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[GlyphGryph]

There are no good guys here. There are only bad guys and bystanders caught in the crossfire.

The murder-happy guy is at least sympathetic. Dangerous, and clearly needs to be locked up for a long time or even killed if it's needed to prevent him from killing again. It's understandable in terms of a former  good guy that's gone fuckin' insane in part because of some hostile conditions.

Most of the LAPD... isn't. I find it harder to sympathize with Mr.MurderedHeadkicker, should it come to that (I think he's still alive at the moment). He's a villain, and without the cover of having unrealistic ideals or having snapped and gone crazy. I would probably feel about the same way I would if he were to get hit by a bus. A shrug and moving on. Not to say I wouldn't rescue him if I had the opportunity, but evil people in positions of power getting removed from those positions of power isn't something I can bring myself to shed a tear about, and it's hard to conceptualize him any other way.

The innocent victims, the bystanders, are the only one's here I'd be likely to actually mourn.

[Starver]

Relevant: The truck of two women was hot up because it "looked like his." He's reported to be driving a charcoal grey Nissan.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

LAST SEEN DRIVING A 2005 BLUE OR GRAY NISSAN TITAN

As to whether the vehicle should have been shot at (I may have missed the bit that talked about that), I won't say, but anyone saying that the vehicle didn't even look like the description because it wasn't grey(/gray) might have missed the above.


{1} I now have piqued my nostalgia, and am wondering whether I ought to see if there's any clips of that show anywhere.  And whether it'll live up to my memories or not.

[Naryar]

I read the full manifesto in detail now, and holy shit. Holy fucking shit.

This guy isn't exactly insane, he clearly makes quite a bit of sense but he has abandoned his moral code for what he sees as justice, ironically enough.

I don't support his rampage since he is killing innocents, but I don't know if this is awesome or frightening. Probably both.

[SalmonGod]

Even if he were restricting his murder to "guilty" people, kicking a suspect should not be an offense punishable by death. Neither should racism or firing a man for reporting police brutality. All those things are wrong, but just because they're wrong doesn't justify taking someone's life over it.

This is such a messy conversation piece, I'm daunted to even start in on it.

The question is... how do you fight a corrupt institution?  Yeah, no individual involved deserved to die for their specific individual actions, but the acts of those individuals are all contributory and protective of an institution that is equally wrong and which people are forced to live in fear of.  Vigilante rampage does seem very wrong, but on the other hand legal recourse cannot be depended on.  So what is deserved and what will work?

[Flying Dice]

Relevant: The truck of two women was hot up because it "looked like his." He's reported to be driving a charcoal grey Nissan.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

LAST SEEN DRIVING A 2005 BLUE OR GRAY NISSAN TITAN

As to whether the vehicle should have been shot at (I may have missed the bit that talked about that), I won't say, but anyone saying that the vehicle didn't even look like the description because it wasn't grey(/gray) might have missed the above.

There's no debate here. They opened fire on a vehicle because it happened to resemble the description of the fugitive's and injured two innocent people. If they'd had better aim, they would have killed two innocent people because they were afraid that they might somehow be the suspect, despite having nothing in common with him but (more or less) skin color. Not only is that almost certainly illegal (correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't "shoot-on-sight" orders explicitly not permissible for U.S. police?), it also shows that they're clearly more concerned with keeping their own skins safe than the people they're supposedly protecting and serving.

[Starver]

The basic reason I didn't want to pass judgement on that was because there are times when police think someone (often an innocent civilian) is being threatening, because that someone doesn't even know that they're the ones the police are asking to throw down their (non-existent) weapons, etc, so don't make the right moves, and so the police feel that they need to act to safeguard themselves or others.

Still an error on the police's part, so I'm not forgiving them (although fear on their part might be a mitigating reason...  anger, however, should not be, and ulterior motives of "shutting the fucker up", if that was what happened, would be utterly wrong), but I was keeping my mind open on that aspect.  While pointing out that it wasn't the totally incorrect judgement of aiming at the wrong colour of vehicle.


Please don't take what I say as meaning I support deliberate police brutality, and I'm not too hot on the accidental variety either.  Maybe time will tell what really is happening.  (Or maybe not.  The story may become too boring and lost amid all kinds of other sensationalist reports of other things, or indeed there may be a conspiracy that strives to bury it.  Who knows.)



