>the only difference between a cop in the US and a cop in the UK is better training and less reliance on guns
Ah, so that’s why American cops routinely murder random people and go unpunished - it’s just the lack of training!
(The reality is that there’s a fundamental difference in that in Europe police is just another government branch that’s helping people, like firefighters and doctors; normal people don’t need to fear them and avoid any unnecessary interactions, which seems to be the case in the US.)
> The reality is that there’s a fundamental difference in that in Europe police is just another government branch that’s helping people, like firefighters and doctors; normal people don’t need to fear them and avoid any unnecessary interactions, which seems to be the case in the US.
I'm German. Our cops are infamous for racial profiling and can, at least according to several independent investigations, even get away with murdering people in their jail cells (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oury_Jalloh).
What makes policing in the United States different is the weakness of central (i.e. federal) authority and lack of nationwide standards of training and conduct. Typical US police training is about six months, while European programs are not rarely three years (including essentially an associates degree in law enforcement). A parallel issue is civil asset forfeiture, which can amount to legitimized robbery.
>It's just that police in Europe and Asia don't really face dangerous and determined criminals.
That's just laughable. People in the US are not more dangerous than people in Europe or Asia. Lots of dangerous individuals get stopped by police without killing them with 41 bullets. What is more dangerous is the police's behaviour, behaving like an occupying force. US police would also rather kill someone trying to escape from s minor offence than let them get away. Different way of thinking. One values lives above killcount.
> The difference is perhaps that US cops are more happy nailing any convenient person, while police elsewhere rather want to nail who actually did it, which of course does not mean they actually do.
This seems like gross assumption. I have no doubt there are plenty of genuinely good American cops who want to do what is right. But the bad cases of the entire nation float to the top of the newspapers/internet and give the impression that the whole country is this way.
I've yet to see actual statistics of wrong imprisonment rates in the US vs. EU. And I'm sure if you broke if down by state you'd find some states have even better cops than EU.
> My impression is that police quality is higher in Europe than the US for instance
My impression is that that’s because in Europe it’s a skilled job that requires a degree. In the US it’s where everyone that can’t get another job goes.
> Police in the US are rightly very afraid when pulling over someone for something petty like speeding because that person could be upset and have a gun. Where I'm from cops are not afraid because nobody has guns.
They aren't actually scared. Publicly, they might talk about how stressful their jobs are etc. etc., but speak privately with one who is comfortable with you and you'll discover they are not scared in the slightest. They know everyone has their back and that they aren't really in any danger.
> This is all part of a culture that tells cops they are above the law, they have the power, and everyone else just needs to bow down and accept that.
Certainly, I agree with that. And the US culture is very different from European cultures (which is not a surprise, given how quickly the country changes and how young it is). Comparing it to Europe where we're sitting on a very different (and much more stable still) culture with very different traditions, a completely different approach to individualism vs collectivism etc, isn't helpful, and you won't get anywhere if you dismiss 99% of the difference and then say (yes, I'm exaggerating, and no, I don't mean you specifically but people who like to point to Europe in comparison) "well, clearly, it's because the citizens don't have guns and the police wear friendlier uniforms".
> Police in the US are the very model of probity, courtesy and professionalism compared to almost every country in the Western Hemisphere
You specified western Hemisphere, which includes only the eastmost edge of Europe, but still leaves (half) of the UK, France and also Canada and Ireland. US police is hardly going to beat those on many positive metrics.
Odd choice of geographic region for such a comparison in any case.
Seeing heavily armed police (with actual assault rifles not AR-15's) and paramilitary members (the Carabinieri and Gendarmerie etc) is much more common in Europe than the US and been the case for decades.
Obviously this is an outlier, but I think we'd do a disservice to ourselves if we don't acknowledge the fact that sometimes the UK is as bad as the USA.
> And let's not pretend that cops in the US are well trained, they are so afraid and completly unable to de-escalate a situation that they I would have 0 confidence in a cop pulling a gun on me in the US (not saying I would like it anywhere, but I would sure be less freaked out in Europe).
> The officer who shot and killed Philando Castile during a 2016 traffic stop in Falcon Heights, Minnesota,[...] clocked more than 100 hours of trainings on topics such as firearms usage, street survival, and the use of force—but had only attended two hours of deescalation training.
> The police are trained to wound you and take you alive.
Police should be trained not to rely on firearms. The gun is a last-ditch option to protect the cop's life, not a way to neutralise citizens.
When a police officer shoots, he ought to shoot to kill, because there are very few and extreme situations that grant him the legitimacy to shoot. Very few officers experience such situations, not even once in their career.
Policing has very little in common with soldiering, and vice-versa (although we wrongfully use our soldiers as cops in foreign countries, with unsurprisingly poor results).
> 3.) Policing is an adversarial job. This leads to a us vs them mentality and also contributes to the next problem
This has another point: America's desire for ... extremely long and, from an European POV, frankly ridiculous prison sentences.
In most of Europe, even someone carrying a car load worth of meth earns only a couple years of prison time in decent conditions (don't get me wrong, our prisons are not perfect, but generally mental and physical healthcare are given, food is decent and gangs/prison rape is nowhere near the widespread problem as it is in the US) if caught. There is no incentive to shoot a cop, in fact there is an incentive to be cooperative and friendly with cops at e.g. traffic stops (so that they don't search the car in the first place).
In America however? A drug runner often has to choose between either not shooting the cop and definitely earn decades of prison time in overcrowded prisons with inhumane conditions or shooting the cop and possibly getting away. This is why US cops are so trigger happy and assuming every person they interact with is out to shoot them, plus the ... extremely widespread availability of guns.
A huge part of solving the police violence problem will be gun control, sentencing reforms and prison reforms, as unintuitively as it sounds.
> because police brutality is kind of a global phenomenon
No it's not. Police in Europe is, on average, very kind. When they stop you, you don't have to be afraid of anything, and more often than not you stop them to ask for help, even if it's just to ask for directions.
> Perhaps another explanation for a disparity of police shootings in the US vs. UK is that US police are confronted with armed and/or aggressive criminals more often.
Even if you ONLY count the number of police shootings in the US which involved shooting unarmed individuals it would be higher than all of the UK's shootings put together.
> I rather doubt they are significantly looser than those in any other western nation.
You'd be entirely wrong. US police can get away with shooting people if they feel a "threat" which is entirely not the standard used elsewhere. Other places it isn't about a police officer's fear that determines the legality of firing, it is the actual factual threat the officer faced.
For example if someone fishes around in their pockets, if that person was shot that officer would be considered justified and they would not only not go to jail but keep their job. In the UK that police officer would definitely lose their job and MIGHT go to jail.
Everyone loves to point out the Jean Charles de Menezes shooting [0]. And as messed up as that was, that was a national scandal, there was two investigations, supposedly changes were made, but what is interesting is that those types of "incidents" happen it seems on a weekly basis in the US and nothing ever seems to happen and there is very little outcry about it.
Just this week a US police officer shot an unarmed escape convict in the back as they were running away. Nobody is even defending this as the default assumption is that that officer was justified. That is the new normal in the US. Shooting unarmed people in the back...
Ah, so that’s why American cops routinely murder random people and go unpunished - it’s just the lack of training!
(The reality is that there’s a fundamental difference in that in Europe police is just another government branch that’s helping people, like firefighters and doctors; normal people don’t need to fear them and avoid any unnecessary interactions, which seems to be the case in the US.)
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