Ongoing U.S Police Brutality and Corruption Discussion Thread

fwiw I can't think of a single case where a cop was actually convicted of criminal murder charges and served time, unless it was part of some larger corruption scandal (Rampart, CRASH, New Orleans, etc.) or a cop murdered his wife or some shit. Generally speaking this just does not happen.
many xp
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, August 26, 2014 4:03 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

and obviously any cop going to prison for murder of a civilian is probably gonna get shanked real quick
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, August 26, 2014 4:04 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I had forgotten, but one of Abner Louima's cop attackers is serving 30 years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abner_Louima#Criminal_trials
― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, August 26, 2014 4:06 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

xp yea i looked it up briefly and the majority of cases seemed to be corruption charges
― marcos, Tuesday, August 26, 2014 4:07 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

and obviously any cop going to prison for murder of a civilian is probably gonna get shanked real quick
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, August 26, 2014 12:04 PM (2 minutes ago)

yeah this is true
― k3vin k., Tuesday, August 26, 2014 4:07 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I had forgotten, but one of Abner Louima's cop attackers is serving 30 years.
that wasn't murder tho. when a cop kills a person, all these other justifications are usually brought up for why, and those are leaned on very heavily by the defense. whereas there is no conceivable justification for sodomizing a suspect w a broomstick.
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, August 26, 2014 4:10 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/13/us/california-homeless-beating-verdict/

these guys went to trial and got acquitted so its not always cut and dry

i started this thread a long time ago but it kind of bricked

The most imprisoned people in history: rolling US criminal justice & law enforcement thread

can i suggest that the whole criminal justice pipeline be up for discussion here

go for it

can we make this play when the page loads:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjZW_F4iuqo

http://7online.com/archive/9440401/

"stop resisting"

some good news, at least

Best line is buried near the end: "...an investigation by Bloomfield PD's scandal plagued internal affairs division had found no wrongdoing by officers."

A coroner’s report obtained exclusively by NBC News directly contradicts the police version of how a 22-year-old black man died in the back seat of a Louisiana police cruiser earlier this year -- but still says the man, whose hands were cuffed behind his back, shot himself.

In a press release issued March 3, the day he died, the Louisiana State Police said Victor White III apparently shot himself in an Iberia Parish police car. According to the police statement, White had his hands cuffed behind his back when he shot himself in the back.

But according to the full final report of the Iberia Parish coroner, which was released nearly six months later and obtained exclusively by NBC News, White was shot in the front, not the back. The bullet entered his right chest and exited under his left armpit. White was left-handed, according to family members. According to the report, the forensic pathologist found gunshot residue in the wound, but not the sort of stippling that a close-range shot can sometimes produce. He also found abrasions on White’s face.

At least one person got irritated with me for declining to vote for deBlasio in the (sewn-up) general election for NYC mayor. Then he appointed old hand Bratton to be police commish, and then...

Commissioner Bill Bratton, Mayor de Blasio's choice to lead the NYPD to a new age of transparency and discipline, turned away 25% of police misconduct findings by the Civilian Complaint Review Board, opting to ignore their recommendations for disciplining misbehaving officers. This is around the same rejection rate that former commissioner Raymond Kelly maintained before leaving office at the beginning of the year.

"I suggest you come back in six months and see how we’re doing,” Bratton told the New York Times in a phone interview yesterday."Based on my eight months sitting in that chair, my sense was that CCRB was significantly overcharging and overpenalizing.”

http://gothamist.com/2014/08/27/bratton_ignored_25_of_police_miscon.php

http://www.theonion.com/articles/unpopular-police-officer-thinking-about-committing,36790/?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_campaign=Pic:2:Default&recirc=area-man

http://rt.com/usa/183000-police-departments-lose-military-weaponry/

Already, the investigation has found that police departments in Arizona, California, Mississippi, Missouri, Georgia, and others have lost or cannot account for various types of weapons. This list includes M14 and M16 assault rifles, .45-caliber pistols, shotguns, and even vehicles.

I'm sure a search of a few police officer homes would turn them up, tanks included.

Reminds me of back in high school a buddy of mine got a job working at a gas station and used to hand out free packs of cigarettes to the cute girls and drug dealers who came in for a few months until he was caught and arrested. Bet there are some cute girls and drug dealers in Maricopa County with some military grade weaponry now.

http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/news/2014/08/27/minneapolis-cops-allegedly-taze-and-arrest-black-male-sitting-public-space

i never hear a reason on the video—just 'do what we say or else'

Uh oh:

http://www.startribune.com/local/stpaul/273013851.html

I think we can expect a whole lot of shootings of people who were "charging" in the near run.

The earlier crime of vandalism appears to have been throwing rocks at cars

This whole thing of police either tasing or shooting people and then expecting them to "comply" and "cooperate" and "stop moving" is just . . . WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THIS COUNTRY????

“The guy charged at [the second officer], and he got about 5 feet away before the officer fired his weapon three times,” Toby said. “And the guy went down, and they got one cuff on him. They were yelling, ‘cooperate, cooperate; give me your hand, give me your hand,’ but he wouldn’t give the hand. He was kicking his legs. And I think, at that point, the guy passed away.”

*blam!* *blam!* *blam!* "cooperate! cooperate!"

Please hear me doing that in my most contemptuous imitation of a fuckwit that I can possibly muster.

Oh, I see you got to that point before me.

sorry no time to cooperate, busy dying

Oh the police lied again about a guy they shot you don't say how rare etc.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/08/26/video-shows-police-shot-ohio-man-on-sight-as-he-leaned-on-toy-gun-in-walmart-attorney-says/

jesus fuck.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/04/28/knoxville-cop-fired-immediately-after-photos-show-brutal-choking-of-student/

Usually, after charges of police brutality, police officials take their time reacting while they follow procedure to determine who did what. But this episode in Knoxville, Tenn., was so extreme and well-documented that the local sheriff fired the officer immediately. Also, it involved a white guy.

Yeah, that was pretty much my reaction too

busy night for these guys.

they did not shoot anybody here tho:

http://www.startribune.com/local/272992321.html

(that chase screamed by right in front of my building fyi)

well i guess it doesn't say they didn't shoot him

http://www.mprnews.org/story/2014/08/28/police-shoot-and-kill-man-in-ramsey

Uh what the hell is going on - this is a different story than earlier today

cops twitchy, journalists on the lookout

Well except cops killing people would be reported in this town whenever and that makes 2 today and I don't remember the last time one happened

Preliminary search says three people killed by cops this month, 2 dogs no people last month, none in the rest of 2014. So yeah

http://gawker.com/man-tased-by-police-while-picking-up-kids-the-problem-1628148261

http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/news/2014/08/27/minneapolis-cops-allegedly-taze-and-arrest-black-male-sitting-public-space

i never hear a reason on the video—just 'do what we say or else'

― j., Thursday, August 28, 2014 9:40 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://ktla.com/2014/08/26/producer-in-beverly-hills-for-emmy-pre-party-mistaken-for-bank-robber-held-6-hours/

Twitter/Tumblr's been really good at unearthing stories of Things White People Can Do To Cops And Live To Tell About

From last year:

http://www.katu.com/news/local/Police-shooting-Beaverton-City-Hall-high-mushrooms-217458381.html

fuck, one of my friends is in that article about the shooting in St Paul, she was working at the coffee shop nearby.

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/attorney-east-point-police-used-taser-against-man-/ng9RG/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/30/daniel-holtzclaw-cop-rape_n_5740714.html

the cops here are open-minded enough to kill white people too:
http://host.madison.com/news/local/crime_and_courts/newly-released-police-records-shed-additional-light-on-paul-heenan/article_315e18ac-82e0-11e2-b277-0019bb2963f4.html

this was a couple years back, but it was a block and a half from my house, lots of my friends knew the victim (he was a musician), etc.

the cop was cleared of any wrongdoing for the shooting but fired for other reasons (yeah, ok), but i believe that external investigations into police shootings are now required in WI due to the efforts of his friends & family.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/die-hard-director-john-mctiernan-731171

damn

boy with toy sword shot from behind

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/race-utah-police-shooting

I saw that, horrifically sad

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/58409680-78/hunt-family-police-sword.html.csp

Multiple witnesses say he was running away AND an independent autopsy report found that he was shot in the back

Direct contradictions of the police officer's report that he 'lunged' at the officer

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-utah-police-shooting-20140914-story.html

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/blog/bs-md-ci-police-suit-20140915,0,6933088.story

It seems to me that police doctrine is that the instant you are suspected of unlawful behavior, you are presumed to be dangerous and are fair game for any amount of force to be used against you, with the idea that it is far better that you are killed or wounded than any police officer ever be hurt. This doctrine goes back a very long time in the USA, but the difference now is that it has become officially recognized and codified by the legal system and courts.

It apparently does not matter whether the suspicion is justified or not. It apparently does not matter whether you present any clear or present danger by your actions. So long as the officer "felt threatened", any amount of force is justified to nullify that imagined threat. In practice, this, of course, nullifies the entire concept of "excessive force".

Autopsy report shows police shot Darrien Hunt in the back, lawyer says

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/darrien-hunt-carrying-toy-sword-shot-and-killed-utah-police

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/16/darrien-hunt-shot-in-the-back-by-utah-police-says-family-attorney

“We haven’t even interviewed the officers yet,” said Taylor. “We’ve talked briefly with them just to kind of get an idea of what the scene was at the time.” He said officers were typically interviewed within 48-72 hours of a shooting. One is now scheduled to be interviewed on Tuesday and the other on Thursday, more than a week after the shooting, he said.

“I’m stunned. I find that almost incomprehensible,” Edwards, the attorney for Hunt’s family, said after being informed of this by the Guardian. “You want to speak with the officers almost immediately afterwards, when their memories are fresh and before they have had a chance to corroborate their stories.”

"just to kind of get an idea of what the scene was at the time"

Just, you know, see how their day was goin' 'n' stuff.

“You want to speak with the officers almost immediately afterwards, when their memories are fresh and before they have had a chance to corroborate their stories.”

This assumes that "you" are interested in the truth.

http://gawker.com/nypd-officer-filmed-slamming-pregnant-woman-to-ground-1638487177

An NYPD officer was filmed violently throwing a pregnant woman to ground early Saturday morning. Sandra Amezquita, who is five months pregnant, reportedly suffered vaginal bleeding after the incident, and her arms and stomach remain bruised.

The two officers who shot and killed John Crawford were not indicted

That is fucking insane.

jesus christ that fucking gawker clip possibly the most disturbing thing I've seen in awhile

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/d97584cfd10d48b5a3ea366850f4f06d/woman-punched-california-highway-patrol-settles

holy crap

http://gawker.com/trigger-happy-cop-shoots-unarmed-driver-in-just-release-1638993749

dude in that last video is the most polite assault victim i've ever heard; how the hell do you maintain the patience to call the man who just shot you sir and apologize to him

Easy: You are black and he is white.

christ, do these cops get any training at all?

