I guess it is OPEN SEASON to kill black men in America...no one seems to care.

What about the twelve year old with the bb gun that was shot, or the guy who reached for his prescription medicine that was shot, or the guy reaching for his license that was shot, or the guy in walmart carrying around an item that walmart sells that was shot -- this s**t happens every day.

If this was 50 years ago, you would have been one of the people saying the black people getting lynched deserved it. You and your kind will always find a way to dismiss the anger of marginalized people. You like your comfort and you know that if the law and order that protects your privilege gets challenged too much, that you are in jeopardy of losing it. Which, fine, I guess that is your self interest -- just don't preach your greed and bigotry like it is divine law preordained by god.

 

Except that it's NOT everyday. That's the whole point. How many arrests are there each and every day? How many traffic stops? How many of those end up with anyone shot? These are outliers, statistical anomalies that leaders are exploiting to create an "us vs. them" perception to fuel their agenda. Way to go, you fell for it.

 

There were quite a bit of young white people protesting as well. I think you are projecting a bit.

A perfect victim? No, doesn't need to be "perfect" but someone that just committed a robbery and an accomplice that lied about the case are not even remotely sympathetic.

I understand that you view this as a systemic issue, a societal issue even... but Michael Brown is not a figure that is going to gain the masses.

 

Since we're talking about stats...

[rquoter]
White Americans may protest that our racial problems are not like South Africa’s. No, but the United States incarcerates a higher proportion of blacks than apartheid South Africa did. In America, the black-white wealth gap today is greater than it was in South Africa in 1970 at the peak of apartheid.

Most troubling, America’s racial wealth gap, pay gap and college education gap have all widened in the last few decades.[/rquoter]

Jayzus.

 

That was an abysmally stupid post, do better.

 

I find it very unsurprising that someone such as yourself is dismissing my point of view without thought or critique.

I use 'every day' as a figure of speech -- but it is not far from the truth, certainly too close for my taste. For example, in the last 10 days, we've had the kid with the bb gun killed and the guy reaching for his prescription killed, plus, in that same time period we had the murderers of the unarmed teenager and the unarmed man killed over cigarettes not even taken to trial.

And, you are quite right, there is a lot of touch points between civilians and cops every day -- honestly, that is the problem -- more and more we are living in a police state, so violence from cops to civilians is inevitable. And one of the reasons that minorities and poor people have more incidents of police violence is because they are policed more than upper class people and whites. You increase the amount of touch points and you increase the amounts of incidents.

 

That nonsense wasn't deserving of thought or critique, again do better.

 

People like you who are on the wrong side of history don't typically have a very historical perspective. The truth is that you are exactly the type of person who, if they would have lived 50 years ago, would have defended the lynching and violence used to repress black people.

 

As a graduate Cal and having been a resident of Berkeley I'm very sad for what has happened the last two nights.

22 years ago I was an undergrad at Cal and doing some work for the student newspaper, The Daily Cal. During the Rodney King riots I photographed a peaceful march that went down University and shut down I-80. I got a picture published of marchers going under a sign on the freeway. The marchers eventually got all the way to the Bay Bridge. That night the protests turned violent and then like now several stores were looted and burned around the campus. I was assaulted by threw looters as they attempted to break into The Gap and to this day I don't know how I escaped them only to narrowly avoid getting clubbed by a police baton as the police swept down Bancroft. I wasn't the only journalists to get assaulted that night and a Channel 2 news team was beaten, along with another one of my colleagues from the Daily Cal.

I'm sad not that I and my colleagues were attacked but that 22 years later things haven't changed. I'm sad that people are angry enough to feel they have to get out and protests things like this and I'm sad that there are some who can't control themselves enough to do so peacefully. People are talking about what is happening now because of Ferguson and Staten Island as new but this is no different from what happened in Watts 40 years ago and in LA 22 years ago. This isn't something new but the continuation of problems that have never left.

 

My two cents:

1) this thread title is idiotic. But that is to be expected from an idiotic poster.

2) I am not convinced that the grand jury made the right decision in this case, but it is not cut and dry either way. The Michael Brown case was simple and straightforward, this one not so much...

The "choke hold" is irrelevant. Whether or not it is SOP for NYPD is irrelevant (that is a matter for the Department to deal with, not a matter of law). It did not cause this guy's death. He could speak while it was being applied and had air in his lungs. Positional asphyxiation - a risk in any arrest or detention by force with any encounter with police - in combination with his pre-existing medical conditions (cardiovascular issues and obesity most importantly) caused his death. When you have an obese person lying on their back or belly with pressure applied from officers pressing down on him during the arrest, the abdominal fat intrudes into the diaphragm and can disrupt lung function. The officers cannot control for the suspect's obesity or other medical issues.

