One could easily say that it’s because of systematic racism, such as, oh, I dunno, on the part of police, nicely fitting into a vicious circle where blacks are treated poorly, causing poor reactions and outcomes, allowing conservatives to then blame blacks for being so “savage,” justifying further mistreatment… It’d be almost funny if the subject matter weren’t so serious.
Not that you’ll buy any of that, of course, if you believe that the police and criminal justice system as a whole generally treat all races equally and fairly. But that’s what this thread is kind of about, isn’t it?
No I haven’t. They may be sufficient, and I’m not insisting there must be others, only that there might be. Why do you keep making straw men? It seems clear to me now that we’re in agreement: there is a non-zero possibility that other factors might be involved. Not must. But might.
Of course it does. In the absence of any indication of video tampering, the video indicates the truth of the event. If the officers said anything conflicting with that truth, then by definition they told a false story.
Noone has established this. To the contrary, the way this case played out factually demonstrates that things turned out worse for him than they would have if he’d just pulled over in the first place - just like it did for Freddie Gray, just like it did for Tamir Rice, just like it did for Michael Brown and Eric Garner.
Why do you keep encouraging people to behave dangerously in the presence of police? Do you want more dead civilians?
Smapti is wrong on the fact as usual, because he’s incapable of thinking rationally on issues related to police and authority. I know I’ve broken this rule before, but there’s no point in arguing with such a broken person.
Bottom Line
Explained repeatedly in this thread, ignored, denied, sidestepped by the fascist apologists.
1> While no national figures have been kept (!!!), a Washington newspaper started counting this year and we’re on track for about 900 “justified” Police shootings in the United States this year.
2> Many of us are alarmed at the idea that our police are allowed to kill nearly 1,000 people per year, many under questionable circumstances, and far too many of them innocent victims. We feel that we as citizens have a right to object to and demand changes to Police procedures to greatly reduce this number as well as improve the way the police interact with the general public, for whom they theoretically are employed.
3> Unfortunately, the Police response is entirely non-productive and only serves to reinforce the idea held by some that the Police are completely fucking out of control. “Do as we say and you won’t get hurt” is the line of the bully, the thug, the fascist, not a reasonable statement by a law enforcement officer. Complaining that demanding the police themselves remain inside the law and within the bounds of the Constitution is met with complaints that doing so makes their jobs more difficult.
This is NON-NEGOTIABLE.
4> As we see in this thread, the apologists demand super-human reaction and compliance from citizens, while allowing the police much wider margins of error (resulting in hundreds of deaths per year - an unacceptable outcome) in using deadly force against them.
I have no more patience for the apologists. The Police are employed by the citizens of their locality for the safety and protection of the community. Their nation-wide motto/slogan is “To Protect and Serve”. And this is what I expect them to do.
Justified shootings shouldn’t bother you. It ought to be unjustified shootings that you’re concerned about.
If the police are justified in killing nearly 1,000 people a year, then there’s nothing to be concerned about unless it’s your belief that the police should be allowing criminals to kill them instead.
“Many”? Cite? In this thread, we’ve heard of maybe five “questionable” shootings in the past year.
Why is “reducing the number of police shootings” the end in and of itself? Shouldn’t the goal be to eradicate crime and prevent situations where the police feel they need to use force?
It’s also the line of the pragmatist. Would you rather be right, or be alive?
Bullshit.
How many deaths per year would you rate an acceptable outcome? Is there a quota the police aren’t allowed to exceed? Does it matter if the deaths per year are people, or just cops?
No it isn’t. That’s just a slogan that one major police department puts on its squad cars.
The real bottom line is that this isn’t about the number of police shootings, or racism, or the militarization of the police (a particularly ironic complaint since it usually comes from the same people who expect police to die in the line of duty and not complain about it). Those are all red herrings.
This is about people who like to exceed the speed limit, or smoke weed, or drive drunk, or any number of other petty crimes that they insist “don’t hurt anyone” or which they can do because they’re better than regular people and can handle it, or insist that “everyone breaks the law all the time anyway” so it’s OK when they do it. These people hate the police and law enforcement because they’re the ones who end up harshing their buzz and making them pay for the crimes they commit, and so they want to cripple law enforcement, make it powerless to enforce the law against them so they can keep on doing whatever the hell they want consequence-free.
