Blind Support for Police

[ajitpd]

In your opinion, why do white people seem to overwhelmingly support police after every controversial shooting of civilians by police?

In recent years, I have noticed this happen regardless of the color or racial background of the victim, therefore, please do not make it about Ferguson, MO. It is unfortunate this incident got racial profile to it when I see it just another issue of Police vs citizens.

[fremzley]

It seems that the vast majority of civilian shootings by the police have a racial distinction to it - at least in the States they do - seems it can't be avoided by those trigger-happy servants of the law.

The vast majority of the white people that support the police appear to have a "sheeple" element to them; they don't dare rock the boat, probably 'cuz they're already too scared to stand up to the forceful whims of the establishment to begin with.

[LadyLuck]

I have not personally seen this blind support you speak of. Most of the people I know either distrust and dislike law enforcement (as do I) or are highly skeptical of law enforcement. I think the police have far too much power and spend way too much time harassing ordinary law abiding citizens.

[MaxJoker]

Originally Posted by ajitpd

In your opinion, why do white people seem to overwhelmingly support police after every controversial shooting of civilians by police?

Sheesh , type for yourself fellow member as personally I have zero faith in, let alone support for, the police

We`re not talking about the late 80`s pop group right

Hey , just checking

Annnnnnyway

Yes this chap never has ever supported the bacon (That`s not out of deferential respect for Greenman either) , and I say that even though I`m a detective sarge for Scotch land yard

Ok ok not literally, but in spirit

As just like those fine protectors I`m also open to bribes

[Lord Of The Sith]

I was not going to reply to this thread as I know I am in the minority here but here we go. I have a couple degrees. Yes, I know no one cares. One of them is criminal justice/public policy it was my minor. I think I have mentioned this before. I do not have the exact stats in front of me but I can tell you less than 1% of all police contacts end in police misconduct. Here is the problem, the news media loves bad news and loves to report it, therefore it appears that every stop ends in a police officers assaulting a citizen or violating their civil rights, it just isn't true. This is not blind faith, it is not being sheeple it is real statistics; not anecdotes or a 30 second segment of a taped arrest that actually lasted 35 minutes. The truth of the matter, is you are more likely to be killed by your surgeon, who has come to work on legal substances than you are by a police officer giving you a speeding ticket.

[seany65]

I don't think anyone or anything should ever be 'blindly supported'.

Any support should be based on what is known about the thing or person/people being supported.

Any criticsim should also be based on what is known of the thing or person/people and the situations it or they were in at the time.

[savage560]

A cop shoots a hommie once in SD, I can see that ,when the situation mandates it,on a one on one attack.Maybe the home boy is a beast, big, mean,strong, yet unarmed,hopped up on some shid.Maybe the cop is not as big as strong,or the hommie goes for his FA,it happens,I don't care how much of a Kung Fu fighter the officer is.But like in Mo. shoots at him,at an alledged 10 times?Hits him 6 times, twice in the head?Things should be "looked at" to say the least in that case.

Cops are human,make mistakes too.But some have what they used to call ,the Wyatt Erp, syndrome.Like to beat on whoever they come across,doing any miniscule action,that could merit their intervention, women, kids ,make no difference,there has been a lot of video on that lately ,that proves that.Its tough to weed out those types,but lets face it & evidence has proved that there are those kinds of cops out there.Some who have studdied the problem have stated that some ,not an extremely small minority, would be street thugs ,if they were not on the squad.

To a white cop,I think its reasonable to say that a non-caucasion person,esp. amoung white cops who were brought up in the majority white burbs, can see a black face as being more meanacing,& to be honest,more perps are black by percentage here in the US & by a pretty large margin, in this country.I had the stats of the year 1995, they were appaling,& that was non monetary gain crimes,such as rape.So we can reasonablly believe it is merited to be a concern.But the officers who abuse blacks ,IMO would & do for the most part do the same for any other race too.Some,like said, like to hit,beat on,push around their potential arrest individuals to a point that it is a power or a "Wyatt Erp" type controll to them.

