The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

I guess I'm having a hard time understanding about police racism when the statistics don't back it up.  If we're going to talk about police training being more stringent so incidents like Greg Lloyd's never happens again, I'm all about that.  If you're saying that police have a widespread racial bias, I just don't see it as statistically significant.  Unfortunately, due to human error and just overall bad people, these sort of things will continue to happen, as there are bad cops and neglectful cops.  With more stringent training and accountability from peers, this sort of thing can be mostly prevented, hopefully by weeding those sorts of people out.  

Bad cops should be prosecuted and as Dave pointed out in another thread, it shouldn't be 3 days before one is arrested for something as blatant as the Greg Lloyd incident.  The media would have you believe that cops are committing genocide on African Americans, and that's not true.  This is why I blame them almost completely for the racial tensions and riots in the US, from fake news CNN to fear mongering FoxNews.

http://archive.is/XLNh4#selection-2077.5-2077.42 (http://archive.is/XLNh4#selection-2077.5-2077.42)


The Myth of Systemic Police Racism
Hold officers accountable who use excessive force. But there’s no evidence of widespread racial bias.
By Heather Mac Donald
June 2, 2020 1:44 pm ET

George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis has revived the Obama-era narrative that law enforcement is endemically racist. On Friday, Barack Obama tweeted that for millions of black Americans, being treated differently by the criminal justice system on account of race is “tragically, painfully, maddeningly ‘normal.’ ” Mr. Obama called on the police and the public to create a “new normal,” in which bigotry no longer “infects our institutions and our hearts.”
Joe Biden released a video the same day in which he asserted that all African-Americans fear for their safety from “bad police” and black children must be instructed to tolerate police abuse just so they can “make it home.” That echoed a claim Mr. Obama made after the ambush murder of five Dallas officers in July 2016. During their memorial service, the president said African-American parents were right to fear that their children may be killed by police officers whenever they go outside.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz denounced the “stain . . . of fundamental, institutional racism” on law enforcement during a Friday press conference. He claimed blacks were right to dismiss promises of police reform as empty verbiage.

This charge of systemic police bias was wrong during the Obama years and remains so today. However sickening the video of Floyd’s arrest, it isn’t representative of the 375 million annual contacts that police officers have with civilians. A solid body of evidence finds no structural bias in the criminal-justice system with regard to arrests, prosecution or sentencing. Crime and suspect behavior, not race, determine most police actions.

In 2019 police officers fatally shot 1,004 people, most of whom were armed or otherwise dangerous. African-Americans were about a quarter of those killed by cops last year (235), a ratio that has remained stable since 2015. That share of black victims is less than what the black crime rate would predict, since police shootings are a function of how often officers encounter armed and violent suspects. In 2018, the latest year for which such data have been published, African-Americans made up 53% of known homicide offenders in the U.S. and commit about 60% of robberies, though they are 13% of the population.

The police fatally shot nine unarmed blacks and 19 unarmed whites in 2019, according to a Washington Post database, down from 38 and 32, respectively, in 2015. The Post defines “unarmed” broadly to include such cases as a suspect in Newark, N.J., who had a loaded handgun in his car during a police chase. In 2018 there were 7,407 black homicide victims. Assuming a comparable number of victims last year, those nine unarmed black victims of police shootings represent 0.1% of all African-Americans killed in 2019. By contrast, a police officer is 18½ times more likely to be killed by a black male than an unarmed black male is to be killed by a police officer.

On Memorial Day weekend in Chicago alone, 10 African-Americans were killed in drive-by shootings. Such routine violence has continued—a 72-year-old Chicago man shot in the face on May 29 by a gunman who fired about a dozen shots into a residence; two 19-year-old women on the South Side shot to death as they sat in a parked car a few hours earlier; a 16-year-old boy fatally stabbed with his own knife that same day. This past weekend, 80 Chicagoans were shot in drive-by shootings, 21 fatally, the victims overwhelmingly black. Police shootings are not the reason that blacks die of homicide at eight times the rate of whites and Hispanics combined; criminal violence is.

The latest in a series of studies undercutting the claim of systemic police bias was published in August 2019 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers found that the more frequently officers encounter violent suspects from any given racial group, the greater the chance that a member of that group will be fatally shot by a police officer. There is “no significant evidence of antiblack disparity in the likelihood of being fatally shot by police,” they concluded.

A 2015 Justice Department analysis of the Philadelphia Police Department found that white police officers were less likely than black or Hispanic officers to shoot unarmed black suspects. Research by Harvard economist Roland G. Fryer Jr. also found no evidence of racial discrimination in shootings. Any evidence to the contrary fails to take into account crime rates and civilian behavior before and during interactions with police.

The false narrative of systemic police bias resulted in targeted killings of officers during the Obama presidency. The pattern may be repeating itself. Officers are being assaulted and shot at while they try to arrest gun suspects or respond to the growing riots. Police precincts and courthouses have been destroyed with impunity, which will encourage more civilization-destroying violence. If the Ferguson effect of officers backing off law enforcement in minority neighborhoods is reborn as the Minneapolis effect, the thousands of law-abiding African-Americans who depend on the police for basic safety will once again be the victims.

The Minneapolis officers who arrested George Floyd must be held accountable for their excessive use of force and callous indifference to his distress. Police training needs to double down on de-escalation tactics. But Floyd’s death should not undermine the legitimacy of American law enforcement, without which we will continue on a path toward chaos.

Ms. Mac Donald is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the author of “The War on Cops,” (Encounter Books, 2016).

The perfect example of the line, “Statistics don’t lie, but liars use statistics.”.

pack it up boys .. there's no bias .. people are angry and frustrated without a reason .. it's all Soros .. he's obviously the one in charge .. please won't trump save us from all the bad people on the left .. and antifa .. and acorn..

breaking .. here's a picture of soros now!!!

(https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcQ7d5AJhMm7hU-6P1T9_kNCw0CrlXyVOc7FmR3kESozJd-xE_Yn&usqp=CAU)

Heck, Soros called me this morning to ask me to continue taking pot shots at CF. He said he could deliver some bricks as well, should I decide that I need to throw something at him...   :o

Try to stay on topic please.  CF mentioned Soros in the other thread, not me.  You're projecting.

Who is the liar, the article writer?  What specifically is untrue in the article?  Where is the proof to back that claim up?

Haven't you heard?  Facts are racist. 

Nope...facts are facts, racists are racist.

Once folks learn how to recognize both, it becomes real easy to decide where to stand.

I know.  I was being glib for effect.  I consider myself a logic based centrist on most matters and I think that the majority of the posts/comments I have made on TDMMC bear that out.  I have called out both conservatives and liberals here with what is probably close to a 50/50 split.  Don't get me wrong, I know that there are racist cops.  And I applaud when they suffer the consequences of their stupidity and hatred.  Two Florida Highway Patrol troopers were just fired yesterday for making ignorant and racist comments on social media.  And that is exactly what should have happened to them.  The moron cop in Minneapolis has been charged with murder and manslaughter and that is exactly what should happen to him as well.   So yes, there are clearly racists in the law enforcement community.  And it makes me very happy when they lose their jobs and have criminal charges pressed against them when their actions are criminal.  However, that doesn't change the validity of the WSJ article that Tenshot posted.  To paint with a broad brush and say "the police are racist" is no more valid than saying "blacks are racist" because some African American criminals target white people specifically.  I know I'm kind of getting off in the weeds here, sorry.  The point I'm trying to make is that this isn't an "everything or nothing" topic.   If the author of the WSJ article had said "This proves that no cops are racist" then I would have a huge problem with the article.  The article was simply pointing out evidence that the law enforcement community is not systemically racist.  It is really disheartening to me that almost 60 years after the Civil Rights Act, any kind of discrimination still exists.  It is a sad commentary on humanity. 

