Trying to save the US Election thread by splitting this off to its own thread. From what I gather, a young black girl was sitting in the back of a police car, giving them lip, so they pepper sprayed her.
I know it's hard to stay civil in a thread involving violence against children, but for the sake of the mods, let's try to respond to attitudes we don't like as coldly as if we were Richard Nixon himself.
(I am not putting a ton of effort into summarizing the situation because I know others can summarize it better. I will listen, and learn.)
The same thing we do every night, Ronald...
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Well, I'm not a hysterical 15 year old black girl, so the circumstances would be different.
If I pepper sprayed you, it would be assault. (or battery. or someother crime, depending on your state laws /pedant)
If the cops aren't justified, it's the same thing for them. I would not be justified if you were swearing at me. That doesn't do it for the cops either.She was clearly not a threat to the cops, so that excuse it out. They do have the right to detain her, though I'm not particularly happy about that under the circumstances. She wasn't cooperating. So the question is do they have the right to use pepper spray to enforce compliance? Which is essentially the same question as "Do they have the right to inflict pain to ensure cooperation?"
Addendum: Should our police have the basic training to understand ways to ensure cooperation that don't involve torturing children?
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Addendum: Should our police have the basic training to understand ways to ensure cooperation that don't involve torturing children?Well, I'm not a hysterical 15 year old black girl, so the circumstances would be different.
If I pepper sprayed you, it would be assault. (or battery. or someother crime, depending on your state laws /pedant)
If the cops aren't justified, it's the same thing for them. I would not be justified if you were swearing at me. That doesn't do it for the cops either.She was clearly not a threat to the cops, so that excuse it out. They do have the right to detain her, though I'm not particularly happy about that under the circumstances. She wasn't cooperating. So the question is do they have the right to use pepper spray to enforce compliance? Which is essentially the same question as "Do they have the right to inflict pain to ensure cooperation?"
Well she had been hit by a car so they needed the extra pain to... um...
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These people do not have the simple training/human experience to know how to handle an uncooperative kid. Remember, guys, this is how they handle children. Think about how they handle grown people with mental illnesses, or disabled people, or people with drug addictions, or people who don't speak the language. Note that I'm not equating those four elements in any way—I'm saying that each one is challenging for an inexperienced police officer to handle. If these cops can't handle a child, can somebody explain to me what they can handle?
The bar for entry is far, far too low, and has been for a long time.
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Trying to save the US Election thread by splitting this off to its own thread. From what I gather, a young black girl was sitting in the back of a police car, giving them lip, so they pepper sprayed her.
Not exactly.
Sequence of events;
Car & Bike collide
Police arrive
Bike riding child doesn't want to talk to police
Child swears a lot and attempts to ride away
Police say they are detaining her for failure to cooperate with their investigation and pull her off the bike.
Child freaks out, screaming and thrashing
Police drag her to car and force her in
Child is sitting quietly in the car, but her feet are not inside so they threaten to pepper spray her
She puts her feet in the car
One of the officers closes the door
Another officer pepper sprays her through a gap above the window
In fairness, it can be very frustrating to deal with tantrumming children, and that can tempt one to be uncooperative or unhelpful. I can understand why she gave them trouble.
Nenkota, he didn't miss that. Maybe read their post?
Bike riding child doesn't want to talk to police
I have autism. I was a difficult kid. There were times when I would misbehave and refuse to tell teachers my phone number or name so I wouldn't get in trouble.
Nobody ever f~*~ing pepper sprayed me for it.
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I believe the door was still partly open. She was resisting by blocking the door with her feet, or at least the officers were repeatedly telling her to get her feet inside the car.
Then they sprayed her and got the door closed.
1:38 the girl can be clearly seen moving both feet well inside the car
1:39 officer 1 says, "That's good" and officer 2 says, "There you go"
1:40 officer 1 closes the door
1:42 officer 2 pepper sprays her through the window
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Yeah, there are some cases where you can argue that the cops maybe didn't do anything wrong (though I would question anyone who did so every time). This is not an ambiguous case. You don't pepper spray a stranger's child for rudeness. Nobody has the right to do that. No teacher, no principal, no sketchy man in an alleyway, no corrupt police officer.
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The thing about this that most sticks in my craw is that the law-and-order, she-had-it-coming types are the very same people who scream about how everything the government does is tyranny. Can you say cognitive dissonance?
