Police Brutality Thread

[Tani Coyote]

An all-white security firm focuses on protestors and looks for every angle it can to demonize them. No surprise there.

 

http://mic.com/articles/116680/11-stunning-images-highlight-the-double-standard-of-reactions-to-riots-like-baltimore

 

Perhaps they should broaden their focus to white people. White people riot over sports games all the time... but they're just "fans" rather than "thugs" or "rioters."

[Tani Coyote]

http://allenbwest.com/2015/08/whoa-watch-this-brave-black-woman-shred-blacklivesmatter-hypocrisy-warning-explicit-language/

 

In which a black woman argues black on black crime is a more serious issue than police brutality, and so is held up as the Race Buddha by many white commentators.

 

First off, this woman is obviously biased. She lost a child to a black criminal, so of course she's going to feel that's the bigger issue.

 

Secondly, why the exclusion? I hear the same comment all the time - "most people who kill blacks are black!" - when discussing white on black crime. Is that really how we should look at problems in society? Not as many people die from x, so we shouldn't address it at all? I can understand priorities, but these issues by and large aren't mutually exclusive. When you expand the social safety net and create opportunities, people living in black communities will be less incentivized towards crime. In turn, the police presence there will seem ever more suspect to a rational observer, and it will be cut. What officers remain are highly likely to see a shift towards being racially-inclusive, now that more black people have economic resources, never mind they're not subjected to a stereotype of being less diligent.

Edited August 24, 2015 by Ty the Tasmanian Ogilvie

[Dr. Mechano]

Re: Black on Black crime

Here's the thing about it: Those people get caught, arrested, and convicted in the vast majority of cases. When an officer kills a (usually black) unarmed person, they're almost always given a slap on the wrist and paid leave, if they get any consequences at all. 

That's why people are angry. It isn't because police brutality is resulting in more deaths per capita than other forms of murder, it's that the police responsible get a free pass, and don't have to answer for their crimes like any other killer would.

[Diesel]

I definitely agree that police corruption is a serious issue that needs to end. The death of Eric Garner was absolutely tragic.

But I dislike how just because there have been so many cases of corrupt cops, so many people vehemently attack cops in general. Not every cop is bad; there are good ones, and there are bad ones. And I dislike how when a cop kills a black person, so many people assume the cop was in the wrong. For an example, so many people criticize Darren Wilson for killing Michael Brown, but if you actually look at the evidence for the case, Wilson's actions were justified.

[Dizcrybe]

If the "evidence" is the same "evidence" I'm thinking of, wasn't that proven untrue many times?

And even if it wasn't true, he was unarmed and his hands were up. How were his actions justified?

[Diesel]

If the "evidence" is the same "evidence" I'm thinking of, wasn't that proven untrue many times?

No.

There were ten spent .40 caliber casings scattered on the south side of the road, near Brown's body. The distribution of the casings combined with most of the casings being east of the body is consistent with the officer moving backwards while firing. Blood spatter approximately 25 feet behind Brown's body suggest that Brown was moving toward Wilson when he was killed.

Dr. Michael Graham, the St. Louis medical examiner, said blood was found on Wilson's gun and inside the car, and tissue from Brown was found on the exterior of the driver's side of Wilson's vehicle, both of which were consistent with a struggle at that location. According to Judy Melinek, a San Francisco pathologist, the official autopsy, which stated Brown's hand had foreign matter consistent with a gun discharge on it, supported Wilson's testimony that Brown was reaching for the weapon, or indicating the gun was inches away from Brown's hand when it went off.

Several witness accounts supported Officer Wilson's testimony. Several witnesses who originally testified against Darren Wilson were found to be lying.

Wilson was photographed to be bruised after the incident.

And even if it wasn't true, he was unarmed and his hands were up. How were his actions justified?

 

Evidence suggests that Brown assaulted Wilson. When a police officer is attacked by someone, the police officer has every right to shoot. Simply put, if you assault a cop, then expect to be shot.

