How many different cops said that he reached for their gun? I don’t remember if multiple cops said it or if one did and other’s were confirming. In any case, when I thought I heard a second person say it, I figured that’s when they realized they needed to start convincing themselves that this was justified. Or maybe he was reaching for their guns, I really couldn’t tell where his arms were most of the time.
Thanks for linking to this. I have no interest in watching the footage of the incident but I watched this video. I agree with your sentiments about Tyre’s mom.
I’m a little bit at a loss for words here. A person died needlessly because of the color of his skin, because American police are racist and violent. Have you not noticed any of the protests that have happened before this, and how this is still happening? Are you not furious and heartbroken?
Before one rebuts ‘but they were black cops’, the color of cops is cop.
Hopefully this will put to rest the notion that “only an itsy, bitsy, miniscule, tiny fraction of cops are bad.”
That makes perfect sense - if this were a one-off.
But if it is yet one more indication of systemic problems with policing in the US, then it makes perfect sense to protest: at the municipal level, at the state level, and at the federal level, to agitate for change to an unacceptable level of violence from police who beat and kill those that they are sworn to “serve and protect.”
Whenever something like this happens, some people will claim that cops simply need “better training.” But better training won’t fix anything. The cops already know that their actions are wrong and illegal, but they do it anyway.
There are hundreds of videos on YT where cops will detain someone for filming them in public. These cops know it is illegal to detain a person for filming in public, but they do it anyway.
More/better training will not fix the problem. The issue is that bad people become cops, and they’re allowed to commit illegal acts with impunity.
This shows an obvious misunderstanding in what’s going on here. The problem isn’t that some cops are bad people. The problem is a system that allows (or sometimes even encourages) police departments to hire people unsuitable to be cops, trains propsective cops to allow or even encourage discriminatory behavior (including brutality), and hides bad behavior and protects bad actors. It’s the system that’s the problem, and which needs reform. Individual bad cops are a small part of this.
We need thorough psychological evaluations of candidates in the hiring process AND regular and ongoing evaluations throughout their careers, as long as they have power over another human being.
I understand that a certain level of “thick skin” is required to do the job, but this is sociopathy, and must be viewed as a detriment TO doing the job.
Also see: lose-lose
For some high-stakes things (including “low probability, high consequence” stuff), there is only prevention.
I agree that Memphis is handling this as well as they should, but – much like a dog owner getting better at responding to those who were attacked by that dog – we aren’t really solving the fundamental problem.
Very true.
Let’s say a small town has 10 people on the police force. Of these, 8 are “good” cops and 2 are bad cops.
If the 8 “good” cops stay silent about the 2 bad cops, you don’t have 2 bad cops - you have 10 bad cops.
If you look at those videos there were a lot more police officers present at this incident than the 5 officers who are being charged. The entire street was full of white cop cars, blue cop cars, some parked blocking the road, some stationed at the corners. A lot of "good’ cops saw what was going on.
I’ll be disappointed if there aren’t further repercussions. The police have Internal Affairs Detectives, right? Will they be detecting?
They have already finished detecting themselves and have found they didn’t do anything wrong.
“Good” cops covering for bad cops is par-for-the-course.
How many of the “good” ones intervened in the murder?
All of the good cops intervened.
None of the “good” cops did.
Folks often talk about the “few bad apples” in a police force. But the whole point of that saying is that a few bad apples in a barrel causes all of the apples in the barrel to spoil very quickly. If you find a bad apple in your apple-barrel, you need to get it out right away.
As well as checking any apples it touched for contamination, and also figuring out why your apples keep going bad.
Blame The Osmonds.
…the proverb began to be used in the opposite sense in the 20th century, instead stating that “a few bad apples” are not representative of a group… the change in usage may have been solidified by the Osmonds 1971 song “One Bad Apple” which includes the line “One bad apple don’t spoil the whole bunch, girl.”
According to the timrline developed by the NYT, the EMT arrived when Mr Nichols was handcuffed and slumping against a car. They checked him briefly, then did nothing for 16 minutes. Then they went back to him with first aid kits, and a few moments later came back with a stretcher and took him to the ambulance.
Sounds like they were fired for not taking immediate action when they came on thé scène.