But since we were talking about the potential for one before it even happened, and there was a clear and very easy way to prevent them, I think I'm going to have to lay the lion's share of the blame at the feet of the people who knew that this was going to fucking happen.
So if I have a gun holstered and am confronted by police and I reach for the gun, I would be shot. If I had the gun already out I wouldn't be? In some of those pictures it looks like the guy is actually pointing his gun at someone. That seems... really nuts to me. I understand that an accidental discharge is likely if you shoot someone who has their figure on the trigger, but... I don't know. Maybe I'm coming at it wrong.
My main complaint is about using situations where the individual is already armed as a correlation to this kids situation. They are different because the cops arrive with a different situation entirely. The statement that these individuals were tackled instead of shot is not in good faith. As prior to the cops tackling the individual there was, most likely, a ton of work being done by the cops to clear out the area as best they can. Also after clearing the area shooting an outgunned individual would be unjustifiable.
And yes you reach for a gun or a reasonable gun analogue with a cop yelling at you to put your hands up there is a very good chance you will be shot. That is the essence of what I initially asked for when I stated "a white person would be shot in this same circumstance". The links provided are different situations as I have stated as one is a diffuse situation and one is a disarm situation.
If a person wandering the street with their gun out pointing it at people warrants "clearing the area" then why didn't the same thing happen here? Why didn't they clear the park? Why didn't they talk to him over a megaphone? Why did they go straight to escalation--the thing that led to him attempting to pull out the gun--instead of talking to him first like in all of those other situations? The problem is that they engaged him the way they did moreso than the fact that he reached for his gun. It is absolutely baffling that someone could be aiming a loaded gun at people and be treated less harshly than someone wandering around with a gun in their waistband.
Opportunity. The cops had an opportunity to disarm the individual and had advantage. Kid puts his arms up he is alive right now. Again this is a hindsight comment but I believe that. When cops arrive at a situation where the gun is already in play they have to account for it at all times and act accordingly. Opportunity or advantage does not exist. Because they have to account for the bystanders around the area.
So you're saying it's okay to escalate the scenario of someone with a holstered weapon and risk making it a lethal encounter all on the off chance that they'll respond properly to you shoving guns in their face out of nowhere?
I am stating that it is real procedure.
Then it shouldn't fucking be real procedure. It's escalation for no good fucking reason besides to risk the life of the person who may or may not have comitted a crime at that point.
why is saying 'raise your hands' escalating a situation?
hands are raised, cops come over, cuff you, take your gun, figure out what's going on.
once they find out you're 12 with an airsoft gun, you probably get yelled at by the cops and then yelled at even more by your parents.
Do you live every second of your life primed for a police officer to approach you with guns drawn? This kid was fucking around with a toy gun, he didn't expect cops to appear with real guns pointed at his face. To him he was suddenly being accosted out of nowhere. You act like he should have been expecting police any second and that when they showed up he should have cooly raised his hands but that's not how life works nor is it how it should fucking work. We should not fucking have to live in fear of the goddamn police murdering us because we don't respond within two seconds to their demands.
If I was waving around a gun in a public area, I would not be surprised to see the police show up. Not even a little bit. Especially if I had modified a realistic looking toy gun to look even more realistic by taking off the small orange thing at the end of the barrel.
Well you're an adult and he was a twelve year old kid, there's a big difference there in the understanding of concequences. The fact that he was a kid should have factored heavily into how the response was handled. And that's secondary to the fact that white people walking around with guns don't get the police called on them but black people do.
When I was twelve, my friends, and almost all boys I knew would play, what we called "Guns". We ran around with realistic -ish plastic weapons and "pew pew'ed" at each other in public. None of us were shot. Times have really changed. I know this is just anecdotal, but thought I would throw it out there.
I really want to believe that the people looting and setting fires to businesses arn't locals and just people from other areas who were going to do this reguardless.