Edited August 24, 2015 by Diesel

[Tani Coyote]

We have the footage of the people watching the shooting and not the shooting itself, so a lot of people refuse to budge on the issue. There's also the (black) witnesses who testify that Brown was still hostile, so that doesn't help matters.

 

Though with regards to "not all cops are bad." Every officer doesn't have to be an avid KKK member to be racist. The simple fact is, there are stereotypes about black people, that they are lazy and/or inherently more violent. They are held to a lower standard than white people. Racism has changed in America in the sense that blacks can "prove" themselves to most white people and be given a lot more privileges (I've noticed it seems a lot of white-on-black victims are among the lower class, the class that is seen as "lazy"), but the fact is they're still held to lower standards. This is where we get that gem of a saying, "there's a difference between a black person and a [n-word]." Most people don't view successful, educated black people like Obama, Oprah, or Condy Rice as representative. This isn't a surprise: racism has historically found a foundation on the idea that non-whites could be "civilized" and become equal with whites (though this rarely ever happened). We had a spurt of genetic racism in the late 1800s and early to mid 1900s, but we've fallen back on the traditional idea of non-whites as uncivilized beings who can be "uplifted." But the best part is what's required for uplift - social programs - is deemed "socialist" in this country, and so the cycle continues.

 

Consider this: my mother and father are both on record for saying remarks like "blacks are usually lazy." They say this despite having several black friends. Said black friends are middle class and hardworking, so they are given a care an ordinary black person wouldn't be. In much the same way, there's an intersection of class and race with whites as well, hence the term "white trash." The assumption being a white person is supposed to be educated, clean, diligent, etc. and those who aren't are an exception.

 

But anyway, this holding of blacks to a lower standard is potentially deadly because it leads officers, even well-meaning ones, to assume the worst of a black suspect. What makes it worse is crime statistics creating a cultural bias; an officer will probably see more black criminals than white ones, so they buy into the idea blacks are more criminally-inclined. It doesn't cross their mind that maybe it's because black neighborhoods are often terrible places to live compared to non-black ones, and so they are more conductive to crime. Between the poverty, the poor education, the lack of employment opportunities, the destruction of families, and the vicious cycle resulting from these, of course there's going to be a ton of crime. This is to say nothing about the fact that overpolicing will possibly lead to more crimes being witnessed. If you put a few hundred white people in a ghetto and created the same conditions, you'd get about the same results.

 

What you see informs your subconscious prejudices. There is truth to the statement, "everyone is a little bit racist," because it's inevitable that your experiences will shape preconceptions. This is evolutionary, the same way you probably won't eat over easy eggs ever again after contracting serious illness from them. The key is to rein in these subconscious prejudices with conscious logic. Sadly a lot of whites and officers are not doing this.

Edited August 24, 2015 by Ty the Tasmanian Ogilvie

[Nepenthe]

Not even the fucking military shoots without actual confirmation that their opponents are armed.

This is the issue: police officers have shitty training when it comes to properly handling those who aren't perfectly calm in the face of being ticketed or arrested, or those who are mentally ill. Movements that are either reflexive by nature, in accordance with natural direction and movement, or even sometimes in line with the officer's directions (a man was literally shot for reaching for his ID after being asked for it by the officer who shot him. Thankfully he lived) are perceived as a mere sign of a threat. And the public has given them the leeway to believe that hypothetical scenarios where they could possibly be judo'd to death or something is perfectly legal grounds to pump someone full of lead, standards that I as a normal citizen with far less responsibility over the well-being of others don't have the social right to exercise, especially as a black person. Do you honestly think if I shot someone who was completely unarmed that I kinda sorta perceived as a threat that I would be able to walk free? God forbid if the victim was white.

