How many people who weren’t a danger to anyone else should have been killed to stop those two?
Well, that’s two that I happen to remember on my local news in my state. I’m guessing these weren’t the only two. Ultimately, it’s a question that can’t really be answered. We allow the police certain latitude in doing their jobs, have to basically trust them to use good judgement and have good training AND not be complete idiots, dicks or assholes, and ultimately have to back stop that with our legal system to hopefully act as a check on the police when injustice occurs. Of course, our system isn’t perfect and fuckups happen, as can be seen by the recent fiasco we were all discussing (and some still are).
It has to do with the fact that part of the reason some groups are pulled over more is because police have a heavier presence in areas where those groups congregate due to higher crime levels. No one deserves to be mistreated, but my bar of mistreatment is higher, or lower depending on your viewpoint. I don’t consider being pulled over mistreatment, I don’t count being suspected at a higher rate than members from another group mistreatment. I consider it unfair, but I don’t require perfect fairness to rule my perceptions about the world. If your bar is so low that merely being suspected of some crime at a higher rate than members of some other group is a sign of mistreatment, then you will keep a chip on your shoulder and have a presumption of malice from officers. Most people assume a man is at fault in a domestic dispute with violence between a man and woman. Why? Because we see example after example where men are far more likely to be physically violent than women. That presumption is not fair to men who are not violent, who did not instigate physical contact, but it’s there and has to be overcome. And responding to the police showing up to some incident by bolting is not helping the case, it makes the guy look MORE guilty of something.
Remember that incident where the guy was getting his wallet for an id and the police officer just shot him? No one defended that officer. No one thinks that’s ok.
Incidentally, THAT is not the kind of assault people focus on, they tend to focus on scenarios where some guy is stopped, then bolts like a bat out of hell like he's got someones severed limb stuffed in his trunk. It's, NOT, SMART. Stop excusing dumb behavior. No one deserves to die for stupid reactions and overactions from the police, but more people would be alive if they did not have some out-sized fear of officers. You do, and if that is the kind of attitude you give to your son you are not giving him good advice. Clearly some of these officers are tense and trigger happy as hell, you want to de escelate the situation not amp it up by bolting.You are only responsible for your own actions, but peoples perceptions about members of a group are influenced by what they observe. That is a fact of the world, no one here, not even you ought to deny that. And the ONLY way to disrupt negative perceptions is to have those negative perceptions shown to be false. If every time some black guy with a nice car is pulled over at a higher rate, the officer sees it’s a non issue, that starts to chip away at the internal perceptions that something is amiss.
Now it’s on us as human beings to use our own executive functions to override our own group perceptions and treat everyone as an individual first, but that often falters. People make pre judgements about others ALL the time, including you, based on race, based on occupation, based on age/sex, income/dress, etc etc. Even the way one speaks and carries oneself influences peoples ideas about another. These are shortcuts, not pieces of ironclad evidence about the nature of a man, but they have a REAL effect on how people are perceived. And the single BEST way to combat negative views about members of a particular group, is to go against the stereotypes. The counter example is the most powerful weapon you have. Because it uses the powers of observations where human brains ingrain so many of these pre judgments to reorganize the expectations.
You can keep complaining about mistreatment, that’s fine and it does happen. But it would help in these situations if you don’t go into the scenario with the presumption that an officer is out to get you. That makes both you and the officer more tense I’d imagine.
Well? They’re not wrong, are they?
I’m from New Zealand where the police are not routinely armed and therefore the physical threat is much less.
But wrong doers still flee the police. Especially young men who have committed traffic offences.
I think those who have broken a law, however minor, just do not want to have to pay the consequences. Those of us who only break the law on occasion do not understand this mentality.
You should remember to say “thank you, sir”, too. Keep it civil.
The wisdom, or lack thereof, of running from the police is entirely in the context of the history of the individual and the current situation. Sure, if all you have is a small bag of weed in your pocket, and a cop is giving you a hard time for no reason, it’s probably not that bright to run. OTOH, I don’t think that’s the situation when most people run. It’s not like they get to sit there and really think through all of the options. Hell, one doesn’t even have to have done anything to possibly even see running as a good idea.
For example, what if one has been harassed or abused by cops in the past, or knows someone that has, and perhaps that cop takes an aggressive approach? Particularly in the context of the awareness of recent police violence, it’s hard to blame someone for that thought process. Let’s also consider that, chances are, these sorts of situations, can trigger a fight-or-flight response, such that, perhaps even without a particularly bad history for that person, it could just get that person instinctively running before they’ve been able to really consciously think it through.
Now, certainly, if an individual is guilty of or wanted for something, that probably increases their chance of running and their anxiety around police. And even in that case, it doesn’t mean people are going to always think through their decisions well. Maybe they think they can outrun the cop. Maybe the threat of going to jail or paying a huge fine makes their perceived chance of getting away seem more attractive. After all, not everyone is completely rational when it comes to cost/benefit analysis. After all, the vast majority of the time, the risk of a given crime will outweigh the benefit in most people’s minds, yet people still do stupid things. And, of course, there’s just some people out there that are more prone to taking larger risks.
