For cops who kill, special Supreme Court protection

I had heard of Robert Peel, but not of his principles. Thanks for the link; it was an interesting read. And I agree that US policing would really benefit from following some of his ideas. Specifically Principle 6.

Peelian policing is but one of the foundation influences on U.S. policing, introduced in northern metropolitan areas: Boston, New York City, and Chicago.

The other major influence was the slave patrol. This is why there is such a strong overlap between the membership rosters of the KKK and police departments.

As policing expanded, and the institutions intermingled, the former was corrupted by the latter.

It is impossible to uphold #7 in an organization that implicitly divides "the public" into "citizens to be protected", "citizens to be ignored", and "savages".

The only way we can get there from here is to completely dissolve municipal police departments, and rebuild them from scratch, without re-hiring anyone that has ever served as a cop, training them specifically to be wardens of the whole community, rather than employ the "everyone is trying to kill you" videos that they show the young cop-cadets to make them twitchy and paranoid whenever anyone has a non-visible hand or is within 7 yards of them.

The failure to implement Peelian principles in the USA is not an oversight, but a deliberate decision that stems from the USA’s racial tension. When this debate has arisen, white law-enforcement elites have claimed that Peelian policing is inapplicable to the American context, because if black communities were policed by representatives of that community (i.e. other blacks), then the police would likely overlook much of the crime going on. The black police officers would sympathize too much with the citizens they policed, they would see both themselves and the local citizens as opposed to an outside white world, and they would be unwilling to put fellow blacks before white judges and prosecutors. (Not to mention that there has been enormous suspicion among the US national-security apparatus about any kind of self-organizing among black communities.) Therefore, critics of Peelian policing claim, the only effective solution to ensure prosecutions for crimes would be to have these communities policed largely by outsiders.

So, if you wanted to fully implement a more just form of policing in the United States, you would have to somehow overcome this deeply entrenched racist thinking. Yet unfair policing also drives racism, because it tends to perpetuate among white society an image of minority communities as hotbeds of chaos barely kept in check by a "thin blue wall". So, the result is a vicious circle.

Instead of “peace officers”, or even “police” we have “law enforcement” which pretty much shows how the priorities have shifted over the last 50 years. Whom now do they “protect and serve?” Not the citizens but the legal code.

This same kind of language has transformed the system output as well: instead of “penitentiary” (where you reflect on your crime and perhaps resolve to be better” or “correctional” facilities we just have a “department of prisons”. That’s been a longer shift.

The process has become the focus rather than the end result much less the broader good.

The public, in Sir Robert Peel's terms, with the middle and upper classes--who to this day in the US get along with the police fairly well. Have a look at Mayhew's London Labor and the London Poor to see what the poor thought of the London police.

I don't think that the police should have the impunity they do in the US; but don't delude yourself about Sir Robert Peel.

> People keep asking "how do we fix policing in America?!" Maybe start by following common sense guidelines written in 1829 that still apply today.

Maybe you need to replace your supreme court judges?

They are in their majority clearly beyond the age at which mental faculties start to suffer.

Common sense tells me that you can't expect a bench of octagenarians to normally function as the top legal institute of a country. It is not a sacred cow beyond all reason and doubt, and its judges are not the 9 holy sages.

Why can't your put some effort, and replace them?

I just wanted to say that it's heartwarming to find the Peelian principles are the subject of the top comment here.

It makes me think of Star Trek (the OG stuff where the crew has their shit together, not the newer Buffy-the-Vampire-Slayer-in-Space styff.)

> People keep asking "how do we fix policing in America?!" Maybe start by following common sense guidelines written in 1829 that still apply today.

Stop training them like they're going to war and train them to "server and protect" instead.

The National Guard can come in if they're needed. Police don't need to handle that.

While I, like you, am against both state-sponsored murder of innocents and fascism, I believe you are using the word “fascism” incorrectly here. In my understanding of the word, fascism is a principle where corporations and the state make common cause against the people, whom they seek to exploit or control, respectively. This is not the same kind of thing as state-sanktioned death squads; even though they might be equal in their offensiveness, one should take care not to equate them. It is a grave mistake to bundle up all of one’s dislikes and call them all the same; they are not. Many things are even fundamentally opposed, but equally abhorrent.

