So Michael Brown got high, robbed a store, then attacked a police officer...

[spoonitnow]

...and people are still protesting against the cop who shot him?

Official autopsy released with some real-life CSI shit: http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/c...7df75fef6.html

[BigSlickBaby]

This whole incident was nothing but a fiasco. I think this country needs to have a serious, serious discussion about the actions and behavior of our police forces out in the street and our laws and punishments as a nation. We're turning into a police state with a prison industrial complex. Well, we're not turning into that...we are that.

That said, this was not one of the incidents that should be included in that discussion. Michael Brown was a bully, a "gangster" wannabe, and had absolutely no respect for the law or anything else in the world. His road ended when he attempted to bully law enforcement physically and was shot in what is typical protocol given the situation and his actions. The riots and looting that followed this event do nothing but go to show why law enforcement is necessary in the first place and why we need to give them a little leeway out in the streets since they're dealing with a bunch of violent, psychotic animals in their cities.

The fact that the black community attempted to bring white people onto their side on this issue makes me sick. This was a racial issue to them (blacks), not a civil liberties issue. This wasn't about the nation as a whole...it was about black people. It always is. Until I see hundreds of blacks ripping apart a neighborhood because a white teen was shot by the police, I'm not going to lift a finger for their cause. What a bunch of hypocritical bullshit.

For the record, I've spoken to dozens of blacks in person who agree with this entirely. They're tired of seeing a handful keep ruining the day every time we're getting close to having a serious discussion (as a nation) regarding race and law enforcement.

[Renton]

Even if he attacked the cop and the cop defended himself according to police protocol, there's still a major problem with the amount of discretion and means cops have to take life. Imagine how hard it is for the state to execute someone who is open-and-shut guilty of multiple murder. Years of appeals, millions and millions of dollars in litigation. And yet a police can shoot someone 6 times, completely justifiably, if he perceives he is in any risk of bodily harm whatsoever. Or someone like George Zimmerman can shoot someone to death, again completely justifiably, if he feels he's at the tiniest risk of being killed.

Never mind what the actual risk is and how much risk should be accepted in these situations before lethal defense is merited. We're not even having that important conversation. Maybe, just maybe, fucking killing someone shouldn't be justified in order to mitigate a minor risk. Every police protocol seems to be aimed at escalating a situation to the maximum degree, and then their response to an escalated situation is to shoot their guns at the first opportunity. Why even carry a taser or pepper spray? Why even have physical fitness training? Just give them a fucking scoped rifle and a sidearm, and some good marksman training, and then every single situation that the police is involved in, they can just take out the gun, and if the perpetrator doesn't comply with 100% of their demands, you fucking kill them. Let's make that protocol, and at least there's no more room to argue about it anymore, and its not that far from the way things currently are, anyway.

[OngBonga]

*applause*

[spoonitnow]

And yet a police can shoot someone 6 times, completely justifiably, if he perceives he is in any risk of bodily harm whatsoever.

It's frequently going to take more than six shots to subdue someone Michael Brown's size who is trying to kill you. The officer wasn't shooting him to kill him, he was shooting him to stop the threat to his own life. If Brown had stopped after he was first shot instead of charging the officer, then he would still be alive.

[spoonitnow]

Or someone like George Zimmerman can shoot someone to death, again completely justifiably, if he feels he's at the tiniest risk of being killed.

George Zimmerman shot as a last resort to protect himself while some idiot was on top of him trying to kill him. If Trayvon Martin had went home instead of doubling back to attack Zimmerman (note: going home was closer), then he would still be alive.

[spoonitnow]

Do you know what causes someone to think that they can get high, rob a store for something they want instead of paying for it, and attack a police officer unprovoked? It's entitlement and a lack of learning that there are consequences for your actions.

There are consequences to attacking a police officer unprovoked. Those consequences can include getting shot. If Michael Brown didn't want to get shot, then he shouldn't have attacked the police officer. It's pretty fucking simple.

I'm sorry that his family and friends are having to deal with all of this all because Michael Brown was a fuck-up, but the police got it right on this one.

