The Police Brutality Thread

[creekster]

We had a long discussion about this just a few days ago. You forgot it already?

forgot what already?

[byu71]

We had a long discussion about this just a few days ago. You forgot it already?

Yes. Was it in this thread? If I did read the discussion I must have not been impressed by what was said, because I can remember some things.

[BlueK]

It is too simplistic.

There is a boatload of things which need fixing in the urban areas.

Problems include:

Economic mobility created in large part due to a lack of skills of the resident population;
Disproportionate drug dependency;
Disproportionate absences of paternal figures which come from drug dependency and incarceration.

To fix that you will need things which can't be delivered by government.

How do you stem the tide of fathers being absent due to drug dependency?
How do break the cycle of fathers leaving?
How do you increase skills development?

Some misguided souls want more government programs and assistance. We have had a deluge of these since the 1960s War on Poverty. The coordination and selection of these programs have been unsuccessful. Completely.

Perhaps we need to end the War on Drugs, and divert those funds to drug assistance in the inner cities, find meaningful rehabilitation to limit incarceration rates, and improve inner city schools. It won't be easy after decades of digging ourselves into these problems, but those seem to be the only method of reversing this disturbing trend.

Just one comment about drugs. From my grand jury service in a pretty well off county in Texas that is mostly white, I realized that drugs are a problem everywhere among whites as much as minorities. They just seem to be perceived as a black or inner city problem when they're definitely not confined to those neighborhoods. Every week we met as a jury, probably 2/3rds of the cases were drug possession. Drug addiction is everywhere, and even more than I thought.

[Bo Diddley]

That's also true for killings of police.

Agreed. And while I don't think there is a war on police, this past year has been tough. I would classify these assassinations as a strain of terrorism. No easy answers to fight it.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Just one comment about drugs. From my grand jury service in a pretty well off county in Texas that is mostly white, I realized that drugs are a problem everywhere among whites as much as minorities. They just seem to be perceived as a black or inner city problem when they're definitely not confined to those neighborhoods. Every week we met as a jury, probably 2/3rds of the cases were drug possession. Drug addiction is everywhere, and even more than I thought.

White youth are actually more likely to use and become addicted to drugs than blacks:

http://healthland.time.com/2011/11/07/study-whites-more-likely-to-abuse-drugs-than-blacks/

But black youth are more likely (ten times higher) to get convicted and they receive harsher sentences.

[Northwestcoug]

Embedded Tweet

[imanihonjin]

Embedded Tweet

So, is Isaac Hayes III suggesting that police shootings are never justified?

[Northwestcoug]

So, is Isaac Hayes III suggesting that police shootings are never justified?

Dunno. I just thought his tweet gave an interesting comparison.

And no, I don't believe police shootings are never justified, etc. etc.

[creekster]

Dunno. I just thought his tweet gave an interesting comparison.

If by interesting you mean baseless and contrived I would agree.

[Surfah]

Dunno. I just thought his tweet gave an interesting comparison.

And no, I don't believe police shootings are never justified, etc. etc.

It wasn't very interesting. The Chelsea bomber is only alive by sheer luck and was shot multiple times.

[imanihonjin]

If by interesting you mean baseless and contrived I would agree.

If he doesn't mean to imply that there is never cause to shoot someone who hasn't at least injured 31 people, plant 4 bombs, and shoot 2 police officers, then I don't know what he is saying. Actually he goes further and says that because this terrorist was taken alive, than (sic) ANYONE can be taken alive.

This is not a statement that is in touch with reality.

[Northwestcoug]

Yes, the comparison is apples and oranges, and it falls apart rather quickly. But what I think is interesting is how this might be playing out in affected communities. At the end of the day there still have been (at least what looks like) unjustified killings. They are rightly questioning why, and this is someone's reaction.

[BlueK]

White youth are actually more likely to use and become addicted to drugs than blacks:

http://healthland.time.com/2011/11/07/study-whites-more-likely-to-abuse-drugs-than-blacks/

But black youth are more likely (ten times higher) to get convicted and they receive harsher sentences.

When I was on the grand jury we had one case of a teen girl who stupidly allowed her friend's new boyfriend to leave some drugs in the trunk of her car while they were at school. The guy gave her the sob story about his mom being a drug addict and he had taken some drugs from his house so she couldn't get them but he needed to leave them somewhere until he could take them back after school and get rid of them. Perhaps not the brightest bulb on the tree, she agreed. There was some marijuana, some prescription pain killers and a small amount of cocaine.

She soon had second thoughts and self-reported this to the principal's office. The principal had no other legal option but to call the police. The police came and the girl cooperated with them. Legally they had no choice really but to arrest her since the drugs were in her car and she allowed it and knew about it. They did also arrest the guy who left them there as well. But since he was only 16 and not 17, he gets to go through the juvenile system. And because the drug laws in Texas are still kind of heavily grounded in the 1980s when the political fervor for being really tough on drugs was in high gear, any speck of cocaine is an automatic felony. The punishments are different for different types of drugs. There is not really any real science to it, it's really mostly based on whatever drugs people were most scared of at the time the laws went on the books. Thus the street drugs like heroin, cocaine, crack, etc., have heavier penalties compared to others like marijuana and prescription painkillers, or whatever. The amounts of marijuana and pills were misdemeanors. So now this 17 year old girl was facing a felony charge.

In Texas the grand jury only looks at cases that involve felonies and every felony case must be indicted by a grand jury to move forward. Misdemeanors can just be indicted by a judge. So it was only the cocaine charge we had to rule on. It was clear she violated the law. It was clear the law on the books said it was a felony offense. Also, regardless of how we ruled, she would have to deal with her misdemeanor charges for the other drugs with the prosecutor and the misdemeanor court. We had no say in how that would be handled. But for the cocaine we considered the circumstances other than the obvious facts that the law says any amount of cocaine is a felony and that it was under her legal possession since it was her car and she knew it was there. She was a good student with no previous record. She reported it herself rather than keep quiet and very possibly get away with it. She cooperated with the police. So we voted not to indict. She'd still have to deal with the consequences of the misdemeanor charges on the other drugs. But this way she wouldn't get the stigma of a felony on her record for the rest of her life from a very bad spur of the moment decision when she was 17. We didn't follow the letter of the law. But I think we did the right thing.

[Surfah]

One commentator on CNN yesterday said the police need better training. He is probably right, but he also said they should be trained to wait until the gun is actually pointed at them and the person is ready to shoot.

How about we train people to obey the commands of the police even when we think they are wrong. Then we can sue them later if they acted improperly toward us.

I have no problem with protestors, but a lot of those in the crowd are thiefs, anarchists and unfortunately really don't give a shit about the person who was tragically killed, except as an excuse to cause trouble.

This is why police don't want you to go back to your car and why you don't wait until someone has a gun pointed at you.

Also, the officer here was apparently reprimanded previously for being too aggressive which is why the officer waited so long and afforded his killer so many opportunities to comply.

This video is from 1998 and is used in virtually every academy and police training.

Spoiler for Warning Graphic:

[YOUTUBE]k8-ycSkoYfc[/YOUTUBE]

[Northwestcoug]

This is why police don't want you to go back to your car and why you don't wait until someone has a gun pointed at you.

Also, the officer here was apparently reprimanded previously for being too aggressive which is why the officer waited so long and afforded his killer so many opportunities to comply.

This video is from 1998 and is used in virtually every academy and police training.

Spoiler for Warning Graphic:

[YOUTUBE]k8-ycSkoYfc[/YOUTUBE]

That is a hard video to watch.