A Minneapolis police officer has been relieved of duty while his department investigates a profanity-laced video in an encounter with a man at a car stop. During the abusive confrontation, the officer threatens to break the legs of a suspect if he attempts to escape.
The stop in South Minneapolis was captured on video below and the officer can be heard saying “Plain and simple, if you [expletive] with me, I’m gonna break your legs before you get a chance to run.” It is still unknown what led to the arrest. Indeed, the young man can be heard asking why he was being arrested and the officer responds simply “Because I feel like arresting you.”
Some accounts say that the officer is Officer Rod Webber who has been put on paid leave while an internal investigation.
The videotape is another example of the value of videotape in the proving of police abuse. We have been following the continuing abuse of citizens who are detained or arrested for filming police in public. (For prior columns, click here and here). Despite consistent rulings upholding the right of citizens to film police in public, these abuses continue.
And what will you do with the fact that this eliminates many blacks and Hispanics from being police officers?
Check your white privilege.
Were that true, why would the military have such a commissioning requirement?
“Thoughtful post. I agree with it entirely.”
Speculative piffle.
What statistics prove that “an extra four years studying anything will make someone more rounded“?
For example, Women’s Studies, or any ‘Studies’ major.
Employers know these are workers to avoid, given their tendency toward solipsism and lawsuits.
Not rounded but sharp a knives, to be rejected as co-workers, having learned nothing useful and much that is simply wrong and even dangerous.
Isaac wrote, “Pogo
You have a tendency to use a few proofs to disprove an entire argument. There is no absolute proof that a ‘college degree’ will make a better cop. But an extra four years studying anything will make someone more rounded. Statistics prove this out. There was a time when the work force would take someone with a high school education and hire them, train them, keep training them, promote them, and retire them. That is less and less the situation. The quality of a public school high school education has deteriorated and more importantly the workplace has become more transient and less permanent worker dependent.
The essence of suggesting a police officer have more than a high school education refers to: a college degree, any further education, time to reflect and decide, experience in the outside world, and more importantly not simply being 19 and getting a job for a boy or girl of ‘job age’. No one addition to a malleable 19yr old straight out of high school will fix all the problems but every bit that is added will certainly do no more harm.”
Thoughtful post. I agree with it entirely.
Isaac said: “You have a tendency to use a few proofs to disprove an entire argument.”
No, I used the very evidence they cited in favor of their argument.
It simply did not show what they purported it showed.
The burden of proof is on those demanding college training to show it improves police behavior, in contrast to better training and perhaps selecting slightly older recruits.
Liberal arts used to impart a broadened worldview, maybe, perhaps.
Not anymore.
Colleges are now indoctrination camps for social justice warriors, generating the most narcissistic, entitled and narrow cohort in U.S. history.
Pogo
You have a tendency to use a few proofs to disprove an entire argument. There is no absolute proof that a ‘college degree’ will make a better cop. But an extra four years studying anything will make someone more rounded. Statistics prove this out. There was a time when the work force would take someone with a high school education and hire them, train them, keep training them, promote them, and retire them. That is less and less the situation. The quality of a public school high school education has deteriorated and more importantly the workplace has become more transient and less permanent worker dependent.
The essence of suggesting a police officer have more than a high school education refers to: a college degree, any further education, time to reflect and decide, experience in the outside world, and more importantly not simply being 19 and getting a job for a boy or girl of ‘job age’. No one addition to a malleable 19yr old straight out of high school will fix all the problems but every bit that is added will certainly do no more harm.
Nick
We all have experiences with people who trained for something and did not do well cuz they weren’t cut out for it. That doesn’t discount the greater examples of those that decided early on to be something and then devoted a considerable time getting there. Somehow a person that has the right to shoot people and is in such a critical intersection in people’s lives should be better trained and simply more together. A college degree is one positive ingredient, not the only one.
issac – I have seen that a Liberal Arts degree gives one the best well-rounded education for any occupation.
@NickS
Al O’Heem put Gort’s picture above with the rays coming out of his visor. That is what started this.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
I am a movie buff but not in your league, Squeek. Saw The Day the Earth Stood Still once, 40 or so years ago. I was stoned.
Nick – saw the movie when it first came out and I was too young to be stoned.
LOL!
@NickS
Oh, that is OK. “Gort” is the big robot thingy from The Day The Earth Stood Still movie. The alien “Klaatu” played by Michael Rennie spoke in an alien language, the “Klaatu barada nikto” statement, and “Barenga! and Deglet ovrosco.
