US Politics Mega-thread - Page 2568

On November 26 2015 02:50 Slaughter wrote:
Doesn't help when a large chunk of the government institution handling that force has PTSD from serving in a hostile population which makes them a danger to the general populace.

On November 26 2015 03:09 KwarK wrote:

Fixed.
Who the hell thought waiving training for combat vets joining the police was a good idea.

On November 26 2015 03:11 cLutZ wrote:

The government. Specifically the Feds who continually need places to put vets after they grind them up.

The bipartisan effort to overhaul the criminal justice system for drug offenders has hit a speed bump.

Some members of Congress are trying to tie those lighter punishments for drug defendants to a new bill that the Justice Department says would make it harder to prosecute a range of crimes from food safety to business fraud.

The plan, passed by voice vote by the House Judiciary Committee to little notice last week, would require prosecutors to prove guilt to a higher standard in many cases, by default.

Among those who object: Deputy U.S. Attorney General Sally Yates.

"It would end up meaning that some criminals would go free as a result, because we simply would not be able to meet that standard of proof," Yates told NPR in an interview. "If this proposal were to pass, it would provide cover for top-level executives, which is not something we think would be in the best interest of the American people."

The White House had a shorter response: "In the president's view, criminal-justice reform should only make the system better, not worse."

For supporters, including Judiciary Chair Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., the measure is a common sense response to the huge number of criminal laws on the books.

"This is a very carefully crafted bill," Goodlatte said during a committee markup last week. "Its intent is ... to protect American citizens who did not know or have reason to know they were violating federal law."

Goodlatte calls that over-criminalization. And his committee has held a series of hearings on the issue, focusing attention on cases of fishermen who faced federal criminal penalties for paperwork violations, among others.

On November 26 2015 03:18 Plansix wrote:

Can we make them watch that scene in Battlestar Galactica where Adama explains that having the military be the police is a terrible idea? On repeat.

On November 26 2015 03:32 cLutZ wrote:

That's an 8th Amendment violation. No one should have to watch Battlestar Galactica.

On November 26 2015 03:09 KwarK wrote:

Fixed.
Who the hell thought waiving training for combat vets joining the police was a good idea.

On November 26 2015 05:19 Mohdoo wrote:


Wait.

This exists? Do we really have some sort of streamlined method for making it easier for veterans to be cops? I guess that explains our entire issue with police brutality, especially in the case of brown people.

The following are just a few examples of incentives offered by police departments throughout the country:

Streamlining or fast-tracking applications submitted by military veterans
Waiving education requirements based on training completed while in military service
Adding preference points to exam scores
Offering incentive pay for active members of the reserve or national guard components

On November 26 2015 05:24 KwarK wrote:

http://cops.usdoj.gov/html/dispatch/06-2012/vets-to-cops.asp



From the Department of Justice itself.

Incidentally, in my city, which recently got a damning report from the DoJ regarding systematic police brutality, there is only a 40 hour refresher course to switch from military police to civilian police. One week training.

On November 26 2015 01:35 Sermokala wrote:

Good luck getting the big city police unions to admit to any of that. People have tried tiny changes to the education system and received hell for it. A part of the government that actually makes money being portrayed as the bad guys in a city in massive debt? Good luck getting politicians to get behind that.

The problem with what your saying and by extension why blm is worthless is that your completely ignoring reality and expecting things to just be better instead of trying to make it better. For all the damage the tea party has done at least that movement amounted to something. People will resign and be replaced by people facing the same problems and making the same decisions as before.

In February, Kalven obtained a copy of McDonald’s autopsy, which contradicted the official story that McDonald had died of a single gunshot to the chest. In fact, he’d been shot 16 times—as Van Dyke unloaded his service revolver, execution style—while McDonald lay on the ground.

The next month, the City Council approved a $5 million settlement with McDonald’s family, whose attorneys had obtained the video. They said it showed McDonald walking away from police at the time of the shooting, contradicting the police story that he was threatening or had “lunged at” cops. The settlement included a provision keeping the video confidential.

“The real issue here is, this terrible thing happened, how did our governmental institutions respond?” Kalven said. “And from everything we’ve learned, compulsively at every level, from the cops on the scene to the highest levels of government, they responded by circling the wagons and by fabricating a narrative that they knew was completely false.” To him this response is “part of a systemic problem” and preserves “the underlying conditions that allow abuse and shield abuse.”

In April, the Chicago Tribune revealed Van Dyke’s name and his history of civilian complaints—including several brutality complaints, one of which cost the city $500,000 in a civil lawsuit—none of which resulted in any disciplinary action. In May, Carol Marin reported that video from a security camera at a Burger King on the scene had apparently been deleted by police in the hours after the shooting.

“This case shows the operation of the code of silence in the Chicago Police Department,” said Futterman. “From the very start you have officers and detectives conspiring to cover up the story. The question is, why are they not being charged?”

On November 26 2015 05:40 Mohdoo wrote:


That is so, so, so misguided and awful. I commend the troops and appreciate that they somehow decided it was a good idea to do what they do, but they are not people I want holding guns in our country. The prevalence of PTSD as well as the general kinda folk I see enroll in the military...nope. No thank you. Sure, have health insurance and some kinda benefits and whatnot for putting your time in, but diminishing the filtering process for them protecting us here is a terrible mistake. You can't just pretend these are stellar, emotionally intact people because they did something heroic.

On November 26 2015 06:21 oneofthem wrote:
i have higher confidence in our veterans. it's okay to have ex-military in the police force as long as proper training is given, along with functional internal disciplinary process. latter is lacking in these problematic districts and former is lacking in general.

On November 26 2015 06:30 MattBarry wrote:
What's wrong with former military personnel in the police? The military has much stricter rules for how you treat suspects and prisoners. I've never felt safer in New Orleans than when the National Guard was policing instead of the impotent, corrupt, assholes in the NOPD

On November 26 2015 06:43 oneofthem wrote:
given the large pool of veterans and the pretty stable or shrinking budget of police departments i don't see this transformative invasion of trigger happy vets as plausible in general. if anything the heightened competition for a job that is probably familiar to ex-military would make the hires more qualified, i.e. better trained at police academies and such. also looking at their application form, a very extensive medical history is required as well as combat logs etc. it would shock me if they do not weed out PTSD patients during the process.

i don't buy this idea that there are thousands of police jobs waiting for veterans with minimal training.

On November 26 2015 06:30 MattBarry wrote:
What's wrong with former military personnel in the police? The military has much stricter rules for how you treat suspects and prisoners. I've never felt safer in New Orleans than when the National Guard was policing instead of the impotent, corrupt, assholes in the NOPD

On November 26 2015 03:09 KwarK wrote:

Fixed.
Who the hell thought waiving training for combat vets joining the police was a good idea.