Ok then i'll stay on topic.

The underlying theme of the article you linked, in case you didn't catch it, Is that he's saying that black people are by nature more violent and prone to criminality than white people. It isn't the system that's racist, the fact that there are a much higher proportionality of minorities imprisoned is that minorities are more prone to crime. And has nothing to do with how those communities are policed or how different attitudes from police lead to different outcomes.


What is crime and suspect behavior for one person may not be suspect behavior for another based purely on skin color or more insidiously neighborhood segregation brought about by redlining policies or housing costs from such things as gentrification.

The failure to take any of that into account is incompetent at best and what i suspect to be intentional by the author.

I totally agree with your quote.  I've always liked the Mark Twain quote of "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."   However, I'm confused by how the "Statistic don't lie, but liars use statistics" as your response to the WSJ article.  What is the author of the article being a liar about?

We can also revise the "statistics" quote to address videos.  "Videos don't lie, but liars use videos."   Kind of like posting a video of cops taking bricks out of a pickup and placing them on the ground and calling it "evidence" that cops are putting bricks out on the street in order to bait protesters into vandalism.  Only for the truth to come out that it was the Boston police and they were unloading bricks in a secured police department parking lot after they had removed them from the street in order to prevent their use for vandalism.  And no, I'm not specifically calling you a liar.  I'm sure that you believed that the video depicted cops "planting" bricks on the street to incite a riot.  I think that you were trying to hold people accountable for doing something wrong.  Nothing wrong with trying to hold people accountable.  But it is obviously paramount that we use facts to support our stances, not just "part" of a video or drawing erroneous conclusions from a video.  So back to my question, what is the author of the WSJ article being a liar about?

Heather Mac Donald is a she, not a he.  I have a hard time seeing any hidden suggestion or theme, I'm just looking at the numbers she posted and the intentional theme of Systemic Police Racism being a myth.  If she is suggesting African Americans are more prone to crime, maybe it's because of the reasons you suggested, that's valid.  Personally, I think it has more to do with the high rate of single parent households in African Americans.

In 2014-18, the share of families headed by single parents was 66% among African American families, 41% among Hispanic families, 33% among white families and 20% among Asian families.

https://www.actrochester.org/children-youth/single-parent-families-by-race-ethnicity (https://www.actrochester.org/children-youth/single-parent-families-by-race-ethnicity)

The number of children who grow up without a father in the home in the United States has reached concerning levels. There exists a considerable research base that suggests that children raised in households lacking a father experience psychosocial problems with greater frequency than children with a father in the home (Allen & Daly, 2007). These problems have been found to extend into adolescence and adulthood and include an increased risk of substance use, depression, suicide, poor school performance, and contact with the criminal justice system (Allen

& Daly, 2007).

https://www.mnpsych.org/index.php%3Foption%3Dcom_dailyplanetblog%26view%3Dentry%26category%3Dindustry%2520news%26id%3D54 (https://www.mnpsych.org/index.php%3Foption%3Dcom_dailyplanetblog%26view%3Dentry%26category%3Dindustry%2520news%26id%3D54)

Single parent households are also a common theme in mass shooters.

I agree with you. The problem is anyone who disagrees with any form of liberalism is called a racist by the left so it's become impossible to tell what is real and what is made up by people who have no argument and are still in a hussy over Hillary not winning.

It's not just a bad cop.

It's a system, not necessarily of racists (I don't believe that most cops are racists)....but it's a system that protects racists.  It's a system that devalues certain communities or stereotypes and treats certain people of different looks, with different levels or respect or force.

Do you think that a white woman would've been kneeled on the neck for 8 minutes until dead in front of a bunch of other cops?

But it's also that there isn't action against these acts until it becomes public.  If this wasn't on video, nothing would have happened to this cop.  And even with it on video, this took days.

This might surprise you, but I don't even necessarily think that the man who killed Floyd was a racist.  But he worked for an organization, with a deeply embedded culture that is built on a foundation of racism.  The protection that cops have for each other comes at the expense of those they're supposed to protect, and it's especially true for communities of color.

And was even worse is that the black community has been saying forever how this has been happening and only with the advancement of technology are we finally able to see that it's true.  For one George Floyd, there are countless dead men that were lied about, mistreated, and covered up.

I think we could fix teachers and police the same way. Not eliminate all bad but certainly make it better if we paid higher salaries to attract more competition from good employees and make it so that it's not so hard to get rid of the bad ones. The unions protect both and makes it extremely difficult to get rid of them.  The officer had 18 complaints against him. I realize that he's in a vulnerable job as far as complaints go but maybe around 10 someone should have sat down with him and let him know that maybe police work wasn't his forte and he should seek something else.

That is an interesting take.  I actually went back and re-read the article trying to look at it with the underlying theme that you posed.  I can see where you would think that.  And I want to go on record as stating that if that was the hidden agenda of the author, then I reject the article.  But honestly, I just don't see that as being the underlying theme of the article (although again, I can see where you might draw that conclusion).   I really think that the underlying theme is essentially just what the title of the article insinuates, that calling police racism "systemic" is incorrect.  As I have tried to make clear in my other posts under this topic, in no way am I saying that there aren't racist cops.  There most definitely are.  In full disclosure, my career has been local law enforcement (worked for the City of Miami early in my career), military, and my current position in federal law enforcement.  That may create some pro law enforcement bias in me although I do my very best not to let that happen.  But unfortunately, bad news gets publicized and good news is rarely publicized.  Throughout my career I have seen what can be described as absolutely racist attitudes and racist actions and just "bad cops" in general.  However, I have seen an immensely larger proportion of police actions that have shown genuine care for people, humanity, empathy, and good deeds done for people.  

Why hasn't anyone ever thought to mention "black on black crime" before as a justification for all this police brutality?  This is a game changer.

This was my favorite part of the article:

"The police fatally shot nine unarmed blacks and 19 unarmed whites in 2019, according to a Washington Post database, down from 38 and 32, respectively, in 2015."

Now, I'm trying to square these figures with the frequently mentioned demographic percentages elsewhere in this piece.  Why are unarmed black people such a disproportionately high percentage of unarmed people killed by police?  Were they committing more unarmed robberies or unarmed homicides?  In 2015, when more unarmed black people were killed by police than unarmed white people, did that mean that racist police brutality was a problem then?

According to statistics reported to the FBI, 89 law enforcement officers were killed in line-of-duty incidents in 2019. What percentage does that make up? I'm pretty sure there are a hell of a lot less police than black or white in this country.

Included in those totals are heart attacks, cancer that might be 9/11 related, automobile crashes, being shot by other cops, and training accidents. 

But the number of cops that died is irreversible to the question of is it excusable for a police officer to murder someone in cold blood and not be immediately arrested as is frequently the case. 

In any one of the incidents where an officer was killed and the killer was known was the killer allowed to leave the scene? 

