Open Thread - Wed. February 10,2015 - Where Do We Go From Here?

Submitted by gulfgal98 on Wed, 02/10/2016 - 7:00am

Today is the final installment of this series on police brutality and the militarization of our local police forces. For this essay, I am going back to where we started with it and reference Campaign Zero. Campaign Zero was created by four activists affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement but Campaign Zero is a separate entity from Black Lives Matter. It was this video from Democracy Now! that introduced me to the Campaign Zero project and led to this series.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WHd8NEp7lw]

In the video, Amy Goodman interviews Sam Sinyangwe, statistician with Campaign Zero, about data mapping project of police violence in the United States. Because there is no centralized reporting system, Sinyangwe used many various sources to compile what is, to date, the most comprehensive statistical collection of data on police violence and killings in this country.

Amid grief and outrage over the killings of two unarmed African Americans in Chicago, a year-end report from the Mapping Police Violence research project says police nationwide killed at least 1,152 people in 2015. In 14 cities, every single police victim was African-American. And across the country, police killings had little correlation with crime rates and population size. We discuss the findings with Sam Sinyangwe, a statistician who worked on the Mapping Police Violence project.

Black on black crime has often been cited as the reason why there was so much police violence in communities of color. Campaign Zero ran three years of data to examine this commonly cited talking point. The Huffington Post reported that an analysis conducted by Campaign Zero of the sixty largest police departments showed no correlation between black on black crime and police violence.

The group compared violent crime rates from the 2014 FBI Uniform Crime report to the number of people police killed in each city this year. To confirm the findings, Sinyangwe said Campaign Zero also ran three years worth of police killing data and arrived at the same conclusion.

“This myth that people have created that community violence is the cause of police violence is absolutely false,” said Brittany Packnett, another member of Campaign Zero’s planning team, who also sat on Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon's (D) Ferguson Commission. “This is an issue of policy, of accountability and of culture inside of departments.”

In August 2015, Campaign Zero launched its website which not only documents the statistics of police violence, but also provides a very comprehensive listing of steps that should be taken to help de-militarize the police and significantly reduce police violence. In a review of the Campaign Zero site, Slate noted the following regarding the steps outlined by Campaign Zero to help curb police violence.

What's particularly savvy about the site is that it's not just thorough and specific but that it cites local laws that have already passed as models—linking, for example, to a Colorado law that gives residents the right to sue law enforcement agencies that seize recording devices (i.e. cell phones pulled out to tape an officer during a traffic stop) or destroy recorded material without permission or a warrant.

Campaign Zero has made this graphic below available for downloading. I urge you to go to link to view the interactive version of this graphic. It is extremely informative.

We, as a nation, can do so much better than the police violence we have been experiencing. If we adopted the steps outlined by Campaign Zero as a nationwide policy for law enforcement, we could make real progress toward that end.

Tags:

Open Thread

police brutality

police militarization

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Comments

Submitted by dkmich on Wed, 02/10/2016 - 9:08am

Good morning GG.

Thanks again for your series. We can live in a world where the police don't kill everyone, and everyone has health care and higher education as a right. But we'll never be allowed to have nice things as long as we continue our support for the status quo. I don't know if you saw this diary at dk or not. At first, I thought - nah, they must mean "NEW" Mexico. I googled it and sure enough, Hillary is doing TWO fund raisers in MEXICO.

The campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is set to hold fundraisers in Mexico on Wednesday.

The former secretary of state will not herself take part in the two events, which are slated to be held in Mexico City one day after the New Hampshire primary vote, The Hill reported Tuesday.

Her campaign treasurer, Jose Villarreal, will instead host the events.

Ivan Zapien, a Wal-Mart lobbyist who relocated to Mexico along with the company in 2015, will also be present to co-host the fundraising dinner.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

Submitted by gulfgal98 on Wed, 02/10/2016 - 10:06am

Thank you, dk and

yes, I did see that diary. Apparently, it is within the rules of fundraising, but the optics are terrible. The Clintons are so in love with money and power that they cannot see how they are perceived. I have posted on numerous occasions that politics is perception and perception is reality in politics.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Submitted by JayRaye on Wed, 02/10/2016 - 11:06am

Thank you so much for this series, gg

A very important topic and you have outdone yourself.

-JayRaye

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Never be deceived that the rich will allow you to vote away their wealth.-Lucy Parsons

Submitted by gjohnsit on Wed, 02/10/2016 - 12:28pm

More ethnic cleansing in Iraq

but with a twist

Iran-backed militias have seized homes, businesses and cultural sites, including churches belonging to Baghdad’s Christian communities, forcing individuals to resettle and forfeit all their belongings, according to members of the Christian members of the Iraqi Parliament.
The militias have targeted properties belonging to Christians, forcing individuals to leave the area, according to Christian community leaders, including representatives from the Assyrian, Chaldean and Syriac minorities, as well as the Chaldean Patriarch of Iraq who have condemned the attacks, calling them a form of ethnic cleansing aimed to rid Baghdad of its Christians. ..

