The death of Tyre Nichols

[laughing dog]

Because the cops aren't the big problem.

At least not for old white men.

There is no such thing as "the police". Police relations differ by city and area depending on the history in that specific region.

 

[Rhea]

Honestly. Do they REALLY not know who the sketchy cops are?

Who is "they"?

Any person employed in the police department or police department leadership.
You can bet the residents know who the worst cops are.

… BLM …. BLM … BLM … BLM

whataboutism is a derail to avoid talking about the issue at hand.

Do you REALLY THINK that police brutality just started in 2020?
Do you REALLY THINK that I’m going to buy that?

Nope. Not distracted by your red herring / derail / whataboutism.

and similar are going to cause more deaths and destruction, especially among YBM. Because the cops aren't the big problem.
Tom

In my engineering department, if there is someone who acts in an unsafe manner, they are a problem, and if their managers don’t address it, they are the problem.

If a bridge falls or a chemical tank explodes because we did not weed out the unsafe practices, it is not because of the protesters.

We take seriously the idea that safety is OUR RESPONSIBILITY.

And when I was the department head of the police department in our town, I hired three cops during my tenure. And it was absolutely MY RESPONSIBILITY to the town to make sure I was not hiring or harboring a thug. And if one of our cops was treating residents badly, it would absolutely be a problem of the officer, the department and the hiring manager, regardless of the fact that the meth lab owners are bad eggs.

 

[Rhea]

Many point to the department’s staffing shortage, owing to a national police recruiting lull, despite the department’s efforts to widen the applicant pool.

They must make the atmosphere safe for moral and upstanding recruits if they want those recruits.

I agree with you, but how do they do they do that?

My thesis is that they do it by establishing a rock-solid reporting system with clear consequences. When people can blow the whistle in safety and see that something is done, a safe atmosphere will have been established.

Is that necessary? It never used to be that way. Are the police more frightened of citizens these days? Is it because there are more gun owners than every before? I'm just trying to figure it all out.

I believe they are both more frightened AND they are being conditioned to think of citizens as enemies. Taht this is how they too often see the good civilians and harm them anyway, because theyy think they are right to assume all civilians are deadly.

 

[TomC]

is a derail to avoid talking about the issue at hand.

The issue I'm pointing out is an increasingly poor quality police department tasked with policing an increasingly violent, drug addled, gun toting population.
Tom

 

[Rhea]

Some police death statistics: Why are police more afraid? They do not have a reason to be.

https://nleomf.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/fatalities-year-updated-5-2-2022.pdf

The number of cops dying on the job is relatively steady.
You will see some of them claim that there has been a sharp rise in the last few years. But if you take out COVID-related deaths you will see that there has not been a sharp rise.
Indeed, cops who died by shooting is near a low for the last decade.


This data removes covid and other illnesses.

How many police officers die in the line of duty? - USAFacts

Officer deaths increased 29% in 2021. Yet the profession is still not among the deadliest.

usafacts.org

This is not to say that cops, in the 18th most dangerous profession, dying at 1/10 the rate of loggers and fishers, have it easy. They do not. But their level of fear is not consistent with the reality that they are living. They are not significantly more at risk than they were 10 or even 30 years ago in raw numbers, and indeed per capita, they are safer than they have been in decades.

So why do they let an unfounded fear drive them to inhumane actions?
Perhaps, indeed, it is institutional.

 

[bilby]

it appears as if some police don't seem to know the difference between a criminal and an innocent citizen.

A fundamental principle of law is innocence until proven guilty in court.

The police are therefore not required to know the difference between a criminal and an innocent citizen. It's their job to treat everyone as though they were innocent citizens, who are required to be brought before the courts with the minimum of inconvenience, and the maximum of respect and dignity, if and when sufficient evidence exists to warrant criminal charges against them.

 

[marc]

I think it was Memphis, although I could definitely be wrong about the city. A few years back I watched a video of a BLM march in a city.
The crowd was chanting:
"What do we want?

Dead cops!

When do we want them?

Now! "

I seriously doubt this happened, as FOX would have run that video 20 times a day, every day since. They showed a ‘pigs in a blanket’ clip repeatedly trying to claim they were advocating killing cops. If you could find that clip I would be impressed

 

[TomC]

I think it was Memphis, although I could definitely be wrong about the city. A few years back I watched a video of a BLM march in a city.
The crowd was chanting:
"What do we want?

Dead cops!

When do we want them?

Now! "

I seriously doubt this happened, as FOX would have run that video 20 times a day, every day since. They showed a ‘pigs in a blanket’ clip repeatedly trying to claim they were advocating killing cops. If you could find that clip I would be impressed

It did.
It was years ago.
My internetz are very bad.
And frankly, I don't care if you think I'm lying or mistaken.

Google "Dallas snipers shoot police" if it matters enough to you.
Tom

 

[Harry Bosch]

it appears as if some police don't seem to know the difference between a criminal and an innocent citizen.

A fundamental principle of law is innocence until proven guilty in court.