It literally says "89 law enforcement officers were killed in line-of-duty incidents in 2019".

No, it it never ok for a police officer to kill or even harm someone without cause.

Also as you may or may not be aware, modern policing and tactics such as curfew are directly descended from slave patrols of the southern states pre-civil war:

https://lawenforcementmuseum.org/2019/07/10/slave-patrols-an-early-form-of-american-policing/

Saying that there is systemic racism as part of overall policing is also accurate historically.

https://plsonline.eku.edu/insidelook/brief-history-slavery-and-origins-american-policing

Just want to throw this out there because I think this may actually help.  I'm not a big Dak fan but this seems pretty cool to me.  Seems much more effective to pay for education and training where it will have an actual impact vs giving millions to bail out looters and rioters which won’t help anything but the looters and rioters. It's also not divisive.


Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott just pledged $1 MILLION "to improve our police training and address systematic racism through education and advocacy."

https://www.tmz.com/2020/06/03/dak-prescott-1-million-police-training-racism-dallas-cowboys-nfl/

That is a given.  But misses the point.  The issue is was Derek Chauvin actions wrong?  It goes beyond that....to why wasn’t he arrested at the scene?  Why wasn’t his accomplices charged until today?  Why was he charged with 3rd instead of 2nd degree murder? 

But here is what we learned....rioting works.  It is the only thing that works.  If it wasn’t for the rioting all four would have taken an early retirement and collected their pensions with no actual consequences.

Rioting works?  You're condoning this?

Yes.


No.

Rioting works?  Yup!


 You're condoning this? Nope.

Understand why after 400 years of systematic racism and multiple attemps to change the system peacefully one would feel this is the only redress?  Yup!

Very interesting about the slave patrols.  I knew they existed but I didn't know they utilized curfews.  But regardless of what it was rooted in, the concept of a curfew during urban unrest benefits most of the people involved (not so much the businesses that are affected).   As long as curfews are utilized judiciously and with forethought.  Although looting, etc. happens during the daytime, it is much more prevalent at night under the cover of darkness.  In the current situation, curfews are being utilized to help protect businesses AND peaceful protesters who can get caught up as collateral damage when looting is going on.  I would not be okay with curfews being utilized long term.  But on a very short term basis, a curfew is protecting peaceful demonstrators and business interests.  I absolutely support the right of people to peacefully demonstrate and they should be given that opportunity.  But I also support the idea of "smart" usage of curfews. American Common Law is mostly based on the concepts of centuries old English law.  Quite a few of those legal precursors were onerous.  But where a law is derived from doesn't automatically negate it from being legit and wise when updated for current times.  I'm an atheist and find many parts of the bible to be appalling.  But that doesn't mean that there aren't some good moral lessons to be found in it as well. 

I agree with part of your comment about racism in "overall policing" as being historically accurate.  Historically, the overall concept and application of policing procedures have absolutely been racist.  I'm right there with you on that and it is pretty well documented.  Written and unwritten police policy in the deep south was disgustingly racist during the Civil Rights movement and was also prevalent before and after the Civil Rights movement.  The movie Mississippi Burning was a very accurate and deeply troubling portrayal of that.  And I'm sure that in some very small backwards assed community police departments, it still exists systemically.  But today, in police departments of any size at all, there is SO much oversight to prevent systemic racism and "bad policing" in general.  Most departments have some form of civilian community oversight committees comprised not of local politicians, but local residents.  The concept of Community Policing has been around for over 30 years and is taken very seriously and the main driver behind Community Policing is to avoid racism and other systemic atrocities.  And contrary to popular belief, Internal Affairs divisions (IFDs) are not looking find a way to get officers "off the hook" for wrongdoing.  Quite the opposite.  The overarching goal of an IFD is to protect the department and the city from litigation stemming from "dirty" or "bad" cops.  The vast majority of cops are scared shitless of Internal Affairs.  I want to make it clear that I'm not saying there aren't racist cops.  There most certainly are.  And law enforcement agencies were absolutely guilty in the past of being systemically racist.  But other than the previously mentioned backwards assed small towns, systemic racism is no longer the case.  In fact, I don't mind sharing that in my current agency, we have a coworker in my office who is racist.  I've never seen his actions towards people being racist.  But his personal beliefs are definitely racist.  Everyone in my office shuns him and avoids him like the plague. Nobody wants anything to do with him, much less to "protect" him.  We have all complained about him but federal unions are very strong and we can't fire someone for what is in their heart.  Either fortunately or unfortunately, he has never done anything overt enough to get fired for.  We would all applaud if he got fired. But the fact that he hasn't been fired isn't because he is being protected.  It is because he hasn't "done" anything racist and to fire him for having a racist heart would just allow him to sue the agency.  And win.   

At the cost of local businesses ruined, historic monuments defaced and more lives lost.  What a victory.

I get where you are going with that, but I think it depends on how we are going to define what constitutes rioting "working".    It definitely works in bringing more attention to the situation.  But has it really worked in helping the plight of inner city minorities?  Maybe in small and individual cases.  But inner city rioting has gone on for decades and the same problems that have plagued inner city minorities are essentially still exactly the same.  Real and meaningful change would be educational and economic opportunities that would enable inner city minorities to break free of the cycle of poverty.   Typically, the political (regardless of party) reaction to rioting has been to throw some tax money at rebuilding businesses and maybe building some low cost Section 8 housing.  But that isn't creating opportunity which is what I would define as something "working".  

Narrowly as in the cops being charged with the crimes they should have been charged with day 1. 

Out of those 89 deaths, how many officers do you think a) were unarmed and b) were blamed for their own deaths, with their admitted killer being absolved of any crime?

The problem is precisely that even when black people are unarmed, police regularly use lethal force to subdue them... and the use of such force is almost always determined to be "justified."

I agree that they should have been charged day 1 as long as they had enough information at the time to establish probable cause.  Not having sufficient probable cause when they filed charges against him would have resulted in him avoiding charges on a technicality.  And none of us want that.    Not sure what that has to do with whether riots "work" or not though.  I thought we were discussing whether or not rioting brings about positive, impactful, and lasting improvement for inner city minorities.  If you meant rioting works just in how fast charges are filed, I would say that is pretty short sighted and not treating the actual problem.  I would much rather that the DA takes a couple days to make sure they are putting together airtight charges rather than rushing to throw something together sloppily that could lead to the cop beating the rap on a technicality.  If the cop was a flight risk, then I would think differently.  As for Murder in the 1st degree versus Murder in the 3rd degree, I'm not an expert in Minnesota state law.  Actually I know nothing about Minnesota state law.  But from what I have read, in Minnesota that differentiation is based upon intent.  The court would have a hell of a time proving that he intended to kill the victim.  I'd rather have a conviction on Murder 3 than an acquittal on Murder 1. 

From the article:

a police officer is 18½ times more likely to be killed by a black male than an unarmed black male is to be killed by a police officer.

Do you think this might have anything to do with it? 

I don't understand the point you're trying to make here.

Day 1? As in "the day it happened?"  If you believe that a cop would be charged without any kind of investigation into it, I believe you might be high.

It has nothing to do with it, on multiple levels:

1) How likely is it for an officer to be killed by an unarmed black man?
2) How likely is it that if an officer kills am unarmed black man, it will be considered a crime?