“Why did you pull me over? I was just pulled into the gas station.”
“Your safety belt violation, sir.”
“Seatbelt… I just pulled it off right there at the corner at the gas station!”

arrested:

http://boingboing.net/2014/09/25/south-carolina-cop-who-shot-bl.html

would not have happened w/o dashboard video

dude in that last video is the most polite assault victim i've ever heard; how the hell do you maintain the patience to call the man who just shot you sir and apologize to him

I don't know if I can articulate why this post enrages me so much. How many times black people must tell stories about their survival strategies for existing in America before you start listening and understanding what they mean?

d, if you're not reading that post with a sense of headshaking wonder, shock and sadness at what the police state demands out of black american men then you are misreading the intention

"american police state" / "black men" rather

I dunno forks, your post also struck me as tone deaf

And maybe your response shouldn't be "become a better reader"

my response was "you misunderstood my intention"

And my response is you miswrote your intention

I had no trouble understanding forks' intent. He knew why the black victim of police assault was so polite, but was at a loss to fathom how he managed it.

i can certainly see how that can read differently than it was intended and, if taken as "gosh that guy sure is subservient why wouldn't he be more angry" as opposed to "the degree of restraint he shows under literal fire is fucking superhuman" is good grounds for enragement

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/30/ernest-satterwhite-just-craven_n_5907544.html

Even when the prosecutor seeks a felony indictment...

this thread is like pure undiluted rage-a-hol

yup

TS: pure undiluted rage-a-hol vs a reminder that a capricious, unpredictable death sentence lurks for you and every member of your family as long as you stay in this country

worst poll ever

I know which side I'm on and which side dan's on and mine is by far the easier side to live on.

I'm not disputing that

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/01/michael-dunn-guilty_n_5913926.html

Some good news - Michael Dunn, who killed Jordan Davis at a gas station for playing loud music, was convicted of first degree murder

v gratifying

not a cop tho

Well, shit

http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/wayne/2014/10/03/weekley-trial-aiyana-stanley-jones/16636179

A Detroit police officer accused in the fatal shooting of 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones walked into a Detroit courtroom Friday facing a felony and misdemeanor charge.

Officer Joseph Weekley walked out of the courtroom with just the misdemeanor charge after Wayne County Circuit Judge Cynthia Gray Hathaway dismissed the involuntary manslaughter charge against him. Weekley still is charged with careless discharge of a firearm causing death in the May 2010 shooting, which happened as police executed a search warrant for a murder suspect.

http://gawker.com/nypd-thugs-caught-on-video-pistol-whipping-teen-with-ha-1643271317

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/family-sues-hammond-police-over-traffic-stop-violence

In cell phone video captured by a terrified 14-year-old sitting in the back seat of Mahone’s car, you can hear Mahone on the line with a 911 operator saying that she fears for her life and that moments earlier officers had pulled their guns on the couple.

http://abc11.com/340724

The parents of a Wake County high school student are outraged that police pepper-sprayed him inside their home after a neighbor mistook him for an intruder.

The video of that is absolutely horrifying xp

Some posts about this in the Michael Brown thread:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/10/09/crowds-in-streets-of-st-louis-after-fatal-shooting-by-off-duty-police-officer/

Meanwhile...

http://brooklynpaper.com/stories/37/41/dtg-police-beats-teen-2014-10-10-bk_37_41.html

A police officer apparently knocked out a Clinton Hill teen with one blow after stopping him for smoking a cigarette, hitting him so hard he now has neurological problems, according to the boy’s family.

This is interesting in light of all the bad news from this thread: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/local/wp/2014/10/08/foxhall-police-encounter-caught-on-video-and-the-interaction-is-fascinating/

Oof.

Yeah. I mean, good on the woman, but if she was black she would have been on the ground, tazed and beaten after about 10 words.

I was thinking she'd be dead, but yeah, somewhere within that range.

Also the class connotations, the sense in which the rich white lawyer is saying "He's okay because he works for me, this man isn't the KIND of person you're looking for because I buy/control his labor." And at the end, where the white person muses “It was very interesting, in the sense of getting a picture of how black cops treat black people" Stop. Just stop.

More on the Hammond, Indiana incident. The more you read about it the angrier you get. I grew up down the street from Hammond and I am so disappointed.

The offense the driver committed was driving without a seatbelt. I thought they couldn't pull you over for that? Then they accuse the dad of reaching for a weapon.

Two kids in the back seat had glass all over them.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/pair-alleging-excessive-force-police-traffic-stop-state/story?id=26024762

Where is the sanity? Relations with the police will go into the toilet because of this. Next we will hear the driver was on PCP.

Yeah. I mean, good on the woman, but if she was black she would have been on the ground, tazed and beaten after about 10 words.

― bippity bup at the hotel california (Phil D.), Thursday, 9 October 2014 14:32 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I was thinking she'd be dead, but yeah, somewhere within that range.

― Certified Genious (Old Lunch), Thursday, 9 October 2014 14:34 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

thanks for this sensitive context provision, really enlightening material

That means a lot. We're all striving for the lofty heights of your self-regard.

strive for the lofty heights of not being an idiot instead.

idk in terms of imaginative wallowing in lurid hyperbolic violence against black people its not quite as bad as this so he is learning, slowly

The Death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri

this guy

I guess that's what I get for ignoring the 'do not feed' sign.

maybe you don't belong in the zoo

It's what you get for casually referencing the destruction of non-white people. The lurid speculation about what violence might be done to someone is...it brings images to mind that are very very real for some people, even if they seem like just a recitation of facts to others.

Yes, it does bring images to mind that are very very real to some people, including me. My observation was far from casual however it might have read to you. These issues make me deeply angry and deeply sad, partially for personal reasons I'd rather not disclose when a troll with a penchant for ad hominem attacks is trying to control the direction of the conversation.

does anyone not feel sad and angry about the sort of things documented here? at best it adds nothing to the conversation, nor is it particularly realistic, for while there is evidently no limit to what police are capable of doing, in the most likely scenario if that person was not i) white ii) upper middle class iii) middle aged iv) an attorney, the police would just have just intimidated them into going away with the spoken or unspoken threat of arrest

power works in far more insidious ways than just shooting people, that clip is so striking precisely because the extraordinary power and confidence displayed by that woman is the conferred upon her by various systems of inequity and is usually used to perpetuate rather than mitigate them

does anyone not feel sad and angry about the sort of things documented here?

lol let's peruse some comments sections shall we

"here"

ANYWAY, here's another, from my neck of the woods. Similar in circumstance to the Hammond one above -- car pulled over for a minor infraction, woman driving, child in back, male passenger asked to identify himself -- but with a lot less violent result.

http://www.toledoblade.com/Police-Fire/2014/10/06/Video-of-Sandusky-traffic-stop-goes-viral-after-man-records-his-arrest.html

It's worth noting in the story: "According to a Sandusky police report, Officer Denny saw a vehicle, driving without headlights . . . The video shows that officer pulled over the vehicle at 7:07 p.m." Assuming this was taken the date it was uploaded to YouTube, sunset in Sandusky that day was at 7:16pm. And based on the visible weather in the video, while it might be polite to have your headlights on already, there's no legal requirement to do so.

shakey you are really lamentably dense

who is shakey? i don't see a post by a shakey recently.

If you were to take a guess who would you say is shakey

what's the point of creating new socks if you're just gonna abandon the pretense

I'm not a sock I got sick of having an old name I couldn't change

i have no idea who shakey is. other than neil young.

https://twitter.com/KilledByCops

An undercover NYPD officer rushing in to aid uniformed colleagues making an arrest kicked one of them in the head after apparently mistaking him for a suspect, a video obtained by DNAinfo New York shows.

http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20141023/coney-island/video-nypd-officer-kicks-colleague-head-during-arrest

that kick was totally unnecessary!

come on tho, the guy could have been the one beating up those innocent subway fares

oh look

In the past 20 years, at least 17 police officers in the United States have been charged with murder for their actions in line-of-duty shootings. None of these officers, though, was convicted of murder — and most weren’t convicted of anything,

"Why would you kill her? He shot her in the head and in the chest," Stephens said. "It was a woman with a knife. It doesn't make any sense."

http://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/index.ssf/2014/11/witness_in_ann_arbor_police_sh.html

http://www.theawl.com/2014/11/serial-and-white-reporter-privilege

cross post with rolling thread abt race

"Why would you kill her? He shot her in the head and in the chest," Stephens said. "It was a woman with a knife. It doesn't make any sense."
http://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/index.ssf/2014/11/witness_in_ann_arbor_police_sh.html

― Andy K, Monday, November 10, 2014 1:26 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i hate how there's this whole vein of "police theory" that is always trotted out in response to these commonsensical objections, that serve to explain how police are in fact justified in shooting first and asking questions later in every conceivable circumstance. one thing that bothers me is how police can take almost any action they want if they have even the remotest fear of bodily harm. shouldn't police be willing to risk harm more than the average person? that's why they're police. maybe it's police unions that are to blame for a lot of this.

sorry if this post isn't very well thought through, this stuff makes me so angry and then the inevitable justifications by very calm-sounding police apologists make me angrier.

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/11/17/is-texas-getting-ready-kill-innocent-man/

this seems completely insane

xxp along the lines of your "shouldn't police be willing to risk harm": I remember seeing coverage after Ferguson of recently-implemented policies by (iirc) Seattle & LAPD that would make officers liable for mishandling/escalating situations to the point where lethal force becomes necessary, EVEN IF that actual use-of-force is 'justified' by an imminent threat to the officer's life or w/e

remains to be seen what actual enforcement of this will look like, but it seems like a step in the right direction

http://www.sltrib.com/news/1842489-155/killings-by-utah-police-outpacing-gang

In the past five years, more Utahns have been killed by police than by gang members.

Or drug dealers. Or from child abuse.

And so far this year, deadly force by police has claimed more lives — 13, including a Saturday shooting in South Jordan — than has violence between spouses and dating partners.

Through October, 45 people had been killed by law enforcement officers in Utah since 2010, accounting for 15 percent of all homicides during that period.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/11/24/cleveland-police-kill-12-year-old-boy-wielding-bb-gun-that-looked-like-a-semi-automatic-pistol/

On Saturday afternoon, 12-year-old Tamir Rice was sitting on a swing outside a recreation center in Cleveland, wearing a camouflage hat and hiding a BB gun in his waistband.

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2014/11/cleveland_police_officer_shot_1.html

CLEVELAND, Ohio – A Cleveland police officer fatally shot Tamir Rice immediately after leaving his moving patrol car while his partner stayed at the wheel, surveillance video shows.

The video showed Wednesday by police captures the Saturday afternoon shooting at a West Side recreation center in which 12-year-old Rice was shot.

The video contains no audio.

A rookie officer pulled the trigger, said Jeffrey Follmer, president of the Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association.

Police were sent to the Cudell Recreation Center at Detroit Avenue and West Boulevard about 3:30 p.m. when someone called 9-1-1 to report a "guy with a gun pointing it at people."

