A Seattle police officer is under investigation over comments captured by his bodycam after another officer fatally struck a pedestrian. KING's Sebastian Rob...
Meh, dark humor to get you through your day. You should hear what doctors, nurses, and paramedics say to eachother when they think nobody is listening. Take them seriously, and you’d think they are all psychopaths.
Doesn’t matter man. I don’t expect them to go home and cry themselves to sleep at night every night for what they see out there. They need to make dark jokes about junkies, criminals, whatever, I get it, if that’s what it takes to not blow your brains out while you’re out there dealing with the underbelly. But a cop negligently killed a woman and they’re acting like it’s NBD. The hit and this show a culture within this particular department of callous disregard for human life.
Like many jobs, you need empathy in order to do your job well, but you also need to remain detached for the sake of your mental well being. How do you balance those two things? Clearly, this officer hasn’t figured it out, but how? (That’s a rhetorical question. I’m just wondering how it’s done in an effective and healthy way, I’m not asking you specifically.)
You confide in your peers. Hopefully you have some who can be trusted to understand you feel too emotionally invested, and need to develop some emotional detachment. You confide in them, they confide in you, and neither of you believes the other is a psychopath, even though you’re saying every intrusive thought that comes into your head, without trying to filter it out first.
And if you’re real lucky, you do that without recording it for the whole fucking world to judge you.
They need to make dark jokes about junkies, criminals, whatever, I get it, if that’s what it takes to not blow your brains out while you’re out there dealing with the underbelly.
That’s exactly what this officer is doing here: making dark jokes about a terrible situation he seems to have witnessed. He’s not acting like it’s NBD. He’s clearly trying to cope, to come to grips with what happened, rather than blowing his brains out.
If that isn’t clear to you, you either didn’t watch the video, or you have a problem with empathy. If you don’t recognize this behavior, you have never worked in medicine, emergency services, military, or any other field regularly exposed to death and trauma.
This is coping behavior. What he saw fucked him up emotionally, and he is doing what he can to stay in control of his emotions.
If a doctor drove nearly 50 miles per hour over the speed limit through the hospital without so much as using their horn and hit a patient, we’d be less understanding about the medical professional’s gallows humor. Doctors, nurses, and paramedics actively try to help people in horrible situations and often fail and they need an outlet. Our country is experiencing a problem with cops actively trying to harm people and putting them in those horrible situations; they don’t need an outlet, they need to take a step back and look at their lives.
This cop and union rep later went on to lie saying their siren was on, that Jahnavi Kandula wasn’t at a pedestrian crossing, and that they were only traveling at 50 mph. It wasn’t, she was, and he wasn’t: he was traveling 74 mph through a 25 mph zone. https://publicola.com/tag/jaahnavi-kandula/
If a patient comes into the hospital in shock because a train ran over their legs and the receiving nurse asks “what were they even doing laying on the tracks?” And the paramedic said “it doesn’t matter, they don’t have a leg to stand on,” then that’s dark as fuck but those are two people who absolutely need whatever it takes just to get this patient out alive.
If a surgeon jokingly started all their surgeries swiping a scalpel indiscriminately over the patient like an anime hero, then one time accidentally nicked an artery and the patient bled out after which the surgeon said “they were sick anyway, plus we charge all the patients so much to pay for these little whoopsies; just cut the family a ridiculously low check,” that doctor would be standing trial. If that doctor then lied saying “I yelled ‘look out,’ plus I think the patient lifted the operating table higher than I’m used to, and I really didn’t do that fast of a swipe so I couldn’t have been out of control,” then those arguments would be piss-poor excuses and the fact that they’re lies would prove that they knew what they did was wrong.
Do you get how one of these professionals is using humor to cope with trying to help people while the other is brushing off making corpses with humor? Like piss beading off a shit-duck’s back.
You would have a point if he was the officer involved in the collision. He is not.
So, to use your “doctor” metaphor, it’s more like a neurosurgeon talking with a pediatrician about how badly the ER doctor fucked up, killed someone, and is in deep shit.
Thank you for that correction. The articles I’m reading have far too many roles and not enough actors, if you will, to keep track of who is who saying what. I’m sure watching the video would help provide context, but I just can’t get myself to even look at it. It’s getting too hard to keep consuming videos of cops involved with turning someone’s lights off. With Jahhnavi, all I can think about is her parents and how I don’t want to be another face in the crowd who watched their daughter die and then heard it get written off by the kind of people who swore to protect her.
If you watch the video, you’ll realize that the officer is on the phone with a peer. He is having a private conversation that was unfortunately and unintentionally recorded by his body camera.
I believe the officer is trying to use dark humor to develop a sense of detachment from a horrific event. His statements are clearly delivered as sarcasm, not sincerity. He is saying outlandish things in an attempt to avoid becoming emotionally overwhelmed.
