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Dallas Police Chief: "We’re Asking Cops To Do Too Much In This Country’"

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JP_

Banned
I agree. Add in having to deal with second amendment too



I'd also say teachers face this to a lesser degree

The quotes are taken a bit out of context, but he also mentioned gun regulations, mental health funding, and I almost want to say he mentions schools too. Essentially, his point is that the police can't fix all of society's problems and that cities are failing to do their job.
 

AndyD

aka andydumi
That definitely is an interesting viewpoint.

From the OP, it doesn't look like he's blaming black women. Just saying that cops shouldn't be responsible to fix that problem. Which I'm not sure even makes sense.

If you replace "deal with" it makes more sense. It's not that they have to fix it, it's that they have to factor it in and deal with it on top of policing.

Mental health and substance abuse are definitely there, and jail/prison researchers have been saying this for a long time. They are not trained or equipped to resolve those issues and the medical/welfare system is not doing it either so they go untreated and often re-offend for life.
 

iavi

Member
Not looking forward to seeing the ideologues flood this thread and lambast him for adding nuance to the conversation.

This isn't nuance. This is a wordier way of phrasing blame blame black americans for the systemic issues they face at large aka "black on black crime, they're no saints anyway", etc. Same drivel, but from a self-hating black man this time. I don't fault him. To get to where he did in the system he has, he had to gulp some self-hating kool-aid. The psychological toll is real.

Nobody expects cops to do any of this shit he listed--this shit's no more than victim whining, just about god complex nonsense--which is the exact problems these trigger happy cops exhibit--fear tinged with ego. People just ask that cops do their job-- protect without bias. They have one job. Not the forty he just listed.
 
we're simply asking police officers to stop killing people then constantly justify it but okay

This. I get what he's saying. Society needs to fix these issues at the root cause through better understanding and legislation. But being overworked does not excuse what people are protesting about.

Like he literally says "get off the protest line and become a cop instead," that does nothing to solve their problem. There will still be other cops who unjustly kill black people and get away with it.

Cops are asked to "protect and serve." Yes, the problems society faces at large with race and other factors make this job harder. But it's still their job and we should expect them to do it while not randomly killing innocent people.
 
You guys should watch the full presser QA rather than reading a summary. He made good points and his tone was reserved. He wasn't saying anything really bad.

There's nothing to get mad about.

Was he saying "Man, we gotta figure out a way to stop killing unarmed people and doing everything we can to ensure the officer stays on the force/doesn't go to jail?" cause I don't hear anything about that in his speech.

I know he's black. black people aren't removed from anti-blackness

I really wish more people understood this.

"He's saying the same thing I'm thinking therefore I am not out of touch nor racist!"
 

lenovox1

Member
I don't think anyone is expecting cops to fix schools or most of the things he mentioned. People are protesting the unarmed killing of blacks.

Sure what he's talking about is larger societal problem, but I don't see what that has to do with the protests.

All we're asking is police be held more accountable in unjustified killings. Everything else he's saying it just noise in regards to that.

This is in response to the murder of his officers not to the BLM protests.

Those are two seperate issues.
 
Good points made, but his solution contradicts his complaints. If you think the cops are overwhelmed by societal problems, why is your solution to hire more cops, instead of fixing the problems themselves ?

The Police Chief has zero input into the legislative process.
 
Was he saying "Man, we gotta figure out a way to stop killing unarmed people and doing everything we can to ensure the officer stays on the force/doesn't go to jail?" cause I don't hear anything about that in his speech.

This was a press conference, not a speech.
 

LiK

Member
Was he saying "Man, we gotta figure out a way to stop killing unarmed people and doing everything we can to ensure the officer stays on the force/doesn't go to jail?" cause I don't hear anything about that in his speech.



I really wish more people understood this.

"He's saying the same thing I'm thinking therefore I am not out of touch nor racist!"

He mentioned that being part of the community works by policing within the communities and trust with citizens is what will keep police safe. The part that OP mentioned was just a small portion of a rather lengthy QA.
 
This was a press conference, not a speech.

Bullshit. He had plenty of other shit to rant about.

He mentioned that being part of the community works by policing within the communities and trust with citizens is what will keep police safe. The part that OP mentioned was just a small portion of a rather lengthy QA.

