jimnyc
04-14-2021, 02:57 PM
And this would eliminate police interactions.
Even if you did ignore many low level things, then obviously they will eventually be ignored by most, and then onto other violations. And which officer decides which to ignore and which not to? :rolleyes:
Not everyone will be pulled over for every violation they commit. Many times no cops around. Sometimes it's not bad and a cop will keep going or ignore it. But if a violation is in fact committed, they have that right to pull someone over. This should NOT automatically mean a bad interaction. That's completely up to the individual and how they respond to the police. I don't think I ever saw someone get shot for listening to the police. I have seen many let go with a warning, and many bring paperwork to court or politely fight it and they are tossed. But resist and you guarantee things to go south. And that is not a reason to complain and have them start ignoring crimes. The objective is to have citizens not commit the crimes. :rolleyes:
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Just Let Him Get Away
The answer to every question is not sending an agent of the state up to someone's driver-side window with one hand on a gun.
When officers with the Brooklyn Center Police found that Daunte Wright's tags were expired, surely there was a way to make him aware of that—and get the problem fixed—that did not involve armed agents of the state physically confronting him. Do police need to conduct so many traffic stops, particularly for relatively minor violations? Every time there's a stop, it raises the risk of violence and tragedy, because it creates an opportunity for confrontation and misunderstanding. It raises the temperature. It's one thing if a person is swerving all over the road, posing a threat to himself and others, but this was not that. Maybe these officers did not feel they were given discretion on how to act here, but they should be given that leeway by policy in every jurisdiction. We should end any incentives, like quotas, that lead to more traffic stops. In general, we should encourage police officers to let more suspects get away.
This is alien to the American psyche, where decades of popular culture—and probably a whole lot more—have instilled in us the cops-and-robbers vision of life. Every criminal is John Dillinger, to be chased to the end of the world by some relentless agent of the state who doubles as an emblem of order in an otherwise chaotic existence. There are dangerous criminals who must be taken off the streets immediately, but most interactions between civilians and police are incredibly mundane. It's just that when you're Black, the chances of it going from mundane to deadly are far higher, and it seems to take no time at all. Did Daunte Wright really become a menace to the public in the time it took for them to run his name in the system? Did they even really need to turn to a physical confrontation when they found he had a warrant out for missing a court date related to a misdemeanor gun charge? Could they not have offered him the chance to turn himself in, contact his lawyer, collect himself over a longer period of time than whatever it took for them to walk from their own car to his?
By the time the handcuffs were going on, and Wright's amygdala kicked into gear and he lurched back to his car to flee, and the shouts of "Taser!" rang out, it was already too late. The situation had already escalated—been escalated—from a routine stop to a highly volatile situation. Unless there is reason to believe someone is an immediate threat to himself or others, we need to scale back the involvement of police. There are other ways to get in contact with people and make them aware of their obligations under our system of law than sending someone with a gun up to the driver-side window. Not everyone must be taken into custody on the spot. Sometimes, when you know you can find someone later and there's no reason to believe they'll do something terrible in the interim, it makes more sense to let them get away. Whether police or the people they answer to are ready to allow that to happen is another story.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a36106825/daunte-wright-brooklyn-center-shot-at-traffic-stop/
Even if you did ignore many low level things, then obviously they will eventually be ignored by most, and then onto other violations. And which officer decides which to ignore and which not to? :rolleyes:
Not everyone will be pulled over for every violation they commit. Many times no cops around. Sometimes it's not bad and a cop will keep going or ignore it. But if a violation is in fact committed, they have that right to pull someone over. This should NOT automatically mean a bad interaction. That's completely up to the individual and how they respond to the police. I don't think I ever saw someone get shot for listening to the police. I have seen many let go with a warning, and many bring paperwork to court or politely fight it and they are tossed. But resist and you guarantee things to go south. And that is not a reason to complain and have them start ignoring crimes. The objective is to have citizens not commit the crimes. :rolleyes:
---
Just Let Him Get Away
The answer to every question is not sending an agent of the state up to someone's driver-side window with one hand on a gun.
When officers with the Brooklyn Center Police found that Daunte Wright's tags were expired, surely there was a way to make him aware of that—and get the problem fixed—that did not involve armed agents of the state physically confronting him. Do police need to conduct so many traffic stops, particularly for relatively minor violations? Every time there's a stop, it raises the risk of violence and tragedy, because it creates an opportunity for confrontation and misunderstanding. It raises the temperature. It's one thing if a person is swerving all over the road, posing a threat to himself and others, but this was not that. Maybe these officers did not feel they were given discretion on how to act here, but they should be given that leeway by policy in every jurisdiction. We should end any incentives, like quotas, that lead to more traffic stops. In general, we should encourage police officers to let more suspects get away.
This is alien to the American psyche, where decades of popular culture—and probably a whole lot more—have instilled in us the cops-and-robbers vision of life. Every criminal is John Dillinger, to be chased to the end of the world by some relentless agent of the state who doubles as an emblem of order in an otherwise chaotic existence. There are dangerous criminals who must be taken off the streets immediately, but most interactions between civilians and police are incredibly mundane. It's just that when you're Black, the chances of it going from mundane to deadly are far higher, and it seems to take no time at all. Did Daunte Wright really become a menace to the public in the time it took for them to run his name in the system? Did they even really need to turn to a physical confrontation when they found he had a warrant out for missing a court date related to a misdemeanor gun charge? Could they not have offered him the chance to turn himself in, contact his lawyer, collect himself over a longer period of time than whatever it took for them to walk from their own car to his?
By the time the handcuffs were going on, and Wright's amygdala kicked into gear and he lurched back to his car to flee, and the shouts of "Taser!" rang out, it was already too late. The situation had already escalated—been escalated—from a routine stop to a highly volatile situation. Unless there is reason to believe someone is an immediate threat to himself or others, we need to scale back the involvement of police. There are other ways to get in contact with people and make them aware of their obligations under our system of law than sending someone with a gun up to the driver-side window. Not everyone must be taken into custody on the spot. Sometimes, when you know you can find someone later and there's no reason to believe they'll do something terrible in the interim, it makes more sense to let them get away. Whether police or the people they answer to are ready to allow that to happen is another story.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a36106825/daunte-wright-brooklyn-center-shot-at-traffic-stop/