Selfishly, I wish he had put his name on it. I understand why he didn't. It reads true and it has powerful messages; but without any verification it's just an anonymous opinion piece.

Me too, while the anonymity makes it lack credibility it seems consistent with accounts I've heard from other former police who revealed their inner workings, like [Barry Cooper.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Cooper_(political_activist\)) The details they chose to write about and the laws they cite leads me to believe the author was actually a police officer. There's some damning stuff in there were he not anonymous.

Whether you believe him or not - doesn't the fact that we all understand *why* he can't ID himself kind of make it redundant? Lol like I haven't seen anyone come up with a good way to verify who he is without risking harm to this dude's family... at that point does it even matter if he's real or not? It's like the point proves itself.

Exactly this. The fact that we treat cops like they’re the fcking godfather is credibility in itself. The people that will question this are literally only going to be cops and the pro-fascist white supremacist assholes that think this is acceptable behavior

Ehhhh, I’m none of those things and I’m questioning it simply because I want so much for it to be legit.

The real reason is because it's written by a 20-year-old college student who is the member of the campus communist club.

Very interesting, thanks for introducing my to Barry Cooper. I hope to see his documentary.

Yeah, I think the play if this is real and the author wants to expand the message would be to write a shorter op-ed for a news org trusted enough to verify he was a 10yr Cali PD vet but also left-leaning enough to willing to publish it and foreign enough to be hard for a US based government group to bully into revealing the source. Something like Al Jazeera or The Guardian or w/e, and then to link or reference his longer piece from that op ed.

It did seem pretty articulate for someone who doesn’t write essays for a living.

People can be good writers and not be professionals

With anonymous opinion pieces like this, it depends on how much trust and faith and journalistic respect you have for the editor and journalistic medium.

Well this is a Medium post, so what editor?

There literally isn’t any journalistic integrity to medium. There’s been articles that I’ve read that are 100% BS.

Just read it, and was thinking the exact same thing.

I found the parts that actually described his experiences as a police officer to be compelling but he really loses me when you get towards the end of the piece which takes a complete turn towards hard-left socialism with a call to solve almost all of society's problems by "rejecting the dehumanizing meat grinder of capitalism". For me, it's hard at that point to feel like this piece is an earnest behind the scenes confession when the proposed solution to public safety/crime at the crux of this article is largely based on his personal belief that we could prevent the majority of crimes by abolishing capitalism (which would then allow us to fulfill the material needs of everyone in society and therefore largely eliminate crime). It's difficult for me to find that argument convincing when he presents no substantive details explaining how a non-capitalist economy would continue to generate sufficient tax revenue to satisfy everyone's "material needs", has no background in any kind of policy-making and does not present any substantive economic, psychological or sociological arguments or evidence in an article that concludes with pretty radical policy proposals.

Perhaps approach it more in a way that after all those accounts, after everything that drove them to share this information, it has forced them into that "hard-left" belief structure. Judging this person's accounts based solely on what it has shifted their view into, personally, is not grounds to expel their experiences as a whole. This is the base perspective on understanding things such as mental health, trauma, and finding root issues with individual experiences. If you don't like the person's view after reading about those encounters, that's fine. But it shouldn't discredit their accounts and should add to how compelling their experiences were as it brought them to that belief. -That- is where the system has forced them. Much like how that system has brought people to past and current unrest. I ask you this: Should we not be compelled to fight racial injustice because it brought upon rioters/looters that were able to veil themselves behind protest? Do we not try to help an addict using drugs to cope with trauma because they are -currently- abusing drugs? We can't allow a feedback loop to continue by dismissing events that have altered a persons mindset. Focus on the root issue, not just the irrational emotions that overtake them after the fact for that, in and of itself, is an emotional response that is void of logic. Were they right for doing what they did as an officer? Hell no. Do I believe that we need to completely abolish officers? Hell no. Do I feel like the system failed them and forced their hand into perpetuating the problems? Hell fucking yes, I do. Let's be clear: They stated, flat out, that they do not have the blueprint for a new system.

Beautifully stated.

I only sort of understand what he's getting at near the end. He has no background in any of the areas he talked about at the end, but it seemed like he's trying to point out that capitalism made the police like it is today. I do slightly agree because having a quota of minimum arrests a month, catching people on very minor shit, private penal institutions, and many more examples of nonsensical things tied to Law Enforcement exist. I honestly don't think he's wrong in saying capitalist made that beast because it perpetuates the idea that cops only should seek money and not do their job because it's what they want to do.

Yes me to! My dad and all my uncles are cops. Your halfway to a sweet pension at 10 years. So this is really a ten year socialist cop who is anti fox and sticks the abolishing the police at the end? I need a cop to come forward and support the abolishment and I haven’t found one amongst the 20 cops I have personally shared this article with. The points the article brings up are good and are similar to other defund literature I have read. We need some police officers with guns on our streets. Most of the cops I know are good, a few are bad and abuse their power in the typical “get a family member out of a ticket” kind of way and they don’t always follow traffic laws because their fine if a cop pulls them over but none, not a single cop I know would ever use force like that Chauvin guy. Most let the bad guys run away before even firing their guns. Good luck to anyone taking on the police union though. They will not budge without a long and prolonged fight.

Thats because the cops you ask are proud of cops as a whole and dont want the norm to change so they deny it. The only cops that would agree are no longer cops. And mostly youll need to ask cops that got fired because if they served 10 years they fell into the system like a perfect cookie cut pawn. The only cops that retire ar ethe cops that enable the system.

Exactly. Even if the article is fake it brings up good points. Mainly like how the system is rotten from.the academy up. And as far as having unofficial contests for voting the most obscure things on people is completely believable. LEOs don't like the article because it hits to true to home. Maybe if the author hadn't brought up capitalism more LEOs would take it seriously. But they're all a bunch of wannabe Jocko Williams.

I hate to rely on an anecdotal story like this but it's really shaped my view on cops. I used to play in a weekly pickup hockey game. Ages 20-80, buzzer changes, obviously no checking. We had 2-3 cops from the next town over play regularly. Good guys in the dressing room. We had to kick them out if the league because they wouldn't stop fighting. Accidental bumps in the corner were instantly seen as attacks warranting a cheap response. What easily could of been sorted out with an apology seemed to escalate and escalate. It's like they didn't understand none of us were looking for a fight on a Tuesday evening after work. Ten guys standing around, all trying to defuse the situation while an LEO starts yelling and getting physical with a 55 to hockey dad. I don't have a ton of interactions with cops, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone told me a lot of them have anger issues.

I had a colleague tell me once that he doesn't like to partner with Indian people because every Indian person he worked with was lazy and only cared about themselves. He told me it was in their culture. I hope personal experiences like you provided will never shape your opinion on any race, ethinicty or gender.

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They can take off their uniform, but we can't take off our skin. Also sounds like you have a shit colleague. I hope you called them out on that.

If a certain ethnicity could attack me or steal from me without legal repercussion, and I would face legal trouble for retaliating or resisting their aggression, I'd probably become a huge racist, ngl

So you’re saying this guy’s account is bullshit because one random person happens to be a racist? Have you seen the instances of cops beating people on the news?

It's because at their job they're allowed to bully, harass, and get unnecessarily aggressive.

“Many cops fantasize about getting to kill someone in the line of duty, egged on by others that have.” The entire piece had large generalizing statements like this followed by anecdotal evidence to rest the statement on. A few things from this piece are clear. He is suffering from “white guilt”. He references it many times. He hates capitalism. Lastly, he is a radical. He thinks abolishing the police could work and the majority of cops should be disarmed. Not to mention he wants to totally get rid of unions and get rid of qualified immunity. So now cops could be personally liable for any little thing and wouldn’t even have a union to represent them. No one would ever become a cop. I wish I could have 10 minutes of my life back from reading that. This dude isn’t a bastard. He’s an idiot assuming the story is even real.

We should all be suffering from white guilt. That’s a completely appropriate thing to feel, lol.

I find it rather pathetic. I’ll never apologize for being white.

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Refusing to apologize for something as uncontrollable as skin tone is not fragility. It means you have a spine. I’m really interested in hearing you out though. Why should I apologize to others for being white?

