Police are a volatile, uncontrollable solution for anything other than white collar crime. If you introduce police into a situation where your life ot belongings aren't in immediate danger, you should be prepared for them to make someone miserable or hurt someone and you're culpable if they do.

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1718627440 5 days ago | parent [-]

Police exists to deescalate conflicts and prevent harm. If they don't you should file a disciplinary complaint.

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NoGravitas 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

To whom? "We have investigated the complaint against ourselves and found that we were not at fault."

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kelseyfrog 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Why would we believe that an organization's existence is something that it routinely and consistently fails at? Are we delusional?

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1718627440 5 days ago | parent [-]

The police officers I experience are quite calm and seam reasonable. Sure there are also allegedly incidents at some demonstrations. But those are demonstrations I expect to be violent without police intervention.

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NoGravitas 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

I have been to many protests and demonstrations in my life, and not a single one of them has turned violent without police intervention. Occasionally there is property damage, but even that is the exception rather than the rule.

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5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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kelseyfrog 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

How would you determine if your experience was an outlier?

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1718627440 5 days ago | parent [-]

I don't. It just shows that the police doesn't need to be escalating and we shouldn't shrug and accept it as it is.

> Police are a volatile, uncontrollable solution

No they don't and shouldn't be.

> If you introduce police into a situation

I think informing the police about a dangerous attitude in some child isn't the wrong solution. The police not showing up at the parent's place and sending a therapist, but instead treating a child like a criminal adult is criminally neglect.

Also right here in the comments we have somebody mentioning that people behave how you treat them. That doesn't apply soly to children. If you treat the police like a militia and don't show respect they will behave like that to you.

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soulofmischief 5 days ago | parent [-]

I am not required to respect the police. They are required to respect me, a democratic citizen who has authorized their right to exist－not the other way around.

> I think informing the police about a dangerous attitude in some child isn't the wrong solution

I was regularly beaten at home by religious zealots, before finally being kicked out onto the street and becoming homeless at 16. The police were over at my house every three weeks or less, constantly threatening me with foster care and juvie if I didn't respect my grandfather's right to beat me.

The man would routinely make me choose a weapon, often but not always a belt. He would then beat me savagely with the metal buckle like a whip, all over my body, until I would stop crying, because "men do not cry, I'll teach you how to be a man", and "I'll give you something to cry about".

Every ounce of state intervention made it worse, because of police and administrative corruption. Don't even get me started on how they surveilled me through my school.

Yeah, we do have ideals. And regulations, which... don't always match those ideals. And then we have reality, which... doesn't always match regulations. To ignore reality and say that the regulations are the true reality is honestly a very ignorant and dangerous thing to do, especially when you try to instill this perspective into others.

	▲	1718627440 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		> I am not required to respect the police. You are one citizen. The police represent the other million citizens. They have the monopoly on violence, so that all the other citizens can't do that. I think this is way better than every citizen caring weapons and doing self-justice. Even when the police is going crazy, that is still better than civil war. They do have checks and regulation even if they don't always work, the other citizens haven't. That being said, I can absolutely see, how you distrust the police. I can't imagine what justification the police gave to their superiors in your case. I would expect public outrage if this became public, but maybe your country truly doesn't care. Of course you shouldn't report such issues to a corrupt militia, which your police seams to be posing as. However that is not what I would call a police and it should be reported to the police if you had such a thing in your region. When you ignore children with violent intentions this will lead to a stabbing or shooting later on. The police will treat a single claim very differently than recurring threats for violence. Informing the authorities early one makes them able to send therapists the first time. When they only ever hear about problems once things went violent or even only at the time of the amok, they need to send the violent force on the first occurrence, because they can now only try to shield the victims not help the delinquent child.

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potato3732842 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What? What in the hell? They exist for nothing of the sort.

Police exist to enforce the laws within specific parameters. They are basically a modern formalized take on midlevel men at arms. They mostly only de-escalate conflicts and prevent harm incidentally.

	▲	1718627440 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		And what do you thing the law is? It's a written agreement, because even if it doesn't give justice in every situation, it is better to peacefully agree on something instead of constantly fighting over everything. In other words a deescalation measurement. A concept of a written law is very different from a rule by decrees and the will of the ruler. The difference is that deciding whether something is lawful is outside of the ruler or the enforcer. (i.e. separation of powers) This is what differentiates a liberal democracy from a dictatorship, but also 19th century and modern monarchies from absolutism. So no police is not modern men-at-arms.

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Hizonner 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> Police exists to deescalate conflicts and prevent harm.

Somebody should tell them that.

> If they don't you should file a disciplinary complaint.

... which will be ignored. They may or may not laugh in your face.

I wish I lived in your dream world.

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1718627440 5 days ago | parent [-]

They regularly get education on how to deescalate. At least the media reports that. Also police officers get prosecuted for misconduct or promotion of right-wing ideology. Not every country has a weird dysfunctional police.

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soulofmischief 5 days ago | parent [-]

I don't know who would laugh at this more in my state, the criminals or the police themselves.

I was personally given a maximum sentence of 6 months in jail as an underage, first-time offender because a police officer who had been stalking my friend group planted weed on me at the scene of an accident. I was denied the right to a trial by jury, they refused to let me out of jail until I'd signed a paper giving up that right. I was homeless and needed to graduate high school, so I had no choice. My defense attorney was then forced off my case so that I could be given another attorney under the thumb of the prosecutor and judge's racket, and so this was never addressed.

Seven cops came up one after another and gave wildly different testimonies of what happened, then the judge gave me my sentence because "I think you're lying". When I moved to appeal, my compromised attorney refused to let me, saying, and I quote, "The judge is my boss. If I let you appeal his decision, he'll make my life miserable."

See, the prosecution was pissed off that I tried to fight my charges, and so they worked with the judge to give me maximum possible jail time, despite being a homeless kid who had never been arrested before.

And the officer who stalked me, planted weed on me and arrested me is a known methamphetamine producer and distributor. I have personally witnessed her roll up in her cop car with a toothless old woman in the passenger seat, and watched that old woman grab as many boxes of pseudoephedrine as she legally could and bring them back to the cop car. This is called smurfing.

Presumably it was on a day when her regular chemical supplier was unavailable, and presumably they hit several such stores that day in order to amass a large supply. Some people I know literally murdered her brother over a meth dispute, and the police found a giant meth lab on his property.

Oh, and the mayor was the prosecutor's dad. So, can't tell the DA, can't tell the mayor... Maybe the state police? No, they work with them. FBI? No, I have left anonymous tips several times and nothing ever came of it. The only investigation I ever caught wind of mysteriously dissipated.

I even went to journalists, but no one took it seriously and those who did left it alone.

Everyone in that town knows the racket. Everyone. The mayor retired a few years ago, the prosecutor is good friends with my extremely abusive grandfather, and no one will ever answer for my mistreatment.

	▲	1718627440 5 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Sometimes I think, maybe sending the worst criminals, the most dangerous heretics and the poor to another continent with rich resources wasn't the smartest ideas of the Europeans. Sure it helped get rid of problems in the short term, but is now centuries later starting to bite us.
	▲	throawaywpg 4 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		stuff like this is why I want to move to Europe