People were crossing the state line to do it last time; wouldn't surprise me if it happened this time, especially with how much authorities were promoting tonight as the night for the grand jury announcement
Well you're an adult and he was a twelve year old kid, there's a big difference there in the understanding of concequences. The fact that he was a kid should have factored heavily into how the response was handled. And that's secondary to the fact that white people walking around with guns don't get the police called on them but black people do.
White people walking around with guns absolutely get the police called on them. Even normal-ass people open-carrying in a proper holster per the law do, on occasion, draw an MWAG call. White or no, throw a gun in your waistband and walk around most cities for a day and you have a pretty good shot of interacting with the police. Less likely to be shot? Sure. But given two otherwise equivalent situations I'm not sure it's as dramatic a decrease as is often claimed.
Also, do you need me to link a video of a white kid getting gunned down by the police for carrying a plastic gun? 14, not 12, but white as the driven snow. And time from the police car stopping to "let me see your hands" to gun shot? About three seconds. Total time from warning to firing was more like a second and a half.
But maybe the officer was confused, and thought he was black?
When I was twelve, my friends, and almost all boys I knew would play, what we called "Guns". We ran around with realistic -ish plastic weapons and "pew pew'ed" at each other in public. None of us were shot. Times have really changed. I know this is just anecdotal, but thought I would throw it out there.
Of the six incidents I found stories for, like four seem to have explicitly involved some variation of playing cops and robbers in public.
But again, this was something I'd heard of when I was twelve. And I don't know how old you are, but we're talking over twenty years ago. Again, plot point in a movie as early as 1988. NES Zapper changed to bright orange in what, like 1989 or 1990? Cleveland's "no playing with any toy guns around cops" law passed by 1994.
SwissLionWe are beside ourselves!Registered Userregular
Something interesting popped up while I'm watching the Australian News here to keep up with how it's being covered.
Right after a Ferguson Update, we go to a news story about how a spate of fatal Police shootings (3 in a week) in my state (Queensland) is leading to an immediate review of training and policy concerning not only firearms but tazers as well.
Those 3 bring the total to 6 in the past 5 years, by the way.
The contrast was stark and as shitty as this country can be a lot of the time (Including a huge problem of racially-motivated deaths in custody) we can still be okay a lot of the time.
Something interesting popped up while I'm watching the Australian News here to keep up with how it's being covered.
Right after a Ferguson Update, we go to a news story about how a spate of fatal Police shootings (3 in a week) in my state (Queensland) is leading to an immediate review of training and policy concerning not only firearms but tazers as well.
Those 3 bring the total to 6 in the past 5 years, by the way.
The contrast was stark and as shitty as this country can be a lot of the time (Including a huge problem of racially-motivated deaths in custody) we can still be okay a lot of the time.
Advocating for gun control to stop the government from killing (many of them unarmed) citizens is a stretch, dude. I realize a lot of this forum thinks it is the worst thing ever people are allowed to practice safe, responsible hobbies of their choice and all that, but when authorized agents of the government shoot unarmed teenagers, the problem is not that the unarmed teenagers had too much access to guns. The big case now is Ferguson, where, to refresh everyone's memory, Brown wasn't even suggested to have a weapon.
Well you're an adult and he was a twelve year old kid, there's a big difference there in the understanding of concequences. The fact that he was a kid should have factored heavily into how the response was handled. And that's secondary to the fact that white people walking around with guns don't get the police called on them but black people do.
White people walking around with guns absolutely get the police called on them. Even normal-ass people open-carrying in a proper holster per the law do, on occasion, draw an MWAG call. White or no, throw a gun in your waistband and walk around most cities for a day and you have a pretty good shot of interacting with the police. Less likely to be shot? Sure. But given two otherwise equivalent situations I'm not sure it's as dramatic a decrease as is often claimed.
Also, do you need me to link a video of a white kid getting gunned down by the police for carrying a plastic gun? 14, not 12, but white as the driven snow. And time from the police car stopping to "let me see your hands" to gun shot? About three seconds. Total time from warning to firing was more like a second and a half.