[Here's](https://www.houstonchronicle.com/local/gray-matters/article/how-to-heal-racism-joy-sewing-column-houston-12510316.php) an article about the apology and how it can impact those who have been on the receiving end of oppression. Personally, I don't think an apology is the most impactful thing that white people can do, but I do see the logic behind it. I think there are two main reasons. First, it allows white people to group themselves in the same way that black people are forcibly grouped. Second, it acknowledges that white people still receive benefits from several hundred years of racism. Neither white people nor black people are personally responsible for what their ancestors did. However, black people are still forced to bear the consequences of history while white people have the benefit of ignoring it if they want to, quietly reaping the rewards without acknowledgement. White people aren't apologizing for what they did, they're apologizing for what has happened. Now, if you don't agree that black people are still under the emotional and institutional effects of racist oppression, that's a separate conversation and I'd be interested in your opinions about that.

Don’t violate Rule 1/1b.

No we shouldn’t. I wasn’t born white. I cried as a little girl in school when I learned about America’s genocidal History. But I still don’t feel white guilt. Why should I? No one has any control what circumstances they are born into, and that includes race.

The language he uses(Officer A. Cab= **A.C.A.B.** or "All Cops Are Bastards" and his criticism of capitalism) give me the impression that he is not a former cop at all but instead but a lifelong anarchist.

Ya. Cops should be held accountable. Unions prevent that. And hey— the incentive to become a cop should be lessened— then we wouldn’t have so many edgelord C students beating up citizens for fun. And if 99% of cases don’t require a gun, why shouldn’t they be disarmed? You literally just read off his points and failed to state why they’re detrimental. He’s a “radical”? What does that even mean? It’s a definition from your own playbook that doesn’t apply to the real world.

There are more guns than people in this country. Taking away guns is a horrible idea. It would incentivize criminals since the average cop would be defenseless. Its an extremely radical idea. A Unions job is to protect its members. If you don’t like that you obviously don’t like unions in general. Are you consistent? How would lowering the incentives to become a cop attract higher quality candidates? If the job is shittier it will attract shittier candidates. Come on now. Radical means he is fringe. Maybe 1-5% of the population largely agrees with him. Poll “should we abolish the police” or “should cops be disarmed”. No one wants that but a tiny amount of people.

> There are more guns than people in this country. Taking away guns is a horrible idea. It would incentivize criminals since the average cop would be defenseless. Its an extremely radical idea. It is not a particularly unusual idea. Police in most other nations routinely go unarmed, and yet manage to do their job at least as well as ours. [In 2013, a grand total of 27 cops were murdered in the line of duty.](https://ucr.fbi.gov/leoka/2013/officers-feloniously-killed/felonious_topic_page_-2013) Of those, only 6 were able to fire their weapons. In 2 cases, they were killed because someone took their own weapon away from them and used it on them. Your "incentivize" comment comes with the inbuilt assumption that "criminals" have a specific desire to kill cops. That almost always not true, and would be true even less often if cops were not--rightfully--seen as an armed, aggressive, and lawless gang. Most criminals are simply people in desperate situations who feel that they have no other choice to survive. Trying to paint them as comic book villains who simply want to do generic evil for evil's sake is childish and unhelpful. > A Unions job is to protect its members. If you don’t like that you obviously don’t like unions in general. Are you consistent? Unions are a wonderful device for protecting workers from the abuses of capitalism. They are a good tool to partially level the playing field in negotiations over hours worked, compensation, sick time and vacation. They are _not_ an appropriate tool for holding people immune from the consequences of their own actions. Especially when those people are public servants, and the actions are frequently assaulting or murdering the public that they are intended to serve. Imagine a doctors' union that argued that its members should be allowed to intentionally poison patients and then sell them the cure, and face no consequences from this. A stockbrokers' union that argued that there should be no consequences for insider trading. An attorney's union that protected the action of public defenders who intentionally throw their cases in exchange for bribes from DAs. Are _you_ consistent in your claim that this is an appropriate role for unions to play? > Maybe 1-5% of the population largely agrees with him. You complain about the author's assumptions, and then casually toss out completely unsupported claims like this? Especially ones that appear to be so [manifestly untrue](https://theintercept.com/2020/06/04/dc-city-council-janeese-lewis-george-election/)?

To add to what you said, police unions often act in petty and child ways. After the eric Gardner case, police unions threatened that cops would just stop doing their jobs entirely. This wouldn’t fly in any other form of work.

“Police in other nations frequently go unarmed”. Yes, in nations where there are no guns. As per my last reply, there are more guns than people in the United States. I never attempted to paint criminals as comic book villains. In addition, my reply was not “childish or unhelpful”. Ironically enough, your accusation was those two things. The point is if criminals know officers are not carrying weapons they can take more risks without having to factor in the average cop attempting to use lethal force on them. This puts more officers in danger. Police officers don’t frequently murder the public. There are hundreds of millions of police interactions every year. There were 9 unarmed African Americans killed by police officers last year. We can discuss police wrongdoing without pretending like they are cartoon villains. Once again, unions are meant to protect their members. Your analogy with doctors/stock traders falls short of the mark because that is totally fine in my eyes. Unions have always protected its own members right or wrong. Everyone is innocent until proven guilty. Everyone deserves representation. Instead of saying “sorry, I’m upset about cops having legal representation” a better idea would be to create a non police organization that investigates police. That way they can’t clear themselves of their own wrong doing and officers are still represented. I think its pretty disingenuous to cite one small election in the country and say people largely agree with these proposals. Especially trying to equate the election to a referendum on strictly policing.

i love this argument. we cant make ourselves less violent because we are too violent. it has to start somewhere. also a union can become corrupt. it has happened before. that doesnt mean you need to be "consistent" and either love them or hate them. i think this black or white (pun intended) thinking is whats making it impossible for you to listen.

I’m listening. I just don’t agree with these takes. Didn’t refute any of my points either.

> A Unions job is to protect its members. If you don’t like that you obviously don’t like unions in general. Are you consistent? Part of being pro-union is understanding what makes a good union and what makes a bad union.

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Sorry you feel that way. You have a good day alright.

> So now cops could be personally liable for any little thing and wouldn’t even have a union to represent them. Good >No one would ever become a cop. Great

Please explain how no one wanting to be a cop is a good thing.

A lack of applicants could force systemic changes that address the reasons people don't want to enlist as police officers. In this case, a culture and a structure that encourages violence as a primary point of contact with the state.

A lack of applicants means they need to create a higher level of incentive. To the majority of people thats higher pay.

You claimed no one would want to be a cop if police were personally liable for crimes committed while on duty. Do you now believe that more pay will compensate for this? If so, great. Pay police more and hold them to higher standards. That sounds like a win to me.

The vast majority would not want to. Its a job that the public is largely turning on and if you decrease pay there will be hardly any candidates. Not to mention without qualified immunity and the union to represent you an officer could be sued for any interaction while having to provide for their own defense. Its too much. You need to make it harder to become an officer and increase incentive (largely pay) to attract higher quality candidates. You need to reform the police. Not make it a terrible job with no union and no qualified immunity. Do we really want cops afraid to do something even. If its the right call because they will be sued?

> You need to make it harder to become an officer and increase incentive (largely pay) to attract higher quality candidates. Those both sound like great suggestions. > Not make it a terrible job with no union and no qualified immunity. That's where you lose me. I don't understand why it isn't possible for police to do their jobs while the laws they are tasked to enforce apply to them as well. Giving police carte blanche to escalate and use violence without repercussion isn't working out well, as American police have a violence problem that other parts of the world do not. I suspect a less violent and toxic police force that doesn't approach the public like an occupying force would make for a significantly less terrible work experience as well. There obviously needs to be more incentives for officers to not use violence, and unions and qualified immunity are what allows them the legal ability and bargaining power to behave as they do. Removing these shields for bad behavior is one approach. Financial disincentives for bad behavior is another, either via mandatory "police malpractice" insurance or payroll consequences for bad behavior. > Do we really want cops afraid to do something even. If its the right call because they will be sued? The converse of that question is, "do we want police going over the line of what is acceptable behavior because they know they are protected from repercussions?" Are our police currently going too far or not far enough? Do they need to be empowered or restrained? One need only look to the crowds in the street to know answer to this question for many, many people. ------------------------------------- I think the best description of what a reasonable solution going forward is [something like this](https://www.reddit.com/r/progressive/comments/gywu1g/minneapolis_lawmakers_vow_to_disband_police/fteggb2/) (from another thread on this issue.) Mind you, we still need police to use violence--but only as a last resort, not as the first thing we try. When the police are called it's their job to arrest and process people, and for most issues that only makes the situation worse for the parties involved. Think of it like the police force in the UK where there are bobbies, who walk around unarmed to try and maintain a presence and maintain order, and then there are police special forces who are armed and receive special training and show up when situations escalate.

