In a conversation with Mike Solan, the head of the Seattle Police Officers’ Guild, Seattle Police Department officer and SPOG vice president Daniel Auderer minimized the killing of 23-year-old student Jaahnavi Kandula by police officer Kevin Dave and joked that she had “limited value” as a “regular person” who was only 26 years old.

In fact, as we reported exclusively, Dave was driving 74 miles an hour in a 25 mile per hour zone and struck Kandula while she was attempting to cross the street in a marked and well-lighted crosswalk.

  • Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    It’s not about the voting, at least not directly. It’s about the cost of hiring and maintaining a police force, and the kind of person who would be willing to be a police officer for low pay, versus the type that would want high pay for the same position, and how that affects city budgets.

    • pulaskiwasright@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      High pay doesn’t help. There are a lot of very high paying police departments and they’re just as corrupt and violent as the others.

      • Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        There are a lot of very high paying police departments and they’re just as corrupt and violent as the others.

        [Citation required]

        • pulaskiwasright@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          LAPD pays almost $90K for officers training in the academy and it goes up from there. They have excellent benefits and an actual pension. Studen loan forgiveness and a bunch of other things. They get paid even more if they work night shifts or overtime.

          • Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Yeah, but I’m guessing Los Angeles is an outlier salary wise?

            Also, think about it, 90k and you can die at any time, versus other corporate jobs that pay a lot more and death is not an immediate concern in your life.

            Takes two types of mindsets to take a police job that has a high risk of death. One where you want to help humanity, and the other where you want to control humanity for power sake.

            (Technically I’m assuming there could be a third type, the thrill seeker, but there’s many other career and recreational ways of getting that kind of adrenaline rush so I didn’t include it as one of the major types.)

            I’m assuming the ones who want to control humanity will take a lot less money for a job with that risk than the ones who just want to help humanity. We all seem to have some kind of threshold about when we stop wanting to help humanity and start taking care of ourselves.