But maybe the officer was confused, and thought he was black?
yeah, i do, because I have looked for a story of a white child being killed in that incident and I have found nothing.
Well you're an adult and he was a twelve year old kid, there's a big difference there in the understanding of concequences. The fact that he was a kid should have factored heavily into how the response was handled. And that's secondary to the fact that white people walking around with guns don't get the police called on them but black people do.
White people walking around with guns absolutely get the police called on them. Even normal-ass people open-carrying in a proper holster per the law do, on occasion, draw an MWAG call. White or no, throw a gun in your waistband and walk around most cities for a day and you have a pretty good shot of interacting with the police. Less likely to be shot? Sure. But given two otherwise equivalent situations I'm not sure it's as dramatic a decrease as is often claimed.
Also, do you need me to link a video of a white kid getting gunned down by the police for carrying a plastic gun? 14, not 12, but white as the driven snow. And time from the police car stopping to "let me see your hands" to gun shot? About three seconds. Total time from warning to firing was more like a second and a half.
But maybe the officer was confused, and thought he was black?
yeah, i do, because I have looked for a story of a white child being killed in that incident and I have found nothing.
Well you're an adult and he was a twelve year old kid, there's a big difference there in the understanding of concequences. The fact that he was a kid should have factored heavily into how the response was handled. And that's secondary to the fact that white people walking around with guns don't get the police called on them but black people do.
White people walking around with guns absolutely get the police called on them. Even normal-ass people open-carrying in a proper holster per the law do, on occasion, draw an MWAG call. White or no, throw a gun in your waistband and walk around most cities for a day and you have a pretty good shot of interacting with the police. Less likely to be shot? Sure. But given two otherwise equivalent situations I'm not sure it's as dramatic a decrease as is often claimed.
Also, do you need me to link a video of a white kid getting gunned down by the police for carrying a plastic gun? 14, not 12, but white as the driven snow. And time from the police car stopping to "let me see your hands" to gun shot? About three seconds. Total time from warning to firing was more like a second and a half.
But maybe the officer was confused, and thought he was black?
yeah, i do, because I have looked for a story of a white child being killed in that incident and I have found nothing.
Well you're an adult and he was a twelve year old kid, there's a big difference there in the understanding of concequences. The fact that he was a kid should have factored heavily into how the response was handled. And that's secondary to the fact that white people walking around with guns don't get the police called on them but black people do.
White people walking around with guns absolutely get the police called on them. Even normal-ass people open-carrying in a proper holster per the law do, on occasion, draw an MWAG call. White or no, throw a gun in your waistband and walk around most cities for a day and you have a pretty good shot of interacting with the police. Less likely to be shot? Sure. But given two otherwise equivalent situations I'm not sure it's as dramatic a decrease as is often claimed.
Also, do you need me to link a video of a white kid getting gunned down by the police for carrying a plastic gun? 14, not 12, but white as the driven snow. And time from the police car stopping to "let me see your hands" to gun shot? About three seconds. Total time from warning to firing was more like a second and a half.
But maybe the officer was confused, and thought he was black?
yeah, i do, because I have looked for a story of a white child being killed in that incident and I have found nothing.
He survived. But I'm gonna say it wasn't his white skin that saved him from the bullet tearing through his flesh. Just luck.
Don't have it handy now on my phone, it was in Battle Creek, Michigan. Kid's name was, IIRC, Nick King. Should get you there. And remember, that was just within the last couple years (and there appears to have been another in California). So yeah, it seems it happens to white kids too.
I can't find anything similar in Missouri law, I may be searching wrong but I doubt very much they have anything like this
I would suggest this as one of many reforms to push out of this aftermath
There are probably not going to be any reforms coming out of this situation.
Maaaaaybe some more on-body cameras.
well as I'm pretty fatigued of stating "this is fucked" over and over again it might be worthwhile to talk about what could be pushed in the law to make some sort of change
body cameras for all cops
state required protocols for officer involved deadly force
enforcement of federal requirements of statistics reporting
that's what I've heard so far
I'd also like to end the program that sends military equipment to state police depts.
