OUT OF CONTROL COPS - A SERIOUS PROBLEM IN AMERICA

Posts

Max, if you continue to ignore people, at this rate you will have nobody to debate with! I do think it's a little...hypocritical? might be too strong a word. If everyone was as trigger happy with the ignore feature, nobody would be able to see your posts either.
Max McGee
with sorrow down past the fence
9159
Discharge and debarment from law enforcement will suffice.

no, actually it doesn't even come fucking close to fucking sufficing. If the pigs involved in these cases were literally and actually crucified, I would be pretty fucking happy. if there was a kickstarter that could pull off that outcome, I'd give it every dollar I had.

@Link2112:

hahaha I have ignored literally two people on the entire forums ever dawg what the fuck do you even think you are talking about. until very recently it was only 1. until less than a month ago, it was 0...

I'm willing to bet twenty bucks that even back when the number of people I had on ignore was 0 instead of 1 or 2 the number of people with me on ignore was closer to ten or twelve, at least. Lots of people have hated me for bad, shitty, or no reason for years now. I am beyond used to it. Hell, maybe there was one or two with good reason I'm not always perfect but anyway... so yeah your argument does not actually make any sense.

I'm not going to ignore people who say shitty things about my games even if I think they're unfounded but I'd prefer not to share a psychic space with anyone so monstrous that they would defend the pigs that are murdering innocent civilians under color of authority. Such a person's thoughts are a form of pollution and I choose not to inhale it.

Anyway, some interesting and relevant reading material. The tl;dr is "American justice system executing innocent blacks, feature not bug".
author=Dyhalto
A close knit, literally gated community where everyone's got each other's back. Me and my bros vs the world, in an informal way. There IS a certain glamour to it, actually.

I don't know if you are, but this is the whitest thing I've ever read. Really? This is your impression of the fucking ghetto?

author=Dyhalto
As for jail time and pension repealing... what for? So other people can feel good? Discharge and debarment from law enforcement will suffice

But if he broke the law in the worst degree (murder), why wouldn't jail time suffice? I'm hardly a fan of America's view on crime and punishment, but if you don't go to jail for murder, what then?
Max, you should PM ankylo and tell him the ignore feature doesn't work.

author=Corfaisus
He's also getting money thrown at him by supporters
It's a sad world where a cop can kill someone and have "supporters" donate $1 million to his defense, but Reverend Pinkney can't raise $10,000 to appeal his lynching trial.

author=Corfaisus
Right-wingers really need to step away from their bibles long enough to clean their mirrors.
I concur.

edit : missed Feld

author=Feldschlacht IV
I don't know if you are, but this is the whitest thing I've ever read. Really? This is your impression of the fucking ghetto?
It's not the ghetto or the poverty or tough gun-toting goons on the rooftop. It's the kinship. Brotherhood and family.

Having watched Game of Thrones recently, I can say I admire Tywin Lannister and enjoy watching him on screen. He's a genius strategist and commands unanimous respect. But that doesn't mean I admire every single characteristic of him, particularly the evil ones. Same idea with war movies. Saving Private Ryan doesn't make me want to be a soldier, but there is something to admire in the character interactions.

author=Feldschlacht IV
But if he broke the law in the worst degree (murder), why wouldn't jail time suffice? I'm hardly a fan of America's view on crime and punishment, but if you don't go to jail for murder, what then?
My main point keeps getting skewed.
From the start, I've been saying this tendency to immediately blame the cop is counterproductive because a systemic problem exists.
In some situations, like the Eric Garner case, it's pretty open and shut. You don't accidentally chokehold a guy to death. You don't have a panic attack because you're an overwrought psychological wreck, and chokehold a guy to death. He's a murderer. Indict him. If you're Max McGee, advocate for an excruciating death even though torture and capital punishment are illegal.
I don't know the full story of the Mike Brown case. Was Darren Wilson fucked in the head? Did he have legitimate fears from an indirect source? I don't know. For now, get him off the force. Courts are there to decide out the rest, not you and I on a gamedev forum.
author=Dyhalto
It's not the ghetto or the poverty or tough gun-toting goons on the rooftop. It's the kinship. Brotherhood and family.

Having watched Game of Thrones recently, I can say I admire Tywin Lannister and enjoy watching him on screen. He's a genius strategist and commands unanimous respect. But that doesn't mean I admire every single characteristic of him, particularly the evil ones. Same idea with war movies. Saving Private Ryan doesn't make me want to be a soldier, but there is something to admire in the character interactions.

Sure. A lot of people do glamorize the thug life and sure, even bad things/people/characters have admirable traits. It can be fun watching Tywin scheme and there were some points where I watched Alonzo and thought "Man this is a bad motherfucker".

But your original points were pretty much all wrong. The Cuban community lambasted Scarface, Menance II Society is a textbook example of why the thug life actually is self destructive and sucks, and Training Day is a classic 'bad cop dies, good cop wins' film. Even Martin Scorcese, a director famous for encouraging viewers to take their own meaning from films, in movies like Goodfellas and Wolf of Wall Street were about scumbags who had an exciting time then came crashing down.

Your examples were bad ones, which is what we took issue with.

author=Dy
I don't know the full story of the Mike Brown case. Was Darren Wilson fucked in the head? Did he have legitimate fears from an indirect source? I don't know. For now, get him off the force. Courts are there to decide out the rest, not you and I on a gamedev forum.

