Police presents at upcoming D2 Football Games?

[Turbonium]

https://twitter.com/shaunking/status...358714886?s=20

Yes, a dismantling of the system as we know it. The system was created to allow this, if it wasn't then we would see a massive backlash from officers each time there was an incident like we have seen too often. The current policing system as we've known it for centuries should be dismantled, it is not protecting or serving the population.

[SW_Mustang]

No, you are not un-American for wanting cops to be better. But that doesn't seem to be the narrative that is being pushed by many. Decreasing funding by 1/3+ will not make the police better. If anything it will make things worse by increasing the stress and danger for the remaining officers. Overworked, over stressed officers with no back-up increases the chances they will make mistakes.

"Defund the police" is an absolutely terrible slogan. The original idea was to allocate those funds around to other agencies with the goal of accomplishing two things:

1) Allow agencies better equipped to handle certain situations the jurisdiction and financial backing to do so, i.e. mental health situations.
2) Allow certain agencies more money to work on the factors that cause the crime to begin with, with the ultimate goal of reducing the crime rate, i.e. homelessness.

If successful - both of these would effectively reduce the workload for the average officer, allowing them to function more where their skills are most useful. I'm not certain, but I think the idea is that things would level out financially. Less money coming in, but also less money going out. Would it work that way? Probably not.

Is the plan perfect? Absolutely not. What happens when a seemingly calm individual turns violent on a mental health worker, and they have no way to protect themselves? No plan is 100% perfect, but something has to change. Nobody in their right mind wants money taken away from the police for the sake of it, and nobody in their right mind wants to abolish the police entirely. Minneapolis has ~400,000 people proper. Even if 20,000 of those people were radicals that wanted to abolish the police, that leaves 380,000 that don't.

One question I am genuinely curious about - you have this idea that liberals en masse have this "narrative" of severely crippling police forces or outright abolishing them. Where are you getting this idea? National cable news, social/alternative media, conversations with liberals on the street? I often hear how conservatives have some sort of racist agenda of keeping things the way they are - but I rarely hear that narrative from the conservatives in my daily life. It's usually just the media trying to spoon feed me garbage so I get angry and watch.

[Wildcat Khan]

Yes, a dismantling of the system as we know it. The system was created to allow this, if it wasn't then we would see a massive backlash from officers each time there was an incident like we have seen too often. The current policing system as we've known it for centuries should be dismantled, it is not protecting or serving the population.

I'm not sure you saw this, but a police officer in Vegas was shot in the head back in June. They fortunately caught the guy, but what would your proposed new system do for violence in that case?

There was also this: https://www.kiro7.com/news/trending/...LC7DOSOMJ6PGM/ which hit the news here. I really want to know what you propose for situations like these, especially as a person riding a scooter was injured also by the person that killed the officer in Bothel and injured another.

I'm all for getting rid of the corruption and racism, but I don't want to do so at the loss of safety if a crazy, drunk, or violent criminal is near me. BTW, I also had the police keep me out of my house for 2+ hours last week due to a natural gas leak in the area when they closed all the roads into it. I hope you would consider that protecting and serving me in keeping me safe from natural gas.

[boatcapt]

"Defund the police" is an absolutely terrible slogan. The original idea was to allocate those funds around to other agencies with the goal of accomplishing two things:

1) Allow agencies better equipped to handle certain situations the jurisdiction and financial backing to do so, i.e. mental health situations.
2) Allow certain agencies more money to work on the factors that cause the crime to begin with, with the ultimate goal of reducing the crime rate, i.e. homelessness.

If successful - both of these would effectively reduce the workload for the average officer, allowing them to function more where their skills are most useful. I'm not certain, but I think the idea is that things would level out financially. Less money coming in, but also less money going out. Would it work that way? Probably not.

Is the plan perfect? Absolutely not. What happens when a seemingly calm individual turns violent on a mental health worker, and they have no way to protect themselves? No plan is 100% perfect, but something has to change. Nobody in their right mind wants money taken away from the police for the sake of it, and nobody in their right mind wants to abolish the police entirely. Minneapolis has ~400,000 people proper. Even if 20,000 of those people were radicals that wanted to abolish the police, that leaves 380,000 that don't.

