Recent comments in /f/washingtondc

warb17 OP t1_j8ivcb7 wrote

Reply to comment by paulHarkonen in D.C. police officer shoots, wounds man in Southeast Washington by warb17

a person with a knife is generally a threat that can be contained and so as a general practice i'm going to default to assuming that the police acted irresponsibly if they shot the person.

i genuinely appreciate that you are willing to consider some reforms; we have some common ground there. i don't mean this in an antagonizing way but please keep in mind that my stance is not reform of police - it's abolition - so i'm not surprised if you feel like my stance is somewhat at odds with yours, because it is.

have you seen this pdf? if you haven't, it's a great tool for thinking about reforms that do or do not move towards abolition. you've mentioned some of the things in green, and so like i said, we do have common ground.

but my position is that policing and prisons as we know them are fundamentally problematic institutions and our aim should be to build a society free of them.

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paulHarkonen t1_j8ir5tp wrote

Reply to comment by warb17 in D.C. police officer shoots, wounds man in Southeast Washington by warb17

I've read quite a bit on the subject and your comment was extreme. While you're right that you didn't say "never" you did say "rarely" and then used that stance to justify why it is unjustified when dealing with a suspect that had already used the weapon.

Again, I understand the concerns. Police need to be heavily regulated, on camera 24/7, reduced funding that is redirected toward mental health and social welfare resources. I'm onboard. The whole system needs to be completely restructured from the top to bottom.

Your stance and hyperbole here hampers that goal. Sometimes we do need police armed and prepared to use lethal force. Someone utilizing a potentially lethal weapon is one of those times. Do they need better training? Yes. Do they need more oversight? Yes. Should they be locked up in cases of misuse of force (such as shooting unarmed people)? Yes. Does that mean lethal force is unjustified when dealing with suspects wielding weapons other than firearms? No.

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warb17 OP t1_j8ipxxb wrote

Reply to comment by paulHarkonen in D.C. police officer shoots, wounds man in Southeast Washington by warb17

the whole point of de-escalation is to apply it to someone originally intending to do violence.

also, i haven't said that lethal force is never required, even with a knife. i've said that it's heavily overused. if my sentiments feel extreme to you, maybe you should do some more reading on police and prison abolition. this article was written by someone skeptical of police abolition and might be useful: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/6/12/21283813/george-floyd-blm-abolish-the-police-8cantwait-minneapolis

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wogal555 t1_j8iia7k wrote

Reply to comment by jpenn18 in Ohio toxic air in DMV? by ghostofhogan

You are missing the context here. OP is talking about evacuating DC due to this incident. That is the insane fear mongering I'm talking about, and my comment about this being over is related to that specific concern of theirs.

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Otree38 t1_j8ifkhx wrote

Reply to Ohio toxic air in DMV? by ghostofhogan

People and the news are seriously overblowing this incident. It was bad, don’t get me wrong, but calling it a “mini-Chernobyl” is just fully inaccurate. We’ll be totally fine here.

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