I have a very strange feed. Over half of my friends are yoga-related friendships, so there is much posting of pictures of rainbows and buddhas with encouraging sayings. Others are old friends from Alabama, so there is much posting of Southern humor jokes, and who doesn’t like that? But along with Alabama humor are a few right-wingers and uptight Christians who are outraged over how welfare dollars are being spend on the wrong kinds of food, which is not always a joy for me to read. Then there are my husband’s friends, largely cops, lawyers, EMTs, military folk, and so there is much posting of Pray for our Troops types of things and the shock humor that is “in” in their crowd - plus a lot of bears - but in the wake of Ferguson and now Baltimore, I get these Fox news re-runs as well. I would say most everyone in my feed I have some true connection to and enjoy having them in my life in their photos and personal stories. I like having people with different points of view in my life. But it’s sad to me how there is so little agreement on anything, this bifurcation politically. And I really have a tough time with the pure meanspiritedness of the Fox news stuff I read.
Exactly how many people do they have to murder before it is more than just a tough job? Somehow entire nations manage to go decades without killing as many people as any large American city kills in a year. Look up the history of “rough rides”, especially in Baltimore. We’re talking about a force that routinely uses extrajudicial force. I want them afraid to make that call. Killing a human being SHOULD be a very difficult choice.
If a hospital regularly violated procedures in a way that killed or maimed people frequently someone would be in jail and the individual doctors would be sued. A fast food worker who ignored hygienic procedures in a way that resulted in death would be held accountable. Cops are held to a lower standard than any other industry.
Same here. It does keep things interesting. I was having dinner with my parents over the holidays last year and I said something about how black people are disproportionately targeted by law enforcement. I wasn’t trying to say anything controversial, I thought it was just an obvious fact, like noting that it’s raining outside. I didn’t think anything of it, but they both looked up from their food and looked at me like I’d turned into an alien and my antennae were showing.
Sometimes I wonder which will come first: enough kids being murdered that we enact actual gun control or enough people being murdered on camera by cops that we begin to punish their transgressions.
I think you answered it, cops are already cops, who are the cops for the cops? Other cops? Members of the so very thin blue line, the only thing protecting society from unrestrained violence and rape?
You know everyone, except the cops, is a closeted armed robber, rapist, and murderer only restrained by the nagging certainty that there is a police officer who would get them, right? That is what the police mostly believe, if you are willing to risk talking to them in an informal setting.
Looting is terrible. Violence is deplorable. Both are counterproductive in many ways. But in some ways riots and violence are completely understandable - they don’t fit in to our modern, acceptable, nonthreatening form of protest but they do what no other form of protest can do; let society know that if a segment of the population is treated unfairly to a breaking point, then those in power should be afraid - afraid for their life and livelihood. The Boston Tea Party was looting. The American Revolution was a riot, from a certain perspective.
I’m not condoning violence against innocents or the damaging of property of those not involved. Simply noting that it’s a very privileged perspective to suggest that the only form of legitimate protest is nonviolent and peaceful.
Change the name of the place, the message remains pitch perfect:
They intentionally inflicted damage on him equivalent to a serious car accident, something that’s resulted in paralysis and death of suspects before. I’d say that constitutes “malice aforethought” in that it’s either intent to kill or to inflict grievous bodily harm just short of death, which would make it first degree murder, I believe.
There was a police officer who got off recently when the judge acquitted him of manslaughter - he had shot (over his shoulder, no less) at a group of people because (out of the corner of his eye) he thought one of them might have had a gun (he was also off duty). The judge acquitted him of those charges because it was misfiled and actually a murder case. Unfortunately they can’t refile charges against the cop, so he’ll face no consequences…
You have some say over what at least two of those eyeballs are pointed at.
The police are jaded?
What about the people? The non-professionals who pay taxes to be protected and served? Are the people supposed to set the example for the police, and raise their bar??? for real, yo?
Well, when you have comediennes telling the President:
“Take it easy on the Secret Service, because they’re the only police force in the country who’ll get in trouble if a black man gets shot”
… it’s actually out of hand.
Justice demands these people are charged with murder, arrested, locked up without bail, and put on trial visibly, publicly, quickly. If they’re innocent let them prove it in court like anyone else.
If you read about a man beaten on the street and then bundled into the back of a van, emerging dead 45 minutes later, you think of East Germany under the Stasi, or some other tin pot dictatorship, not America in 2015.
Get the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions to investigate it, so that the rest of us can impose sanctions on you.
Not entirely on-topic, but important, and a solid interview. 6 minutes well spent.
Of course, if civilians did the same thing, it would be felony murder. Heck, if civilians don’t do anything like that, but one gets killed, it can be considered felony murder.
Sort of. Most of my exposure comes from FB feed and posts on forums such as this. And most of them are about the looting. And the mom smacking her looting son around. She was awesome.
Well it isn’t black and white. While that would arguably be justified, real looting happened as well. And thanks to that we have the Lootie meme with the guy and a tub full of Heinekin (sp).
But the moral of the story is reality is controlled by the media spin.
Yeah, I just checked my FB feed. Sure enough, my Faux News watching, veteran, personal friend of the McCains, brother-in-law is posting/commenting on some ‘hilarious’ meme images, articles.
Luckily he’s pretty much ploughing a lone furrow, besides the Texan I used to work with who’s all about the 2nd Amendment.
That said, quite a few Tories are coming out of the woodwork during election season…
Christ, what is up with all of those ellipses?
They probably didn’t actually beat him - the Baltimore police apparently have this thing they do frequently enough that there’s a whole set of terminology around it - they cuff the suspect’s hands (and sometimes feet, as in this case), then stick them in the back of the police van without a seatbelt. Then they drive around in such a way that the suspects literally bounce around the interior of the vehicle to the point where their spines break. There have been some successful lawsuits, but I’m not aware of police ever facing charges as a result. Unfortunately this is exactly what I’d expect in American in 2015 - things don’t change that fast, and it’s been going on for a long, long time.
Just as a comma gives a speaker an opportunity to breathe, the ellipses give a reader a chance to stop thinking.
And it’s HORRIFYING.
Far more horrifying than some cigarette, booze and fast food joints going up in flames.