One question I am genuinely curious about - you have this idea that liberals en masse have this "narrative" of severely crippling police forces or outright abolishing them. Where are you getting this idea? National cable news, social/alternative media, conversations with liberals on the street? I often hear how conservatives have some sort of racist agenda of keeping things the way they are - but I rarely hear that narrative from the conservatives in my daily life. It's usually just the media trying to spoon feed me garbage so I get angry and watch.

Problem is that many city counsels are making defund decisions without asking the WHOLE community they have been elected to represent if they REALLY want to defund the police. They are being held hostage by a small but VERY vocal group of people that threatens to burn down communities if the city counsels don't defund the police IMMEDIATELY! And whenever a group of citizens stands up for the police, they are attacked.

There are 13+ cities were the city counsels have defunded their police. They include:

Austin - 1/3 of the police departments budget has been cut.
Seattle - $3.5M immediate cut.
New York City - $1B cut.
Los Angeles - $150M
San Francisco - $120M
Oakland - $14.6M
Washington DC - $15M
Baltimore - $22M
Philadelphia - $33M

When asked if maybe "Defund the Police" actually meant something else like the reallocate of $'s to social programs, one of the originators of the "Defund Movement" said in no uncertain terms - NO, Defund the Police means EXACTLY what it says...DEFUND THE POLICE. Full stop.

Sending a Social Worker out to deescalate certain situations is a great idea...in a classroom. When you overlay reality, it looks a lot less viable for any number of reasons. Couple of instant questions:

1. Is there going to be a standing group of social workers that are available each and every shift, 24/7 365?
2. Who is going to triage the call for service to determine if a police officer will be deployed or a social worker? Calls to 911 are notoriously inacurate and devoid of any specific information.
3. Who will protect the Social Worker while they are trying to deescalate a person? If it is a police officer, you haven't really reduced the work load of the police officer.
4. What do you do about the underlying criminal activity (ex. a mentally ill person broke into a house)?
5. If an officer rolls up on a person with clear mental issues who is violent, what is the officer supposed to do while they are waiting for a social worker to arrive? What if that person attacks the officer (this actually happens quite often)?
6. The majority of police involved shootings occur when the officers have developed PC that a person has committed a crime and needs to go to jail for it and then goes "hands on" to effect the arrest. Does a social worker need to be present at all arrests?
7. And the big question, what is the officer supposed to do when they call for a Social Worker and none are available?

Don't expect you to answer any of those questions. Just pointing out that seemingly simple decisions that might make some degree of sense when discussed among rational people in the clear light of day become a lot less clear when reality rears its ugly head.

I try to get my information from a wide variety of sources. Unfortuanatly, the ability to get truly unbiased reporting is almost impossible. I do a good degree of research on line from what seem to be reputable sources. For example, I researched the DOJ for the number of unarmed African Americans killed by police officers to determine if this was a large number or if it was a relatively small one. In my simple mind, a large number or an increasing number might indicate "systemic racism" in police departments.

[NWHoops]

Problem is that many city counsels are making defund decisions without asking the WHOLE community they have been elected to represent if they REALLY want to defund the police. They are being held hostage by a small but VERY vocal group of people that threatens to burn down communities if the city counsels don't defund the police IMMEDIATELY! And whenever a group of citizens stands up for the police, they are attacked.

There are 13+ cities were the city counsels have defunded their police. They include:

Austin - 1/3 of the police departments budget has been cut.
Seattle - $3.5M immediate cut.
New York City - $1B cut.
Los Angeles - $150M
San Francisco - $120M
Oakland - $14.6M
Washington DC - $15M
Baltimore - $22M
Philadelphia - $33M

When asked if maybe "Defund the Police" actually meant something else like the reallocate of $'s to social programs, one of the originators of the "Defund Movement" said in no uncertain terms - NO, Defund the Police means EXACTLY what it says...DEFUND THE POLICE. Full stop.