Weird thing to say, but the bolded is a little bit of a grey area for me (though not by much). Obviously, the degree to which military equipment is being transferred is obscenely dumb, but if the equipment can be repurposed for use in the civilian sector cost-effectively and most importantly safely then the pragmatic approach would be to monitor and regulate the transfers. Naturally, I don't think your average police force needs a bomb-proof personnel carrier that tears up the roads.
But I digress, and this is veering away from Ferguson so any further discussion should probably be moved to the general policing thread, so I'll repost this there for if there is further discussion.
Well you're an adult and he was a twelve year old kid, there's a big difference there in the understanding of concequences. The fact that he was a kid should have factored heavily into how the response was handled. And that's secondary to the fact that white people walking around with guns don't get the police called on them but black people do.
White people walking around with guns absolutely get the police called on them. Even normal-ass people open-carrying in a proper holster per the law do, on occasion, draw an MWAG call. White or no, throw a gun in your waistband and walk around most cities for a day and you have a pretty good shot of interacting with the police. Less likely to be shot? Sure. But given two otherwise equivalent situations I'm not sure it's as dramatic a decrease as is often claimed.
Also, do you need me to link a video of a white kid getting gunned down by the police for carrying a plastic gun? 14, not 12, but white as the driven snow. And time from the police car stopping to "let me see your hands" to gun shot? About three seconds. Total time from warning to firing was more like a second and a half.
But maybe the officer was confused, and thought he was black?
yeah, i do, because I have looked for a story of a white child being killed in that incident and I have found nothing.
Dillion Taylor, of Salt Lake, was shot by police when he failed to follow commands to stop and raise his hands, then reached into his pants abruptly. He was 20, so not strictly a "child" but whiteness certainly proved unhelpful for him.
The "Sending surplus military equipment to police departments" absolutely will not stop until we have another huge war.
The military bought all of these extremely expensive vehicles so we could party in the sand but now that things are ramping down a bit over there they really, reaallly don't want to spend $shitton to warehouse and maintain the things. It costs a serious amount of money just to have all those APCs sitting around in a way that won't have them falling apart after a few years. So how is the Army going to pay to hold on to all of this armor that it isn't even using right now?
If you're the Army, the best solution is to get cops to do it for you.
The contracts involved with these "gifts" (that are generally loans) are filled with language requiring proper maintenance procedures and schedules, so they're basically just offloading responsibility to gung ho police departments who see a chance to get new toys for free and don't realize the amount of time and money that they will have to spend just to keep the things movable.
I mean, if someone came to you and said "Hey, your job looks pretty tough, what if we gave you a diet tank?" I'm pretty sure most red blooded American macho men (a group that I would estimate makes up a large portion of our police force) would say "fuck yes".
Then, if they are ever needed again, the army just requests them back and ships them over to whatever country filled with brown people that we're invading at the time (my next guess? Outside of the middle east my money is on North Korea).
But whether that Bearcat is tearing up the dunes in Afghanistan or tearing up the streets in Anytown USA it's all taxpayer money anyway, so who gives a shit right?
People in Congress are grousing about our military getting budget cuts, but we were spending way too much on our military anyway.
I mean the reason they are giving all this shit to police departments is that they don't have anywhere to keep it and it's cheaper to give them to law enforcement than have to go through proper procedure to disarm and dispose of it themselves.
In the case of Tamir Rice, the 12 year old with an airsoft gun that got shot, surveillance video indicates the cops do not appear to have spent any more effort than "get out of moving patrol car, gun the kid down". At no point do they appear to give him any instructions, though the video is both without audio and not complete (the uncut footage is still yet to be released).
SurfpossumA nonentitytrying to preserve the anonymity he so richly deserves.Registered Userregular
Okay, apparently the description of people being seated around the table was incorrect, so I have to take back much of what I said regarding the assessment that should have been made.
