Despicable California sheriff says it's "better financially" to kill suspects rather than "cripple" them

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/04/10/despicable-california-sheriff.html

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Fixed.

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You know what happens when a guy makes a bad shooting on somebody and kills them?

We arrest them, charge them with murder, and, at very least, make sure they never wear a badge again?

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Well, technically that can be true. But for Christ’s sake, the justice system is supposed to be based on, you know, justice - right and wrong - not what is financially cheaper.

Speaking of financially cheaper, it is cheaper, usually, for life imprisonment vs execution.

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A) I very much doubt that Christ would approve of this fellow, much less the US judicial system.
B) That’s so very cute that you think that the justice system is actually designed to dispense justice
C) He is arguing for right and wrong–from the perspective of the county’s balance sheet.

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However, what he said is a fact, not an opinion. I suppose he would have been less despicable if he had lied, or maybe ducked the question like a more professional politician.

EDIT: Wait, are we getting all worked up over a sound bite from twelve years ago?

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On the one hand, why would you be shooting somebody if you weren’t trying to kill them? That shoot-the-gun crap is for movies, not real life.

On the other hand, Christ, what an asshole.

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Also ground zero for the infamous “satanic day care sexual abuse” hysteria that destroyed dozens of innocent families’ lives in the 1980s, led by the monstrous and unrepentant prosecutor Ed Jagels.

Jagels was also largely responsible for California’s draconian “Three Strikes” law which sentenced countless offenders to decades in prison for low-level nonviolent crimes.

Kern County’s approach to law enforcement almost makes Joe Arpaio look like an honorable champion of civil rights. I get shivers just driving through the place.

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Well, now that we know he’s said that, it won’t be. A suspect’s killing will be part of a deliberate pattern of behavior, and the family of anyone wrongfully killed there will have the mother of all lawsuit cases. In fact, as far the sheriff goes, it might be financially better for the county to… well, you know.

Ha ha ha. Oh, you!

It just came out, he’s still Sheriff, and this goes some way to explaining why the county has the country’s deadliest police force (with a police kill rate that’s more than 30 times higher than the NYPD’s, per cop).

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Because they’re careful not to murder nearly as many white people as they do PoC, and a lot of white people still fail to understand that police are legal gangsters.

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“Why disgraceful people like this are even allowed to run for sheriff – or any position – is beyond me.”

Because as i hear it, the police don’t hire people who are too smart or that ask too many questions.

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Is that true? Nationally, cops murder twice as many white people as PoC. If local numbers are even more disproportionate (there are about six times as many white folks) that’s noteworthy.

Well that’s definitely true! My own mother subscribes to the “just a few bad apples” mindset, and she’s generally a very well grounded and pragmatic person. :frowning:

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That is typically interpreted as a sign that there is just too much ‘due proces’ gumming up the works; so it’s a dangerous argument to make. I suspect that Sheriff Dredd here would be delighted to bring the average cost down, if unsupervised for long.

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A man offscreen answers, “Kill them.”

Conservatives, always with the eliminationism…

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The right to life ends at birth. /s

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It’s pathetic that a national newspaper feels the need to explain something that should be so simple and obvious.

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It’s sad that they really do have to, but yeah.

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My dad was a cop and worked in the accident division. His experience was, yes, if you are going to hit a pedestrian it’s better to make sure you kill them rather than injure them.

Of course, this was back before there were black boxes to prove you accelerated, or repeatedly backed over them.

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