My impression was that you thought worst case scenario he gets kicked off the force. If I'm mistaken, my bad.

Yes, even though I think Darren Wilson is a piece of shit, we do run by innocent until proven guilty, and yeah, being taken off the force pending investigation would be fair, I think. However if he doesn't even get indicted, that's fucked up.
Statistically speaking, you've gone a long period of time without ignoring and suddenly there is a spike in the number of ignores. I said "at this rate", because I was thinking that you're on pace to a lonely forum. But at least it will be a happy forum, hopefully.

I'm not going to ignore people who say shitty things about my games even if I think they're unfounded but I'd prefer not to share a psychic space with anyone so monstrous that they would defend the pigs that are murdering innocent civilians under color of authority. Such a person's thoughts are a form of pollution and I choose not to inhale it.

Hmm, I didn't really pick up on that. He didn't say anything to the effect of "killing innocents is ok".

He's simply offering a different point of view other than "all pigs are evil and must die" but you're seeing red. From what I can tell his opinion is similar to harmonics post http://rpgmaker.net/forums/topics/16770/?post=599148#post599148 (I apologize if I'm wrong, but I also agree with this post). He didn't insult you directly, any more than you insulted him. So that's not it. It looks like you are ignoring him rather than facing his point of view.

This hardly feels like a topic where a person can discuss this openly. It's feels more like "agree with the OP or fuck off". It's kind of how all these topics are, hence the number of people who have opinions but really don't want to get sucked into this pit of hate.
Linkis
Don't hate me cause I'm Cute :)
1025
Oh well, I guess it's all over for me on this site after this post :(
Max, you used the word "pig" 13 times in your original post and I'm pretty sure several times in other post on this thread you created :)
That kind of tells me what you think of cops in general, but maybe your high IQ has something to do with that. Some very smart people don't think or feel the way a lot of us think.
I did take the time to google your examples of police brutality and murder.
Guess what I found, not one of them was premeditated or racially biased.
Yes, they all had violent endings and it really hurts to hear or see that happen, but most of them escalated and the outcome was terrible, but if the jury or grand jury actually goes by the law, the law says they could not be charged even if the jury wanted them to be punished for screwing up and not doing their job correctly.

Maybe what we need to discuss are the laws and the lawyers who get the criminals off time and time again.

I'm just going to talk about Eric Garner and Michael Brown because they are the only two I've been following each and every night in hopes we don't have a race war in this country.

Eric Garner: the cops were asked to do something about him by the local merchants who said he was taking away business by selling loose cigarettes. Granted, it is a very low crime, as crime goes, but he had been arrested OVER 30 times by the cops in the past. He resisted arrest, was severely overweight and had a heart condition. The initial holed the cop used was not a choke hold, but turned into that as they wrestled Mr. Garner to the ground. Again, really sad for the kids and family, but he was a criminal and the cops were called in to do their job. Yes, a low level crime, but they had a job to do and he ignored their authority. If only he had gone along with them.....

As for Michael Brown. Again, a sad thing that his parents lost their child and he does not get to live out his life. But you don't smoke pot, rob a store, ignore police when they tell you to walk on the sidewalk and not block traffic, punch a cop in the face several times, try to get his gun (and what would he have done with that gun?), run from the cop, taunt him and charge at him.....and expect to go home for dinner. If you had watched the news as much on this as I did you would also have seen that the witnesses did not get their story correct nor tell the same story.

Yes, most of the cops need more training, but even more...the police departments need better hiring practices so the cops who are hired are better suited mentally for the job.
I heard a statement Jessie Jackson made sometime in the recent past about walking down the street in a black neighborhood, hearing steps behind him and when he turned to see two cops walking behind him, he breathed a sigh of relief. Even Jessie Jackson is afraid to walk the streets where people of color reside :)

Hopefully I will not get blasted since these stories, and that fucking ISIL is really bothering me :(

It's 2am, so I hope this reply rant came out clear :)
CAVE_DOG_IS_BACK
On sunny days, I go out walking
1142
there is no 'pit of hate.' please stop overreacting. its one guy saying he doesnt want to talk to someone else. the rest is a litany of different viewpoints arguing..which is not bad. please stop speaking for people in this thread as well as people not posting in it.



I don't know the full story of the Mike Brown case. Was Darren Wilson fucked in the head? Did he have legitimate fears from an indirect source? I don't know. For now, get him off the force. Courts are there to decide out the rest, not you and I on a gamedev forum.

the courts are part of the problem and the darren wilson case is sort of indicative of what this thread is about.

there's little to suggest that wilson was fucked in the head except that he said that he had no remorse over what happened and would do the same thing again (admittingly, thats kind of a big red flag.)

the collective narrative seems to suggest he was just incompetent and should never have been a cop in the first place. probably the most damning thing: not carrying a taser for no reason other than he didnt want to.

as for courts, as others have pointed out, generally, if you are a half-decent prosecutor, you can get whatever result you want from a grand jury. remember that people in a grand jurror generally have no greater understanding of law other than what the prosecutor tells them. Remember also that a prosecutor can indict someone themselves. the prosecutors in charge did a number of weird things to make sure that wilson walked. if you do some research on mcculloch, you'll find that he has a history of doing this. this is what people mainly talk about when they mention the courts protecting their own. just like i can't trust the verdict that oj was innocent, i can't trust the lack of indictment here.

which is not so say i am proclaiming he was guilty, or should've done jail or manslaughter, or what. just that the facts around the case are still muddled and weird (medical examiner didn't take photos or measurements because batteries ran out on his camera and it was self-explanatory what happened?? se-really???) a trial would have provided some kind of transparency and opportunity for this incident to be examined in a court of law in greater detail. but this wasn't allowed to happen.