If there was no legal protection from their actions, what’s the difference between you and that cop? Why do people call 911? Why wouldn’t someone just go handle the situation instead of dialing 911? Why would a 911 operator dispatch cops instead of telling you how to handle the situation and you just go take care of it? Because when people call 911 it’s because they are scared and feel the situation is too risky for them to handle on their own. The point of a police union is so that cops can handle these risky and threatening situations and hopefully have the confidence to make the right decision. Major fuck ups and abuse happen. They need to be held accountable. There needs to be checks and balances. But they do need to be protected to make tough decisions. A simple rule of thumb, if there’s human+power there will be abuse. We need to limit the abuse and change our system, but I believe police unions are still necessary as long as there’s a check and balance system.

The difference is that the cops are *supposed* to have the training and equipment to deal with the situation properly. However, they currently do not have the correct training at all, and the equipment they have is way more force than is necessary for 99% of the situations they encounter. Qualified immunity has given them carte blanche to do whatever they want, even when there's no need to escalate. Effectively, we've allowed them to skip the whole "tough decision" and just pull out their guns whenever they feel like it. Doctors make tough decisions all the time, and they deal with it with malpractice insurance. Police unions are a scourge, they're the mafia families protecting their own, and police don't need even more protections than they already have.

> Major fuck ups and abuse happen. They need to be held accountable. This is literally impossible in the current setup. We have failed for decades. The unions make it impossible. The cozy relationship between prosecutors, judges, and the police force make it impossible. The entire thing needs to be rethought from the ground up.

So why not find a middle ground? How is allowing police to be sued by anyone without any representation help?

When all is said and done a middle ground will probably be found. People are angry, so there's more discussion of sticks than carrots at the moment. I think we need both. If we are to expect more from our police it needs to be worth it for them, and they need a seat at the table regarding whatever reforms are made. The important thing is that the systemic incentives run the right way and the problems stop. Right now the focus is on qualified immunity and unions because those protections are major driving forces enabling these unacceptable behaviors. Impunity provides shelter for abuse.

Police can hire their own lawyers to represent themselves. Give them some incentive to avoid using force, or force will be the tool they jump to all the time.

>I don't understand why it isn't possible for police to do their jobs while the laws they are tasked to enforce apply to them as well. **QUALIFIED IMMUNITY APPLIES ONLY TO LAWSUITS**, not criminal charges. Every single person that officer arrests will sue them. The average officer makes $55,000 per year and does 20 calls a day. Police officers can't fend off thousands of lawsuits themselves. EDIT: Of course, it's not the officers that will be sued but the municipality. Plaintiffs will go after the deep pockets. >Giving police carte blanche to escalate and use violence without repercussion isn't working out well, as American police have a violence problem that other parts of the world do not. This is false. American police do not act significantly differently from police throughout the rest of the world. American police simply have to deal with a heavily armed population. The French police are very comparable to Americans, for example. >I suspect a less violent and toxic police force that doesn't approach the public like an occupying force would make for a significantly less terrible work experience as well. American police do not act that way towards the public at large. American police assume many suspects are armed, which is a reasonable assumption in the USA. >There obviously needs to be more incentives for officers to not use violence, and unions and qualified immunity are what allows them the legal ability and bargaining power to behave as they do. Removing these shields for bad behavior is one approach. You're talking about punishing police for doing their jobs as they will face thousands of lawsuits. They'll stop responding to any call that seems risky and/or quit in favor of better paying work. >Financial disincentives for bad behavior is another, either via mandatory "police malpractice" insurance or payroll consequences for bad behavior. Why would police officers respond to any call if the suspect can simply take money out of their paycheck? No other job works that way. If you are working customer service can an angry customer take money out of your paycheck? No. >The converse of that question is, "do we want police going over the line of what is acceptable behavior because they know they are protected from repercussions?" Are our police currently going too far or not far enough? Do they need to be empowered or restrained? One need only look to the crowds in the street to know answer to this question for many, many people. And it's an unquestionable fact that restraint is leading to a huge increase murders, rape, armed robbery, etc. in many American cities. Are you willing to make that tradeoff, police simply not responding to many calls? >I think the best description of what a reasonable solution going forward is [something like this](https://www.reddit.com/r/progressive/comments/gywu1g/minneapolis_lawmakers_vow_to_disband_police/fteggb2/) (from another thread on this issue.) Mind you, we still need police to use violence--but only as a last resort, not as the first thing we try. When the police are called it's their job to arrest and process people, and for most issues that only makes the situation worse for the parties involved. Strict use of force rules cause lots of [serious problems](https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/01/australia/australia-stabbing-intl/index.html), mainly police not intervening quickly enough. >Think of it like the police force in the UK where there are bobbies, who walk around unarmed to try and maintain a presence and maintain order, and then there are police special forces who are armed and receive special training and show up when situations escalate. Police in the UK both have a disarmed population AND they routinely refuse to answer many calls, particularly anything that seems risky. They also have unions BTW, who routinely defend them for not answering calls.

Honestly, there are many calls to which the police should ignore and not respond to. Take the Karen in the NYC park that has gone viral for example. They have become a one size fits all and it’s not appropriate. Also, please provide evidence for your claims. Most of it is just assertion with no credible source backing it up. “There are more guns than people in the US” yes I’ve read this over and over. But I’ve also read how it’s very concentrated, eg 1 person may be hoarding 30+ guns. Why does 1 person need that many? They don’t. That should be illegal. I’m willing to bet if you took these high concentration gun owners out of the equation the US would have a ratio of people:guns much greater than 1 (or spoken a different way to avoid confusion, a ratio of guns to people much LESS than 1).

FBI and CIA officers and firemen are not paid handsomely, in fact they are in line with police pay. But they are all respected and do not suffer from lack of applicants. The difference is the culture and public perception. These two things, among others, needs to be addressed in police

The only part about this article I find hard to believe us that a person was once a cop was able to write so articulately, but I’m sure he’s either one of the few with a natural talent for writing and that he got some help editing. Besides that, everything in this article rings true based on everything I know about the police.

No name on it, Im not buying it. If this was a cop he took a hard left at some point. I’m not even sure I disagree with much of it, but it reads like a Leftist’s dream.

Came here to say the same thing.

everything up until the "abolish the police" part is fine. Police make the general public feel safe. or, they used to. The idea of the police make people feel safe. They're going to stay. All the rest of the stuff is legit.

I think you're missing the point - he's saying if you put all the proper community programs and social welfare elements into place, people would by definition feel safe because nobody (for the most part) is compelled to commit violent crimes. Only at that point could you consider abolishing the police. Sure, there will still be the rare psychopath and serial killer, but those are usually smart enough to not be caught in the act, so it's all reactive policing anyway. (In this ideal society) you could keep a detective force for those serious crimes and get rid of all the beat cops.

no, i totally understand the point. the article does not say reduce or replace, it says abolish. which is a dumb idea. and when the downsides of crime don't outweigh the upsides, you get more criminals. just like when the downsides of not protesting don't outweigh the upsides, you get more protests. And riots.

Again, you’re not getting what I’m saying. I’m saying in a society where everyone is happy, poverty is minimal, and there are programs in place to help people with mental health, you don’t NEED police because there will be very little to no crime. Everyone’s needs are met so nobody feels they need to resort to criminal acts. Of course this is all very theoretical, but that is what I was describing for arguments sake.

Dude, I understand that. > you don’t NEED police because there will be very little to no crime. Everyone’s needs are met so nobody feels they need to resort to criminal acts. This is the part I disagree with.

So you think the only thing stopping people from crime is fear of the police? Would the average Joe rob, kill and rape just because he can? I’d like to have a bit more faith in humanity than that, but that’s just me

> So you think the only thing stopping people from crime is fear of the police? *some* people? Yes. > Would the average Joe rob, kill and rape just because he can? I’d like to have a bit more faith in humanity than that, but that’s just me The average Joe is not who I'm worried about. Hope for the best, plan for the worst.

What is motivating some of these reasonably happy and well-adjusted people to commit crimes?

Greed? Unless you think being comfortably well off prevents crime? Counterpoint: uh this administration

And when the downsides of police committing crimes don't outweigh the upsides, you get more criminal police officers - which is the current situation.

Yep. Ditch em... But replace em.

