OT: Cops kill George Floyd

[Fat Kat]

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[HarthorneWingo]

City of Seattle is cutting dozens of police officers from the PD; its Chief of Police has resigned; and the PD is being defunded and remade.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/11/us/seattle-police-chief-budget-cut.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

Seattle Police Chief to Resign as Council Pursues Ambitious Plan to Cut Budget

Carmen Best announced her retirement on Monday night, hours after the City Council approved cuts to the police budget.

By Mike Baker
Aug. 11, 2020, 2:40 a.m. ET

SEATTLE — As City Council members in Seattle pursue an ambitious plan to cut dozens of police officers and create a new department dedicated to public safety, Police Chief Carmen Best said on Monday night that said she planned to resign.

Chief Best, the first Black woman to hold the top policing job in the city, said in a message to the Police Department that she would retire next month and was “confident the department will make it through these difficult times.”

She did not elaborate on the reasons for her planned departure, but Mayor Jenny Durkan, an ally of the police chief, said Chief Best was making the move in hopes of changing the department’s fractious relationship with the City Council.

Amid the national movement to change policing in the wake of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis, protesters in Seattle have called repeatedly for the city to cut the police budget by 50 percent. On Monday, council members moved in that direction with a budget plan to eliminate about 100 officers from the force. The plan included discussions of deeper cuts that could approach the 50 percent threshold next year, one of the most ambitious plans for police restructuring in the country.

-more-

[ITGM]

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Juxtaposed with this video of three unarmed, innocent Black teenagers fearing for their lives because these trigger-happy animals are looking for an excuse to shoot first and ask questions later.

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[HarthorneWingo]

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Is there a story on this? I didn't see a link.

[EL CABRITO]

Its obvious, nothing has changed nor will it. until something happens, I'm unsure of the paradigm, but change must take place for us to proceed as a civilization as a whole.

[EL CABRITO]

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Is there a story on this? I didn't see a link.

the sad part is these cops seem to know they have made an error, yet insist on traumatizing and bullying these kids.
They have no place in the community if they can't recognize who the bad apples in the area are, this is why community policing should be the standard.

Force them to deal with the people who live there. Take them out of the cars and make them interact! Because if everyone is a perp or a possible criminal something is way off.

[nedleeds]

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Juxtaposed with this video of three unarmed, innocent Black teenagers fearing for their lives because these trigger-happy animals are looking for an excuse to shoot first and ask questions later.

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

We can do this all day. Police are poorly trained and it's the worst job on Earth currently.

[HarthorneWingo]

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Juxtaposed with this video of three unarmed, innocent Black teenagers fearing for their lives because these trigger-happy animals are looking for an excuse to shoot first and ask questions later.

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

We can do this all day. Police are poorly trained and it's the worst job on Earth currently.

I don’t believe it’s the lack of training. What happens is that after they graduate from the Academy, each is the paired up with an experienced police officer who proceeds to tells the rookie, “Forget everything the taught them at the Academy bc The Real Training starts now.”

[nedleeds]

Juxtaposed with this video of three unarmed, innocent Black teenagers fearing for their lives because these trigger-happy animals are looking for an excuse to shoot first and ask questions later.

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

We can do this all day. Police are poorly trained and it's the worst job on Earth currently.

I don’t believe it’s the lack of training. What happens is that after they graduate from the Academy, each is the paired up with an experienced police officer who proceeds to tells the rookie, “Forget everything the taught them at the Academy bc The Real Training starts now.”

[nedleeds]

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We can do this all day. Police are poorly trained and it's the worst job on Earth currently.

I don’t believe it’s the lack of training. What happens is that after they graduate from the Academy, each is the paired up with an experienced police officer who proceeds to tells the rookie, “Forget everything the taught them at the Academy bc The Real Training starts now.”

An Atlanta cop has an average of 2 hours of combatives training a year. You wonder why two men can't reasonably restrain a drunken suspect who is resisting arrest like Rayshard Brooks, there's your answer.

[HarthorneWingo]

I don’t believe it’s the lack of training. What happens is that after they graduate from the Academy, each is the paired up with an experienced police officer who proceeds to tells the rookie, “Forget everything the taught them at the Academy bc The Real Training starts now.”

An Atlanta cop has an average of 2 hours of combatives training a year. You wonder why two men can't reasonably restrain a drunken suspect who is resisting arrest like Rayshard Brooks, there's your answer.

I believe that's yearly continued police training after they're out on the street. They get much more intensive training in the Academy. It's a couple hours each on various police topics from Accident Investigations to police chases to processing evidence.

