One thing I have not seen much grappling with: the Trump Administration has acted illegally with respect to the National Guard & Marines in LA plus the whole parade nonsense is a federal show of power, but cops ostensibly controlled by local governments in blue cities attacked protestors yesterday. - ThreadSky

peark.es • 7 days ago

One thing I have not seen much grappling with: the Trump Administration has acted illegally with respect to the National Guard & Marines in LA plus the whole parade nonsense is a federal show of power, but cops ostensibly controlled by local governments in blue cities attacked protestors yesterday.

Comments

nilo.bsky.social•7 days ago

If you don’t let the cops rough up protestors a bit they might stop solving murders.

forzasicilia.bsky.social•7 days ago

They’re already pretty bad a clearing those anyway.

nilo.bsky.social•7 days ago

Yeah well the Floyd reaction showed they can make it way worse.

boomies-n-zoomies.bsky.social•6 days ago

For some major cities they basically only close “self solving” murders.

Traffic enforcement is where you immediately feel their wildcat strike.

forzasicilia.bsky.social•7 days ago

That’s because they don’t really see themselves as working for their communities. They work for their union and themselves. Also, they see their communities as the enemy, which begs the question of do we need cops like that?

markshore.bsky.social•7 days ago

weird how many blue cities have police departments that act like hostile occupiers and hold the people they work for in open contempt

turnerjoy.bsky.social•7 days ago

I think part of the problem is LA Sheriff is even worse than LAPD

artmajor.bsky.social•7 days ago

These are all great questions because few ever consider who is actually leading local police forces. I strongly suspect that people join the police force for a variety of reasons, including the idea that they have an excuse to be aggressive.

1/

artmajor.bsky.social•7 days ago

When I was considering the military with my college roommates, they went in to become doctors. I’m big, and thought I can get paid to workout and help people. But I also have friends who went in so they could shoot enemies. The military can work with all of those types of people and shape them…
2/

artmajor.bsky.social•7 days ago

But I seriously doubt that local police forces are able to take the hyper aggressive asshole and shape them into disciplined public servants. So my suspicion is that the bad seeds in the military grow up or get weeded out, but the police force bad seeds fester and become a cancer.
3/3

captbob.bsky.social•7 days ago

Looks like you have a city manager form of gov't in Charlotte with a weak mayor. All properly progressive! But makes it hard to hold the departments to account. Maybe an angry crowd at the next city council meeting?

boomies-n-zoomies.bsky.social•7 days ago

Honestly, I think most people aren’t grappling with it because it’s not even that new. It’s normalized.

hobbidysparks.bsky.social•7 days ago

Same as it ever was

stephenbaines.bsky.social•6 days ago

https://bsky.app/profile/kendrawrites.com/post/3lro642ahxk2e

peark.es•7 days ago

Trump didn’t order CMPD to pepper spray protestors in Charlotte, Trump’s Marines didn’t open up with tear gas in LA, Trump didn’t tell cops in Savannah to detain a protestor for wearing a medical mask. It’s worth asking why electeds in those heavily blue places won’t answer for any of that.

romancaturday.bsky.social•7 days ago

They will - if there's an effective Democratic tea party movement next year. The Dems have been more resilient against that than the GOP, but nothing lasts forever.

triplesteakguy.bsky.social•7 days ago

it's part of the reason that the 'brunchlord' insult has such staying power, directed towards dem-adjacent voters who immediately tune out as long as 'their side' is in power and just assume that therefore everything is working out just fine

lessdismalsci.bsky.social•7 days ago

Obviously many of the electeds are cowards and the cops are a protection racket at best, but it kind of comes back on the voters? How many mayors have actually paid a political price for allowing police to run rampant vs. paid a price for not paying the Danegeld to their local stationary bandits?

oscaracostajd.bsky.social•7 days ago

It’s the opposite that happens. Local politicians are terrified of police. Police unions are very political and their members vote. Most local politician are terrified to be on the wrong side of that. It’s very hard, or impossible, to overcome in so many local elections.

lessdismalsci.bsky.social•7 days ago

Even in blue strongholds the median voter is inclined to reward cops failing at their jobs by throwing more money at them and remove anyone who wants to reign them in from office.

skoryy.bsky.social•7 days ago

Thinking back to how the CBC supported the infamous crime bill of the '90s

peark.es•7 days ago

Yeah fully agree this is as much a crisis of voters as representatives.

