The murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, MN last Monday, May 25

[financeguy]

Indemnifying the cops against financial liability is a huge issue rarely discussed. The L.A. City council, for example, is not legally obliged to but as a matter of routine does pay the judgements against LAPD officers. This became an issue in the 90s when a now disbanded unit in the department was sued for one of many incidents leading to death. The attorney for a decedent in a fast food robbery after hours leading to a shoot out attempted to get the parties including officers involved and the chief of police (Gates at the time) to pay personally but the city council was going to indemnify anyway, even though jurors were told any amounts would be paid directly, leading to a lower figure. The attorney then named the members of the council in a suit, indicating that by indemnifying as a matter of course 100% of the time they were contributing to the deaths and other misbehavior. Removing legal shields like this would solve a lot of the problems. Why behave if the worst case scenario is a paid suspension or switching departments in the off chance you're fired?

[spork]

Definitely. Maybe there are criminals that wish police to be thought to be criminals though. Those could be labeled insurrrctionists and several other terms of rebellion. I might be getting a bit out of the limits of my vocabulary with that remark.

Given your fora moniker, I assume you are familiar with the work on statistical discrimination by economists like Kenneth Arrow and Gary Becker? If not, I can recommend the Stanford policing study: https://openpolicing.stanford.edu/findings/.

Every well-designed study I have seen shows that in the USA blacks are stopped, searched, arrested, mistreated, and killed by police at far higher rates per capita than whites, in violation of federal and state law. To me that is criminal.

[mahagonny]

Definitely. Maybe there are criminals that wish police to be thought to be criminals though. Those could be labeled insurrrctionists and several other terms of rebellion. I might be getting a bit out of the limits of my vocabulary with that remark.

Given your fora moniker, I assume you are familiar with the work on statistical discrimination by economists like Kenneth Arrow and Gary Becker? If not, I can recommend the Stanford policing study: https://openpolicing.stanford.edu/findings/.

Every well-designed study I have seen shows that in the USA blacks are stopped, searched, arrested, mistreated, and killed by police at far higher rates per capita than whites, in violation of federal and state law. To me that is criminal.

Any idea why this is the case?

[mahagonny]

Definitely. Maybe there are criminals that wish police to be thought to be criminals though. Those could be labeled insurrrctionists and several other terms of rebellion. I might be getting a bit out of the limits of my vocabulary with that remark.

Given your fora moniker, I assume you are familiar with the work on statistical discrimination by economists like Kenneth Arrow and Gary Becker? If not, I can recommend the Stanford policing study: https://openpolicing.stanford.edu/findings/.

Every well-designed study I have seen shows that in the USA blacks are stopped, searched, arrested, mistreated, and killed by police at far higher rates per capita than whites, in violation of federal and state law. To me that is criminal.

Any idea why this is the case?

You seem to be telling us that when a policeman or woman sees a black person they are more likely to suspect that person has, will or is committing a crime that they would with a white person.
Let's take *what the police are thinking* out of the conversation for a minute. Let's suppose there's one omniscient video recorder that sees whenever anyone, any where commits a crime. What does it see? Is some group committing more crimes more often than another group, taking into account its size?

[writingprof]

A veto-proof majority of the Minneapolis City Council has apparently announced plans to disband the police department.  Can this be real?  Will residents sue the city for refusing to provide basic services?  I mean, as a conservative, I love it when progressives implode, but this is obvious insanity. 

[mahagonny]

A veto-proof majority of the Minneapolis City Council has apparently announced plans to disband the police department.  Can this be real?  Will residents sue the city for refusing to provide basic services?  I mean, as a conservative, I love it when progressives implode, but this is obvious insanity.

Sounds like a perfect storm. The police are not trustworthy, but there's hysteria in response to that. The mayor is poorly informed. He said 'if George Floyd had been white, he'd be alive and in excellent health now.' Which is not true at all. The guy was a mess. Advanced heart disease, fentanyl, amphetamine, morphine and THC in his system, and a smoker. Either committing suicide gradually or seriously out of control.

[eigen]

A veto-proof majority of the Minneapolis City Council has apparently announced plans to disband the police department.  Can this be real?  Will residents sue the city for refusing to provide basic services?  I mean, as a conservative, I love it when progressives implode, but this is obvious insanity.

I'm not aware of anything that requires a city to maintain a police force, other than the will of the voters.

Could you point me to something that indicates otherwise?

It seems like the city residents could certainly look to recall the elected officials and/or vote in replacements if the disagree with the majority vote. But I think for them to "sue" the city for "refusing to provide basic services" would require some sort of stated position on what basic services are.

