Damn
This post is in: Post-racial America, Shitty Cops
This post is in: Post-racial America, Shitty Cops
by David Anderson| 26 Comments
This post is in: Anderson On Health Insurance, Civil Rights, Criminal Justice, Shitty Cops
The 57 Buffalo cops that resigned from the emergency response unit did it for at least partially economic reasons. Their legal bills won’t be back-stopped by someone else. If they get caught on camera rioting and beating the shit out of innocent civilians, they are taking on the financial risk of at least defending themselves. That is expensive.
“We quit because our union said [they] aren’t legally backing us anymore. So why would we stand on a line for the City with no legal backing if something [were to] happen? Has nothing to do with us supporting,” said another….
we did obtain an email sent to PBA members by Evans.
“In light of this, in order to maintain the sound financial structure of the PBA it will be my opinion the PBA NOT to pay for any ERT or SWAT members legal defense related to these protests going forward. This Admin in conjunction with DA John Flynn and or JP Kennedy could put a serious dent in the PBA’s funds.”
I am thinking as an insurance guy at the moment as that is my training. Pressure on the risk bearing entities is a key leverage point. Liability insurers could be looking at very large pay-outs over the next year or two from the caught on camera police actions of the past week. Liability insurers really don’t like to write policies where the premiums are systemically underpriced for correlated, predictable and solvable pay-out events.
What does this mean?
If counties, cities and towns’ don’t reform their police practices and union contracts, liability insurers will rate future contracts as high risk. High risk insurance contracts mean high rate increases. Insurers will insure almost anything as long as the premium is sufficient to cover both expected risk and random tail risk over a big pool. Counties, cities, and towns that have policies, procedures and accountability systems in place that minimize the probability of frequent and correlated liability events will see lower insurance rates.
Figuring out where the insurance contracts are is not a today problem. It is not a this week problem. It is a now and the next three to five year process. However, active pressure on liability insurers to correctly rate their premiums for correlated police brutality risk and pushing for reforms that will lead to lower local liability premiums is an avenue of progress that can be done in conjunction with other reforms.
Be brave, be safe, be kind.
by $8 blue check mistermix| 89 Comments
This post is in: Shitty Cops
I’m sure you’ve all seen the video of a 75 year-old man being pushed down by Buffalo Police in riot gear Thursday night. By the way, that man, Martin Gugino, is a peace activist undergoing chemotherapy. He’s awake, alert and oriented as of the last report I saw. The officers who did it were suspended after the video surfaced, but not before the Buffalo Police issued a statement that he had tripped and fallen. This video is a two-fer, because it not only shows that cops will push down old people, but that they’ll walk right by them even when they’re bleeding, instead of rendering aid. I think it was that latter action that really made this a damning video. If they had immediately stopped and tried to help the guy, maybe the rest of this story would have turned out somewhat differently.
Yesterday, reacting to the head of the police union’s goading, 57 Buffalo cops resigned from the special unit. That union head is a real piece of work:
“Our position is these officers were simply following orders from Deputy Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia to clear the square,” said Buffalo Police Benevolent Association President John Evans. “It doesn’t specify clear the square of men, 50 and under or 15 to 40. They were simply doing their job. I don’t know how much contact was made. He did slip in my estimation. He fell backwards.”
That made it a three-fer, because those cops demonstrated that they will stick to a lie no matter what, that they will try to hold a city hostage by quitting their special assignments when they might be needed the most instead of letting the process play out, and that giving cops an order to do something justifies, in the mind of their union leaders, any tactics whatsoever.
Here’s the thing: New York State has plenty of resources to fill in for those 57. Those cops can now hand out parking tickets and ride the desk filing paperwork until hell won’t have it anymore, and we’ll be fine. The union heads, locked in a MAGA bubble that doesn’t understand that people are sick of being scared for their lives every time they encounter a cop, and the cops who follow them, are playing this entirely wrong.
