Nope. If you’re not just being an asshole here, and a terribly disingenuous one at that, you will go back, re-read what I wrote and provide correction here.
Otherwise, this bullshit is beyond the pale, and you’ve descended from being a moron to being a loathsome piece of shit.
Oh, it certainly could, Mhendo’s post 283 would be a valuable lesson to learn from this, for example.
If we’re learning what we can about what went wrong about the situation, why are we limited to only analyzing one side of those actions? Because it’s a thought crime to do anything that might be remotely interpreted as victim-blaming, even when no one is saying the cop isn’t at fault.
Does the irony here not blow your mind?
You’re the one who’s mischaracterizing what I said, deliberately and also insinuating some sort of racism on my part that I’m not quite clear on. You are essentially doing what you’re accusing me of. You are the loathsome piece of shit that you describe.
Furthermore, while I never actually said the things that you’re trying to make it seem like I said, you said this:
Now if I give you the benefit of the doubt, I’d say you chose your words poorly. But you are in the very same sentence saying that my inability to fathom biological difference in anxiety also precludes me from being able to understand “differences associated with race”
Since I don’t actually know what the fuck you were trying to get at (does it mean that black people shouldn’t try to be calm and non-threatning when they interact with the police? does it mean that somehow race was a factor when I was in the situation of being armed against a threat?), your statement does seem to be implying something about biological differences in race that doesn’t actually make much sense.
So it’s funny, because while you have been deliberately deceptive and threw insinuations about racism my way, when I try to understand what the fuck it is you’re trying to say, you accuse me of doing the exact same things you just deliberately did to me and called me a loathsome piece of shit.
Jesus. It gets worse and worse.
Now we’re not only told that we should be aware enough to move slowly and calmly, and tell the cop what we’re doing, but that a person who complied immediately with a direct police order, and who got shot as a result, showed “poor judgment.”
I don’t care what you say about the cop himself, this is a textbook definition of blaming the victim.
Okay, so this guy is a loathsome piece of shit just playing games on this topic. I don’t feel much need to try further with him.
You are missing the point others have made repeatedly, but you’re not black, which is probably why it doesn’t resonate with you. You, as a white person, have a reasonable expectation that if you act in a calm and respectful manner when confronted by a police officer your experience will be, at worst, one of slight inconvenience. Black people have a reasonable expectation that no matter how they act, when confronted by police it can, and at times does, turn out badly for them, sometimes very badly.
The shooting victim in this case did *exactly *as he was told. Those who are saying he dove back into his car must have watched a different video. The victim simply turned around and reached into his car. There was no erratic movement on his part. Also, there aren’t enough rolleye smilies to respond to the ridiculous assertion that because most people carry their wallets in their pockets that the cop had a justifiable fear that the victim was reaching for a weapon. I am still trying to work out why the cop asked the victim for his license in the first place. When he drove up, the victim was standing next to his car looking at the officer. Did the officer consider that reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing? The claim of a safety stop is obviously bogus as the victim was not only not driving, he wasn’t even in the car.
And it is not just this cop, or a few bad apples, regardless what others in this thread say. It is a law enforcement system within which an endemic sickness thrives that assumes all black people to be threats requiring higher than normal levels of readiness to act with unreasonable, at times brutal, and sometimes deadly force. How many unjustified assaults by police do there have to be before apologists understand that it is the system that is the problem and not just some rogue cop with issues? How many have there been within just the last few months? This victim, like the black woman who was repeatedly punched in the face by a cop, will probably get a cool million dollars out of this, but that is not a solution to my way of thinking, and no compensation for the many who have had their lives snuffed out simply because their skin was the wrong hue when theirs and a cop’s paths happened to cross.
Also, calling the cop in this case a lunatic, or crazy, or deranged diminishes the magnitude of how unconscionable his crime was, excuses it, and justifies it.
All the blaming the victim going on in this thread, which is exactly what it is when we say that he should have reacted differently to the cop, is absolutely disgusting, and those who are doing this should be ashamed of themselves.
This is a cop out. I’ve been straightforward with my argument towards you and my intentions. You, on the other hand, have lied about my position, seem to have thrown some sort of vague ambiguous racism accusations my way, and have the audacity to try to high road me.