That being said, this somehow looks so, so much worse.
Okay, apparently the description of people being seated around the table was incorrect, so I have to take back much of what I said regarding the assessment that should have been made.
That being said, this somehow looks so, so much worse.
The video is at some really low framerate, like one-frame-per second, so the video actually takes place over more time than it appears. It's not happening as fast it seems on first-impression.
It's hard to see, but after the police drive up, it does look like the kid pulls up his shirt on the left and reaches for the "gun" with his right hand. I can surely see how that could get him shot.
In the case of Tamir Rice, the 12 year old with an airsoft gun that got shot, surveillance video indicates the cops do not appear to have spent any more effort than "get out of moving patrol car, gun the kid down". At no point do they appear to give him any instructions, though the video is both without audio and not complete (the uncut footage is still yet to be released).
I'd assume they shouted for him to put his hands up, and fired immediately afterward when he continued reaching. The incident I mentioned earlier with a white 14-year-old was similar...three seconds total from car stopped to "show your hands" to gunshot.
This isn't unusual when faced with a gun though.
Also keep in mind that this means they had an equally short time to evaluate Rice for age/demeanor/etc. But again, gun. Like, actual legitimate realistic looking gun. This is tragic, and perhaps better training and experience could have avoided it, but it's not altogether outrageous. At least that's the look of it.
Okay, apparently the description of people being seated around the table was incorrect, so I have to take back much of what I said regarding the assessment that should have been made.
That being said, this somehow looks so, so much worse.
It is absolutely outrageous that the best situation those cops could think to create was a potential shoot-out with a child. Leave race out of it, leave the gun being fake out of it, it doesn't matter. A report on a kid with a possible gun threatening and not injuring people over a long enough period for Johnny Law to arrive should not result in a situation where the only outcomes are 'Child in a high stress situation behaves more rationally than most adults would' or 'Child gets shot and killed'.
They created that situation, and they did not have to do so.
Every single cop involved in this absurd after school special stupidity, every single person that trained those people or approved their training, all of them should be fucking ashamed.
If anybody is curious to see a first hand look behind the thin blue line, I had a....chat with a police officer today. I will spoiler it since it's from Facebook and very long, but it is pretty interesting (and very scary to see it first hand)
My Facebook is just packed with people outraged not just about Ferguson (this isn't a Ferguson post, otherwise I'd make it in the Ferguson thread) but also the kid with the BB gun and a bunch other police abuses in the US lately and I just... I don't know what to say to these people.
"Yyyyyep, that sure is fucked" isn't really helpful.
"Well, you guys, in Canada..." also isn't helpful. In fact, it's basically inflammatory at this point. The people who are legit outraged by American police culture and police brutality basically respond either by denying that somehow Canadian police are not as bad as the US (which, I don't know, is maybe a coping mechanism or something? Like it's somehow easier to deal with the idea that all cops everywhere are just as terrible rather than admit it's specifically the US that is so fucking bad?) or by basically just being sour and being like "Yeah, that's fucking nice, but that doesn't give us any solutions because we can't implement any of those reforms because [pick a reason, usually something something 'thin blue line']"
the people who don't believe there's even a problem basically just go "Yes, well, I'm sure things are very nice in Canada, but here in America" and then it's just "[something something American Exceptionalism]" and those folks are just completely useless to talk to. The people who won't even deign to admit there's a problem and even if you can get them to face facts, getting them to admit maybe other countries have the right of it is impossible because 'MURICA
it's like the healthcare debate x1000 and I don't know what to do here
so I've been leaving it alone for the most part, but that just feels... callous?
Posts
But since we were talking about the potential for one before it even happened, and there was a clear and very easy way to prevent them, I think I'm going to have to lay the lion's share of the blame at the feet of the people who knew that this was going to fucking happen.
Edit: French is an Alderman from St. Louis, for those that don't know.
