To Serve And Protect

After the mistake is made, it's too late. First cop might've misread the situation, but it's clear that it's the one showing up and saying "We need to separate them" who causes the escalation. (I think it's even an officer who throws the first punch!) I cannot blame a person for fearing that once they're separated from friends with a cop around something bad will happen. We've seen too many of these cases to be that naif.

BTW, a fight ensued and NO ONE was killed. I'd rather this happen literally one million times than a police officer draw a gun and kill someone prematurely. DavRiver, do you seriously believe that it's better to draw a gun than to have this kind of fight?

 

No one can defend this garbage. "Bad seed." How many times are we going to hear that? At what point does it become clear that there is a systematic problem, and even "good people" inserted into the system will be corrupted?

 

Every day it's a new story of cop brutality or accidental shootings (this weekend a cop killed a guy in Tulsa OK when he mistook his tazer for his gun).

Which brings me to this: The police are becoming increasingly militarized and Sharpton has called for the police to be federally grouped. Yet the Left wants us to give up our guns. Huh? I'm sorry, but I might go, but it won't be quietly.

 

I don't think that the militarization is the answer. I don't think that making police a federal group is the answer. And I don't think we should give up our guns.

I saw the video of the TASER fiasco. "I'm sorry. I grabbed the wrong weapon." Are you kidding me? And the other officer, the tough guy who says, "F your breath," to the dying man, I hope he has a pretty awesome plan to make up for being a piece of trash. I'd fire him.

 

I totally agree with this. The videos I have posted do not represent every cop, or most cops because the great majority are good and trying to do good. My problem, and I believe most people's problem is the perception that good cops such as yourself defend indefensible actions by bad cops to unreasonable degree.

Over the past few months I've become friends with an officer in the Hartford CT department. He is a member of the SWAT team, and an instructor for the department. Seven years on the job. We hang out and talk about life and inevitably the topic of the latest police video comes up sometimes, and while we differ sometimes, you may be surprised to find out he general agrees with my take on a lot of these shootings and general police activity. Sometimes he's a bit more militant about the lack of punishments than me lol. Being able to be so objective about the cases makes me trust his take on a topic a lot more, but I don't feel I get that from most cops. Most cop opinions I've heard don't seem objective to me. It seems very one sided towards believing the cops side or not recognizing the wrong being done in so many of these cases, and that undermines public trust IMO.

 

I'm not a cop. I urge you not to be one.

 

I want to clarify, I feel most cops are good and mean good, but... being a police officer is not currently a mentally healthy profession.

People hate the police so officers have to deal with constant paranoia and general vitriol from a lot of the public. They have to work with some of the worst people on the planet on a regular basis. They also see some really disturbing scenes of terrible carnage and sorrow. That would f*** with anyone's head. All that together means that even the good ones will have problems after a while to varying degrees. PTSD is real. Any police officer that's been in the field in a major city for any amount of time will experience problems, so I don't believe that all the cops we see doing f*** up s*** are just evil. Some are just scarred beyond reason, and others acquire warped sensibilities as the stress manifests itself differently in different people. Still, it's not an excuse, just a reason for the things they do. We have to judge it accordingly, and I hope eventually take these problems seriously enough to alter how long an officer spends out in the field before needing to take a break, work a desk, get mandatory counseling to relieve all the pressure and reset. As it is right now, people don't even want to acknowledge there's a deeper problem than the results we see in these videos.

 

"Police Cadet Turns in Cop for Turning Body Cam Off Just Before Pummeling his Victim


Albuquerque, NM — One of Albuquerque’s finest was arrested Friday afternoon after he was caught turning his body camera off to beat a man during a service call.

Officer Cedric Greer, 24, was arrested by New Mexico State Police after video evidence showed him turn his lapel cam off just before beating a man, then turning it back on afterward. According to the report, the video shows his finger reaching for the camera to turn it off.

Witnesses to the assault say that Greer acted without being provoked and that the victim complied with all orders both before and after the attack.

State police issued a statement Friday stating that Greer “battered an individual during a call for service that he was conducting at a local Albuquerque hotel. He struck the individual’s head several times with a closed fist and then delivered several strikes to the individual’s chest causing bruising. Witnesses claimed the individual was cooperative with Mr. Greer before and after the battery.”

Greer was arrested for misdemeanor aggravated battery because a police cadet turned him in after witnessing the incident.

APD spokesperson Celina Espinoza released the following statement regarding the charges Friday evening:

“The Department received a copy of the New Mexico State Police report late this afternoon and is reviewing the report. APD’s internal investigation concerning this matter is ongoing. The officer involved is currently on Administrative Leave. We also promise a full and thorough investigation into this matter.”

Greer is currently out on a $5,000 bond and enjoying a paid vacation.

This is the second instance this month of a police cadet reporting brutality within the APD. Last week we reported on District Attorney Kari Brandenburg, who tells us that a police cadet turned in an officer and quit the academy after witnessing cops beat a homeless man."

http://thefreethoughtproject.com/police-cadet-turns-cop-turning-body-cam-pummeling-victim/

 

What are your thoughts on Baltimore?

