
George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter - mimixco
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/1/d/1YmZeSxpz52qT-10tkCjWOwOGkQqle7Wd1P7ZM1wMW0E/htmlview?pru=AAABcql6DI8*mIHYeMnoj9XWUp3Svb_KZA
======
kthejoker2
If there ever was a case of "don't comment unless you've RTFA" this it: people
extrapolating their viewpoint on a list of 700 things from watching 1, 2, 3
...

At a minimum, watch 100 videos. I did last night, only took about an hour,
it's easy to find some to nitpick, some which are ambiguous ... and plenty
that are totally horrifying.

If you can watch 100 videos in a row from Greg Doucette's list and say, "the
militarization and use of force tactics of US law enforcement are not a
problem" then I'd like to hear why you think so given this evidence.

Otherwise you're not speaking from an honest grappling with what these videos
contain.

~~~
lazyjones
This is a clear attempt to manipulate opinion, I don't know why HN leaves it
up. You could watch 100 videos of disgusting malpractices in restaurant
kitchens and begin to think you should never eat in a restaurant again. If
after watching carefully select and cut videos on a Twitter propaganda account
you believe the police has a systemic issue, you're falling for the same trap.
It's the same way media manipulate you with their carefully chosen
"interviews" with random people on the street.

~~~
lvs
I don't think society is looking for police to be an average good. That is,
we're not looking to optimize on the statistical mean of police interactions.
We are concerned particularly about the tails. The outliers _are_ the problem,
particularly when they're not as uncommon as we expect them to be. You may
call them propaganda, but that's a strange thing to post on an enumerated list
of recorded evidence.

~~~
black_puppydog
I agree, but also, calling them "outliers" is exactly the foregone conclusion
that people in the streets are questioning.

------
DeonPenny
The fact that is even possible is insane. Imagine there being over 700 videos
of pilots messing up in one month, 700 crane operator mishaps in a month, 700+
food poising by a chain in a month. The also imagine you believe there's no
problem.

This is Ba Sing Se levels of delusion for some people.

~~~
spike021
>This is Ba Sing Se levels of delusion for some people.

A reference I never expected to see on HN.

It's insane, but then you realize that a significant portion of the US
population _still_ only watches television news media and refuses to spend
extra time looking at other sources, like Twitter.

~~~
simonebrunozzi
Neither you or the parent poster explained what "Ba Sing Se" is. I quickly
discovered that it is a reference to a city in "The last Airbender" [0].

I don't want to watch three seasons of it just to understand the reference. A
very obscure reference might deserve an explanation to make the remaining
99.9% of the readers able to understand what you mean.

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar:_The_Last_Airbender#Ba_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar:_The_Last_Airbender#Ba_Sing_Se)

~~~
MathCodeLove
Not really very obscure. It's an incredibly popular show and I would be
willing to bed that at minimum 50% of coworkers would understand the
reference.

I don't think it's very difficult to use context to understand what's being
said by the commenter.

~~~
hellofunk
> at minimum 50% of coworkers would understand the reference

Quick spot check in my company's Slack channel -- One person in our team of 12
knew what the reference met.

------
supportlocal4h
When one 737 Max crashed, some pointed the finger at the pilots.

When a second one crashed, the focus quickly shifted.

It is a common attitude in aviation that even pilot error is really a systems
fault. Perhaps opposing buttons are too close together, or some control
requires attention to be diverted at the wrong time, or pilots are allowed to
fly too many hours without adequate rest, or plenty of other things that could
contribute to predictable human failure.

It seems obvious that we can predict human failure in current policing. If two
incidents with a 737 lead to an indefinite grounding, what's the right number
for this situation?

In the case of the airplane, grounding does not create a public safety issue.
And there are, of course, many alternatives that can keep the overall system
up and running in the meantime. The solution to police brutality requires much
more thought.

~~~
jairofloress
“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create
weak men. And, weak men create hard times.” Its a cycle we already saw so many
times, I believe with so many movements asking for rights, that this is "weak
men" part creating hard times.

Mexico did a while ago what so many people is asking for, disband a security
corp, result? The Zetas.

Why people is ignoring statistics? People kill people of the same race.

Many of that videos is just a bunch of violent people being put as victims by
others people agenda. Is like your big brother hits you, then you hit back and
just you are punished.

Be careful and thoughtful in your judgments. If possible try to look back in
history and search an alike situation outcome.

~~~
softawre
I don't think any reasonable person is suggesting we fully defund or disband
the police. They are suggesting that by giving police military style gear it
incentivizes them to use it.

Instead of giving the police this crazy gear, we should redirect that money
into training for the police. Or maybe some of it should go to schools.

~~~
monocasa
There is a pretty good argument around fully disbanding the police; and it
appears to be the stance that Minneapolis is taking.

The idea being that for the roles you'd traditionally want police to cover
(response to violent crime), they've successfully received case law that
doesn't require that to be one of their duties.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia)
And nearly everything else is better handled by social worker like positions
addressing the root issues. Police shouldn't be mental health professionals.
It's just cheaper to give homeless housing than constantly fine and jail them.
The war on drugs has been a policing failure, just like alcohol prohibition
was. Low level traffic infractions tend to just be an extra revenue generation
scheme aimed at the poor. etc.

We've also got data on the idea that the policing causes crime, from when the
NYPD went on strike 2014-2015, and the crime rate plummeted.
[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-017-0211-5](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-017-0211-5)

And we've spent decades trying to reform in place, without much progress,
because structurally they don't want reform and kneecap the reforms at every
opportunity. Better to dump the whole system and it's nomenclature, and
rebuild what pieces we want with new roles.

------
jennyyang
The thing that really makes things worse is that the police are causing most
of these protests and riots with their violent, unwarranted behavior.

This triggers riots and protests, which require the police to work overtime.

They get paid for causing all these problems, and well paid. Their overtime
costs must be tremendous. And who ends up paying? We do.

We should claw back police overtime pay for any protests or riots that are
caused by the police themselves. I think that's fair and equitable.

~~~
krzyk
Don't throw all police officers into one bucket.

You have some outliers that are violent and the rest just does their job -
keeping the city more safe.

Also don't assume all cases of police officer shooting a person are cases of
police brutality - this is for court to prove.

~~~
watwut
If this would be the case, the rest would report the violent ones, would
testify against them and violent ones would be removed. This would happen in
cases where is no video and no public outcry.

