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by fluffy_kitten 1782 days ago
I'm starting to think that the French police are the worst in the EU at least. And here I was thinking that the Dirty Harry cop in the Dobermann movie was a caricature. Looking at the news of the last few years it seems they really are that deranged.

1. Police answer a domestic case by kicking down the door and shooting the father of the (Asian) family without warning:

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/2083188/more-...

2. Riot cops shoot a mother and her children at the outskirts of a Gillets Jaunes demo, one of the kids loses a hand:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/30/french-police-...

3. Police anally rape a young (black) man with an expandable baton during an identity check:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38892302

4. Police assault a (black) musician in his studio, allege "smell of cannabis" emanated from within:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55127815

And all this is happening in a democratic country at the heart of the EU. If the police in Tunisia are taking lessons from the French police, I'd be worried about the safety of anti-regime Tunisians.

Of note, I come from a European country that is ostensibly a democracy and I know well that all the democratic laws in the world are not enough to control a bunch of jumped-up brutes given the authority to beat up their fellow citizens.

1 comments

Those are terrible things, but in order to understand them in anything approaching a meaningful way you need to have the denominator. How many people are there in France? How many police interactions in a year? Without meaningful denominators to give context it doesn't help to know these things, and I'd argue you should probably avoid knowing them. I think you should avoid knowing them because they are merely attempts to exploit your attention for revenue.