You don't have to worry about getting killed, even though that's changing slowly [0][1], but many of them are authority abusive pieces of shit that have no place in the police.

I've been stopped on my motorcycle for no reasons by officers in an unmarked car, they kept me 30 min on the road under full summer sun and didn't provide me any reason for stopping me whatsoever. "don't do crimes and the police will leave you alone" doesn't exist

My dad got a ticket for using his mobile phone in a stopped car (engine off, parked) even though he didn't own a mobile phone. I can't come up with a single good interaction me or any member of my family had with the police and as far as I can tell I'm far from the only one.

A quick look at the yellow vests protest will tell you that French riot police are just the same as the American one. They killed a grandma by shooting a tear gas canister into her 4th floor flat [2].. Dozen lost hands, eyes, & c. The only reason it isn't worse is because they're less equipped and have more legal constraints

Potentially nsfl, lost of yellow vests injuries with pics: http://lemurjaune.fr

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Adama_Traoré

[1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.lexpress.fr/actualite/socie...

[2] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.leparisien.fr/amp/faits-div...

I've got stopped close to midnight by Swiss border police once, coming from rock climbing session over the border. You would expect Swiss politeness and correctness, right?

I got held at the (utterly empty otherwise) border for 40 minutes. They went through my whole backpack (just wet stinking climbing clothing equipment), did some obscure exercises like taking out all my cash & cards from wallet, counting it, putting into envelope and then back to me and so on.

I was super thirsty, when I asked them for a cup of water they repeatedly ignored it. They yelled at me and were generally super unfriendly, treating me like a criminal. I cross normally (non-covid times) that border several times a week, never anything similar. You can't do much, they have all the power, and they make you feel it.

This is Swiss, don't hold your breath for other european places. There are sane normal policemen, just like everywhere, but there are also fucked up power tripping assholes. They just can be more trigger-happy in places like US.

Being legally allowed to stop someone doesn't mean you have to treat them like trash.

I got stopped while entering the US, they asked me to follow them in some kind of room, I did, they asked me for my passport, I gave it to them, they then put the passport on a table and went chatting on the other side of the room, a few minute later a woman came in and took the passport while no one was paying attention. 5 min later one of the chatting officer noticed the passport was missing and tried to make me confess I took it back from the table and hid it, he was very obviously trying to escalate the situation... The woman came back after a while and the threatening officer tried to pass his whole act as a joke. I lost 2 hours because these people were less organised than an elementary school kid and treated me like a criminal for no reason.

Well, some places frown upon borders, and some places build a wall. We like the former here in Europe.

You and your Dad are not statistically relevant. My experience is very different, and it is backed up by data:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforc...

United States is between Congo and Iraq when sorted by rate per 10 mil. people.

The first european country is way down that list.

I know it's tempting to do the whole ”oh that's a problem over in terrible USA” (a very common european way of thinking) but I'd be careful about it.

Granted I think european police is less violent than US (a low bar), but to say that we don't have a problem with this at all is pretty naive. Just look at how french or swedish police have responded to black lives matters protests for example.

What are you referring to? I live in Sweden, and have not seen news regarding police brutality during the BLM protests.

I believe Sweden requires a bachelors degree and 2.5 years of training to become a cop. In the US it's just a high school diploma and 4 to 6 months of training depending the state.

Right now the French police is protesting against their own boss (minister of the interior, Castaner) because he went with the BLM narrative and basically called them racist.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53022073

Back during Sarkozy'sreign as President,there were riotscaused by the death of a coupe of youth being persued by police. So yeah, they have a problem in France. One that should be addressed.

I don't think thats the right angle to look at it.

It's not a problem of policeman brutally beating/killing people (its a issue alright but). Its about the organisation protecting and turning blind eye on their misdeeds.

There will be bad apples in any organisation. Be it police fore or church. The problem starts when the perpetrators are protected insted of being ousted.

That emboldens other to do similar and openly advertises to anyone 'Join our org and you can to X, Y, Z with no repercussions'.

.. if you're of the "native" white ethnicity or a white tourist, yes. The London BLM protests aren't just copycats, there's a long history of poor race relations from the Met.

People aren't being killed left right and centre by the police in the UK of any ethnicity, their main gripes seem to be stuff like stop and search which already has dramatically declined over the last few years.

Maybe the met does have "poor race relations" historically but it isn't anything remotely close to the US police.

The scale is very different, yes. The UK kills much, much fewer people. But it still happens occasionally, and when it does we see the same problems of poor accountability. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jun/11/black-deaths...

Well, you are correct. The average officer outside of the US is not scary. Especially European cops. The first time I visited the US after living in Australia for years, was quite a shocker for me. But when I said "kind of" I meant that there are countries that make an exception but other than western Europe and Australia, most countries have a police brutality problem. But that's only one side of the police force. When protests break out and the big guys come out, even the European cops are quite brutal. Protests in Germany, France can be a good example of that. So, maybe I can rephrase my comment as Police brutality is a global phenomenon but it extends to the average officer in the US which makes it a bigger problem there.

> Police in Europe is, on average, very kind.

I generally agree. "The left" in Germany does disagree completely, though, so I think it's pretty controversial and not really as simple as you make it out to be.

Nobody in the left in Germany will claim police brutality is at any level near what America is facing as that's completely absurd.

However, people do acknowledge police is authoritative, profile racially, and abuse their power at times.

I think you can acknowledge both without being inconsistent.

> Nobody in the left in Germany will claim police brutality is at any level near what America is facing as that's completely absurd.

And that's not what I said. They certainly won't agree that police in Europe is "on average, very kind".

> However, people do acknowledge police is authoritative, profile racially, and abuse their power at times.

That's an overly euphemistic way of describing "ACAB", which is very common and not controversial on the left.

Extreme left. I don't think this sentiment is popular on the left as a whole.

That's hard to say, of course.

There's little rejection in left wing parties and German trade unions (with the exception of the police unions, obviously) with regards to ACAB and similar messages, although you won't find anybody running for chancellor embracing it. As they will march with the Black Bloc on ocassion, I don't think you can draw a clear line.

The parties' youth organizations are generally significantly further left, so that's a different story entirely, but that's probably true for any youth organization.