[Bobboau]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/10/08/youtube-effect-has-left-police-officers-under-siege-law-enforcement-leaders-say/

[Turambar]

"There is no evidence of a broad retraction of police engagement with the public in major cities, and no participant in Wednesday’s summit presented a single example of lackluster policing that somehow contributed to a violent crime."

The babies, they are a'whining.

It'll keep happening as the spreading of information turns the tables on institutionalized abuse.  I might start feeling teeny amounts of sympathy once the police stop locking people up for weed.

[NGTM-1R]

It's almost as though they have a significant problem with being recorded doing their jobs; as if they don't feel they do them well.

[jr2]

I posted the previous version of this, so here's the sequel:

[karajorma]

I noticed a typographical error in that piece.

"Chiefs of some of the nation’s biggest police departments say officers in American cities have pulled back and have stopped policing as aggressively as they used to" - Should read "Chiefs of some of the nation’s biggest police departments say officers have stopped shooting black people for no good reason"

Still, it's a pretty easy mistake to confuse those two terms.

[Grizzly]

Imagine people being held accountable 

[Luis Dias]

I do sympathise with the feeling of being watched and "held accountable" by other people. However, the cops are the last people in the world who should be complaining about this.

[0rph3u5]

While I understand the privacy concerns that prop up in relation to the debate and similar ones (e.g. in Germany we have a large debatte during the last two decades (!) on how Police Officers have to identify themselves (in addition to the uniform), esspecially at protests and the like), but it always puzzels me how officers of law have this distinct fear of the law being applied to themselves at times.

Things might be worse in the US where there is no real standard for police training nationwide, and as such the quality of the training for law enforcement officers varies from point to point. But then again I am oftentimes gnerally puzzeled by the philosophy behind law enforcement in other countries.

[NGTM-1R]

Imagine people being held accountable 

Considering I was being recorded for three years of my job history, frankly I'm pretty happy with being recorded.

But then, I was a bank teller. And I got robbed twice. (I think if you dig through the previous WHIYL threads somewhere I mentioned one of them.) In the pre-recording days there would have been a significant incentive to shoot me as the only real witness to the crime.

Frankly I don't see that come up much and it's puzzled me, especially because when the SDPD did their analysis of the issue it was an obvious benefit: the officers and suspects are no longer the only witnesses. Officers equipped with bodycams had a massive drop in use-of-force complaints from the public, precisely because the incident is recorded and he-said strategies don't work as well. Far more officers were cleared of use-of-force complaints based on bystander video than the reverse.

[karajorma]

it always puzzels me how officers of law have this distinct fear of the law being applied to themselves at times.

Probably been watching too much TV. So they probably see themselves as the good guys who are being hamstrung by evil pen pushers, rats who talk to internal affairs and nosey-parkers who feel the need to get in the way at every arrest. You know, the bad guys in every cop drama.

[The E]

The thin blue line is a very real thing.

[MP-Ryan]

What the non-Americans here need to realize is the American culture of policing is very different from the rest of us.  The hero complex is alive and well, there has been a lengthy cultural and legal presumption that police are always justified and tell the truth, that policing routinely needs to involve violence, and that the police are rarely held accountable even when there is considerable evidence they've done the wrong thing.

I've worked in LE for years. It is my belief that body cameras are unquestionably a good thing.  While I understand some of the apprehension, I don't think police using caution to determine where and when physical intervention is required (as opposed to leaping in and shooting 12-year olds dead: http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/10/us/tamir-rice-shooting-reports/) and thinking things through is a bad thing.

As it happens, I've even noticed a shift in our use of force refreshers, where there is considerable emphasis on thinking through situations and focusing on the "is this really something requiring my intervention right now."  It's a good shift.

[Bobboau]

Don't want this to derail the discussion, but police being almost by definition authoritarian assholes probably has something to do with American gun culture.

[Mars]

Don't want this to derail the discussion, but police being almost by definition authoritarian assholes probably has something to do with American gun culture.

Personal experience says that the people who generally have a stellar opinion of police are generally the same people who want unlimited gun rights.

[Phantom Hoover]

Don't want this to derail the discussion, but police being almost by definition authoritarian assholes probably has something to do with American gun culture.

can you even cite a single instance where someone successfully defended themselves against police brutality with a gun

[zookeeper]

Don't want this to derail the discussion, but police being almost by definition authoritarian assholes probably has something to do with American gun culture.

can you even cite a single instance where someone successfully defended themselves against police brutality with a gun

That doesn't make any sense. You probably misread what he said.

[Bobboau]

and I failed.

I meant it more in a "cops are assholes I would rather just defend myself" sense.

[Mongoose]

And here I was taking it as, "Many people who become cops were probably gun nuts in the first place."  You could go in multiple directions there.

[Bobboau]

well it is true that cops have to deal with the fact that literally every person they see could reasonably have multiple guns on them. so that might also have some effect on why cops are assholes. but I honestly think it's mainly down to the fact that they basically have defacto complete and unquestioned authority. If they are just driving down the street and want to shoot someone they basically can. and it's not just black people, anyone who probably doesn't have semi-rich relatives who are going to cause them problems they'll just rather shoot you than arrest you.

side-note/additional derail, this is why #blacklivesmatter pisses me off, I'd probably be out in the streets protesting too if they hadn't decided to make it a race exclusionary movement.

[Grizzly]

side-note/additional derail, this is why #blacklivesmatter pisses me off, I'd probably be out in the streets protesting too if they hadn't decided to make it a race exclusionary movement.

Obligatory: