I think generally it boils down to an “enemy” mentality. If you’re a cop, a decent fraction of your job is getting violent with people who are resisting what you’re doing because they don’t want to go to jail. I think once someone slots into that “enemy” category, then it immediately becomes comfortable to do something horrendous to them; even if, like this woman, they didn’t do a damn thing wrong. So the end result is lending strength to state oppression.
I don’t think the solution to that is to get rid of all the cops. What are you going to do if someone tries to murder you? Any city in American that wanted to get its city council together and just disband the police force is able to do that; I don’t think it’s a unanimous capitalistic plot that they don’t; it’s that they genuinely fulfill an important function.
I also don’t think the solution is to have cops, but make them the enemy and be hostile to them all the time and defund them to punish them and decide that they’re a part of your city’s infrastructure that’s just always the enemy all the time. That’s part of what I don’t like about this meme – it’s like, who cares if it’s true, I just know these are always shitty people so any shitty thing I want to believe about them becomes a good thing to feel and so let’s get busy on hating them.
I do think strong oversight of the police is a good thing. I think bodycams and the culture of charging police with a crime (sometimes 😕) when they commit a crime changed policing in a massive way that isn’t really recognized. There are still big problems for sure. I also think sending people who aren’t police to e.g. mental health calls, places where the “let’s catch the bad people” model isn’t going to be what is needed, is a really good thing.
But I think in general, exactly the same mentality that leads this cop to drag this woman around by her hair (“well fuck it, she’s a suspect, she’s coming with me and who cares whether it gets done in a humane fashion, because that type of person is always the enemy”) actually roots back at the core to a very similar mentality to that that says “I’m going to bitch at the cop on this traffic stop and be antagonistic for no reason” or “all bad statistics about cops are true, all good statistics about cops are false” or etc etc, you know that type of person is always the enemy, you get the idea.
That’s actually a really good question
I think generally it boils down to an “enemy” mentality. If you’re a cop, a decent fraction of your job is getting violent with people who are resisting what you’re doing because they don’t want to go to jail. I think once someone slots into that “enemy” category, then it immediately becomes comfortable to do something horrendous to them; even if, like this woman, they didn’t do a damn thing wrong. So the end result is lending strength to state oppression.
I don’t think the solution to that is to get rid of all the cops. What are you going to do if someone tries to murder you? Any city in American that wanted to get its city council together and just disband the police force is able to do that; I don’t think it’s a unanimous capitalistic plot that they don’t; it’s that they genuinely fulfill an important function.
I also don’t think the solution is to have cops, but make them the enemy and be hostile to them all the time and defund them to punish them and decide that they’re a part of your city’s infrastructure that’s just always the enemy all the time. That’s part of what I don’t like about this meme – it’s like, who cares if it’s true, I just know these are always shitty people so any shitty thing I want to believe about them becomes a good thing to feel and so let’s get busy on hating them.
I do think strong oversight of the police is a good thing. I think bodycams and the culture of charging police with a crime (sometimes 😕) when they commit a crime changed policing in a massive way that isn’t really recognized. There are still big problems for sure. I also think sending people who aren’t police to e.g. mental health calls, places where the “let’s catch the bad people” model isn’t going to be what is needed, is a really good thing.
But I think in general, exactly the same mentality that leads this cop to drag this woman around by her hair (“well fuck it, she’s a suspect, she’s coming with me and who cares whether it gets done in a humane fashion, because that type of person is always the enemy”) actually roots back at the core to a very similar mentality to that that says “I’m going to bitch at the cop on this traffic stop and be antagonistic for no reason” or “all bad statistics about cops are true, all good statistics about cops are false” or etc etc, you know that type of person is always the enemy, you get the idea.