thefred.bsky.social•7 days ago

There's the political price, yes, but more immediately, a mayor who does this risks assassination by the police.

ericblyler.bsky.social•7 days ago

The LA Sheriff’s Dept were the ones who escalated yesterday. Their top leader, The LA Sheriff is elected every four years and reports to the Board of Supervisors. They are notoriously undisciplined, corrupt in places, and right wing-friendly. It would be a surprise to no one living in LA if —>

ericblyler.bsky.social•7 days ago

someone like Stephen Miller called up and told them to raise some hell at the march and they did.

hobbidysparks.bsky.social•7 days ago

If police dont get to police the way they want, they don't police at all, so Democratic Mayors have to negotiate

doremusjessup.bsky.social•7 days ago

Does Karen Bass have any say on when to authorize the use of these?

https://www.defense-technology.com/product/exact-impact-40-mm-standard-range-sponge-round/

peark.es•7 days ago

It goes beyond Bass, but elected officials absolutely have the ability to dictate rules of engagement for the police forces they oversee yes.

peark.es•7 days ago

The biggest challenge to a nonviolent national mass protest movement big enough to overwhelm the tenuous grasp on power that Trump has is the local instruments of power ostensibly controlled by people who ostensibly represent the very groups trying to lead that movement.

louisevans.bsky.social•7 days ago

The big question is which of those “ostensibly”s is more load-bearing

louisevans.bsky.social•7 days ago

I kinda suspect the former? But the sociology of the blob is understudied imo

peark.es•7 days ago

Very intentionally phrased so we could have that debate :)

louisevans.bsky.social•7 days ago

Slick (laudatory)

scottmccaskill.bsky.social•7 days ago

Every time we go after cops for terrible behavior, it seems to blow back against us. Even (or especially) when mayors try to rein them in

kootafoot.bsky.social•7 days ago

"Absolute power corrupts absolutely". Lord Acton and others before him expressed this interesting human trait.

amywsalvucci.bsky.social•7 days ago

Folks worry about the liberal monolith in academia like it’s existential threat. But there are other monoliths and they’re armed.

cpo10za.bsky.social•7 days ago

Key word: “Obstensively”.

texaskrusty.bsky.social•7 days ago

The military has a true ethos of service. Cops hate the communities they serve and are taught to use violence to control them.

Mayors in big cities cannot control or change their police.

I do not think the professional military is going to be with Trump. The fascist boys in blue are 💯 on board.

largesseadultson.bsky.social•7 days ago

A lot of the answer is cop “unions” which are really just well-funded cop PACs. Back in 2000 I heard directly from a city council candidate (not LA) that they were limiting what they said about police because we’d all seen the cop machine destroy another candidate two years prior (we had)

socio-steve.bsky.social•7 days ago

I don't think the police are actually fully accountable to elected officials anymore. As in, the mayors don't actually have control over them. See what the NYPD did when DeBlasio tried to rein them in.

stephenburtch.bsky.social•7 days ago

This seems to be the point where defunding is necessary.

If they answer to nobody then they shouldn't exist.

peark.es•7 days ago

Very dependent on local context but if Democrats in elected office don’t make clear they will not tolerate efforts to interfere with peaceful assembly of their coalition it gets a lot harder.

jordanw2382.bsky.social•7 days ago

It would be great to see high level attention to this. The biggest problems are the labor supply monopoly on the policing service, and negative polarization on recruitment. Police unions are a severe problem, and stigma of cops as thugs makes recruiting non thugs a problem.

okjess.bsky.social•7 days ago

If they do, they get inundated with claims that they are "anti-police" and departments engage in wildcat strikes.

lilflonase.bsky.social•7 days ago

‘The Police’ is an Institution with powerful labor union protections. The LA Co. Sheriff for ex. is prosecuting the lady brought in there by for oversight. Politicians come and go but it’s the same (unelected) cops. It’s not like they can be changed out liberal cops, there are none

hex720.net•7 days ago

Yep, and then they went after the person in oversight as well
Look at the lengths they went to after Christopher Dorner. They literally shot up a bunch of random civilians.
LAPD needs to be started over and LASD disbanded.

semiquaver.bsky.social•7 days ago

Yes indeed - mayor bass, the city council, and the supervisors should answer for this (dependable) debacle

moreacomment.bsky.social•7 days ago

What is the actual line of command? Mayors are not “commander in chief” of their police forces, right? So whoever the local head of police is, is effectively a dictator?

