Cite that the little boy’s alterations to his BB gun were unlawful? I don’t know, serious question.
At a playground, I’d raise my hand in typical gun fashion and make bang-bang noises. In Falluja I would respond differently.
I read the article. Granted, it’s been years since I hung out at the playground. Guess things have changed.
No, I don’t think anybody here would say they are happy about it. I doubt anybody would describe it as anything other than a tragedy.
Having read the account though, I can see why it happened. If I was a police officer in the same situation I would have done the same thing, regardless of the race of the individual.
The bright orange markings on the gun had been removed. They are placed there at manufacture by federal law, specifically to avoid incidents like this.
The police had been called out to the area because somebody had reported an individual “scaring people” with a pistol. The caller did mention it was probably fake, but this was not passed on to the responding officers.
When the officers arrived on the scene they observed the individual pick up the pistol and place it into his waistband. They then ordered him to put his hands up, and he pulled the gun out of his pants.
In that situation I can totally understand why they fired. If they don’t and the gun is real, they may get shot and killed. Let’s assume this played out differently, and that’s exactly what happened. Say the 12 year old had a real gun and shot and killed the first officer, and then the second officer returned fire and killed the twelve year old. Do you believe that story would make national news? I’m sure it would be all over local and perhaps regional news, but would there be protests? Would there be riots? Would there be groups of people in the streets? I don’t think so.
Let’s change the narrative even more. Say the teen was 18 but just small for his age. Say he shoots and kills the first officer, and the second officer only wounds him and he is taken into custody. Would there be protests and riots that a police officer was shot and killed? I get that they are sworn to duty and take risk as part of the job, but the double standard is what galls me.
Ohio law does, in fact, specifically prohibit carrying “an object indistinguishable from a firearm” into a “school safety zone”. I’m not an expert on the fine details of school safety zone laws, but from checking Google Maps, the shooting occurred in a park adjacent to an elementary school, which would indeed make it illegal to bring a toy gun there that had been altered to look like a real gun.
Heh. OK, I guess we’ll see if the playground is covered. When my son and his friends played airsoft in the woods behind the house, they all used sharpies to color the orange tips black. Looking back, I’m glad we are white.
Incidents like the one involving Tamir Rice are why I support compulsory gun safety classes in school. There should be a hard line between how one behaves while carrying something that cannot reasonably be mistaken for a real gun, like a Wiimote or a table leg and how one behaves while carrying a real gun or a non-gun object deliberately created or modified to appear to be a real gun, and even a child should be taught the importance of this distinction. Tamir Rice died because he did a number of stupid things in succession, and he should have been taught not to do these stupid things.
No, protesting about the disparity in sentencing is never appropriate. Protesting because a black person is wrongfully convicted is appropriate, or protesting because a white murderer is wrongfully acquitted, but this is a protest over the failure to wrongfully convict a white man, and that’s fucking abhorrent.
Huh? No one should protest that black people get longer sentences than white people for the same crimes?
Sorry, you are right. I was only responding to the “disparities in convictions” part, and not the “disparities in sentencing” part, but wrote the wrong thing.
You aren’t addressing the problem at all: when told to raise his hands a person pulled a gun out that, for all intents and purposes, looked exactly like a real gun.
You are contorting logic to suggest that the first thought going through the officer’s mind was “I better shoot this kid 'cause he’s black,” rather than “that gun looks real and there are lots of innocent people nearby.”
You are assuming the worst, based on nothing, because you believe the officer was racist. You, in fact, are part of the problem as well.
Okay, though I’ll still disagree in part. A majority of those wrongfully convicted that are exonerated by DNA evidence are black. That provides some evidence that innocent black people are disparately convicted of crimes.
I don’t think that makes sense at all. Brown is part of this, but a larger part is a feeling of unfair and disparate treatment of black people by the police, and many black people feel this way because of personal experience.
If you didn’t act violently, then of course not.
It might “seem to”, but that doesn’t mean that it actually does.
Large scale looting is pretty rare. But I don’t have any statistics handy on looting and race.
Probably 90/10 or even higher – there were many protests in areas of Ferguson that were only lightly covered, because there wasn’t that much to see (e.g. nothing bad). But it’s not like there are statistics on this.
The protests are about more than just Brown.
The organizers stated the protests would happen regardless of the grand jury announcement.
I’m sure some are, presumably because they think he’s guilty.
No, it’s because they don’t trust the findings of the grand jury. The lack of trust for the justice system means many don’t trust any finding from any aspect of the justice system.
These events are known as ‘Race Riots’. It is a tradition in this country both as a means of oppression and the response to it. When it’s in response to an accumulation of injustice it is effective, and some might consider it necessary. While violence should not be characterized as a good thing, I know that if I was a young man in Ferguson I would be out on the streets.
And I addressed that. The problem is not that black people are wrongfully convicted more than white people, it’s that black people are wrongfully convicted. Bringing white people into it just fuels idiocy like Ferguson, as if getting convicted for a crime you didn’t commit would be just hunky dory as long as some white guy suffers the same fate.
If black people are wrongfully convicted at a greater rate than white people, that shows that there is more to the problem then just wrongful convictions.
Age and location is irrelevant - the gun looked real.
Should a bomb squad act as if a fake bomb is fake, when at first glance a fake bomb looks totally real?
He was a twelve year old who was playing, at the playground. I’m assuming nothing. I’d just like to thing little kids can play at the playground. If that’s part of the problem then so be it.
What damage did the Boston Tea Party cause?
*£9,659 worth of damage in 1773 currency. 340 chests of British East India Company tea, weighing over 92,000 pounds (roughly 46 tons), onboard the Beaver, Dartmouth, and Eleanor were smashed open with axes and dumped into Boston Harbor the night of December 16, 1773.
…Besides the destruction of the tea, historical accounts record no damage was done to any of the three ships, the crew or any other items onboard the ships except for one broken padlock. The padlock was the personal property of one of the ships’ captains and WAS PROMPTLY REPLACED THE NEXT DAY by the Patriots. Great care was taken by the Sons of Liberty to avoid the destruction of personal property – save for the cargo of British East India Company tea. Nothing was stolen or looted from the ships, not even the tea.
…The Sons of Liberty were very careful about how the action was carried out and made sure nothing besides the tea was damaged. After the destruction of the tea, the participants swept the decks of the ships clean, and anything that was moved was put back in its proper place. The crews of the ships attested to the fact there had been no damage to any of the ships except for the destruction of their cargoes of tea.*
Wanton destruction of private property is not a “tradition” that is acceptable.
These riots are neither necessary nor a reaction to injustice. No injustice has been committed against the people of Ferguson that these actions are an appropriate response to.
When I was a kid, we could play with toy guns at playgrounds because little kids didn’t join gangs and shoot people. Things have dramatically changed since when I was little.
I do have to wonder however, if the cops sometimes are not just a bit too quick to just shoot.
iiiandyiiii, I get your bent on all of this, but at the same time, if you are a one trick pony and you can only see racism in everything, it diminishes your argument, just exactly the way it diminishes those who can never see racism.