That hasn’t been a problem in the past.
But that’s not what happened. Why deal with counterfactuals when people actually do get shot by the police (just not this time)?
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Required reading. Even the United Nations recognize how disproportionately police action against Black folks occurs.
Standard derail protocol. Whitewash, rinse, repeat.
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Don’t exaggerate, the last line is mostly fine. It’s just those pesky last two words.
edit: /s (thought this was clear…)
Much of the last line has changed since its inception.
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“For all” is exactly the issue in this case, at least for most of us here.
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I don’t think people frustrated with how easily this guy got taken into custody means that they WANT him or someone like him to be shot down in a hail of bullets. I think it is sarcastic frustration that someone who they were 90% sure was armed and 100% sure had just killed a bunch of people was taken into custody rather routinely, while a routine traffic stop so often turns fatal.
Jayland Walker was shot at like 90 times! 90!!! I mean holy fucking shit - 90! I heard the body cam. I was like, what in the fuck are they shooting at??
One might say Crimo was treated differently because this suspect complied when pulled over. That probably helped the situation, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. I believe cops are all psychologically primed and that racism is the main factor of that priming. Priming is when your brain is ready to see or connect two things together based on seeing the first thing. Like you see a briefcase on a bench you would expect a guy in a nice suit to come by and pick it up. You are primed to react to a stimuli based on past experience.
Cops are trained and have it ingrained it is them vs the world and there are wolves lurking out there to tear them apart. Any lapse in that mindset will leave you dead in the streets. They quickly learn to dehumanize anyone they encounter, even for routine traffic violations. Doubly so if “They deserve it.” Even cops who don’t consider themselves racist or are POC have racial bias because of training, having them police poorer neighborhoods, and confirmation bias.
Add dehumanization + priming + racism and you get modern policing today. They are primed to see non-white as all potentially hostile criminals. This is why if they see a zip lock bag in the car from a kids PBJ they think it means you have weed in the car. Or any object in the hand can become a gun - because they are primed to see a gun. Some of them may even swear they saw a gun, even though it was a phone or a comb or something.
What’s worse is with that combination applied to white people, they don’t have priming and racism working into the equation. So their perceived threat level is already several degrees less.
I mean, they have these scenarios in their video training, where they have a scene play out and you have to decide when to shoot. There are videos of people taking that training, and they fail all the time. All the time. I don’t know if anyone ever did samples where they have identical scenarios with different colors of actors and then compare the two groups on which scenario lead to a bad shoot more often, but I am confident white people would get shot less.
In the 90s when the murder rate was much higher than it was today, and there was even more street crime and gangs, they coined the term “super predator” to describe these criminals. In all seriousness, that labeling applies to a lot of cops today. They are literally looking for people to prey on and ruin lives. Due to years of dehumanization, priming to think minorities and the poor are criminals and dangerous, and years of affirming their cognitive and racial bias, I think any sort of chase triggers that predator mentality further. That has to be how an unarmed black man gets shot 90 times!!! while white mass murders are taken into custody. Or they think someone is “reaching” while lying prone. Or in the case of someone like Rittenhouse, waved to get out of the way so they could go take care of “the real problem”.
I still haven’t gotten through this whole play list, but this youtuber is an ex-cop and now part of the police abolition movement. I have no idea how this guy manage to flip the switch in his brain that he was the bad guy, but he did. (He mentioned how a Run The Jewels song actually caused with some self reflection in a later video.) I imagine there are more people like him, but not making youtube channels. The first video talks about how he would dehumanize people they encountered. And this guy was “one of the good ones”. I think while as a cop, he did so with good intent. Think how much worse the bad ones must be. (note, this guy has a very Bob Ross like voice - which is a little different, so it may take time to adjust.)
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The Akron Police (and many others) can learn from these cops. It seems like they handled it well.
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Someday I’ll remember that tone is never conveyed online.
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*Melz sighs and posts the obligatory meme:
SSDD.
Also obligatory as fuck:
And unfuck everyone who enables them.
