Today in cops gone feral

Having said all that, I'd add this:

It's incredibly hard to be a cop.

I think plenty of young patrol officers are there because they want to help people, but the training and the code of omerta and the repeated, routine exposure to the worst of human nature drains their idealism.

The institution itself is often what deforms these well-meaning individuals. The idea that we send these young people out into the streets with a gun and a nightstick and very little training* is on us all. Turns out there aren't that many problems you can solve with a gun.

I covered my first cops overnight nearly 50 years ago, and I'm on the civilian board of our local precinct.

We've done a lot better over the years weeding out the racist headcrackers and the sadists and the crooks. But the public clings to the comforts of the "few bad apples" defense, when maybe the barrel itself is what's to blame.

The only thing necessary for evil to triumph in the world is that good men do nothing.


* How US police training compares with the rest of the world

https://www.trainingreform.org/not-enough-training

 

Traditional training, or worse yet, "warrior training," - and its concentration on violence as a means of conflict resolution - is a very big part of the problem.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/01/26/police-training-reform/

https://iop.harvard.edu/get-involved/harvard-political-review/why-police-training-must-be-reformed

https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2020/05/bob-kroll-minneapolis-warrior-police-training/

https://hechingerreport.org/police-education-is-broken-can-it-be-fixed/

New Orleans had some success training officers how to intervene when other officers are losing their cool.

Training Police to Step In and Prevent Another George Floyd

 

Agree.

We have to completely reimagine policing.

 

We can quibble about percentages all day long, but a little back-of-napkin math suggests that 2 percent of law enforcement officers equals about 16,000 in the United States who are abusive, murderous or otherwise awful people.

That seems comically high to me.

The larger question, even taking into account Regan’s “code of silence” point, is how are we to expect good cops to answer and be accountable for actions of the bad ones? In terms of public perception, I mean. And, how long do we expect them to be so before they decide it’s not worth it?

I’d never assume, for example, that your average journalist is a fabricator or plagiarist because of the actions of Mitch Albom or Stephen Glass or Michael Olesker (among MANY others). And, if enough people automatically thought that of me when I was in the business, I’d have decided it’s not worth it in pretty short order.

 

And a lot of them are doing just that.

 

Requirements in Alabama to become a journeyman electrician - not a master, mind you, but a journeyman.

OBTAIN NECESSARY HOURS OF EXPERIENCE: Gain 8,000 hours of experience (four to five years) in an apprenticeship and 576 hours of technical learning through classroom instruction, or enroll in a two-year technical school program and work 6,000 hours (three years) in an apprenticeship.

 

Yeah, but an electrician that doesn’t know what they are doing could kill someone.

Oh.

 

Wouldn't you? In a country with more than 300 million guns?

We ask too much of them.

You can't treat mental illness with a gun.

You can't solve poverty with a nightstick.

You can't end homelessness with a Taser.

 

The powers that be don’t want to solve, treat or end any of that; they want to control it.

 

I'm thinking comprehensive psychological testing would weed out about 50 percent of prospective cops, so where's the political will to hold them to a higher standard? Fucking nowhere.