Here we go again. When 37-year-old Alton Sterling, a black man, was shot and killed by officers of the Baton Rouge Police Department on Tuesday, it ignited protests around the country.
On Wednesday, the Justice Department announced that it had opened a civil rights investigation after what the New York Times described as a “searing video of the encounter, aired repeatedly on television and social media, reignited contentious issues surrounding police killings of African-Americans.”
According to published accounts, the two white officers were arresting Mr. Sterling after responding to a call about an armed man. Mr. Sterling was pinned to the ground when at least one of the officers shot him.
In a statement from the ACLU, “We are angered and saddened by the killing of Alton Sterling by police officers. It is shameful that his death marks the 122nd killing of a Black person by U.S. law enforcement this year.
“Law enforcement’s killing of Alton Sterling is a horrific reminder of the systemic and pervasive racism in our society,” they continued. “It is tempting to focus only on the officers who pulled the trigger or the police department that they work for. But his death was not just the result of these officers’ actions; it is a violent manifestation of the racism that our society and institutions continue to tolerate and enable.
“The remarkable claim that both officers’ body cameras fell off during the same incident also underscores that body cameras alone won’t solve racially-biased policing and excessive use of force,” they said. “We hope the swiftness of the Department of Justice’s decision to open an investigation leads to change not only in Baton Rouge, but across the U.S. We need systemic change in order to create a racially just world.”
Radley Balko, a police use of force critic who now writes for the Washington Post, opined yesterday that Mr. Sterling’s death “appears to be another police shooting that was both legal and preventable.”
Mr. Balko notes that a man dressed in red was selling CDs and allegedly pointed a gun at someone. “Sterling was wearing red and allegedly had a gun in his pocket. The witness to the shooting — the owner of the convenience store — said the cops seemed aggressive from the start. The witness also said that Sterling was complying with the officers, and that he wasn’t holding the gun, nor did he have a hand near the gun when he was shot.”
Mr. Balko writes, “In the video, one of Sterling’s hands is clearly not a threat, but his other hand isn’t visible. There’s also body camera and dash camera footage that has yet to be released.”
From what we know right now, he writes that “this appears to be another case of police officers deploying lethal force that was likely legal, but was also unnecessary.”
He notes, “The witness’ observation that the police officers appeared to be escalating the situation isn’t contradicted by the video, but the video also doesn’t definitively prove him correct. A police officer can use deadly force if he believes his life or the lives of others are threatened, and if that belief is objectively reasonable. Here we have a witness who says Sterling posed no serious threat, and video that strongly suggests but doesn’t completely the witness’ account to be valid.”
Mr. Balko, after running through some scenarios, concludes, “If this is indeed what happened, then the officers miscommunicated, and the miscommunication caused them to kill Sterling. That likely isn’t a crime — at least for the first shot.”
However, he notes that if the witness is correct regarding the aggressiveness of the police actions, then at least some of the miscommunication “was likely caused by heightened volatility and peril. And the heightened volatility and peril were caused by the escalation. That the officers escalated is also supported, but not completely proven, by the video. The audio to the video picks up just as an officer is screaming at Sterling to “Get on the ground!” Seconds later, we see them tackle Sterling and throw him to the pavement.”
Mr. Balko believes it is inconclusive whether Mr. Sterling was resisting.
He concludes from this, “All of which is why training police in de-escalation is so important. Physical confrontation like the kind we see in this video immediately raises the stakes and narrows the margin for error for everyone involved. A misheard directive, a misinterpreted gesture, or any other miscommunication can quickly become fatal.
“Perhaps in the coming days we’ll learn that in this particular situation, the officers had no choice but to take Sterling down, though the video at least suggests otherwise. Yet we’ve see way too officer-involved shootings in recent years in which the officers’ perception (or misperception) of the threat was reasonable at the moment of the shooting, but in which the officer or other officers’ escalation helped create the threat in the first place,” he continues.
