OT- Zimmerman v. Martin

[Anonymous]

[quote=zk]I wouldn’t have thrown two officers off my back, then got up and charged them. I wouldn’t have continued to move around. Then I wouldn’t have gotten 56 baton blows.

Now let me ask you a question. What would you have done if you were in the cops’ situation? A man twice as strong as you wants to attack you. He wants to hurt you. If you go in and try and restrain him, there’s a very good chance he’ll get your gun and shoot you. Now your children are fatherless. What would you do?[/quote]

Let’s take a step back to where all this began. My initial post on the video was a response to the claim that the whole video “tells a different story” than the shorter version that the media repeatedly played. Having never seen the whole video, I decided to watch it. I don’t see much additional information.

What’s interesting in your statements above is that you consistently add information that is not in the video. “He threw two officers off his back …”, he was “twice as strong as [the officers]”

If the video tells the whole truth, then why do we need to use police report statements (statements made by convicted criminals and their cohorts) and speculation about how strong someone was?

It’s interesting that you speculate that King was “twice as strong” as the officers (that’s pretty darn strong!) but ignore that fact that he was outnumbered five to one. King must have had some sort of superhuman powers if your interpretation were to be true.

Being a cop, especially in a large city, is a dangerous job. Everybody knows this. Anyone who doesn’t want to deal with dangerous situations shouldn’t be a cop. It’s that simple. The notion that “I was in danger I can beat the shit out of people no questions asked” is ridiculous. Everyone should be accountable, especially people who are given the power to kill.

So what would I have done? The answer is simple. I would have stopped hitting him when he was on the ground. I would have jumped on his back with two or more other officers when he was down to hold him in place (nobody is going to get up with 400+ pounds of weight on their back.) I also would not have kicked six times (is kicking someone when they are down part of police training?)

What I would have done is a lot more credible than your answer: “I would lay down and let them beat me.” But maybe you have some extraordinary tolerance for pain…

And if I genuinely thought he had a weapon or my life was in danger, I would have shot him. It’s a touch ironic, but shooting him would have been a more logical course of action if there was really any threat.

These cops weren’t scared, they were mad. And they decided to act out their anger by inflicting a little “street justice.” Those that do should that should go to jail.

[zk]

[quote=pri_dk]Let’s take a step back to where all this began. My initial post on the video was a response to the claim that the whole video “tells a different story” than the shorter version that the media repeatedly played. Having never seen the whole video, I decided to watch it. I don’t see much additional information.[/quote]

You don’t see much additional information? See, right there, that, to me, shows your confirmation bias. If you don’t think that King jumping up and charging the officers is much additional information, then I don’t think you’re looking at it clearly.

[quote=pri_dk]
What’s interesting in your statements above is that you consistently add information that is not in the video. “He threw two officers off his back …”, he was “twice as strong as [the officers]”

If the video tells the whole truth,…[/quote]

Show me where I said the video tells the whole truth. You’re making that up.

[quote=pri_dk]
then why do we need to use police report statements (statements made by convicted criminals and their cohorts) and speculation about how strong someone was?[/quote]

Statements made by convicted criminals? Please. You yourself said:

Wanna know why the two trials had different outcomes? It’s real simple:
Unlike the Simi Valley jury, the federal jury was racially mixed. Although the defense made a considerable effort to exclude African-Americans, two blacks were seated as jurors.

You assume that whites must be unable to see the cops as guilty. Have you considered that maybe it’s the other way around? Maybe blacks are unable to see them as innocent.

Also, the police reports were corroborated by all present officers. Including the ones who aren’t “convicted criminals.”

In any case, your attempt to dismiss entirely the police reports because some of those present were convicted in one out of two trials shows the weakness of your arguments.

The part about him being twice as strong as you is speculation, but it’s informed speculation. In any case, my arguments are pretty much the same without that speculation. He was clearly very strong. Strong enough to throw two men off his back. If he’s strong enough to throw two men off his back, I’m not going to bet my life that he’s not strong enough to get my gun from me. Especially if there other techniques – techniques I’ve been trained to use – that are available and less risky. Even if those techniques will result in injuries to this person who is trying to attack me.

