The death of Tyre Nichols

[Jimmy Higgins]

There are thousands, if not millions, of police interactions every day. When one bad act by some bad apples occurs, it does not mean that police or policing is bad.It just means those bad apples need to be removed. Any organization that has people is going to have bad apples.

Bad apples?!

*At local street grocer*
Timmy: Hi Mr. Tompkins.
Mr. Tompkins: Hey guys. How's it going?
Timmy: Good. Just here for some apples.
Paul: *grabs one, takes a bite*
Timmy: *pays Mr. Tompkins*
Paul: *drops dead*
Timmy: *Aghast*
Mr. Tompkins: Hey... you can't let one bad apple ruin the bunch.
Timmy: *shoulder shrug... bites apple as Mr. Tompkins pulls Paul's body back to dumpster*

Kind of a shitty system where weeding out the "bad apples" is when an incident of police violence is so bad, that it makes the news. After all, Officer Chauvin had several complaints against him, and he was on the force still. In the case of Tamir Rice, the guy was let go from another a suburb police department from lacking the "maturity" for the job. The "bad apples" either stay where they are or they get shuffled to a different bucket.

 

[laughing dog]

There are thousands, if not millions, of police interactions every day. When one bad act by some bad apples occurs, it does not mean that police or policing is bad. It just means those bad apples need to be removed. Any organization that has people is going to have bad apples.

True, but "the police" are not an organization.

When there is a bad apple or two at one grocery store, that is one thing. But when bad apples pop up all over the place, time and after time, one has reason to wonder about the wholesale distributors or the orchards.

 

[Politesse]

There are thousands, if not millions, of police interactions every day. When one bad act by some bad apples occurs, it does not mean that police or policing is bad. It just means those bad apples need to be removed. Any organization that has people is going to have bad apples.

True, but "the police" are not an organization.

When there is a bad apple or two at one grocery store, that is one thing. But when bad apples pop up all over the place, time and after time, one has reason to wonder about the wholesale distributors or the orchards.

If your reaction to the problem of bad apples is to shrug and do nothing, expect more bad apples. The original phrase was "One bad apple spoils the whole barrel" -- if you let a problem fester, it will also spread. When the police learn that one of their own has murdered someone, they rally by default to his or her defense, and until recently, so did most juries. So the problem became inter-generational and widespread within the system.

 

[Ford]

I'm surprised that the right wing hasn't yet found anything in Nichols' past they can use to paint him as a "thug" or "criminal" who maybe deserved his fate.

They do it with every single extrajudicial killing without fail. It's like clockwork.

I'm surprised I did not hear the media droning on about racism....they do it with every police killing without fail. Its like clockwork.

Oh, it's the media's fault that so many unarmed black people have been summarily executed by cops?

I guess if the media hadn't played the footage of George Floyd being murdered on camera, things would be so much better now, right? I mean, there wouldn't be any protests, Black Lives Wouldn't Matter, and the cops who killed him could go right on "protecting and serving" the (white) people of their community!

p.s. don't forget Florida's maxim: "There is no racism now, there was a little a long time ago, but it wasn't that bad, and black people just need to get over it already."

 

[James Brown]

Link

Maybe #BLM has had a positive effect after all.

 

[Patooka]

I'm surprised that the right wing hasn't yet found anything in Nichols' past they can use to paint him as a "thug" or "criminal" who maybe deserved his fate.

They do it with every single extrajudicial killing without fail. It's like clockwork.

I'm surprised I did not hear the media droning on about racism....they do it with every police killing without fail. Its like clockwork.

I guess they found a way to keep the narrative going, black police are racist now:

https://coloradosun.com/2023/01/29/tyre-nichols-racism-police-opinion-littwin/

There were Jewish guards at concentration camps too, genius. Some people feel obligated to mirror their society.

Figure it out, smart guy. I look forward to other people's whataboutisms and memes.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Often in these cases, the terms racism and bigotry get thrown around, when "bias" is easily more accessible and accurate. Black officers don't have to be racist or bigoted to be biased against a suspect, even when a minority.

Actually, whether it's even bias is questionable.