Note the following doesn't excuse recent police debacles or other problematic trends in police culture, BUT...
Part of me wonders in this case and in similar cases if the spread and use of nonlethal weapons like pepper spray/tasers/etc may be a major factor in blame
Cops seem to latch onto the NONLETHAL aspect of those things, than go way overboard with it, because hey no lasting damage. I mean, I assume Police before its invention were able to deal with unruly children. Clearly there are cases where pepper spray is better than any other options (such as someone violently resisting arrest), but it seems I see it used way way too much with people nonviolently resisting or who otherwise pose no actual threat to a cop.
This link kind of agrees with me - why cops overuse pepper-spray
EDIT: Thought that was going to be a far longer article than I just a couple of quick blurbs...oh well.
If I had to guess, they probably use a bit less old fashioned violence, replacing it with pepper spray or tasers, but also use those in some cases where they wouldn't have done anything before.
My understanding from some papers I read years ago (but don't have to hand, unfortunately) is that use-of-force rates go up substantially when "less harmful" measures are introduced to a police department; this appears to be true across the world.
This isn't surprising; "risk homeostasis" is a well-documented phenomenon. When new safety measures are introduced into almost any system, users will indulge in more risky behavior (either more behavior, or more risk per behavior, or both), keeping the overall risk level roughly constant. For example, as cars become safer, people will drive more. "Between 1927 and 1987, the death rate per km driven fell by a factor of about 9, but the death rate per 100 000 inhabitants showed no clear secular trend, neither upward nor downward." From the same source, "airbag equipped cars tend to be driven more aggressively and that aggressiveness appears to offset the effect of the airbag for the driver and increases the risk of death to others. Cars outfitted with antilock brakes are driven faster, more carelessly, and closer to the car in front, braked more abruptly, and have no lower accident rate per hour of exposure than cars without these devices. Similarly, with better road lighting motorists drive faster and pay less attention."
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I dunno. If it was 15 yro me on a bike that had just been hit by a car, I'd be pretty freaked out too, even without cops trying to detain me. But as I was a white suburban kid, my gut tells me they still wouldn't pepper spray me just for non-compliance and swearing. Knowing they'd cut me that slack just because I'm white... it makes me feel literally nauseous.
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The real problem is cops using force at all. Police should be trained first in foremost in deescalation, and in most countries, they are.
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Wow. That's f+%~ed up and unacceptable. Those officers should be disciplined, fired, and possibly arrested. I mean, damn.
Realistically, they're not gonna get arrested, but something should certainly happen to them.
The thing about this that most sticks in my craw is that the law-and-order, she-had-it-coming types are the very same people who scream about how everything the government does is tyranny. Can you say cognitive dissonance?
In fairness, this isn't universal. I know that most people I know personally (myself included) who complain about tyrannical government policies would use this as an example of such policies rather than defending it.
The real problem is cops using force at all. Police should be trained first in foremost in deescalation, and in most countries, they are.
I dunno about 'first and foremost'. Cops do also deal with situations where deescalation isn't possible, after all, and need to be prepared for those as well. Still, they should definitely receive more training in deescalation than they do. The increasing militarization of the US police force is a real problem that's been ongoing for some time now.
Honestly, given the pure number of black people who've been in the media for being shot in questionable circumstances, it's not a huge surprise that a child, already upset from being involved in a car accident and likely in shock and pain, wasn't being cooperative.
...frankly, it's assault, the officer involved should be charged. He was not defending himself, he was not in danger, nor was anyone else. I mean, literally the best argument here is a that a child who was involved in an accident, was in pain and in shock, was not cooperating by moving her feet so she got sprayed in the face with stuff designed to stun aggressive adult attackers into being unable to do anything but roll around and scream.
Seriously...if any one else pumped pepper spray into a child's eyes for not moving their feet, or anything short of 'they had a knife and were trying to plant it in my kidneys' it wouldn't even be a question. Simply going 'I'm a cop!' does not justify everything.
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Considering that LE has a penchant for murdering unarmed black men and women (and the occasional white man) for no reason what oever? Also considering that she'd just been involved with a car accident and was probably shaken up if not in shock? I think wanting to get the hell away from those officers might have just been her survival impulse kicking in.
