Is Police Brutality Systemic? Geist Might Think So.
I ran across this article on a conservative website, and thought it was interesting enough to share.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/seven-reasons-police-brutality-is-systematic-not-anecdotal/
Yes, yes, we're all aware of the blind conservative distrust of all things government and their blind trust of all things free market, so I suppose one can expect this to appear on The American Conservative. However, I've also seen similar sentiments brought up by more liberal types, especially after the way some city governments chose to react to OWS.
This article addresses the issue of police brutality as systemic, not anecdotal. That is quite a powerful distinction to make, and I think the article has some pretty compelling arguments for the former.
First we have the growing reports of pets, confined to their own homes or yards, pets with no previous history of being aggressive, who somehow end up shot. It seems to me that Canine 101 (aka, Actually Owning a Dog) was pretty explicit on this subject: dogs are territorial, and they are pack animals. This means they tend to defend their packs and their packs' territory against any perceived threat if they can. If a person was in their backyard when a police officer comes through the gate, a person tends to identify the intruder as a person of authority, and figure out what is going on. A dog just sees a big, scary stranger in his territory coming after his pack. Yet more and more we seem to be hearing of LEOs just gunning down pets with less hesitation or remorse than Paul Kersey ever showed. Rarely if ever is any action taken against the offending officer- usually not even an inquiry (and that leads to a few other reasons why police burtality is systemic). IMHO, anyone who is supposedly trained in handling crisis situations and the proper use of force who cannot or will not make the distinction between aggressive, dangerous animal and animal acting aggressive due to circumstances, who goes for the nuclear option right off, probably should not be allowed any authority over human beings, either...
Oh, and in case you don't know who Geist was: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/58109655-78/police-kendall-dog-lake.html.csp
That's just one example, though, and enough to pose this question to the community: is police brutality in the United States systemic? Has the Left and the Right finally found something they can agree on?