Papers Please?

[Wiregeek]

Five seconds on google.

And zero seconds reading? Article occurs in London.

This may be an error of mine - I have, since the original article involved American LEO, assumed 'American' throughout the discussion.

Also, Valles, a police force is an absolute neccesary for a functioning non-anarchic society. However, Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes? The American police force would benefit greatly from an empowered oversight, which it does not have.
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies

[Morganite]

As a result, cops -- both by inclination and by training -- try to ensure that they are the only person in control of any given situation they find themselves in.  -Any- resistance to this control -- even something as seemingly innocent as a question -- is potentially a threat.  It's precisely how things escalate -- a question is not a request for information, it's a protest against the control of the situation and immediately sets a cops nerves on edge.

I'm less than convinced of this reasoning. To me it looks like the person asking the question (if it's an actual question, which in a lot of the examples you're describing it's really not) is giving power to the person they're asking by the sheer fact that they're dependent on the other person for the answer.

Regardless, I do believe that people have a basic right to know what the hell is going on. A person who cannot answer basic questions as to what the hell is going on should not be in a position where they can cause other people to need to ask those questions.

-Morgan.

[Epsilon]

Morganni wrote:

---

I'm less than convinced of this reasoning. To me it looks like the person asking the question (if it's an actual question, which in a lot of the
examples you're describing it's really not) is giving power to the person they're asking by the sheer fact that they're dependent on the
other person for the answer.

This isn't how it works. Asking questions forces the other person to respond to you. It controls the flow of conversation. If you do any
training in any sort of public or customer service department this is one of the basic things they teach you.

----------------

Epsilon

[Epsilon]

Wiredgeek wrote:

---

Five seconds on google.

And zero seconds reading? Article occurs in London.




This may be an error of mine - I have, since the original article involved American LEO, assumed 'American' throughout the discussion.






Also, Valles, a police force is an absolute neccesary for a functioning non-anarchic society. However, Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes? The American police
force would benefit greatly from an empowered oversight, which it does not have.

If you're going to be such a pedant:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11120353/

Ten seconds. Adding "US" to search field.

-------------------

Epsilon

[Wiregeek]

That's a weak-sauce apology for removing someone from what is, essentially, a fancy-dress lecture.

Since you're the google master, throw 'hollywood cop cover-up', parse the dates, and tell me why it has been over a year that multiple officers who
were _CAUGHT ON TAPE_ conspiring to LIE about the circumstances of a traffic stop are still being paid by the police department?

Or why NYPD allowed an off-duty officer to wait 8 hours after an accident wherein he killed a young woman before administering an alcohol test.

Or.

Or.

Or.

It boggles my mind that you are trying to defend rampant abuse of power.
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies

[Wiregeek]

To touch back to the original post.

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article ... order?bn=1

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/12/11/dr ... canad.html

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/nat ... le1398731/
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009 ... hority.php

but the bottom line is this: a writer was beaten, pepper-sprayed,
arrested, and threatened with two years in jail for the crime of asking
questions of police…of demanding accountability and an explanation from
officials of the law. He was not interfering or hindering their work,
but he was requesting what we ought to minimally expect from the
police: a legal justification for their actions.

http://lewrockwell.com/orig3/monahan1.html

Edit: added Scienceblogs.com link, lewrockwell.com link.
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies

[Valles]

The rampant abuse of power, no. I do not defend that, nor do I consider there to be any real grounds to do so.

What I do object to is the implication that there is any kind of unified, faceless Them, a badged-and-uniformed conspiracy of tyranny and incompetence.

Nothing real is never that simple, and reacting to illusions rather than reality tends to be a disaster in the making.

I am not, in principle, opposed to the idea of greater oversight and accountability in cases of brutality or overreaction on the part of police or border security - but I freely admit that I know very little about the measures that are currently in place in that regard for either category. Much of my own reaction in this context is driven as much by my own extreme distrust for hysteria and hyperbole as anything else.
===========

===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

[robkelk]

This may be an error of mine - I have, since the original article involved American LEO, assumed 'American' throughout the discussion.

