[Police brutality] American injustice, yet again.

[TrickstaPriest]

3 hours ago, Pattern Ghost said:

Fortunately, I didn't have to fire (more paperwork), but it shows how fast things go from a shout about a weapon, to action

 

You have my sympathies for being in that situation.

 

Is it sad that I'm currently with my hands full trying to talk to people about the USPS situation rather than this now?

[Pattern Ghost]

3 hours ago, TrickstaPriest said:

You have my sympathies for being in that situation.

 

Thanks. But at the end of the day, just part of the job. While we try to avoid them, we get the occasional hairy situation.

[TrickstaPriest]

 

[ScottishFox]

On 8/16/2020 at 11:59 AM, Pattern Ghost said:

but it shows how fast things go from a shout about a weapon, to action.

 

It also shows a realistic drop in cognitive ability that goes with an adrenaline dump in a perceived life and death situation.

 

So many of the follow-up analysis of police encounters are through the lens of someone sitting back at their keyboard in complete safety while enjoying a beer.  The standards we hold police to and sometimes suspects to are impossible in such incredibly stressful situations.  The ability to think clearly, fine motor skills, memory and other abilities evaporate under such pressure.  They're just gone.

 

And I agree with one of your points.  That guy shouldn't have died, but he came out the door aggressively with a gun in hand.  If he had cautiously popped the door he could have put the gun down before the police even knew he had a weapon.

 

Coulda, woulda, shoulda won't bring you back to life or give your kids their father back. 

[Pattern Ghost]

35 minutes ago, ScottishFox said:

It also shows a realistic drop in cognitive ability that goes with an adrenaline dump in a perceived life and death situation.

 

Moral of the story, right there.

[BoneDaddy]

Here’s an article by Robert Evans about how the Portland situation started and progressed. He’s an experienced conflict journalist with a number of podcasts I would sincerely recommend. First on my mind, It Could Happen Here. It’s ten episodes, released last year and startlingly prescient. 
 

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2020/07/20/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-battle-of-portland/

 

Also, and more on topic, a brief history of American Policing. 
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/slavery-mass-murder-and-the-birth-of-american-policing/id1373812661?i=1000478164181

 

if you like that there’s five or so more episodes about how the police in the US became so much more violent and worse and public safety than nearly anywhere else you might consider visiting (if leaving the house is your kind of thing these days. 
 

 

 

 

[Pariah]

If you've already got hold of a suspect's shirt, why would you need to shoot him in the back 7 times at point-blank range as well?

 

'Disgusting' doesn't even begin to cover it.

[unclevlad]

Yah....Mr. Blake's actions were ill-considered, but to take it to shooting like that is untenable.

[Pattern Ghost]

Wow. Just watched the video on that. If they wanted to stop him from getting in the car, they could have jumped on  him at any time. That was a sheer act of cowardice.

[unclevlad]

2 hours ago, Pattern Ghost said:

Wow. Just watched the video on that. If they wanted to stop him from getting in the car, they could have jumped on  him at any time. That was a sheer act of cowardice.

 

 

That's my problem as well.  Mr. Blake appears to be in the wrong for continuing to move to his car, but the cops aren't doing anything like enough to prevent this without shooting him.  That's how it appears to me...it's wrong to impute that they want to shoot in preference to other means, but it is by no means a ridiculous inference either.  It also brings up:  is this a training issue, or the improper choices of one bad actor?

 

Another aspect is, was Mr. Blake's action, in continuing to move to the car, motivated in some degree by fear of the cops?  Because a clear problem is that every incident simply increases the polarization on each side.  Doesn't matter where it happens.  The general political gridlock is bad enough;  the complications of the pandemic make things worse.  The net result is that meaningful debate is limited at best, and progress appears to be non-existent...which magnifies the next event, and the one after that, and the one after that.

[Lord Liaden]

At this point there appears to be a profound absence of trust between many American police forces and the American public. Neither side seems in the mood to listen to the other, to give them the benefit of the doubt, or to make any compromise or accommodation. Even with the most sincere efforts at reform, I can't see this fundamentally changing in less than a generation.

[archer]

20 hours ago, Pariah said:

If you've already got hold of a suspect's shirt, why would you need to shoot him in the back 7 times at point-blank range as well?

 

'Disgusting' doesn't even begin to cover it.

 

It will be interesting to get the body cam footage to be able to see what the cops were saying to the guy. Obviously he isn't obeying what the officers are saying to him. But beyond that, I don't know.

 

If they'd tasered the guy for ignoring them and walking away, that would have been criticized as a gross over-reaction. If they'd tackled him, a gross over-reaction again.

 

Letting him walk was the least injurious thing they could have done right up until the point that Blake opened the car door. 

 

After he opened the car door, things got vastly more complicated.  

 

Blake started leaning over as soon as he opened the car door. I can't tell precisely when the first shot happened in relation to the location of Blake's body and limbs but it appears to be well after Blake got himself within range to retrieve of gun from either the pocket in the car door or out from under the seat.

