Near the beginning of my career I was a civil servant. One of my roles was being on a high risk-high need committee. These existed throughout the province. Every week committee members would bring names and information and the group would make an intervention plan. The membership included social services income security, family and child services, mental health, community health, the school boards, legal aid, and police. In the late 1980s the government followed the lead of other jurisdictions and cut all community based services and de-integrated all departments into their little silos. Thus when police have concerns about someone, they don't talk to social services, mental health, community health about dealing with the addictions or family troubles, they arrest.
I blame business school intrusion into the public services, the idea that cost effectiveness must always be shown, the expansion of business and administrative law for creating this mess.
Add that to the complete ignorance of senior public officials (department heads, deputy ministers) about primary prevention, their easy moves from the corporate world back and forth to government, you get tertiary level programs, ie hospitals and jails, versus where all needs originate: in communities.
UK CEO salaries according to this site are between £36k - £171k, average £83k.
According to that same site, CEO salaries in the US range from $73k–$309k, with an average of $156,574. So yeah, police salaries in the US are not in CEO territory. They generally are, as @tclune has said, in teacher territory.
This will be the 11th night of protests. Let's hope the police can show more restraint tonight.
Let's hope that the Police have far less to respond to.
Yes, heaven forfend that people might want to exercise their first amendment rights, or that the press might want to cover them.
I'm also shocked - shocked, I tell you - that the NRA hasn't swarmed on to the streets to prevent an overbearing government from instituting an armed suppression of the constitution.
I see nothing in the first amendment about the right to riot and loot. If a protest is peaceful, the Police have nothing to respond to.
Apparently they do have something to respond to if, say, the President wants a photo op where he waves a Bible in front of a church.
The terms they get, in much of the US, are outrageous. In the UK, police get 1/10th of what many US coppers get. UK police are very much in typical working class territory and US ones are very much in CEO territory, salary wise.
I'd really like to see some reliable reference for that. It is true that one or two police in a given jurisdiction may haul in a bit above $100,000 in a year (a lot less than many CEOs, you'll notice) -- but that is not salary, it is salary plus a lot of hours on "detail" work (sitting around while telephone workers repair lines, standing in front of a convenience store after work, etc. -- a racket in its own right, but not part of their salary or paid for by the government.) And the vast majority of police make about the same as teachers in any public records I have seen for my area. Police reform is long overdue in many ways, but there is an unfortunate tendency for people to inflate other working people's salaries in a way that puts a wedge between workers. My wife was shocked when she heard a friend say as a matter of fact that the local librarian made a six-figure salary -- she was on the library board and knew what the librarian actually made, which was less than half that. Don't let manufactured envy divide us -- we have enough problems with real issues that set us at odds.
Averages. Even in a state like Mississippi, were the average income is considerably lower than the national average, police salaries are higher. And all this is before pensions. Public safety budgets (aka police and fire), suck up public funding, threatening the public they are supposed to serve.
UK police salary for a PC is £22-£45. An officer making £30K at 30 years old, can expect a £28K pension.
The average salary in the UK is £30K
And whilst it is true that not all police officers reach the heights of the large city salaries, almost all enjoy a level of protection from consequence that is obscene. Again, mostly a union problem.
According to your own data, the average salary for a police officer is $67,000. Is that CEO territory in the UK, because it's nowhere near it over here. Police. make roughly the same thing that teachers do over here. Both professions get good pensions for a very long time, which is typically not properly budgeted for by the local government that incurs the liability. It may well be that police departments have been tasked with social service duties for which they are ill-prepared. It would certainly make sense to look at reapportioning both finances and responsibilities to better serve the public. But none of that supports the ludicrous claims you originally made and that I took issue with.
Average CEO salary isn't what you think.
If you localise the salaries, cops make well more than teachers on average. It is easy to look at national averages and pretend they make reasonable amounts. Adjusted for local comparisons, cops typcailly make well more than the average wage, which is why I highlighted Mississippi.
Some salary postings don't take into account overtime, which adds to the costs. Which is part of the reason I added the Orange County link.
