US Politics Mega-thread - Page 3154

On April 15 2021 21:52 Sadist wrote:




Its not their fault they were murdered but they increase their odds substantially by fighting with a police officer and/or anyone thats armed. Even if the cop goes to jail for murder, you are still dead. Not discouraging resisting arrest is just dumb. Its not blaming the victim its trying to help them not be a victim.


And yes I know that people have been killed when complying. Theres over 300 million people in the US you can find pretty much any situation occuring even if its low odds. That still doesnt mean you should knowingly increase your odds of being killed by fighting cops.

Im all for police reform and holding people accountable but it also helps to not put yourself in a bad situation.


Also the bolded is going to be a judgement call. You cant get away from that. Things arent black and white and you need to consider a ton of factors. Your statement doesnt magically solve these shootings.

On April 15 2021 22:47 Gorsameth wrote:
Any easy conclusion to make when your not a black man in America, and therefor don't experience what they do.

Its a conclusion I could also make if not for the many many interviews and talks of black men about how police interactions for them are, including well off and well educated individuals who are not just making stuff up to sound like life in the 'hood' is tough.

On April 15 2021 23:07 Sadist wrote:




Do you know the odds of being killed by a police officer in the US? Its incredibly low. All this stuff on TV is contributing to a fear of police as a whole. Im not talking specific racist department or cops here but as a whole.


Lets take a look at arrests vs death by police. Most recent data I can find is 2019.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/

https://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/crime/ucr.asp?table_in=2

235 black people were killed by police in 2019 and 2,667,010 arrests made
Lets round up and say 1/10,000 of ARRESTS a person is killed.

370 white people killed and 7,014,550 arrests
Lets round down and say 1/20,000 ARRESTS a person is killed.

These are ARRESTS not interactions with police. We know theres a shit ton more of interractions as opposed to arrests so the odds are lower than that. If you assume black people have more interactions with police than white people per capita based off of systemmic racism and the drug war/poverty the odds of a specific encouter leading to being shot and killed goes down even further.



If I told you the odds of something happening were 1/1,000,000 would you give a shit? Probably not. If I doubled your odds to 1/500,000 would care anymore? Not really. Its because percentage increases over infinitely small numbers dont mean much.


This is blown out of proportion. Each case should be evaluated on its own merits. Racist cops and people who acted incorrectly should be held accountable. Derek Chauvin should go to prison. This cop should be held accountable. But lets not stir shit up and pretend like this is bigger than it is and that black people should be fearing being killed from police significantly more than other ethnicities.

I get some people want to use these cases as a means for other police reform. Its kind of a means to and end. If thats the case at least be honest about it rather than traumatizing a generation to think theyll be murdered by police at every routine traffic stop.

On April 15 2021 23:20 WombaT wrote:
Sadist if it were a standalone issue and not tangled up in a wider criminal justice web, then sure. There’s a whole smogarsbord of other problematic police policy, of which shootings is merely the most extreme manifestation of. One that really resonates too and punches its way to the top of news bulletins.

As it is, perhaps on a purely numerical sense it is overblown, granted its a rather important symbolic indicator of the health of a society how those with the legal right to dispense state-sanctioned violence behaved.

Honest appraisal of numbers and stats in an attempt to elicit some change runs up against a brick wall of apathy and antipathy when it comes to criminal justice reform, may as well try ramping it up a bit.

On April 15 2021 22:55 Simberto wrote:
Even if you resist arrest, you do not deserve to be killed for it. Unless you resist arrest in a way where the only two ways to solve this situation are to kill you or let you kill someone else. But even then, someone in the police fucked up by letting it get to that point. And it would still not be just even in that extreme situation, as cops are not judges nor executioners.

This stuff is not normal nor reasonable. Just because the US is so fucked up that you have a good chance of getting killed when you resist arrest does not mean that this is normal, or how things should be. If you resist arrest, the cops should arrest you with minimum necessary force, and a court of law should decide whether you deserve to be punished for that. The cops should go to great lengths to not kill you. Because that is not their job. if they kill you, they failed at their jobs. Their job in that situation is to arrest you. If you are dead, you are not arrested, and instead of your possible crimes getting justice in a court of law, they stay unresolved because you got killed extrajudiciously by someone who is clearly not competent enough at their job to not kill people.