I'm for equality, so Michael Brown being black and Officer Wilson being white means absolutely jack shit to me because I see them both as human beings. One big-ass human being attacked a not-so-big-ass human being who had a gun and used it within the confines of the law (even if he wasn't a cop) to protect himself. It's unfair to say that he isn't able to do that when someone is attacking him because it puts the burden on the victim.

[Renton]

It's frequently going to take more than six shots to subdue someone Michael Brown's size who is trying to kill you. The officer wasn't shooting him to kill him, he was shooting him to stop the threat to his own life. If Brown had stopped after he was first shot instead of charging the officer, then he would still be alive.

I don't believe that last sentence for a second. We've seen videos on top of videos where police respond to any threat whatsoever by firing a barrage of shots. They NEVER NEVER NEVER shoot once. They unload. Never a warning shot. Never a shoulder shot. And I don't even think they say freeze anymore to be honest. A taser should always be sufficient for the situation of a man rushing you who is unarmed, and if it isn't, we need to invest in the taser technology that does, it shouldn't be that far around the corner.

George Zimmerman shot as a last resort to protect himself while some idiot was on top of him trying to kill him. If Trayvon Martin had went home instead of doubling back to attack Zimmerman (note: going home was closer), then he would still be alive.

This is only if you believe the Zimmerman narrative. It could just as easily have gone down that Martin felt his life was endangered from some overzealous community watch psychopath, and fought him because he felt it was his greatest chance of not dying. And judging from the character evidence about Zimmerman that has been mounting in the wake of his acquittal, I'd guess it even more easily could have gone that way.

[Renton]

I don't want to retread these debates that depend on alleged accounts one way or the other. What I'm most interested in is re-evaluating the police as an entity. Let's imagine for a moment that the police force operated like a private business. A publicly-funded private business. That is, the government says it wants an effective police force for a test jurisdiction, say a medium sized town, and security companies bid on this contract, and the contract is awarded in a fair way based upon the prices and the services and guarantees offered. The trick is though, that the contract isn't one contract, it's three and the town is split into three sub-jurisdictions, each of which fall under the purview of one company. Each company will then compete so that eventually one company can get the entire contract for this town.

So we have three security companies competing to provide police service over three districts with roughly equal population and demographic breakdowns. Their goal is to make money, they do this by 1) minimizing their costs, and their price to the state, so the state will more likely award them the rest of the contract, 2) make the constituents happy because even in a bad democracy the state represents the people at least on some level, and 3) avoiding liability fiascos like the Michael Brown situation, whether it's justifiable on the police's part or not.

Essentially, one of the major differences in the way these companies would act from the current state-based police is that ANY police shooting would be a profitability nightmare. They'd have to pay massive costs for lawyers, settlements, etc. The result is that they would do everything to de-escalate every problem. They may even go so far as to not allow police to draw their guns in any but the most dire of circumstances. It may become part of their business model and their employee contract that a police officer is expected to have a non-zero risk to life, in a similar way as a construction worker on a tall building is compensated for the risks he takes. Maybe policing should be slightly risky to bodily harm. Maybe not. It would all be figured into the business models of the police companies. All I know for sure is that a business wants nothing more than to avoid the potential economic consequences and reputation harm that comes with these media circuses. A state could give a fuck, so that's why the American police system is devolving.

The incentive structure simply is not in place for the state police to avoid making mistakes, hurting people, and killing people. We can see it from the fact that all these dumbasses protesting in the street for the officer who shot him to be prosecuted. Not the police precinct that employs the officer and is ostensibly responsible for his actions. Not the police academy that trained him in the protocols that say to escalate, escalate, and always escalate. And not the system that came up with the protocols. So even if you gave the protesters what they wanted it wouldn't mean a fucking thing. The true evil-doers are like 8 levels insulated from these incidents.

A business, on the other hand, would likely risk bankruptcy in the event that it possibly killed one of its customers unjustifiably. The risks would be so great that "crisis insurance" would exist specifically for these purposes. And it would be incredibly expensive, particularly for companies with a bad history of hurting a lot of people. The security agencies which have the best records of diffusing situations without loss of life or bodily harm would rise to the top, not only because they have the best reputations, but also because they're paying the lowest insurance premiums.