It's obvious that getting the police to treat armed black men the same way they treat angry armed white men is hopeless; we are far, far away from that fantasy.  But we should be able to get to a point where police killing unarmed people (which is disproportionately black men) is not considered everyday police business, but rather a serious offense and potentially a crime.

That was pretty much my take on it too, but I just didn't want to be that blunt.   LOL

He is pivoting away from “cops aren’t racist” to the racism is justified.

Once the video was seen probable cause existed.  The day they were fired they should have been arrested. 

This is why the apologists for the Minneapolis cops are so pitiful.  If there were a 9-minute-long VIDEO of George Floyd kneeling on a restrained person's neck until they died, he would be booked instantly.

The fact that the coroner initially tried that weak-ass coverup of "Floyd just happened to have a heart attack which could have been caused by his poor health" - after the nation's eyes were already on this case! - is just more evidence of how disgustingly corrupt the system is.  They are so blatantly unaccustomed to accountability that they thought that was going to fly.

Socratic method.

The socratic method is the way in which you're trying to get me to arrive at the point.  ...which I'm not.  So I'm asking, what's the point you're trying to make?

I don't want to put words in your mouth.

The Socratic Method isn't just some method to get you to arrive at a point.  The point was already made by Spider, the regularity of police deadly force used on unarmed black men.  That is the commonly held belief, the base of our discussion in this instance.  I'm asking Spider if a police officer is more likely to be shot by an African American influences the reason why police force is regularly used on unarmed black men, scrutinizing the commonly held belief.  It's all about asking questions to find contradictions in a belief, if there are any.  Questions are answered, then it's determine whether it's still capable of scrutiny of accepted as an absolute truth.  

I'm not in some us versus them mentality for this one, the article resonated with me so what better place to find scrutiny with it.  Plus I think it's a fair question to ask when a lot of people believe the police are inherently racist.

Why did you feel the need to ask what my point was?  What did you think I was getting at?

I'm wondering why you posted the original article in the first place, since you apparently don't believe it (or are arguing as if you don't).

See, the point of the original article is that police treat black people fairly and without prejudice, and the statistics just reflect that black people commit more crimes.  But your argument is that since black people are "more likely" to commit violent crimes against police, this is why police treat them more harshly.

"More likely" is an calculation of probability.  By acting on a calculation of probability based on a person's race, the police would be - by definition - engaging in racism. Which directly contradicts the original article that says such action is a myth.

So which one is it?  Do the police use force more regularly on unarmed black men because black people are "more likely" to be a threat, or is "systemic police racism a myth"?

I didn't say I didn't believe the article, where are you getting that?  I took a part of the article and applied it to the question I asked you regarding your stance on unarmed African Americans.  She doesn't make that claim, I posed the question, and that's all it was...a question.

You guys seen to think I have some ulterior motive, like I'm going to have some "gotcha" moment.  So far, I've found this to be a healthy discussion.

Gotta say that I'm proud of the board dudes for making this a respectful and polite discussion.  Speaking for myself, I have given a lot more consideration to views that are different from mine here the last few days than I would if everyone was being dismissive and rude asses to each other.  Well done, guys. 

Cram it, stupid.

:D

That's not at all what the author was saying. The author did not state the reason that black people are more prone to criminality is because of their skin color, she simply said that it's a fact black people are involved with more criminal activity. There could be plenty of reasons for that beyond skin color. It could be because of their socio-economic status. I think it's likely that people living at the low end of the spectrum are subjected to a much larger criminal element then those not. Location is also another factor, many of these people are living in highly populated urban areas which again are populated with a higher criminal element. It's not because they are black, rather it's the fact that a higher percentage of black people live under circumstances that put them in direct contact with criminal elements. I think if you removed race from the demographics and instead substituted some of these other variables I think you would see the correlation. It's misleading to put race into the equation, on both sides of the argument. That is what this country has lost sight of.

I earnestly didn't know what you were getting at, which is why I asked.



I think that there's something that we're glossing over.  It's not that the police are inherently racist.  It's that the system is built on a racist foundation, which leads to a lack of care to those communities, a lack of arrests, a lack of convictions, and a lack of change.  The fact that this continues to happen and the system doesn't really do anything to fix it is a big part of the problem.

It's not as simple as there was one racist cop.  It's that he was empowered by colleagues that did nothing, confronted a crowd that was helpless to influence him, supported by a precinct that didn't arrest him, pre-empted by a long history of a precedence of similar behavior, and excused as a isolated incident by a good portion of the population who diminishes the problem.

LOL, well played!

Funny enough, an article appeared on my Reddit feed addressing a recent Tucker Carlson segment breaking down each of the 10 unarmed African Americans that were killed last year by police.  When I go to the Washington Post database on this, I come up with 15, so I don't know if he weeded those out for some reason or if that were added later, and I really don't have the time to look into those 5 people, if someone else wants to, then great.  I already know this is going to be dismissed as it's a Daily Caller article and I know you guys love Tucker  ;) .  There is an obvious conservative bias, however I do not think the "facts" they use are untruthful, so I'll try to focus on those.  Once again, I have a hard time understanding how unarmed African Americans are being killed at an alarming rate when statistics don't back it up.  I'll post the more important parts of the article, but feel free to read the whole thing and let me know what you think.


...“Since 2015, The Washington Post has maintained a comprehensive database of fatal police shootings in this country,” said Carlson. “Last year, the Post logged 1,004 killings. Of the 802 shootings in which race of the police officer and the suspect was noted, 371 of the those killed were white; 236 were black. The vast majority of those killed were not in fact, ‘unarmed.’ The vast majority were armed, and Africans American suspects were significantly more likely to have a deadly weapon than white suspects. Yet more white suspects were killed.”

Carlson counted “precisely ten cases” listed by the Post “in which unarmed African Americans were fatally shot by police. There were nine men and one woman.” (RELATED: Tucker Carlson Condemns Calls For ‘Lynch Mobs’ Designed To ‘Subvert Our Justice System’)

Then, the Daily Caller co-founder listed specifics about each one:

“The first was a man called Channara Pheap. He was killed by a Knoxville police called officer Dylan Williams. According to Williams, Pheap attacked him, choked him and then used a Taser on him … before the officer shot him. Five eyewitnesses corroborated the officer’s claim, and the officer was not charged.”

“The second case concerns a man called Marcus McVae. He was by any description a career criminal from San Angelo, Texas. He’d been ‘convicted of aggravated assault, assault on a public servant, and organized criminal activity.’ At the time he was killed he was wanted on drug dealing charges. A Texas state trooper pulled him over. McVae fled in his car, then he fled on foot into the woods. There, he fought with a trooper, and was shot and killed. The officer was not charged in that case.”

“Marzues Scott assaulted a shop employee. When a female police officer arrived and ordered the suspect toward her car, he instead charged her and knocked her to the ground. At that point, she shot and killed him. The entire incident was caught on body camera. The officer was not charged.”

“Ryan Twyman was being approached by two LA County deputies when he backed into one of them with his vehicle. The deputy was caught in the car door. He and his partner opened fire. The deputies were not charged in that case.”

“Melvin Watkins of East Baton Rouge, Louisiana was shot by a deputy, after he allegedly drove his car to toward the deputy at high speed. The deputy was not charged.”