[Wahoo Redux]

A veto-proof majority of the Minneapolis City Council has apparently announced plans to disband the police department.  Can this be real?  Will residents sue the city for refusing to provide basic services?  I mean, as a conservative, I love it when progressives implode, but this is obvious insanity.

A great many of our problems would go away if we stopped being "conservatives" and "progressives."

We might be able to talk about the "insanity" of our politicians---particularly our president---without choosing teams first.

Morality and politics are not football games.

[hmaria1609]

From WTOP Radio online:

Disbanding an entire department has happened before. In 2012, with crime rampant in Camden, New Jersey, the city disbanded its police department and replaced it with a new force that covered Camden County. Compton, California, took the same step in 2000, shifting its policing to Los Angeles County.

Full article:
https://wtop.com/national/2020/06/minneapolis-council-majority-backs-disbanding-police-force/

[Wahoo Redux]

From WTOP Radio online:

Disbanding an entire department has happened before. In 2012, with crime rampant in Camden, New Jersey, the city disbanded its police department and replaced it with a new force that covered Camden County. Compton, California, took the same step in 2000, shifting its policing to Los Angeles County.

Full article:
https://wtop.com/national/2020/06/minneapolis-council-majority-backs-disbanding-police-force/

This is not unprecedented.

Disbanding an entire department has happened before. In 2012, with crime rampant in Camden, New Jersey, the city disbanded its police department and replaced it with a new force that covered Camden County. Compton, California, took the same step in 2000, shifting its policing to Los Angeles County.

Seems like democracy in action to me.

[mahagonny]

A veto-proof majority of the Minneapolis City Council has apparently announced plans to disband the police department.  Can this be real?  Will residents sue the city for refusing to provide basic services?  I mean, as a conservative, I love it when progressives implode, but this is obvious insanity.

A great many of our problems would go away if we stopped being "conservatives" and "progressives."

We might be able to talk about the "insanity" of our politicians---particularly our president---without choosing teams first.

Morality and politics are not football games.

OTOH any society in which people are worried about when tattoo parlors will be open again maybe deserves to be a spectator sport.

[Wahoo Redux]

A veto-proof majority of the Minneapolis City Council has apparently announced plans to disband the police department.  Can this be real?  Will residents sue the city for refusing to provide basic services?  I mean, as a conservative, I love it when progressives implode, but this is obvious insanity.

A great many of our problems would go away if we stopped being "conservatives" and "progressives."

We might be able to talk about the "insanity" of our politicians---particularly our president---without choosing teams first.

Morality and politics are not football games.

OTOH any society in which people are worried about when tattoo parlors will be open again maybe deserves to be a spectator sport.

And who, my friend, is that exactly?

I've been watching a lot of news.

That doesn't seem to be the major concern of most of the protesters. 

[Treehugger]

Definitely. Maybe there are criminals that wish police to be thought to be criminals though. Those could be labeled insurrrctionists and several other terms of rebellion. I might be getting a bit out of the limits of my vocabulary with that remark.

Given your fora moniker, I assume you are familiar with the work on statistical discrimination by economists like Kenneth Arrow and Gary Becker? If not, I can recommend the Stanford policing study: https://openpolicing.stanford.edu/findings/.

Every well-designed study I have seen shows that in the USA blacks are stopped, searched, arrested, mistreated, and killed by police at far higher rates per capita than whites, in violation of federal and state law. To me that is criminal.

Any idea why this is the case?

You seem to be telling us that when a policeman or woman sees a black person they are more likely to suspect that person has, will or is committing a crime that they would with a white person.
Let's take *what the police are thinking* out of the conversation for a minute. Let's suppose there's one omniscient video recorder that sees whenever anyone, any where commits a crime. What does it see? Is some group committing more crimes more often than another group, taking into account its size?

Ok, I'll take the bait. That's because blacks are much more likely to be violent criminals than whites. Fact. There are all kinds of statistics that show this, but they are almost never brought up in the context of higher arrest rates for blacks.

Just a little while ago I read a Huff Post piece that attempted to refute this. Sadly, the best they could do was  say that although both black and whites have similar levels of gun ownership, blacks are more likely to be arrested for gun violence. Incredibly, the author was using this a "proof" of racism.

Here is an interesting article that seriously digs into statistics about police brutality and race:https://quillette.com/2019/07/27/dont-blame-police-racism-for-americas-violence-epidemic/

Here is just one of the many interesting statistics (which come from government sources): the homicide rate for black teens was 16 times higher than for white teens (in 2017, at least).

