Author Topic: How about those trigger happy police officers?  (Read 10079 times)

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Offline RavynousHunter

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Re: How about those trigger happy police officers?
« Reply #45 on: July 11, 2016, 08:29:24 am »
Ya know, if only America had some kind of provision in its most important legal document regarding the right for people to kinda gather together, peacefully, and protest things they don't like...a Right to Assembly, if you will.  Too bad, I guess, because that'd be really nice, right about now.
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Offline The_Queen

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Re: How about those trigger happy police officers?
« Reply #46 on: July 11, 2016, 11:32:11 am »
Well you do have to admit that when the cops didn't have that much gear several of them were murdered in the previous protest by the same group...

In my experience from researching excessive force cases, both civil and criminal, the courts appear to promulgate standards in response to the rare circumstances, but then the police take that exception and make it the rule, and subsequent courts go along with it. This argument is no difference.
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Offline Askold

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Re: How about those trigger happy police officers?
« Reply #47 on: July 11, 2016, 12:34:20 pm »
Not  saying that the police haven't done a lot of bad things or that the militarization of the police in USA isn't worrisome but wasn't this literally days after the massacre?  The police had to gear up in case someone else tried the same trick...

But I do admit that the complaints about the protest getting onto the roads is ridiculous.
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Offline Cloud3514

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Re: How about those trigger happy police officers?
« Reply #48 on: July 11, 2016, 02:28:19 pm »
I can imagine that having officers check buildings in the path of the protest for threats is more effective at preventing a repeat of Dallas than automatically assuming the protesters are going to riot.

And even if I were to accept that they're armored in case the worst happens, it doesn't justify pulling out the APC with the sound cannon. Again, that kind of hardware was designed for use in war zones.

Meeting protesters as if you're expecting them to riot and hitting them with the sound cannon is excessive force no matter how you justify it. Our justice system is supposed to be based on "innocent until proven guilty." These officers went out presuming guilt.

I'm not saying that they shouldn't have the riot gear ready to go or reinforcements on stand by in these cases. History has shown that these kinds of protests can and do devolve into rioting, but this isn't having people or gear on stand by, this is meeting protesters as if they were enemy combatants.

Actual Afghanistan and Iraq veterans have pointed out that the gear they used in actual war zones was less extreme than what the officers here are using. These officers look like they've stepped out of a cyberpunk novel, but they didn't.
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Offline Askold

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Re: How about those trigger happy police officers?
« Reply #49 on: July 13, 2016, 12:34:10 am »
According to study black people are not in fact more likely to get shot by police in USA: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jul/11/no-racial-bias-police-shootings-study-harvard-prof/

...But blacks and hispanics ARE more likely to get shoved around and pushed by police or arrested at gun-point.

The article seems to imply that BLM should just shut up and take their beatings like a man safe in the knowledge that they aren't more likely to be killed than any other person in USA? Really, the conclusion is:

Quote
It is plausible that racial differences in lower level uses of force are simply a distraction and movements such as Black Lives Matter should seek solutions within their own communities rather than changing the behaviors of police and other external forces,

...Although there appears to be no peer review for this study yet. The papers were in a hurry to get this published because this kind of story gets a lot of readers but waiting to see if it's bullshit would take a long time and someone else might run the story first.
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Offline Tolpuddle Martyr

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Re: How about those trigger happy police officers?
« Reply #50 on: July 13, 2016, 01:05:04 am »
Quote
...seek solutions within their own communities...

Stop impeding the passage of police bullets you silly black people.

Since when was doling out condescending advice to activists part of a researchers brief anyway?

Offline Canadian Mojo

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Re: How about those trigger happy police officers?
« Reply #51 on: July 13, 2016, 10:20:39 am »
Is it just me, or does the paper appear to basically say that everybody has the same chance of being shot during an interaction with police but fails to mention the disproportionate rates of police interaction certain groups seem to seem to be subjected to?

<cough> looks more like one of our suspects ‘cause of the wide set nose. <cough>

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Re: How about those trigger happy police officers?
« Reply #52 on: July 13, 2016, 10:25:18 am »
"Black people are more susceptible to having guns pointed at them by the police, but more susceptible to being shot by the police? lol that's impossible"

Offline Sigmaleph

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Re: How about those trigger happy police officers?
« Reply #53 on: July 13, 2016, 12:20:09 pm »
Is it just me, or does the paper appear to basically say that everybody has the same chance of being shot during an interaction with police but fails to mention the disproportionate rates of police interaction certain groups seem to seem to be subjected to?

