Ragitsu

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?".

Regarding the Michael Brown-Leroy Brown-parody-song:
In a time where going to the toilet in the privacy of your own home has a good chance of being recorded by
a) your spouse,
your guest(s) or failing that
c) yourself
one can only admire the total braindeadness of the pensioned officer to sing something like that at an occasion like that in the times as they are without thining that the P U B L I C will react to it in a most unfavourable way.
 
Or a lot if not most of the cops in L.A. really feel that way and don't think of it any more than telling dirty jokes at a stagg party.
That would indeed tell you something about the sorry state US law-enforcement is in.
 
If it makes you feel any better: The murders of immigrants and the robbing of banks by a trio of national-socialist terrorsist over the last decade in Germany was protected and sponsored by the German secret service of the interior (Verfassungsschutz) and the police was either hindered in their investigations or were eager to follow any lead but the obvious - that the perps were committing hate crimes, They shamed the victims/ family of the victims instaed by assuming that the killings had to do with illegal gambling or drug-dealing/ -smuggling.
 
Hope it gives you some perspective about class rule in other countries.
 
P.S.: Being a state employee myself (like police-officers) I still do not think that all or most of them (here in Germany that is) are out to "get me". They are trying their best to do their job, to uphold law and order.

Sometimes, I think many of my countrymen believe themselves to be living in an action film.

The Prosecutor has prosecutorial discresion and can choose what he wants to take to court. If the prosecutor really thought that there was no chance in heck that the officer was guilty of any crime, then he should have never indicted him and stood up for his beliefs. But he didn't. No, he created a show trial of the Grand Jury for the sole sake of fooling stupid people who think a Grand Jury is anything like an actual trial - it isn't and is never meant to be. He purposely allowed people to perjure themselves in front of the court to throw the case. He purposely deflated every possible aspect of the state's (HIS!) case so as to destroy his case. He purposely made the entire event last longer than many trials just to wear down the jurors so that they would be too fed up to care anymore. 

Yes, it is true he has prosecutor discretion and he could have used it to never take it to trial. But he used it to convene a Grand Jury. Once he made that choice he should have had to follow through with it but he chose not to. He chose to cover for his murder friends and deny anyone of any chance of justice. 
 
If you so strongly believe that the officer was innocent, then he could have had his day in court where he could defend himself. As the old saying goes: innocent people don't need to fear the law. Darren wasn't innocent and the prosecutor knew it. That is why he did everything he could to prevent it going to trial.
 
Do you know whose case wasn't represented at the Grand Jury - the murdered boy. That boy had no one there to advocate for him. That boy was denied even the slightest semblance of justice. The officer would have had his chance to defend his actions with all the vigor the law allows had it gone to trial. But you know what is even better than that, having the prosecutor do that job for you at a Grand Jury hearing. 
 
La Rose. 

This makes no sense. If you can only compare things that are exactly the same, then you can't actually compare anything - because of course if they are exactly the same, there's nothing to compare, and if they are different, then you're saying they can't be compared. So you can't compare, say, Utah to Nevada? Or Utah in 2014 to Utah in 2013? Eeeh. I don't buy it. Europe and the US are different yes, but not so different that no meaningful comparisons can be made. It's not like we're comparing Utah and Anbar province. 
As for the point about statistics, I don't think that word means what you think it means: it's not a synonym for data or numbers. Saying "9 per year is a lot more than 1 per year" is not statistics. It's just good old-fashioned common sense. Statistical analyses, in contrast, look at variation - for example if the average is 10 per decade, is that 1 a year, or none for 9 years and 10 in one year? The average is the same, but statisically those two counts are different. But that's way off the discussion here.
 
We could *do* a statistical comparison if you want - but really, there's no point. We can see without it, that these numbers are very, very different. US cops shoot and kill more citizens than the cops of any other developed country. Heck, at these levels, they are shooting and killing more citizens than criminals do in many other developed countries. So you have to ask why. Saying "Ah, it's just different" doesn't help. We already *know* it's different. But why?
 
If you can't (or won't) answer that question, then you probably can't solve the problem. To me, at least, it looks like a problem that needs solving.
 
Cheers, Mark

Actually, sometimes you do. A core concept of the English justice system - on which the US system is built - is that justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done. The justice system does not exist in isolation from the citizenry, and the prosecutor had the discretion to send this case to trial, if only to ensure justice was seen to be done. He should have done so, I think. After all his job - and the job of the system - is to maintain public order, and it does not look like that is what happened.
 
Our systems give prosecutors a lot of discretion, but the flip side is that we expect them to use it wisely.
 
Regards, Mark

I think Markdoc's most recent post made an extremely good point. Justice needs to be done and needs to be seen being done. The public trust is extremely important and if the system ignores a fundamental aspect of our society (that people need to see justice being served), then it is no longer functioning.

 
 
You think a typical prosecutor knows the burden of proof can't be met in this case? Really? If that were the case, then why did the actual prosecutor have to hardball all witnesses for the victim, soft ball the murderer, swear in and accept obvious perjury (obvious in that he, himself, knew it to be 100% fake) just to get the murderer off the hook? Those aren't the actions of a prosecutor who is confident in his belief that he couldn't meet a burden of proof, those are the actions of a man afraid that he could. Those are the actions of a spineless swine who has had and will only continue to have a tradition of protecting murderous cops from justice at all costs. 
 
 
I like how you think the physical evidence only corroborates the murderer's story - it doesn't. First, there were three completely distinct autopsy reports done. None of which were in complete alignment. But all of which agreed that the boy was shot several times. Most of the shots were at a distance and that the killing shot was followed up by additional shots after he was already dead. We also have witnesses who at the time of the event were caught on camera talking about how the boy had his hands up and was surrendering when he was gunned down. And that video and their testimony is worth a whole lot more than the racist, mentally unstable, perjurer that the prosecutor decided to rely on.
 
