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April 23, 2015 at 10:49 PM in reply to: The cost of an Ivy League undergrad degree next year…. #785245
scaredyclassic
ParticipantJesus Christ; the antiinsurance salesman.
Participant[quote=Blogstar][quote=scaredyclassic]I agree we need police.
I agree society should respect the police.
I believe police should always be honest and follow the law.
I believe they should receive the full brunt of the law when they dont.
I want full transparency and recording of all police interactions.
I believe all drugs should be legal and it is I’m moral to cage someone who has a drug problem.
I am glad to see at least some skepticism that police are always acting in our best interedt.
Is any of this really all that controversial except the drug positiin. Not sure what you’re so tweaked about?[/quote]
Not really tweaked. More fatigued. Seems like we are just talking around each other. Time to move on. BTW, every time I have ever been up for jury selection, the prosecution throws me off. I am with you on everything you just posted, against three strikes etc. At first I just started playing devil’s advocate here, then I begin to think, wow, There is a lot of misunderstanding here, the problem is bigger than bad acts by cops. Couldn’t open any discussion on that at all, just more example of bad acts thrown back, it’s all very onesided . Once you are told you are a wrong side of things after all that, well it’s easy to realize this is just all exhausting![/quote]
OK. I see that. I apologize. i agree the problem is bigger than just bad cops. it’s probably just a symptom of a sick society.
shoot, whats the answer? hell if I know. Id like to see a less mean society, one where there is no way in hell anyone can see that videotape of the way that indian guy was treated as in any way remotely acceptable. Course, I’d also liek to see less meanness on the part of the criminals also…but we have a giant machine that seems designed to esnure a portion of our population will be raise din meanness and graduate to to prison and churns them out even meaner and less employable and apart from society with every prison stay…
it’s a machine of horror. the polcie are perhaps just the face of the machine…
Participanti don’t know if you’ve seen THE BOOK OF MORMON (by the south park guys) but it is so worth seeing or even reading the script, which is available at bookstores.
it is actually a very beautifl, funny tasteful in a way exploration of the nature of faith and the true power of religion and the good ness of religious impulses to help our brothers.
ParticipantIt’s pretty obvious that G-d doesn’t exist. It’s not a particularly interesting question. If you really think there’s some supernatural creature in the sky who is actually interested in you, well, come on , you really probably already know in your bones that it’s not true. the louder people profess their faith, the more i think, yeah, well, you wouldnt need to sound so conviinced if you were convinced.
On the other hand, i think religion is a useful andgood thing, and that it’s worthwhile to try to have people, particularly young people, participate in it and to get some of them to believe for at least as long as we can. It has some good effects. it’s calming. It kind of gives a sense of meaning and purpose. it explains reality for people in interesting, layered, resonant stories.. it specializes in boundaries. it lays down rules. it provides tradition, ritual and fellowship. it’s GOOD….i like em all. muslims, christians, jews, mormons, miscellany, whatever ya got…
but, really, in reality, in real reality, i assure you, no one out there,no supernatural being cares about you in particular. i think we all deep down know that, , from just looking around the globe, and at history, that we are pretty much on our own down here….the louder people protest that basic truth, the more you know they don’t believe it themselves. That wouldnt act like such greedy boors if they really did…
ParticipantI agree we need police.
I agree society should respect the police.
I believe police should always be honest and follow the law.
I believe they should receive the full brunt of the law when they dont.
I want full transparency and recording of all police interactions.
I believe all drugs should be legal and it is Immoral to cage someone who has a drug problem. This makes me very suspicious of police as this is largely been their goal for the last 40 years.
I am glad to see at least some skepticism that police are always acting in our best interedt.
Is any of this really all that controversial except the drug positiin. Not sure what you’re so tweaked about?