“Police are shooting too many people” is nothing more than a convenient cause celebre for the 9-to-5 anarchist crowd to latch on to. The fact that some of the people who’ve been shot are black is even better because it lets them engage in race-baiting. It’s a small wonder that they keep encouraging people to run and fight back when the police approach them - they need a steady stream of bodies in order to keep the visceral hate flowing long enough for them to make it impossible for the police to punish them for the crimes they commit.
The Smaptis of American history were very useful when local governments, citizens’ councils, police departments, and other official (and unofficial) figures of authority wanted excuses for brutalization of black people. Thanks to folks like Smapti, there were never a lack of people willing to fiercely argue that all of the black people that were brutalized and killed were done so for justified reasons.
No, we don’t agree. Because you still refuse to accept the explanations given, without explaining why.
I’ll try again. Why do you think the given explanations may not be enough? Why might we need other ones? Don’t turn this back on me, just answer it - you are the one making a claim, you should be the one justifying it.
If that were the case, then other minorities and mistreated groups would be more violent - but that’s not normally the case, it’s specific to young black men. And we know that men are more violent than women, and young people (as in teens to mid twenties) are more violent than younger or older people. So, it’s something specifically to do with black culture, not with minority cultures in general.
Treating someone who is far more likely to be violent than anyone else as though they are far more likely to be violent is treating them fairly. To treat them equally would mean to either ignore the danger they present, or treat others unfairly. Now, maybe one or both of those is necessary - but it needs to be admitted to, and it needs to be combined with figuring out what is unique to black culture that makes their young men vastly more violent than anybody else.
Perhaps you should also be concerned that nearly 1,000 people feel they are allowed to resist and threaten the police to the extent that it’s justified for the police to shoot them. As Smapti says, it would be much more useful to know how many illegal, unjustified shooting there are. You have a right to demand change from the police, but you do not have a right to demand they give up the right to defend themselves, especially as they are putting themselves at risk to protect you.
You have an odd idea of non-productive… Anyway, it’s not “do as I say or you won’t get hurt”, it’s “do as I say and you won’t get arrested”. Of course, if someone gets hurt resisting arrest, it’s entirely their own fault. No-one is saying the police should ignore the law and the constitution - we’re saying that you should stop ignoring the laws that protect the police, allow them to protect themselves and others, and allow them to arrest suspects even if they are resisting.
The police exist to uphold the law, of course it’s non-negotiable. It also needs to be non-negotiable that people obey the law when they deal with the police.
Why is hundreds of deaths a year automatically unacceptable? Why are you so against the police defending themselves? No-one is demanding superhuman reactions, we are saying that firstly not resisting the police is necessary, and secondly that if you threaten them (or anybody else) you may well legally get shot.
As for obeying the police, that should be obvious. Better to do what they say, even if it inconveniences you, than resist or threaten them and get hurt. In the first case, if the police were wrong to order you to do whatever, enjoy your massive payout. In the latter, you get hurt or killed, and because you fucked up and broke the law, you don’t get your payout. You are protected by law and by democracy from the bad cops.
What, exactly, do you think they are doing when they arrest suspected criminals or defend themselves? They can’t fucking protect and serve you if they’re not allowed to protect themselves, and they can’t do it if the minute a suspect resists they have to let him go, because restraining him or otherwise using force is unacceptable.
Like all the anti-police idiots here, you have no understanding of nuance, no acceptance that there are times when they will do something that’s acceptable but not perfect. You are demanding constant perfection from people who are risking their lives to protect you. That’s absolutely ridiculous.
This thread is long and, frankly, numbingly repetitive, so forgive me if there is some essential nuance I’ve missed, but my understanding is that iiandyiii is trying to ascertain why U.S. cops shoot civilians at a rate 14 thousand times higher than U.K. cops, despite the fact that the U.S. only has 13 times as many guns as the U.K.
Your explanation, which you insist we disprove, is that the difference in rates of per capita gun ownership (ie. 13:1) accounts for this galactic disparity in police shootings comfortably enough that the need to even look for other explanations must first be justified.
May I ask, can you think of anything- and I mean literally anything else in the entire sphere of human interaction, anywhere in the world - where a 13 fold increase in one variable results in a 14,000 fold increase in another? Or even 10,000? Because if you can’t, you really ought to concede iiandyiii’s point that there are most likely other factors at play.