Reforming police, the Blue Wall of Silence

[Dr. Pepper]

The Justice Department will not bring charges against the cops who murdered Alton Sterling.

Considering the who the new AG is, it's really not a surprise

Quote

The Justice Department will not charge the white police officers responsible for shooting and killing Alton Sterling at a Baton Rouge, Louisiana convenience store last July. The DOJ has not yet made an official announcement, but multiple sources are reporting, that it is closing its case against the two white police officers. This is the first instance new Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who has positioned himself as hardliner inclined to back police, has decided not to charge officers for potential police misconduct.

 

In other news, police in Texas murdered a 15 year old boy after they responded to a cop that teens might be drinking.  Video caught the police in a lie about what led to the murder.  They claimed the car was driving aggressively towards them, but it was actually just driving away.  It was dark, the murdered shot indiscriminately into a car based on a call about drunk teens. 

http://www.ajc.com/news/local/texas-police-change-story-shooting-death-black-teen/rnNH2FJTy3WUCVCOdMUR7J/

[Centrist Simon Steele]

4 hours ago, Dr. Pepper said:

The Justice Department will not bring charges against the cops who murdered Alton Sterling.

Considering the who the new AG is, it's really not a surprise

 

In other news, police in Texas murdered a 15 year old boy after they responded to a cop that teens might be drinking.  Video caught the police in a lie about what led to the murder.  They claimed the car was driving aggressively towards them, but it was actually just driving away.  It was dark, the murdered shot indiscriminately into a car based on a call about drunk teens. 

http://www.ajc.com/news/local/texas-police-change-story-shooting-death-black-teen/rnNH2FJTy3WUCVCOdMUR7J/

 

Heartbreaking--another dead kid, and people still protect the armed thugs. At some point, we've got to say "you guys ARE the professionals. Act like it. Don't take a 'dangerous' job if you can't handle the pressure."

[Arch-MaesterPhilip]

9 hours ago, Simon Steele said:

Heartbreaking--another dead kid, and people still protect the armed thugs. At some point, we've got to say "you guys ARE the professionals. Act like it. Don't take a 'dangerous' job if you can't handle the pressure."

I attempted working in law enforcement and quit for that reason. I'm I wasn't sure if I was able to handle the responsibility that comes with it.

[Dr. Pepper]

44 minutes ago, Arch-MaesterPhilip said:

I attempted working in law enforcement and quit for that reason. I'm I wasn't sure if I was able to handle the responsibility that comes with it.

You're exactly the type of person who we need working in law enforcement.  If you're aware and in awe of the tremendous responsibility, you are already doing it right.

[Arch-MaesterPhilip]

3 minutes ago, Dr. Pepper said:

You're exactly the type of person who we need working in law enforcement.  If you're aware and in awe of the tremendous responsibility, you are already doing it right.

I had a panic attack during training and resigned, someone like me shouldn't have a weapon. But I agree law enforcement needs people with more awareness of the responsibility involved.

[ants]

On 12/10/2016 at 5:40 AM, SerHaHa said:

Regarding the hung jury due to a single holdout - I read in the thread about jury duty that New Orleans/LA has a 10-2 jury system, where you need 3 jurors to hang a jury.  I'm not sure 3 is the right number, but 2 certainly would be a lot better than 1, I've long believed in the 10% rule, where 10% of people in professions in any field, are inexplicably IN that field, and completely incompetent.  It's a lot more rare to find 30 or even 20% complete incompetency, and that IMO should be applied to the US jury system.  I'm not sure how it works in the USA and the New Orleans example, if there are differences in your local, state, and federal court systems, but IMO a single idiot should NOT be able to stand in the way of justice.  This current example being used, that officer had NO legal reason to shoot a man running off who was unarmed and hadn't done anything other than possibly touch his taser weapon, and even if that did happen, was 5 seconds before he shot him at 10 yards+ running away, and not a threat to anyone, much less him.  As Commodore said, Brown and a couple other incidents were completely different.

Of course, the problem with that is sometimes the lone juror is right. In the Central Park 5 case in New York the initial trial's result was delayed as one juror believed the "confessions" were baloney as they contradicted themselves and the kids (in his words) clearly didn't have all the facts straight. But he caved under pressure from the other eleven. If he'd held on and it had been a mistrial, many would have described him like this guy is being described. But he would have been right. Certainly the public opinion was that the boys were clearly guilty, as is the perception of this man here. 

