IMO, it’s partially distrust of the cops (based both on reality and hype) and partially on a sub-culture which embraces tough-guy bravado.
It’s not the only reason, but it exacerbates it. (E.g. I’m reasonably confident that Sandra Bland would be alive today were it not for BLM.)
I agree. But this type of activism generally involves a lot of emotionalism and exaggeration.
If the police get a 911 call about someone threatening me with a gun, how should they respond - “Pics or it didn’t happen”?
Regards,
Shodan
I agree with all of that though I suspect we disagree about the proportion of reality and hype, and on why that sub-culture exists. But I would also add a few additional factors: the higher prevalence of trauma in Black communities and the consequences of that trauma, the disproportionate consequences of arrest faced by Black people (making the fact of arrest more traumatic), and the differences between the way police engage black suspects and white suspects.
Hard to quibble with “a lot.” I agree that there is a lot of public misunderstanding and misguided emotions and exaggeration in this debate, though I think the people who identify with Black Lives Matter have less of it than the people who put FOP stickers on their cars and identify with Blue Lives Matter.
What’s even sadder is that, for the vast majority of American history, black people were absolutely correct in seeing most police officers as deadly and murderous enemies. When a kid grows up seeing (for example) his father/cousin/uncle/etc. unjustly beaten and/or shot by police, is it really all that surprising, or irrational, if he grows up with the deeply ingrained belief that police officers are very likely to want to hurt and kill him?
OK. But as a practical matter, despite whatever differences there may well be in the cops perceive and react to black people versus white people, it’s obviously completely irrational for any black person to think that their best chance of avoiding being shot is to resist the cops. And to the extent that people may think this is so - as some are claiming here - then countering this misperception would go a long way to reducing these types of incidents. (Offhand I can’t think of a single example that was not triggered by some form of resistance.) That’s not suppressing the truth - the opposite, in fact.
There was no resistance at all in the Sean Groubert shooting.
My point isn’t that it’s a rational course of action to resist the police, but rather that, for those with the experiences of many black people I’ve personally spoken too, it’s entirely rational and logical that they see police officers as dangerous and deadly enemies who need no excuse to do violence to them, and based on their experience, absolute bone-shaking terror that some fell with interactions with police is based on this experience and not fantasy.
When I do trainings with young black men facing frequent police contact, we talk a lot about how to deal with police encounters.
I always advise absolute compliance. No one has ever disagreed on that point (and disagreement is common). Instead, the response is invariably “easier said than done.”
Its hard to appreciate why that’s the case unless you spend a lot of time looking at these encounters and understanding the many factors at play. But I absolutely believe that issue has nothing to do with a belief that non-compliance is better at any kind of rational level.
OK, I wasn’t aware of that case. (Apparently the guy reached back into the car for a wallet and the cop freaked out.) FWIW, I agree if the guy had been white it’s less likely that he would have been shot.
This is the part I’m skeptical of. I’ve witnessed many interactions of black people - of the same demographic that tends to get shot - with police, and have heard many eyewitness accounts of other such interactions. And if these guys were feeling “absolute bone-shaking terror”, they were doing a remarkably good job of hiding it.
I don’t think it’s fear of the cops so much as antipathy to the cops (some of it justified, granted) combined with the attitude mentioned above.
I’ve often wondered about a sort of entirely non-violent protest campaign that would nonetheless get the point across (in a way that presents no danger to anyone) that many black people are absolutely bone-chillingly terrified of police, something like this:
BLM or some other national organizations announces that, from now on, they recommend that in any non-life-and-death interaction with police, their members and supporters announce “I’m going spread eagle on the floor”, and then (assuming it’s physically possible – obviously not possible inside a car) carefully spread their limbs and go to the ground, remaining in that position for the remainder of the encounter. So any time a police officer goes to ask a black person a question, they spread eagle on the ground; any time someone is asked to leave their vehicle, they announce they are spreading eagle on the floor and (carefully) do so; a cop knocks on a door, the resident announces what they’re doing and spreads eagle on the floor.
BLM marches, in this campaign, would consist of a march and then a mass-spread-eagle-on-the-ground; everyone remains there, spread eagled on the street, for a decided upon period of time (probably a few hours would be the biological limit).
Maybe a silly idea, I don’t know. But maybe it would get the point across without doing any harm to police officers, or anyone else, except for inconvenience.
From my conversations with activists and others, this kind of thing has always been very common – cop freaks out and shoots black person – but only recently was it sometimes on video. If it hadn’t been recorded, these folks say, the victim in the Groubert shooting would have been arrested for assault, resisting arrest, or something like that. Often, they say, the victim is killed and therefore in no position to contest whatever the police office reports.
