I thought the US had “de minimis” laws like in Canada, which would cover thefts like this?
That is to say, this crime would be beneath the notice of the courts, so the perp would get a fine instead.
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Or loudly declare, “It’s PAYDAY!”
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If the “good guy” keeps his head cool he’ll first tell the off-duty cop to lower his arm, but the latter will be startled and react like a rookie gangster, turning his gun towards the former, who’ll have no other reasonable option than shooting, and no reason to make any extraordinary effort for it not to be most likely lethal.
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So there is the other part of how the behavior of cops (or anyone really in other situations) has changed how I think now. No more second chances. No more being gracious.
Nope. Until one side of the argument can show measured, logical, thoughtful, and compassionate behavior I AM NOT BUDGING. Forget this “I’ll be a better/bigger person” bullshit.
Fire this guy. Fire him. Press charges against him. Send him to jail. Ruin his life for this shit. If enough of them have it happen then maybe they will change.
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A quick Google search shows that, in California, the penalty for shoplifting, with no priors (let’s assume), for taking an item that’s worth less than $50, is a fine of up to $250. Now who would want to waste their time waiting for an on-duty officer to respond and having to write a report about that, especially on their day off? The cop may be stupid, but he’s not dumb. /s
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Everyone only forgets the full saying. We should remind them it is “A few bad apples SPOIL THE BUNCH.” Dont ever let someone say “it’s just a bad apple” without reminding them of the point of that saying.
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Is anyone else thinking “Walter Sobchak”? This isn’t 'nam! There are rules!
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I hope the guy keeps on rockin’ that beard, though.
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If only they had been Smints things would have turned out differently!
(Or possibly they were Smints and the homophobic cop was worried that he wouldn’t be able to control himself around such a fine-smelling man?)
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I hope the city gets to pay this man huge. At least enough for a million packages of those mints.
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Where is that? That looks like an upside-down AFC Ajax fan banner at the front, so are those Dutch anarchists?
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I can’t remember exactly where I got the image. There’s a [something] Ultras banner in the background.
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It’s something police just ‘do’ and it pisses us off. How a person with a gun pointed at them is supposed to just take the word of the armed man they’ve never seen before, dressed in regular clothes, that they are actually an officer of the law and not just some lunatic with a gun who wants you to think that they are a cop makes zero sense. But they never get in trouble when they do it, and I guess that even if no one else on the scene knew, they knew they were really cops so it’s all good right? Conditioning the public to trust anyone with a drawn gun claiming to be an officer of the law is apparently only going to lead to good things so who needs badges in this day and age? Maybe that gun really is all you need to be a cop, literally.
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Well I’m going to play the devil’s advocate in a way.
I can see how the off-duty officer may have thought, seeing how the two men behaved, that there might be something dodgy going on, so he’d better go in and check from a safe distance. Specially how the guy with the cap leans on the counter could give the impression that some racket is going on and, being caught in that scenario, he may have had the impression that one guy was just taking a pack of Mentos to demonstrate his power to the owner. Big misunderstanding but I totally see myself getting caught in it.
As the man once said, “Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely”.
Certainly seems to be the case in the US these days.
It’s not (just) the misunderstanding that has people upset. It’s that he immediately and unnecessarily escalated the situation to a matter of life and death and endangered not only Arreola but also the cashier.
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I’m not saying that he did that right. I’m just saying that I see why he did that wrong and that he’s not necessarily a prime example of the redneck cowboy cop type. He just fucked up royally.
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While the scenario you hypothesise is possible, it requires a large degree of speculation, straining to extend the benefit of the doubt to the cop. Why do you wish to do this? Why are the police always provided with every possible excuse, while the reverse usually applies to their victims?
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Even if your scenario were true, it doesn’t really matter. Malice or incompetence, the victims who get shot are just as dead either way. That’s how structural classism and racism works. The problem is not personal and psychological; it’s systemic. American policing is built from the ground up as a system of violent oppression directed at the racialised poor.
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