No, it would be like if a neurosurgeon and a pediatrician were talking about how badly an ER doctor fucked up, and how he should buy their family a six pack of beer because the dead person wasn’t important at all and had little value.
Black humour to deal with the fact that someone has died after you attempted to save their life and black humour after explicitly taking said life are verrryyy different things. Especially if the latter person is part of an institution notorious for unwarranted taking of life.
Exactly. This would be a non-story if you couldn’t search for things like “officer body slams child” and “botched raid” find multiple different events.
If there is any karmic justice in the world then this same callousness will be shown towards you in a way that hopefully makes you reconsider your stupidity. This goes beyond sardonic coping mechanisms, and sits squarely in the camp of sociopathic behavior.
If he was intentionally displaying this behavior to the public, I would agree with you. However, every indication is that this was intended to be a private conversation with a trusted peer, and the recording was never intended to be made or published.
With that context, there is no justification for a claim of sociopathy.
I don’t know why you would even try to suggest something so fucking stupid.
You must clearly not be aware that a hallmark of someone who is sociopathic (and/or) psycopathic is the ability to be a social chameleon. So your point is actually even stupider than it looks at face value because these two degenerates were speaking honestly precisely BECAUSE they thought nobody would hear it.
Either way, this kind of behavior serves to denigrate the memory of this young woman who’s life was cut short because of the hubris, and immaturity of a fellow officer. Fuck you for even remotely attempting to justify this abhorrent behavior, and I honestly hope you are never in a position of power where your apologist attitude for this kind of subhuman behavior can infect the people around you.
Again, that is a justification. It was representative of their lack of consideration for the loss of an innocent girls life at the hands of their department. You can employ whatever mental gymnastics you want, but they were laughing about her death. That is sick, deranged, sociopathic behavior. The fact you can’t see that is insane.
Meh, dark humor to get you through your day. You should hear what doctors, nurses, and paramedics say to eachother when they think nobody is listening. Take them seriously, and you’d think they are all psychopaths.
Dark humor and laughing I can excuse. Dismissing a woman’s life as having little value is well beyond dark humor.
*dismissing the life of a woman who you negligently murdered as having little value
FTFY
This cop was not involved in the woman’s death. He was not driving the car that killed her. He saw her mangled body as she was dead or dying.
It fucked him up. He is trying to cope.
Horseshit. The obscenity of that statement is exactly what makes it dark humor.
Maybe of a serial killer’s
You sound like a person that says “It’s just a prank, bro!” You think you can dismiss horrid behavior with lame excuses.
Doesn’t matter man. I don’t expect them to go home and cry themselves to sleep at night every night for what they see out there. They need to make dark jokes about junkies, criminals, whatever, I get it, if that’s what it takes to not blow your brains out while you’re out there dealing with the underbelly. But a cop negligently killed a woman and they’re acting like it’s NBD. The hit and this show a culture within this particular department of callous disregard for human life.
Like many jobs, you need empathy in order to do your job well, but you also need to remain detached for the sake of your mental well being. How do you balance those two things? Clearly, this officer hasn’t figured it out, but how? (That’s a rhetorical question. I’m just wondering how it’s done in an effective and healthy way, I’m not asking you specifically.)
You confide in your peers. Hopefully you have some who can be trusted to understand you feel too emotionally invested, and need to develop some emotional detachment. You confide in them, they confide in you, and neither of you believes the other is a psychopath, even though you’re saying every intrusive thought that comes into your head, without trying to filter it out first.
And if you’re real lucky, you do that without recording it for the whole fucking world to judge you.
That’s exactly what this officer is doing here: making dark jokes about a terrible situation he seems to have witnessed. He’s not acting like it’s NBD. He’s clearly trying to cope, to come to grips with what happened, rather than blowing his brains out.
No, not clearly. It’s not clear that’s what he is doing at all.
If that isn’t clear to you, you either didn’t watch the video, or you have a problem with empathy. If you don’t recognize this behavior, you have never worked in medicine, emergency services, military, or any other field regularly exposed to death and trauma.
This is coping behavior. What he saw fucked him up emotionally, and he is doing what he can to stay in control of his emotions.
If a doctor drove nearly 50 miles per hour over the speed limit through the hospital without so much as using their horn and hit a patient, we’d be less understanding about the medical professional’s gallows humor. Doctors, nurses, and paramedics actively try to help people in horrible situations and often fail and they need an outlet. Our country is experiencing a problem with cops actively trying to harm people and putting them in those horrible situations; they don’t need an outlet, they need to take a step back and look at their lives.
This cop and union rep later went on to lie saying their siren was on, that Jahnavi Kandula wasn’t at a pedestrian crossing, and that they were only traveling at 50 mph. It wasn’t, she was, and he wasn’t: he was traveling 74 mph through a 25 mph zone. https://publicola.com/tag/jaahnavi-kandula/
If a patient comes into the hospital in shock because a train ran over their legs and the receiving nurse asks “what were they even doing laying on the tracks?” And the paramedic said “it doesn’t matter, they don’t have a leg to stand on,” then that’s dark as fuck but those are two people who absolutely need whatever it takes just to get this patient out alive.
