The 2020 Democratic National Convention

[Trausti]

Odd Willie Brown wasn’t selected to speak at the DNC.

Awww. What a shame. But take heart; Mikey Pence will get a turn to mouth the mushroom at the RNC

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Well, Willie taught Kamala how to kneel before it was cool.

 

[Elixir]

I think we can all agree that the important thing about the RNC is that they are now committed to eradicating the scourge of cannibalism that is plaguing our nation.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Very few people are buying into the "defund" idea in the form that right wing paranoia vendors are pushing it.
Most - and probably a huge preponderance of - Democrats would favor reallocations of resources to keep police out of affairs and situations with which they are not trained to deal.
Right wingers will attempt to keep "defund" as a hotbutton issue, and they might succeed in leveraging it into a little bit more turnout from their idiot-base. But that's all.

Yes, I'm slightly left of center and I understand the argument. I understand that some on the left want to hire unemployed Psychiatrists, pay them an officer's wages or less, and then ask them to intervene into potentially dangerous family disturbance calls and expertly deescalate the situations. But even I, a person on the left, is suspicious of this plan. But I'm open minded. However, I'm talking about people in the middle. I'm not talking about the left. The election will be decided by the middle - mostly suburban people in Florida, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Like it or not, they will be the ones who decide the election. And I think that they will be very scared about the defunding plan. And we should all be aware that Trump will seize on this issue, and run on it very very hard.

Couple of things: I believe that most police officers regard domestic situations as extremely volatile and potentially dangerous. And they really can be. A very sad situation in my community maybe...25 years ago: A couple had a very volatile relationship. The woman had moved the kids to her sisters' and had requested a police escort to finish removing her belongings from the family home. Officers, as well as her parents accompanied her because the husband was known to be violent. In front of police officers, the husband shot his wife, who died on the scene. He hung himself in his jail cell.

That was obviously a very dangerous situation and without police officers on site, likely more people would have been shot. However, one cannot help but think that if there had been more social structures in place, more resources for the family prior to this incident, this might have been prevented and those kids could have grown up with their mother and in an ideal world, the father would have gotten enough help with his issues that he could have been in their lives, and safely, as well.

Another thing is: I know a police officer in a major city who has to administer Narcan multiple times during every single shift. This is something that obviously is out of the scope of his work in most circumstances. Ideally, no one would ever overdose but within the realm of reality: shouldn't this be administered by a trained medical professional, such as an EMT? Precious moments that mean the difference between life and death would be lost if they waited for the ambulance to arrive, but why isn't the ambulance the first to be called to the scene?

The other thing is that: there is a tremendous shortage of mental health professionals. I strongly doubt that there are ANY unemployed psychiatrists who actually still hold their licenses to practice. One psychiatrist I know has been considering moving to AK because it would be so lucrative: the entire state has something like 2 licensed psychiatrists now. As it is, ask anyone who is seeking good care from a psychologist, psychiatrist or even mental health social worker and they will likely tell you that it can be a long wait for an appointment. We need to encourage more people to become qualified for this field and not to pay them squat.

When I think of defunding the police, I think of de-militarizing the police. Departments have been purchasing lots of overstock of military equipment for years and have enormous firepower. This simply escalates situations rather than deescalates them.

Another thing is that the vast majority of crime is drug and/or alcohol related. Decriminalization of drugs will not change that---I included alcohol, which is totally legal, in that for a very good reason. We need to address the problem we have that leads people to overindulge or develop dangerous habits that make them more vulnerable and more volatile.

Also: Wisconsin is not a big suburban state. Lots and lots and lots of small towns, a couple of biggish cities and some small towns.

Toni: good post. Yes, my post that you responded to had some sarcasm in it. At least in Oregon and Washington, there is an extreme lack of therapists of any kind to deal with mental illness. This could and should be a completely separate thread, but we do a terrible job of helping the mentally ill people and their families. My post was really about trying to argue that thinking that there is this mystical force of people (who are not police) who can enter a potentially dangerous household, access the situation, calm everyone down, and deescalate the situation, without using weapons, at a police officer's salary is crazy uninformed.

I suppose that I'm not totally against de-militarizing the police. But I do want the police to have better weapons and protection than the bad guys. And the central problem is officers being poorly trained and scared, and resorting to violence when a better de-escalation might have been used. So, if officers have less weapons, they will be probably be more apt to getting scared easier, and then will probably make even more mistakes. If we really want to have better police, we should dramatically increase their training, dramatically increase their screening, kick the bad ones out, do not hire bigots, do not allow protection of bad cops, increase their pay to get better candidates, and make them more accountable to the community.

 

[Elixir]

Toni: good post. Yes, my post that you responded to had some sarcasm in it.

I'm glad to hear that, because on the face of it, it sounds like an endorsement of the current means of dealing with virtually every form of unrest or suspicion; shoot someone.
I'd also take issue with Toni's assertion that decriminalizing drugs won't help. Don't knock it until you've tried it - the Portugal model has worked very well and there really is no counter-example.

Personally I'd like to see LE officer and Teachers paid at top 10% income levels, with qualification standards and training requirements to match.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Toni: good post. Yes, my post that you responded to had some sarcasm in it.

I'm glad to hear that, because on the face of it, it sounds like an endorsement of the current means of dealing with virtually every form of unrest or suspicion; shoot someone.
I'd also take issue with Toni's assertion that decriminalizing drugs won't help. Don't knock it until you've tried it - the Portugal model has worked very well and there really is no counter-example.

Personally I'd like to see LE officer and Teachers paid at top 10% income levels, with qualification standards and training requirements to match.

It's actually extremely rare for a police officer to pull out their gun, let alone fire it. Only about 5% of all officers ever fire their weapon during their career:

https://nypost.com/2017/10/21/everything-you-know-about-police-shootings-is-wrong/

 

[Elixir]

It's actually extremely rare for a police officer to pull out their gun, let alone fire it. Only about 5% of all officers ever fire their weapon during their career:

https://nypost.com/2017/10/21/everything-you-know-about-police-shootings-is-wrong/

So what? The number of LE personnel firing guns or the frequency with which they do so, is not what this is about. It's about why and at whom they fire them.
Echoes of "Why not open the schools? Only 1-3% of the population will die..."