 

In a traffic stop when the police think there's a good chance the person driving the car could be armed or will disobey instructions, the police get his hands outside of the car window then his entire body outside of the car ASAP not only to keep the guy from going for a gun but also to keep the police from thinking he might be going after a gun.

 

Here, you have a man who is deliberately disobeying a policeman who has a drawn gun pointed at him and the man is going into a place where people frequently store guns.

 

I can't tell what the policeman saw or thought he might have seen. But having a grip on the back of a suspect's shirt is meaningless when you have no control over his arms and his hands are in places where a gun could be concealed.

 

Hopefully the bodycam will show the policeman saying "gun!" then "drop it!" as Blake is seen twisting back toward the cop while Blake is thinking, "Huh?". At least then you can train the cops to take the publicity hit of "over-reacting" by using a taser on the guy before he got his hands within range of places where guns could be stored.

[Pattern Ghost]

39 minutes ago, archer said:

If they'd tasered the guy for ignoring them and walking away, that would have been criticized as a gross over-reaction. If they'd tackled him, a gross over-reaction again.

 

Letting him walk was the least injurious thing they could have done right up until the point that Blake opened the car door. 

 

I disagree. Taking into custody as soon as he headed for the vehicle would have been appropriate.  And safer. There was no need to wait until he got into the vehicle if he was disobeying a lawful order to stay put.

[archer]

I've now read a couple of media reports stating the police officers in the Blake case weren't wearing body cams.

[archer]

28 minutes ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

I disagree. Taking into custody as soon as he headed for the vehicle would have been appropriate.  And safer. There was no need to wait until he got into the vehicle if he was disobeying a lawful order to stay put.

 

I think it was okay to let him those few steps walk until it became clear his intentions were to get into the car.

 

The first time watching the video, I thought he was trying to put the car between himself and the policemen and/or the screaming bystanders. I was mildly shocked when he opened the door and leaned down into the car.

 

Letting him get his hand onto the car door handle before making some kind of move was clearly a mistake though.

[Ragitsu]

5 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

At this point there appears to be a profound absence of trust between many American police forces and the American public. Neither side seems in the mood to listen to the other, to give them the benefit of the doubt, or to make any compromise or accommodation. Even with the most sincere efforts at reform, I can't see this fundamentally changing in less than a generation.

 

One works for the other. One has the power to ruin or end a life. The overall burden is clearly lopsided (as it ought to be).

[archer]

Let me give some family background on that "perp walking around" thing.

 

My father-in-law was maybe 6'4" and built like an elderly linebacker. He and my mother-in-law had been living on their own in their own home until my mother-in-law had to go into the hospital.

 

My father-in-law ended up having a rough day despite my best efforts and ended the day by sundowning (showing Alzheimer's symptoms which hadn't been readily apparent earlier in the day). My niece ended up coming over to get him since she'd had more experience taking care of him.

 

Her boyfriend came over to her apartment and he and my father-in-law settled down to watch Lone Ranger re-runs. My niece and her daughter decided to go to the apartment's pool.

 

After a while, my father-in-law noticed she was gone and asked the idiot boyfriend where she was. He gestured vaguely at the door, told him that they were down at the pool, and watched my father-in-law as he wandered out (after acting loopy all evening).

 

Not exactly sure of the sequence of events after that but he found the pool about the same time as the police rolled up responding to calls about a crazy guy wandering through the apartment complex.

 

The police let him walk around the pool area in an agitated manned but when it became apparent that he wasn't going to calm down, they moved in to arrest him. That set off a struggle for one of the policeman's gun, which thankfully was still holstered as they were trying to handcuff him.

 

Luckily, they decided to keep wrestling him into handcuffs while trying to keep his hands off of their guns rather than just shooting him.

 

Let's understand here that my father-in-law had been in the ministry for 50 years. I never got the story of what he was saying as they were trying to arrest him but he could very well have been quoting scripture at the policemen and telling them they needed to repent of their sins, or some such, which would have made them feel somewhat uncomfortable in shooting him. Or maybe the policemen in that community were just more gracious than they had the reputation of being. Or maybe my father-in-law was the wrong color to be under consideration for being shot. Take your pick.

 

The police decided to take him for a psychiatric evaluation rather than to the police station, which I also considered to be highly enlightened considering the community.

 

My father-in-law never spoke again and rarely reacted to anything. But he might have if we could have, fairly quickly, gotten him out of the hellhole of an institution where he was put (another long story which involved the institution defying a state order to release him FOR THE CAUSE that the state board which oversaw that institution determined the institution had been severely mistreating him. But apparently an institution can hold on to their patients regardless of what the patient's family and the state board want. Who knew?)

 

Anyway, I'm thankful whenever police are willing and able to devote a few minutes to try to let someone cool down rather than going straight to arrest.

[csyphrett]

The report says that the police that shot Blake had a grip on his shirt with one hand and his gun in the other. Why not apply the choke? Was he smaller than Blake? I think Tucco's advice applies here.

CES

[pinecone]

19 hours ago, archer said:

I've now read a couple of media reports stating the police officers in the Blake case weren't wearing body cams.

