"When communities try to hold police accountable, law enforcement fights back"

[deckeda]

subhead:
"Civilian oversight is undermined by politicians and police, who contend citizens are ill-equipped to judge officers"

Police unions are powerful political entities. There exists no similar citizen organizations.

There, now you've just read a large investigative story. This isn't "news" so much as it is documentation across America.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investiga...ntability/

WaPo wrote:
About this story

Reporters interviewed dozens of current and former officials from more than 30 civilian oversight entities across the country, and examined hundreds of pages of audits, reports, emails, consent decrees and lawsuits related to the agencies and boards. The Post requested police misconduct complaint data from roughly a dozen oversight agencies and analyzed the outcomes of thousands of cases. Reporters also examined studies on civilian oversight, including the initial results of a National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement survey that provides details on the specific powers of agencies and boards nationwide.

[Lemon Drop]

Police unions have to go. A city in Texas was voting on whether to keep or dump the police union. San Antonio maybe, forget which one.

Let them join other pubic employee unions to bargain for wages and benefits.

Qualified immunity has to go too.

Policing is less dangerous as a job than many other types of work that pay far less.

We've ended up with a bunch of violent racist sadists pretending to be peace officers. THEY are the thugs.

Most of their leadership needs to go.

So done with police bullshit.

[sekker]

Lemon Drop wrote:

Policing is less dangerous as a job than many other types of work that pay far less.

This needs to be said over and over and over again. I have family that are successful police officers, after working security in the military. I support those that are good police officers, but I also find the comparison to military time absurd.

In nearly all municipalities in this country, the proper role for these successful professionals is that they are peace officers. The idea that they are 'occupational forces' to maintain some sort of unpopular laws is absurd.

We had a 23 year veteran of our police force 'retire' in my community because he did not get the Chief of Police job that recently came up. He is 45 years old. We are now stuck paying his pension for up to 50 more years, all because he had a hissy fit over being passed over for a promotion. Our city has a violent crime rate that is 1/2 the national average. Sorry, we have health care workers who took far more risks with their lives doing their jobs than the police in town, especially when you factor in COVID.

The argument I heard for supporting the 20 year retirement option was that 'policing is like serving in the military'. NO. 1000x NO.

[Filliam H. Muffman]

It is shameful that The Guardian had more accurate statistics on police shootings and deaths than the DOJ or FBI.

Killings by US police logged at twice the previous rate under new federal program
https: //www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/15/us-police-killings-department-of-justice-program

[Lemon Drop]

sekker wrote:
[quote=Lemon Drop]

Policing is less dangerous as a job than many other types of work that pay far less.

This needs to be said over and over and over again. I have family that are successful police officers, after working security in the military. I support those that are good police officers, but I also find the comparison to military time absurd.

In nearly all municipalities in this country, the proper role for these successful professionals is that they are peace officers. The idea that they are 'occupational forces' to maintain some sort of unpopular laws is absurd.

We had a 23 year veteran of our police force 'retire' in my community because he did not get the Chief of Police job that recently came up. He is 45 years old. We are now stuck paying his pension for up to 50 more years, all because he had a hissy fit over being passed over for a promotion. Our city has a violent crime rate that is 1/2 the national average. Sorry, we have health care workers who took far more risks with their lives doing their jobs than the police in town, especially when you factor in COVID.

The argument I heard for supporting the 20 year retirement option was that 'policing is like serving in the military'. NO. 1000x NO.

Yes, we have too many soldier wannabes in our police forces, and too many Iraq and Afghanistan vets who didn't make the transition well. Not to mention way too much militarization of equipment and process.
You can draw a straight line from sept. 11 to our current set of problems, greatly exacerbated by Trump. The racism has always been there, the methods and what is tolerated, no.

[RgrF]

Trump didn't start this, Clinton with his need to win did. It was then picked up by Bush and subsequent administrations.

[deckeda]

We all know it was actually Washington’s fault. He cut down that cherry tree and we’ve never been the same.

There’s always #originalsin but unfortunately Washington is still dead and Clinton’s been out of office for several years.

Anyone ELSE that might be in charge who can improve things today??

[Lemon Drop]

RgrF wrote:
Trump didn't start this, Clinton with his need to win did. It was then picked up by Bush and subsequent administrations.

That bill included the assault weapons ban and community policing standards, I'd argue we would be better off going back to that, fixing what was wrong like 3 strikes BS and starting over.