I guess the Minnesota guy was resisting arrest too now?
Another question, how many people posting in this thread are African American?
I’d say little to none are of African decent posting in this thread. It’s sad how no one wants to come to grips that there is a race issue in North America as a whole. Look at our indigenous peoples and how they are treated.
I would say there absolutely is a racism issue in the US. But I will also say that it goes both ways. I’ve been targeted by my skin color before, not violently, but definitely verbally. I feel because the white population is much larger, there’s a perception that this is one sided but it’s absolutely not. I get along with everybody, have multiple black friends and family members, and my girlfriend is Middle Eastern. It’s sad to see people blame an entire race based on the actions of a small percentage. As far as the video where the guy got shot several times point blank in the chest while the two cops were on top of him, that was definitely messed up. I don’t know the backstory but I also didn’t see the cop pull out a taser. He went straight for his gun. I’m not military or law enforcement, but I definitely thought that was unnecessary and could have been avoided.
who’s the minnesota guy?
the fat guy selling CDs was definitely resisting, definitely had a gun (in his pocket) and we don’t know if he was trying for his gun
the guy in his car with the concealed carry permit was the victim from the sounds of it, of an overzealous cop. When he reached for his registration and license, the cop shot him 4 times point blank. Sounds like just a poor over-reaction by the cop.
who cares what colour people are? Shouldn’t we be voting with the facts rather than along racial lines? That’s what’s causing a lot of this mock outrage, including the shooting last night. Every time a criminal black guy gets shot, black lives matter loses their fucking mind. I’m not referring to any specific case…but any time a guy who is trying to kill police or other people gets shot, the movement goes wild. They pay zero attention to the white people the cops shoot too which shows the hypocrisy. That’s just foolish. That’s voting with your skin colour, and that’s counterproductive.
I’m white, and I think situations like Mike Brown are 100% justified. I also think the two in the last few days are a little less obvious (fat CD guy) to downright wrong (guy in car) based on the facts available. The key is the facts available are all a bit slanted as we haven’t heard from anyone else other than the victims side. The Mike Brown situation was the greatest example of this as the truth didn’t come out until court. Those willing to jump to conclusions without hearing all facts are causing more problems than they’re solving.
Remember the ‘hands up don’t shoot’ movement/slogan? That was a fucking lie told by a black activist to villify the cop who killed mike brown. He got a witness on the scene of the mike brown shooting to lie and say that Brown was on his knees, hands up when teh white cop executed him. This ran on CBS news with ZERO factchecking. This led to riots, and mayhem and birthed Black Lives Matter. It was all built on a fucking lie. We later heard in court that she changed her story, then clammed up on her lawyer’s advice. We also heard in court that the forensics proved her a liar. There were ZERO bullets/wounds anywhere on the back of Mike Brown’s body.
But they’re still out there last night with their hands up doing the ‘HANDS UP! DON’T SHOOT’ chant bullshit. Anyone who says that hasn’t done their homework and should be ignored.
Over zealous cop? That’s it? Blacks are constantly harassed by police. It matters who’s white and who’s black in these discussions because simply looking at the “facts” on a case by case basis ignores the tons of unreported harassment blacks face on a daily basis and a white guy can’t even begin to comprehend how this affects everything else. You can’t simply look at individual cases. It’s a complex web of cause and effect. A lot of black criminals never wanted to be criminals but grew up in areas where they had no choice. Many of these areas receive no funding or support and police create an atmosphere of hatred due to their racism and oppression. It’s a snowball effect.
Keep blacks poor and provide no support for their neighbourhoods --> Reduces education --> Poor uneducated black male tweens get scooped up in gangs --> police harass these neighbourhoods --> create an atmosphere of hate --> create criminals who are justifiably taken down by police in that one specific incident/case.
If you only look at the last piece of the puzzle, you end up missing the full picture and cause and effect of how that black criminal got to the scenario of him being taken out by cops for being a criminal.
Take a step back. And unless an individual has been a minority that’s been oppressed, harassed, humiliated, and so on, one cannot begin to understand what they’ve been going through and what they’re still going through.
And this thread seems riddled with white privileged men (myself included). And when I say privileged, I don’t mean rich. I mean not having to endure all this harassment and oppression on a daily basis.
