The Police Brutality Thread

[wuapinmon]

This thread is really sad now.

[myboynoah]

[falafel]

This thread is really sad now.

Yeah, it used to be a lot of fun.

[falafel]

Sheesh Don, let the man talk.

[myboynoah]

Sheesh Don, let the man talk.

Doesn't follow the narrative.

[Surfah]

Sheesh Don, let the man talk.

That's a different conversation.

[smokymountainrain]

Lemon: in one breath the Harvard study isn't credible due to sample size. the next breath he's using the study to show cops are racist. lol

[myboynoah]

Lemon: in one breath the Harvard study isn't credible due to sample size. the next breath he's using the study to show cops are racist. lol

He quotes it first, and then when the Sheriff uses it as well, he suddenly talks about how small the sample size is, then he returns to it to try to prove his point. He's just a pretty-faced news reader, so we shouldn't expect anything more.

[cowboy]

Helen Keller could have seen this coming. Cops have been vilified by public figures every time there is a brutality incident, sometimes before information comes to light that exonerates them. Further, all cops have been lumped together as racists who use excessive force more often than not, when cops like those are a minority, and probably a small minority. Jackson and Sharpton make money with the air time they get by encouraging strife, an ironic juxtaposition to King, who accomplished great things by encouraging peaceful resolutions. Obama had the ability to encourage people to let the legal system run it's course and to remind the country of the presumption of innocence. Instead, I've not seen him focus on much other than our need to improve race relations. The result is a large group of African Americans who feel justified in feeling further victimized, and a large portion of all Americans who think most cops overreact. What I wouldn't give for leaders in any party that lead rather than pander.

[byu71]

Lemon: in one breath the Harvard study isn't credible due to sample size. the next breath he's using the study to show cops are racist. lol

I really liked Don Lemon. Probably the one I liked the most of any anchors. I knew he leaned left, but he always seemed to be fair.

I don't know if it is his popularity has gone to his head or it is the political season and he needs to be more bias to help the dems or what. Even his panels are stacked.

Too bad, because I did really like watching his shows.

[Jeff Lebowski]

I really liked Don Lemon. Probably the one I liked the most of any anchors. I knew he leaned left, but he always seemed to be fair.

I don't know if it is his popularity has gone to his head or it is the political season and he needs to be more bias to help the dems or what. Even his panels are stacked.

Too bad, because I did really like watching his shows.

Is he dead? Was he fired?

[wuapinmon]

The result is a large group of African Americans who feel justified in feeling further victimized, and a large portion of all Americans who think most cops overreact. What I wouldn't give for leaders in any party that lead rather than pander.

This isn't an essay, or a very well organized response to what you've written here, but these are thoughts I had in response to what you wrote; I hope the flow makes sense to you.

You live in a very small town with a very homogeneous population. You know most people around you. The anonymity that the city affords is largely an otherness to you, something you experience only when you leave (as I know you do many days of your life) your land and venture afield. You are also a handsome, strapping, wealthy white man. People give you the benefit of the doubt, often without you ever realizing it. Ergo, I doubt you have been the victim of police overreach or overreaction during your adult life. Perhaps you have, but I don't see it happening to someone who looks like and carries himself like you do.

Now, I agree with your last sentence, and a lot of what you said that I didn't quote, but the first sentence that I've quoted here is not as simple as I think you'd like it to be. For example, I have been asked by white cops to lie and say that a black man ran a stop sign and caused an accident when a white cop was the one who caused it. I've had white cops roll up into a parking lot at 3AM and throw all of us up against a wall, but take the one black kid and slam him on the hood of the car and really manhandle him, and not believe that he was two other white kids' brother because he was adopted, "Oh, he's your 'brotha,' right." We were on private property where we all worked and were doing nothing other than taking a smoking break while the servers rebooted (I was the only one who didn't smoke). I've had white cops tell me, "Niggers probably stole it." These are my experiences as a white man in the South, with ancestors going back to 1637 in Wicomico, Virginia. I've been on the privileged end of race since my ancestors crossed the ocean. The only time in my life that I've ever faced any kind of discrimination was when Baylor told me "we don't hire Mormons."

That said, I don't think that most cops overreact. I do think that cops react differently to lower income people. If I pull over a late-model BMW, I'm not going to be on guard the way I am a 1994 Caprice Classic with no hubcaps, paint color = primer, and something so heavy in the trunk that the suspension is barely keeping the wheels from scraping the wells--no matter the race or sex of who is driving it. Shitty cars get pulled over more often. Poor people have shitty cars. Poor people often didn't grow up in houses without cars, so they learned to drive as adults. People who learn to drive as adults make for really shitty drivers. Shitty drivers get pulled over more often. Poor people often can't afford to fix shitty cars or get their tags renewed. They get pulled over for this. Minorities are often poor. Minorities view getting pulled over as the worst because it means that the system is going to make them pay more money that they don't have. Fines, taxes, 'tickets', and tolls. Driving in a big city is ridiculously expensive. So, you get pulled over with a broken tailight that maybe you didn't even know was broken. Maybe the cop warns you; maybe he doesn't. If he doesn't, that's $100 probably, plus you've got to go down to city hall. You fix the taillight, but, that $100 is a fortune to some people, so you don't pay it. Your license gets suspended, and now there's a bench warrant. So, the next time you get pulled over, you get arrested. Now, you need to make bail or you go to jail. The judge sets bail at $2,000 because you have corn rows and a scar on your face that makes you look sinister. You lose your job because you can't afford the bondsman. You get evicted and have to move, all over a broken taillight that the cop could've just told you to fix with a warning. So, "fuck tha po-lice" for ruining your life makes sense to you.

The next time you get pulled over, you are a dick to the cop. He sees your record and responds accordingly. The cop gets more jaded, and you get more jaded too.

Repeat this over and over and over and over and over.

This was an example of a tax payer. Throw in gang members and drug stuff and it's even worse for cops. Everyone lies to them, so they think everyone is their enemy. They treat everyone like an enemy in the big city. So, the tax payers get treated with indignity.


If we want to solve these problems, the solution is to legalize drugs. Make it so that cops don't have to worry about drugs anymore, and drug dealers don't have to be armed anymore, and I believe that this violence will abate.

[old_gregg]

I do think that cops react differently to lower income people. . . . Minorities are often poor.

this is really the whole thing in two sentences

[byu71]

Is he dead? Was he fired?

I will bet you let out a little proud giggle when you came up that.

[CardiacCoug]

Wuap has a good point. Here is my typical experience with the cops, an actual experience from a year ago.

Get pulled over going 85 in a 65 zone down Spanish Fork Canyon.

Cop is very polite, takes my license, looks at my last name, asks if I'm related to my father.

He says "you really need to slow down, there are a lot of fatal accidents in this canyon."

"Yes definitely. Thanks very much for the reminder and sorry you had to stop me."

"Have a great evening. Drive safe."

No ticket, not even a formal warning.

I mean there is no doubt that a typical police interaction varies tremendously based on urban/rural and black/white status, also by socioeconomic class and education.