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6th August 2019, 03:16 PM | #2 |
Penultimate Amazing
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First thought: "Now that is an example of a cop being in the wrong!"
Second thought: "Hm. How do mounted police usually transport suspects? It's not like they can put them in the back of the car." |
6th August 2019, 03:18 PM | #3 |
Penultimate Amazing
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6th August 2019, 03:24 PM | #4 |
Nasty Woman
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6th August 2019, 03:25 PM | #5 |
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6th August 2019, 03:25 PM | #6 |
Nasty Woman
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6th August 2019, 03:29 PM | #7 | |||
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Totally off topic, but I read this thread and now I have that annoying Glen Campbell song stuck in my head.
Listen to it. I promise you won't have it in your head on repeat for about 2 days
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6th August 2019, 03:38 PM | #8 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Seems like there's bound to be situations where that's not practical.
Station within walking distance, all cars busy on other calls and hours away, etc. "Call for a car or paddy wagon" was actually the first thing I thought of. Just didn't seem plausible that this solution would be practical 100% of the time, no exceptions. At the very least, mounted police would need some kind of contingency plan in case there was no car available. This is probably not a good contingency plan, though. |
6th August 2019, 04:15 PM | #9 |
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6th August 2019, 04:17 PM | #10 |
Penultimate Amazing
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6th August 2019, 05:13 PM | #11 |
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The police actually covered this already. They stated that there are situations where leading the suspect on horseback might be appropriate - but the police chief stated that this situation was clearly not one of them.
They had cars nearby, staffed, with nothing to do at the time. Would have been easy to call one over, but they didn't. Another alternative that would have worked in this situation would be for one officer to dismount and walk with the suspect while the other mounted rider leads both horses. They didn't do that either. |
6th August 2019, 06:36 PM | #12 |
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6th August 2019, 07:26 PM | #13 |
Penultimate Amazing
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How about one officer gets off his horse and escorts the suspect, while using the rope to lead the horse (or the other mounted officer leads the horse)?
To me this looks like it was one of those "We thought it was a good idea at the time, but on reflection....." moments. Galveston’s police chief, Vernon Hale, confirmed the photos were genuine.This should be the end of it; acknowledgement it was a mistake, an apology has been made, and they won't do it again. But we all know it won't be, because the cop-haters out there haven't yet had their pound of flesh. |
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If you're not a scientist but you think you've destroyed the foundation of a vast scientific edifice with 10 minutes of Googling, you might want to consider the possibility that you're wrong. Its TRE45ON season... convict the F45CIST!! |
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6th August 2019, 07:32 PM | #14 |
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Gawd. Right now today? Seriously...??
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6th August 2019, 08:50 PM | #15 |
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6th August 2019, 09:09 PM | #16 |
Penultimate Amazing
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What's left to argue about
1: It was wrong. Think we all agree that what those two cops did was really, really stupid and totally inappropriate in context. Even if you're like me, not an American, it was not hard to draw the comparison between the cops leading this guy with a rope from horse back, and "Massa draggin' one o' dem n-word slaves" with a rope around his neck (although I must point out that if the suspect in this case had been white male, it would probably not have even made the news). 2: Acknowledgement. The Police Chief has acknowledged what they did was wrong and has taken responsibility for it. 3. Apology The Police Chief has apologised to the man and his family for what they did. 4. No repeats The Police have stated that this technique will not be used again, and there will be no repeat of this scenario. Where else is there to go? What is there left to discuss? What is there left to demand? The only thing we are likely to see now is a few rounds of grievance nursing. |
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If you're not a scientist but you think you've destroyed the foundation of a vast scientific edifice with 10 minutes of Googling, you might want to consider the possibility that you're wrong. Its TRE45ON season... convict the F45CIST!! |
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6th August 2019, 09:16 PM | #17 |
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The police department will probably pay the man for not suing / talking about it publicly.
Which itself is a problem. I wonder what percentage of their budget some PDs have to spend on settlements. |
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7th August 2019, 12:03 AM | #18 |
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It is a stated fact that this is a "trained technique" and acknowledged "best practice" in appropriate circumstances. One must assume that it has been used in the past, at least once; I'm willing to bet more than that.
The issue seems to be the detainees colour tied in to historical references to transporting slaves. Has this method of transport been used on a person of colour before and, if so, what makes this instance egregious? |
7th August 2019, 12:07 AM | #19 |
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7th August 2019, 12:08 AM | #20 |
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“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago |
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7th August 2019, 12:22 AM | #21 |
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7th August 2019, 12:44 AM | #22 |
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Make America Great Again.
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7th August 2019, 12:47 AM | #23 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Trained technique or not, it takes a fair bit of tone deafness not to see that doing this to a black person harks back to the handling of slaves. But regardless of all that, the Police chief said they won't be using this method again, so thats a win isn't it? |
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If you're not a scientist but you think you've destroyed the foundation of a vast scientific edifice with 10 minutes of Googling, you might want to consider the possibility that you're wrong. Its TRE45ON season... convict the F45CIST!! |
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7th August 2019, 01:31 AM | #24 |
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Firstly, was this a case of officers executing a poorly thought out departmental policy? If so, there is an urgent need for that policy to be revised.
