Mark Anderson writes:
We continue to see postings on this List complaining
about all the police brutality, but there seems to be
no distinctions made between true police brutality and
the whining and blatant lies by many criminals looking
to get out of their screw-ups by blaming the cops.
Michelle Gross posted a few days ago about Barbara
Schneider "cowering in fear" as she was shot by police,
conveniently forgetting that the woman was actually
holding a knife and lunging at the officers.
My response:
I appreciate that people with bipolar disorder can present
a problem for the police or anyone else who has to deal with
them. But I can't understand why you would characterize a
psychotic response as whining or an attempt to get out of
screwups.
[Mark Anderson]
Shawn Lewis posted today a broadside by CUAPB telling us to
call the jail, and to be impolite and abusive to whoever
answers the phone.
[Me]
The usual request from CUAPB mailings in situations like
this is to be "polite but firm." When I've called the jail,
the people who answered the phone haven't been even vaguely
nice or pleasant or polite, any my attempts at Minnesota
Nice have become downright farcical. In this context, I
read "no need to be nice or pleasant" as meaning "Just say
what you have to say and don't worry about the Minnesota
Nice farce," rather than a suggestion to be abusive.
[Mark Anderson]
You state that the good cops in Mpls hate to see brutality
as much as anybody. It makes good sense that that should
be the case, because every cop gets smeared when any cop
starts thumping. But I don't see the good cops doing anything
about it. There is still the code that police have that won't
allow them to speak out against bad cops. As long as the code
exists, we can change police chiefs all we want, and the
community could wail about injustice all it wants, but
still brutality won't go away. It's too hard to get
convictions of
the bad cops when all the good cops defend them. Somehow the
guys on the force have to figure out a way to throw out the
bad apples. Maybe the Police Federation needs to do their
own investigation of each incident, and decline to defend those
that are truly thumpers. I don't see how we'll solve the problem
unless the cop on the street gets involved.
[Me]
Now here I agree with you completely.
Doctors can be good people or bad people. Some of them
are very good at what they do and some are bad. But there
seems to be an understanding among doctors that they need
to have a standard of ethics that applies to all of them.
I don't think that doctors are inherently good or ethical
people, but they understand that it's in their interest as a
profession to have some uniform standards of behavior.
This is something I truly don't understand about police.
Like doctors, they can be good people or bad people. They
can be good at what they do or bad. But the police don't
seem to believe that consistent, well-enforced standards of
ethics would benefit their profession rather than harm it.
Rosalind Nelson
Bancroft neighborhood
REMINDERS:
1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
before continuing it on the list.
2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait.
________________________________
Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy
Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