Police use of force tracks pretty closely with arrests. Are they biased against blacks or simply more likely to be arresting them?

There also is the factor that police use of force also tracks with how black the city is. Not the color of the officer or target.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Link

Maybe #BLM has had a positive effect after all.

What that graph doesn't show is all the people killed by other criminals because the police backed off due to the BLM protests. Hint: It's many, many times the number that were "saved" by BLM. (The effect is only seen in areas that saw substantial BLM protest activity.)

 

[laughing dog]

What that graph doesn't show is all the people killed by other criminals because the police backed off due to the BLM protests. Hint: It's many, many times the number that were "saved" by BLM. (The effect is only seen in areas that saw substantial BLM protest activity.)

Do you have actual data on this that carefully distinguishes between all possible influences on killings that were preventable by the police? If not, you are substituting your opinion for fact.

 

[Patooka]

What that graph doesn't show is all the people killed by other criminals because the police backed off due to the BLM protests. Hint: It's many, many times the number that were "saved" by BLM. (The effect is only seen in areas that saw substantial BLM protest activity.)

And of course there is evidence of that showing...fuckit I just realised you would use "What if it was a thursday and the guy was Marvin?" argument to justify the status quo. There is no evidence of what you just said, you simply wish that was true.

 

[blastula]

Link

Maybe #BLM has had a positive effect after all.

In stayed down in 2022 too.

Raw data: police shootings of unarmed suspects are way down - Kevin Drum

Every year I like to take a look at the Washington Post's Fatal Force database to see if we're continuing to make progress on police shootings of unarmed suspects. We are: This is adjusted for population shares. Black suspects are still killed at the highest rate, but only slightly. Hispanics...

jabberwocking.com

Also police like brown more than white.

 

[Politesse]

That's still dozens of murdered unarmed citizens. Forgive me for feeling that

1. The ideal number is actually "zero", or as close to that number as humanly possible​

2. If they managed to stop killing citizens, that would be nothing to celebrate anyway, as the police should not have been doing that in the first place.​

Well, perhaps no one will, in fact, forgive me for the sentiment. It's astonishing how normalized extreme police violence still is, despite a decade of pressure and reform.

 

[Patooka]

That's still dozens of murdered unarmed citizens. Forgive me for feeling that

1. The ideal number is actually "zero", or as close to that number as humanly possible​

2. If they managed to stop killing citizens, that would be nothing to celebrate anyway, as the police should not have been doing that in the first place.​

Well, perhaps no one will, in fact, forgive me for the sentiment. It's astonishing how normalized extreme police violence still is, despite a decade of pressure and reform.

People like calling America land of the free and shit. There is also the stigma of President being leader of the free world and shit also.

It's amazing if someone made a Venn Diagram of Blue lives Matters and authoritarianism how that would look.

 

[marc]

What that graph doesn't show is all the people killed by other criminals because the police backed off due to the BLM protests. Hint: It's many, many times the number that were "saved" by BLM. (The effect is only seen in areas that saw substantial BLM protest activity.)

 

[Jarhyn]

That's still dozens of murdered unarmed citizens. Forgive me for feeling that

1. The ideal number is actually "zero", or as close to that number as humanly possible​

2. If they managed to stop killing citizens, that would be nothing to celebrate anyway, as the police should not have been doing that in the first place.​

Well, perhaps no one will, in fact, forgive me for the sentiment. It's astonishing how normalized extreme police violence still is, despite a decade of pressure and reform.

People like calling America land of the free and shit. There is also the stigma of President being leader of the free world and shit also.

It's amazing if someone made a Venn Diagram of Blue lives Matters and authoritarianism how that would look.

It wouldn't be a venn diagram. It would be a circle.

 

[Tigers!]

That's still dozens of murdered unarmed citizens. Forgive me for feeling that

1. The ideal number is actually "zero", or as close to that number as humanly possible​

2. If they managed to stop killing citizens, that would be nothing to celebrate anyway, as the police should not have been doing that in the first place.​

Well, perhaps no one will, in fact, forgive me for the sentiment. It's astonishing how normalized extreme police violence still is, despite a decade of pressure and reform.