And the link to the image listing the percentage of public safety budgets should further demonstrate the drain they have on public resource.
Median total earnings for constables and sergeants are £40,000.
and those are low ranks for the police, Inspectors earn over £50k and higher ranks more.
I'm really not sure where the first lot of figures came from. Police officers are better paid than teachers here, where the upper pay scale for most teachers is £40k, without additional training or becoming headteachers, (link to Gov.UK site)
One needs to compare like to like, especially in the US. The average wage in California is $64K. Police wages can be quite a bit higher. And the average Californian making 64K doesn't have the same pension.
I see nothing in the first amendment about the right to riot and loot. If a protest is peaceful, the Police have nothing to respond to.
Apparently they do have something to respond to if, say, the President wants a photo op where he waves a Bible in front of a church.
And without asking the bishop if he may go there to take that opportunity. Notice how he holds it with the spine towards the camera, so there's no mistaking what it is.
BTW, is the US so different that all peoples there - Christians, Jewish, Moslem, Hindu and all others - use the Bible?
I see nothing in the first amendment about the right to riot and loot. If a protest is peaceful, the Police have nothing to respond to.
Apparently they do have something to respond to if, say, the President wants a photo op where he waves a Bible in front of a church.
And without asking the bishop if he may go there to take that opportunity. Notice how he holds it with the spine towards the camera, so there's no mistaking what it is.
BTW, is the US so different that all peoples there - Christians, Jewish, Moslem, Hindu and all others - use the Bible?
I think the coding got messed up there. I only point it out because I really don’t want anyone to think I said what the way the post ended up makes it look like I said.
And for all I can tell, Trump probably does think we all use the Bible.
The rozzers in Australia are well paid, comparatively. They start off on a much higher wage than comparable professions, but it levels off after that. They also get much more annual leave than the standard four weeks, which in my opinion is a very good thing. We want our coppers well rested.
I see nothing in the first amendment about the right to riot and loot. If a protest is peaceful, the Police have nothing to respond to.
Apparently they do have something to respond to if, say, the President wants a photo op where he waves a Bible in front of a church.
And without asking the bishop if he may go there to take that opportunity. Notice how he holds it with the spine towards the camera, so there's no mistaking what it is.
BTW, is the US so different that all peoples there - Christians, Jewish, Moslem, Hindu and all others - use the Bible?
I think the coding got messed up there. I only point it out because I really don’t want anyone to think I said what the way the post ended up makes it look like I said.
And for all I can tell, Trump probably does think we all use the Bible.
Trump doesn't care to appeal to anyone but his base. To hell with what book (or no book at all) anybody else uses. His base sees this photograph and says, "See? Look! He really is one of us!"
I see nothing in the first amendment about the right to riot and loot. If a protest is peaceful, the Police have nothing to respond to.
Apparently they do have something to respond to if, say, the President wants a photo op where he waves a Bible in front of a church.
And without asking the bishop if he may go there to take that opportunity. Notice how he holds it with the spine towards the camera, so there's no mistaking what it is.
BTW, is the US so different that all peoples there - Christians, Jewish, Moslem, Hindu and all others - use the Bible?
I think the coding got messed up there. I only point it out because I really don’t want anyone to think I said what the way the post ended up makes it look like I said.
And for all I can tell, Trump probably does think we all use the Bible.
Trump doesn't care to appeal to anyone but his base. To hell with what book (or no book at all) anybody else uses. His base sees this photograph and says, "See? Look! He really is one of us!"
True enough. I’ve been glad to see that at least some in his base, or connected to it, have been publicly calling him out about the photo op and the circumstances surrounding it.
That's a start - will it carry through to enough votes to get Biden elected? As you don't have compulsory voting, there may be many who stay away, not prepared to vote for Trump but can't bring themselves to voting Democrat.
Median total earnings for constables and sergeants are £40,000.
and those are low ranks for the police, Inspectors earn over £50k and higher ranks more.
