No good comes of calling the cops

[Timsup2nothin]

I see you have apparently viewed the video showing the entire incident, which none of the rest of us have seen yet. Got a URL?

There is no video, but that is the cops story. They told him to drop a gun, and he didn't so they shot him in the head. What's the fuss?

The interesting thing is that the cops are so accustomed to their apologists saying "you should comply with their orders no matter what" that they aren't even uncomfortable with that story. Clearly they expect their apologists to demand that the rest of us just accept that while tragic this was just a misunderstanding because the guy failed to comply.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Oh. OK. If the cop who might otherwise be guilty of murdering a completely innocent man said so, that's completely different. No cop has ever lied before in a similar situation before. That is except for all the times when it was eventually found to be completely untrue from video evidence.

Virtually every single police car has a video camera nowadays. I'm sure it will be released any day now to corroborate their stories.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Oh. OK. If the cop who might otherwise be guilty of murdering a completely innocent man said so, that's completely different. No cop has ever lied before in a similar situation before. That is except for all the times when it was eventually found to be completely untrue from video evidence.

Virtually every single police car has a video camera nowadays. I'm sure it will be released any day now to corroborate their stories.

Formy, you are missing the point. They aren't even trying to tell a good story. The story they are telling, whether corroborated by video or not, is completely heinous. The story they are telling does amount to "we killed an innocent man" and apparently the cops have reached the point where they don't even feel a need to lie about it.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Oops. Sorry.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Oops. Sorry.

No prob. It is so shockingly weird that it can't help but cause some confusion.

It is true though that on another forum where I am the lone voice in the wilderness people have already started the "well, if they thought he had a gun and he didn't drop it shooting him was the only thing they could do" lament. Followed of course by a round of "Tim just hates cops so ignore him."

 

[Gary Childress]

I say this all the time; that there is no situation so bad that calling the cops won't make it worse.

Today in LA a guy flagged down a passing patrol car, apparently thinking he needed some sort of help. So the LAPD shot him in the head. That made things much better.

I would cry but they would probably Baker act me here in Florida.

 

[JollyRoger]

I have to tell you, if police told me to drop a gun, I'd drop to the ground with my hands splayed to the sides whether I had a gun or not. What the actual hell?

Still, he didn't follow instructions. Clearly had it coming.

As for the ambushed cop, that is horrible. But it isn't what the thread is about. I'm sure the thread was about discussing the towel incident. Perhaps another thread could discuss police ambushes.

Is it possible that the ambushed cop didn't follow instructions, thus clearly had it coming?

 

[Formaldehyde]

If the cops were screaming "drop the gun" moments before executing him, what a silly fool for not immediately understanding that it was his towel which was actually what they meant. That it cast fear and apprehension into the hearts of the vest-wearing cops crouched behind their patrol car doors. Someone should get them psychiatric aid to probe the nightmares they will now face for years thinking they almost died to a towel.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I certainly think it is about time we tore down this "white society" mentality: Trayvon Martin, Cleveland, Ferguson, Baltimore, and now Charleston twice in about two months.

Charleston church shooter in cell next to former cop who killed black man

It is simply not safe in our society if your skin color is even as dark as Michael Jackson.

Not that it is much, if any, safer for Hispanics armed with a towel. Of course, he should know better than to have his arm in any direction which was even close to remotely pointing at the cops.

If whites were in danger of being shot by cops and other gun-carrying members of society this easily, this recurring national problem would have been fixed long ago. Being a cop is clearly a dangerous job. But that certainly doesn't give them the right to shoot first and think about their hysterical reactions later, merely because the person has skin that is darker than their own. If they don't want to risk getting shot on an extremely rare basis, pick a different job.

When you're making such assertions, it's best to approach the constructs accurately. Where you're living makes a big difference on this type of violent crime, and the racism is more targeted than global (Black, Hispanic, White, and Asian have different levels of involvement in this sort of crime). That doesn't make it better, but it might change what is ultimately done that can successfully stop it.

I don't trust cops any more than I trust people in general, but this thread is hyperbole because it paints an entire profession as acting like its worst members. Even if police are inordinately worse than an average person (a tough sell), this thread is still hyperbole.

I've had the good fortune to not have many situations where calling the police was merited, though I've reported a few accidents that looked bad enough that the people involved might need urgent medical attention.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Are you actually trying to claim there isn't inherent institutional racism in virtually all police departments, as well as most other governmental institutions, especially the prisons and the rest of the criminal justice system? That blacks and other minorities aren't treated differently than whites are, except where it is supposedly warranted because there are more black and minority criminals? That it is a matter of their supposed levels of "involvement in crime" as an entire race or ethic group which justly makes them all suspect far more than whites are?