That it does not seem to be happening unless there is video and public outcry
suggest the issue is cultural and institutional, not just individual. The good
cop is not reporting bad cop and is not testifying against him. Maybe the good
cop would be retaliated against, maybe nothing would be done, and all of those
are reasons why bad cops are empowered.

~~~
krzyk
Would you report your fellow in company that e.g. goes late to work? Or uses
corporate assets (printer, laptop) for personal things?

This is similar, if you know someone you have less incentive to report on one.

The better you know them, the higher is the bar for reporting.

~~~
ashtonkem
No, someone showing up late to work and someone else violently beating or
murdering a citizen is not the same thing. At all.

Those two scenarios are so far apart, attempting to draw a comparison is
disturbing.

~~~
krzyk
OK, let me make it more clear.

Let's assume two cases:

1\. A programmer, his work involves programming (obvious), going to meetings,
printing some reports/codes etc.

The biggest problem he can do is introduce bugs in code by mistake (yes, lives
can be lost that way), would you expect his peers to tell on him that he was
the guy that introduced a bug that killed 300 people in a plane crash?

2\. A cop, his job involves preventing crimes, event violent ones, so he
sometimes need to use his gun to prevent some of it, and sometimes he has to
shoot a criminal.

His mistakes might be killing innocent person. Same thing can happen to his
colleagues, so they protect him (just like any sane community would, like your
family) - at least unless he turns out to be some sick sociopath.

Do you see relevance now? If you play with code you can just break code, if
you play with guns you can break lives.

A side from that I don't get it why there are so many people that trash cops,
but don't say a bad word about looters.

Cops protect us from crimes, small and big. They provide order, there are
always black sheep, but there are less of those than you think - good guys
also make mistakes.

Without a force that provides protection from crimes we would turn into
vendetta like justice - have you been to countries that just went out of war?
e.g. after the fall of Yugoslavia, there was no police there only tribe and
vendetta justice.

Each utopia turns into dystopia sooner or later (CHAZ).

~~~
ashtonkem
Your example excludes intent.

If I thought my coworker had deliberately introduced a bug that killed 300
people, I would absolutely turn them in. There is absolutely no question in my
mind that I would do that.

But cops do not turn in their own when they deliberately abuse their power.
They in fact _resign in protest_ when their own are investigated (Buffalo,
NY), and turn out in support when their own are arraigned for abuses of power
(Philadelphia, PA).

~~~
krzyk
Intent is not obvious, unless you have evidence and that is to court to prove,
beyond any reasonable doubt.

Intent to kill is something a sociopath does, do you think police force has
more of them than the rest of society?

There was a time when vigilant justice didn't need court, but I don't think we
want that to return (witch hunts in middle ages or lynching in 19th and early
20th century USA).

~~~
jennyyang
> Intent to kill is something a sociopath does, do you think police force has
> more of them than the rest of society?

Actually, yes, they are filled with sociopaths. It's well known that lower-
intelligence people become police. The police actively reject candidates with
higher intelligence because the theory is that they become bored.

Also, it's well known that the occupation attracts bullies, who love the idea
of bullying people and having power over regular citizens.

What you end up having is a group of low-IQ bullies, and they control the
entire police force, because the "good" cops don't want to rock the boat. The
stupid, boisterous bullies are the ones that create the culture of silence and
complicity, and ultimately violence. I believe that cops love the idea that
they are at war against the common citizen, which is why they draw their guns
and escalate situations even before anything has happened.

~~~
krzyk
> It's well known that lower-intelligence people become police.

Any data?

> Also, it's well known that the occupation attracts bullies, who love the
> idea of bullying people and having power over regular citizens.

Again, data? Isn't it easier to become crook? More pay, less control, more
freedom.

I know they are not PhDs but come on.

What you are doing is exactly the same what others do to different
races/genders/nationalities, just replace "police" in your sentences with
"black", "yellow", "women", "jewish" etc.

Hate against whole occupation, thousands of people. People start poisoning
them (have you seen what happened in NY?), their children are bullied at
schools.

Pure and simple hate crime.

------
mimixco
I know politics isn't the usual HN topic, but I think this goes beyond
politics at this point. Until I saw this list, I had no idea how out of
control this situation has gotten here.

I'm saddened for my country and hope that this can be a turning point for all
of us.

~~~
bufferoverflow
Is it out of control though? The police has 700K members in the US. Millions
of daily interactions with people of all kinds. All you could find is 400
cases from ALL the years. And I guess the claim is brutality wasn't justified
in every single case. In reality there are not 400 cases on that list, and in
many cases the violence was justified.

I'm not saying the police doesn't do wrong, they absolutely do. We have
examples of rapes, unjustified murders and beatings, entrapment. They are
extremely rare. I think last year the police in the US killed 9 unarmed black
men and 21 unarmed white men.

~~~
danShumway
> All you could find is 400 cases from ALL the years.

These aren't from all the years, they're from approximately May 26th of this
year. It's 400 cases in the last 3-4 weeks.

That is a startlingly high number, made worse once you actually start digging
into the individual incidents, because you realize they're not just isolated.
A lot of these videos aren't, "a single police officer does something shifty",
they're, "an entire police unit starts firing tear gas at protestors who are
kneeling on the ground." And then you start to read the responses from police
unions, some of which outright lie about the incidents or contradict the
videos. This isn't a problem with individual officers, it's a problem with
high-level commanders and police union leaders -- it's a problem that spans
entire units.

I personally went through about 200 incidents for a separate project I was
working on, some more in-depth than others. I think people are looking at
these lists and thinking, "oh sure, but if you zoom in and examine each
incident, it gets better." It really doesn't. It didn't take me long to get
accustomed to seeing people tear-gassed, those videos don't even make me blink
now. But even with that, I was regularly shocked while I was combing through
videos with incidents that I wasn't prepared for.

"Tear gas, tear gas, tear gas, holy heck that police officer just body slammed
a protestor! Tear gas, tear gas, holy crap they just punched a reporter in the
face!"

And again, 4 weeks. Not years. I would challenge anyone who's saying that
these are extremely rare or over-dramatized to sit down and devote an evening
to just watching the videos in series. It weighs on you. And it quickly
becomes obvious that these are not individual rogue officers, these are police
units operating in an environment where they know they will not face
consequences for hurting protestors.

~~~
vegai_
>These aren't from all the years, they're from approximately May 26th of this
year. It's 400 cases in the last 3-4 weeks.

But... aren't there riots everywhere right now? This isn't exactly a normal
situation.

~~~
ss3000
What does the existence of riots have anything to do with these instances of
police brutality on _peaceful_ protestors?

~~~
vegai_
Everything is connected to everything. If you have riots everywhere then
people, including police, are on the edge.