I'm really not sure where the first lot of figures came from. Police officers are better paid than teachers here, where the upper pay scale for most teachers is £40k, without additional training or becoming headteachers, (link to Gov.UK site)
One needs to compare like to like, especially in the US. The average wage in California is $64K. Police wages can be quite a bit higher. And the average Californian making 64K doesn't have the same pension.
I am querying your assertions about UK salaries, where your post said police are paid at the same rate as teachers, which is not so. (Headteachers and police superintendents are paid higher rates, similar to CEOs because that's their job.)
Policing in the States may be at different rates, but you cannot accurately assert that the police are overpaid because they are paid more than teachers, using as your argument that in the UK police are paid the same rates as teachers when that is not true.
We have worse than no compulsory voting; we have policies that make it very difficult for some groups to vote.
On police we have a whole mish mash of a system. We even have private organizations with police forces that have the full power of regular police (notably a lot of private colleges, e.g., Liberty University, and even a few churches [oddly enough the National Cathedral in Washington DC has its own police force]). Add in ICE. Now the decentralization does mean that Trump has no way of ordering around state, county, or city police forces (except perhaps in DC which is directly under federal control). It also means training and prerequisites vary widely.
Then there is the incident where a 75-year-old man was shoved to the ground. . . . An officer leans down to examine him, the video shows
Convince me that the "officer" in question was not spitting on the poor man. I'm surprised no one else seems to have picked up on that.
I've seen the video a few time, possibly not always starting at the same second. I noticed different things each time. I didn't notice the bending officer the first time or two; but, when I did, he seemed like he was checking on him (more than the others were doing). I read somewhere yesterday that he'd wanted to help, but was told to keep going.
Also, once or twice I saw the film start just before the cops pushed him. He looked like he was reaching towards them with both hands, maybe at about waist high. That's all I could make out. It looked odd to me. I'm not remotely excusing what the officers did--but I wonder if it seemed odd to them, and that was a factor in what they did.
Police unions are the only unions in the United States that are actively powerful.
Them and the prison guard unions. Which, okay, not unrelated!
I have long thought that we use police for way too many things in the US that would be better addressed by social workers.
Some schools are getting rid of their "school resources officers"--per news over many years, they're cops assigned to a school to keep order and deal with problems. Sometimes, they're violent; and sometimes, they arrest and cuff kids when another way would be better and more sensible.
Based on what I've heard over the years, getting rid of them is likely to be mostly a great thing--with the possible exception of schools where many students are committing a lot of severe violence (perhaps with weapons) on a daily basis.
Trump doesn't care to appeal to anyone but his base. To hell with what book (or no book at all) anybody else uses. His base sees this photograph and says, "See? Look! He really is one of us!"
More precisely, they say, "See? He knows Two Corinthians as well as we do."
Max on the main pay range without additional duties (7 years for Police. I think it used to be 6 for teachers but the there is no longer automatic pay increases?):
- Teachers: £35,971
- Police: £40,128
Talk about inspector pay is misleading, most police "officers" in the UK are constables
Here's an article discussing police reform from the right-wing National Review. They go into some detail about the fight between a conservative Councillor to reform the Santa Ana police dept in Orange County. It's a pretty damning read, essentially saying that the Councillor was not supported by the rest of the council and was hounded out of her position by the Police Union. NR is not known for putting both sides of the story, so I'd appreciate some local knowlege, if any Southern Californians know about this case.
Median total earnings for constables and sergeants are £40,000.
and those are low ranks for the police, Inspectors earn over £50k and higher ranks more.
I'm really not sure where the first lot of figures came from. Police officers are better paid than teachers here, where the upper pay scale for most teachers is £40k, without additional training or becoming headteachers, (link to Gov.UK site)
One needs to compare like to like, especially in the US. The average wage in California is $64K. Police wages can be quite a bit higher. And the average Californian making 64K doesn't have the same pension.
I am querying your assertions about UK salaries, where your post said police are paid at the same rate as teachers, which is not so. (Headteachers and police superintendents are paid higher rates, similar to CEOs because that's their job.)
Policing in the States may be at different rates, but you cannot accurately assert that the police are overpaid because they are paid more than teachers, using as your argument that in the UK police are paid the same rates as teachers when that is not true.