From my conversations, they absolutely are hiding their terror – and this is a skill that many of these folks learn at a very early age.
Well I certainly agree that cops have a tendency to make up phony justifications of the sort you describe whenever they shoot someone. No doubt about that. But it’s also true that “activists and others” have an even greater tendency to distort things in the other direction.
If you look at all the most celebrated cases, the documented facts that have emerged have almost always supported a picture closer to that of the cop than to that of the various “activists and others”.
OK, so they’re in control enough to turn their absolute terror into a swagger, but not in control enough to suppress their impulse to resist at risk to their lives?
We’ll have to disagree about this point.
I don’t know. We don’t hear about that. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a lower probability of being killed for struggling if you’re white. I also wouldn’t be surprised if a smaller percentage of white suspects struggle against police.
I can see a vicious cycle, fueled in part by overreaction on both sides.
Re: swagger – Status and reputation also play a role, IMO. If you come from a subculture in which you stay out of fights by not getting punked, being submissive toward someone treating you disrespectfully feels deeply unnatural and even dangerous. Indeed, it is a species of the same instinct felt by cops that they are in danger if they are merely being disrespected.
That culture of reputation, fronting, etc.–what some sociologists call The Code of the Street–has clear origins and causes. In 21st century black America, these causes are rooted in racism and poverty, and safe and calm interactions with police are one of its many casualties.
That’s one of the reasons it’s so important for police to be respectful. It’s not just about courtesy. It’s about cultural competence and avoiding escalation. Sadly, officers are often trained (informally or formally) with the exact opposite notion, that they need to assert control by displaying dominance even at the expense of courtesy.
I’d like to see a police officer serve a warrant on a home where the home owner owns a semi-automatic shotgun, handgun, semi-automatic rifle etc. and the cop is unarmed.
There’s 300m guns in America.
Studies have found the opposite:
This is confirmation bias at work. White cop shooting black suspect = News. Any cop shooting white suspect = Not News. This leads people to conclude that cops are more likely to shoot a black suspect. Which isn’t true.
That’s one way to look at it. But a police officer on patrol has a job to respond to emergency calls. He’s not acting as a trier of fact when he responds to a brandishing call, he’s acting as a peace officer and investigator. So he has an obligation to the public to at least treat the call as legitimate when it comes in. His investigation may determine that it is not.
He has a right to self-defense same as anyone else, and for self-preservation, so when a call comes in indicating an armed person brandished at another person, he is correct to go in with a heightened state of concern vs say, a call of an elderly grandmother who locked herself out of her car and it’s a hot summer day and she’s starting to have heat related medical problems.
If the police officer responds to the brandishing call, and interacts with a suspect, who puts a reasonable officer in fear of life or limb, then he has a right to kill that person–same as me or you, in fact. Except we don’t have general authority to perform police tasks, so legally may not be allowed to put ourselves in the same situation and maintain our self-defense claim, since we always have the option of not responding–police do not have that option.
Not LEAD, dammit, LED!
Phew! Got that handled.
He was a felon with a long record. He had a firearm on him–most likely for self defense, he sells CDs for cash in a rougher neighborhood in Louisiana (a rough state crime wise), but he lost his right to have a firearm for self defense when he became a felon. Having been in the system so long he knew that the cops would find the gun and he’d be going back to prison. He was resisting because he didn’t want to go to prison–this isn’t rocket science.
Most of the people killed by police are killed lawfully and appropriately, and most are white (FWIW), yes blacks do face death at LEO hands disproportionate to their percentage of the population. I have criminals in my family, something they all share in common is low IQ. Some members of my family have largely lived off of theft, frauds (disability and others like check fraud years ago), meth making etc. They’ve been arrested many, many times and live in squalor. They are stupid. People with extensive criminal histories are almost always also stupid people. Stupid people who do not think more than a few minutes ahead, so resisting arrest is a stupid decision–one in a long lifetime of stupid decisions.
I don’t think that follows. Regardless of the reason for that subculture developing (and I’m sure what you say is at least a big part of it), there’s no reason to think that when a guy acts like that and you don’t respond with a dominance approach that he’s going to be more compliant. To the contrary, it’s just as likely if not more that - again, based on the same cultural attitudes - he’s going to perceive that as weakness and be even less compliant.
I agree about that. But I don’t think it’s about training. I think that type of job attracts people with that mentality.