I want to agree, but I can’t. If a grand jury can’t look at that video and say, “Yeah, this was very fucked up. Let’s hold the cop accountable and make him stand trial”, then I don’t know what could possibly convince them. The opinions of the denizens of the internet don’t matter. It always comes down to whomever gets picked to serve on grand juries.
We’ve got footage of Tamir Rice as well. That should be a slam-dunk case, but I have a sinking feeling no one’s going to be going to be jail over it either.
Usually there are some kind of accompanying rules addressing excuses like that. I don’t know what they are (they may vary by region), but I definitely remember reading about them.
Saw a CNN graphic that said that police related shooting fatalities for African Americans are almost 31 times that of Caucasians.
I know it’s possible to be racist enough to “explain” that in a way that doesn’t reflect poorly on the police (I’m thinking of one specific way here), but not many people are, relatively speaking.
What I fear is that people will get emotional burnout and turn their attention to other things, because what’s the point of all of this indigation and outrage if nothing happens? I mean, we’re out the point now that kids are getting executed on video and yet no one really believes anything is going to be done about it.
If things keep going as they are, we’ll have cops shooting pregnant women in the belly to get at their gun-brandishing, reaching-into-their-waistband, demon-eyed fetuses. Maybe Key and Peele should do a sketch on this.
You might be right, but I’m hopeful (and optimistic) that more and more such videos will eventually catch on with people – people who have never had bad personal experiences with police (most white people) – in the same way that the videos of the Selma protest and police brutality did for people who had previously thought that black people had nothing to complain about.
Plus, it’s an idea with pretty wide support, so I think it’s a feasible next step.
Ann Arbor officer got two complaints earlier this year where he offered to fix traffic tickets in exchange for sex. Definitely ranks as potentially controversial encounter… except he resigned while still under investigation, the case got turned over to the state police, and the Michigan State Police are currently waiting on prosecutor to authorize an indictment. I’d guess that could be a charge that lands him on the sex offender registry if convicted.
Controversial encounter becoming a non-controversial case of handling a fucked up officer. Nothing to see here. Move along.
I walk down to Arby’s in downtown Minneapolis for lunch about 45 minutes ago. Part of the sidewalk nearby (about 40’ long) is marked as closed by police tape for no obvious reason. Cop SUV parked next to it, no cop. I go in, get my lunch, am coming back and now there’s a cop standing there on the street nearby. I stop to ask him why it is closed.
Me: “Do you know why this piece of sidewalk is closed?”
Cop: “Yes” (and then silence)
Me: “Ok, doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with it”
(officer points up. There’s someone working on the outside of the building about 20 floors up.)
Me: “Ah” (nodded my head, started to turn away)
Cop: (growls) “Stop shaking your head”
Me: (kept walking)
These killings have been going on forever, but it’s finally in the age where everyone has a video camera on hand that we can finally muster sustained outrage. Rodney King was the proto-example, but for the most part, these killings have been he-said she-said, and who would not take that boy scout cop’s word?
The Eric Garner case in particular is ridiculous. Getting killed after already being taken down, strangled to death, over possibly selling cigarettes on the street? If I was in New York, I’d be right there with the protesters.
Sometimes I think peaceful protests don’t actually do anything. People usually hunker down, deal with a little bad PR, and wait for it to blow over. It’s only when normal disinterested people are actually scared for their safety or property that there’s enough political will to make meaningful change. So I guess I’m kinda hoping that things burn, because that’s the only way we seem to learn.
In many third world countries, it’s commonly understood that the cops and crims are recruited from similar demographics and indeed act in not incomparable ways. In the West, police are more professional, relatively speaking. Well functioning police forces protect and serve. The other types exist to defend a regime.
Rand Paul provides us with a wider perspective. He thinks there’s a bigger story behind the police inflicted choking death of Eric Garner, and I have to say I agree. Rand Paul:
I think it’s hard not to watch that video, of him saying “I can’t breathe I can’t breathe” and not be horrified by it. But I think there’s something bigger than just the individual circumstances. Obviously the individual circumstances are important, but I think it’s also important to know that some politician put a tax of $5.85 on a pack of cigarettes, so they’ve driven cigarettes underground by making them so expensive. But then some politician also had to direct the police to say, ‘Hey, we want you arresting people for selling a loose cigarette.’ And for someone to die over breaking that law, there really is no excuse for it. But I do blame the politicians. We’ve put our police in a difficult situation with bad laws."
Yeah, we really have to reconsider our policies on, wait what? Cigarette taxes?? That’s the bigger picture??
Race is irrelevant; that’s not what citizens were reacting to. The video posted doesn’t even show his race, but I can tell just from his accent that he probably looked brutish and had ape-like physiognomy.
A little 50 year old man who is lying on the sidewalk after being beaten and tazed is shot 23 times. The cops planted knives on him and try to alter the recordings. Where is the outrage over this?
The lack of outrage may be due to the fact that objective sources - the grand jurors and federal judge - who examined the case found the allegations of your “cite” were not remotely true.
Perhaps the grand jury was misled by a system whereby the prosecutors are chummy with the cops and present half-assed cases when they pretend to make a case for indictment.
So your theory is that there was, quite literally, a conspiracy. A conspiracy that involved 12 members of the public. Do you have any idea how ridiculous you sound?
No, that didn’t happen. What happened is that, like in many other cases, there’s little or no evidence the police actually did something wrong - the determination of “wrong” being made by the people’s elected representatives and codified into law, rather than by ignorant fools on message boards, of course.
The grand jurors themselves were just pawns being played by a prosecutor who just went through the motions in presenting his case. A conspiracy of one.
I’d say shooting a guy who has been tazed and beaten and lying on the ground to be something wrong. Shooting him 23 times is obscenely wrong. Then planting evidence on his body and doctoring the videos is just icing on the cake.