I didn't say the police and teachers were paid the same, that was tclune.
Police unions are the only unions in the United States that are actively powerful.
Them and the prison guard unions. Which, okay, not unrelated!
I have long thought that we use police for way too many things in the US that would be better addressed by social workers.
Some schools are getting rid of their "school resources officers"--per news over many years, they're cops assigned to a school to keep order and deal with problems. Sometimes, they're violent; and sometimes, they arrest and cuff kids when another way would be better and more sensible.
Based on what I've heard over the years, getting rid of them is likely to be mostly a great thing--with the possible exception of schools where many students are committing a lot of severe violence (perhaps with weapons) on a daily basis.
I had never heard this view of school resource officers. My understanding from my son's schools is that they are there primarily to discourage / head off / be first responder to an active shooter situation, or to cases where children have brought weapons to school.
If kids are misbehaving, my understanding is that they come under the usual disciplinary measures ("go to the principal's office," "you have detention after school today," that sort of thing), which has nothing to do with the officer.
Actually, having reviewed several videos it appeared that the horse started to bolt, and as she was attempting to get it under control it ran her into a traffic light and knocked her off. The ‘best’ view I’ve seen is here on on YouTube. I’ve seen no evidence that the rider was assaulted.
According to BBC News
She suffered a broken collarbone, a broken rib, and punctured lung, according to the Metropolitan Police Federation
The officer had struggled to stay in control as she was riding down the street surrounded by protesters.
That last sentence seems to me to be consistent with the video evidence.
I’ve seen several headlines to the effect that police ‘charged’ ‘at’ the crowd, but apart from the one bolting horse, I’ve not seen anything that shows the horses moving at more than a jog or a canter (I’m no expert on equine gaits) into mainly empty space - hence the scare quotes for ‘charged’ and ‘at’.
Police unions are the only unions in the United States that are actively powerful.
Them and the prison guard unions. Which, okay, not unrelated!
I have long thought that we use police for way too many things in the US that would be better addressed by social workers.
Some schools are getting rid of their "school resources officers"--per news over many years, they're cops assigned to a school to keep order and deal with problems. Sometimes, they're violent; and sometimes, they arrest and cuff kids when another way would be better and more sensible.
Based on what I've heard over the years, getting rid of them is likely to be mostly a great thing--with the possible exception of schools where many students are committing a lot of severe violence (perhaps with weapons) on a daily basis.
I had never heard this view of school resource officers. My understanding from my son's schools is that they are there primarily to discourage / head off / be first responder to an active shooter situation, or to cases where children have brought weapons to school.
If kids are misbehaving, my understanding is that they come under the usual disciplinary measures ("go to the principal's office," "you have detention after school today," that sort of thing), which has nothing to do with the officer.
That’s how it’s supposed to work at the schools where we live and where our kids went. And I think that’s usually how it has worked.
But unfortunately, I know of two incidents where it didn’t work that way. Both incidents involved use of excessive force (and in at least one if not both cases, handcuffs) by the resource officers to subdue students after breaking up fights. One officer resigned afterward. I’m not sure what happened to the other—I know he was immediately reassigned to a non-school assignment, but beyond that I don’t know.
I have consulted the BBC, the Guardian and the Daily Mail on the incident. The first two have very brief accounts, as above. The Mail has a lot of footage - apparently things, including Santander bikes, and possibly bottles and possibly a flare (didn't see any broken bottles) were being thrown at the horses prior to the bolting. There were not many people around where the horses were. The loose horse tried to get away, injured a protestor, and then went home. No animals were injured. At least two non-police helped move the injured rider - not sure that they did it in such a way as to avoid harm. (We had a child injured outside school, and a woman, believed to be a nurse, over-rode the mother (Red Cross trained) and insisted on moving her. This increased injury.)
Did you see the video of police on horseback riding into a crowd outside Downing Street?
Just saw it on the evening news. Looks like one of the horses got loose.
The Horse didn't just get loose. The female rider was assaulteed and very seriously injured
The radio attributed the woman's injuries to her hitting her head on a traffic light.
