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About That George Floyd Death
I am watching some online streams from the “protests” in Minneapolis. The situation involves mounted police, buildings burning, teargas, and strike teams. You can call it a riot and this is the second night.
The people are upset about George Floyd being killed by police. The cops responded to alleged forging and George ended up face down on the ground with a cops knee on his neck. There is video that shows him begging for his life as succumbs. The cops have been fired and Trump has vowed a swift investigation. Protests are starting in other cities. Some rednecks are in a video “armed” up and looking to stop looting. This seems like a big deal as the country is on edge from the 60 days of house arrest. Add in record unemployment and who knows what is going to happen.
I am also listening to the police scanner. There are reports of shots fired and now the Dollar Tree is on fire. It is weird to see protesters wearing COVID masks.
This is a horrible problem as many Blacks feel like cops are an occupying force and we should all be sensitive to government oppression these days. Cities have set rules of engagement that allow these escalations and cities are going to have to fix things, because it is bad for the citizenry and bad for the police and bad for America.
Published in General
That is a serious problem with gaining the ability to detect serious problems.
And we have a press dedicated to upsetting people – that doesn’t help either. Not that I want the opposite kind of press, and ‘responsible journalism’ may well be a chimera.
But not the SAME People.
Sounds like their whole reason to be is to stop people using the parks.
Then the level of abuse is still far too high. Far to high. If this is better than it used to be, then cops have always been tyrants and the enemy of the people.
A man was suffocated for no reason. that is clear on video.
I have been trained to restrain people. You. Do. Not. place restraint on their neck. Not ever. never.
The police did that. It was sanctioned. They only fired them because of the outcry. They would never have been fired because of the blue wall. Police protect their own.
Yup. You’re thinking of either park police or park rangers. Most of the land used for hunting and fishing, snowmobiling and other recreation in Maine is private land, to which no one other than the owner has a right. Not only does misbehavior (drunk-snowmobiling, over-fishing, poaching etc.) misuse a common resource, but it often jeopardizes the ability of Maine citizens to access the outdoors, because landowners fed up with miscreants close their land.
In addition to enforcing fish and wildlife law, and recreational vehicle law, the Maine Warden Service also has primary responsibility for conducting search and rescue and search and recovery operations after tragedies occur in the Maine woods and fresh waters. Maine game wardens save lives —quite literally—-every year.
Moreover, because Maine law enforcement is thin on the ground, Maine game wardens will often be called, as the closest sworn units, to barricaded gunmen, domestic violence incidents, school shootings-in-progress and other urgent public safety matters. In addition, they are deployed in actual or potential natural or man-made disasters—floods, fires, riots—where necessary, and display creativity and virtuosity when it comes to adapting to novel situations.
They take all of these manifold responsibilities extremely seriously and are, to put it mildly, interested in their mission.
Especially given that medical errors kill an estimated 250-300,000 Americans every year. How much shall we bet that these are disproportionately black?
@bryangstephens, I really think it’s a bad idea to make the sort of sweeping generalizations you seem prone to on this, though not on all, issues. It’s not that it’s insulting—though of course, it could be—but it makes one look intellectually dishonest and lazy, and I know that you aren’t generally either.
It is healthy and important for Americans to be skeptical about the role of police in a free society. I say that as someone who is personally and professionally very involved with, and distinctly partial to, cops. Police officers themselves are often skeptical and may strongly resent and resist attempts by politicians to use them to enforce unconstitutional (or stupid) rules. On the other hand, it’s important for police officers to enforce the laws that our representatives pass, within the bounds of the constitution they are sworn to uphold—cops who decide for themselves which laws they do or do not enforce can be heroes or terrifying villains.
Find me a cop who is against no knock warrants.
The police in my city will not even investigate robbery from a car. Not worth their time.
They will, however, pull me over in the middle of the night because a semi truck startled me and I had tires hit the lane sized shoulder. So, their time is best spent harassing me.
I used to believe in them. Not now. Now they haul people to the ground for not social distancing. They put fathers in handcuffs for being at a playground alone with their daughter.
There is example after example. How about the young lady ticketed for driving by herself in lock down.
These are all acts of tyrants. I am building a picture based on the information I have.
I see a police car in the road and I am afraid. Am I speeding? Even if not, that car represents a threat to my liberty. A car passes me and I am afraid.
But, I am overreacting.
If the police want to have a better relationship with the citizens (not civilians, citizens) they serve, then they could start with not harassing citizens going about their business and going after people committing crimes that don’t result in money in their pockets.
Arguably, that isn’t the cops’ fault. At least not directly. It’s their employers – the cities, counties, states – that want the money.
You’re not overreacting.