Also take a look at: https://www.amazon.com/Taboo-Facts-Cant-Talk-About/dp/162157928X/ref=sr_1_2?crid=2SGJ4K7R7533S&dchild=1&keywords=taboo+10+facts+you+can%27t+talkabout&qid=1591614433&sprefix=10+taboo%2Caps%2C169&sr=8-2

Two more things I would like to add:

First, when I was in high school, I was the victim of a violent black-on-white sexual assault by several armed men (who also yelled racial slurs at me for an hour while I was naked). It is an event I can never forget. However, I will say that it didn't take me too long to realize that "the personal is political" only when you have had the right personal experience. When you have had the "wrong" personal experience, you are expected to just shut up about it, or you are told, "Well, n=1" or "that's just an anecdote, not data," or worst of all, "well, you are probably more biased than most now."

My take? A lot of white academicians are living in a bubble where they hear what they want to hear about race and violence.

Second, I realize that there is a #shutdownSTEM, #shutdownacademia movement afloat. If I understand correctly, the idea is to take one day (just one day!!) June 10th to become anti-racists, to actively work to bring racial equality to the workplace. Hello? I know that my husband who is the department chair in a STEM field has always supported and actively worked to make his department more inclusive and diverse. When they hire a woman or POC, he is genuinely thrilled. When women or POC have any complaint about discrimination, he is on it. Seriously. And, seriously, it is not just him. It is by far the majority of the professors in the department who feel the same way (and I hear about the very few who don't). Also, they don't just react, they are doing their absolute best to be proactive and think about how to get more women and POC interested in the field.

So, as you might imagine, my husband doesn't have any problem with taking June 10th to continue the work they are already doing and, who knows, maybe learn something new.

So far so good. However, when I read the material on the #shutdownSTEM website (which was sent to my husband, who shared it with me), I saw that not only were they calling for anti-racist action on June 10th, but they were calling academia in general and STEM in particular "white supremacist." I'm sorry? What? What are your grounds for calling institutions and departments who are already doing their best to be inclusive "white supremacist?" From what I have read, I suspect that it is in part because the number of specifically black professors does not match the percentage of blacks in the general population. However, they are many possible reasons for this and I actually think that a supposed "culture of white supremacy" is one of the least plausible ones.

[apl68]

From WTOP Radio online:

Disbanding an entire department has happened before. In 2012, with crime rampant in Camden, New Jersey, the city disbanded its police department and replaced it with a new force that covered Camden County. Compton, California, took the same step in 2000, shifting its policing to Los Angeles County.

Full article:
https://wtop.com/national/2020/06/minneapolis-council-majority-backs-disbanding-police-force/

Well, that means there are precedents that Minneapolis can study that will hopefully help them if they decide to go through with this.

[marshwiggle]

So far so good. However, when I read the material on the #shutdownSTEM website (which was sent to my husband, who shared it with me), I saw that not only were they calling for anti-racist action on June 10th, but they were calling academia in general and STEM in particular "white supremacist." I'm sorry? What? What are your grounds for calling institutions and departments who are already doing their best to be inclusive "white supremacist?" From what I have read, I suspect that it is in part because the number of specifically black professors does not match the percentage of blacks in the general population. However, they are many possible reasons for this and I actually think that a supposed "culture of white supremacy" is one of the least plausible ones.

(First of all, sorry to hear about your horrible experience in high school.)

Some of my thoughts to illustrate the points above:

My experience is also that the vast amount of male faculty in STEM want to encourage young women and non-white students. Smart, keen students don't grow on trees so any that you find are valued. In the labs I do for an electronics course only about 20% of students are women. Some of them really enjoy the labs, and I tell all of the students about my follow-up course which they might enjoy.  There are usually less than 20% of women in the follow-up course. I realized that it's not a question of whether they think my course would be interesting; it's whether they think my course would be the most interesting option for them.

(When students apply to programs, they indicate 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choices. Statistics over the years have established that when offers of admission are made to students, of the people who rated the program their 1st choice they accept at a very high rate, like 80% or something. When they rated it their 2nd choice, the acceptance rate is much lower, like 30% or so, and if they rated it their 3rd choice, it's only around 5%. So even if something is their 2nd favourite choice the uptake will be much lower than if it's their first.)


To sum up: when people make choice based on their preferences, small differences can make notable differences in outcomes, without having to invoke any nefarious motives.

And this is without getting into differences between different ethnic groups in career expectations for their children, which vastly affects student choices.