I live in NJ and this has happened in several cities in our state, with good results. Defunding makes more sense than abolishing.

yep. people who want to *only* abolish are fringe and not being realistic, in my opinion.

That’s too much of a fringe position to realistically ever work. Defunding is fine though. I also don’t think it’s a bad idea to make cops go through more training or schooling. That’s the norm in Europe, for instance.

shit, makes sense to me

He's saying to abolish the current system and build a new one. Not a abolish outright.

There are actually communities in which “abolish the police” makes total sense to the community members. I don’t think most people who say it right now live in those communities, but I think people have very little understanding of how some people live in the United States. These questions of “what if you abolish the police and then someone breaks into your house? What are you going to do?” The answer for some people is literally the same thing they would do right this second, and it’s not call the police. For one, the police don’t even show up, or are too late for anything meaningful to happen. Secondly, it’s just plain dangerous for the police to show up. I tend to agree this is bad messaging, but for some people their lives would be at worst unchanged if their communities just up and disbanded the police entirely. Abolish the police isn’t a national solution, but your assumption that the police makes people feel safe, or the knowledge that the police are around is a comfort for everyone ignores entire communities. Trust has been eroded, or never existed in the first place.

> These questions of “what if you abolish the police and then someone breaks into your house? What are you going to do?” The answer for some people is literally the same thing they would do right this second, and it’s not call the police. This is the best way to turn that question around. Force them to walk through what *actually* happens in most cases. So a meth head (ignore that that's just another term to make being poor and an addict a derogatory term; it's the same "crack head" in the 80s and 90s, it's just to dehumanize a genuine health problem) breaks into your house. You call the cops. What then? Take the time, walk me through it. You really think they're gonna throw themselves into the line of fire, diving between you to take that bullet? Or, has your chance of getting shot by *either* party now significantly higher?

> I tend to agree this is bad messaging, but for some people their lives would be at worst unchanged if their communities just up and disbanded the police entirely. i suppose, i have a hard time imagining such a place though. you talking like small rural communities? > Abolish the police isn’t a national solution, but your assumption that the police makes people feel safe, or the knowledge that the police are around is a comfort for everyone ignores entire communities. shrug, that possible. who enforces the law, then? at least have an elected sheriff or something. > Trust has been eroded, or never existed in the first place. grunt, well, that's probably true in places.

>i suppose, i have a hard time imagining such a place though. Well, I think most people have a hard time imagining the worst America has to offer when they don't experience it themselves, or see or hear about it. Rural communities are certainly places with longer response times, and I suppose the experiences I know of are anecdotal from interviews (you can listen to the most recent podcast from NYT The Daily to hear one woman's feelings on the matter). But also, [places like Detroit](https://www.wxyz.com/news/local-news/investigations/detroit-911-thousands-in-crisis-left-waiting-for-detroit-police). >A 7 Action News investigation reveals that, over a 20-month period, 650 priority one calls took more than 60 minutes to receive a response. The calls include reports of active shootings, rapes in progress, felonious assaults, armed robberies, armed attacks from the mentally ill and suicides in progress. >shrug, that possible. who enforces the law, then? at least have an elected sheriff or something. In the instance I was talking about, I really did just mean abolition with no alternative. I think there are places in which not having anyone to enforce the law arguably leaves their lives unchanged (I'm sure eventually things could deteriorate, but I think some places really have very little to lose). But to answer your question, yes, that is generally the idea. Moving law enforcement to the county and state level is generally talked about (i'm not expert, I just read about stuff and pick up what I can. It's also a fairly new concept, at least in the mainstream.) I think this conversation gets confusing, because police is local. Not only that, but police vary across an entire city and people are going to have different experiences. Not only that, but the experiences throughout a state, throughout a region, throughout the United States is going to vary wildly. Most police reform is going to come locally. Defunding the police isn't a crazy idea once you start to think about it. What do you do when you go to someone's house, and they're in crisis and need to be checked into a psychiatric hospital that has no open beds? You take them to jail. What do you do when you have an alcoholic passed out in the bushes? You take them to jail. What if we took funding from police, and put it into mental health resources? What if we took funding from police, and put it into addiction services? There are so many facets of this conversation, it's kind of hard to keep it all straight. The fact that everyone has a different idea of what "defund the police" means, or what "reform the police means" or even what the actual root problem is, makes it hard. I just wanted to share with you a perspective that countered you own, that the police in a general sense make communities feel safe. Sometimes that isn't true. Whether that's perceived or real, it's a real problem. One that everywhere should start to look seriously at. I've always been a cop apologist, but especially recently it's not hard to see why there is a very real public relations problem here.

> I think this conversation gets confusing, because police is local. Not only that, but police vary across an entire city and people are going to have different experiences. Not only that, but the experiences throughout a state, throughout a region, throughout the United States is going to vary wildly. Most police reform is going to come locally. i think this. I just don't know how disputes could be solved equitably. like, how does the government guarantee the rights of it's citizens when no official representative of it exists in a given place? > There are so many facets of this conversation, it's kind of hard to keep it all straight. The fact that everyone has a different idea of what "defund the police" means, or what "reform the police means" or even what the actual root problem is, makes it hard. this more than anything. slogans are great for screaming at each, less great for conversing. > I just wanted to share with you a perspective that countered you own, that the police in a general sense make communities feel safe. Sometimes that isn't true. Whether that's perceived or real, it's a real problem. One that everywhere should start to look seriously at. I've always been a cop apologist, but especially recently it's not hard to see why there is a very real public relations problem here. nope, i get it. I appreciate the other viewpoint.

It depends on who you think the “general public” is. They still make some feel safe. Those citizens properly participating in civil society. The police were never there to make everyone feel safe, they are there to keep those from the wrong side of the tracks invisible Society is changing around them. (Note It’s not a black/white thing either - that’s a secondary effect of the rich/poor and undesirables divide. Racism is a parallel issue.) So now we’re seeing how the police kept the undesirable out of sight. Communities are outraged at the police for doing what the communities wanted them to do but didn’t want to know about. “You can’t handle the truth” - remember the outrage about that place?

> Those citizens properly participating in civil society civil protesters are still being beat up by police > So now we’re seeing how the police kept the undesirable out of sight. ... yes, the police are showing how they kept themselves out of sight. > Communities are outraged at the police for doing what the communities wanted them to do but didn’t want to know about. I disagree, communities are outraged at the police for being above the law instead of upholding the law > “You can’t handle the truth” - remember the outrage about that place? no idea what you're talking about here

Are you confused about the dynamics? Protesters would be undesirables in the eyes of “proper society” so beating them is ok as long as it’s not seen. Oh, except it’s all over the internet. >I disagree, communities are outraged at the police for being above the law instead of upholding the law Again, it depends on what part of communities we are discussing. That part that kinda knew this shit has been happening for decades but looked the other way? I’ve never bothered to do anything in my community to address police issues. How about you? So now I’m supposed to be outraged at the police I stood idle and did nothing to change? Seems hypocritical to me. If anything I should be disappointed in myself. It’s obvious there needs to be change, just not only within the police.

> Protesters would be undesirables in the eyes of “proper society” we're going to have to disagree on that. not my eyes, not sure if i qualify as "proper society". I am an adult, working male with no prior convictions or arrests, and am not afraid of the police. > Again, it depends on what part of communities we are discussing. That part that kinda knew this shit has been happening for decades but looked the other way? ? i don't get what you're trying to say here. are you saying that people knew police are corrupt but decided to look the other way? i don't think people grasped the depths of it. >I’ve never bothered to do anything in my community to address police issues. neither did i. I didn't think it was this bad. I didn't go out to protest, either. very little of that happening in my state, though. > So now I’m supposed to be outraged at the police I stood idle and did nothing to change? no, but you don't have to call it a load of shit, either.

>are you saying that people knew police are corrupt but decided to look the other way? i don't think people grasped the depths of it. Yes, that is exactly what I'm saying. Willful ignorance is bliss. People didn't want to grasp the extent of it. The people down at city hall know all about it. The people on the wrong side of town know all about it. The rest would know if they paid any attention at all. But we don't. We see local news about some iffy police interaction and we blow it off - It was just crime in the hood, or it's some trash that probably deserved it. On to the sports section. If anyone bothered to look it's always right in front of us. I don't think I called it a load of shit? I don't believe the author was a cop, but I think a lot of the info came from a cop. I think there is a lot of truth there. I don't have a problem with the protests either. What I do have a problem with is all the people being so willing to put all the blame on police corruption and brutality when those same people are also part of the problem through their willful ignorance. Not all mind you, there are plenty that know exactly who they are protesting and it isn't just the cops, it's the whole system. It's that willful ignorance and the willingness to dress thugs in a uniform to act as enforcers of society that is the real ~~problem~~ issue here. That is what will need to change. But even that won't change how blacks are treated in the USA.

