Lying Down While Black: 'Merka

Bodhisattva said:

I did... *raises hand*

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Good man. I think you know...Ive called out dirty cops when they are dirty. I dont make excuses for bad behaviors. This...this wasnt that.

Bullseye said:

I hate to be blunt, but:

Rules for encounters with cops:
Rule #1 Do whatever they say
Rule #2 See Rule #1.

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Oh yeah, well if you are a woman that can get creepy real fast. Let's not forget the lovely officers who use their badge to take a piece.

America needs an overhaul. We are slipping way to close to that "third world mentality."
There are countries that handle their systems a lot better.

YouTube

I know most Americans will laugh when they see Norway's prison system but it works better than our system so really, who should be laughing? It's just so far away from how we manage ours that it seems unreal.

Top Cat said:

Yeah look how well that worked out for Mr. Floyd.

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If that piece of shut excuse for a cop did that after Floyd stopped resisting, do you think continuing to resist would have worked out better?
Show me one example where failure to comply turned out well for the person stopped.

Ginger Ale said:

Oh yeah, well if you are a woman that can get creepy real fast. Let's not forget the lovely officers who use their badge to take a piece.

America needs an overhaul. We are slipping way to close to that "third world mentality."
There are countries that handle their systems a lot better.

YouTube

I know most Americans will laugh when they see Norway's prison system but it works better than our system so really, who should be laughing? It's just so far away from how we manage ours that it seems unreal.

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I would argue the opposite... that Americans and police have a better relationship than ever... literally.

The cops know that for the most-part they are being filmed and they are on good behavior.

There are still some assholes out there that need to be weeded out though/.

Mr Person said:

Which serves my point, not counters it.

It is extremely wrong that in America - the supposed city on a hill, land of the brave and home of the free, with its constitution and its rights - you obey any order no matter how absurd or you can ****ing die.

It should be "do what the cops say because it is the right thing to do", not "do what they say or they may kill you even though you are unarmed, posed no threat, and merely failed to obey quickly enough".

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And by a huge margin that's exactly the way it is.

Mr Person said:

I'm baffled that anyone can look at this police behavior and conclude that it makes sense. Why does anyone want this? The only answer I can come up with now is because the people saying it are white, and thus know this is far less likely to happen to them. Callousness.

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He failed to stop, he failed to follow instructions. I understand he was afraid but . . . How would you have handled this situation?

Mr. Person said:

Otherwise it's crazy. And you really don't see it in other European country. But over here, cops act like they're being dropped into a hot LZ when all they're doing is apprehending someone who took too long to pull over and lay down out of fear rather than walking towards people pointing guns at him, then lying still.

It's crazy. This isn't right. Where's the common sense?

Yeah, it's a dangerous job, but that doesn't excuse behaving like this.

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If everyone was cooperative and docile it probably wouldn't have to be.

VanceMack said:

Running a stop sign is a doddle. You pull over...you get a ticket...you go home. Thats not what happened as the video clearly showed. He ran the stop sign then evaded arrest for several blocks, then freaked out and acted like a ****ing moron as did grandmamma.

As are a whole bunch of people on this site. With the actual incidents of real dirty cops doing bad ****, you people try to turn this **** into a racist cause. YOU ****ing people are the problem.

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Explain to me how the police car actually closed in on him (in the video) if he ran the stop sign. And as I've already mentioned many people (it use to be young women) won't pull over right away and wait to get into a safe zone. He never tried to lead the officer on some low speed chase, he waited to stop in his grandmothers driveway which you deem "evading". And you're exactly right. there are real cops doing bad stuff, so how did he know they were part of those cops? As always no one reacts to being face to face with police. It's life.

SkyFox76 said:

Explain to me how the police car actually closed in on him (in the video) if he ran the stop sign. And as I've already mentioned many people (it use to be young women) won't pull over right away and wait to get into a safe zone. He never tried to lead the officer on some low speed chase, he waited to stop in his grandmothers driveway which you deem "evading". And you're exactly right. there are real cops doing bad stuff, so how did he know they were part of those cops? As always no one reacts to being face to face with police. It's life.

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I've got a serious problem with that line of thinking. If one is justified in believing that all interactions with cops involve an imminent threat to life and liberty because some cops are bad then it MUST be true that cops are justified in believing that all interactions with the public present an imminent threat to their life and liberty because some citizens have killed cops.

