Police accountability

[David]

That’s an absolutely disgraceful series of events. I know that shop and its owners well (I used to work directly across the road from them) and am so angry to hear that their friend was treated like this. Forget lawsuits (which they should and surely will win) – those police officers should be stood down and charged.

[thesoretoothsayer]

Hares and Hyenas. Great shop. Excellent coffee.
A respite from the hustle of Brunswick street.

[K]

Another incident:

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/elite-cop-who-shot-gargasoulas-to-face-court-over-kicking-innocent-student-20190513-p51mvl.html

"Victoria Police has not made any public statement about the alleged assault on Lovepreet Nehal, who was crash-tackled and kicked as he left Brunswick restaurant Cafe 666 on May 7, 2017.

In another case of mistaken identity, Mr Nehal was confronted by two CIRT members pointing a gun and a Taser as he stood outside the restaurant on Sydney Road.

Mr Nehal, 24, received a confidential settlement from Victoria Police.

One CIRT member was charged over the alleged assault, while several others escaped sanction.
...

Mr Nehal's head was allegedly smashed into the footpath on at least two occasions.

Then, another officer, who arrived about 10 seconds later, kicked Mr Nehal as he struggled on the ground, according to statements presented at a committal hearing in the Melbourne Magistrates Court last year.

The officer said that he had tried to kick Mr Nehal in the shoulder to prevent him from resisting arrest. He was also unaware Mr Nehal had no involvement with the stolen van."

[think positive]

i got to be honest, i hate post after post that just has a link and no real opinion or commentary, usually i ignore them, but since my sister just sent me a message about a friend of hers, who is also a cop, that was taken off life support this morning, (not due to violence) my back is a little up.

some light reading for you. nope not victorian, but im too busy to google more, and to me cops are cops.

https://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/news/victorian-police-officers-head-smashed-against-the-road-in-sickening-attack/news-story/549ed43b25774173468d0b98f977d84b

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-31/at-least-one-cop-assaulted-at-nsw-police-station-every-day/7284124

https://www.news.com.au/technology/online/social/a-third-of-police-officers-have-been-assaulted-says-union/news-story/93bc32110a010e78b309959747e1f2f6

https://thewest.com.au/news/wa/three-public-officer-assaulted-each-day-on-average-due-to-was-meth-crisis-ng-b88775293z




seriously who would be a cop? your posts are all terrible, and yes charges should be laid where necessary, but dont paint this as we have a totally corrupt police force, because you are dead wrong. and im still not sure what this has to do with white supremacy. My sister was on duty at the same time, and at the same police station where the 2 cops, Silk and Miller, were killed in Moorabin, She was new to the force, 6 months i think, it could have been her on that patrol route, and she had to stand next to the dead body of her workmate all night and log every person who went near him. where is your $�$%^%%$ outrage for that? i got plenty more stories just like this. went to visit her at the station for lunch, had my kids with me, they were just little, one guy there was so nice, funny, in a wheelchair, working on a case. i mentioned to her how nice he was, said he looked very familiar, and did he work along with the police? you can read about him here, surely, he should have retired and lived with full salary and assistance for the rest of his life, but he continued to serve. SERVE.
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/the-next-one-was-going-to-finish-me-policeman-remembers-mad-max-shooting-20150619-ghsfeo.html

and by the way, if you ever need one, i hope you dont call one, you know, just in case!!

[think positive]

[think positive]

seriously, what is it going to take to get a better world? one with compassion, and caring, with not just better police, but better citizens. blame helps noone, for every abuse claim you chuck up, there is an opposite one, or three! but that does no one any good.

instead of citing this shit, come up with solutions.

[David]

Some accountability would be a great start:

http://www.starobserver.com.au/news/national-news/victoria-news/this-is-not-a-one-off-hares-and-hyenas-police-raid-shows-reality-of-violent-policing/182087

[watt price tully]

[stui magpie]

[think positive]

[David]

You’re not wrong when you say it’s a minority who don’t trust the police, Stui – to put it literally, it’s minority ethnic groups who are most likely to fear unjust and violent treatment from them. We all know about the Black Lives Matter movement in the US, and while things aren’t maybe as bad here, there’s still plenty of legitimate concern over how Aboriginal, African and other ethnic minorities are sometimes policed in Australia. These issues are mostly invisible to many white people, who might not understand what the fuss is simply because they haven’t experienced this themselves (nonetheless, you’d still have to have your head in the sand to not recognise that police racism and racial profiling is a problem – several clear recent examples have been raised in this thread alone).

WPT, we’re fundamentally in agreement: I don’t support demonisation of the police, but I do support independent oversight. This is about a problem with the institution, not people, and I feel like we should have learned by now that self-regulation hardly ever works, whether it’s in the Catholic Church, Federal Government, commercial media or Victoria Police.

[stui magpie]

The Police do have some independent oversight, IBAC is one. https://www.ibac.vic.gov.au/home

You refer to Policing of African and Aboriginal minorities, but WPT legitimately points out how gangs of African youths are causing mayhem in some areas. Aboriginal males also have a far higher rate of domestic violence and other crimes. If you were a cop in those areas, you'd be crazy if you didn't racial profile to a degree.

On the flipped side, the victims of said African youth mayhem and Indigenous violence would complain that the cops don't do enough to stop it.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. It's a hard job, some undesirables do get through the filtering process, but in the main they do a great job keeping us safe. With people more and more willing to assault them in the course of their duties, there's going to be some pushback and every now and then, an innocent person will get hurt. It's not ideal and i do feel for the people concerned, but as a percentage of the arrests made in any year, it's a tiny fraction.

[David]

I’m less confident that cases like this fall within some acceptable margin of error. I don’t disagree that crime rates tend to be higher among disadvantaged groups and that this can play into a perception of being targeted, but let’s not pretend that those issues don’t feed into prejudice and stereotyping from authorities, too. Contrary to what you say, it’s essential that police do resist those impulses – because if enough of them fail to, as they historically have, then you start to see entire communities treat police as a class to be feared and mistrusted (and they’re not going to suddenly stop doing so because some guy reckons things are fine and that their concerns are baseless).

This isn’t just about police: unaddressed police violence against and targeting of minorities only breeds further disaffection with society’s structures and institutions in general – a widespread sentiment within ethnic minority groups here, in the US and in so many other places around the world, and something that helps perpetuate and worsen those inequalities.

[think positive]

[David]

I have to say I’m not sure how to take some of this questioning – because some criminals are dangerous, or disrespectful, or make police officers’ jobs difficult, does that in any way make unprofessional responses acceptable? Obviously police officers are only human, lose their cool and make mistakes; but if such mistakes include a serious physical assault, or treatment of a non-white person as a second-class citizen, or assuming guilt based on skin colour, or general abuse of power, then my view is simply that those incidents should be treated seriously and not brushed under the carpet, and a police force that is unable to be made accountable loses credibility, as I’ve discussed above.

Intentionally or otherwise, a lot of the responses here really sound a lot like apologism, and seem to suggest an over-eagerness to defend police against imagined slights.