Well, today is Saturday. And I suppose you probably have a little bit more of relaxed and free time to devote to actually READ & WATCH some stuff that prolly makes you THINK. Oh yeah! despite all week long you've been going through in forced confinement because the pandemic.
Weekends = Free Time+. :)
First of all, let me say that this post might feels like it's a bit short. But it's not. It's gonna be longer, larger and denser than you would suspect. After all, you are already aware that I don't know how to make short posts.
Ok, the thing is as follow:
I'm gonna daub here maybe a couple of external links, maybe a trio of quotes of the content of these same external articles and maybe just a couple of videos to illustrate better and audiovisually the subject that I would like to discuss with all of you. Yeah! each one of you! ¿Done deal?
The other thing is that I'm not sure in what community I should contribute to add and share this post yet. I dunno... perhaps it would fit pretty well in the Deep Dives or Informationwar communities. Or perhaps rather in the DrugWars, LeoFinance or more reasonably in Ask the Hive.
I dunno.
But thinking about this twice, I think I'm going to end up sharing it at OCD.
Yeah, simply because it seems to me that OCD should refer to the acronym which means "Opinions Can Do It" So, let it be it. Opened to your opinion!
Yeah, it's a Hot Topic that is going viral while you read this post.
I want to highlight this: nearly everyone coming into law enforcement is bombarded with dash cam footage of police officers being ambushed and killed. Over and over and over. Colorless VHS mortality plays, cops screaming for help over their radios, their bodies going limp as a pair of tail lights speed away into a grainy black horizon. In my case, with commentary from an old racist cop who used to brag about assaulting Black Panthers.
When you look at the actions of the officers who killed George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, David McAtee, Mike Brown, Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, Eric Garner, or Freddie Gray, remember that they, like me, were trained to recite “I’d rather be judged by 12” as a mantra. Even if Mistakes Were Made™, the city (meaning the taxpayers, meaning you) pays the settlement, not the officer.
"External Article I"
I’m going to do my best to remain objective but I have to be honest: it’s a lot harder than usual right now not to get emotional. I’ve made it a point my entire career to remember that no matter how horrible the things that someone may be yelling at me are, they’re talking to the badge and not to ME.
"External Article II"
No one hates bad cops more than good cops. This isn’t 1933. Corruption isn’t rampant, there isn’t some grand nationwide conspiracy. There’s just guys and gals, trying to do the impossible job that y’all keep telling us to do. You keep sending us out there, with more and more confusing mandates. You keep cutting our funding, and asking why our training isn’t better. You keep cutting mental health services and then asking why we, the ONLY PEOPLE who are absolutely required to respond to a call for help, are the ones to respond to a call for help for a mental health crisis.
"A/V number One"
Capitalism requires a permanent underclass to exploit for cheap labor and it requires the cops to bring that underclass to heel.
We’re working in the system you built for us. We know it’s broken. For fuck sake, we probably know it’s broken BETTER THAN YOU.
"A/V number Two"
And you keep insisting we be everything to everyone at all times, and you keep getting mad at us when we are merely human.
Yep. in that pair of videos lays all the soundtracks and the eyecandy of this post. Please, Click, Hit Play & Learn.
But here’s the thing. Police agencies are already critically understaffed. We don’t have the personnel to do all the jobs you ask us to do. And you keep asking us to do jobs that we really aren’t trained for, and most of us aren’t temperamentally suited for.
Yes. We have to do better. I know. Most of us do. Most of us WANT to! But so do you. Yes, you. We all do, and we have to do better TOGETHER.
Leave a comment. Share your experiences and feedback. ¡Be part of the conversation!