This is one of those cases where although it's possible, it sounds too much like a convenient excuse when cops are firing rubber bullets and tear gas canisters at people's faces.
I had never heard this view of school resource officers. My understanding from my son's schools is that they are there primarily to discourage / head off / be first responder to an active shooter situation, or to cases where children have brought weapons to school.
Speaking as a recent school teacher, there is a raging debate about the value of police officers posted in schools. There's pretty good evidence that students of color are violently subdued and detained at a greater rate than white kids doing the same things. A google of "do police officers in schools make them safer" will bring up a myriad of stories. Quote from one of them:
While there are conflicting studies about the effectiveness of police in schools, Schindler says research shows they bring plenty of unintended consequences for students. He says that includes higher rate of suspensions, expulsions and arrests that funnel kids into the criminal justice system. That's especially true, he says, in schools attended predominantly by students of color.
A female police officer was riding the horse, it bolted with her on it - and she hit a post (traffic light apparently) and was knocked off the horse injured. The loose horse knocked over a protester getting clear and then made its way back to its stable.
There’s a reasonably clear video circulating on line.
We're talking about an incident in the UK, London. There were no rubber bullets or teargas. The incident happened when mounted police were managing a demonstration, no weapons, and according to the reports, a horse bolted, for whatever reason, and the rider hit her head on a traffic light, falling off, injured (punctured rib, concussion, broken collar bone).
Did you see the video of police on horseback riding into a crowd outside Downing Street?
Just saw it on the evening news. Looks like one of the horses got loose.
The Horse didn't just get loose. The female rider was assaulteed and very seriously injured
The radio attributed the woman's injuries to her hitting her head on a traffic light.
This is one of those cases where although it's possible, it sounds too much like a convenient excuse when cops are firing rubber bullets and tear gas canisters at people's faces.
Though, there were no tear gas canisters or rubber bullets used. It would be a very unusual situation for UK police to use either of these.
Even a highly trained police horse can get spooked, especially if things were flying through the air towards it. The Metropolitan police in London have a long history of using horses for crowd control when things might get a bit rowdy (like football crowds), but don't require full-on riot policing.
As you don't have compulsory voting, there may be many who stay away, not prepared to vote for Trump but can't bring themselves to voting Democrat.
May everlasting shame be heaped upon their heads!
How about actually giving them the benefit of the doubt? Thinking of their reasons, even if wrong, as at least being based in something as virtuous as your own.
The people I'm aware of in the "hate Trump, but can't vote Dems" camp do so on the dead horse issue of abortion.
I'm not wanting to debate that they are wrong, or that the stats show that abortions go down under Dem Presidents, or when life starts.
But how about we accept that a large, large number of them really do believe abortion is murder, in the same way that we all believe that George Floyd was murdered.
Just as you could (presumably) accept that one couldn't bring themselves to vote Biden over Trump if Biden advocated legalizing police killings of African-Americans, celebrated when cops were given greater shoot to kill rights in State laws and cited stats showing that when police are allowed to legally kill people during an arrest that fewer African-American's get killed by police, then how about we take seriously that this is how they genuinely view the Dem's position on abortion?
We don't have to agree with it, but if we view them as actually decent people who have a lot in common with us deep down but it just manifested in different ways?
Though it's easier just to call them evil bastards!
As you don't have compulsory voting, there may be many who stay away, not prepared to vote for Trump but can't bring themselves to voting Democrat.
May everlasting shame be heaped upon their heads!
How about actually giving them the benefit of the doubt? Thinking of their reasons, even if wrong, as at least being based in something as virtuous as your own.
The people I'm aware of in the "hate Trump, but can't vote Dems" camp do so on the dead horse issue of abortion.
I'm not wanting to debate that they are wrong, or that the stats show that abortions go down under Dem Presidents, or when life starts.
But how about we accept that a large, large number of them really do believe abortion is murder, in the same way that we all believe that George Floyd was murdered.