I could be misreading you but it sounds like it’s give the cops extreme deference because their job is scary (though perhaps not as statistically dangerous as many other jobs and certainly less dangerous than being in prison)
ParticipantAs I see it, cop worship is right behind military worship. A healthy mistrust and caution about using both in a restrained fashion is what seems necessary.
maybe it’s the decades of damage wrought by a ridiculous drug war vigorously prosecuted by cops.
Maybe it’s just the sense that the tide is swinging the other way and some glimmer of hope I see…
Participant[quote=Blogstar][quote=scaredyclassic][quote=Blogstar]Scaredy, surely what I have been saying on this thread comes across as unkind to you. It just feels hysterical to me. Not high level. Not philosophical at all. I am used to way better from you. Nothing wrong with raw emotion but this is an area that call for cooler heads. There are a lot of crazies out there imagining that every thing that doesn’t go the way they want it is a huge travesty of justice. There are enough dirtbags working these folks already.
Much of the back drop to these conversation is bizarre, riots and looting in Ferguson. Eyewitness lying through the teeth and the media making a big circus out this stuff. Even your thread title looks to be on the crazy train to me. Which sentient human being doesn’t know that cops lie? Just my sensibilities at play I guess.[/quote]
i personally think a good chunk of the nation has for a very long time believed that the overwhelming majority of police officers always tell the whole truth and would only shade the truth possibly to get a bad guy.
I think we need nonstop body cameras on all police officers immediately …[/quote]
Maybe you are right, I find it hard to fathom. I think I have known or suspected that police lie since I was very young , before memory, like 3 or 4 years old. Could be from coming from a hard life. I knew of gangs that were sworn to kill certain cops too.
Still, IF the only people who would be cops are monsters we have to get philosophical. The way I see the pendulum swinging the candidate pool will get worse. How did it get to be that way in the good ole USA? Maybe it is all just part of the “Fall of the Empire”. Dystopia here we come.
I agree with California renter, and not because she has a higher IQ than me. Most people, or most people who are most vocal now, have no idea how vulnerable cops are , how dehumanized they are by criminals who dehumanize old ladies, babies you name it. general hatred from any anti-authoritarian crack pot, threat factor of deadly retaliation to themselves that they live with in big cities or even small violent ones like where I grew up.
Then on top of that , it is extremely hard to make a case against the bad guy, and even if there is one , politics, low budgets, technicalities make it so only a sliver of them even go to the circus. I mean court. How does anyone keep morale …the paycheck and benefits will not do it.[/quote]
our incarceration numbers and rates are right at the very top of the world: maybe that’ll help morale?
Participant[quote=CA renter][quote=spdrun]
I would hate to live in your world, spdrun. We agree about many things, including our distaste for the militarization of police departments, the Patriot Act, police action against political protesters, pot smokers, etc. But you come across as someone who has had no experience with violent criminals, either as a victim or law enforcement.
Personally, I’ve had experience with violent criminals, and I have ZERO compassion for them.
A tourist standing on a sidewalk looking at houses isn’t a violent criminal. Someone who attacks said tourist and BREAKS HIS NECK is a violent criminal.
I’ve been victimized by violent criminals before. Beaten up pretty bad once, carjacked another time. This does NOT in any way excuse police acting with excessive brutality in my book.
Screw that cop. Hope he rots in prison and comes out a broken man. Chances are, this isn’t the first time when he’s exceeded his authority and the bounds of reasonable force.[/quote]
Correct, what he was doing did not constitute a violent crime, but you have to understand that many criminals DO walk around looking into houses/garages when they are casing a location.
The cops don’t know he’s a tourist who is simply looking at houses (and there’s no saying he wasn’t casing houses, BTW). That’s what they were trying to ascertain when they were questioning him. The fact that he apparently kept walking away/resisting them is what caused them to put him on the ground.
Understand that what the caller and the cops were probably trying to do here was to prevent a crime from being committed in the first place. So, I have to ask: What do you think a criminal looks like before he is about to commit a crime? Do you think citizens and cops should try to prevent crimes from occurring in the first place, or should they just take notes after the fact?[/quote]
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. B. Franklin.
we could do all sorts of things to catch more criminals. We could strip search anyone who looks shady on the street. Hell, at this point I’m sure gramps would’ve greatly preferred a vigorous anal cavity search in broad daylight than the treatment he got. He’d probably give all his money to wind back the clock and just be subjected to that.
