"I'm a black ex-cop & this is the real truth about race and policing" (spoiler: it's the leadership)

[uhnope]

He says 15% of police officers are always good, 15% are always bad, and the 70% will just go with the way their police department is run. So in an atmosphere that condones brutality, 85% are potentially brutalizers. In a police department that is run professionally, that 85% will be professional (but there will still be the 15% bad apples).

http://www.vox.com/2015/5/28/8661977/race-police-officer
I'm a black ex-cop, and this is the real truth about race and policing

by Redditt Hudson on May 28, 2015

On any given day, in any police department in the nation, 15 percent of officers will do the right thing no matter what is happening. Fifteen percent of officers will abuse their authority at every opportunity. The remaining 70 percent could go either way depending on whom they are working with.

That's a theory from my friend K.L. Williams, who has trained thousands of officers around the country in use of force. Based on what I experienced as a black man serving in the St. Louis Police Department for five years, I agree with him. I worked with men and women who became cops for all the right reasons — they really wanted to help make their communities better. And I worked with people like the president of my police academy class, who sent out an email after President Obama won the 2008 election that included the statement, "I can't believe I live in a country full of ni**er lovers!!!!!!!!" He patrolled the streets in St. Louis in a number of black communities with the authority to act under the color of law.

That remaining 70 percent of officers are highly susceptible to the culture in a given department. In the absence of any real effort to challenge department cultures, they become part of the problem. If their command ranks are racist or allow institutional racism to persist, or if a number of officers in their department are racist, they may end up doing terrible things.

[Hoyt]

1. I suspect there is a lot of truth in that. I also think that an armed populace, whether legally

armed or criminally armed, puts a lot of pressure on police and society.

In any event, we need to reduce/eliminate one of the 15% groups, expand the other and make sure leadership -- right down to the senior person in a car of two -- acts properly. Strongly support video cameras on every policeman and verification that they are working.

[PatSeg]

2. Well said

That is pretty much how I perceive it.

[PeoViejo]

3. I remember the days when cops walked a beat.

Everyone knew and respected them.

The first time I encountered police hostility was in 1967 in Greenwich Village. A friend and I were walking about, when we began to pass an officer writing a ticket. He dropped his pen, and I leaned-over to pick it up. He went for his gun. I handed him his pen and walked away.

[Cryptoad]

4. We have got to ,,,

start getting out the vote more in local elections and replace those who hire these thug cops!

[Overseas]

5. K&R.

[seabeyond]

6. The bad apples should immediately be disciplined, with a tight line not allowed to step over. Nt

[George II]

7. I think there are exaggerations or incorrect assessments here on both ends. From my experience...

...(growing up in NYC and working the graveyard shift in a hospital emergency room for a couple of years), I think the bad % is less than 10% or even lower, the good % is much higher than 15% probably more than 50% and that middle group is way lower than 70%.

I saw very very good officers, who brought in patients of all races (accident victims, violent crime victims, sick people), treating them the way they should have been treated, and went over and above what would normally be expected to make them comfortable.

I saw very very bad officers, including one who "arrested" me for driving with just my parking lights on, and held me for two or three hours. I am WHITE, and was a college student at the time.

I seriously think that many of the bad cops are innately bad and mistreat anyone of any race who interferes with what they perceive to be their "job".

There are bad actors in any profession - police officers, fire fighters, bankers, soldiers, store clerks, engineers, lawyers, politicians, teachers, etc. The reason people think there are so many is that we don't hear about the 90%+ of those people, in all walks of life, who just go about doing their jobs professionally and competently. But if acts bad, in any profession, we hear about it and the knee-jerk reaction is "just another crooked politician", "just another abusive officer", "just another crooked lawyer", etc.

[jtuck004]

8. With all due respect, officer, that appears to be a damn sight better than among the civilian

crowd, and is better than Congress.

I'm not sure if that is hopeful or not.

[uponit7771]

9. +1 !!!, David Brown has made the point the leadership is a big big difference