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Comment by protomyth | Hacker News Reader

"blue part of the Midwest"

I'm in a red part of the Midwest and the cops I know (many friends from HS or cycling in as security at the local workplaces) know when an EMT says "transport", thats it. It helps that some of the EMT's are former cops, but they know the story.

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Hilarious that rmxt thinks the police could only be professional in a liberal-leaning area.

You know, like the extremely professional folks in Seattle PD, which is also in a blue city in a blue state.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_and_politics_of_Seat...

Oh wait, I was completely wrong about that.

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Feds-findings-in-Seat...

That's not to say that all the people who work for Seattle PD are bad apples that need to be fired. But I'm sure a few of them are, if the whole department is getting investigated by the Justice Department.

That Seattle PI article is from 2011; so if the justice department is still investigating.. They need to hurry the hell up.

Also, Washington is only a blue state because of Seattle. It would be a swing state at best. You can see the evidence in its state legislature, where it has been in a near state of paralysis for years trying to figure out a budget that will satisfy "starve the beast" conservatives and Seattle's infrastructure needs.

Maybe I shouldn't have included the "blue" remark in my original comment. Perhaps it's not a red/blue issue, but I do think that there's a geographic component to it. I completely agree that unprofessionalism can and does rear it's head in otherwise quite "blue" urban areas. Maybe it's a mere function of there being more cops in urban areas, and it's just that the bad apples stand out. (i.e., https://xkcd.com/1138/)

I think it's more an issue of incentives than political inclination or geography. The police have a lot of power. Any investigations into officer misconduct (at least prior to widespread cellphones) generally resulted in the officer being cleared. That means that there's little/no incentive NOT to do something bad; the odds you get caught are minuscule.

Even if there are no truly evil, bad actors the lack of a restraining force means that even with random events and outcomes, officers will tend to behave worse and worse on average. Initially bad events are outliers but as more happen with no repercussions the average slowly creeps towards "worse" and what used to be rare becomes commonplace.

So to me it's clear that the police need better management from folks who really get a kick out of putting very, very bad guys behind bars. If a normal person murders someone they get the full force of the justice system against them. If an officer does so, currently they tend to get white glove treatment.

We're seeing that the trend might be changing a little in Baltimore, but we won't know for sure until the trial is done. They don't have to be convicted in order to know that the trend has changed, but they need to be VIGOROUSLY prosecuted for what happened.

I don't think it has anything to do with politics. While Oregon itself is a blue state and Portland is a liberal Mecca, the place i'm talking about is 45 miles of I5, solidly in conservative country. I don't think politics dictates police culture, I would guess it's mainly regional in nature.

Seems like it would be the opposite. Red-leaning areas tend to be more white and I'd imagine there's more of a "good ol boy" mentality instead of the adversarial situation between cops and citizens that you see predominantly black or latino areas (which are generally more liberal-leaning).

Red-leaning areas tend to be more white

Red-leaning areas tend to be in the southern US where there is a large minority population of african americans and latinos. There are a few exceptions (Wyoming), but I think your statement doesn't make that much sense.

And, even with all the scrutiny, Seattle police are still showing up to peaceful protests in full riot gear, seemingly randomly beating the shit out of people and pepper spraying with reckless abandon.

It doesn't help the police nor their reputation by employing agent provocateurs either.

http://reverbpress.com/features/undercover-cops-infiltrate-p...

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