You can call the police. You can watch out. But you can’t detain someone just because a crime might occur and you have a bad feeling about someone. And definitely please don’t slam that person on the ground if they try to walk away when they’ve done nothing wrong and you have no cause to stop them.
Thank goodness for the dashcam.
Participanti had a consensual encounter with an officer not too long ago. not sure if i recounted it here on piggington. i was dressed raggedly, sweating profusely and carrying heavy weights. i sure looked suspicious. in reality I was doing a “farmers walk”, but i looked perhaps like a drug freak who had stolen something heavy?
so the policeofficer stopped me and we chatted. I was rather amiable, as was he, though i refused to identify myself.
I ran through the 4th amendment analysis with him out loud , doing my little legal analysis, running through the facts and the law, pointing out various factors that might support the stop, others that wouldn’t , what i thought a judge might do, what i speculated the police officer might say ina later report, how he might shade the truth. On balance, I concluded that there was no legal basis for the stop and that i was free to go, but that I was sufficently intimdated by him and the possibility that it might be characterized differently by him that i would accede to his request and give him some id.
he laughed and ran my id.
“you’re a lawyer, eh?” he said
yup, i replied.
of course, under different circumstances, or perhaps if I had been a bit more obnoxious, he mightve broken my skinny ass little neck. .
for no fucking reason whatseover.
Participant[quote=CA renter]scaredy, clearly your knowledge about a person’s right to walk away from cops when they are being questioned is far greater than mine. I will defer to you on that.
But if that’s the case, what’s to stop anyone from walking away from a cop when they are being questioned? What’s to stop a mass murderer from walking away when a cop stops them? That makes no sense at all.
And I think that a misdemeanor assault charge is fairly reasonable (my guess is that this is for political cover, as many people would say that even this charge would be unjustified), but nothing beyond that.[/quote]
The fact that someone is a mass murderer, without more, doesn’t give the police the right to detain you. The police need to have specific articulable facts to support a reasonable suspicion that a crime has been or was going to be committed. not a hunch. actual facts. that’s what we call “freedom”. if the police can detain you without any facts that you’ve done anything wrong, just cause they have a vibe then , well, this is not a free country.
In reality, of course, the police can make up some facts after they’ve arrested you, so it doesnt really provide all that much protection, unless there’s a video. there’s a slang name for this; it’s called “test-i-lying”.
Participantbut police resist that.
blacks get arrested at far higher rates for marijauana than whites, though usage rates are similar;
i read that half of all arrests were for marijuana in the USA. yet we are apparently coming closer to legalizing it nationally…
all of this just feels very very wrong…
it’s not really just about arresting the bad guys.
one marijuana arrest every 42 seconds int he USA:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/29/one-marijuana-arrest-occu_n_2041236.html
accounts for half of all arrests, according to some research.
why really are police and prison unions so virulently against marijuana law reform?
google police union oppose body camera and you’ll find the opposition is nationwide…
Participant[quote=Blogstar]Scaredy, surely what I have been saying on this thread comes across as unkind to you. It just feels hysterical to me. Not high level. Not philosophical at all. I am used to way better from you. Nothing wrong with raw emotion but this is an area that call for cooler heads. There are a lot of crazies out there imagining that every thing that doesn’t go the way they want it is a huge travesty of justice. There are enough dirtbags working these folks already.
Much of the back drop to these conversation is bizarre, riots and looting in Ferguson. Eyewitness lying through the teeth and the media making a big circus out this stuff. Even your thread title looks to be on the crazy train to me. Which sentient human being doesn’t know that cops lie? Just my sensibilities at play I guess.[/quote]
i personally think a good chunk of the nation has for a very long time believed that the overwhelming majority of police officers always tell the whole truth and would only shade the truth possibly to get a bad guy.