Do you really think an affluent white man with his hand covered by a towel would have been shot in the head in an upscale section of LA, while trying to flag down two cops to help him with his disabled car, after they falsely assumed he must have been hiding a gun to kill them both in the most inept ambush attempt in history?

Even Barack Obama and his wife all too familiar how they are treated differently than whites are, merely because their skin is a few shades darker than your own.

This isn't "hyperbole". This is life in racist America nearly 150 years after the end of the Civil War. And it must finally end.

 

[Domen]

It is life in racist America. And it must finally end.

After it ends, there will be only death in racist America.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I don't trust cops any more than I trust people in general, but this thread is hyperbole because it paints an entire profession as acting like its worst members.

Do you honestly think the "good cops" are totally in the dark about what their "worst members" are doing?

The reason that I am absolutely willing to tar all cops with the same brush is that I think the number who actually put "protect and serve" ahead of "blue brotherhood" is somewhere around nil. In fact I think that the number who even put "protect and serve" in the same ballpark is around nil.

Bad cops break the law knowing full well that they are immune from "law enforcement." The best you can hope for from a "good cop" is that he won't kick you while his partner is beating you with a club.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Are you actually trying to claim there isn't inherent institutional racism in virtually all police departments, as well as most other governmental institutions, especially the prisons and the rest of the criminal justice system? That blacks and other minorities aren't treated differently than whites are, except where it is supposedly warranted because there are more black and minority criminals? That it is a matter of their supposed levels of "involvement in crime" as an entire race or ethic group which justly makes them all suspect far more than whites are?

Do you really think an affluent white man with his hand covered by a towel would have been shot in the head in an upscale section of LA, while trying to flag down two cops to help him with his disabled car, after they falsely assumed he must have been hiding a gun to kill them both in the most inept ambush attempt in history?

Even Barack Obama and his wife all too familiar how they are treated differently than whites are, merely because their skin is a few shades darker than your own.

This isn't "hyperbole". This is life in racist America nearly 150 years after the end of the Civil War. And it must finally end.

Formy, once again you are injecting race into the problem of cops abusing their authority. This guy was calling for help in a low crime neighborhood. He was a pretty light skinned Hispanic. There is no indication the cops had any reason to assume he was a criminal or even took the time to assess his race.

It's time to tell the lily white cop apologists who think nothing could go badly for them that they are clearly wrong, because this guy was just a citizen who thought the "protect and serve" on the door meant the people inside would help him...and instead they shot him in the head.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Formy, once again you are injecting race into the problem of cops abusing their authority. This guy was calling for help in a low crime neighborhood. He was a pretty light skinned Hispanic. There is no indication the cops had any reason to assume he was a criminal or even took the time to assess his race.

It's time to tell the lily white cop apologists who think nothing could go badly for them that they are clearly wrong, because this guy was just a citizen who thought the "protect and serve" on the door meant the people inside would help him...and instead they shot him in the head.

That is because I think they abuse that authority on a far larger basis when their victims are black or some other minority.

If these two cops had "identified" this man as being an affluent non-Hispanic white, they wouldn't have jumped to the conclusion that he was likely using a towel to cover up a gun. That he intended to kill them both. Instead, they would have come to the conclusion that the motorist had hurt his hand while tending to his car. They might be understandably nervous until they verified that he wasn't covering up some weapon with the towel. But they wouldn't have shot first and looked incompetent at best later.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

That is because I think they abuse that authority on a far larger basis when their victims are black or some other minority.

If these two cops had "identified" this man as being an affluent non-Hispanic white, they wouldn't have jumped to the conclusion that he was likely using a towel to cover up a gun. That he intended to kill them both. Instead, they would have come to the conclusion that the motorist had hurt his hand while tending to his car. They might be understandably nervous until they verified that he wasn't covering up some weapon with the towel. But they wouldn't have shot first and looked incompetent at best later.

I don't disagree.

So, question...does tying the problem to race make it more soluble, or less?

If the answer includes this fact: "racism is an institutional reality in America that despite fifty years of improvement still presents a formidable and intractable problem" the conclusion should be pretty obvious.


By the way, I think these f'ing cops were so firmly in the grasp of "our job is teh most totally dangerous thing in the world and our lives are on the line every second of the day" that they didn't bother to "identify" the man at all. Based on the neighborhood "cop killer with a gun wrapped in a towel" was an absolutely outside the box idea, no matter what the guy looked like. This didn't exactly happen at Florence and Normandie.

 

[Hygro]

I love the double standard on this forums when it comes to cops.