Just as you could (presumably) accept that one couldn't bring themselves to vote Biden over Trump if Biden advocated legalizing police killings of African-Americans, celebrated when cops were given greater shoot to kill rights in State laws and cited stats showing that when police are allowed to legally kill people during an arrest that fewer African-American's get killed by police, then how about we take seriously that this is how they genuinely view the Dem's position on abortion?
We don't have to agree with it, but if we view them as actually decent people who have a lot in common with us deep down but it just manifested in different ways?
Though it's easier just to call them evil bastards!
If you can't pull your head out of your arse far enough to realise that legal prohibition doesn't prevent abortion and in fact gets women killed then whether you're stupid, evil or delusional becomes largely a moot point.
But how about we accept that a large, large number of them really do believe abortion is murder, in the same way that we all believe that George Floyd was murdered.
We don't have to agree with it, but if we view them as actually decent people who have a lot in common with us deep down but it just manifested in different ways?
Though it's easier just to call them evil bastards!
If they worked as hard to stop the police from murdering Black people as they do to stop women from having abortions, I wouldn't think they were evil bastards.
I don't care what their beliefs are, or whether they vote for a Democrat or the Man in the Moon. To stay home and not vote is an abdication of their citizenship.
We're talking about an incident in the UK, London. There were no rubber bullets or teargas. The incident happened when mounted police were managing a demonstration, no weapons, and according to the reports, a horse bolted, for whatever reason, and the rider hit her head on a traffic light, falling off, injured (punctured rib, concussion, broken collar bone).
Point of order: the police deploying horses is de facto deploying weapons. They are big scary fuckers, and it is absolutely done to intimidate. Police manage a demonstration in their regular hats and vests - they put on riot gear and bring out the horses and dogs when either they think there's going to be trouble or, more disappointingly, they want there to be trouble.
We're talking about an incident in the UK, London. There were no rubber bullets or teargas. The incident happened when mounted police were managing a demonstration, no weapons, and according to the reports, a horse bolted, for whatever reason, and the rider hit her head on a traffic light, falling off, injured (punctured rib, concussion, broken collar bone).
Point of order: the police deploying horses is de facto deploying weapons. They are big scary fuckers, and it is absolutely done to intimidate. Police manage a demonstration in their regular hats and vests - they put on riot gear and bring out the horses and dogs when either they think there's going to be trouble or, more disappointingly, they want there to be trouble.
In the UK the object is to achieve a peaceful event without injuries or arrests. That is not always possible when they are attacked by a section of the crowd.
We're talking about an incident in the UK, London. There were no rubber bullets or teargas. The incident happened when mounted police were managing a demonstration, no weapons, and according to the reports, a horse bolted, for whatever reason, and the rider hit her head on a traffic light, falling off, injured (punctured rib, concussion, broken collar bone).
Point of order: the police deploying horses is de facto deploying weapons. They are big scary fuckers, and it is absolutely done to intimidate. Police manage a demonstration in their regular hats and vests - they put on riot gear and bring out the horses and dogs when either they think there's going to be trouble or, more disappointingly, they want there to be trouble.
Horses are also used as a platform from which officers can have an overview across a crowd. Often used for sporting events where there is rarely any sort of problem, much less a riot.
I believe the ex-Commissioner used to sometimes do mounted policing at football matches, even in the top job, when if there was any real danger he wouldn't be allowed to. The one time I saw them in London was New Year's Eve in Trafalgar Square, and the only difference in the riders' outfits from normal patrols was that they were wearing riding helmets.
Sometimes in policing there is a place for a gentle 'we mean business' message to discourage potential trouble, for which a horse is quite useful. They wouldn't risk them if they thought there was going to be serious rioting.
A horse coming at you at any speed faster than a walk is a big scary animal, more so with a rider increasing its height.
I can testify to that. I almost got ran over by a horse in Brugge. I was trying to get out of the way of a carriage but it seemed the horse was coming right at me. Fortunately, a woman pulled me out of the way at the last moment.
I believe the ex-Commissioner used to sometimes do mounted policing at football matches, even in the top job, when if there was any real danger he wouldn't be allowed to. The one time I saw them in London was New Year's Eve in Trafalgar Square, and the only difference in the riders' outfits from normal patrols was that they were wearing riding helmets.
