Christ, does no one understand, during a police stop, what you want to do is remove the perception of threat to the cop. That means following instructions, being non threatening or belligerent, and otherwise trying to de-escalate the situation.
I learned that at 15 the first time I had cops pointing guns at my head in bumfuckville northern California.
Seems like both of OP’s observations attack straw men.
Does anyone actually hold the position that “unarmed guy at traffic stop necessarily equal harmless guy”? I doubt it. I think the point of observing that many of the people killed by police are unarmed is that such people pose less of a threat than those that are armed, a fairly incontrovertible proposition.
Does anyone actually hold the position that it’s healthy to have so much antipathy toward the cops? I doubt it. What we disagree about it who is responsible for that climate and what to do about it, which obviously turns on your views of the criminal justice system. If you believe cops are engaged in widespread misconduct and institutional racism, it would be pretty odd to blame the victims for the antipathy.
The fact of an unarmed man harming a police officer doesn’t go to either of these actual disputes at all.
How did the detective stop him in the first place? Did he use invisible tractor beams?
If a car that isn’t marked as a police car, driven by a driver who isn’t wearing a uniform tries to stop you (how?), do you pull over and stop?
Well, sure. Part of the problem, however, is that some cops perceive minorities as a threat solely because of their own prejudices. That’s not unique to cops, of course – I’ve been in a car with people who had been chattering away, ignoring white pedestrians, then suddenly warned us all to lock our doors when a black pedestrian wandered past. It just has more serious consequences when an armed officer’s threat perceptions are distorted.
An “unmarked” car still has police flashers and sirens, the lights just aren’t displayed on the outside of the car like they are in “marked” vehicles.
That’s a fair observation. But the fact is that the guy pounded his head with a hard object until he left him lying motionless on the ground - that seems like something that could have killed him. Apparently there’s a broad variety of outcomes in such circumstances.
That would be appropriate if there was some sort of statistical analysis being done of people killed by police. (That’s why your sentence reads nicely when it’s about “many of the people killed by police”.) If it’s being highlighted in individual instances - as it commonly is - it’s because of the inference that in a given instance the victim was relatively harmless.
All Lives Matter.
It’s not nice to beat people.
It’s interesting that some people appear to under the impression that the driver didn’t hit the officer often enough/hard enough to cause “serious” injury.
Makes sense. Does it apply to cops also? Why should people be in fear of their lives because they were pulled over?
Who is in fear of their lives because they got pulled over?
The people who end up getting shot are generally not people who were in fear of their lives. If they were in fear of their lives they would comply with the cops’ orders instead of getting belligerent. The attitude these people have taken (in the cases I’m familiar with) have not been that of someone who was in fear of their life.
Criminals, mostly. Although to hear some people tell it, cops will pull black people over and shoot them just because.
Regards,
Shodan
It seems that the cop lost control of the situation. Even in a routine traffic stop, you don’t let the driver get into a position where he can hurt you. If the cop actually suspected the driver was the burglar, this is doubly so.
There is a whole spectrum of responses between “shooting an unarmed man” and “getting your head bashed in because of fear of internet judgement”. Like using his baton, taser, mace etc.
Nope, just minorities.
Why is the title of this thread “Cop Confronts Unarmed Black Guy at Traffic Stop …”?
What the fuck does it matter what skin color anyone was??? 