When did conservatives become a bunch of spineless wimps. “Oh noes! We must never resist the police! The police are our FRIENDS! We must always obey and respect and worship them, lest they turn their uncontrollable wrath on us!”
Bullshit. The police are agents of the state. An oppressive government uses its police force to oppress its citzenry. When citizens take an oath to never resist the government, they give away the little power they have.
If police were arresting citizens for exercising their 2nd right amendment, you better believe conservatives would be singing a different tune about resistence.
No, I don’t think resisting arrest is always wise or justified. But I didn’t see a guy resisting arrest in that video. I see a guy who is angry that he’s being swarmed by a small army just because someone suspected him of selling loose cigarettes…while on a regular basis, thieves in business suits are given the privilege of turning themselves in when they are accused of stealing millions. They knew where the guy lived. Why couldn’t they have just sent him a court summons and avoided the whole situation?
This is what real government intrusion looks like. Not Michelle Obama’s social engineering of the school lunch program.
To repeat: I’m not going to build a legal case here, since there’s no actual legal evidence, but I see negligent manslaughter in that video. I certainly see probable cause for a trial on charges of it.
What does any of that have to do with the price of tea in China? How is “a different person in a completely different set of circumstances is being handled differently by law enforcement, therefore you have no right to arrest me for selling loosies” in any way, shape, or form a coherent argument?
Sorry, I misunderstood what you were saying. Agreed. Some people’s stories would match up, others would be discredited; they are not all reconcilable.
We weren’t talking about “justified,” we were talking about “sympathetic.”
Dispute all you want, but most people think the store video shows Brown robbing the store, and most people think robbing a store is a morally wrong thing to do. We do not have video of Garner doing anything most people regard as morally wrong. This has nothing to do with either’s legal culpability, merely how people feel about the events.
And please do not make the jump from “Wilson should not have been indicted” to “the shooting was justified” to “Brown merited capital punishment.” Those are three different things. I, for one, agree with the first, but regard the third as repulsive.
There is an assumption that he was breaking the law. This has not been confirmed, but lets assume so. Resisting arrest does not, in and of itself mean that anyone’s life is being threatened. I have had people resist arrest by attempting to pull their hands away and tuck them close to their body so I couldn’t handcuff them. This sort of passive resistance does not justify deadly force. At least not to my department. And choke holds are considered deadly force.
I don’t see how you can entertain the opinion that Wilson shouldn’t have been indicted while finding the latter opinion repulsive. The math does not add up.
An indictment is not a conviction of guilt. It simply allows an issue to be tried in court because there is probable cause a crime occurred. The very fact that several witnesses contradicted the self-serving claims made by Wilson support the existence of probable cause. You don’t have to believe Brown’s death was actually unjustified to at least acknowledge the evidence that it wasn’t justified. That is all that is required for an indictment, and that is why it is appalling that not even Garner’s death merited that.
To say that Wilson shouldn’t have even been indicted suggests that you believe Brown did deserve capital punishment. Bringing up the things about the cigars–which happened prior to the shooting–also supports–not challenges–that belief.
Apparently the officer was using a method of force that is banned by his department. When you go against the approved policies and practices of the department, then you lose what ever protections your position provides. However, given the fact that there are thousands of such choke holds yearly and even in this case, none of the officers involved indicated a choke hold was used, then the department could be held liable for not enforcing it’s policy.
They’d need to start arresting white citizens for this outrage to occur. Because if Rice’s death has taught us anything, it’s that any black male carrying a gun–open or closed–is an imminent threat to society and necessitates enemy action.
The assumption that most people don’t know when their rights are violated not a sufficient reason to not allow unlawful arrest. All arrests are is a detainment for the purpose of charging someone of violating the law. If you are charged, you fight the charges. If the arrest is illegal, you pursue that through the justice system. People not understanding their rights is not a reason to resist arrest. There are other legal ways outlined to handle these allegations and that is the correct method to pursue it for a peaceful society.
No, you don’t. At least, that’s not the standard we apply to soldiers in friendly fire incidents or doctors in malpractice. In order, for example, a doctor to be arrested they either have to do something egregiously negligent or willfully harm someone. If they violate policy and harm someone, they are administratively punished, not arrested.
My department classifies it as deadly force as well as every department I’m familiar with. My department doesn’t ban it but you have to justify it’s use. The deaths that resulted from using is why big cities like NY and LA banned their use outright. Is there anyone that doesn’t?
If the justice system is under the same corrupt influence that encourages cops to make unlawful arrests, this solution holds little promise. Case in point, Garner. What relief would he have had if he hadn’t been killed and tried to fight his arrest in front of a judge? We have every reason to believe he’d get no relief, even if his arrest was unlawful.
I don’t believe anyone disputes that Brown assualted the store clerk and stole the cigars. His friend Johnson has always contended that it happened. There was a question of rather Wilson knew when could raise his level of awareness and percieved risk of Brown. However, police have changed their reports on rather or not Wilson knew if Brown was a suspect in that.
When a person is wrong, he is charged with battery on a police officer. That is a serious enough charge to discourage most people from playing arm-chair lawyer on the street corner.
I don’t think that is enough of a justification to tell people in a free society that they must submit to an intrusion upon their liberty that is clearly unlawful.
I think you lose me when you say “screw up and violate procedure.” This isn’t putting in an incorrect line of code or snipping the wrong artery. When you have your arm around someone’s neck and cutting off the oxygen to their brain, to the point where they are gasping and telling you they can’t breathe, you are put on notice that you are in a life or death situation.
Failing to heed that plea for help is a different ball of wax from the types of dumbassery that most of us experience from time to time.
That statement from the court seems brilliantly dense. Yes, all of those are provided by law after arrest. But an unlawful arrest is by definition unlawful. How can a person be assured that the official violating the law during an arrest will make sure that he then does an about face and follows the law by promptly presenting him to a magistrate for determination of reasonable bail without first subjecting him to a good, stiff beating or “losing” his paperwork before staying in jail for a week?