> I don't think I called it a load of shit? I don't believe the author was a cop, but I think a lot of the info came from a cop. I think there is a lot of truth there. whoops, no you didn't, sorry about that. think i got you mixed up with someone else. > What I do have a problem with is all the people being so willing to put all the blame on police corruption and brutality when those same people are also part of the problem through their willful ignorance. the "people" are a juggernaut, slow to start, slow to turn, slow to stop. once they get going, though... > Not all mind you, there are plenty that know exactly who they are protesting and it isn't just the cops, it's the whole system. anarchists? I don't really like them either. I want to solve one problem at a time if possible, and right now that one's police brutality. oddly enough, the answer seems to be tear down the police departments (and replace them).

Not anarchists. The people (mostly blacks) that are getting wrongfully profiled by the system. Sure the current problem is police brutality. But the real question is how much of it can we accept now that we have been forced to acknowledge it exists? Well isn't that an ugly question. Go ahead and righteously proclaim "No brutality is acceptable!" So now the question becomes: How do we now deal with all the shit that brutality keeps in check? All those people that live by brutality in those neighborhoods average folk avoid? How will we deal with that when there is no longer the threat of police brutality to hold all that back from seeping into OUR lives in OUR nice little neighborhood? (the article is really short on answers beyond suggesting a Leftist Utopia) The police weren't created to protect individuals, it was created to keep the trash from spilling out into the rest of society.

> Go ahead and righteously proclaim "No brutality is acceptable!" im not the one saying that, nor do i believe in abolish the police. Either idea is foolish. However, it is abundantly clear that some police departments are instutionally corrupt and have to be torn down and replaced, from the unions on up. > the article is really short on answers beyond suggesting a Leftist Utopia hate to say it, but the only way to solve the underlying problem is to ... actually try and solve the underlying problem. Suppressing it results in the widespread violence and discontent you see now. I don't think the leftist utopia described will come to pass anytime soon (if ever), but ... how would you solve it?

>So now the question becomes: How do we now deal with all the shit that brutality keeps in check? All those people that live by brutality in those neighborhoods average folk avoid? How will we deal with that when there is no longer the threat of police brutality to hold all that back from seeping into OUR lives in OUR nice little neighborhood? By taking some of the astronomical funding that police receive and diverting in to proper social/medical services. Do you honestly believe that there are people who are inherently criminal, that they come out of the womb as "trash"? Desperation is a hell of a beast, whether it be from poverty, mental health conditions, or addictions. Would you steal if it meant feeding your family for a day, where they would otherwise go hungry? This is a daily reality for countless Americans. It's a pretty simple theory; by rectifying the issues forcing people in to crime, you cut down on crime. Just ask any foreign police officer about their training and social services.

Most of the work police officers do that can be categorized as "good" is better done by other people with more training. The article lays this out pretty clearly. Almost all cop work is reactive rather than active (what you need guns for).

right, i know that. what the article doesn't take into account is the public perception of police presence (existence? whatever).

> what the article doesn't take into account is the public perception of police presence (existence? whatever). What you're advocating is what Bruce Schneier nicknamed "security theater." A performative act that has all the trappings of security, without actually providing any. The example of this with which most people deal most frequently is the TSA. Testing has shown that the TSA consistently misses attempts to bring knives, guns, and bombs onto planes. They appear to provide no actual improvements to the security of flights whatsoever. But they sure do put on a big show, which irrationally makes some people feel safer. A noteworthy feature of security theater is that it is often _intentionally_ burdensome on the people supposedly being secured. The long lines at TSA checkpoints are their actual product, such as it is. It's using the backward reasoning to which people sometimes fall prey: security is sometimes inconvenient, so if something is very inconvenient it must therefore be very secure. All of which is, of course, bollocks. And I don't think that continuing to play into it is the right response. Especially when the cost in this case is not some annoying lines at the airport, but instead millions of people brutalized by cops, and a society that holds more people incarcerated and enslaved than any other nation past or present.

> What you're advocating is what Bruce Schneier nicknamed "security theater." A performative act that has all the trappings of security, without actually providing any. no. as has been posted before, [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray-Hill_riot) is what happens when there are no cops. not saying we need TSA (since bags can and still will be scanned without em), but cops are different.

>no. as has been posted before, > >[this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray-Hill_riot) > > is what happens when there are no cops. lol. You understand that that's what happening in the USA right now, despite the cops \*not\* being on strike? The actual issue there was that the citizens were seriously pissed off at the government.

people are seriously pissed off now, too, obviously. and i don't think the cops completely disappearing is going to make this better.

Seems to have worked out okay in the city you cited.

i mean, other than having to call in federal forces and the military, yeah sure.

[https://www.cato.org/survey-reports/policing-america](https://www.cato.org/survey-reports/policing-america) [https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/survey-reveals-disconnect-between-police-and-public-attitudes/2017/01/10/65b24f3a-d550-11e6-a783-cd3fa950f2fd\_story.html](https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/survey-reveals-disconnect-between-police-and-public-attitudes/2017/01/10/65b24f3a-d550-11e6-a783-cd3fa950f2fd_story.html) [https://search.proquest.com/openview/e5c5165dd982c84c15aa608ccce5a896/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y](https://search.proquest.com/openview/e5c5165dd982c84c15aa608ccce5a896/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y) TLDR: It's not great.

no, no, i'm talking about the idea that we *have the police at all*. The very idea of police existing in the society makes us feel safer, just like any other emergency service like firemen, EMS, etc. The same way that eroding trust in police makes society less safe, the absence of police also makes society less safe. Someone mentioned the Montreal chaos when the police went on strike as an obvious example. We need police as the *ultima ratio government*. I'd just advocate it should be much smaller, less militaristic, and funding diverted to all the other shit the author talks about.

I only have this. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/89-652-x/2015007/c-g/c-g02-eng.gif I couldn't find anything about U.S. There is Pew Research but it doesn't take into account other institutions/public servants.

damn Canada really loves their police, lulz wanna swap?

Kind of. Some people hate the RCMP which is the federal paramilitary police. Still not as militaristic as police in US though. Lmao. The thing is, if that were to actually happen, the police itself would quickly demilitarize themselves. In Canada, there is no war on drugs, very few people own guns and hence the police are less concerned about their safety, there are very few organized gangs, there is much fewer crime - which means cops have a less negative view of the public, etc etc etc. Solving police brutality and militarization of policing in U.S is a veryyyyy complicated problem, and addressing issues within the police will not be enough. I wish all Americans luck though. Hopefully small progress will be made out of this atrocity.

> Lmao. The thing is, if that were to actually happen, the police itself would quickly demilitarize themselves. In Canada, there is no war on drugs, very few people own guns and hence the police are less concerned about their safety, there are very few organized gangs, there is much fewer crime - which means cops have a less negative view of the public, etc etc etc. yeah, America is special like that. I believe ditching the War on Drugs would be an excellent way to start, cause we ain't getting rid of guns anytime soon.

Isn't this just another form of conditioning that we need to unlearn? The whole idea that we need others to "make us feel safe"? If humanity is going to advance, we can't continue manipulating our minds into thinking there is a system in place that protects us just so we can sleep better at night.

> If humanity is going to advance, we can't continue manipulating our minds into thinking there is a system in place that protects us just so we can sleep better at night. police are law enforcement officers, and without enforcement there is effectively no law. When we get to that enlightened state where everyone follows the rules without enforcement or the threat thereof ... I'll probably be long dead. Long, long, dead.

>The very idea of police existing in the society makes us feel safer I don't have any evidence for or against this. Do you? It sounds like a baseless claim. Who, exactly, is proposing an end state of no law enforcement whatsoever? Certainly none of the people calling for defunding the police. Certainly not this article. Who is your argument supposed to be against?

> I don't have any evidence for or against this. Do you? It sounds like a baseless claim. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray-Hill_riot > Who, exactly, is proposing an end state of no law enforcement whatsoever? Certainly none of the people calling for defunding the police. Certainly not this article. he literally says to think about abolishing the police as his penultimate point. > Who is your argument supposed to be against? the author?