@Linkis

Brown smoking pot has nothing to do with his death. The footage of his behavior in that store only serve to damage his character and make the narrative that he was violent towards wilson more likely. Wilson didn't know that Brown had robbed that store. all seemingly reliable testimonies do indicate that he put his hands inside the car; we don't have hard proof that brown was going for his gun, (its kind of hard to remove an officer's gun, interesting note) but let's assume that he was. as for taunting the cop, iirc i believe we only have wilson's testimony for that, and i have a hesitancy to believe the guy who has the most to gain by lying. EITHER WAY, it doesn't really matter, again. the reason that wilson shot brown was because he thought his life was in danger. but...was it? brown was 150 feet away when he was killed. wilson was in a car and had a number of opportunities to temporarily de-escalate the situation and apprehend brown in a safer manner.

as for the witnesses, i'd wager that some of them have the correct story. the conflicting accounts do serve to point out the unreliability of witness testimony..another reason why we need body-cameras.


Even Jessie Jackson is afraid to walk the streets where people of color reside :)

not really sure what purpose this anecdote is supposed to serve


pianotm
The TM is for Totally Magical.
32347
author=Linkis
Yes, most of the cops need more training, but even more...the police departments need better hiring practices so the cops who are hired are better suited mentally for the job.


Oh, jeez. This is such a tough one. There's really nothing in the Constitution about a police force except to say that States have the right and responsibility to determine how the law was enforced. It also says that a military presence will not be used on U. S. soil and will be housed and kept in areas specially designated by Congress. It is then expressly written that military force is not to be used against citizens. Finally, it says that States are not permitted to organize or form an army. The articles that say this form a rule called Posse Commitatis.

The next rule is to apply to all. None shall be held above the law, be it an elected official or a hired clerk.

Next, the framers wrote the 2nd Amendment. "A well regulated militia being essential to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

Now, the interpretation of this has been lately skewed in the media in way that benefits the power of the government, even going as far as to suggest that the 2nd Amendment was intended for the military only. In fact, it's been said that every judge has always known that and that framers never intended citizens have access to firearms, which is very different from what the framers have actually written. In fact, the law is to be taken in such a way that you may use deadly force to rightly defend yourself from anyone, even a police officer.

Now, as for the police getting better training, better training according to who? Do you remember back in the late 90s the LA police spent some time in the news for a rather embarrassing discovery on the part of the media. The LA police do not accept applicants with an IQ over 82. Yes, that's considered developmentally disabled and possibly borderline downs syndrome. This is almost laughable, but it's true. Maybe you remember the story, or all of the skits on Saturday Night Live or all of Jay Leno's jokes (and he did a few skits, too)...

Criminal: "You can't hit me with those!"

Cop 1: "Why not?"

Criminal: "It's daytime. Those are nightsticks."

Cop 2: "He's right! We need..."

Both: "Daysticks!"

Both run off, leaving their patrol car behind.

(I'll never forget that skit. Funny as shit.)

So, we've established that the state wants only people of low intelligence (they obey without question and are often of the predisposition to become violent towards anything that doesn't fit their accepted pattern). Remember the post I made about killology. The state wants its police to be aggressive and paranoid. They also prefer to recruit ex-military, people who have been trained for combat and to view people as an enemy (plus, veterans have been often traumatized and there are often cases of veterans being unable to tell right from wrong. Growing up, I knew a veteran who got arrested as a serial killer. He and a war buddy marrying off their daughters, killing the husbands, and then collecting from inheritance and insurance over the course of several years). I'm not sure a better trained police force would actually be such a good thing.

In Norway, the police are trained to withdraw from a violent situation, reassess, and then find a way to approach it in such a manner that calms everyone down. In Norway's entire history, police have only caused two gun deaths. Last year, Iceland had it's first police shooting in history. Not only were the police justified, but they paid for the death expenses and issued a written apology to the family. Why should we have to put up seeing police on the news for highly questionable acts of violence every single day? There's no excuse for shooting a 7-year-old girl in her bed twice and killing her, and then having a grand jury rule that he was justified (a flash grenade thrown by another officer blinded him so he just started shooting randomly. They weren't even in the right house). There's no excuse for shooting a homeless man in the back. It's illegal to shoot at a fleeing man. A 70-year-old wheelchair bound veteran in a nursing home wouldn't take his meds so the staff called the police and they gunned him down.