“Isaiah Lewis, meanwhile, wasn’t just unarmed, he was completely naked. Williams broke into a house, and then attacked a police officer. The police tased Williams, but he kept coming at them and attacking. The officers shot him. They were not charged.”

“Atatiana Jefferson [sic] was shot by a Fort Worth deputy called Aaron Dean. A neighbor had called a non-emergency number after seeing Jefferson’s door open thinking something might be wrong. When police arrived, Jefferson saw them approach from a window and was holding a gun at the time. According to body camera footage, the office shot Jefferson within seconds. That officer has been charged with homicide.”

“Christopher Whitfield was shot and killed in Ethel, Louisiana. He had robbed a gas station. Deputy Glen Sims, said his gun discharged accidentally while grappling with Whitfield. Sims, who is black himself, was not charged in that killing.”

“Kevin Mason was shot by police during a multi-hour standoff. While Mason turned out not to have a gun, Mason claimed to have a gun, claimed to be armed and vowed to kill police with it. They believed him. Mason had been in a shootout with police years before.”

“And, finally, the tenth case concerns Gregory Griffin, who was shot during a car chase. An officer called Jovanny Crespo claimed he saw someone pointing a gun at him. Later, a gun was in fact found inside the vehicle and yet Officer Crespo was charged anyway with aggravated manslaughter.”

A demonstrator holds a picture of George Floyd during a face off with the police near the White House in Washington, DC, on June 3, 2020. (Photo by Olivier DOULIERY / AFP) (Photo by OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images)

After the list, Carlson contended that an “officer was attacked” before the shooting in five of them and one was an accident, which “leaves a total of four deaths during a pursuit or in a standoff.”

“So out of four, in two of those cases, in fully half, the officer was criminally charged,” Carlson said. “Is it possible that more of these officers should have been charged? Of course it’s possible. Justice is not always served, that’s for sure. But either way, this is a very small number in a country of 325 million people. This is not genocide. It’s not even close to genocide. It is laughable to suggest it is.”

The Fox News host argued that the number of killing by police is actually “dropping” from numbers seen during former President Barack Obama’s presidency.

“Last year was the safest year for unarmed suspects since The Washington Post began tracking police shootings,” he said. “It was the safest year for both white and black suspects.”

Meanwhile, the U.S. “remains a dangerous place for police officers,” with forty-eight “murdered in 2019,” more than all “unarmed suspects killed, of all races.”...

https://dailycaller.com/2020/06/03/tucker-carlson-police-shootings-genocide/ (https://dailycaller.com/2020/06/03/tucker-carlson-police-shootings-genocide/)

Or maybe AAs are not more prone to crime at all but are just more prone to prosecution. If a white person is let off with a warning and an AA is arrested and charged the numbers will reflect higher criminality of AA.

Philando Castile is counted among the armed AAs killed by officers.

It's not just murder -- it's excessive force, it's profiling, it's planting evidence and nothing done about it, it's conviction rates of blacks vs whites, it's conviction rates depending on whether victims are white or black, it's all of it.  There is a cycle, too, where those communities don't cooperate with police because they don't trust them and their own crimes are not dealt with.  It's a whole slew of issues between the legal system and black communities.

This is a good conversation to have, because I think this is part of the root of the problem.  There are people who don't believe this is a real issue.  They hide behind "all lives matter" code, but Tucker seems to finally be saying it.  It sounds like this isn't a big deal to him.  I know Pondwater was one of the few people who used to say it.  ..he played down the severity of the issue and didn't think white privilege was a thing that existed.  But most just communicate in code.

Is there a way to quantify any of those things you are saying?  Excessive force and profiling, you may be able to find some examples of, but I don't think you're going to find proof of mass amounts of cops planting evidence.  Conviction rates of blacks vs whites, are these for first time offenders or repeat offenders?  Are you comparing first time offenders to repeat offenders?  Are all things equal?  These are things that I hear people say, but not prove.  You might be inundated with news articles explaining this sort of thing, but me and other's like me are not, so enlighten me.

Spider claimed unarmed blacks are being killed at an alarming rate by police, 2.5x more likely from what a quick google search shows me.  That rate is based off of 10-15 people depending on which source you believe, many of which are justified in the article I posted.  That's down from over 100 in 2015.  

Of course we won’t find large scale proof of cops planting evidence.  Because cops are given the benefit of the doubt and it would be cops investigating any such claim. 

Also the issue in many ways isn’t that Floyd and others were murdered but the lack of accountability.  It took national protests and riots for the cop to be arrested.  The cop in Dallas who killed a man in his own home was allowed to leave the scene and it took days to arrest her. 

Going back to 1992 and Rodney King.  There weren’t any riots over King was beaten, the riots began when the cops were acquitted. 

I realize these points, and what I pointed out was addressed to Spider and his claim of unarmed African Americans being killed by police.  You're going to have a hard time just taking someone's word for it that police are planting evidence on anyone.  Some people would call that conspiracy level stuff, I'll just say it can't be addressed as an issue if there isn't proof of it.

I agree about the accountability factor, a lot of stuff could be avoided if the arrest was made quicker, and it should have been.  Rioters got their way, sure, but there shouldn't have been rioting to begin with, especially in a coordinated nation wide way...which is very odd in itself (Antifa?).  People can protest all they want, but the rioting is way way overboard, especially on such a national level.  At this rate, more people are going to die in riots than what they are rioting about.

A couple of people here are clearly either lying or living in a bubble the likes of which I have never seen.

I never get involved in these discussions, not online and almost never in private. And that's part of the problem. As the saying goes*, the only thing necessarily for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

Good or not, men or not, far too many of us have clearly done nothing for far too long.

Maga .. amirite?

https://twitter.com/DavidBegnaud/status/1268716877355810818

the official report was that he tripped and fell .. 2 hours later the cops were suspended without pay ..
I bet a trillion dollars that had there not been video this would have gone down as "he tripped"

This is why body cams should be mandatory.

I swear the first time I saw it I thought it was a soccer play. It did't appear the officer barely touched him but he went flying like Ray Lewis hit him. It really does suck he got hurt (for both him and the officer) but if he would have been complying with officers it wouldn't have happened. My dad would have told me to quit crying ... serves you right for not listening.

Update ...All 57 officers on the Buffalo Police resigned from Buffalo Department's Emergency Response Team in 'disgust' over the 'treatment' of two cops who were suspended for pushing a peace activist, 75.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8390857/Two-Buffalo-police-officers-suspended-video-shows-shoving-elderly-man-ground.html

Dozens of police walked out on the Mayor of Louisville as well. We are getting ready to be a police-less country where only 2A supporters will be able to defend themselves if they keep getting trashed and abused.

Any officer of the peace that believes he has the right to use unfettered violence against civilians is encouraged to resign.   

Spoken like a person who has never had conflict in their life. You may live to regret feeling that way once you don't feel so safe any longer. How about citizens go back to respecting police instead of seeing just how far they can go?

CF, you're embarrassing yourself.

This 75-year-old man presented no threat whatsoever.  They pushed him and he fell down.  He's laying on the ground unconscious and bleeding and they stepped around him like a piece of trash.  Then they proceeded to lie about their interaction and claim that he just "tripped and fell."  The fact that you would make excuses for that kind of behavior is frankly terrifying.