Sometimes in policing there is a place for a gentle 'we mean business' message to discourage potential trouble, for which a horse is quite useful. They wouldn't risk them if they thought there was going to be serious rioting.
That is not gentle. It is an implied threat. Better than shields and batons, but not exactly gentle.
I don't care what their beliefs are, or whether they vote for a Democrat or the Man in the Moon. To stay home and not vote is an abdication of their citizenship.
Totally agree, and not just in this election, but all others. But you'll never convince enough of your fellow-citizens to make voting compulsory.
Comments
I blame business school intrusion into the public services, the idea that cost effectiveness must always be shown, the expansion of business and administrative law for creating this mess.
Add that to the complete ignorance of senior public officials (department heads, deputy ministers) about primary prevention, their easy moves from the corporate world back and forth to government, you get tertiary level programs, ie hospitals and jails, versus where all needs originate: in communities.
If you localise the salaries, cops make well more than teachers on average. It is easy to look at national averages and pretend they make reasonable amounts. Adjusted for local comparisons, cops typcailly make well more than the average wage, which is why I highlighted Mississippi.
Some salary postings don't take into account overtime, which adds to the costs. Which is part of the reason I added the Orange County link.
And the link to the image listing the percentage of public safety budgets should further demonstrate the drain they have on public resource.
And without asking the bishop if he may go there to take that opportunity. Notice how he holds it with the spine towards the camera, so there's no mistaking what it is.
BTW, is the US so different that all peoples there - Christians, Jewish, Moslem, Hindu and all others - use the Bible?
Fixed broken quoting code. BroJames Purgatory Host
Just saw it on the evening news. Looks like one of the horses got loose.
And for all I can tell, Trump probably does think we all use the Bible.
Trump doesn't care to appeal to anyone but his base. To hell with what book (or no book at all) anybody else uses. His base sees this photograph and says, "See? Look! He really is one of us!"
Policing in the States may be at different rates, but you cannot accurately assert that the police are overpaid because they are paid more than teachers, using as your argument that in the UK police are paid the same rates as teachers when that is not true.
On police we have a whole mish mash of a system. We even have private organizations with police forces that have the full power of regular police (notably a lot of private colleges, e.g., Liberty University, and even a few churches [oddly enough the National Cathedral in Washington DC has its own police force]). Add in ICE. Now the decentralization does mean that Trump has no way of ordering around state, county, or city police forces (except perhaps in DC which is directly under federal control). It also means training and prerequisites vary widely.
I've seen the video a few time, possibly not always starting at the same second. I noticed different things each time. I didn't notice the bending officer the first time or two; but, when I did, he seemed like he was checking on him (more than the others were doing). I read somewhere yesterday that he'd wanted to help, but was told to keep going.
Also, once or twice I saw the film start just before the cops pushed him. He looked like he was reaching towards them with both hands, maybe at about waist high. That's all I could make out. It looked odd to me. I'm not remotely excusing what the officers did--but I wonder if it seemed odd to them, and that was a factor in what they did.
Some schools are getting rid of their "school resources officers"--per news over many years, they're cops assigned to a school to keep order and deal with problems. Sometimes, they're violent; and sometimes, they arrest and cuff kids when another way would be better and more sensible.
Based on what I've heard over the years, getting rid of them is likely to be mostly a great thing--with the possible exception of schools where many students are committing a lot of severe violence (perhaps with weapons) on a daily basis.
More precisely, they say, "See? He knows Two Corinthians as well as we do."
I've linked to England, outside the London fringe.
I'd guess teachers work longer hours, but police have night shifts to factor in.
Starting salary:
- Teachers: £24,373
- Police: £25,560
Max on the main pay range without additional duties (7 years for Police. I think it used to be 6 for teachers but the there is no longer automatic pay increases?):
- Teachers: £35,971
- Police: £40,128
Talk about inspector pay is misleading, most police "officers" in the UK are constables
Teaching: England (outside London)
Police: https://polfed.org/pay/constable-pay-scales/
Not to worry...
