The Methadone Mile (Boston, Norfolk: neighborhood, moving, food)

[WestieWhitie]

Originally Posted by id77

I also missed the part where you represent LE or are their spokesman. Unless you're a higher up with BPD who's been complicit to past problems, it's not your mea culpa that half of Boston is looking for.

If everything's good, why do we hear about cases of corruption or other malfeasances that only come to light years later when someone digs it up? Again, it doesn't matter if it's widespread -- if it's a problem even once, that dirty laundry needs to be aired out, every time. Higher standards and all that.

You're also off on a few of those predictions about how I feel. I very much see them as human beings subject to human failings, but I also believe failures come with consequences. Doctors, engineers, and other professionals also make mistakes, and there's often consequences for those mistakes. It doesn't paralyze them from doing their jobs. Higher standards come with higher consequences for failure, not less.

It also very much doesn't help the already polarizing nature of the subject when the immediate reaction is to put people into us vs. them camps: if your visceral reaction to the concern of declining trust among the public toward LE is to label those who distrust as haters and crusaders on a soapbox, that says more about how entrenched and personally invested you've become on the subject than anything it says about me.

One thing I will be clear about (and have been in the past) though is that I am very much opposed to qualified immunity for the reasons above and will always vote for candidates who I think are most likely to eradicate it. You can at least hold that one against me all you want.

How do you feel about getting rid of qualified immunity for judges who routinely let violent criminals with mile-long records out without even a playful slap on the wrist and holding them liable for any subsequent crimes that are committed? After all deaths and violence caused by their poor decisions outnumber those cause by poor police decisions by several orders of magnitude, shouldn’t we do something about it?

[msRB311]

I’ve been watching body cam on ID and say what you will as it’s a tv show but man do cops deal with some bad stuff

[id77]

Originally Posted by bostongymjunkie

I never offered a mea culpa or claimed to be representing BPD but you did respond to me directly, hence my direct response to you. But for someone asking me if I represent Boston Police you certainly sound like you're speaking for "half of Boston." I've also got many good personal reasons for defending law enforcement as a whole, as well as some personal experiences with individuals that I could easily use as an excuse to do what you do but I'm not a subscriber to prejudice.

Again, who said "everything is good?" However, your expectation that police officers or police organizations should not be subject to the same failings as every other human and every other institution is just completely unrealistic and speaks to a certain naivete.

There are "often consequences" for police failures too. You're just either not hearing or reading about them and/or many are confidential. And if you don't think that the legal and medical professions engage in professional self-protectionism in varying degrees, you may need to educate yourself.

This is exactly what you do each time you chime in on this subject. You broadly generalize your prejudice and fabricate images of widespread organizational corruption, police misconduct and brutality based on the actions of some, without any significant evidence of such claims. That's called prejudice.

Until you've been in situations or occupations where you've had to act in a split second to defend yourself or the safety of the public relying solely on the information available to you during that split second I'd suggest you rethink that position. The citizenry should also be wary about eliminating QI because it would probably result in hesitancy to do the job and endanger the public. Police officers need to the leeway to make a mistake without fear of a lawsuit. Nobody in their right mind would do the job leading to an even less qualified pool of applicants. Not good public policy and very bad for the safety of the public.

I don't need to speak for half of Boston, surveys have done that one for me: https://www.wbur.org/news/2021/10/14...e-poll-support. Support for police overall is 56%, dropping to below 50% among minorities. So, yeah, not great approval numbers for an entity that should be nearly universally supported in a local community.

Glad we agree it's not all good, now let's stop with the apologist defender approach and agree they should be held accountable and change is needed. Other institutions are held to standards and have consequences. Doctors, engineers, and other professional trades can face reputation and trust diminishment, termination, and even criminal and civil lawsuits when they make serious mistakes. More often than not, police officers are either immune to or are acquitted of such problems when they make mistakes. Citizens often can't even get compensated for property or personal damages as a result of police action, even when they had nothing to do with the incident, and let's not even start on civil forfeiture.

QI was meant to protect police from retribution when carrying out their duties in good faith, not for willful and deliberate criminal acts as it has since also countless times protected officers for doing. It's also a recent concept, only being a legal doctrine for just over 50 years. If LE did just fine without it in the US for almost 180 years, why is it so critical now? A little more hesitancy would actually be a good thing, as most incidents could be de-escalated with a cooler head and some thought. Before you bring up the classic split-second bad-guy-with-a-gun shooting back example, that's a very, very small minority of incidents LEO deal with, and very doable to legislate a solution to QI around.

I will say my favorite non-answer is the classic 'walk a mile in my shoes' tactic, as if there's some magical curtain that's lifted the first day on the job as an officer. Every time it's used, I can practically hear Jack Nicholson's voice playing Colonel Jessup.

[bostongymjunkie]

Originally Posted by id77

I don't need to speak for half of Boston, surveys have done that one for me: https://www.wbur.org/news/2021/10/14...e-poll-support. Support for police overall is 56%, dropping to below 50% among minorities. So, yeah, not great approval numbers for an entity that should be nearly universally supported in a local community.

Glad we agree it's not all good, now let's stop with the apologist defender approach and agree they should be held accountable and change is needed. Other institutions are held to standards and have consequences. Doctors, engineers, and other professional trades can face reputation and trust diminishment, termination, and even criminal and civil lawsuits when they make serious mistakes. More often than not, police officers are either immune to or are acquitted of such problems when they make mistakes. Citizens often can't even get compensated for property or personal damages as a result of police action, even when they had nothing to do with the incident, and let's not even start on civil forfeiture.

QI was meant to protect police from retribution when carrying out their duties in good faith, not for willful and deliberate criminal acts as it has since also countless times protected officers for doing. It's also a recent concept, only being a legal doctrine for just over 50 years. If LE did just fine without it in the US for almost 180 years, why is it so critical now? A little more hesitancy would actually be a good thing, as most incidents could be de-escalated with a cooler head and some thought. Before you bring up the classic split-second bad-guy-with-a-gun shooting back example, that's a very, very small minority of incidents LEO deal with, and very doable to legislate a solution to QI around.

I will say my favorite non-answer is the classic 'walk a mile in my shoes' tactic, as if there's some magical curtain that's lifted the first day on the job as an officer. Every time it's used, I can practically hear Jack Nicholson's voice playing Colonel Jessup.

501 likely voters...Ouuuuuh!! When you see me defending police misconduct or implying that nothing needs to change in the CJ system this conversation can take place. I never do anything of the sort, and happen to have quite a lot of knowledge in that general realm. This is just your monthly resentment-based vitriol aimed at all members of a profession based on various random incidents that each have their own particular circumstances, which can be understood only by way of reading investigatory and court data and a basic understanding of how things actually work in the field. Stick with Hollywood. Your layperson generalizations are not helpful.

[BostonBornMassMade]

Originally Posted by bostongymjunkie

501 likely voters...Ouuuuuh!! When you see me defending police misconduct or implying that nothing needs to change in the CJ system this conversation can take place. I never do anything of the sort, and happen to have quite a lot of knowledge in that general realm. This is just your monthly resentment-based vitriol aimed at all members of a profession based on various random incidents that each have their own particular circumstances, which can be understood only by way of reading investigatory and court data and a basic understanding of how things actually work in the field. Stick with Hollywood. Your layperson generalizations are not helpful.

BGJ how many times do you have to be shown and told your views don't align with the majority of Bostonians before you move? You'd love it down here in Arbutus, Essex, Glen Burnie, Middle River, and Halethorpe.

[bostongymjunkie]

Originally Posted by BostonBornMassMade

BGJ how many times do you have to be shown and told your views don't align with the majority of Bostonians before you move? You'd love it down here in Arbutus, Essex, Glen Burnie, Middle River, and Halethorpe.

You don't get it. I don't care what other people think nor do I ever dispute the far-left turn the city of Boston electorate has taken over the last decade. That said, I've lived in many places so I've left many times and returned many times. None of that is relevant to the utter uselessness of this poll or the incessant rants of bigots masquerading as "liberals."

[BostonBornMassMade]

Originally Posted by bostongymjunkie

You don't get it. I don't care what other people think nor do I ever dispute the far-left turn the city of Boston electorate has taken over the last decade. That said, I've lived in many places so I've left many times and returned many times. None of that is relevant to the utter uselessness of this poll or the incessant rants of bigots masquerading as "liberals."

You do a lot of double speak. If you didn’t question the validity of the poll you wouldn’t make a snarky sarcastic comment about the sample size. Nothing makes the poll useless other than you want to believe it is. You say stuff and immediately back track…

[bostongymjunkie]

Originally Posted by BostonBornMassMade

You do a lot of double speak. If you didn’t question the validity of the poll you wouldn’t make a snarky sarcastic comment about the sample size. Nothing makes the poll useless other than you want to believe it is. You say stuff and immediately back track…

It was there, so I referenced it. Pretty simple. And yes I do question it. That's one reason why I said it's useless. But all this is really coming from the guy who constantly trashes police then proposes that the MSP should be brought in to deal with Mass and Cass? Have you read all your posts and related responses on this ONE thread alone? Just today? LMAO.


Run along skippy.

[BostonBornMassMade]

You call it 'trashing the police' I call it just talking about police. I've explained this already. Several times.

Not everyone can be a bootlicker.

[bostongymjunkie]

You can call it whatever you wish and so can I. You've got all kinds of creative ways of "explaining" things. lol Your words (including "bootlicker") don't lie. You've expressed your complete lack of confidence (to the point of deep resentments) toward police in general on many occasions. You suggested MSP at Mass and Cass not because you actually support their presence there, but only in an effort to pin a city problem on Charlie Baker because you're afraid to admit the Mayor isn't handling it.