People were crossing the state line to do it last time; wouldn't surprise me if it happened this time, especially with how much authorities were promoting tonight as the night for the grand jury announcement
uh
hmm
White people walking around with guns absolutely get the police called on them. Even normal-ass people open-carrying in a proper holster per the law do, on occasion, draw an MWAG call. White or no, throw a gun in your waistband and walk around most cities for a day and you have a pretty good shot of interacting with the police. Less likely to be shot? Sure. But given two otherwise equivalent situations I'm not sure it's as dramatic a decrease as is often claimed.
Also, do you need me to link a video of a white kid getting gunned down by the police for carrying a plastic gun? 14, not 12, but white as the driven snow. And time from the police car stopping to "let me see your hands" to gun shot? About three seconds. Total time from warning to firing was more like a second and a half.
But maybe the officer was confused, and thought he was black?
Of the six incidents I found stories for, like four seem to have explicitly involved some variation of playing cops and robbers in public.
But again, this was something I'd heard of when I was twelve. And I don't know how old you are, but we're talking over twenty years ago. Again, plot point in a movie as early as 1988. NES Zapper changed to bright orange in what, like 1989 or 1990? Cleveland's "no playing with any toy guns around cops" law passed by 1994.
Right after a Ferguson Update, we go to a news story about how a spate of fatal Police shootings (3 in a week) in my state (Queensland) is leading to an immediate review of training and policy concerning not only firearms but tazers as well.
Those 3 bring the total to 6 in the past 5 years, by the way.
The contrast was stark and as shitty as this country can be a lot of the time (Including a huge problem of racially-motivated deaths in custody) we can still be okay a lot of the time.
There are solutions my American friends. There is hope.
Advocating for gun control to stop the government from killing (many of them unarmed) citizens is a stretch, dude. I realize a lot of this forum thinks it is the worst thing ever people are allowed to practice safe, responsible hobbies of their choice and all that, but when authorized agents of the government shoot unarmed teenagers, the problem is not that the unarmed teenagers had too much access to guns. The big case now is Ferguson, where, to refresh everyone's memory, Brown wasn't even suggested to have a weapon.
yeah, i do, because I have looked for a story of a white child being killed in that incident and I have found nothing.
Is 17 too old?
And it's not a plastic gun, but a wii-mote.
http://m.nydailynews.com/news/national/georgia-teen-holding-wii-remote-shot-cops-front-door-family-lawyer-article-1.1619842
Though it appears this officer was indicted:
http://m.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/grand-jury-finds-officers-use-force-not-authorize/nffrh/#__federated=1
Well how bout that!
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
He survived. But I'm gonna say it wasn't his white skin that saved him from the bullet tearing through his flesh. Just luck.
Don't have it handy now on my phone, it was in Battle Creek, Michigan. Kid's name was, IIRC, Nick King. Should get you there. And remember, that was just within the last couple years (and there appears to have been another in California). So yeah, it seems it happens to white kids too.
Weird thing to say, but the bolded is a little bit of a grey area for me (though not by much). Obviously, the degree to which military equipment is being transferred is obscenely dumb, but if the equipment can be repurposed for use in the civilian sector cost-effectively and most importantly safely then the pragmatic approach would be to monitor and regulate the transfers. Naturally, I don't think your average police force needs a bomb-proof personnel carrier that tears up the roads.
But I digress, and this is veering away from Ferguson so any further discussion should probably be moved to the general policing thread, so I'll repost this there for if there is further discussion.
FFXIV - Milliardo Beoulve/Sargatanas
Dillion Taylor, of Salt Lake, was shot by police when he failed to follow commands to stop and raise his hands, then reached into his pants abruptly. He was 20, so not strictly a "child" but whiteness certainly proved unhelpful for him.
I host a podcast about movies.
Suspects made off with literally dozens of dollars worth of merchandise.
The military bought all of these extremely expensive vehicles so we could party in the sand but now that things are ramping down a bit over there they really, reaallly don't want to spend $shitton to warehouse and maintain the things. It costs a serious amount of money just to have all those APCs sitting around in a way that won't have them falling apart after a few years. So how is the Army going to pay to hold on to all of this armor that it isn't even using right now?
