DL Open Thread: Sunday, March 27, 2022

Fascinating Portrait Of Vladimir Putin. Why he is the way he is.  Well worth a NYTimes subscription.  Too much to even excerpt.  Read it online, or try to find a newspaper edition.  Basically, he hated being humiliated.  OK, just one excerpt:

In 1993, Mr. Yeltsin ordered the Parliament shelled to put down an insurgency; 147 people were killed. The West had to provide Russia with humanitarian aid, so dire was its economic collapse, so pervasive its extreme poverty, as large swaths of industry were sold off for a song to an emergent class of oligarchs. All this, to Mr. Putin, represented mayhem. It was humiliation.

“He hated what happened to Russia, hated the idea the West had to help it,” said Christoph Heusgen, the chief diplomatic adviser to former Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany between 2005 and 2017. Mr. Putin’s first political manifesto for the 2000 presidential campaign was all about reversing Western efforts to transfer power from the state to the marketplace. “For Russians,” he wrote, “a strong state is not an anomaly to fight against.” Quite the contrary, “it is the source and guarantor of order, the initiator and the main driving force of any change.”

But Mr. Putin was no Marxist, even if he reinstated the Stalin-era national anthem. He had seen the disaster of a centralized planned economy, both in Russia and East Germany, where he served as a K.G.B. agent between 1985 and 1990.

The new president would work with the oligarchs created by chaotic, free-market, crony capitalism — so long as they showed absolute fealty. Failing that, they would be expunged. If this was democracy, it was “sovereign democracy,” a phrase embraced by Mr. Putin’s top political strategists, stress on the first word.

One Way To Reduce Toxic Policing? Hire More Female Officers.  I like it:

Wrigley, 35, is one of a slew of female officers hired over the past year and a half in this suburb south of Omaha, part of a deliberate strategy by Police Chief Ken Clary to reduce the likelihood of misconduct and excess violence on the force.

Clary, a former Iowa state trooper, believes the research and his own experience, both of which tell him diversity makes for better policingand decreases the use of force against civilians, especially those who are Black. He’s rewritten the department’s rule book and promoted an officer to become head of recruiting, with an eye toward adding more women and police officers of color and making sure they stick around.

It’s too early to see significant changes in data generated by the 103-officer department. But officers say the personnel efforts have helped usher in a culture shift, which experts say is the key to long-lasting change.

Outsiders seem to be noticing. This winter, seeking to understand the police hiring climate in a post-George Floyd world, Nebraska Fraternal Order of Police President Jim Maguire asked the state’s 225 law enforcement entities whether recruiting was up or down. Each chief who responded said the number of applicants had shrunk dramatically. Except one: Clary. He told Maguire he had more applicants hoping to police the city of 53,000 than ever before, with officers transferring from departments as far as New Mexico. Many new arrivals were women.

Of course, in order to reduce toxic policing, one first has to admit that toxic policing takes place. That would sure be a welcome admission from any of those in power in police agencies throughout the state. New Castle County, maybe?  Matt, what do you think?  The asshole police don’t like you.  Help usher this in, and not only would policing improve, but receptivity to change, even among some police agencies would improve. Sure doesn’t look like the General Assembly is likely to help.

Which Reminds Me: Denver Protestors Awarded $14 Mill Due To Police Violence.  The police were the rioters, driven by, well, who knows what? Hatred? Machismo?  Yet, they were agents of the government:

In Denver, racial justice protesters were met with pepper spray and police projectiles, including a Kevlar bag filled with lead shot fired from a shotgun in the case of one plaintiff. The 12 protesters who sued the city were awarded between $750,000 and $4 million apiece.

Attorneys for the victims successfully argued police weren’t properly trained, leading to numerous injuries. Protester Zach Packard was hit in the head by the lead shot shotgun blast and ended up hospitalized, CBS News reported. Other injuries included a skull fracture, pepper spray used at close range on protesters’ eyes, and bruises and cuts from other projectiles.

Attorneys for the city failed to show evidence that the 12 plaintiffs acted violently during the protests.