been a cause of problems with white brown or black.  Like you say the higher ups should have skin in the game with the beat police.  The departments all need an overhaul on tactics but removing limited liability means what, separate insurance policies like doctors face in America.  After a while it becomes about money period, and not about helping people in the worst cases. 

I am talking about personal liability of elites. Politicians / CEOs who are isolated from the consequences of their actions act like they do today: Make money, get out, it's someone else's problem now.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Exactly. People seem to assume that Minneapolis is descending into anarchy. That's not the case at all. Disbanding a police department has been done by other cities before. Camden, NJ disbanded their police dept in 2012, and the county took over policing the city. The same thing happened in Compton, CA in 2000, with LA county taking over.

The point is that *this* police dept  is not working, not that police in general are not working. This may be one of the few ways to get Kroll and his ilk out of the way, while making room for good police to step in.

Don't confuse a relatively rare low frequency event, with a viral video that is viewed millions of times.

Camden was too messed up to reform neatly so they just shut it down and started over.  MN has had a reform police chief in place for years already and was hopefully making progress with reforms.

Officer Chauvin was apparently a bad apple.... I wouldn't extrapolate from one sample to disband the entire police force.

Of course not my call....  Community policing is a very mature organizational structure and apparently corrupted by unions, with perhaps more, like prosecutorial leniency***.  A popular theme is inadequate training and lack of certification, that appears to be a blatant cost issue... we get the quality of police that we are willing to pay for.

JR

**** police typically get the benefit of the doubt from prosecutors because of the violence that is often precipitated from police confrontations, and the need to make snap decisions about threats to their personal safety. Of course 8 minutes is too long for a snap decision defense.

 

[OneRoomStudio]

Don't confuse a relatively rare low frequency event, with a viral video that is viewed millions of times.

Don't confuse a lack of national publicity with a low frequency of events. There have been 195 police killings in MN since 2000 (https://www.startribune.com/fatal-police-encounters-since-2000/502088871/). When you consider the population of the entire state of MN (a little over 5 ½ million) is only slightly more than half of that of NYC, and you compare this to the NYC numbers (https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/179-nypd-involved-deaths-3-indicted-exclusive-article-1.2037357), you realize how bad the problem is here.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Don't confuse a lack of national publicity with a low frequency of events. There have been 195 police killings in MN since 2000 (https://www.startribune.com/fatal-police-encounters-since-2000/502088871/). When you consider the population of the entire state of MN (a little over 5 ½ million) is only slightly more than half of that of NYC, and you compare this to the NYC numbers (https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/179-nypd-involved-deaths-3-indicted-exclusive-article-1.2037357), you realize how bad the problem is here.

I already shared that the DOJ/FBI recently formed a national database to collect reports of excessive force during arrests.

I already said that in my judgement the real issue is all the suspects harmed by excessive force by police who did not die... (maybe we even agree about this?).

The media seems to be focussed on lethal incidents to generate the most emotional traction (scare the viewers into watching). Politicians like moths to candles are forgetting about social distancing to crowd around the cameras and testify their racial wokeness. Even big business leaders are afraid to not toe the line with the social warrior talking points.

=====

There may be another way to frame this that holds the racial component in better perspective.  We can recall the outrage by economically disadvantaged (mostly minority) communities about their higher frequency of "stop and frisk" police interactions. While we can't refute that this worked to get guns off the street, it was politically unpopular so abandoned.  The reality is these low income areas is where crime is most prevalent so it is only logical that police, whose job is to prevent crime focus on the community where the crime is.

The political persuasion judo flip here, is to swap black, for low income residents, to make this look like overt (systemic?) racism, when it is mainly police just doing their job pursuing crime where it is irrespective of race. 

I won't bore you with the contrary statistics showing how many non-minority suspects get harmed and injured by police.

This makes the remedy completely different than the current mob mentality calling to defund the police and give police racial sensitivity training. Instead we need to improve the economic performance of these inner city neighborhoods. It is hard to ignore the business unfriendly political leadership in these most affected cities.  This is not easy to change but if we do not even recognize what the real problem is, we will never fix it.

In a classic follow the money, who benefits from increasing racial enmity (hint divisive politicians who claim to be the solution). Sadly the violence and private property destruction only rewards these ineffective local leaders making residents more dependant. I saw one politician claim that calling 911 (police assistance) was white privilege. The data does not support that remarkable claim either.

JR

 

[living sounds]

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/08/us/us-police-floyd-protests-country-comparisons-intl/index.html

 

[Winston OBoogie]

 
I won't bore you with the contrary statistics showing how many non-minority suspects get harmed and injured by police.

Yeah why don't ya.
It'd be cool if ya didn't bore us with contrary statistics.
Thanks.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Wow!  Talk about munching on the sprouts instead of keeping with the meat and potatoes.   

Independent tracking of fatality by police in the U.S.  is currently about 1000 per annum.  3 a day.
Adjusted  for percentage of population, blacks are 2.5 times more likely to be killed than whites.

I haven't munched on sprouts lately but I have some broccoli seeds I could get sprouting.  8)
====
data does not agree

https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/

Even if all the unknown shooting deaths were all black that could alter the ratios, but should be pretty unlikely

https://www.statista.com/chart/5211/us-citizens-killed-by-police-2016/
----

Heather Mac Donald  actually wrote two books on the subject . In 2003 she wrote "are cops racist?" (her obvious answer was no). And in 2016 she wrote "the war on cops" again defending them against the modern social justice perspective with objective data.

I apologize to the list for dueling statistics.  As the old saying goes, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.  8)

JR

 

[Winston OBoogie]

  Edit:  Removed.  f**k it.  Not worth my time.

 

[JohnRoberts]

John, as you know, there are no official statistics because most departments don't report the figures.

According to FBI they do, and for over a year the FBI has been collecting local data into a federal database.

https://www.fbi.gov/services/cjis/ucr/use-of-force

My reading of independent tracking indicates the numbers I quoted above, again, adjusting for percentage of population.

I'm almost tempted to ask to see your math... but no never mind...

But neither of us will likely be swayed to the other's thinking based on an Internet forum chat so... 

you know me so well.

Yep, stay away from them there sprouts!

I'm shocked, but when I went to my cupboard I found a half dozen sprouting jars but zero seeds (time flies).  I just ordered a couple pounds of the usual suspects (alfalfa, broccoli, sunflower....). Thanks for reminding me of what I was missing.

JR

 

[john12ax7]

I'm almost tempted to ask to see your math... but no never mind.

The data in the links you posted confirms what Winston said.

 

[Winston OBoogie]

  Edit:  Removed.  Fuck it.

 

[scott2000]

This is a pretty cool map. You can click on the blurbs and see the name and the alleged armed/unarmed status.....

https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/

I randomly selected 3 and googled their names and location to have a read of any news reports since usually police shootings are reported.  Pretty interesting stories....