Humour is subjective, it seems.
And yet, here I am conversing with people about the topic…
I think what you really mean is that, because I disagree with the “hate cops!” rhetoric, I’m not having a “conversation”.
I hate those cops, for sure. But I don’t hate all cops, nor assume that all cops are bad.
Have I? Like what?
Failing to provide a timely response is not the same as refusing. Now you can read my response to dragonchild12.
Like I said - humour is subjective.
Humor is most certainly subjective. I’ve responded in my previous comment inline before this post. Apologies for organization issues.
And for the record I do live in another country, and fair or not, I’m asked on a weekly basis about how terrible American policing is due to being an American. Again while good people may be police there doesn’t seem to be many good cops. Or at the very least not many who manage to make an impact on the issue at hand, rather than doing their job protecting and serving their community, which itself is admirable but is again… their job.
Don’t forget Adrian Schoolcraft. He worked as a beat cop in a neighborhood and had good relations with the people he was serving. Then the police department brought in an illegal quota system. When he refused to “make his numbers” the department started trying to punish him by taking him of squadcar patrol duties and putting him back on the beat again, which wasn’t really a punishment anyway. He still refused to work unethically in order to keep his numbers up.
When his CO started having meetings talking about bringing in “anyone and everyone” on Halloween and putting them in 24 hour holds without charges “because we can always figure out something to pin on them”, Schoolcraft had already been secretly recording these things.
The department put so much pressure on him that he was getting sick, and when they showed up at his house he wouldn’t let them in, so his department tried getting him committed to a mental health facility. They knew they were driving him into a depression by trying to force him into fucking up peoples’ lives for the sake of their statistics.
Agreed.
There are definitely systemic issues. And bad cops do need to be called out. I just want to make sure we aren’t going down that risky path of tarnishing all cops with the same brush.
I think we’re on the same wavelength.
Cute…
If a cop perceives you as a threat it is MOST DEFINITELY a downside if they assume you have a gun because that means they will skip right past every non-lethal means of subduing you.
Doesn’t “stand your ground” do that?
it looked like he was shot in the right lung. which would cause him to choke and drown on his own blood. especially when that blood is allowed to flow into and fill the left lung, as it would after he was placed on his stomach and then rolled over on his left side. gravity works… (i’m not a doctor or medical professional, i just pay attention).
and here’s proof that body cams don’t stop badge wearing murderers from walking away unscathed.
at the least, i think the cop should have been given a desk job for life. we can’t prove that he wasn’t worried about the guy having a gun, like the law determined, but we can prove that he didn’t do right by that kid regardless of the situation.
the cop should no longer be patrolling the streets with a gun handy.
Agreed. Not ALL cops are bad simply by virtue of being cops. Things can and should be done but perhaps I and others too heavily lament the lack of progress on this particular issue and the apparent stonewalling from above.
Is “being a threat” a crime? Police are “law enforcement officers”, and they have no business bothering people over anything else. My point was that police are often called only because they are told somebody has a gun, when this in itself is not in any way a law enforcement problem. And to compound the hypocrisy, police remedy this by showing up with guns to bother people.
Sometimes I’ve done this to police. Scream “look out, he’s got a gun!”, as I dive to the floor of a store, bank, etc and cower in mock fear. Why not? I can act like a fool, too! It’s true, the cop has a gun, and I am perfectly in my rights to be overcome by fear by their presence, even if they aren’t otherwise doing anything. They fucking hate this, but there isn’t anything they can do about it.
And that is a factor, why?
Which isn’t the case here or in the vast majority of unarmed-guy-killed-by-cop situations.
Obviously it’s a law enforcement problem, but a really big part of the problem is that the gun situation in the U.S. gives them a degree of cover for their actions. If a cop in the U.K. kills an unarmed person and says “I killed him because I thought he was threatening me with a gun” he’ll face a lot of hard questions, like “what on earth made you think he was even carrying a gun?”
Hm, suicide by cop? Still, it takes a willing cop. They should have subdued him with a tazer, not killed him.
Even a taser would have been massively abusive. The guy wasn’t even resisting, let alone violently resisting, let alone presenting any sort of threat to anyone, let alone a threat of sufficient severity to justify a weaponised response.
It’s a sad sign of just how messed up things are over there that even the supposed opponents of police abuse are responding with “well, they should’ve just assaulted him a bit”.
A: The cops have no honor anymore. I know EMTs, prison guards, soldiers, and Firefighters who willingly place themselves in extreme danger on a regular basis because it is their job, their duty, and their honor to do so, to protect our society. If police had any honor at all, they would understand that protecting their fellow citizens, at all cost, is their duty.
B: It is time to push nationwide for laws that require all police to administer first aid to victims after an officer involved shooting. If you must shoot, at the very least, you must ALSO be willing and able to heal and rescue the citizen you have injured. Anything else is vigilante justice and must be repudiated by all thinking people. Your desire for safety on your job ends at the precise moment a life-risk for a citizen occurs. Otherwise your act is morally bankrupt.
I don’t think it’s a matter of whether there are or aren’t good cops. I know that there are plenty of good AND bad ones out there.
The problem I have is that I don’t know which is which from outside the range of their gun. And, I don’t know which is which until AFTER a situation starts. And once a situation starts, a citizen simply may not refute, refuse or do anything other than completely acquiesce to a police officer’s will regardless of whether it’s legal, constitutional, ethical, moral or not. If a citizen refuses to comply with a police officer’s order, whatever that order, the officer will then escalate the situation until force is used, and in that situation the officer will win.
So, I have to assume that ALL police are bad, and do everything I can do avoid contact, because I can’t reliably say that any contact I may have with any officer won’t go off the rails and end up with me dead or in jail based on the caprice of someone having a bad day and a state-issued firearm simultaneously.
As someone who lived in Utah, the two positive experiences I had with police in 15 years really freaked me out. What was wrong with those cops being all nice and helpful, they’re messing with my mind. This guy here though, much more comforting,
It provides additional information about how the situation ended the way it did, which does not absolve the police officer from killing Taylor in the slightest.
As deathisastar said, at most the cop should have used a tazer.
The victim’s apparent state of mind helps to explain why he didn’t raise his hands immediately, and the fact that he had an oustanding warrant explains why he walked away.
Is it abuse to point out that all you’ve done is extrapolate #NotAllCops to criticize people criticizing bad cops?
Or is that ridicule?
edit - Ha, I didn’t see that someone had already pointed out that you were #NotAllCopping . Though their reply seems to accept that #NotAllCops is a valid point, which it certainly is not.
This is so upsetting. No compassion. He bum-rushes and shoots the guy in in the chest then sounds disgusted that he got blood on his hands. Doesn’t give a shit until he realizes the man may be dying. When he urges “stay with me” it sounds more bullying than concerned. He’s fearful of what the consequences may be for him - losing his job, getting in trouble. Then he starts frisking the guy looking for to see what the evidence will be in court. I’m surprised this fearful jerk didn’t plant anything, (may have been hard to do with the camera running). If “feeling scared” is all a cop needs to justify killing a man, then they need to stop hiring these fucking cowards. Seriously, if there was some way to screen these guys for their fear and compassion that would be better for everybody (except the sadists and people who benefit from police thuggery).