When I look at police I used to say to myself "Stay away from them and you'll be alright. They dont want anything to do with you and yoiu dont want anything to do with them."
Now when I look at them I wonder if they're just going to decide to antagonize then murder me or my son or my wife too for that matter. For no good reason. Because thats's what they're doing. It only seems worse because there's video of everything now. And people like Nenkota Moon would be defending them unilaterally saying that we had it coming because...REASONS.
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What should these officers have done? (Thats an honest question, I get they overacted, but im curious what could have been done to deescalate this?)
It somewhat depends on facts which I haven't seen released.
For example, was there even any reason to question the kid? I haven't seen anything about damage to the car or anything like that... so why did the police need to talk to her at all? Why couldn't they have just let her go?
If they DID need to talk to her... they STILL could have let her go. She was on a bicycle. They had automobiles. It would be a simple matter to follow her home and then talk to her parents.
Once they had decided to detain her and she flipped out I don't see any additional problems with their actions (from what was shown) until the pepper spraying. Whether the door was fully or only mostly closed there clearly wasn't room for her legs to be blocking it any more. Even if she had her feet against the door, which doesn't seem possible to me given how far she swung her legs in to the car, they could have simply pushed it closed. If that were somehow impossible they also could have reached down and pushed her feet in... or gone to the other side of the car and pulled her in so that her feet were clear (note, she was cuffed behind her back)... or they could have simply waited for her to comply.
In no case was pepper spraying a remotely reasonable response to the situation.
But apparently if youre a white woman you can get away with something like this without getting pepper sprayed OR shot.
EDIT: She actually was tasered.
But I'm pretty sure if that suspect was black and male that cop would have opened fire. They've killed people for much less.
Presuming that they had just cause to restrain her, it's a 15 year old girl and multiple police officers. I have trouble believing they couldn't have hauled her over to close the door on the police vehicle.
But apparently if youre a white woman you can get away with something like this without getting tasered, pepper sprayed OR shot.
Actually she WAS getting tasered before she tried to drive away, so perhaps not the best example.
The tasing probably was in part responsible for her freaking out and trying to drive away with the cop still in tow.
But apparently if youre a white woman you can get away with something like this without getting tasered, pepper sprayed OR shot.
Actually she WAS getting tasered before she tried to drive away, so perhaps not the best example.
The tasing probably was in part responsible for her freaking out and trying to drive away with the cop still in tow.
My mistake, I'll edit accordingly.
By the way, could someone link the video here?
Now when I look at them I wonder if they're just going to decide to antagonize then murder me or my son or my wife too for that matter. For no good reason. Because thats's what they're doing. It only seems worse because there's video of everything now. And people like Nenkota Moon would be defending them unilaterally saying that we had it coming because...REASONS.
But how dare you suggest the actual reason: You're black.
The sad truth is that would have gone down very differently if it had been a white girl.
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I don't agree with anyone that says this "It's a good idea to pepper spray people to get them to submit to authority."
The problem is police in bad areas have a s+&% job constantly dealing with criminals and angry people with little pay. So people with little better than a security guard's level of training get hired just so they have enough officers on the street. Because the people who have a lot better qualifications go get jobs in nicer areas. So you end up with a choice bad cops or no cops. Yeah it sucks. Yeah it's abusive at times. BUT it is MUCH better than no cops and then the guys running the street would be criminals, and the criminals won't be nearly as nice.
This is only made worse by all the negative media attention on cops. If a kid is looking to start a career he is going to see all that and go be a fireman or a medic instead. And the pool of good officers shrinks more creating more poorly trained people on the job leading to more abusive events leading to more media attention...
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But ignoring misbehavior and letting it go won't improve the situation. That's the reason things have the reached the level they have, many people had been trying to talk about the subject for decades. It reached the point that police abuse had become a punchline, but still the majority refused to believe it. Now there's cell phone cameras everywhere and people are suddenly shocked by how much systemic abuse there is.
In short, not talking about problems like his only ever make the problem worse. The negative media attention is a requirement for the problem to be ameliorated.
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Or at least to make the conversation go "What can be done so we don't have this happen again?"
