I had planned to ramble on about chat bots and the next 20 years and one thing and another, but I made the mistake of watching the beginning of the video that was released of the beating death of the young man and it upset me so much that I cannot think about anything else. I have nothing profound to say about it. I am simply crushed by the endless repeated evidence of the pointless cruelty that we show to one another. I can offer deep ideologically encoded explanations with the best of them but now I simply want to hide under the covers and shut out the world. We inflict so much suffering on one another, needlessly, endlessly, not even in the pursuit of what could be called rational self-interest. I do not want to find clever ways of talking about it, I simply want it to go away.
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A Commentary on the Passing Scene by Robert Paul Wolff rwolff@afroam.umass.edu
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Coming Soon:
The following books by Robert Paul Wolff are available on Amazon.com as e-books: KANT'S THEORY OF MENTAL ACTIVITY, THE AUTONOMY OF REASON, UNDERSTANDING MARX, UNDERSTANDING RAWLS, THE POVERTY OF LIBERALISM, A LIFE IN THE ACADEMY, MONEYBAGS MUST BE SO LUCKY, AN INTRODUCTION TO THE USE OF FORMAL METHODS IN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
Now Available: Volumes I, II, III, and IV of the Collected Published and Unpublished Papers.
Now Available: Volumes I, II, III, and IV of the Collected Published and Unpublished Papers.
NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE: LECTURES ON KANT'S CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON. To view the lectures, go to YouTube and search for "Robert Paul Wolff Kant." There they will be.
NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE: LECTURES ON THE THOUGHT OF KARL MARX. To view the lectures, go to YouTube and search for Robert Paul Wolff Marx."
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About Me
- Robert Paul Wolff
- As I observed in one of my books, in politics I am an anarchist, in religion I am an atheist, and in economics I am a Marxist. I am also, rather more importantly, a husband, a father, a grandfather, and a violist.
49 comments:
Understood, There are no words.
Like you, Professor Wolff, I have long been appalled and nauseated by the ever recurring evidence that we humans have such a capacity for brutality. We seem to delight in, or at least derive some peculiar satisfaction from inflicting pain and suffering, especially on each other. There's also the troubling anxiety, what might we ourselves do to others should circumstances permit and encourage it.
I assure you that I'm not striving to be clever, but it intrigues me.
In the news, with a certain frequency, I see that someone has beaten someone else to death, but it's often a so-called crime of passion, for example, a jealous boy friend or husband beating his partner or it occurs in a bar or discotheque where people have drunk too much and/or taken drugs.
But that five black policemen, supposedly trained in non-lethal forms of arresting a suspect, would beat an unarmed member of their own ethnic group to death, someone who was smaller than they are and represented a threat on no level demands an explanation.
One could imagine that the KKK could beat a black person to death out of pure racial hatred, but even if black policemen harbor some stereotypes about other blacks, one can assume that they do not hate them with the fervor that the KKK does.
What went through their minds as they committed this brutal act? It took awhile. You can kill someone with a bullet in a second and that's one of the reasons gun ownership should be tightly controlled, but in this case, it wasn't that one cop freaked out and pulled the trigger. They dedicated a few minutes to this and at no moment in those few minutes did they reflect that this was going to cost them their jobs and probably they would end up in jail for it.
As I get older and approach death, the one thing that really matters to me is to die less stupid than I was at, say, age 25. Understanding others and why they behave as they do is a key part to being less stupid.
And as someone said a long time ago, "the unexamined life is not worth living". For me at least that's truth.
I totally agree with professor Wolff, and he unlike me can use his mental skills to provide an ideological explanation but on the emotional/feeling level this savage brutality leaves me without words, depression festers and the growth of evil prevails.
It's just so sad and infuriating...
Is it really so sad and infuriating as one of countless brutal tragedies that occurs to human beings (indeed all life) in this world on a daily basis? Or is it that this is another opportunity to stir up racial strife.