If a surgeon jokingly started all their surgeries swiping a scalpel indiscriminately over the patient like an anime hero, then one time accidentally nicked an artery and the patient bled out after which the surgeon said “they were sick anyway, plus we charge all the patients so much to pay for these little whoopsies; just cut the family a ridiculously low check,” that doctor would be standing trial. If that doctor then lied saying “I yelled ‘look out,’ plus I think the patient lifted the operating table higher than I’m used to, and I really didn’t do that fast of a swipe so I couldn’t have been out of control,” then those arguments would be piss-poor excuses and the fact that they’re lies would prove that they knew what they did was wrong.
Do you get how one of these professionals is using humor to cope with trying to help people while the other is brushing off making corpses with humor? Like piss beading off a shit-duck’s back.
You would have a point if he was the officer involved in the collision. He is not.
So, to use your “doctor” metaphor, it’s more like a neurosurgeon talking with a pediatrician about how badly the ER doctor fucked up, killed someone, and is in deep shit.
Thank you for that correction. The articles I’m reading have far too many roles and not enough actors, if you will, to keep track of who is who saying what. I’m sure watching the video would help provide context, but I just can’t get myself to even look at it. It’s getting too hard to keep consuming videos of cops involved with turning someone’s lights off. With Jahhnavi, all I can think about is her parents and how I don’t want to be another face in the crowd who watched their daughter die and then heard it get written off by the kind of people who swore to protect her.
If you watch the video, you’ll realize that the officer is on the phone with a peer. He is having a private conversation that was unfortunately and unintentionally recorded by his body camera.
I believe the officer is trying to use dark humor to develop a sense of detachment from a horrific event. His statements are clearly delivered as sarcasm, not sincerity. He is saying outlandish things in an attempt to avoid becoming emotionally overwhelmed.
He is coping, not denigrating.
We get it, you like the taste of boots.
No, it would be like if a neurosurgeon and a pediatrician were talking about how badly an ER doctor fucked up, and how he should buy their family a six pack of beer because the dead person wasn’t important at all and had little value.
Well, I’d argue that the medical professionals are not the direct cause of death of the patients and are in fact trying to help the patients survive.
This is the opposite of that.
Where are you getting the idea that this officer was the direct cause of death of the woman?
He is clearly talking about another officer, not himself. The first full sentence he speaks in the video shows that.
Well…does it matter?
What’s the joke?
Black humour to deal with the fact that someone has died after you attempted to save their life and black humour after explicitly taking said life are verrryyy different things. Especially if the latter person is part of an institution notorious for unwarranted taking of life.
Where are you getting the idea that he took a life? He’s talking about another cop, not himself. He didn’t “explicitly take said life”.
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The difference is I don’t regularly hear about nurses shooting children
Exactly. This would be a non-story if you couldn’t search for things like “officer body slams child” and “botched raid” find multiple different events.
Let’s excuse shitty behavior with more shitty behavior. Ground breaking stuff
If there is any karmic justice in the world then this same callousness will be shown towards you in a way that hopefully makes you reconsider your stupidity. This goes beyond sardonic coping mechanisms, and sits squarely in the camp of sociopathic behavior.
If he was intentionally displaying this behavior to the public, I would agree with you. However, every indication is that this was intended to be a private conversation with a trusted peer, and the recording was never intended to be made or published.
With that context, there is no justification for a claim of sociopathy.
I don’t know why you would even try to suggest something so fucking stupid.
You must clearly not be aware that a hallmark of someone who is sociopathic (and/or) psycopathic is the ability to be a social chameleon. So your point is actually even stupider than it looks at face value because these two degenerates were speaking honestly precisely BECAUSE they thought nobody would hear it.
Either way, this kind of behavior serves to denigrate the memory of this young woman who’s life was cut short because of the hubris, and immaturity of a fellow officer. Fuck you for even remotely attempting to justify this abhorrent behavior, and I honestly hope you are never in a position of power where your apologist attitude for this kind of subhuman behavior can infect the people around you.
They weren’t speaking honestly. They were speaking sarcastically. Do you have a tough time recognizing the difference?
Again, that is a justification. It was representative of their lack of consideration for the loss of an innocent girls life at the hands of their department. You can employ whatever mental gymnastics you want, but they were laughing about her death. That is sick, deranged, sociopathic behavior. The fact you can’t see that is insane.
They were, indeed, laughing about her death.
Dark humor is very common. You can find examples throughout our culture. It is certainly not an indication of sociopathy.
I’m done arguing with you. You’re a lost cause. Go peddle your bullshit takes somewhere else.
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