[spoonitnow]

I don't believe that last sentence for a second. We've seen videos on top of videos where police respond to any threat whatsoever by firing a barrage of shots. They NEVER NEVER NEVER shoot once. They unload. Never a warning shot. Never a shoulder shot. And I don't even think they say freeze anymore to be honest. A taser should always be sufficient for the situation of a man rushing you who is unarmed, and if it isn't, we need to invest in the taser technology that does, it shouldn't be that far around the corner.



This is only if you believe the Zimmerman narrative. It could just as easily have gone down that Martin felt his life was endangered from some overzealous community watch psychopath, and fought him because he felt it was his greatest chance of not dying. And judging from the character evidence about Zimmerman that has been mounting in the wake of his acquittal, I'd guess it even more easily could have gone that way.

The map of the area shows how far Martin went out of his way to confront Zimmerman instead of going home, so the bold is out the window.

[spoonitnow]

I don't want to retread these debates that depend on alleged accounts one way or the other. What I'm most interested in is re-evaluating the police as an entity. Let's imagine for a moment that the police force operated like a private business. A publicly-funded private business. That is, the government says it wants an effective police force for a test jurisdiction, say a medium sized town, and security companies bid on this contract, and the contract is awarded in a fair way based upon the prices and the services and guarantees offered. The trick is though, that the contract isn't one contract, it's three and the town is split into three sub-jurisdictions, each of which fall under the purview of one company. Each company will then compete so that eventually one company can get the entire contract for this town.

So we have three security companies competing to provide police service over three districts with roughly equal population and demographic breakdowns. Their goal is to make money, they do this by 1) minimizing their costs, and their price to the state, so the state will more likely award them the rest of the contract, 2) make the constituents happy because even in a bad democracy the state represents the people at least on some level, and 3) avoiding liability fiascos like the Michael Brown situation, whether it's justifiable on the police's part or not.

Essentially, one of the major differences in the way these companies would act from the current state-based police is that ANY police shooting would be a profitability nightmare. They'd have to pay massive costs for lawyers, settlements, etc. The result is that they would do everything to de-escalate every problem. They may even go so far as to not allow police to draw their guns in any but the most dire of circumstances. It may become part of their business model and their employee contract that a police officer is expected to have a non-zero risk to life, in a similar way as a construction worker on a tall building is compensated for the risks he takes. Maybe policing should be slightly risky to bodily harm. Maybe not. It would all be figured into the business models of the police companies. All I know for sure is that a business wants nothing more than to avoid the potential economic consequences and reputation harm that comes with these media circuses. A state could give a fuck, so that's why the American police system is devolving.

The incentive structure simply is not in place for the state police to avoid making mistakes, hurting people, and killing people. We can see it from the fact that all these dumbasses protesting in the street for the officer who shot him to be prosecuted. Not the police precinct that employs the officer and is ostensibly responsible for his actions. Not the police academy that trained him in the protocols that say to escalate, escalate, and always escalate. And not the system that came up with the protocols. So even if you gave the protesters what they wanted it wouldn't mean a fucking thing. The true evil-doers are like 8 levels insulated from these incidents.

A business, on the other hand, would likely risk bankruptcy in the event that it possibly killed one of its customers unjustifiably. The risks would be so great that "crisis insurance" would exist specifically for these purposes. And it would be incredibly expensive, particularly for companies with a bad history of hurting a lot of people. The security agencies which have the best records of diffusing situations without loss of life or bodily harm would rise to the top, not only because they have the best reputations, but also because they're paying the lowest insurance premiums.

Know what's a good incentive for shooting someone? That person attacking you and going after your gun.

[spoonitnow]

I don't believe that last sentence for a second. We've seen videos on top of videos where police respond to any threat whatsoever by firing a barrage of shots.

Also, it doesn't really matter if you believe it or not because it's confirmed at this point that he shot Brown once inside of the car, and after pushing Brown back and getting him off, Brown charged at him (attacking him for a second time) at which point he was shot until he stopped advancing which is completely and totally correct in that situation.