What part of "community policing" stops the fucking blue wall of silence? Or prosecutors that bend over backwards to make sure cops don't get indicted?
 

D4Danger

Unconfirmed Member
How do cops "solve" single african-american mothers? Marrying them? Being their wing-man?

I don't understand. It makes no sense.

correct me if I'm wrong but I think what he's saying that kids are raised by single mothers and the police would then be expected to be / seen as the authoritarian figure (i.e. father).

could be way off base here. That's just how I read it.
 

JP_

Banned
To be clear, he's not just passing the buck to avoid having to improve his police department. He's been making progress reforming since he took up the post.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/albertsamaha/dallas-police-numbers?utm_term=.wnV5zYEazB#.vxGREPNeEW

In 2009, the department received 147 excessive force complaints and made 74,000 arrests. Within three years, arrests were down to 61,000, and within five years excessive force complaints were down to 53.

...

And in the years since 2012, when police shot 23 people, the number of police shootings has decreased each year, down to 11 in 2015. According to the data, Dallas police officers have shot one person this year.


After a series of officer-involved shootings in late 2013, Brown overhauled the department’s lethal-force policies, including a requirement that officers undergo training every two months instead of every two years. The new policies won him a lot of public criticism from police groups and police advocates. He was even criticized by the Dallas Morning News, which accused him of being “reactive” and “moving too quickly.”

...

Brown has fired more than 70 Dallas cops since taking office. But he doesn’t just fire bad cops, he also announces the firings — and the reasons for them — on social media. It’s a bold sort of transparency for which, again, he’s been criticized by police groups. Shortly after taking office, Brown fired a police officer who had kicked and maced a handcuffed suspect. But he not only fired the cop, he publicly praised the officer who turned that cop in, an implicit acknowledgment and criticism of the notorious Blue Wall. “One of the things that I really want to express about Officer Upshaw’s action is that we should not as a department ostracize him in any way. We should applaud him coming forward, him intervening,” Brown said.

...

Since the Ferguson protests in 2014, there has been a lot of reporting about the devastating effects on the poor that come from the aggressive enforcement of traffic infractions and other petty crimes. Brown was ahead of the curve here, too. Between fiscal 2007 and fiscal 2013, the number of traffic tickets issued in Dallas dropped from 495,000 to under 212,000. That’s a massive cut. Brown reassigned traffic patrols to beats he felt were more conducive to public safety

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ing-those-things-could-now-be-more-difficult/

Dallas PD still has work to do, but they trying. Progress is being made. It's never as quick as is wanted or needed, but it's still worth acknowledging. And if you look at the protest in Dallas vs the protest in Baton Rouge, it's night and day. Dallas had zero riot gear, no tear gas, etc -- they didn't bring in heavy equipment. They didn't surround protesters or drag anybody away. They didn't point guns at anybody or shout orders on a loud speaker. They blocked off streets for the protestors.

Then why did he tell protesters to stop protesting and become a cop?

He's essentially saying "Be the change you want to see."
 

Plinko

Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
umm, isn't he more blaming black men (like himself) for not being a father figure to their children?

Oh. In THAT case, he can sit on bladed dicks..

We've had this discussion on GAF about the high percentage of black single-parent homes before, and statistics show that it is absolutely a legitimate issue that should be discussed. Not sure if the policeman chose the right venue, though.
 

collige

Banned
The Police Chief has zero input into the legislative process.
Yes, but if his response to protesters is "come join the police to fix this problem I just told you we can't fix" instead of "go protest the legislature since they have more control over the root causes of these issues", that doesn't make too much sense. Not to mention the fact that BLM protests are specifically about police interactions with their communities.
 

Ponn

Banned
Oh boy. I think his intentions here were good but....some of those sentences...

Yea i think his message is going to be lost when many actually agree with him. Police responsibilities and reach are too much. Police shouldn't be a part of our schools, handling mental health cases that aren't violent and really to his point even drug related cases. That should be handled by the DEA for major drug stings and your average cases of drug addiction and possession should be handled by some type of offshot from the DEA designed for help and rehabilitation instead of clogging up prisons and treating them like regular criminals and just churning them in the same system. Overall it would shrink the police presence in this country, allow them to refocus themselves and maybe, hopefully eliminate alot of the issues going on.
 