[quote=pri_dk]It’s interesting that you speculate that King was “twice as strong” as the officers (that’s pretty darn strong!) but ignore that fact that he was outnumbered five to one. King must have had some sort of superhuman powers if your interpretation were to be true. [/quote]

Twice as strong as the officers isn’t superhuman. And I’m not ignoring the fact that he was outnumbered. See below (where I respond to what you’d have done).

[quote=pri_dk]
Being a cop, especially in a large city, is a dangerous job. Everybody knows this. Anyone who doesn’t want to deal with dangerous situations shouldn’t be a cop. It’s that simple. [/quote]

Anyone who doesn’t want to deal with dangerous situations shouldn’t be a cop. I agree with that. But you go on to say, “It’s that simple,” as if there’s no spectrum of dangerous situations. Driving a car is a dangerous situation. So is opening a can of tuna, for that matter. How dangerous a situation should a cop be required to put himself in? That’s not a simple question at all. And perhaps our ideas of how dangerous a situation a cop should be required to put himself in differ. Or maybe our ideas of how dangerous it would have been to approach King in a different manner differ. But to say it’s “simple” is, well, simple.

[quote=pri_dk]
The notion that “I was in danger I can beat the shit out of people no questions asked” is ridiculous. Everyone should be accountable, especially people who are given the power to kill.[/quote]

That is a ridiculous notion. And not one I ever espoused.

[quote=pri_dk]
So what would I have done? The answer is simple. I would have stopped hitting him when he was on the ground. I would have jumped on his back with two or more other officers when he was down to hold him in place (nobody is going to get up with 400+ pounds of weight on their back.) I also would not have kicked six times (is kicking someone when they are down part of police training?)
[/quote]

You haven’t been paying attention at all. He did get up with 400+ pounds of weight on his back.

I don’t know if kicking someone when they’re down is part of police training. But “down” isn’t as simple as you make it out to be. If they’re telling him to lie face down and put his hands behind his head and he’s rolling around on the ground in contradiction to his orders, and he’s just gotten through throwing two officers off his back, and just gotten up and charged them, then maybe it’s not a bad idea.

[quote=pri_dk]
What I would have done is a lot more credible than your answer: “I would lay down and let them beat me.” But maybe you have some extraordinary tolerance for pain…[/quote]

There you go making stuff up again. Every time you make something up, it exposes the weakness of your arguments. I never said “I would lay down and let them beat me.” I said “I wouldn’t have thrown two officers off my back, then got up and charged them. I wouldn’t have continued to move around. Then I wouldn’t have gotten 56 baton blows.” I would have immediately and fully complied. And they wouldn’t have beat me. And if they had, in that situation, then they’d deserve to go to jail. But that wasn’t what happened.

[quote=pri_dk]And if I genuinely thought he had a weapon or my life was in danger, I would have shot him. It’s a touch ironic, but shooting him would have been a more logical course of action if there was really any threat.[/quote]

You present two scenarios, neither of which is true. He didn’t have a weapon and, as far as I know, no one suspected that he did. The officers’ lives weren’t in danger, as long as they didn’t let him get into a position where he could get a gun. So, to try to get on top of him with another officer (already proven ineffective) would put your life at risk, in which case you’d have had to shoot him. Looking at it that way, the cops saved his life by trying to get him to fully comply (lie face down on the ground and put his arms behind his head) by beating him.

[quote=pri_dk]These cops weren’t scared, they were mad. And they decided to act out their anger by inflicting a little “street justice.” Those that do should that should go to jail.[/quote]

I agree that those who engage in street justice should be criminally charged. But I wouldn’t agree that that’s what happened in this case.

[KSMountain]

I really think you are wrong pri_dk.

Note the two passengers that got out of the car and submitted were not struck. One claimed that he looked up in violation of the police’s orders and his face was pushed into dirt briefly, but that was it.

Of the 23 officers there, only 4 were indicted, and only 2 of those convicted. One of those was Stacey Koon (sp?). He was the sergeant on the scene. He administered – wait for it… ZERO blows. He was convicted because he didn’t control the situation. I’m going from memory a bit here…

Another interesting thing I learned from the report of the independent (highly LAPD critical) report: many of the officers at the beginning of that shift had just coincidentally attended a training session on baton use. Do you think that had an impact on their baton use? Not saying it’s right, but it’s interesting.