And, as others have pointed out, we have seen lots of situations where not resisting didn't save the people, either.

On April 15 2021 23:25 Sadist wrote:




This is a fair point and Im sure this is whats going on. I just think its intellectually dishonest to go this route. This is how the right behaves. I would expect better from the left but maybe we've opened Pandora's box and we are too far gone.

On April 15 2021 23:39 JimmiC wrote:

Is this not the same as, "clearly I don't think that women should be hit by their husbands, however it is their fault if they make them mad enough to hit them?"

You really can't logically hold the position that something is not right, but that same something is reasonable if it happens.

On April 15 2021 23:45 Oukka wrote:
Why on earth was the police officer even pulling a taser gun is the part that I can't get over. It's already a weapon to the extent that civilians aren't even allowed such things afaik.

Maybe Daunte Wright wouldn't have died had she shot him with a taser instead, but it would have still been completely disproportionate use of force by standards of just about any other first world country police. Wright wasn't violent, wasn't threatening violence as far as I understand. Police officer can't force him out of the car without resorting to weapons? Especially if she had the other police officer right there next to her.

This might be a fundamental cultural difference that will never really change but even use of non-lethal weapons in that situation looks very bizarre from here. In the countries I've lived police may use tasers if someone fights them, or doesn't drop a knife or similar weapon despite multiple commands. They don't shoot people sitting in cars with tasers.

Republicans recoiled Wednesday night and Thursday morning over a bill some Democrats are proposing to pack the Supreme Court, calling it an "assault" on judicial independence.

But they also predicted that the move would prove unpopular and help Republicans in the midterm elections.

"Democrats are launching a full assault on the independence of the federal judiciary. Republicans will stop them," Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., said in a tweet.

...

Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass.; House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y.; Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga.; and Rep. Mondaire Jones, D-N.Y.; will announce the bill at 11:30 a.m. Thursday in a press conference on the steps of the Supreme Court.

The legislation would expand the Supreme Court to 13 seats. There are currently nine seats on the court. That number has remained the same since 1869.

Some Democrats have been loudly calling for the expansion of the Supreme Court after former President Donald Trump had three nominees confirmed during his presidency. They decry some of the rulings the court has issued, accusing the justices of being biased toward Republicans.

"Republicans packed the court when Mitch McConnell held Merrick Garland’s seat open nearly a year before an election, then confirmed Amy Coney Barrett days before the next election. Disarming the Court’s radical right-wing majority would correct this injustice," Jones said Thursday.

On April 15 2021 23:45 Oukka wrote:
Why on earth was the police officer even pulling a taser gun is the part that I can't get over. It's already a weapon to the extent that civilians aren't even allowed such things afaik.

Maybe Daunte Wright wouldn't have died had she shot him with a taser instead, but it would have still been completely disproportionate use of force by standards of just about any other first world country police. Wright wasn't violent, wasn't threatening violence as far as I understand. Police officer can't force him out of the car without resorting to weapons? Especially if she had the other police officer right there next to her.

This might be a fundamental cultural difference that will never really change but even use of non-lethal weapons in that situation looks very bizarre from here. In the countries I've lived police may use tasers if someone fights them, or doesn't drop a knife or similar weapon despite multiple commands. They don't shoot people sitting in cars with tasers.

On April 15 2021 23:45 Oukka wrote:
Why on earth was the police officer even pulling a taser gun is the part that I can't get over. It's already a weapon to the extent that civilians aren't even allowed such things afaik.

Maybe Daunte Wright wouldn't have died had she shot him with a taser instead, but it would have still been completely disproportionate use of force by standards of just about any other first world country police. Wright wasn't violent, wasn't threatening violence as far as I understand. Police officer can't force him out of the car without resorting to weapons? Especially if she had the other police officer right there next to her.

This might be a fundamental cultural difference that will never really change but even use of non-lethal weapons in that situation looks very bizarre from here. In the countries I've lived police may use tasers if someone fights them, or doesn't drop a knife or similar weapon despite multiple commands. They don't shoot people sitting in cars with tasers.