Cop shoots and kills someone: This forum lights up with threads expressing outrage at the "blue menace".

Someone calls cops then murders the officer that responds in a planned ambush: Silence.

Given that, I can only conclude this forum is perfectly okay with people being murdered, as long as the people being murdered are part of an organization they oppose.

Or you can conclude that malfeasance upsets the f' out of people.

 

[Rashiminos]

Tear down white society.

Maybe the space programs of the world would attract a bit more attention if we used them to exile certain persons from the Earth.

Spoiler :

The Alpha Campari Project.

Eh, its something Triewd claimed people were doing in another thread. I thought I'd include it here as a form of obvious hyperbole but I think I got Poe'd.

Your attempt at being facetious probably wasn't all that believable, for some reason.

 

[Formaldehyde]

So, question...does tying the problem to race make it more soluble, or less?

There is no hope of resolving the matter by ignoring the biggest issue. That is what has gotten us to where we are today.

The issues of institutional racism will eventually be addressed. The most difficult part is starting the dialog. Hopefully, the incidents in the past year or so will now give enough impetus to allow Obama to start that process. He is an ideal position to do so as a lame duck president.

But it has to be a slow process, especially initially. The Democratic Party will take far more abuse than it already does from those who don't want anything to change. It will be very difficult making much progress right now without turning the next presidency over to the Republicans, which would likely add another 8 years to the process.

This is likely going to take decades, if not a century, to resolve anyway. There are no quick and easy solutions. States in the South and the Midwest will have to be purged of many of their racist leaders. Lots of people have to get old and die. And the rest will have to learn they can no longer live in the distant past pretending they are still at war over slavery. They have to learn they no longer have the right to continue to be superior to blacks and other minorities by using the government to oppress them.

But look at how much progress we have already made in the past 65 years when we had de jure segregation, different drinking fountains, different seating areas at theaters, and Rosa Parks had to move to the back of the bus so some reprehensible racist didn't have to sit next to her. Back when the Democratic Party finally got the courage to fight for civil rights and pass the Equal Rights Amendment, despite effectively handing the reigns of the government over to the Republicans essentially for decades. All that took was the Vietnam War and all its attendant atrocities to finally spur them to do the right thing, instead of the politically expedient one.

Eventually, the day will come when nobody has to fear calling the cops anymore, because they might very well be their next accident waiting to happen.

Baby steps...

 

[Timsup2nothin]

There is no hope of resolving the matter by ignoring the biggest issue. That is what has gotten us to where we are today.

The issues of institutional racism will eventually be addressed. The most difficult part is starting the dialog. Hopefully, the incidents in the past year or so will now give enough impetus to allow Obama to start that process. He is an ideal position to do so as a lame duck president.

But it has to be a slow process, especially initially. The Democratic Party will take far more abuse than it already does from those who don't want anything to change. It will be very difficult making much progress right now without turning the next presidency over to the Republicans, which would likely add another 8 years to the process.

This is likely going to take decades, if not a century, to resolve anyway. There are no quick and easy solutions. States in the South and the Midwest will have to be purged of many of their racist leaders. Lots of people have to get old and die. And the rest will have to learn they can no longer live in the distant past pretending they are still at war over slavery. They have to learn they no longer have the right to continue to be superior to blacks and other minorities by using the government to oppress them.

But look at how much progress we have already made in the past 65 years when we had de jure segregation, different drinking fountains, different seating areas at theaters, and Rosa Parks had to move to the back of the bus so some reprehensible racist didn't have to sit next to her. Back when the Democratic Party finally got the courage to fight for civil rights and pass the Equal Rights Amendment, despite effectively handing the reigns of the government over to the Republicans essentially for decades. All that took was the Vietnam War and all its attendant atrocities to finally spur them to do the right thing, instead of the politically expedient one.

Eventually, the day will come when nobody has to fear calling the cops anymore, because they might very well be their next accident waiting to happen.

Baby steps...

I think the blue problem needs to be solved in less than a century, and can be solved. It doesn't even get solved by waiting for institutional racism to die out, because it is a problem with cops, not just racist cops. Yes, they are more likely to shoot someone who isn't white, but they do shoot white people as well. Say we magically solved institutional racism overnight. All we are left with is "now cops shoot people indiscriminately," and that isn't a win.

But when you say "it's institutional racism" you provide an excuse for not solving the immediate problem of people being intimidated, falsely incarcerated, beaten, and outright killed by "law enforcement," and the system of law enforcement letting it happen unless someone happens to catch it in an indisputable video.

 

[Rashiminos]

I think the blue problem needs to be solved in less than a century, and can be solved.

Can it be solved in less than a century?