Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Descan]

that and pretty much every criticism i've heard of the guy falls under "evil jewish banker controls the world" bullshit, and i've never heard of any other criticism that actually applies, like what Reelya was talking about

[mainiac]

Just the idea that a normal law-abiding citizen like Frumple is willing to consider the killing af a cop by a criminal as 'fair game' horrifies me.

Holy mother of bullshit strawman, batman.  I thought it was bad when you spouted that bullshit about me accusing the cops of planting the gun.  But this really takes the cake.

No, it's being perfectly okay with a cop shooting somebody who they judge to be a danger to others. As these people were.

Fuck man, it's like you never even watched Crash.

------------

I think that some of you are having some trouble understanding the references here.  Cops killing people has been around for a long time; long enough that people have developed memes around them.  There is the dark joke about the 80s style loose cannon cop killing a black dude and then planting a gun and sprinkling cocaine on the body.  I was referencing that.  It's a deliberate exaggeration of the "but he had a gun!" argument to show what a dangerous idea it is to consider that a complete explanation.  There is the tired old argument of dividing the world into "criminals" and "innocent bystanders" which Frumple was referencing.  It's a deliberate exaggeration to show the generally inhumane attitude that gets so many people pissed off.

[SalmonGod]

That all sounds nice, but how would you propose to implement that in the field in split second decision situations?

They could try not willfully creating situations where they have the "split-second decision" excuse. 

Many of these shootings happen because some random person is acting suspiciously, but not immediately threatening anybody.  Police come screaming up in their cars, and immediately run up to arm's reach with guns pointed.  At that point, if the suspect doesn't behave exactly and immediately how the police want them to, they get shot.  And then the media/internet remind us all for the gazillionth time of how studies have shown potential lunge distance with a knife is so much, or how it's possible that the suspect could steal an officer's gun right out of their hands all Bourne style.

But those excuses wouldn't matter if police were willing to keep their distance from a situation and take some time to talk with the suspect / assess, instead of leaping straight into force.  I have no sympathy for the "split-second decision" excuse in most cases I've seen, because the police created that situation, not the suspect.  The suspect is dying for the police's own recklessness.  I and many others believe that they wouldn't be so reckless if they ever faced consequences for it.

[Rolepgeek]

Don't forget the atmosphere of fear cultivated in police academies and training (iirc). If you're twitchy and on edge about the risks you're taking, overworked because we don't have enough police to cover everything, over-armed in an attempt to make up for those numbers, vilified by half the country for things you've never done, and yet the people who have are adored by half the country despite that, added onto the very real American culture of violence (I don't mean this as a buzz word; we love action, and have higher violent crime rates than most other developed countries , even in places where guns are few or well regulated), and policies that basically say that if you're even worried your life could be in danger, force is an acceptable response, and then there's 300+ million people in the country, thereby allowing a lot of shit to go wrong, and enough media coverage when it does for things to get blown out of proportion and polarize..

Basically there's a lot goin' on.

[mainiac]

Tangental but did anyone read about the reporter who went under cover at a for profit prison? The culture was basically let the prisoners get hurt your job is just to wait it out. We literally treat criminals like animals.

[BorkBorkGoesTheCode]

Legitimate apologetics: How many people know that their state has for-profit prisons, and how many take a tour of them? People should know what kind of system they are living in, but they shouldn't be blamed for something they didn't know about. Unless they use Plausible Deniability.

[I probably misread your intent, if so, I'm sorry.]

[Frumple]

Our legal system doesn't recognize ignorance as a defense

As for awareness, yeah, know they're around. Tour, not so much. Not even sure if most of them would let you unless you were a major investor. They're not exactly public property. Been in a couple of state owned ones, though, either as part of a student tour or accompanying someone visiting an inmate.

Stories about conditions and whatnot do hit the news occasionally, though, and they're usually not exactly good. Not surprising considering news is news these days, but also not surprising because hey, when you incentivize penal slavery and max profit conditions, you get what you pay for.

[BorkBorkGoesTheCode]

Has it reached actual slavery, or are they getting by using the "It's voluntary work for pay, within prison" argument?

[Frumple]

The more egregious examples are pennies on the hour for stuff that would be over minimum wage outside the prison, and at times the extent it's voluntary has been... questionable. I guess some of it you could call "merely" disgustingly exploitative. Some of it's just been forced labor outright.

I'm actually okay with that in moderation and not for profit (i.e. community service), but profit motivated is a little too close to the southern state home, y'ken?

[mainiac]

Has it reached actual slavery

Technically they could be enslaved legally :/

But I have to confess ignorance myself the profit prison thing is more recent.

But

[BorkBorkGoesTheCode]

I wondered if they would take the PR loss and use that exception.

[SalmonGod]

Don't forget the atmosphere of fear cultivated in police academies and training (iirc). If you're twitchy and on edge about the risks you're taking, overworked because we don't have enough police to cover everything, over-armed in an attempt to make up for those numbers, vilified by half the country for things you've never done, and yet the people who have are adored by half the country despite that, added onto the very real American culture of violence (I don't mean this as a buzz word; we love action, and have higher violent crime rates than most other developed countries , even in places where guns are few or well regulated), and policies that basically say that if you're even worried your life could be in danger, force is an acceptable response, and then there's 300+ million people in the country, thereby allowing a lot of shit to go wrong, and enough media coverage when it does for things to get blown out of proportion and polarize..

Basically there's a lot goin' on.

Yeah, I get it.  But we don't take understaffed/underfunded/undertrained as an excuse when teachers fuck with our kids, do we?  I totally get that they're in a shitty situation that isn't fair to anyone, but somehow that argument holds sway in the case of police far, far more than in many, many other similar situations.  To the point that we give police overwhelming benefit of doubt when they literally kill people.  We hold them to lower standards of expectation with more at stake than a vast majority of professions, and it doesn't make sense to me.

[mainiac]

but somehow that argument holds sway in the case of police far, far more than in many, many other similar situations.

I think it's because people can draw a nice little box around the victims of police violence and label it "criminals".  Justice seems to mostly boil down to deciding we have sufficient grounds to stand in judgement of other people.

[BorkBorkGoesTheCode]

That sucks.

[Urlance Woolsbane]

Since it doesn't seem to have been posted already, here's the official police statement regarding the Milwaukee shooting:

A Milwaukee Police officer shot and killed an armed suspect fleeing from a car on Milwaukee’s North Side.

The incident began when two uniformed MPD officers stopped two suspects in a car in the 3200 block of N. 44th Street at about 3:30 p.m. on August 13. Shortly after stopping the suspects, both occupants fled from the car on foot. The officers pursued the suspects, and during the foot pursuit one officer shot one suspect, armed with a semiautomatic handgun, in a yard also in the 3200 block of N. 44th Street. The suspect died from his injuries at the scene.

The suspect is a 23-year-old Milwaukee man with lengthy arrest record. The handgun he was armed with was taken in a burglary in Waukesha in March of this year. The victim of that burglary reported 500 rounds of ammunition were also stolen with the handgun.

The officer is a 24-year-old, male, assigned to MPD’s District 7. He has six years of service with MPD, three years as an officer. He was not injured and, as is standard practice, will be placed on administrative duty during the investigation and subsequent review by the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office.

The Milwaukee Police Department has contained the scene and, pursuant to State Law, the Wisconsin Department of Justice’s Division of Criminal Investigation has been contacted to lead the investigation.

According to NPR's Cheryl Corley, 'The relationship between police and minority communities in Milwaukee has been "tense, especially since a couple of years ago, a young man, Dontre Hamilton was shot by a white police officer 14 times."'