I agree Dan Page is a troll. But telling him to “shut up” is a bit harsh; he has every right to make videos showing America just exactly who he is. I’m surprised you don’t feel he has that privelege, Regards, Shodan.
If he’s lying about this Dan Page thing, surely there’s a way to demonstrate this is so. That might be considerably more effective, and better for your blood pressure, than just saying “shut up” over and over again. I’m just sayin’.
I think Ten-Kyu was smart enough to figure out my comments were “tongue-in-cheek”; maybe that’s what he meant by “lying.”
I do agree the story is almost unbelievable. But the news sites seemed legitimate. Has a large portion of the media mutated into something like TheOnion.com?
Now that we know their hiring standrads, it seems like George Zimmermann could have had a paid peace officer job in St. Louis; why then did he work for free, even needing to buy his own gun? (My guess is St. Louis would have rejected him … because he’s Hispanic.)
Did I miss a discussion of the murder of the crazed man, Kajieme Powell, in this thread?
Wouldn’t it have been possible to overcome him with non-lethal force? A taser? There were two cops; couldn’t one stand ready to empty his weapon if the crazy man threatened to prick a finger, while the other applied the taser?
Of course, I can find countless YouTubes demonstrating that tasers are often used against motorists after minor traffic stops, when the motorist is fully compliant but just slightly sassy. I guess the taser option was never considered in this incident since crazy Kajieme had gone beyond minor sassiness.
You just really fucking wish he’d had a chance to stab, and possibly kill, one of the cops don’t you? Sick fuck.
Yeah, I’m sure he was like, “God, I wish he gutted one of those cops.” :rolleyes:
We talked about it. It’s not known if the cops had a taser. I’m not sure how long they were on scene, or rather, how long they had to attempt to diffuse the situation.
What they did have was an armed man moving in their direction acting crazy. They didn’t fire until he was in, or very close to, striking range. I can’t fault the officers in this situation.
It’s a shame though, as that guy probably had some mental problems and probably just needed to be medicated properly.
That video is a damn near perfect example of a clean shoot. I have seen the video, they gave him several warnings and were 10-15 feet away. The shooting of Kajieme Powell is orders of magnitude more clear cut and more justified than anything to do with Michael Brown and you have to be deliberately ignoring it to even attempt to compare the two.
“Prick his finger”? As an Ex-EMT I can tell you with some authority, people DIE from being stabbed fairly regularly. You do not screw around with someone threatening you with a knife if you give them the opportunity they can and will kill you.
There’s plenty of people who feel that way. Just as there’s plenty of people who are glad that another black man was shot. Hatred goes both ways, and for what it’s worth I’m seeing far more police hate than racism in this thread. Overall that’s probably a good thing, as racism is far more dangerous, but less bad is still bad.
That did not look like a suitable occasion for a taser. Tasers hurt but don’t incapacitate, at least not for long, and someone coming at you with a knife needs incapacitating.
Yes, and yes. I’ve said, possibly in another thread on this subject, that lack of mental health treatment is a massive cause of these problems. As someone with mental illness myself, it bothers me a great deal. However, that doesn’t mean I would get to use it as an excuse if I attacked a cop, nor expect to be treated any differently at the time of attack than anyone else. That also applies to people who are drunk or high, people who are angry at either specific or general circumstances, or any other excuse.
Less than thirty seconds.
CMC fnord!
Indeed, excellent post.
Coming from Shodan, this is laughable. Seriously Sho, you have more self awareness than this. You make a habit of posting provocative comments in basically every forum and your signage is often done to be annoying.
Besides, pointing out that Dan Page is a racist asshole (and crackpot!) is entirely appropriate.
Look gang. I’m ambivalent about NYC’s old stop and frisk program: I wasn’t sad to see it go, but I could see its point. But the Ferguson PD is out of control and the problem starts at the top levels. It’s a predatory police force and needs to be overhauled and leashed. There are lots of police forces like that in the world. Fortunately, IMHO, they are mostly a third world phenomenon.
Is all of that really hard to grasp or believe? That some agencies of US local government at times go very very far astray? And that furthermore a 90%+ white police force sees their 85%+ black citizenry as the enemy rather than those they protect and serve?
About this other guy, about lethal force in general. “Justified”, legally. Is that it? Is that what we expect from our police now? I’ve known a few cops, a couple of good ones. They say “Protect and Serve”, and they mean it. We will never have too many of such people.
We expect them to be willing to accept risk, that’s the job. If we can fairly expect them to take a risk to save a life, can we not expect them to take a risk to spare one?
I think we expect them to risk their lives to save innocent lives. When a person is attacking, I think we do not expect our police officers to be willing to risk their lives or safety to spare the life of the attacker.
This is not simply my opinion. This standard is effected in the rules of engagement for virtually every police force in the United States.
Now, perhaps you feel I am overstating the issue.
If so, can you show any guidelines for any police force in which the officers are “expected to take a risk” when confronted with a potentially injurious attacker?
No, I don’t expect the police to take a risk to save someone who is attacking them from injury or death. No more than I’d expect anyone else to.
And again, a binary. The options are kill yes and kill no, that’s it? Well, Sith happens.
Same all over the world, legally speakimg? Groovy, always been a big fan of legalistic technicality. And how do we compare, do you think, to the civilized world we presume to lead? How often do our police use lethal force in comparison to the rest of the, ah, civilized world?
Why not just leave the legalistic things in place, and just specially honor the men who are legally entitled to kill, but don’t?
Well, that’s just the way of the world, nothing can be done about that. No. That is the way of America, and something can be done.
luc’, I’m all for changing some of the emphases of policing in the US to try and repair the “us and them” mindset that’s developed in most urban communities. But I think you’re concentrating at the wrong end of police procedures here. There are probably things that can be done to reduce the number and lessen the severity of violent confrontations between the police and civilians, but there’s nothing civically responsible about requiring nonlethal response from the police when faced with clear mortal dangers. Which has to include grown men brandishing knives and showing intent to harm.
Plus which they’re just loutish cops who voluntarily took a job that involves carrying a Nasty Evil Gun, right? They don’t have civilized jobs like leading task forces on cisprivilege or deconstructing post-modernist literature like someone who deserves real admiration from a correctly-thinking enlightened person, eh?
Wow. That’s a very Shodan level response right there. By which I mean it’s a response full of hostility and a stereotypical presentation of what you imagine left wing thinking to be, but it addresses exactly zip point shit about the topic of the last few posts.
To remind you, that topic seems to be: can we, and shouldn’t we as a nation, find ways to reduce the lethality of police response? A productive answer might include a rationale for an unqualified “No” if that’s your answer, or specific qualifications for a negative response. I like “Yes” to a systemic approach and “Somewhat” on an individual officer equipment and procedural level, but that’s just me. You went for the strawman, guess that’s where you’re comfortable.
Regards.
My inclination at this point would be to do a cross country comparison.
Anecdotally I can think of a number of examples from the Civil Rights era, where certain police officers showed restraint and discipline, largely out of a desire to avoid bloodshed. They earned and they deserve my respect.
Didn’t say “require”. Specifically said, leave the laws in place, so, yes, if an officer makes the judgement call, he faces no criminal sanction from me. Its his call to make.