This nefarious, unjust act committed against Tyre Nichols proves this, if anything: that any group of men in authority can take any one of us and beat us to death anywhere & anyplace on this hellish planet we call home. And if it can happen here on Earth (or what New Age prophets call Terra) it can happen anywhere else.
New Age prophets like Elena Danaan & Michael Salla believe there are actually places & planets in this galaxy of ours where benevolent civilizations have basically ruled out such injustices to almost zero percent. I guarantee you that in such places there is no such things as drugs, poverty, racism, firearms, & apathy like we have here on Earth on a grand scale.
"I guarantee you that in such places there is no such things as drugs, poverty, racism, firearms, & apathy like we have here on Earth on a grand scale."
Maybe because they're only imaginary places.
"Maybe because they're only imaginary places."
Just like in previous times & places where the world was flat, men will never be able to fly, & women will never be able to become Army Rangers.
When scientists say things like there are more stars in the universe than all of the grains of sand in all of the beaches and deserts of the Earth, then that should be a red flag that there are civilizations out there. And why should they be much different from here on Earth, when scientists admit that stars & exo-planets are very much like our Sun and the planets of our very own solar system?
Of course, anything unknown by scientists is dismissed as too uncool to think about, much less talk about. However, I can understand how someone can become embarrassed at reading my previous post. Perhaps it's called herd mentality?
Michael Llenos,
Star Trek was on the air from 1966-1969. During its 79 episodes, no such civilization was ever found, and it was not for lack of trying, or for lack of imagination.
The movie Nine Days, which I have previously recommended, addressees the question of whether life on Earth is worth living in the face of all its cruelty, human depredation and disappointments. It is a fascinating movie.
Anonymous at 11:16 P.M.
It is the views of people like you which perpetuates the kind of cruelty which Tyre Nichols’ brutal murder exemplified. Why do you even read this blog?
In my opinion, in the history of humanity there has always been a component of violence, ferocity, a tendency to destruction and massacre.
Just think of Julius Caesar's campaigns in Gaul, of the Napoleonic campaigns and great battles where surgeons boasted of being able to tie the arteries of the limbs in seconds, not to mention the Second World War.
Often these episodes were presented as acts of national heroism, as a clash of civilizations and surrounded by an aura of glory and romance. Today, however, violence enters people's homes directly thanks to the Internet and the TV, which is almost constantly on at all hours of the day, in the name of necessary information
In my opinion, when a soldier finds himself immersed in a world of violence and sees friends and loved ones dying around him, he begins to think in a different way from civilian life; as far as these isolated episodes of violence are concerned, in my opinion there is nothing to understand, there is nothing that can be explained in a rational way: it is the violence that blinds people's souls. As in the myths of the ancient Greeks and Romans, it is the god of war who takes over.
The advice therefore is to watch TV as little as possible, also because information programs are often made in such a way as to arouse strong emotions in the viewer and thus raise the audience; it is much better to study Kant
@ Giorgio Malvezzi,
@ all,
reading only Kant will not work. I guess that even then you become an alien. And just if one has already read Kant, it should be clear that there can be no cognition without "Anschauung".
If one thinks about this cruel and shameful act, then one must be able to formulate questions. Questions about the criteria for the selection of people who are suitable for the police service. Questions about the training that people who enter the police service receive. Questions about the through examination of their work. Questions about the psychological care of people in the police service.
In this case, one can assume that a certain group dynamic played a big role, under the influence of which the police officers got into a frenzy of violence. Such dynamics usually have a long history. What conditions in the police system favor that whole groups of police officers develop their own ideology that is only waiting for the moment to explode.
I completely agree with s.w. It would be sad if we die dumber than we were born. And to develop a depression in the face of the terrible conditions is to give additional weight to the perpetrators and their acts.
I am fond of Leonard Nimoy’s grandmother’s reaction to the travails of this world: Oy, rebonish shelonem? (phonetic): “Tell me, Oh God, where are things going?’
