So we are gonna ignore the riot thats happening in Baltimore

Everyone is treated like white men, eh Bobby? All these minorities should just get over it, right Bobby?

 

I know some Hispanic people. I've never heard this from them.

 

I know it's somehow a bad thing to say you have black friends but...

Most of my friends my entire life have been black. My best friend for like 20 years is black. I know how they feel about being pulled over by cops and there is certainly a "paranoia" if you want to call it that. I don't know if it's universal, but I think the vast majority of black people (at least the ones I know/have known) would agree that being pulled over as a black person is different than being pulled over as a white person.

 

I've been pulled over 3 times in the past 12 years despite doing something illegal probably every time I'm behind the wheel. Two warnings (one immediately after toking up, the other going 20 mph over the speed limit when I missed the reduced speed sign), and the other was dismissed after taking care of my tags. No way this happens if I'm black.

That's as many times as Chris Rock was pulled over in a 7-week period earlier this year.

 

lol i couldn't help this either---

treeman on reparations

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...ations-emanuel-met-20150414-story.html#page=1

Mayor backs $5.5 million reparations deal for Burge police torture victims

mmm...ever

 

Paranoia is an individual thing, I never said anything at all about minorities.

 

Listen to what Stephen A. Smith said he does when he gets pulled over https://youtu.be/GpAjJlfijJ4

Congratulations.

 

I' m sorry but ya had me laughing on that one Remii. Gonna try not to encourage you though.

 

For those of you who think cops abusing their power and then trying to frame people is rare, here is yet another example. Again, if this would not have been caught on camera, the cops would have been able to get away with this behavior and railroad this innocent man (as they are typically able to get away with it). The incidents where cops are caught doing this are the tip of the iceberg. We most likely are catching them in only a small percentage of this type of behavior:

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.liveleak.com/ll_embed?f=05f61b44d38f" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

In other words, you're full of crap.

 

He certainly is.

 

Austin looks like it is going ahead with mandatory body cameras on all officers. The cost I saw quoted was roughly $7M over 5 years.

I like this idea a lot.

 

Oakland has been doing this for a while, and initial studies show that it has had a positive impact -- I believe (and this is off the top of my head) that community complaints about police decreased by 60% . Considering how much money cities are having to give to people in order to settle civil suits related to police abuse of power, 7 mill for a city the size of Austin is a good investment.

Personally I am skeptical how much body cams will help though. The amount of activities it is legal for cops to do (and thus okay for them to get caught doing on camera) is still too onerous in my opinion. I mean, that mentally deranged person with the screwdriver that the cops killed in his mother's doorway -- that was on film, and that was perfectly legal for the cops to do. So, it isn't just that cops break the law and abuse power, the issue is also that cops are able to follow the law and abuse their power.

 

I think this is true. Video may have some visceral impact on juries watching a clip of someone getting gunned down by a cop in a clip in future court cases. But, in general, juries give cops a lot of leeway on their choices to use force, and our legislation does as well. I doubt that changes in the near future.

But, let's take what incremental gains we can get. Even an incremental gain means a life spared or an unjust conviction avoided (or a just one cemented). We can see the path forward with body cameras, so let's take it. As we go down that road, other opportunities to improve justice may present themselves.

 

I agree for the most part. I just don't want people to look at body cameras as a panacea. Often people allow small reforms like that to lull them into a false sense of security and accomplishment -- as in, "oh, we have body cameras now, so, issue fixed. No need to worry about that any longer. " -- and that is just a wrong approach to take with the issues we have with cops and the criminal justice system.

So often reforms are used to quiet public outrage, but almost just as often the reforms fail to actually fix the issues that caused the outrage, yet, the effective and widespread public outcry is able to be dispelled.

So, as I said, I am not arguing against body cams on cops, I just want people to keep things in perspective.

 

A lot of the time the public outcry is stupid as was the case in Furguson. Body cameras will help stop a lot of the really dumb public outcry.....but it won't stop all of it.

 

What is stupid is your refusal to acknowledge that Ferguson (as well as other areas with similar popular outcries ) are not solely based on a single incident, but rather on years of police and criminal justice system abuses of power, as well as other socioeconomic conditions.

 

No, public outcry was definitely justified in Ferguson. The type of example you are looking for will have to be something where the whole system, even with some reasonable actors, was not revealed to be rotten to the core. Body cameras might help some of the problems and it might result in people thinking that they can wash their hands and be done with it all, but they still won't solve the systematic victimization of poor people and minorities by the entire justice system.

 

Oh, I absolutely acknowledge that the mob doesn't really care about any of the people they claim to, I know they are just using those incidents as excuses to push a larger agenda. It's the moronic "hands up, don't shoot" BS that gets annoying given that it never happened.

No, it really wasn't....at least not for the reason they claimed to be up in arms. Now they did find some wrongdoing in the Furguson police department completely separate from the case about the criminal that attacked a cop and got shot as a result.....but I'm pretty sure they were at least claiming that their goal was to get justice for the dead criminal, not to uncover police corruption completely separate from the Brown case.

 

Hmm... so what was the "some wrongdoing in the police department"?

perhaps this was one of those wrongdoings?:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/15/the-day-ferguson-cops-were-caught-in-a-bloody-lie.html

Or, perhaps this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/03/06/two-ferguson-police-officers-resign-following-justice-department-report/

Now, I am not black, nor do I live in Ferguson, but if I were, I would reasonable question whether the law enforcement system would treat me fairly...