I try to read a variety of news outlets to get an idea of what people are reading out there, when I got angry once again by Fox News (Shocker) https://donotlink.it/wvg5
[quote=‘Ferguson effect’ legit? Police laud FBI report that says cop killings ‘new norm’]Police officials say an internal FBI report released in April highlights what they have been saying all along: The “Ferguson effect” is negatively impacting law enforcement and could eventually lead to an increase in crime.
The report suggests the media, politicians and Black Lives Matter have weakened police officers and turned people against them – which in turn has caused an uptick in attacks against police. It has also emboldened people into refusing to comply with police orders, the report says, causing a “de-policing’ in law enforcement agencies across the country, “which the assailants have exploited.”
“The study amplifies things we have been saying about what was going on across the country…the trends…since Ferguson.” Ken Winter, executive director of Mississippi Association of Chiefs of Police, told Fox News. His organization posted the report on its Facebook page, calling it an “interesting study.”[/quote]
So I do what I typically do and follow through to their source: http://myemail.constantcontact.com/FBI-Office-of-Partner-Engagement---The-Assailant-Study--Mindsets-and-Behaviors.html?soid=1103447516152&aid=jFFt1vZ680I
The “study” is a survey of law enforcement personnel, and a handful of statistics about the assailants in the cases being reviewed. So the news article is that law enforcement is praising a study about law enforcement saying:
Gets translated into whatever that Fox News article was.
It seems to me community policing, like other community-focused professions (teaching, social work) is often effectively self-studied, in that if you are outside the group it’s difficult to get a reasonable amount of information.
Except that with policing, those kinds of studies mean more people getting killed.
And so what if assailants (let’s be generous and agree they all are for argument’s sake) believe this or that because of BLM? Let’s be even more generous and say BLM is wrong (I don’t think they are, but just to see where this goes).
People are getting summarily executed for that belief.
That’s what makes me really angry about Ferguson and all the ones before or since. Ferguson started as a suspected shoplifting case. So, what, suspicion of shoplifting is grounds for summary execution now?
anecdotally, i think there probably is a ferguson effect.
ive heard a lot of people saying that they refuse to call for police help in situations that might otherwise merit law enforcement. traffic accidents, sounds of gun fire, belligerent drunks. and ive even seen people get socially shamed for phoning the cops.
people are worried that calling the police will only make things worse. depending on the particular police force and the race of the parties involved, those people may well be right.
fox is misreading the situation by asserting the fault lies with black lives matter. the “fault” is that pocket sized video recording devices are exposing pre-existing police violence.
my two cents is tha if the police don’t reform themselves, there probably will be an uptick in crime. society probably needs cops, but possibly not the ones the usa has.
I remember saying in Another Place that one of the jaw-dropping moments in the Slate Political Gabfest podcast was when Emily Bazelon (white, East Coast Ivy League intellectual) shocked her white East Coast intellectual colleagues David Plotz and John Dickerson by saying she had taught her children not to call the police if they could help it, because the police would likely make any situation worse.
The actual statistics from the assailents are not surprising. It’s 50 men that shot police officers, 40% white, 35% black, almost all are in gangs or do drug regularly. Even the ones that said they planned to ambush a police officer were most likely to be high at the time. Mental health issues (either diagnosed or not) are suspected to be slave component, likely being self-medicated.
However, the conclusion being drawn by the law enforcement offices doesn’t reflect that at all.
Most of the people reading this have mental health issues and / or do drugs regularly.
Drugs, mental illness, a history of minor crimes, etc are all excuses police and their apologists use whenever a cop shoots someone who wasn’t an immediate threat.
i half wonder about the connection to this and anti-vax. is the new white liberal thing going to be to pooh pooh the po po? and does that solve anything?
Well, yeah. But I’m just pointing out that the study that says “the media, politicians, and blacks are the reason police are being shot and law enforcement has been less successful” is a bad conclusion to draw from a group with no distinguishing traits.