The caller told dispatchers twice that the gun was "probably fake," but that detail was not relayed to the responding officers, Follmer said.

This is a developing story.

I...

They also fucking did this story

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2014/11/tamir_rices_father_has_history.html

wtf

i bet some of the 9/11 victims had parents who also had histories of domestic violence, did they report on that?

New video emerges of black cosplayer running for his life from cops who then shot and killed him

12 y/o american youth seen playing with toy gun, clearly must be some history of violence/neglect in his family history to explain this unsettling development. Can't possibly be that he's the same as every other 12 y/o male to ever live in this country since its inception.

fuck fuck fuck

Otm, as Zellie Imani said: "Black parents have to justify why their sons play with toy guns as rural White American children play with real ones."

re the Eric Garner non-indictment:

At the spot on Bay Street where Eric Garner died, his stepfather, Benjamin Carr, said he hurt anew.

“It’s just like getting a knife stabbed in my heart,” Mr. Carr said. “You might as well choke me.”

Around him, a sparse crowd yelled, “No Justice,” “I Can’t Breathe,” and obscenities about the police.

Mr. Carr said that he had expected this outcome.

“I’m not surprised,” he said. “The federal government got to do something about it.”

He took a phone call, and his tone turned from sad to pleading.

“Tell everybody else, don’t start nothing,” he said. “Please, Eric wouldn’t want it, and I don’t want it.”

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/12/03/the-death-of-eric-garner-the-grand-jury-decision/

what can the federal govt conceivably do about these kinds of cases? (serious legal question)

I mean beyond civil rights violation charges

fucking cops . check the comments

http://www.policeone.com/Crowd-Control/articles/7921845-Lawyer-No-indictment-in-NYPD-in-custody-death/

Nothing I know of... but Al Sharpton just spoke to Holder. #stuntman

xp

xp to shakey, not much is my impression, a federal civil rights case has even more hurdles than a regular state criminal case from what I can tell

Abolish Federalism

wasn't even aware of the darrien rice case until just now, fuck

Good resource for this bullshit:

http://filmingcops.com/

I think it's really important that these protests go on and get coverage , it looks like there is a lot of ignorance out there, protest legitimates the critical viewpoint.

idk that it achieves much of substance besides providing a place for protestors to commiserate tbh

(which is also how I felt about all the anti-Iraq war protests I participated in)

Holder opening federal probe into Garner case

this shit is sickening

i'm sure that wrt to this stuff holder's heart is in the right place but his promise of "federal probes" basically just serve to calm dissent at the moment it's about to erupt. nothing will come of the probes of the ferguson or NY PDs.

idk that it achieves much of substance besides providing a place for protestors to commiserate tbh

History suggests otherwise. People in the streets does not always translate into substantial change, but sometimes it does, and certainly more often than empty streets (or silence).

The bigger the crowd, the better.

Protests also help people organize. Not sure why shakey, others feel the need to constantly argue with history on this one.

Street protests in the u.s. haven't significantly impacted policy in over 40 years. Centers of powrr have hyper-specific polling data now, protests don't meaningfully scare them as an indicator of voting payterns, so they just dgaf.

I'm not saying don't protest - I do it and it has some personal value to the participants and sympathizers, but its not an effective tool for directing policy.

no one thinks that a protest is going to directly change policy

Most efforts at substantive reform fail, regardless of method.

Reliance on one method alone is likely to increase the chances of failure, especially in the absence of well-organized efforts and strategy.

That's hardly a condemnation of any one method, street protests included; it's just a reminder of how difficult change is.

To what extent is there sympathy with the idea that admissions of privilege, vocal solidarity and participation in protest from white people are inappropriate at the moment? I can see how the CrimingWhileWhite hashtag might strike many as crass but there seems to be a deeper feeling from a lot of the people I follow on Twitter that white Americans should disengage from the conversation and spend that time signal boosting the voices of those more directly affected.

^how i feel, being a body/node in solidarity.

I generally feel kind of :/ about any solidarity expression that seems to move the focus to the speaker's whiteness/maleness/whatever.

*as a white male

There's just always a little tinge of "BTW I AM ONE OF THE GOOD ONES" to it.

its not an effective tool for directing policy.

― Οὖτις, Thursday, December 4, 2014 4:44 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i can think of 4 million undocumented people who might disagree. protest doesn't set policy. it can push it.

To what extent is there sympathy with the idea that admissions of privilege, vocal solidarity and participation in protest from white people are inappropriate at the moment? I can see how the CrimingWhileWhite hashtag might strike many as crass but there seems to be a deeper feeling from a lot of the people I follow on Twitter that white Americans should disengage from the conversation and spend that time signal boosting the voices of those more directly affected.

― Wristy Hurlington (ShariVari), Thursday, December 4, 2014 6:33 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

local friend wrote this recently

http://wellexaminedlife.com/2014/11/26/dear-white-people-ferguson-protests-are-a-wake-not-a-pep-rally/

This is why I went to the White House after the announcement. I was hoping to be surrounded by my fellow Black people, to yell, to scream, to cheer, and to sing. I wanted to gather my people around me and boldly assert my humanity to the world. Yet that’s not what I found. What I found was a mostly white crowd of college-age liberals chanting, hugging, and taking selfies with their overly-dressed up roommates. There was energy, an excitement in the air that I couldn’t share. Being surrounded by a group of young white people alternating between hugging friends who had joined them and shouting angrily at the cops (many of whom were Black) was not validating my humanity.

this is a little pat, but afaic ours is not to speak & lead, ours is just to RT & read

OTM

Hoos otm

love that

To what extent is there sympathy with the idea that admissions of privilege, vocal solidarity and participation in protest from white people are inappropriate at the moment? I can see how the CrimingWhileWhite hashtag might strike many as crass but there seems to be a deeper feeling from a lot of the people I follow on Twitter that white Americans should disengage from the conversation and spend that time signal boosting the voices of those more directly affected.

"Vocal solidarity and participation in protest from white people" is good, it just has to be done with some mindfulness.

If we start wanting to silence people because they're speaking in solidarity with a group other than their own, we're fucked.

In any case there's a bigger group to which we all belong, which is the human race.

I think...there's...a push-pull between that ethos and "fighting racism is everyone's problem"/the necessity of white ppl perceiving racism and doing anything about it in their own lives & communities.

I lean slightly toward thinking that protests are not (usually?) meant to be a "safe space." If you were looking for a healing place of only similarly intersectional/marginalized people like yourself...I just don't think that's what direct actions are? Likewise organizing groups should be up front about who they're looking to include--some groups will hold their identity & membership to PoC, for instance.

I hate the Criming while wite shit and stuff, but the road to getting conscious is not nec pretty all along the way. I don't really know what to do or say (if anything) about this.

I got xp'ed along the way. "that ethos" = "ours is not to speak & lead, ours is just to RT & read"

Like, there's a very strong feeling that "white silence = white consent" but at the same time there are PoC speaking strongly against white expressions of "solidarity" or whatever on soc med. Well...?

xxxp I don't think that's what's being argued here, a good analogy might be Take Back The Night protests where men are asked to march behind the women b/c it's not about the men

It's white people's job to convince other white people to listen to PoC.

Yeah, sure. But not all white people wake up in the same way, taking the same steps. I don't have, like, a "final word" on how they should progress, apart from finding a lot of it personally distasteful, but that's looking back with a lens that I have learned to apply.

Mostly I wish white ppl who are just learning didn't inflict their progress on PoC in the meantime--but you can't get to ALL of them.

There's just always a little tinge of "BTW I AM ONE OF THE GOOD ONES" to it.

Yeah that's true, but then I want to say, so what ? Does that matter, if it's accompanied by other motivations? Is it even avoidable, given human nature? And doesn't this impulse (to signal "I'm one of the good ones") overlap with something bigger, which is the desire to mark for history the fact that, in the face of a certain injustice, some in that society were willing to protest?

I don't know, I think we on the left have this tendency to want to do things just right, with complete purity, and without pissing anybody off (who we might not want to piss off). It becomes silly at a certain point. So a bunch of white college kids were a little too giddy at a rally. Fine. They should be more mindful. Absolutely. I'd still rather they be there than not!!

the motivation is fine, it's the focus that's the problem imo. Focus on black lives mattering, not on "hey I'm white and I get away with shit, lol"

#CrimingWhileWhite was fine when it was about "I did this thing that was recently in the news as a capital offense for a black man and I was barely even reprimanded over it"; the people who think it's funny are precisely the problem. Recognizing that there are everyday things that you get away with that someone darker than you may not be able to do without consequence is an important part of recognizing racism.

Ok I agree re focus. Also I don't know much about this #Criming phenomenon so my comments may be off the mark wrt that. I'm addressing the broader notion that whites should disengage and refrain from expressions of solidarity.

It's white people's job to convince other white people to listen to PoC.

― Οὖτις, Thursday, December 4, 2014 8:11 PM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^ This, I think. Educate yourself, read, listen, RT, spread what PoC are saying on the matter. Try and give them a stage, to let them be heard, in whatever small way is within your capabilities.

Because for every street protest there's a congress or summit organized - all with good intentions, no doubt - discussing integration, immigration, racism or police violence. But the panels are still mostly 100% white (and male). That needs to change first I think. All it says - again, it might be out of the best intentions - is white people decide whether we listen to PoC or not. Meaning white people don't take PoC seriously still.

xp yeah fair enough, I guess I just generally feel like there's been a little too much navel-gazing by lefty white people ever since "check your privilege" became a phrase. That said, hearing about the Garner case at work made me very suddenly conscious of things like being in an office building with security turnstiles, living in a neighborhood where police don't harass people, and yeah, being a parent who will probably never have to give my children "the talk" or otherwise worry about them having run-ins with the police in which the police are the antagonizers. I am definitely pro self-awareness about all of this, I just don't like seeing people get stuck on it.

IO to be clear I don't think Aaron showed up to the White House looking for direct action--i think he went to be outraged and in pain, and he found himself surrounded by people more interested in another round of Yell At The Building than sharing in or standing with his suffering.

Friend from London mentioned the same TBTN parallel saying that men were asked to start having separate marches there--to make the point "maybe white people should be having separate solidarity marches," which I'm not sure I agree with.

yeah I don't think that's exactly a parallel

I think our campus TBTN had a rally at the beginning or end that men could attend(I remember attending) but the march was all female, and also speakers were all female.

Friend from London mentioned the same TBTN parallel saying that men were asked to start having separate marches there--to make the point "maybe white people should be having separate solidarity marches," which I'm not sure I agree with.

Why did your friend think this might be a good idea? Did he explain ?

at one of NYC's protests in the wake of the Wilson non-indictment, there was a massive crowd pushing through the streets, chanting, holding signs, stopping traffic, blocking intersections, many of the cars honking in support. many of the people were white, and on two different occasions i heard a PoC say something like "wow, look at all these white people" and it made me wonder if my presence was a positive thing. i do think that, on balance, it was good that we were there. i guess the question than becomes what is acceptable behavior for white people at these events.

It's white people's job to convince other white people to listen to PoC.

