Seriously, this is the mother of all generalizations.

There are no good people with power.

Also known as, "power corrupts". You give a person power without consequences, you turn them into a ticking time bomb, and the timer determines when will they turn into a self-serving piece of shit.

My understanding is that it should be seen more as the starrtng point of a reflexion about the police (what should we therefore do?) rather than a conclusion.

The best example I know is videogames. Ever see anyone play GTA without shooting everyone on the street? In GTA, there are no real consequences for your actions, so our true nature comes out. I imagine that, in the real world, when a person has power without consequences, it starts feeling like a game of GTA to them after a while - not exercising the power available just feels "lame".

> what should we therefore do?

Restrict power, increase accountability. The only way to train (human) animals is through punishment when they piss on the rug.

That's certainly a more immediately relevant answer. Here in social media land.

They are the corrupting powers and avenues of expression for this bad human nature, here.

I disagree. The game is built to favor this behavior. If you wanted to, say, make a living in the game by selling pancakes, the scenario would not be supported to the same degree (in this case: not at all).

Look at flight simulators. Most people try to fly properly. Occasionally, people explore "what if" scenarios. But most certainly most people do not use it to practice or experience another 9/11.

Ignorig the what if's The "enjoyment" of playing a FlightSim is trying to be as much of a competent pilot as you can, in GTA you derive said enjoyment by acting as someone with complete disregard for consequences. (Both steer you to something, still, because no consequences people try the alternatives, like everyones short lived attempt to follow laws in GTA)

People intentionally torturing the Sims seems a lot more appropiate, and comparably common

Removing consequence from action means that the only thing stopping you is your own morality, which is dangerous (Would you rather destroy the life of a random no one you will never see, or that of a lifelong colleague/partner/friend?)

Yes, that's exactly what I meant -- thank you.

Police abuse starts at the top of the culture, not the bottom. Replacing the people on the ground will do nothing without also replacing the people who use police power for their own ends.

That won't happen without political and economic change. A traditional redistribution of wealth and power won't be enough. The problem needs a new political system with checks and balances that provide strong immunity to authoritarian capture by narcissists and sociopaths of all labels and persuasions.

The military is so intertwined with US national identity that it's embedded in just about everything from sports to science. The US police forces are the closest to military turned inwards.

For the German situation in regards to sport and the military, see https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sportsoldat (You might need Google Translate or so, if you don't speak German.)

Where on earth did you get that from?

Armed forces are definitely not a big deal, in fact there's hardly any mention of them in public discourse, no parades or events involving the military, you hardly see them except occasionally you'll see soldiers going to their training on weekends on the train since Switzerland has national service.

There's also very little jingoism or mention of historical military activities. Really, hardly at all. And that's a good thing, and as far as I can tell that's how the Swiss like it.

Unfortunately the fetish for violence in American culture is baked into the core of American identity and has been since the Second Amendment and the archetype of the armed American revolutionary patriot was seared into the zeitgeist. Americans love Dirty Harry and Jack Bauer and the gritty, no-nonsense cowboy who shoots first and asks questions never.

I mean, just look at our response to 9/11. That should have been an opportunity to reflect on the policies that brought that kind of retribution about, and a chance to reconsider our assumptions about the world and our effect on it. Or at least to bring the world together under a rare common bond of global unity and do something good. Instead our jackass cowboy President said "you're either with us or with the terrorists" and went all Yosemite Sam across Iraq. We'll put a boot in yer ass 'cause it's the American way.

We're insulated as a culture (despite our bragging about our guns and revolutionary spirit, it's mostly bravado) and depressingly immature. It's no wonder our police are the way they are.

Everything is relative. Hearing comments and watching investigations in police abuses in France is chilling (e.g. there was recently a video of a cop, without his number prominently shown on the uniform, which is illegal for them dragging away and beating a protester), until you look into comments and investigations about police abuses in the US, and you're downright reassured things aren't that bad. Yeah, reforms are needed, the IGPN (authority that surveils and investigates the French Police) needs to be redone from scratch, and the first steps for that are non-crazies running the Interior Ministry (the last two guys were... special and hardliners), but seeing that extreme care needs to be taken, I completely get why no active politician wants to touch this issue. Remember when police were protesting due to working way too many hours without pay (basically they have an overtime budget for the year, and due to multiple long running protests, the budget was blown through in the first couple of months of the year and they had to work weekends for free) and how tense the situation was, with the Gendarmerie having to police the police protest? Nobody wants to piss off the police forces, because they are necessary and powerful.

