Re:Police Accidentally Record Themselves Conspiring to Fabri...
by harryh on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @12:07PM
(#12549473)
"Easy to understand" != "Approval"
It is easy for me to understand that if I have a heart attack then my chances of dying in the next hour go way up. That does not mean I want to have a heart attack.
Understanding why problems happen is the first step in preventing them. Professing ignorance at why a problem could happen is not laudable.
Re:Police Accidentally Record Themselves Conspiring to Fabri...
by b2m9 on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @12:24PM
(#12549647)
Yeah, I see your point. But I would emphasise dahart's argument that we, and especially law enforcement in a democratic society, should have higher standards.
Well trained and educated members of the police force shouldn't act like bullies in a high school - no matter if they think their job is important or not. Like everyone else at their job, they need to be professional. Probably more professional than most of us sitting in front of a computer.
Re:Police Accidentally Record Themselves Conspiring to Fabri...
by harryh on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @12:34PM
(#12549771)
Sure of course.
I'm just staying that if you start with "I don't understand why our law enforcement standards are currently so low!" then you're probably not going to be helpful in fixing the problem.
Gotta diagnose first. Diagnoses comes with empathy and understanding.
Re:Police Accidentally Record Themselves Conspiring to Fabri...
by dahart on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @02:33PM
(#12550943)
> Diagnoses comes with empathy and understanding.
Yes! Agreed, and the good news is we can do both, I didn't mean to suggest otherwise. We can have empathy and high standards at the same time.
Is that true? The story doesn't say that. He was standing out of the way and holding a sign, legally. How that does amount to impeding the officers? How often does seeing a random protestor on the street make you suddenly belligerent with officers, and what evidence did you read that makes you think that happened here? It seems like you're making big assumptions.
If he's impeding police, what is YouTube doing with its thousands of checkpoint videos?
> I'm not saying what they did was OK.
Good? Because it was illegal what they did. Against the law. It was not only not OK, it was bad and wrong. Doubly so because the protestor was being peaceful and legal, and also because the police are charged with representing the law and upholding it's values, and they have a responsibility to not seize property, to not escalate a situation to violence, and to tell the truth about what happened.
It's a shame if this is easy to understand and commonplace, we need to hold ourselves to a higher standard than this.