He therefore argues, “If we really want to reduce fatal police shootings instead of merely adjudicating them, we need to train officers in tactics that subdue threats, reward those who resolve threats without violence, and discourage actions that create unnecessary confrontation, violence, and escalation. And when these shootings are investigated — be it by the DOJ, internal affairs departments, local prosecutors or an outside agencies — it’s time to start looking beyond whether or not the shooting was justified under the black letter of the law. It’s time to start asking whether the shooting was preventable — and if it was, whether the failure to prevent it was due to poor training, bad policies, or police officers acting in contravention of policies or training.”
He ends his column: “Was it legal? is the question we ask when deciding whether or not to prosecute. Was it preventable? is the question we need to ask to save lives.” Balko, on the other hand, says it’s inconclusive whether Mr. Sterling was resisting.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
That was my first reaction too when I saw the V was writing another article on this topic.
Wait ’til you see the video of the Minneapolis area event…
If it was a black man and a white cop involved I have no doubt the V will cover it.
hpierce: Wait ’til you see the video of the Minneapolis area event…
Here.
Have no understanding of why, but the video seems to have been altered… unless the car was “British”, the image appears to be a “mirror image”… don’t know if that is ‘intrinsic’ to “selfies”… what was originally shown on CNN did not have that happening, but in all other respects, it seems the same…
The Minneapolis area event appears to be particularly egregious…
BTW, video of it looks more like a rogue, mentally disturbed guy who managed to get a uniform and a badge, than anything “systemic”…
That video broke something inside of me.
BP
“If it was a black man and a white cop involved I have no doubt the V will cover it.”
Do you believe that the races of the individuals involved should preclude it’s coverage ?
Not at all, but why doesn’t the V cover stories like this that also happened in Louisianna?
http://downtrend.com/71superb/black-cop-shoots-and-kills-6-year-old-white-boy-with-autism
Probably because the VG (I suspect), doesn’t search far-right wing internet sources…
Hpierce, I just did a Google search and that site came up. Here’s the same story from CNN, is that better? The point is that the story was out there and accessible, but no outrage from the V that I remember.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/10/us/louisiana-child-shooting/
Given how many shootings a year there are by police, I can’t cover every single one of them. So I think your question is why do I cover these and not others and there is a simple answer – while use of force seems a universal problem with regards to policing, biased policing or the perception thereof undermines critical trust in the sanctity of our system.
Did you watch that video? The father was involved in a high speed chase, and cops stupidly fired into the vehicle. Look at the size of the child… probably no way the officers knew that a child was even present… that was a stupid shooting, to be sure… but the victim was not an intended target. Materially different from the other cases…
David wrote:
> Given how many shootings a year there are by
> police, I can’t cover every single one of them.
True, and since it is your blog you can cover what you want, but it would be nice to let readers know that you are on a mission to get everyone to think that all cops are racist killers (unless you have covered some black cops shooting white guys that I might have missed)
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/10/27/prosecutor-wont-charge-cop-who-killed-white-teen-zachary-hammond
“Probably becase the VG doesnt search out…”
Glad I hadn’t taken a sip of coffee, or my chuckles would have spit it out.
Spotted on a bumper sticker in AZ:
Do you keep hearing crazy voices?
Turn off Fox News.
Don’t bother… some folk look at the world with a “black/white” filter… some folk focus on behavior, reasonable use of force, training, ‘screening’, etc.
Exactly my point.
Hpierce: by ignoring race, you’re ignoring an essential part of the problem.
I don’t ignore it… what I am saying is that there are some folk out there, who get a uniform and shield (and a gun) who shouldn’t have them. Some may be “bullies”, some may have serious, but not obvious, personality disorders. Some of those may act out more with a different race involved, but I don’t believe race is the PRIMARY factor, but in some cases, it may be the trigger (pun unintended).
To me there is a REAL problem, with training, screening, etc. Talk about race all you want, unless we choose and train responsible people to police the community, we still have a serious problem…
In Davis, we’ve had white cops harassing and misusing their “power”, under “color of authority”, white folk (particularly teenage boys).
Forcible rape isn’t so much about sex, as it is power and control (at least that’s what I keep hearing supposedly knowledgeable folk say)… it sure appears that many/most of these instances isn’t so much about race, as it is power/ego/control… just higher lethality.