But I can’t expect anyone to fully understand unless they’ve been in those shoes so I’ll stop commenting. It feels futile.
Do white fathers have “The Talk” to their white sons? I’m guessing not. http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/philando-castile-alton-sterling-minnesota-police-shooting-1.3669887
I, for one, believe you are spot on. I also believe that much of the issues arise from a breakdown in the family dynamic. I am also not willing to accept that all of a races issues are fully attributable to anothers hatred and oppression. But, like you said, I am privileged in the sense I have not had to endure what others have on a daily basis so likely do not and cannot fully grasp the underlying issues.
I still feel that at some point the families in the community need to step up and take a larger role in changing and protecting from within. Not sure how easy it is to do so given the real struggles in those oppressed communities, but there is responsibility to be shared.
Very complex issues without simple broadbrush solutions!
Double post
Read this article for those that don’t quite “get it”.
http://www.vox.com/2015/5/28/8661977/race-police-officer
I’m a black ex-cop, and this is the real truth about race and policing
by Redditt Hudson on July 7, 2016
On any given day, in any police department in the nation, 15 percent of officers will do the right thing no matter what is happening. Fifteen percent of officers will abuse their authority at every opportunity. The remaining 70 percent could go either way depending on whom they are working with.
That’s a theory from my friend K.L. Williams, who has trained thousands of officers around the country in use of force. Based on what I experienced as a black man serving in the St. Louis Police Department for five years, I agree with him. I worked with men and women who became cops for all the right reasons — they really wanted to help make their communities better. And I worked with people like the president of my police academy class, who sent out an email after President Obama won the 2008 election that included the statement, “I can’t believe I live in a country full of ni**er lovers!!!” He patrolled the streets in St. Louis in a number of black communities with the authority to act under the color of law.
That remaining 70 percent of officers are highly susceptible to the culture in a given department. In the absence of any real effort to challenge department cultures, they become part of the problem. If their command ranks are racist or allow institutional racism to persist, or if a number of officers in their department are racist, they may end up doing terrible things.
It is not only white officers who abuse their authority. The effect of institutional racism is such that no matter what color the officer abusing the citizen is, in the vast majority of those cases of abuse that citizen will be black or brown. That is what is allowed.
And no matter what an officer has done to a black person, that officer can always cover himself in the running narrative of heroism, risk, and sacrifice that is available to a uniformed police officer by virtue of simply reporting for duty. Cleveland police officer Michael Brelo was acquitted of all charges against him in the shooting deaths of Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams, both black and unarmed. Thirteen Cleveland police officers fired 137 shots at them. Brelo, having reloaded at some point during the shooting, fired 49 of the 137 shots. He took his final 15 shots at them after all the other officers stopped firing (122 shots at that point) and, “fearing for his life,” he jumped onto the hood of the car and shot 15 times through the windshield.
About that 15 percent of officers who regularly abuse their power: they exert an outsize influence
Not only was this excessive, it was tactically asinine if Brelo believed they were armed and firing. But they weren’t armed, and they weren’t firing. Judge John O’Donnell acquitted Brelo under the rationale that because he couldn’t determine which shots actually killed Russell and Williams, no one is guilty. Let’s be clear: this is part of what the Department of Justice means when it describes a “pattern of unconstitutional policing and excessive force.”
Nevertheless, many Americans believe that police officers are generally good, noble heroes. A Gallup poll from 2014 asked Americans to rate the honesty and ethical standards of people in various fields: police officers ranked in the top five, just above members of the clergy. The profession — the endeavor — is noble. But this myth about the general goodness of cops obscures the truth of what needs to be done to fix the system. It makes it look like all we need to do is hire good people, rather than fix the entire system. Institutional racism runs throughout our criminal justice system. Its presence in police culture, though often flatly denied by the many police apologists that appear in the media now, has been central to the breakdown in police-community relationships for decades in spite of good people doing police work.
Here’s what I wish Americans understood about the men and women who serve in their police departments — and what needs to be done to make the system better for everyone.
- There are officers who willfully violate the human rights of the people in the communities they serve
[b][i]As a new officer with the St. Louis in the mid-1990s, I responded to a call for an “officer in need of aid.” I was partnered that day with a white female officer. When we got to the scene, it turned out that the officer was fine, and the aid call was canceled. He’d been in a foot pursuit chasing a suspect in an armed robbery and lost him.
