Ongoing U.S Police Brutality and Corruption Discussion Thread

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