The police seem free enough, perhaps it's their land. A state of their own, even.

> "land of the free"

That just means we're legally afforded more individual liberties than most (if not all) other countries.

You're mistaken; the "free" means "economic freedom", not anything to do with personal liberties.

Even if the US only incarcerated rapists and murderers, we would still incarcerate more than Germany. It's not so simple as you're implying.

Actually it's not contradictory at all, it makes sense.

Whenever I visit America I'm astonished at how outrageous and uncivil some people behave. They really do want to press their freedom against the rights of others.

Carrying guns is the best example - it's an obvious 'freedom' that massively complicated policing and everything else.

Police in the US are rightly very afraid when pulling over someone for something petty like speeding because that person could be upset and have a gun. Where I'm from cops are not afraid because nobody has guns.

The woman who defied 'stay at home orders' - how do you deal with that as a cop? She just wants to cut hair to make money to stay alive, but you have to arrest her, which could lead to a confrontation with her and her 'supporters with guns'.

An ideology of 'land of the free' will necessarily have excessive conflict at the margins where said freedoms interdict with the ostensible freedoms of others and you have law enforcement in the middle trying to sort it out in sometimes ambiguous situations.

Well, the justice department decided to let Michael Flynn go free, so the US is still the land of the free for certain definitions of free.

Because ultimately people in the USA who aren't oppressed don't even notice or have to care that other people are being oppressed. Then they are given various -isms and -phobias to not only make sure that they continue to not care, but that in some cases they actively cheer on said oppression.

Propaganda is one hell of a drug.

Land of the free, but not for you and me. It's reserved only for those who pay an entrance fee.

… and to those at the borders clamouring to get in.

"Created by the courts" is what opponents of any doctrine say about it. The Supreme Court's view of it is probably quite different. :-)

In other words, I think the only ways to get rid of qualified immunity are (1) to get SCOTUS to overrule their own quite recent precedent or (2) pass a constitutional amendment.

Qualified immunity is the most egregious example of "judicial activism", yet the people who complain about it are the same people that support it.

The difference is things like gay marriage are a lot more visible.

it is a whole cloth invention of law.

> Police are civilians.

Well the police certainly aren't (or shouldn't be) military, if that's what you mean. But there certainly should be a distinction made between the police and a random guy with a gun who thinks the black dude that just jogged by is the thief they've been looking for.

With all due respect, that theory is divorced from reality.

In practice, police consistently abuse power with little consequence. If doubtful, review what happens with most of the cases when ethnic minorities are killed, harassed, and abused by cops over the past several decades. [ the perpetrators getting a slap on the wrist ]

A cop can shoot and kill you, say they were "afraid for their life" and walk away.

Warning, disturbing content: (See: https://youtu.be/n1pJe_Tcdeg and many other deaths).

Police can steal your possessions under the umbrella of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_Unit... with minimal recourse.

I like to believe you when you say police are civilians, but let's call a spade a spade. They sure act above the law civilians have to follow (hint: because they are.)

> EDIT: to be clear, I am encouraging a distinction between civilians (like you, or I, or police officers) and the military who are governed by their own code of justice and held to a different standard of law and order.

The police are held to a different standard of law and order. Do you truly believe otherwise in the United States of America?

The article here is specifically about how police can murder unarmed people with near-blanket immunity, they are very much not the same.

As a European, this is the biggest distinction I see. Policing as a verb is society's job. Police as a noun, is someone who's taken this as their primary role.

It's not supposed to be us against them - there is no them.

In U.S. police departments and sheriff’s offices, there’s a clear distinction between sworn officers and civilian employees, so it’s definitely more than “their words”.

> As a firefighter/medic

And today I learn rsync is a fellow fire/medic.

I entirely agree too. I work with several police departments and let's just say that there is a wide spectrum of attitudes and perspectives.

