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question about the police in European and Asian countries

BH

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I see a lot of threads here about police brutality here in the states.

What would happen to a policeman who took a suspects life mistakenly in various European or Asian countries? Also what would happen if they got caught trying to cover up the mistake or lying about events that led to the killing?
 
I see a lot of threads here about police brutality here in the states.

What would happen to a policeman who took a suspects life mistakenly in various European or Asian countries? Also what would happen if they got caught trying to cover up the mistake or lying about events that led to the killing?


I don't have an answer to your question because we are faced with the possibility the answer is perhaps...nothing at all would happen. How would we have access to sufficient data on the actual facts in an individual case if the news services were as restrained as ours are here? It has all the appearances that perhaps states with strong security systems and many police could be as self forgiving as the american cops. The cases that get the publicity are usually those involving public figures or wealthy people who can afford to raise the issue. I strongly suspect that police in other parts of the world do their level best to cover up any mistakes they might make or even their prejudicial acts of violence...just as they do here.
 
I strongly suspect that police in other parts of the world do their level best to cover up any mistakes they might make or even their prejudicial acts of violence...just as they do here.
I think this would be the case as well. The issue is an apples to oranges to tuna fish when comparing countries to the US. All the other first world western nations don't have the large minority population, larger income disparity, poverty and gun culture that America does. And many non-first world nations have police so abyssal that make our worst cases look like Sheriff Andy Griffith.
 
We *do* have large minority populations (Some countries here on par with that of the US), and we do have income disparities and poverty; just not anywhere to the same degree. The only thing we're really lacking is the gun culture.

Police brutality certainly happens here. There have also been fatal results here and there (though they're undoubtedly far more rare, and those I've been able to find information on certainly don't fit in the 'He shot himself while his hands were cuffed behind his back' variety), and unsurprisingly authorities have at times been just as reluctant to prosecute as they are in the US. They do seem to benefit from not having the incredibly poor timing and common sense that seems common to various US authorities when it comes to these sorts of things. If nothing else, they know when to shut up and not turn public opinion against them even more.
 
We *do* have large minority populations (Some countries here on par with that of the US),
While some may have minority populations on par with the US as a whole none have the percentages that certain places have ie inner city areas with 95% minorities.
 
We *do* have large minority populations (Some countries here on par with that of the US),
While some may have minority populations on par with the US as a whole none have the percentages that certain places have ie inner city areas with 95% minorities.

Saying "inner city areas with 95% minorities" seems oxymoronic. Or are you saying that there are 5% of one culture, and so many other distinct cultures that none of them is as much as 5% of the population? ;)

I am pretty sure that there are districts in European cities where 95% of the people do not come from the dominant culture of the nation as a whole. The only thing that is different about the US is that the ancestors of a large fraction of your minority groups were brought to the country against their will.

Of course, the same is true of my country, but the descendants of forced migrants in our case are not readily distinguished from the rest of the population by appearance alone.
 
We *do* have large minority populations (Some countries here on par with that of the US),
While some may have minority populations on par with the US as a whole none have the percentages that certain places have ie inner city areas with 95% minorities.

This is also simply not true. For instance in my country, both Amsterdam and Rotterdam have around 51% of their *total* populations consisting of foreign born immigrants. Of the major US cities, only Los Angeles approaches this with 41%. And certainly, there are areas in both Amsterdam and Rotterdam that are almost exclusively inhabitated by minorities.

You simply don't know what you're talking about.
 

Well, apart from the forcing out of the head of the police force, an IPCC investigation, a few criminal prosecutions, an inquest, several years of questions being raised, political points being raised, review of police tactics and operations, changes to policing on the underground, a formal apology for misinformation issued at the time, various high profile campaigns, media programs, benefit concerts, etc.

We don't have people shot very often, so when it happens we tend to make a fuss. Whether there is enough fuss is another matter, but certainly there's a lot more there than there is likely to ever be for Ferguson
 
We *do* have large minority populations (Some countries here on par with that of the US), and we do have income disparities and poverty; just not anywhere to the same degree. The only thing we're really lacking is the gun culture.
Ding, ding on the part I underlined. Heck, I know that in the UK, the police generally don't even carry guns themselves. Kind of hard for the cop to start shooting a person for holding a spoon, pocket knife, or a banana w/o his/her own gun.
 
While some may have minority populations on par with the US as a whole none have the percentages that certain places have ie inner city areas with 95% minorities.

This is also simply not true. For instance in my country, both Amsterdam and Rotterdam have around 51% of their *total* populations consisting of foreign born immigrants. Of the major US cities, only Los Angeles approaches this with 41%. And certainly, there are areas in both Amsterdam and Rotterdam that are almost exclusively inhabitated by minorities.

You simply don't know what you're talking about.
It appears you're the one that doesn't know what he's talking about. Here's some numbers for you. These are just cities with African- American minorities.