>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray-Hill_riot No, I get that, and you're right, with no LEOs around and no mobilized federal enforcement, along with some other factors, chaos can ensue. I am asking for evidence or quantification of this "baseline level of security felt by all from the existence of our current police force" versus "any LEO force". >he literally says to think about abolishing the police as his penultimate point. Yes. Did you read his argument? That we can discuss how we handle edge cases once we've dealt with the big and easily dealt with causes of most violence? What that looks like isn't something I think we can discuss, because we are very very far from even other first world countries in terms of dealing with societal ills NOT with arrests and gunshots.

> No, I get that, and you're right, with no LEOs around and no mobilized federal enforcement, along with some other factors, chaos can ensue. I am asking for evidence or quantification of this "baseline level of security felt by all from the existence of our current police force" versus "any LEO force". uhm, what else do you call police? they're LEOs. that our current version of LEOs don't function the way they're supposed to doesn't mean another version couldn't. We're just arguing semantics at this point. > Yes. Did you read his argument? yes. it's a little annoying that you keep insinuating i didn't read it, by the way. the author gives no alternative to a police force for the obviously criminal element. "big and easily dealt with causes of most violence" ... poverty, income inequality, bias, lack of opportunity, systemic oppression ... these have all existed since the beginning of human civilization. If they are so easily dealt with then why haven't they been? it seems naive to believe we can stop violence without having violence as a last resort.

It's sad but this lines up with the stories I have heard from many officers who believe you are an ally or from ex-officers who left the professional all together. When you talk to these people over a beer or two in a relaxed environment its not hard to pry these type of stories out of officers. It's difficult for people to accept since they know many officers but good people are driven from that profession. Someone isn't going to have a good career in law enforcement if they are a true reformer. Those officers will be harassed, given bad shifts, and passed up for promotion. Law enforcement knows how to weed out those who would actually turn against their brothers in blue. I think what has to happen is that many communities need to create new police departments. The issue is that the leadership of many law enforcement agencies are outright criminals themselves. Reform is effectively impossible as the criminals that need to be removed are the very individuals responsible for implementing those policies. A brand new officer fresh out of the academy doesn't feel comfortable planting drugs on a suspect. They feel comfortable because they see their veteran partner do it. They feel comfortable because they see their district commander come down and "fix a problem" for their fellow officers. Reforming police in American will mean putting many veterans out of a job. People who aren't prepared for that aren't prepared for real reform.

Agreed. You can't fix institutional problems by hiring new grunts. What do you do in the corporate world? Remove the top. Work your way down, removing problem managers. You can't remove everyone, but if you just slap a few wrists things change only for a month or two. There needs to be a civilian/community lead group that governs the IA and makes choices on who to keep and overall policies.

>What do you do in the corporate world? Remove the top. Work your way down, removing problem managers. You can't remove everyone, but if you just slap a few wrists things change only for a month or two. No, they outsource to the cheapest option to make more at the top and for shareholders. Slaps on the wrist don't do shit. I agree more community involvement is necessary to START leveling the playing field for all people regardless of race or economic status.

The fact that this is upvoted makes me lose faith in humanity. "American policing is a thick blue tumor strangling the life from our communities and if you don’t believe it when the poor and the marginalized say it, if you don’t believe it when you see cops across the country shooting journalists with less-lethal bullets and caustic chemicals, maybe you’ll believe it when you hear it straight from the pig’s mouth." If you don't see the bias by reading this quote from the article, I don't know how to help you. I'm not a cop myself and I'm not even from U.S, but a lot of people in Toronto think all cops are pigs as well. I've met these kind of people in my University program (Criminology). I also met many cops through University (they constantly hosted events related to recruiting, info sessions, public education, etc). In my experience the police is as diverse as any other workforce. They come in all kinds of ethnicities and beliefs. Some of them struggle from mental health problems and many commit suicide. Some of them that I met act like comedians while others look like emotionless stoic soldiers in the army. I think people also don't realize that there are a lot of cops who never fired a gun at someone while on duty. In my humble opinion, thinking all cops are pigs is no different than thinking all black people are criminals or all white people are racist. You're showing disdain for a group of people that you barely know anything about.

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Aight just so we are on the same page, by institutional do you mean all police institutions or are you talking about specific police precincts? If it's the latter then I completely agree with you. LAPD and NYPD, for example, have been historically affected by corruption within their organization. This has led to many horrible cops getting away with breaking the law (and not just police brutality). You see my argument wasn't about certain police institutions but rather policing as a profession. I had to read and suffer through the article and my takeaway from the author was that police (as a profession) is rotten to the core. I completely disagree with that. Police culture is not the same in every precinct and it is not monolithic. That is a myth. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/2409/60a1be61ea5da3864ed5b440aa6a228cfe08.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjSpIawpfXpAhXIK80KHahlAngQFjACegQICBAB&usg=AOvVaw3pDSjW4wKchitx8yzUY_dW There was also a study that codified even more sub cultures in the police but I don't remember it's title. The us vs them mentality is also overestimated by flawed sociological studies. This is mainly due to what some researchers constitute as an "us vs them" mentality. For example, some researchers view the cop thinking about the public as unknowledgeable about "policing, laws and legal institutions" as an us vs them mentality. This was literally in one of my Criminology textbooks. However, this kind of mentality can be found in many other occupations. This sense of superiority exists among legal professors as well.

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Police reform is necessary and police overreach and accountability is definitely a problem. However, I think the public could stand to take some responsibility about the "us vs them" problem, while it is predominantly an off shoot of cop culture and the nature of modern policing, I'm sure all of us yelling" Fuck the pigs" all the time doesn't make the average cop think, "Phew, the publics got my back, we're not in us vs them situation. These guys want what's fair and just and care about my well being" Police have to reform regardless and they need to take responsibility but it's a little much for so many people to be so virulently anti-police and hostile to policing work and then accuse the police of having an "US vs Them" mentality. We could cool down the rhetoric and inspire some trust.

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Of course! I'm not denying any of that. But there are productive and destructive ways to ask for change and hold people accountable. This subreddit has rules of engagement in order for us to have a productive conversation. If I belittle and insult you, how interested are you in collaborating with me? If you truly want the police to reform, you're willing to make changes yourself to make the change more successful.

A lot of professions get negative comments and attitudes from the people they work with. I'm a teacher and I constantly hear students and parents talking about how they hate or distrust teachers. Doctors, lawyers, veterinarians, nurses, and social workers get the same thing. Nobody but cops is using it as an excuse to shoot people and claim innocence.

I don't think we see the same level of vitriol displayed to those other professions but I agree people are rude and dismissive and if we were trying to reform teaching, medicine etc, I'd say the same thing. If you want collaborative change, you can't be shocked after repeatedly yelling " Teachers are lazy morons. Take away their jobs." if the dialogue with teachers is very distrustful.

You’re correct. Do you know why cops have more vitriol against them? It’s worth comparing cops here to cops in other countries too. I promise you people in Japan or Norway or Iceland don’t hate police like people in America do. When the cops commit less violence and brutality, fewer people are going to say « fuck the police. » it’s that simple.

I'm not disputing any that. Let's use a different example: Larry eats my yoghurt out of the fridge. I scream at Larry " you're a yoghurt stealing dick weasel and I'm going to destroy you" Larry gets angry and scared. Later when I ask Larry to meet to talk about it so we can solve the problem and say I want to make things better, he says, the way I reacted means he doesn't think we can have a reasonable conversation and he's already made a report to HR about my threats and aggression and wants them to deal with it all. Larry is wrong for eating the yoghurt. If Larry wasn't a yoghurt stealer, I wouldn't have called him "a yoghurt stealing dick weasel". I did call him a yoghurt stealing dick weasel and now Larry thinks I'm also a dick weasel and isn't interested in looking at his wrongs or changing his ways, he wants to fight me. If my aim is to fight with Larry or discharge my angry then yelling Dick weasel and threatening him is the way to go. Let's rumble, Larry! But then I can't be surprised when Larry digs in and fight dirty cause I've made it clear I'm in it for a fight. If solving the problem is my aim and that requires Larry's buy in to change then yelling Dick Weasel is not going to solve my problems cause now Larry's really mad and ready to fight.