This post is in: Biden For President, Criminal Justice, Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat
NEW: Joe Biden during tonight's livestream: “There are probably anywhere from 10 to 15 percent of the people out there that are just not very good people." https://t.co/kb8LKRsxBm
— Reid J. Epstein (@reidepstein) June 5, 2020
This will lose him no more than 3 votes. Not 3 percent. 3 votes. https://t.co/Lb7fUn6MdQ
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) June 5, 2020
That Biden thinks 85% of his fellow citizens are good people is just another demonstration of him being one of the sunniest and most optimistic people in politics. https://t.co/eAtqetBicX
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) June 5, 2020
They really want it to be like “deplorables” or “guns and religion” but he didn’t make it partisan, so they had to go with the truncated version to make it sound saucy
— Adam Serwer?? (@AdamSerwer) June 5, 2020
Good. https://t.co/Y6GdtLZmUe
— The Public Option is good actually (@gdigitalzsmooth) June 4, 2020
— Alfonso Santillana (@alfysantillana) June 5, 2020
Worthwhile Democratic Initiative:
We cannot tolerate an American secret police.
I will be introducing legislation to require uniformed federal officers performing any domestic security duties to clearly identify what military branch or agency they represent. pic.twitter.com/2kaFAlWUow
— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) June 4, 2020
Friday Morning Open Thread: Proud to Be A DemocratPost + Comments (231)
by $8 blue check mistermix| 41 Comments
This post is in: Shitty Cops
He took over the investigation on Sunday, and today:
Attorney General Keith Ellison’s office on Wednesday upgraded charges against the former Minneapolis police officer who knelt on George Floyd’s neck and charged the other three officers at the scene with aiding and abetting murder.
Also, this city councilman’s long thread (this is the start) is getting a lot of attention. The gist is that council members suggesting even the mildest of reforms could expect Minneapolis cops to drag their feet responding to calls in their district. He’s talking about disbanding the police and starting over. (Click on the date of the tweet and then click on “Show This Thread” to read the whole thing — it’s long.)
by John Cole| 69 Comments
This post is in: Shitty Cops
I don’t like the rioting and looting happening with the protests, either. But I’m gonna drop some galaxy brain shit here for the slow among us- HAVE THE POLICE STOP MURDERING PEOPLE SO THERE IS NO PRETEXT FOR LOOTING.
I mean seriously- reform the police. It will stop the protesting, it will stop the billions spent each year by cities and locales for payments in court cases, and… it WILL MAKE POLICE SAFER.
Now I know that means it is going to require some of the brutish cops giving up their ultraviolence and will mean that the so-called “good cops” will have to hold the “bad cops” accountable, and may require the public flogging of every PBA head, but I think we can do it.
by $8 blue check mistermix| 115 Comments
This post is in: Shitty Cops
I just watched Cuomo’s press conference and it’s open war between him and de Blasio. Cuomo spent a long time entertaining the hypothetical of what it would take to remove de Blasio from office so the National Guard could be used to help police New York City. He began with these comments:
Cuomo was referring to widespread looting in Brooklyn, the Bronx and Manhattan last night. More detail on Cuomo’s remarks here.
Earlier, there was this (de Blasio’s daughter was protesting):
And, of course, there’s de Blasio’s weak response to NYPD cars running through protesters:
“And imagine what it would be like, you’re just trying to do your job and then you see hundreds of people converging upon you. I’m not gonna blame officers who are trying to deal with an absolutely impossible situation,” de Blasio said Saturday. “The folks who were converging on that police car did the wrong thing to begin with and they created an untenable situation. I wish the officers had found a different approach. But let’s begin at the beginning. The protesters in that video did the wrong thing to surround them, surround that police car, period.”
It looks like the NYPD is letting looting occur (or can’t be arsed to stop it), heavily policing peaceful protests, while showing open disrespect to de Blasio and his family, even though de Blasio is trying to placate them. Plus, Cuomo is absolutely shitting on him with zero pushback.
Is de Blasio as weak and useless as he appears? Is the NYPD an unstoppable juggernaut? Or did I miss something that people who live in NYC understand?