Police abuse thread 4: end police unions?

[DanteGabriel]

E:  And yes, even the measured, calm response from the arriving officers is ridiculous.  "get out of here before you get hurt" what shit.  Had the roles of police and citizen been reversed, the man with a hand in his pocket jumping out of a car screaming he was going to kill someone would have been ventilated in seconds.  

 

Hey, so, news.  http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/30/us/university-of-cincinnati-officer-indicted-in-shooting-death-of-motorist.html?_r=0Hamilton County prosecutor is 100% calling out and going for a police officer who shot a man in the back of the head in what the prosecutor called a "chicken-crap stop".  Whether charges will be filed against the officers who backed the defendant's story is unclear, but it is still interesting and relieving to see someone going full-bore on a murder charge right out of the gate.  

 

More here

 

 

This dovetails with my previous point about cops covering for bad cops -- Tensing's account was backed up by other officers. As the prosecutor and the victim's sister point out, Tensing would probably have walked free had there not been body cam footage that so flagrantly contradicted his self-serving lies.

 

Tensing’s claim that he only shot after he was dragged, though, was supported by a second officer who claimed to be on the scene named Phillip Kidd.

“Officer Kidd told me that he witnessed the Honda Accord drag Officer Tensing, and that he witnessed Officer Tensing fire a single shot,” Weibel’s report reads.

 

Tensing also claimed to be injured by Dubose. But Deters contradicted that as well, saying, “No, he wasn’t dragged. He fell backwards after he shot him in the head.”

 

Again, Tensing’s fellow officers backed up the claim of injuries at the hand of Dubose. In dispatcher audio of the incident, the New York Times reported that you can hear another officer saying Tensing was injured. In the report itself, the responding officer seems to attempt to back up his colleague.

 

“Looking at Officer Tensing’s uniform, I could see that the back of his pants and shirt looked as if it had been dragged over a rough surface,” Weibel wrote. “I suggested to Officer Tensing that he should go to the hospital for an examination.”

 

The video shows Tensing chasing the car, which went out of control when Dubose was killed, after firing his shot, not being “dragged over a rough surface.”

 

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/07/29/the_sam_dubose_police_report_is_full_of_falsehoods_from_ray_tensing_s_colleagues.html

 

I'm glad the prosecutor is treating this like a murder, but he also should go after the complicit officers who tried to help Tensing cover up his murder. That'd send a clear signal that criminal conspiracies among police to cover up each other's fuckups will not stand.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

I watched the video in that case and I cannot fathom why the officer had his weapon out at all. It almost looks like the pistol was fired accidentially (not that makes the officers actions any less reckless or wrong).

[DanteGabriel]

I watched the video in that case and I cannot fathom why the officer had his weapon out at all. It almost looks like the pistol was fired accidentially (not that makes the officers actions any less reckless or wrong).

 

It's strange to me that a campus police officer was armed and doing a traffic stop.

[Fez]

 

It's strange to me that a campus police officer was armed and doing a traffic stop.

 

Most college/university campus police these days are state/local sworn peace officers, with no difference between their duties than any other police officer except that their jurisdiction is a campus instead of a town/city/county/highway/etc.

[eyenon15]

@1:02 on the video is where it looks to me like the cop makes the decision that he's going to have to get violent with this guy.
Right when he says "I'm going to ask you again" is the moment I believe the cop fully commits to the idea that he will be using some sort of physical force on Mr Dubose.

[Straight Wargin']

The cop just wanted to know if the guy had his license or if it had been suspended. Why try to start the car? It boggles the mind...regardless, the driver should not have been shot.

[Dr. Pepper]

The cop just wanted to know if the guy had his license or if it had been suspended. Why try to start the car? It boggles the mind...regardless, the driver should not have been shot.

I'd probably try to start the car if a cop starts making aggressive movements, opening my door and pulling out his gun all because I forgot to bring my license with me.  

[eyenon15]

He probably started the car because there was a chance to get away. The cop didnt know his identity.
Cop should have let him go instead of acting like he's about to let Hitler get away.(Godwins Law)

[IamMe90]

The cop just wanted to know if the guy had his license or if it had been suspended. Why try to start the car?

 

Are you a black American? (I am not, so there's no accusatory/judgmental intent behind the question) I'm just honestly curious because if you aren't, I really don't think you can possibly understand what would make someone start the car on an instinctual level. Fear is a powerful emotion, and in this case the fear is completely, 100% justified. 

[MerenthaClone]

Honestly, it makes absolutely no difference why he wanted to start the car.  

[Swordfish]

Honestly, it makes absolutely no difference why he wanted to start the car.  

 

 

Agreed.  The penalty for trying to drive away from a traffic stop should not be getting shot in the back of the head.

[IamMe90]

Honestly, it makes absolutely no difference why he wanted to start the car.  

I agree, I just think it's a little gauche to question the motive behind someone in that situation, despite the fact that it's irrelevant in the first place.

[BloodRider]

I agree, I just think it's a little gauche to question the motive behind someone in that situation, despite the fact that it's irrelevant in the first place.

Exactly.  I mean ON THE FACE OF IT, he had every reason to fear for his life when the killer began to open his door.