And none of that even considers the complications of race, age, etc. Yes, I’m white, but when I was a little younger, I’ve had some bad run-ins with cops, where I was illegally searched, assaulted, harassed, etc. and I’ve never even done anything worse, legally, than speeding. Even then, I didn’t run, but I’ve never been the type to take those sorts of risks, and the few times my fight-or-flight has been triggered, it’s generally not on the “flight” side. I don’t think it’s reasonable to compare my experiences, though. I don’t live in an area that’s remotely dangerous, and cops are generally well paid and decently trained, so they tend to approach the situations in which I’ve interacted with them calm and level-headed.
In fact, the times I HAVE had negative interactions, particularly when I was assaulted, was when the cops approached the situation aggressively and with false assumptions. And if that’s how I get treated living in a fairly safe area where any accusations against me are relatively tame, I’d be shocked if cops that patrol areas that are far less safe and tend to have much more violent crimes wouldn’t just be that much more likely to approach the situation aggressively.
So, sure, it’s generally stupid to run away from the cops, the risk is very rarely one worth taking, but a lot of that blame still falls on the cops. Enter the situation firmly, but calmly. Really, unless someone else is imminently at risk of being harmed, there isn’t a need to draw a weapon or use an accusatory tone. Frankly, I’d rather see people get off for relatively minor crimes, particularly non-violent ones like drug possession, because a cop approached it to calmly, than see more situations where someone panics, risks running away and gets seriously injured or killed over a bag of weed, cigarettes, loud music, or whatever. And I think that would probably do a lot to help improve cops’ reputation too, helping to calm down people and make them less likely to run too. Win-win.
See, this is why you guys always get in trouble. The correct response is ‘thank you sir may I have another??’. You really need to follow the forms on this stuff if you want to survive in the world…
I might forget the proper response in the heat of the moment but they’ll receive a nice gift basket at Christmas time. It’s just good sense to let the people you deal with know that you’re thinking about them.
When the consequences can be days or months in jail because you can’t afford a ticket, yes, they don’t want to pay the (completely disproportionate) consequences. Sandra Bland is a perfect example. Why in the world should someone be in jail for days because of changing lanes without signaling? The only reason we know about it is because she died, but it would have been wrong even if she was still alive.
Rikers Island is another example of why people run from police. The St. Louis area (and probably countless others) is another example of why people run, since they use poor blacks as an ATM.
If you’re poor, black, and get pulled over, there is a very good chance you could end up in jail long enough to lose your job, or that you have to plead guilty even when you’re innocent so you can get out of jail, or worse. Running from cops seems much more reasonable in that situation, particularly when you consider that even people who don’t run from the cops end up dead far too often.
Oh, to be sure! You should make it a yearly tradition…send them a gift basket every Christmas saying ‘Thank you officer for doing your duty. Signed the guy you wrongfully beat the shit out of on XX/XX/XX…have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!’. 
Given two populations:
People who are dead because the didn’t run
-and-
People who are dead because the DID run
which do you think is the larger population?
It’s not always foolish to run from the cops-- if the cop hasn’t seen your face and is lying half dead in the street, it might be a good strategy to run. Otherwise, not so much.
In the former case the population should be zero, and it isn’t. In the latter the population should be far lower than it is. So the answer to your question doesn’t address the actual problem or help resolve it.
The “actual problem” posed by the OP is about the wisdom of running from the police. Perhaps you are thinking of another thread…?
How do you know a higher percentage of Black people are criminals factually speaking? Most people try to justify this claim by looking at crime reports and arrests, but that really doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. For example, the vast majority of studies show White people use illegal drug more often than Blacks, yet Blacks are arrested not often. By just looking at the stats, you’d think Black did drugs more often, but the data says we don’t.
Even when you look at crimes like murder where there is evidence of a crime, those numbers are often offset by criminally of White people that goes unreported or unpunished. Things like bank or Medicare fraud. Jusy look at how the recent financial crisis resulted in almost no arrests. While I am not equating the two crimes, I am saying that there is scant evidence that criminality, broadly speaking, is more common amongst Black people.
More importantly, even if it were, the crimes aren’t being committed by Black people because they are Black. Why should that be the indentifying characteristic used rather that being poor, bearded, tattooed, or male? How is that fair or logical?
Ok, let’s pretend that’s an important question. There are a lot of different answers. Not running and increasing the number of deaths for those who didn’t doesn’t provide an answer for me. I think the question is just a distraction from the actual problem but it is also based on the notion that nothing is worth dying for. I don’t believe that, there is great injustice here that does not get addressed by willful participation in it. Is it foolish to die free instead of living in subjugation? I don’t think so. People are being killed not because they ran from the police, but because they had the wrong skin color. Standing still in order to be tossed into the tombs and living the rest of their lives as a known criminal, unemployable, unable to enjoy the fruits of life so readily available to so many others is not preferential to me. I know I have been lucky not to have faced such circumstances, I won’t criticize the decisions of everyone who was without that advantage.
My daughter had a friend in high-school who rode his dirt bike everywhere, often using public roads. When the cops saw him they would hit their lights/siren and give chase. He would take off, eventually going into the woods. They never caught him, even when they tried to hit him with their vehicle.
OK.
Wow. It didn’t take long to stop pretending, did it? 
I will. I think it’s almost always foolish to run from police. But if you want to be a political martyr, maybe not. I wonder how many of the folks we see being killed for not running have that in mind?
If it’s unreported, how do you know it exists, or what the color was of the people who committed it?
Regards,
Shodan
Not all martyrdoms are willful.