Anonymous @11:16 p.m. wonders whether this "is another opportunity to stir up racial strife."
Since in this case both the victim and the perpetrators were Black, I'm curious about how or why Anonymous @11:16 p.m. sees this event as possibly "stir[ring] up racial strife." Some have noted what they see as the contrast between the speed with which these officers were charged and the length of time it has taken to charge white officers in somewhat comparable situations, but that contrast in itself is not enough to stir up "racial strife."
MS
Thanks for the heads up about 9 Days.
You're right that ST TOS didn't show peaceful benevolent civilizations out there in space during its three seasons. But that was probably because the protected worlds of the Federation were not script & action worthy according to writer Gene Coon etc.
However, in Season 1, Episode 26 of TOS, called Errand of Mercy, Organia was a peaceful benevolent world that believed in pacifism. I own the DVD and must have seen that episode almost six times. I guess the reason why only one planet out of many was found a Utopia in TOS was that Trekkers have a taste for television adventure that you can't find on peaceful worlds. There, however, is a planet called "Risa" in later Star Trek canon that is a paradise-like Utopia. That's the planet I wouldn't mind living in if I had my pick of the Star Trek Milky Way Galaxy.
Risa is found here in Star Trek:
'TNG: "Captain's Holiday"; ENT: "Two Days and Two Nights"; SNW: "Strange New Worlds", "Children of the Comet"'
And the best episode here:
"Let He Who is without Sin..." 105th episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
@ Achim Kriechel (A.K.)
@ all
I fully agree with your analysis and certainly looking the other way is not the right solution to the problem
Mine only wanted to be a response to Professor Wolff who was shocked by the violence of this episode
I suppose it is a plus for humanity, that there is a part of us which recognizes and deplores human brutality. I don't suppose a tiger ever deplores the brutality of another tiger. But then, I don't know what they might make of tiger on tiger violence.
Anonymous,
Nature is bloody in tooth and claw, regardless the species. Chimpanzees, from which we descend, can be pretty brutal within their group, with alpha males viciously attacking younger males which challenge their authority. I recommend reading the book “Brazzaville Beach.”
Well, we know there is such a thing as chimpanzee-on-chimpanzee violence. This doesn't necessarily mean that humans are "innately" aggressive or violent. I doubt there is a scientific consensus on that issue.
I posted before seeing Marc's.
I would point out that, in contrast to chimps, bonobos are (famously) not violent -- or at least were thought to be so (there may be some additional research that has qualified or questioned that - I forget the details).
I was aware of chimpanzee behavior. I was also aware of the claim that chimpanzees of one group treat chimpanzees of another group as prey rather than as beings like themselves. And we certainly do the same. But my point was that we do -- on occasion -- demonstrate that we can evaluate such behavior whereas I doubt even chimpanzees do so.
Here's such an evaluation, which is also an evaluation of state-sponsored brutality that some of you might find interesting:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0306396818779864
One thing about human beings is that we tend to punch down, to attack and to be violent towards people of less social status than we are, the lower the social status the easier it is to be violent towards them. That has something to do with the fact that attacking a high status individual tends to be more severely punished, but I suspect it goes deeper than that.
Of course that tendency can be reversed at times: there was the French revolution where aristocrats and royalty were executed, presidents get assassinated, etc., but that happens infrequently.
I listen to the radio every morning and the first thing they focus on is the crime news. In Santiago de Chile at least homeless people are murdered with incredible frequency, sometimes by other homeless people, sometimes by others for the most trivial reasons (he
refused to give him a cigarette, etc.).
So it makes sense for black cops to beat a black person to death rather than a white person. They are just following the human tendency to punch down in the social order.
We human beings aren't naturally violent, but we are naturally bullies.
Nature is bloody in tooth and claw, regardless the species. Chimpanzees, from which we descend, can be pretty brutal within their group, with alpha males viciously attacking younger males which challenge their authority. I recommend reading the book “Brazzaville Beach.”