Tia wrote:
> Do you believe that the races of the individuals involved
> should preclude it’s coverage ?
I was recently talking to a friend who grew up in rural racist Louisiana and was in a fraternity full of mostly racist white guys at LSU.
After moving to Davis for grad school he realized that the reason there are so many white racists in his home state is because the local press makes a big deal out of every crime committed by a black guy and sweeps crime by white guys under the rug. The racist local press and local media also go out of their way to find bad things any black people do and ignore the good things they do.
Here in Davis we have the opposite we have a lot of people (and a local blog) that want people to think ALL cops are racist and go out of the way to cover every bad thing cops to to people of color.
P.S. Cops kill more white people in America every year than all the “people of color” combined and if David is not doing the same (morally wrong) thing as a racist southern paper that only covers crime by blacks so people learn to fear them maybe he can tell us why he only covers the killing of people of color by cops so people will think they are all racist.
P.P.S. I’m no defender of cops and (sadly) I think law enforcement probably has a higher percentage of racists than any other line of work but to me the Vanguard and the rest of the mainstream media ONLY covering cops killing black guys is exactly the same as racist Southern papers ONLY covering rapes when the rapist was a black guy…
Bingo!!!!
So far in 2016, 602 people have been killed by police in the USA, roughly the same rate as last year. (1208, total for 2015) That’s about 70 times the rate of the rest of the civilized world. In 2014, 1,100 people were killed by police in the US. 14 were killed by police in China and Canada. 1 by British police and German police killed 0. US cops are number 1 and not likely to be displaced anytime soon.
These most recent cases are horrifying, but not surprising.
Anyone who thinks Chinese police killed only 14 people last year is delusional.
You are correct… big difference between “what happened”, and “what was reported”…
You’re correct about China, we’ve been through this already. It’s like Groundhog Day, he posts the same info over and over.
Because the same thing keeps recurring?
I wasn’t talking about you.
Really, I don’t think you read anything. By the way, where are your numbers for Killed by Police in China? Mine come from The Shanghai Morning Post, AP and The CIA World Factbook-China. I actually count three more deaths than officially listed, but did not include them in the count because though shot by police, they died sometime later in prison .Just as I don’t include deaths by state execution or military actions in the US numbers, I don’t include Chinese penal and military executions here. while I don’t have numbers in those, I would be shocked if they exceeded 1,100 . You can blow all the smoke you want, but you haven’t got a relevant fact to contribute, so we just get the usual three “D’s:” Denial, deflection and denigration. It’s the Davis way, right?
Biddlin, I used to go to China 5 times a year and as I worked for a Chinese company had close relationships with people there. The people believe it happens frequently. BTW you know when then execute you they send your family a bill for the bullet? “Denial, deflection and denigration” little sensitive there Biddlin?
Well said Quielo. Next we’ll have someone citing North Korea’s low killed by police numbers like we’re supposed to believe those too.
I just spoke to someone in China and said the government reported 14 people total killed by police. She laughed.
Perhaps the officers thought they were still in Faluja Iraq or Anbar province Afghanistan. Looks like they were well trained in the shock and awe of overwhelming force approach to policing and missed the de-escalation with effective communication training.
I’m curious why no one wanted to take on Balko’s comments regarding better tactics to preserve life.
This just in. http://usuncut.com/black-lives-matter/minnesota-police-shooting-traffic-stop/
I think I just turned against the police on this. WTF? There is something wrong with law enforcement that so many are so quick to pull the trigger. It is time for reform of this once respected profession. Yes, they have reason to be on alert in certain neighborhoods, but pulling a trigger should be at the bottom of the list of responses.
A cop that is so fearful of every move of a suspect that he would shoot to kill like this should not be a cop.
I am disgusted as a consistent and strong supporter of law enforcement.
The problem is internal and should be fixed internally.
Frankly wrote:
> The problem is internal and should be fixed internally.
It will be hard to fix since while every cop I know will tell me off the record that at least 20% of the people (of all races) they work with should not be cops, but I don’t see any of them going public with the facts that they have co-workers that are hot heads, racists, reckless drivers or just have bad overall judgement any time soon…
The problem is the police union, just like the teachers union, that prevent the firing of employees that are clearly not a good fit for the profession assuming there is a high performance bar.
It has a tendency to degrade the overall quality of performance in several ways.
1. The unqualified get to keep their jobs and continue to under-perform.
2. The overall performance expectation is lowered because the performance gene pool / work culter is degraded by that percentage that would otherwise be fired.
3. Better qualified people are not attracted to the profession because of the lower performance gene pool / culture.
4. Negative public opinion and negative branding of the profession also cause fewer good people to pursue the profession.
5. Good people that are hired get corrupted over-time to a lower common performance ethos.
My perspective is that law enforcement deserves utmost support and respect given the very difficult job they have to do. Cop suicides are higher than the general population for a reason. But the 80% good and honorable people doing this job are caught in this negative branding because the 20% of under-performing / wrong fit employees cannot be fired due to union protection.
The way I see it. Unions are responsible for bad policing and bad teaching that contribute to this mess.
Police officer’s associations are notorious but police culture is a good deal of the problem as well.
Workplace culture is a product of the employees of the workplace.
Let’s say hypothetically you are a city manager that wants to see your city police culture changed from the existing cowboy-Rambo style to a new community consultant model. Your first problem is hiring a chief with experience that also has the motivation and skills to make progress in this way. Even if you could find qualified candidates (which is next to impossible since all of them came up through the ranks of the same or similar cultures) he/she would be unwilling to take the job knowing he/she would be shredded by the existing employees with the backing of their labor organization.
The ONLY way to fix the problems is to make all police at-will employees that can be fired for any reason that isn’t against the law.
You’re a manager. You know better than that. Nobody said being a police commissioner is easy. But every one of them knows that he or she is the bridge between the employees, the public, and the political leaders who hire and fire them.
When the military recognized a problem with sexual violence, they took an extraordinary step. They ‘stood down’ the entire military and addressed the problem from the top down.
Any organization’s culture reflects the demographics of its membership AND the values and policies put in place by the leadership. If these departments don’t clean up their acts, start implementing new training, start firing some of these officers and making examples of them, it is very likely that the Justice Department will come in and review them. That typically doesn’t end well. Unions protect their members. That’s basic to their mission. So it is likely that they will be impediments to prompt discipline. But that is not an excuse for the leadership to fail to act.
Political pressure will pay off. Public demonstrations and rallies will have an effect. That’s the part a lot of conservatives don’t seem to like: these are cases where public activism will get results if it is ongoing and vigorous. I don’t know when we’ll reach a tipping point where even the reflexive allies of the police are so repelled by what they see that they press for change. Maybe today’s video will get us closer.
This defense of public sector unions while decrying the crappy service of their professions is really irritating. It is really difficult to let go of long-standing ideological crucibles, but when it is a clear barrier to loudly demanded progress, I would think a true progressive would eventually let go.
The way the police close ranks to protect those who engage in egregious acts and should not be in law enforcement is nothing compared to what physicians do, and rarely if ever are physicians unionized.
Physicians these days are generally served by a collective bargaining agreement of some type. And if not that they their employment is general by contract. In this country they also spend an average of 11 years in higher learning and residency before they can be licensed to practice medicine. There is significant vetting of capability along the way.
In most jurisdictions a cop only needs a high school diploma and to have passed a 20-week police academy program.
Unions lower overall employee quality and performance. Other things like bad management do the same. But bad management can be corrected pretty easily. The problem is that unions prevent corrections to bad employees.
I am… have been since I was 21.
And no… I don’t agree with you. I think maybe you lack some experience here.
I was the guy typically tapped to fix broken departments. I could generally see that 80% or more of the problems were being caused by 10-20% of the employees.
The way it works is that you come in and talk to each of them and then collectively to set the new vision for higher service and higher performance. You do training and coaching and directing and supporting. But only some of those corrupted by the old work culture will get it and come along. Usually about 25%-33% are not going to change for one reason or another (depending on the scope of the problems and needed changes). And these are people that need to be let go.
Otherwise the reforms will be impossible… or too difficult and drawn out for anyone with the skills to do the work to agree to do the work.
These are the types of management jobs where the good deeds get punished. As the leader you will leave a legacy of improvements because you end up creating many enemies of change. You create supporters too… but you will be worn out and ready for change. Let the next manager come in that isn’t so much a big problem solver, but someone that can at least maintain.
Unionized employees tend to feel entitled to their employment no matter what their actual performance and capability. You tell them they need to change, and they tell you to go pound sand because it is not in their collective bargaining agreement. Then what are you going to do as their manager? Put in 500 hours of work to create the case for being able to dismiss them? Do that for each bad employee?
Get real.
Unionization is the key to keeping any profession lower performing.
Changing workplace culture where these kinds of behaviors are tolerated is the job of management. The unions may be an impediment, but they aren’t going away and they could actually be irrelevant in this situation simply because of the increasing public outcry. There is little point in focusing on the existence of unions if your goal is to reduce these incidents. This takes a wholesale top-down change in culture, basically an enforced imposition of values and policies that retrain police about the use of lethal force.
These conversations always seem to take a detour into how selective and hypocritical liberals are, how the media only focuses on certain incidents, or parsing the personal lives of the victims. Seems clear to me there is a prevailing problem of excessive use of force. Many in the black community believe that it is disproportionately levied against them. I don’t see why it is so difficult to accept that their perception might be valid.
We’re having a national conversation about things that are more likely solved at the local level. But maybe the heavy hand of the Justice Department is what it’s going to take to get individual police departments to change.
Don you really don’t understand enough about this stuff so I wish you would stop responding so strongly as if you do.
What you seem to be ignoring is that most managers that are any good would run away from unionized labor because it is unmanageable.
You get crappy candidates for the most part. Ass-sitters waiting for their retirement.
There is only so many resources and so much energy to change a culture of a large organization. If you limit the tools available it become impossible. Based on your comments it is clear that you have never had to do it.
Look around and open your eyes. Look at the educated people in this town that will fight change to the irrational end. One people get comfortable in their positions, in their roles in their command of the existing culture… They will resist change. They will call others to their resistance.
Change is a people problem. Changing a work culture is a multiple people change problem. It is VERY difficult. It takes all the tools a manager can get his/her hands on. Unions eliminate most of the tools.
It is clear that you don’t know this so why do you seem so compelled to oppose so strongly? Is it ideology?
What ideology would that be, Frankly? The ideology I see in this conversation is the one that makes an article about police use of lethal force somehow have something to do with unions.
Thanks for the patronizing comments. You’ve just killed another conversation. See you next time.
Agreed Frankly, that shooting is exceptionally bad. That guy should never be a cop.
It’s amazing how the lady in the video can stay so calm in such a terrible situation.
Might well be “shock” and/or disbelief that this could be happening [remember she had a small child in the back seat]… I have witnessed some pretty horrific events (either in real time, or shortly after the fact), but part of my psyche told me that I needed to set all feelings aside (for the moment), analyse, ‘problem-solve’… got thru them, took care of the victims… then when the adrenaline levels subsided, I fell apart.
If you closely look at the video, she went back and forth between trying to control herself and her reactions, and “losing it”…
Good thing some people can do that… otherwise ER’s would not be staffed for long…
ER’s aren’t dealing with relatives or boyfriends as in the case of this lady.
So, are you saying that everything is questionable based on her lack of hysteria? Can you not accept the postulation that,
Do you say I am lying when I said, from my experience,
People often do what they feel they need to do… let’s go “personal”… infant, 8 months old… you’re the dad… child falls ill… so ill that it presents as rigid, won’t eat/nurse, cries continually as in great pain (until he can cry no no longer, and the cries sound like the desperate mewing of a kitten), shows signs of edema… you go to doctor/hospital 4 times in as many days… they can’t find the problem, despite examinations, a spinal tap, blood draws… diagnoses are offered… encephalitis, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, kawasaki’s disease (oh, and there might be heart damage)… mom is losing it… this goes on and on… someone has to “man up”, drive the car, analyse the information, dispassionately report on the situation to help the doctors figure things out… AND, completely torn up on the inside, but can’t let themselves show it/act on it/think too much about it.