Okay... Francesco Vincent Serpico, NYPD, 1971. They even made a movie about his testimony.

Police are not paladins in shining armour, nor are they thugs. One cannot make blanket statements about them any more than one can make blanket statements about any other group of people.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Bob Schroeck]

Rob, good example, but... consider the fact that his willingness to do so was considered so unusual and heroic that they made a movie about it.

No, I'm not on the "faceless police oppressors" side. But the code of silence is real, and even if it exists simply because of a "we're all in this together" mentality, it ends up protecting corrupt and violent cops who would better serve society behind bars.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Wiregeek]

I am not, in principle, opposed to the idea of greater oversight and accountability

My Geek!Brain kept me up for too long last night poking at the idea of chest or shoulder mounted cameras and enhanced court proceedings depending on them when civilian vs. cop is brought up. Have yet to put a hole in the concept beyond "that's a lot of video"

1971

Excellent! One police officer showed that he had the stones to.. expose.. police.. misconduct..

and was shot by his 'brother cops'.

over 30 years ago.

ok, next?
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies

[The Wanderer]

It's precisely how things escalate -- a question is not a request for information, it's a protest against the control of the situation.

For one thing, that is not necessarily the case; in at least some (probably many, possibly most) cases, a question asked is quite honestly an "I want to know". Yes, in some cases it's a passive-aggressive objection to authority or an attempt to take control, but not nearly always.

For another, even in most cases where it is such a protest, the cop quite simply does not have the authority or the right to that level of control. (No one does, outside of e.g. life-or-death "they're going to find us and kill us all if you don't shut your damn mouth" scenarios.) If the law says otherwise, the law is wrong.

I'm not defending bullies, but the public in general needs to learn that it's NOT always the cop's fault.

Agreed. Despite what I'm likely to say in contexts like this, and despite how I'm feeling at the moment, I do respect the difficult and unpleasant job the police do, and I am willing to cut them some degree of slack because of it. Just not as much as many people seem to expect.

Next time a cop pulls you over, don't assume he's being a bully, assume he's approaching you with the viewpoint that you are armed, drunk, escaped from the nearest mental institution, and high -- all at the same time. Until he's convinced you're not, anything you do that reinforces that image

And that's a problem, because it's a presumption of guilt, and therefore conflicts with "innocent until proven guilty".

Not presuming guilt in that sort of circumstance would make the police's job harder and more dangerous - but it's entirely possible that they should be required to do so anyway, for at least some of the same reasons that we have "innocent until proven guilty" in the first place.

Be smart. Do what you're told, when you're told to do it, with no backtalk.

In other words, knuckle under, bow to authority, take the risk that this is a "bad cop", and - because of various factors, including the other side of that "us vs. them" mentality you mentioned - let them get away with it.

No. You shouldn't be mouthy, rude, aggressive, and so forth - but A: there are a lot of possible responses which aren't "do what you're told, when you're told to do it, with no backtalk" which don't rise to that level, and B: not all of the ones which *do* rise to that level automatically deserve the kind of response which phrasing it that way seems to imply. People should be polite and (generally) respectful to the police, yes - but the police should pretty much always be polite "in return", even when they're not receiving that politeness. Yes, that can make the job harder and more dangerous; it's possible to argue, and I think I might agree, that that's just one of the many, many trade-offs the police should have to make in exchange for the authority they expect to receive.

(Of course, simple politeness won't be enough - because formal politeness with a silent attitude of "I consider you a threat" can actually be worse, in terms of intimidation and the fostering of resentment, than outright hostility. And that does apply to both sides of the situation.)

If you're convinced of your innocence and you feel the cop is breaking the law, the solution is NOT to get into an argument over the fine points of legal interpretation with him right then and there, it's to address it later when there's no chance of someone getting shot.