And on top of that, let's not fucking act like these cowardly officers are actually applying their low threshold for determining the threat level of a situation equally across racial lines. Let's also not act like Ferguson still isn't a hotbed of police corruption that is racial at its core, with the overwhelming majority of its tax revenue coming from overpolicing and citing black citizens with petty traffic violations even though they aren't the majority of the population who lives there.

Subsequently, the problem with the Michael Brown case is that it didn't even fucking go to trial. The dumbass jury apparently thought you only put people on trial who you are perfectly sure were guilty beforehand. And then a few months after that, a jury failed to indict in Eric Garner's death. That was why America blew up for those few months.

Miss me over these fucking details about what the fucking dead kid did to deserve his funeral. If this is actually your beef, then straight up you don't give a fuck about the real problem.

[Diesel]

Not even the fucking military shoots without actual confirmation that their opponents are armed.

Officers (and anyone who legally owns a gun, for that matter) don't only have the right to shoot their opponents when they're armed. If the officer is being assaulted, the officer has the right to shoot. Evidence suggests Brown hit Wilson, reached for Wilson's gun and charged at him. According to this evidence, Wilson had the right to shoot Brown. 

[Nepenthe]

There is also counter evidence to these claims, as well as holes in the police force's testimony that happened before and after they got their statements together. Which is why you have a trial, an open platform where all of the available evidence can be aired and discussed in as theoretically neutral an environment as possible.

But oh wait, we didn't even have a trial because the officer's cheek was a little red and he simply claimed to be scared. Poor fucking baby.

Again, the standards for officers to kill and get away with it are a hell of a lot lower than the standards for normal citizenry, yet they are tasked with full authority over that citizenry. And the only reason it doesn't scare most people, the reason why you and other people think what Michael Brown did to deserve his death is even a real fucking argument in the grand scheme, is because statistically it's not happening to white people nearly as often as it's happening to other groups, so there's no reason for America to give a shit.

[Diesel]

There is also counter evidence to these claims, as well as holes in the police force's testimony that happened before and after they got their statements together.

Proof?

But oh wait, we didn't even have a trial because the officer's cheek was a little red and he simply claimed to be scared. Poor fucking baby.

 

It was far more than just Wilson's bruise:

 

There were ten spent .40 caliber casings scattered on the south side of the road, near Brown's body. The distribution of the casings combined with most of the casings being east of the body is consistent with the officer moving backwards while firing. Blood spatter approximately 25 feet behind Brown's body suggest that Brown was moving toward Wilson when he was killed.

Dr. Michael Graham, the St. Louis medical examiner, said blood was found on Wilson's gun and inside the car, and tissue from Brown was found on the exterior of the driver's side of Wilson's vehicle, both of which were consistent with a struggle at that location. According to Judy Melinek, a San Francisco pathologist, the official autopsy, which stated Brown's hand had foreign matter consistent with a gun discharge on it, supported Wilson's testimony that Brown was reaching for the weapon, or indicating the gun was inches away from Brown's hand when it went off.

Several witness accounts supported Officer Wilson's testimony. Several witnesses who originally testified against Darren Wilson were found to be lying.

Edited August 24, 2015 by Diesel

[Dr. Mechano]

When it comes to not all cops being bad, which I'll admit is true, I look at it this way:

If my faucet has a water filter that only works some of the time, then I'm going to be nervous about whether the water I'm drinking is clean. Saying "Not all of your water is dirty" isn't much of a comfort, because the filtration system isn't working like it should to make sure that it's always clean. The fact that bad cops keep slipping through the system, unfiltered and unpunished for their crimes, does not inspire confidence in the police force at large.

Until bad cops regularly face consequences for their actions, people are going to distrust the force at large, because the institution itself isn't doing its job of weeding out bad police.