You should also finishing reading the article you linked:

"The 57 officers have not resigned from the Buffalo Police Department - only the Emergency Response Team they were serving on."

None of them are giving up their paychecks.  They simply "resigned" from extra duty on the Emergency Response Team.

I'd say this is actually why body cams don't work.

Press was literally right there filming.  Not only do the officers know it's on camera, they know that the footage of the incident directly led to the suspension of two officers.  They don't care.  57 officers still faux-resigned in protest of that suspension.

Mandatory body cams may make the public more aware of police misconduct, but without accountability for the police it's nothing more than brutality porn.

Body cams aren’t a total solution.  But they are a useful tool to document what happened. 

Regardless of your stance on whether it was excessive force or not....will you at least  agree that any officer who in an official sworn statement claimed the victim fell on his own failing to mention that he was pushed ought be fired and face criminal perjury charges. 

How many people currently peaceful or not feel safe around police? It must be nice living in june cleaver land. How about police go back to not being wanna be soldiers.

A bit from the peaceful Black Lives Matter marches in parts of Australia (including proudly my home city of Adelaide):

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-06/black-lives-matter-rallies-held-across-australia/12325442

And that is the part that I have a problem with.  In a stressful and dynamic situation and as a cop you tell someone repeatedly to get out of the way and they fail to comply, you can't stop and have a lengthy discussion about why  you are asking them to move.  The guy was clearly trying to agitate them.  So they were well within their bounds to push him.  But when they lied on their report, then I stop having any empathy for them.  As a law enforcement officer, you can't be doing that shit. 

I don't think the push itself was egregious; it's more force than is necessary for a senior citizen, but if he walks away from it, I don't even think twice about this.

It's the complete and total disregard after he falls as a direct result of the push and is CLEARLY seriously injured.  Basic human decency has been trained out of these police officers.  The lying on the report (and the faux-resignation in response to the suspensions) are the perfect finishing touches on this shining example of why these protests are needed.

Seems like at least part of the problem is not the officers themselves, but their union leaders:

Two Buffalo Police ERT members say resignation was not in solidarity with suspended officers (https://www.wkbw.com/news/local-news/exclusive-two-buffalo-police-ert-members-say-resignation-was-not-in-solidarity-with-suspended-officers)

The officers we spoke with said the Buffalo Police Benevolent Association’s statement asserting all 57 officers resigned from ERT in a "show of support” with the two officers that were suspended without pay is not true.

“I don’t understand why the union said it’s a thing of solidarity. I think it sends the wrong message that ‘we’re backing our own’ and that’s not the case,” said one officer with whom we spoke.

“We quit because our union said [they] aren’t legally backing us anymore. So why would we stand on a line for the City with no legal backing if something [were to] happen? Has nothing to do with us supporting,” said another.

A representative from the Buffalo Police Benevolent Association told 7 Eyewitness News Reporter Hannah Buehler the officers resigned in “disgust” with how the two officers were treated.

---

So the police union will normally provide legal representions to any officer accused of police brutality, but in this case, they seem to have strongarmed their membership into this faux-resignation by threatening to withhold legal services (so the union can present it as "solidarity").

You all know that, as an unhinged radical leftist determined to replace Freedom with Socialism, I am extremely pro-union.  But police unions are a big problem.  We do not allow soldiers to form unions, and the danger of allowing these union leaders to effectively become gang bosses of people who are authorized to use lethal violence against the public on behalf of the state is proving to be too dangerous to sustain.

For years, police unions have had special exemption from the same kind of anti-union clawbacks that have been happening around the country.  Police union leaders are de facto warlords who answer neither to police chiefs nor to mayors.  They repeatedly threaten elected leaders with retaliation and wield denial of service to the public as a weapon with which to extract concessions.

Now, I'm generally fine with strikes.  But setting aside the fact that public safety employees - including police, air traffic controllers, and many others - are legally not allowed to strike, what the police are doing isn't even striking.  It's a protection racket.  If air traffic controllers said, "Well, we'll stay on the job, but let's just see how long it takes us to give planes clearance to take off," they would be fired (and possibly arrested) quicker than you can blink.

Police unions must be abolished.

Plenty of European countries have unionized troops according to a quick google search: Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, and The Netherlands.

I think part of the problem is the way unions sometimes work when they become very powerful. History doesn't seem to have a lot of good, consistent examples on how to "gently" walk back union power once it gets into the "excessive" territory.

We don’t need to get rid of unions, just there power to block the firing of officers for misconduct. 

Absolutely they should be held accountable for lying. No excuses. Personally I think it was an accident more than anything. An accident that was caused by someone not following a police officer's order. If I was looking to place liability I'd definitely would place the majority on the victim who was braking the law. Based on the video it doesn't appear they had any intent on harming him to me.

What law was the victim “braking”?  Keep in mind the 1st amendment and the right to peaceful assembly. 

Time and place though. He was not only breaking curfew he came at the officers instead of retreating. I agree he didn't appear to be much of a "threat" but had he not been breaking the law then they wouldn't have accidentally hurt him. 

I'm sure you guys are on the whole extreme left "Defund the Police!" kick. Another great slogan that moderates are working like hell to spin even as I type this. hahaha

If they didn't intend to hurt him and it was all just an accident, why did they walk past him instead of providing immediate assistance?  Clearly this senior citizen had just sustained a serious injury... one that could easily be life-threatening to a person of his age.

I do support those proposals.  Which are considerably more detailed than the two word description.  The right is already spinning it as the complete abolishing of the police.  What it  really is is spending less on police and rather than using police for mental health issues, homeless, drug addiction, etc we use resources better equipped for those issues.    We need less police.

There is no spinning. It's what it means. The Democratic response today was to try and head it off before it gets worse. I think the best thing Joe Biden has said to this point is that he doesn't support defunding them.

Rep Ilhan Omar (D - Minnesota) took the movement even further when she called for the Minneapolis Police Department to be disbanded.

'The Minneapolis Police Department has proven themselves beyond reform. It's time to disband them and reimagine public safety in Minneapolis,' Omar tweeted Friday.  


BlackLivesMatter DC
@DMVBlackLives
This is a performative distraction from real policy changes. Bowser has consistently been on the wrong side of BLMDC history. This is to appease white liberals while ignoring our demands. Black Lives Matter means defund the police.

And even this from CNN

The political problem for Democrats is this: They are now being backed into a corner by activists who are demanding radical change. But it's not at all clear that a majority of the country supports a policy that would defund the police. Democratic leaders need to change the conversation to be about reforming police departments and re-allocating some resources for more community building and less militarization.

That's the usual problem for Democrats .. the left wing wants actual change. the corporate wing wants no change .. status quo is good for business.

As if we needed more evidence that it isn’t a few bad apples, but a system that actively encourages abusing citizens,

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/08/us/brevard-county-florida-police-union-misconduct-trnd/index.html

I say this as a person who is 100% behind abolishing ICE and reinstating INS:

I oppose "Defund the police." Not because it is politically dangerous, but because it is pointless.  It doesn't accomplish anything.

If the problem we are having is violent, racist police departments, and we cut their funding so that they have to lay off (say) 3/4ths of their force... we still have violent, racist police departments.

- Abolish the police? The cure is worse than the disease.  Before police departments, we had feudalism.  I'm not looking forward to Jeff Bezos as an actual warlord.