― Οὖτις, Thursday, December 4, 2014 8:11 PM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^ This, I think. Educate yourself, read, listen, RT, spread what PoC are saying on the matter. Try and give them a stage, to let them be heard, in whatever small way is within your capabilities.

and that's where it gets murky for me. convince other white people to listen to PoC, of course! but sometimes just retweeting something without comment doesn't really do much, and adding your own take on it makes it more personal and prompt more of a response. i realize that can come off as white people trying to dominate the conversation and make it about them but the intent (at least for me) is just to personalize it. i tend to respond to other people's social media content (i just puked it my mouth, sorry) more when they've added something of their own to it rather than just posting a link, and i don't think i'm alone in that.

How is "personalizing" something distinct from making it about yourself?

This morning I had to go into work and teach my class, which is 100% PoC and today was 100% female and prepare myself to figure out
-- whether I should bring this up if they don't
-- whether I should spend time talking about it rather than preparing for the final exam (this was the last class before the exam)
-- whether I should have them write about it (it's a pre-composition class) and how to justify this extra work if they do not all feel compelled to express themselves
-- what I should say if they ask me what i think
-- how to explain the lack of justice in this country to the one student who asked me for help preparing for her citizenship test

I mean, it was a lot. And I read the room and found that they wanted to prepare for the exam and no one brought up the police, killing, racism, murder, choking or anything related to these cases.
It's a tough line to walk, knowing what to do/say and to whom and how -- there can't really be any rules or guidelines that apply to everyone, so the best I feel like we can hope for is to give people who want to talk about it the opportunity to have their voice heard, and to let the people who need to stew it over or who would prefer not to say anything have the p & q required to come to their own conclusions.

Being told to do this or that or read or lead or speak or shut up -- it's all kind of pointless when you realize how many different perspectives there are. If the conversation slowed down a little bit, maybe we could all make it through the long haul required to address some of these injustices and glaring issues with the way we conduct law enforcement and justice in the USA. I dunno.

How is "personalizing" something distinct from making it about yourself?

Adding a few words of one's own to supplement a link, announcement, or quote does not automatically make your post become something "about yourself". It does not necessarily shift the focus away from the matter at hand. Saying "I'm going to this rally, who else wants to join?" turns a mere posting into an invitation.

It kind of turns it into an invitation to hang out with you!

xposts

'personalize' isn't the right word. i guess i just mean adding something to a link rather than just posting the link without any comment. for example, over on the mike brown thread milton just posted:

http://wellexaminedlife.com/2014/11/26/dear-white-people-ferguson-protests-are-a-wake-not-a-pep-rally/

almost quoted parts of this, but the whole thing really needs to be read in context because it's all pretty complicated and this struck me as not even being a paragraph longer than it needs to be, especially the last paragraph

that's something beyond just a link, but it's not transforming it into something that's all about him. and his added words made me want to read it (and it's a great article which has convinced me that i need to keep my mouth shut at rallies from now on). anyway, all of this is probably a strawman because i realize that most people aren't saying that white people shouldn't post a few words to explain a link, but since there was some chatter upthread about just retweeting and recommending "just to RT & read", i thought i'd address that. i'm probably taking "just to RT & read" WAY too literally, though!

I mean, is there a net good there? Probably, and this isn't really worth a protracted fight, but the strategy here is to use yourself as a proxy/conduit to interest others in this political cause and I don't see how you can actually do that without making it about yourself. I spent an entire day on Facebook very pointedly making the Ferguson situation about myself in an attempt to put my face on the faceless people that the conservatives in my feed were reacting against and it was mostly successful, given the feedback I received.

xp: ha okay, I get where you're coming from; I don't know how I'd describe that tbh

It kind of turns it into an invitation to hang out with you!

Um sure, but much more: to hang out with you and a whole bunch of other people with the express purpose being, not to "hang out" or simply spend time together, but to make a public statement, a statement that's not "about yourself" but about an issue of collective concern. One's "personalized" invitation does not shift that focus.

DJP I think you're using the term "making it about yourself" in a way different from how I understand it, so some of this may be semantics and I'm just going to let go of this little squabble today...

One's "personalized" invitation does not shift that focus.

― never have i been a blue calm sea (collardio gelatinous), Thursday, December 4, 2014 8:51 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Aaron's piece speaks to where this might creak--especially in college towns, you wind up with people who are there more to buff their web identities than to understand what's happening to the people around them.

An unnamed white Phoenix police officer shot and killed an unarmed 34-year-old black man, Rumain Brisbon, Tuesday evening.

Brandon Dickerson, who told FOX-10 that he was with Brisbon when the officer approached and that he didn’t hear the officer give any commands. According to police, Brisbon ran when approached; the Phoenix Police Department claims that after a brief struggle, Brisbon reached for a bottle of prescription painkillers in his pocket—which the officer mistook for a gun.

Phoenix Police spokesperson Sergeant Trent Crump told the local news station that the officer who shot and killed Brisbon “was doing what we expect him to do, which is fight crime.”

http://colorlines.com/archives/2014/12/white_phoenix_pd_officer_shoots_and_kills_unarmed_black_man.html

Goddamnit

Absolutely, Hoos, I can see how it can turn into that (which is why I wrote that it doesn't automatically or necessarily become that).

The particulars and the context matter.

Xp obv

JFC

Why did your friend think this might be a good idea? Did he explain ?

― never have i been a blue calm sea (collardio gelatinous), Thursday, December 4, 2014 8:12 PM (52 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well contra IO's point upthread, my friend was arguing that TBTN was designed to be a safe space for women to be women in public without fear, and that the presence of men changed the whole dynamic--so, she argued, do white people whose very presence might cause black people to behave differently.

i told her i'd be careful about projecting "these black people would totally be doing what i think they should be doing if not for me and these other white people being here," and she said "well i'm not projecting, i *remember* feeling constrained and held back by the presence of men at TBTN."

i steered the conversation elsewhere from there, but the point has kept me thinking.

Ok, thanks hoos

just wanted to say i couldn't sleep at night for thinking of the horror of all this.

i'm not black and i'm not (yet) among the economically marginalized, so i can't pretend that something like what happened to eric garner is particularly likely to happen to me. but i'm a big guy, i've gone through periods of being a severe asthmatic, and i have an unfortunate tendency to mouth off to authority figures when i feel i'm being wronged. so the whole sequence of events -- he's sick of police harrassment so he mouths off, he's brough to the ground, he can't breathe --just gets to me in a very very visceral way. which just adds to the larger social/racial/political horrors i'm already cognizant of and makes them feel that much more acute.

Cleveland:

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-and-city-cleveland-agree-reform-division-police-after-finding-pattern-or

This can't be shared or liked enough.

http://pitchfork.com/thepitch/582-we-are-all-accountable/

That is great

I know, right? This has bothered me about music in general for a while now.

Because I'm the only non-Black person in my anti-street harassment org I've thought about the question of whether my presence was making it unsafe for other women, applying the comparison of how we feel relieved w/r/t our anti-harassment work when men aren't in the room. Back during the series of bell hooks discussions with various other WoC, she said something like "We're not here to feel safe, we're here to be uncomfortable for the sake of change," and I cautiously worked on that principle. And my lead organizers let me know that I was welcome and part of the group and shouldn't leave, which I valued immensely bc I was questioning whether I shd stay.

I would cautiously advance that it's situational? And as a white person it's important to ask yrself, Am I doing this because it's effective or bc it makes me feel good? And act accordingly.

Very nicely put, in orbit. Thank you for that.

Otoh I do follow a lot of WoC thinkers on twitter, for inst, who react v badly to white people either quoting them or @-ing them or adding their own thoughts when retweeting links and so on. No one tactic is going to make everyone happy.

as a white person it's important to ask yrself, Am I doing this because it's effective or bc it makes me feel good? And act accordingly.

so good, thank you

There's a fundraiser for Tamir Rice's family to cover the costs of burying their child, if anyone is moved to throw in. Shaun King, an activist and, I guess it's fair to say, citizen journalist who's been covering Ferguson extensively is putting this out on twitter asking people to help--just so you know where it's coming from.

http://www.youcaring.com/memorial-fundraiser/help-the-family-of-tamir-rice/273407

Is the Boss an ineffective voice of protest? Or does the media pay too much attention to angry white guys?

http://bit.ly/15SUI0G

stop trolling this thread.

thank you for that link, io

Pitchfork article kinda dovetails with what I think about the nba.. Donald Sterling said some fucked up shit, the players mobilized ferociously on social media, etc and got him kicked out. Why dont they use their clout to push harder on more important things? Prob bc its controversial and the NBA would freak the fuck out because $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

I'm not trolling, I genuinely care about this issue and I have a personal stake in it, which I care not to discuss.

Perhaps you misunderstand me. I mean - are pundits exaggerating about how many angry reactionary white guys there are - are they legitimating a viewpoint by paying too much attention to it?

on the plus side

Matty T: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-police-in-america-are-becoming-illegitimate-20141205?page=2

Man, fvck this:

"In Andrew's case, police thought the sight of two black men standing in front of a project tower at 1 a.m. was suspicious and stopped them. In reality, Andrew was listening to music on headphones with a friend on his way home after a long shift driving a casino shuttle. When he balked at being stopped, just like Garner balked, cops wrote him up for "obstructing" a street completely empty of pedestrians, and the court demanded 50 bucks for his crime.

This policy of constantly badgering people for trifles generates bloodcurdling anger in "hot spot" neighborhoods with industrial efficiency. And then something like the Garner case happens and it all comes into relief. Six armed police officers tackling and killing a man for selling a 75-cent cigarette."

that's a great piece

yeah.

This is the crooked math that's going to crash American law enforcement if policies aren't changed.

Our entire country is being debased, devalued and destroyed by "crooked math," from asshole cops to dickheads obstinately trying to overturn "Obamacare"/Obama himself. It breaks my heart.

I said this on the Ferguson thread, but I am so glad Taibbi is back at RS

just forwarded that to everyone in my address book

^^

THIS

me too. and right at just the right time.

bbbbut lagoon hates him

zzzzz

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/hollywood-highland-shooting-report-284945511.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Middle of crowded street, two cops unload clips because "we thought he had a knife."

One woman said a man ran into a McDonald's shouting that police shot his friend, who sometimes "liked to wave a knife to scare tourists."

well THAT'S not gonna get much sympathy

These numbers are upsetting: http://www.vox.com/2014/12/6/7342241/police-abuse-resisting

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/crimewatch/police-report-tulsa-officer-fatally-shoots-daughter-s-boyfriend/article_c99c71e0-c77a-5c55-8b6a-30ca3a4f0b84.html

what a bizarre story there.

well THAT'S not gonna get much sympathy

― j., Saturday, December 6, 2014 2:30 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

come on, though. they shot a man who was not threatening them because they had reason to believe he had a knife. said knife, when they did find it & tweeted out an image of, turned out to be a pocket knife, swiss-army style. which they didn't even see when he was shot, which he was shot in the street for suspicion of having.

