I will preface this by saying that I've known a lot of cops, some personally, many more by virtue of one of the jobs I have held. All of them but one were decent human beings. To complain that some cops kill heedlessly is not to accuse all cops of doing so, by any means. Nevertheless, it is troubling that the first impulse of police departments, as organizations, seems to be to protect their own, even when their own has behaved badly.

There's been another killing of yet another innocent.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/28/us/cal...lice-shooting/

Somebody in this thread asked "why U. S. police officers?" (I apologize for being too lazy go back to find the exact quotation.) I will be so bold as to suggest that a 400-year history of chattel slavery, institutionalized racism, bigotry, theft of labor, and discrimination may have something to do with that.

When I was growing up in the Jim Crow South, there was a statement I heard from time to time when some ill befell a Not White person. I suggest that, even though you may not hear that statement, at least not in public, these days, the sentiment it represents lives on. I will expurgate it for you:

"What's the big deal? It was only a n****r."

That is part of the United States's history, and all the rationalizations, all the nitpicking of specific situations, all the "what-ifs" in the world will not make it go away. All they do is facilitate denial.

This man thinks about his funeral: http://www.theroot.com/articles/cult...rlon-peterson/

We don't see a video from the police officer's point of view because he did not have a body camera. I expect that is because of the cost of the equipment and I seriously doubt that every officer in Charlotte has one. That "grainy" video was one of the better ones I've seen and the conclusion which can be drawn from seeing most of these videos is that whatever the police departments paid for these cameras was too much.

You may be likely to pre-judge but don't make assumptions about others.

Well, I grew up in "the Jim Crow South," too, and I still live in the southern US. I've seen racism from coast to coast; from Canada to Mexico.

I'm afraid that what we're doing now is looking for racist motivations ... motivations for manslaughter ... in the actions of certain police officers, and then extrapolating those observations to encompass the majority of such officers. While it makes a very tasty headline, and a video that might "go viral," I don't think that it is reasonable, or accurate, or fair.

We are quite blithely accusing an officer in absentia of nothing less than premeditated murder, as evidenced (sic) by the idea that he would have a weapon in his pocket specifically so that he could plant it and then "miraculously" pick it up again with the gloves that he was also holding in his pocket, so that he could thereby exonerate himself after having killed a man in cold blood and in the presence of his fellow officers.

As though they were all just out in the woods somewhere, hunting possums . . .

It doesn't matter that ... although (quite improbably, I think) we have video that purports to be of this incident ... that we have no objective record of what he saw: we've already judged the man, and condemned him, and with him, the entire police department of (say) Charlotte, North Carolina, USA.

(Never mind that the aforesaid weapon would not bear the fingerprints of the now-dead man. Never let details get in the way of a juicy, race-dripping, sensational story.) The gist of the idea is that "the police are shooting Black People™, as it were, 'for sport.'"

Hogwash.

Are you saying the Police Chief in Charlotte is lying? The two videos, one a dash camera on a police car and another a body camera of one of the other officers were released by the Police Chief of Charlotte to the media and he specifically discussed the videos with the media. There is nothing in either video that shows that Scott had a gun NOR is there anything showing that he did not have a gun. So it's basically pointless to continue the discussion without more information and more information is not likely to be forthcoming during a continuing investigation. That's standard procedure.

Statistics which are readily available to the general public in this country show that the white population is approximately 60%, the black population is approximately 13% and the number of blacks shot by the police is approximately the same as the number of whites. So doing this simple math, a black person is approximately 5 times likelier to be shot by the police than a white person. I expect it would take someone with more knowledge and expertise in the area of police/community relations to explain this than any of us here have.

I admit to having a bias and tend to believe what the police say because I spent the better part of two decades working as a probation officer here in Arizona and dealt with people who were engaged in all kinds of behavior from petty theft to rape and murder. This included dealing with local police, border patrol and FBI agents and other police. Almost all of them just did their job to the best of their ability but I will admit there were some who should not have been in that type of job due to their attitude and behavior. I'm sure there are "bad eggs" in other police jurisdictions and they need to be dealt with. If there is a question or dispute about something as is the case here, there needs to be an investigation and complete disclosure.

As someone that has dealt with both good and bad police officers I need to stress here that police officers assigned to " high crime " areas are under massive stress from their superiors, from their unions, and from the general public!! Over time their personalities change and their attitudes grow cold!! The job is extremely difficult, and sometimes thankless!! There are however innocent people being killed by police officers and denying that there is a problem is not going to make it go away!! There are many problems within these United States that need attention; this is only one of them!!

When Richard Pryor said "Thank God we got penitentiaries", it wasn't a joke.

We need to lock more of the scum up. If we have bad cops them too but I mean the real bad guys out there.

Here upon Staten Island our court system is a very sad joke!! Because jury duty can ruin peoples finances, very few trials are ever held!! Plea bargaining here is endemic!! Every criminal knows that the District Attorney and the judges are going to victimize the victims of crime again with " slap on the wrist " plea bargains for the criminals that are caught!! So instead of a many times convicted felon getting caught with drugs for sale and a firearm he gets a two year sentence and is back on the streets after a year or so!! The same lenient sentence is given to an armed robber with a gun that holds up a woman on a street!! Premeditated murder is brought down to " manslaughter " and the guy gets a sentence of 8 to 10 years in jail. That is how sick our justice system is here on Staten Island!!

