Over the years there were famous cases of overzealous police officers immediately killing unarmed elderly people, disabled people, and children upon arrival at scenes of 911 calls. There may be a silver lining here.

They use commands to confuse, disrupt, provoke, belittle, and ultimately trap the subjects in a situation where they have no "good option". Their inability to parse the irate and rushed officer's commands almost always seems to wind up in the use of excessive force in these cases where a subject is injured extensively or, worse, murdered in cold blood.

Bad training and a culture of "Us versus Them" is only part of the issue. I think the majority of the issue stems from police quotas. Even the most weary and well-meaning officers have to meet quotas. If they aren't bringing in 4 felonies or finding 1 suspect with a gun on them in a given month (NYPD statistic, will supply source below) they are first pressured from above by superiors with verbal warnings. After a verbal warning the punishment turns into marks on the officer's permanent record which can prevent an officer from upward mobility or landing a position in their desired unit.

That means, to me, that in a situation where an officer who has no reason to go overboard with a subject isn't given 110% respect, the subject doesn't "submit to the officer's power", and the officer sees, hears, feels or perceives anything but certain cooperation and submission that the officer now has "incentive" to make the subject one of their, minimum, 4-monthly felonies.

There is a light bulb that goes off in an officer's head. If they haven't met their quota for the month as they approach a subject they have the added weight of needing to "make the grade" for that period. There is a code for a subject that isn't in need of anything more than a written citation (ticket or warning) and there is a code for a subject that needs to be hauled into the police station to be jailed. If the officer is below their quota and the subject gives that officer any reason to view the situation as anything above a written citation than it is actually in that officer's best interest to escalate, provoke, stoke, prod, and push a subject to the point of the situation becoming one that requires an officer to lock that subject up.

These officers are human, yes. But the blue line, the quotas, the inability for "good cops" to report "bad cops" without their career trajectory or possibly even their career being ruined, and a bunch of other non-crime related characteristics are fueling the growing rift between ALL CITIZENS and law enforcement officers.

The Mayor needs the police to be tough on crime so they can report to the citizens, State, and Federal government that the crime situation is improving in their district. The Police Chief needs to ensure that his officers are meeting quotas, making enough arrests to meet whatever standards have been set, and make it so the Mayor can give those press conferences and cite those numbers that show improvement in order for the Chief to justify the Federal and State budget endowed to that precinct / police department. Each officer is expected to bring in a certain number of felonies per month or find one subject with a gun on them (or more, obviously) in order to meet their quota for the month in order for their Chief to make the Mayor happy.

When a police officer is a rookie there are certain assignments that are reserved to them. One I've heard of that's common in New York City is when people in a building report the smell of a dead body. There are lots of elderly people in rent controlled apartments and homes that pass away each day of the year. From the moment a call is made and a body is discovered an officer needs to stay with the body until the medical examiner / coroner shows up to take the body away in official capacity. Like I had said, this job and others like it (less desirable, more rule based than anything type jobs) are reserved for two types of officers: rookies and officers with any amount of experience who do not meet quotas.

When officers do not meet their quotas they are given the lowest jobs on the totem pole as a display of punishment. If they continually miss their quota numbers it will disrupt not only their upward trajectory in their career but it will also effect their ability to schedule and take their earned time off. Officers who fail to meet quotas will purposely be given the least desired stretches of time off, usually never coinciding with the days they've requested.

All of this incentivizes officers to target subjects who appear to be criminals which often means they are targeting individuals who haven't committed any crimes. If a citizen calls the police for something and it's later found out that the person who called, even if they were not committing any crime or doing anything illegal, if they have a criminal history it is in the police officer's interest (due to quotas) to escalate the situation to the point where they can justify hauling that subject in and thus adding another number to their monthly expected arrests / felonies / quotas.

If people can't see the discrepancy here, if people can't understand how the dots connect, if people try to equate this to things like, "they shouldn't have been doing anything wrong if they didn't want to be arrested, hurt, MURDERED!", than I really don't know what to say.

People blindly defending police or, worse, blindly blaming people of color or anyone who meets an unkind fate at the hands of over-eager officers is part of the problem, in my honest opinion.

I'm a law abiding, non-violent, non-criminal (never been arrested), and for all intents-and-purposes model citizen.

Every police encounter I have (even as a white citizen of the US) always goes one way for certain: I hold absolutely still unless instructed otherwise and I completely submit to the officer. I feel completely helpless. I feel completely in the control of the officer. I feel like if that officer is having a bad day or I incidentally irk that officer that I will be the benefactor of whatever negative perceptions that creates -- regardless of anything I did prior. It's all up the officer in that moment and I feel and somewhat know that even if the entire ordeal is recorded (with video and audio) that at the end of the day it's still my word versus theirs and the entire court room is on the same payroll as that officer.

There's nothing good about this situation. The entire thing makes me sick. I have friends of every race, nation, and creed and I can't even begin to imagine the way they are made to feel in similar situations if I feel so helpless and at the whim of the given officer.

I don't wish that feeling on ANYONE! Even my OWN WORST ENEMY! It's not human, it's not normal, and it breeds the type of feelings people talk about when innocent people are attacked by a foreign military. All it does is create grudges, the quest for revenge, and enemies for the police.

AND THEY WONDER WHY SO MANY PEOPLE HAVE PROBLEMS WITH THEM AND THE WAY THEY DO THINGS!