- Disband (and replace) the police?  Doing better, but different people with the same policies will eventually give the same result.

Structural reform of the police is the only real solution.

By the way as a result of the other thread in the other section of the board, I found this opinion that refutes this WSJ opinion, and this author specifically and explicitly.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/opinions/wp/2018/09/18/theres-overwhelming-evidence-that-the-criminal-justice-system-is-racist-heres-the-proof/

i am not in favor if zero police.  But the ultimatum must be laid down --- either reform immediately or we will do it Camdon  NJ style.

Nice to see you give props to Republican Gov. Chris Christie.

He had a positive role in this.  It is unfortunate he didn’t push to implement this system state wide or push this as a national model when he ran for prez.

Sure.  Republicans do good things all the time, man.  This ain't Yankees/Red Sox.

Christie did a lot of good during the hurricanes, if I recall, also.

He did .. and he got called a traitor by the republicans for it.

LOL ... You have to admit if you read through these off topic threads it sure seems that way around here.

I have to say there is a weird dichotomy going on around ... at least in this area of the country. I swear it seems to me that black people are going out of their way to be nice to white people and police. It can be uncomfortable. For example ... I was entering a 7-11 but I had to throw away quite a bit of trash. An older black gentleman went to the door at a similar time and held it for me. It took me a few seconds to throw the trash away so I said thank you but you can go ahead. He said no sir and waited until I was done to hold the door for me. Obviously I thanked him. If this was a one out I wouldn't think anything about it but I have seen similar things going on around me and to me including a black man buying the dinner of 4 police officers. I guess this is a good thing but I hate to think anyone feels obligated to be nice because of all the crap going on in the media. It's the "obligated" part that makes me feel bad.  

That's the nature of politics.

Take people like John McCain or Mitt Romney. 

I didn't care for their stances on the big issues when they ran for president.  But that's because those issues are pre-defined by their party.  They have to play to their base to get on the stage and there isn't a debate about things which both candidates agree on -- so the candidates themselves highlight those differences.

But once they're out of the main spotlight, they are men of principle.  Christie, too.  He had some good stuff going on.

I'm not gonna vote for any of those guys because I'm fundamentally opposed to how they would govern, but it doesn't mean that every idea they have on every issue is bad.

For the record: I am pleased with the way Charlie Baker, my republican governor, is handling the covid-19 crisis. 

Also it should be noted that I have voted Republican.  (not often, in fact only once, but under the right circumstances I will)

I think that Rick Scott sucks in general, but that dude can manage a hurricane.

Jeb was pretty OK, in general.

Hear Hear. I'm also impressed with Mayah Mahty. I like the way that both of these guys have handled it in Ma and Boston.

I specifically mentioned Baker because he is an R. Plus as someone who lives inW. Mass I haven’t really followed Walsh as closely as Baker. But what is nice is they are working together.  In fact, they seem to have a better working relationship than Cummo and DeBlaseo who are the same party or Baker and Trump. 

Never mind what political party anyone is aligned with. These national health and race relation crisis should render us all color blind. No blues or reds, black or white,  just humans trying to keep other humans healthy and alive and safe.

I agree.  My point was I am not so team Donkey not to acknowledge my Elephant governor.

I usually use the term jackass instead of donkey, ;D but I wish that right now more people were as sane as that and put all of these differences aside. At least for a while.

When something so important as the corona virus becomes a political tool you know we have lost it as a country. Regardless of who wins the next election I have completely lost any hope that the US will succeed for very much longer. We are pretty much under a Civil War as it is with absolutely no sense of moral standards. It used to boggle the mind how great civilizations were destroyed but it makes perfect sense to me now.

I will agree that.  No prior president has used threatening to withhold disaster relief as a political tool against adversaries. 

Yep. It was only Trump. SMH First time in history States have openly broke the law to harbor and support illegals too.

The people in power have abandoned facts in favor of spin.
We have a country have abandoned the separation of church and state and 30% of america now worships a con man.
We've abandoned morality in favor of greed.
We've abandoned ethics altogether.
We've abandoned logical arguments in favor of whataboutism.

Huh?  That makes no sense.  

And btw Wisconsin’s history of defying the federal requirement to turn over people goes back to the 1850s.  But you probably feel Booth was the problem.  

I agree with you. What do you think of the current governor? He didn't start off nearly as bad I thought and actually did a couple things (maybe it was a thing) i liked but he is showing to be a Trump suck ass for sure.

Thankfully I saw it all coming and never had kids. Hopefully I die before it all goes up in smoke.

Your last sentence? If you're implying racism why would Booth be a problem,  he was caught?

I think that DeSantis is a race-baiter that used immigration fear and I’ve hated him for that since before the election.  He got elected in our State without having a platform and basically ran on “build the wall” and other Trumpisms that don’t relate to the issues we face as a State.

Since then, he’s been relatively non-harmful but we haven’t tested him either.  We haven’t had that big moment yet.  COVID is it, I guess.

The COVID situation is not being handled correctly, in my opinion, but that’s still unfolding.  Desantis looks like a meat-head a lot, coming out with one glove or whatever.  But this situation sucks.  That’s kinda lose-lose for him so I am sympathetic and judging on a curve.  I feel that his aggressive reopening can be justified but the mask requirement needed to be stricter to match it.  And his decision to call churches and WWE as essential services Is pandering at best but likely corruption.


So, not a fan, but we’ll see...

I think that is spot on. I had such great fear originally that maybe his ability to not completely fuck it all up has me a bit disillusioned. Gillum went completely off the deep end and that doesn't just happen as a one time thing from my experience so I still don't think we had great choices. How sad is it I consider Bush the best governor or even candidate since I moved here in '98.

Different Booth.  Not the one who shot Lincoln, the one that defied the Fugitive Slave Act and Wisc backed him up.  Very close analogy to sanctuary cities today.

Thanks. Not really educated on Wisconsin state history

CF, it's kind of silly for you to bemoan partisanship when you are trolling like this.

This is exactly the same as if you were praising the state of New Jersey for their response to Hurricane Sandy and I dropped in with, "Nice to see you give props to Democratic President Barack Obama."  No one was talking about Chris Christie, no one was giving him props.  You were just attempting to score points when someone brought up the reforms of a city in NJ.

And that's fine; I have no problem with scorekeeping.  But I DO have a problem with hypocrites that continually seek to score points and then complain that the other guys always make everything about keeping score!

P.S. No prior president has used threatening to withhold disaster relief as a political tool against adversaries, and it IS only Trump.  If you dispute the truth of this, feel free to respond with a counterexample instead of sarcastically pretending it's ridiculous.

I agree that this country is on the verge of another Civil War and this time it will be Left vs Right.  And the Right will win because they believe in gun rights.

They believed in gun rights last time.
They lost because they had insufficient belief in manufacturing and railroads.

Not surprising but I think you are way off base or maybe just misinformed. Chris Christie had a lot to do with restructuring their Police Dept. As well ... it doesn't seem like anything that is ever done from a Republican has ever been louded around here. I gave props to Biden a few days ago for saying he wouldn't defund the police. I think that's pretty brave of him in a time when he has so many on the extreme left saying otherwise.

Once again, you've lost me here.

So obviously, there's been another high profile police homicide.

