Mastodawn

Everyone wants public safety. What we have isn’t it. Setting up armed groups to roam the streets in search of traffic violations in order to find some imaginary worse crime leads to this.

Police forces across this country are rooted in white supremacy and are also overly militarized and train and exist in an institution that primes them to see Black people as a threat to be eliminated.

No one can argue a traffic violation should carry a death sentence. If and until there is true police reform, meaning use of force is the last recourse, not the first, then unnecessary killings will keep happening.

And what some want to pass off as political discourse makes it worse. Rather than treat others with a certain degree of respect, their norm is attempts at erasure and threats. Who passes legislation called "stand your ground" and “anti-woke?” We should be teaching acceptance and deescalation of conflict.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/23574206/tyre-nichols-death-memphis-police

Tyre Nichols: Memphis releases video of his brutal beating after a traffic stop

Memphis police beat Nichols brutally; a video of the incident was released Friday.

Vox

Kris Samsel Jan 29, 2023

@TonyStark I agree. Why is Biden being a sock puppet? Giving out more oil & gas permits, than Donald Trump! Article here: https://www.alternet.org/spectacular-failure-of-climate-leadership/

'Spectacular failure of climate leadership': Joe Biden outpacing Donald Trump on oil and gas permits

Although President Joe Biden vowed on the campaign trail to phase out federal leasing for fossil fuel extraction, his administration approved more permits for oil and gas drilling on public lands in its first two years than the Trump administration did in 2017 and 2018.

Alternet.org

@humansriseup
This might not be the best place for that. As a person reading along and affected by this, I don't want to see the conversation hijacked by a different topic. Black lives and all.
@TonyStark

@TonyStark
Driving while black has too often become a death sentence thanks to American police brutality. The race of the officers makes this easier for some to call out but they're being exploited by the system. Read "My Grandmother's Hands" if you haven't for an understanding. It digs into this as well as into generational racial trauma.

Reform the police. Fund training, de-escalation and other ways of dealing. Fund society. We must keep at it.

Steve Rogers Jan 29, 2023

The heady culture of power and indifference that pervades law enforcement has to be acknowledged and dealt with systemically.

We must absolutely shut down the violent and too often deadly responses of officers to regular citizens.

JohnW Jan 29, 2023

@SteveRogers @TonyStark I think so too. I formerly supported the reform/retraining idea, but this problem is so embedded and systemic that we need a replacement.

Steve Rogers Jan 29, 2023

@the_Effekt @TonyStark I want to be very clear that I don't think there are simple solutions here that can be easily distilled down. Not that you are saying that, either. Forming something new or alongside would also have to be done very carefully.

JohnW Jan 29, 2023

@SteveRogers @TonyStark I understand. Talking about it is easy, forming an alternative would take a lot of work, especially nationally.

But I am less inclined to desire a smooth transition at this point. People are dying.

I would like to see the force dismantled and replaced by a multi-tiered system that would include negotiators, mental health experts and counselors.

For enforcement of law itself, it may be possible to replace the police with a national guard like agency. Require Martial Arts training where both mind and body is trained, and the entire school is based upon honor and respect rather than just violence.

Steve Rogers Jan 29, 2023

@the_Effekt @TonyStark A woman I used to work with was killed in a wrong-way crash about a decade ago. Now, I know one case isn't the point of anything at all but we cannot ignore the need for things like traffic safety. But, whatever this force was set up for, as Tony pointed out, is perversely wrong headed as far as anything like that goes and that's a pretty typical thing.

Whatever we come up with needs accountability and a true public servant's mentality and a strong foundation of anti-racism.

climate voter/radical oldie Jan 29, 2023

@TonyStark To the greatest possible extent, traffic enforcement should be automated through cameras and tickets in the mail. In addition, all cars should be geofenced within urban areas, similar to what some jurisdiction do to e scooters. The current system of police enforcement does not work to actually sufficiently decrease violations.

MJ Jan 29, 2023

@TonyStark
White supremacy is why and police, regardless of ethnicity, are the enforcers of it.

I appreciate those who are speaking out loudly about these topics. We need to turn this on its head.

Earthling Jan 31, 2023

Sorry, I respectfully disagree.
White supremacy is about racism.
Tyre Nichols died from violent, toxic masculinity, not from white supremacy. George Floyd died from both. As long as we live under the rule of the patriarchy you will find agressive, violent males among all races. Every year, women are killed in ALL countries by toxic violent men (femicide), differing only quantitatively. In Brazil about 10 times more than in the US, for example. 😡

Accretor Jan 31, 2023

@Raven47 You're arguing with people who are furious and in pain because Black people are targeted by white supremacist police officers that they should set the racial issues aside.

Maybe make your own post to talk about toxic masculinity. They're both problems, but replying to tell people the issues they care about and are motivated by are the wrong issues isn't going to be very persuasive or kind to my way of thinking.

MJ Jan 31, 2023

@accretor @[email protected] @TonyStark Thank you. I ended up blocking that account as the person didn’t want to take in that policing is definitely white supremacist in nature in the US and that the race of the officers just makes police management quiet.

So many white folks want to explain racism to me. Too funny.

Shifting it off to toxic masculinity is missing the point.

Thanks, again.

Accretor Jan 31, 2023

@MJ I felt the same way reading it that you did, and I wanted your voice to be heard. Thank you. White folk like me who benefit from the white supremacy have the hardest time just listening to and amplifying the people who experience the other side of it. Until we do, we are complicit.

Tony Stark Feb 1, 2023

@accretor @MJ Thanks from me, also, for helping out. All of what you say is true.

edgeoforever 🍎Feb 1, 2023

@Raven47 @MJ @TonyStark this comment has a whiff of “all lives matter” to me. I am a woman, what you say is not
wrong in it of itself. Just wrong time, wrong discussion. The subject was racism, white supremacy. It shall remain so.