People are justifying this! I'm tired of people justifying this! Police ask why you run. It's because we're terrified of them! This isn't new. The news has only recently started reporting on what every American has known since we were little kids. The police are killers. I've known it ever since I was old enough to talk. Teachers always told me I had no reason to be afraid of the police and I always thought they were liars. By the time I was five, I had seen enough police point their guns at my family to know they could never be trusted. St. Louis County police pulled a guy over for having a busted taillight. This is a family story, by the way, my family. The guy told him that he kept spare bulbs in the trunk. So the officer had the man get out and go to his trunk and open it and get the bulb out. When he was done, the officer beat him into unconsciousness, cuffed him, dragged him to his cruiser and put him in and then had the car towed. Isn't that nice? If you read my posts regularly, you already know that when I was three, a construction worker tried to kill me and my mother (I was three; this literally means it was one of my first memories, the year was 1983). My dad shot him in the arm and after years of court, and finally being put on probation. He had never once violated his probation and in 1991, the court decided to change his sentence to 8 years in prison. Police have terrorized my family all of our lives.

My grandmother, her sister, and brother lived in the same house since 1963. In 2009, my grandmother died. Earlier this year, police entered their home, deprived my great-uncle of his oxygen, stating he would no longer be allowed to receive it (he died the next day), forced my aunt out of her home, and began selling off her personal belongings. My father and I claimed possession of the house and now live there with her. Police have been watching the house. Why, I don't know. What should I do? What can I do? I believe, truly believe that one day soon, they will come into this house, and I don't know what they'll do, and I don't even know why.
Solitayre
Circumstance penalty for being the bard.
18257
author=Feldschlacht IV
Sure. A lot of people do glamorize the thug life and sure, even bad things/people/characters have admirable traits. It can be fun watching Tywim scheme and there were some points where I watched Alonzo and thought "Man this is a bad motherfucker".

But your original points were pretty much all wrong. The Cuban community lambasted Scarface, Menance II Society is a textbook example of why the thug life actually is self destructive and sucks, and Training Day is a classic 'bad cop dies, good cop wins' film. Even Martin Scorcese, a director famous for encouraging viewers to take their own meaning from films, in movies like Goodfellas and Wolf of Wall Street were about scumbags who had an exciting time then came crashing down.


There's a lot of racial elements here, as well, I think.

A move glamorizing black "thug life" will probably end with things going to hell for everyone and ultimately showing this life in a negative light. However, a heist movie starring a bunch of pretty white people? They'll probably not only get away with it but look really cool doing it.

There are a lot of movies with the moral "crime doesn't pay" but Goodfellas and Wolf of Wall Street ultimately end with the protagonist more or less "getting away with it" by most people's standards. They never face real comeuppance for what they did, because the real people they were based on didn't either.

In a lot of movies, crime does pay, as long as you're pretty and white.
Ratty524
The 524 is for 524 Stone Crabs
12986
author=Linkis
Eric Garner: the cops were asked to do something about him by the local merchants who said he was taking away business by selling loose cigarettes. Granted, it is a very low crime, as crime goes, but he had been arrested OVER 30 times by the cops in the past. He resisted arrest, was severely overweight and had a heart condition. The initial holed the cop used was not a choke hold, but turned into that as they wrestled Mr. Garner to the ground. Again, really sad for the kids and family, but he was a criminal and the cops were called in to do their job. Yes, a low level crime, but they had a job to do and he ignored their authority. If only he had gone along with them.....

He may have been a bit of a con man, but he was actually a respected member of his community and the amount of force exerted on him is incredibly disproportionate to his crime. Also, I'd avoid using labels like "criminal" to justify anything that happen to him. In reality, all human beings are "criminals" in the sense that, like any other animal species on the planet, we do what we can to survive in our environment, even if that means taking advantage of others to preserve ourselves. Some people are disadvantaged, especially poor black people in America, and the fact that Garner was a part of the "prison trap" system so many blacks in poverty are, means he had little to no options to get ahead in anywhere else in life. So how is he "the bad guy" in this scenario, and how does that even nullify the point? The cops used excessive brute force on a lower-class citizen and got away with it. If any other group of citizens did the same, it would be classified as murder.

And while he may have resisted, if you were in his shoes, both in terms of financial state AND skin color, and you grew up all your life knowing that society is against you, wouldn't you do the same as an act of fear?

author=Linkis
As for Michael Brown. Again, a sad thing that his parents lost their child and he does not get to live out his life. But you don't smoke pot, rob a store, ignore police when they tell you to walk on the sidewalk and not block traffic, punch a cop in the face several times, try to get his gun (and what would he have done with that gun?), run from the cop, taunt him and charge at him.....and expect to go home for dinner. If you had watched the news as much on this as I did you would also have seen that the witnesses did not get their story correct nor tell the same story.

Where did you get this information? A lot of it sounds like it's directly from Wilson's testimony, which is not only biased in the sense that he has the most to gain from not receiving charges, but his testimony behind the reasons for gunning this kid town is a load of ridiculous nonsense. Besides that, one trial lawyer noted how horribly conducted the investigation on Wilson was through twitter. Even watching this story on the news myself, there were inconsistencies on the main story: One stating that Wilson didn't even know Brown was responsible for robbery in the first place, and later stating that he did. The whole thing is way too convoluted to have the definitive answer of "Mike attacked cop, cop kills him, end story" and that there IS some sort of bias going on, racial or not.

Even when you put the whole racism thing aside, all of this demonstrates how biased our political system is. America hasn't actually moved away that much from say... Middle England in terms of how it treats certain classes within its society: The nobles get the benefits and passes, while the peasants get the short end of the stick. Replace "rich" with "law enforcement" and "peasants" with "poor whites and minorities."