The part I have a problem with is the officers feeling the need to restrain the suspect in the way that they did in the first place. I understand that he was uncooperative and was "resisting" arrest. But really... He was being argumentative, not aggressive. At no point did he appear to present a threat to the police. Was it really necessary to apprehend him in this fashion?

It is possible to restrain and detain people without bringing them to the ground and applying that sort of pressure. I understand that he was a big dude and he wasn't cooperating. But that is where your brains and your tongues come into play. I don't care if you have to argue with him for 20 minutes, that is better than inadvertently causing his death by positional asphyxiation.

Murder? No way. They did not murder him. But I could definitely see a case for involuntary manslaughter or negligent homicide. I wouldn't put it all on the cop, though - they are enforcing law and executing department policy. A law that has police forcibly arresting those who are essentially operating a business without a license and skirting tax laws is idiotic. Give them a freaking ticket and be on your way. And policy (and training) needs to differentiate between those who are actively resisting / aggressive / fleeing and those who simply have small brains and big mouths.

This case never should have escalated to the point that it did, for a variety of reasons.

But there is one thing that this case and the Ferguson most definitely have in common: being an a$$ when dealing with police is usually not going to go well.

So, I know you all were dying to hear my take. There it is.

 

Question for you: When in the history of earth has this worked? It has not. It's time to address the underlying problem, which is the lack of family values, faith, and education in the black community. That's the only way this ship gets turned around.

The United States is a proving ground for people. If you can't make it here, it's not for lack of opportunity. It's why millions of people a year want to come to the US. The tools are available for the black community to use -- if they choose to take advantage. If not, the poverty-crime-play the victim cycle will continue in perpetuity.

 

Repeating that nonsense isn't being better. Be a better person, be a more intelligent person. If you want to discuss anything in the news in an intelligent fashion, I'm game. That said, you have brought nothing but foolish accusations to the table.

I could probably point out that you are probably the kind of idiot who would be out in the street chanting "Hands up, don't shoot" even though that action never happened in the case that those people think they borrowed it from.....but that would just be me going down to your level and that's not productive. I've pointed out many times in this thread the legal reasons why there was no trial for murder or manslaughter in NY, I've directly quoted NY penal law to support my conclusion.

If you have anything like that to add, please do so, but for the sake of the thread, either get on my level or just stop.

 

If you think there is any level to stoop below your own, then you are the idiot.

Garner died at the hand of the police over motherf**cking cigarettes, and you say he died because of "his own stupidity " and McDonalds. A man dies, and you have that level of crass insensitivity and dismissiveness.

There is no arguing with people like you -- there is just the hope that people will eventually get angry enough to kill everyone who continues to support this racist and capitalist system.

 

Let's take this disaster of a post one part at a time.

Agreed, I clearly pointed out that stooping to your level would be counter productive. I was hoping that maybe you'd better yourself and get on my level, we'll see how that plays out.

He died because he was a fat tub of s*** who resisted arrest despite knowing better than that after being arrested dozens of times before. Because he was such a fat tub of s*** being taken to the ground and laid out in a prone position, like cops would do to literally anyone resisting arrest, was enough to kill him. If he had ever done some sit-ups in his life and occasionally got on a treadmill, he'd probably still be alive despite his monumentally stupid decision to resist arrest.

What would you have had them do instead? Beat him with a nightstick? Use mace? Use a taser?

Had they used a nightstick, we'd be hearing about how this was Rodney King all over again so that's out as a better option. Had they used mace, it could have set off the fat man's asthma leading to the exact same death as they put him on the ground to cuff him. Had they used the taser, it could have set off the fat man's heart condition, or he could have died in exactly the same manner when they got him to the ground to cuff him.

There really wasn't a much better way of doing things in that situation, had he just cooperated and let them cuff him, he'd still be alive....and that's about the only way it could have gone down with him still breathing given his really terrible health.

The best way is by using logic and facts. Give it a shot some time.

Ah, complete nutcase confirmed.

On a serious note, you should probably seek professional help.

 

Bobby is doing a solid troll job. I'd give him an 8/10 on having so many people bite.

 

Anyway, I do love it when people rail on about the abuses of capitalism and how people are going to rise up and topple the system and all of that Marxist fun, so here's part of a cartoon about it (and incidentally it parallels the current conversation) . It's huge so I'll spoiler it.

Spoiler

 

10K plus posts since Jan 2013 -- yeah, lifeless troll job confirmed.

 

I'm not a Marxist bobbytheracist.

 

I never said you were, I was just laughing about your little temper tantrum that you just threw, it reminds me of Marx from the comic. Anyway, if you have any intelligent takes on the situation in Furguson or in NY, I'd be glad to hear them, but if you are going to just mindlessly call everyone who disagrees with you a racist, let's stop here. I'm fairly sure that you have no clue what actually happened in either case, or how the law would relate to what happened, but I've been surprised once or twice before.