Several of those jurors you want to punch in the face were in tears because of the verdict.
At least one regrets not hanging the jury
“At one point I talked with another juror about just hanging the jury, and making the state try the case again. We really agreed that if they did a better job, they could have convicted her… I’ll always feel like a coward for not doing that.”
Agreed. Racially the US is ~63.7% white and 12.2% black.
Using these numbers for people shot by police 48% were white and 23% were black. Looking disproportionate but in the direction of a black person being more likely to be shot by a cop than a white person.
Then there is the SLCPD, who have not killed anyone since 2015. They have put in place de-escalation training, along with a “de-escalation award”, which has led officers to show great restraint, even to the point of not resorting to violence when it might well have been justified.
Disproportionate to what? To the percentage of blacks in the population, sure. To the amount of violent crime committed by the different races, no. (pdf)
Blacks are 12-13% of the population, and commit over 38% of the violent crime in the US. It would be surprising if a disproportionate number of them didn’t get shot.
I’m looking for the article from which got those statistics. I believe that it was written by Heather MacDonald, a vocal supporter of the police. As soon as I can locate it, I’ll post a link. Here’s another interesting article.
The description on the video says that “Magically, all body cams of the police “malfunctioned” in this incident” but I have not seen any other claim or confirmation of that.
I started a milquetosty thread in the subject of 9x16 a few years ago. Apparently it is easier to hold the phone upright while recording. The only answer to this vexing issue is that phone manufacturers need to use square CCDs, so that holding the phone vertically will be able to capture a full frame that can be cropped either way.
And it’s mostly just annoying to people viewing on computers. Most of the time, if you’re sharing a video you shot on your phone, you’re putting it on social media platforms, where most of the people viewing it are using mobile devices that they’re probably holding vertically too. If I’m flipping through Facebook and see your “random semi-interesting thing I saw” video, it’s probably not going to be engrossing enough for me to bother turning my device sideways, even if you shot it that way.
That’s not the point, though, shooting landscape captures more relevant detail in most cases. There’s a reason films and TV moved to wider, not taller, screens.
From my neck of the woods. Its not just a deep an abiding fear of black men. Its also a need to remind wealthy black men and women of their place (my opinion). Some people (including some cops) feel the need to remind blacks that there isn’t enough money in the world to wipe the black off their skin. I don’t know if there is more to this story but right now it looks pretty bad. How do we keep racists from becoming cops? how do we keep assholes in general from becoming cops?
Yeah, that doesn’t look good at all. Fortunately, everyone got to walk away from the experience.
Keeping racists and assholes off the force seems pretty much impossible. What CAN be done is to throw the book so fast and hard at those that do violate the civil rights of others in egregious and contemptible fashion that it’s clear to any and all that it’s utterly unacceptable.
I don’t know that it is possible to keep racists and assholes from becoming cops. Racists and assholes are people too, and I can think of no effective screening method to prevent them from joining the force.
What we need to do is prevent people who act as racists or assholes from remaining cops.