<cough> looks more like one of our suspects ‘cause of the wide set nose. <cough>

It doesn't fail to mention it. It mentions it and says it is studying something else:

Quote
To be clear, the empirical thought experiment here is that a police officer arrives at a scene and decides whether or not to use lethal force. Our estimates suggest that this decision is not correlated with the race of the suspect. This does not, however, rule out the possibility that there are important racial differences in whether or not thse police-civilian interactions occur at all.

(there are plenty of other studies on the question of if higher rates of police interaction are driven by discrimination or not)
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Offline Askold

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Re: How about those trigger happy police officers?
« Reply #54 on: July 13, 2016, 12:22:55 pm »
...Then again we are talking about the country where wheelchair bound elderly are shot by police so it could be that the real problem is that the police simply use too much force and don't know enough about de-escalating conflicts.
No matter what happens, no matter what my last words may end up being, I want everyone to claim that they were:
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Aww, you guys rock. :)  I feel the love... and the pitchforks and torches.  Tingly!

Offline Canadian Mojo

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Re: How about those trigger happy police officers?
« Reply #55 on: July 13, 2016, 02:18:01 pm »
Is it just me, or does the paper appear to basically say that everybody has the same chance of being shot during an interaction with police but fails to mention the disproportionate rates of police interaction certain groups seem to seem to be subjected to?

<cough> looks more like one of our suspects ‘cause of the wide set nose. <cough>

It doesn't fail to mention it. It mentions it and says it is studying something else:

Quote
To be clear, the empirical thought experiment here is that a police officer arrives at a scene and decides whether or not to use lethal force. Our estimates suggest that this decision is not correlated with the race of the suspect. This does not, however, rule out the possibility that there are important racial differences in whether or not thse police-civilian interactions occur at all.

(there are plenty of other studies on the question of if higher rates of police interaction are driven by discrimination or not)

In that case it is probably a decent study. Of course, the initial soundbite of no racism is probably going to be the only part mentioned in certain circles, just like "more whites than blacks are shot by cops" is.

I tend to think like Askold on this topic; there seems to be too much force used by the cops (in the US) in general.




Rather than double post:

does anyone else thing getting pulled over three times a year is excessive -- particularly if half the charges are dropped? I think I've only been pulled over three times in the last five or six -- and all of them were RIDE program check everyone stops.

Offline Cloud3514

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Re: How about those trigger happy police officers?
« Reply #56 on: July 13, 2016, 10:17:05 pm »
The thing is, even if it was proven that American police have ZERO racist tendencies and that all allegations of profiling and bias were false, we still have an average of 1100 people dying at the hands of police every year. I think the statistics prove that there is some level of racial bias with policing and talking about police exclusively doesn't take numerous other areas of systematic racism into account, but even if there was no racism forever, it is absurd to look at 1100 people killed by police every year and think "yup, no problem here. Police are doing their jobs without any problems."
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Offline Sigmaleph

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Re: How about those trigger happy police officers?
« Reply #57 on: July 14, 2016, 12:50:10 pm »
Data Colada took a look at the study and suggests that the reason blacks appear to be shot less than whites might be because racial bias makes officers stop people with lower threat levels.

Their conclusion is basically "too noisy to tell, need bigger sample size".
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Offline Askold

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Re: How about those trigger happy police officers?
« Reply #58 on: July 17, 2016, 11:04:34 am »
This story made it to the Finnish news but I have no idea if it's connected to the earlier attack on police and similarly motivated or just business as usual in USA: http://ktla.com/2016/07/17/3-baton-rouge-police-feared-dead-in-shooting-scene-active-official-says/
No matter what happens, no matter what my last words may end up being, I want everyone to claim that they were:
"If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."
Aww, you guys rock. :)  I feel the love... and the pitchforks and torches.  Tingly!

Offline Dakota Bob

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Re: How about those trigger happy police officers?
« Reply #59 on: July 17, 2016, 02:55:42 pm »
Things are gonna get fun for Black Lives Matter activists now with all these cop killings, I'm sure they're gonna find themselves under intense surveillance pretty soon, already people were getting arrested for facebook posts in the wake of the last shooting