[Police brutality] American injustice, yet again.

[Cygnia]

Prosecutors: 3 men plotted to terrorize Vegas protests

 

Quote

Three Nevada men with ties to a loose movement of right-wing extremists advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government have been arrested on terrorism-related charges in what authorities say was a conspiracy to spark violence during recent protests in Las Vegas.

Federal prosecutors say the three white men with U.S. military experience are accused of conspiring to carry out a plan that began in April in conjunction with protests to reopen businesses closed because of the coronavirus.

 

[Cygnia]

New York police take seconds to restore reputation for brutality

[Cygnia]

 

[Cygnia]

Raleigh Cops Discharge Flashbangs at Staff of LGBT Bar for Aiding Protesters in Their Parking Lot

[Ragitsu]

Don't they realize that their abuses of power only strengthen the case against the United States of America's police?

[Hermit]

1 minute ago, Ragitsu said:

Don't they realize that their abuses of power only strengthen the case against the United States of America's police?

 

At this stage, either they feel untouchable, or they're so afraid OF being reformed they're lashing out in a hail mary intimidation gambit

[Cygnia]

At this point, I fear they don't care.

[Cancer]

I must admit: I feel some relief that our late board member Lapsedgamer did not live to see this episode in our history.

[BNakagawa]

1 hour ago, Ragitsu said:

Don't they realize that their abuses of power only strengthen the case against the United States of America's police?

 

That assumes a level of self reflection that is beyond the capacity of most of the police. Remember that decades ago, the police went to court to fight for the right to discriminate against high IQ applicants. (and won)

[Old Man]

 

You know it's bad when it's safer to be Shiite in Iraq than it is to be black in America.

[Ragitsu]

 

[Ragitsu]

 

[ScottishFox]

2 hours ago, Old Man said:

 

You know it's bad when it's safer to be Shiite in Iraq than it is to be black in America.

 

On a per capita basis is an ineffective way to compare this type of thing. Otherwise you have to ask why police in 2019 killed 961 men, but only 43 women while women make up slightly more than half of the population.

Is it some super androgynist hatred of men among police? Most certainly not.

Also, if you find some of the crunchier statistics sites you'll see that the death risk peaks for nearly all men in the 20-25 range right when their testosterone levels are peaking.

Unless police are only racist against young black men, but like old black men just as much as they do white people.

And Asian women, man, the police love them their risk is so low on the chart you can't hardly see it.

Couple Links I used:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/.../police-shootings-2019/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6708348/

Asian women - on a per capita basis - are about 65x less likely to be killed by police than white men.

Does this seem like a good candidate for pillorying the police over their sexist, racist favoritism of Asian women?

If you look up police shootings per capita by city you can see differences of up to nearly 10x. There is definitely a wide variety of policing practices and cultures and definitely room for improvement.

New York clocks in at 1.3 per million while Phoenix comes in at 11.

That seems like a massive difference and one worth investigating. Minneapolis where this whole thing kicked off actually has a pretty good record at 3.0.

It's a serious issue, but it's also a complex one and there are many factors. It's not as simple as white cops like to murder black people.  One thing is for certain - burning our businesses to the ground, beating elderly people trying to protect their stores and shooting police officers is NOT going to make it better.

 

And why does George Floyd's murder (and I feel it was - that cop deserves major jail time) draw so much more sympathy and martyrdom than David Dorn.  A black police captain with 38 years of service who died to "protestors" so they could steal some TVs.

Why does the black life of the convicted felon and long time drug abuser matter so much more than the black life of a man who was a great role model and at damn near 80 was doing what he could to protect a local business?

 

One of these men robbed a pregnant woman by shoving a gun into her belly and the other guy was an absolute role model for any man.  Anyone going to take a knee for David Dorn or even know who he is?

 

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/06/04/will_anyone_take_a_knee_for_david_dorn_143373.html

 

 

[BNakagawa]

6 minutes ago, ScottishFox said:

 

And why does George Floyd's murder (and I feel it was - that cop deserves major jail time) draw so much more sympathy and martyrdom than David Dorn.  A black police captain with 38 years of service who died to "protestors" so they could steal some TVs.

Why does the black life of the convicted felon and long time drug abuser matter so much more than the black life of a man who was a great role model and at damn near 80 was doing what he could to protect a local business?

 

Because there is a long history of police getting away with murder and paying no penalty at all. And people are sick an tired of it.

