But that’s a different contention. If what you are contending is that higher violent crime rates marginally contribute to disproportionate police violence, that’s within the realm of reasonable possibility. But the data is quite clear that if it’s a factor, it’s a small factor. In no way does it rebut the inference to be drawn from the data that non-crime racial explanations play a big (bigger) role.
I also don’t think it defies “common sense” at all. I think the “common sense” logic is something like this: black detainees are more likely to be about to engage in or recently engaged in violent crime, therefore they are more likely to resist arrest or attack the police. But it would be equally “common sense” for the opposite to be true–that someone who has recently committed a crime has a much larger incentive to avoid being combative with the police. Moreover, when we get beyond speculation and look at actual cases, we see that most of them do not involve a suspect who has just engaged in violent crime.
You are engaging with BLM based on media sound bites and assuming that is the core of the movement. This is like trying to understand climate change only by watching Saturday morning cartoons. Turn off the TV. Close the newspaper. Read some books. Go to a BLM meeting and talk to people. If you want book recommendations, I suggest starting with Jill Leovy’s Ghettoside.
Still waiting for someone to explain what Charles Kinsey did wrong.
I fail to understand how an unarmed man laying on the ground with his hands in the air, speaking calmly and rationally to the cops, was such a threat that he deserved to be shot.
Hopefully one of the pro cop writers on this thread can explain what more he could have possibly done… Because apparently EVEN THE COP doesn’t know why he shot him.
Charles Kinsey did nothing wrong. He was complying with the police. However the police were not shooting at him, they were shooting at the autistic man whom they believed posed a threat. Of course it turns out that the autistic man had only a toy truck and not a gun. But the call was dispatched as a suicidal man with a gun, so they assumed the caller information was accurate.
This information from the local news a few minutes ago.
Saying that *“compliance with the cops isn’t a helpful approach because some compliant people still get shot anyway” * is akin to saying, *“avoiding smoking isn’t a helpful approach because some non-smokers still get lung cancer anyway.” * It’s a fallacy.
Question: Why did they have handcuff Kinsey and haul him away as if he was the perp?
They didn’t treat him like a potential hostage victim, an innocent bystander held at toy truck-point by a maniac in the middle of the street, or a person who had gone out of his way to exhibit non-threatening behavior. They treated him like a criminal.
The way he was treated after the shooting belies the idea that he was shot unintentionally. I’m gonna need you to wake up and smell the bull.
No, he’s suggesting that the argument that police violence is caused by non-compliance is fallacious. He’s suggesting that this incident suggests that at times police react violently to perceived threats even when the perception seems like an extreme over-reaction. He’s suggesting that that over-reaction–seen time and again–indicates that perhaps there is a problematic tendency for police officers in America tend to over-estimate the threat represented by minorities and that that over-estimation often has tragically fatal results.
Do you really reject that entire line of reasoning or that conclusion? Categorically?
The trouble being that this suggestion is usually or nearly always wrong - most police violence *is *caused by non-compliance. So with rather few exceptions, the argument is not fallacious.
Sure, at times that happens. See Velocity’s point about lung cancer and smoking. My grandfather died of lung cancer, and he never smoked in his life. Therefore the argument that lung cancer is caused by smoking is fallacious - right?
I point out that the line of reasoning is invalid, and therefore the conclusion is false in most circumstances.
Police shootings like the ones BLM and the SDMB obsess about are the exceptions that prove the rule of “comply with the police and they won’t shoot you”.
Manda JO summarized my point concisely. We are talking about police murdering people for literally no reason at all. Furthermore, last I checked, noncompliance with police was not a capital crime. What you are doing is blaming the victim for their alleged noncompliance, instead of correctly blaming the officer for their incompetence, lack of self control and, overt racism.
No one is saying NOT to comply with police. That is an idiotic straw man. What we are saying is that we expect police to do their jobs correctly, exercise discretion and self control, and please PLEASE stop murdering people!!! Watching someone do everything he is “supposed” to do, and STILL be shot for no reason, and then to have to listen to the police union’s idiotic excuses, indicates that the problem is NOT the individual’s behavior but rather a systemic problem in America’s police forces.
And I have still not seen an answer to my question: What more could this victim have possibly done to be more compliant?
We know the vast majority of lung cancer is caused by smoking. But some people like your grandfather still get cancer even if they don’t smoke. Imagine him going to the doctor and asking for help, and every doctor tells him he shouldn’t have smoked. Then the doctor tells your grandfather that the last patient he had smoked, so he’s pretty sure your grandfather smoked, too. Your grandfather insists that he doesn’t smoke, and the doctor speculates that maybe, at some point in the distant past, he must have smoked at least once. Then your grandfather asks what treatment is available to cure his cancer, and the doctor tells him that the best way to cure cancer is to stop smoking.
This is the kind of bullshit black victims of police brutality have to put up with, and it’s also why your analogy is pointless and ridiculous.
“Prove” in the phrase “the exception that proves the rule” means “test”. IOW look at the exceptions, and see if they disprove the rule generally. The few exceptions on which the SDMB focusses do not disprove the rule generally, but rather confirm it. A large majority of the time, police shootings are due to non-compliance.
No, we’re not. We are talking about police shootings in general, and discussing how those shootings come about. More than most of the time, the police do not shoot people for literally no reason at all - they shoot them for presenting a danger to the police or the public. There are a few exceptions, but they are just that - exceptions that test and do not disprove the rule.
No one has said that non-compliance is or should be a capital crime. We aren’t talking about convicting anyone of anything.
And, a large majority of the time, those who are shot are not victims, nor is their non-compliance alleged - it is clear. And the shootings are not caused by officer incompetence, or racism. It is caused by what the OP mentions - criminals who are resisting arrest and/or attempting to injure or kill officers or members of the public.
A huge majority of the time, that is exactly what the police are doing.
Nothing. However, if everyone were compliant with the police, the problem of police shootings would very nearly disappear.
The most effective way to address the problem of police shootings is not to focus on tiny minority of cases where people get shot by accident. It is to focus on the large majority of cases where they got shot because they were non-compliant.
Jamar Clark got shot in my area a while ago. What should he have done to prevent himself from getting shot? Well, not breaking his girlfriend’s ankle and not fighting with the rescue workers and police would be a good start. Michael Brown got shot. What could he have done to be more compliant? Well, not robbing a convenience store, attacking an officer and trying to grab his gun would help. Eric Garner would probably be alive if he could stop himself from resisting arrest when he was busted for a nuisance crime (for the thirtieth time).
What should Orville Edwards have done to not get shot? How about not pointing a gun at police? What should Jason Brooks have done (apart from not shooting at bystanders while naked)? What should Andre Johnson have done (apart from not shooting two people and shooting at officers)? How about Lafayette Evans? Apart from robbing a bank and shooting at police, he was compliant. Etc.