Ragitsu

Happened upon this on YouTube, thought this might be a good place for it:
 

http://truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/paramilitary-force-alert-nypd-commissioner-bratton-supports-making-resisting-arrest-a-felony/19144-paramilitary-force-alert-nypd-commissioner-bratton-supports-making-resisting-arrest-a-felony

Just when i think i'm too burned out to continue caring, fecal matter of this nature lands squarely at my feet and splashes up to hit me in the face.

Oh, for a lot of folks the idea of making 'resisting an arrest' a felony will slide by just fine. That's because they mistakenly believe resisting arrest means some 6foot plus behemoth of a man with tattoos or gang markings threw a punch at a cop when the cuffs were applied. They don't know that the same label can be applied to someone, just like them, asking the police to please clarify charges, or pointing out that they're merely engaged in 1st Amendment activity. The average joe doesn't know that 'resisting arrest' ranks up in the top 5 for 'trumped up charges'.
 
A lot of folks will believe the police in real life are just like the ones on most of the prime time tv shows. White hat vs black hat, good vs evil, that's just how we like it: Thought invites complexity, and that means more thought is required. So many want to keep it simple, even if simple isn't true.

http://truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/paramilitary-force-alert-nypd-commissioner-bratton-supports-making-resisting-arrest-a-felony/19144-paramilitary-force-alert-nypd-commissioner-bratton-supports-making-resisting-arrest-a-felony

Just when i think i'm too burned out to continue caring, fecal matter of this nature lands squarely at my feet and splashes up to hit me in the face.

Faris: Hold on. Just wait a tic. Basically, everything that just had nothing to do with us had everything to do with us?
Melissa: Yeah, pretty much.
Faris: (low, out-of-character): So much for my high Perception score...
GM: What was that?
- pause -
Faris: (more enthusiastically) What a sly deception, and more!

Faris: Hold on. Just wait a tic. Basically, everything that just had nothing to do with us had everything to do with us?
Melissa: Yeah, pretty much.
Faris: (low, out-of-character): So much for my high Perception score...
GM: What was that?
- pause -
Faris: (more enthusiastically) What a sly deception, and more!

Faris: Hold on. Just wait a tic. Basically, everything that just had nothing to do with us had everything to do with us?
Melissa: Yeah, pretty much.
Faris: (low, out-of-character): So much for my high Perception score...
GM: What was that?
- pause -
Faris: (more enthusiastically) What a sly deception, and more!

"Deep into that
Darkness peering,
Long I stood there,
Wondering...
Fearing...
Doubting..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc

Thought i'd post this here, as it seems especially relevant.

Grand juror in Missouri police shooting case sues prosecutor by Reuters.
 
This is an interesting little article and situation. 
 
La Rose. 

Saw this, and I just had to shake my head at how tone deaf it seemed.  What about telling them to be careful about keeping their hands empty and in full view with no sudden movements so you don't just shoot them, officer? should we tell them that?
 

Kids aren't scared they will go to jail, they are scared the will go to a morgue.
 
La Rose.

Oh what the fu-...
 
Why do ordinary motorcycle officers (not S.W.A.T. or H.R.T.) need to routinely carry submachine guns firing ammunition explicitly designed to pierce armor? Granted, the wounding characteristics of 4.6x30mm aren't as overall nasty as .45 ACP, but police officers are (supposedly) taught to watch out for overpenetration...so these rounds are going to make "watching their background" even more difficult.

I'm guessing you haven't looked at the case in any detail - nor read what I wrote, from this response.
 
Brown was shot once while allegedly wrestling with the cop - I mentioned that and noted that if true (and it is supported by the autopsy evidence), that was easily justifiable. However, that isn't what killed him - he then fled the scene, apparently lightly injured. The cop pursued him some distance (about a block) and fired another 10 shots (none of them at close range, according to the autopsy), killing him. That - again, if true: it meshes with both physical site and autopsy evidence - does not seem to comply with either the local PD's rules, nor federal law on the use of lethal force, both of which require a suspect to be considered an immediate threat to the community or officer in question. A priori, then, there seems to be grounds for a trial. Now maybe there's more evidence that argued against that - but so far none has been been presented. Maybe he was charging - maybe not. Without a trial, we'll never know .... which is kind of the point, no?
 
All the palaver about "show trials" is just you inventing things you thought I might have said, which you think might sound bad: I'm not in favour of show trials, and have never claimed to be. Nor am I "fixated" on the public order aspect of trials. But that is an important aspect of this case - as the riots so eloquently prove - and it's pure foolishness to ignore that aspect: as the riots also demonstrate. 
 
cheers, Mark

While I would generally agree with you that we police a lot of minor issues we probably shouldn't, doing things like issuing summons isn't one of those things. And the fact the cops are using the tragic death of two of their officers as justification for this is seriously disrespectful. They want more money, plain and simple. They don't care about their lost comrades, they don't care about the citizens they police, and they don't care about showing some basic human decency. All they care about is cashing in all this tragedy for a quick buck. It is sickening. 

