After Uvalde, "Police Lie" Should Be the Default Position

[Nevilledog]

https://thecolumn.substack.com/p/after-uvalde-police-lie-should-be?s=w

I’ve been hesitant to comment on the Uvalde shooting because I think, as Jay Caspian Kang points out today in the New York Times, there is very little anymore to add of value to what is, at this point, an entirely predictable media cycle, or what he calls “The Museum of Unbearable Sorrow.” In the Take Economy, there’s incentive to say something on major events, just to say something—The Pundit’s Curse, as I call it—and one I aggressively try to avoid. Especially the vulgar instinct to shoehorn one’s own ideological hobbyhorse into whatever tragedy is unfolding at the time. That is, unless one’s ideological hobbyhorse is entirely relevant to the discourse at hand. Then an intervention seems both sensible and useful.

As such, I think this could be a watershed moment in the broad media practice of default credulity with respect to police claims—a widespread and institutional practice. While there was a bit of mainstream pushback after the George Floyd protests, now that we’re in the post-Black Lives Matter media environment of pro-police Liberal Reaction, this current has mostly faded.

Watching recent reports of police claims dissolve and Texas officials fumble over basic contradictions in their story, I do think something meaningful can be said about the essential nature of the media-police relationship. For over 24 hours, police claimed they had “engaged” the shooter in a firefight. This turned out to not be true. Police said he had on body armor. This turned out to not be true. Basically, none of the most important details about their initial story turned out to be true.

What’s important to understand is that this is entirely par for course. The default assumption any time police make a claim should be that they are lying. Not that they could be lying, or that they may have incomplete information, or that they’re good-faith confused, but that they are doing what they all do: covering their ass, protecting their own, and, as is often the case, lying to achieve both of these ends. This is their ethos and always has been. Police lie as a rule, not now and then, not only in certain circumstances. Institutionally and by default, they obscure, bullshit, make things up, victim-blame, and deceive. Because they know they can and, even if they are caught, there is zero institutional pushback or consequence from either city officials or the media.

*snip*

[Solly Mack]

1. That "police lie" was the SOP some of us grew up with.

And still live our lives by.

To know that police lie isn't some shocking revelation. At least it shouldn't be. Not with all the decades and decades of evidence available out there.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

3. This, right here.

[Solly Mack]

9. My old training teacher, an African American woman, once told me

"If they want our children to fantasize, then they need to make their children realize".

Meaning, if everyone telling black families to sell their children on the hopes and promises of how great America is, then it was time to teach their white children the realities of racism in America.

[Nevilledog]

5. I saw a lot of "cops don't lie" when picking juries.

Very conservative town, lots of retired law enforcement. I'd always figure out how to lay the foundation for "cops do fucking lie" during voir dire. Maybe it's a regional, generational, and racial thing.

Picking a jury in Phoenix was totally full of people who know cops lie.


Stark differences.

[Solly Mack]

6. I've seen that attitude before. Experienced it. Felt the repercussions from it.

People conditioned to accept the word of authority figures.

[Nevilledog]

7. I was asked once, and once only, to speak at a high school on career day.

I told the kids to never trust a cop when they wanna talk to you. Oops.

[Solly Mack]

8. Unfortunately, standing up for your rights can get you killed.

Refusing to answer questions a cop has no legal right to ask you can get you beat down or worse. Letting them know you know your rights is seen as confrontational by cops and they react accordingly. They do not like to be questioned, and merely pointing out your rights is seen a questioning them.

That people have to have a game-plan on how to deal with interactions with cops - to lessen the chances of them harming you - tells you all you need to know about cops.

[JoeOtterbein]

2. Sadly, it's been my own...

...position for far too long.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

4. If people are just realizing this now, they haven't been paying attention.