Also, are you suggesting that the riots are peaceful?

~~~
gwd
> Also, are you suggesting that the riots are peaceful?

So apparently you haven't watched any of the videos, huh?

Guess what? The problem is that _police are frequently "on edge"_ in their
normal jobs, and as a result _innocent people are seriously injured or die_.
And worse, police are "on edge" far more around blacks than whites, meaning
far more blacks are injured by police than whites.

It doesn't matter what the cause is, it's a problem and is has to stop.

~~~
vegai_
>So apparently you haven't watched any of the videos, huh?

Yes, I watched a few from this link, and that admittedly small sample didn't
show a single peaceful protester being abused by cops. I suppose you watched
more of them?

>Guess what? The problem is that police are frequently "on edge" in their
normal jobs, and as a result innocent people are seriously injured or die. And
worse, police are "on edge" far more around blacks than whites, meaning far
more blacks are injured by police than whites.

Could there be a reason for some of that that is not linked to racism? Are
only white policemen more on-edge around black people?

>It doesn't matter what the cause is, it's a problem and is has to stop.

I can agree with that certainly.

~~~
gwd
> Yes, I watched a few from this link, and that admittedly small sample didn't
> show a single peaceful protester being abused by cops.

TGD #1 shows a woman standing with a sign being run over by a horse. That's
absolutely peaceful.

TGD #2 shows a woman who was walking backwards in front of a police officer
being shoved so hard she flies several meters back and hits her head on the
curb. She was in the officer's face, but she certainly wasn't doing anything
close to rioting.

I'll watch more later, but so far that's 2/2 at the top of the list showing
peaceful protesters being abused.

> Could there be a reason for some of that that is not linked to racism? Are
> only white policemen more on-edge around black people?

Depends on what you mean by "racism". There was a series of studies a few
years ago that put people in classic "shoot / no shoot" scenarios that police
are trained on (i.e., you go through a scenario and have to shoot someone
before they shoot you, but only if there's actually a gun). They randomly
changed the color of the skin of the people involved. Civilians shot far more
blacks than whites in "no-shoot" scenarios. Police shot about the same, _but_
there was a longer delay: meaning, their impulse was to shoot blacks faster,
but their training allowed a secondary impulse to come in and moderate the
first one. (Sorry I can't find a link just now.)

But there are a host of other issues as well.

~~~
vegai_
>There was a series of studies a few years ago that put people in classic
"shoot / no shoot" scenarios that police are trained on (i.e., you go through
a scenario and have to shoot someone before they shoot you, but only if
there's actually a gun). They randomly changed the color of the skin of the
people involved. Civilians shot far more blacks than whites in "no-shoot"
scenarios. Police shot about the same, but there was a longer delay: meaning,
their impulse was to shoot blacks faster, but their training allowed a
secondary impulse to come in and moderate the first one. (Sorry I can't find a
link just now.)

That sounded interesting, so I tried to find some.

First one I found was this
[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235256692_Results_f...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235256692_Results_from_experimental_trials_testing_participant_responsesto_White_Hispanic_and_Black_suspects_in_high-
fidelity_deadlyforce_judgment_and_decision-making_simulations)

\-- the conclusion seemed to be exactly counter to what the research you were
talking about showed. "In addition, where errors were made, participants
across experiments were more likely to shoot unarmed White suspects than
unarmed Black or Hispanic suspects, and were more likely to fail to shoot
armed Black suspects than armed White or Hispanic suspects."

------
lorthemar
There needs to be a psychology study done with cops to understand why they act
the way they do. I believe there's an underlying problem in how they are
trained or something else because police brutality is kind of a global
phenomenon. When someone kills or severely hurts the people they are supposed
to protect, it seems like there's something else going on. I've been in a few
protests and I can easily say that I have never seen more hatred in someone's
eyes other than the cops that were beating up people.

~~~
deepersprout
> because police brutality is kind of a global phenomenon

No it's not. Police in Europe is, on average, very kind. When they stop you,
you don't have to be afraid of anything, and more often than not you stop them
to ask for help, even if it's just to ask for directions.

~~~
lm28469
You don't have to worry about getting killed, even though that's changing
slowly [0][1], but many of them are authority abusive pieces of shit that have
no place in the police.

I've been stopped on my motorcycle for no reasons by officers in an unmarked
car, they kept me 30 min on the road under full summer sun and didn't provide
me any reason for stopping me whatsoever. "don't do crimes and the police will
leave you alone" doesn't exist

My dad got a ticket for using his mobile phone in a stopped car (engine off,
parked) even though he didn't own a mobile phone. I can't come up with a
single good interaction me or any member of my family had with the police and
as far as I can tell I'm far from the only one.

A quick look at the yellow vests protest will tell you that French riot police
are just the same as the American one. They killed a grandma by shooting a
tear gas canister into her 4th floor flat [2].. Dozen lost hands, eyes, & c.
The only reason it isn't worse is because they're less equipped and have more
legal constraints

Potentially nsfl, lost of yellow vests injuries with pics:
[http://lemurjaune.fr](http://lemurjaune.fr)

[0]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Adama_Traoré](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Adama_Traoré)

[1]
[https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.lexpress.fr/actualite/socie...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.lexpress.fr/actualite/societe/mort-
d-un-livreur-apres-une-interpellation-le-plaquage-ventral-une-pratique-
decriee_2113719.amp.html)

[2] [https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.leparisien.fr/amp/faits-
div...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.leparisien.fr/amp/faits-
divers/marseille-deces-d-une-femme-blessee-par-une-grenade-
lacrymogene-03-12-2018-7959639.php)

~~~
saiya-jin
I've got stopped close to midnight by Swiss border police once, coming from
rock climbing session over the border. You would expect Swiss politeness and
correctness, right?

I got held at the (utterly empty otherwise) border for 40 minutes. They went
through my whole backpack (just wet stinking climbing clothing equipment), did
some obscure exercises like taking out all my cash & cards from wallet,
counting it, putting into envelope and then back to me and so on.

I was super thirsty, when I asked them for a cup of water they repeatedly
ignored it. They yelled at me and were generally super unfriendly, treating me
like a criminal. I cross normally (non-covid times) that border several times
a week, never anything similar. You can't do much, they have all the power,
and they make you feel it.

This is Swiss, don't hold your breath for other european places. There are
sane normal policemen, just like everywhere, but there are also fucked up
power tripping assholes. They just can be more trigger-happy in places like
US.

------
fzeroracer
There's also a Github repo [1] which was posted a while ago containing various
instances of police brutality as well as other sites using said data to better
illustrate the problem.

[1] [https://github.com/2020PB/police-
brutality](https://github.com/2020PB/police-brutality)

------
alkonaut
Some ideas:

\- Less immunity, and discharge without pension for blatant violations, for
example being caught on camera hiding a badge, or deliberately bumping into
someone to be able to argue that they were "assaulted".

\- Longer police traning. A 6-12months is how long you should train to be an
unarmed mall security guy. Two or three years for a policeman seems like a
minimum if you want qualified officers.

\- Federal overview of all police and common frameworks for what is allowed
and expected by police officers.

\- Only qualified policemen should be allowed to be managers anywhere in the
hierarchy (e.g. running for a Sheriff should require police traning and N
years of experience).

\- More training focus on deescalation, dialog and avoiding dangerous
situations.

\- Mental health screening. You don't want anyone who would become violent
when in the wrong situation.