Pink slips should be flying out the door like donuts into cop cars. 
 
La Rose. 

Next up: grenade launchers.

"A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in."

If it were the case that prosecutors only proceeded when they knew they could secure a conviction, then every trial that actually proceeded would end in conviction. That's not the case, so we can write that idea off. Trials and pretrials proceed by different rules, and they don't always end the same way. "Certain" convictions sometimes fall apart, and longshot prosecutions sometimes pull through against the odds. How the evidence is presented, what it is, how the witnesses handle cross-examination - all make a difference. There's a reason that testimony at a Grand Jury trip is treated legally as hearsay and is not normally admissible at an actual trial.
 
We'll just have to disagree on whether a trial would have helped defuse the issue: since it didn't happen, we'll never know. It has happened in the past though.
 
As for "that he was desperate to avoid a trial" comment, you'll note that I was referring to the prosecutor, not the cop, who of course would probably not have wanted to go on trial, even if he was truly innocent and assumed that h e was likely to be exonerated. Any trial is going to be stressful. To Badger, I should note that had the case gone to trial the officer would have been suspended on pay and the police department's insurer - not the cop in question - would have been paying legal costs. So stressful, yes, but financially he would probably be better off than he is now.
 
This is more than just technical futzing about: if the citizenry lose faith in the justice system, the consequences are inevitably terrible for everyone. I've lived in places like that, but you can just look across the border at Mexico for an example. And loss of faith seems to always start with "minor" things like this, where broader concerns get lost in local noise. You place emphasis on the fact that Brown was a big guy, does seem to reacted aggressively towards the cop, and isn't a poster boy for unwarranted use of deadly force. Maybe true. But see it from the community end of things: why was Michael Brown stopped in the first place? What heinous crime was he committing? He was initially stopped for ... jaywalking. Even later, when he was recognised as a potential suspect in a nearby robbery - of 3 cigarillos - that's not enough to warrant the use of deadly force, which requires the suspect be an imminent risk to the community or the officer in question. So using a gun in self defence - which arguably was the case when the officer was in his car - is fine. Pursuing the suspect and firing a further 10 shots at him and killing him - that's pretty dubious and not immediately clear that it's in accordance with the law. Here's the autopsy report - http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/12/heres-dods-report-michael-browns-autopsy and http://graphics8.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/08/13/ferguson-qa/819e10796b809e6135932cdd63a2bb937c390f1f/autopsycrop.jpg.
 
Seen from the community point of view, this is another case of a minor crime escalating into confrontation and death. Police in other countries are specifically instructed - first order of business - to try to avoid escalating things, which is maybe one reason that they kill citizens at 3-5% the rate that US officers do. It's almost certainly a major reason that Ferguson boiled over the way it did: less to do with the actual details of the incident - more to do with the nature of the incident.
 
cheers, Mark
 
Edit: oh, and I *have* tried skydiving: I got my B licence (unsupervised free fall) at university. It's awesome fun and can be highly recommended.

Brown was shot the first time because he wrestled and punched a cop. Why was he shot after stepping away from the vehicle?

Well, the cops can't all be of Frank's build, so they'll carry full auto SMGs instead:
 
http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2014/12/29/lapd-issue-hk-mp7s-motorcycle-k9-patrol/

Oh cry me a river. I am not going to feel sorry for an abusive nimrod thug and I am not going to feel sorry for an abusive nimrod thug with authority. 
 
La Rose. 

Judging from the article and video that The Rose posted the training of a lot US police officers seem to consider of armed and unarmed techniques to get a person "down" (alive or dead) and of showing them a few Western and Dirty Harry movies for how and when to apply them - basically whenever you don't get the response you wanna hear or see when you ask a citizen: "Do you have a problem, pillgrim?" or "Do ya feel lucky, punk?"
 
As I said before: Does not primarily seem to be a racist cop force but a Legion of Judge-Dredd-Wanna-Bes that are the root of the problem - and that root is lack of training and accountability and a sense of professionalism, and not spurs clinking and blinking on Main Street at High Nooon.

Hunh? No. No. If we consider Al Sharptonas an obnoxious, self-interested activist, then this line of thinking is taking us in a very bad direction. People who say things you disapprove of or disagree with are good for you. (At least to the point where slander and libel laws intervene; but that's why you have those laws.)
 
If we consider him as an activist--- Look, this whole thing with discrimination against, and oppression of, out groups (for example, Black Americans, Canadian Indians) is a real human problem that causes untold suffering and misery. Bringing attention to this problem  is not what creates it.
 
If we consider him a con artist and opportunist who gins up trouble where there is none to be had --Well, here we're running up on the whole slander and libel thing. There is some social damage being done there, but it's pretty trivial compared with, say, Glenn Beck (lost any money on gold, lately?) or, better example, Bernie Madoff. Putting salt in an open wound for a living is a bad thing, and I'm not defending Al Sharpton for it. But it's a good way of reminding everyone that the wound exists.

When it comes to interacting with the police, there is a difference between a little fear and "Am I actually going to die at some point during this conversation?".