After I demonstrated that you were lying, and asked for clarification on your weird form of race baiting, suddenly you have no interest in interacting with me anymore. Convenient.
I am absolutely astounded by some of the comments in this thread.
Can anyone point to another country, outside of a war-zone, where citizens need to be as careful of the police as is implied here? The idea that nervous cops are allowed to fire at innocent citiznes if they fantasize that there’s a 0.01% chance the innocent citizen might be a suicidal maniac is just pathetic. I live in Thailand but am starting to pity the people who stayed behind in U.S.A.
SenorBeef brags that if he were a cop he probably wouldn’t have shot at the innocent man. Congratulations? And that he wouldn’t have attracted the cop’s suspicion. Are you Black, Senor? Blacks in this situation are about 500 times as likely to be mistreated as Whites – that should be especially shameful.
Different people react with different speeds. I see nothing unusual about the innocent Black moving quickly to get his ID; though obviously his High School was remiss – instead of learning French or U.S. History, Blacks should have 8 mandatory semesters of How to Act Subservient so White Cops Don’t Shoot at You.
And if he had intended to fetch a gun and fire, wouldn’t he have been wiser to move slowly until he palmed the gun?
Bah.
I get it, but you’re wrong. “no matter how they act”? So a guy who tries his best to put the officer at ease, move slowly, and declare his intention has no better chance to prevent an escalation than one who acts suddenly and in unexpected ways?
How can that possibly be true? It matters how a white person act, but it just doesn’t matter how a black person acts? Whether they keep their hands on the steering wheel and wait for the officer to get there, or they get out of the car screaming like a maniac running at the cop - none of that shit matters because they’re black and the cops are going to kill them anyway.
What in the world have I said in this thread that you feel that I should be ashamed for? I have said at least 5 times now that the cop was at fault, was not justified, deserved to be fired, and should go to trial. Is that somehow slipping by everyone’s radar? To say the victim handled the situation sub-optimally does not take away from that.
I looked at the thread title, watched the vid, and I said to myself:
Self, if there is ever to be a “black guy shot by cop thread” in which NO ONE, not even that douchey guy who goes to bat for thug cops in 99% of these threads, will have a word to say on behalf of the cop’s action, it is this one.
I am dissapoint.
Never doubt the ability of some people to show you a deeper and scummier bottom of the barrel than you could yourself imagine.
Yes, because saying the cop is irresponsible, to blame, deserves to be fired and put on trial, but that it was generally wise to be slower and more deliberate and communicate your actions ahead of time, that makes me a scumbag who scrapes the bottom of the barrel. Where does that put me on the scale of human scum? Rapist? Mass Murderer? Stalin? Would you say I’m easily within the top 1% of horrible people, or is it even worse than that?
Actually, way worse than that, right? I’ve showed you scumminess beyond what “you could yourself imagine”, and since you’re aware of Stalin and Hitler and the Iraqi rape rooms, I must be even more scummy than that. I mean, like, Cthulu level stuff.
Get a fucking grip. I didn’t actually say anything bad. I didn’t blame a victim. I didn’t absolve a shitty cop. I mean, just comparing anything scumbag-related, your attempts to lie about my arguments definitely says more about your character than anything I’ve said in this thread.
I would really like an answer to my question. Should I start a GQ thread?
I’m still glad you’re not. You continue to say that even though Officer Itchy McTriggerFinger was wrong, his victim contributed to this situation by following the cop’s instructions- either too quickly or too slowly, which is quick a fucking trick if you think about it.
That’s a given, I hope.
Speaking of disingenuous! I did not say you would shoot “anyone” you came across. The problem is that even though you agree the cop blew it, you said Jones’ actions would have made you “extremely nervous.” The shooter was also “extremely nervous,” wouldn’t you say? How can you say on the one hand that you’re calm and never would have made these horrible mistakes, but defend the cop, say the victim deserves part of the blame, and agree you would have been “extremely nervous?” That’s slicing things mighty fine, wouldn’t you say? I mean, I’ve been accused of doing that a few times myself, but jeez.
It’s sort of unfair for people to suggest you might be a killer cop on the one hand and then use your denial of the same to call you an internet braggart. But somehow you are actually coming pretty close to filling that role.