[Ragitsu]

13 minutes ago, ScottishFox said:

Why does the black life of the convicted felon and long time drug abuser matter so much more than the black life of a man who was a great role model and at damn near 80 was doing what he could to protect a local business?

 

This attitude - right here - is partly why we have a massive prison population and a stupidly high rate of recidivism. There is no such thing as "paying your debt to society" because you're forever in the pocket of the judgmental. Insidiously draconian values are instilled in us once we're taught what/who is bad and what/who is good. Furthermore, any time someone is killed or "merely" brutalized by the police in a clearly inequitable manner, people start scrambling over themselves to find the tiniest offense in the victim's past to justify so blatant a legalized crime.

[csyphrett]

Because  the police are not supposed to stand on your neck until you are dead after they take you out of the patrol car that they already put you in. 

 

I'm sorry about David Dorn but a looter isn't a protestor. They're thieves. The police are supposed to hold themselves to higher standards and not be murderers

CES  

[Old Man]

[TrickstaPriest]

37 minutes ago, csyphrett said:

Because  the police are not supposed to stand on your neck until you are dead after they take you out of the patrol car that they already put you in. 

 

I'm sorry about David Dorn but a looter isn't a protestor. They're thieves. The police are supposed to hold themselves to higher standards and not be murderers

 

Police can feel danger from the general community (or a bunch of rioters), but this aspect of power is a necessary component of the balance of power of a state.  Too much (edit: civilian power) becomes a problem, but too little is often an unsolvable problem for a country.  You want neither to crumble, but the former event generally happens because of mismanagement... not rioting.  I can't think of many instances in the entirety of world history (or maybe it's just not noteworthy?) in which the former happened because of a conflict of force with civilians.

 

Police can be imposed upon by the general attitude or ideas of the masses, but they have the backing of the entire state and government.  I don't generally 'lend them defense' because I see no reason to - they aren't as well protected as billionaires, but as an institution they are the direct mechanism by which the state imposes its power on the people (for good and for ill), and the state has every reason to empower it as much as they possibly can.

 

(edit: I do, however, advocate more for individuals in the police force, than the mechanism of force itself, which I treat very differently)

 

In terms of my feelings on the matter...

 

And yeah, the looters aren't protesters.  The fact that people in general are painting them as protesters is a huge problem - that's not unlike saying two thieves in the same town are the same if one of them shoots someone and one of them doesn't.  And that's coloring all the parties as 'thieves/criminals' to begin with... but I'll use that analogy to be effective even on the people who think that way.

 

The fact that forces are encouraging protesters to become looters, taking advantage of the 'panicky/animalistic attitude of the masses' to put the areas in danger in order to destroy that movement, is something that I've ranted about before.  But in general I don't hold the protesters to a lower standard because I think less of them or think the attitude is excusable, I am more lenient because they are the ones upon whom the power acts upon, not whom is exercising the power to control these situations.  The protesters almost never have any real control over the situation, even during the act of protest - they are merely subject to it.

[ScottishFox]

23 minutes ago, Ragitsu said:

This attitude - right here - is partly why we have a massive prison population and a stupidly high rate of recidivism. There is no such thing as "paying your debt to society" because you're forever in the pocket of the judgmental. Insidiously draconian values are instilled in us once we're taught what/who is bad and what/who is good. Furthermore, any time someone is killed or "merely" brutalized by the police in a clearly inequitable manner, people start scrambling over themselves to find the tiniest offense in the victim's past to justify so blatant a legalized crime.

 

Respectfully, you have completely misjudged my intent.  So I'll try to restate more clearly.

1-  Killing George Floyd was straight up murder.  That cop and his 3 fellow cops who let it happen are scum and should go to jail for decades to life.

2-  George Floyd was also felon and his autopsy showed fentanyl and other drugs currently in his system.  He had also just passed off a fake $20 bill and when asked by the store to return it - fled.  Then he resisted arrest and THEN he was murdered by negligent, evil cops.

 

You and I would agree on the disgusting rate of recidivism in America and how we can't adapt something akin to the Norwegian model - which if I recall correctly has a rate of about 25% compared to our 80-85% rate.  I am disgusted by criminal record laws that send people back out into the world with such a stigma that they can't find work again and become productive members of society.  I could go on at great lengths about how much I hate our current criminal justice system and how mounting a proper criminal defense can cost so much money that many, many people take plea deals - and ruin their lives - to avoid going to jail for decades based on spammed up charges by aggressive DAs.

