Oh man. Boil water and police shootings leading to riots both sound pretty awful to me.

Sounds like the breakdown of civilization to me. Local authority can't provide basic services or control its police? Cracks in the foundation. I'm not building a bunker or anything (I rent), but it's a bit worrisome.

Someone--Mother Jones, maybe?--had an article on what can happen to cops who do push back against departmental corruption. Two cops were highlighted; one was on a review board that, until he joined, convicted one out of hundreds of allegedly abusive police officers. He started upping the numbers, refused to change his decisions, and got fired. The other was a whistleblower, I believe, and he was also fired.

I've had several encounters with police. I've been pulled for speeding and given warnings. And I turned in a credit card that I found on the street and called the police when someone busted into my landlord's storage shed. They were all respectful and positive interactions. I live in a small, liberal hippie town where the expectations for police behavior is high, and I'm a middle class white woman. I think both play a part in how things go.

Every "business" encounter I personally have had with police officers has been fine. However, I know several officers, due to where I've worked and where I live, and I wouldn't trust most of them not to use excessive force in any sort of volatile situation. I'm pretty committed to watching and witnessing any sort of police interaction I see.

Do they get that the protests and the riots and especially the protests that are called riots to justify the riot gear are about accountability? That if police chiefs would come out and say, "Yeah, this cop fucked up badly enough to lose job and pension for sure & we're cooperating with the DA to bring appropriate charges because if we won't let you all do this to us, we for damn sure don't let us do this to you," there would be a lot less protest? It's not about the bad apples, it's about the good ones willfully rotting in place to force people to pretend that the rot is right and good.

I think if the grand jury indicts the officer, it will go a long way toward keeping any protests from turning into riots. I want to believe that what's on the video footage is definitive enough to get an indictment, but then I think of Eric Garner.

I am in training. I have always been in training. My life stretches before me, a series of 6:30 and 7AM meetings.

I was pulled over for a brake light out about a month ago and I was shaking and almost in tears. The officer ended up not even getting my insurance, he took a step back from my car once he had my license and let me go with a verbal warning. I wasn't afraid of anything happening to me in broad daylight in a busy area, but I guess because of all my concerns wrt Mac and possible police interactions my body just reacted.

That makes sense, msbelle. It's terrible, but it makes sense.

I was driving on the highway a few days ago and saw a cop had pulled over someone and I kinda slowed down and was relieved that the arm I could see was white. And then I was all, well, what would you have done otherwise? Not like I could pull over and observe the traffic stop (I, um, have been instructed to move along before so I know that doesn't fly)

Someday your training hell will end, Dana. I have faith.

Most of my interactions with police have been on the up and up, though I've been less than thrilled with the helpfulness of the ones when I've been involved in highway incidents. Then again, I'm a white guy whose worst crimes have been speeding violations, so not really on their radar in senses other than the literal.

People don't usually think beyond their own needs, so I will be calm about the fact that nobody seems to be remembering that I'm working two jobs right now and I can't prioritize every request.

Instead I will churn through this work and then write down a list of moving things I need to accomplish today.

Hahaha, oh boss, giving us a deadline of 10am when the whole department is in a meeting 9-10:45 doesn't make a whole lot of sense...oh well, have done what I can.

I woke up with my back moderately jacked up (SUPER sore and tight, but not pinchy-painful), so now I'm trying to work after taking a muscle relaxant. By the end of the article I'm probably going to be making sentences read "In May 2014, a man in his 60s presented to his dermatologist for an enlarging patch on his forehead, glarble flarmner hoooooo."