Running racism in America thread

I won't speak the probability of an already-impoverished city being hit hardest by the financial crisis and thus driving murders. Maybe the open-air drug markets are directly correlated to the impact of the financial crisis and maybe said drug markets were magically closed because the residents felt better about the police force closing them.

Here's another fact we know:

Three years after the formation of the county police force, Camden led the state in excessive force complaints:

Complaints rise under Camden police

An analysis of four incidents for which The Inquirer interviewed those detained and reviewed hospital and police reports reveals a pattern in which stops usually made for minor infractions rapidly escalate. Three of the four individuals involved either filed complaints of excessive force or initiated related claims.

At least a dozen other individuals also have filed suits or tort claims against the county, alleging that its officers used excessive force or arrested them without just cause.

Camden County Police Chief Scott Thomson says excessive-force complaints account for a tiny fraction — fewer than 1 percent — of the thousands of arrests each year. The American Civil Liberties Union is struck by another statistic: zero. That’s how many excessive-force complaints authorities in Camden have upheld against officers in recent years.

More:

Andy McNeil, spokesman for the Prosecutor’s Office, tied the rise in excessive-force complaints to an increase in the number of officers, from fewer than 300 in 2012 — when there were 41 complaints — to nearly 400 now.

So here's the picture I see emerging, and I know you don't much like it, but anyway:

They dismantled the city police force. They rebranded it as the county police force. They hired more cops, who pulled a lot of excessive shit, closed down the drug markets, and here we are now. Plus, they knock on doors and play basketball and all the rest of it.

 

I don't think he necessarily wanted to kill a black guy, but I think 100 percent he did not care about that black man's life once his knee was on the man's neck.

 

I don't know if he had personal animus against Floyd and wanted to kill him. I don't know if he hated black people and wanted to kill one.

There's no way to know, unless he told other people or posted such on his social media.

What I do know is that he kneeled on a man's neck for nearly nine minutes, as he complained that he could not breathe, and for two minutes after he said his last words. He killed him. He should be prosecuted to the full extent that the evidence will support.

 

I'd also add that any police officer that stands by and allows another officer to do such things, or to obstruct reform measures - should be shown the door.

 

As you say the numbers increased (I haven't verified); but since it's become a County jurisdiction reather than a City, hasn't the geographic area being covered increased as well? If so, then wouldn't that explain numbers increasing?

In any event, its not about the numbers of police officers, its about HOW they conduct their business.

 

I would argue that what cops there believed it took to close down the drug markets - which was the key source of the murder problem - is part of what triggered the excessive force complaints.

But perhaps not. Perhaps the crackdown on those was mutually exclusive to the excessive force complaints.

Nevertheless, your primary argument has been that policing doesn't have that much to do with homicide rates. The economy does. So why would police reforms you prefer - and hell, I prefer, though I believe they come with trade-offs - have the effect that the absence of cops did not.

Further, it costs a lot of money. It's opposite of defunding. Camden did not defund its police. It poured a lot of money into...its police.

 

I'd agree with that. It wasn't defunded, though. It got more funding.

As for the size, this is old, from 2014, but notable:

Why Camden, N.J., the Murder Capital of the Country, Disbanded Its Police Force

By the time the force is fully staffed, which the county expects will be later this summer, Camden will have 411 full-time sworn officers, or about 53 for every 10,000 residents. Cities of populations exceeding 50,000 employed an average of 17 officers per 10,000 residents in the most recent 2012 data reported to the FBI. Only Washington, D.C., recorded a higher tally that year – about 61 officers per 10,000 residents – than Camden will once its new force is fully up and running.

And, again, once they hired these cops, the city led the state in excessive force complaints.

 

Are the cadillac pensions and benefits still being funded?

 

Agreed. I'm just troubled by people not wanting to get the best possible understanding of why Chauvin and his accomplices did what they did.

 

If it costs more money but the police treat people more like neighbors with a problem than as heads to bust, that's money well spent.