Cop Tyranny Thread

doghouse said:
It's fucked up. I don't think anyone is arguing otherwise.
Click to expand...

You're right, it's fucked up. Cop shows, video games, glamorization of war in the media, violence on tv and movies, gun culture, tough on crime politics, it all contributes to it. I've always believed it: you get exactly the government you deserve. Look at the influences and the results correlate perfectly.
 
If you are brandishing a weapon and don't put it down when a cop demands it, you kind of have to expect to get shot at eventually.
 
Rambo said:
Cops just shot a crazy guy about 5 miles from Ferguson. Apparently, they couldn't manage to use any of that fucking riot gear to somehow subdue him.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/19/officer-involved-shooting-st-louis_n_5692160.html
Click to expand...

Yes, clearly the appropriate response would have been to, after gently chiding the man and reminding him that stabbing people isn't nice, use riot shields to deflect the knife stabs until the poor frustrated young man tired out and dropped the knife. Once he did that, the officers should have just given him a big hug. Maybe invite him out for a beer.
 
John Lee Pettimore III said:
Yes, clearly the appropriate response would have been to, after gently chiding the man and reminding him that stabbing people isn't nice, use riot shields to deflect the knife stabs until the poor frustrated young man tired out and dropped the knife. Once he did that, the officers should have just given him a big hug. Maybe invite him out for a beer.
Click to expand...
Oh give me a fucking break. No one is arguing that this guy isn't nuttier than a fruitcake. But almost all cops are equipped with tazers. This whole police department has LRAD's. Or, god forbid, they could have tried talking to him for more than 5 seconds without pointing a gun at him. You're telling me they couldn't have found one non-lethal way to take this guy down?
 
John Lee Pettimore III said:
Yes, clearly the appropriate response would have been to, after gently chiding the man and reminding him that stabbing people isn't nice, use riot shields to deflect the knife stabs until the poor frustrated young man tired out and dropped the knife. Once he did that, the officers should have just given him a big hug. Maybe invite him out for a beer.
Click to expand...


Or, you know, they could have used a taser and capsicum spray or some other incapacitant on him, which are all part of the huge amount of kit that they carry nowadays.

I'm sure that there are police out there who don't automatically shoot in these sorts of situations but it seems that more and more frequently (although I suppose that media reports may skew impressions here) police are resorting to lethal force rather than considering other options first.

Police forces in the UK and Japan generally manage to handle incidents well without resorting to firearms (as it is only special squads in both countries that are permitted to carry firearms) but in places like the US and Australia, where all police are issued with firearms, it seems that some police treat the use of a gun as a default response.
 
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Even the dumbest cop knows that just about any misdeed will be covered by the thin blue line, and if exposed the usual punishment is paid leave.
When individual cops are held accountable for their individual actions, they will likely use more thought and less reptilian instinct.

I think I've been fair in pointing out when the civilians have done boneheaded things that contributed to escalation, but they are not professionals or experts. Cops are supposed to be a higher standard and able to deal with the most nutty and stupid of society in a reasonably humane way.
 
John Lee Pettimore III said:
Yes, clearly the appropriate response would have been to, after gently chiding the man and reminding him that stabbing people isn't nice, use riot shields to deflect the knife stabs until the poor frustrated young man tired out and dropped the knife. Once he did that, the officers should have just given him a big hug. Maybe invite him out for a beer.
Click to expand...
Or, they could have pulled up and unloaded on his ass within 15 seconds:



For those timing this, the officers feet hit the ground at 1:25 and they unload on the crazy asshole at 1:40. Clearly, a beer summit could have been achieved in time allotted...
 
Rambo said:
Or, they could have pulled up and unloaded on his ass within 15 seconds:



For those timing this, the officers feet hit the ground at 1:25 and they unload on the crazy asshole at 1:40. Clearly, a beer summit could have been achieved in time allotted...
Click to expand...


I thought this is why tazers exist. The guy was menacing, obviously mentally ill. It's complex. A guy dying over 2 sodas is pretty crazy. But he was asking for trouble. Did this need deadly force? IMO, no. They could have stayed in the car and waited for backup. Or given him more time.

