Re:To Make Police Accountable, End Qualified Immunity
by jariel on Sunday May 31, 2020 @11:05PM
(#23375146)
It's not a matter of proportionality, it's a matter of context.
You cannot say: "Here's a gun, go into that house, physically get that guy to come out, dead or alive, but - if you do it just a little bit wrong, and you kill him the wrong way, you're going to jail forever"
The laws absolutely have to be different for police because we (and that includes you) are compelling them into situations of possible extreme violence, and in some case, constant low level aggression and toxicity.
Officers have to be held to account, but that account is definitely a different.
The argument however, completely misses the point - what matters more is a) the extreme high level of baseline violence in communities which necessitates all sorts of precautions otherwise unnecessary b) guns everywhere and c) just a general attitude towards over-policing and obvious unfamiliarity with the exact nature of how people should be apprehended or not. For example, the fact that 3 officers were on camera while 1 of them was kneeling on someone's neck AND they were knowingly being filmed, means that 'de-facto' it was allowed, ie they felt there would be no repercussions, in which case, the police chief should be out to dry first.
The problem is mass violence, pervasive weaponry and over-aggressive policing - most other things are secondary, if you solve the core problems, much if it goes away.
Surely in most other jurisdictions, like Canada, UK, Germany, Japan etc. the police are treated differently under the law and somehow it works out.
You cannot say: "Here's a gun, go into that house, physically get that guy to come out, dead or alive, but - if you do it just a little bit wrong, and you kill him the wrong way, you're going to jail forever"
The laws absolutely have to be different for police because we (and that includes you) are compelling them into situations of possible extreme violence, and in some case, constant low level aggression and toxicity.
Officers have to be held to account, but that account is definitely a different.
The argument however, completely misses the point - what matters more is a) the extreme high level of baseline violence in communities which necessitates all sorts of precautions otherwise unnecessary b) guns everywhere and c) just a general attitude towards over-policing and obvious unfamiliarity with the exact nature of how people should be apprehended or not. For example, the fact that 3 officers were on camera while 1 of them was kneeling on someone's neck AND they were knowingly being filmed, means that 'de-facto' it was allowed, ie they felt there would be no repercussions, in which case, the police chief should be out to dry first.
The problem is mass violence, pervasive weaponry and over-aggressive policing - most other things are secondary, if you solve the core problems, much if it goes away.
Surely in most other jurisdictions, like Canada, UK, Germany, Japan etc. the police are treated differently under the law and somehow it works out.