The media attention is just reducing the number of officers... While it does bring up the question "what can be done?" Really there are only a few things available;
- Make strict national training requirements for officers (this would reduce the number of officers making the problem worse)
- Eliminate the police. (This has all sorts of problems)
- Make those crap jobs desirable by making them pay generously. (This isn't going to happen in the areas that need it most because they can barely pay their officers now. And it would be an incredibly hard sell to the public to support a highly paid police force when they already don't trust the cops)
What should these officers have done? (Thats an honest question, I get they overacted, but im curious what could have been done to deescalate this?)
Throw her feet to the side, quickly slam the door. Zip tie her legs together. Probably a dozen other options. She's a 15 year old girl, not the Rock.
Or try to actually get her to calm down, but that would require actual effort and a higher IQ from these cops, which is apparently asking too much.
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What should these officers have done? (Thats an honest question, I get they overacted, but im curious what could have been done to deescalate this?)Throw her feet to the side, quickly slam the door. Zip tie her legs together. Probably a dozen other options. She's a 15 year old girl, not the Rock.
Or try to actually get her to calm down, but that would require actual effort and a higher IQ from these cops, which is apparently asking too much.
It did appear that the pepper spraying was out of frustration, which is very unfortunate. I appreciate the comments though I have no experience with situations like this so i'm not sure what the right behavior should be. Clearly pepper spraying a teen is out of order.
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The worst situation I heard of in Sweden was an epileptic who had had a seizure unnoticed by anyone while out on town. He was postictal, which is a difficult situation due to poor inhibition, swaying, aggressiveness. A group of cops found him like that. They assumed he was a junkie and proceeded to beat the living daylights out of him.
Generally, when I have tried to talk to policemen about the importance of showing restraint in using violence even if someone is not instantly complying... they do not even understand the question. They say "oh, that is no problem. If that happens, I just evaluate the risk of the situation and apply the correct amount of force."
We send the police out there because we want to keep people safe. We want a better result than sending out soldiers to kill everyone who does something suspicious. To do their job, the policemen need to be human and have a sense of empathy. It isn't all an equation about the level of risk. And if risk needs to be taken, the policemen are who we pay to take those risks. Safety is NOT job one for a cop. If we do not pay them enough, then that needs to be addressed, but that is another discussion.
We send the police out there because we want to keep people safe. We want a better result than sending out soldiers to kill everyone who does something suspicious. To do their job, the policemen need to be human and have a sense of empathy. It isn't all an equation about the level of risk. And if risk needs to be taken, the policemen are who we pay to take those risks. Safety is NOT job one for a cop. If we do not pay them enough, then that needs to be addressed, but that is another discussion.
I disagree. If you were getting paid little to deal with criminals and people who were openly hostile toward you doing your job how long till you became bitter and lost this saint like empathy you feel officers should have? Not long I suspect. Why? Because officers are human too and humans get frustrated when forced to deal with negativity at a moments notice. So when your seeing abusive behavior (and YES the behavior is wrong) then you CAN'T fix it till you understand why it is happening. And unless your actively working toward a solution all this negative press just makes things worse. How? First by turning the public even more hostile toward the police making the cops out there even more likely to make poor decisions, and secondly by driving the good guys away from the crappy jobs making it even more likely the officer you are going to have to deal with is a bad one.
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The only thing you would get by increasing the salary of bad policemen is better paid bad policemen. The principles for how you should do such an important job are so central that if you are willing to ignore them because you aren't paid enough to care, more pay isn't going to make you follow them.
First I just like to say that I love the intelligent and clear way you guys introduce your points. It is so refreshing. No veiled hostility or any of the pointless stuff that you see on major social media.
So It looks like police officer pay is low making good cops go elsewhere leaving the bad ones (kind of the same thing that happens to teachers) Its a systemic problem. Police get payed by tax money I do believe. Maybe These major city's that are underpaying their important people (cops teacher fire fighters etc. <these seem pretty darn important) Should if necessary raise taxes or find a better way to use what they have. If you figure out much it costs to deal with the symptoms of the current system It might be cheaper in the long run to pay higher taxes or cut from other places.
Just thinking that if your in a world where people are better educated crime should go down if your in a world where cops lead a more comfortable life and have less monetary worries at home they might be more patient and understanding on the job.
pepper spraying a child is infuriating and you guys are doing a great job keeping those emotions in check in terms of your posts. (sigh now if i can avoid it on facebook)