Do people honestly believe this? Maybe in your country police force is completely broken, but it's still statistical impossibility. In my country, I believe, police is generally good and does their job reasonably. Of course they're not the most beloved job, because if you have to deal with them you probably have a problem, but given that situation they're OK. Maybe fix your police, fire the incompetent ones and replace your polititians that allow this instead of generalising.

In short, I agree with you. It is unreasonable to claim to that there are no issues ( and maybe even systemic issues ), but it is also unreasonable to claim that there is no such thing as a good cop. Cops are just people and people respond to the environment they are in. I think parent may exaggerating for brevity ( or at least I hope so ).

The solution is what it has always been, correct to the extent that you can until you get what you want in terms of results.

Naturally, this line of thinking opens rather uncomfortable set of questions, because:

What if the system works as intended given current incentives?

And that is a hard question I have no idea how to answer.

For instance, are there any good cops in Louisville? Any good state cops in Kentucky? Seems to me they would’ve done something, anything, about the Breonna Taylor case instead of waiting for the feds to come in.

There were even active coverups, Kentucky’s Attorney General went to great lengths to push the idea that the entire thing was perfectly legal!

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

Not really relevant, but the ridiculous (and secret) police response once they knew they were being targeted had bad consequences for others too. I have a house near where this multi-agency incident (links below) occurred and there was so much gunfire for such a long period that I knew it had to be cops doing the shooting.

https://www.kpcc.org/2014-01-15/la-district-attorney-torranc...

https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-no-charges-lapd...

https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1...

There was no justice in it. You're also taking for granted that the misjustice he claimed to have seen actually happened. Taking seriously the word of a man we know murdered innocent people.

Again, you need to stop confusing my analysis for support and sympathy for Dorner. He obviously exhibited some mental problems and very poor judgement, but stressful conditions can do that to otherwise good people:

https://futuresrecoveryhealthcare.com/blog/psychotic-break-v...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Schoolcraft

[2] https://features.propublica.org/weirton/police-shooting-leth...

It is not a bad question to ask. Lets do what lawyers do: change one fact and see how it affects the case at hand.

Issue at hand is bad behavior of individuals in a group. Is individual guilty of actions committed by other individuals while being part of that group?

I suppose it depends.

Is a random US citizen guilty of actions of their politicians? Is a random US citizen guilty of actions of their sheriffs? Is a random US citizen guilty of actions of their neighbors? Is a random US citizen guilty of actions of their partners? Is a random US citizen guilty of actions of their kids?

I have problem with either of those despite seeing clearly what you are getting at. Starting from the bottom, I have a problem with 'sins of the father' justification all the way to the politician. I see an abstract reasoning that can take us to 'yes, inaction is a choice too', but is it in the same category? Does it even have the same weight?

<< There were even active coverups, Kentucky’s Attorney General went to great lengths to push the idea that the entire thing was perfectly legal!

Chicago is not better. Some stories are heart-wrenching and, as I stated before, I would not be able to be a cop just based on those alone, but I personally think you are trying to spread sin way too thin, which, contrary to what you think you are doing, is only distributing accountability even further and alienate even those, who could reasonably agree with you otherwise.

In very simple terms, if you are gonna define me as bad apple anyway by association only, I might as well stick to my tribe, where at least I will have some level of protection from the outside.

And that, I think, is the true problem.

You think the cops in your family are good because they are in your family and are nice to you. That's probably the extent of the details about their job you know

"Have you considered the average hn user is a rapist, of course they deny it and they dont talk about it. You think HN users are good because theyre nice to you!"

Im as anti-authoritarian as they come, but I really dont like hyperbolic arguments.

Getting pulled over leaving a bar on the way to a buy, with gun and badge in motorcycle roll. "I'm not unrolling that..." to prove he was who he said, "I think my boss would be more upset about dropping a buy than me blowing over on an alcohol test."

Or, getting caught in the middle of a shootout between the Feds and a biker gang.

Edit: My dad also quit two positions along the way, one because his boss was a clear racist, and another that had some other issues in the dept.

