To Serve And Protect

I think I agree with you (mostly) here... The first issue of race is simply thinking that it exists. Simply placing people into different categories like race separates us in the first place.

I see little racism in this Ferguson case. I see one person being reckless, and another person reacting, maybe too harshly. But guess what, cops have guns so they have the capability to kill someone. I think that's the real issue here, not racism. We shouldn't put people into race categories at all, but the issue here is violence. The racist generalizations that we have - drug usage, violence, ignorance/lack of education, sexism in culture - those are the issues we have to tackle. Racism won't go away until race goes away as a form of identity. Sure, people will look differently, but we don't have to identify as "white" or "black" or "asian" or whatever.

I don't really know where I'm going with this. I guess to sum it up, race won't go away unless we stop identifying as having a race, but the problem of generalizations of races won't go away until we actually stop the problems of whatever they are being generalized about.

 

Freethepeople, you have good intentions and I respect that. But I don't agree with your philosophy on how to end violence. And I'm assuming you mean all together? The truth is, bad guys will be bad guys. If your idea was to gain some traction, the bad guys would take this opportunity and arm themselves and make us victims. All of us. I say eff that. I'm tired of being a victim (goes back to my highschool days, but I'll save that for another post). The only way to keep someone from continuously doing something is to fight back. When you say let's be peaceful, you're talking to a large portion of the population, and they're reasonable people. But you forget about the unreasonable people, criminals, junkies, evil people... They'll take advantage of the situation, not join it.

 

Bad guys will be bad guys? Babies aren't born bad guys. They turn into bad guys as a result of their environment. If anything, simply put all the bad guys in jail for life, but fighting bad guys' violence with violence is counterproductive because it just perpetuates a culture of violence and corrupts more babies into bad guys. I can't agree with this. You gotta practice what you preach. You want peace, but you're being violent? No.

 

Yeah, that's why I went to the peaceful protest in my city. The looting is unnecessary, setting things on fire is also unnecessary. Just getting a big gathering of people is all you need. If you protest the police brutality and act like a savage, looting and getting in fights and setting things on fire, how are the cops/gov't going to react? Probably not how the protestors want them to react, rather than if protestors were to act civil.

 

Well I'm just speaking from the cop perspective. If we see a violent criminal or bad guy doing something, we will use violence to stop him... There's just no other alternative. You want us to sit in silence and protest a guy stabbing or shooting an innocent person? And it's not the Police's job to raise parent's children. Can we be a role model? Sure we can, it's just that mass media portrays law enforcement as guys with guns who only want to kill anyone who's darker than brown... Notice what things get highlighted in news when cops are involved. Believe it or not, most of us are decent guys who just want to help those that can't. And when we make arrests or lawfully order people to do stuff, it's written in law, that citizens must obey the commands. These past two incidents with Fergueson and the guy in NY, they were ordered to stop, etc... They continued to fight back, resist, and it leads to stuff like this.

And I think you're vastly underestimating the human psyche. Human's have the capability to be evil.

 

I think your last statement is probably right. I'm idealistic and often times place my optimism over my realism. And you're right, we do need to use violence to stop someone doing some crime. I guess there's just a big difference in nonlethal violence and a gun, because it's so easy to kill someone with a gun. That's why I wish we had some sort of long-range stun-gun. Anyways, you're right, this all does come from wanting to help people or stop people from breaking the law. I guess my big issue though is giving the people that enforce the law the capability to kill someone so easily. That's my biggest issue with these whole incidents. And I think that the way to have a less violent society is if cops didn't carry guns, because a) we would be able to respect cops without being afraid of them and b) the people that enforce the law are the ones that should be setting the example, what kind of example are we setting if cops carry around guns?

 

you're actually correct. I think my statement wasn't stated correctly. I still standby my support of the fergueson thing. I do believe Wilson was in the right to shoot Brown. For this NY thing, I don't have all the details, so please strike my statement from this thread, haha.

And I agree, that fighting against an officer isn't a reason to shoot them. You're totally right. But let me use the Mike Brown thing as an example. When you're showing such severe resistance, violence and even harming the officer, you're going down with one of our tools. (baton, taser, mace, etc...) No doubt. Then when someone with that size and strength attempts to grab your gun, you're going to be shot. Brown wasn't reaching for Wilson's gun to admire the craft and talk Guns. What would a rationale person think Brown was going to do if he got that gun?

When someone fighting an officer displays that kind of behavior, and the potential of a deadly weapon (can really be anything, including fists and feet) is present, I truly believe that officers (and citizens) have the right to defend themselves however possible, up to including guns. Sorry, didn't mean to make this post a fuergson thing, but I hope I'm painting a picture that shows when we pull out weapons and when we would use them.

 

I didn't follow this NYC thing as much as I should of. From what I seen, it looks like perhaps he shouldn't have used such force. Cops forget to actually listen to citizens when they aren't presenting any danger. In this case, he was wrong. (I don't have all the facts) Its a tragedy, and if this isn't pursued any further, this cop would be extremely lucky.

I have my opinion about fergueson and you have your view on things Barn. If I was in Wilson's position, and from the EVIDENCE, it seemed like Brown's intention was to grab the cop's gun. If he came charging toward me, (I'm 5'8 and Mike is 6'2 or something bigger) I would've shot him. Here's the thing, there is conflicting witness statements. Some say he had his hands up, others say he charged Wilson, and others say he ran away and Wilson chased him and then shot him in the back. The PHYSICAL evivdence indicates the former, gun residue on mikes shirt (gun was fired close range, in the car tussle), there was mike's blood in the patrol car, there was mike's prints on the officers gun, the bullets that hit mike were all from the front (rendering some eye witnesses statements moot), mike has had prior violent tendencies, he had just robbed a store of freaking cigarettes with his bare hands. Wilson had some bruising and lacerations on his face. For me, the evidence is stacked against Mike, and if I were on a grand jury, I'd find no reason to indict Wilson.

I don't assume much, but I'm assuming Barns that you haven't been in a tussle with a dude that's much larger than you who tried to take your firearm from you.

 

First of all, I agree that there is a lot of evidence against Brown (although there is plenty of evidence against Wilson too) but.....

Do you want to kill someone?

I imagine you would say no. So why need to still carry around an extremely lethal weapon?