Have you ever “been there”? I have… ~ 32 years ago… still a vivid memory… it wasn’t until the child recovered (turns out it was a severe reaction to a common virus), that I could allow my emotions/reactions to spill out, and indeed, they did… they had to.
At a gut level, I think I truly understand where that woman might have been coming from.
My fervent wish is that you never go through those kinds of experiences to understand the phenomenon. Might try a pinch of compassion, though.
No, what I said is that people in ER’s aren’t dealing with family members or boyfriends like this lady was in the video. I think it’s the norm for people to be more anxious when it’s a relative in harm’s way. Do you think otherwise? Did I say anything about this lady was questionable? You really need to relax, for someone who claims he’s capable of being calm and can keep his emotions in check I feel you sure don’t show it in some of your responses on this blog. Calm down, I meant nothing about this lady’s demeanor other than what I stated, “It’s amazing how the lady in the video can stay so calm in such a terrible situation”. You’re reading way too much into that sentence.
BP: It’s amazing how the lady in the video can stay so calm in such a terrible situation.
I thought the lady was also more composed than the police officer. The police officer’s demeanor made me feel like he felt culpable.
I agree, that cop had totally lost it.
The problem is institutional.
Comedian/satirist/social commentator Larry Wilmore had a provocative commentary last night on Alton Sterling’s killing, especially in addressing the “Black Lives Matter” vs. “All Lives Matter” debate.
For those who won’t bother to watch the video clip, at the very end Wilmore makes this point, which I will paraphrase. Immediately there was a Black Lives Matter protest in Baton Rouge. It was very easy to find a link for that protest in Google. I could have linked to more than 20 other citations of a Black Lives Matter protest in Baton Rouge in response to Alton Sterling.
When I googled on “all lives matter protest” and “Baton Rouge”, *nothing* came up. Point being, if “all lives matter” is the more genuine and authentic label to be adopting, then why aren’t “all lives matter” proponents in Baton Rouge out there protesting the poor treatment of Alton Sterling?
I’m just summarizing. Willmore was actually more eloquent in the video piece.
Because All Lives Matter is politically incorrect and is persecuted by the political correctness police that infest the mainstream media.
The newest narrative/rule in the PC bible is cultural appropriation. Since black activists and race-obsessed social justice activists have worked so hard to elevate the victim status of blacks in modern times, making the more global case that “all lives matter” just appropriates some of that victim status that they have worked so hard to achieve.
Basically it is a rant to “get your own victim platform and stay off of ours.”
The problem with All Lives Matter isn’t that it’s politically incorrect, it’s that it doesn’t get at the core inequality of the system that Black Lives Matter attempts to address.
Thanks for making my point for me.
Inequity is inequity is it not?
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/feb/25/marissa-johnson-black-lives-matter-leader-explains/
“‘All lives matter is a new racial slur,” Marissa J. Johnson, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Seattle, said on Bret Baier’s “Voter Revolt” special. “White Americans have created the conditions that require a phrase like ‘Black Lives Matter.’”
They’re entitled to their view, it’s not one I share
It is unfortunate isn’t it. If the cop shooting where reported on fairly and not exploited for the black power or black victim movement, then maybe more people would get behind the needed reforms.
That was my point. BLM is a more a political construct that benefits the ideological left in their various group/class wars. Social justice people are not willing to let it go given its perceived power as a political wedge instrument.
And in that, BLM becomes culpable in at least preventing a more comprehensive and generally supported movement to reduce cop shootings.
If we adopted the message All Lives Matter, it would tend to bring in the people that today are livid with disgust and anger over the constant barrage of accusation that they are racist just for being white.
Why don’t social justice people take their own medicine? They will quickly say that words and phrases that marginalize or offend are a justified reason for people to oppose something even if that opposition is irrational. We even heard that from the No on A people… that the Yes on A people were saying mean things and that would cause more people to vote no (and visa versa).
So we have this rejection of All Lives Matter and a continued narrative of implicit black racial bias… and now the added newby that whites are racist if they appropriate anything that appears to be of black cultural origin… and about half of the population just says to hell with the BLM movement.