I don't think anyone is expecting cops to fix schools or most of the things he mentioned. People are protesting the unarmed killing of blacks.

What do struggling schools, scores of broken families, and untreated or poorly treated mental health all have in common?

The answer: they produce people that end up running through the criminal justice system.

This guy's basically saying "we need to fix the things that end up putting all these people through the criminal justice system."
 

Infinite

Member
We've had this discussion on GAF about the high percentage of black single-parent homes before, and statistics show that it is absolutely a legitimate issue that should be discussed. Not sure if the policeman chose the right venue, though.
Wasn't this debunked as a myth?
 

Servbot24

Banned
Was he saying "Man, we gotta figure out a way to stop killing unarmed people and doing everything we can to ensure the officer stays on the force/doesn't go to jail?" cause I don't hear anything about that in his speech.

Uh, yeah? If you give officers the resources needed to do their jobs well - hey, there's an increased chance of them doing their jobs well! That means safer officers and safer civilians.
 

dity

Member
You're making his point for him. He's saying cops are dealing with the larger difficulties in the black community, but are largely powerless to treat the root causes of those problems, even though they take all the blame for the results.
I'm not making his point for him. No one expects cops to solve that problem. No one calls them to ask about that problem. People do not call the cops to babysit or ask for relationship advice.

Even if society is failing to help those people, no one is standing there and expecting cops to solve that situation. A lack of a solution doesn't makes them the solution by default. No one is asking them to help in that kind of situation, so he should act like people are. That's stupid.
 

Amory

Member
makes some good points.

nothing there to really disagree with. he's not saying he's in support of the policies that create the results cops need to deal with, just that they exist and make the policing job a lot harder and more stressful than it used to be.

no real way to argue with that.

but cops are in charge of training their own people on the appropriate use of force, and that needs to change regardless of how hard the job is.
 

Ovid

Member
That definitely is an interesting viewpoint.



From the OP, it doesn't look like he's blaming black women. Just saying that cops shouldn't be responsible to fix that problem. Which I'm not sure even makes sense.
This.

I don't see anything wrong with what he said.
 

Ivan 3414

Member
He seems to be saying that protests do nothing positive for communities and his lone solution is for black men to become cops to take care of their community. As if there's nothing remotely wrong with America's policing system currently.
 
Bullshit. He had plenty of other shit to rant about.

Watch as that 70% shit gets looked over..tired of hearing it. It seems to be followed by

images


dumb shit..
 

Mr. X

Member
The OP needs to add the NPR article. He is right in that the lawmakers are leaving the cops out there to take the heat when they can't do much about existing laws and address so many things. Also, voting in asshole politicians.

Also, more minorities and people with the mindset that join these protests would make law enforcement better (diversity always improves a workplace). It's not that simple but it's a good step on the path to correcting this.
 

JP_

Banned
Adding more good apples doesn't do anything in the long run when the barrel is completely rotten...

Did you just ignore the rest of my post highlighting the fact that he's fired over 70 officers and put in new policies that have reduced the use of force and increased transparency..?
 
Yes, but if his response to protesters is "come join the police to fix this problem I just told you we can't fix" instead of "go protest the legislature since they have more control over the root causes of these issues", that doesn't make too much sense. Not to mention the fact that BLM protests are specifically about police interactions with their communities.

His response is more akin to: "We're doing everything we can. You can help us from the inside by becoming one of us."

He does what he can with what he's got.
 
He seems to be saying that protests do nothing positive for communities and his lone solution is for black men to become cops to take care of their community. As if there's nothing remotely wrong with America's policing system currently.

That's taking what he said and warping it to fit your own point of view.
 

Boke1879

Member
This is in response to the murder of his officers not to the BLM protests.

Those are two seperate issues.

Then why did he tell protesters to stop protesting and essentially become cops to help fix issues that they can't fix?

I get what he's saying and I get he was answering questions but I feel like he just brought up a laundry list of (legit) complaints about societal issues. But I'm not expecting police to fix anything but themselves.
 
I think his wording could be better, but the idea that people rely on police and prison to solve society's problems has some accuracy. More resources should be invested into poorer communities to provide education and opportunities.
 
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