pmanville.bsky.social•7 days ago

Hedging

moreorlessbunk.bsky.social•7 days ago

The police are a 5th column that are not under civilian control. Just look at how the NYPD threatened DeBlasio’s daughter in 2020.

abw56.bsky.social•7 days ago

This is fundamentally it. Most police departments have become a cancerous growth on city budgets, and their ability to protect themselves from accountability and oversight through both active and passive means of resistance has successfully defenestrated Dems in a lot of areas.

bryyyyguy.bsky.social•7 days ago

Just look at what happened to Chesa Boudin in San Francisco. The cops were so mad that he would dare charge an officer for homicide that they worsened response times to help push the narrative for the recall campaign.

moreorlessbunk.bsky.social•7 days ago

Police is most major cities have been on strike since 2020. They don’t work but still demand more money. If people don’t like to say defund, maybe we ask what we’re paying these bozos for.

bryyyyguy.bsky.social•7 days ago

All the while case clearance rates have continued to decline despite the money spent. Which of course will be used as a demand for more funding even though the causation is backwards.

originalist.bsky.social•7 days ago

SFPD data showing massive increase in funding, massive decline in police work

While attacking who they "protect and serve" with racist and homophobic slurs (https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/SFPD-can-seek-discipline-of-officers-for-racist-13225294.php)

"Epidemic" (DOJ) crisis across the country of actual murders and torture, let alone "law and order"

booridley.bsky.social•7 days ago

I think the solution here is to dismantle the police unions and simply fire 10% of cops with the worst misconduct records. If you don’t do the work required you don’t get to have a well paid, great benefits government job.

booridley.bsky.social•7 days ago

We need to get creative with how to hold PD’s accountable. I think focusing on the funding and related taxes is actually a weak spot for cops as an interest group. The public shouldn’t be spending 40% of the budget on the police nor hundreds of millions on unnecessary overtime and legal settlements.

cpenny42.bsky.social•6 days ago

I vote that every time taxpayers have to pay for a court settlement/judgement due to police misconduct, that exact amount is removed from the police budgets moving forward. If they don’t want their budgets to shrink, they shouldn’t violate people’s rights.

kieranblake.bsky.social•7 days ago

Exactly

thefred.bsky.social•7 days ago

kelpkelpkelp.bsky.social•7 days ago

It'd be good to build civic pride in a way that empowers citizens (including when they protest) and ALSO involves cops in a shared mission of community protection from state/feds. I have NO idea how to do that given the "federalization" of politics. Cops seem more MAGA than they seem like neighbors.

lpeterp.bsky.social•7 days ago

This is a huge new danger.

leastactionhero.bsky.social•7 days ago

it is a hugely dispiriting sign that democrats in these jurisdictions refuse to think literally 1 step ahead of our situation

3fecta.bsky.social•7 days ago

Always think of Bill de Blasio's daughter being threatened by the NYPD at times like this. Is it fear, is it agreement? The end result is the same.

leastactionhero.bsky.social•7 days ago

i suspect it is partly a lawyer brain lack of imagination about the recourses available to them. they don’t see it as proper to oppose federal overreach on their own and they feel like they need permission. they want lawsuits to solve these problems.

leastactionhero.bsky.social•7 days ago

maybe governors should try "testing the limits of their power" the way the admin is doing constantly. just spitballing here.

booridley.bsky.social•7 days ago

You’ll notice that Dems will often not even run for office to lead law enforcement departments. Blue state leaders seem to not want to take responsibility for the behavior of cops nor hold them accountable for mass misconduct.

irvineghost20.bsky.social•6 days ago

Chicago saw peaceful protests. Our police chief, Snelling, would win in a landslide if he ran for mayor. Blue Sky's treatment of local police makes me so fucking annoyed, everyone on here is all ACAB all the time

gartmartin9.bsky.social•7 days ago

Local police are the biggest organized crime gang in America.
they don't answer to Mayors (and they have all the weapons)

spacejamveteran.bsky.social•7 days ago

End police unions

justinbuist.bsky.social•7 days ago

Institutional culture is very real just the same as institutional knowledge. Librarians are hard-core 1A screw the government everywhere. Police, on the whole, beat the shit out of minorities. Unix admins have beards.

Some cultures are worse than others.

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