The mindset that everyone is a grave and imminent threat is insane and leads to incredibly poor decisions. That goes for cops as well as civilians. In the case we're discussing in this thread the kid in the car was TOTALLY out of line and his family and neighbors exacerbated the situation. In the George Floyd incident the cop was out of line as Mr Floyd was already under control and didn't require additional restraint. The issue IS NOT one sided, as the OP would have us believe and if we fail to recognize that we're only going to make the situation worse.

pinqy said:

If that piece of shut excuse for a cop did that after Floyd stopped resisting, do you think continuing to resist would have worked out better?
Show me one example where failure to comply turned out well for the person stopped.

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Have you ever had your breathing cut off or severely limited? I have and the only thing on my mind was to get air. There's a reason waterboarding gets answers. It's not even a conscious decision your instinct takes over. Floyd was handcuffed and on the ground. Let's just say for laughs that the cop took his knee off and Floyd jumped up and took off running. Do you think they couldn't have tased him or given chase?

Lutherf said:

I've got a serious problem with that line of thinking. If one is justified in believing that all interactions with cops involve an imminent threat to life and liberty because some cops are bad then it MUST be true that cops are justified in believing that all interactions with the public present an imminent threat to their life and liberty because some citizens have killed cops.

The mindset that everyone is a grave and imminent threat is insane and leads to incredibly poor decisions. That goes for cops as well as civilians. In the case we're discussing in this thread the kid in the car was TOTALLY out of line and his family and neighbors exacerbated the situation. In the George Floyd incident the cop was out of line as Mr Floyd was already under control and didn't require additional restraint. The issue IS NOT one sided, as the OP would have us believe and if we fail to recognize that we're only going to make the situation worse.

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"Everyone" isn't in grave danger. Tell me what you would expect a cop to do if you did rolling stop? Would you expect him to act like you just robbed a bank? Or would you expect him to walk up to your vehicle and ask for your license and registration. Because afaik that's generally how a "rolling stop" is handled.

SkyFox76 said:

Have you ever had your breathing cut off or severely limited? I have and the only thing on my mind was to get air. There's a reason waterboarding gets answers. It's not even a conscious decision your instinct takes over. Floyd was handcuffed and on the ground. Let's just say for laughs that the cop took his knee off and Floyd jumped up and took off running. Do you think they couldn't have tased him or given chase?

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You’re ignoring my question. In the Floyd case the cops were clearly wrong and should be prosecuted for murder. They have no excuse. Even when he was initially resisting, putting a knee on the neck is dangerous and inexcusable: arm, shoulder, sure. But even then, once he stopped resisting the knee should have come off.

So in that case, not resisting did not help. But that is not the norm. Resisting is never a good idea, but somehow you think it should be ok to ignore the cops. Would you like videos of non compliant suspects who shoot or otherwise injure cops? That happens very frequently....cops cannot afford to assume a non-compliant suspect is harmless, no matter how minor the initial crime. Many times cops have been killed during routine traffic stops because they did not know the driver had drugs or a gun etc.

But

Ginger Ale said:

Oh yeah, well if you are a woman that can get creepy real fast. Let's not forget the lovely officers who use their badge to take a piece.

America needs an overhaul. We are slipping way to close to that "third world mentality."
There are countries that handle their systems a lot better.

YouTube

I know most Americans will laugh when they see Norway's prison system but it works better than our system so really, who should be laughing? It's just so far away from how we manage ours that it seems unreal.

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There are some 45 MILLION police/citizen contacts annually. Of those, approx 684,500 involved a use of force by law enforcement. There are literally a handful of cases that result in deaths of the citizens...so few in fact that when they occur, as they did in Minneapolis, we actually look at it like it is a big deal. And it IS a big deal...a singular incident...and one that should be dealt with. Without rushing to google, can you cite the last incident involving a cop and the last 'black life' that mattered?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/
Reversing Reverse Racism in Police Violence - CityLab

If you study the actual facts regarding police shootings, you will find that the data doesnt support the rhetoric regarding the number of blacks shot by police vs the number of whites and certainly not in regard to those that are unarmed or attacking police officers.

There ARE absolutely incidents of bad policing and corrupt cops doing bad things...even commiting murder. But to take the comparatively EXTREMELY RARE instances and extrapolate that to policing in general is simply not accurate.

SkyFox76 said:

"Everyone" isn't in grave danger. Tell me what you would expect a cop to do if you did rolling stop? Would you expect him to act like you just robbed a bank? Or would you expect him to walk up to your vehicle and ask for your license and registration. Because afaik that's generally how a "rolling stop" is handled.