~~~
z9e
Yes. And this is quite the opposite of the current “defund the police”
initiative. We actually need to fund them more to get the above to happen.

~~~
alkonaut
I think people are sick of departments getting more funds and buying mine
protected vehicles instead of sending officers to deescalation refresher
classes.

~~~
GhostVII
Most of those military vehicles are actually extremely cheap, they are given
to the police by the military when the military no longer needs them. I think
this was partially as a response to the north Hollywood shooting, where two
bank robbers outgunned the police and injured a couple dozen officers and
civilians before being killed.

------
yowlingcat
We might not be able to agree about everything, but can we at least agree that
it's in everyone's best interest to have an increasing amount of the world
have a generally secure, stable, unconditional personal access to food,
housing, education, healthcare, and a labor market and can lives in a society
with reasonable laws that they can practically obey?

Even if we don't contribute to that personally, can we at least agree to try
to avoid doing things to other countries that get in the way of doing that, in
really obvious ways like not randomly bombing them and pretending? Can we just
admit to ourselves that a lot of global military expenditure is just a certain
kind of make work? As Americans, can we then really not think of a slightly
more efficient way to allocate the $7.3T that the American government raises
every year from tax revenue, much of which we just light on fire policing
things parts of people's lives unnecessarily?

Come on. I'm sure we can. This is like taking your hand off the literal stove.
I know how horrible this all looks, and it is horrible, but it's also really
easy to propose a solution to it. Divest and reinvest. It could be so many
flavors of divest and reinvest, and still be a good enough improvement over
how things are right now that it would be the most impressive piece of
legislation for probably a 100 year span of time if not 200 years. There has
to be an opportunistic, ambitious K-street lobbyist or two reading this,
right? Wanna take credit for bringing America out of the dark ages? Come
on...you know you want to. Now's your chance.

The bar is at the floor. You could write the dirtiest honker of a bill you've
ever seen that it could make the ACA look clean. As long as it achieves the
right divestments (global windmill fighting) and reinvestments (domestic
production infrastructure), you're on the right track. You don't even have to
get it completely right the first time. Perfect is the enemy of done here.
Just something major and timely, which lets you evangelize divest and
reinvest. You can even rebrand it as "digital transformation" if you really
want. I would promise to never judge it as management consultant grifting
again.

Because if not...I don't know how long this situation will hold. Those riots
are just a taste of unease to come, and eventually, the federal branches of
the government will understand how much more powerless they are with
dislocation of their local constituencies. Someone is going to figure out how
to relocate those constituencies.

~~~
luckylion
> Can we just admit to ourselves that a lot of global military expenditure is
> just a certain kind of make work?

Being the imperial power has vast benefits, do you think Rome ruled its
provinces just so they had a way to spend money? Being the global power is
literally worth money. It's hard to say how much, but I'm pretty sure it's
larger than your military expenses.

That said, I'd love to see the US cut back, because your benefit comes at
somebody else's cost.

 _If_ the net benefit to the US is positive however, do you believe the
majority of people would be happy to work more to have the same standard of
living, or the majority of well-off Americans would be happy to pay European
level taxes to redistribute wealth within the US? I have sincere doubts on
both fronts.

~~~
Miner49er
While I agree it's worth money, I'm skeptical that the average American sees
any of that money.

All the money made being an imperial power just lines the pockets of the rich.

------
fareesh
From what I understand, all of these people are breaking curfew and ignoring
instructions to leave the area, and in some cases are acting belligerent when
confronted, and this is happening at scale.

Is the expectation that curfew is an order that should not be enforced in the
strictest sense?

From what I could see on the news, parts of your country were being burned
down and looted by some rogue elements who used the cover of peaceful protests
to spring into action. To protect the lives and livelihoods of those affected,
a curfew was imposed, which was then violated. If I lived in those areas I
would have liked to see the curfew enforced as harshly as possible because if
it is not enforced then I will lose the local businesses who I depend on to
live in that area.

What is the expected approach to law enforcement when extreme measures like
curfew orders are not obeyed, particularly during a pandemic?

A lot of these videos seem to be omitting the all-important context. In my
country I would _want_ the police to beat the ever loving expletive out of
people who do go out in large crowds during a pandemic. I would _want_ the
police to use all measures available at their disposal to injure and dissuade
people from breaking a curfew and unwittingly providing cover for criminals.

Perhaps in first world countries life has become soft and comfortable so there
is some expectation of civil behavior from everyone in society, but clearly
that has not happened in the USA and many other countries.

Many of the protests are peaceful, and a lot of anger can be easily empathized
with, I can't imagine anyone who was not furious after seeing these horrible
videos of police inflicted killings. Under no circumstances can I be convinced
that looting and rioting is an acceptable outcome. If protesters know that
their peaceful assembly is being hijacked by criminals who go out and loot and
riot under the cover they provide, and they go out and protest more, then they
are complicit in the rioting.

Perhaps these are cultural differences, but coming from a police where the
police are infinitely more barbaric, corrupt, rude and ruthless than the USA,
I find the police doing the best they can to manage the absolute mess that the
citizens are creating.

You all live in a country where many police wear body cameras. That is
privileged beyond anything I can hope to imagine for my country. It's weird to
empathize with you when you have it so good.

~~~
ravingraven
>In my country I would want the police to beat the ever loving expletive out
of people who do go out in large crowds during a pandemic.

Maybe in your country blind, extrajudicial violence is not a no-no. This is
not the case in democratic countries.

>To protect the lives and livelihoods of those affected, a curfew was imposed,
which was then violated.

This is a) a slippery slope (a corrupt government would declare a curfew every
time it wanted to stop protests) and, b) it prioritizes material wealth over a
movement that wants to achieve social change (in the grand scheme of things,
decreasing racism is much more valuable that the stores of some
neighborhoods).

>Under no circumstances can I be convinced that looting and rioting is an
acceptable outcome.

Really? Under no circumstances? Social equality movements have produced riots
since time immemorial. Do you denounce the acts of Spartacus? The peasants
revolt? The French revolution?

People who claim this are usually ignorant about how social change is made.