Another interesting point: at one point King reached around to the back of his waistband. As you know there have been *many* cases where an action like that would have result in him being fatally shot. So some restraint (hard as it may be for you to believe) was actually employed by the police.

King was on probation at the time, which is why he did not want to pull over. The officers almost certainly knew this, and that probably had an impact on their threat evaluation.

King did not submit. You put up a false narrative.

[KSMountain]

I searched for “Rodney King Federal Trial” and came up with this link, which was pretty interesting I thought:
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/lapd/lapdaccount.html

[Anonymous]

[quote=zk]You don’t see much additional information?[/quote]

I never challenged the fact that King tried to escape from the police. That’s all the additional video shows, so there is nothing new. What we don’t know from the video is what happened from the very beginning.

Were the beatings prompted by him attacking the police, or did he try to escape because he was being beaten? That’s the crux of it, and the video does not answer that question.

It does, however, show that he was hit many, many times when laying on the ground. That’s when the cops became criminals.

Did King get up because he wanted to hurt the cops, or because he feared for his life? The video does not answer that crucial question.

[quote]You assume that whites must be unable to see the cops as guilty. Have you considered that maybe it’s the other way around? Maybe blacks are unable to see them as innocent.[/quote]

The first trial had a jury with no blacks. Not exactly representative of the population.

The second trial had only two blacks. The jury convicted unanimously. Your assertion that he was convicted by racially-biased blacks doesn’t hold up to basic logic. Most of the jury that convicted was not black.

[quote]Also, the police reports were corroborated by all present officers. Including the ones who aren’t “convicted criminals.”[/quote]

Oh, so all the cops said the same thing – all in favor of the other cop’s story?

Are you really that naive?

[quote]In any case, your attempt to dismiss entirely the police reports because some of those present were convicted in one out of two trials shows the weakness of your arguments.[/quote]

Right, because people convicted of only one crime instead of two aren’t really criminals. And cops never lie to back each other up.

I didn’t know the term “convicted criminal” got a one-time pass.

[quote]Strong enough to throw two men off his back.[/quote]

There’s no proof that he ever did this.

Get it?

[quote]If he’s strong enough to throw two men off his back, […][/quote]

Building the whole argument on weak evidence again.

[quote]You haven’t been paying attention at all. He did get up with 400+ pounds of weight on his back.[/quote]

You can repeat it over and over, there’s still no proof.

There were five cops – most likely with martial arts training – and they believed they would not be able to collectively hold him down?

[quote=pri_dk] I said “I wouldn’t have thrown two officers off my back, then got up and charged them.”[/quote]

This is getting tiresome. Your entire argument is based upon a claim for which there is no proof. We don’t know what happened before the video started. Perhaps he did comply and was beaten just the same? There is no evidence either way.

Your entire explanation of what would have happened is predicated by speculation rooted in nonexistent evidence.

Normally I would give the testimony of cops the benefit of the doubt, but not cops whom I see beating a guy on the ground.

56 blows and 6 kicks.

[Anonymous]

[quote=KSMountain]Of the 23 officers there, only 4 were indicted, and only 2 of those convicted. [/quote]

So only about 9% of the cops were actually criminals?

That’s reassuring.

[zk]

[quote=pri_dk][quote=zk]You don’t see much additional information?[/quote]

I never challenged the fact that King tried to escape from the police. That’s all the additional video shows, so there is nothing new. What we don’t know from the video is what happened from the very beginning.

Were the beatings prompted by him attacking the police, or did he try to escape because he was being beaten? That’s the crux of it, and the video does not answer that question.

It does, however, show that he was hit many, many times when laying on the ground. That’s when the cops became criminals.

Did King get up because he wanted to hurt the cops, or because he feared for his life? The video does not answer that crucial question.

[quote]You assume that whites must be unable to see the cops as guilty. Have you considered that maybe it’s the other way around? Maybe blacks are unable to see them as innocent.[/quote]

The first trial had a jury with no blacks. Not exactly representative of the population.

The second trial had only two blacks. The jury convicted unanimously. Your assertion that he was convicted by racially-biased blacks doesn’t hold up to basic logic. Most of the jury that convicted was not black.

