The rest of my responses to the McManus discussion: Peter Schmitz writes: Mark Anderson and Eva Young are wrong to suggest that police brutality, or thumperism, has gone down during Olson's tenure. REPORTS of brutality have certainly gone down, but that's only because with a gutted Citizen Review Authority that's only recently been resuscitated, a civilian abused by the Minneapolis police, for all practical purposes, had no recourse for all practical purposes. (Thanks to public pressure coming from Citizens United Against Police Brutality , along with several African American constituents who gave Rybak heck last fall, the CRA is up and running again.)
Mark Anderson: When was the last time we've had an over $100,000 settlement due to police brutality? It seems they were coming every six months a decade ago. Even on this List most of the complaints are because the police overreacted to some vulnerable member of the population. They shot a woman because she was threatening with a knife, they shot a man who was swinging a sword around. The recent incident about the (plumber's helper?) was apparently a blatant lie. Ten years ago the beatings were apparently just to intimidate the arrestees, not because the officers need more training with threatening situations. Obviously the Department still needs to improve, but it's vastly better than before. Mark Snyder says: Personally, I think more telling about McManus's management skills is the way he rose through the ranks in DC. Didn't I read that they have around 3,800 cops? I think you must be doing pretty good work to get noticed in that large of a group. I think you've also got to be for real as a manager if you work in that large of a group and you keep moving up. If he weren't a good manager, he probably would have been stuck in a mid-level position rather than reaching assistant chief. Mark Anderson: Well it's generally political skills, not management skills that results in promotions. In any case, I'm talking about a higher level of management skills than a even a good mid-level manager has. It's far from an easy task to change the culture of a big city police force, or else any candidate could do it. Tamir Nolley wrote: In my view (I'm only speaking for myself, but I know many others strongly share this opinion) most (not all)of the people who support an internal candidate support a certain level of police brutality (or tough policing, use whichever term appeals to you) becuase it makes them feel safe. Mark Anderson: That is absurd. I could as easily say about you, Tamir, that you support a certain amount of crime, because it keeps the police from getting too powerful. Give some evidence, or stop making specious allegations. Jonathan wrote: >It >wasn't the same context, but that was the point, because that was the only >case >that the word "alienate" even was used in referring to McManus. Mark >statements, >in my opinion, were inaccurate, he already admitted to reading basically the >same things I posted, yet he came to a different conclusion to which I can >find nothing to substantiate it. That makes those statements false in my >mind, >and that was what I was addressing. Eva wrote: I think Mark's statements are subjective - and yours are too. I don't think he's lying because he interprets articles differently than you do. Mark Anderson: Thanks Eva. Most of Jonathan's comments have been very reasonable, but he was overreaching here. Both of our comments are very subjective, because the evidence is so slim. The lack of evidence is my main point. I am concerned about McManus much more because we don't know what could do than that a few cops in Dayton don't like him. I hope McManus will be able to control the behavior of the street cop, but I'm not very optimistic. the fact that he seems to be winning over the council members doesn't alleviate my concern, because that just shows his high political skills, and says nothing about his management ability. Mark V Anderson Bancroft 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. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ 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
