Can Cops Beat Their 2014 Low Points 9 Days into 2015? They're Trying!

In America, the winter of our discontent—with the police—continues. As New York cops channel their best Carrie Mathison and Cleveland cops battle Ferguson cops to see who can fell more unarmed bodies, Los Angeles cops are doing… something good. And when LA authorities—famous for actions like beating a homeless woman on the freeway—are doing better than you, it’s time to reassemble priorities.

On Thursday night, The Daily Show team joked about how New York Police have enacted a “slowdown” which means they aren’t doing very much, just chilling and letting crimes happen, you know. (But if you like to park illegally, this is your week! Block up all the driveways!)

It’s funny, but the slowdown is a real tactic NYPD are using to continue an epic pout. Why, you ask? The five heads of the police unions, including the outspoken Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch, didn’t feel enough support from New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio in the way he dealt with the aftermath of an officer choking Eric Garner to death on video and then not being indicted on murder charges. You’d think that would be enough support for these guys, but oh no, they need de Blasio to send them flowers the next day too, I suppose.

Over in Cleveland, new video shows new footage around the police shooting of 11-year-old unarmed boy Tamir Rice. Not only did cops shoot him, but when his older sister ran toward him to help as he lay dying, at least two officers restrained her before handcuffing her and putting her in the back of their squad car.

Meanwhile, her little brother lay wounded on the ground without medical care until he died in front of her. Oh, and the police refused to release the full tape until an Ohio media group hired a lawyer to fight them for the footage that was shot on publicly owned cameras. Classy.

Then, in Los Angeles, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck is scheduled to meet with Black Lives Matter protestors on Friday to talk about fatal police shootings and beatings, according to the LA Times. He’ll be listening to their demands, which include firing the two cops that killed Ezell Ford, a mentally ill man who cops says reached for an officer’s weapon in a struggle last summer. Beck might be genuine or it might just be a publicity stunt, but his actions are something and I’ll take it.

Look, for a lot of us, the 2014 was already a roller coaster of “I’m a human being and someone will be held accountable if I’m murdered!” only to be reminded in the deaths and non-indictments surrounding the cases of Mike Brown and Eric Garner that “the Dred Scott verdict is still true.” I don’t think I can handle another year of my own humanity—and American humanity in general—being publicly up for debate as police officers whine and stop working while my tax dollars pay their salaries. Be better 2015, please. We really need this.