• @shalafi
    link
    English
    -25
    edit-2
    8 months ago

    Oh boy, this post ain’t gonna be popular. Humor me and read it all.

    First off, there’s no meat on the bone here. Police called on a young man threatening self-harm, young man killed. Nothing to see here ATM.

    Did the kid have a gun? Did he threaten the cops? WTF happened?! Nothing in this story addresses the simplest questions. Hell, it didn’t ask questions, let alone get answers. FFS, this is Journalism 101. (I literally took that class, and more.)

    Here’s the question we should all be asking: Why are police the default mental health responders in America? We can all give a dozen reasons why that’s bullshit, but that’s not interesting. How do we actually make change? Read on.

    “Defund the police” is the dumbest political slogan I’ve ever heard. Jesus. I know what’s meant. You know what’s meant. Worst. Marketing. Ever.

    Had an opinion changing YouTube binge last night. Watched a dozen sov cits getting their asses handed to them in court. That evolved into watching cops bust idiots running around impersonating police officers.

    In both cases I was stunned at the calm and measured responses from the judges and cops involved. Over and over and over again. The patience on display was stunning. Me? LOL, I’d throw these asses in jail or beat them down with a billy club. Been on the receiving end of bad judges and cops. As bad as you think it is now, didn’t used to be like that!

    And why is it so much better today? We got public CAMERAS. I can usually argue both sides of an argument, if you can’t, you don’t understand the argument. I got nothing arguing cops shouldn’t be wearing body cams.

    Of course you don’t release the footage immediately to the public! Of course you don’t live stream that shit! And yes, there’s a technical\budgetary cost well above buying a fat HDD.

    Still, recording is plenty doable. And we can work out sane ways for those recordings to go public.

    Go to your local sheriff’s FB page and ask why they’re not using body cams. Demand answers. LOL, I got no answers from mine. But press them anyway and do not stop!

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      148 months ago

      First of all, it’s an active investigation involving a minor. It’s likely that information won’t be provided even if you ask.

      Secondly, for someone who took journalism, you don’t seem to understand something called research. If you did any sort of research, you would understand that defund the police was a reallocation of funds away from the police to things like mental health professionals instead of decommissioned M16s.

      You should stop watching YouTube for your propaganda content. There are other countries in this world that do use police for wellness checks but the USA is the number one for killings during those checks.

      • @TheDoozer
        link
        78 months ago

        They were saying they understood and agreed with the tenets of “defund the police” but thought that phrase was terrible marketing. It’s an easy target for the opposition to sway anyone in the middle, because it sounds like getting rid of police entirely.

      • @Ifera
        link
        -78 months ago

        If you did any sort of research, you would understand that defund the police was a reallocation of funds away from the police to things like mental health professionals instead of decommissioned M16s.

        Ah, just like KAM is not all men, “Dead men can’t rape” is a fair and kind slogan, and “Believe all women” is a great campaign because women are naturally, immune to greed and would never use rape accusations as leverage or a punishing tool.

        There are bad cops, and sadly they are far too many, that is a fact I won’t even try to deny, but reactionary comments like this are similar to a person killing another on self defense, but the deceased was gay, so the self defense argument is ignored, and the killer is charged with murder, aggravated with a hate crime.

    • @AA5B
      link
      2
      edit-2
      8 months ago

      While I generally agree with the need to ask those questions, you’re starting with the presumption that everything was handled appropriately and the onus is on the observers to question it. Maybe that’s even true in the majority of cases.

      However that is NOT the expected outcome for that type of call. A lot of us will start with the assumption that a welfare check should not end in someone dead. The onus is on the responders to explain why this is different, and the onus is on all of us to improve the system if the responder had inappropriate skills and actions