Prof. Wolff often complains he suffers from Impostor Syndrome. It’s clear that Marc Susselman has no such problem. His comment from January 29, 2023 (12:48PM) illustrates. It’s a genuine gem of supreme self-confidence, supremely unfounded.
First, it’s absurd to claim, as he does, that humans (Homo sapiens) descend from chimps (Pan troglodytes). This may be news to Susselman, but it should be obvious why to anyone with a high school education. To claim that H. sapiens descends from P. troglodytes implies that while H. sapiens evolved, P troglodytes remained unchanged over millions of years: chimps did not mutate, were not subject to natural selection, did not evolve.
Humans, in his imagination, changed. Chimps did not, they remained frozen.
For the benefit of Susselman and the readers of this thread let me put an only slightly more absurd proposition: Marc is a descendant of his cousins.
Second, to claim that chimps’ brutality (alpha males viciously attacking younger males which challenge their authority) explains human brutality sounds suspiciously like a self-justification for his personal bullying.
It’s also obviously false: the genus Pan includes two species, troglodytes (chimps) and paniscus (bonobo, aka dwarf chimp). The viciousness chimps sometimes demonstrates towards their peers is seldom found among the bonobo.
BL Zebub,
Technically speaking, you are correct. I was writing sloppily. Both chimpanzees and homo sapiens are descendants from some earlier primate whose lineage split at some point in the distant past, leading up to chimpanzees and homo sapiens as separate species. I wrote that we are descendants of chimpanzees as short-hand. But we are evolutionarily closely related. But I was not trying to justify or explain my own verbally aggressive nature. That is a function of my occupation as an attorney. And I have never beaten anybody to death, and highly doubt that I could do so, except, perhaps, in self-defense.
That said, since you appear to be knowledgeable about such matters, do you have an explanation regarding how bonobos evolved to be far less aggressive than chimpanzees? What circumstances naturally selected the more affectionate bonobos, versus the more aggressive chimpanzees? In addition, do you have an evolutionary explanation for my question about solitary cats, i.e., tigers, leopards, cheetahs and jaguars, versus lions, which live in prides?
I’ll indulge you, Marc.
So, now you say you didn’t mean that H. Sapiens literally evolved from P. troglodytes, only that “we are evolutionarily closely related”. You, a practising attorney (and a very good one at that, as you yourself has remarked) were strangely sloppy.
Frankly, I don’t buy it. But never mind that.
If P. paniscus and troglodyte are members of a genus, then they are “evolutionarily closely related”. Indeed, they are much more “evolutionarily closely related” to each other than they are to H. sapiens, which belongs to a separate genus. Makes sense? Therefore, if aggressiveness between members of a species is genetically determined, chances are both species in the same Pan genus should be pretty much equally affected: either both are aggressive or both are not.
But they aren’t. One is, the other isn’t.
This is no proof in a formally logical sense, but it does make a cogent argument in an informal logical sense: we don’t know that aggressiveness towards fellow members of a species is genetically determined. This answers your question “do you have an explanation regarding how bonobos evolved to be far less aggressive than chimpanzees?”
You assume, without argument, that it is.
BL Zebub
A tempest in a teacup.
Iirc, with bonobos the females are basically in charge, not the males, unlike chimps. There's a technical term for this but I'm not sure I'm going to use it correctly, so I won't. (Those interested shd look this up, not take my word for it.)
BLZ, members (e.g. bonobos and chimps) of a genus can vary widely in behavior (e.g. canis, felis). Chance is likely important. All that is necessary is reproductive validation. Nothing wrong with members of a genus differing in social structure.
Marc, this may be of interest:
https://research.umn.edu/inquiry/post/how-lions-became-social
Consider that all currently existing cats were, at one point, mid-level predators that survived by adopting strategies that avoided apex predators. Perhaps there is room for only one cat with a pride structure at a given time. The domestic cat sub-family seems more social then the big cats.