Not to turn this thread into a nature program, but why the hell can't cops just use tranquilizers?

Lastly, was that guy a contributing member of society? No. Will he be missed? By a small few. But did he deserve to die over this? No.
 
Charging a cop, or anyone else, with a knife is a willful act signalling that you want to kill someone. You are also accepting the risk that they might kill you.

Rambo said:
You're telling me they couldn't have found one non-lethal way to take this guy down?
Click to expand...

Maybe. There are quite a few people who don't respond to tasers (a cop shot a guy in Orlando last night who reached for his gun, after being tazed - but don't worry about getting outraged, Rambo, the cop was Latino and the "victim" was white). Do we want cops getting stabbed to death by guys like this? Because at that point, you're basically telling cops that their life is worth less than assholes like this. Which means you're going to get even shittier recruits to be policemen.

Really, I would love to see this level of scrutiny applied to everyone else's job. And it's funny - teachers are lionized because they have to deal with our children. Policemen are assholes because they deal with our criminals.
 
John Lee Pettimore III said:
Charging a cop, or anyone else, with a knife is a willful act signalling that you want to kill someone. You are also accepting the risk that they might kill you.



Maybe. There are quite a few people who don't respond to tasers (a cop shot a guy in Orlando last night who reached for his gun, after being tazed - but don't worry about getting outraged, Rambo, the cop was Latino and the "victim" was white). Do we want cops getting stabbed to death by guys like this? Because at that point, you're basically telling cops that their life is worth less than assholes like this. Which means you're going to get even shittier recruits to be policemen.

Really, I would love to see this level of scrutiny applied to everyone else's job. And it's funny - teachers are lionized because they have to deal with our children. Policemen are assholes because they deal with our criminals.
Click to expand...

Different from teachers, and almost all other jobs is that cops are anointed with a power over you. A teacher can't detain you, and doesn't usually carry a gun, nor tell you to stop filming or to stop resisting. Its very unlikely a teacher will kill someone during a day's work.

With this kind of power should come a very high level of scrutiny indeed. And what I think is obvious, now that cameras are filming everywhere, is that cops are abusing their power way too often, that its not just a few bad apples, and excused for it because its a tough job. They do have a tough job, they chose it.

While I completely respect the point you're making, but if police in America don't want to deal with our criminals, they can find work elsewhere. It's not like their conscribed to it.
 
But in this specific incident "being held to a higher standard" means probably taking a knife to the stomach so some asshole who has clearly chosen not to respect our society can live.
 
John Lee Pettimore III said:
But in this specific incident "being held to a higher standard" means probably taking a knife to the stomach so some asshole who has clearly chosen not to respect our society can live.
Click to expand...

The knife guy in St Louis, no video, and yes, wielding a knife can easily get you killed. I'm not sure splitting hairs on that event elaborates on being held to a higher standard. The guy could have had a knife and charged, or just shown a knife from 40 feet away, or even had his hands up with the knife to surrender it. A knife = kill him is a bit black and white.

Of course a guy with a job to enforce laws doesn't deserve a knife to the stomach in the process of disarming a lunatic. Cops need public support and protection, but at the same time they need to treat the public with a lot more respect than this. Hanging a hat on the notion that all this abuse deserves to be forgiven because its a tough job is just the lowest common detonator of debate.
 
Rambo said:
Or, they could have pulled up and unloaded on his ass within 15 seconds:



For those timing this, the officers feet hit the ground at 1:25 and they unload on the crazy asshole at 1:40. Clearly, a beer summit could have been achieved in time allotted...
Click to expand...

I must agree, one can totally have an unholstered firearm in their hand, at their side instead of aimed, and it becomes more viable to pacify a nutter instead of creating a fight or flight reaction. I couldn't hear what they said, but it didn't sound like they started with anything resembling community relations. Note that the cameraman seems no further than the cops were at the beginning.
 
Sobering.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2014/08/armed-police

In 2012, according to data compiled by the FBI, 410 Americans were “justifiably” killed by police—409 with guns.