Detroit, MI 84%
Jackson, MS 80%
Birmingham,AL 74%
Baltimore, MD 65%

There are plenty more places when you consider Hispanic minorities as well.
link

I'm not sure whether you were being intentionally dishonest by interchanging the terms minority and immigrants.
Amsterdam has a population of 813,562 inhabitants within city limits. As of 2012, the ethnic makeup of Amsterdam was 49.5% of Dutch ancestry and 50.5% of foreign origin.
Most of these "minority immigrants" were white.
Today, people of non-Western origin make up approximately one-third of the population of Amsterdam
But counting different Caucasian ethnicities as minority and grouping them the non-whites and claiming you have more diversity that America is ridiculous.
 
This is also simply not true. For instance in my country, both Amsterdam and Rotterdam have around 51% of their *total* populations consisting of foreign born immigrants. Of the major US cities, only Los Angeles approaches this with 41%. And certainly, there are areas in both Amsterdam and Rotterdam that are almost exclusively inhabitated by minorities.

You simply don't know what you're talking about.
It appears you're the one that doesn't know what he's talking about. Here's some numbers for you. These are just cities with African- American minorities.

Detroit, MI 84%
Jackson, MS 80%
Birmingham,AL 74%
Baltimore, MD 65%

No, it seems you didn't read what I wrote; I explicitly mentioned *foreign born immigrants*. Black people whose families have been American for generations obviously aren't foreign born immigrants.


Most of these "minority immigrants" were white.

Again, simply not true. If 50% of the total population consists of immigrants, and more than 35% of the city's total population is non-western in origin (as it is in Amsterdam); then indeed, most of the immigrants are going to be non-western; ie, non-white. I went to the trouble of looking up a breakdown of origin for the immigrant population of Amsterdam. The most recent figures my quick search found were from 2009:

15% came from North, West, or South Europe.
5% came from East Europe.
3% came from N-America.
Another 3% represent "other" westerners. (Japanese immigrants are actually counted as Western immigrants, so this figure doesn't entirely consist of white people)
18% came from Morocco.
18% came from Suriname.
11% came from Turkey.
7% came from Indonesia.
3% came from the Carribean.
4% came from the Middle-east.
3% came from Ghana.
3% came from North Africa (excluding Morocco)
3% came from Central/South America (excluding Suriname)
4% came from the rest of Asia (mostly Chinese and Vietnamese; afaik)
3% came from the rest of Africa.

That yields only a minority of the immigrants as being white. Sorry.


But counting different Caucasian ethnicities as minority and grouping them the non-whites and claiming you have more diversity that America is ridiculous.

First of all, pretending that diversity means having 84% black people in Detroit is itself ridiculous. That isn't diversity, that's the exact *opposite* of diversity. If we're talking about *real* diversity, then it doesn't get any more diverse than Amsterdam, which has more different nationalities living within its borders than any other city in the world (substantially more than say NYC, in fact). Diversity doesn't mean "Hey, there's a lot of black people living here."

Similarly, your current line of reasoning is hard to understand as anything other than a form of implicit racism. After all, you're kind of stuck arguing that the reason we here in Europe don't have your problems with police brutality is because we don't have as many non-white people as you do. Which kind of implies that it's black people's fault the police keep shooting them because hey look at those white Europeans who don't have as much trouble with police shooting people! Naturally, this makes your line of reasoning highly problematic regardless of intent.

Thirdly, your argument also rests on the simply wrong statement that our cities don't have districts that are overwhelmingly populated by minorities. In reality of course, plenty of European cities have large areas where exactly the opposite is true. In Amsterdam, that concerns areas like the Bijlmer, and Osdorp, where white people are rare indeed. Rotterdam's minority districts like Spangen or Feijenoord are even less white than those in Amsterdam. You will find a similar situation for just about every large European city. Anyone who thinks we don't have neighborhoods that are overwhelmingly populated by people who aren't white is someone who'se never been outside the tourist areas of London, Amsterdam, Paris, Brussels, Berlin, or any other large European city. Plus, at least your minorities mostly follow the same religion as the white people in the suburbs; so if anything, you'd expect LESS of a problem over there as compared to over here, not more.

Face it, the US isn't quite the shining supreme beacon of diversity it pretends to be, Europe isn't the shining supreme beacon of whiteness that some Americans apparently think it is, and we're both kind of fucked up when it comes to shit like police brutality; but your society has the extra burden of being fueled by an insane belief in the way of the gun; hence you get the distinction of being "better" than us at police brutality.
 