PS: Also just wanted to add:
author=Linkis
That kind of tells me what you think of cops in general, but maybe your high IQ has something to do with that. Some very smart people don't think or feel the way a lot of us think.

The fact is, the more you actually know about society, the more you become depressed by how terrible it is. :(
Corfaisus
"It's frustrating because - as much as Corf is otherwise an irredeemable person - his 2k/3 mapping is on point." ~ psy_wombats
7874
author=Linkis
As for Michael Brown. Again, a sad thing that his parents lost their child and he does not get to live out his life. But you don't smoke pot, rob a store, ignore police when they tell you to walk on the sidewalk and not block traffic, punch a cop in the face several times, try to get his gun (and what would he have done with that gun?), run from the cop, taunt him and charge at him.....and expect to go home for dinner.

He'd have to have been on some seriously powerful drugs to take a few bullets and still charge the cop. You'd think he'd collapse after the first one.

And that would've had to have been one hell of a shot to send him flying over 100 feet. That's some straight-up Kirby's Adventure shit.

@Cave_Dog
This is turning into too much of a defend-Darren-Wilson topic. I'm not biting (I admit, I haven't been keeping up on it).

author=Feldschlacht IV
The Cuban community lambasted Scarface

This is news to me, seriously. My first job was stockboy in a small manufacturing shop, and three guys who worked there were of Cuban descent. They were head over heels with Tony Montana, quoting him all the time and talking about how badass he was. I liberally used "Cuban community" because I thought the sentiment was more widespread. My mistake.

I still say that a setting/circumstance can be glorified, even if the core storyline ends in the character's demise though.

author=pianotm
Now, as for the police getting better training, better training according to who? Do you remember back in the late 90s the LA police spent some time in the news for a rather embarrassing discovery on the part of the media. The LA police do not accept applicants with an IQ over 82. Yes, that's considered developmentally disabled and possibly borderline downs syndrome.

I've heard that before, but actual facts/articles always eluded me. Do you have any substantiating links offhand? I'm not challenging you or anything. Just want something for the archive.

You mention "the state" in a villainous light a couple of times. The reason US cops are tailored to act like hooligans is because it's a crony capitalist society. The wealthy always have a bigoted fear of the poor, proportionally so to the class discrepancy, so of course they'll exercise their usual influence and setup an environment of violent enforcers on their behalf.
If the state was in control, the police would probably behave more like in Sweden and Norway where the state is strong relative to the business and financial interests therein. If anything, the state is undermined by the thuggish behavior of it's police, similar to a parent being undermined by the misbehavior of their child.

author=pianotm
Next, the framers wrote the 2nd Amendment. "A well regulated militia being essential to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

Now, the interpretation of this has been lately skewed in the media in way that benefits the power of the government, even going as far as to suggest that the 2nd Amendment was intended for the military only.

In a similar vein, the irony of the 2nd Amendment debate is that "the government" loves it for it's value as a polarizing issue. Nobody in the ruling class really cares if Americans lose their guns, but if stupid gun fetishists are showing up for every gun rally that pops up, they won't be as energized to show up for a Jobs Program or other economic disparity rally. So to suggest the government is out to end civilian access to firearms is simply wrong. It's the issue itself they want you up in arms about.
No pun intended.

Granted, there may be a few kooks who really do think Joe Pleb will walk up and shoot them if you leave them with the tool.
Linkis
Don't hate me cause I'm Cute :)
1025
OH Corfaisus, you silly Texan :)
First, it was only some pot..not serious or a lot of drugs. He had smoked some pot and that may have OR MAY NOT have had anything to do with what happened, I'm not sure but I DO know pot changes your state of mind.
Second: he was 6'2-4", a very healthy 18yr old AND about 350lbs. The initial 3-4 bullets were along his hand, arm and upper right side of chest, and with the adrenilen and anger rushing through his body, he very easily could have rushed the cop AND a cop with an angry large, heavy man rushing him SHOULD have been afraid for his life.

@Ratty: Concerning Eric Garner, ALMOST nothing about his status in life gives him the right to take away the livelihood of the local store owners. As stated, he had been arrested OVER 30 times and when the cops ARE CALLED IN, not stopping him for hell of it, he should have complied. It looked to me on the video like one of them was writing out a summons (not positive) and he told them to leave him alone, they had harassed him enough and "it was going to stop today". That is when they arrested him, he resisted and the cop used a take down hold, NOT choke hold. If you watch the video again, you will see a cop shorter than Mr. Garner put his forearm under his chin and try to pull him back....that is the takedown method he was trained to use. Unfortunately, as the cops wrestled with Garner, the cops are slipped under his chin to his throat, that may be why everyone says "choke hold". Garner was extremely heavy, had asthma and a heart condition. If the EMT's thought he was having trouble breathing, they would have put him oxygen right away. It took six men to get Garner on the stretcher.
As for me, I grew up in the East New York section of Brookly, NY. Poor, on welfare, father in prison. Sister had a job but mother did not. So yes, I know what it was like to grow up poor and feeling like the world was against me. BUT I WAS TAUGHT TO RESPRECT THE COPS AND DO WHAT THEY TOLD ME TO DO. As a teenager I was once picked up by the cops, they took me home to my mother and I got hell for getting into trouble :)

@Ratty again:) My knowledge of the Michael Brown case is the same as Eric Garner.
CNN,MSNBC,FOX NEWS. Their TV shows and their websites. PLUS: God only knows how many internet articles TV stations, AP and Routers. As for the witnesses, several of the witnesses who corroborated the cops story are black. Several of those who said the cop "gunned down" the gentle giant are black and when pressed, they changed their testimony.
I have seen a few stories of cops who really DID abuse their authority and did commit crimes and when I saw those I was really pissed and wanted them in jail so the prisoners could take care of the situation.

