Someone put up signs
worth heeding over the weekend:
Joe Morino brought an incredulous friend to see the orange street sign he just spotted in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis.
The official-looking metal sign read: “WARNING: TWIN CITIES POLICE EASILY STARTLED.” It featured a graphic silhouette of a police officer, a gun in each raised hand, shooting in both directions.
“There’s a side of truth to the sign,” Morino said after snapping a picture of it. “That tells you there is something wrong with the system.”
I saw multiple pictures of the second sign, which was at Snelling and University in St. Paul:
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| I love a man in a uniform |
Apparently this one has been taken down, but it's spot-on. And it speaks to a real problem we have in the Twin Cities. If you look at what happened to Justine Damond, will you now think twice before you call 911? The motto of police departments everywhere is to serve and protect? That notion has taken a big hit lately, especially here. And ashcanning Janeé Harteau doesn't change the larger problems we're seeing throughout the metro. I have no reason to believe ashcanning Betsy Hodges will make a difference, either, at least in the short term.
5 comments:
The one thing that firing Harteau does, really, is put the force on notice that if you prejudice an investigation just as it's getting started to the national media, your career prospects will be hurt. That is, in my opinion, a good thing.
Hopefully the next chief can be someone who is not an affirmative action hire, and who will be able to get the pulse of the department enough to really change the culture, starting with actually keeping one's finger off the trigger until one is ready to fire, and continuing with using body cameras.
they could also teach officers the difference between what a possible thug looks like vs a yoga instructor.
i grew up in the city. i could tell the difference between a black man with braids (philando) and a crip/blood homie. they act differently. their posture is different. their speech is different. cops need to know this, too.
they could also teach officers the difference between what a possible thug looks like vs a yoga instructor.
That would be useful, although based on what we know, this cop didn't bother to look and just pulled the trigger.
Getting rid of those two AA hires (and I don't mean Alcoholics Anonymous, but that is also possible) may not change things, but it would be quite fitting and satisfying on a basic level. Isn't there a rule someplace that we're not required to give jobs to idiots?
Not quite sure why that trigger was pulled, except to note that the officer hadn't been adequately trained to get muscle memory to keep his damned finger off the trigger until he was ready to fire. Gun safety 101 first class, he failed.
That noted, situational awareness is huge, and I have to wonder whether Noor had gotten the requisite "spidey sense" that he could have learned from a veteran. I'm guessing no. (again, hopefully he throws the MPD under the bus) Hence he likely didn't know what scenes were, and were not, especially dangerous.
Another thing working against officers is that someone is ALWAYS talking to them. I made a report on Saturday in a sleepy college town (daughter had received texts suggesting something criminal, thankfully nothing came of it), and it was amazing how often someone talked to him. If he'd needed to hear what was going on on the street, or to be quiet while he came to a crime scene, he was totally hosed. At some point, we need to take a look at how much technology is on an officer's belt and in his car and ask whether it's really helping.
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