Last year, in total, British police officers actually fired their weapons three times. The number of people fatally shot was zero. In 2012 the figure was just one. Even after adjusting for the smaller size of Britain’s population, British citizens are around 100 times less likely to be shot by a police officer than Americans. Between 2010 and 2014 the police force of one small American city, Albuquerque in New Mexico, shot and killed 23 civilians; seven times more than the number of Brits killed by all of England and Wales’s 43 forces during the same period.
Click to expand...
 
John Lee Pettimore III said:
The police in Britain don't generally interact with people carrying firearms.

In other news, boating fatalities in Mongolia are minuscule compared to the United States. Why are we letting people drown!!!???
Click to expand...

I was planning a boating death thread and you've ruined my mojo.

To your first sentence, I know. I'm not an anti-gun advocate, but don't those statistics give any reasonable person pause on the American gun culture? I guess it's hard for me personally because I don't care about guns, and don't really want to own one. And would love to feel comfortable in a choice like that, but then I look around me and its gun shows, crazy motherfuckers shooting up theaters, and home invasions with that Glock pointed sideways... its almost as if by allowing choice, mine has been stolen from me.

I know. I know. If you don't like it, move to England.
 
OfficePants said:
I was planning a boating death thread and you've ruined my mojo.

To your first sentence, I know. I'm not an anti-gun advocate, but don't those statistics give any reasonable person pause on the American gun culture? I guess it's hard for me personally because I don't care about guns, and don't really want to own one. And would love to feel comfortable in a choice like that, but then I look around me and its gun shows, crazy motherfuckers shooting up theaters, and home invasions with that Glock pointed sideways... its almost as if by allowing choice, mine has been stolen from me.

I know. I know. If you don't like it, move to England.
Click to expand...

Hell, isn't London's violent crime rate now higher than New York's?

BTW, think about why they point it sideways...the American gun culture as it now exists is as much a creation of Hollywood as it is the NRA. And the sad thing is that the rest of the world is eating that shit up.
 
John Lee Pettimore III said:
Hell, isn't London's violent crime rate now higher than New York's?

BTW, think about why they point it sideways...the American gun culture as it now exists is as much a creation of Hollywood as it is the NRA. And the sad thing is that the rest of the world is eating that shit up.
Click to expand...

Dunno. NYC is not indicative or Detroit or other meccas of gun violence.

Ha ha, my point exactly. The Simpsons said it best.

guard.jpg
 
Rambo said:
No, its obviously not, but that's how the subtext read to me, and I was hoping that you might have clarified it.
Click to expand...

Bullshit. You got overzealous with the snarkery. There was no part of your post that was an attempt at seeking clarity.

I wrote about the article and why it lacked a very significant piece of context - that our cops deal with many more people who are armed and are therefore more likely to match the threat presented to them and others.

You responded by stating that I think we should all just accept being shot by policemen.

It was silly. Let's just move on.
 
John Lee Pettimore III said:
I wrote about the article and why it lacked a very significant piece of context - that our cops deal with many more people who are armed and are therefore more likely to match the threat presented to them and others.
Click to expand...

The genie of gun ownership in the US is well and truly out of the bottle and nothing is likely to force it back in because it's simply too entrenched.

However, I do think that the US attitudes towards gun ownership have contributed to a sort of a Catch-22 situation viz-a-viz guns and policing.

There are lots of people with guns in the US, and some of them are happy to use them. As a result, police are very wary and and, given that people can be armed, are more likely to shoot first and to check later. As police are more likely to shoot, more people are worried about being shot by police and so they're more antagonistic and aggressive and more heavily-armed (in some cases). As potentially-armed people are more antagonistic and aggressive, police are more heavily armed and even warier. As police are more heavily armed, some people react by being more heavily armed and so on and on and on...

I could be wrong and it's quite possible that people in the US will tell me to get stuffed, but I do think that there's a vicious cycle going on here.
 
Journeyman said:
The genie of gun ownership in the US is well and truly out of the bottle and nothing is likely to force it back in because it's simply too entrenched.