OK, gotta play a game and get this crap off my mind so I can prepare to watch some more rioting :(
Have a good night everyone :)

PS
@pianotm: that cop who shot the 12yr old boy in the park, he had been released from his last job because he was not mentally qualified to do cop duty:)
I do believe the parents are partially at fault for buying toys that look like the real thing and also the toy company for making the orange tip removable.
There are cops who are not mentally able to take the stress of that kind of work and we need to be able to find more of them or possibly train them to be able to handle it....
Adon237
if i had an allowance, i would give it to rmn
1743
"pot" is a depressant, the odds of him being sent into some hulk-esque fury to beat down the man ((aka darren wilson)) are about 0, especially considering potential marijuana usage which wasn't actually mentioned at all at any time so that is irrelevant. the autopsy would have probably revealed drug-use related information...

i don't know about you, but if your average person is shot at and struck by a bullet, their first reaction isn't going to charge at their assailant... you can't assume the extraordinary. i mean the fact that you are defending eric garner's death makes me very concerned...

minorities of any kind are disproportionately victims of police brutality, that really isn't something that you can spend hours debating on. to say otherwise is to intentionally leave your eyes closed
Max McGee
with sorrow down past the fence
9159
author=Linkis
He had smoked some pot and that may have OR MAY NOT have had anything to do with what happened, I'm not sure but I DO know pot changes your state of mind.

I smoke Adon237's body weight in pot every year and this has never lead me to get into any violent confrontation with the pigs.

I did take the time to google your examples of police brutality and murder.Guess what I found, not one of them was premeditated or racially biased.

Linkis I don't know if you were serious when you said you were worried that people would get mad at you for your post. No one will. But that said this is a completely and totally unreasonable thing to say and because I'm not feeling 100% right now I'm gonna leave it up to someone else (Liberty? Solitayre? CAVE_DOG, idk) to explain why.

author=Linkis
Eric Garner: the cops were asked to do something about him by the local merchants who said he was taking away business by selling loose cigarettes. Granted, it is a very low crime, as crime goes, but he had been arrested OVER 30 times by the cops in the past. He resisted arrest, was severely overweight and had a heart condition. The initial holed the cop used was not a choke hold, but turned into that as they wrestled Mr. Garner to the ground. Again, really sad for the kids and family, but he was a criminal and the cops were called in to do their job. Yes, a low level crime, but they had a job to do and he ignored their authority. If only he had gone along with them.....

Why was it necessary--why was it imperative--for them to physically attack him at all?

author=Linkis
But you don't smoke pot, rob a store, ignore police when they tell you to walk on the sidewalk and not block traffic, punch a cop in the face several times, try to get his gun (and what would he have done with that gun?), run from the cop, taunt him and charge at him.....and expect to go home for dinner.

I have struck out all of the factors that are stupid irrelevant bullshit that shouldn't and didn't contribute to his death. That said, leaving out the parts I didn't strike out, I totally agree with you. Being a black man and punching a cop is a real good way to get your ass killed in America--either one on its own can get you killed, and combining them is just overkill--and you don't need to be a fucking genius to know that.

author=Linkis
Even Jessie Jackson is afraid to walk the streets where people of color reside :)

Using the PC-ism 'people of color' doesn't make this sentence any less conspicuously racist.


author=Solitayre
There's a lot of racial elements here, as well, I think.

A move glamorizing black "thug life" will probably end with things going to hell for everyone and ultimately showing this life in a negative light. However, a heist movie starring a bunch of pretty white people? They'll probably not only get away with it but look really cool doing it.

There are a lot of movies with the moral "crime doesn't pay" but Goodfellas and Wolf of Wall Street ultimately end with the protagonist more or less "getting away with it" by most people's standards. They never face real comeuppance for what they did, because the real people they were based on didn't either.

In a lot of movies, crime does pay, as long as you're pretty and white.

Solitayre for someone who is known as a critic of anything you are laughably, painfully bad at analyzing films as text. Not going to go into detail because it'll drag this off topic but I strongly disagree with these assertions you're making about American crime cinema.

author=Linkis
Second: he was 6'2-4", a very healthy 18yr old AND about 350lbs. The initial 3-4 bullets were along his hand, arm and upper right side of chest, and with the adrenilen and anger rushing through his body, he very easily could have rushed the cop AND a cop with an angry large, heavy man rushing him SHOULD have been afraid for his life.