[HarthorneWingo]

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We can do this all day. Police are poorly trained and it's the worst job on Earth currently.

I don’t believe it’s the lack of training. What happens is that after they graduate from the Academy, each is the paired up with an experienced police officer who proceeds to tells the rookie, “Forget everything the taught them at the Academy bc The Real Training starts now.”

Exactly!

[Jeff Van Gully]

Spoiler:

I don’t believe it’s the lack of training. What happens is that after they graduate from the Academy, each is the paired up with an experienced police officer who proceeds to tells the rookie, “Forget everything the taught them at the Academy bc The Real Training starts now.”

Exactly!

thank you, nedleeds for that laugh. i snorted.

[HarthorneWingo]

Spoiler:

Exactly!

thank you, nedleeds for that laugh. i snorted.

And it immediately reminded me of Chappelle's Wayne Brady sketch. "So Dave, I make Bryant Gumbel look like Malcolm X, mofo?"

[HarthorneWingo]

Video from the body cam one the goon cops who protected Chauvrin while he murdered George Floyd.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ex-cops-video-captures-crowds-horror-during-george-floyd-arrest_n_5f36610dc5b6959911e2d485

[Jeff Van Gully]

Video from the body cam one the goon cops who protected Chauvrin while he murdered George Floyd.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ex-cops-video-captures-crowds-horror-during-george-floyd-arrest_n_5f36610dc5b6959911e2d485

those people who stood up for floyd and challenged those murderers are heroes.

[HarthorneWingo]

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[ITGM]

We can do this all day. Police are poorly trained and it's the worst job on Earth currently.

Poorly trained cops is one issue; White supremacists that are given a badge, the authority, and the protection to terrorize and murder Black people is another. And before you attempt to infer that the latter example isn't a significant issue, both the Bush and the Obama administration found it significant enough to conduct investigations that determined White supremacists had been joining law enforcement agencies at an alarming rate:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/fbi-white-supremacists-in-law-enforcement

In the 2006 bulletin, the FBI detailed the threat of white nationalists and skinheads infiltrating police in order to disrupt investigations against fellow members and recruit other supremacists. The bulletin was released during a period of scandal for many law enforcement agencies throughout the country, including a neo-Nazi gang formed by members of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department who harassed black and Latino communities. Similar investigations revealed officers and entire agencies with hate group ties in Illinois, Ohio and Texas.

https://www.justsecurity.org/70507/white-supremacist-infiltration-of-us-police-forces-fact-checking-national-security-advisor-obrien/

In 2009, the Department of Homeland Security issued a report on right-wing extremism and its relationship to “violent radicalization” in the United States. The report’s principle researcher on the subject, Daryl Johnson, later told The Intercept:

“Federal law enforcement agencies in general — the FBI, the Marshals, the ATF — are aware that extremists have infiltrated state and local law enforcement agencies and that there are people in law enforcement agencies that may be sympathetic to these groups.”

This may not be a coincidence.

An investigation published in 2019 by the Center for Investigative Reporting found that hundreds of active-duty and retired law enforcement officers are members of Confederate-sympathizing, anti-Islam, or anti-government militia groups on Facebook. Within these private groups, members often are openly racist.

[robillionaire]

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can we talk about defund yet or is that still too extreme for the libs who want to give these fcks more money

[j4remi]

A case for reducing police budgets to hire more social workers and crisis counselors...It's a pretty big article with a lot of info and background; so I'll grab some excerpts. Also, I made sure to cover this in the TFP podcast we just put up but since it's new I don't have time stamps (it's late in the show).

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/05/us/cahoots-replace-police-mental-health-trnd/index.html

Around 30 years ago, a town in Oregon retrofitted an old van, staffed it with young medics and mental health counselors and sent them out to respond to the kinds of 911 calls that wouldn't necessarily require police intervention.

In the town of 172,000, they were the first responders for mental health crises, homelessness, substance abuse, threats of suicide -- the problems for which there are no easy fixes. The problems that, in the hands of police, have often turned violent.
Today, the program, called CAHOOTS, has three vans, more than double the number of staffers and the attention of a country in crisis.

CAHOOTS is already doing what police reform advocates say is necessary to fundamentally change the US criminal justice system -- pass off some responsibilities to unarmed civilians.

Cities much larger and more diverse than Eugene have asked CAHOOTS staff to help them build their own version of the program. CAHOOTS wouldn't work everywhere, at least not in the form it exists in in Eugene.
But it's a template for what it's like to live in a city with limited police.