Sending a Social Worker out to deescalate certain situations is a great idea...in a classroom. When you overlay reality, it looks a lot less viable for any number of reasons. Couple of instant questions:

1. Is there going to be a standing group of social workers that are available each and every shift, 24/7 365?
2. Who is going to triage the call for service to determine if a police officer will be deployed or a social worker? Calls to 911 are notoriously inacurate and devoid of any specific information.
3. Who will protect the Social Worker while they are trying to deescalate a person? If it is a police officer, you haven't really reduced the work load of the police officer.
4. What do you do about the underlying criminal activity (ex. a mentally ill person broke into a house)?
5. If an officer rolls up on a person with clear mental issues who is violent, what is the officer supposed to do while they are waiting for a social worker to arrive? What if that person attacks the officer (this actually happens quite often)?
6. The majority of police involved shootings occur when the officers have developed PC that a person has committed a crime and needs to go to jail for it and then goes "hands on" to effect the arrest. Does a social worker need to be present at all arrests?
7. And the big question, what is the officer supposed to do when they call for a Social Worker and none are available?

Don't expect you to answer any of those questions. Just pointing out that seemingly simple decisions that might make some degree of sense when discussed among rational people in the clear light of day become a lot less clear when reality rears its ugly head.

I try to get my information from a wide variety of sources. Unfortuanatly, the ability to get truly unbiased reporting is almost impossible. I do a good degree of research on line from what seem to be reputable sources. For example, I researched the DOJ for the number of unarmed African Americans killed by police officers to determine if this was a large number or if it was a relatively small one. In my simple mind, a large number or an increasing number might indicate "systemic racism" in police departments.

With those questions, you're still looking at the symptoms. When there is crime involved there will be need for police. What if there was less crime involving those dealing with mental health concerns because they had access to appropriate mental health care and medication? That will only be possible with more funding to support those initiatives. It would also help if we looked at healthcare as a public good rather than private business in this country like virtually all other developed countries have managed to do.

What if doctors only treated you for your symptoms but didn't try to find the underlying cause to eliminate the symptoms from ever happening? You would need to see the doctor over and over because the symptoms kept coming back. You would still need doctors because you are going to get sick but ideally you would treat the underlying issues, which eliminates symptoms from those issues, which leads to less visits to the doctor.

[Turbonium]

I'm not sure you saw this, but a police officer in Vegas was shot in the head back in June. They fortunately caught the guy, but what would your proposed new system do for violence in that case?

There was also this: https://www.kiro7.com/news/trending/...LC7DOSOMJ6PGM/ which hit the news here. I really want to know what you propose for situations like these, especially as a person riding a scooter was injured also by the person that killed the officer in Bothel and injured another.

I'm all for getting rid of the corruption and racism, but I don't want to do so at the loss of safety if a crazy, drunk, or violent criminal is near me. BTW, I also had the police keep me out of my house for 2+ hours last week due to a natural gas leak in the area when they closed all the roads into it. I hope you would consider that protecting and serving me in keeping me safe from natural gas.

Did I say anywhere that we need to completely get rid of the police? I said the current system is entirely broken. However, as far as keeping you out of your house for 2 hours due to a natural gas leak, is that really an argument for keeping the current police system? Did you need an armed and poorly trained officer to tell you there was a gas leak? Doesn't really seem like the best use of an officer's time to be honest.

[boatcapt]

I'm not sure you saw this, but a police officer in Vegas was shot in the head back in June. They fortunately caught the guy, but what would your proposed new system do for violence in that case?

There was also this: https://www.kiro7.com/news/trending/...LC7DOSOMJ6PGM/ which hit the news here. I really want to know what you propose for situations like these, especially as a person riding a scooter was injured also by the person that killed the officer in Bothel and injured another.

I'm all for getting rid of the corruption and racism, but I don't want to do so at the loss of safety if a crazy, drunk, or violent criminal is near me. BTW, I also had the police keep me out of my house for 2+ hours last week due to a natural gas leak in the area when they closed all the roads into it. I hope you would consider that protecting and serving me in keeping me safe from natural gas.

Police being shot and killed garners almost zero national media attention. Guess reporting them would interfear with the current narrative being pushed.

Henry Washington, the shooter:

Part time resident of Washington, Texas and Arizona.
BLM supporter who's Facebook profile picture showed him holding a gun, dressed in black and over a BLM forground.
Long multi-state history including convictions for Making Terroristic Threats, Assault on Police, Evading Arrest, Stalking, Intimidation of Witnesses and Violating a Protective Order.