[d0zer]

Spoon, you're always analyzing these situations as isolated incidences, without any historical context. You might as well be saying that World War I was caused by the assassination of Franz Ferdinand because some "entitled" Bosnian upstarts decided to get a little rowdy.

Rodney King wasn't JUST about Rodney King, nor were the Trayvon Martin protests, neither are the Ferguson protests just about one death. These protests are the result of powder-kegs ignited by these incidences and it seems like you can't see the forest for the trees.

[spoonitnow]

Spoon, you're always analyzing these situations as isolated incidences, without any historical context. You might as well be saying that World War I was caused by the assassination of Franz Ferdinand because some "entitled" Bosnian upstarts decided to get a little rowdy.

Rodney King wasn't JUST about Rodney King, nor were the Trayvon Martin protests, neither are the Ferguson protests just about one death. These protests are the result of powder-kegs ignited by these incidences and it seems like you can't see the forest for the trees.

People have rioted and looted in Ferguson supporting an adult man who committed a robbery before attacking a police officer unprovoked.

Moreover, if the man was white, nobody would be protesting, and it wouldn't gain national attention.

If they want to protest against the police state as it currently stands, then I'm all for that, but that's not why they're protesting.

[d0zer]

I still don't get it.

I see.

[jyms]

I find it pretty amazing that the police are considered brain dead guys that shoot anything that moves. I'm fucking 50 and never even had an argument with a cop, let alone have a gun pointed at me or been told to lie down or taken under arrest. I think a lot of these incidents need to start being pointed blame at the dead. Stay the fuck out of trouble, and stay alive. It's not that hard.

[MadMojoMonkey]

It's weird to hear this conversation coming from people so far removed from the situation.

Living here, it's really less about the original shooting than it is about the response... in conversations I've had at least.

Whatever else is going on, it's wrong to point a gun at an unarmed person who is across the street from you, standing still. Even if they're shouting. Even if they have a camera. Even if you have a badge.

It's wrong for a SWAT team to kick all of the customers out of a restaurant so that the SWAT team can have a meal (days after the event, when there is no immediate threat to anything nearby).

It's wrong to enforce a curfew on a residential community when many people have night jobs / 2 jobs / perfectly legal reasons to not be imprisoned in their own home.

It is missing the point if you characterize this without acknowledging that this is about race, and the present lingering racism that is institutionalized in our political system.

[spoonitnow]

It is missing the point if you characterize this without acknowledging that this is about race, and the present lingering racism that is institutionalized in our political system.

Racism is when someone gives a shit about the race of the people involved when deciding if it was right or wrong or whether it should get national news coverage.

[Renton]

Know what's a good incentive for shooting someone? That person attacking you and going after your gun.

Surely you can see how this defense can be used in any situation where one person has a gun and the dead person does not. Gun = ultimate discretion to kill with impunity, innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. No gun = guilty until proven innocent, and not able to defend one's dead self.

[Renton]

I find it pretty amazing that the police are considered brain dead guys that shoot anything that moves. I'm fucking 50 and never even had an argument with a cop, let alone have a gun pointed at me or been told to lie down or taken under arrest. I think a lot of these incidents need to start being pointed blame at the dead. Stay the fuck out of trouble, and stay alive. It's not that hard.

a) you're in canada, do they even carry guns there?
b) you're white

[Savy]

I find it pretty amazing that the police are considered brain dead guys that shoot anything that moves. I'm fucking 50 and never even had an argument with a cop, let alone have a gun pointed at me or been told to lie down or taken under arrest. I think a lot of these incidents need to start being pointed blame at the dead. Stay the fuck out of trouble, and stay alive. It's not that hard.

I've never had any real run ins with the law, twice when I've been walking round London with my black mate I've been stopped whilst literally doing nothing that could be considered suspicious.

[d0zer]

Racism is when someone gives a shit about the race of the people involved when deciding if it was right or wrong or whether it should get national news coverage.

Wait a sec, the media is racist for covering weeks of protests and rioting?

I think we've found your problem: you don't understand what racism is and how it manifests in society. I blame the souf.