Notes on how it works and efficacy:

Most of the clients White Bird assisted -- unsheltered people or those with mental health issues -- didn't respond well to police. And for the many more people they hadn't yet helped, they wanted to make their services mobile, said David Zeiss, the program's co-founder.

"We knew that we were good at it," he said. "And we knew it was something of value to a lot of people ... we needed to be known and used by other agencies that commonly encounter crisis situation."

It works this way: 911 dispatchers filter calls they receive -- if they're violent or criminal, they're sent to police. If they're within CAHOOTS' purview, the van-bound staff will take the call. They prep what equipment they'll need, drive to the scene and go from there.

It always paired one medic, usually a nurse or EMT, with a crisis responder trained in behavioral health. That holistic approach is core to its model.

Per self-reported data, CAHOOTS workers responded to 24,000 calls in 2019 -- about 20% of total dispatches. About 150 of those required police backup.

CAHOOTS says the program saves the city about $8.5 million in public safety costs every year, plus another $14 million in ambulance trips and ER costs.

Staffers respond to substance addiction crises, psychotic episodes, homeless residents and threats of suicide. They make house calls to counsel depressed children at their parents' request, and they're contacted by public onlookers when someone isn't in a position to call CAHOOTS themselves.

Unlike police, CAHOOTS responders can't force anyone to accept their aid, and they can't arrest anyone. They're not armed, and their uniform usually consists of a White Bird T-shirt and jeans -- the goal is that the more "civilian-like" they look, the less threatened their clients will feel.

Their approach is different, too. They're taught in training to abandon the "pseudo-professional" affect that staffers inadvertently take on in talks with clients. And aside from an extensive background in medical care or mental health, all CAHOOTS employees are judged by their "lived experiences," Brubaker said -- people who've dealt with many of the situations CAHOOTS clients find themselves in are better able to empathize and serve those people, he said.

Quotes from the chief of police in Eugene about the program:

And for the most part, both groups have: Eugene Police Chief Chris Skinner called theirs a "symbiotic relationship" that better serves some residents of Eugene.

"When they show up, they have better success than police officers do," he said. "We're wearing a uniform, a gun, a badge -- it feels very demonstrative for someone in crisis."

Most of CAHOOTS' clients are homeless, and just under a third of them have severe mental illnesses. It's a weight off the shoulders of police, Skinner said.

"I believe it's time for law enforcement to quit being a catch-base for everything our community and society needs," Skinner said.
"We need to get law enforcement professionals back to doing the core mission of protecting communities and enforcing the law, and then match resources with other services like behavioral health -- all those things we tend to lump on the plate of law enforcement."

Also notable that this is not an "abolish the police" case study but a different way to collaborate with police instead. I think this is a solid middle ground worth exploring and expanding to see more results:

"Partnership with police has always been essential to our model," he said. "A CAHOOTS-like program without a close relationship with police would be very different from anything we've done. I don't have a coherent vision of a society that has no police force."

He said the current movement has seemingly pitted service providers like CAHOOTS against police, which may stoke suspicion among police over "whether we're really their allies or their competitors," he said.

"In some sense, that may be true. But I think we still need to focus on being part of a system, and a system that includes police for some functions," Zeiss said.

And here's a section about CAHOOTS expansion, growth and strategy:

The idea of a separate entity in charge of alternative care is more enticing than ever as cities mull over the efficacy of their police departments.

CAHOOTS has met the moment. Brubaker said he's consulting with cities on how to implement their own CAHOOTS-inspired program, subbing White Bird Clinic for a local organization that serves a similar role.

There are a few criteria, though, that Brubaker considers immutable: The CAHOOTS stand-in should be operated by a local non-profit separate from the government that already has an established, positive rapport with the community, and it should ideally be staffed by people who reflect the diversity of that community.

CAHOOTS consulted Olympia, Washington, on the creation of its own Crisis Response Unit, which is staffed by two social workers. Denver is piloting a program, also inspired by CAHOOTS, led by a local social justice organization.

White Bird Clinic and CAHOOTS coordinators can't go into other communities and set up copies of CAHOOTS. What works in Eugene wouldn't work in New York, or in Miami, or in larger cities more diverse than Eugene (less than 2% of the population is Black, according to census data).

Brubaker knows that a "fill-in-the-blank" style of reform wouldn't work. But CAHOOTS does provide a template.

Podcast link for anyone interested: https://anchor.fm/TFP%20/episodes/Episode-58---Back-to-the-Chaos-of-Today-ei5pqu
It's got links to spotify, apple podcasts, stitcher and other options.