Ongoing U.S Police Brutality and Corruption Discussion Thread

Plus, plausible deniability has become the new tactic du jour of folks defending the police in these shootings. After a while, when it became apparent that the victim blaming ("he/she was no angel", "this was just a dangerous thug") was no longer something one could win over the general public with, many folks have gravitated towards the "well, ok, maybe it wasn't the victim's fault, but you GOTTA UNDERSTAND WHAT THE COP WAS GOING THROUGH" approach.

The classic tactic of late has been blaming the people who have called 911 dispatch for giving misinformation. Because apparently, see, the police aren't capable of actually assessing whether a threat is real or not when they arrive at the scene. No, if you call 911 cos a kid is in his yard with a toy gun, and the cops show up and shoot him seconds after arrival, a la Tamir Rice, well...it's unfortunate, but "if only the call who called 911 hadn't given bad information" this wouldn't have happened. (kind of a bad system where you are reliant on your flawed populace to give 100% accurate intel on a 911 call in order for innocent people not to die).

and then there's the phrase "felt threatened", which is subjective and has a low threshold to meet for most people. I suspect most armed people who shoot someone because they felt threatened actually felt threatened as a byproduct of themselves having a gun and being woefully unsure as to whether to use it. Would their brains immediately gravitate to life or death in many of these situations if they weren't armed?

the other shorthand is "reached into his waistband". Now this isn't to say someone reaching into their waistband couldn't actually be going for a gun, but there are a number of innocuous behaviors that resemble reaching into one's waistband (hitching one's pants up, adjusting one's boxers, nervous reflexive hand motions). None of which are recommended, naturally, when a cop is asking you to put your hands in the air, but cops seem to be allowed to translate hands gravitating towards waist as "hostile movement for a weapon" without even identifying if a weapon exists. Even Zimmermann used this in his 911 call when he shot Trayvon, when in context, it is obvious he wasn't reaching for a weapon (as he had none on him).

conservatism circa now = turning people who kill unarmed black men and children into folk heroes

circa now?

i guess the inclination has always been there, to varying degrees. idk the current climate just seems to be palpably different/ more aggro than the (also very disgusting) welfare queen myths that permeated conservative rhetoric in the 80s & 90s.

This shit has been happening for decades, it's just that after getting shamed out of consuming lynching pictures as entertainment in the early 20th century, it took Amercia a while to desensitize to the point where it was mainstream again to gawk at images of (black) people dying

Another one

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Officer-Involved-Shooting-in-El-Cajon-395014341.html

Victim apparently unarmed, disabled

He has died.

"Officer-involved shooting" means that an officer shot someone. Maybe we need to start speaking of "penis-involved rape."

yeah all of the stupid bureaucratic language designed to vaporize culpability in police killings is so fucking exasperating

The classic tactic of late has been blaming the people who have called 911 dispatch for giving misinformation. Because apparently, see, the police aren't capable of actually assessing whether a threat is real or not when they arrive at the scene. No, if you call 911 cos a kid is in his yard with a toy gun, and the cops show up and shoot him seconds after arrival, a la Tamir Rice, well...it's unfortunate, but "if only the call who called 911 hadn't given bad information" this wouldn't have happened. (kind of a bad system where you are reliant on your flawed populace to give 100% accurate intel on a 911 call in order for innocent people not to die).

I've sat through an NYPD civilian informant workshop (they don't call it that, of course) in which a community affairs officer told a room full of mostly older Black people that they should call the police whenever they see someone "suspicious" and that if they even think that person might be armed, they should tell the dispatcher so the police can get to the scene properly prepared, presumably to shoot one of your neighbors. It was infuriating. No one in the room seemed phased at all. But this was 3-4 years ago, maybe they would hear that differently now.

i'd imagine today, that person would not make it out of the room.

xpost yeah I mean the logical conclusion is you can use the police to do your dirty work if you just invent a threat.

the other thing is...when did failure to comply become an offense that validated shooting? granted, they usually couple it with "he was reaching for an object", but I mean....people resist arrest all the time. IT'S WHY THERE IS A CHARGE CALLED "RESISTING ARREST". and in the case of mentally ill or if someone is disoriented, it may not even be resisting, but confusion.

when I was a kid, I was at the bowling alley one day, and this tall, unkempt middle aged white man walked into the alley. guy was slurring his words and stumbling around, and then for some reason, he started getting aggressive with alley staff, and for some reason, got angry at an employee and said "YOU MOTHERFUCKER" and ran at him and put him in a fucking chokehold. they call the cops (who are literally across the street from this alley) and they show up in moments, and he releases the employee and refuses to comply and basically comes at them.

they used mace, and billy clubs to subdue him, but he lived to tell the tale. and this is a guy who was physically harming somebody, refusing to comply, and being aggressive with police. nowadays? who knows.

it also infuriates me that the police seem to think they can use a cookie cutter approach to handling situations - like the case where they killed a kid with Down's syndrome in a movie theatre because he 'reacted aggressively' to the police, when really he didn't understand what was happening. like they really don't realize they can't just treat each situation the exact same way.