[Nepenthe]

Diesel, the conflicted evidence and the lack of justification for a fatal shooting is right in the Wikipedia article you've taken from:

Reports of what happened next differ widely between sources and witnesses, but Wilson ended up shooting Brown to death. At noon on August 9, Wilson drove up to Brown and Johnson in the middle of Canfield Drive and ordered them to move off the street and onto the sidewalk. Wilson continued driving past the two men, but then backed up and stopped close to them.^{[4][10][32][33]} A struggle took place between Brown and Wilson through the window of the police SUV, a Chevrolet Tahoe.^[34] Wilson's gun was fired twice during the struggle while it was inside the vehicle, with one bullet hitting Brown's right hand.^[34][35] Brown and Johnson fled and Johnson hid behind a car.^[36] Wilson got out of the vehicle and pursued Brown.^[37] At some point, Wilson fired his gun again, with at least six shots striking Brown,^[10] fatally wounding him. Brown was unarmed.^[34][38] Less than 90 seconds passed from the time Wilson encountered Brown to the time of Brown's death.^[39][40]

There's also nothing in what you quoted that states that Darren Brown sustained anymore injuries. So yes, in the end, he got a little red mark on the cheek.

But again, this argument is completely irrelevant of the bigger issue, which is that police have practically no accountability and are thus inherently untrustworthy as an institution, and you crying that black people not immediately believe that the officer is always in the right offending your sensibilities is the textbook demonstration of how out-of-touch you are with the real problem, a problem that would exist even if Michael Brown had been armed and aiming to shoot Wilson. "Yeah, people are dying for no reason but dammit I just don't like how police officers aren't hero-worshipped anymore." Give me a fucking break.

Edited August 24, 2015 by Nepenthe

[Diesel]

Reports of what happened next differ widely between sources and witnesses, but Wilson ended up shooting Brown to death.

But again, many of the witnesses were found to be lying. It was the witnesses supporting Wilson that were credible.

At some point, Wilson fired his gun again, with at least six shots striking Brown,[10] fatally wounding him. Brown was unarmed.

This isn't conflicting evidence at all.

There's also nothing in what you quoted that states that Darren Brown sustained anymore injuries. So yes, in the end, he got a little red mark on the cheek.

I never said Wilson got anymore injuries. You said that the reason there was no trial was because of the bruise on his cheek. I pulled up my quotes to show there was more reason than that, as there was. 

[Nepenthe]

Are you ever going to address the bigger problem in this topic or are you still upset that black people have an issue with the fact that officers have practically no accountability?

[Tani Coyote]

But again, many of the witnesses were found to be lying. It was the witnesses supporting Wilson that were credible.

I can't help but smell confirmation bias.

The stories on BOTH sides are inconsistent as fuck. Then on top of that we have no footage to guess what the hell happened.

Even the autopsies aren't that fruitful. The one conducted by the family says Wilson is guilty (and I'm immediately skeptical of this one for obvious reasons). The one conducted by an independent source says that Brown's hands up position was a lie. The one conducted by the federal government doesn't do much other than confirm a struggle in the car and Brown having drugs in his system.

Of course, it doesn't really matter who was guilty or innocent in this case. Either way, there's still a clear abuse of power in this country and lack of regard for minority rights, especially for blacks and Indians. Let us consider this: hands up or not, Brown was shot from a distance despite being unarmed. The police are objectively triggerhappy.

Even if Brown was a thief, even if he had initially assaulted Wilson, even if he was high, even if he hadn't put his hands up, that was no reason to kill him. Ordinary citizens are only allowed to use lethal force for the duration of a threat (except in those backwards Castle Doctrine states that have decided property is more valuable than human life); it should be the same for an officer. Wilson would have been right to shoot Brown in the case of a car scuffle, and indeed, he did. But the moment Brown was no longer next to him, that right to use lethal force should have ceased.

Very rarely are actual cases like this black and white (morally, not racially). It's possible Brown wasn't an angel. It's possible Wilson isn't Satan. But what seems very possible is that there was an unneeded death here.