Don't know the validity of this reporting but supposed eye witness video shows a dark sedan that has just hit a scooter. Driver of the vehicle outside the vehicle. Police car arrives on scene. Driver walks quickly toward the driver side of the police car yelling "come on pigs" "come on pigs" then fires several shots into the police car. Police car "slow rolls" into the sedan then down the street.

The officer killed by Washington is Jonathan Shoop. A 37 yo, 1 year veteran of the Bethell Washington PD. Survived by his family and Fiance. Former Coast Guardsman.

And no one outside of Bethell Washington cared about his death.

SAY HIS NAME - JONATHAN SHOOP

[SW_Mustang]

*snip*

That's really how our government functions - we elect individuals who we feel best reflect our values, and then they vote on our behalf. We rarely get an actual say in anything that goes on - and those elected officials are not under any obligation to do what we want them too. Hypothetically they do so as to keep their jobs for the next go-around.

Yes, "defunding the police" does mean taking away resources - but there is a purpose to that which I've already explained. Constituents are tired of funding underperforming departments and they want accountability. If I do bad at my job, I get "defunded." Why are we holding officers to a lesser standard? As the saying goes, with great power comes great responsibility. They should be held to a higher standard because they are given more power in our society, in my opinion. Same goes for politicians too - regardless of party.

Your questions regarding social workers - granted this is just my opinion and I'm not an expert, but it's what I got:

1) Why can't they be? The folks who fix your internet are on call 24/7, 365. Why can't social workers?
2) Who makes the decision to send a firefighter vs. an ambulance to the scene based on that inaccurate information? Why can't an officer arrive first and a social worker come second?
3) See #2 - but it would absolutely reduce the workload of an officer. Here's a hypothetical - a person with bipolar experiencing a manic episode is secured by someone trained to do so, preventing a car chase or a violent outburst. The officer is on scene in case things get rough, but heads back on patrol 20 minutes later with no altercation. Will that be the case 100% of the time? Absolutely not - but what if it's successful 20% of the time, or even 30%? That's a lot better than what we have now.
4) You'll have to elaborate - do you mean after the police arrest him? Intake, mental health evaluation to assess his competency, and administer corrective action whether that be jail time, the mental health ward, or some combination of the two. I don't think that's all that different than what happens now, based on my understanding. That opens up another can of worms as our mental health care system is ultra-flawed, but that's still ideally what would happen.
5) The job of the social worker would be to prevent a situation from escalating from calm to violent. In your example (which you are correct, does happen) - the officer arrives on scene to an already violent individual. My hope would be that the officer defends himself and those around him and doesn't wait for a social worker to arrive. In fact, I would argue a social worker shouldn't even be brought in at all - if the person is violent, the person is violent. Secure the situation, move everyone to safety - then deal with the mental health aspect. Safety first, always.
6) Hopefully not. That would cause chaos.
7) Good question. Hopefully the officer would assess the situation and make his best judgement call just as he would for any situation.

There are a lot of situations where the police are called to a non-violent scene, don't know how to handle it, and the scene becomes violent. The goal of having mental health professionals on staff would be to prevent that scene from escalating. Officers need to be aggressive, but at the same time that aggression can make a diffusible situation violent.

Ideally, the mental health professionals would be on staff at your local PD and not called in from some random shrink's office. They'd have a basic amount of police training, and the officers would have a basic amount of mental health training. They'd work together. The idea of providing more training for our officers doesn't seem to go over well though, unless it's on some new military equipment they don't need.

My stance throughout this thread (and life) is that there is no perfect solution to any given problem. Each solution will cause it's own problems. It's up to us to assess whether the gains of the solution vs. the drawbacks. Personally, if we can reduce situations by 20-30% with MHP's on staff, that's probably a worthwhile investment - and far better than letting things go as they have been.

Anyway- my point about asking for your sources was just out of curiosity. I'm glad you're getting your information from various places. A few of your comments teetered on the line of implying every moderate liberal wants to abolish the police, which is just not true. I just wanted to see where your information was coming from - I meant nothing personally by it.

[SW_Mustang]

Police being shot and killed garners almost zero national media attention. Guess reporting them would interfear with the current narrative being pushed.

Henry Washington, the shooter:

Part time resident of Washington, Texas and Arizona.
BLM supporter who's Facebook profile picture showed him holding a gun, dressed in black and over a BLM forground.
Long multi-state history including convictions for Making Terroristic Threats, Assault on Police, Evading Arrest, Stalking, Intimidation of Witnesses and Violating a Protective Order.