My mom was a dispatcher, and when retired was head of combined dispatch for a region. She mostly dealt with people in trouble, distress, or sometimes the absurd.

I apologize. This is not what I intended to convey.

That line was intended more as disclaimer ("hey. i am not completely objective here").

My actual argument follows beneath ("cops are just humans").

Unless you can show me that HN users are part of a structured organization notorious for rape, this isn't even remotely analogous.

Police are part of a hierarchy and brotherhood that is very well known to abuse its authority, act outside the law, and protect its own, all without legal repercussion.

Not at all..I accept we are all humans.

That said, define bad for me so that we are not talking about fairly relative and abstract terms and can be easily misconstrued.

For example, I do not want to get into specifics and you are certainly right that they would be foolish to disclose their own transgressions if any were committed for several different reasons.

However, the conversations we did have on some events[1] they were not involved in painted a relatively close picture of their thought process and considerations at play. I am going to paraphrase and try to capture the gist of that conversation in sentences that follow where 'they' refers to the cops on the scene ( and to an extent the blue shield/line phenomenon ).

In short, one of their own fucked up. They knew he fucked up, but they tried to protect him from immediate fallout. As related, they said family was paid off, but 'could not keep their mouths shut', which is where the resentment was with those who did not hold up their end of the bargain that was supposedly struck. And naturally, when the case made national news, everyone was pissed, because assumption was that money bought silence on the matter ( who footed the bill for that silence was not clear, but, presumably taxpayer ).

Now, the political fallout makes it more complicated, because the rank and file has had the impression that case was informally settled and, from their perspective, it was 'over'. Rank and file finds out they get no cover from leadership and so the thin blue line only grows stronger as a result.

Now, you might be thinking: "This is exactly what I am talking about. If you participate in any way in this, you are the bad guy.'

I urge you to consider what you would have done. This case was a clearly fucked up case. I would like to think I would have stood up.

That said, as a cop, just like when you are a doctor, or a lawyer or any other high stakes job, you will eventually make a mistake that will result in someone dying. You will fuck up. And in some extreme cases, you will kill someone. That is the reality of that job. And it is a lot to take in.

There are logical consequences to what I just said and I absolutely recognize it can be horrifying. There is a reason I compared cops to doctors and lawyers, because I think this could help offset some of the issues should we ever get to an actual working improvement of police in US, but I don't want to get too far ahead of this conversation.

With that in mind lets go through some of the scenarios:

'if you know your actions in the course of work may end up killing someone are you automatically a bad person?' 'if you identify with a group, because you understand the toll it takes, are you automatically a bad person?' 'if you become a member of that group, because $absolute_number_of_members did $bad_thing, are you automatically a bad person?'

I have more questions along those lines, but I worry that I already threw out a lot into the ether so I am curious of your response.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Laquan_McDonald

A cop ceases to be a cop when they take off the uniform. They can be perfectly nice people in outside life (although they can also not) but when the uniform goes on, they're contributors to a system of abuse.

"No good cops" does not mean good people don't go into policing. It means that those who insist on trying to meaningfully change the system get forced out, leaving only those who contribute to it.

There will never be a good cop until accountability is an actual thing in policing.

Even a "justified" shooting by a cop should be considered a horrific failure of process.

I think this is where we might disagree. I can't comment for other countries. I can comment a little about Chicagoland. If there is a failure, it is not the failure of the process ( here understood as policing ). At this point, 'justified shooting' is merely what I would classify as 'necessary violence'. I am not using that word lightly, because actual violence only creates problems.

It is the failure of:

1. Society that allowed a given issue to fester long enough to move beyond tension 2. Individuals' environment that contributed to it 3. Individuals' family and fiends 4. The individual

Police merely deals with the aftermath. I think you got it wrong.

Capricious violence, racism, and corruption are so endemic to american policing that every cop is either an active participant, or aware of specific instances and complicit in this lawlessness. The internal culture of policing enforces this through peer pressure, hazing, and threats and violence if necessary. Good people can become police but they can't stay police: they ultimately either warp their morals to conform to this system or leave it entirely.

Considering this a problem of individual cop incompetence is naive honestly. This "problem" is so widespread, so universal, that you can't understand the role of police in society without accounting for it. They aren't incompetent and failing at their job: this is their job! Terrorism against the dispossessed is an important part of what they do, and they are doing it.