[Howdyphillip]

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/christiantaylor-texas-police-shoot-dead-unarmed-college-football-player-n406396

 

Police gun down unarmed college football player

 

Vandalism, or burglary is not, nor should be an executable offense. We need a policy in this country for automatic firing and mandatory trials for any police officer that shoots an unarmed civilian.

As it stands now, there are just too many police out there that feel like they are Judge Dred.

[Biglose]

But isn't that how you want your police? They can't let anybody get away?

The point is not so much how you react if the police officer shot some guy who commited a minor crime.

What is important is how your society would react if the officer let the suspect get away and afterwards found the dead body of a white women.

What would happen then?

Would people say that the officer acted by the book and it is not his fault or would they say he failed the victim and should be thrown off the force?

[TrueMetis]

Police let suspects get away all the fucking time, and yes that includes criminals who then hurt people. Only the crazy would think that then grounds for shooting all fleeing suspects.

 

I do like how you felt the need to specify white women though.

[Biglose]

Police let suspects get away all the fucking time, and yes that includes criminals who then hurt people. Only the crazy would think that then grounds for shooting all fleeing suspects.

 

I do like how you felt the need to specify white women though.

Because I am under the impression that this is the highest rank in victim from my impression of the media. 

And yes, I think it is for a lot of people better to keep in line with their argumentation as long as it would be a black woman or maybe a white man. Black man is probably the lowest position as a victim. (Was probably just a member of an other gang-> fair game) I am not agreeing with that, but thats my impression of media coverage.

 

And if only the crazy would think that, why is it so common? Everybody first and formost acts (if they are not emotionally compromised) the way they think society wants them to act.

Do you think the german police(brought up quite often as a comparism for example by bill maher) are just the better people? If you compare a german detective story to an american detective story the differance in amount of ammunition used is staggering. The willingness in cop shows to fire at fleeing subjects (for me as a german) is to say it nicely surprising. And how the stories resolves is telling as well. No matter how few evidence they had before, the shot guy has a body in the trunk or at least a girl he was going to rape. If they don't go for full scale terrorist/mass murderer. And you have the same with vigilanties. In american shows, they are most of the time right and get the right guy. (Germany it is more likely they get the wrong person or fuck everything up)

(And if you think that Germany is the extreme in that case for whatever reason, take a look at Great Britain or France)

 

Start with simple shit like the fact that for some reason in the US officers drive around alone in squad cars. It is the lone Ranger/Sherif style. At the same time everybody rationally knows how freaking stupid that is. And in at least 30% of those shootings the officer was alone....

[Howdyphillip]

But isn't that how you want your police? They can't let anybody get away?

The point is not so much how you react if the police officer shot some guy who commited a minor crime.

What is important is how your society would react if the officer let the suspect get away and afterwards found the dead body of a white women.

What would happen then?

Would people say that the officer acted by the book and it is not his fault or would they say he failed the victim and should be thrown off the force?

I actually think that you have a misconception about the ideologies of my country. This is perfectly understandable because you don't live here. I believe that the vast majority of people here live under the principle that everyone is innocent until they are proven guilty. I believe that the general sentiment is that people here "would rather see 10 guilty men go free than than one innocent man convicted". 

 

I am from Texas, which is probably the strongest place that an opposing ideology is nurtured, but even here, it is a vast minority viewpoint. 

[Centrist Simon Steele]

An interesting OpEd from an Iraq War veteran about why the militarization of police is making officers less, not more, safe:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/in-iraq-i-raided-insurgents-in-virginia-the-police-raided-me/2015/07/24/2e114e54-2b02-11e5-bd33-395c05608059_story.html

From the OpEd:
 

 

 I agree with this Scot. I've been talking about this for years with former service buddies (there aren't many of us who saw it this way early on) but military service in our police officers draws a distinct line between the people and the police. In fact, you and I had an argument about this a year or two ago I think. I wholly believe, still, that police (and this started with police with military backgrounds) marking citizens as civilians was a huge implication in how the police began viewing the populace. To a military person, a civilian is a much different target in a warzone than a citizen of the U.S. should be viewed by its own police. Police marking us as civilians is a clear indication of how they (US police) view themselves in a war. It's a type of linguistic hegemony* that further separates groups into categories of lesser degree.

 

 

 

* Because I hate when people throw terms like these around, I am going to put a definition and a link here: Hegemony is established through persuasion; it “is comprised of three concomitant processes: leadership without force, leadership through legitimation, and leadership through consensual rule” (Suarez, 2002, p.513). Leading groups manufacture mass consent with convincing arguments repeated through propaganda in the media, that demonstrate that some choices are natural, inevitable and beneficial to the social order. Common sense ideologies are proposed such that “minorities will believe in and participate in the subjugation of the minority language to the dominant, to the point where just the dominant language remains” http://www.languageeducationpolicy.org/whatareleps/linguistichegemony.html

 

These ideas comes from philosophers, socialist thinkers like Marx, Althusser, Gramsci, etc., so take from it what you will, but I have little doubt of how coercive it is, how it has been used to hold minority groups back predominantly, but also entire classes and systems of people too.

[Littlefingers In The Air]

so Sam Dubose' rap sheet, unsurprisingly, is being used to stir up feelings one way.

When you read this, it is clear LEO's harassed this man his entire life over what amounts to nothing. And, of course, nothing is exactly what he's dead for. Fuck these people.