Now, that isn't to say the lone juror is always right. They will sometimes be a fruitcake, or prejudiced, or see things very differently, or hell even bought. But voting opposite the others isn't a guarantee of being wrong. 

In this particular case, given he's since pleaded guilty it was likely that the 12th man was wrong. But lets be careful with what changes we make due to that. 

[all swedes are racist]

ferguson protester Edward Crawford, the man in the iconic photo throwing a burning tar gas can, was found dead of (police claim self-inflicted) gunshot wounds in his car.

[Swordfish]

7 hours ago, r'hllor's reformed lobster said:

ferguson protester Edward Crawford, the man in the iconic photo throwing a burning tar gas can, was found dead of (police claim self-inflicted) gunshot wounds in his car.

looks like there are actually witnesses who are making that claim.

Quote

The women told police that Crawford had started talking about how distraught he was over “personal matters.” They heard him rummaging for something in the backseat, and the next thing they knew he shot himself in the head.

Crawford’s father, 52, said he believes it was an accidental shooting, not intentional. “I don’t believe it was a suicide,” he said. He said investigators weren’t saying much to him yet. “They’re being hush-hush,” the father said.

 

[Centrist Simon Steele]

15 hours ago, ants said:

Of course, the problem with that is sometimes the lone juror is right. In the Central Park 5 case in New York the initial trial's result was delayed as one juror believed the "confessions" were baloney as they contradicted themselves and the kids (in his words) clearly didn't have all the facts straight. But he caved under pressure from the other eleven. If he'd held on and it had been a mistrial, many would have described him like this guy is being described. But he would have been right. Certainly the public opinion was that the boys were clearly guilty, as is the perception of this man here. 

Now, that isn't to say the lone juror is always right. They will sometimes be a fruitcake, or prejudiced, or see things very differently, or hell even bought. But voting opposite the others isn't a guarantee of being wrong. 

In this particular case, given he's since pleaded guilty it was likely that the 12th man was wrong. But lets be careful with what changes we make due to that. 

3

Americans are so intent on "getting the bad guys" they jail up all the good people along the way too. In my opinion, what if a few guilty people got away and we didn't have to endure the horrid truths brought about by cases such as the Central Park Five. I watched that documentary, and when they showed that boy footage of the crimescene--the look on his face--it made him beyond sick--it broke him. It was reprehensible what they did those kids. I would rather kids like that go free and we understand too that some guilty people might get off, than risk anything like that happening again.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

2 hours ago, The Great Unwashed said:

The former cop who killed Jordan Edwards has been charged with murder.

It also appears that this former cop had been involved in an off-duty incident involving his weapon when a woman rear-ended him over Easter weekend and he pulled his weapon on her.

How the fuck was this asshole still on active duty after an incident like that?

 

The worst thing is--it's kind of shocking he was fired and is being charged with murder. 

[Dr. Pepper]

The cop who murdered Philando Castile last year has been acquitted

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/16/us/police-shooting-trial-philando-castile.html?_r=0

Quote

The images had transfixed people around the world: A woman live-streaming the aftermath of a police shooting of her boyfriend, Philando Castile, and narrating the searing, bloody scene that was unfolding around her.

On Friday, a jury here acquitted the Minnesota police officer, Jeronimo Yanez, of all charges in shooting, which happened in July 2016 and left Mr. Castile dead, raising the national debate over police conduct toward black people. Officer Yanez, an officer for the suburb of St. Anthony, had been charged with second-degree manslaughter and endangering safety by discharging a firearm in the shooting.

The verdict was announced in a tense courtroom here late Friday afternoon, after five days of deliberations, and the officer was led quickly out of the courtroom, as were the 12 jurors. Mr. Castile’s family, which had nervously watched the proceedings from the front row, abruptly left as well.

“My son loved this city, and this city killed my son,” Mr. Castile’s mother, Valerie, said as she stood on a corner outside the courthouse afterward. “And a murderer gets away. Are you kidding me right now?”

She continued, “The system in this country continues to fail black people and will continue to fail us.”