At which point it's much harder to prove (or even argue) your position, it's much easier for the officer to get backup from others (again, "us vs. them" without regard for who's actually right), and so forth.

Plus, what about cases where the officer is not necessarily (or even definitely not) breaking the law, but is overstepping other limits? It's hard enough to get officers held accountable for violations of the law; it's probably impossible, in practical terms, to get them even reprimanded for offenses which don't violate the law.

the sorts of incidents we are talking about are escalated to the level they are at least in part due to our -- ie, civilian's -- attitudes towards the police, and the police attitudes towards us.

100% agreed - and the problem is on both sides of that divide. The latter is exacerbated by the former (as well as by other factors, some of which are probably purely human nature); the former is much more widespread, since there are far more of "us" than there are of "police", and is therefore much harder to eradicate - particularly in people whose individual experiences demonstrate to them that it's justified.

[Morganite]

This isn't how it works. Asking questions forces the other person to respond to you. It controls the flow of conversation. If you do any training in any sort of public or customer service department this is one of the basic things they teach you.
----------------
Epsilon

I have worked in customer service for ten years, and my experiences tell me otherwise.

-Morgan.

[Sofaspud]

Wire: nobody here has attempted to defend the rampant abuses of power. It's fairly obvious you feel strongly about
this, but you're coming across as claiming that's what we're doing and I don't think you're that muddy of a thinker.

I have been attempting to _explain_ why these sorts of things are so prevalent. I agree that they should be stopped, but I cannot believe that people think
the way to change the behavior of the police system as a whole is to take it on one man at a time. Simply put, you're outnumbered and outgunned if you
adopt that stance.

I _hate_ the current police setup. I don't like that I'm forced to fear the police -- not because I fear punishment, but because I might have the bad
luck to get stopped by a cop who (random example) hates fat guys and therefore get the shit kicked out of me for 'resisting arrest'. Okay? I freely
and willfully admit that the system is _broken_. But it's the best we've got, and the attitude so many display -- "fuck all cops, they're
bullies and power-tripping jerks anyway" -- which while experience suggests is prevalent and has an uncomfortable amount of truth, is NOT conducive to
getting the situation changed. It's only making it worse.

As this thread proves, trying to point this out -- trying to explain that cops are not paladins and have the same faults as everyone else, trying to explain
how they think so that you (generic 'you') have at least an inkling of what's going on in the cops head -- instantly draws a line in the sand.
THAT is the problem. Everyone -- cops included -- has adopted the us-vs-them mentality.

Wanderer: I never said the cop has the right -- or legal power -- to the level of control described. What I said was,
they are trained to take control of every situation, and their experience teaches them that the faster and more assertively they take control, the fewer
problems they see. You'll find that rookies and long-timers are the best when it comes to dealing with the public, because the rookies haven't learned
yet how to project that unfortunate but all-too-often necessary attitude of "my way or the highway, dickhead", and the long-timers have figured out
that they don't need to be Captain Asshole all the time to get the job done. The problem cops are the ones who have been there long enough to become
inured to the shit, but not long enough to truly come to terms with it. Unfortunately, that describes the majority of the population.

As for the "be smart, do what you're told, etc" bit... forgive me a bit of over-emphasis. Above all, I want people to _think_, goddammit.
_Think_ about the consequences of your actions, your words, your tone of voice and body language. The cops should too, I agree! But nobody thinks, they just
assume the cop is being an asshole for no reason -- maybe he hates white/black guys, or people that drive -- and they
respond, _without thinking_, in kind.

So, okay, yes. I don't think I should have to say it, but, if the situation calls for it, then by all means politely protest. Carry a card from the ACLU
that details your rights and refer to it before letting the cop search your car or ask for your ID. I'm not saying you should be a compliant drone --
I'm just wanting people to think about the situation before they respond. Ask yourself, "Self, is it worth the possible consequences?" I'd
be willing to bet that, pride aside, more often than not it's not worth it to protest _right then and there_.