Frankly–good comment at 4 pm–I’ve been on record on Vanguard threads as trying to emphasize that there is indeed some level of problem with abuse of force by some police; but the statistics aren’t clear as to whether there is some nationwide racial component to it (though there likely is in some towns). However, by confounding the issue of abuse of force with racism; it seems to me that this may weaken the case in the minds of the majority of the public; who may see the claims of racially-motivated abuse of force as race-baiting, and thus also view with skepticism the sometimes clear evidence for abuse of force. In this particular case, one can see with ones own eyes from a couple of clear videos that there does indeed appear to be deadly abuse of force in this case. Whether it was racially motivated is a different, though possibly related, issue.
tribeUSA: I’ve been on record on Vanguard threads as trying to emphasize that there is indeed some level of problem with abuse of force by some police; but the statistics aren’t clear as to whether there is some nationwide racial component to it
In 2015 African Americans made up about 33% of unarmed individuals killed by police, but made up 13% of the population in 2014. In no other racial category was the disparity that high. source which came from here
Frankly: The point that I saw being made was that responding to BLM with the counter, “all lives matter,” was just an argument over semantics and not a call to action. More an effort to establish moral superiority over BLM proponents rather than a move to action. Your response above seems to bear that out, that you are belittling BLM as being a bunch of people with psychological deficiencies (self-victimization).
You expressed sympathetic reaction to Diamond “Lavish” Reynolds’ video of the aftermath of that police shooting incident. If that video and incident had occurred in Davis, would you personally lift a finger to express concern or outrage for the victim? Or would you be feeling too self-conscious to act, fretting over whether you would be perceived as supporting Black Lives Matter or not, since the victim was black?
Again, there were BLM protests in Minnesota over Philando Castile’s killing. I couldn’t produce any Google search results to indicate that there was an equivalent “all lives matter” protest in Minnesota.
There is no ALL Lives Matter organization like there is a BLM org, which I’m sure you know. It’s simply a statement that all lives matter.
All lives matter wdf1. Until and unless we give up the narrative of racial victim class exclusivity, the wedge will be self perpetuating. It is a political construct. It is meant to drive and keep a wedge for political reasons.
You bring up the point of blacks being over represented in cop encounters, but blacks are over-represented in crime and over-represented living in neighborhoods where there is much more crime. There are reasons for that… but some of them are liberals rejecting the building of more housing due to their argument of “sprawl”… and liberals rejecting industrial business due to their argument about global warming… and liberals demanding that we increase social welfare while protecting the jobs of crappy teachers in crappy inner city school districts.
The problem in the black community is the lack of economic opportunity than then leads to a breakdown in the family and morality… that all leads to crashing social capital and increased crime.
But I understand how this would be hard to accept given your political views and hence the convenient target of the law enforcement and judicial to blame.
The truth is law enforcement and the judicial outcomes for blacks are a symptom of decades of failed liberal policies that have destroyed black economic opportunity.
Tami Rice was a 5′ 7″ 195 lb kid who was brandishing a toy gun with no orange tip on a playground. Cops are called and they roll up, jump out of their car, tell him to drop the gun, and immediatly shoot him. Obama gives a speech about the travesty, Eric Holder visits and has his dept review entire investigation, FBI looks into possible civil rights violations, and family gets a $6 million settlement.
Christopher Route is a white kid about the same size. Cops come to his trailer house on a probation call related to his father. Cops knock on the door, Christopher who is playing a Wii video game asks who is there and gets no answer so he opens the door and is immediatly sot and killed. No Obama speech, no Eric Holder visit, no FBI, no settlement payed.
Alton Sterling is killed, it is all over the media and has already been mentioned by Obama.
Keith Vidal was a 90 lb schizophrenic kid who got into an argument with his parents. Cops are called and 3 show up. First 2 get the kid under control by tasing him and getting him on the ground and getting on top of him. Third cop comes up and says we don’t have time for this and promptly shoots the kid dead. Cop charged with manslaughter but will probably get off if he hasn’t already.