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Similarly, your current line of reasoning is hard to understand as anything other than a form of implicit racism. After all, you're kind of stuck arguing that the reason we here in Europe don't have your problems with police brutality is because we don't have as many non-white people as you do. Which kind of implies that it's black people's fault the police keep shooting them because hey look at those white Europeans who don't have as much trouble with police shooting people! Naturally, this makes your line of reasoning highly problematic regardless of intent.
No, this line of reasoning means there is more racism by our police not that it's black people's fault.

Thirdly, your argument also rests on the simply wrong statement that our cities don't have districts that are overwhelmingly populated by minorities. In reality of course, plenty of European cities have large areas where exactly the opposite is true.
This aspect isn't possible to dissect in this thread. While you may have neighborhoods or districts in cities you don't have entire cities like we do with police patrolling a group of "others" with such high percentages.
 
No, this line of reasoning means there is more racism by our police not that it's black people's fault.

Except that defense doesn't actually annul my accusation at all; because it doesn't explain *why* the police is more racist. Ultimately you're still saying that it's black people's fault, because *that* is the difference you've listed as explaining why Europe has less police brutality: we don't have as many black people. Why does America have more police brutality? "because our cops are more racist." But why are your cops more racist? "Well, we have more black people."

This aspect isn't possible to dissect in this thread. While you may have neighborhoods or districts in cities you don't have entire cities like we do with police patrolling a group of "others" with such high percentages.

You're shifting the goalpost. You started out saying that we don't have large minority populations. When it was pointed out to you that we do, you ceded the point but then claimed that we don't have inner city areas that are overwhelmingly populated by minorities. When I pointed out that we do, in fact have such areas and that no US city comes close to our level of foreign born immigrants you proceeded to hammer on the point that cities like Detroit have over 80% of their population consisting of African-Americans. Aside from the fact that pointing this out actually *proves* my point that these cities are *less* diverse, it's another shifting of the goal post; since you first just mentioned *areas*.
 

Well, apart from the forcing out of the head of the police force, an IPCC investigation, a few criminal prosecutions, an inquest, several years of questions being raised, political points being raised, review of police tactics and operations, changes to policing on the underground, a formal apology for misinformation issued at the time, various high profile campaigns, media programs, benefit concerts, etc.

We don't have people shot very often, so when it happens we tend to make a fuss. Whether there is enough fuss is another matter, but certainly there's a lot more there than there is likely to ever be for Ferguson

Forcing out the head of the police force? Which head of which force? It certainly wasn't Ian Blair, he only resigned after a dispute with Boris Johnson in 2008.

IPCC investigations? The ones the Metropolitan police tried to prevent happening and refused to co-operate with?

Criminal Prosecutions? Which ones? The CPS ruled out pursuing any individual and the Metropolitan Police were ultimately only "convicted" (in so far as an organisation can be held to be criminally accountable) for breaches of Health and Safety Law. Certainly, no individual police officer has ever been charged with a criminal offence, including the one who was so completely out of control that he emptied his firearm into the head of a man pinned to the ground from a range of a couple of feet.

The expression "a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing" pretty much sums up the official reaction to the shooting.

Oddly enough, although Ian Blair is culpable in all the subsequent attempts to usurp the law I don't feel he can be held responsible for the shooting itself. That blame lies squarely on Cressida Dick, who authorised the use of deadly force, and the officer who fired, who was clearly not in full control of his faculties.

We don't know what happened to that officer, hopefully he's no longer in the police and at the very least shouldn't be trusted with firearms ever again. Cressida Dick, unfortunately, went on with her meteoric rise and only retired recently.
 
I see a lot of threads here about police brutality here in the states.

What would happen to a policeman who took a suspects life mistakenly in various European or Asian countries? Also what would happen if they got caught trying to cover up the mistake or lying about events that led to the killing?
A lot of public outrage.
The offending policemen suspended during the inquiry.
Then, most probably, much later, once the public has turned to other news, a ruling that the policemen did no wrong and them being reinstated.

Basically, same as in the US, except our politicians are better at timing the bad news not to make the riots flare higher.

Also, we have less of these incidents and the threshold for indignation, especially in the housing projects who see themselves as the usual suspects and targets, is lower accordingly. Failure to protect can be enough.
The last housing projects riots I remember span a decade and were about:
- A trainee killing a guy by being too trigger-happy (why the politicians needed that to realize that arming trainees was a good idea is beyond me).
- A group of cops scaring kids into hiding in a high-voltage transformer, and ensuing fatalities (discussion being what was happening at those ID check patrols that the kids felt they had to run away from the playground when the cops arrived)
- Fatal crash of a stolen motorbike trying to run away from a pursuing patrol car

ETA: Else, we have brutalities in crowd control during demonstrations. Those tend usually to only attract more demonstrations, not riots.
A green protester occupying a future construction site was killed recently from a grenade lobbed at him that ended lodged between his backpack and his back, and detonated there. (I wasn't even aware the police could use grenades to disperse a crowd, but apparently it's a thing here)
 
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