Also, we are still finding things out:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/video/the-secret-social-live-of-a-solitary-puma/
aaall
In case you haven't seen it, I posted a comment that I thought might interest you in the next thread up (Idle Thoughts...)
aaall,
Thank you for the article about the evolution of lions' social organization.
A tempest in a teacup.
Seriously?!?!
Others are well placed to judge that.
This post by Leiter on police violence, from a few years ago, but linked to today is insightful.
https://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2020/06/the-sociology-of-police-violence.html
s. wallerstein,
Interesting article. Thank you for posting it.
On February 15, I am scheduled to start a jury trial in federal court. My client is a former police academy instructor, a veteran of policing for some 3 decades. He was fired as a police academy instructor because some police cadets, particularly females, complained that he had been sexually harassing them, e.g., engaging in tickling as a distraction technique. His defense? That this was a standard technique that police officers should use in order to distract arrestees resisting being handcuffed. This was preferable to using a taser or pepper-spray. Had the officers who killed Tyre Nichols used this technique, instead of beating and pepper spraying him, he would still be alive today. But some females, who claim they want to be police officers, but do not want to be touched by strangers, got him fired.
Another technique he used was called the “sac tap,” i.e., a shot to the male groin, intended to prepare police cadets to be prepared to deal with the unexpected, another technique in the police manual. The male cadets accused him of police brutality.
Marc,
I don't quite understand the "sac tap". What do you mean by a "shot to the male groin"?
Literally a shot? A quick blow? A kick? Did he actually touch their groin or just direct a blow in that direction?
s. wallerstein,
It was a flick of the hand towards the groin. It was not disabling, though it was painful. The intention was to teach them to remain focused and always vigilant when dealing with an alleged felon. It is a technique that is widely used in police academies, and has a legitimate purpose.
I have no idea what goes on in police academies. I've had some basic classes of unarmed self-defense and the instructor always stops short of touching your groin or your neck, etc. when teaching you how to defend yourself from blows to sensitive areas.
As for tickling women, men are not supposed to touch women (unless there is a prior relationship which legitimizes touching) these days. He could have demonstrated tickling techniques on a male recruit or there could be a female police instructor who tickles the women.
In any case, I wish you well with your defense. It's an interesting case.
s. wallerstein,
Introducing political correctness into police training which just result in more dead and injured police and accused culprits.
P.S.: We are not defending; we are suing.
I wouldn't call a general social prohibition on touching women with whom you don't have a prior relationship which justifies that touching "political correctness".
It seems that that is a new justifiable social norm.
I use the term political correctness to refer to non-justifiable norms.
s. wallerstein,
How does the general prohibition against touching women without their consent apply to a woman who has enrolled in a course to train her to be a police officer? Does she expect that if she becomes a police officer the people she may be called upon to arrest will refrain from touching her? There is such a thing as implied consent. When you to see a physician, the physician, regardless of gender, has the right to assume that you will not object to being touched by the physician. The same is true of a police academy. If you enroll in a police academy to be trained to be a police officer, you have given implied consent, regardless your gender, to being touched in ways that you may be touched by alleged felons should you succeed in becoming a police office. (I have just given you my closing argument. I will be sure to use one of my challenges to keep you off the jury, should you decide to travel from Chile to Michigan.)
Marc
Will your closing argument also refer to how the applicable federal law (if there is any, and I assume there is) defines sexual harassment? It says something about creation of a certain kind of workplace atmosphere, doesn't it?
Presumably the defense will argue, on the tickling point, that he could have *told* the female cadets to use tickling as a distraction technique when necessary, rather than actually tickling them to demonstrate it. Or he could have asked for one female volunteer to agree to be tickled, making clear that no one had to agree.
That said, the claim that being tickled *in this context* amounts to sexual harassment strikes me as tenuous. (But then, I'm not female.)