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And it’s not just about getting shot. It’s getting tased, pepper sprayed, beaten, getting kneed into the ground, etc. And that’s what happens to peaceful protesters and Black people for non-violent actions. I’m glad they didn’t shoot this guy, but for consistency sake, they could have at least shoved his face into the pavement a bit, even if it was half hearted, even if it was just for the cameras.
The problem is how often white serial killers and mass shooters get concierge service from the police.
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I felt I was adding to your point, but apparently that didn’t come across correctly. I was assuming we are in agreement, that Liberty & Justice are sadly NOT ‘for all’ in this country. No shade, really.
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Sorry, but I’ve got to revisit this, because it’s just not true. Even when cops are shot at by white people, they still give the shooter the soft glove treatment. There’s a famous case of a doctor in the Miami area who was running a pill mill. Old case from the 90’s IIRC. Cops show up with a warrant to arrest him, and he responds to their polite knock with gunfire through the door. Cops retreat to their vehicles to wait him out. The guy keeps firing at them through windows and they do not return fire. They wait until he runs out of ammo then bust into the house and arrest him without harm.
All too often, the decision to shoot is all too racist. It’s not just the escalation. It’s racism. And as the all-Black training targets the Farmington Hills police use show, it’s training.
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I think there is something to be said for the “Wanted - Dead or Alive” mentality that still hangs over law enforcement in the USA.
Certain suspects are worth more alive than others.
And what defines this worth?
It seems to be mostly skin color.
This is why we say Black Lives Matter.
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turns out the cops did nothing after a previous suicide attempt by him, and a separate time when he threatened to kill his whole family.
you’d think that latter one would have led to something… but no, it’s perfectly fine and normal for white guys to threaten death with guns
( side note: i have seen 5000 articles now with his picture, his name, and the name he used when making music. it’s frustrating how his identity is getting highlighted and broadcast. the press is giving him all the attention he wanted. it can only serve to inspire others to do the same )
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I edited my post to strike that comment about there being enthusiasm for police misconduct here. The responses here (and some sleep on my part after the shelling stopped last night) have convinced me that I was mistaken.
It’s now clear to me that the outrage around this incident is about perceived corrupt motivations for the cops doing the right thing, not about their actual actions.
Digging up those articles for me to read must have taken some work, so I’m inclined to believe you genuinely think I don’t know how prevalent racial injustice is. I guess it’s because I don’t preach much to the choir here.
I am fully aware and outraged over racial disparities in police mistreatment. But I clearly don’t show it in the hyperbolic way that is respected here. I can live with the lack of approval. But when words are put in my mouth and then people start believing I said those things and responding as if I had, that derailment doesn’t serve anyone.
My post was intended to be about communication style in this thread, how it derails threads into hasty strawman arguments. It was apparently misinterpreted as repeatedly pleading for something else. SSDD. Maybe there is a way out of this loop?
I don’t see any sarcasm tags, so I guess we aren’t completely free of progressive bloodthirst.
Mods, feel free to break this out into a separate thread.
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I dunno. Maybe stop equating simple traffic stops with pursuit of a known suspect? 
And serious police overreach over a simple traffic stop of a Black man, compared to the white glove treatment of a white known suspect.
ETA: I worked nine months as a Sheriff’s dispatch, parole division. I’ve seen and heard it myself.
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The main reason I interpret the posters on this thread who are defending the special concierge service level the police provided to this white mass shooter as, inadvertently or not, pushing a white lives matter agenda, and the reason you keep hearing about traffic stops, is the geographic and temporal contrast this case provides with the Jayland Walker shooting in Akron just a week before and a 6 hr drive down I-90, in which a Black man was shot 60 times by police over a traffic stop.
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Do we drink the blood as part of a “cabal” 
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So long as this doesn’t turn into “Slide admits to being a vampire”, I say enjoy an adult beverage in the comfort of your home. Probably not a good idea to get all cabal with it.
Sure there is; the first step is to stop automatically giving unearned ‘benefit of the doubt’ to the dominant group which has all the power but no accountability.
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