I think we need nonstop body cameras on all police officers immediately …
Participant[quote=CA renter][quote=spdrun]CA Renter —
(a) he wasn’t doing anything illegal. Walking on the street, looking at houses is not cause for arrest, even while “brown.”
(b) he was giving them information (phone # and “no English”) as best he could. Had they acted on that information (calling his son), violence could have been averted. Instead, they chose to resort to violence instead of investigating first.
(c) the force used was clearly excessive.Hope they go to prison for 10 years, watch their kids grow up through a reinforced glass window, and get out with a few nasty VDs. It would serve as an example to other cops of what NOT to do. Screw those cops, hope they rot in hell.[/quote]
Right, looking at houses from the sidewalk is not illegal, but going onto people’s property and looking into their garages is questionable, if not illegal. That’s what the cops were called about. The notion that they treated him in any particular way because he was “brown” is exactly part of the problem. That is YOUR hangup, not theirs. I saw nothing at all in this video that would indicate any kind of racism or unjust treatment because of a person’s nationality or the color of their skin. They wouldn’t have treated a white many any differently.
Yes, the language barrier (and probably a cultural barrier as the man was not accustomed to dealing with U.S. law enforcement) was a problem, but it looked like a sergeant or some kind of superior officers was arriving on scene at the end (in the white car), so it’s likely that that they had called in for assistance. On the audio, you can hear one of the officers saying that the man was Indian and didn’t speak English, my guess is that he was describing this to a dispatcher so they could get help from a translator.
While I agree that the throw-down was probably rougher than necessary, they did warn the man not to resist, pull away, or walk away. He might have been lighter than they had expected, or he might have made a move at the end that amplified (not sure about the right word) the trajectory/movement of the cop and victim. Ultimately, it was bad luck that caused the man to land in the wrong way and become injured. It happens on playgrounds, football fields, gyms, etc. on a regular basis, but nobody is calling for 10-year sentences for kids/adults who accidentally injure someone in these places.
I saw absolutely no evidence of malicious intent or a desire on the part of the cops to injure the man because “he was brown.” If you can find something to the contrary, please point it out. Under no circumstances would the evidence in this video warrant a 10-year sentence.
I agree with Russ/Blogstar. People are acting hysterically and they are putting cops in a position where they will no longer be able to do their jobs. If I have to choose between living in a safe society where a few criminals get hurt when they resist arrest or assault cops, or in an society where criminals run the streets (but don’t get hurt), then it’s obvious I would choose the former, as would most people.[/quote]
the call out was for a skinny black guy in his 30s.
he looks kinda black maybe to a cop in alabama.
I cannot see any reason to detain him therefore he was free to leave. HE DID NOT EVEN HAVE TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE POLICE OFFICERS EXISTENCE.
You dont have to stand and talk to the cops if youre just walking down the street. Youre allowed to look at people’s open garages even. it’s called “going for a walk”. The police can try to talk to you, but you don’t have to.
you can walk away from the police if they have no reason to detain you. here, it sure sounds like from the whole report they had a callout fora black guyin his 30s walking down the street and looking around and they were going to detain him based on that call.
that is wrong.
everyone can go for a walk and look around and they do not have to stop and talk to the police.
They don’t get to paralyze you if you walk away from what appears to me to be at best a consensual encounter.
CaR, even the police in Alabama recognize this and have at least charged the police with a misdemeanor assault, only I think after the FBI got involved.
i guess reasonable minds can differ, but that looks like a hell of a lot of force to me. i doubt he could have slammed the old man harder.
April 23, 2015 at 7:02 AM in reply to: The cost of an Ivy League undergrad degree next year…. #785178Participant“If then you cannot do even a very little thing, why do you worry about other matters? 27″Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; but I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. 28″But if God so clothes the grass in the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, how much more will He clothe you? You men of little faith!
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