Ricardo Harvin Jan 29, 2023

https://mstdn.social/@ricardoharvin/109773330163653579

Ricardo Harvin (@[email protected])

Police and policing can not be reformed. That kind of thinking leads nowhere. The entire system must be rebuilt from a new foundation that addresses the causes of crime (public policies that create and perpetuate poverty) and provides a universal standard of public services that safely houses, healthily feeds, thoroughly educates, and medically cares for everyone. Reform is small and cowardly regressive thinking. Fully #TaxTheRich #DefundThePolice #FundThePeople

Mastodon 🐘

CaptainSmartass Jan 29, 2023

@TonyStark #disarmthepolice

Tofu Golem Jan 29, 2023

@TonyStark
Cops do not exist to protect you.

There was a case in which cops stood and watched a citizen get stabbed to death. The courts ruled that they were under no obligation to endanger themselves by saving the life of that citizen.

This has been ruled time and time again by the courts. The police are under no obligation to protect us.

That was never the point of police and it never will be.

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/justices-rule-police-do-not-have-a-constitutional-duty-to-protect.html

Justices Rule Police Do Not Have a Constitutional Duty to Protect Someone

Supreme Court rules that police do not have constitutional duty to protect person from harm, even woman who obtained court-issued protective order against violent husband which made arrest mandatory for violation; decision overturns ruling by federal appeals court in Colorado; it had permitted lawsuit to proceed against town of Castle Rock, whose police failed to respond to woman's pleas for help after her estranged husband violated protective order by kidnapping their three children, whom he eventually killed; in another ruling, Supreme Court rebukes US Court of Appeals in Cincinnati for reopening death penalty appeal, on basis of newly discovered evidence, after Supreme Court had ruled on matter; 5-to-4 decision involves convicted murderer Gregory Thompson (M)

The New York Times

Tofu Golem Jan 29, 2023

@TonyStark
Police are not here to protect you from criminals. They are not here to protect you from anyone nor anything, and the courts have said they don't have to.

They are here to protect wealthy people from YOU. That's it.

https://ehlinelaw.com/blog/do-police-have-a-duty-to-protect-me

Do Police Have a Duty To Protect Me? Can I Sue Police For Refusing Assistance?

NO! Police have zero duty to protect you from rioters, robbers, or criminals. You cannot sue the police for refusing to send help or make an arrest. You must defend yourself.

Ehline Law Firm Personal Injury Attorneys, APLC

Lonewolf Jan 29, 2023

@tofugolem @TonyStark what if everyone stopped paying state and local taxes

Tofu Golem Jan 29, 2023

@lonewolf @TonyStark
We go to prison for that.

Lonewolf Jan 29, 2023

@tofugolem @TonyStark
I mean if nobody did. They don't have that much room

Tofu Golem Jan 30, 2023

@lonewolf @TonyStark
They would keep putting us in prison until the poor and middle class start paying taxes again.

But wealthy people can dodge taxes all day long without consequences. That's how our system works.

Statmonkey 🙊Jan 29, 2023

@[email protected]
"Who passes legislation called "stand your ground" and “anti-woke?” We should be teaching acceptance and de-escalation of conflict."

Ooo
oooo
I know, pick me!

If you change the word woke to what it means in this context "people of color," you have your answer.

Joe Beehammer (🐝 🔨)Jan 29, 2023

@TonyStark the way this just doesn't happen in other industrialized countries shows what a problem we have with a culture of violence.

Persister Jan 29, 2023

@TonyStark there’s also an ingrained & narcissistic defensiveness in police orgs (I refuse to call them unions, a perversion of the original reason for labor unions). Like a narcissist, these orgs encourage officers to never admit police are wrong, ever. Instead they double down in defense no matter how egregious the crime committed. I’ve seen this 1st hand w/police officers I know-criticize police & it’s like a switch gets flipped-they turn 100% into ‘police are never wrong.’

Steve Jan 29, 2023

@msmp @TonyStark
I did hear a Fraternal Order of Police spokesman denouncing the murder. I wonder whether that has anything to do with the skin color of the five cops.

Persister, police organizations do serve some of the functions of regular unions. But they often go beyond the justified functions, notably protecting members from unjust firings, demotions, etc., and shield police even from _justified_ disciplinary actions. They're more like medieval guilds than regular unions.

The Wubster Jan 29, 2023

@msmp @TonyStark In my city a cop who was President of the FOP, would profile and stop POC. Complaints against him were dismissed with insufficient evidence. It took years before he was finally fired from the department for his lawlessness. #BillyCorben knows to whom I’m referring. #policeunions #dirtycops #NotAboveTheLaw #BlueWall

TimeRevenant Jan 30, 2023

@TonyStark I take it you have never lived in a country with no police force? It is the only explanation for your narrative. Thousands of interractions between police and the general public go well every day and do not result in what we recently saw in Memphis. We need to weed out bad cops, not entire police forces. I have zero faith people are capable of policing themselves as I have lived in countries where they do and found it lacking

Melody Cooper Jan 30, 2023

@TonyStark AMEN

TootUncommon Jan 30, 2023

@TonyStark Seizing a car (because of a traffic stop) is penalty enough what with the time/costs that will involve. The foot chase which follows is less about "protecting & serving" than flat out REVENGE for not obeying an officer's orders.

Orson Wells is said to have stated that his biggest fear was...the police, reasoning that you ALWAYS had to obey them 100% and that, at any time, they could say "Come with me" and you have no option to say "No.".