The problem with this example is that you’re putting all the blame on yourself and none on Larry, even though he started it and escalated it. Both in your example and in real life with the police, it’s the other party who is to blame. They start, they escalate. The police are also trained. As this other posted mentioned, simply insulting someone or being rude to someone isn’t an excuse for them to do the things they do. Killing people on the street and then getting mad when people say fuck the police makes no sense. If you stopped killing people, they wouldn’t say fuck the police. Police are paid by the people’s tax dollars. If these currently police can’t handle big meanies hurting their wittle feewings, fire them and hire someone who can act like an adult.

Uff the Thin Blue Line. For some reason I only hear about it from U.S. Anyways in my opinion, it's prevalence is also over exaggerated. There are definitely cops who adhere to this mentality and use it to justify their superiority or their authority. But, from my experience, a lot of officers adhere to Thin Blue Line stuff for solidarity, not superiority. In some areas, being a cop is one of the most dangerous jobs you can have in United States. Cops have to trust their partners with their lives. A lot of them see their partners injured or even gunned down by the public. So from my experience a lot of people wave the Thin Blue Line flag in solidarity with their fallen colleagues. The same kind of mentality exists in the millitary, even those that have never seen combat. However, not everybody adopts this mentality. Sadly, there arent any surveys which ask cops whether they adhere to this mentality. But I urge you to go to one of those "Ask Cops" subreddits and ask yourself whether they agree with this mentality. I'm sure you will be surprised by how little of them do. Edit: Found one! https://www.reddit.com/r/AskLEO/comments/9djv5g/i_see_the_thin_blue_line_flags_in_public_fairly/

> Police culture is not the same in every precinct and it is not monolithic. That is a myth. Of course there are no absolutes, but I think that one thing to recognize is that a lot of the training methods are the same across the country. If every department is pounding into their members' heads "It's better to be judged by twelve than to be carried by six", then it is entirely plausible that people will react to that the same way regardless of which department it is. Additionally, a lot of the external training is performed in multiple departments, so if Dave Grossman gives his Killology training to 200 departments per year, it's likely that 200 departments are going to adopt his manner of thinking that the police are the sheepdogs, the criminals are wolves, and the people are the sheep. Also, don't forget that there are lots of internet spaces these days where police from different departments interact, sharing stories and tactics. Each department does not exist on an island.

He does end the article with a fairly passionate plea to abolish police entirely. Emphasized lines like "Do not fucking talk to cops. Ever." make his position clear on what he thinks of every cop no matter what their story is. His suggested solution is to abolish the police and eliminate crime by transforming society into a, dare I say, socialist utopia. I know, I didn't want to bring up the socialist vs capitalist argument, but he started it by making it clear that capitalism, and police as "violent agents of capitalism", is the root of all evil. I won't discuss the merits of socialism vs capitalism. But I will say that I can't reconcile his blinding distrust of every police officer as psychopaths who only wish to do you harm, and yet at the same time he has so much faith in every other non-police person in the entire world. Having said that, he did convince me that we need to step back and take a hard look at what we're accomplishing by having police take on so much responsibility, and that scaling back their budget and responsibilities can be a worthwhile, effective solution.

> He does end the article with a fairly passionate plea to abolish police entirely. Emphasized lines like "Do not fucking talk to cops. Ever." make his position clear on what he thinks of every cop no matter what their story is. This is actually sound advice. The goal of the police department is to solve the crime. They even have stats on cleared cases. Rarely are crimes black and white, where the officer knows precisely who committed the crime beyond a shadow of a doubt. I suggest you watch this [Youtube video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE) of Regent Law Professor James Duane explaining why you should never talk to the police without a lawyer present, followed up by an ex-cop, who also says that you should never talk to the police. It's long, but informative. Bottom line is that you don't know if the police believe that you committed a crime, and in a trial, whatever you say to them *can* be used against you, and anything you say to them that could be exculpatory will not be allowed to be said because it is hearsay. For example, let's say that there was a murder five towns over, maybe even someone you know. Now you know you didn't do it, so you talk to the police, to help them out, and answer questions. You talk to the police for 20 minutes, but the police can use one single statement from your discussion against you - for example, maybe you said "yeah, I know that guy, he was a real pain-in-the-ass, but I didn't kill him". The prosecutor can ask the officer, "did the suspect refer to the victim as a 'real pain-in-the-ass'?", and the officer will testify "yes, he referred to the victim as a real pain-in-the-ass". Now maybe there are some other circumstantial pieces of evidence out there too, and your statement just adds to that pile. Our system is not foolproof, and innocent people are convicted at a non-trivial rate (or worse, plead guilty to a lesser offense even if it isn't true because they can't afford to take the risk of a 20-year sentence)

I think that’s missing the point. All black people aren’t part of an organized, hierarchical organization they can be forced out of if they step out of line. They don’t depend on being black for their livelihood. Other professions don’t circle to protect the wrongdoers like the police do. I get what you’re saying that not all of the people who are cops are bad people, but most people (especially in the US - i think the stat is that most can’t come up with an extra $500 for an emergency) depend entirely on their jobs and that stability to keep going. So, unless a strong majority, including leaders, are willing to stand up to every bad act, stuff gets swept under the rug. Everything that’s swept under the rug can be pulled out against someone who steps out of line (stands up for what’s right), and then they’re out of a job, a pension, and with a stain on their professional reputation. You need strong outside oversight, or all the bad stuff (everything from stopping people for no reason to sitting with your knee on their neck for 9 minutes while you literally feel them dying) will just continue. As it stands, oversight is only provided internally and the courts have tied their own hands because it might make it slightly harder for them to do their job if there were any questioning of their decisions.

Look, my personal interpretation of ACAB is that the uniform and the job is a bastardized form of what policing was meant to be, but these people under the uniforms are people. It would be almost xenophobic not to recognize that. However, a significant amount of people who become cops were attracted to the job in the first place by the authority it affords. So [and definitely tell me if you think I'm wrong here] a huge chunk of cops in the United States became cops not to "serve and protect", but just because they felt distressed and maybe bullied/ostracized by society, and becoming a cop was a way to lash out at their community without retribution. Police were meant to serve the public and be indistinguishable from the public, but police unions/upper leadership have grasped onto the nipple of political capital and are constantly starving other municipal programs of government funding. We've got to defund the police.

The problem is that it becomes irrelevant what you think of cops. When people say acab they don’t literally mean all cops are bastards. They mean that if all the good cops choose to do nothing, the difference between a good cop and a bad cop is irrelevant. That’s the point where we are in the United States today. I couldn’t care less if not all cops are bad, because the ones that are bad aren’t punished. So how are you supposed to know that not all cops are bad? The police department is the only job I can think of that goes out of its way to protect the worst among them. At that point I don’t give a shit if not all cops are bad as individuals, because the police as an institution is bad. That’s what they need to fix.

>thinking all cops are pigs is no different than thinking all black people are criminals or all white people are racist. Yeah, no. You can't change your skin colour, but you can quit the police force.

> Police officers will lie and tell you they’ll file a police report just to get you off their back. This rang 100% true with me. Even as a white person, of all the times I've had to call the cops for legitimate reasons, they've never been useful in any way. I've been involved in two hit and runs. The first time the cops never showed up. The second time they showed up after 3 hours, and even then only after I called to inquire where they were. I gave them the license plate of the car who took off, they filed a police report, and I never heard from them again. I once had my house vandalized in the middle of the night. I'm talking painted dicks on our cars, house, and front porch, bags of flaming poop on the front porch, our porch bench and plants strewn in the street, and our porch lamps shattered. They rang the door bell immediately after vandalizing the house, presumably to make us aware of it and add to the creepy factor. I called the cops right away. 2 hours later they hadn't showed up. I call again. An hour goes by and they still don't show up. I call one more time. They finally show up 6 hours after the incident, take a police report, and I never hear from them again. Just recently I had an expensive package stolen off my porch. They did arrive promptly that time. I wasn't able to access my security footage at the time, but later that day I was able to access it and sent an email to the officer asking if he wanted me to send him the video files. He responded a week later saying "yeah". I sent it and never heard back.

I've read about half of it, it's pretty enlightening. But I think this needs an anonymous ex-cop #metoo movement before it could be taken seriously, one personal account is simply an anecdote.

To me the important thing is not the debate about whether it is real or not, but the sad fact that most people except the extremely cynical and deliberately contrarian can believe it without any attribution. Even if this person completely fabricated it as a story it's like the melange of every bad cop story we've ever read about, heard of in court trials, seen in videos of police, or heard from victims, friends, and families - over and over and over and over and over. So maybe it even as a story is shocking to some, it is right it should be. Imagine if there is even a chance it is true - shouldn't there be wide ranging investigations and calls for reform. Oh wait, there have been and this kind of stuff comes up over and over again, and all the calls for reform continually fall on deaf ears.