Don't know the validity of this reporting but supposed eye witness video shows a dark sedan that has just hit a scooter. Driver of the vehicle outside the vehicle. Police car arrives on scene. Driver walks quickly toward the driver side of the police car yelling "come on pigs" "come on pigs" then fires several shots into the police car. Police car "slow rolls" into the sedan then down the street.

The officer killed by Washington is Jonathan Schoop. A 37 yo, 1 year veteran of the Bethell Washington PD. Survived by his family and Fiance. Former Coast Guardsman.

And no one outside of Bethell Washington cared about his death.

The vast majority of people shot by the police aren't discussed nationally either. We only discuss the ones we feel are unjust.

As a first world country, we shouldn't allow our officers to execute people at-will, and we definitely shouldn't let them skirt the due process that would be imposed on any regular citizen for doing the same - at the absolute very least. But again - wanting officers to be held to standards makes me un-American.

I have no problem with officers using lethal force to protect themselves and others. I have a problem with officers executing people unjustly, and getting away with it.

[NWHoops]

Ideally, the mental health professionals would be on staff at your local PD and not called in from some random shrink's office. They'd have a basic amount of police training, and the officers would have a basic amount of mental health training. They'd work together.

This is actually happening in some police departments across the country.

[IUPNation]

Why should the cops get presents at a foosball game?

They get paid pretty well for being PUBLIC SERVANTS. They can afford to go buy their own presents.

[SW_Mustang]

I'm not sure you saw this, but a police officer in Vegas was shot in the head back in June. They fortunately caught the guy, but what would your proposed new system do for violence in that case?

There was also this: https://www.kiro7.com/news/trending/...LC7DOSOMJ6PGM/ which hit the news here. I really want to know what you propose for situations like these, especially as a person riding a scooter was injured also by the person that killed the officer in Bothel and injured another.

I'm all for getting rid of the corruption and racism, but I don't want to do so at the loss of safety if a crazy, drunk, or violent criminal is near me. BTW, I also had the police keep me out of my house for 2+ hours last week due to a natural gas leak in the area when they closed all the roads into it. I hope you would consider that protecting and serving me in keeping me safe from natural gas.

The world isn't black and white. It doesn't have to be either-or.

Minneapolis is a violent city. They need police, and the vast, vast majority of residents agree. That being said, they also want more accountability for these unjust actions such as what happened to George Floyd, and they want new measures in place to prevent similar situations from happening again. Both totally reasonable assessments.

Nicollet Mall almost burned last night. The police did a wonderful job preventing that from happening. Not only were they totally justified in what they did, the suspect took his own life (and they even tried reviving him at the scene). Morons used it as an excuse to try and start another riot. There will be no large scale rioting or protesting tonight, because reasonable people saw the video - they know what happened. Without them there, it would have been absolute chaos.

Here's the thing - not all mental health calls are for violent individuals. Not all people experiencing mental health issues are carrying weapons or are even capable of violence. Some mental health situations are escalated by the police being there. What can we do to prevent these situations from getting to the point of justified lethal force? That's what we want to solve. There's this idea that every mental health situation involves some dude running around town with no clothes on and a gun, and while that does happen - that's simply not the case for everyone. Sometimes people call the authorities on themselves because they are having a crisis - imagine calling the police to help you, and then end up getting shot by them? That's what we don't want.

We also don't want those people who do have guns running around and shooting other innocent people. That's when we want a justified use of force to be used.

Sorry for getting heated, it's got nothing to do with you personally.

[SW_Mustang]

This is actually happening in some police departments across the country.

And that's progress. That's a good thing.

[boatcapt]

With those questions, you're still looking at the symptoms. When there is crime involved there will be need for police. What if there was less crime involving those dealing with mental health concerns because they had access to appropriate mental health care and medication? That will only be possible with more funding to support those initiatives. It would also help if we looked at healthcare as a public good rather than private business in this country like virtually all other developed countries have managed to do.

What if doctors only treated you for your symptoms but didn't try to find the underlying cause to eliminate the symptoms from ever happening? You would need to see the doctor over and over because the symptoms kept coming back. You would still need doctors because you are going to get sick but ideally you would treat the underlying issues, which eliminates symptoms from those issues, which leads to less visits to the doctor.