The burden of the perfect victim suggests that only impeccable résumés may qualify for protection under the law and the support of the community.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/black-america-and-the-burden-of-the-perfect-victim/2014/08/22/30318ec2-27d1-11e4-958c-268a320a60ce_story.html

yes, i am aware.

hope that wasn't condescending--just an important point to make i think.

People of color must take care always to be a credit to their race. It's right there in the rule book.

http://www.wnyc.org/story/can-the-nypd-spot-the-abusive-cop/
The eye-popping statistic here is that in 51.5k NYC cases of stated "resisting arrest" since 2009, 5% of cops account for 40% of the charges and 15% account for 72% of the same charges.

CCRB Records show that 40 percent of the 35,000 officers on the force today have never been the subject of a citizen complaint. Another 20 percent have only one. Yet about a thousand cops have 10 or more complaints. One has been able to rack up 51.

grim lol

http://gapersblock.com/merge/archives/2014/12/06/i-couldnt-believe-what-i-was-hearing/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/12/06/i-was-a-st-louis-cop-my-peers-were-racist-and-violent-and-theres-only-one-fix/

@JamilSmith
Officer Loehmann not only shot Tamir Rice, but per his mom, handcuffed his 14-year-old sister at the scene while her brother lay dying.

Rice said that when she got to the park where her son was shot, she found her 14-year-old daughter, who was also at the park that afternoon playing, handcuffed in the back of a police car. When Rice later reunited with her daughter, the young girl said police officers tackled and handcuffed her once she saw her younger brother lying on the ground, bleeding.

When Samaria arrived and saw her youngest child shot and her daughter in the back of a police car, police officers warned her that if she didn’t calm down, she’d be placed in the police vehicle as well.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/maryanngeorgantopoulos/tamir-rices-mother-wants-conviction-for-officers-involved-in?bftw

rally at the nets game in BK tonight

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/12/07/horrible-missouri-bar-offered-michael-brown-six-shots-special/

ugh

ffs

http://www.addictinginfo.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/mugshots8.jpg

I sarcastically hope that bar burns to the ground.

The specific history of police forces varied in all American cities, but since they were facing similar problems in repressing urban workers and the poor, they all tended to converge on similar institutional solutions. The Southern experience also reinforces the point that was already clear in the North: Anti-Black racism was built into American police work from the very first day.

A long consideration of the history of the police: http://worxintheory.wordpress.com/2014/12/07/origins-of-the-police/

http://gawker.com/unarmed-people-of-color-killed-by-police-1999-2014-1666672349

Was just reading that. I've had to absent myself from Facebook recently, because a very, very good friend of mine, who I've known for 25 years and was best man at my wedding, is a cop. He's been in law enforcement his entire adult life, and is the chief of police in a small--ish Ohio city known for its annual twins convention. And even though he should know better, he's very "Thin Blue Line" and closing ranks and all that. The day after the Garner grand jury announcement he posted, "I feel like I'm being painted with a very broad brush," and I feel like a complete coward for not commenting, amongst all his cop friends, "IMAGINE HOW BLACK PEOPLE FEEL."

We were out together at a bar the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and another of his friends, a firefighter, was there as well. They were watching the Ferguson coverage on TV, and his friend referred to the protestors as "imbeciles." My friend praised the prosecutor for "coming to exactly the right decision and laying out logically and exactly how and why." Again, I wanted to say, "If the county prosecutor treated a case your office sent him like this prosecutor did this case you'd be outraged." But I didn't.

I guess I am part of the problem.

it sounds to me like at some point you want to make your feelings clear to your cop friend, so it's harder for him to think it's "them" "persecuting" him.

Ugh. So sorry. My wife has a cop cousin or something and has gotten very "cops deserve to be able to protect themselves and go home to their families" a few times during all of this.

my dad ran a police academy in SE missouri so he has definitely sided with the police on this one

xxp yeah, I really want to have a conversation with him about it, but at a time when he's not surrounded by other cops. Several years ago his force lost an officer in a shooting -- the only one in the history of the force -- so it's only strengthened his "us" v. "them" feelings.

Is "them" just criminals in general?

"them" = "not cops, especially brown not-cops"

If that's true, then he's holding that brush ("I feel like I'm being painted with a very broad brush")

you will never pierce dude's veil of self-righteousness, is my cynical guess

DJP has it right. It goes without saying that the community where he is chief is about 80% white. (Compared to my city, which is about 40% white.)

interesting.

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2014/12/at_eric_garner_protests_some_whites_behaving_badly.php?page=2

the (basically always white) guys / occasionally women at protests looking to actively agitate against passersby and engage the cops with preemptive hostility are the worst. you want to shake them and say 'you're not helping'.

i saw one of those in dc friday--turned out to be an undercover.

~~plainclothes~~ and "in character" if you prefer

And theres that too yes

whaaaaaaaaaat

that's what they do, SOP

http://www.wmur.com/news/police-man-arrested-after-shooting-bb-gun-at-officers/28219706

misleading URL

police man

if this war gonna start ur gonna need more than a bb gun

that's what they do, SOP

^^^yup

whaaaaaaaaaat

― $0.00 Butter sauce only. No marinara. (Sufjan Grafton), Wednesday, December 10, 2014 5:53 AM (15 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i actually thought this was sarcasm at first--DC sends undercovers into any and all developing protest groups within the city. some friends outed one & sued her.

http://wamu.org/news/13/08/28/dc_police_defend_use_of_undercover_police_officer_to_infiltrate_labor_group

oh it's not just DC

oh for sure, i just mean i've seen it firsthand here.

...'any and all' is kind of overkill, but new groups making a splash get undercovers quickly. they used to be easy to pick out ("spot the crew cut"), but they're getting better. the dude i saw last fri looked like he belonged, it was his behavior that tipped me off.

was he like "hey man do you have any connections to the more radical and violent elements of this protest movement, and/or do you want to help me get everyone to riot?"

I was sincerely shocked by this. It feels like something out of Brooklyn 99.

this has been SOP for decades - since at least the 60s - and I wouldn't be at all surprised if it dates back further than that to the big labor struggles of the early 20th century

Panthers were riddled with agent provocateurs etc.

2004 GOP Convention: The New York Times has also reported on two occasions that the police videotaped and infiltrated protests, as well as acting as agents provocateurs during the protests.

plainclothes cops infiltrating a large protest group to monitor it is one thing and somewhat understandable, but then actively agitating false flag style to discredit it is so loathsome

we were relatively scattered along the block--waiting for enough of our folks to arrive to block the intersection. i headed over to one corner where a small crowd was gathering and saw a guy i thought was a livestreamer i knew. when i said 'hey whats up' and he turned to me i realized he was someone else. guy i'd never seen before. within a few minutes i noticed he was making a concerted effort to ask the names of everyone arriving in the group, without giving his own name. between learning people's names he was hollering at no one in particular LET'S SHUT THIS SHIT DOWWWWN. WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR, LET'S TAKE THE STREET.

we weren't ready. we didn't have a large enough crowd. LET'S FUCK UP THIS TRAFFIC GUYS COME ON

after another 15 minutes or so the crowd had grown enough to take the intersection. we did a die in. i stood up, and he was gone. got names, made transparently bad suggestions very loudly, and disappeared once we actually got moving--that smelled like cop to me.

he was also a larger middle aged white guy which, tbqh, you don't see very many of at a rush hour blockade against police brutality on a weekday.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO

it's not science fiction, it's history

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Darby

by "history" I mean of course "stuff that really happened and is still really happening today"

plainclothes cops infiltrating a large protest group to monitor it is one thing and somewhat understandable, but then actively agitating false flag style to discredit it is so loathsome

― anonanon, Wednesday, December 10, 2014 2:03 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, this is what got me.

btw even the fuckin darbyrat thinks the garner decision was incomprehensible

clear video evidence really does preempt reflexive reactionary handwaving and excuse making

unless you are a staten island grand jury member apparently

http://i.imgur.com/q98KASr.jpg

http://jerriblank.com/tammi110.jpg
"anybody know where I can get some big, fat doobies?"

https://twitter.com/notapoliceman

^
dying

best

http://i.imgur.com/tRFa5Tb.png

man idk if I would have the wherewithal to take a picture of a cop pointing a gun at me

yeah that's terrifying.

Is that cop holding his fucking gun sideways?

looks like he's motioning the photographer to back off

Supercops on television are always holding their handguns sideways, too. Life imitates art.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/f8/54/1d/f8541dcb2fcc65bab36077189a010049.jpg

Otm

Somebody is going to get killed if this trajectory holds

...

A whole bunch of somebodies were killed; that's how this situation came to be

http://gawker.com/unarmed-people-of-color-killed-by-police-1999-2014-1666672349

Yes, that did not come out quite as I meant it.

I mean the results of confrontations in the streets during protests.

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Undercover-cops-outed-attacked-at-Oakland-5951011.php

how appropos re: agent provocateur discussion

those are the ones who were hitting bank windows before T-Mobile got looted!

A coworker who was there last night corroborated the sfgate article. Between this and the CHP firing rubber bullets from a tactical position the other night they're not coming off so well in all of this.

He said before the officers were outed Tuesday, they were able to collect enough information to prevent four more freeway shutdown attempts.

ugh

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/johnson/article/Richmond-man-bruised-bullied-but-advocates-for-5951660.php

Wondering if the group who beat him could have been undercover cops?

I wouldn't rule it out

T or F: an unleaked d'angelo album stealth beyonce released could do serious holiday numbers

I am beside myself over here with laughter

oh for fuck's sake

lol

https://www.change.org/p/pass-the-ordinance-seeking-reparations-for-the-chicago-police-torture-survivors
http://inthesetimes.com/article/16064/sorry_not_good_enough_for_torture_survivors_say_activists

Through his City Council floor leader, Pat O’Connor, and his Corporation Counsel, attorney Steve Patton, Mayor Emanuel has already voiced his reluctance to compensate the survivors who are legally barred from suing the city by the statute of limitations. But in the face of the more than $20 million Chicago has spent defending Burge, Emanuel’s claim that the city is too cash-strapped to make reparations rings hollow.

Tamir Rice death ruled a homicide

still a ways away from bringing charges

Here is a story of a lawsuit brought by the family of someone who was mourned in my hometown. Robert Russ was an excellent student and athlete and gave us all hope for our community, and his acceptance at Northwestern inspired a lot of local kids. He spoke at my sister's high school commencement, she knew him.

The community also suffers when they lose an innocent person, and these insensitive people who comment on Facebook or Fox News ought to be reminded of how these shootings hurt an entire community. We could have used a leader like Russ.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2003-10-18/news/0310180266_1_russ-family-russ-mother-russ-death

marches across the country today--including one here in DC, where organizers from Ferguson had to fight their way to the front and demand a moment at Sharpton's mic. after about 90 seconds they were cut off and removed by security for "not having VIP passes".

Ugh, fuck THAT.

