Minneapolis agrees to overhaul police training and force policies after George Floyd's murder
Minneapolis agrees to overhaul police training and force policies after George Floyd's murder
The Minneapolis City Council has approved an agreement with the federal government to overhaul police training and use-of-force policies in the wake of the murder of George Floyd.
Summary
The Minneapolis City Council approved a federal consent decree to overhaul police training and use-of-force policies following the 2020 murder of George Floyd.
The agreement mandates officers prioritize human life, respect dignity, and avoid bias in the use of force.
The reforms stem from a 2023 Department of Justice report that found systematic discrimination, excessive force, and constitutional violations in the department.
An independent monitor and court oversight will enforce the changes, with federal and state consent decrees shaping the city's police reform efforts for years to come.
If you participate in Union busting you shouldn't get a Union
How about serious and lengthy de-escalation training? “Respecting dignity” or “prioritizing life” seems like some nebulous feel-good throwaway terms. Racism? Good luck. Don’t hire racists is the only way around it.
Most deescalation training is basically "respecting dignity" and "prioritizing life." - Sincerely: the person who just got trained to teach those classes after sitting in them myself for 10 years.
One of my biggest gripes in that time has been that most classes just tell you to be nicer to your psych patients. If you need to be told that you're already a lost cause. I was that psych patient wildin out and while it probably would've helped if those er nurses were less bitchy, there are much bigger and more important things that need to be fixed in that system such as practical knowledge of both behavior and physical and environmental safety. Remember that schizophrenic lady the cops shot a while back after they told her to pick up that kettle of boiling water? First thought in my head watching that was "they should have offered to turn it off for her." There's actual practical things to teach that those deescalation classes aren't even touching.
After a quick google search for de-escalation training here in the US (edit: for police), I could find nothing matching these terms. The documents I found mention de-escalation training including empathy and listening, but the majority of it was creating distance and time to protect the officer, and then carried on to mention thing like less-lethal methods of subduing someone. De-escalation apparently means not physically subduing them outright. Some more digging to check EU de-escalation (people anecdotally cite some countries in the EU as being far better at not needing to use violent means to control a situation) and the few documents I could find primarily indicated that "rights-based" de-escalation was a focus, along with specific training to help identify someone with mental health issues and training how to speak to someone in order to deflect and redirect the conversation. None of the EU methodology was mentioned in the US training summary.
That was 5 years ago. What's with the fucking hold up; the fat, doughnut-eating, trigger-happy, right-wing gun-nut, klan-members that are the police force there didn't wanna agree to not systematically discriminate and/or use excessive force, huh?
The Justice Department had to make sure the agreement they entered with the city looked impressive but didn't actually do anything that could ever lead to anyone being held accountable, that kind of careful lawyering takes time
that kind of careful lawyering takes time
This is advanced skullduggery!
But yeah, no one was ever going to do anything about anything. Why would they? It's not like they actually care about you people. And it's not like my country isn't a trainwreck on fire sinking fast into a swamp, but at least our cops are given an education longer than that of a barber's before being given a position of authority, with deadly force to enforce. But, given how much my country nowadays loves to ape whatsoever daddy Amerikkka has done or is doing (I'm looking at you currently-being-privatized once-public healthcare and fascists in the government!), I ain't exactly holding out hope for the future of our police force.
spoiler
Goddam, It's not even 11am and I'm barely even awake yet, and I've already lost hope for the future. But I have borderline, so it's normal, usual even, for me to go through many emotions within a short period of time. So much so that I like to jokingly refer to these kinds of cases as "going through the entire spectrum of human emotion until I just feel hollow". Which often happens in the mornings, now that I think about it, after I have read the news and doomscrolled for a while. Funny how it goes like that.
Why the fuck did it take 4 years to figure this out‽
Because the cops and their union have been throwing tantrums and bending politicians ears.
Five years after George Floyd's murder.
And this shit won't be enforced in any way. It's just theatre.
I would love to be proven wrong though.
And yet I fully expect the police union to complain that this will make their jobs harder. Or some braindead bullshit.
Agreed. Especially with cop-lover Trump in office. Nothing will change without not just a massive overhaul of the police in every municipality, but also a massive overhaul of police culture.
Because until they stop shit like warrior training, there will continue to be George Floyds.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/08/warrior-cop-class-dave-grossman-killology.html
Absolutely. The 'mandates' are a bunch of empty platitudes with loopholes so wide you could drive a semitruck through them. Business will continue as usual.
You can always trust Americans to do the right thing after exhausting every other option
- Kind of Winston Churchill
5 years later....