Sooo, the above poem is a very horribly naughty, but funny, poem partially in Gort and Klaatu’s language. I mean if you had a cornos and it ever got stot, you would know exactly what I mean! Oh, I am blushing just thinking about it!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Isaac, I am a voracious reader of newspapers. So yes, please watch TV, read newspapers, and see if you can chew gum as well. TV has improved immensely the past decade or so. I’m not talking the major networks, I’m talking FX, AMC, etc. as well as the premium channels. They are competing w/ film and in many respect besting film productions.
Squeeky, That poem is like some Dennis Miller jokes, went over my head.
I have a bachelors degree in criminal justice. Many of my classmates went on to become cops. Some of my classmates already were cops, prison workers, probation officers, etc. working and going to school. The course work, like most degrees, offered virtually no practical knowledge on police work. I went into prison work out of school and it was virtually of no practical use there either. I can think of 2 of my classmates who graduated w/ me and went into police work being horribly ill suited temperament wise for that work. I lost contact w/ them a couple years or so after graduation and have no idea how they did. Neither seemed to have much, of any, empathy. I think empathy is a quality cops need and a quality the cop haters here could use a large dose of as well.
@Al O’Heem
ROTFLMAO!!!! Oh, This needs a Sci-Fi Irish Poem!!! This is a very, very naughty one, sooo don’t let the kiddies read this!!!
A Steel Life Portrait???
An Alien Irish Poem by Squeeky Fromm
There once was a fellow named “Gort”
Who arrived from an outer space port!
When his cornos got stot,
His sorubbies went flot,
And ferlappo berenga ovrort!!!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
The studies cited no longer have relevance as colleges have declined in quality since the 1990s, the latest time by which the officers studied would have obtained degrees.
The primary argument against a random college degree is that college is no longer a useful proxy for anything at all.
So it is more complicated than advertised:
http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/issues/102005/images/figure6.jpg
http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/issues/102005/images/figure4.jpg
http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/issues/102005/images/figure1.jpg
From the St. Paul MN data: The Influence of Higher Education on Police Officer Work Habits
http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/issues/102005/images/figure2.jpg
1. “In an analysis of disciplinary cases against Florida cops from 1997 to 2002, the International Association of Chiefs of Police found that:
** Officers who had only high school diplomas-58 percent of officers-were the subject of 75 percent of all disciplinary actions.
** Officers who had only associate’s degrees-16 percent of officers-were the subject of 12 percent of all disciplinary actions.
** Officers with bachelor’s degrees-24 percent of officers-were the subject of 11 percent of all disciplinary actions.”
However, this study did not appear to control for Age, Gender, Ethnicity.
Much of the discrepancy could be accounted for by age alone, as even a 2 year degree had some effect.
“..An average patrol officer spends most of the time on dispute resolution,” Mayo says. A degree “gives (officers) a broad perspective that makes them much more effective.””
2. So why not just teach dispute resolution?
3. Requiring a college degree would shut out many blacks and Latinos.
President Obama’s most trusted and preferred advisor on Police/Community Relations the Reverend Al Sharpton has called for the federal government to take over local law enforcement.
In a press conference regarding the events in Baltimore the Reverend Sharpton said: “We need the Justice Department to step in and take over policing in this country. In the 20th century, they had to fight states’ rights to get the right to vote. We’re going to have to fight states’ rights in terms of closing down police cases. Police must be held accountable.”
President Obama has in his “21st Century Policing” pilot program has begun the process of federalizing local law enforcement. Called the COPS program there has already been a move to federalize policing in six cities. The cities chosen for the COPS pilot program are Minneapolis, Fort Worth, Pittsburgh, Stockton, Birmingham and Gary, IN. As mentioned by Obama’s 21st Century Policing Task Force, the founding premise for this federal takeover is supposedly the rampant racism of the American police, who victimize poor, innocent populations for no other reason than that of their race. This program offers federal funds in return for control of the policing function. Standards and practices will be dictated by the federal government and not the locality. It is Common Core for Cops.
This comes after a long period of social unrest exacerbated by lies pushed in the Michael Brown case. The actions and words of people like the Reverend Al Sharpton, President Obama and Mayor De Blasio led directly to a mentally unstable individual murdering two New York City Police officers by way of obtaining revenge. You can see the effect of this on some of the mentally unstable posters on this site. Day after day and post after post they whip themselves into a frenzy of denouncing the police while ignoring the criminals who at the very least bear a mention once in a while. Instead of seeking a balanced approach they pushed the false narrative that the population was more in danger from the police than the thugs and criminals who victimize their community each and every day. It is part of their agenda.
To continue the daily drumbeat of anti- police posts feeds into the frenzy that will empower people like Al Sharpton and Eric Holder and their successors to have control over your local police department. It is clear that is what most who post here desire. They have no concept of the unintended consequences of this idiocy.