~~~
fareesh
> Maybe in your country blind, extrajudicial violence is not a no-no. This is
> not the case in democratic countries.

Police all around the world use non-lethal force when the law is being broken
and the perpetrator is not cooperative. This is absolutely not blind or extra-
judicial. The whole point of this is to deter this kind of behaviour, and
police are equipped with batons etc. for this reason.

> This is a) a slippery slope (a corrupt government would declare a curfew
> every time it wanted to stop protests)

I would agree if this was the case in this instance but this is not the case -
there was a very obvious need for a curfew given the breakdown of law and
order. Death, destruction of property, theft, loss of livelihoods. This is not
what one expects in a civilized place.

Material wealth is a disingenuous framing. Someone's grocery shop is not
accurately categorised as material wealth - it is their source of livelihood
and it is a resource for the neighborhood. As President Obama pointed out in
his letter, we all watched that poor old lady sobbing about the fact that she
had nowhere else to go to buy groceries. To dismiss this kind of destruction
as loss of material wealth is not at all accurate.

> Social equality movements have produced riots since time immemorial. Do you
> denounce the acts of Spartacus? The peasants revolt? The French revolution?

I denounce anyone who sets the shop of a small storekeeper or restauraunteur
on fire, destroying their livelihood. You can go out into the streets and
protest but this kind of behaviour is unconscionable and wrong. Setting fire
to low income housing? How does this behavior help anyone? It's despicable.
Your country can afford to build actual homes for low income folks while
millions live in abject poverty and some rioter burns it down, and others
justify it as a legitimate protest.

You can enact social change through all sorts of violence but it is most
certainly not something that decent and civilized people ought to support.
Everyone is rightfully furious at the incident that sparked this entire
ordeal. The police presence on the streets was essential given the degree to
which people were misbehaving and committing crimes.

~~~
ravingraven
>Police all around the world use non-lethal force when the law is being broken
and the perpetrator is not cooperative. This is absolutely not blind or extra-
judicial. The whole point of this is to deter this kind of behaviour, and
police are equipped with batons etc. for this reason.

a) That it happens around the world (which by the way it does not, protesters
broke curfew laws in e.g. Germany and there was not nearly as much violence),
does not make it right and b) there was a lot of indiscriminate violence
against non-violent (just breaking curfew is non-violent) protesters. The
police have in no way the right to act violently upon just because you have
broken the law, the bar is much higher than that.

>I would agree if this was the case in this instance but this is not the
case...

Do you understand what "slippery slope" means? __This time __it was maybe not
the case.

>Death, destruction of property, theft, loss of livelihoods. This is not what
one expects in a civilized place.

While police stepping on the throat of an innocent civilian until he dies is
expected in a civilized place? Those riots did not spring up spontaneously
from nothing, they are a reaction to a situation.

>Material wealth is a disingenuous framing. Someone's grocery shop is not
accurately categorised as material wealth - it is their source of livelihood
and it is a resource for the neighborhood.

So... Material wealth. I don't see where I was disingenuous. Societal progress
is much more valuable than any shop.

>I denounce anyone who sets the shop of a small storekeeper or restauraunteur
on fire, destroying their livelihood.

So you do denounce all those things I mentioned. You understand that by not
having those things we would still live in a pre-feudal society, right? There
is no such thing as non-violent change, read a history book.

Should we be happy that a small storekeeper lost his shop? Absolutely not. But
we should see it from a historical perspective that this is how change
sometimes looks like.

>How does this behavior help anyone?

Again, read a history book. No one is focusing on the poor Roman store owner
who had his store burned down by rioting slaves in 70 B.C. No one is focusing
on some restaurant being burned down during the Watts riots in 1965. Those are
transient events that impact the few (as devastating as they might be for the
owners, they are but a drop in the ocean for society as a whole).

>You can enact social change through all sorts of violence but it is most
certainly not something that decent and civilized people ought to support.

Until you invent a better way, I will support social change by any means
necessary. You focus on the 10 owners who had their stores burned down once. I
focus on the millions who are repressed and killed every day.

------
ss3000
Disgusting. After things settle down, in addition to all the systematic reform
that will hopefully take place, I hope we can look back at these videos and
put all of these officers in jail for violating the constitution and betraying
their oath to protect and serve their communities.

It's finally time to put all that facial recognition tech to good use.

------
ardy42
Is there any effort being made to archive these videos? They're actual
history, and given the ephemeral nature of data on online platforms, most will
probably disappear in a few years without effort to preserve them.

~~~
adjkant
This repo has a nice data API and multiple different video download archives +
an open source download tool for the data

[https://github.com/2020PB/police-brutality](https://github.com/2020PB/police-
brutality)

------
p1necone
It would be good to stick these videos somewhere where they can't be taken
down.

~~~
dylan604
Suggestions? It seems like anyone that is able to provide a service to host
video would be just as likely to remove them for the same pressure. P2P
torrent with enough people seeding them to make it impossible to remove them
is the only thing that comes to mind.

~~~
p1necone
Yeah I was thinking a torrent too - seems like the only way to guarantee it
stays up.

~~~
Melting_Harps
> Yeah I was thinking a torrent too - seems like the only way to guarantee it
> stays up.

I'm up for helping, we did the same thing during HKs police brutality videos,
please consider seeding this as well; let me know how I can help.

[https://torrentz2.eu/9b85dd223c8f92c923f516ed77bbdfcb770f4dd...](https://torrentz2.eu/9b85dd223c8f92c923f516ed77bbdfcb770f4dd8)

Oh, also worth noting the HKPF/PLA just used the same knee-to-neck choke hold
on an unarmed female protestor during the 1 year Anniversary protests on June
12th [1].

1:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxDKfxFrEuY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxDKfxFrEuY)

------
thrownaway954
honestly... the biggest problems with the police is unions. you de-unionize
the police you will see all this stop in no time. over my life i have
witnessed personally numerous times when an officer should have been fired for
brutality or another offense, but the union used their negotiation power and
saved their job. cops know that as long as they have the power of the union
legal team behind them, that 99% of the time there will be no punishment or it
will be minimal.

cops are entitled because unions make them this way. take away their safety
net and you seeing more terminations and less bullies and entitled people
applying for the job.

------
hereme888
HN should stay away from this garbage.

Most of these videos are carefully edited to show one side of the story.
Others are stories sharing only their side of the story.

Protester brutality far exceeds police brutality. Criminal brutality faaar
exceeds police brutality. Yet the extremist leftists are calling to defund the
police, which leads to complete chaos and anarchy. Pathetic reasoning from a
stone-age, low-IQ perspective.

------
andreshb
Try building an app around it with glideapps.com for easier consumption by
journalists, activists, etc., I tried to add it to my drive so I could build
it but your settings will not allow me to do it

~~~
dylan604
You can understand why a document like this would need to be pretty locked
down I hope. While you might think an app is required, I'm pretty sure just
about anyone on a computer can read a spreadsheet. Also, I'd rather not need
an app to present the data in a spreadsheet in a manner the developer thinks
is useful. Just present the data, let the viewer consume it as they see fit.