[spoonitnow]

Wait a sec, the media is racist for covering weeks of protests and rioting?

I think we've found your problem: you don't understand what racism is and how it manifests in society. I blame the souf.

Here's some racism for you: people losing their goddamn minds and rioting because some idiot robbed a place and tried to beat the shit out of a cop who told him to stop standing in the middle of the road and got shot in the process. Somebody call the NAACP because this cop should lose his job.

[spoonitnow]

Surely you can see how this defense can be used in any situation where one person has a gun and the dead person does not. Gun = ultimate discretion to kill with impunity, innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. No gun = guilty until proven innocent, and not able to defend one's dead self.

I guess Michael Brown should have picked his targets better.

[d0zer]

Here's some racism for you: people losing their goddamn minds and rioting because some idiot robbed a place and tried to beat the shit out of a cop who told him to stop standing in the middle of the road and got shot in the process. Somebody call the NAACP because this cop should lose his job.

still not racism.

[MadMojoMonkey]

Yeah... St Louis has a racial divide that is not a part of small town life. I'm too lazy to post the image, but google "census race st louis" and search for images and you'll see what I mean.

Besides, the in-your-face name-calling racism is not at all the issue here. It's the institutionalized stuff that is persistent.
E.g.
No one involved in giving the credit is necessarily racist, they're just doing their job, and their job says, "people in that area don't generally pay off their loans." And "that area" can be a state, or a neighborhood, and it's traditionally poor neighborhoods that can't get credit, and big surprise that the poor neighborhoods tend to be full of minorities.

E.g.
Crack cocaine is no more addictive than powder cocaine, but carries a much harder prison sentence. No one enforcing the law is necessarily racist, but the fact is that one form of cocaine is popular with rich white people and the other with poor black people.

***
It's not helping a poor neighborhood who feels (at least somewhat correctly) like they have a harder time of it based on their skin color. Throw in a police force that has a different skin color and you're gonna have a lot of displaced problems boiling up in strange ways.

[MadMojoMonkey]

[...]because some idiot robbed a place and tried to beat the shit out of a cop who told him to stop standing in the middle of the road and got shot in the process. Somebody call the NAACP because this cop should lose his job.

For the record, you're taking the police side of the story at full face value, without nuance.

No one I know believes the fantastical villain you describe was on the scene that night. Nor would they defend said villainy.

As I understand it:
The victim was unarmed, the cop had reason to believe he was unarmed. The victim was shot many times by said cop, while witnesses on the scene say that the victim was not moving toward the officer when the shots were fired.

Witnesses say he did not try to beat up the cop. The cop was sitting in his vehicle, and asked to see ID, and the perp reached into the vehicle instead of holding his ID outside the vehicle. That makes cops nervous, but it's not an attack.

Besides, the shooting took place many minutes after that. It was really an unrelated incident. Sure, the reaching of the arm into the vehicle made the cop nervous, and distrustful, but the cop didn't immediately draw a weapon or attempt to physically subdue his "assailant".

The video of him robbing a store was not a related incident.


The standing in the road bit has no place in your argument.

EDIT: Pooty T is from the streets. How you gonna tell Pooty he can't walk across the street? youknowimsayin?

[Renton]

Jesse, I've noticed that you tend to carry a huge torch for the police in all of these cases. You appeal to police authority and superiority in a way that I know is the norm for Americans but I'm a little surprised to see it from you. Why do you seem to believe, like most Americans, that the ultimate crime in America is disrespecting a police officer? Why is the fact that he *allegedly* attacked a police officer any different than if he attacked a random guy on the street? Why is the fact that Brown had marijuana in his system and just committed the most minor of petty crimes (shoplifting in a gas station) relevant at all to Darren Wilson's culpability?

[JKDS]

Sidenote, but relevant: Activists are petitioning for police reform, and a better database of police killings

http://america.aljazeera.com/article...ium=SocialFlow

[spoonitnow]

For the record, you're taking the police side of the story at full face value, without nuance.

No one I know believes the fantastical villain you describe was on the scene that night. Nor would they defend said villainy.