Rayshard Brooks was shot twice in the back by Atlanta police (https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/06/what-we-know-about-the-killing-of-rayshard-brooks.html) during an arrest.  In my opinion, this is the type of shooting that would have flown neatly under the radar a year ago:

- Brooks fell asleep in a Wendy's drive-thru
- the employees called the police when they couldn't get him to wake up and move
- the police woke up him, spoke with him, and determined he may be under the influence
- after receiving his consent to a breathalyzer, they attempted to arrest him for DUI
- Brooks resisted arrest and the officers then attempted to taze him
- Brooks was able to escape the two officers while wresting the taser away, and while fleeing, pointed the taser at one of them in an unsuccessful attempt to fire it
- the officer shot Brooks twice in the back, killing him

Hoodlum attacks police officers, steals their taser and tries to use it on them, they are forced to respond with lethal measures.  Open and shut.

However, it bears mentioning that tasers are frequently defended as "non-lethal force" in situations where charges of excessive force via taser are leveled at police.  What's more, the officer who shot Brooks kicked him as he lay on the ground and the other officer stood on his shoulders.

The officer who shot Brooks has been fired and is facing 11 charges, including felony murder.  The other officer is facing 3 charges, including aggravated assault.

Personally, I am extremely skeptical that any of these charges will stick.  But this interaction is exactly the problem with the police: over the course of 40 minutes, the man and the two officers had a perfectly polite and cordial encounter, where the officers worked diligently to escalate this situation of a drunk man sleeping in his improperly parked car to an arrest for driving under the influence.  He offered to walk home and leave the car at Wendy's, but that wasn't what the officers were looking for; their priority was always to arrest him, and the polite interaction they had was solely towards the ends of coaxing enough information from Brooks to justify that arrest.

This is why our authoritarian police departments need to be replaced with people who are trying to protect and serve. This man was not a threat until the police escalated a calm scenario into an arrest and eventually a homicide.   They have his car, they have his address, they have his ID.  And yet they would rather kill him then let him temporarily get away.

Why am I not surprised that you lack even a rudimentary understanding of the Civil War?

Are you serious Spider. The guy was drunk enough to pass out in a drive through and you call it sleeping and not a threat? He wasn't going to wake up sober.  It is a tragedy he died but we are lucky he didn't kill someone.

He potentially could have been a threat but was no longer a threat when the police arrived.

A drunk person driving is a threat, and should absolutely be arrested.  A person sleeping in an improperly parked car is not a threat.  The officers knew this, which is why they needed to converse with him for 40 minutes to build up probable cause to arrest him.

Maybe it's just me, but I don't see a drunk dude passed out in his car as much of a threat...unless he pukes on me when I wake him up and take his car keys.

Not sure I'd necessarily kill him for that, but his head would probably smack the door frame really good as I dragged his drunk ass out of the car.

If he drives he is....but impounding the car would have solved that rather than killing him.

The reason he is dead is because he made a choice to fight with police. When a police officer tells you that you are under arrest and to put your hands behind your back. You comply and deal with it in court with the judge. You don't resist and fight the police. That was his choice and his choice alone. Again, you're making excuses and justifying his poor behavior. He's dead because of the decision he made.

Resisting arrest and assault don't carry the death penalty.

There were 2 cops vs. a drunk guy. Don't tell me they had no way of handling the situation other than killing him.

Didn't he grab and run off with one of the cop's tasers and use it against him though? If that's the case then yeah, you're going to get dropped.

What if he threw one of his shoes at a cop while he was running away? Is that also a death sentence?

Again, police departments regularly defend generous use of tasers as "non-lethal." So how can a taser be non-lethal in the hands of the police, but a mortal threat in the hands of civilians?

If someone points a weapon at someone who also has a weapon, someone is going to get shot. That should be obvious.

Arrested yes. Shot and killed no.

There are very few valid reasons to ever shoot someone in the back as they are trying to flee.  A taser is not one of them.

And this is what I was talking about: a year ago, any sort of force used against the police would be considered justification for summary execution.  We are in a very different world now, where police are being expected to have a proportional response instead of "You punched me and ran away so I'm going to kill you."

What I don't understand is that the Atlanta D.A. determined a taser is a "lethal weapon" when cops used it on students in College Park, but in the Brooks case, the D.A. deternmined it's a "non lethal weapon".   You can't change a weapon's status based on who is handling it.

^^^^^It should be self explanatory.

A TASER is an offensive weapon under Georgia law and has been declared to be a deadly weapon by Paul Howard; in fact, one of his investigators swore that a TASER is a deadly weapon before the Honorable Belinda Edwards on June 2, 2020.

The ironic twist is that Paul Howard is the Fulton County District Attorney who charged Brooks. All a bunch of political nonsense.

Absolutely false. This police officer will get off. Once you take a taser you can be shot running away, standing on you head or dancing whatever the latest Tik Tok craze. He becomes a threat to everyone there at that point.

Black Georgia sheriff says shooting of Rayshard Brooks by Atlanta police was 'completely justified'
https://www.foxnews.com/media/sheriff-alfonzo-williams-rayshard-brooks-shooting-justified

This is the third law enforcement agency I’ve been head of," Williams, who is black, told CNN. "Every agency I’ve gone to, I’ve required every officer who carries a Taser to be Tased with it, so that you understand the incapacitation.""Five seconds; 1,001, 1,002, 1,003, 1,004, 1,005. That's five whole seconds [when] if an officer is hit with that Taser that he, all of his muscles will be locked up and he'll have the inability to move and to respond. And yet he is still responsible for every weapon on his belt.

"So, if that officer had been hit, he still has a firearm on his side and the likelihood of him being stomped in the head or having his firearm taken and used against him was a probability. And so he did what he needed to do. And this was a completely justified shooting.”

"So you think lethal force here was necessary?" CNN anchor Brianna Keilar asked. Williams said it was and argued that the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution allowed that type of force. "There's nothing malicious or sadistic in the way these officers behaved."


A black sheriff says the police shooting of Rayshard Brooks was 'justified.' Atlanta's mayor and protesters disagree
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/16/us/rayshard-brooks-atlanta-shooting-tuesday/index.html


This is the most important thing he said but no one wants to talk about it. The percentages of everyone going home safely goes way up when you obey the officer regardless of your color.

We're sending the wrong message to our black youth. We're telling them that it's OK, that they can run from the police, that they can take a weapon from the police, they can fight with the police, and point their weapon at the police, and expect nothing to happen. That is the wrong message to send to black youth."

If you throw your shoe at an officer and hit them in the head knocking them unconscious, you could take their sidearm and kill them.  Therefore, throwing a shoe is attempted murder and must be met with lethal force.

No one is saying that the officers should have just let him escape after resisting arrest.  And since there were TWO officers there, had Brooks actually managed to taze the first officer and moved back towards his incapacitated body, the second officer would absolutely have been justified to use lethal force to prevent Brooks from getting the incapacitated officer's gun.

But that's not what happened!

We need to stop allowing police to respond to any action as if the worst possible outcome of that action actually happened.  If you push an officer off you on the side of the road, you could have been pushing them in front of a bus in an act of attempted murder.  But you didn't, so they should not be cleared to act as if you did.

If you know that resisting arrest and fighting the police could result in your "suicide" by cop. Then you deserve what you get if you make that choice. Play with fire, you get burned. Play with a snake, you get bit. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. In this instance, it was completely justified.