Is this a problem?I think it can be reasonably stated as a yes answer.Similar to the way that we all here percieve race in the states.Like the other way around too,when blacks supported OJ,blindly stating he was innocent before the facts came out.I can vouch for that personnaly.Justice is what we should seek here,not the perception of race.It is a problem ,but IMO one that affects all races with overzealous officers, maybe other races more than white?Better training,less paramilitary attitudes of police forces,a way to weed out the "Erps" ,sensitiveity training, may be a start?

[SanteeFats]

Originally Posted by fremzley

It seems that the vast majority of civilian shootings by the police have a racial distinction to it - at least in the States they do - seems it can't be avoided by those trigger-happy servants of the law.

The vast majority of the white people that support the police appear to have a "sheeple" element to them; they don't dare rock the boat, probably 'cuz they're already too scared to stand up to the forceful whims of the establishment to begin with.

Here we go. I don't believe most cops want to use their weapon unless they have too. However there are always those who will abuse their power. Here is an interesting bit:
The best available source of data on police killings is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which keeps data on deaths that occur throughout the country. One of its death categories is homicides by “legal intervention,” a term that covers any situation where a person dies at the hands of anyone authorized to use deadly force in the line of duty. This category consists of all sworn police officers, as distinguished from private security guards.
From 1999 to 2011, this category totals over 5,000 deaths. In several of these years, the total number of deaths at the hands of the police in the United States exceeded the deaths in combat of US soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Over this span of more than a decade, 3,596 whites died compared to 1,463 blacks.
Though this data shows that many more whites have been killed by the police than blacks, it also indicates that a disproportionate number of blacks have been victims of police violence. Certainly police racism is a contributing factor in this disproportionality, but even here it is not the primary factor.
According to Candace McCoy, a criminologist at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York, income has more to do with this disparity than race. Violent encounters with police most frequently occur in connection with felony crimes, she said—or at least, allegations of such crimes. “Felony crime is highly correlated with poverty,” she noted, and the felony rates for poor whites and for poor blacks are similar.
If one’s only news source were the ISO’s Socialist Worker, one would be unaware that the police have ever killed anyone who was white. The ISO publication did not mention any of the above-mentioned police killings reported in the WSWS this year.
The spate of police killings in Albuquerque, 23 since 2010 in a city of a half million, drew national media attention, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the television networks, as well as a federal investigation. The video of James Boyd’s shooting in Albuquerque was viewed by more than a half million people. But there was no mention of these events in the Socialist Worker .
Because of the extraordinarily high number of officer-involved shootings, the city of Albuquerque in 2011 retained the services of the Washington, DC-based Police Executive Research Forum to examine, for the period of 2006-2010, 37 officer-involved shootings which had resulted in 18 deaths.
Its findings included the following:
• The race of subjects: 57 percent were Hispanic, 27 percent were White, 3 percent were African American, 3 percent were Native American, 3 percent were Asian and the race of 8 percent was not known.
• 54 percent of subjects had a confirmed prior history of mental illness.
• The age of subjects: 16 percent were 18-20 years, 32 percent were 21-30 years, 19 percent were 31-40, 27 percent were 41-50 years, and 5 percent were over 50 years.
Thus, almost half of the victims were under 30, and over half suffered from mental illness. It is likely that subsequent victims of police violence in Albuquerque, from 2011 to the present, showed the same demographics.
The denial of police violence against white workers and youth is aimed at separating police repression and violence from its fundamental class character by elevating race as the primary factor in society. This actually promotes racism by sowing divisions within the working class. The proponents of identity politics then attempt to channel the justifiable anger and frustration felt by masses of people back into the safe confines of the Democratic Party and the defense of the capitalistic system.
In contrast to this reactionary ideology, socialists have never denied or ignored the existence of racism. However, we maintain that the struggle against racism and all forms of oppression must be based on the fight to unite all workers, on the basis of their common class interests, against the capitalist system.
So it seems that whites get killed more than other races based on this fit.
I don't think most whites are scared of the police they have just not had the same kind of run ins as other ethnicities so they trust a lot more.