The police are therefore not required to know the difference between a criminal and an innocent citizen. It's their job to treat everyone as though they were innocent citizens, who are required to be brought before the courts with the minimum of inconvenience, and the maximum of respect and dignity, if and when sufficient evidence exists to warrant criminal charges against them.

Agreed. But the police are also tasked with identifying threats and putting them down. Learning how to identify threats and deescalate them is where the majority of problems reside. And it isn't as easy as it sounds.

 

[marc]

I think it was Memphis, although I could definitely be wrong about the city. A few years back I watched a video of a BLM march in a city.
The crowd was chanting:
"What do we want?

Dead cops!

When do we want them?

Now! "

I seriously doubt this happened, as FOX would have run that video 20 times a day, every day since. They showed a ‘pigs in a blanket’ clip repeatedly trying to claim they were advocating killing cops. If you could find that clip I would be impressed

It did.
It was years ago.
My internetz are very bad.
And frankly, I don't care if you think I'm lying or mistaken.

Google "Dallas snipers shoot police" if it matters enough to you.
Tom

I remember that sniper, but that is not what I’m questioning

 

[bilby]

it appears as if some police don't seem to know the difference between a criminal and an innocent citizen.

A fundamental principle of law is innocence until proven guilty in court.

The police are therefore not required to know the difference between a criminal and an innocent citizen. It's their job to treat everyone as though they were innocent citizens, who are required to be brought before the courts with the minimum of inconvenience, and the maximum of respect and dignity, if and when sufficient evidence exists to warrant criminal charges against them.

Agreed. But the police are also tasked with identifying threats and putting them down. Learning how to identify threats and deescalate them is where the majority of problems reside. And it isn't as easy as it sounds.

No, police are expected, as part of their skill set (not as a task, but as a consequence of their actual tasks), to identify threats and minimise them.

It's not easy, but it's certainly not helped by the needlessly belligerent idea that police should consider "putting them down" for any value of "them".

 

[southernhybrid]

it appears as if some police don't seem to know the difference between a criminal and an innocent citizen.

A fundamental principle of law is innocence until proven guilty in court.

The police are therefore not required to know the difference between a criminal and an innocent citizen. It's their job to treat everyone as though they were innocent citizens, who are required to be brought before the courts with the minimum of inconvenience, and the maximum of respect and dignity, if and when sufficient evidence exists to warrant criminal charges against them.

Agreed. But the police are also tasked with identifying threats and putting them down. Learning how to identify threats and deescalate them is where the majority of problems reside. And it isn't as easy as it sounds.

Of course, the police should never treat any suspect the way they've treated so many that we are now learning about, but my point was that they've even treated people who were totally innocent as if they were suspects who committed serious crimes and tried to evade being arrested. Unless the police are directly threatened with a gun or very harmful weapon from a suspect, all suspects should be treated humanely. Sorry if that wasn't clear from my post. I did not mean to say that the police should treat anyone the way they treated Nichols or so many other, mostly young Black males.

Some police are simply stopping innocent people randomly without any reason and then beating them up or killing them. Why are they even stopping these people for no apparent reason? In these cases, it's the police who are the criminals.

I can give you an example that happened in my own town several years ago. Luckily no one was hurt, but the driver and passengers were humiliated and scared. My husband and I were on our way to a local fast food fish place that we used to like. We knew the employees and manager very well. We watched a police follow a car into the fast food parking lot, while wondering why the driver didn't stop sooner.

After the car stopped, we saw the assistant manager run out to the police car as soon as she was able. She and the young men in the car were all Black. The manager has a degree in police work, although I don't know if she ever did police work. The driver was her son, which explained why he drove into the parking lot where his mom worked. The police searched all of the car's occupants for no apparent reason. They were pulled for...wait for it....a broken tail light.

The mother of the young man told the police that they had no right to search the occupants of the car as that was a violation of the 4th amendment. The police got all defensive and told the mother that they had been told by management to search the occupants of any car they stopped that contained several young Black males. We know this because after we went into the restaurant we asked the woman what had happened and she told us that.

We knew her for. quite awhile, and trusted her. Her son was a good person who had never been arrested. That is the type of shit that a lot of young Black males have to put up with in the US. What would have happened had they resisted? Hopefully nothing since this was in broad daylight in a very busy area of town. Still, we found it very disturbing, assuming what the officer told the mother was true. I'm skeptical that it was true and even if it was, why did the cop tell the woman that? That's how stupid some police are.

One little thing that I think needs to be done is to stop allowing police to pull over cars for very minor things like broken tail lights. They can take the number of the car tag and have the city or county send a ticket to the address. This would probably save the police a lot of time and keep a lot of innocent people from being in danger of being harmed by the police. We already have cameras on some traffic lights and in areas near schools where tickets are simply sent to violators based on the car tag. Why not do that for all minor violations?

I doubt there was any reason why Nichols was stopped. I think the reckless driving claim was probably made up as an excuse to stop and beat up the young man. That particular group of police were, to use a word that one of our members seems to like, thugs! Why are so many police making people get out of their cars? The usual thing is simply to stop the car and ask for the driver's license and registration, not pull the person out of the car. I've never heard of this happening until recent years and police violence has been escalating over the past several years as well. What the fuck is going on!

