I don’t see what is being done to make their jobs so difficult. I really don’t. They still have full authority to serve warrants, search, arrest and detain. They still have authority to use both non-lethal and deadly force when necessary.
What is the problem?
There is nothing keeping them from doing their job. However, there is THE LAW (and now lots of video being recorded) that will prevent them from NOT doing it, will prevent them from breaking the law themselves. It’s about time the public got answers and action on the bad cops.
If we see a publicly released (through the police or news broadcast) video of a cop repeatedly shooting an unarmed “perp” in the back (which has happened) he doesn’t get to say the guy was resisting or threatening or he was “in fear for his life” or any other such bullshit anymore.
If we see video of a cop throwing an unarmed nonviolent pregnant NON SUSPECT to the ground (which has happened), he doesn’t get to lie and say she did anything to deserve it anymore.
If we see a cop go into a school and beat the shit out of a young girl (which as happened) we see it.
If a cop car pulls up and immediately starts shooting a kid with no effort to assess the threat (which has happened), we see it -and THAT cop had already been fired from a previous department and was UNFIT.
None of this makes the cop’s job harder. All this video, and the fact that people are angry enough to come forward actually protects the good ones.
But I think I know YOUR problem… it fucks over the bad ones. Apparently YOU don’t appear to like that for some reason.
And the problem we have with Trump and these cops in particular, is the “It’s OK to just fuck people up if you feel like it”. It’s the encouragement of and the cheering of abuse of power and betrayal of trust. Authority is granted, but it is based on trust. That trust and that authority can be taken away… by the LAW.
So what is your deal, that you don’t want to understand that?
There was one police wearing a black hat that looked like a cowboy hat behind trump and that police kept his arms down by his sides and he wasn’t smiling or LOL.
The white house said trump was joking about this . Every time trump get called out for saying something outrageous it always reported he was ‘joking’. Yeah right !
No, I’m fine with that. I’m just not arrogant enough to think that I can judge whether or not a cop is bad from one video, when investigators, juries, judges, and others who’ve seen all the evidence says that they are not.
That you think you can, and the rest of your post makes it clear that you do, is why I think you’re anti-police. If I suggested treating anyone else the way you suggest treating the plaice you would be (quite rightly) screaming about the injustice of it.
“I’m just not arrogant enough to think that I can judge whether or not the earth is going 'round the sun from one set of observations, when the clergy, the universities, and all manner of wise men who have surely seen all the evidence say that it’s fixed.”
Whether manslaughter or murder, it’s clear that this officer did something wrong. The jury, which apparently got more evidence, disagreed - or at least, one juror did. You are trusting the infallibility of a system of “12 random schmucks with no interest in the job and little knowledge of the law” over your own eyes. That’s insane. We know that innocent people get locked up all the time. We know that guilty people get away quite regularly. Juries are not infallible. You know what can’t be tainted, bribed, confused by little legal loopholes, biased, or browbeaten? Video footage.
That cop is currently awaiting sentencing for his crime, having been convicted recently. So yes, he did something wrong. When he was charged with the crime he actually did commit, he pleaded guilty, despite having successfully defended himself when charged with one he didn’t.
Looks like the system worked in this case.
However, I will say again, you cannot tell merely from that video that a crime was committed. There is always the possibility that something happened before the video started, or outside the frame, that could change things entirely - and that’s why a thorough investigation is always needed, not the lynch mob vengeance you prefer.
As for the analogy at the start of your post, the irony is that you are the Church, not Copernicus. He looked carefully for the actual evidence, ignoring received wisdom and other pressures. You see one fact, and proclaim that from that you know the one and only truth, which so conveniently fits your biases.
If Al Capone pleads guilty to tax evasion because he knows that it will lead to the state dropping the murder charges against him and he knows that he’s got a pretty weak shot at getting a second mistrial, this is not the system working.
Hey, my eyes work just fine.
There is such a possibility. Speaking of possibilities: maybe Slager was aiming for the bug-eyed alien just out of shot and is just a terrible marksman, and the Men In Black got ahold of the camera footage and doctored it. Maybe Scott had mind-bending powers á la that one guy from the X-Men who made a bible look like a gun in order to get shot by the police.
Snark aside, it’s possible, ever so slightly possible, that something outside the video clip might have cleared Slager’s name. From the reports from the trial, this really doesn’t pan out very well. The actual arguments made in court seem exceedingly clear, and Slager’s defense is rather disgusting - Walter Scott died because of his “felonious conduct”.
But here’s my counterproposal. Maybe what happens outside the scene is brutally irrelevant, because what the video footage shows is clearly a civvy turning and running away, and a cop pulling his gun and, after a few seconds, shooting him in the back. I don’t really think there’s a context that makes that okay. Maybe what “failed” is not my ability to be hyperprescient of countless possible variables, but rather one asshole on a jury who just wouldn’t convict a cop of murder, and who decided that jury nullification was the way to go.
Yes it is, it’s someone being convicted for something they can actually be proven guilty of, not something they are merely suspected of. That is precisely how the system should work.
That you think the system should work differently, and convict cops (or gangsters, or anyone else) who heaven’t been proven guilty is irrelevant.
The law is as it is to protect everyone, including you and me, from false accusations. I hope it continues to do so, and the cost of having a few suspected murderers going free is so small in comparison to the benefit we all gain from having a system that presumes our innocence that it’s absurd to think that it’s not worth paying.
Provide a cite for anyone here saying this, you lying sack of shit.
And trolling us with a link to a multi-page thread doesn’t count-do your own fucking homework.
If you think this is what I’m saying or even implying, you read at a first-grade level. Can you tell the difference between “The system is good, but in this case it failed and that’s kind of a problem” and “The system is bad and needs to change”? Because that’s a pretty fuckin’ huge difference! Yes, innocent until proven guilty is important. Yes, it’s better to let 10 guilty men walk than imprison one innocent one. But for fuck’s sake - can you imagine someone from any other profession even going to trial with evidence as strong as the evidence in the Castile case? “There’s video footage of you panicking for no good reason and shooting the guy. Take the plea deal. No point in dragging this out.”
He took a fucking plea deal, and is about to be sentenced. Are you really that fucking stupid? The system has worked. He’s been convicted, and is going to be locked up.
That you add a “but” to the statement about keeping the innocent free shows that your priorities are fucked up. As for the “any other job” part, there aren’t many other jobs where shooting people is part of the job, so it’s a stupid question. I’m glad to hear you outright say that people shouldn’t bother with trials, though. Shows your true colours very clearly.