Secondly, if it isn't a departmental policy, was this then a case of a pair of officers acting on their own initiative? If so, what disciplinary action and/or what re-training is planned for the officers reponsible? If neither, what the hell was it, and what's being done to prevent it happening again? It's very easy to say "This will never happen again." It's extremely difficult to actually make reasonably certain that this will never happen again. If the PD wants to regain the trust of the public, they need to show that they are doing the second, rather than the first, of those things. That's what's left to demand. Dave |
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7th August 2019, 01:34 AM | #25 |
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A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject. Sir Winston Churchill |
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7th August 2019, 01:42 AM | #26 |
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7th August 2019, 02:20 AM | #27 |
No longer the 1
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As human right is always something given, it always in reality reduces to the right which men give, "concede," to each other. If the right to existence is conceded to new-born children, then they have the right; if it is not conceded to them, as was the case among the Spartans and ancient Romans, then they do not have it. For only society can give or concede it to them; they themselves cannot take it, or give it to themselves. |
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7th August 2019, 03:40 AM | #28 |
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7th August 2019, 03:41 AM | #29 |
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Sufficiently advanced Woo is indistinguishable from Parody "There shall be no *poofing* in science" Paul C. Anagnostopoulos Force ***** on reasons back" Ben Franklin |
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7th August 2019, 06:15 AM | #30 |
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Yes, it was poor optics.
But if the police were not thinking primarily in terms of optics but of the simplest way to transport the prisoner, what they did wasn't as stupid as it looks. Here's a link to a story on this which includes a photo and the police department statement about the incident. From the police statement, Neely was arrested for trespassing at 306 22nd St. They were taking him to the corner of Market and 21st. If you go to Google maps, and ask for directions from 306 22nd to 400 21st (which is the corner of Market and 21st) you'll see it's listed as a 2-minute walk (about 500 feet). I can see how the cops might think that walking would be faster and easier than calling and waiting for a car. From the picture, I would say that describing what they did as leading the man by rope is not accurate. The rope is attached to the handcuffs -- behind his back -- and is being held fairly loosely. I assume it's there to prevent the man from attempting to run away, which he'd be able to do even though he's handcuffed. To lead him by the rope, I think they'd need to handcuff him in front rather than behind his back, so the rope could be in front. With the handcuffs and rope in back, he's either walking side-by-side with them or he's leading them. So describing it as if the cops were dragging him by rope is incorrect; at least in the available picture of the incident, that's not what they were doing. I agree it's bad optics. And I agree that one of the officers dismounting to walk beside the prisoner is probably a better way to deal with the situation -- especially since one (or both) of the officers had probably already dismounted to arrest and handcuff the prisoner in the first place, so staying dismounted while walking with the prisoner would not have been difficult. |
7th August 2019, 06:23 AM | #31 |
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7th August 2019, 06:25 AM | #32 |
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Hey here's an idea. Don't put police officers on horseback in 2019 and then pull the "But there's no practical way for police officers on horseback to transport a suspect!" card.
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7th August 2019, 07:43 AM | #33 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Who pulled the "no practical way" card?
The only cards I've seen so far have been the race card and the "this is practical, but it triggers some people who don't care about practicality, so we're giving it up" card. I think you may have pulled that other card out of your... Sleeve. |
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7th August 2019, 07:49 AM | #34 |
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7th August 2019, 07:52 AM | #35 |
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The most practical solution is to use chariots.
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You added nothing to that conversation, Barbara. |
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7th August 2019, 08:13 AM | #37 |
Penultimate Amazing
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I'm sure there are. Or have been, at least. There's plenty of overlap between the history of mounted policing and the history of photography.
What I want to know is, would such a picture inform your opinions in any way? If someone posted a picture from last year, of these cops in this town transporting a white suspect the same way, what would change, for you? Is there some rational argument you're putting together based on the evidence, with a conclusion that depends on whether such a picture exists? |
7th August 2019, 08:19 AM | #38 |
Poisoned Waffles
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I think we're overlooking the most important question: what color was the horse?
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7th August 2019, 08:21 AM | #39 |
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"If everyone in the room says water is wet and I say it's dry that makes me smart because at least I'm thinking for myself!" - The Proudly Wrong. |
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7th August 2019, 08:23 AM | #40 |
Pi
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Based on past experience I suspect that this particular method of transporting prisoners, while being acceptable to the force itself, may have only been used to transport black men back to the station, white suspects being given the benefit of someone actually going to get a car for them or coming up with some other solution.
A picture from the last few years of a white fella being transported in this fashion would go a long way to dispelling that suspicion. The lack of such a picture would fuel it. |
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