The officer I was with asked him if he’d seen where the suspect went. The officer picked a house on the block we were on, and we went to it and knocked on the door. A young man about 18 years old answered the door, partially opening it and peering out at my partner and me. He was standing on crutches. My partner accused him of harboring a suspect. He denied it. He said that this was his family’s home and he was home alone.
My partner then forced the door the rest of the way open, grabbed him by his throat, and snatched him out of the house onto the front porch. She took him to the ledge of the porch and, still holding him by the throat, punched him hard in the face and then in the groin. My partner that day snatched an 18-year-old kid off crutches and assaulted him, simply for stating the fact that he was home alone.
I got the officer off of him. But because an aid call had gone out, several other officers had arrived on the scene. One of those officers, who was black, ascended the stairs and asked what was going on. My partner pointed to the young man, still lying on the porch, and said, “That son of a bitch just assaulted me.” The black officer then went up to the young man and told him to “get the fuck up, I’m taking you in for assaulting an officer.” The young man looked up at the officer and said, “Man … you see I can’t go.” His crutches lay not far from him.
The officer picked him up, cuffed him, and slammed him into the house, where he was able to prop himself up by leaning against it. The officer then told him again to get moving to the police car on the street because he was under arrest. The young man told him one last time, in a pleading tone that was somehow angry at the same time, “You see I can’t go!” The officer reached down and grabbed both the young man’s ankles and yanked up. This caused the young man to strike his head on the porch. The officer then dragged him to the police car. We then searched the house. No one was in it.[/i][/b]
These kinds of scenes play themselves out everyday all over our country in black and brown communities. Beyond the many unarmed blacks killed by police, including recently Freddie Gray in Baltimore, other police abuses that don’t result in death foment resentment, distrust, and malice toward police in black and brown communities all over the country. Long before Darren Wilson shot and killed unarmed Michael Brown last August, there was a poisonous relationship between the Ferguson, Missouri, department and the community it claimed to serve. For example, in 2009 Henry Davis was stopped unlawfully in Ferguson, taken to the police station, and brutally beaten while in handcuffs. He was then charged for bleeding on the officers’ uniforms after they beat him.
- The bad officers corrupt the departments they work for
About that 15 percent of officers who regularly abuse their power: a major problem is they exert an outsize influence on department culture and find support for their actions from ranking officers and police unions. Chicago is a prime example of this: the city has created a reparations fund for the hundreds of victims who were tortured by former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge and officers under his command from the 1970s to the early ‘90s.
The victims were electrically shocked, suffocated, and beaten into false confessions that resulted in many of them being convicted and serving time for crimes they didn’t commit. One man, Darrell Cannon, spent 24 years in prison for a crime he confessed to but didn’t commit. He confessed when officers repeatedly appeared to load a shotgun and after doing so each time put it in his mouth and pulled the trigger. Other men received electric shocks until they confessed.
The torture was systematic, and the culture that allowed for it is systemic. I call your attention to the words “and officers under his command.” Police departments are generally a functioning closed community where people know who is doing what. How many officers “under the command” of Commander Burge do you think didn’t know what was being done to these men? How many do you think were uncomfortable with the knowledge? Ultimately, though, they were okay with it. And Burge got four years in prison, and now receives his full taxpayer-funded pension.
- The mainstream media helps sustain the narrative of heroism that even corrupt officers take refuge in
This is critical to understanding why police-community relations in black and brown communities across the country are as bad as they are. In this interview with Fox News, former New York City Police Commissioner Howard Safir never acknowledges the lived experience of thousands and thousands of blacks in New York, Baltimore, Ferguson, or anywhere in the country. In fact, he seems to be completely unaware of it. This allows him to leave viewers with the impression that the recent protests against police brutality are baseless, and that allegations of racism are “totally wrong — just not true.” The reality of police abuse is not limited to a number of “very small incidents” that have impacted black people nationwide, but generations of experienced and witnessed abuse.