[quote]Also, the police reports were corroborated by all present officers. Including the ones who aren’t “convicted criminals.”[/quote]

Oh, so all the cops said the same thing – all in favor of the other cop’s story?

Are you really that naive?

[quote]In any case, your attempt to dismiss entirely the police reports because some of those present were convicted in one out of two trials shows the weakness of your arguments.[/quote]

Right, because people convicted of only one crime instead of two aren’t really criminals. And cops never lie to back each other up.

I didn’t know the term “convicted criminal” got a one-time pass.

[quote]Strong enough to throw two men off his back.[/quote]

There’s no proof that he ever did this.

Get it?

[quote]If he’s strong enough to throw two men off his back, […][/quote]

Building the whole argument on weak evidence again.

[quote]You haven’t been paying attention at all. He did get up with 400+ pounds of weight on his back.[/quote]

You can repeat it over and over, there’s still no proof.

There were five cops – most likely with martial arts training – and they believed they would not be able to collectively hold him down?

[quote=pri_dk] I said “I wouldn’t have thrown two officers off my back, then got up and charged them.”[/quote]

This is getting tiresome. Your entire argument is based upon a claim for which there is no proof. We don’t know what happened before the video started. Perhaps he did comply and was beaten just the same? There is no evidence either way.

Your entire explanation of what would have happened is predicated by speculation rooted in nonexistent evidence.

Normally I would give the testimony of cops the benefit of the doubt, but not cops whom I see beating a guy on the ground.

56 blows and 6 kicks.[/quote]

I could refute each of your points, but I agree this is getting tiresome. Your basic argument at this point is that there’s no proof that King threw two officers off his back. Fine. There’s no proof that he didn’t, either. You yourself said there’s no proof either way. So if that’s the crux of your argument, then I don’t see how you can say that, beyond a reasonable doubt, the cops are guilty. For them to be guilty, they all (all 23 of them) have to be lying. Is that possible? Sure. Would I say that, beyond a reasonable doubt they’re all lying? No way. So if it’s true that he did throw them off his back, then your arguments fail. And, since you can’t prove that beyond a reasonable doubt that they’re all lying, then you can’t prove that they’re guilty. Get it?

[Coronita]

So how did OJ get away with murder?

(I know, I know.. I’m such a troublemaker)…

[Anonymous]

[quote=flu]So how did OJ get away with murder?

(I know, I know.. I’m such a troublemaker)…[/quote]

Two words: Mark Fuhrman

Actually, only one word. One he used frequently.

[Anonymous]

[quote=zk]For them to be guilty, they all (all 23 of them) have to be lying. Is that possible? Sure. Would I say that, beyond a reasonable doubt they’re all lying? No way. So if it’s true that he did throw them off his back, then your arguments fail. And, since you can’t prove that beyond a reasonable doubt that they’re all lying, then you can’t prove that they’re guilty. Get it?[/quote]

From the KSMountain’s link (that I also posted earlier), there were only 3 police reports filed.

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/lapd/kingreports.html

The report by the CHP officer only mentioned that LAPD had “subdued” the suspect.

23 officers did not have to lie. Only two had to collaborate and lie. The others just had to keep their mouths shut.

Plenty of room for reasonable doubt in the reports and testimony.

As for mindset of the guys “defending themselves”:

I haven’t beaten anyone this bad in a long time.

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/lapd/Kingtransmissions.html

[zk]

[quote=pri_dk]
Plenty of room for reasonable doubt in the reports and testimony.
[/quote]

Exactly. And it must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that what the cops did was battery (or whatever) and not an attempt to keep a suspect who’d tried to attack them from attacking them again.

[CA renter]

[quote=pri_dk][quote=CA renter]The first jury did NOT convict them. The second jury did — and that trial came about as a result of the riots. Blacks all across LA were threatening to riot again if the jury didn’t convict. You think that was a fair trial?[/quote]

Your wikipedia reference offers no evidence whatsoever that the trial, or the verdict “came about as a result of the riots.”

Show me where the prosecuting federal attorney said “we are going to put these guys on trial because of the riots.”

Did the jury convict because of the fear of riots? Nope. Actually most of them wanted the cops to be sentenced to MORE jail time:

http://articles.latimes.com/1993-08-08/news/mn-21823_1_rodney-king

[…]complaints from five jurors that Officer Laurence M. Powell and Sgt. Stacey C. Koon should have received longer prison sentences than the 2 1/2-year terms handed down Wednesday.