Being big and black does not make you the juggernaut. You take 3-4 rounds from a 9mm at close range and you're not gonna be in any shape to threaten the life of a police officer with nothing but your bare hands.

author=Linkis
That is when they arrested him, he resisted and the cop used a take down hold, NOT choke hold. If you watch the video again, you will see a cop shorter than Mr. Garner put his forearm under his chin and try to pull him back....that is the takedown method he was trained to use. Unfortunately, as the cops wrestled with Garner, the cops are slipped under his chin to his throat, that may be why everyone says "choke hold". Garner was extremely heavy, had asthma and a heart condition. If the EMT's thought he was having trouble breathing, they would have put him oxygen right away.

Are we watching the same video here? At 0:38 of 3:53 Garner is making no movie to attack police officers when one NYPD pig locks him into a chokehold from behind. They struggle for about six seconds before Garner hits the ground 0:44/3:53. At 0:54/3:53 Garner says for the first time that he is having trouble breathing: "I can't breathe!". He has been on the ground for ten seconds, more pigs are mobbing him, and the officer who initially grappled him from behind still has the chokehold locked in. At 1:00/3:53 Garner is pleading over and over in an obviously hoarse and choked voice that he cannot breathe while like four to six cops are swarming over him. The pig in khaki shorts and the green 99 jersey--the same pig that initiated the chokehold--is now kneeling next to Garner's head and appears to be using his full body weight to smash Garner's face down into the pavement with one hand on Garner's head.. By 1:10/3:53 a wall of pigs blocks our view of Garner's ongoing execution at the hands of NYPD.

author=Linkis
BUT I WAS TAUGHT TO RESPRECT THE COPS AND DO WHAT THEY TOLD ME TO DO

This right here is the problem. In the strongest possible terms...FUCK. THIS. SHIT.
Ratty524
The 524 is for 524 Stone Crabs
12986
author=Linkis
Second: he was 6'2-4", a very healthy 18yr old AND about 350lbs. The initial 3-4 bullets were along his hand, arm and upper right side of chest, and with the adrenilen and anger rushing through his body, he very easily could have rushed the cop AND a cop with an angry large, heavy man rushing him SHOULD have been afraid for his life.
At the speed the average bullet travels and the force of its impact (granted, I've never been shot, so I don't know how it truly feels), there is no way, in my point of view, that a kid like Brown wouldn't drop after the first bullet as if he had mad tanking powers. Also, Wilson is 6'4 and 210lb, not as heavy as his opponent, but how the hell would he be truly threatened by an unarmed kid?

author=Linkis
@Ratty: Concerning Eric Garner, ALMOST nothing about his status in life gives him the right to take away the livelihood of the local store owners. As stated, he had been arrested OVER 30 times and when the cops ARE CALLED IN, not stopping him for hell of it, he should have complied. It looked to me on the video like one of them was writing out a summons (not positive) and he told them to leave him alone, they had harassed him enough and "it was going to stop today". That is when they arrested him, he resisted and the cop used a take down hold, NOT choke hold. If you watch the video again, you will see a cop shorter than Mr. Garner put his forearm under his chin and try to pull him back....that is the takedown method he was trained to use. Unfortunately, as the cops wrestled with Garner, the cops are slipped under his chin to his throat, that may be why everyone says "choke hold". Garner was extremely heavy, had asthma and a heart condition. If the EMT's thought he was having trouble breathing, they would have put him oxygen right away. It took six men to get Garner on the stretcher.
As for me, I grew up in the East New York section of Brookly, NY. Poor, on welfare, father in prison. Sister had a job but mother did not. So yes, I know what it was like to grow up poor and feeling like the world was against me. BUT I WAS TAUGHT TO RESPRECT THE COPS AND DO WHAT THEY TOLD ME TO DO. As a teenager I was once picked up by the cops, they took me home to my mother and I got hell for getting into trouble :)
I agree that it is still wrong to disrespect cops and storeowners and whatnot, that's beside the point. What I'm saying is that nobody just does illegal shit for the sake of being bad. There are underlying issues through finances and cultural status that can possibly prevent someone from advancing through society. Especially if you've been convicted in the past, as the case with Eric Garner, there is no way in hell you'd have access to any high-paying job, and when your life is hanging in the balance as a result, people have to look towards "new" options, to put it lightly.

But god, I feel like the more I talk about that side of the spectrum, the more it detracts from the real issue, and the media keeps doing the same shitty thing over and over to make one side look like the enemy and the other side "good". That is to bring up things like background and previous criminal involvement to undermine the fact that a cop used EXCESSIVE FORCE to deal with a victim.

author=Linkis
@Ratty again:) My knowledge of the Michael Brown case is the same as Eric Garner.
CNN,MSNBC,FOX NEWS. Their TV shows and their websites. PLUS: God only knows how many internet articles TV stations, AP and Routers. As for the witnesses, several of the witnesses who corroborated the cops story are black. Several of those who said the cop "gunned down" the gentle giant are black and when pressed, they changed their testimony.
The authors of the articles/tweets I linked in my post were both white. Also, considering how some major news broadcasting corps have the tendency to blow things out of proportion and promote bias towards one particular side, I tend to overlook them over written articles. I did see the live report on the Micheal Brown case, however, and after the supreme court ruling the following questions went on in my head:
> If the witness testimonies were hardly viable, why was there no effort to find additional, viable ones?

> There is so much backstory information being thrown about Micheal Brown, but what about Wilson? What's HIS history? How is his testimony legitimate over anyone elses?