The Horse didn't just get loose. The female rider was assaulteed and very seriously injured
I had never heard this view of school resource officers. My understanding from my son's schools is that they are there primarily to discourage / head off / be first responder to an active shooter situation, or to cases where children have brought weapons to school.
If kids are misbehaving, my understanding is that they come under the usual disciplinary measures ("go to the principal's office," "you have detention after school today," that sort of thing), which has nothing to do with the officer.
The radio attributed the woman's injuries to her hitting her head on a traffic light.
According to BBC News That last sentence seems to me to be consistent with the video evidence.
I’ve seen several headlines to the effect that police ‘charged’ ‘at’ the crowd, but apart from the one bolting horse, I’ve not seen anything that shows the horses moving at more than a jog or a canter (I’m no expert on equine gaits) into mainly empty space - hence the scare quotes for ‘charged’ and ‘at’.
[Crossposted with @Penny S ]
But unfortunately, I know of two incidents where it didn’t work that way. Both incidents involved use of excessive force (and in at least one if not both cases, handcuffs) by the resource officers to subdue students after breaking up fights. One officer resigned afterward. I’m not sure what happened to the other—I know he was immediately reassigned to a non-school assignment, but beyond that I don’t know.
This is one of those cases where although it's possible, it sounds too much like a convenient excuse when cops are firing rubber bullets and tear gas canisters at people's faces.
Speaking as a recent school teacher, there is a raging debate about the value of police officers posted in schools. There's pretty good evidence that students of color are violently subdued and detained at a greater rate than white kids doing the same things. A google of "do police officers in schools make them safer" will bring up a myriad of stories. Quote from one of them:
There’s a reasonably clear video circulating on line.
This is the video clip on Sky News.
How about actually giving them the benefit of the doubt? Thinking of their reasons, even if wrong, as at least being based in something as virtuous as your own.
The people I'm aware of in the "hate Trump, but can't vote Dems" camp do so on the dead horse issue of abortion.
I'm not wanting to debate that they are wrong, or that the stats show that abortions go down under Dem Presidents, or when life starts.
But how about we accept that a large, large number of them really do believe abortion is murder, in the same way that we all believe that George Floyd was murdered.
Just as you could (presumably) accept that one couldn't bring themselves to vote Biden over Trump if Biden advocated legalizing police killings of African-Americans, celebrated when cops were given greater shoot to kill rights in State laws and cited stats showing that when police are allowed to legally kill people during an arrest that fewer African-American's get killed by police, then how about we take seriously that this is how they genuinely view the Dem's position on abortion?
We don't have to agree with it, but if we view them as actually decent people who have a lot in common with us deep down but it just manifested in different ways?
Though it's easier just to call them evil bastards!
If you can't pull your head out of your arse far enough to realise that legal prohibition doesn't prevent abortion and in fact gets women killed then whether you're stupid, evil or delusional becomes largely a moot point.
If they worked as hard to stop the police from murdering Black people as they do to stop women from having abortions, I wouldn't think they were evil bastards.
Point of order: the police deploying horses is de facto deploying weapons. They are big scary fuckers, and it is absolutely done to intimidate. Police manage a demonstration in their regular hats and vests - they put on riot gear and bring out the horses and dogs when either they think there's going to be trouble or, more disappointingly, they want there to be trouble.
Why not? If someone believes something that is false, then surely we should be ready with an answer.
In the UK the object is to achieve a peaceful event without injuries or arrests. That is not always possible when they are attacked by a section of the crowd.
Sometimes in policing there is a place for a gentle 'we mean business' message to discourage potential trouble, for which a horse is quite useful. They wouldn't risk them if they thought there was going to be serious rioting.
I can testify to that. I almost got ran over by a horse in Brugge. I was trying to get out of the way of a carriage but it seemed the horse was coming right at me. Fortunately, a woman pulled me out of the way at the last moment.
Totally agree, and not just in this election, but all others. But you'll never convince enough of your fellow-citizens to make voting compulsory.