One local department had two excited delirium deaths in custody a few years back, leading to a coordinated LE/EMS significant training program on recognition and response as a medical emergency, not a criminal one, despite the fact that many of the hallmarks of excited delirium are "antisocial" and lead to a LE response (hyperthermia, leading to people naked in public), glass (reflections) attraction (leading to breaking windows, etc.), keening (animal noises, "he's crazy!"), bruxism (grinding of teeth, taken to the extreme, gnawing on things/people).

Every other department in the County was onboard. Excited to learn. Sure, help prevent deaths in custody and lawsuits! "Compassionate policing"! Win, win.

Not the department involved. They wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. "We will continue with our SOPs".

It was like an episode of The Office where I believe there was a sexual harrassment issue, and everyone has to take training, except Michael, who believes he doesn't need it. Until he's taken aside and told "Actually, this is because _you_ messed up. We just didn't want to single you out and make an example of you".

This is true. It's also true of firefighters and doctors (among others). The decision to bring people like this should not be taken lightly, because even assuming good intent on their part (which I generally do), you're giving a lot of decision-making power to people that you don't know.

To give a specific example, I had a kid trapped once in a situation that I became worried could be a tragedy if they weren't freed pretty quickly. In pretty short order, I decided to call the fire department for help, and I quickly had six experienced guys with lots of equipment to help. But, the solution ended up involving using a rather large, nasty-looking circular saw within a few inches of the kid's head. That in itself could easily have turned out far worse, as blades can break, hands can slip, etc.

Sometimes there are no great answers. As techies, we're used to the idea that we can take our time and usually try again if our first attempt goes wrong. Those professionals, though, often operate under time pressure and get only one chance to get it right. I wouldn't want that responsibility, myself.

I'm very sorry for your loss.

Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

This case was gratuitous, I agree. But sometimes the animations can be extremely helpful in weaving in complicated data into a narrative. Think graphs that highlight the relevant lines, etc.

I like it, when used with care. I think it works pretty well in this article, and it's been used to very good effect at the New York Times. The main problem is that I'm distracted from the content by wondering how they did certain things, how it might be adapted to other content, whether I would want to use it, etc.

I liked here. It feels more efficient when the illustrations or photos are not a parallel reading exercise. Where you're never quite sure when to read the photo caption or end up with it just repeating what you've already read in the body.

You could do that without the weird scrolling stuff, but I thought it worked well here. I will resort to reader mode if it gets annoying.

I do worry a little bit about archival challenges, however. Not sure that we'll be able to replicate the full experience as browsers continue to evolve and change.

Personally I love it. Even when it doesn't work, I am happy to see the experimentation. Not everything has to fit my usual forms of consumption.

For those who don't like it, a normal article is just a keyboard shortcut away...

> Staff at the local hospital in tiny Madill, Oklahoma, called the police in the early evening of March 24, 2011, for help giving Johnny Leija an injection to calm him.

I don't want to jump to defend the cops, but you bring up a point that jibes with my suspicion. Just look at that opening sentence to the article. Don't you suspect understatement there? Hospital staff deal all the time with patients who are upset because they're having trouble breathing, which is what I'm guessing someone who comes in sick from a week with pneumonia might exhibit. I'm quite sure calling the cops isn't their go-to protocol. So, if it came to their wanting to give him an injection "to calm him," I think responsible journalism would have tried to get a better picture of exactly what an "un-calm" Mr. Leija was like. I doubt he looked like he did in the first 7 seconds of that video.

That said, I am of a mind to believe that cops escalate too often, when they could deescalate if they tried. The bottom line is, if you ask me, there is more to this story.

Beat cops are not going to want to go into some neighborhoods without protection.

I live in the UK and let me say that the US is not the UK. In the UK it's very difficult to get a gun. In the US it looks like guns are everywhere.

I'm all for fewer guns in general, but is it really feasible that cops don't have guns when everyone else has them?

In most of Europe police carry guns,yet lethal encounters with members of public are rare( not saying they don't happen at all though). It's not just guns but the attitude of policemen. In Britain,police tend to talk to you for how long it takes until you come back to senses.If that doesn't help they do handle you.If they think you have guns, they'd send those who know how and will shoot if necessary. A stressed and confused guy in a hospital setting with no gun/knife is a low risk and should be talked to for beginners. They somewhat overreact there quite often.

