Baltimore police stopped noticing crime after Freddie Gray's death. A wave of killing

[Belsnickel]

(07-12-2018, 12:27 PM)GMDino Wrote: That's not what they wanted.  They wanted to not have their constitutional rights violated and to not worry that they might die in transport as a "suspect".  What they got are people who won't do anything because they are afraid they might not do it right.  They should quit completely if that is their mindset.

I have to do my job every day.  Sometimes I make a mistake.  Sometimes I am criticized.  (Sometimes unfairly.)  I still do my job.  I don't stop doing portions of it because I might get told I did it wrong...even if I didn't.  And if I did do something wrong I make every attempt to correct my error...I don't just stop doing that thing.

In the Baltimore case it might take time and (heaven forbid) money and training and people who WANT to do it...but just not doing anything is (pardon the phrase) a cop out.  

This is the type of discussion that really doesn't help, and I'll explain why. I get that the desire from BLM and similar movements is for their rights to be respected. Not an unreasonable desire. But what specifically is desired for a policy change? When we discuss only these things, what the law enforcement community hears are grievances, but they are doing what they have been trained to do. Sometimes things go wrong, but if they are following policy and their training, then that is an unfortunate circumstance. So how can we adapt policies and training to make the community and law enforcement more of a partnership than it currently is? That's what we need to be focusing on.

And to be clear, law enforcement isn't blameless in this. There is a lot of resistance to change, as there always is in any organization. They are already on the defensive because of the criticisms, so they are even less receptive to constructive ideas for change than they would normally be.

This is why we just need to rethink how we approach all of this.