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The cops we're talking about here didn't treat the guy like he robbed a bank. They treated him just like they would anyone else who chose to make a scene rather than just take his ticket and go on his way.

SkyFox76 said:

Explain to me how the police car actually closed in on him (in the video) if he ran the stop sign. And as I've already mentioned many people (it use to be young women) won't pull over right away and wait to get into a safe zone. He never tried to lead the officer on some low speed chase, he waited to stop in his grandmothers driveway which you deem "evading". And you're exactly right. there are real cops doing bad stuff, so how did he know they were part of those cops? As always no one reacts to being face to face with police. It's life.

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Are you ****ing kidding me? You DO understand that cars are equipped with accelerators...right?

Even if he had just driven to grammas house and then said "hey...sorry man...I'm here to be in a safe place...heres my license and registration..." you might have a point. But he didnt. He got out of his car and started screaming and acting like a ****ing moron and within seconds, without knowing **** about what had transpired, grandmama was out doing the same ****ing thing. These are the kind of idiots that completely discredit the actual allegations of racism and police violence. And you just feed the fire.

pinqy said:

You’re ignoring my question. In the Floyd case the cops were clearly wrong and should be prosecuted for murder. They have no excuse. Even when he was initially resisting, putting a knee on the neck is dangerous and inexcusable: arm, shoulder, sure. But even then, once he stopped resisting the knee should have come off.

So in that case, not resisting did not help. But that is not the norm. Resisting is never a good idea, but somehow you think it should be ok to ignore the cops. Would you like videos of non compliant suspects who shoot or otherwise injure cops? That happens very frequently....cops cannot afford to assume a non-compliant suspect is harmless, no matter how minor the initial crime. Many times cops have been killed during routine traffic stops because they did not know the driver had drugs or a gun etc.

But

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It looks like your trying to frame the question does resisting arrest turn out better than compliance. In the Floyd case it made zero difference. In the case of this thread the kid got out (scared to death) and put his hands in the air, then laid down in the grass. He wasn't suspected of armed robbery, or anything past rolling thru a stop sign. If the officer was scared that a guy doing a rolling stop was going to kill him, then he needs a different career.

Lutherf said:

The cops we're talking about here didn't treat the guy like he robbed a bank. They treated him just like they would anyone else who chose to make a scene rather than just take his ticket and go on his way.

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Seriously? He did a rolling stop and once he pulled into his grandmothers driveway (clearly not trying to escape) the cop pulls up and starts screaming for him to get out of the vehicle. That's not generally how a "rolling stop" is handled.

VanceMack said:

Are you ****ing kidding me? You DO understand that cars are equipped with accelerators...right?

Even if he had just driven to grammas house and then said "hey...sorry man...I'm here to be in a safe place...heres my license and registration..." you might have a point. But he didnt. He got out of his car and started screaming and acting like a ****ing moron and within seconds, without knowing **** about what had transpired, grandmama was out doing the same ****ing thing. These are the kind of idiots that completely discredit the actual allegations of racism and police violence. And you just feed the fire.

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Your posts seem high strung. And yes I am aware, it doesn't happen in the video.

His 90 year old grandmother came out to protect her grandson. The entire event was overblown starting with the cop not just making a normal stop to begin with. Instead he went into high drama telling the kid to get out of the car.

Mr Person said:

It's sickening that one can say in all seriousness "at least they didn't start shooting." What is wrong with the police in this country? I know people all around the world. I never hear about this kind of insanity happening with any regularity in other European countries, etc. It's ridiculous.

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I acknowledge it is a real problem, but its not just a police problem and if you are willing to listen with an open mind I will address it.

Setting aside just outright bad police work by incompetents., that does exist in a very small subset of these incidents where there is simple no excuse for what took place, acknowledging them for what they are, criminal malfeasance of a sworn person in a public office, let us look at the rest, the majority, of them.

There are three groups of people who have to accept that they are contributing to this:

1) The officers. They are fewer in number, the training isn't what it should be, departmental guidelines are frequently insufficient, and they are scared. We weren't as afraid when I worked the job as the officers these days, and they have some good reasons to be fearful. However, fear is not a good mindset for daily operation in a squad car. It causes mistakes. All kinds of mistakes. Over reactions. Under reactions. Rooted in spot reactions. Its just not good. We need to make police feels safer on the job. If we want more from them, that is what we have to do.