However, I do think that the US attitudes towards gun ownership have contributed to a sort of a Catch-22 situation viz-a-viz guns and policing.

There are lots of people with guns in the US, and some of them are happy to use them. As a result, police are very wary and and, given that people can be armed, are more likely to shoot first and to check later. As police are more likely to shoot, more people are worried about being shot by police and so they're more antagonistic and aggressive and more heavily-armed (in some cases). As potentially-armed people are more antagonistic and aggressive, police are more heavily armed and even warier. As police are more heavily armed, some people react by being more heavily armed and so on and on and on...

I could be wrong and it's quite possible that people in the US will tell me to get stuffed, but I do think that there's a vicious cycle going on here.
Click to expand...

Good points, but I you're a little off in framing the conflict - most people arm themselves not against the police, but against other civilians. Whether it's a gangbanger arming himself against another gangbanger, a robber arming himself against a shopowner, or a suburban dad arming himself against the dreaded darkies, I think the arms race is usually not against the police. The vast majority of people know that they cannot outfight the police. The biggest baddest armament in the world isn't going to do much good against an almost limitless supply of adversaries.

Guns are expensive. 99%of the people buying them aren't interested in any sort of conflict with the police. They realize, on some level, that the wealth that allows them to purchase the firearms is, in large part, protected by the order that the police provide.
 
Here's one that even John Lee Pettimore III John Lee Pettimore III will love:

http://gawker.com/coroner-black-man-shot-himself-in-chest-with-hands-cuf-1626857183/all

Coroner: Black Man Shot Himself in Chest With Hands Cuffed Behind Back

snspovq3d45wqh379pdi.jpg


According to a coroner's report obtained by NBC News, Victor White, a 22-year-old black man, committed suicide in the back of a police car by shooting himself in the chest while his hands were cuffed behind his back. The report contradicts the official police account, which said White shot himself in the back.

White died March 3rd in New Iberia, Louisiana, after a night spent hanging out with friends. He was stopped by police along with an acquaintance, Isaiah Lewis, on the way back from buying cigars at a local gas station. Cops found a small amount of pot on White during a pat-down, then ran the two men's names through a database and called for backup. A second search yielded a small amount of cocaine, and White was arrested and placed into an Iberia Parrish police cruiser, where he allegedly produced a .25 caliber semi-automatic handgun and shot himself in the right side of the chest.

The story and the new coroner's report raise several questions about the incident. One friend said White joked about having a gun earlier that night, but no one is on record as having seen one. If he did have a gun, why didn't police find it during one of the two searches? How was he able to reach around and shoot himself in the chest with his hands cuffed behind his back? (The coroner's report said it was possible due to White's "body habitus.") Why did police initially claim he shot himself in the back? Why didn't the coroner find the gunpowder stippling common to close-range shots on White's wound? White had a laceration on his face at the time of his death that Lewis said wasn't there the last time two men saw each other, before White got into the cruiser. Where did it come from?

Louisiana State Police opened a still-pending investigation hours after White's death, NBC reports, but White's father, a Baptist minister, has doubts about what it will find. "You can't make me understand," Rev. Victor White II told NBC. "You can't make me understand how my son took his left hand, when he was handcuffed behind the back, and shot himself. I don't believe a thing they're saying at this point."

Because the investigation is pending, many pertinent details—including dash cam footage and the names of the officers present during White's death—have not been released. The state police did release a preliminary incident report stating White had been shot with a .25 caliber handgun—not the .45 caliber gun Iberia police officers are issued—but that police hand't found it during their searches.
 
Another bully cop treating a guy standing his ground like shit.


Embedded media from this media site is no longer available
 
I am reminded of a gag that the unfunny "Radio Chick" did several years back where she wore a burqa and tried out rifles in a Wal-Mart sporting good section, including demonstrating poor practice by aiming at customers.
She was not shot.

Again, minimal partial credit to the dead man if he was silly enough to be holding this pellet gun in any way that could be perceived as threatening.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 1 (members: 0, guests: 1)
Back
Top Bottom