While shooting the offenders in the back of the head is [edited to add… meant this] a bad solution, we do need to have actually repercussions for shooting unarmed kids… I’m okay with life in prison, how about you? Now it’s like, desk duty, and at worst, it’s like early retirement… They tend not to get jail time for these sorts of crimes.
3 Likes
Considering it’s one of the byproducts of our War on Drugs police state, I’m not sure it’s derailing (besides, I’m not the one who brought up “rich white girls”) though I’ve been wrong a time or two before. People need to pay more attention to what’s going on, if nothing else. Don’t pretend it’s an academic problem, because even the smallest of towns have ex-Marines running around armed with the kind of gear they had in the military and an intense hate of civilians.
If I had to guess about Ferguson: it’s not a terribly affluent 'burb. It’s just east of the international airport, it’s not far from the worst neighborhoods in St. Louis, and if I had to guess, I’d say their police force has an above-average level of corruption and hatred of the people they’re supposed to serve and protect. I’ll make a prediction right now: it’s going to be a corrupt cop and a case of mistaken identity.
1 Like
I’m tempted to say it should be treated like any other homicide case, but that’s only because I hate the death penalty, and maybe that would help abolish it.
1 Like
Which I brought up as a joke to mock how the media actively ignores this epidemic…
if I were pretending it’s an academic problem, I would be far more objective. We shouldn’t be objective about this. We should find a way to fix it.
I know… part of the problem.
Possibly. But here is an eyewitness account:
http://gawker.com/eyewitness-michael-brown-pleaded-i-don-t-have-a-gun-1620094720
1 Like
Yeah, that goes both ways though. There are examples where you have dozens of images of shenanigans with drugs, weapons, piles of cash etc, and then people parade out their school photo and claim their “baby didn’t do nothing”, despite having a record and were caught perpetrating a crime. The ironic term of “white washing” I think turns people off to their plight.
Though on the other hand, you have to judge each incident on it’s own merits. Someone who is a thief and drug dealer may still have been killed or assaulted when they shouldn’t have. Context and analysis of each incident is need, but we aren’t very good at doing that.
To the original topic at hand, it seems cops have slowly developed an “us vs them” mentality. This seems to go hand in hand with the militarization of law enforcement. The systems we have in place for oversight don’t seem to be working in many cases. I really don’t know how to fix it until we can get robot cops who dispense justice with out human emotions and biases, nor jittery reflexes.
1 Like
I think this was an issue long before the militarization of law enforcement. Think about the violence of cops in the south before and during the classical civil rights movement, or during the period before Stonewall or at Stonewall.
I think cops need to remember that they are there to serve us, the public. And that they aren’t in the business of doling out street justice. That might help somewhat.
7 Likes
Pull quote of interest: “I’m gonna shoot you.” This really tiptoes onto murder in the first degree.
7 Likes
That is an important link. If it turns out to be the true story, then I don’t see any way to describe this as other than murder.
3 Likes
Yeah, but people will find a way to justify it away, you know… “oh, the witness is lying, they were really up to something”… blah, blah, blah. But the kid was apparently yelling “I don’t have a gun, don’t shoot”… WTF. But at best, if this goes to trial, he will be charged with manslaughter.
But if that account is true, then that’s fucked up. Clearly the cop in question was on a power trip and decided that he was going to reenforce his power by shooting an unarmed kid.
3 Likes
I haven’t sought it out, but a witness caught the shooting on her phone. I wonder if the audio is good enough to reveal this detail?
For the record, it’s not out of laziness that I haven’t searched for the video, it’s because I get physically ill whenever I happen to accidentally see such things, say, when I’m watching the news.
2 Likes
Maybe that was the clip that @ActionAbe posted? I didn’t watch it, mainly cause I’m at school in the library (though there aren’t many people here).
Yeah, I have similar reactions to realistic violence like that. whenever I view the clip from Eyes on the Prize, the section that discusses the Little Rock stuff, and they show the clip with black journalist outside the school that the mob went crazy on, I have to turn away. It’s not even that graphic… Oddly, graphically violent horror movies, like over the top gorefests, usually don’t bother me in the same way… maybe because I know it’s not real?
2 Likes
Exactrly.
I would add a word to the post’s title: “Why did the cops kill yet another unarmed black kid?”
3 Likes
Agreed. This is really what this is all about.
1 Like
What ActionAbe posted is a music video that features the lyric “This is what happens when you call the cops!” overlaid on nearly four minutes of clips of police brutality.
2 Likes
Oh… thanks for viewing and telling us! I guess the witnesses video is probably being held up for evidence?
I had the distinct displeasure of seeing bits of it on the news Monday night. It’s out there.
1 Like
Yes, thanks for noting that, it’s powerful and poignant activism – examples here:
3 Likes
So what?
It’s the mainstream media that have the power to promulgate insidiously influential images. Not the parents of dead children.
4 Likes
I imagine the police will eventually come up with a plausible story explaining why an unarmed kid was shot dead while running away, but the fact that they still don’t have anything to say days later certainly implies the cogs are turning behind the scenes, and they are desperately trying to protect both their image and one of their brethren in blue who did something stupid and/or malicious.
7 Likes
Here’s to hoping that there are multiple copies stashed all over the web, so someone’s phone with a singular copy doesn’t magically “disappear”…
1 Like