 

[TomC]

I seriously doubt this happened,

Then,

I remember that sniper, but that is not what I’m questioning

I think I understand what you're questioning.

Oh well.
Tom

 

[Rhea]

BLM… BLM…BLM…. BOO!

I think it was Memphis, although I could definitely be wrong about the city. A few years back I watched a video of a BLM march in a city.
The crowd was chanting:
"What do we want?

Dead cops!

When do we want them?

Now! "

I seriously doubt this happened, as FOX would have run that video 20 times a day, every day since. They showed a ‘pigs in a blanket’ clip repeatedly trying to claim they were advocating killing cops. If you could find that clip I would be impressed

It did.
It was years ago.
My internetz are very bad.
And frankly, I don't care if you think I'm lying or mistaken.

Google "Dallas snipers shoot police" if it matters enough to you.
Tom

The clip has NOTHING TO DO with the Dallas shooter, AND it had nothing to do with BLM, since it happened before they even existed. You watched something where someone was lying to you and telling you it was BLM. And you are passing that on, credulously.

DuckDuckGoing the chant turns up the following Snopes debunking of this claim:

Black Lives Matter Protesters Chant for 'Dead Cops Now' in Baton Rouge

A perpetually recirculating video of BLM protesters chanting for "dead cops" dates to December 2014 and is unrelated to BLM protest events occurring in July 2016.

www.snopes.com

This clip and some background information about it were referenced in another video debunking Black Lives Matter myths that was posted online on 10 July 2016. At approximately the three-minute mark, the narrator notes that the "dead cops" clip captured a small group of protesters who hung around after the end of the Millions March in December 2014 and were disavowed by the organizers of that event, while video of the official Millions March event shows that it was a peaceful protest:

So - Dec 2014. A small group. Just chanting.
And now it is supposed to justify all cops being terrified for theiir lives every day?

By this logic, shouldn’t young Black men, who see a helluva lot more than one single, nine-year-old incident of police just talking about violence, be justified in running for their lives whenever they see a cop and fighting with whatever force is necessary when they are caught by one?

No?


Then fuck that video clip. It’s a red herring, and never ever justifies police violence.

Will you never tire of pretending that BLM is the root of all evils? They are not powerful enough to time travel. Be morally responsible and stop passing on other people’s lies about them. If your Google skills aren’t great, then DON’T ACCUSE PEOPLE OF THINGS YOU MIGHT HAVE WRONG. If you can’t verify that it’s true, and can’t be bothered to even try, then don’t pass on the information. You are likely passing on someone else’s lie, to the harm of the victims of that lie. The haters are counting on you being willing to spread hate without verification. Don’t be their stooge.

 

[marc]

I seriously doubt this happened,

Then,

I remember that sniper, but that is not what I’m questioning

I think I understand what you're questioning.

Oh well.
Tom

You mention two separate events. That I know one happened does Not automatically verify the other.

 

[TomC]

Will you never tire of pretending that BLM is the root of all evils?

Will you never tire of pretending that the cops are the root of all evils?
Tom

 

[Rhea]

Will you never tire of pretending that BLM is the root of all evils?

Will you never tire of pretending that the cops are the root of all evils?
Tom

I do not.

I spent 8 years fighting with the militia groups in my town to save the job of the police officer.

You?


Nice dodge with whataboutism, by the way.
No interest in discussing how the haters got you to pass on untrue accusations against BLM?

 

[TomC]

I do not.

Nor do I think BLM is the root of all evils.

To me, this is a lot like treatment of the server at a restaurant. I try to be nice to everyone. But the last person I'd be mean to is the server who is taking my order. The one who is going to disappear into the kitchen, come back with a plate of food that I'm going to pay for whether I eat it or not. No way am I going to be anything but nice to them, ever. They might be slow, stupid, poorly dressed, and smell bad. I'm not going to complain. I might not return to the restaurant, but I'm not going to be excessively honest with someone who can spit(or worse) into my food. I'm not going to yell at the management that they need better help, unless I don't intend to come back.
Tom

 

[laughing dog]

I do not.

Nor do I think BLM is the root of all evils.

To me, this is a lot like treatment of the server at a restaurant. I try to be nice to everyone. But the last person I'd be mean to is the server who is taking my order. The one who is going to disappear into the kitchen, come back with a plate of food that I'm going to pay for whether I eat it or not. No way am I going to be anything but nice to them, ever. They might be slow, stupid, poorly dressed, and smell bad. I'm not going to complain. I might not return to the restaurant, but I'm not going to be excessively honest with someone who can spit(or worse) into my food. I'm not going to yell at the management that they need better help, unless I don't intend to come back.
Tom

I am interpreting your allegory correctly in that you are basically afraid of what the police will do if they do not get enough unconditional support?

If my interpretation is correct, your position is a bigger indictment of police in general than anything I've seen in any thread.

 

[TomC]

I am interpreting your allegory correctly in that you are basically afraid of what the police will do if they do not get enough unconditional support?

Nope.
Not even close.

But I don't expect to get any closer.
Tom