Not everything violent is a war. That’s just a metaphor that resonates in America because of a common Manichean view of law enforcement and love for all things military.
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Indeed it is. Thanks for the link.
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No, you are saying that he is saying something “ridiculous”… and it was something other than what he said… but it was something quite like you need for him to have said.
One option is that you don’t read well, the other is that you are listening with an agenda.
I have my opinion as to which is more likely.
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Why can’t it be both? My money’s on both.
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Sometimes speech is metaphorical. Sometimes we agree as a culture to give certain sounds certain meanings. It is a phrase that has entered the lexicon. Your pedantry won’t change that.
It sounded to me like we should treat the police like we treat bears, or cougars, and modify our behaviour to stay alive. Which isn’t bad advice. Except we aren’t allowed to humanely destroy the police once they become a danger to the public.
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Those are some rapidly moving goalposts, friend.
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No. You’re nitpicking my choice of words in order to avoid the point. THAT’S moving goalposts.
War Zone? Must we keep coming back to this?
Police work has been getting safer for 20 years, and 2014 is shaping up to be the safest year for police fatality rates in over a century!
And also: violent crime rates have been declining steadily for 20 years.
This doesn’t fit well with the “war zone” narrative but there’s plenty of data to back it up.
Perhaps you’ve been listing to the wrong radio stations.
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The officer is quoted as saying, ‘I felt like a five year old holding on to Hulk Hogan’. What officer reduces his sense of public duty and responsibility to that of a kindergartener? The kind of officer hiding behind the victim’s role. The kind with no business on the streets, since his future credibility can be taken from him by chunky sixth graders. The last officer you’d want covering your back.
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Interestingly, the federal government publishes statistics on how many police are killed, but doesn’t publish complete statistics on how many civilians are killed by police. There are crowdsourced projects such as Fatal Encounters and it seems that about 1,000 civilians are killed by cops each year. Maybe 1,100.
http://www.fatalencounters.org/
And that gets to the next thing. We only hear about a few of these stories. A twelve-year-old black boy got killed for playing with a toy gun.
Killing twelve-year-old kids. At what point do we say that this is totally wrong? and that the police forces are totally beyond reform?
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Wow, that’s a lot of material. I think it will just be easier for everyone to stick to their preconceived notions and opinions.
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There are a few factors which strike me as suboptimal about it. Police are basically your employees, so they should act appropriately. Would you like to hire a landscaper, only to have them and their friends threaten you on your own property? That’s how an unaccountable municipality operates.
If I wanted to live according to the laws of the wilderness instead of civilized society, I’d go live in the actual wilderness.
Staying alive may or not be the best, most immediate goal. It’s just an instinctual drive, and she be kept in check like any other.
In many jurisdictions, people are allowed to use force, even lethal force, to prevent immanent loss of innocent lives. It’s easy to make the case that those in question were merely impersonating police officers, since they were observed acting unlawfully.
Here, YES.
Got it?
Nope. I think justice was not served, and I believe you are not sad about that. or did you want to argue semantics while explaining to other people what they really meant when they chose their own words, the ones you ignore in favor of your own, and otherwise keep on polarizing the debate some more while pointing fingers at others for invicility?
Some Pig.
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How come it got so quiet in here? Was it the banned troll?
Weird.
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I saw tweets with updates from the situation on at least many feminist oriented blogs/tumblrs I frequent, esp. succinct tweets from Shaun King.
Mass media is another story of course, that definitely underplayed the daily ongoing protests and police state mentality.
I don’t know what the correct response to a situation like this that is more than 200 years in the making. How is the deeply ingrained racism in the south removed/re-educated ? Should everyone, everywhere protest ? Is protest too mild a response to a pattern on ongoing murder by authorities over trivialities like suspicion ? Should any person be murdered by the police IF they had stolen a few cheap cigars ? IF they were cooperating with unreasonable law enforcement behaviour ? I honestly do not know what is right to do. There was a clump of white male anarchists(or undercover police dressed thusly) agitating for direct action. Many black Ferguson residents spoke out against these protestors - who they felt did not speak for them or even live in the community. Many of these agitators did not even speak TO the people in the Ferguson community who were directly affected - or ask how they could help.
I live in another country and I feel overwhelmed by grief and rage by this situation. The murder/no indictment is one thing - but the pattern of racism, contempt, lies, paranoia has far deeper roots that go back many generations. Would firing and indicting the entire Ferguson police force fix anything ? Would a full on riot that left the entire city in rubble and ash fix anything ? Would protests across the country every night, everywhere fix anything ? I do not know what is right to do ?
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Well, it’s definitely not as mild as tweeting/reblogging updates.
I don’t mean even violent protests. Organise a couple of strikes. Move to the streets. You know, protests.
Man, none of us know what the right thing is to do, that’s what sucks.
What we do know is that the existing system is failing its end users. We just don’t know the way forward to stop people from being shot or beaten by the people paid to protect and serve without the new people falling into the same old trap.
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Fixes that will work:
-
require police to wear cams and have car dash cams, 100% of the time
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equip police with less lethal options as “default” everyday carry weapons – taser, rubber bullets, etc.
The first one is what we should be focusing on.
If you read the PDF of his grand jury deposition, it becomes the cop’s story against everyone else’s. And the cop’s story is always believed, unless there is overwhelming public evidence otherwise.
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