The whole thing felt like a "guilty before proven innocent" trial on the Brown's side than the other way around.

EDIT: Oh and...
author=Linkis
I do believe the parents are partially at fault for buying toys that look like the real thing and also the toy company for making the orange tip removable.

The last photo there to show how this has been going on for years. Many kids, even the ones I grew up with, played with a toy gun once in their life that looked just the same. There is zero excuse for what happened to that 12-year-old.
Max McGee
with sorrow down past the fence
9159
Yeah regarding the "realistic toy guns" issue I'll repeat...

For those who might suggest race was not a factor here, I personally have been playing with realistic looking airsoft guns in public parks with all of my friends AS AN ADULT every weekend for five years now. Neither I nor any of my friends have been shot. Most of us are white.
Linkis
Don't hate me cause I'm Cute :)
1025
Damn, I knew I should not have clicked on "Notices" :)

@The Teen Idol :) Adon, marijuana in fact was found in the autopsy blood work and no I did not mean that sent him into a rage and attack the cop BUT it MIGHT have had a little to do with his frame of mind.
Michael Brown was not your average man. I remember reading an interview of one of his family members who said Michael was a very large man who did not get into many fights because he used his size to INTIMIDATE. He also had just robbed a neighborhood store of cigars, shoved a man back into a rack of chips and when the man tried to follow him outside he turned and walked toward that man backing him up into the store then turned and walked out. PLEASE, don't try and call him a "gentle giant". He was a very large, angry black teenager who had the balls to push a cop back into his car, reach in and punch that cop twice in the face, try to grab the cops gun, there was DNA on the gun, then walk away and when the cop got out of the car Michael Brown turned and came at the cop. That is the testimony of at least a few of the BLACK witnesses.
Defend the killing of Eric Garner? No, but I also will not indict the cop for trying to do his job. I guess we are looking at this from two different perspectives. All Garner had to do was admit he got caught breaking the law AGAIN or you can try to change that law so the cops are not asked by store owners to protect the people who pay them to do a job.

@Ratty, Yes, Wilson had a gun BUT when a 250lb ANGRY teenager is charging you as several of the black witnesses stated, I do believe Wilson could have wondered if his bullets would stop Brown. I don't know and neither does anyone else but I think the first few shots from Wilson are the ones that hit him in the arm. The wound in the hand happened in the car. The one that DID begin to bring him down was the hit to the upper right side of his chest. I THINK as Wilson was firing and the bullet wound to the chest made Brown begin to fall to the ground, THAT is when the head wound happened, when he was falling forward. It would have been nice if Wilson had stopped shooting for a second, Brown might still be alive but I GUESS Wilson did not stop shooting because Brown was so close.
All the evidence I've seen says Brown was about 35' from Wilson when he went down. I did see an artcle recently that said he was 100' from Wilson but I have no idea where they came up with that.

I also believe some cops DO use excessive force. I've seen at least 3 times recently I felt the cop belongs in jail for what he did but in the case of Brown/Wilson, I don't feel that way. As for Garner.....I wish that had not happened, but I will not condemn a cop for doing his job. OH, by the way...did anyone notice a BLACK female cop at that scene who was a sgt. and supervisor who DID NOT STOP THE OTHERS. Maybe she knew the others were doing their jobs. As a Sgt. and probably one who gave testimony to the grand jury...do you think she lied to protect a white cop??

@Max: Why was it necessary--why was it imperative--for them to physically attack him at all?
They were doing the job they were called to do.
Why did Garner have to die?? HE DID NOT HAVE TO DIE !!!
He simply, knowing he had a heart condition, asthma and was caught again...all he had to do, was cooperate with the cops and when he refused, he should not have tried to fight them.
I guess we will never agree on this.

As to your reference of my racism, that is the term being used my the black people being interviewed and by the black news anchors.
What other term would you like me to use.
Maybe before you talk about my racism you should look at how many time you refer to cops as pigs.

OK, time to go watch some news and get a little more upset :( :)


Linkis
Don't hate me cause I'm Cute :)
1025
author=Max McGee
Yeah regarding the "realistic toy guns" issue I'll repeat...

For those who might suggest race was not a factor here, I personally have been playing with realistic looking airsoft guns in public parks with all of my friends AS AN ADULT every weekend for five years now. Neither I nor any of my friends have been shot. Most of us are white.


Max, stop trying to make this about race all the time.
You played with a bunch of friends, that 12yr old boy was pointing that realistic looking gun at people on the street and scaring them. A person called 911 and told them someone was pointing a gun at people on the street and scaring them. He said he was not sure but it Might Be A Toy and that the person might he a boy. The person dispatching police to the scene did not relay the information that it might be a boy NOR that it might have been a toy. The cops going to the scene were told a man with a gun was pointing it at people and scaring them.
YES, it was a grave error on the part of the police. First, the cop who killed the boy had been fired from another police force but his department NEVER checked his records on the other force. He was not mentally suited for the job and should most likely go to jail but it was really the fault of the town who hired him.

I really believe there are few cops who get up in the morning and say to themselves...
"I'm gonna kill me a nigga today." Yes, there are bad cops but it's the system that is really at fault and they should never have been hired to begin with.

More then the bad cops, let's try to fix the way they are hired and trained.