Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/08/04/police-mistakenly-pull-black-f.html
…
10 Likes
The dangerous thing I think is the human need to make sense of things. People like me are reading this and opening their mouths to ask “But why couldn’t they…”, “But why would they…”, and the numerous other things to make sense of why these police officers did what they did, but my perspective is becoming simply NO.
I am not going to ask. Not one question. Because I don’t care. I really don’t care a bit what reasons the police had to do this.
You do not do this to people. You do not do this to children. There are no answers to the making-sense-of-things questions that could excuse it, so why ask?
51 Likes
“Mistakenly.”
Good one…
55 Likes
According to this site, the temperature in Aurora, CO hit a high of 29°C (84° F) on Sunday, with similar temperatures for most of the week prior. How hot would that concrete be?
21 Likes
It may have been a mix up, but the police’s behavior was no “mistake;” that’s their SOP.
64 Likes
That is what they said. That is not what they meant. Every one of them needs to be fired and prosecuted.
25 Likes
Apparently it was a perfectly understandable mistake. The reported stolen vehicle was a motorcycle with plates from another state. It is asking way too much of our police to distinguish a car full of kids from a stolen motorcycle, right? Oh, they were Black? Never mind, as you were.
77 Likes
Aurora PD (and really all Police Departments) are proving again and again that if they aren’t being purposefully overreaching, racist, brutal and cruel they are doing it through shoddy work, mistakes, laziness and ineptitude (or at least using those as excuses). Those with the power to detain and take lives should not be allowed to be inept.
26 Likes
“Mistakenly” makes it sound like they knocked at the wrong door. Pretty sure they knew what they were doing at the time. This isnt a mistake, its a war crime.
24 Likes
Exactly. From the departments “apology”:
“We have been training our officers that when they contact a suspected stolen car, they should do what is called a high-risk stop. This involves drawing their weapons and ordering all occupants to exit the car and lie prone on the ground”
Of course the officers’ discretion on this would be heavily dependent on the driver’s appearance, but that goes without saying
22 Likes
In not dissimilar news, Secret Service agents in DC rammed a parked car containing two Black mums and their babies, and hauled the women out at gun point and handcuffed them while the babies were left to scream in their car seats for 45 minutes, allegedly because the car had been reported stolen. (It wasn’t.)
46 Likes
Someone please inform the Aurora PD to count the wheels on both sides of the vehicle next time and also quit your jobs
41 Likes
These wind-up robot clowns obviously don’t hire the best and brightest when they can’t discern a motorcycle from a family van.
What a travesty.
10 Likes
Oh, police knocking on the wrong door has horrible outcomes on a depressingly regular basis too.
16 Likes
Right? A (white) friend of mine once got a parking ticket in the mail because someone from out of state with matching plates parked illegally on the other side of the state. He was pissed that the police couldn’t tell a Wisconsin plate from Illinois (also the color and makes of the cars didn’t match) even though it wasn’t that hard to fix in the realm of bureaucratic mixups and nobody got guns pointed at them or handcuffed and the only thing at stake was ~$50.
Mixing up the plates like that is… well it shouldn’t really happen but is the kind of thing where you could say “mistakes happen, aren’t those guys dumb”. The resulting treatment of the victims is no mistake. If they had pulled me over for the same they would have asked for my license and registration, checked it out for like 20 minutes while I waited, made up some bullshit excuse to avoid admitting they couldn’t tell the difference between a motorcycle and an SUV with plates from a different state.
24 Likes
Also, it’s a fucking stolen car. If it immediately turns into a “high-risk stop” to stop a suspected stolen car then don’t fucking do it. A stolen car is not important enough to put anyone’s life at risk (including officers, if it’s going to lead to this kind of bullshit escalation of tactics.) The same reason we all decided that high-speed car chases aren’t worth the fucking collateral damage. The same reason we SHOULD ban detention and cavity searches for suspected drug possession. If the situation calls for more than just letting an insurance claim handle the damages, well then, by all means take the time to properly identify a suspect get a full dossier on them and arrest / issue a summons to them in a calm, safe, sensible, well-thought-out way on your own terms. Jesus H Christ the lazy fuckers.
36 Likes
At a certain point, continuous, uncorrected negligence becomes functionally the same as intent and malice.
27 Likes
Spotted a car…
I’m guessing some camera that continually scans all plates that happen across the lens?
3 Likes
Motorcycle plates are a completely different size, right?
15 Likes
Literally, straight out of their racist, how to books…
Apparently, these cops are robots that can’t deviate from their programming and cannot use simple logic and compassion to figure out that different situations call for different actions.
13 Likes