Wanna know why the two trials had different outcomes? It’s real simple:

Unlike the Simi Valley jury, the federal jury was racially mixed. Although the defense made a considerable effort to exclude African-Americans, two blacks were seated as jurors.

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/lapd/lapdaccount.html

There are a lot of Americans that believe in civil rights and due process of law. We don’t accept that police can do whatever they want to anybody for any reason.

But somehow I’m not at all surprised that you would make up your own version of reality so that you could side with racist criminal thugs.[/quote]

Unlike you, I was there. I personally saw the tension building and watched, as every other Angelino did, as the blacks threatened to riot:

“No Justice, No Peace”

It very clearly meant that if the cops were not convicted, they were going to riot. There was no question about what happened, or why it happened, to those who were actually there.

It’s sickening to note that you think the officers were acquitted because “white people are racist” and incapable of determining whether or not a crime has occurred.

And the only one who’s ever “made anything up,” either on this thread or others, is you.
———————–

“When the rioting finally ended five days later, fifty-four people (mostly Koreans and Latinos) were dead–the greatest death toll in any American civil disturbance since the 1863 Draft Riots in New York City. Hundreds of people (including sixty firefighters) were injured. Looting and fires had resulted in more than one billion dollars in property damage. Whole neighborhoods in south central Los Angeles, such as Koreatown, looked like war zones. Over 7,000 persons were arrested.

Even as the rioting continued, President George Bush and Attorney General William Barr began the process of bringing federal charges against the four LAPD officers accused in the King case. On the day after the Simi Valley verdict, Bush issued a statement declaring that the verdict “has left us all with a deep sense of personal frustration and anguish.” In a May 1 televised address to the nation, Bush all but promised a federal prosecution of the officers.

Prosecuting the officers on the federal charge of violating King’s civil rights accomplished two Bush Administration goals. The first goal was to control the rage that had developed in black communities. The second was to reduce demands from some in the civil rights community for sweeping investigations into police misconduct.

On May 7, federal prosecutors began presenting evidence to a Los Angeles grand jury. On August 4, the grand jury returned indictments against the three officers for “willfully and intentionally using unreasonable force” and against Koon for “willfully permitting and failing to take action to stop the unlawful assault.” on King.

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/lapd/lapdaccount.html

——————

There was NO WAY IN HELL those officers were going to get a fair trial the second time around.

[blahblahblah]

…deleted…

[Anonymous]

[quote]Unlike you, I was there.[/quote]

Yeah, you were “there.” So were you in South Central, or were you in the westside, sitting on the couch and watching it on TV like everyone else in America?

[quote=CA Renter]the blacks threatened to riot[/quote]

“the blacks”

Ok.

[quote]It’s sickening to note that you think the officers were acquitted because “white people are racist” and incapable of determining whether or not a crime has occurred.[/quote]

Given that I’m white myself, your claim is beyond idiotic.

Perhaps you forgot: White people did determine that a crime occurred. The thug cops were convicted by a jury with white people on it.

[quote]There was NO WAY IN HELL those officers were going to get a fair trial the second time around.[/quote]

How was the trial not fair?

Did the cops not get a defense?

Only two blacks on the jury. Several jurors, even white ones, wanted a longer sentence.

Indicted, tried, and convicted by a jury of peers. The very definition of criminal.

But you seem to have a different definition of “criminal” – not based upon the law and the outcome of due process, but simply based upon the profession and/or skin color of the convicted.

So maybe you’re the one that should move – perhaps Mississippi or Alabama? They still have active KKK chapters there. You’d fit right in.

[Anonymous]

Another example of why it is important to have federal oversight of local law enforcement:

Four former New Orleans policemen convicted of shooting unarmed people following Hurricane Katrina were sentenced to lengthy prison terms

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/05/us-katrina-police-sentencing-idUSBRE8331A920120405

These cops would have gotten away with multiple cold-blooded murders if it weren’t for federal civil rights laws.

The shootings were tragic incident and a completely unnecessary loss of life. But at least we have some reassurance in knowing there is a level of law enforcement that protects the public from local police thuggery and cronyism.

[Author]

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