The media is complicit in this myth-making: notice that the interviewer does not challenge Safir. She doesn’t point out, for example, the over $1 billion in settlements the NYPD has paid out over the last decade and a half for the misconduct of its officers. She doesn’t reference the numerous accounts of actual black or Hispanic NYPD officers who have been profiled and even assaulted without cause when they were out of uniform by white NYPD officers.
No matter what an officer has done to a black person, that officer can always cover himself in the running narrative of heroism
Instead she leads him with her questions to reference the heroism, selflessness, risk, and sacrifice that are a part of the endeavor that is law enforcement, but very clearly not always characteristic of police work in black and brown communities. The staging for this interview — US flag waving, somber-faced officers — is wash, rinse, and repeat with our national media.
When you take a job as a police officer, you do so voluntarily. You understand the risks associated with the work. But because you signed on to do a dangerous job does not mean you are then allowed to violate the human rights, civil rights, and civil liberties of the people you serve. It’s the opposite. You should protect those rights, and when you don’t you should be held accountable. That simple statement will be received by police apologists as “anti-cop.” It is not.
- Cameras provide the most objective record of police-citizen encounters available
When Walter Scott was killed by officer Michael Slager in South Carolina last year, the initial police report put Scott in the wrong. It stated that Scott had gone for Slager’s Taser, and Slager was in fear for his life. If not for the video recording that later surfaced, the report would have likely been taken by many at face value. Instead we see that Slager shot Scott repeatedly and planted the Taser next to his body after the fact.
Every officer in the country should be wearing a body camera that remains activated throughout any interaction they have with the public while on duty. There is no reasonable expectation of privacy for officers when they are on duty and in service to the public. Citizens must also have the right to record police officers as they carry out their public service, provided that they are at a safe distance, based on the circumstances, and not interfering. Witnessing an interaction does not by itself constitute interference.
- There are officers around the country who want to address institutional racism
The National Coalition of Law Enforcement Officers for Justice, Reform and Accountability is a new coalition of current and former law enforcement officers from around the nation. Its mission is to fight institutional racism in our criminal justice system and police culture, and to push for accountability for police officers that abuse their power.
Many of its members are already well-established advocates for criminal justice reform in their communities. It’s people like former Sergeant De Lacy Davis of New Jersey, who has worked to change police culture for years. It’s people like former LAPD Captain John Mutz, who is white, and who is committed to working to build a system where everyone is equally valued. His colleagues from the LAPD —former Sergeant Cheryl Dorsey, now a frequent CNN contributor (providing some much-needed perspective), and former officer Alex Salazar, who worked LAPD’s Rampart unit — are a part of this effort. Several NYPD officers, many of whom are founding members of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, the gold standard for black municipal police organizations, are a part of this group. Vernon Wells, Noel Leader, Julian Harper, and Cliff Hollingsworth, to name a few, are serious men with a serious record of standing up for their communities against police abuse. There’s also Rochelle Bilal, a former sergeant out of Philadelphia, Sam Costales out of New Mexico, former Federal Marshal Matthew Fogg, and many others.
These men and women are ready to reach out to the thousands of officers around the country who have been looking for a national law enforcement organization that works to remake police culture. The first priority is accountability — punishment — for officers who willfully abuse the rights and bodies of those they are sworn to serve. Training means absolutely nothing if officers don’t adhere to it and are not held accountable when they don’t. It is key to any meaningful reform.
Police abuse in black and brown communities is generations old. It is nothing new.
Racism is woven into the fabric of our nation. At no time in our history has there been a national consensus that everyone should be equally valued in all areas of life. We are rooted in racism in spite of the better efforts of Americans of all races to change that.
Because of this legacy of racism, police abuse in black and brown communities is generations old. It is nothing new. It has become more visible to mainstream America largely because of the proliferation of personal recording devices, cellphone cameras, video recorders — they’re everywhere. We need police officers. We also need them to be held accountable to the communities they serve.
The examples aside, I think this portion says it all. I dont share the same opininion of the men in blue as many Americans apparently did in 2014 poll. Personally have always had a healthy distrust and desire to steer clear at any cost frankly. Be interesting to see the racial breakdown of those responding to the poll. I think its safe to say disproportionate were Caucasian?