Between 1990-1997, 75 people were shot in confrontations with Victorian police. Forty-one were shot by police officers and 33 died from self-inflicted gunshot wounds. https://www.aic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-05/tandi089.pdf
As you note very quickly Victorians considered this to be the new normal.
Since then as the article states changes were made and presently shootings by police are far lower, though not zero. Zero is the ideal but with the world we live in very difficult to achieve.
Plus we try very hard to control gun use and ownership. Our society, fortunately, does not seem to be ad violent as the USA.

 

[bilby]

Between 1990-1997, 75 people were shot in confrontations with Victorian police. Forty-one were shot by police officers and 33 died from self-inflicted gunshot wounds.

Actually, those are Australia wide figures.

But of the 41 people shot by Australian police, more than half (21) were shot by Victorian police. Which caused a fair bit of commentary and questioning about what VIC was doing differently from NSW, where the population is rather larger but only eight people were shot by police.

In fact, VIC was the only state to have a "police shootings per 100,000 population" figure that was above the national average for the period (both mainland territories were also above average, but their populations are tiny; The NT only had three police shootings in those seven years, but that worked out at 2.3 per 100,000 population).

I think it was the Doug Anthony All Stars who were selling T-shirts with a picture of a mallard on the front, above the word "Duck!". On the back it said "It's the Victoria Police!"

0.58 police shootings, per 100,000 population, over a seven year period, was sufficient to get the Victoria Police a reputation as trigger-happy. I wonder how many US police departments could claim figures anywhere close to as low as this worryingly high figure.

 

[lpetrich]

I cannot understand why the police stopping a car should result in a death?

The dehumanizing of police in the last few years has likely dissuaded good candidates from opting for police work. So, you gotta scrape the bottom of the barrel.

What "dehumanizing"? Insisting that cops don't have an absolute right to commit crimes when doing their job?

 

[Patooka]

Between 1990-1997, 75 people were shot in confrontations with Victorian police. Forty-one were shot by police officers and 33 died from self-inflicted gunshot wounds.

Actually, those are Australia wide figures.

But of the 41 people shot by Australian police, more than half (21) were shot by Victorian police. Which caused a fair bit of commentary and questioning about what VIC was doing differently from NSW, where the population is rather larger but only eight people were shot by police.

In fact, VIC was the only state to have a "police shootings per 100,000 population" figure that was above the national average for the period (both mainland territories were also above average, but their populations are tiny; The NT only had three police shootings in those seven years, but that worked out at 2.3 per 100,000 population).

I think it was the Doug Anthony All Stars who were selling T-shirts with a picture of a mallard on the front, above the word "Duck!". On the back it said "It's the Victoria Police!"

0.58 police shootings, per 100,000 population, over a seven year period, was sufficient to get the Victoria Police a reputation as trigger-happy. I wonder how many US police departments could claim figures anywhere close to as low as this worryingly high figure.

The silent war : behind the police killings that shook Australia. by Silvester, John, Rule, Andrew, and Davies, Owen: soft cover (1995) | Lost and Found Books

AbeBooks.com: The silent war : behind the police killings that shook Australia.: 21 cm. Includes Illustrations. VIII, 229 pages VG. Very good condition with light shelf wear and edge wear to covers, a little browning.

www.abebooks.com

The book says a lot about the Victorian Armed Robbery Squad at the time. It's written by the same 2 guys who did the Underbelly series. (Sylvester and Rule)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

What that graph doesn't show is all the people killed by other criminals because the police backed off due to the BLM protests. Hint: It's many, many times the number that were "saved" by BLM. (The effect is only seen in areas that saw substantial BLM protest activity.)

Do you have actual data on this that carefully distinguishes between all possible influences on killings that were preventable by the police? If not, you are substituting your opinion for fact.

How about reasonable standards? We don't know what murders were preventable. What we do know is that murders shot up in BLM protest cities, but not elsewhere. We aren't going to know about each case, we can see the pattern. I presented evidence when the study came out, you rejecting data you don't like doesn't make it go away.