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21st July 2016, 11:11 PM | #281 |
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This whole incident is just wrong on so many levels it's surreal
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21st July 2016, 11:17 PM | #282 |
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21st July 2016, 11:19 PM | #283 |
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OMG. There are quite a few cases.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/12/ny...-brooklyn.html How could you forget this case? Even more ironic, a white cop was charged with murder a few years ago despite there being dash cam video corroborating a significant part of his story. Specifically, the part where the suspect charged at him like a madman. http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/vict...olice-33247036 Without the video, I doubt you would have believed that an unarmed black man who hadn't committed any crime would all of sudden charge at a cop full speed. I mean, you still don't even believe Michael Brown rushed Wilson despite all of the evidence saying that he did. Instead, you'd rather believe the witnesses who admitted to fabricating their accounts to DOJ investigators. |
22nd July 2016, 12:51 AM | #284 |
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Just FYI -- there is a multi-quote feature.
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22nd July 2016, 01:33 AM | #285 |
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ITYM "Sorry, I hit one harmless man while I was trying to shoot another harmless man, cuffed the man I'd shot, kept him lying on the ground for twenty minutes, then arrested him and took him into custody before I got any medical help for him even though I never had any reason to suspect he was a threat."
It seems to me that the problem here is that the relationship between the police and the citizenry in the USA is often one of "Follow any orders I give you or you will be shot and possibly killed," and that a significant part of the population are prepared to defend this as a reasonable relationship. Law abiding citizens should not have anything to fear from the police, and in many other countries in general they don't. It seems that in certain parts of the USA that isn't the case, and that law abiding citizens are expected to go in fear of the police and act accordingly. That's not the relationship of police to citizenry; it's the relationship of an occupying force to the conquered. Dave |
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22nd July 2016, 01:36 AM | #286 |
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22nd July 2016, 04:13 AM | #287 |
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22nd July 2016, 04:22 AM | #288 |
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He is recorded saying that he doesn't know why he fired, so it will be pretty tough to sell any other story.
The LAPD once fired over 100 rounds at two ladies in a small pickup truck delivering newspapers. And somehow didn't kill them. And no one lost their job. They also opened up on another innocent victim. This was during the Dorner incident. LAPD said that a newspaper hitting the ground sounded like a gunshot... They hit seven houses and 9 other vehicles with bullets. |
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22nd July 2016, 04:54 AM | #289 |
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22nd July 2016, 05:12 AM | #290 |
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22nd July 2016, 05:19 AM | #291 |
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22nd July 2016, 05:20 AM | #292 |
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Yeah. "That just turns one screw-up into two screw-ups," went through my head after reading that excerpt. Now I see what he was trying to do, though. As someone else pointed out, the chief is attempting to justify the officer's decision to shoot, claiming that the officer believed the autistic man to pose a significant and credible threat to public safety, deserving of a lethal response. He's setting things up so that the officer gets the minimum possible punishment. I suspect "shot at an actual threat, accidentally hit an innocent" merits less punishment than "accidentally shot an innocent for no goddamn reason". I think a lot of people are conflating "law-abiding" with "authority-abiding". You can be a law-abiding citizen, but if you don't submit to authority at the drop of a hat, you're not a good citizen and deserve, at least in part, whatever (over)reaction the police respond with. |
22nd July 2016, 05:23 AM | #293 |
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22nd July 2016, 05:27 AM | #294 |
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22nd July 2016, 05:45 AM | #295 |
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And that's one reason I'll simply discard it until the shooter says it for himself. At worst, it means one is simply waiting for stronger evidence before accepting such an incompetent defense. At best, hey maybe that's not actually the shooter's position at all, and so you aren't quite so negatively impacted by a false claim.
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22nd July 2016, 05:45 AM | #296 |
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Yet another bogus BLM case.
According to BLM Twitter, this black man was unarmed and had his hands up before he was gunned down by two Hispanic cops (who of course are assumed to be "white" supremacists on twitter, but this is NOT about race, they say). http://www.chron.com/news/houston-te...of-8400893.php To refute them, Houston police released badgecam footage of the incident showing that he was indeed armed with a pistol. You can also see from the security footage that he lowered his arm (the one with the gun) in the direction of the cop just before he was shot. BLM twitter is also comparing this case to another case where an alleged "white man" (there's no information on his race ATM) shot at cops through the window of his house and was later arrested without injury after he surrendered peacefully. Two cases with very different circumstances and different cops, but this is proof of racism, they say! |
22nd July 2016, 05:46 AM | #297 |
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22nd July 2016, 06:11 AM | #298 |
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Do you believe that the drop in crime is somehow completely unrelated to the way in which crime is policed?