2) The hiring authorities. They have reduced starting pay. They have reduced pension and health benefits. Folks like myself tried to tell them that if they did this they were going to lose the best of us from seeking employment on our police forces. I'm no dope. I have always owned and been successful in small business while also holding my police job. One to make money, the other for the benefits. I like helping folks, and I am civic minded, and I had to make a living so if I could satisfy all those things by being a police officer then that is good reason to be a police officer. However, I also wanted a wife, a family, a good home and some of life's better things. If policing wasn't going to provide me opportunity to get some of those things than why, when I had options, be a police officer?

When you are losing the best candidates to the private sector because the starting pay for being a cop simply doesn't cut it, this is big part of the reason we are having some of the problems we are having these days. And the cost overruns lost to retraining, sick time, law suits, injuries, etc, etc, costs more than they are saving in the cutbacks they made to salaries and benefits of starting officers.

3) The African-American Community: This shouldn't be a controversial statement but I am sure this is what I will get the most flack for, but I am going to say it anyway, because it is true: You can not have a subset of your community (young Black men) create a culture that presents the message, "I am young, angry, Black and armed and I am going to get mine, even if it is at the point of a gun.", to the world and not expect the possible response to be. 'OK then, I believe you and I while I wasn't afraid of you before, now I am truly scared of you."

You can't expect to aim that culture at a group of people whose purpose is to maintain the public peace, who as I already pointed out are more afraid than they should be to be effective, and then deny this subset of the community that insists on pushing that message isn't adding to the problem. From the parents homes, to the pulpits, to the recording industry, to movie studios, to what-have-you there needs to be a declaring that .... OK, here it comes. the "Thug Life" (HEY, I didn't create the use of the term, and it wasn't applied by anyone, it was adopted by the community itself, if you have a problem with the use of the term take it up with the folks who coined it) thing has got to go.

If we want this to stop, and all of us with good motives and intentions do, EVERYONE needs to address their end of it. The police, the municipalities, the African-American community. ALL OF US, together, on the same page and pulling in the same direction.

SkyFox76 said:

Your posts seem high strung. And yes I am aware, it doesn't happen in the video.

His 90 year old grandmother came out to protect her grandson. The entire event was overblown starting with the cop not just making a normal stop to begin with. Instead he went into high drama telling the kid to get out of the car.

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The kid refused to pull over and they had to follow him to grandmas where he was continuously non-compliant.

Drawdown said:

The kid refused to pull over and they had to follow him to grandmas where he was continuously non-compliant.

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When did he refuse to pull over? As I've already mentioned in a lot of states you have the right to drive to a safe place.

So go from this kids point of view. He doesn't notice there is cop following. He turns onto grammas street and gets lit up. He thinks okay idk what I did and get's to grammas. He was such a derelict he even used his signal to pull into her driveway. So what goes on next? My experience when pulled over is cop gets out and comes to explain why I was pulled over. His experience is cop gets out and starts yelling from the cover of his vehicle for him to get out of the car.

ModernDiogenes said:

3) The African-American Community: This shouldn't be a controversial statement but I am sure this is what I will get the most flack for, but I am going to say it anyway, because it is true: You can not have a subset of your community (young Black men) create a culture that presents the message, "I am young, angry, Black and armed and I am going to get mine, even if it is at the point of a gun.", to the world and not expect the possible response to be. 'OK then, I believe you and I while I wasn't afraid of you before, now I am truly scared of you."

You can't expect to aim that culture at a group of people whose purpose is to maintain the public peace, who as I already pointed out are more afraid than they should be to be effective, and then deny this subset of the community that insists on pushing that message isn't adding to the problem. From the parents homes, to the pulpits, to the recording industry, to movie studios, to what-have-you there needs to be a declaring that .... OK, here it comes. the "Thug Life" (HEY, I didn't create the use of the term, and it wasn't applied by anyone, it was adopted by the community itself, if you have a problem with the use of the term take it up with the folks who coined it) thing has got to go.

If we want this to stop, and all of us with good motives and intentions do, EVERYONE needs to address their end of it. The police, the municipalities, the African-American community. ALL OF US, together, on the same page and pulling in the same direction.

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It sounds like you knew exactly what you were saying before you said it. Already set up the fake victim narrative: if someone responds the way you expect them to, hint hint nudge nudge know what I mean, that means you were right and identified the real problem, but the other person is sensitive about it. You'll get "flack"...