[SanteeFats]

Originally Posted by savage560

But like in Mo. shoots at him,at an alledged 10 times?Hits him 6 times, twice in the head?Things should be "looked at" to say the least in that case.
Cops are human,make mistakes too.But some have what they used to call ,the Wyatt Erp,

Savage I have often wondered about the ratio of shots to hits. I can only lay it to the facts that police are not trained soldiers who go through scenario after scenario before they are deployed but have rather basic training and when presented with a possible shooting scene they have approximately 1/2 second to react. As you stated they are human too and can make mistakes. The Wyatt Earp cops unfortunately can usually only be removed after evidence comes to light and depending on the department may or may not be relieved for cause. An interesting side note on the Ferguson PD-only 3 of the 53 officers are black yet Ferguson has a large black population

[Lord Of The Sith]

Originally Posted by savage560

A cop shoots a hommie once in SD, I can see that ,when the situation mandates it,on a one on one attack.Maybe the home boy is a beast, big, mean,strong, yet unarmed,hopped up on some shid.Maybe the cop is not as big as strong,or the hommie goes for his FA,it happens,I don't care how much of a Kung Fu fighter the officer is.But like in Mo. shoots at him,at an alledged 10 times?Hits him 6 times, twice in the head?Things should be "looked at" to say the least in that case.

Cops are human,make mistakes too.But some have what they used to call ,the Wyatt Erp, syndrome.Like to beat on whoever they come across,doing any miniscule action,that could merit their intervention, women, kids ,make no difference,there has been a lot of video on that lately ,that proves that.Its tough to weed out those types,but lets face it & evidence has proved that there are those kinds of cops out there.Some who have studdied the problem have stated that some ,not an extremely small minority, would be street thugs ,if they were not on the squad.

To a white cop,I think its reasonable to say that a non-caucasion person,esp. amoung white cops who were brought up in the majority white burbs, can see a black face as being more meanacing,& to be honest,more perps are black by percentage here in the US & by a pretty large margin, in this country.I had the stats of the year 1995, they were appaling,& that was non monetary gain crimes,such as rape.So we can reasonablly believe it is merited to be a concern.But the officers who abuse blacks ,IMO would & do for the most part do the same for any other race too.Some,like said, like to hit,beat on,push around their potential arrest individuals to a point that it is a power or a "Wyatt Erp" type controll to them.

Is this a problem?I think it can be reasonably stated as a yes answer.Similar to the way that we all here percieve race in the states.Like the other way around too,when blacks supported OJ,blindly stating he was innocent before the facts came out.I can vouch for that personnaly.Justice is what we should seek here,not the perception of race.It is a problem ,but IMO one that affects all races with overzealous officers, maybe other races more than white?Better training,less paramilitary attitudes of police forces,a way to weed out the "Erps" ,sensitiveity training, may be a start?

The O/P requested this thread not be made about Ferguson. As he felt it necessary to put that in his post it was obviously already on his mind. That said I would like to point out a few facts about the Ferguson case. First, we don't have all of the facts yet. Second the governor of the state condemned the officer within 12 hours of the shooting with almost 0 facts. Third we still do NOT have a factual count of the number of rounds fired and the CNN Lemon proof audio was debunked. We need to go back to real statistics which the 1% I mentioned earlier. Of course cops go bad of course some are just assholes, but the majority aren't. A lot of people have spent way too much time watching the Shield and shows like it. Cops have a good/shitty job. They get to see the best in people and the worst. They save lives and haul in scumbags and give tickets. If your only contact with police is getting a ticket which resulted in a monetary fine, you aren't going to like them much. Cops are not trained killers, this is a good thing for citizens and why don't use military troops in normal law enforcement situations. Six shot is not unheard of to bring down a suspect who is large or on drugs. In the movies every shot is a kill, in real life not so much. I was trained you shoot until the threat is no longer a threat. Center mass is always the first place to put shots unless it doesn't present itself. For those of you whole are saying cops do this just to do it or they are racially motivated can you tell me why you feel that way and what proof you have? I only ask because the majority of literature on the subject says the opposite.