Waiting at a busstop this evening and two vans loaded down with SWAT passed us this evening as they left downtown Portland.

https://vine.co/v/O6Ttw1OmPMa

^^ sharpton's daughter getting ferguson organizers thrown off the stage

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B4yGnUjIQAE-foi.jpg

Is that in Washington Square Park? Fuck, we should have gone out today. Were talking about it but the only event invite I'd seen made today's activities seem really Anonymous-y and, I dunno, hard to verbalize, but the bad side of a lot of the "eager aggressive white college types joining good causes for the wrong reasons" stuff that's been discussed recently in this thread.

still going:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/lippylulu

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/14/john-crawford-girlfriend-questioned-walmart-police-shot-dead

CHRIST

aaaand

http://deadspin.com/cleveland-cops-demand-apology-call-activist-browns-pla-1671032511

i understand that the unions have exactly one audience, but damn man know when to just STFU

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/11/black-officers-torn_n_6310826.html

psychopath

Andrew Hawkins' response is pretty fantastic:

http://www.espncleveland.com/common/more.php?m=49&post_id=40811

pretty sure I got eliminated from a jury pool this afternoon because I told the judge and attorneys that 'in 2014 it's difficult for me to be impartial' in a case in which a man is charged with resisting arrest without violence.

I filled out my potential juror paperwork recently after they hunted me down and threatened me with whatever they threaten you with. I'm never getting on a jury though.

"Have you ever had a negative interaction with the police?"

"I don't believe in the legitimacy of the state, especially their exercise of power through violence, or threat of violence, against citizens. So to answer your question...all of them?"

idk im pretty down with the idea of jury nullification as a form of protest

what do we think about this new Wisconsin law?

Someone on my fb tried to tell me jury nullification is void in New York State for some reason which he's a lawyer so he might be right but he's also a libertarian ie "White men are the REAL victims around here" so I usually assume he's wrong about everything.

I'm not really sure how jury nullification could ever be void, I think all it ultimately is is a post hoc description of an outcome not like an identifiable tactic or procedure or whatever

I mean as long as you have a system where juries are required in criminal cases and acquittals are not subject to appeal by the prosecution

i believe people should lie during jury selection if they want to nullify. idk what void even means in that context, but in a lot of places juries can't be asked to nullify or instructed that it's ok. anyway people should try to get on juries.

Unfortunately despite the common law origins of this idea, and a noble history, in New York which is the only venue I can speak about with authority it is prohibitied both by the oath a jury takes that it will abide by the law as instructed whether or not it agrees with the law and further, in the civil contect, with a judge's right upon motion to set aside a jury verdict.

?????

I mean obv I will lie to get on a jury, that's the only way I'd ever make it.

ok that guy writes like a fucking dickhead

otm

I did say.

ok well the answer to the question, can you still do it in NYS, is yes, because after the jury says not guilty no one can change it

Sorry to digress for a sec but I'm really struggling with a neighborhood newsgroup in which some pretty nauseating things are being written. I've taken on the lead in "constructively engaging" with at least the more reasonable-seeming of the ostrich-with-head-in-sand posters, but there are times when such engagement begins to feel like bestowal of legitimacy (not to mention I'm just feeling really pissed off). Trying to hang in there but I fucking have my limits y'know?

I still haven't figured out the balance of legitimizing their humanity and also telling them to go fuck their terrible wrongheaded opinions

Ayuh.

It depends on the person and their relationship to me. People who aren't very strongly connected to you don't care if you think they're wrong. So for casual acquaintances, I'm not sure it's a very effective tool. For close ppl, friends and family, though, it can be more effective over time to just keep building up the world as a place where they are wrong, backwards, losing, becoming irrelevant. Which, if culture change is happening, is hopefully all true!

I'm not nec trying to change ppl's minds in one conversation, because that would be exhausting and burn me out, and also cos I don't think that's how people actually come to believe in things. It's more about being one note among many, over many occurrences until their reality really does look different to them because they start to notice different things. A clergy person who happens to say that love is more important than judgment, a chance comment by another parent at school, hearing other people say hateful things and recognizing them as such and starting to see how you've been perceived when that was you....

taking notes here for the next time I get into this with my son-in-law

I find that in arguments over this issue I have to refer to authority, and I find that wearying. I find the fact of thousands of black people protesting an authoritative enough statement that some concern needs better attention.

It's a failure of leadership, too - I'll bet a lot of these "traditionalists" go to church, where are their ministers or church authorities to iterate what scripture truly says? The Gospels don't regard the taking of life so lightly.

Thx for your comments, I find them helpful. Have more to say on this but short on time today.

Every conversation that a white person has with another white person about ending racism is one less conversation that some unfortunate Black person has to have on top of living their own lives (full of racism and racist microaggressions).

I just heard second-hand today that some elected officials around here have been known to say things in public discussion (in regards to challenges faced by public education) like "Well, some families raise their kids to be basketball players...."

I can never go into politics, there just aren't enough opportunities to say "FFFFF UUUUU."

Also sometimes ppl who have experienced valid kinds of oppression of their own (just not RACIAL or often gendered oppression) have already mentally ceded their right to object to what was done to them. They've internalized that if they got hurt or disadvantaged by whatever it was (a learning disability, poverty, PTSD, abuse histories, immigration status, cultural isolation, etc) that it wasn't significant or "It's just the way the cookie crumbles" or whatever. You have to make the best of it, they've told themselves, and they've probably long ago stopped objecting to things that mock their former state, because...I dunno, I guess they've internalized that they don't deserve their own anger?

Sometimes having cut yourself off from recognizing the kinds of privilege you DIDN'T have makes you unable to acknowledge the kinds you do have. Sometimes ppl with every kind of privilege are still just fucking dickheads but sometimes you can encourage even a straight white dude (for instance) to decolonize his mind.

I went to a screening last night of a 1968 documentary by William Greaves, Still a Brother: Inside the Negro Middle Class, (http://www.bam.org/film/2014/still-a-brother) in Brooklyn and what was startling about seeing it with an 80% people-of-color audience -- lots of students and people in the arts -- is that though it dealt with its moment in history, during the interviewees' accounts (and clips) of the Newark 'riots' or speculation on the utility of black nationalism and the impenetrability of the white power structure, people were audibly reacting to the words and images with "mm hmm" and "tell it" because, re social dynamics, NOT MUCH HAS CHANGED IN 46 YEARS. People are angry.

In the discussion afterward, an African American woman in her 20s from a conservative Christian background in Texas said she asks her mother what the ministers are saying on Sunday about the events of the last month, and what she heard was "Oh, we don't talk about it." This was in counterpoint to one of the panelists, a director of black theatre/film in his 70s, talking about the church as a force for change in the King era.

I think one thing this new racial justice moment/movement has shown us is a gap between Black leadership establishment who may have charged forward during a previous era but gotten comfortable/benefited from where they ended up and whose prescription for Black equality is now respectability/exceptionalism.

Young activists are definitely not taking time out of organizing their peers out of dying in the street, or fighting for justice for LGBTQ PoCs, long enough to take those "leaders" seriously anymore. Especially when leaders slip and show that they're not fighting for EVERYONE'S rights. Faith leaders who preach anti-gay sermons? Nope. Racial justice advocates who tell Black women to stay in their homes and light candles and pray for their men? Nope. Community leaders who want more after-school activities to keep boys out of "trouble" but don't think about Black and brown girls as being at risk because "fast-tailed girls" get what they deserve? BIG NOPE.

And these young organizers are getting their funding in new ways--by donation and crowdsourcing, in a lot of cases. So as Brittany at @UrbIntelligence said, "Your mission is shifted by your funding. This is one way our work is controlled. [With] coalitions of young people, money don't mean shit, because we don't get it from you."

I wonder if the secret history of the conservative movement is its understanding of how well black churches galvanized public and political opinion; did the evangelical movement rise as an Earth-3 version?

“The clergy in Oakland have not really come together,” said Bishop Joseph Simmons, pastor at Greater St. Paul Church in West Oakland. “We’re still trying to figure out where we fit in in all of this. This generation doesn’t have respect for the church, and we don’t have the power we once had.”

Scott Walker says he's ready to call in the Nat'l Guard for any protests against the upcoming decision re: the cop who killed the mentally ill Dontre Hamilton earlier this year. Some background on Hamilton:

http://onmilwaukee.com/buzz/articles/dontrehamillton.html

NY cop killing thing sad and stupid and counterproductive but cant say I'm really surprised

Isn't it crazy how we're not allowed to say he was a mentally ill lone wolf

Isn't it crazy how we're not supposed to talk about how he targeted his girlfriend first before finding a squad car with a lady cop in it

Corey Robin has been on point on Twitter tonight in finding frightening cop rhetoric in response to this awful tragedy and awful justice minded mistake

He called it a Dolchstosslegende and during in NY tonight watching blue and reds reflect in the clouds that's hard to unhear.

I'm not saying that I don't appreciate the skills needed to be a (good) police officer, but they get paid to have those skills. Some of those lectures about what attitude we ought to have clearly come from people of privilege who live in low crime areas.

Every time there is a shooting in my community, I think, "we don't get compensated or applauded for living here." Keep that in mind as you see "those people" chided for their disrespect.

i don't know if it makes sense to have an attitude about police officers one way or the other. some of them commit horrific abuses; others aspire to be noble public servants, whatever you think of the actual value of their activities. it's like with teachers: as a class they are not good or bad. there are some lazy, awful teachers and there are also some that are wonderful, who make a positive impact on scores of students per year. depending on people's attitude toward unions, they tend to emphasize one type of teacher over the other but either way it's a distortion.

this isn't to say there aren't cultural problems within the police force that cause violence to be normalized. this isn't to say that these problems aren't, in the end, really just manifestations of racism. but this can be addressed without making assumptions about random cops. police officers are part of the working class -- their interests, in the end, are ultimately connected to those of the people in the communities they clash with, just as their interests were bound to those of the occupy protesters several years ago. the cops who were murdered yesterday were not white. the police, as an institution, defend white supremacy and the property rights of the 1% but they do so, often, against the interests of police officers. if you want to think about inequality in a structural sense, it is clear that cops are the victims of these structures even as they are their most visible enforcers.

that said, this is interesting:

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/08/when-will-they-shoot/

statistically, police work is not as dangerous as many other jobs, such as roofing or driving a cab. also cops kill vastly more people than kill them -- 51 police killed last year versus over 400 people killed by police. this is clearly a nightmare and needs to change immediately

xp

sure, but it's your closing line that makes such equanimity hard to maintain. they are the part of the structure holding the gun.

yeah but if the goal is reform i don't think inciting individuals against the police via campaigns like ACAB -- which i didn't know about until yesterday -- is going to be much help.

because the issue, ultimately, isn't with the police, but with the society that provides them with fucked up laws to enforce and protects them when they, out of paranoia, kill people

What's the ACAB campaign?

it means "all cops are bastards." there were some posters that were put up in england, but it's also a popular hashtag.

i don't really know how extensive the demonization of the police is, and i haven't actually seen it in progressive circles so much, but i think the killer yesterday picked up his rhetoric from somewhere.

in a larger sense, though, while i am disgusted with the calls on the right for people to "respect" officers in order to distract from the abuses that have been uncovered, i think the other side of the coin, demonizing officers, is bad too. i feel like i used to say stuff like "i hate cops," but i don't really think it's productive now to feel that way

very interested in the possibility of disarming cops though

ACAB has been used as a tag since the 1970s all over the world. It's not a campaign, as such. It's used by everyone from anarchists to football hooligans. The UK posters were not, as far as I know, inciting individuals against the police.

