I guess the story isn't just racist cops (surprise!), but racist cops provoking a racially motivated confrontation with two seemingly innocent bystanders, in of all places Digby Nova Scotia.

No one has sufficient proof that the racial epithets were actually uttered, but do the math: the investigating officer from Halifax concludes that other than this unprovable bit, everything else the victims said checks out -- in other words, the off-duty cop (one of TWELVE, btw) took the first swing, etc.

Thank Mike Harris for turfing the civilian investigation. Cops investigating cops = no recourse for citizens. It's a sham and a hoax played upon us by the right wing idiots who run things now. They like things that way.

So anti-centralist, yet so totally power hungry they can't help but make bigger government. But neo-con sheep don't care, because they simply close their eyes and pretend the shit that spews out of Stevie harper's mouth is the truth.

I'm pretty bitter about it. One of my best friends got run out of town because the racist police in Kingston targeted her kids more than once, and when she complained, the only process available was for the police to investigate. And all they did was cover up for each other.

Read about it here.

[ 08 July 2008: Message edited by: Michelle ]

Anyway, assuming the cops are 100% on-board with this and comply with the requirement in its totality, and that anyone - cop or not - is capable of being 100% accurate in describing someone's 'race', and that the cop's 'race' is included in the stats, and that 100% accurate demographic and ethnographic data is available for the geographic area being policed, and finally assuming that police interactions with the public are not consciously or unconsciously altered due to knowledge that they are being monitored, then it would be possible to make a scientific determination of whether or not the police are biased towards or against any group or groups. You would also need to know to 100% accuracy what the people were up to prior to being stopped by the police.

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Originally posted by Stargazer:
Thank Mike Harris for turfing the civilian investigation. Cops investigating cops = no recourse for citizens. It's a sham and a hoax played upon us by the right wing idiots who run things now. They like things that way.

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Meanwhile, action must be taken on the specifics. All allegations of police wrongdoing must be investigated by independent civilian bodies. On issues of racial discrimination or harassment or profiling, police must be held to a far higher standard than citizens - because they represent the state, because they have powers of arrest, and because they bear arms. Any police officer found guilty of an offence involving discrimination or harassment on a prohibited ground should never work in that field again.

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Originally posted by RationalThought:
Anyway, assuming the cops are 100% on-board with this and comply with the requirement in its totality, and that anyone - cop or not - is capable of being 100% accurate in describing someone's 'race', and that the cop's 'race' is included in the stats, and that 100% accurate demographic and ethnographic data is available for the geographic area being policed, and finally assuming that police interactions with the public are not consciously or unconsciously altered due to knowledge that they are being monitored, then it would be possible to make a scientific determination of whether or not the police are biased towards or against any group or groups. You would also need to know to 100% accuracy what the people were up to prior to being stopped by the police.

Almost none of the above assumptions can be held to 100% compliance, so scientifically speaking it's a waste of time. The city would be better off secretly hiring people to shadow the cops 24/7 with a video camera and record what happens.

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It's difficult to tell from this statement, but are you suggesting that studies analyzing racial bias in law enforcement agencies waste our time and money? I also fail to see how neglecting to identify race 'accurately' negates the findings of a particular study. If a cop identifies a subject 'Jamaican' when in fact she is 'Iranian' and demonstrates a bias towards this subject, does this mean the cop is not, in fact, biased towards Jamaicans?

Or, to use a real-life example, if a London Tube police officer shoots a mentally unstable Brazilian man five times in the head because he mistook the man for an Islamic terrorist, does this mean he is biased against Arabs, Brazilians, neither or both?

[ 08 July 2008: Message edited by: Catchfire ]

Drift - With cameras on cellphones now it's only a matter of time before people have small lapel lenses that feed a video stream 24/7 to a remote storage facility. Get stopped by the cops and have complete coverage of what happened. Any bystanders would be recording and transmitting as well. - End drift

As for copwatch its premise is exactly that of some posters upthread, namely that cops are racist out-of-control goons who need to be watched and filmed so that the truth can be clearly shown to the masses.

[ 08 July 2008: Message edited by: RationalThought ]

But that is a far different position than thinking studies that take an independent, critical and sceptical eye on things like racism and bias in the police force are a 'waste of time'. Capitulating to affect and emotion as a way of structuring government policy is toxic and self-defeating--witness the 'law & order' reactionary policies of the United States.

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Originally posted by Catchfire:

Capitulating to affect and emotion as a way of structuring government policy is toxic and self-defeating--witness the 'law & order' reactionary policies of the United States.

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The 'reactionary policies' in the USA are against the people in favour of the state. What I am suggesting is that the people use all the tools of a modern advanced society to apply those same reactionary impulses against the state's chief enforcer.

Ok . I'll put in some info .. CBC just reported that a video of the incident was recorded by a security camera, and that is shows that the Cop threw the first punch.

One thing I do notice, with a glaring jolt of "this isn't right" is when a black kid is shot dead, don't except the investigation to be nearly as thorough as if it was a white kid shot. By default cops think black kids are gang bangers and they had it coming. The white, middle class kid? The cops would bang on every door for any information.

(Although probably not, since they know they'll just have other cops covering their asses, like the RCMP did.)

[ 10 July 2008: Message edited by: Michelle ]

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CBC just reported that a video of the incident was recorded by a security camera, and that is shows that the Cop threw the first punch.

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Yep, actually an investigating officer from Hali admitted that in the first link as well.

Ever notice how the cop who threw the first punch has NOT been arrested?