Rachel Maddow led off Thursday's broadcast with a review of just how terrible the police are in Cleveland, Ohio. How terrible? Very. Very, very terrible. The Justice Department released a report Thursday on the policing madness in that city, along with an agreement to put a federal monitor in place to clean up the police department -- for the second time in a decade. There's almost too much bad police behavior to wrap your head around, and the investigation wrapped up
If cops didn't do car chases, what would Michael Bay make movies about? The guy who jumped up on the hood of the unarmed couple's car and blasted away at them through the windshield just drip cinematic possibilities.
Sixty-two cop cars, driven by sugar-and-caffeine-fueled racists. What could go wrong?
Rachel has kinda of missed the mark on this one. Why isn't the report "Yea! Cleveland calls in the DOJ, doesn't tear gas and terrorize neighborhood where kid was murdered?" Cleveland doesn't need media outlets throwing gas on this fire so they can get more fear mongering p0rn to ramp up their ratings. Calling in the DOJ is a good thing. Not calling out the SWAT Team to terrorize Cudell and it's residents is a good thing. Not tear gassing the protestors is a good thing. There are problems here beyond killer cops who ignore department policies. Mayor Jackson is not a big sound bite guy and keeps a very low profile. Lots of attention whores in the media hate it when he does the quiet, right thing that will stick. Cleveland has lots of problems and one of them is that no matter what happens when the cameras go away, we have to live with a police department that is at odds with Council, the Mayors office and its residents. It's no fun living here and knowing that if you call the district dispatch to report a problem on your street, that it could go very, very wrong. But NOT calling the cops when your neighbors house is getting burglarized, or when there is a domestic violence incident on the street isn't a solution either. I can say from personal experience that long time, old residents don't bother to report crime because they don't believe the cops will do anything. They are not helping. I know from communicating with Cleveland cops that they actually have great success tracking crime trends and making raids that have long lasting effects. But there is this other endemic culture in the police department of 'us against them' and the attitude that certain neighborhoods are going to hell in a handbasket and aren't worth patrolling. Yes, there is a racism problem in Cleveland. But there is a bigger racism problem in the surrounding suburbs that want to ghettoize the whole city and starve it out of existence. They want to throw up a wall around us and keep the blahs and the poors out of their nice tony suburbs where they white-flighted four decades ago. The local media is doing it's absolute best to portray the city as being on the verge of erupting into riots and chaos even when the cops aren't killing kids. Cleveland.com (Plain Dealer) announced it was leading the effort to vilify the latest victim and dig up dirt on him. Why isn't Rachel reporting on that and how the City isn't taking the bait and ramping up the violence? Believe me, local media reports are slanted to making Jackson look inept because their viewers would love to believe that the blah, urban Mayor of the gang infested city can't possibly be any good at his job. Rachel piling on from afar isn't going to help anyone in the city break up the corrupt cops and firefighters who oppose accountability of any kind. The restructuring and rewriting policies of the police and fire department has been going on for decades in this city. It's been an ongoing power struggle between those who want the cops to actually serve the community and have a presence in city and the cops and firefighters who want to collect fat paychecks, huge overtime hours and not actually do anything while they are on the job. I wish Rachel had actually done a thorough job of researching the decades long effort Cleveland has been making to restructure city departments rather than lump us under the usual tagline of "Cleveland, city so inept it set the river on fire'. There is a real story here about how hard it is to change the way police departments operate and how long it takes. There are real people here who are doing heroic work everyday to rebuild neighborhoods decimated by white flight. It's too bad Rachel can't be bothered to look past the fear p0rn and the sound bites.
point is, lazy journalism. evil cops do evil things, evil cops do more evil things, Cleveland has to call in DOJ, AGAIN, Cleveland fail (might as well add a laugh track to it). pictures of protestors here, pictures of protestors at that campus, more pictures of protestors, protestors, all the protestors.
there is a real story here that goes past glibitarian, throw all the cops in jail thinking. There is real opportunity to report on what it really takes to fix a broken police department beyond throwing all the cops in jail and firing all the cops and evil, evil government is always evil. Tell the story about how it took two Mayors and 20 year to bust up the gang of firefighters and cops who were exploiting overtime policies and bankrupting the city. Tell the story about the now defunct copland down in Old Brooklyn and how the impenetrable blue wall voting block kept the city from changing any policies unless the cops and firefighters wanted it changed. Tell the story about the political payback against any council member or mayor who tried to make real policy changes. Real legislating and busting up corruption, not as sexy as vids of cops killing kids. There is a huge story here that is being played out all over the country in cities with shifting demographics.
I expect Rachel and her crew to go beyond Faux News fear mongering and gun humpers p0rn level of reporting and actually do some journalism.
That's where the governance comes in. Keeping the racists out. Or just retraining them: the ones resistant to conflicting info will remove themselves if pressured enough in an environment where their behavior is fundamentally unacceptable.