P.s. who are the named defendants?
LFC,
First, as a police academy instructor he was responsible for training cadets who purportedly want to become police officers about how to deal with real live situations they are likely to encounter on the street. Instructing someone verbally how to perform a particular technique, rather than physically showing them, would be useless – e.g., you can’t teach someone who wants to become a professional boxer by verbally explaining how to throw a jab, upper-cut, et. These techniques are dealing with life and death situations – both for the police trainee and their future arrestees. As far as I know, moreover, there were no female instructors at the academy, which was part of a community college.
Regarding the lawsuit itself, the trial on Feb. 15 is part of a larger case, in which my client’s constitutional due process rights have been egregiously violated. Prior to being an instructor, the academy instructor had been a police officer in Michigan for some 25 years. He had a clean record and had never been disciplined for anything. At the academy, he was a tenured instructor and a member of a union. This meant that under the 14th Amendment he had a “property right” in his continued employment, which meant he could only be disciplined or terminated for “good cause.” This in turn meant that he could not be disciplined or terminated without a hearing. When, the cadets first made their allegations, the community college conducted a Title IX investigation, which cleared him. Then, however, the sheriff department of the county in which the cadets were already working as employees got involved and requested that a Michigan agency conduct another investigation. Two employees of that agency did an investigation by interviewing the cadets; they also interviewed my client, who urged them to interview other instructors who were present when he was teaching to confirm (1) that he had not done much of what the cadet accused him of; and (2) those things he had done, like the tickling, was a recognized instruction technique at police academies. They refused to interview the other instructors. They then issued a report incorporating what the cadets had accused him of, and concluded the report stating that the agency found him unfit to teach at any accredited police academy in the state. Mind you, this conclusion was based entirely on hearsay – he never had the opportunity to cross-examine the cadets, or introduce evidence in support of his position, at a hearing. When the report was delivered to the community college, it terminated him.
Another attorney who specializes in criminal law contacted me at this point because he knew that my specialty was wrongful termination and constitutional law. I agreed to represent the police officer and filed a lawsuit in federal court, claiming that his termination without a due process evidentiary hearing violated his rights under the 14th Amendment. I also included several state claims which can be brought in federal court if they arise from the same core of facts. In this instance, the Undersheriff of the county in which the cadets were employed sent an email to the agency employees before they issued the report demanding to know when they were going to issue their report regarding how the instructor had “mistreated and victimized” the cadets. This statement was defamatory and constituted libel. The police officer learned about it and sent the Undersheriff a letter demanding a retraction. The Undersheriff refused to issue a retraction. So I included a state law libel claim against the Undersheriff in the lawsuit. After the agency report was issued, the local newspaper got a hold of the report (which was supposed to have been confidential) and published a front-page article naming the police officer and stated that based on the cadets’ accusations, he was barred from being an academy instructor anywhere in the state. We do not know who leaked the report to the newspaper.
(Continued)
The federal claims were against the community college for terminating him without an evidentiary hearing. The college defended claiming that he had had the “opportunity” for an evidentiary hearing through his union. The collective bargaining agreement contained a grievance procedure which ended in arbitration, which would have been the equivalent of an evidentiary hearing. However, the union refuse to file a grievance, which is the first step in the grievance procedure. The union stated that they did not believe he could win the grievance, based on what the cadets had claimed in the agency report. But this was all hearsay. The cadets had never testified in a court of law. The college argued, and the federal judge to my astonishment agreed, that even though the union had not filed a grievance, the fact that the grievance procedure ended in arbitration meant the he had had the “opportunity” to have an evidentiary hearing. His redress was to sue the union. But the statute of limitations for suing a union for violation of its “duty of fair representation” is only six months. The six months had already transpired before I even got involve in the case. So the judge threw out the claim against the college regarding his property right. But that still left a violation of is “liberty” interest under the 14th amendment, so I filed a motion to amend the complaint to add a violation of his liberty interest, which entitled him under S. Ct. precedent to a “name clearing” evidentiary hearing. The judge denied the motion to amend the complaint to add this claim because the college offered the police officer a “name clearing” hearing to be heard by an administrator of the college. We rejected that offer, arguing that the name clearing hearing should be conducted by a neutral officer of the court without any affiliation with the college, and rejected the offer of the hearing. The judge ruled that by rejecting this offer we had forfeited the right to an evidentiary hearing and denied my motion to amend. I will be appealing both of these rulings by the judge to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, but I can’t file the appeal until all of the legal claims in the lawsuit have been resolved, That leaves the libel claim against the Undersheriff, which is what the trial scheduled for Feb. 15 is about.