So, Agent X, I don't think you really understand why people are so angry with this case and why it is so necessary that it goes to trial. Perhaps in the full course of a trial I could be shown to be wrong and the murderer could be shown to have been acting in the bounds of the law, but that is a little bit of justice we were all denied. The murderer is not obviously innocent and it is not clear that there is no way to meet the burden of proof. That is purely your opinion on the situation. And the best thing for the victim would have been to have an actual adversarial trial where his interests were given consideration - that did not happen. The best thing for society would have been to have an actual adversarial process where our basic need to see the system actively and righteously pursue justice did not happen. All that happened was that an old-boy prosecutor covered for his murderer friends as he has done so before. 
 
La Rose. 

So is yours. But my bias is towards justice and has come about in direct response to the all too common problem of cops in the US being awful people. 
 
La Rose. 

(In game)

"Well, i'm in. From what he said, we basically just have to get this McMuffin..."
"MacGuffin."
"I'm hungry. Shut up."

Critical Failure on a Seduction check: "Mmmm baby, you taste like dried sweat and too much makeup."
 
---
 
Another campaign ->
 
 
"He's trying to bury the hatchet."
"I know. That's why my back is away from him."

Classy. Could they breathe?

I saw that news story earlier today. It is tragic. I wish the best for the families of the deceased officers.
 
----
 
From the article
 
"Some union leaders suggested the mayor had sent a message that police officers were to be feared"
 
Could it be because the police are to be feared? Not many other groups of people have free license to murder people.
 
"“There is blood on many hands tonight,” the head of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, Patrick Lynch, said outside Woodhull Hospital. He added, “That blood on the hands starts on the steps of City Hall, in the office of the mayor.”"
 
This guy sounds like a big jerk. If anyone is to blame for the bad imagine the police have it is he and his ilk for harassing and killing the citizenry.
 
Is there a single police department in the US that has enough brains to recognize that the problem isn't protesters, it is that POLICE keep giving people reasons to protest.
 
La Rose.

Wow! Way to take an opportunity to recapture public good will and beat it to death with a nightstick.  Impressive really.

Spokane Sheriff's Department deputy says MRAPs are for going after Constitutionalists, Preppers, and people "stockpiling" guns:
 

 
Whatever your opinion may be of Alex Jones and Infowars, the fact remains that they caught this moron on camera saying all this, and it is a reflection on the kind of "training" these goosestepping pinheads are getting.

Well, Follmer is so clueless to his own arrogance and borderline evil that it is...down right chilling

I wonder if American police really need to carry handguns at all times, no matter what, or if there are instances where they can leave it in the squad car and just carry something less lethal like a taser, nightstick, pepper spray etc. The notion that they need to be prepped and ready to deliver lethal force at all moments and all times does not seem irrefutable or incontestable to me. After all, LEOs in other countries have managed to do a pretty good job without being strapped all the time.

I don't think there is any assertion of that. AFAIK, nowhere in the US are the police handing over political enemies to the drug gangs to be murdered with intent to maintain terror, as happens in Mexico. 
But here in Seattle, a city of 450,000, last year a quarter of all homicides in the city were performed by the police.

If the dispatcher had given those cops all the information, that boy might be alive today.

Well I always think police should be required to try and end a situation non-violently if possible.  Violence should never be the first option unless absolutely necessary. 

At the rate today is going, I should REALLY stop looking at Twitter.  I just got lamely insulted for giving somebody grief for their mockery of people supporting the Eric Garner protests.

So they're not required to say "Police, put down your weapon" or words to that effect before opening fire? Not trying to be a dick here, I'm genuinely wondering if that's police policy in most cases.

Holy crap! I just watched the video of the shooting! WHAT THE HELL IS THAT!!!
 
They drive through the park, stop what looks like 15 feet away from the kid, probably scaring the living (soo to be dead) dalight out of the boy who may or may not move his hand (can't see that) to the "gun".
And basically gun the kid down in what looks like a cop-drive-by!
 
From what I heard before I thought they were stopping the car at the pavement, shouted at the boy who then blatantly and full of pre-puberty machisma pointed the toy-gun at the cop - who then, of course, shot to defend himself, not knowing he was only faced with a toy.
 
This looks more like "[sCREECHING TIRES] DROP IT, PUNK!" - "What the ..." - "BLAM!" - Problem solved.
Where did these guys get their training as officers of the law? Grand Theft Auto?
 
Now I can really see why people are really upset about this kind of behaviour - police officers behaving like gang-bangers in uniform!
 
This.
Is.
Shameful.
 
Please note that I am not a cop basher: At my old school we had a top-notch neighbourhood officer, Polizeihauptkommissar Heiko Müller. Great guy, more the fatherly type and 100% helpful when he had a bad day. Usually had a mediocre day and then gave like 150% plus. On a good day scored way higher.
 
It really takes more than a gun to be a good and efficient policeman, as Heiko is living proof: He really serves and protects his community.
These .... (I don't have words or them) ... don't belong to the force.
 
I am really shocked.
 
P.S.: Just read the thread one more time and understand that fellow forum-member Marcus Impudite is a police officer who distances himself from these wrongdoings. My hat's off to you, Sir, and it proves what I just said about your German fellow officer Müller: Don't judge all the cops by these (extremely bad) examples.
Most people don't have contact with police on a friendly basis - usually we only get to speak with them when we get a ticket or when we need theire help - and then we wish that they get the job done like yesterday as if they had a magic wand to make all our perceived evils go away at once.
Of course, we then have a rather bleak perception on them and the service they do. The majority is just doing their job - and a lot if not most in the most professional way they humanly can.

Re: Cool Guns for your Games