Let us look at Trayvon Martin's case as well. It is a case of blatant vigilante justice. Martin may have been acting suspicious, but Zimmerman was told to stay in his car. He decided not to, and Trayvon died as a result. And yet somehow Zimmerman is seen as innocent. "Stand your ground!" yell the firearm worshipping types. What they forget is stand your ground laws tend to have a duty to retreat if it is possible to do so; you aren't "standing your ground" if you move into another person's space. Zimmerman quite frankly went up to Trayvon against police instructions, and even if Trayvon attacked him and Zimmerman shot him in self-defense, Zimmerman should still have been guilty because the provocation was not necessary.

What about Freddy Gray? Even my mother, diehard police-idolizing conservative, says there's no way that he was internally decapitated without clear malice on the part of the officers involved.

"There are good cops!" Of course there are. The same way there's a lot of criminals who aren't evil so much as forced into crime by unfortunate circumstances ("let's keep this guy who made a mistake from getting a job! What could possibly go wrong?" said the Bubsy managers and politicians). Crime is still crime, though.

But there are plenty of bad cops, and plenty of average cops who are beholden to tamer prejudices on issues of authority and race. Look at how many unarmed people are killed by police in other Western countries. Barely any. Even if you don't think race is an issue, you can't deny that the statistics line up that America is a society built on repression.

Did you know most police forces lobby to maintain the War on Drugs, not because it's right, but because they would lose jobs if it ended? Did you know that the Kansas City experiment showed that over and underpolicing alike don't affect crime? How can one trust the police as an institution when the signs point to strong self-interest and abuse of power rather than actually protecting and serving the public?

We don't need huge numbers of officers. We don't need heavily-armed officers. We need highly-trained, diplomatic officers who will do their best to resolve every confrontation with minimal force and kill someone only after all options are exhausted.

Edited August 24, 2015 by Ty the Tasmanian Ogilvie

[Diesel]

I can't help but smell confirmation bias.

The stories on BOTH sides are inconsistent as fuck.

The witnesses supporting Wilson's innocence support the physical evidence at hand, so no.

Then on top of that we have no footage to guess what the hell happened.

But the evidence suggests Wilson shooting Brown was justified.

Even the autopsies aren't that fruitful. The one conducted by the family says Wilson is guilty (and I'm immediately skeptical of this one for obvious reasons). The one conducted by an independent source says that Brown's hands up position was a lie. The one conducted by the federal government doesn't do much other than confirm a struggle in the car and Brown having drugs in his system.

The caliber casings, blood splatter evidence, the official autopsy and several witness accounts support Wilson's innocence.

 Of course, it doesn't really matter who was guilty or innocent in this case. Either way, there's still a clear abuse of power in this country and lack of regard for minority rights, especially for blacks and Indians. Let us consider this: hands up or not, Brown was shot from a distance despite being unarmed. 

 And according to evidence, he was charging at a police officer. Wilson had the right to shoot.

Even if Brown was a thief, even if he had initially assaulted Wilson, even if he was high, even if he hadn't put his hands up, that was no reason to kill him. Ordinary citizens are only allowed to use lethal force for the duration of a threat (except in those backwards Castle Doctrine states that have decided property is more valuable than human life); it should be the same for an officer. Wilson would have been right to shoot Brown in the case of a car scuffle, and indeed, he did. But the moment Brown was no longer next to him, that right to use lethal force should have ceased.

Again, according to evidence, Brown was charging at Wilson. Wilson had the right to shoot.

 Very rarely are actual cases like this black and white (morally, not racially). It's possible Brown wasn't an angel. It's possible Wilson isn't Satan. But what seems very possible is that there was an unneeded death here.

And according to evidence, that's Michael Brown's fault.

 Let us look at Trayvon Martin's case as well. It is a case of blatant vigilante justice. Martin may have been acting suspicious, but Zimmerman was told to stay in his car. He decided not to, and Trayvon died as a result. And yet somehow Zimmerman is seen as innocent. "Stand your ground!" yell the firearm worshipping types. What they forget is stand your ground laws tend to have a duty to retreat if it is possible to do so; you aren't "standing your ground" if you move into another person's space. Zimmerman quite frankly went up to Trayvon against police instructions, and even if Trayvon attacked him and Zimmerman shot him in self-defense, Zimmerman should still have been guilty because the provocation was not necessary.

