Regardless or on the assumption that it had already gotten to the point where the arrest was going to happen (ie the cops already aware that he had a warrant (in this hypothetical situation?). I could see the scales being tipped in his favor if things were already at that point. When I pictured it, I was thinking he took off running as soon as he spotted the cops, before they even made verbal contact. But I have no reason for thinking that. For all I know he had no warrants and this should have been 5 minute conversation with the cops but instead he thought “I’m a black guy rummaging around in a apartment in the middle of the night, they’re gonna beat/kill me”.
That’s what made me think this isn’t quite as clear cut as “Cops shot unarmed black man in the back because they wrongly thought he stole an Apple watch he was wearing”.
The thing is, though, that it’s starting to become defensible for every POC to avoid any contact with any cop ever. The police just can’t be trusted not to assault and/or kill brown people for no reason. It should be entirely possible for an innocent Black man to accept the approach of a police officer and have faith that he will be able to explain his circumstances without fear, but that is not the world we live in.
Much has been made of modern police training which says “your first priority in your job is to go home alive,” and “every interaction is a potentially deadly enounter,” leading to instantly aggressive escalations. But the thing is, the reciprocal has become necessarily true: “every interaction with a cop is potentially deadly,” and “your first priority is to get away.” This is now understandable as a rational survival action.
I find that least questionable out of the story. I can only speculate, but having moved out of apartments at 2 in the morning before, I think it’s reasonable speculation.
It was the end of the month, and if they didn’t want to pay another month’s rent, they likely only had till the end of the day to get out before the landlord either locked the place or threw everything away.
We also don’t know if they started moving at 2am, of if that’s when the neighbor noticed and called it in. They may have been there earlier, picked up a load of stuff and had come back for more, and that’s when the neighbor noticed them.
Besides, people don’t all have 9-5 schedules. Lots of people have second shift jobs, that get off around midnight, so the most active time of their day is at night. I spent a few decades like that.
People also procrastinate. Maybe they should have taken care of it days earlier, but that’s not how people work.
Like I said, though, until there is more information, all we can do is speculate.
I’d say we’re way past it starting to become defensible. What’s changing, IMO, is non-POC’s awareness of it. And I think a lot of that is due to more and more discussions of privilege, as well as, systemic racism. I’m sure a big part of this is due to the fact that there are so many doorbell cameras, dash cameras, more and more businesses have exterior cameras and, of course, nearly everyone having a camera on their phone. With all those cameras rolling, there’s not a whole lot of time someone can be outdoors and not be filmed.
And you know it’s finally started to get through to white people when you hear someone mention how bad “it’s getting” [police racism] and you can see the look of ‘I never thought about that’ when they’re correctly told “it’s not ‘getting bad’, we’ve been telling you for decades, but now we have cameras to prove it”. The Rodney King beating, I think, was a big turning point in this shift.
Also, this is a good watch on the affect Stop and Frisk has on black people and their relationship with the police and goes a long way in helping understand the mentality behind seeing a cop and thinking ‘fuck it, I’m running’, even if you haven’t done anything.
Of course, yes. I chose the word “defensible” to connote that the defense is understood and accepted in the wider (white) culture, per your note about awareness, and not just inside the boundaries of the affected demographic.
My elderly mother was convinced that any time the police did anything wrong, they were acting from their hearts being in the right place and that obviously the perp did something wrong and had it coming. That all changed one night when two colleagues of hers – white, middle-aged people dressed professionally – were aggressilvely pulled over, thrown to the ground, aggressively searched, yada yada yada. When the police realized they didn’t have their man, they let the two go - with no explanation. Mom was livid. To this day she sees my point whenever I get up on my high horse about police abuses.
It’s hard to make out, but I never actually heard anyone say, “Police.”
Just running in, pointing guns and yelling.
I also never saw the car “aim” at a cop. I did see cops jump in front of it, though.
While I don’t think that any of the cops were out looking to murder anyone, they handled things very poorly, and their negligence cost a person their life.
Some good news: Appeals court rules live-streaming during traffic stop is protected by First Amendment. I saw a video where this came up, but I don’t know if it’s the video that informed this case. Anyway, the cops were friendly with the guy until they saw that he was live-streaming, at which point Johnny Law made up some vague excuse about “officer safety” and tried to grab the guy’s phone or whatever. Then it got ugly. I wish I could find it.
These audit videos are like crack for when you’re sitting at a computer bored. I’ve seen the one you’re talking about. This guy does pretty decent videos though he does get a little talky.
A woman trespassed in a person’s yard so she could go swimming in his pool at temperatures of 100 degrees. She was arrested and taken to the hospital, leaving her shoes behind. They released her at 3 pm, without her shoes, and no way to get back to her home, which was several miles away. Six hours later, she was arrested at a Home Depot, displaying mental problems. But the jail nurse refused to let into the jail until she had had a medical evaluation. A cop drove her to a hospital, but abandoned her in the parking lot, They got called again, and this time, cops drove her to a remote garbage dump in the middle of the night, no shoes, no lights, no idea of where she was. As she walked down the road she was hit by a hit and run driver, and spent ten hours in a ditch until she managed to crawl back to the road, She was then taken to a hospital, where she had to have much of her colon removed due to her injuries, and will be with a colostomy bag for the rest of her life. She may also lose toes on one foot. Her family is suing.
Mulberry, Arkansas cop caught on bystander’s video roughing up suspect deleted incriminating evidence from his department-issued phone before a warrant could be served on it. I must admit that I kind of glossed over after a few paragraphs because it was getting pretty deeply into the weeds, but I can’t tell if the feds were able to retrieve the evidence anyway. Or if they evidence they got from his phone is “he did a factory reset.” Arkansas Cop Caught in Viral Arrest Video Now Accused of Deleting Evidence
For whatever it’s worth, color me surprised that all they did to the bystander was tell her/her to back up, rather than try to grab their phone or otherwise physically interfere with the bystander’s filming. More than one bystander filming a cop has gotten roughed up for the effort.
Isn’t destruction of evidence itself a very serious felony? If we actually had anyone enforcing the law in this country, that cop would already be facing a long prison sentence.
Any time I see “Only with the release of an internal surveillance video” in an article, I hope it means heads are rolling. I know it probably doesn’t, but it should.