It makes sense for the left to do what the right has consistently failed to do, and examine whether its rhetoric could have contributed to the actions of someone who was already prone to violence, but I'm not sure that a black man in NY really needs HuffPo to foster hostility towards police.

isn't "All Cops are Bastards" itself an irresponsible phrase? in the first place, it alienates people (from the working class especially) who should be allies in the fight against police brutality

yeah but if the goal is reform i don't think inciting individuals against the police via campaigns like ACAB -- which i didn't know about until yesterday -- is going to be much help.

― Treeship, Sunday, December 21, 2014 8:07 AM (1 minute ago)
agree completely! hadn't heard of ACAB until about a minute ago.

because the issue, ultimately, isn't with the police, but with the society that provides them with fucked up laws to enforce and protects them when they, out of paranoia, kill people

― Treeship, Sunday, December 21, 2014 8:09 AM (3 minutes ago)

w "ultimately" off the table, i think that a big part of the issue (a tangle of interrelated sub-issues) is with the police - or that it at least makes sense to frame it that way. individual police officers and forces, police unions and culture, systemic and individual racism, valorization of the "hero cop" so desperate that it must react to any criticism or investigation basically as treason. it's common thinking among police officers these days that if you ever use your weapon, you must use it to kill. never wound or warn with fire. never restrain your fire until your target is unequivocally "nonthreatening" (i.e., dead). this is military thinking, and it hasn't always been a part of american police culture/training. same goes for the idea that any perceived threat automatically justifies lethal force. this is an idea that has risen and quickly taken hold in recent years, both within and without police forces.

i say that because "society" as a whole is vague, intangible, too big to address pragmatically. but bad officers, bad forces, lack of civilian oversight, police self-investigation, reliance on military equipment and tactics, the local mechanisms of the surveillance state, police racism: these are issues we can directly address.

It's not a particularly accurate or constructive phrase but I'm not sure it's taken very seriously by the mainstream left. If I see ACAB graffiti, which I do frequently all over Europe, I assume it was left by football fans.

The bigger problem the police has is hostility / distrust from minority communities and that hasn't required any organised campaigns to develop.

Xp

contenderizer otm. Vox had an article on the cases of 'resisting arrest', and something like 5% of officers put forth 40% of cases. There's def bad apples, and #notallcops are equally bad. But then the system protects the bad apples, uses intricate systems to pick out bad neighborhoods which will have tougher policing while using no resources on picking out bad cops, etc. The policeforce, as a system, as a whole, is screwed up. Also, on a smaller scale, in DK. Probably everywhere.

And while it's def unproductive to feel hate on all cops, I think it's equally unproductive to tell minorities feeling discrimination every day how they should feel. Which, also, is not to say that all minorites say that they hate cops and can't realize how unproductive that is.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/166023_10152838982200567_63766925_n.jpg?oh=e76d99c81ab28f2d7a2209baedf08e1d&oe=5503F103&__gda__=1430744944_edcad2dce0dd9f4763853dc563e0a6c0

actual profile photo of a HS buddy of mine i have only just learned is a cop

OMG PLEASE

Are we turning 2014 into 9/11 or what

Again, I don't mean to sound bitter and disrespectful toward police, but I have had police in my family, and part of the attraction of the job are the benefits.

I've been to protests where the socialists get up and say that the police are "working class" but this isn't the 1959's. "working class" can mean working two retail jobs, no vacation, no benefits, certainly NO retirement.

My neighborhood is one, for some reason, that NO police officers live in. Is it beneath their standard of living - because the houses are old? I mean, in many communities there is a huge class difference between police and the community. Sun Belt retirements and vacation homes are NOT the norm where I come from.

around here (rural NH) LEOs actually make pretty good money -- mid-highish five figures and excellent benefits. definitely in better shape than the rural poor they are policing

75% of the sf police force does not live in sf

xp yes, but this isn't because standards of living for cops has improved, it's because the labor conditions in the private sector have been degraded. everyone should have that kind of financial security.

there was a similar discussion with the public bargaining rights fiasco in wisconsin. many workers felt like, hey, they weren't getting these benefits so why should they care if other people are losing them. but the fates of various sectors of the working class are connected. the reason the koch brothers et al see public unions as a threat is because they want to totally degrade the culture of labor rights -- what they call "entitlements" -- to make it easier for them to exploit their own private sector employees. so i still think there is a possibility for solidarity among cops and the truly poor on the basis of class. for instance, the cops who clashed with occupy protesters were acting against their class interests -- if they had a different political consciousness maybe that could have unfolded differently

To me the mission station cops are more like a predatory protection/extortion racket

Xp

working class ppl who become cops have betrayed the working classes tbh

Well, I'm sorry to say the police are just not visible in the labor rights or other economic justice movements. Their union people have every opportunity to make statements when the opportunity arises but I don't see them.

OTOH, you see and hear teachers working for general working people's rights all of the time!

Coming across the bridge to shake down residents, steal drugs, etc

xxp

the reason that #acab is that they all become complicit, they may be ostensible decent individuals who interpersonally could be quite lovely i'm sure, but on duty they at best submit to practices of oppression and at worst gleefully participate in those practices. the cop who isn't a bastard would be the one driving for change from within in a way that would probably get them fired

you could say that cops have "betrayed the working classes" and it's true that most of them seem to be right wingers. however, many cops are not just working class, but are men and women of color. i think it's still worthwhile to point out that the systems they use violence to protect do not start or end with them, and in fact aren't even in their interests. i feel like cops could even come to understand this.

if complicitness is the sin not sure how many of our hands are really clean.

It's interesting that the Koch brothers have been active in funding anti-police groups in the past, including some that have had, on the surface, a content / tone overlap with left-wing groups. The objective isn't social justice, it's private policing. It's being seen as the libertarian right aligning with the liberal left but, in the longer term, the right of the state to maintain law and order is going to be on the agenda and that could potentially unite progressive people behind the police. That seems a long way off, but it's something the police should probably bear in mind. There have already been a couple of flare-ups, including the Bundy ranch thing, where you've had the left broadly supportive of police action and the right broadly opposed to it.

To paraphrase Chesterton, the poor sometimes object to being policed badly, the rich object to being policed at all.

I imagine some people object to seeing police cars in their neighborhood - I have heard people in affluent neighborhoods complain that it makes their neighborhood "look" bad and is probably bad for property values!

I can't imagine what it must be like to live in that sort of community. I'm relieved to see a police car, we never see them and we are near a busy thoroughfare where drug dealers are known to hang out. But the only time I have seen them is to stop ME to ask me why I was in the alley making a cell phone call. Totally pointless and intimidating!

i have mounted cops in my neighborhood sometimes

tmi

rock hard tree trunk

Lol

My uncle was an exceptional cop in many ways: he wasn't racist or sexist, and came down like a ton of bricks on younger family members who repeated anything from the playground along those lines. He spent most of his spare time participating in nature conservation of one type or other. He absolutely drilled it into us that police were expected to behave in exemplary fashion on and off duty, because that was how the police should win the respect and trust of the general public (bottom line being that a co-operative community made his job easier, while a tyrannised community did not). His profile was very high, and he was always in the paper because he'd publicly clash with people just a few rungs up from him over best practice or issues of corruption. As a lieutenant detective, he didn't have to be in uniform or drive a squad car - and from what I can gather, the detective side of things was where the city of Minneapolis liked to place its mavericks.

He died 20 years ago this October, and would be appalled by all the Kevlar zombies in law enforcement today. And that stars-and-bars angel-wing thing? I can just imagine his voice, deriding it as macho bullshit van art.

I think the Kevlar zombies are setting the tone these days.

those wings look more like tarantula legs imo

https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/166023_10152838982200567_63766925_n.jpg?oh=e76d99c81ab28f2d7a2209baedf08e1d&oe=5503F103&__gda__=1430744944_edcad2dce0dd9f4763853dc563e0a6c0

Friend just posted in FB:
"So who's in the spotlight to address these issues after co-opting groundswell responses? Al Sharpton and (police union leader) Pat Lynch.
We're fucked."

That image just makes me think of those terrible crying eagle pick-up truck decals from 2002-2003

I know this has been said a thousand times today, but killing police is never, ever okay. The reaction of law enforcement in NY to this helps nothing, though.

jesus, i just read that quote from patrick lynch. i'd like to think that there are some NYC cops who are decent enough to be embarrassed or outraged by this asshole who claims to speak in their name.

Xp and yet you can bet that nobody will commence to digging through these two officers' service records to determine if, hey, maybe they were bad people and deserved it somehow.

I'm sure you'll find a minute somewhere

where's that shit with the statistic about cops dying on the job vs. roofers/foresters/cab-drivers
I just saw it the other day

http://www.premierhandling.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/most-dangerous-jobs.jpg

... much of which can be accounted for by the fact that cops drive a lot

The Officer Down Memorial Page lists the following causes of death for officers in the line of duty this year. Don't know how complete or up to date it is.

Assault: 2
Automobile accident: 25
Drowned: 1
Fire: 1
Gunfire: 46
Gunfire (Accidental): 2
Heart attack: 15
Motorcycle accident: 3
Struck by vehicle: 3
Vehicle pursuit: 5
Vehicular assault: 10

Read more: http://www.odmp.org/search/year/2014#ixzz3Mduh6Nxu

BTW this has made national news now, but I first saw it last week in Cleveland SCENE, the alt-weekly.

http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2014/12/volunteer_cop_resigns_after_his_racist_youtube_comments_are_exposed.html

lol @ De Blasio calling for an immediate suspension of protests - everything's even-steven now eh

Patrick Lynch is indistinguishable from every predecessor of his; no cop ever did anything wrong, they bray.

blaming these cop murders on the protests is pretty gross

one convenient insane person

lol @ De Blasio calling for an immediate suspension of protests - everything's even-steven now eh

― Οὖτις, Monday, 22 December 2014 22:06 (23 minutes ago)

this doesnt really have anything to do with what de blasio is saying

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxJSBU2KgnI

Mayor Bill de Blasio on Monday called for protesters to suspend demonstrations in the aftermath of the killing of two New York police officers, who were gunned down in Brooklyn as they sat in their patrol car.

“It’s time for everyone to put aside political debates, put aside protests, put aside all of the things that we will talk about in due time,” Mr. de Blasio said in a speech. “That can be for another day.”

I was referring to this lede in the NYT

The obvious purpose of that is to protect protesters from vengeful cops.