Do you want a flippant comment?  For a guy who explicitly went out of his way to kill people, and to not kill everyone...  Well, he couldn't have been that good with weapons, or methods of attack, for an LA cop with an apparent  sideline in the military.  There you go, flippancy over, and I'm sure there's going to be more tragedy along the line.  The guy can't hurt me and I can't hurt him so I'm stuck on the sidelines on this one, and I'm very much glad for that fact.  The real people involved are going to be (or have already been) less fortunate and no words of mine will help here.

[varnish]

The whole thing looks like quite the tragic mess, but it's honestly amazing to me there aren't more vigilantes running amok with the alarming frequency with which people are horribly wronged by those society tells us we should trust and obey and then shit on when they try to seek change or reparations through proper channels.  (yes that was an absolutely horrible sentence but I give up trying to fix it )

I just don't trust the entire idea of "vigilante justice". I don't trust some asshole with a gun to have any better of an idea of what is just than a court. Not that I trust the court system to be just, because it obviously isn't. I don't know, I don't really have answers, I guess. But he changed absolutely nothing with his actions. He didn't fix a damn thing.

[Flying Dice]

The whole thing looks like quite the tragic mess, but it's honestly amazing to me there aren't more vigilantes running amok with the alarming frequency with which people are horribly wronged by those society tells us we should trust and obey and then shit on when they try to seek change or reparations through proper channels.  (yes that was an absolutely horrible sentence but I give up trying to fix it )

I just don't trust the entire idea of "vigilante justice". I don't trust some asshole with a gun to have any better of an idea of what is just than a court. Not that I trust the court system to be just, because it obviously isn't. I don't know, I don't really have answers, I guess. But he changed absolutely nothing with his actions. He didn't fix a damn thing.

What, have you never seen any of the Death Wish movies? Everyone knows that a single self-righteous vigilante takes care of far more crime than the police department of a large city, and could do far more if the damned commies in Big Government didn't try to stop him from walking around with guns in his pockets. 

[varnish]

That's the thing. The idea that someone could rise up, get their gun, shoot the "right people*", and somehow solve systemic problems is a fucking fantasy, and a dangerous one.

[GlyphGryph]

Of course, it's the only thing that seems to have any chance of working sometimes. (admittedly, you need a bunch of OTHER people to rise and help you shoot the right people as well. Turns out there's a lot of people that need shooting for something like this to work. And then you gotta find the right people to replace them and figure out how to get them in! It's really hard!)

[Grakelin]

If I've learned anything from action movies, this guy actually is murdering people who are really, really bad, but we (the public) will never know this.

[fqllve]

Yeah, that assistant basketball coach? She was actually filling those basketballs with cocaine and feeding the team steroid-enhanced rats in hopes that they would become 7 foot tall Speedy Gonzalezes who would then go on to humiliate a string of Chinese basketball teams, sparking World War 3. Thank god somebody stopped her.

Honestly though, I think, if anything, this will only encourage the LAPD to be more corrupt.

[scriver]

Of course, it's the only thing that seems to have any chance of working sometimes.

No. Simply thinking that is extremely naive. Real change takes time, pressure from the public, and initiatives from up above. Stop thinking in the patterns of a goddamn Hollywood action scriptwriter. It's incredibly offensive to see such otherwise intelligent people indulge in pure childish power fantasies and populist violence-mongering.

[Zrk2]

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -Thomas Jefferson

I'd pay a pretty penny to hear the thoughts of the various founding fathers on this. It sounds rather like what they intended the Second Amendment for.

[SalmonGod]

Just want to clarify:  Nothing I've said was meant to condone vigilantism.  I just want to hear some more thoughts on it, because I have very mixed feelings on the subject.

In this specific instance, I don't think this guy is doing anything right, but I know very little about his situation and what would be the right thing for him to do.

No. Simply thinking that is extremely naive. Real change takes time, pressure from the public, and initiatives from up above. Stop thinking in the patterns of a goddamn Hollywood action scriptwriter. It's incredibly offensive to see such otherwise intelligent people indulge in pure childish power fantasies and populist violence-mongering.

Two things you mention here are exactly what I have mixed feelings on.  What kind of pressure?  It has to manifest somehow.  Is there such a thing as pressure without some kind of threat?

And what if there are no initiatives from up above, or signs of any on the horizon?

And taking it one step further, perhaps reaching too far at this point, but I'll throw it out there anyway...  What if there is a deadline?  What if the environment is collapsing, with a point of no return in sight, and police corruption is one of the obstacles that must be overcome before anything will be done about it?