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Post by Don on Apr 2, 2018 16:55:41 GMT -5
The problem isn't with them saying they were in fear for their lives. I would expect a cop who had a legitimate reason to discharge their weapon to be in fear for their lives and to use that verbiage. The question is, was the fear legitimate? If the answer is they were afraid, but a reasonable person would not have been except for bias, then it's not a good shooting and they had no business being a cop and charges apply. If the answer is they weren't afraid at all, then clearly it's a bad shooting, and now we're talking murder. It may be somewhere in between. The private autopsy that says he was shot from behind says that this was a bullshit shooting. I do believe that there's no faith in police departments ability to police themselves and maybe federal government needs to have a task force to investigate some shootings. Apparently there's a shitload of faith in police departments. Else why would there be so many people wanting to put all the guns in the hands of those cops? The current positions of both the left and right on gun control laws and police malfeasance strike me as logically inconsistent. What a shocker. The right defends the "thin blue line," praises the cops, and wants every citizen to arm themselves. If the cops are so great at their jobs, why would individuals need personal protection? The left is appalled by the "thin blue line," is fully aware of the widespread malfeasance and blatant racism in many police departments, and still wants to disarm their potential victims. I don't get it. Seriously. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 2, 2018 17:32:44 GMT -5
On "disarming their potential victims" -- are you seriously proposing that citizens pull guns on cops to protect themselves against bad, racist cops?
Because I'm thinking that's a really good way to give the bad, racist cop a perfect excuse to kill said citizen. Or to land said citizen with a first degree murder charge.
ETA:
I mean, this thread is here because cops saw an innocent black guy holding a cell phone, thought it was a gun, and shot him eight times. That's horrifying, but how would the situation be improved if the black guy actually had a gun? He'd still be dead, but instead of us all being outraged and angry at the cops, we'd be saying, "well, but the guy pulled a gun on them."
Reality check -- if a suspect pulls a gun on a cop, I don't actually blame the cop for shooting them. I blame cops for shooting unarmed people or suspects who are trying to surrender. Racism is certainly one yuuuuge reason cops assume people holding cell phones are holding guns -- but another reason is that it's so damn easy to get a gun. Maybe if it weren't quite so easy to get a gun in the first place, maybe at least some cops would be a bit less quick to assume that a suspect is holding one. Either way, black people arming themselves in case they run into a bad cop is not the answer.
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Post by michaelw on Apr 2, 2018 17:52:14 GMT -5
On the contrary, Cass, I bet if Black people started arming themselves en masse, we could finally get Congress to pass some gun control laws.
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Post by Vince524 on Apr 2, 2018 19:27:02 GMT -5
I think the issue varies from one shooting to another. Most don't have a motive per se. Many are badly trained cops and a culture that starts to devalue the people their sworn to protect, added to a belief that their untouchable. Some just shouldn't be cops.
Other's are legit, but look bad at first.
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Post by prozyan on Apr 2, 2018 20:46:04 GMT -5
Racism is certainly one yuuuuge reason cops assume people holding cell phones are holding guns -- but another reason is that it's so damn easy to get a gun. I don't think the proliferation of weapons really has much to do with it. I think it is pretty much completely racism, whether that racism is on the conscious or subconscious level. American culture has long portrayed blacks as the "big bad black man". Don't you know they are all gang members? From broken families raised with no morals? Haven't you ever seen Boyz n the Hood? Or Menace 2 Society? Ever heard of superpredators? How many people feel the need to cross the street when sharing the sidewalk with a group of young, black men? So of course the big black man with the dangerous cell phone needs to be shot. Its the only safe thing to do. Right? |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 2, 2018 21:06:19 GMT -5
Sure. As I said, racism is clearly going on in these cases. But I don't think the situation would be any better, as Don implies, if the black victims were armed with guns. I think the opposite is true.
I do wonder, though, whether in countries where guns are not so common, there's quite the same trepidation that a suspect (or anyone) might be armed with one.
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