Like many, I feel our prison population is ridiculously high- yet I also think it very likely to be a contributing factor to the decrease in crime. The two trends follow each other pretty closely. |
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22nd July 2016, 06:18 AM | #299 |
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22nd July 2016, 06:25 AM | #301 |
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22nd July 2016, 06:27 AM | #302 |
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22nd July 2016, 06:50 AM | #303 |
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22nd July 2016, 07:45 AM | #304 |
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Oh, I agree. And if the cop actually goes with the "shot at the autistic guy with the toy truck while his caretaker was trying to calm him down" story, then I'll accept it as his story - in which case he's describing himself as a horrible person rather than a mere complete incompetent.
But the basic idea here is that everyone deserves a chance at a good defense for what they did, and this "defense" is the sort of thing I would say if I were trying to backstab him. |
22nd July 2016, 08:21 AM | #305 |
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Or the Seattle police killing of disabled First Nations artist John Williams with no significant consequences resulting therefrom. The shooting was ruled unjustified, but the officer was not significantly penalized, certainly no criminal charges were brought, and he was allowed to resign and keep his benefits.
Quote:
And that's the real problem. It should be okay to call the police in a situation like that, and all that should happen is an officer shows up, checks to make sure everyone involved is okay, and then goes back to their regular patrol. Maybe in an ideal world the officer would also take the time to find out if any assistance from public agencies is needed and put a call in to that effect. At the very least, it should be possible to call the police under those circumstances without worrying about whether anyone is going to get shot by some psycho bigot or panicky headcase with a badge and gun. |
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22nd July 2016, 08:54 AM | #306 |
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Some of the police departments in this area have the motto "To Serve and Protect" on police vehicles. Left unsaid is who they are serving and protecting.
The answer should be all members of the community. Including the poor, minorities and those expressing unpopular opinions. |
22nd July 2016, 08:59 AM | #307 |
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22nd July 2016, 09:21 AM | #308 |
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22nd July 2016, 09:26 AM | #309 |
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Another incident, which wins a prze for lack of self-awareness on the part of the police officer:
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/...n-king-n614586
Quote:
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22nd July 2016, 09:29 AM | #310 |
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As far as what we are talking about now, yes. Beatings, violent attitudes, apparent attempts to increase the odds of violent confrontation rather than decrease them. I don't think any of that is lowering crime rates.
Quote:
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22nd July 2016, 09:29 AM | #311 |
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22nd July 2016, 09:38 AM | #312 |
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22nd July 2016, 09:39 AM | #313 |
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I think this is a lot closer to the truth than you or others may realize. More below. No, not true. It's clear that the police do not think that way, and are not taught to think that way. In fact, many of them have an exaggerated view of the rate of violent crime and their likelihood to be impacted by it. Listening to all the justifications for killing and assaulting unarmed citizenry all comes down to the same thing: The police are taught to believe that they are, in fact, an army, and that they are at war. They started down this road with the inception of the War on Drug during the Nixon administration. This attitude was greatly exacerbated and exaggerated during the Reagan and Clinton years with huge escalations of the War on Drugs. That is what triggered the increasing militarization of the police, and the widespread adoption of paramilitary tactics and equipment for even routine police work. The amorphous nature of the the War on Drugs has encouraged the police to look upon entire communities as "the enemy", and the fact that it disproportionately targets minorities and lower socioeconomic classes fosters and encourages racist and classist attitudes among officers. It has also been the primary driver of the "bunker mentality" prevalent among so many department cultures; and the drive to justify every improper shooting and harassment of the public. They have been driven to see themselves as over and separate from the rest of society, which is seething with hidden criminal activity that could boil over at any point. The advent of the War on Terrorism, and the gross overreaction that resulted in the almost-Orwellian Department of Homeland Security has only served to feed that attitude and exaggerate the danger, greatly exacerbating the risk of official overreaction to incidents that would have not even been considered noteworthy a few decades ago. Even if they acknowledge the continued decline in violent crime rates, they will do so only through the lens of a post-hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy; believing their militant posture and rampant paranoia are the cause of the decline, rather than being effectively irrelevant (or outright counterproductive) overall. The "War" narrative has permeated law enforcement culture, and has resulted in egregious abuses of power on many different levels and in many different contexts; with militarization turning them from public servants into occupying forces, and forfeiture laws turning them from public employees into licensed bandits and privateers. It won't be until the "War" narrative ends and its pernicious influence on the culture is remove that this situation will improve to any significant degree. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the government at all levels is heavily invested in the narrative, both politically and financially, so reform will be excruciatingly slow and prone to swift reversal. |
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22nd July 2016, 09:47 AM | #314 |
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Was with an autistic fellow who appeared pretty normal, to make sure everything went okay, back 1990ish. Had to go through a security checkpoint. The guys weren't busy and bored, so we got to talking. The autistic fellow just stood quietly. Then for some reason one of the two rentacops puts his arm on the autistic guy's shoulder in a casual friendly sort of way, like he was going to share something confidential. I don't like touchy people and he was probably breaking some rule, but it wouldn't even have bothered me.