Anecdotal example: my wife was arrested falsely in Idaho. The cop dragged her from the car she was in, handcuffed her so tightly she had bruises for a week
and a half, and shoved her roughly into the back of his car. She protested and asked that the cuffs be loosened because they were cutting off circulation --
and she has a documented medical condition which she carries a card for that justifies such things. He threatened to spray her if she didn't keep quiet.
By anybody's account, he was being a dick and a bully. During the arrest, my wife was faced with the choice of cooperating or resisting. Even though
legally he didn't have any legs to stand on, as he was operating under a case of mistaken identity (same first and last name as a person with a warrant,
different middle name, different social, different ages, and different picture on the ID) -- she cooperated. Resisting would have ended the same, because the
cop would have called for backup and nobody is going to listen to the person pleading their innocence when a cop calls for an assist with an unruly suspect.

Instead, she cooperated, because she stopped to think. In the end, the cop was reprimanded and suspended for a month without pay, his captain called us
personally to apologize, and they paid for her doctor visit for the bruising. Should it have happened in the first place? Fuck no! But if things had
escalated, it would have been worse. By thinking, she kept from being hurt or even spending time in jail, and the bully cop has hopefully learned a lesson and
at the very least got punished for his actions.

My point is there's a time and place for protesting, and I would argue that most of the time, that is NOT the moment the injustice is happening.

Morganni: your experiences may have told you otherwise, but that doesn't make you correct in the described
scenario. In regular customer service you don't have an adversarial relationship with the customer -- therefore, you're free to ignore the
"who's in charge" subtext. I speak both from experience and from training in this regard, in several roles -- security, customer service
(direct, phone, and everything in between), and management of a call center. The key difference is that even if you feel like you're at loggerheads with
the customer, it's never really about -you-. The same cannot be said for a cop-vs-suspect scenario.

Epsilon was using analogy to make a point, is all. You personally may not think you are protesting when (hypothetically) you ask for clarification purely for
informational purposes, but the unspoken subtext is that you don't submit to the other person's authority. And cops are trained to look for signs of
that and stamp it out quick. They can't afford to let the suspect gain psychological control of a situation, not because of their egos but because the
longer a situation goes on, the more likely it is to escalate past the point of control. (Some of them it's certainly ego, but I've already admitted
that I'm speaking in broad terms, not specifically about bad cops. Most cops are not bad.)

--sofaspud
--"Listening to your kid is the audio equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting, Spud." --OpMegs

[ECSNorway]

Agree 100% with Sofaspud.

A cop will pull you over for one of two reasons.

1) He's dirty, he's an asshole, and he wants to harass you. He would love an excuse to pound on you and toss you in a cell. DO NOT GIVE HIM ONE.

2) He has good reason to believe you're doing something wrong. For his own safety, he has to assume that the possibility exists that you are a drug-crazed lunatic who is going to pull a gun and shoot him. This is why, when they approach your car, they will stand just behind your left shoulder, with one hand on their gun, while they question you. Do not give him a reason to believe you are a threat.

A lot of people I see talking about 'abuse by The Man' these days don't understand that the point of civil disobedience is very explicitly NOT to get away with disrespecting authority. It's to take the consequences of that disrespect and make them public, to accept that you are going to get hurt, arrested, abused, and generally have a very bad time of it, to get your message out and force people to make amends later.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[Epsilon]

You keep moving those goalposts Wiredgeek, I will not indulge your paranoid delusions any longer.

----------------

Epsilon

[Wiregeek]

The best part of a 'moving goalposts' fallacy is having your face rubbed in it.

http://jalopnik.com/5427847/milford-con ... adly-crash

now THIS is some good news. I have to admit I'm hoping for a followup wherein the fuckers involved get clapped in irons, but you can't have
everything..
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies