Kaepernick unemployment

[mraynrand]

I don't doubt that, as people, most cops don't want ever to be in the position of pulling the trigger and that many of those who do will be haunted or destroyed by the experience. But the culture and the training seem to be more powerful than the individual's conscience. David Couper, who became chief of the Madison PD in the midst of the student riots in the early 70s, had a real talent for calming heated situations. His take on current the current situation is that dialogue between police and community is impeded by cultural chasm. Police don't see themselves as public servants and don't want to listen to criticism or accept direction from the community because the community has never been in their shoes. He has some fairly specific recommendations for improving police-community relations in his book Arrested Development.

Your language is nicer than Kap and friends, but you too see the 'cultural chasm' as being entirely the fault of the police. What is the 'cultural chasm?' Who caused it? Who is using it as a political weapon? It may surprise you that most people in 'culturally chasmed' communities, while distrusting the police, still depend on them for some level of safety. People who hate the police still seem to call 911 when a victim of the cultural chasm inflicts physical rearrangement on them or appropriates objects from them.

[hoosier]

Your language is nicer than Kap and friends, but you too see the 'cultural chasm' as being entirely the fault of the police. What is the 'cultural chasm?' Who caused it? Who is using it as a political weapon? It may surprise you that most people in 'culturally chasmed' communities, while distrusting the police, still depend on them for some level of safety. People who hate the police still seem to call 911 when a victim of the cultural chasm inflicts physical rearrangement on them or appropriates objects from them.

Max's post already addresses the main point where I disagree with what you write: we're not just talking about individuals (cops and civilians), we're talking about how institutions train their officers. In the end it doesn't really matter how much "fault" you or I attribute to police when we're talking about preventable deaths that result from police misinterpretation, overreaction or whatever, because it's training (or training and legal codes) that will affect how frequently those things happen. The only thing I will add to what Max wrote is that, from a moral perspective, I believe that the police, as representatives of the law, should in a very specific way be held to a higher standard of conduct than civilians. The militarization of policing over the past few decades is detrimental to that principle, as is the idea that perceived danger is sufficient justification for use of lethal force.