Did Zimmerman commit a crime by ignoring police instruction? No.

And actually, it's not clear what happened after Zimmerman was done calling 911.  While Zimmerman did follow Martin, it's possible he went back to his car and Martin decided to go back to assault Zimmerman. 

What about Freddy Gray? Even my mother, diehard police-idolizing conservative, says there's no way that he was internally decapitated without clear malice on the part of the officers involved.

That's one case where the police were wrong.

"There are good cops!" Of course there are. The same way there's a lot of criminals who aren't evil so much as forced into crime by unfortunate circumstances ("let's keep this guy who made a mistake from getting a job! What could possibly go wrong?" said the Bubsy managers and politicians). Crime is still crime, though.

 Terrible analogy. You're comparing being a police officer to being a criminal. Unlike being a police officer, crime is inherently wrong.

But there are plenty of bad cops, and plenty of average cops who are beholden to tamer prejudices on issues of authority and race. Look at how many unarmed people are killed by police in other Western countries. Barely any. Even if you don't think race is an issue, you can't deny that the statistics line up that America is a society built on repression.

Did you know most police forces lobby to maintain the War on Drugs, not because it's right, but because they would lose jobs if it ended? Did you know that the Kansas City experiment showed that over and underpolicing alike don't affect crime? How can one trust the police as an institution when the signs point to strong self-interest and abuse of power rather than actually protecting and serving the public?

I guess those are fair points.

We don't need huge numbers of officers. We don't need heavily-armed officers. We need highly-trained, diplomatic officers who will do their best to resolve every confrontation with minimal force and kill someone only after all options are exhausted.

 Police don't only have the right to kill someone when all options are exhausted. If they are being assaulted like how Wilson was according to evidence, they have the right to draw their weapons and shoot. Don't criticize the police for shooting; criticize the attackers. If the attackers didn't attack in the first place, they wouldn't have been shot.

Edited August 25, 2015 by Diesel

[Nepenthe]

So I guess the answer to my question is that you're not going to actually address the real problems in this thread and instead continue to make out like officers are the real victims here and deserve continued impunity. The ally black people kinda ended up with, not the one they deserve.

[Tani Coyote]

The witnesses supporting Wilson's innocence support the physical evidence at hand, so no.

But the evidence suggests Wilson shooting Brown was justified.

The caliber casings, blood splatter evidence, the official autopsy and several witness accounts support Wilson's innocence.

 And according to evidence, he was charging at a police officer. Wilson had the right to shoot.

Again, according to evidence, Brown was charging at Wilson. Wilson had the right to shoot.

And according to evidence, that's Michael Brown's fault.

http://reason.com/blog/2015/03/09/doj-report-makes-a-strong-case-that-darr

Okay. So it looks for the most part that Brown is guilty.

But this is ignoring the central issue that is the reason this case become so big in the first place: widespread brutality. There are enough reports everywhere to indicate this is more than just a few bad apples.

Brown was just the spark. It doesn't matter if the community was wrong in this case; that assumes they are wrong on every other. In reality they're so used to abuse and maltreatment at this point they don't give police the benefit of the doubt ever, like Nepenthe said.

Police almost always get off easy. People always assume the officer was in the right. Of course there's an inherent distrust, because now a citizen has to fear that if they are with one of those bad apples, they have no protections. Read this same source - police were actively working to keep the case from going to trial. Even though it stands to reason that with this wealth of evidence, Wilson could have still gotten off with no charges in a trial. Doesn't that seem fishy? Even dictatorships give show trials to make it look like they're actually free societies; what does that say about us?