I did not think this. I admit I didn’t see some of your condemnations of the cop, but I did see your criticisms of the victim and your statements about how you would’ve felt and behaved.
See above.
You seem to have misunderstood the whole “biology” thing to a stunning degree. Unless I missed something, it was not a comment about race. It was a statement that it’s tough to maintain the level of rationality you were demanding of a civilian (which tends to excuse the failures of a police officer).
SenorBeef, perhaps you were distracted, but I’m curious as to whether you still believe the victim bears some blame for his own shooting, considering my post above.
then why is it not STANDARD procedure, in light of human nature, for the police to say “I need you not to do ANYTHING without announcing it ahead of time. If you do NOT heed this advice, you COULD (and very well may) wind up being shot or Tasered, or maybe I’ll use my baton/night stick.” Here, the cop should PRESUME that “poor judgment” is a probability if he’s been on the job at length. Indeed, this should be part of basic and, more important, ONGOING training. When cops can’t hold it together, they cannot expect anyone else to do so who has not been trained for the situation. This is how innocent bystanders get shot … because cops don’t train for how to shoot under high-stress situations (and most of them are, like most humans, shitty shots beyond (sadly) 10-15 feet away in high-stress situations).
Someone can know very little about human nature and honestly believe they do (or reject out of hand what is common sense). They can believe they’re right when they start talking about “calmly” anything, even if the cop didn’t have his hand on his gun or it wasn’t drawn. (I haven’t watched the video because I don’t wanna be agitated.)
You don’t have to accept the fight or flight response as real and instead merely call it “poor judgment” over which one has complete control. No matter what you call it, this has and will always cause all sorts of stupidity. Here, it caused stupidity on the part of the cop who SHOULD have known better, if he’s been on the force for however long.
This is so even when it isn’t literally “fight or flight” but, say, uttering stupid lies when you know or WOULD if you were thinking rationally that you’re only painting yourself into a corner or digging a hole. Like “I only had two beers” when you drank a pint, or “X won’t find out” as applied to any number of situations.
Without wading into the morass of your pissing context with Hentor, other than to say I’m not disagreeing with you because I want to get in on calling you a racist… sure you did. Not sole blame, but you blamed the bejesus out of a victim. That’s what you called us all idiots about; our refusal to acknowledge that he shared the blame:
This is that thing I was talking about. You said it, and clearly you had a reason to say it, and it’s obvious what the reason was. Blame isn’t binary… it’s shared, right? Shared by the victim. But then you say you didn’t blame the victim, and in fact you’re pretty pissed off that it’s being suggested that you did.
Four shots not three.
Man pulls into gas station. Not quite at the pumps. There was a line to wait. He gets out of his car. Who knows, maybe he was stretching his legs, maybe he was going to wash his windows.
The driver turns, and his body language to me looks a little surprised at the cop car that pulled up right behind him.
The cop gets out of his car and tells him to “Get your license” The man turns, not in slow motion, but turns to reach into his car to retrieve his license. He probably wanted to comply to the officer quickly. You do as you are told. Don’t blame him. If the officer felt him a threat, he should have told him to move slowly. Jones should not need to start a fucking conversation. Jesus Christ.
The officer then yells “Get out of your car!” The man was still on his feet, reaching into his car. The man complies. Quickly. A reasonable response when a police officer is yelling at you.
BangBang,Bang,Bang.
As said, the officers only possible defense is possible PSTD.
I’m not sure we have to be as cautious of police in this country either. It’s a exaggeration that was put forward to somehow suggest the victim was (slightly) complicit in his own shooting. I personally don’t believe most cops are trigger happy morons who have no critical thinking skills to asses a situation and perform their jobs with appropriate judgement. Sadly, in order to find some way the victim was even a little bit complicit, so it wasn’t entirely the cops fault, cops have to painted as these paranoid jackbooted thugs.
Of course, we know that’s only the SDMB mods who act like that. 
Yep. By saying the blame is not “binary”, he’s clearly placing some portion of the blame for being shot on the shooting victim. Which is utterly ridiculous.
The man wasn’t shot when he reached into the car. He was shot after complying with the order “get out of your car” – he immediately complied with this urgently shouted order, and was almost immediately shot. And then he backed away, hands in the air, and the officer kept shooting.
How could any of the blame for this shooting be on anyone but the shooter?