…beliefs aside, we obviously need them, but many see the police force as the largest, best armed gang in America
stick to the facts rather than hyperbole. Make up your mind what you want to talk about. Want to have a discussion on race relations in America? Sure, but that’s not what I answered your post for. Your post was intimating that someone was making an excuse for that guy in his car getting shot and I said straight up what I thought happened.
Not sure what you want. You think you’re breaking a news story that cops profile? Maybe CNN will hire you. That’s great work.
Nobody in this thread doesn’t know that.
But blaming the system, the poverty etc. for black guys who resist arrest or point guns at cops and get killed in a scuffle…I think you’re ignoring the end result and excusing some really shit behaviour.
You probably think Mike Brown got a raw deal huh? Never the victim’s fault, always the cops’ fault?
As in the police, and the black community and the white community and every group, there are good people, bad people and some who are in between. Saying all of the cops are bad…or all of the black criminals are excused due to poverty or oppression is not very responsible. So let’s look at the facts of each situation.
The thread was started because so many people were frankly lied to, and riled up into a riot based on bullshit stories made up to vilify a cop who killed someone who was trying to kill him. All of those problems sure they suck…but they don’t excuse you from trying to kill a cop, nor do they make the cop ‘guilty’ for doing it. The ‘all victims have excuses and all cops are bad’ line of thinking helps nothing. That’s the dumb black and white mentality that has created this situation.
“we’re always right, they’re always wrong!”
Like politics. Like religion. All the same…when you vote for your chosen side without thinking, the world gets dumber and no progress can be had.
^-- And this is why it’s futile.
This isn’t an all or nothing situation, arguement, discussion. I would venture to guess all in this discussion recognize and understand that as well, no?
This isn’t an all or nothing situation, arguement, discussion. I would venture to guess all in this discussion recognize and understand that as well, no?
I don’t know who you’re addressing but simply put the thread was started to address the facts around 1 event which were skewed, buried, lied about all to be used as a poster child for a movement that had been building anger for quite a while
now it is morphing into ‘you guys don’t get it…you’re not black’. Don’t get what? That there’s racial inequality and racial profiling in America? No fucking shit! Everyone gets it. Everyone knows it’s nuts. I met a guy with an R8 once. He was late coming to a meet. Black guy. He said he got pulled over for DWB on the way over and I thought he said DWI and asked him to repeat himself. He said ‘driving while black’. It’s an egregious burden, sure. Cop gave him a bs reason for pulling him over.
Interestingly, he wasn’t killed. He answered questions and was on his way in 10 minutes. What didn’t he do? he didn’t mouth off. he didn’t jump out of the car. He didn’t grab for the cop’s gun. He didn’t fight the cop. He didn’t get arrested and then refuse to be cuffed. He didn’t have a gun in his pocket. He wasn’t committing any crimes. He hadn’t waved a gun at someone in a confrontation moments earlier.
He didn’t do any of those things. Still sucks he got pulled over but he made it.
There’s definitely an undercurrent of racism in America but it’s NOTHING like it was even 25 years ago…nevermind 50 years ago…or 75 years ago. This shit doesn’t get fixed overnight. Attitudes are changing DRAMATICALLY here. Want to see true racism/oppression/lack of progress? Mosy on down to South Africa and tell me how it goes.
p.s. just waiting to see the liberal media dance around the fact the Dallas shooter was a racist. They’ll say he did it because he has PTSD soon…or will be confused…or will be suicidal.
“We’re still trying to find his motive”
Umm…he told you on the phone. He said wanted to kill white people for Black Lives Matter and specifically, white police officers.
But they dare not mention that he’s a racist, far worse than almost any we’ve seen in the last 50 years. Seriously has ANYONE killed 5 people in America because of their race? Would love to hear about that. The entire KKK hasn’t killed 5 people in the past 20 years and they’re pretty frigging racist and intolerant. Interesting perspective really.
Fwiw, I am completely of the opininion that when a criminal is committing a criminal act, they should be dealt with justly. Again, most will agree, no shit.
The bigger picture issues are what are being brought further into the light from these movements. Do I 100% agree with the movements and media slant? hell no! Do I recognize the importance for social reform and awareness? hell yes!
I again go back to my belief that if a stronger internal “policing” within the communities was present and prevalent, real and/or perceived criminality would be far more in decline.
…