Symptoms are what the police are left to deal with on a daily basis. On a daily basis, I had to deal with the failure of other parts of society...be it the education system, the mental health system, the drug treatment system, etc, etc, etc. And this is not a new situation...I delt with this across Democratic and Republican administrations and congressional majorities at the federal and state level. Both sides are equal failures.

I dealt with a lot people with diagnosed mental condition. Just an observation on my part, the vast majority of those have been treated and prescribed a medication, and then became "non-compliant" (Doctor word for off their medications). The meds have been provided to them for free, but they have chosen not to take them. My last call for service was an individual who was stark naked waving a gun around terrorizing a lady inside the house saying that she was his girlfriend and he just wanted to talk to her to fix things up. I was able to talk him down but I got to tell you, when he pointed the gun at me and my partner, I pulled slack out of my trigger at least three times. Total encounter was less than 3 minutes...no way a social worker would have had time to arrive. And my experience on my final night of work is not unique or isolated. To be quite frank, I'm surprised that there are so few police involved shootings.

Police are asked to "fix" so many problems with society and the government that other much more "educated" and well paid people have been unable to do. Then they get spit on (literally), physically attacked , killed and "defunded" when one member of the approximately 1,000,000 officers across the country makes a tragic mistake.

The number of unarmed African Americans shot and killed by police as of July was 14. That's 14 too many and the officers who took those shots should have to answer. Yet some would have you believe that the number is much higher and that it represents a systematic and racially motivated attack on the African American community. Meanwhile, 228 police officers took their own lives in 2019...and no one burned anything...

[NWHoops]

Symptoms are what the police are left to deal with on a daily basis. On a daily basis, I had to deal with the failure of other parts of society...be it the education system, the mental health system, the drug treatment system, etc, etc, etc. And this is not a new situation...I delt with this across Democratic and Republican administrations and congressional majorities at the federal and state level. Both sides are equal failures.

I dealt with a lot people with diagnosed mental condition. Just an observation on my part, the vast majority of those have been treated and prescribed a medication, and then became "non-compliant" (Doctor word for off their medications). The meds have been provided to them for free, but they have chosen not to take them. My last call for service was an individual who was stark naked waving a gun around terrorizing a lady inside the house saying that she was his girlfriend and he just wanted to talk to her to fix things up. I was able to talk him down but I got to tell you, when he pointed the gun at me and my partner, I pulled slack out of my trigger at least three times. Total encounter was less than 3 minutes...no way a social worker would have had time to arrive. And my experience on my final night of work is not unique or isolated. To be quite frank, I'm surprised that there are so few police involved shootings.

Police are asked to "fix" so many problems with society and the government that other much more "educated" and well paid people have been unable to do. Then they get spit on (literally), physically attacked , killed and "defunded" when one member of the approximately 1,000,000 officers across the country makes a tragic mistake.

The number of unarmed African Americans shot and killed by police as of July was 14. That's 14 too many and the officers who took those shots should have to answer. Yet some would have you believe that the number is much higher and that it represents a systematic and racially motivated attack on the African American community. Meanwhile, 228 police officers took their own lives in 2019...and no one burned anything...

You just supported my entire point. Glad we are in agreement.

Another great example:
One summer in the village, the people in the town gathered for a picnic. As they leisurely shared food and conversation, someone noticed a baby in the river, struggling and crying. The baby was going to drown!

Someone rushed to save the baby. Then, they noticed another screaming baby in the river, and they pulled that baby out. Soon, more babies were seen drowning in the river, and the townspeople were pulling them out as fast as they could. It took great effort, and they began to organize their activities in order to save the babies as they came down the river. As everyone else was busy in the rescue efforts to save the babies, two of the townspeople started to run away along the shore of the river.

"Where are you going?" shouted one of the rescuers. "We need you here to help us save these babies!"

"We are going upstream to stop whoever is throwing them in!"

More funding is needed upstream, not continuing to spend resources to bandaid the crisis but on fixing the crisis. More police, more LaW aNd OrDeR etc is not the solution. It's the only tool those who can't problem solve seem to have in their toolbelt. A hammer for every job, regardless of what the issue is.