I am baffled that anyone says stuff like that in all seriousness. "The African-American Community". Which community? Which "African Americans"? And why are all African Americans answerable for the actions of a few, when no other group is? A rapper said "thug life" so now every black person is answerable?

You want me to give you a list of white person crimes?

And if I give you that list, will you say you agree that "The White American Community" is a bunch of criminals, a mixture of high-roller white collar embezzlers and the like, and a bunch of lowlife drug dealers and forgers?



No?

Then why would it ever make sense to hold all black people guilty of the crimes and motives of a subset of black people? You're trying to use words of rappers and the like of one race to justify over-the-top behavior as against anyone of that race.

SkyFox76 said:

When did he refuse to pull over? As I've already mentioned in a lot of states you have the right to drive to a safe place.

So go from this kids point of view. He doesn't notice there is cop following. He turns onto grammas street and gets lit up. He thinks okay idk what I did and get's to grammas. He was such a derelict he even used his signal to pull into her driveway. So what goes on next? My experience when pulled over is cop gets out and comes to explain why I was pulled over. His experience is cop gets out and starts yelling from the cover of his vehicle for him to get out of the car.

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" Police were trying to initiate a traffic stop for Anders’s alleged failure to stop at a traffic sign but he continued to drive ..."

Drawdown said:

" Police were trying to initiate a traffic stop for Anders’s alleged failure to stop at a traffic sign but he continued to drive ..."

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And again, in many states just because a pd car lights you up it doesn't mean you have to pull over in that exact second. He never tried to outrun the police car, he never went on some high speed (or even low speed) chase. He drove to where he felt safe, and pulled into his grandmothers driveway. Due to many occurrences with rogue police, law enforcement lost the "I said jump" and the citizens say "how high?" when it comes to being pulled over.

Drawdown said:

The kid refused to pull over and they had to follow him to grandmas where he was continuously non-compliant.

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If it is the case that he went to a place, providing he dis so in a way that wasn't causing a threat to anyone, where he felt safe (his grandmothers) how do we look at this as any different than a woman being pulled over who insisted on pulling into a well lit area visible to many before stopping her car. It's not just police who are more afraid these days.

Fear us a bad starting place for human interaction. We truly need to address it and bring the fear factor down. People are going to have to acknowledge is existence. They are going to have to acknowledge what they are contributing to it. They are going to have to knock it off and start behaving in ways that allows those around them to feel more at ease.

No, I am not talking politically correct micro-aggressions. I am talking REAL human instinctual reaction to fight or flight stimuli. You can't have folks walking about wound up like three dollar springs in a five dollar watch and not expect there to be problems when they have to interact with each other.

It is ubiquitous and pervasive all over the world these days and it is quite high here in the US as well. We need to stop, think, and understand. Intellect needs to take precedence over emotion. We are feeling WAY too much and thinking no where near enough.

Everyone needs to take a major chill pill, and then when the minds have eased from the overflow of emotion, start talking to each other and solve our problems.

Bullseye said:

I hate to be blunt, but:

Rules for encounters with cops:
Rule #1 Do whatever they say
Rule #2 See Rule #1.

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You sure you live in San Diego?

On the night of December 27, 1986, 20-year-old Cara Knott was driving south on Interstate 15 from her boyfriend's home in Escondido, California, to her parents' home in El Cajon when Peyer, who was on duty in a marked CHP patrol car, directed Knott to pull off the freeway on an isolated, unfinished off-ramp.[3] It was later discovered that Peyer also had been harassing several other female drivers in the same area by pulling them over on the same off-ramp, supposedly trying to pick them up as dates. In the Knott case, it was believed that the situation escalated to physicality when Knott threatened to report Peyer for his inappropriate actions. When he attempted to grab her, she slashed and scratched at his face. Peyer then bludgeoned her with his flashlight and strangled her to death with a rope.[4] He then threw her body over the edge of an abandoned bridge, where she fell into the brush below.

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Murder of Cara Knott - Wikipedia

So yeah do whatever they say. :roll:

SkyFox76 said:

And again, in many states just because a pd car lights you up it doesn't mean you have to pull over in that exact second. He never tried to outrun the police car, he never went on some high speed (or even low speed) chase. He drove to where he felt safe, and pulled into his grandmothers driveway. Due to many occurrences with rogue police, law enforcement lost the "I said jump" and the citizens say "how high?" when it comes to being pulled over.

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He wouldn't be charged with felonies if this were one of those states. I know it is shocking, but some times black people are guilty.