... they really don't, though? cf armed crazy white gun-nuts walking around with their fingers on triggers have long negotiations with police rather than a bullet.

I was gonna say; if the problem under discussion was that the police are indiscriminately gunning down EVERYONE, opposing the current state of affairs wouldn't be controversial because it would also affect a larger number of white people.

Oh it's definitely disproportionate by race - that's without question. But i mean the mentally ill/disabled are another group that the police do a horrible job handling. Lots of instances of family members calling 911 out of concern for a family member only for the police to show uo and kill them.

There was a video circulating for a while though depicting a white suspect in a weaver stance with a gun pointed at other people where the cop demonstrated endless patience with them. Which we almost never see afforded to minorities who aren't even armed.

obama wtf are you talking about here

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/obama-colin-kaepernick-anthem-228880

"President Barack Obama wants Colin Kaepernick to think about the pain he’s causing military families the next time he takes a knee during the national anthem."

Great! I thought about it and I'm causing them zero pain, and also it's not the Armed Forces Anthem, it's the National Anthem. We're not singing "As The Caissons Go Rolling Along" here.

JFC. This country.

Ugh, thank you for reminding me about this. I saw it this morning and it's VERY confusing to me.

Even for Obama's usually measured responses thought it was a bit of a weak move there

Don't think his full quote(s) on the topic were that bad tbf.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDUEqMGUwcI
(25:30) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIB8I62-F-4

and btw, Colin DID change his tune a hair after hearing out the frustrations of the military folk that took it so personally. he acknowledged it and changed from sitting to kneeling out of respect for the military, and he made sure to focus his message a little more while giving thanks to service members.

This piece is worth everyone's time

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2016/09/30/do-not-resist-a-chilling-look-at-the-normalization-of-warrior-cops/?utm_term=.569df1b50c7d

had been wondering lately how exactly police learn to deal with psychiatric emergencies (esp since i often receive them in the ED) and, lo, just got an email from my boss about participating in a training for the local police department on how to manage psychiatric emergencies---should be interesting

curious to know if this is a common thing with PDs or just a perk of being located near an academic medical center with ample resources

http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/19/us/new-york-police-shoot-women/index.html

police officer eschews taser, shoots and kills 66yo woman with known mental problems

https://twitter.com/webster/status/798928820220919808

felony charges against officer who killed philando castile

as it should be

https://www.facebook.com/esha.hoferer/videos/273117783085053/?pnref=story

jesus fucking christ

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/11/21/after-tense-encounter-caught-camera-police-eye-charges-for-three/3PYGiebFyDlLZNYuhQq6HK/story.html

“At this point I could see that his both hands were clenched into fists which I interpreted as a pre-assault cue,” Ahern wrote. “I grabbed him by his shirt

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/11/albuquerque-police-illegally-deleted-altered-videos-of-police-shootings-report/

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/05/us/walter-scott-michael-slager-north-charleston.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

mistrial, deadlocked jury, one holdout and eleven guilty votes

America in a nutshell, basically

that fucking henry fonda of racist america is going to go and celebrate with his racist friends

fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck

one holdout and eleven guilty votes

of course

This is insane. That cop shot an unarmed man in the back from 18 feet away.

This is America. After watching what's been happening in the news and what happened in the past election, I'm not sure that this should be that shocking to anyone who has been paying attention.

Did they ever confirm the cop blatantly planting the taser on Scott's body during the video?

So the juror apparently said early on his mind was made up and he wasnt going to change it.

Good quality in a juror to arrive at an opinion and basically say youre not willing to hear persuasive arguments

this will go to a retrial and a guilty verdict right, or will they keep planting a kkk member

kkk member average white american

fixed

His defense was "he was running away but he could have turned around and come back so I felt threatened" and he dodn't get convicted.

there were 11 white people on the jury and 10 of them said he was guilty, can we cling to that?

does jury service discriminate against idiots?

does jury service discriminate against idiots?

― Dave Plaintive rapper with classical training (imago)

voir dire is supposed to weed out people who are obviously prejudiced/not judging based on the evidence, but clearly that process isn't working particularly well.

you can blame the lawyers for that, no?

The old saying goes that juries are made up of people too dumb to get out of jury duty.