------
marcell
There are lots and lots of mishaps in many professions, sometimes with deadly
consequences. The United States is a country of 330 million people. Suppose an
event is so unlikely it only has 1 in a billion chance of happening--it will
happen once ever 4 days on average!

Medical errors, for example, are estimated to cause as many as 250,000 deaths
per year [1].

There are millions and millions of daily interactions between police and
civilians every year. Sadly, there will be some mistakes, some of which will
be caught on camera.

It's important to be aware that what the media can be random, and media
coverage is not always correlated with how important or prevalent a problem
is.

[1] Johns Hopkins:
[https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/study_su...](https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/study_suggests_medical_errors_now_third_leading_cause_of_death_in_the_us)

~~~
zimpenfish
> Suppose an event is so unlikely it only has 1 in a billion chance of
> happening--it will happen once ever 4 days on average!

Ok, the EU has 445M citizens[1] which means, by your logic, there should
statistically be 40% more police "mistakes" than the US. Except there isn't.
It is _radically_ lower[2] (1536 for the USA in 2019 vs 51 for the EU in
2018/19).

[1] [https://europa.eu/european-union/about-
eu/figures/living_en](https://europa.eu/european-union/about-
eu/figures/living_en) [2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforc...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_by_country)

~~~
marcell
That's an interesting and valid point.

First, a disagreement. Your base assumption that police activity should scale
linearly with population. This is just obviously not correct. There are huge,
huge differences in countries and crime rates. You can look at differences in
homicide rate, for example [1]. The united states has a pretty shockingly high
homicide rate for a developed country (4.96 per 100k). This is 5x higher than
France or Germany. On the other end you have Japan, which is about 5x lower
than France or Germany (25x lower than United States).

But that aside, the important question is: is crime driving police activity,
or are the police widely malicious and corrupt? I'll admit that I'm not
knowledgable enough to give a good answer to this question, but I'm very
skeptical of jumping to a conclusion based on selective evidence on social
media or recent news coverage.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate)

------
jasonjayr
This is in the same vein as the cross word puzzle database mentioned
yesterday.

"When you get the data into a nice, clean, dense form, stuff just falls out of
it" \- Saul Pwanson

------
malwrar
I have no idea why people discussing these protests aren't focusing more on
this. How else do you capture "systemic problem" better than widespread
thuggish police behavior during countrywide protests about police brutality.
Of all the black civil rights activity in recent memory, this is probably one
of the most powerful methods of conveying to people the gravity of the issues
that black activists talk about.

------
Tomasz_Papka
Are there any videos of morons destroying private property, looting, stealing,
burning?

~~~
sfj
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVKDKWKR498Ut2m8H5oUEcA/vid...](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVKDKWKR498Ut2m8H5oUEcA/videos)

------
avivo
One related issue, is that right now, in COVID times, unnecessary arrests,
jailing, busing, etc. is in some abstract sense an application of potentially
lethal force -- since enclosed spaces and close contact makes COVID
transmission significantly more likely.

It seems important to understand how much that is happening and where. If that
data, in combination with protest size/type data is available, it can help us
better understand if protests or police are actually impacting COVID
transmission (if either).

If we don't have that data available as case numbers come in, it makes the
narrative of blaming protesters much more likely to stick, even if it turns
out to be inaccurate later, and e.g. the primary cause is unnecessary police
actions.

Is anyone doing this? (Does anyone want to start if not?)

~~~
throwaway888abc
Where Covid rules apply:

Home, Banks, Retail, Restaurants, Hospitals

Yes

Jails, Police station

No

Can you sue police if get sick ?

~~~
dillonmckay
I assume that is part of ‘qualified immunity’.

There is also the issue with police chiefs publicly declaring that they will
not enforce the orders of their governor.

So, that is a bigger problem to me...

Deciding to only enforce the laws you ‘like’.

------
xorfish
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforc...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_by_country)

The US looks more like a third world country than a developed nation.

------
bufferoverflow
I opened a couple of random ones. The first one was this link:

[https://twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1270402748895412224](https://twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1270402748895412224)

Which isn't an example of police brutality.

The second one was this:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsTkAOe5UTE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsTkAOe5UTE)

Basically a bunch of thugs attack random drivers. One of the thugs jumps into
a random car, the car stops, police come, pull the thug out, he resists, they
deal with him. I have zero sympathy for the thug.

If you want to create a list for this cause, at least make it good, make it
solid. Don't fill it with random junk to inflate the numbers.

~~~
fzeroracer
You're being massively disingenuous in the second example. A 'bunch of thugs'
means one person who was being chased by a group of officers and beaten while
he's trying to run. He's trying to get into a car to escape (admittedly a bad
idea), then when they catch up to him they beat him up, throw him to the
ground AND arrest the driver.

The fact that you chose to take the video so far out of context means you're
not here to argue in good faith at all. Said list isn't for people such as
yourself, where no level of evidence could convince you.

~~~
aganame
You are probably also taking it out of context. You have no idea what has
happened in that neighborhood in the last year or decade. You have no idea
what those perps and officers have experienced. Right?

~~~
danShumway
> in the last year or decade

> what those perps and officers have experienced

Both totally irrelevant to whether or not it's appropriate to punch a
handcuffed prisoner in the face while they're not resisting.

If a cop is suffering from PTSD or stress to the point where they can't keep
themselves from assaulting a handcuffed prisoner, then I am genuinely very
sorry for them, but they're still in the wrong job and they still need to be
let go.

~~~
markvdb
If the police officer is suffering from PTSD, a mental illness, and it
originated at work, the police department as their employer should look into
other options first before firing the unfit officer.

Treatment combined with appropriate work should be the first option. Treatment
combined with sick leave should obviously be the second.

~~~
danShumway
I'm willing to compromise on how treatment/employment is handled, especially
if the problem originated at work, but I assume we're still in agreement that
the officer shouldn't be on the street making arrests?

------
fulldecent2
Here is a project set up to review each of these individual reported
incidents.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/GeorgeFloydUnmasked/](https://www.reddit.com/r/GeorgeFloydUnmasked/)

There will need to be a lot of discussion // more than be traced using Twitter
// to solve any one of these incidents.

That's why we set up a Reddit for threaded discussion. This is Don't Fuck with
Cats style.

------
jonnypotty
Anyone thinks this is just a US issue is mistaken. This is what power does if
you really challenge it. The friendly face disappears pretty quick.

~~~
alkonaut
I don't think the problem of police brutality is nearly as big in western
Europe or other comparable places.

~~~
jonnypotty
You maybe right but I'm just saying people would do well to remember that this
is what the police are for. To control you. The idea their treatment of people
is down to "the law" is obviously false. They exert the power of the state.
This, brutality, this abuse of power would happen anywhere people have learnt
to dehumanise each other.

------
Gasp0de
I have always wished there was a platform where we could upload such videos
and collect evidence on certain cases of police brutality. With the use of
facial recognition software, it would also easily be possible to identify when
the same cop is involved in multiple conflicts.

------
trabant00
Watched first 10 videos with youtube links in the list:

url - description - what I see in the video

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4_yJjdsJ_0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4_yJjdsJ_0)
\- trampling a peaceful protestor with a horse - protester stepped into the
horse's way without looking in that direction, nobody's fault

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suTGneu7tZU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suTGneu7tZU)
\- Shoving an unarmed woman to the curb, prompting a seizure that put her in
the emergency room - police pushed somebody away from them, clip is cut right
at the push, we have no context on what prompted that

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eu1KRskL-0E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eu1KRskL-0E)
\- doing an intentional hit-and-run with a car door to an unarmed protestor
standing in the non-vehicular bike lane - protesters standing in the street in
front of emergency vehicles with their lights and sirens on, but the door hit
(minor) was definitely intentional and unnecessary

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOzn6rWbpwU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOzn6rWbpwU)
\- NYPD were just beating a variety of people earlier tonight because they
could - police try to arrest some people who are resisting, some other
protesters jump the police, police hit people with sticks, get them on the
ground, handcuff. No unnecessary violence I can see.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESAl1OK5V8Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESAl1OK5V8Y)
\- beating a variety of unarmed protestors for sport - line of policeman
pushing protesters back, nothing more

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8CPc_R5iEI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8CPc_R5iEI)
\- pepper-spraying a variety of unarmed protestors for sport - police pepper
spray protesters who got in their face insulting them, but where not violent.
Pepper spray unjustified from what I can tell

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGlRSPE2lL0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGlRSPE2lL0)
\- Minneapolis PD officer in an SUV indiscriminately sprays random citizens
with pepper spray from his car window - yes, because people where getting in
the way of police vehicles with lights/siren on in the middle of the street

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VH0HPW8Eagk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VH0HPW8Eagk)
\- detonating flashbang grenades in a docile crowd of unarmed protestors for
sport - video shot from very far away, we can see nothing of what is going on
there

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8G0WhaqBRb0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8G0WhaqBRb0)
\- shooting a random protestor in the neck with a rubber bullet, then
detonating more flash-bangs - people surrounding a building with policeman on
top, video of low quality with fingers in front of camera, from far away,
nothing I can understand

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftLzQefpBvM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftLzQefpBvM)
\- Police arresting CNN reportes on air - reporter gets arrested in a very
peaceful manner, both him and police are very chill. No context on why.

~~~
mountainboot
Just watched the first video. "protester stepped into the horse's way without
looking in that direction, nobody's fault". This is clearly not true.

~~~
trabant00
And what is your interpretation of the video then?

~~~
mountainboot
I don't believe you are asking in good faith. I am not going to engage with
you on this. I am just responding so that other people actually watch the
video rather than listen to your spin on it.

------
dannypgh
It's really just one bad apple.

Unfortunately the apple is the police and it's everywhere and armed.

~~~
s3cur3
“Okay, so there are a few bad orchards...”

~~~
sixQuarks
okay, so there's a couple of deep genetic defections with apples themselves.

------
mountainboot
There have been several posts in the thread advocating violence. Is that
allowed here?

------
ApolloZero
I've downloaded these clips and compiled them into a single video:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ckSnRrOhZ4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ckSnRrOhZ4)

------
fongitosous
the problem is not police violence. the problem is what they are legally
allowed to do VS what they are not.

the notion of "resisting arrest" allow police to do pretty much whatever they
want from the moment you said "no" to one of their asks.

Hell even getting out from your vehicle when a cop tells you to stay in it is
"resisting arrest".

this is the main problem. if you give people a way to be legally violent you
are responsible for the deaths. its is beyond politics, democrats or
republicans allowed these laws and procedures, the neck restraints and other
dangerous things for decades.

------
known
There should be psychological evaluations of those in politics/judiciary/law
enforcement [https://archive.vn/YXDP8](https://archive.vn/YXDP8)

~~~
TeaDrunk
I agree with the premise but unfortunately the mental health system in America
is itself prone to abuse of patients and bigotry against patients. We need to
be able to hold psychologists, nurses in psychiatric wards, psychiatrists, and
other licensed mental health workers with a similar set of accountability if
we are to hope that they can be useful filters.

------
neycoda
Cops shouldn't be afraid to do their jobs, and citizens shouldn't be afraid of
the cops.

------
huxflux
Polarization, scary stuff :(

~~~
defnotashton2
elaborate please?

~~~
rablackburn
I think they're referring to this thread itself.

I've been lurking on hacker news for years and I've never really seen anything
quite like it.

------
saos
Insane

------
vhiremath4
I am the CTO/co-founder at Loom (loom.com). I would like to upload these
videos to my personal Loom account to be preserved. Anyone know of a location
where I can download them without having to write a script to export them?

------
proc0
Just move to Seattle or Minneapolis for anyone that hates police so much. They
won't be there anymore so you'll be safe.

------
chaps
Most posts on this subject keep getting pushed off of the front page by mods.
It's pretty sad to watch, especially with the number of posts about
coronavirus. They're both major issues, but one is nerdier than the other so
it gets to stay.

~~~
dang
Mods didn't touch this post, or see it, until I turned the flags off just now.

~~~
chaps
Got it, thanks. Since that's that's been a big trend recently, is there
anything that can be done to make sure posts like these don't just immediately
get flagged into oblivion? I can absolutely see campaigns against HN that flag
these sorts of posts to get off the front page.

Not expecting the answer to be yes, but figured I'd ask.

~~~
Majestic121
I personally don't want to see this here, and I flag this kind of subjects
when I see them.

One of the great things about HN is that is manages to be an interesting
website that usually keeps out of flamewar american politics.

There are plenty of those pretty much everywhere on reddit/internet, and I
appreciate that this kind of 'us vs them' posts usually don't stay up long on
HN.

I'm a bit disappointed dang unflagged it this time.

------
pnako
I don't see much discussion of root causes here. But a lot of "police ought to
be this or that".

Perhaps the best solution is to have more democracy or community input into
policing. It seems like it's happening now in the US (it would be quite
different in other countries, where the police is national and considered
civil servants; in France you can't elect sheriffs, and police is beyond the
responsibility of mayors).

In the end, some communities will vote for a police that's tough, and other
communities will vote for a police that's less tough. There will still be
issues when criminals used to non-tough cops cross into an area with tough
cops, but that's life.

~~~
alkonaut
> a police that's tough

Tough is having courage and compassion while being firm. Tough not being an
insecure bully. Please don't use "tough" when relating to US police brutality.

Having a decent police force is a solved problem. Just look around for a
country with a decent relationship between population and law enforcements.
Look what made that happen (Was it 2-3 year police training? mental health
screens? No qualified immunity? Central/federal authority governing all police
forces? perrhaps ALL OF THE ABOVE?).

~~~
pnako
Do you really think we can apply the policing methods of Iceland or Japan to
the areas of Mexico where you have cartels chopping up people? Crime and
violence are not homogeneous around the world, so I don't think police can be
either.

See how far you go with a compassionate police in Brazil.

~~~
alkonaut
I think this is a false dichotomy. "Police brutality" isn't when police use
force when required, it's when they use more force than required.

> Crime and violence are not homogeneous around the world

It's also a bit defeatist to say that somehow the US is infested with crime
and violence and that must always be the case. This isn't a problem that will
be solved in just one or two generations. Attitudes take a long time to
change, but perhaps Police culture is part of the propblem and not just the
solution.

------
chrisco255
It's worth noting hundreds of police officers lose their life a year in the
line of duty:
[https://www.odmp.org/search/year](https://www.odmp.org/search/year) and many
more than that receive serious injuries, even permanent spinal damage:

One cop was paralyzed from the neck down in Vegas protests:
[https://www.bostonherald.com/2020/06/14/police-officer-
shot-...](https://www.bostonherald.com/2020/06/14/police-officer-shot-during-
las-vegas-protest-paralyzed/)

Retired police chief killed at 77 by looters in St. Louis:
[https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/500839-retired-
st-l...](https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/500839-retired-st-louis-
police-captain-killed-outside-looted-pawn-shop)

A federal agent was killed in Oakland in connection with the protests:
[https://patch.com/california/alameda/fbi-ids-federal-
agent-4...](https://patch.com/california/alameda/fbi-ids-federal-
agent-43-fatally-shot-oakland-courthouse)

The one-sided narrative against cops is getting out of hand. It's an extremely
dangerous job and you cannot treat gangsters with kid gloves while they pack
serious weaponry. It's a joke to talk of nerfing or defunding the police for
the handful of bad incidents that occur meanwhile over 15K people a year are
murdered in the country. It's completely disproportionate and not aligned with
statistical reality: cops often have to make split second life or death
decisions and they don't get a second shot.

~~~
alex_young
Policing is not a dangerous job.

According to the FBI, which publishes the data in the Uniform Crime Reports,
from 1980–2018, an average of 85 law enforcement officers were feloniously
killed per year.

In 2018 there were 686,665 police in the US.

~~~
chrisco255
That's only a function of how good they are at what they do. They have to
engage in over 10 million incidents a year. Any one of those could be a
routine traffic stop that suddenly turns into a gang bust and an attempt is
made on their own life. They don't have the luxury of foresight of knowing if
they're coming home today or not. They know they're a target. Contrast that
with your average aeron chair programmer and I'd say their job is incredibly
fucking dangerous.

Edit: It's number 15 and only because 2019 was a near record low year,
following decades of decline and improved equipment and training. That's a
function of how good they are. And if you make them worse or non-existent,
crime will go up.

While the construction industry is accidentally dangerous, cops are victims of
intentional violence and hatred. They have to deal with drugged out, abusive,
angry people all the time. They have to console rape victims. They have to
help assess suicides, murders, deadly car accidents and all kinds of
unpleasant bullshit. They see death on the job every single day. It's not a
walk in the park. It causes unbelievable stress (especially in high crime
districts) and it pays 1/3 of what a junior JS dev makes and they don't get
stock options or grants

It's 5x more deadly than average occupation and 6x more injurious. It also
causes loads of psychological and emotional stress because they have to deal
with people going through some of the worst episodes of their lives...all the
time.

[https://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/police-
officers-2014.htm](https://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/police-
officers-2014.htm)

~~~
deathgrips
Pizza delivery drivers have to deliver over 10 million pizzas a year. Any one
of those deliveries could be cut short by a drunk driver that causes a head-on
collision at 60 miles per hour. They don't have the luxury of foresight of
knowing if they're coming home today or not. They know they're at risk.
Contrast that with your average cop issuing citations and filling out
paperwork and I'd say their job is incredibly fucking dangerous.

~~~
chrisco255
Pizza delivery can be dangerous in certain neighborhoods, for sure. At least
one or two were killed in my home town. However, let's not pretend that the
emotional and mental weight and responsibility of being a pizza delivery
driver is anywhere close to what a cop has to deal with on a daily basis:

"Police respond to murder-suicide in Durham"
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ei4D2toAHQ4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ei4D2toAHQ4)

"Man shoots, kills police wearing body cam"
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssARbfxqTh0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssARbfxqTh0)

"Police respond to reported armed robbery on South Hill"
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7iOelX_0kY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7iOelX_0kY)

"Bodycam Footage Shows Woman Falsely Accused Cop of Sexual Assault | New York
Post"
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTv5VkX_T8o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTv5VkX_T8o)

"Police seek man who tried to rape elderly woman"
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWPvXsUmZik](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWPvXsUmZik)

You let me know what pizza delivery driver has to deal with shit like that.

~~~
deathgrips
This is bordering on the absurd. Almost all police officers go through their
career without being in objective danger of dying. If they do run in to
danger, they call for backup and are trained to handle it. You can find
examples of death in any profession. Like it or not, policing is not one of
the most dangerous jobs out there, it's just filled with scared people.