As I understand it:
The victim was unarmed, the cop had reason to believe he was unarmed. The victim was shot many times by said cop, while witnesses on the scene say that the victim was not moving toward the officer when the shots were fired.

Witnesses say he did not try to beat up the cop. The cop was sitting in his vehicle, and asked to see ID, and the perp reached into the vehicle instead of holding his ID outside the vehicle. That makes cops nervous, but it's not an attack.

Besides, the shooting took place many minutes after that. It was really an unrelated incident. Sure, the reaching of the arm into the vehicle made the cop nervous, and distrustful, but the cop didn't immediately draw a weapon or attempt to physically subdue his "assailant".

The video of him robbing a store was not a related incident.


The standing in the road bit has no place in your argument.

EDIT: Pooty T is from the streets. How you gonna tell Pooty he can't walk across the street? youknowimsayin?

Okay I know you're the kind of guy who likes to have information before you form an opinion, but you're basing your opinion on information that was available on day one or day two only instead of everything else that has came out, and I'm confident that you'll feel much differently once you have the newer information.

I'm not basing anything I said on "the police side of the story." Instead, I'm basing it on the physical evidence and witness testimony that matches with the physical evidence.

Brown standing in the road is relevant because it's why Wilson stopped in the first place and it shows that Brown was looking for a confrontation. It was very much known as a thing in that area (and in many other parts of the United States) for people to stand in the road to try to provoke confrontation with people driving. It's fucking retarded, but unfortunately it's a thing, and it's what started the whole deal.

The video of Brown's robbery is relevant because it shows that he was engaging in violent behavior not very long before he attacked the cop (after provoking the conflict by the above).

[spoonitnow]

Jesse, I've noticed that you tend to carry a huge torch for the police in all of these cases. You appeal to police authority and superiority in a way that I know is the norm for Americans but I'm a little surprised to see it from you. Why do you seem to believe, like most Americans, that the ultimate crime in America is disrespecting a police officer? Why is the fact that he *allegedly* attacked a police officer any different than if he attacked a random guy on the street? Why is the fact that Brown had marijuana in his system and just committed the most minor of petty crimes (shoplifting in a gas station) relevant at all to Darren Wilson's culpability?

I hate cops.

Shoplifting does not include assaulting a store clerk (there's video footage as proof). That makes it a robbery.

One big-ass human being attacked a not-so-big-ass human being, and the not-so-big-ass human being defended himself inside of the car after having plenty of reason to believe that the big-ass human being was trying to kill him. These are the facts of the case, not speculation. There's nothing alleged about it.

I will be fairly surprised if Darren Wilson goes on trial, and there is no chance at all of him being found guilty of murder if he does because the facts clearly show that this was not the case.

[spoonitnow]

Hey don't miss my other thread on Stupid Child Porn Laws: http://www.flopturnriver.com/pokerfo...ws-198231.html

[spoonitnow]

Some anti-gun liberal idiot will make http://www.counton2.com/story/268510...r-sheriff-says about race in 10... 9... 8...

[Galapogos]

Here's some racism for you: people losing their goddamn minds and rioting because some idiot robbed a place and tried to beat the shit out of a cop who told him to stop standing in the middle of the road and got shot in the process.

That's not accurate though. People rioted initially because to them it looked like a white cop shot an unarmed black guy in an area where there's already plenty of racial tension. You're looking at this with the knowledge someone has weeks after the shooting with a pretty good idea of how it actually went down due to forensics reports and a compilation of statements.

For most people, the riots after a while were no longer about the shooting, it became something else where they're angry with the police themselves. Not necessarily for this recent incident but it sounds like things have been festering in this city due to the way their cops have handled themselves for a long time. Plus, there's the way they've handled themselves during the riots. They're either not well trained or have shown tendencies to abuse their power.

The point is, Michael Brown was the fuse, the riots later on were no longer fueled by that one thing. I would dare to speculate that if you lived in an area where there wasn't some seriously bad history between the police and the residents of that town there wouldn't be near enough anger to fuel riots like that even if it was a 100% illegal shooting caught on camera.

[MadMojoMonkey]

I like galapogos's perspective on this.