If you're the Army, the best solution is to get cops to do it for you.
The contracts involved with these "gifts" (that are generally loans) are filled with language requiring proper maintenance procedures and schedules, so they're basically just offloading responsibility to gung ho police departments who see a chance to get new toys for free and don't realize the amount of time and money that they will have to spend just to keep the things movable.
I mean, if someone came to you and said "Hey, your job looks pretty tough, what if we gave you a diet tank?" I'm pretty sure most red blooded American macho men (a group that I would estimate makes up a large portion of our police force) would say "fuck yes".
Then, if they are ever needed again, the army just requests them back and ships them over to whatever country filled with brown people that we're invading at the time (my next guess? Outside of the middle east my money is on North Korea).
But whether that Bearcat is tearing up the dunes in Afghanistan or tearing up the streets in Anytown USA it's all taxpayer money anyway, so who gives a shit right?
I mean the reason they are giving all this shit to police departments is that they don't have anywhere to keep it and it's cheaper to give them to law enforcement than have to go through proper procedure to disarm and dispose of it themselves.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2014/11/cleveland_police_officer_shot_1.html
That being said, this somehow looks so, so much worse.
I'd say so. Did that one cop go diving out of the way?
The video is at some really low framerate, like one-frame-per second, so the video actually takes place over more time than it appears. It's not happening as fast it seems on first-impression.
It's hard to see, but after the police drive up, it does look like the kid pulls up his shirt on the left and reaches for the "gun" with his right hand. I can surely see how that could get him shot.
I'd assume they shouted for him to put his hands up, and fired immediately afterward when he continued reaching. The incident I mentioned earlier with a white 14-year-old was similar...three seconds total from car stopped to "show your hands" to gunshot.
This isn't unusual when faced with a gun though.
Also keep in mind that this means they had an equally short time to evaluate Rice for age/demeanor/etc. But again, gun. Like, actual legitimate realistic looking gun. This is tragic, and perhaps better training and experience could have avoided it, but it's not altogether outrageous. At least that's the look of it.
What a fucking mess.
They created that situation, and they did not have to do so.
Every single cop involved in this absurd after school special stupidity, every single person that trained those people or approved their training, all of them should be fucking ashamed.
I just can't comprehend the fear that these people have to be operating under to do stuff like this.
If his killer doesn't at least express some remorse over this I am going to drink.
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
Yeah that was probably the scariest one.
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
what
PSN: Robo_Wizard1
My Facebook is just packed with people outraged not just about Ferguson (this isn't a Ferguson post, otherwise I'd make it in the Ferguson thread) but also the kid with the BB gun and a bunch other police abuses in the US lately and I just... I don't know what to say to these people.
"Yyyyyep, that sure is fucked" isn't really helpful.
"Well, you guys, in Canada..." also isn't helpful. In fact, it's basically inflammatory at this point. The people who are legit outraged by American police culture and police brutality basically respond either by denying that somehow Canadian police are not as bad as the US (which, I don't know, is maybe a coping mechanism or something? Like it's somehow easier to deal with the idea that all cops everywhere are just as terrible rather than admit it's specifically the US that is so fucking bad?) or by basically just being sour and being like "Yeah, that's fucking nice, but that doesn't give us any solutions because we can't implement any of those reforms because [pick a reason, usually something something 'thin blue line']"
the people who don't believe there's even a problem basically just go "Yes, well, I'm sure things are very nice in Canada, but here in America" and then it's just "[something something American Exceptionalism]" and those folks are just completely useless to talk to. The people who won't even deign to admit there's a problem and even if you can get them to face facts, getting them to admit maybe other countries have the right of it is impossible because 'MURICA
it's like the healthcare debate x1000 and I don't know what to do here
so I've been leaving it alone for the most part, but that just feels... callous?
uh huh
court
where a good lawyer costs about a person's annual paycheck. and that's for like a DWI Lawyer.