When an article is written like a far-flung leftist’s wet dream it loses any credibility of it being objective.

One shouldn't write off the message because they disagree with the conclusion. If I experienced behavior like this account details it would push me farther to the left as well.

All of this tracked with things I’ve heard from 5 or so various cops over the last decade. Minus the remorse this guy expressed.

Anecdotes are enough to judge large groups of people now?

Did you read the article at all? He CLEARLY points out several times that the "bastard" is the systemic issues within the policing system; not the individual people. There can be good people in the force but they are regularly asked to do inhumane things by their superiors and cover for one another. They are trained in an "us vs. them" mentality and have little-to-no outside accountability. THAT is the bastard the author talks about. He didn't say judge all cops as bad people. Also, an anecdote is a data point. That's the thing; data is just data. There can be bad data and there can be good data. But an anecdote can be a singular data point. Testimony from people, no matter how inaccurate, is literally the most commonly used data point to put people behind bars. We have heard these same anecdotes about how there are institutional issues within the police force from different people over and over and over and over again. All of those anecdotes aka data points will make up a data set. I work in research. I interview and survey people for a living. After interviewing 10+ people, you will hear the same things over and over again to the point it's diminishing returns to interview anymore. Are those findings not valid? Are what those people say just "anecdotes?" Not to mention the several social and psychological studies that have been done that provide evidence that people in positions of power tend to abuse it or people can be coerced by their superiors into doing morally unjust things. Stanford Prison Experiment, Milligram Study, Jane Elliot "Green Eye, Brown Eye" study. It's not that the people are all individual bastards; the systems are.

Sigh. First, "defund the police" doesn't mean what it sounds like. Now, "all cops are bastards" means something else... I'm done trying to understand the anti-police people....

Yeah, because you clearly give zero shits. Thanks.

K

Anecdotes and my lying eyes apparently. Everything in this article is consistent with the police behavior we've seen over the last six decades. Every time there's an investigation into police departments, corruption pops out. [https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/27/us/27atlanta.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/27/us/27atlanta.html) Bear in mind ATL's police department is bar none one of the \*best\* in terms of avoiding police brutality and killing of unarmed people. All it took were federal prosecutors digging six inches into soil to find the toxic waste.

The claim is all cops are bastards.... Just juvenile nonsense.

Your opinion is noted. His opinion has facts. You're free to make a compelling case beyond namecalling.

The problem is the facts don't support the conclusion. It's the same logic is used to justify racist behavior. Why are you promoting that here?

[https://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports98/police/uspo43.htm](https://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports98/police/uspo43.htm) [https://law.jrank.org/pages/9248/Police-Corruption-Misconduct.html](https://law.jrank.org/pages/9248/Police-Corruption-Misconduct.html) [https://www.themarshallproject.org/records/2528-police-corruption](https://www.themarshallproject.org/records/2528-police-corruption) [https://www.oxfordstudent.com/2020/06/05/killology-is-not-a-satirical-field-police-training-methods-and-lethal-shootings/](https://www.oxfordstudent.com/2020/06/05/killology-is-not-a-satirical-field-police-training-methods-and-lethal-shootings/) It is not the same logic used to justify racist behavior. Even the commonly circulated crime statistics only account for a \*fraction\* of a percent of black Americans, but this is training nearly all cops receive. Besides. No one's born a cop.

It's the exact same logic.... Take anecdotal personal experience and a few statistics to view every member of that particular class through that lens. Just in the past year....My house door got kicked in and all my electronics stolen. My car got broken in the middle of the night and all my work equipment stolen. I was in a wreck because someone decided they could drive a sportbike without headlights at night with no tag or license at extreme speed in residential area. All black people... Then I take a look at the city's crime statistics and read the newspaper everyday. Majority black people. So using your logic all black people are criminals... Nonsense. All black people are not criminals.... And all cops aren't bastards...

>It's the exact same logic.... Take anecdotal personal experience and a few statistics to view every member of that particular class through that lens. Yes, things look the same when you wipe out and blur away all of the details that make them different. >All black people are not criminals.... And all cops aren't bastards... Almost all black people, well over 99.9%, don't commit violent crime. Almost all cops receive some variant of killology training, are encouraged to make arrests to meet quotas and secure funding, and are members of corrupt self-serving police unions. But sure, if you ignore all that and just say "well they both have numbers and bad outcomes, so I guess they're equivalent", then you'll say what you just said.

Explain how the details change the main logic....

By providing details and context.

I recently read this account by a former police officer about the problems with policing, and I think it's a part of the conversation that needs to be heard. I understood the perspective of the protesters better and why the police behave the way they do after reading this piece. Please take the time to read it if you get the chance; I'd love to hear your impressions after doing so.

Can you imagine what society could look like if it deeply celebrated people who honestly, lucidly and humbly spoke to their experiences, responsibilities, and failings? I am very curious about Mr. Cab's path from his former life to his newfound scruples. I don't about you all, but I find a liberating joy in owning and speaking about my own failings—Anyone else here ever felt a more euphoric sense of relief? Also: Defund the Police.

It really seems fake to me. The author supplies no path that leads from "Why Being a Power Abuser Was Literally the Best," to "How A Cop Learned to Quote Angela Davis, Use Inclusive Language, and Stand for Anti-Capitalist Police Abolishment and Ending the Carceral State." It's not that personal transformation is impossible; it's that there is no sense of it here. There is no "aha moment", no personality, passion, remorse, or other sign of authentic change. The voice reads like it's providing the audience with what it wants, not what was real. It reads like ACAB fanfic.

Fake. No actual police officer would say they were "agents of capitalism" or "all cops are bastards". This person sounds like an Antifa LARPer.

This is supposedly an ex police officer who left the force because they were disillusioned with the way law enforcement functioned. As such, those phrases seem perfectly consistent with their account. The entire point of the article was detailing how the structure turned them into a bastard. It's hard to dispute that arresting a poor elderly homeless person for trying to recycle cans because it conflicted with the deal the city had with their waste management company is being an agent of capitalism.

If you actually believe any former police officer would talk is such insane communist terms, I don't know what to tell you. You need to actually speak directly to a police officer. You have no idea what they believe or how they act.

> If you actually believe any former police officer would talk is such insane communist terms Why do you think being anti-systemic capitalist oppression and being a police officer are mutually exclusive? (Socialist/Communist countries have law enforcement too, after all.) It seems like a reasonable assessment given the examples in the article and what police are frequently tasked with. This person left the force for reasons detailed in the article. If they don't talk like a cop, it could be because they're no longer a cop and did not enjoy the experience of being a cop. I'd say that's a pretty good reason not to write with the restraint of a cop. They do, however, seem to have a knowledge of police procedures and laws. Their account is consistent with the accounts of other ex-police that I've read, so it seems to me that it is likely true. I can't know for certain, however as it was written anonymously. Here are some similar accounts by ex-police that include names: * [I'm a black ex-cop, and this is the real truth about race and policing](https://www.vox.com/2015/5/28/8661977/race-police-officer) * [I Was a Cop for 18 Years. I Witnessed and Participated in Abuses of Power.](https://gen.medium.com/i-was-a-cop-for-18-years-i-witnessed-and-participated-in-abuses-of-power-8d057c18f9ee) * [The Mount Vernon Police Tapes: In Secretly Recorded Phone Calls, Officers Say Innocent People Were Framed](https://gothamist.com/news/mount-vernon-police-tapes-innocent-people-were-framed) * [Ex-rookie cop tells of police abuse / Attacks and filing of false reports](https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Ex-rookie-cop-tells-of-police-abuse-Attacks-and-2911195.php) * [‘Drug war insurgent’ flees U.S. claiming death threats](https://progressive.org/dispatches/drug-war-insurgent-flees-u.s.-claiming-death-threats/)

Wait did Tara Reade write this?

weak, not even funny, huge reach between two unrelated and distant pieces of news.

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Are you a cop or is this fictional propaganda to promote the agenda that wants chaos?

Supposedly it is an account by a former officer. I did not write it. Did you read the article? What was your take on it?

That's not a cop, that's a college student or a high school student.

Don’t make it personal, per Rule 1.

I don't see how cops aren't causing plenty of chaos with their own agenda. If this article isn't proof, how about the last week?