The paradox in U.S. foreign policy is that the current administration has shown a policy of partnering with Iran’s regime and even releasing the funds to the regime to back these militia, while at the same time creating conditions on the ground in Iraq where they can ethnically cleanse the Christian community, Dr. Walid Phares, who is an advisor to members of the U.S. Congress, said to The Foreign Desk.

In other words, Washington is backing and funding the ethnic cleansing of Christian minorities in Iraq, Phares said.

Submitted by mimi on Wed, 02/10/2016 - 12:31pm

Good Morning, gg, the morning after feels like a headache,

I am a bit late to catch up for the last three or four days and haven't read through your OT yet, but I know and trust it is as good as the previous essays of this series. So glad for your steadiness in writing here on this important issue. I hope to come back later in the evening to read.

Just a little note from this morning's five minutes watching France24 TV. At least over there people resign, if they can't reconcile their conscience with what they are supposed to support of their party's and government's position. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius announces departure from government. I think that is a significant move and reshuffle.

One soundbite I heard this morning (but forgot where) is someone saying, NH was the vote of revolt against establishment on both sides, Trump and Sanders. Trump is better at it, because he is better at shoving the middle finger up against anyone, who isn't with him.

So, I had my nightmares about a presidential campaign of Sanders against Trump. For me this is all out of whack, unacceptable and I only can hope that sane people can stop this train wrecking not only the US, but pretty much the whole world.

I don't know, I don't believe that anyone outside the US will forgive a Republican President a la Trump, Rubio or Cruz, or another Democratic "experienced in foreign war hawk policies" candidate like Clinton will definitely be, no matter how much she is all of the sudden using Sanders talking points, as if it were her own since ever and ever.

Sanders was consistent his whole life. He has experience. That's the only reason why I support Sanders, well knowing that he can't do much.

I just read a headline that racism is in the water not only in Flint. Ok, folks, have fun with racist water.

You may also enjoy the Dawn of the Brain Dead

On Wednesday, the newspaper touted Trump’s win in Tuesday’s New Hampshire Republican presidential primary as the “Dawn of the Brain Dead.” The cover featured an exaggerated image of Trump as an evil clown.

“Clown comes back to life with N.H. win as mindless zombies turn out in droves,” the paper says in its subtitle, referring to voters in the Granite State.

The billionaire businessman believes the attacks were motivated out of jealousy.

“The owner is a guy named Mort Zuckerman who’s got a total inferiority complex and he’s had [it] for years,” Trump said. “He’s jealous as hell because he would have loved to have done it himself.”

Daily prayer:
"... and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil..." The temptation of loving evil clown's entertainment skills that is.

Listening yesterday night to Clinton's and Sanders and Trumps speeches, I fear for Sanders. Both Clinton and Sanders are more powerful to rhetorically showing their middle fingers to the voters and fatigued as I am, I fear they like that middle finger shoving.

Sanders is at least a decent guy. That's a rare thing these days, like a diamond in the raw.

Submitted by gjohnsit on Wed, 02/10/2016 - 12:45pm

Republicans compete to do most war crimes

playing well

At a rally in New Hampshire on Monday night, Donald Trump was criticizing Ted Cruz for having insufficiently endorsed torture — Cruz had said two nights earlier that he would bring back waterboarding, but not “in any sort of widespread use” — when someone in the audience yelled out that Cruz was a “pussy.” Trump, in faux outrage, reprimanded the supporter, repeating the allegation for the assembled crowd: “She said he’s a pussy. That’s terrible. Terrible.”
The spectacle of one Republican presidential candidate being identified by another as a “pussy” for failing to sufficiently endorse an archetypal form of torture exemplifies the moral state of the current race for the GOP nomination.

The Republican candidates have seemingly been competing with one another over who would commit the gravest war crimes if elected. In recent months, one candidate or another has promised to waterboard, do a “helluva lot worse than waterboarding,” repopulate Guantánamo, engage in wars of aggression, kill families of suspected terrorists, and “carpet bomb” Middle Eastern countries until we find out if “sand can glow in the dark.”
..
Trump, at the same debate, said, “I would bring back waterboarding, and I’d bring back a helluva lot worse than waterboarding.”

Trump has vociferously argued in favor of the utility of torture, despite the fact that interrogation experts are nearly unanimous that, moral considerations aside, it’s no good for extracting truthful information; it’s best for revenge, false confessions, and propaganda. “Don’t kid yourself, folks. It works, OK? It works. Only a stupid person would say it doesn’t work,” Trump said in November. But, he added, “If it doesn’t work, they deserve it anyway, for what they’re doing.”

Submitted by Shahryar on Wed, 02/10/2016 - 2:11pm

thanks gg. Great series

You'd think President Obama would know about this and be a strong advocate of reform. That's disappointment #263 or so.

