Note: Billy has a much better chance of survival due to his skin color.

  • BanMe@lemmy.world
    81·
    3 hours ago

    My 3yo got a coloring book from a visiting cop at preschool the other day.

    First off, he’s 3. Starting that young just shows how much they’ve considered it. A full half of the kids there are black, we’re in a city famous for historical racism.

    His moms have established words they don’t want him using yet, like “shoot.” OK, they’re his parents I can understand and respect that. We play with nerf darts and stomp rockets, and never “launch” them at people.

    So the coloring book teaches him vocabulary like “suspect,” “pepper spray,” and “stun device.” They’re answers to puzzles.

    I made an offhand joke that next year’s coloring book will explain how a “suspect” was “incorrectly adjudicated” by an officer’s “bullet device.”

    His moms wisely threw the book away explaining they don’t want to teach about racist, rapist pigs yet. I was so happy. He’ll never know his biological grandmother is a cop-worshipper because she’ll never meet him.

    • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
      2·
      47 minutes ago

      I remember being a kid and “Officer Friendly” visiting our school, then later, Officer Dickens running the D.A.R.E. program we were all forced to go through.

      The propaganda is so pervasive that most people never question how wrong it is that cops are authoritarian. Good on you for doing what you can to teach your child the reality of the world.

  • Katana314@lemmy.worldEnglish
    7·
    3 hours ago

    Going past single-panel rhetoric, does anyone know any great media to showcase this dichotomy of feeling between what police should be, and what they are?

    Something like: Highlighting the life and pride of a police officer that loves the force and sees himself as a hero protecting people - then slowly getting sickened by all the protestors insisting police are horrible - before eventually being exposed to the terrible actions of other police before breaking down and doubting their own life’s mission.

    • Sonotsugipaa@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      2·
      2 hours ago

      Ready Or Not, I think?

      On the surface it plays like copaganda, some people certainly call it copaganda, it does have some pro-police elements, but there are several bits of lore that points to cases of police corruption or misbehavior on multiple scales.

      some examples (spoilers)
      • In one mission, you have to detain a corrupt FISA (= FBI) agent - he may pull out a gun and shoot you, if he feels like he can take you put.
      • You have to raid a house where three brothers are illegally modding and selling guns, to pay for their mother’s cancer treatment. She tipped off the cops, to stop her children from getting into too much trouble; if you end up using lethal force, you’re killing the sons of a mother who believed in you in front of her, and the game doesn’t count that as a failure.
      • There’s an in-universe equivalent of MKUltra, and the main character is apparently a successful test subject of it. Some speculate that the USIA (= CIA) is artificially facilitating crime in Los Suenos to put you to the test.
      • A mission briefing states that a police officer (or many? idr) beats up a detained suspect, who has to be sent to a hospital - the “victim” did massacre an entire night club with his buddies, but still, it’s technically police brutality.
      • In the last mission of the base game you find a cargo container with human trafficking victims in it, then a sus conversation happens where another FISA agent butts in the comms and orders you to close it; it’s unclear what’s going on, the entire game teaches you that it’s specifically not your job to take care of injured civilians and whatnot, but the tone of the characters implies that the FISA agent may be trying to cover the tracks of the criminal organization.

      If you do a bad job too often (which includes harming civilians and surrendering suspects), your subordinates retire (from the police, I assume).

      Not you, though.

      MKUltra.

    • mech@feddit.org
      1·
      2 hours ago

      Training Day shows an idealistic new cop who’s exposed to the worst corruption inside the police force on his first day.

    • moody@lemmings.world
      4·
      3 hours ago

      Not exactly the same, but Serpico shows what happens to good cops who reguse to turn a blind eye to corruption, and it’s based on a true story.

    • Console_Modder@sh.itjust.works
      3·
      3 hours ago

      The Departed is a great movie in general and it’s about two men, one is an undercover cop in the Irish Mafia and the other is a Mafia member working for the cops. They are both trying to figure out who the rat is in their organizations without being found out themselves. May not be exactly what you want, but there’s a TON of police corruption in the movie

      Edit: I know I’ve seen End of Watch and I thought it was a good movie, but I don’t remember much of it. Apparently that’s about two LAPD cops who get tangled up in some cartel corruption of their department, so maybe that one too?

    • danc4498@lemmy.worldEnglish
      14·
      6 hours ago

      You gotta obey while being maced and beaten by 5 cops. And you have less than 30 seconds to do so.

      • GreenShimada@lemmy.world
        5·
        4 hours ago

        And they might just ask “does he have a gun?” “Wait - does he have a gun?!” “DOES HE HAVE A GUN?!” until they shoot you 10 times just to be able to look and say “nope.”

    • Passerby6497@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      5 hours ago

      Hey, they may also shout conflicting orders so they have justification for murdering you, because you didn’t stand with your hands on your head while getting on the ground

      That’s how clean shoots happen

        • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
          12·
          3 hours ago

          No, they aren’t

          If you look at the videos they don’t even have proper gear. They are just a bunch of “volunteers” who enjoy causing harm to others. Even if they were properly trained federal agents, they still wouldn’t be police since police are done at a local level not a federal level.

  • PieMePlenty@lemmy.world
    71·
    4 hours ago

    This is the mindset I’ve adapted about the US in the last 10 years. This is the mindset I’ll pass on about the US until I see it change. Police reaching for the gun the second they get a response they don’t like is not good. This is not a society I’d wish to be a part of. Good luck Americans. And godspeed.

  • Manjushri@piefed.socialEnglish
    5·
    5 hours ago

    Billy has a much better chance of survival due to his skin color.

    That depends. Does Billy have an accent?

  • illi@piefed.socialEnglish
    16·
    6 hours ago

    Billy has a much better chance of survival due to his skin color.

    Idk man, given recent events this might not be true anymore.

    • UnspecificGravity@piefed.socialEnglish
      3·
      3 hours ago

      Everyone in America can name the last two people shot by ICE/BP. How many can name any of the ten people who were before them without looking it up?

      The BP shoots Mexican kids across the border for fun, and they have been doing that constantly since they were formed. They don’t even bother making up his reasons for doing it because American courts don’t consider it to be a crime.

      Bovino made ONE mistake: acting like those rules also applied to white people. And that’s why he got fired.

    • ms.lane@lemmy.worldEnglish
      9·
      6 hours ago

      Daniel Shaver was a decade ago.

      It remains that people of colour are more likely to be profiled and prejudiced into a confrontation with police-

      But once in a confrontation with police, it’s “Us vs. Them”.

      • CyberEgg@discuss.tchncs.de
        11·
        6 hours ago

        Renée Good and Alex Pretty were this month.

        My argument is not that now suddenly white people in the US experience as much police brutality and arbitrariness as PoC in the US. It just seems the chances of white people surviving such encounters are dropping.