“That can be for another day.”

it's always another day somewhere, de blasio

^^^

feel like vengeful cops won't have any problem identifying people to vent their rage on if they're so inclined. hasn't really been a problem, historically speaking.

as some twitterer sez:
Isn't it instructive that there is talk of 'placating' a police force, as if they were less civil servants, and more an angry tribe?

I was referring to this lede in the NYT

― Οὖτις, Monday, 22 December 2014 22:46 (1 minute ago)

and i was referring to your low functioning sarcasm, whatever one thinks of his suggestion of collective pause in order to respect dead public servants, it is not identical to a curtailment of protest as such, nor does it intimate that critics of criminal justice will or should now feel satiated

i imagine de blasio has an interest in maintaining a somewhat working relationship between the police and the communities they work and is probably trying to taper down hostilities before they turn into a broader problem. i think he's less worried about the police picking a rando to vent their anger on in revenge, and more worried about police responding to protests more forcefully/hostilely, protests becoming more aggressive in response, etc. de blasio doesn't want that kind of dynamic obvs.

no i am pretty sure de blasio is worried about police unions shitting on him in general. there is nothing heroic about this move imo

pragmatism is a kind of heroism i guess

uh

Isn't it instructive that there is talk of 'placating' a police force, as if they were less civil servants, and more an angry tribe?

terribly instructive if one hadn't already noticed that placating vicious cop union leaders is giving him palpitations, and that subtly alluding to their blackmail might actually help his cause, given that even people in the mainstream are objecting to it

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2014-12-22/why-cops-and-republicans-are-blaming-blacklivesmatter-protests-for-a-double-murder

nor does it intimate that critics of criminal justice will or should now feel satiated

except that "in due time" usually = "never"

except that "in due time" usually = "never"

― Οὖτις, Monday, 22 December 2014 23:10 (1 minute ago)

that remains to be seen, given that even george w bush queried the garner decision those criticisms are not such a minor interest these days

de blasio has already made comments sufficently sympathetic to those criticisms that he is a police pariah, and the right already fucking hates him, so it would lead to
charges of hypocrisy and backtracking from his natural constituencies if he were to close down reformist discussion in the longer term

and his comments to that idiot reporter are a fairly clear defence of protest rights with the usual 'large majority of peaceful protestors' liberal caveat, so one can hardly accuse him of a volte face just yet

Isn't it instructive that there is talk of 'placating' a police force, as if they were less civil servants, and more an angry tribe?

no

that is precisely how commentary/opinion always refers to any specific interest group who come bearing real or imagined grudges, including civil servants

lol u british

gov't employees here aren't "placated" ever, mostly they're just vilified

testament to how dense you that are that it's probably more reasonable to conclude that you think deems is british, or that dublin is british, than that you are making a delightful west brit zing at his expense

ach its not like I'm invested here but the contortions are p ridic is all

I know he isn't british and would hate the suggestion that he is british but thx for playing

xp

see the joek is to call anybody in the UK british explaining comedy makes it funnier to u see

british isles eh whatever

outic,

if you were de blasio, and you knew that elements of the police were hostile to you personally, that they also despised the recent anti-police protests, that emotions were running high after the killing of two officers carried out on the nominal behalf of these protesters' cause, and that the entire world has watched, over the past several months, a much smaller city in this country devolve into riots under very similar circumstances, would you seriously not try to de-escalate this situation? you don't have to believe it is right, i guess, but i'm not sure it's plausible for a mayor to act otherwise while still carrying out his duty as mayor.

fantastic xp

see the joek is to call anybody in the UK british explaining comedy makes it funnier to u see

dublin's not in the uk...

mayor shakey would be like "this was a good start - i expect more cop-killings in the morning"

de-escalate the situation

it seems to me that the institution that is threatening to keep escalating the situation is the police department. so while "placating" them makes total sense given the politics of the position De Blasio is in (ie, he's the mayor and requires, at least to some extent, the cooperation and loyalty of the police department) it does not actually de-escalate the situation, insofar as it leaves the public with the impression that reverting to the status quo - where it's ok for the PD to regularly murder black men - is acceptable. From my point of view (as a non-resident and non-mayor of New York City) this is not really acceptable. The police department needs to be disciplined, or at least be shown that the possibility of disciplinary action can be reasonably expected. The murders are, frankly, irrelevant and not a reflection on the protestors or their goals. I get why De Blasio is acting as he is - which is probably even counter to his own instincts - but guess what this is what happens when you're the mayor and in charge of corrupt institutions, the institutions bend you to their will through the leverage of political expediency.

lol mordy

but seriously as mayor I would immediately empower an independent (ie, non-DA) prosecutor to be in charge of police brutality/fatality investigations

the police department would hate this and probably have me killed immediately

dublin's not in the uk...

yes yes hence my post immediately following my typo do keep up

either way, isn't it problematic to insult someone by referring to him by the nationality of his nation's former colonizer?

it seems to me that the institution that is threatening to keep escalating the situation is the police department.

this is not rly true tho
but I do generally agree with the rest

and I'm not from fuckin Dublin, which btw is part of the uk tbrr

xp this wasn't that and the thread does not need sidetracking that way

insofar as it leaves the public with the impression that reverting to the status quo - where it's ok for the PD to regularly murder black men - is acceptable. From my point of view (as a non-resident and non-mayor of New York City) this is not really acceptable.

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 23 December 2014 00:17 (1 minute ago)

this is not a particularly lucid reading if it requires entirely forgetting comments he made a couple of weeks ago about the fear of his own son being murdered by the nypd, comments that absolutely nobody in the america media is forgetting

outic OTM throughout

I get why De Blasio is acting as he is - which is probably even counter to his own instincts - but guess what this is what happens when you're the mayor and in charge of corrupt institutions, the institutions bend you to their will through the leverage of political expediency.

^^^^^

requires entirely forgetting comments he made a couple of weeks ago about the fear of his own son being murdered by the nypd, comments that absolutely nobody in the america media is forgetting

huh have literally not seen this quoted anywhere

not surprised he said it (makes total sense)

that's why the police turned their backs on him during a recent appearance iirc

This is blatantly illogical to blame the shooting of two police officers on protests. I watched CNN as the verdict was read, and both media and police anticipated RIOTS. Of course there are going to be protests. Grow up and deal, already.

nonetheless his goal at present seems to be mending his relationship with the police department, I would imagine with the ostensible goal of developing a "working relationship" wherein he can extract some kind of compromises/reforms to which I say yeah good luck with that police departments are reformed by force from the outside and not by cooperation from within - best examples being the police departments that the feds have taken over

xp

This is blatantly illogical to blame the shooting of two police officers on protests.

tbf to De Blasio he does not actually say this. Other people say it though.

Oh, I did not have De Blasio in mind, it was one of those awful police union spokespeople who actually said this. + other pro-police commenters.

Patrick Lynch, see upthread.

The mayor described his son as "a good young man, [a] law-abiding young man who would never think to do anything wrong" -- but he noted that "because of a history that still hangs over us, the dangers he may face, we've had to literally train him, as families have all over this city for decades, in how to take special care in any encounter he has with the police officers who are there to protect him."

if you didn't see those then fair enough, assumed that they were well circulated, cites 'the dangers that he may face' from twitch cops

ya i saw this everywhere, routinely put next to "obama says trayvon could have been his son" to be like WHY ARENT THEY SUPPORTING OUR COPS

there's a possibility that de blasio either reverts to type in defending police orthodoxy

maybe he will try to reconcile some of the reformist inclination he alluded to before with boilerplate pro-cop rhetoric

maybe any meliorist liberal program for the improvement of criminal justice is futile and some sort of radical ex-nihilo restructuring of society and institutions is required (not entirely supported by american or other history but possibly valid prospectively)

there are clearly elements here that are distinct from the usual, if one just elides those comments and the extraordinary treatment of the mayor by his own city's officers in the aftermath then you are treating distinct elements with indiscriminate cynicism

not to mention what treesh is saying about it being in the common interest return not to the situation of the 1970s described in that bloomberg article where cops were executed and they in turn became even more vicious and paranoid

Good article, with lots of details to infuriate you, on police violence in Milwaukee:

http://slnm.us/A4T54bj

I just assume any slate article about Milwaukee is a pre-emptive scott walker for president hit piece

Celebrity Twitter assholes include James Woods, stridently anti-de Blasio and opining that Sharpton (and I'm not a fan) is "directly responsible" for the cop murders.

did Woods ever capture those Al Qaeda guys who were on that plane flight with him

real american hero, that James Woods

Somebody remind these red-blooded Americans of the Enlightenment philosophy the "Founding Fathers" were influenced by.

Anyhow, that Milwaukee article was in Salon, not Slate.

Oh and also - Adam Baldwin - there's a persuasive individual. I'm going to change my mind right now!

The tragic killing of two officers by an emotionally and psychologically unstable shooter is being used to further the political goals of an establishment that’s been challenged through effective, largely nonviolent protest. Despite that movement’s focus on the criminal justice system as a whole, from policing to the role of district attorneys and the grand jury system, police leadership and rank and file are using this moment to claim victim status....

What’s equally predictable and disappointing is the near-erasure of Shaneka Thompson from the story of Ismaaiyl Brinsley’s shooting spree. Thompson is the 29-year-old ex-girlfriend whose Maryland apartment Brinsley entered before shooting her in the stomach and leaving her to scream for help. “I can’t die like this. Please, please help me,” she is reported to have shouted as she banged on a neighbor’s door. According to news reports, Thompson is a health insurance specialist with the Veterans Administration and an Air Force reservist. Brinsley took her phone with him as he headed north to New York, using it to post self-incriminating rants to Instagram before killing Officers Ramos and Liu and, finally, himself.

http://www.thenation.com/blog/193577/why-no-one-talking-about-nypd-shooters-other-target

otm

http://news.yahoo.com/grand-jury-clears-houston-policeman-fatal-shooting-black-213936653.html

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN0K11EV20141223?irpc=932

Reuters interviews black NYPD officers about their experiences off-duty.

NY police officers arrested less than half as many people and wrote one-tenth as many summonses than in the same period a year ago, building on a drastic drop in activity that began shortly after the murder of two officers.

I love how this is like a tacit admission that NYPD arrests have nothing to do with actual crimes being committed

it's kinda funny that the only point these assholes are proving is we don't need so many of them.

i think they're waiting for a moment when something/anything horrible happens in the city so they can do the "SEE! SEE!" thing but i doubt they're gonna make it

Nah, that way they surrender whatever moral high ground they think they have. They wouldn't play it up.

I was under the impression that it was about money. Less fines etc. = less money for city hall to play with.

What, like the two cops shot this morning isn't being played up?

Cops being in danger is the crux of what they want people to think this is about, so of course its fair game for them. However if civilians get hurt as as a direct result of the tactics they're using to protest, then they've put the lives of the people they're meant to protect in harms way just to make a political point which is horrible PR.

I was under the impression that it was about money. Less fines etc. = less money for city hall to play with.

― tsrobodo, Tuesday, January 6, 2015 2:43 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm, it's all about this afaik