Marc,
I have no idea of the legal situation of your client and you may well be right from the legal point of view.
However, I'd say that in the future, programs which teach female police cadets how to tickle should hire a female instructor because women have, justifiably in my opinion, become more sensitive about how males touch them.
Marc,
Thank you for explaining the posture of the case.
s. wallerstein,
Just two things. To paraphrase Sec. Rumsfeld, I go to court with the facts I have, not the facts I wish I had.
Second, is there any way to insure that female police officers will only have to deal with alleged female culprits?
"Had the officers who killed Tyre Nichols used this technique, instead of beating and pepper spraying him, he would still be alive today."
Really? I don't believe he was resisting at all, it seems he was stopped under false pretenses, assaulted and murdered by thugs who were poorly trained and supervised and likely lacked the character and temperament to hold their situations.
Marc, there are a host (~20) of occupations that are far more dangerous than law enforcement and where situational awareness is essential. One of the problems with old school cop training and continuing education is creating/reinforcing the notion of citizen as threat and creating a warrior mentality.
Loggers, fishermen, and roofers aren't trained to be aware by throwing them off roofs or boats or dropping trees on them. One doesn't need to be stomped or gored in order to learn how to be around cattle, roosters, or horses (I did turn my back on a ram once, never again). It's good that you provide a zealous representation but it may be the case that your client has just reached his sell-by date.
aaall,
Your comparison of the work which loggers, fishermen, and roofers do to what police officers do is absolute nonsense. The work which loggers, fishermen and roofers do does not require them to apprehend other human beings, and the threats to their safety arise from inanimate objects, not other humans – tree trunks do not just decide fall on loggers, and the fish which fishermen catch do not have hands to fight back. Moreover, my client did not use techniques like gouging out eyes, pepper spraying, or tasing as means of subduing an arrestee. He was teaching techniques to avoid using the more aggressive techniques, like those which were used by the officers who killed Tyre Nichols. You do not know what the hell you are talking about.
"He was teaching techniques to avoid using the more aggressive techniques, like those which were used by the officers who killed Tyre Nichols."
I don't understand why you insist on using TN as an example (I hope you don't make that part of your argument - it will hurt your case). It appears the stop was pretextual and that he did nothing to provoke the officers. Four large men wouldn't have needed to tickle a 140# man to restrain him had he been resisting. They weren't using "aggressive policing techniques," they were attempting to seriously injure or (a bonus) kill him - no different then cartel/mob enforcers. It seemed personal from the start and latest I've heard may have been a hit involving mistaken identity.
Moving on, situational awareness is situational awareness regardless of the environment and how many chromosomes its denizens may have. An officer who is attempting to cuff a suspect and isn't focused is in the wrong occupation. Situational awareness is going to be the same for human and non-human animals as well as machinery and other inanimate objects. Your experience may differ but I live in a working forest and you watch every step. Fish won't kill you but sneaker waves will (happens here). Policing is way down on the list of dangerous occupations and taking out vehicle accidents and doughnut induced heart attacks pushes it further down the list.
Your client perhaps getting a raw deal and being out of touch are two separate matters. SOP for DIs a couple of generations ago will get one court-martialed today. Times change.
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