I can't for the life of me figure out how the police are going to explain how a man in cuffs got his spleen severed and died a week later. Career criminal does not equal death when in cuffs.

What bothers me about the riots is, Baltimore has been hurting forever. This doesn't solve anything. Hurts a struggling community. And a lot of the interviews I've seen (from normal citizens to gang members) is that they tried to protest in an organized and mature way, but the few idiots ruined it (so far).

Having said all that, I don't know the race of the officers (5 have been suspended). I wish the investigation had been complete before any outburst from the community. Should be noted, the majority of the police force is black, as well as the Chief of Police and the Mayor. Is it race? Is it militarized police force out of control? Is it fed up cops dealing with career criminals? Is it a simple case of the world has gone to hell?

Share your thoughts, because I'm frustrated. Something has to give. Soon!

 

I'm late, but I needed to respond to this.

Do you all know what an Agent provocateur is?

From the Wiki: "An agent provocateur (French for "inciting agent") is an undercover agent who acts to entice another person to commit an illegal or rash act or falsely implicate them in partaking in an illegal act. An agent provocateur may be acting out of their own sense of nationalism/duty or may be employed by the police or other entity to discredit or harm another group (e.g., peaceful protest or demonstration) by provoking them to commit a crime - thus, undermining the protest or demonstration as whole."

This isn't some conspiracy theory, it's a tried and true tactic used to discredit peaceful protesters and give a reason for police and military to engage and disperse protesters. To be clear, in no way am I saying blacks weren't rioting in Baltimore, what I'm saying is that I very much question to what extent. There were peaceful protests for 6 days prior to any rioting reports, and that Agent provocateurs have consistently been exposed in Oakland and Ferguson among many other protests inciting "riots" before Baltimore. In the the example below, the Oakland police chief didn't even know officers from another department had infiltrated the crowd (and started inciting riots according to other reports), so I'm also no saying all police are in on it, but to think that this isn't happening in Baltimore as well is naïve IMO:

"CHP undercover officer pulls gun on demonstrators



OAKLAND (BCN) -- A demonstration that started in Berkeley ended abruptly in Oakland Wednesday night when an undercover California Highway Patrol officer pulled out a gun and pointed it at the crowd.

Only a few dozen protesters remained from a mass of between 150 and 200 people. Two CHP officers, both dressed as civilians and wearing bandanas over their faces, were walking with the group when the demonstrators started pointing at them yelling, "Hey, they're undercover, they're cops!"

Oakland police Lt. Chris Bolton wrote on Twitter Thursday that the officer was assigned to the CHP and was not an Oakland police officer.

One Berkeley resident, Dylan, who declined to give his last name, said he pulled off the officer's bandana.

The two CHP officers started to walk away, but the protesters persisted, screaming at the two undercover cops. One of the officers pushed a protester aside. The man responded by pushing back and then the officer tackled him to the ground, handcuffing him.

The crowd, incensed, began to gather around them. The second officer pulled out his gun and pointed it at the crowd. More officers quickly arrived and dispersed the crowd.

"I'm a white man, and I pulled off (the officer's) mask, but they punched a black man," Dylan said. "He got arrested."......"

http://wn.ktvu.com/story/27606016/undercover-cop-pulls-gun-on-demonstrators

Honestly, if it was exposed that the police in this Oakland protest were Oakland PD, I'd kind of understand. Watching the crowd, giving tactical info, I'd get it.... but what the heck does a protest in Oakland have to do with California Highway Patrol? Why would CHP have officers infiltrate into Oakland PD jurisdiction without informing them? The only answer is that it was not an above board assignment, it was a clandestine act.

In this video below you can see several examples. In the first part a guy the other protesters don't recognize starts throwing bricks at the cops and so the protesters start questioning who he is and why he's there. The next few videos, an organized groups all wearing the same hoodies and bandanas as if they all got them at the same Old Navy store trying to incite a riot while the real protesters try to stop them. In the third, they actually catch police officers that have infiltrated the protests and started throwing rocks and show the same guys in uniform and out... then 4 days later the police admitted they were officers:



Then you have the media's part in painting a picture of blacks going crazy in Baltimore, as whites try to defend themselves. But social media allowed the real story to get out:









My point.... don't believe the narrative they're trying to sell you is the whole truth. There's probably a lot more going on in Baltimore and every other riot we've seen.

 

Not that I disagree with you, but I just had to bring to light the last two photos.

I followed the Baltimore protests pretty closely because my girlfriend lives there. Those two "reporters" (Caitlin Goldblatt and Brandon Soderberg) in the last two photos work for City Paper. They have been exposed as blatantly lying about the situation, even claiming to be people that they aren't. Once people started calling them out, they started backpedalling and deleting tweets that exposed them as frauds.

Thanks to imgur, you can read about s***ty paper and their lies here: http://imgur.com/gallery/QVh32

 

^Wow, that's just sick.

I admit, I really got taken with that one, but it just goes to show, no side is 100% in the right for these kinds of situations. Anyone can lie.

Still, my claim about the media's role in this stands.

 

Do you mean what happened with the Baltimore riots, or what happened with the tweets I posted above?