 

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

Its only murder if it was an unlawful killing. That court disagrees with your labelling

[Larry of the Lawn]

10 hours ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Its only murder if it was an unlawful killing. That court disagrees with your labelling

Technically schmechnically Brian

[all swedes are racist]

seattle police shoot and kill woman with children in the house

but, because she was black, had an arrested record (stemming from apparent mental health issues) this will not be deemed a "murder" because the state, which makes such determinations, has no vested interest in such people

[all swedes are racist]

oh and let's not forget about this

us law enforcement is beyond reformation, and must be dissolved and constituted anew

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Here's an interesting New Yorker article on the problem of Police Unions:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/09/19/why-are-police-unions-blocking-reform

From the article:

For the past fifty years, police unions have done their best to block policing reforms of all kinds. In the seventies, they opposed officers’ having to wear name tags. More recently, they’ve opposed the use of body cameras and have protested proposals to document racial profiling and to track excessive-force complaints. They have lobbied to keep disciplinary histories sealed. If a doctor commits malpractice, it’s a matter of public record, but, in much of the country, a police officer’s use of excessive force is not. Across the nation, unions have led the battle to limit the power of civilian-review boards, generally by arguing that civilians are in no position to judge the split-second decisions that police officers make. Earlier this year, Newark created a civilian-review board that was acclaimed as a model of oversight. The city’s police union immediately announced that it would sue to shut it down.

Cities don’t have to concede so much power to police unions. So why do they? Big-city unions have large membership bases and are generous when it comes to campaign contributions. Neither liberals nor conservatives have been keen to challenge the unions’ power. Liberals are generally supportive of public-sector unions; some of the worst police departments in the country are in cities, like Baltimore and Oakland, run by liberal mayors. And though conservatives regularly castigate public-sector unions as parasites, they typically exempt the police. Perhaps most crucial, Walker says, “police unions can make life very difficult for mayors, attacking them as soft on crime and warning that, unless they get their way, it will go up. The fear of crime—which is often a code word for race—still has a powerful political impact.” As a result, while most unions in the U.S. have grown weaker since the seventies, police unions have grown stronger.

All labor unions represent the interests of the workers against the bosses. But police officers are not like other workers: they have state-sanctioned power of life and death over fellow-citizens. It’s hardly unreasonable to demand real oversight in exchange. Union control over police working conditions necessarily entails less control for the public, and that means less transparency and less accountability in cases of police violence. It’s long past time we watched the watchmen. ♦

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

What really needs reform is the prosecution, and their relationship with the police. I could have told you months ago that Yanez wasn't going to be convicted, and it's because Choi didn't really want to try the case, but was forced to because of public pressure. 

[Kalbear]

38 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

What really needs reform is the prosecution, and their relationship with the police. I could have told you months ago that Yanez wasn't going to be convicted, and it's because Choi didn't really want to try the case, but was forced to because of public pressure. 

Partially; a lot of the problem is that there is an absurd amount of bias in the laws to try police. In Seattle, for instance, the law is that you have to show that the police officer had intent to unlawfully use force and acted with malice before being able to convict them. 

How do you show that a person acted with actual malice? It's virtually impossible, and that's why in 30 years only one police officer in Seattle has been charged with any criminal acts (he shot a drunk guy in the back of his car) - and that police officer was acquitted.

And the union refuses to budge on this, or on giving civilians any real oversight into any process that is enforceable, or anything else. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

12 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Partially; a lot of the problem is that there is an absurd amount of bias in the laws to try police. In Seattle, for instance, the law is that you have to show that the police officer had intent to unlawfully use force and acted with malice before being able to convict them. 

How do you show that a person acted with actual malice? It's virtually impossible, and that's why in 30 years only one police officer in Seattle has been charged with any criminal acts (he shot a drunk guy in the back of his car) - and that police officer was acquitted.

And the union refuses to budge on this, or on giving civilians any real oversight into any process that is enforceable, or anything else. 

In the short term it is the Union's job to protect its membership.  However, in the long term I think this hurts their membership.

[DireWolfSpirit]

On June 18, 2017 at 6:41 AM, Dr. Pepper said:

The cop who murdered Philando Castile last year has been acquitted

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/16/us/police-shooting-trial-philando-castile.html?_r=0

 

I just saw the murder of Philando on a MSNBC report. I'm stunned that a jury would let this cop walk after viewing the dashcam video clearly showing an unjustified execution by the cop, with a child and another adult sitting in the vehicle while the cop unloads his entire magazine into the vehicle. I just cannot believe anyone could see that video and call it anything other than murder.