The point is that death at the hands of police is nothing unique to blacks. More and more we seem to have police depts that behave as if they are an occupying force in a war zone. I can understand some of this given that we are a gun saturated country but many of these shootings seem to happen when there is no threat to the officer at all.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-video-shooting-dylan-noble-20160707-snap-story.html
Another one. But this time it won’t activate the Black Lives Matter activists.
Yes Frankly, that incident doesn’t pass the V test.
Frankly: But this time it won’t activate the Black Lives Matter activists.
But it did activate the White Lives Matter activists in Fresno, from the article you posted:
My point still stands even with your weak moral equivalency attempt.
So my question for Frankly, BP, WesC and anyone else who has a problem with David’s choice of articles…..where is your article ? It might prove very informative, and is almost certain to be more so than the continuous sniping overtime David chooses to focus an article on the perceived disparity in treatment according to race.
I don’t have a problem with David’s article at all.
I have a problem with no-growers and race baiters.
We have four cops dead in Dallas and seven injured from snipers in a so called March for peace sponsored by BLM.
I was thinking about the political left and the BLM movement and the fact that they are just a reflection of the problems in law enforcement.
Consider that the quality of policing directly correlates with the type of people that are attracted to policing and are hired as cops. The left and BLM has done a good job using the media to brand police as being of the bad column. And now they are being picked off by snipers… And I am sure there are plenty of left and BLM people silently satisfied with this.
But then how will we attract good people to the job? The reality will be that we have even more difficulty… We will be scraping the bottom of the barrel to find people willing to do the job.
You can justify the anger all you want, but it isn’t helping. Where are the Ghandi types in the black and social justice leadership?
I was just telling my wife that tonight. Who in the Hell would want to be a cop these days? They are in more danger now than ever before and have to be weary about their every move out of fear of being branded a racist. The media and bloggers aren’t helping the situation either.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness.
Only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate.
Only love can do that.
MLK Jr
The BLM movement would turn the stomach of MLK Jr. if he were alive today. Don’t you find it so incredible that there is this demand to reach out and hug ISIS to get them to be less deadly, but the same characters with this mindset think that executing cops is justified?
Frankly, I was listening to the radio this morning and someone reported that after the shootings had occurred police officers were lined up in front of a 7-Eleven and BLM protestors were in their face with their bright phone lights on calling them racists trying to get a reaction out of them on video. Truly disgusting.
Frankly
“And I am sure there are plenty of left and BLM people silently satisfied with this.”
And I would like to see your evidence that anyone feels this way. These attacks on the police are clearly horrifying. For you to make a statement such as this is quite reminiscent of a prominent politician who remembers “seeing thousands of Muslims cheering on 9/11 and does nothing for a productive discussion of what steps would help.
“You can justify the anger all you want, but it isn’t helping. Where are the Ghandi types in the black and social justice leadership?”
The emotion of anger is certainly justifiable. Revenge violence is certainly not justifiable. And withdrawing from participation due to anger is also not helpful. However, I see a great deal of irony in you seeking for Gandhi types in these groups when, in response to multiple posts of mine touting pacifism as the most appropriate response, you and others who post similarly, have told me how naive and unrealistic I am, and have made allusions to unicorns and to sitting around holding hands and singing Kumbaya in derisive response. Yet now you are actively seeking such individuals ? Really ?
Frankly
“Inequity is inequity is it not?”
No, Frankly, all inequity is not created equal.
There is inequity between being a billionaire and being a millionaire. Is there true harm being done to anyone by the disparate wealth ? My answer would be no.
If a black individual is shot and killed and a white individual is shot and killed, both are equally dead therefore on the most simplistic level, there is complete “equity”.
But this would be that pesky black and white thinking rearing its inadequate head. The reality is that since the founding of our country, there has been, and currently still is disparity in how blacks and whites are treated in many circumstances and how inequity in how these historic differences play out in our lives today.
You regularly invoke group culpability when it fits your ideologic model as when you characterize all unions and union members as being in the same destructive category. And yet you remain adamant that there is no group inequality of treatment when it comes to blacks. I am at a loss how you reconcile this seeming disparity if not through your own ideology.