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On Sunday I speculated that the Dems will use a George Floyd-like psychological operation to increase Democrat turnout in the election. Today, Kamala issued a statement about Sonya Massey, a black woman killed by police whose body cam footage was released recently:
The body cam footage shows two police officers answering a call from Massey about a prowler in her yard. Massey acts mentally unwell throughout the encounter, answers that she is on medication when asked about her mental health, and has a difficult time telling the officers what her last name is or retrieving her photo ID. The officers are somewhat friendly if impatient, but the vibe changes when Massey grabs a pot of boiling water after the officers requested she turn off the stove. The officers say they are stepping back while she grabs the boiling water (crazy people may use boiling water as a weapon, something that has lead Starbucks to ban giving patrons boiling water), and Massey says “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus”. Either because of this statement or because of a physical sign we don’t pick up on the body cam, an officer points his gun and demands that she drop the boiling water. She does not drop the boiling water but instead continues to hold on to it. Right before she is shot the body cam just barely picks up Massey throwing the boiling water toward the officers, with the water landing on the ground and steaming where it landed. I want to thank Twitter user Fartblaster4000 for turning that moment into a helpful gif.
Massey’s death is certainly not the preferred outcome of the encounter. Once the officers picked up on Massey being crazy, they should have mentally decided to leave her house if she did something like equip a plausible weapon. The three seconds that the officer gives for Massey to drop the pot of boiling water was insufficient — of course, the pot was in her hand and thrown toward the officer before the officer shot. Springfield is the third most criminal city in America, so perhaps the officers did not believe they had the resources to call mental health professionals in their place. In any case I do not think that the officers should have moved toward her but instead left the premises until they felt she did not pose a threat. Sadly, it’s not uncommon for crazy people to attack police officers with whatever is around, and it’s rational to be afraid of a crazy person who has a pot of scalding water in their hands, able to disfigure you for life.
According to a UPenn study, BLM may have been the political ingredient that shifted the election toward Joe Biden:
If the relevant voters are swayed more by victimhood narratives than Covid, this explains why Republicans are bringing up the topic of migrant rapes. I predict we are going to see more victimhood narratives in the coming months!
Why do American cops scream so much? He's already got a bead drawn on her, what's the point of shouting to the point where both of them get an adrenaline spike that impairs their judgement? That's how poor Daniel Shaver died, and it looks like that's how Sonya died as well.
Terrible training, mostly.
The median European cop spends far more time training than the median American officer.
How did American police end up there? Funding misallocation? Workplace culture? Lack of traditions?
It's not like Euros have a lot more money or time to throw around.
I buy the idea that American cops are more twitchy because everyone is potentially packing, but you'd think that would make them want to train even harder.
A few main things -
1.) Lots and lots of smaller departments, where a combination of nepotism/corruption and just a need for bodies create lower standards. I think while there are some specific pretty terrible big city PD's, the worse police departments in medium and small towns and cities across America, where they truly are unaccountable and incesteous, while having immense power.
2.) A non-professional culture - From what I've seen, European's treat the job of police as yes, something admirable, but it's still a job and one you need the right qualifications and training for. In the US, as I think somebody said, it's basically a place where non-college educated men can make good wages and be respected in society, and not much else. Obvious, there's the matter of the number of guns, but looks at the difference between the median UK or European police officer's uniform and a US police officer's.
3.) Post 9/11 worship - People might forget/not know this, but there were police scandals in the 90's and some pushes for reform, and the median view of the police was something like NYPD Blue - there were good and bad cops, and so on. 9/11 meant it became basically impossible to question anything any cop did for a decade plus, and then another five years for said questioning to reach a critical mass, due to social media.
4.) People like having the thugs around - You sometimes see this in this place, and just in wider America - people who don't think they'll ever have to deal with cops don't mind the proles getting what they deserve, including at times, other proles.
You know, it would be interesting to at least entertain some of there structural differences as possible reforms to the American system. I know some towns love the local control of their police -- ticket revenue, quiet suburbs with fast response times, and so forth. What would folding them all under (partial?) state-level control look like? Or standardizing the training and professionalism? Intentionally shuffling officers around might improve uniformity and make corruption more difficult (although I suppose that didn't work for the Catholic clergy). Or enforcing weekly gun training -- not just firing and handling, also rapid decision-making.
But I also realize that I'm not knowledgeable enough to have confidence in any of these. Is there literature or trial studies for making these sorts of changes?
Somehow preventing cops with bad records from just transferring to the next town over would be a great start, but the details would need to be thought through carefully and the implementation would be tricky. Having a special state prosecutor investigate all incidents of suspected police misconduct would probably also help, since local police departments and local prosecutors’ offices usually have fairly incestuous relationships.
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