[spoonitnow]

That's not accurate though. People rioted initially because to them it looked like a white cop shot an unarmed black guy in an area where there's already plenty of racial tension. You're looking at this with the knowledge someone has weeks after the shooting with a pretty good idea of how it actually went down due to forensics reports and a compilation of statements.

Maybe people shouldn't riot when they don't know the facts of the case? I mean, when some shit goes down and I don't know what happened, the first thing I do is not burn down someone's business and loot the fuck out of people.

[Galapogos]

Maybe people shouldn't riot when they don't know the facts of the case? I mean, when some shit goes down and I don't know what happened, the first thing I do is not burn down someone's business and loot the fuck out of people.

They definitely shouldn't, but rioting isn't a rational response pretty much ever. It's emotional and with the way it sounds like things were in that town before the shooting it was just the incident needed to push things to the point of people being angry enough to riot.

Think about a guy who's just lost his shitty job, his wife just left him for his brother, and his dog just died. Then he gets a parking ticket and punches the meter maid in the face. You shouldn't punch a meter maids in the face for something as trivial as a parking ticket, especially since you got it for breaking the law, but the buildup from previous shit makes it hard for you to step back and be reasonable.

(ya my analogies suck but I think that one's good enough?)

[Renton]

I'll be the first to say I'm sorry for mixing up the gas station story with a different story. I completely forgot about him shoving the clerk and was not trying to be dishonest there.

I still don't think that that fact goes very far in explaining why someone's shooting death was justifiable. If, as you say, he was in the street looking for a confrontation, the police response to that shouldn't be to escalate one. It should be to talk him down from a safe distance, call for backup, use non-lethal force, anything and everything before doing anything that may lead to someone getting killed, regardless of how belligerent, drugged, or crazy the guy is. In fact, arguably even greater care should be taken to prevent the shooting death of a drug crazed man or a psychopath, because they clearly have mental problems that do not allow them to act rationally. Texas shouldn't execute retarded people, and St.L cops shouldn't execute crazy belligerent people.

I've said from the start that I don't think charging this officer is necessarily the answer, but you only have to watch the news even badly to see how often this shit happens, there's a police killing like every 2 or 3 days, and a handful of brutality cases a day; they're doing something wrong.

[Renton]

I've done a reasonable amount of digging on this case, and I've decided it's a clean shooting, 100% by the standards of basic U.S. police protocol. There's no doubt that the practically daily police shootings are a huge problem so it is easy to have biased views from the start and I succumbed to that like everyone else on this one.

I still think even justified police shootings could largely be prevented if our police system was overhauled.

[spoonitnow]

I still think even justified police shootings could largely be prevented if our police system was overhauled.

When a cop approaches a potentially hostile situation, the protocol is typically to put their hand on their gun to prepare to draw. I think changing this in some reasonable way could change a lot in the people getting shot by cops arena.

With that having been said, I'd like to see statistics on just how many cops shoot people each year broken down by area, etc.

[Renton]

Again, I defer to the private business model, not necessarily because it would automatically be better (it would, but that's another argument), but to compare the liability that a private security company would face when one of its employees shoots someone to death. The government is able to absorb the costs and reputation harm that comes with fiascoes like this because they have infinitely deep pockets and citizens aren't allowed to choose an alternative.

I suspect that in such a paradigm, normal beat cops wouldn't even be allowed to carry firearms (those would be reserved for swat teams or what not), and non-lethal tech would step up in a big way. But the way things currently are, such options aren't even on the table to consider.

[spoonitnow]

Again, I defer to the private business model, not necessarily because it would automatically be better (it would, but that's another argument), but to compare the liability that a private security company would face when one of its employees shoots someone to death. The government is able to absorb the costs and reputation harm that comes with fiascoes like this because they have infinitely deep pockets and citizens aren't allowed to choose an alternative.

I suspect that in such a paradigm, normal beat cops wouldn't even be allowed to carry firearms (those would be reserved for swat teams or what not), and non-lethal tech would step up in a big way. But the way things currently are, such options aren't even on the table to consider.

Agreed.