 

I was trying to point out that BLM keeps picking felons who are resisting arrest as their role models / martyrs.  I am not in any way suggesting that thuggish cops should get a green light on killing people who are already in custody and no longer a deadly threat.

 

27 minutes ago, csyphrett said:

 

I'm sorry about David Dorn but a looter isn't a protestor. They're thieves. The police are supposed to hold themselves to higher standards and not be murderers

 

We are 100% in agreement in this regard.  But does Black Lives Matter only concern itself with police issues?

And why does everyone ignore the math in these things.  I keep seeing black men are 2.5x more likely to be killed by cops.

 

FBI only has the finished report up to 2018 but it's a pretty relevant sample.  The numbers are similar to the NYPD data to date and another site I looked at.

 

Blacks are 13.4% of the population and yet have a total homicide rate of 3,175 vs. 3,006 for whites (who make up 72% of the population).

So when you crunch those out you have a homicide rate that is weighted at 23,694/4,175 or 5.67x higher.  Maybe that level of crime relates to more frequent deadly police interactions.

 

 

I'll also mention that I'm concerned with the para-militarization of the police and how constitutional rights are completely ignored all of the time.  Those racist assholes arresting that black FBI agent in the video above are exactly why a lot of people, and I imagine black people in particular, are angry with cops.  And in fairness America has treated black people like sh*t until the last couple of decades.  I was engaged to a black girl in the 90s (way before it was cool) and her family had horror stories to spare of racist encounters with police and otherwise.

[sinanju]

1 hour ago, csyphrett said:

Because  the police are not supposed to stand on your neck until you are dead after they take you out of the patrol car that they already put you in. 

 

 

Wait. What? That's the first I've heard that they'd put him into a patrol car--and then took him OUT again to kneel on his neck?

I've been saying that if he were resisting even while handcuffed, put him the back of a patrol car where he a) can sit up and breathe, and b) won't be a threat to anyone.

 

But he was IN a patrol car and THEN they killed him? [bad words here]

[Ragitsu]

49 minutes ago, ScottishFox said:

And why does everyone ignore the math in these things.  I keep seeing black men are 2.5x more likely to be killed by cops.

 

FBI only has the finished report up to 2018 but it's a pretty relevant sample.  The numbers are similar to the NYPD data to date and another site I looked at.

 

Blacks are 13.4% of the population and yet have a total homicide rate of 3,175 vs. 3,006 for whites (who make up 72% of the population).

So when you crunch those out you have a homicide rate that is weighted at 23,694/4,175 or 5.67x higher.  Maybe that level of crime relates to more frequent deadly police interactions.

 

 

I'll also mention that I'm concerned with the para-militarization of the police and how constitutional rights are completely ignored all of the time.  Those racist assholes arresting that black FBI agent in the video above are exactly why a lot of people, and I imagine black people in particular, are angry with cops.  And in fairness America has treated black people like sh*t until the last couple of decades.  I was engaged to a black girl in the 90s (way before it was cool) and her family had horror stories to spare of racist encounters with police and otherwise.

 

Crime does not spring from nothingness. Where does crime come from? Furthermore, who decides whether to arrest an individual or let them go with a warning/friendly word of advice?

 

We're well aware of how black shoppers tend to be treated compared to white (or other) shoppers. There's a study which shows that, when a black hand is used to model/display a product, that vendor receives - on average - fewer sales than a product placed next to a white hand. Clearly, this isn't a black and white (no pun intended) issue we are dealing with here; this is the end result of deeply-rooted racism, the prison-industrial complex and the military-industrial complex (more "toys" for cops playing soldier) steadily unifying into a totalitarian whole...period. Note that the opioid epidemic wasn't taken seriously until an increasing proportion of white people were affected by it.

[Lawnmower Boy]

19 minutes ago, ScottishFox said:

 

.

 

I was trying to point out that BLM keeps picking felons who are resisting arrest as their role models / martyrs.  I am not in any way suggesting that thuggish cops should get a green light on killing people who are already in custody and no longer a deadly threat.

