I don’t know the extent to which a prosecution in that matter is possible (e.g. whether a statute of limitations has expired, whether the victim was willing to cooperate, etc).
I do know that arresting someone for bogus reasons is far worse than declining to arrest someone for something for which a case could maybe be brought. Both could be called discretion, but police don’t have discretion to violate the Constitution or make unlawful arrests.
If four shootings of cops in the past six months, two of which were fatal, comprises “open season” on cops, what kind of season is it on black people in America?
These shootings are terrible, no doubt, and whoever committed them–whether or not they were part of the protest*–should be prosecuted. But using these shootings to distract from the very real discussion of police racist oppression in Ferguson is despicable and shameful.
My tinfoil hat speculation is that the shootings were committed by one of our home-grown white supremacist RaHoWa groups looking to start the apocalyptic race war. I’d give that possibility somewhere between 10 and 20 percent chance, using these handy numbers I pulled out of my butt.
This sort of reaction to grievances didn’t spring up overnight. Putting anecdotes and examples aside, perhaps it does justify seemingly skewed statistics in the report.
There was far more than just “skewed statistics” in the DOJ report. In any case, are you saying that fear of random violence justifies disparate treatment of black people (such as searching black motorists twice the rate of white motorists, even though contraband was found significantly less often in searches of black motorists)?
I’ve suggested in a prior thread on a related subject that perhaps many black people tend to react differently (most specifically: more confrontationally) in interactions with police, and this may result in disparate treatment.
That’s possible, as is racial bias (whether conscious or not) on the part of police officers, or systemic things like policies that lead to racial bias in practice (whether intentional or not). Unless all interactions were filmed (and maybe they will be soon!), it would be hard to prove your hypothesis. My own discussions with black people lead me to believe that most black people (and especially black men) are taught from a very young age the incredible life-or-death importance of acting ‘non-threatening’ in public, and especially around police. When these statistics being discussed are combined with the other data the DOJ gathered, I think their conclusions about Ferguson are reasonable.
You’re gonna have to - the notion that walking is illegal but dancing is OK is too much like the “was there gold fringe on the flag” arguments to bother with.
The cop had reasonable suspcion to make a traffic stop.
I don’t think I could prove it. It’s based largely on a lot of observations of people interacting with cops over the years (including firsthand, secondhand, and media report), but it’s a subjective judgment and is specific to me. I’m only noting that it’s worth bearing in mind as a possibility.
I suspect this is probably more true of black kids from upper and middle class backgrounds and less true - if at all - of kids from lower class backgrounds.
When when a non-white person gets “uppity”…after being stopped all the time for nothing but their color…thats an arresting!!!
Note that this report SHOWS that there was systemic bias and harassment of people based on the color of their skin and her you are saying that they should just take it. That being stopped and detained for dancing is just something that you deal with? That is absurd.
Unlike you apparently, I am not of the mind that there aren’t many, many black people who detest the type of behavior I mentioned. But hey, you’re free to move to Ferguson. Seems like you have the right attitude.