At 00:32 of this video - http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/25/us...cott.html?_r=0 you cannot see a gun but CAN see, IMO, an ankle holster. I think the police have released stills of both the holster and a gun. That of course doesn't prove that there was a weapon but it does lend credence to the narrative that the officers put forward, at least for me.

When you see the hypocrisy of stuff it becomes hard to not be jaded about things.

Completely different situation, but still court, district court.

Had to go there, one of my kids did a bad thing driving so we went two or three times. The local/yokel district court pretty much spends 1000% of their time arraigning or processing illegal immigrants who were caught driving without licenses and registration. All of them require interpreters, all of them surprisingly have cash to pay today for their fines. My wife was agog about it all, pretty much offended that everyone was being let go with a fine. She was upset but seemed to try to make herself feel better in thinking that they'd deport or treat harshly them at the next offense.

So here's where my mouth doesn't help and I pointed out to her that "You do realize that Jose was Julio last week, and it'll be Manny next week. And when the judge comments that he recognizes one of them? Time to move to some city 20 miles away!" The venomous look on her face once that soaked in was precious.

The deeper part of this is there's always an example. Couple of years ago a drunk driver, who was an illegal, ran over a motorcycle rider. He dragged the guy for a few miles, the guy was hanging on by way of self protection, for obvious reasons. You're pinned on a truck going 30/40/50 hanging to the bumper you're clinging for dear life and banging at the hood, yelling "HEY!!! STOP!!". So finally people flagged down the idiot or boxed him in to force him to stop. Of course they're yelling, the scene was bad and getting worse, so he reversed to back away then promptly drove forwards and right over the motorcycle rider, at that point killing him. The end result if memory serves is that they deported him. I'm sure the mob who hadn't ever gotten out of hand really regretted having been on the scene and didn't dispense some justice once they heard that sentence.

Never tested this, but when I was in the military, they emphasized that there was NO protection if you went off base and did something wrong, in fact they further emphasized that if you did wrong and the civilian authorities came to get you, the MPs would escort them right to your bunk. The next parts were that anything you did out there, you had to pay for, and once the civilians were done with you, now you were passed back to the military for further judgement at having broken THEIR rules, like not showing up for duty, being UA, etc. Of course, we're all young kids and one guy was aghast, "What if you get arrested and spend the weekend in jail, go to court Monday morning, and then get released? Th..th..that's not your fault!" Yes it is!!! You got arrested. Sure, there are some cases of being arrested unjustly, and they'll give you paperwork stating that you were arrested, found to be not guilty, and released. You bring that to your commanding officer and they decide whether or not to hold a punishment hearing. That's the same thing, they're like a judge and they can look at stuff and decide, "Yeah, that's unfair, but I'm docking you 2 months pay anyways for being in a bad section of town.", or they can not hold anything against you at all. Likely they'll restrict your leave for a month or two so as to ensure there are no further "inconvenient arrests".

Thanks Rtmistler!! I grew up in Massachusetts and every county there has a different way of doing things. I can well imagine the look you mentioned on your wife's face!! Although most of " the Spanish speaking newcomers " to this country work hard and are decent people there are some of them that are hell bent to cause trouble where ever they go!! Here in these United States we drive and walk on the right; but I'll get shoved and pushed once in a while by such people that insist we " Americans " do everything the way they do it where they came from!! In New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts " the illegals are everywhere doing everything for cash!! No checks, no income tax, no reported income, no " papers "; so using a new name in court every time makes sense to them. Our " governmental systems " make for " easy pickings " for those looking for an easy handout!! Many of the problems that we have were created by our politicians with their " good intentions " but the general population does the suffering and we also do the paying for their follies!!

Frivolous rule$ &c over "common sense" &see keep bullies &sea seemingly perpetual,,, seemingly... no pun on bang!

You don't have to look for racist motivations when they slap you in the face.

http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/...avlink=SecList
It's endemic because it's cheaper than trials. Prosecutors love plea-bargains because they get a conviction without having to prove their case in front of a jury--especially the part about "without having to prove their case."

It therefore also often leads to false confessions and injustice.

If you think I'm cynical about the American law enforcement establishment, I am. If you want to know why (other than that I pay attention), just visit the LQ thread about the merger between Wells-Fargo and Getting Off Easy. The criminals who do the most damage to the greatest number of persons don't lurk on street corners; they lurk in board rooms. And they were born with an automatic Get Out of Jail Free card because they wear nice suits, write good memos, and look good in meetings.

So how do you fix it so that decent folks can walk the streets?

By the way, when they pull me over they do have reason to believe I am armed. I hope they did run my plates.

This is a no-win question, because life is unfair and stuff happens. Evil is part of the human condition, but evil does not come with pigmentation.

I have walked many streets and the only time I was ever victimized it was by persons who were white like me.

Don't assume that persons whose complexion is darker than yours are inherently evil. That would be a good start.

As for being pulled over, if you are white like me, you probably have nothing to worry about. Also, if you are armed and white, you probably don't have anything to worry about, because of the privilege of whiteness.

Try being armed and Not White in America when you are pulled over. Tell me about it if you can.

(Can you tell that this is not my night for moderation in speech?)

Afterthought:

The United States of America is indeed number one in at least one thing: forgetting history.

Furrfu.