There's more to this than some vast anti-cop conspiracy. Consider this: in the South, where most blacks live, many states continue to oppose interracial marriage by margins as high as 30-40% as of 2000. Is it that hard to believe that outright racists would be police, or that people with more casually racist thoughts would likewise serve on the force?

As I said, maybe Wilson isn't Satan. But it really isn't a stretch to assume that even if he was well-meaning, he's quite possibly having his decisions informed by subconscious racial biases that even the nicest people have. Like Nepenthe pointed out - cops talk down white criminals in similar situations, but will shoot black ones. Good cop or not, there's a clear trend towards feeling blacks are less trustworthy.

Just a few decades ago, police were beating peaceful protesters in the streets in oh-so-free America. Are we going to pretend that all this cultural brutality just vanished?

Did Zimmerman commit a crime by ignoring police instruction? No.

And actually, it's not clear what happened after Zimmerman was done calling 911.  While Zimmerman did follow Martin, it's possible he went back to his car and Martin decided to go back to assault Zimmerman. 

Actually, yes he did. The law is not supposed to offer protection to people who run headlong into danger unless it's in self-defense of another. The duty to retreat is a BIG, BIG part of self-defense law, because otherwise we have license to kill each other to insane extremes. If you see someone rummaging around in your house through a window, you DON'T have the right to go in there and shoot them unless your family is inside as well. You call the cops and mind your own business otherwise as is proper.

Zimmerman provoked a needless death by following Trayvon. Negligence is a crime just like malice.

 Terrible analogy. You're comparing being a police officer to being a criminal. Unlike being a police officer, crime is inherently wrong.

Maybe, but most criminals don't need to be locked up. No really, you can ask prison wardens on the issue - even THEY think a lot of convicts don't really need to be in there. The point here is that exceptions don't mean anything. We still need to imprison criminals and maintain a prison system even though most criminals aren't evil, the same way we need to scrutinize police even though most of them aren't evil either.

Police don't only have the right to kill someone when all options are exhausted. If they are being assaulted like how Wilson was according to evidence, they have the right to draw their weapons and shoot. Don't criticize the police for shooting; criticize the attackers. If the attackers didn't attack in the first place, they wouldn't have been shot.

You're applying appeal to how things how are rather than how they should be.

Police should never use lethal force until absolutely necessary. They should be held to the same if not higher standard than ordinary citizens. "And that would never work." The countless cases where the police are actually able to talk a person down would indicate otherwise. "But it puts the officer's life in danger." Welcome to the job. You don't need to be a cop. Way I see it, an officer consents to possible injury or death in the line of duty the same way a soldier does.

And a lot of cops DO NOT follow this standard. They are objectively trigger happy. There's no way you can prescribe every single damned incident to "oh they deserved it!"

But hey, victim blaming is cool in America. People think rape's perfectly okay if someone is wearing revealing clothes for fuck's sake.

Edited August 25, 2015 by Ty the Tasmanian Ogilvie

[Dizcrybe]

I wanna go back to what Dr. Mechano said and say he's absolutely right. Yes, not every cop is some trigger-happy racist who goes around blasting black people for funsies, but the fact the so many of them are means that I can't just let my guard down and think everything's gonna be okay. What happened to Mike Brown, Eric Garner, and them could easily happen to me, because I fit the criteria of someone the police see as a threat: tall and black.

Even my mom, who I would expect to know better, thinks I can walk away alive from a police encounter by showing him I have a wallet card that says I have autism and being completely compliant. It's just not that simple when dealing with a racist cop, and I don't think she understands that. And then she says "it puts it out there and gives the opportunity for a lawsuit". First of all, what makes her think we could win a lawsuit in a racially-biased court system like ours? Second, screw a lawsuit, I'M TRYING NOT TO DIE.

[Tornado]

 Gotta say, Zimmerman is a pretty terrible example to bring up for this conversation. 

Increasing the standards of situations in which lethal force may be utilized 

This one I'm kind of ambivalent about. I don't think the current standards themselves are the problem. The problem tends to be the automatic assumption that the officer was in the right whenever there is doubt cast. 

