Wednesday, April 28, 2021

Changes in policing

In the Federalist, Katy Faust interviews a black cop. Here are a few of his comments:
...But what used to concern us was bringing in the suspect safely and prioritizing how we’re going to defend ourselves if need be, and get home to our family. But now it’s, “I don’t wanna go to jail. And if this dude has an underlying medical condition I don’t know about and he decides to fight or he is on drugs or he strokes out on me, a jury might send me to jail for this.” It changes the kinds of calls we respond to.
So if, for example, we get a complaint about people speeding down someone’s street, we used to gladly go. But when we do a traffic stop, we don’t know who we are pulling over; they might have a warrant, they might have committed a crime, they might not have a license, it could be a DUI. Now if he decides to escalate because he doesn’t want to go to jail, our badge could be on the line just for a speeding call.
Or we get calls from businesses where a guy has been passed out in their bathroom for three hours after shooting heroin. It’s bad for business so they call us and say, “Hey, we don’t want to confront this guy, can you come do it for us?”
We used to gladly take those calls, but often the addict has warrants and they don’t want to go to jail. If it escalates, sometimes the business turns around and backstabs us. So now we respond if your safety is in question but otherwise, unfortunately, we can’t risk our lives or our careers or jail time over someone’s inconvenience.
Read more here: https://thefederalist.com/2021/04/26/black-cop-lies-about-institutional-racism-are-making-america-more-violent/

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