Since this is happening simultaneously in many different cities around the country, I have to wonder if there are private Facebook or WhatsApp or Signal groups where police members are talking about this trend. I'd very much like to see those conversations.
When four St Louis cops beat up an undercover cop at a protest, the ensuing federal suit (that's right, takes a cop to charge a cop) revealed some of the text messages of those involved:
The more the merrier! Its gonna get IGNORANT tonight! But it's gonna be a lot of fun beating the hell out of those shitheads once the sun goes down and nobody can tell us apart!
Someone took screenshots of Amber Guyger's Instagram pages before she cleaned up her social media, and it was disgusting. Private cop groups absolutely exist. It would be interesting to subpoena Facebook when the Minneapolis Four go to trial and investigate how deep the rot goes.
It's possible, but also, there's precedent from 2014 in Ferguson. Several members of credentialed media were arrested and assaulted to various degrees. Pretty much nothing happened by way of punishment other than a settlement from the DoJ saying they couldn't kettle people anymore, enforced by what is now Barr's department.
Any officer paying attention would know you won't be punished unless you act particularly egregiously like the one officer in Louisville reassigned to desk duty (big whoop). Add on the amount of animosity stoked by the president toward media for the past 4-5 years, and it really doesn't take a simultaneously coordinated effort to have this outcome.
Don't you think it's curious that only the police are allowed to have these super-effective unions with literal stay-out-of-jail clauses in their contracts - while Amazon workers who want proper toilet breaks will simply be fired?
Police unions shouldn't exist. It would be like having a union of military soldiers. Imagine if the US military had a union that refused to defend the country unless every soldier got immunity from war crimes and high 6 figure salaries. That is effectively what the police unions have done to this country.
does this argument not apply to all or most public sector employees? what if a teachers' union demanded high salaries and protection against being fired for poor performance (or worse)?
That's about public v. private unions, not really about cops v. everyone else.
Companies can fairly easily break a union. After call, why does Ford need a Detroit plant when they can use Mexico.
But governments are lead by politicians who get money from unions. Union supports leader, leader pays union, union supports leader. No incentive to keep costs down at all. It's actually better for politicians to have strong public unions.
Teachers unions make it pretty much impossible to fire someone. You pretty much need to molest a child in places with a union (after you make tenure).
>But governments are lead by politicians who get money from unions. Union supports leader, leader pays union, union supports leader. No incentive to keep costs down at all.
Hence the US states' and cities' unfunded pension debt crisis. Only solution to it in democracies is for non government employees to actively participate in local elections.
Maybe not as extreme but teacher's union is pretty bad about protecting members when accused/convicted of abuse. In any case, I was pointing out "reassigning to desk job" might be largely out of the hands of sergeants, and not just cronyism or racism.
Partially, maybe. But there's also a large role of qualified immunity and poor use of force policies in departments around the country. If an officer isn't required to report every time they threatened lethal force, it doesn't matter what the contract says about what should be done with use of force complaints.
No police union contract includes a statement that the officers are immune from criminal investigation and prosecution, and most of the egregious events would clearly result in investigation and prosecution (if not necessarily conviction) if done by non-police. That these cases don't get that far shows the effects of a general cooperation between police and the judicial and political system---DAs don't prosecute and courts won't convict---all backed by a social system that encourages that behavior: you won't get elected on a police reform platform anywhere in the US.
Facebook employees - this is how you can speak truth to power. Publish those private group communications. Name and shame the officers encouraging violence against protestors. You know it is happening, and you have the power to expose these abuses by police, military, and other extremist groups that have taken over what used to be a highly respectable profession.
If a single or even small group of employees could leak private chats without getting immediately caught then Facebook's security is completely screwed
the brain behind all this is the police union, FOP. It is a national scale organization which uses violence and threat of it to achieve its political goals. People mistakenly think that when they're dealing with local police they're dealing with local police.
I think you are on the right track, in so far as we need to understand what the constant across many different cities around the country.
Here is what I think (I know I will be burned at the steak for this):
The media market is the constant.
Media organizations and reporters are incentivized to get the most extreme and sensationalistic footage, so they are taking more risks and crossing more lines than every before.