[Tani Coyote]

 Gotta say, Zimmerman is a pretty terrible example to bring up for this conversation.

Because he's not a cop?

He's still representative of the blatant disregard for black lives in America. As far as I know, the fight did not happen next to his car. He went up to Trayvon, and regardless of who attacked first, there was a needless death.

And Zimmerman was found perfectly innocent. He may not be a cop, but it's still representative of the overall sentiment of blacks as savages and a lack of justice.

Doubly so when Zimmerman's already got in more trouble for following people with violent (but not lethal) results.

[Tornado]

Because he's not a cop?

Because the Zimmerman case is irrelevant to Michael Brown. It's irrelevant to police brutality. It's irrelevant to Black Lives Matter. It's irrelevant to gun control laws and stand your ground laws and any other parts that immediately sprung up around the case's media circus. Some idiot who probably was a racist went looking for trouble when he probably shouldn't have done so (but was under no requirement not to do so). Something happened. Then some idiot who probably was what suburban white people stereotype "black thugs" to be like was happy to provide him more trouble than he expected..

Then the Probably racist idiot started getting his ass kicked by the Probably thuggish idiot, but happened to have a handgun so he shot the kid instead of have the back of his heard turned into hamburger. Without knowing what the "something" was that occurred which led to them fighting and Martin ultimately being killed, though, a negligent homicide charge would have been hard to make stick because there needs to be a direct link between what Zimmerman did and Martin's death; and simply following and even confronting Martin by itself doesn't meet that need. Even if Zimmerman simply verbally provoked Martin into decking him before Martin was ultimately killed, that would have been enough for a negligence case; but they couldn't even get evidence of that much happening. And of course, even then you're already operating on the assumption that Zimmerman confronted Martin, instead of the other way around.

 

 

 

Which is moot anyway, because the DA saw stars in her eyes after the case blew up nationally and went for second degree murder, which was a ludicrous charge that probably tainted the entire trial against the prosecution; and that is why Zimmerman ultimately wasn't convicted for anything. He was a racist idiot who nevertheless didn't actually do anything that they could prove was illegal against someone who they also couldn't prove wasn't the instigator in the events that led to his death in the first place; and when Zimmerman was actually hauled into court it was for something that the idiot DA couldn't hope to prove. That he was such an idiot is what has led him to be hauled into courts again since then.

 

Black lives do matter. Police do beat the shit out of and shoot black people for racial reasoning. There are plenty enough examples without bringing up ones where the outrage towards what happened was essentially astroturfed after the fact.

[Diesel]

What happened to Mike Brown, Eric Garner, and them could easily happen to me, because I fit the criteria of someone the police see as a threat: tall and black.

Except that's not even why the police went after those people. The police didn't go after these people just because they were "tall and black". According to evidence, Brown was killed because he assaulted a police officer. Unless you assault a police officer, you're most likely not gonna end up like Michael Brown. The police came for Eric Garner because he was a suspect for selling untaxed cigarettes, something that he had been arrested for several times. Unless you have a heavy criminal record that would play a role in the police suspecting you of committing another crime, you're probably not gonna end up like Eric Garner.

Edited August 25, 2015 by Diesel

[Dr. Mechano]

The police came for Eric Garner because he was a suspect for selling untaxed cigarettes, something that he had been arrested for several times. Unless you have a heavy criminal record that would play a role in the police suspecting you of committing another crime, you're probably not gonna end up like Eric Garner.

Eric Garner's death was caught on video, where he clearly and audibly told officers he couldn't breath, and they continued to chokehold him anyway. I don't care if what Garner was doing was illegal. It didn't warrant that kind of physical overreaction, nor did it warrant them ignoring his desperate pleas for air.

Garner was unambiguously killed through the police's brutality and subsequent criminal negligence. That he committed an illegal (but more importantly non-dangerous) act beforehand is not a justification for that.