Several years ago a woman was jay walking in downtown Austin, so a cop threw her to the ground and hand cuffed her, bleeding and hauled her away.
When I was in New Orleans with my friends and minding our own business, a cop came out of nowhere and threw my friend against a passing car. They only released him from jail because they broke his neck and didn’t want to deal with him.
Not all cops are bad. The problem is you can never know if the cop in front of you is the bad one, and if he is a bad one, the other cops won’t stop him or even be publicly critical of him.
In Dallas a police officer executed a man in the apartment below hers and was convicted. That’s a rare instance of the police being held accountable, but there’s no denying that the police rally behind and protect each other to an extreme degree. They should instead be strongly motivated to police their own ranks.
They’re not robots. They have their own minds if they wish to exert themselves.
I’m sure there are cops like that. The ones that don’t generate required revenue. And are then replaced by others who will.
Why do I suspect there’s more to the story?
I feel this too, but we must remember that no one uploads, much less shoots, videos of police doing things right. There are just north of 680,000 full-time cops in the US who interact with humans and human scum every day of the year.
Really, it comes down to a matter of trust; some people trust that the police good with a few bad apples, and some the reverse.
Both views are supported by the evidence at hand which is largely sensationalized and anecdotal.
There isn’t. We were walking down the street, having had no interactions of note with anyone and suddenly my friend went flying against a passing taxi with a cop attached to him.
While my third friend and I looked on in horror, several witnesses, whom I had never met, gave me business cards and offered to come back from out of state to testify as to what they saw.
Maybe that was all there was to YOUR story, but there might have been more to THE story. Like, maybe a recently-held-up-at-gunpoint liquor store in the area, or something.
It’s easy to come up with excesses, and your situation can certainly qualify. But sometimes people seem to expect there to be a trial, conviction, appeal, affirmation, etc, etc, before a cop can even ask them for ID, let alone before an arrest is made. At least if it’s THEMSELVES. But the real world is such that, if – for example – someone just held up a 7-11, you might get stopped and asked some questions, to show ID, etc, just because you happen to be near the 7-11, or in the area where the criminal was thought to have fled to, etc etc. And that can legitimately happen without you being tried and convicted first.
Nope. They were just jerks. That’s why the charges of “obstructing a side walk” were dismissed by the court if my friend agreed not to sue the city.
My goal for the week is to convince at least one person that cities officials are responsible for policing, not cops. Cities hire cops, give them badges, train them, pay them, equip them, and give them policies, procedures and priorities. Tyranny really comes from the city council.
The way police operate is really a matter of local control. There has to be citizen involvement in local governance–in the schools, in the fire department, in social services, in the library, in the recreation programs, and in the police department.
If police officers are not acting the way a town thinks they should, it’s up to the townspeople to fix it. Form a committee and establish goals for the police department. They are employees.
None of us can do too much about what happens politically on a national level. Almost all of us can effect change in our own cities and towns and states.
That is fair.
For me, this is the number 1 cause of the breakdown between the police and the Middle class.
When ones own experience is always that they the the enemy , that is not just the news. That is the issue. The cop is always there to get me. That drives me and I think others, to loo, at other evidence and go, “man, what happened to that guy could have happened to me” and it is belivable.
I don’t disagree.
And there are police who behave badly
Does your local police force have a civilian ride-along program? If so, you should sign up.
One of the most interesting nights of my life was the Friday night shift I spent on ride-along with Anchorage PD. There are a *lot* of scummy people out there, and cops spend a lot of time dealing with them. Of course it colors their personalities.
I don’t know what the solution is, but I certainly understand why some go bad. It’s pretty comparable to a case of PTSD in a soldier.
I get there are scummy people. I have a problem with the walk up assumption being that *I* am one of them. What I hear in defense of the police is “They don’t know you”. Maybe the core problem is, we are all strangers to each other, and therefore have to assume everyone else is a threat.
The core to the problem is that too many things are illegal
Drawing police from the immediate neighborhood works well in – I think – Hong Kong. However, such people are probably more easily suborned by neighborhood criminals.
In downtown Fargo, protesters stole beer from a burgers & beer joint and broke windows in a taco restaurant. How that evens the score with some dangerous cops in Minneapolis I don’t quite understand.
Because it’s how they think they will get people to vote for Biden. .
Chauvin amended complaint:
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6935793/Chauvin-Amended-Criminal-Complaint.pdf
Lane:
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6935804-Thomas-Lane-Complaint.html
Kueng:
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6935805/J-Alexander-Kueng-Complaint.pdf
Thao:
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6935803/Tou-Thao-Complaint.pdf
Thanks to https://twitter.com/webster BIG TIME.