 

 

 

 

With respect, we have a double selection bias here. For a person to die in police custody, they have to be, first, called to the attention of the police. And, second, to have experienced more serious consequences from that encounter. The first suggests that most of these individuals will be apprehended while committing crimes or crime-adjacent activity. They will be "felons resisting arrest." The second is an issue because these cases have to come before us. Plenty of people experience police brutality and extricate themselves without much harm. Their cases do not come before the public because it is very hard to interest the public in a case in which a coed complains that the officer who cuffed them in order to charge them with shoplifting (but then changed their mind when it became clear that there was no shoplifting), put on the cuffs too roughly. A dead body is usually our starting point, and for there to be a dead body suggests some fragility in the victim, most often due either to either mental health or substance abuse issues. 

 

In short, your police brutality cases will normally involve someone who can be cast as  having "deserved it." And that's leaving aside cases where juvenile records are dragged into the case. We take our injustices as we find them.

 

Social out groups exist in every society, and their experience is a continuum. They're not just arrested, or killed while resisting arrest, in disproportionate numbers. People just simply treat them worse, and this is something everyone has to deal with, from school principals to HR to grocery store managers. Unless that's done, they will fail school for no reason, be turned away for jobs, and be arrested for shoplifting in circumstances that quickly go south. As a supervisor, I take it for granted that some of my cashiers, most of whom have issues of their own, will fight with out group customers on a regular basis. I take it for granted that some who aren't normally bullies will slip into bad habits and have to be reined back, or have bad days and need to be removed from the situation. I take it for granted that these things will happen to me.

 

People can, and will, deny the very existence of out groups, and rationalise their treatment. Korean-Japanese, Canadian First Nations, Roma, Irish --every society has out groups and we can almost infallibly predict disproportionate rates of death in police encounters, adverse economic and educational outcomes, elevated rates of substance abuse. It's  human nature, and it's on socially dominant groups to keep these trends in check. Giving into them is disastrous for a police force, an economy, a grocery store.  

[TrickstaPriest]

42 minutes ago, ScottishFox said:

I was trying to point out that BLM keeps picking felons who are resisting arrest as their role models / martyrs.  I am not in any way suggesting that thuggish cops should get a green light on killing people who are already in custody and no longer a deadly threat.

 

It's sort of the 'every black offender is a violent, armed offender' treatment.

 

And there are other people who were killed - a woman who's home was apparently invaded and she was shot while the police were looking for someone else (who was already in custody).  But I don't know the details of that case, nor is there video...

 

Which is part of why this galvanized so bad.  It was, in part, photographs of a child fleeing a napalming attack that pushed the end of the Vietnam War.

 

But I don't have time to deep dive on this, just throwing in my two cents on 'why this person'.  The issue that black people face with police is a lot more complicated a problem than I can get into with broad strokes and little experience on the subject...

[TrickstaPriest]

IIRC one of the BLM requests/demands was "news should report on more black on black crime", from some time ago.  I forget when I heard this, or how accurate it is, but it was literally to make 'white communities more uncomfortable by ignoring the crime occurring in the same city as theirs'.  It's all swept under a rug, and my interpretation of that demand was BLM wanted that to stop.

[csyphrett]

30 minutes ago, sinanju said:

 

Wait. What? That's the first I've heard that they'd put him into a patrol car--and then took him OUT again to kneel on his neck?

I've been saying that if he were resisting even while handcuffed, put him the back of a patrol car where he a) can sit up and breathe, and b) won't be a threat to anyone.

 

But he was IN a patrol car and THEN they killed him? [bad words here]

I dont how much of this is true because it was on Wikipedia, but the Times say that they have a reconstruction based on the footage on youtube

 

At 8:17, a third police car arrived, with officers Derek Michael Chauvin and Tou Thao. They walked over to assist Kueng and Lane.^{[6]:3:32[9]:3:27[44]} Around 8:18, security footage from Cup Foods shows Kueng struggling with Floyd for at least a minute in the driver's side backseat while Thao watches.^{[6]:3:54[9]:3:49} A criminal complaint filed against Chauvin alleges Floyd refused to enter the car, even after officers moved him from the driver's side to the passenger side.^{[6]:4:00[9]:3:15} At 8:19, standing on the passenger's side of the vehicle, Chauvin pulled Floyd across the backseat, from the driver's side to the passenger's side, and out of the car, causing Floyd to fall onto the ground, where, still handcuffed, he lay on the pavement.^[9]:3:56[44] Floyd stopped moving around 8:20.^[6]:4:10