Submitted by enhydra lutris on Wed, 02/10/2016 - 3:55pm

He needs a militarized hyper-aggressive police force

to bring down whistle-blowers and such.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Submitted by Pluto's Republic on Wed, 02/10/2016 - 7:05pm

We DO live in a world where the police don't kill everyone.

Thanks so much gulfgal for this entire series. I've enjoyed reading all of them.

I've written a few essays on this topic, too. But conclusions were always difficult for me. I wanted to leave people empowered, but the physical facts make that impossible. Campaign Zero is a positive approach — when you perceive the issue isolated from any global human truths. US health care always looks fantastic — when you perceive the issue isolated from any global human truths. US humanitarian intervention is always a terrific necessity — when you perceive the issue isolated from any global human truths.

In looking at the infographic, I couldn't help wondering if Campaign Zero is aware that — We DO live in a world where the police don't kill everyone.

Police rarely kill anyone in any of the top 40 or 50 developed nations of the world. It is extremely rare, even on a per capita basis. It's even rare in developing nations, unless they are at war or having a civil war and guns were dumped into the hands of civilians.

So you have to look at the US as an anomaly in the world. Different from all other nations. Why is it different?

Campaign Zero says it's different because US police are a problem. US police default to evil unless they are carefully monitored. It's either a cultural or genetic problem in the US that can be solved with constant behavioral therapy.

Once again, I know of no other Developed nation in the world where police evil is trending.

Sometimes you have to look reality in the face and accept it. US police cannot stop killing or they will die. That's a full stop.

Now one has to choose. Deny or ignore this reality and have a happy life. Or, make a personal decision to protect or remove yourself. There is no third choice because police will die.

The US is the only place that is true, because the US is the only nation in the world where civilians can leave their property and enter the public square with hand guns. That makes them enemy combatants to the police, who must assume that all civilians are potential killers. They so often are in the US. And police are always targets, unless they shoot first.

That reality is where solutions must come from. Civilians must be disarmed for their own protection. Handguns should never leave private property, not even to go to a firing range. (This is the secret reason that high gun-ownership nations have low gun violence rates.) And that is only a start. I've always found Small Arms Survey to be the best resource for finding solutions. The have yearly journals with case studies. The link goes to a good starting place. Small Arms Survey has helped dozens of nations disarm themselves peacefully, with dramatic results and they have meticulous stats on the entire world and all handguns every produced.

PS: The fastest way to drop gun violence across-the-board, fyi, is to restrict gun ownership to those 29 years and above. Average drop: 75 percent.

Again, thanks, for all your impressive work. I learned plenty from reading it.

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The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato

Submitted by NCTim on Wed, 02/10/2016 - 7:17pm

Commented before I read yours

True. And you know that so many of the gun enthusiasts watch too much television and are itching for some action.

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The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -

Submitted by Pluto's Republic on Wed, 02/10/2016 - 7:23pm

That's why Hiroshima and Nagasaki happened.

The boys wanted to see it go boom. Any excuse.

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The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato

Submitted by gulfgal98 on Wed, 02/10/2016 - 8:01pm

Pluto, you are right about guns

And probably I should have gone there. But this series went much deeper and longer than I first imagined. There is no doubt that our gun culture has helped created the no exit situation we have regarding policing in the United States. Somehow, I am afraid this might be another series, one of which I have zero personal knowledge. And maybe I might again dive down into the rabbit hole?

—

Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Submitted by Pluto's Republic on Wed, 02/10/2016 - 9:54pm

You moved the discussion forward

…which is more than I could do. You also open an area to build on.

I don't have a closure problem, but the gun thing is very complex and I am too much aware of the complexities. It's nuts. Ultimately, I ended up in a quantum place, where the hand touching the gun is a third entity that exists independently of the person or the gun. It's crazy-making.

I think you left the situation better than you found it.

(My prior comment was a long-winded way of saying that the US police are forced to deal with a fully armed civilian population. No other police department in the developed world faces this psychologically-damaging threat, daily. Armed civilians in the public square is a recipe for fear and social chaos. It may not be about the police, at all. It has the feel of a war zone.)

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The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato

Submitted by NCTim on Wed, 02/10/2016 - 7:13pm

Thanks GG

I would love to see movements like campaign zero also address the proliferation of firearms. The militarization of the population.

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Submitted by gulfgal98 on Wed, 02/10/2016 - 8:06pm

Campaign Zero

Is a project of justifiably angry activists. But it is also one that every person in the United States should be concerned with. Your comment hits the nail head on. Thank you, Tim.

—

Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Submitted by Pluto's Republic on Thu, 02/11/2016 - 5:21am

That Campaign Zero inforgraphic

…in interactive form, is nicely done. And it seems really good policy. The writing is definitely professional.

It's impressive. And doable.

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