American here — we have more guns per capita than any other country in the world.

In the UK, the criminals ~never have a gun (and less crime occurs), so it makes sense that the police wouldn't need guns either.

In the US, normal citizens are often legally armed, and criminals are very often illegally armed.

It would make no sense to tell an officer "you can't carry a gun" when both average citizens and the criminals have guns. While the UK undoubtedly has a fine model for itself, it can't be extrapolated to a country where gun ownership is so common.

I hear this a lot, but if I'm not mistaken other law enforcement organizations in other European nations with equally strict gun laws and a citizen culture of not wanting guns have armed police. While traveling into Germany, getting off the plane in Frankfurt I'm greeted by Polizei carrying full auto capable sub-machine guns (mostly HK MP5s, some HK G36Ks). Even in America it's rare to see police open carrying anything more than a pistol and I've never traveled through an airport and seen weapons like that either, including Airports at our nations capital (Dulles to be exact).

"Beat cops don't need guns." - in the UK!

In the US, every second person has a gun, and think they 'have the right to shoot people' for a host of arbitrary reasons.

Meaning the cops pretty much have to have guns in the US.

Similarly, I think the issue of police aggression is 90% about culture and not about constitutional issues.

Well, I think body cameras are the most important technological solution. Unfortunately they're still huge problems with how the footage is dealt with and who is allowed to handle it. How many times have you seen police abuse cases where the body camera "wasn't running" or the footage was "lost"? I remember the NYT article a month or two ago about the police officer planting cocaine. The only reason he was caught was because he tried to shut his body cam off and didn't do it correctly. Unfortunately he still didn't receive reasonable punishment, but we at least know about it because of the cameras.

Cop watches do exist, these organizations could definitely benefit from the minds and expertise that make advanced technology possible.

However, they do not remove the fundamental power structure that makes these laws possible. Changing the power structure requires collective action, that is the meaning of a revolution and a revolutionary.

The recent rent strikes in Houston were organized entirely online. The internet allows us to organize nearly instantly across the entire planet, but we need people in the street to make change a reality.

Parts of the US government also know not to share certain information with law enforcement.

"[FBI] policies have been crafted to take into account the active presence of domestic extremists in U.S. police departments."

"White supremacists and other domestic extremists maintain an active presence in U.S. police departments and other law enforcement agencies."

https://theintercept.com/2017/01/31/the-fbi-has-quietly-inve...

If we dig deeper past the shame, we find a power structure that is intentionally and fundamentally evil. In every economic crisis the facade becomes weaker, and more people wake up to the political and economic reality of our nation. This is when fascism shows itself, promising to take us to our former glory while people struggle to survive.

Fascism is a disease that slowly infects its host. We should remember how America fought so bravely against German fascism. My mother's family came to America to escape the fascist authoritarianism of that nation, and I can't see myself moving to Germany.

I consider every interaction and encounter with our law enforcement officers as a potentially life threatening situation. I can’t imagine how it is for people of color.

Police officers and police departments are made up of all ethnicities, same goes for the owners of capital. Not all who profess faith are true to their teachings. Just look at how the teachings of Christianity were used to colonize America, the largest genocide in human history.

Oh, no. Police rarely escalate the situation immediately. They waiting until sufficient back up arrives before they draw multiple guns and shout conflicting orders.

In the country with the highest percentage of prison population.

And the highest number of killings by police (per capita) by far.

little hyperbolic and a tad too smug I think. I believe history will be a little kinder, all things considered.

Well yeah there is a difference between killing another human being in the first person vs indirectly through corporate processes.

No one should be depending on an internet connection or external server to keep people alive and there is no way amazon would somehow be responsible for a nonsense design like this, if it ever did happen.

What should it tell you about the two systems if the former continues to happen often with no real improvements while the latter happens rarely if ever and is immediately rectified?

Like you I also come from a third-world country and this sort of thing is also the advice there.

