# Controversial encounters between law-enforcement and civilians - the omnibus thread **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 10, 2014, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942 "2014-10-10T07:35:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 258
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/5141 "2015-07-19T17:23:36Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > I love how people like you think you have to wait until after you’ve been shot in the face in order to defend yourself. I love how people like you think you have to preemptively shoot people because you are scared and a pussy. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/5142 "2015-07-19T17:27:45Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > I love how people like you think you have to preemptively shoot people because you are scared and a pussy. I’d rather be frightened and alive than fearless and dead. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/5143 "2015-07-19T18:24:11Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > I’d rather be frightened and alive than fearless and dead. Well, this neatly vindicates my earlier observation that you’re arguing that cops should shoot everyone as soon as they arrive on scene, just in case. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/5144 "2015-07-19T18:36:15Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Well, this neatly vindicates my earlier observation that you’re arguing that cops should shoot everyone as soon as they arrive on scene, just in case. [This is what Bryan Ekers thinks happens when a cop sees a black person.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVewRuh7PyY) ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/5145 "2015-07-19T19:10:13Z")
> [@AtomicDog](#): > > Mississippi, show 'em how it’s done. > > [unarmed black man choked to death for mouthing off to a cop from a horse and buggy](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/14/kevin-herrington-mississippi-cop_n_7796614.html) > > Stay classy, Mississippi. I’ll save the bots a click: [QUOTE=Steopoo & Smaptipoo, Racist Gun-crazed Bots `R’ Us] This “unarmed” black man disobeyed police orders. The cop had good reason to believe he was an armed terrorist; following him to empty his magzine into him was the safest course of action. And “unarmed”?? We have no way to verify that, but even if the N\*\*\*\*r was truly unarmed the cop had no way to know that. And BTW, N\*\*\*\*r was probably not a racist epithet – this might be Mississippi police code for a perp from a socially inferior group of unknown skin color who may be about to disobey police orders. It was a good clean kill. Next case. _ **{Steopoo & Smaptipoo, Racist Gun-crazed Bots `R’ Us : : : writing automated pro-gun anti-black posts on message boards for only 15 cents per word since 2013. Ask about our volume discount.}** _ [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/5146 "2015-07-19T19:22:36Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > I’ll save the bots a click: Cute. I don’t have enough information about what happened here, based on the one-sided account presented by the plaintiffs’ attorneys, to form an opinion yet. Honestly, the account here doesn’t make a lot of sense - the officer was in the company of a civilian female (who nobody apparently knows the name of), but he was travelling in his squad car, and engaged in “an altercation” (not law enforcement business) with a person the deceased knew, and the deceased was strangled with “a headlight tied around his head” and this all just happened to go down right in front of three of the deceased’s in-laws’ house, and he was throttled for 20 minutes, and was able to tell people he couldn’t breathe despite the fact that doing so would mean he was able to breathe? This sounds an awful lot like the “Darren Wilson stared Michael Brown in the eyes and shot him in the face while he begged for his life” accounts that we heard this time last year, which turned out to be completely unsubstantiated by the physical evidence and the preponderance of physical accounts. When and if we hear from a party that isn’t financially motivated to smear the police, then I’ll be able to form an opinion on this matter. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/5147 "2015-07-19T19:29:18Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > [This is what Bryan Ekers thinks happens when a cop sees a black person.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVewRuh7PyY) Nice, taking your pathetic beliefs and attributing them to me. Let me guess - you’re rubber and I’m glue? ---
**Author:** ![dasmoocher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dbc845/32.png) [@dasmoocher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dasmoocher)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/5148 "2015-07-19T19:43:26Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > [This is what Bryan Ekers thinks happens when a cop sees a black person.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVewRuh7PyY) To be fair, at the end the police chief’s coffee probably was black. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/5149 "2015-07-19T20:22:12Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Nice, taking your pathetic beliefs and attributing them to me. Let me guess - you’re rubber and I’m glue? I don’t believe that all black people can be justifiably shot on sight. You believe that _police_ believe that all black people can be justifiably shot on sight. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/5150 "2015-07-19T20:45:16Z")
I didn’t say black people. By your arguments, the cops should shoot ALL people on the scene for their own safety, and it is unthinkable to demand they act otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/5151 "2015-07-19T21:13:56Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I didn’t say black people. By your arguments, the cops should shoot ALL people on the scene for their own safety, and it is unthinkable to demand they act otherwise. So you agree with my statement that the video accurately describes what you believe cops believe. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/5152 "2015-07-19T21:37:57Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > So you agree with my statement that the video accurately describes what you believe cops believe. I haven’t made any statements about what cops believe, just what _you_ believe. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/5153 "2015-07-19T22:10:32Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > By your arguments, the cops should shoot ALL people on the scene for their own safety, While I’m sure you are making a point, describing an absurd situation, that is actually how things go down at times. School shootings, hostage/bomb threats, there are times when mass amounts of people are being evacuated (to safety), but since the authorities don’t know who the bad people are, they hold everyone at gunpoint as they run, with their arms up. An innocent person who doesn’t obey every command may be shot. In fact, if everyone disobeyed, they might all be shot. To protect the authorities of course. ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/5154 "2015-07-19T23:33:18Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I didn’t say black people. By your arguments, the cops should shoot ALL people on the scene for their own safety, and it is unthinkable to demand they act otherwise. No-one’s argued anything like that. What _has_ been happening is that many people, including you, have argued that cops shouldn’t have the same right to self defence as anyone else. Which means being allowed to shoot and kill people who appear to be an imminent threat. For some reason, you and the other idiots here seem to see “imminent” and understand “possible”… ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/5155 "2015-07-19T23:37:17Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > An innocent person who doesn’t obey every command Yeah, about that… At the very minimum, someone who’s not obey the cops when they’re evacuating somewhere is guilty of disrupting the police doing their job, and probably putting other people at risk of whatever they’re being evacuated from. There are times to be a dick and stand on your “rights”\*, but that isn’t one of them. \*That time, of course, is in court when you sue the police - well after you’ve obeyed their orders. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/5156 "2015-07-19T23:49:18Z")
> [@Steophan](#): > > No-one’s argued anything like that. What _has_ been happening is that many people, including you, have argued that cops shouldn’t have the same right to self defence as anyone else. Which means being allowed to shoot and kill people who appear to be an imminent threat. > > For some reason, you and the other idiots here seem to see “imminent” and understand “possible”… Talk to your buddy Smapti. In his world, putting a hand in your pocket in the presence of a police officer justifies him killing you in self defense. With that in mind, I’m happy to modify my earlier comment and say Smapti’s argument suggests police, upon arrival at a scene, should pre-emptively shoot everyone who has pockets. The solution is to always be naked, I guess. If you disagree, it means you want cops to be shot in the face instead. Do you disagree? ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/5157 "2015-07-19T23:54:32Z")
> [@Steophan](#): > > Yeah, about that… At the very minimum, someone who’s not obey the cops when they’re evacuating somewhere is guilty of disrupting the police doing their job, and probably putting other people at risk of whatever they’re being evacuated from. Of course, so the best way to be safe is to shoot anyone who doesn’t obey, with out hesitation. If everybody is disobedient, kill em all, and let the courts sort it out later. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2015, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/5158 "2015-07-20T00:02:14Z")
**Steophan** and **Smapti** say “imminent” when they mean “imaginable.” That is, when it is a cop and a black person involved. Then they can imagine quite a lot. ---
**Author:** ![BigAppleBucky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigapplebucky/32/178_2.png) [@BigAppleBucky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigAppleBucky)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2015, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/5159 "2015-07-20T01:44:29Z")
[Cop saves innocent man from death sentence](http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/18/us/death-row-stories-randy-steidl/index.html) Another death row exoneration. Police and prosecutor misconduct. The good cop who finally put a stop to the death freight train lost his career over it. > [@](#): > > The prime-time show “48 Hours” was about to do a special on the case, and Callahan’s command was a bit antsy. > > “I had not even turned the first page when I got a phone call,” Callahan said. It was from a local police official who, according to Callahan, had concerns about his reputation and feared being labeled “a dirty cop.” ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2015, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/5160 "2015-07-20T02:49:36Z")
But it’s proof that the system works, because nobody got executed, right? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942.md?page=257) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942.md?page=259)