Senate No Donuts For You: The U.S. Police Brutality Thread

Not so much competent as clearly their first instinct is to pull their guns.

 

Yeah, screwing up on this isn't a 'pass' when it comes to legality. But that seems like a screw up.

Also (and I feel like I'm not going to skew the results here because of the ignore list i'm on), but what's the over-under on someone like quigonmike pointing out that one of the officers is black, so there's no way race can play a compounding factor in this?

 

I saw the video of that policeman attacking that fellow in the van, and I was upset by it. I can see why he drove to that gas station. He wanted plenty of light.

Personally, banning guns to the level of Australia seems as difficult as getting tax increases for corporations. What a concept.

 

I think a good first step would be to get more minorities trained and carrying weapons. No one is faster to enforce gun control than a government trying to oppress minorities, and they sure are harder to oppress when they can fight back.

 

Reminder that the Black Panthers used to follow the police around while armed and make sure the police were behaving themselves.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther_Party#Oakland_patrols_of_police

 

The FBI and local police forces such as the Chicago and LAPD systematically dismantled the Black Panthers and assassinated, imprisoned, or exiled many of the group's leading figures. Them being armed didn't stop or particularly dissuade the authorities. If anything it painted an even bigger target.

Broadly, the argument that more members of a minority group being armed somehow results in fewer of them being killed by police is not borne out by the evidence. Most people killed by police in the United States are, in fact, armed.

 

The officer in the latest Minnesota case has resigned.

 

Saw the video. I believe she made a mistake. But a mistake that cost a life, so she deserves to be charged with manslaughter and go to jail.
Still, I wonder how much of a mitigating factor it will be the fact that the guy had (as far as I know) a warrant out for his arrest, and he then fought the cops and tried to get away.
That is obviously not an excuse for killing him, but its really weird and frustrating to see how so many people now refuse to obey and even challenge the police, knowing how these days the police seem to like to shoot first and ask questions later. Now more than ever you cannot escalate a situation, and if you do it you should know something really bad is going to happen, because of how bad the police are behaving.

 

A police officer shot a guy because the officer asked for the ID so the guy reached for the ID he was asked to provide. I don't think "obey" is sufficient to survive, and I'm not surprised that people panic and try to get away from police at this point as I don't think there's any trust in that institution. Police escalate situations unnecessarily enough.

And none of that should be mitigating when even she thought the situation warranted a taser, not a gun. Though I fear it will be.

 

Obviously compliance is the safest option, though not a sure thing, but I find it hard to blame a 20-year-old for making a dumb decision in the heat of the moment out of legitimate fear of imprisonment or worse. We shouldn't have to act around police as though they're feral animals, always ready to lash out.

 

This is some grade A+ victim blaming right here. No one should be kept in line through fear of state sanctioned violence against them. Especially when, time and time again, we see that it doesn't even matter what you do when confronted by the police or how much of a 'threat' they think you are. Handcuffed, unconscious, dead, doesn't matter. They will do whatever they feel like to you just because they can.

 

The court issued his summons to the wrong address so that's why he had a warrant out on him. Definitely a good reason to arrest him...

/s

 

If he didn't want to have a warrant out for him, he should've been living where the government thought he lived.

 

I had the police out to my house about 2 years ago. The PO gave me a piece of paper with all kinds of outreach info with Mobile Crisis numbers and other MH outreach resources. Things had calmed down by then, so that's as far as it went.

 

Yeah, I loved how he summed it up- how everything else (a cellphone, a wallet, etc.) looks like a gun to the police except for an actual gun.

Either the cop had her excuse ready which is why she was saying taser already or she just really screwed up. Neither is really believable, like don't guns have a safety on? Yet the safety was off, she was holding the obvious gun for at least five esconds, and only after the bang did she realize, whoops? Not to mention the rest of them standing around gawking until the dying victim crashed into someone else several blocks away. Great job police on preventing damage.

I'm not caught up on all the details, but even for restraining someone, a taser seems a bit extreme, not like Wright was armed or attacking them, and instead the police caused another car crash after supposedly accidentally shooting someone. Well, even with the Chauvin trial you can hear all the police witnesses still pushing the "few bad apple" idea, to cover just how bad most of them are.

 

She wouldn't have made that mistake with a white driver. It was a rookie mistake confusing the taser for the gun, too rookie to be believable considering she was training a new recruit. Was a traffic stop such a dangerous situation that she didn't have time to grab the right weapon? I understand why Wright thought it was, given what else happened in Minneapolis and the racial bias of the police in general.
The most generous thing to say would be that she is guilty of extreme negligence. Cops should be held to higher standards given their oaths to uphold the law.

 

The issue is that tasers are viewed as suitable for very liberal usage of tasers any time they don't think they have full control:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...-can-stunned-when-can-tasers-used/1019060002/

"Tasers join other tools like mace and batons – they're designed to "tilt the advantage” back toward an officer in a confrontation, Pasco said."
...
"In general, "less than lethal" weapons are used when an officer feels like he or she could be overwhelmed Pasco said. "

 

In re: saying "taser" -- my very limited understanding is that it's like a crash cart clear; you call it so no one else is touching the person you're going to tase, otherwise you jolt them too.

 

A jury did convict Robert Bates of second degree manslaughter for shooting and killing Eric Harris in Tulsa in 2015 when he fired his gun instead of his taser. Similarly, Johannes Mehserle was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for shooting and killing Oscar Grant in Oakland in 2009 when he fired his gun instead of his taser.

The biggest barrier is that they bother to charge anyone for it, though, not that they get convicted.

For example, Matt Zimmerman shot (but didn't kill) Brian Riling when Riling was in a holding cell because Zimmerman fired his gun instead of his taser. In that case, the DA declined to charge him. Though it's a case that highlights part of how procedures to prevent this were ignored, as tasers and guns are supposed to be worn on opposite sides, but Zimmerman was wearing both on the same side.

 

The officer who shot and killed that women during the riot will face no charges. I still don’t know what to think about this one. If those rioters weren’t stopped they would have reached the Vice President.

 

What's there to think about? This seems clear cut.