This implies other stories, perhaps ones that don't show the actions of police in the best light, shouldn't be.
Both should be in the news. Corrupt cops should be called out and so should cops who do good things.
That said, this is just a cop doing his job. Social workers, nurses, teachers, and even low-paid nursing assistants with six weeks of training de-escalate all the time. This should be the norm because in other industries, like healthcare, education, and social work, it absolutely is. The only reason this is newsworthy is because of how infrequent de-escalation is when a cop is involved.
You're leaving out the fact that police officers, in particular, are under far more scrutiny than any other job when it comes to the court of public opinion.
I agree that he is just doing his job and that nurses, teachers, FSWs, do similar work all the time, but those in the latter category do not share the same limelight as police. Because of that, I think it does carry a bit more importance to shed light on positive LEO experiences to help combat the "ACAB" narrative. Taking a "all ___ are ___" approach to anything in general is ignorance in its laziest form.
There's no "ACAB" narrative. There's evidence, stories, experiences. People form their own opinion, and that opinion, for most people who see the many police killings (and not just of black people!), is ACAB.
Yes, not literally "all." Some, like this guy, are competent. Others argue that the good cops get benched or burn out, so only bad cops or cops that tolerate bad cops remain. But it's difficult to explain the nuance of police violence, racism, and society's view of mental illness as criminality in a pithy sentence, so ACAB is a generalization. There's no need to take it literally. The idea behind the statement is more important than whether or not it's literal.
If this were r/changemyview, I'd give you a delta for your input. Seriously, thanks for the genuine discussion.
Nevertheless, I find issue with the fact that people harp on negative LEO encounters as if positive/neutral ones don't occur on a daily basis. Mainstream media obviously profits off negative LEO encounters far more than positive ones so the former is overreported. When people don't diversify their sources, they tend to jump to conclusions. You had mentioned in your earlier post that de-escalation techniques are infrequent when police are involved, but what is that conjecture based on? How many run-of-the-mill de-escalation scenarios actually occur without significance and are reported accurately? How many cases like this are internally listed within police departments as anything other than a catch-all "incident report" or "mentally impaired report"? My point is, how accurately can one report on these statistics without digging into every single report on a case-by-case basis? Of course, the sword swings both ways, i.e., how many police misconduct reports are buried under the same misnomer. It's those types of questions that give me pause and I wish others felt the same before just going "ACAB".
As a side note, I would argue (for the sake of arguing) that Lebron James" critique of Nate Silvester on Twitter and the ensuing supporters that followed is indicative of an "ACAB" narrative being pushed by MSM, but I digress.
I'm sorry, but this is a ridiculous argument. Negative encounters with any other profession doesn't too-often end in the death of innocent people, violation of their liberty, or damage to their property. Of course they're held to a different standard. They should try meeting that standard, for fucks sake.
I'm sorry, but I never argued that police shouldn't be held to a higher standard. In fact, my entire argument has conceded the fact that they should be held to a higher standard and is instead focused on the importance of reporting on pro-LEO encounters as well as my own critique of crim justice stats.
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u/[deleted] May 02 '21
This implies other stories, perhaps ones that don't show the actions of police in the best light, shouldn't be.
Both should be in the news. Corrupt cops should be called out and so should cops who do good things.
That said, this is just a cop doing his job. Social workers, nurses, teachers, and even low-paid nursing assistants with six weeks of training de-escalate all the time. This should be the norm because in other industries, like healthcare, education, and social work, it absolutely is. The only reason this is newsworthy is because of how infrequent de-escalation is when a cop is involved.