The Shooting Gallery: Police Violence MEGATHREAD

[fromtia]

Who here has said that looting and rioting is good?

Anyone?

Nobody has. Not that I'm aware of. Conservatives imagine they have though, or they imagine that somewhere on the internet someone is. So you have to first say that you are against looting in their explicitly looting themed discussions. They can omit any mention of police misconduct or police murders, it is not a subject of interest to them. If you challenge them on this silence, it's back to looting.

[Zoupa]

The thing is the looting and property destruction isn't completely unrelated to the issue of police brutality.  In Fergusson, the riots resulted in the closure of the Walmart, the increase in insurance rates for businesses, and decrease of property values.  People ended up losing their jobs, their homes and access to affordable groceries.  The grinding poverty of government housing makes people desperate and they turn to crime which in turn attracts more police scrutiny and more conflict between the police and the community.

Now this doesn't apply everywhere there has been looting.  The looting I've seen looked like it took place in high-end shops.  Still, it's important to remember that property crimes can harm people beyond the folks owning the business and violent protests can do more harm than good for the people the protests are suppose to be for.

Yes, but the lesson to take from all of that is to address the grinding poverty rather than investing more in the police.

Yes, you address poverty by attack the cause, and in this case one of the major causes was the riots.

And what caused the riots? It's almost as if some issues are complex and require doing more than one thing.

A robbery suspect was shot after he punched a police officer in the head and tried to steal his gun.

Yes, Raz. I'm sure that's what happened.

[Razgovory]

A robbery suspect was shot after he punched a police officer in the head and tried to steal his gun.

Allegedly tried to steal the cop's gun. Given what we're seeing today, hard to believe the cop on this one.

Which one is "This one"?  The feds came in to do an investigation they were unable to find evidence that the police officer acted criminally.  I doubt Eric Holder was was trying to cover for some pissant cop in a small town in North County.  The physical evidence backed up the police officer's story and the witnesses who said that Brown was shot while trying to surrender later changed their story.

[Oexmelin]

The town was fairly well off before the riots.

It was well off for a dwindling minority of white inhabitants (from 75% to 30% of the population in 15 years). The town was in crisis well before the riots, with rates of unemployment and poverty increasing rapidly between 1990 and 2010. It's fairly well documented that the town was compensating for diminishing revenue by exerting pressure on the police department to ticket more and more people - who ended up being, disproportionately, black.  The revenues from fines had increased by 80% during the two years prior to Mike Brown's death.

[Razgovory]

Yes, Raz. I'm sure that's what happened.

Good, because that is what the evidence showed.  The initial reporting was wrong.  There's not much more that can be said.

[Barrister]

The bit in bold seemed particularly striking. The whole piece is interesting.

It does raise for me the question - especially about "lawful orders" - of how far away we are from the President giving an order and the military having to choose whether they think it's lawful and whether they should follow the order or not.

Possibly relevant for the failed/failing state thread or the coup thread.

I was wondering the same thing.

Incidentally, related to this topic, I learned today on NPR that the Enforcement Act of is actually much broader than the deployment of troops to protect constitutional rights, as I was led to believe by a quick read of Wiki.  It also allows the deployment of troops when the enforcement of federal and state laws are threatened.  Last time it was invoked was 1992, in California during the Rodney King riots, at Democratic governor Pete Wilson's request.

You had me doubting it so I looked it up...

Pete Wilson is a Republican.

[Razgovory]

The town was fairly well off before the riots.

It was well off for a dwindling minority of white inhabitants (from 75% to 30% of the population in 15 years). The town was in crisis well before the riots, with rates of unemployment and poverty increasing rapidly between 1990 and 2010. It's fairly well documented that the town was compensating for diminishing revenue by exerting pressure on the police department to ticket more and more people - who ended up being, disproportionately, black.  The revenues from fines had increased by 80% during the two years prior to Mike Brown's death.

I have family in that area.  My dad came from the city to south and my uncle lived to the city in the north.  I'd been there plenty of times, it didn't seem too bad.

One thing is certain, they are much poorer now. 

[Oexmelin]

I'd been there plenty of times, it didn't seem too bad.

There is a lot of info out there to check that perception.

[Razgovory]

I'd been there plenty of times, it didn't seem too bad.

There is a lot of info out there to check that perception.

Wonderful.

[Zoupa]

Yes, Raz. I'm sure that's what happened.

Good, because that is what the evidence showed.  The initial reporting was wrong.  There's not much more that can be said.

Yeah. I'm pretty sure an 18 year old kid that was running away after stealing a pack of smokes stopped, ran towards the cop , then reached in the Chevy Tahoe with his slender 300 pounds frame, then accidentally fired at himself 12 times.

That's what happened for shizzle.

[Razgovory]

Yes, Raz. I'm sure that's what happened.

Good, because that is what the evidence showed.  The initial reporting was wrong.  There's not much more that can be said.

Yeah. I'm pretty sure an 18 year old kid that was running away after stealing a pack of smokes stopped, ran towards the cop , then reached in the Chevy Tahoe with his slender 300 pounds frame, then accidentally fired at himself 12 times.

That's what happened for shizzle.

Straw man, five yard penalty, second down.

[Sheilbh]

And in fairness this time the guy was wanted because he'd been accused of trying to use a counterfeit $20 bill. Not clear if he was, but it feels almost apt that this - especially the looting and debates about that - was kicked off by that alleged crime.

[DGuller]

Forget right or wrong, I think that unwillingness to examine and re-examine your side's beliefs and arguments is a bad tactic from a pragmatic perspective.  Whether Michael Brown did assault the cop, was an innocent victim, or it can't be determined, does not take away from the fact that police shooting investigations are sham affairs for both justified and unjustified shootings alike.  Being unable to tolerate plausible explanations that do not sufficiently strongly square with the narrative does take away from your credibility, however.

The left is not the right, what works well for the right will not necessarily work well for the left.  We can tolerate some critical thinking, in fact it makes us stronger.

[Zoupa]

Critical thinking is what makes the cop's version of events in the Michael Brown case (as in many others), not believable.

[DGuller]

Critical thinking is what makes the cop's version of events in the Michael Brown case (as in many others), not believable.

What does critical thinking say about the DOJ report?