The autistic guy went into total melt down. Not physically threatening, but backing off, scared, angry, don't touch me, clearly starting to lose it. I explained he was autistic and didn't like being touched, he was just having a meltdown, he needed a little space and some quiet, and he'd be fine. He stood by the side of the road for a minute, while I waited aside a little ways to make sure he did okay. He composed himself, and then quietly stepped forward. The point is: the rentacops listened to me and believed my explanation! When he was ready, they saw he was okay and I was there with him, and they let us pass! He was fine from then on, as I expected. That was of course a much lower level problem than in the OP. But still, it went the way it should have gone. Now, wow, I'd probably just suggest to his mother that he stay home. Things could go real south real fast, and I'd be afraid I couldn't make it okay. I still feel myself breathing a sigh of relief, all these years later. |
22nd July 2016, 09:48 AM | #315 |
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As I recall, the biggest factors in the drop in crime rate are the dramatic reduction in environmental lead, resulting predominantly from the elimination of leaded petrol; improvements in education; social programs to remedy poverty and help provide employment; and the decline in the drug trade resulting from the cocaine crash. The primary driver of crime, particularly violent crime, in the US has been the drug trade, exacerbated by the War on Drugs. High prison populations have actually been counterproductive for the reduction of crime rates, as they affect predominantly minority communities, and result in very large numbers of adults who are effectively unemployable (or at least make it very difficult to find employment). Reforms and social programs have improved that situation somewhat; but the rise of for-profit prisons and their attendant inmate quotas and poor availability of education and re-integration programs, have stymied many attempts at reform and enabled the problem to persist at artificially high rates. |
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When you say that fascists should only be defeated through debate, what you're really saying is that the marginalized and vulnerable should have to endlessly argue for their right to exist; and at no point should they ever be fully accepted, and the debate considered won. |
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22nd July 2016, 09:57 AM | #316 |
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Apparently that same PBA chief, Jim Rivera, has previously claimed that police bodycams endanger officers lives. Given that the recording we have of the incident clearly shows Kinsey engaged in 2 way communication with the officers on the scene, trying to deescalate them and letting them know that the autistic man is unarmed, I frankly don't believe the police union's version of events.
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22nd July 2016, 10:07 AM | #317 |
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22nd July 2016, 10:11 AM | #318 |
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22nd July 2016, 10:24 AM | #320 |
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My contention is that BLM is brimming with racist, hateful cranks. There may be an issue with unjustified police shootings but the way BLM goes about it on social media and the public is sickening. There's talk of "genocides" being waged against black men, all sorts of bizarre conspiracy theories, claims of "white supremacist" media bias, etc. In fact, one of the self-styled "leaders" of BLM is still asserting that Sandra Bland was murdered and that racist cops made it look like a suicide.
BLM has a proven track record of hyping up bogus cases like Michael Brown, Alton Sterling, and Antonio Martin, and NEVER conceding that they were wrong about anything. Indeed, for many, every single white cop-on-black shooting is a "racist murder" and nothing will convince them otherwise. These people are not exceptions. They're the rule. This would all be hilarious if it didn't have serious consequences for innocent cops. But it does. At least 8 cops died and many more were seriously injured because their hateful rhetoric motivated two mentally ill men to go on shooting rampages. That rhetoric also compelled another wack job to murder an innocent white woman. They won't be the last. Almost as awful, many of those associated with BLM later condoned these murders on social media. On twitter, I saw a 50-50 split between those condemning Micah (condemnations that went like, "what Micah did was wrong BUT") and those calling him a hero. At the very core of BLM is racial hatred of the "other", masquerading under the guise of "social justice". It's not about the police. Both Jordan Davis and Treyvon Martin were the beginning of the BLM movement, neither of whom were killed by cops. Race was the issue. We watched as the Jordan Davis case was falsely portrayed by BLM and the "white supremacist media" as a racially motivated homicide -- leading Salon writer Brittany Cooper to declare that there was an "onslaught of white-on-black murder". A run-of-the mill road rage case became a media sensation and BLM cause. There is no comparable outrage over a similar case like Delrawn Small. Know why? His murderer is a black off-duty cop. We have seen repeatedly that BLM doesn't give a flying about black cops who "murder" unarmed black men. Ironically, Delrawn Small is the ONLY case this year where an unarmed black man was legitimately murdered in cold blood by a cop. In fact, at least 31% of all unarmed black men killed by cops this year were killed by black and brown cops, but you wouldn't know that from social media. |
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