If cops didn't do car chases, what would Michael Bay make movies about? The guy who jumped up on the hood of the unarmed couple's car and blasted away at them through the windshield just drip cinematic possibilities.
Sixty-two cop cars, driven by sugar-and-caffeine-fueled racists. What could go wrong?
62 police cars chasing 1 vehicle? That must have been close to the entire department, so a good day for all the other criminals in Cleveland.
Cleveland Police have a rather cavalier attitude.
I'm getting pretty sick of this shit. I can only imagine how the people who are being directly affected by it must feel.
Rachel has kinda of missed the mark on this one. Why isn't the report "Yea! Cleveland calls in the DOJ, doesn't tear gas and terrorize neighborhood where kid was murdered?" Cleveland doesn't need media outlets throwing gas on this fire so they can get more fear mongering p0rn to ramp up their ratings. Calling in the DOJ is a good thing. Not calling out the SWAT Team to terrorize Cudell and it's residents is a good thing. Not tear gassing the protestors is a good thing. There are problems here beyond killer cops who ignore department policies. Mayor Jackson is not a big sound bite guy and keeps a very low profile. Lots of attention whores in the media hate it when he does the quiet, right thing that will stick. Cleveland has lots of problems and one of them is that no matter what happens when the cameras go away, we have to live with a police department that is at odds with Council, the Mayors office and its residents. It's no fun living here and knowing that if you call the district dispatch to report a problem on your street, that it could go very, very wrong. But NOT calling the cops when your neighbors house is getting burglarized, or when there is a domestic violence incident on the street isn't a solution either. I can say from personal experience that long time, old residents don't bother to report crime because they don't believe the cops will do anything. They are not helping. I know from communicating with Cleveland cops that they actually have great success tracking crime trends and making raids that have long lasting effects. But there is this other endemic culture in the police department of 'us against them' and the attitude that certain neighborhoods are going to hell in a handbasket and aren't worth patrolling. Yes, there is a racism problem in Cleveland. But there is a bigger racism problem in the surrounding suburbs that want to ghettoize the whole city and starve it out of existence. They want to throw up a wall around us and keep the blahs and the poors out of their nice tony suburbs where they white-flighted four decades ago. The local media is doing it's absolute best to portray the city as being on the verge of erupting into riots and chaos even when the cops aren't killing kids. Cleveland.com (Plain Dealer) announced it was leading the effort to vilify the latest victim and dig up dirt on him. Why isn't Rachel reporting on that and how the City isn't taking the bait and ramping up the violence? Believe me, local media reports are slanted to making Jackson look inept because their viewers would love to believe that the blah, urban Mayor of the gang infested city can't possibly be any good at his job. Rachel piling on from afar isn't going to help anyone in the city break up the corrupt cops and firefighters who oppose accountability of any kind. The restructuring and rewriting policies of the police and fire department has been going on for decades in this city. It's been an ongoing power struggle between those who want the cops to actually serve the community and have a presence in city and the cops and firefighters who want to collect fat paychecks, huge overtime hours and not actually do anything while they are on the job. I wish Rachel had actually done a thorough job of researching the decades long effort Cleveland has been making to restructure city departments rather than lump us under the usual tagline of "Cleveland, city so inept it set the river on fire'. There is a real story here about how hard it is to change the way police departments operate and how long it takes. There are real people here who are doing heroic work everyday to rebuild neighborhoods decimated by white flight. It's too bad Rachel can't be bothered to look past the fear p0rn and the sound bites.
The poker player?
point is, lazy journalism. evil cops do evil things, evil cops do more evil things, Cleveland has to call in DOJ, AGAIN, Cleveland fail (might as well add a laugh track to it). pictures of protestors here, pictures of protestors at that campus, more pictures of protestors, protestors, all the protestors.
there is a real story here that goes past glibitarian, throw all the cops in jail thinking. There is real opportunity to report on what it really takes to fix a broken police department beyond throwing all the cops in jail and firing all the cops and evil, evil government is always evil. Tell the story about how it took two Mayors and 20 year to bust up the gang of firefighters and cops who were exploiting overtime policies and bankrupting the city. Tell the story about the now defunct copland down in Old Brooklyn and how the impenetrable blue wall voting block kept the city from changing any policies unless the cops and firefighters wanted it changed. Tell the story about the political payback against any council member or mayor who tried to make real policy changes. Real legislating and busting up corruption, not as sexy as vids of cops killing kids. There is a huge story here that is being played out all over the country in cities with shifting demographics.
I expect Rachel and her crew to go beyond Faux News fear mongering and gun humpers p0rn level of reporting and actually do some journalism.
That's where the governance comes in. Keeping the racists out. Or just retraining them: the ones resistant to conflicting info will remove themselves if pressured enough in an environment where their behavior is fundamentally unacceptable.