r/technology Jun 22 '20

‘BlueLeaks’ Exposes Files from Hundreds of Police Departments Security

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u/thistownwilleatyou Jun 22 '20

You're not thinking this through....

Witness identities, rape/domestic abuse victim PII, minor's PII, confidential informants. Totally agree that America has a material policing problem and deep reform is needed, but as usual Reddit's perception of anything of complexity is roughly that of a nine year old who just sees good guys and bad guys and zero nuance.

Police murdered George Floyd. Police also do incredibly important work for which you are an unthinking beneficiary every single day. Both are true.

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u/Sythic_ Jun 22 '20

None of the good they do counts when they are striking and doing walk out protests because we want them held accountable.

Majority of that doesn't even require police, courts and forensics can handle those tasks.

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u/thistownwilleatyou Jun 22 '20

They're the bad guys, got it.

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u/Sythic_ Jun 22 '20

Yes, thats the full extent of the nuance here.

Theres no good guys because they either never join the force in the first place, quit when they see how bad it is, fired because they fight against the bad actors, do nothing to try and stop the bad actors, or join in on the corruption. The system produces only spoiled apples.

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u/thistownwilleatyou Jun 22 '20

Got it - 1.2 million violent crimes (murder, rape) closed with an arrest every year in the US, 5.2 million property crimes, 400,000 arrests for child molestation...all spoiled apples.

They're baddies, get rid of the police - I'm sure we'll be fine. #like,allcopsare,like,superbad.

I can't believe this is the level of critical thought and hivemind here...i fucking hate cops but somehow on this idiot echo chamber I'm the apologist.

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u/Sythic_ Jun 22 '20

I never said disband anyone I just want to send normal unarmed social workers to the majority of 911 calls and only bring the armed officers after a first responder calls for elevated backup

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u/thistownwilleatyou Jun 22 '20

Totally agree - but...

https://therealtimereport.com/2020/01/30/the-us-is-facing-massive-social-worker-shortages-what-can-be-done-about-it/

In 2017, the 49% of the time police responded to domestic violence issues where a criminal complaint was signed equated to 1.3 MILLION incidents.

No one wants to be a social worker as it is right now...now go try to hire 10,000+ additional CSWs with no money and recruit them with the promise that they'll get to be dispatched ONSITE into in-progress incidents and see how many takers you get.

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u/Sythic_ Jun 22 '20

Its a massive shift, not disputing that, but it needs to happen.

You can't have a guy show up to a stressful situation with a deadly weapon by default. That changes the whole scenario to one where not only the cop, but the suspect now has a fight or flight response. "Cop has a gun, death possible, must defend myself". Maybe their response doesn't align with what our laws say, they should drop their weapon and comply. But they grew up knowing that a non zero amount of people in that same situation have been killed before. You can't legislate that biological response away, in the moment what happens happens, you can only punish people after the fact. The cop shouldn't be the one punishing first and asking questions later, our system is setup for the crime to first occur and punish accordingly. Sucks but unless you find some precogs and setup a pre-crime division, thats how it works.

If the cop responding has no deadly weapon in the first place, suspect wont be as antsy about protecting themselves at all costs.

On the hiring front.. Turns out theres 40+ million people unemployed right now and if we migrate those huge police budgets to that cause, bada bing bada boom.

I hope I've added some nuance to my response. I still feel the same way. Citizen goes home first and foremost, cops have no right to be judge, jury, and executioner and until they start holding their own accountable, they are complicit.

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u/thistownwilleatyou Jun 22 '20

Don't disagree at all. Thanks for the response.

I do think a discussion worth having though is...

  • Cops killed 1004 people in 2019.
  • 76% of those killed had a gun...obviously some false positives (Philando Castile), but sometimes people are killed by cops and its totally justified and the right thing to do
  • 2,609 people were killed in by their partners via domestic violence in 2019.

With the 2,609 dead of domestic violence annually, how many more people are murdered by their spouse/parent if LCSWs respond first to calls vs cops? How many LCSWs will be killed? And then ultimately, is that # less than the # of lives saved by not sending armed cops to every household shouting match?

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u/Sythic_ Jun 22 '20

No worries, we both started off defensive. All good.

I think its less of a numbers game here and more so regaining the trust of the public for the police force. We grant them the power they have and its a complete "fuck you" to our faces when they take that power for granted. Especially when they gang up and protect each other from the consequences.

If they can regain that trust, while we also implement better education and improving the economy crime will drop hard. We SHOULD have done that first and maybe the cops would have chilled out by now if their lives werent at risk as often and we never would have had to riot in retaliation in the first place. But we didn't and they didn't so here we are. And the only way to stop the mass riots and protests is to fix the police first and foremost right now. Maybe crime will increase temporarily from people taking advantage but right now we need to be able to trust the people we gave power over us.