Or the batteries were dead...etc....

[ScottishFox]

Saw a second angle of the shooting scenario where the police DO get Blake to the ground, but he fights back to his feet and - while guns are pointed at him - proceeds to move to the car to get what I can only assume is a weapon.

It seems like a safe bet that the police assumed he was going for a weapon as well.  Even his own family members are screaming at him to stop.

 

This is not to say someone with a history doesn't deserve every chance to get out of that scenario alive, but he's known to be dangerous and reaching into a car while fighting the police is going to get just about anyone shot.

 

Abysmal CQB skills on the part of the police officers contributed to the problem - they should have been able to pin him to the ground which would have prevented the shooting.

A small crowd of family members moving in on the police officers which causes a couple of them to turn their attention to the family members instead of Blake - People staying away from the police might have prevented the shooting as well.

 

Blake had many opportunities to stop the shooting:

Don't commit felonies.

If you have a felony warrant out for your arrest - turn yourself in.

If you have a felony warrant for your arrest don't trespass + get into a domestic + take someone's car keys and get the cops called on you.

If the police take you down - don't fight them.

When you get hit by a taser and it fails to stun you - that's a great time to stop.

Don't reach into your car while guns are pointed at you.

 

The last couple of riot inducing scenarios are mind boggling, imo. 

They are not George Floyd and no-knock warrant getting people killed levels of injustice.

 

One of the recent ones the guy fired a gun at the cops head at close range.  How is that guy a victim?

How is Jacob Blake a victim of anything but horrific decision making on his own part?

 

This whole situation is starting to boil over.  In the Kenosha riots they're starting to have armed vigilantes shooting rioters since the police response has been completely inadequate and businesses, some family owned, are burning to the ground.  One elderly gent was seriously injured by rioters while trying to put out the fire at his own business.

 

We're just a couple of bad police encounters and riots away from straight up crowd vs. crowd gun fights.  And in a country of 330 million people - we are going to have some bad police encounters where the police are incompetent or too aggressive or straight up evil.  Perfection is a great goal, but it cannot be the requirement.  Because if it is we'll lose our police and then it will be each community locked and loaded trying to protect their own territory.

[TrickstaPriest]

Kenosha's shooting is pretty horrifying.  Not just that he defended himself, but that he gunned down people after he was clearly free to leave and not attacked.  (edit: this part appears to be contested "And that he was thanked by officers and sent home with his assault rifle." so put a pin in that)

 

The fact that a 17 y/o was sent out with an assault rifle is kind of an issue too for a number of reasons.

[unclevlad]

21 hours ago, archer said:

 

I think it was okay to let him those few steps walk until it became clear his intentions were to get into the car.

 

The first time watching the video, I thought he was trying to put the car between himself and the policemen and/or the screaming bystanders. I was mildly shocked when he opened the door and leaned down into the car.

 

Letting him get his hand onto the car door handle before making some kind of move was clearly a mistake though.

 

Not if they have guns drawn.  Which seems to be a mistake on its surface on their part, but it's also a clear statement to STOP MOVING.  I might be wrong about when the first gun exits a holster, and we don't know...but as fast as guns DO come out, it feels reasonable to say the cops are ordering him to STOP.  My overall impression is that both sides made major mistakes.  And *no one* is going to get a satisfactory result out of this one...which means, of course, the partisans will have a field day spinnng this out of any recognition.

[TrickstaPriest]

This is more protest related than police related, but still relevant

 

https://www.eastvalleytribune.com/local/mesa/acid-attack-victim-leans-on-friends-family-and-her-own-will/article_164aee3a-c2aa-11df-a87e-001cc4c03286.html

[archer]

3 hours ago, ScottishFox said:

 

It seems like a safe bet that the police assumed he was going for a weapon as well.  Even his own family members are screaming at him to stop.

 

 

I couldn't make out any of the words that anyone was shouting.

 

Have you seen a transcript of the audio or hear the audio cleaned up to the point that you can make out what the family was shouting? I'd kind of assumed that they were shouting at the police or were trying to attract more innocent bystanders to the scene.

 

[unclevlad]

11 minutes ago, archer said:

Have you seen a transcript of the audio or hear the audio cleaned up to the point that you can make out what the family was shouting? I'd kind of assumed that they were shouting at the police or were trying to attract more innocent bystanders to the scene.

 

 

Might that assumption on your part represent a core distrust as well?  ALL of us should double check our first reactions in light of our biases.

 

I saw the second video just now, or at least the version on CNN.  I don't think it changes anything for me;  both sides grossly mishandled the situation.  MUCH of it might also go to the shooting cop.  SEVEN shots????  At point blank range?  

 

Obviously, when we watch the video, we know the outcome.  That said...I kinda feel, putting the 2 videos together in my head, once Mr. Blake started moving past the front of his car, my gut would've said the train wreck was coming.  Like the girl shouting for her mother to get away from there...this was about to go pull a full-throttle power dive into concrete.  But STILL...SEVEN shots????