To Serve And Protect

That's why there are rules in place to protect cops at times and that's why I like seeing the full video before making calls. The video in Minnesota STARTS with something incredible graphic and disturbing which sets the tone for how we feel the entire time. Not excusing the officer at all, it's clear that obviously something is wrong with that picture, but I'd just like to see a full account is all. I want to see the entire course of events here.

In fact many of these cases are thrown out even though we see these clips because the full clips either exonerate the cop or (in my opinion more likely) the small video clips are deemed unable to prove that the cops were out of line. For instance a cop (truthfully or not) can argue that before the clip the person was acting unlawfully and unless there are multiple witnesses that come forward, it's the cop's word against someone who was potentially being unlawful... The law is designed to protect cops in those instances.

A lot of this can be solved with body cams on officers.

 

Long story short, I got a speeding ticket once where I was not speeding. I had a cop in front of me and one behind me. Who speeds in that situation? I pled my case and the judge simply said, "I believe the officer."

Frustrating. But yeah @therealdeal I understand your point and the reason the law sides with the police in these situations.

 

I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but that's the reasoning behind it and when the laws were put into place it made sense. Now obviously there needs to be some adjustments made as there are some who have found ways to take advantage of the system. There are officers who pull the trigger too early knowing that there's reasonable cause and they won't get in trouble for it. It leads to a lesser valuation of life whether that person be black, brown, or green (in these cases black).

Tweaks need to be made to the system to stop people like that. I'm fully on board with that. I just don't like the general anti-cop attitude that was struck up for a while before the Dallas attacks. Most cops are good people. I know a few and some of them are family. That doesn't mean I'm against greater accountability though. At this point dashcams and bodycams are probably the appropriate step. It'll protect officers from legislation and protect citizens from cops abusing their power.

 

QFT, even if I disagree with you on the why for all of this happening.

BTW, the governor in North Carolina is proposing legislation to not allow body cam footage to be released to the public. That's some b*******. You don't want footage of your officers attacking someone, or killing someone, don't allow them to do it without consequence.

 

I'd have to read what the proposal is for to see what their rationale is, but in my opinion the whole point of the bodycam would be to protect the officer who would be using that footage to protect themselves.

I'd like to hear @davriver209 's opinion on bodycam pros and cons though too.

 

I completely disagree with that.

The public needs to be protected from bad cops as much as cops need to be protected from bogus accusations and charges. If you have any tool to help both sides ensure justice is served, it should be accessible to both sides.

 

I heard that was signed by the governor already. Totally against it.

 

That's not what I meant. Obviously it works both ways. I'm saying from THEIR perspective a bodycam would be helpful for the police to clear their names in cases where they feel they made the correct choice. Why would they fight it? I'd like to know the answer to that.

 

Ah, I understand

 

Geez man, imagine what they could pin on him if we didn't have that video.

 

Eh, I dunno about "justified", yelling "he's got a gun!" carries about as much weight with me as this



I saw no gun in the video, we're supposed to take the word of an unnamed homeless man. This whole situation is a mess, the police murdered yesterday only added to the mess. I know we don't know a lot of details, but how is going out and killing police offers as payback or something supposed to solve this? It makes no sense, it feels like to my conspiracy theorist mind that someone is trying to start a race war. How bout a little more humor, that's how I deal

 

http://kfor.com/2016/07/18/new-video-released-shows-police-shooting-in-n-w-oklahoma-city/

This shooting happened today, about 10 minutes from where I live. Imagine if we just had the cops body cam and not the bus camera.

 

I actually agree. I don't know that there's a super villain somewhere pulling the strings, but something about all this just feels off to me. It feels like we're being forced a narrative that keeps violence and hatred alive.

I mean s*** all of us in this thread have come to a pretty reasonable conclusion on all of this. It's not that difficult. Everyone is preaching peace and yet more and more people are getting shot? What's going on here?

 

Tells me nothing. If you want to claim some stat exists supporting your side, post it. I've posted stats all through this thread to support the truth of the matter here. I will post more below for your perusal.

If all my posts were based on emotion I would have cursed you out for posting that racist "Why are blacks so violent" piece of garbage video a few pages back.

Yeah... that's kind of the problem. The only reason BLM exists is because all these shootings where police shoot unarmed black men are almost consistently ruled justified. That's not a feather in your cap, that's the reason BLM exists and the root of the problem here.

Now since you want to talk about statistics, let me show you some. I found a great article that pulls together a ton of facts with citations. I'll break some of it up into bite sized chunks for you:

http://www.jbwtucker.com/ultimate-white-privilege-statistics/

So please, post some statistics that support what you're saying. What I've posted is pretty freaking thorough.

You say I'm being emotional, but you honestly have no proof of any of your claims.

"It's just a training issue", "It's not racism" ... yeah, then why are these victims almost always black? Coincidence?

"It's the media's fault"... the media isn't pulling the trigger in all these videos of police killing unarmed black people in situations where they aren't a threat.

As I've said repeatedly, everybody has a video camera in their pocket now. if whites were being killed by the police in similar circumstances at even close to the same rate, there would be video, and Fox News and every other conservative media outlet would be parading it around as proof to denounce BLM. It doesn't exist, because it doesn't happen at nearly the same rates as unarmed black shootings.

 

And then good cops have to deal with idiots like this...



As a friend on mine on FB clarified:

"...It should also be noted that 'free inhabitant' was basically a way of saying “'white landowners' and 'freedmen.' Slaves, indentured servants, paupers (people getting state assistance), vagabonds (the homeless and nomads), and convicted criminals did not have the same rights as 'free inhabitants'....

... "free inhabitant" thing is a callback to the Articles of Confederation, which was superseded by the Constitution in 1789 because the Articles didn't f***ing work. Even so, you'll still see nimrods citing the Articles as if they're still a thing; almost inevitably, said nimrods are pseudo-intellectual white "libertarians" who embrace Ron and Rand Paul, believing themselves entitled to - as she says - all the rights and none of the limitations of being a citizen."

 

Yep. This coupled with the way we are handling radical Islam. Something really fishy is going on here. I feel like if we picked 6-7 people from this board we could fix 60% of the problems our government and various leaders (Sharpton, Jackson, etc) are CAUSING right now. Obviously it won't ever be perfect. but this is being ratcheted up when it really, really doesn't need to be. How did race relations get this much worse since 2008? I partly blame the internet and the ability to post anonymous hateful rhetoric that would only have been possible to deliver in public before (which obviously no one ever had the guts to do). You can have fringe crazies say what's actually on their mind to get those slightly ticked off individuals raging pissed.

Humans and their mob mentality...I think it's bull crap that we are inherently good as humans. I think we inherently suck and it takes effort to be good. It takes self reflection to be good. I think our natural state is set at "Imbecile.'