Now I live in a much better country and I no longer have to fear the police. Quite a change.

There is no way why this has to be the way it is. If you are afraid of the police, it is the police's fault. Time to start arresting them and cleaning up.

> My sister is a DA so I hear the other side of this. Police are people and they can get scared, angry, and make mistakes.

Except unlike people in other professions, when police get scared, angry, and make mistakes, other people die. In other sectors, where courts, politicians and the public haven't been brain-washed by the never-ending chorus of 'officer safety', people with that kind of power are held to a commensurate level of accountability. That's the central issue, which you're attempting to side-step.

> Deaths at the hands of police are always horrible but an important message that is not broadcast clearly enough in every community is... NEVER RESIST ARREST!

Aside from a clear victim-blaming bias, even casual observation rules this out as a panacea. Far from it.

How can I train myself so that I will not resist arrest while I am delusional and dying of covid-19 in hospital?

(The case discussed in the article was of someone delusional while in the final stages of pneumonia.)

Yes, as a matter of personal survival: never resist arrest.

As a matter of conscious and principal though, passively resisting arrest should never lead to your execution. Acknowledging it’s not the case and thereby personally making sure to comply with the police does not make it “right” for this to be the norm.

Except quite some cases do not involve resisting arrest. Take all those swatting cases for example. Good honest people don’t deal with cops on a daily basis, or at all; so when cops suddenly show up with guns drawn while shouting commands (sometimes indistinguishably), they get utterly confused and panic, and naturally may not be able to comply with anything. And it doesn’t matter whether you actually pose a threat; as long as you might be perceived to pose a threat (or maybe not even that), you could end up dead. Holding a phone in your hand? “Looks like a gun to me” — bam, you’re a goner. Can’t see your hands? Bam.

During the decade I lived in the States, I often wonder if I would be the next random guy to fall victim to cops. (That, and random mass shootings. Things totally out of my control.) Simply not a fear I ever had to deal with everywhere else I’ve lived or traveled.

You seem to have a very simplistic view of police, I almost envy you for it. None of what you're saying needs to be a reality. None of it is necessary.

  > Police are people and they can get scared, angry, and make mistakes.

Everyone makes mistakes - that doesn't excuse anyone from paying for those mistakes. Some of these mistakes cost lives. Regular folks go to jail. The police in the US, in general, doesn't. Those who do are the exception. Usually - suspension, investigation, acquitted.

  > When a police officer instructs you to do something just do it.

What do you think happens when 'the police' shouts conflicting instructions? The answer is: you get shot [0]

What if the police instructs you to do something illegal?

What if the police sexually assaults you? [1]

  > If you disagree with the order there is a mechanism to voice that disagreement called the court.

So what you're saying is that if you disagree with a decision the police officer makes in a split second, you should spend the next several years of your life in the court system?

When (not if) the police illegally seizes your property, it's OK for you to spend the next few years in the court system to get that property back to be able to return to normal life, right? [2]

  > they will use rapidly escalating force to make you comply that can endanger your life

Why? Is that necessary? The police in other developed countries, for example the UK, is overall orders of magnitude more civilized and respectful than the US police.

  > This used to be pretty well understood

No, what used to be well understood is that the police is there to serve and protect. Serve and protect. The police is not there to intimidate citizens. The police is not there to beat you into obedience. The police is not there to escalate the situation until it results in you losing your life.

  > I think we need better public communication about this.

It's not the public that needs to be better educated on how to handle themselves around the police. It's the police that needs to be better educated on how to handle people.

  >  We also need to make sure the courts are more accomodating to underprivileged communities because if people don't believe the courts are fair then disputes are going to get settled in the street with violence

Did you even read the article you're commenting on?

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ooa7wOKHhg

[1] https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/19/us/police-sexual-assaults-mar...

[2] https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/tv-news/john-oliver-amplifie...

There are more than enough people who want to be police, we can set a very high bar and fire those who don't perform. Police should be de-escalating in all circumstances, they should move slowly and not fire until fire upon. Soldiers have stricter rules of engagement than police.