Great; please cite the cases where a cop kneeled on a white man’s neck until killing him because said white man, who was unarmed, was selling cigarettes. Thank you in advance.
And you should be killed for that?
Simply the kind of country where you are expected to listen to law enforcement. Law enforcement can (and will ) be blamed especially as high as racial tensions are in the country now. We all agree that law enforcement has, at times, gotten away with too much for too long and are listening and willing to adopt changes.
But labeling every single incidence as racist isn’t helping the cause.
You don’t fight about “whether the cop’s gun should be out and pointed at you when it’s out and pointed at you”. This Blake guy appears to give the cops every reason to shoot him from the video I’ve seen.
It’s not about a racist cop; it’s about a racist system. Unarmed black people are killed by police at a significantly higher rate than unarmed white people. When you ask an individual officer in a specific case why they did it, they will have a reason. It may even sound reasonable. But the fact is, police wind up feeling that they must shoot unarmed black people at a higher rate. The fairly obvious reason is that unconscious bias tips the scales. Cases in the grey area will break differently due to unconscious bias. And sometimes cases that should be clear are argued as being in the grey area.
For the OP, I’m not sure that there are many changes needed to the laws and rules that apply to police shootings, but there is, in my view, a tremendous shift in training and screening needed, as well as a change in the philosophical orientation of police departments away from “crime fighting” and toward providing service. There is a combative and militaristic mindset that is at odds with what in my view should be the focus.
What should the cops have done. Wait and “see what he’s got”? I believe for public safety they’re trained to assume it’s an AK 47.
Only if you look “threatening” apparently
People shouldn’t be killed for much of anything, except rape and child molestation, but yet people are killed every single day for less.
LISTEN TO THE COPS, i hear it lessens the chance you get shot. If something untoward happens AFTER you listen, you are free to litigate it (and right now and hopefully moving forward) they will take your complaint seriously.
Yes…
how is the public safer if the cops assume every (black) guy has an AK? Maybe the COPS are safer, but the guy (who didn’t have an AK) is also a part of the public, and now he’s dead, so some cop can feel “safer”. Fuck that; you wanna be safe, don’t be a cop.
And that may be too late.
No it won’t
Then obey the commands, live to see another day and file your lawsuit.
If, as a law enforcement officer, you’re so scared for your own safety that you’re willing to shoot a civilian before you are 110% sure he has a weapon, you have no business being a police officer. Get a fucking desk job.
I said,
You said,
Care to actually respond to my point?
Can’t. The desks were stolen.
what if firefighters behaved this way? What if they refused to enter a building until it was completely safe to do so, and preemptively used force to level any building that caught fire just so they wouldn’t have to put themselves in danger? Shouldn’t they assume any burning structure is filled with explosives that may go off any second, and therefore nuke said structure from orbit rather than risk their own life by entering it?
A reminder: I know it’s hard to keep all the police shootings of black men straight, but Jacob Blake was not killed. He’s alive and paralyzed.
Um, I don’t think we all agree on that last part.
I was speaking more in general than in regards to any specific case; but in my book, having your back shot up to the point of paralysis is only a small step down from murder when it comes to potential wrongdoing.