Thanks for tolerating my post but lately things have reached a boiling point in my life with people I know and love being mistreated. I caught this interview yesterday, by chance, while not going out of my way to look for it and it was extremely enlightening. I urge each and every one of you to watch this video IN IT'S ENTIRETY! I also urge you to research more about the NYPD 12 and what their mission and message are, even if you don't agree with anything I or they say or stand for.

This effects each and every person on American soil, regardless of any personal characteristics you may possess. Thank you for your time.

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Sgt Edwin Raymond On Police Quotas, NYPD 12 & Says He Was Denied Promotion (Youtube Interview with HOT97 Radio Station, New York, New York on October 4th, 2018) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBzR2pkWgVU

As an example, take a look at E.R. doctors. They treat a lot of people who are insanely abusive, both physically and verbally. Do they refuse to treat these patients? No, they are required by law and by their hippocratic oath to care for their patients. I work at UCSF, and residents tell me their war stories about drugged up patients who scream profanities at the doctors endlessly. Should a resident retaliate in any way, they would be pulled from their program. This process forces E.R. doctors to have thick skin and learn to cope with assholes on the job.

If we are to give police officers this insane amount of power to the public, we should expect nothing less than their ability to withstand some idiot's verbal tyrades.

This also suggests the importance of bit ever talking back to police. I know of situations in Chicago where acquaintances were beaten up by police for disrespecting them.

My impression is also that many cases of police abuse in the US happen in situations where most of the police officers policing a community are not themselves members of that community, but outsiders looking down on that community.

We have roughly 900,000 police officers. A total of 135 police officers were killed in duty in 2016.[0] And 14,453 injuries. We point these people towards danger daily and in a single year only 1 in every 62 of those officers will be 'injured'. I would say that's an acceptable risk for the job if the alternative is the circumvention of due process.

[0] - http://time.com/4619689/police-officers-killed-2016/

Police officers who behave like this should be in prison and banned from ever getting a job as a cop again. The bosses who authorize and cover for them should be in prison as well. Behavior like this should be absolutely unacceptable. Instead it's encouraged and praised by the people who should be holding them accountable.

I'm sure there are a few cops out there who would never behave this way, but the bad ones seem to be increasing in number rapidly. A lot of it undoubtedly has to do with the fact that their power keeps increasing, and that attracts the wrong sort of person to the job. And peer pressure and isolation from the rest of society due to their us-vs-them mentality doesn't help for the rest of them. When faced with their friends abusing power, it's easier to ignore it and let it slide rather than make waves.

It is within this context an average intelligence, perhaps even above-average moral person enters after 6-weeks of training. This person likes watching football and drinking beer. They help their elderly neighbors with the trash. They are a "normal" man who will stand up for himself, physically, in extreme cases. Now give him a gun and a badge and a martial law bubble. How do you think this normal, average man will evolve when he realizes his power? When he sees his friends on the force us it, daily, to get what they want, to make their jobs a little easier? When does he learn to enjoy that feeling of power, for itself, the way it feels to beat someone and put his knee on someone's neck because they talked back to you, and know that no-one can do shit about it? And you can even rationalize it - they shouldn't have been rude, they should know how much power I have and that I'm only human, its really just punishment for being stupid. Plus, the public still loves me and is grateful to me, considering me in high esteem as a moral upstanding citizen - so we must be doing something right!

And I hear the defensive tone in her voice. She feels, as I do, that many people in the public won't believe, or if they do believe, that they will rationalize the police behavior. Or even if they don't rationalize, they will keep quiet, feeling powerless and not strong enough to make a difference. But, what Peretz has shown me personally, is that there is a certain strength in numbers, and sharing your experience so that other people don't feel like they're the only one who got treated that way, that they are not the only one who got brutalized by American city police - and then were left with absolutely no options to keep them accountable.

The system is fucked and it needs to change. Police should be required to record all audio and video of their actions, and provide this footage to anyone they interact with, on request. And if that device doesn't work, they should be severely reprimanded. (Officer Sasenbach of the SBPD, the one who threw me in jail without arrest and without reason, had a recording device which "failed" the night of our interaction.)

Much of my experience was eerily familiar - the suddenness of the violence on the street, when Sasenbach decided I was trouble. The taunts from the jail keepers. The taking of clothing (jacket and shoes), and kept in a cell too cold to sleep in for 12 hours. Asking for a phone call, and being ignored. Asking if I was arrested, and being ignored. Asking what right they have to keep me, and having them smirk and say, "because I'm on this side, and you're on that side".

When I filed a complaint, the sargeant assigned to the case was sullen, bored. Sasenbach's personal recorder was broken; the video feed in the cell i was kept in was broken. I could file another complaint if I wanted.

I remember feeling so out-of-body, like the system I'd grown up to believe in, the system that was supposed to represent "the good guys" was completely upended. These were brutal, horrible people drunk on their power over me, and delighted to cause as much harm as they could get away with, for no other reason that they could. It was an important moment in my life, when my illusion about the state, the police, and the bare issue of who we trust with a monopoly of violence became starkly defined: none of us are safe. The police can invade our lives at will, and do what they want to us, and we are helpless to defend ourselves. The only thing preventing general rebellion is statistical: the number of people who "win" the shit lottery that is interacting with the cops is very low, and it's hard to convince others that they are indeed at risk of suffering the same treatment. Who knows, perhaps things will change.