About Police Shootings (in America, Duh)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhdpG2XzRXQ&app=desktop

Another one it seems

The first officer seemed like a decent guy. I watched this whole thing play out thinking, okay this isn't the guy. He's going to call for backup and its going to be someone else that actually shoots. Because the first officer seemed very respectful, even helpful, but clearly he was the driver and he started off in the wrong. He had clearly fallen asleep while waiting in line at the drive through. Therefore, they did have the right to arrest him.

The inconsistencies in the man's story could be simply due to not paying attention to the person who ordered the drinks. But doesn't matter. Both cops acted professionally, in my opinion, up until the actual shooting. And it wasn't the officer who seemed like a decent guy because that officer, to me, seemed to go out of his way to excuse the driver. But because he drove into the grass and had to back up, it was clear that, whether sleepy or drunk, he should not have been operating a vehicle. And he couldn't ignore that. So he followed protocol and called for a sobriety test. I cannot fault him for that and it appeared he was on the ground when the shooting happened. I cannot fault Wendy's for calling in the first place since the guy was originally in the drive thru.

And we can't be so defensive that we blame everyone when a bad outcome happens. We have to be fair. That being said, both officers knew that Rayshard Brooks was unarmed and the only thing he had to hurt them with was the same taser that was he deserved to be used on him for resisting if it was violent enough to warrant that level of force. It's still, after all, 2 on 1. What Brooks did was all kinds of stupid and dumb and perhaps he wouldn't have acted that way if he wasn't intoxicated which I believe he was. Maybe he did only have 1.5 drinks but if he had been smoking weed with those drinks then that could definitely explain his inability to operate the vehicle and stay awake. So I believe he was intoxicated and couldn't be trusted to drive anywhere at that point. If they wanted to they could have had someone come pick him up, but they didn't have to. My problem is that the officer involved thought it was okay to shoot this man in the back when he's running away. What he did was all types of stupid but did he deserve to die? No. But the police are trained that when a suspect has a weapon (in this case a non-lethal weapon) they are allowed to fire. It's not right.


https://apnews.com/aba8f6998ba54b06acfde0dccdc8819f

I have to be honest, this one is not so cut and dry as George Floyd. Youre probably not going to like what I have to say.

The whole thing went bad at the moment when the officer attempted to cuff Mr. Brooks. This moment is a conundrum for officers. Sometimes giving a person time to process the situation will result in their cooperation. Logical people can look at their options in the face of arrest and realize that fighting and trying to run away is going to make everything worse. I think it is reasonable to consider that Brooks was so intoxicated that he really thought he had a chance of not being arrested. Which he was very obviously too intoxicated to be left alone. The law no longer allows officers the choice of letting drunk people drive away. Perhaps if the officer had explained this and allowed Mr. Brooks a few minutes to process the information, PERHAPS he would not have attacked the officers.

The conundrum part is this: in many instances the suspects understand that if they are arrested theyre going to spend a lot of time behind bars. Previous arrests, the nature of the charge/s, probation violations, existing warrants, etc. For those people, the more time they have to think about whats happening, the more likely they are to fight and to run. In many cases if the officer just puts the cuffs on them in an authoritative and assertive fashion, it will work. At that point, fighting and running are not options. So how does an officer tell which is which?

One thing they could have done different is to keep chasing him and call for backup. But Brooks turning back and aiming the taser at the officer really complicates this situation. Its easy to say “its just a taser” but if you say that, i dont hear “its just a taser” i hear “i have never been in anything remotely close to a dangerously violent situation, before”. Its not “just a taser” in the moment, its an attack with potentially deadly consequences for the police. You have to appreciate something about the mentality and reality of a person who is carrying a gun: anything that incapacitates them even for only a moment is a deadly threat because their gun can be taken from them and used against them or an innocent bystander. This guy was just whooping on both of them. We have the advantage of not being in the moment, ourselves. They didnt.

At the end i just have to say it like this: if you point a weapon at cop, of course theyre gonna shoot you. What else do you think they would do? Ive likely had much more interaction with the police than anyone else here (certainly more than anyone in the community had admitted to) and im telling you: they would have shot me in this situation, too. Mr. Brooks did not die because he is black. He died because he broke the law, he beat up the police whose duty it was to ardest him, and then he pointed a weapon at them.

I have very little criticism of what you said. Brooks did some dumb sh*t for the dumb sh*t record books. Excuse my french.

But the point of the matter is that you shouldn't have to be a rocket scientist to avoid getting murdered or executed. It is not necessary to apprehend a suspect at all costs and if you can't make the arrest then you should be allowed to kill. No. That should never be the calculus. It should never be "oh you touched my weapon? I get to shoot you now." I understand how dumb what he did was and I can't defend that dumb stuff. I can only defend his right to live and imagine how it could have been different if maybe he was white. That's the key question.

Like you said, if things had been explained to him, maybe it would have ended differently. I don't know if it was drunk, high, or 80% ignorance, but he seemed brand new to all of this stuff that he was being asked to do. So much that it annoyed me. And I know those officers were annoyed, and the second more than the first, but that doesn't give anyone the right to shoot.

If they said, hey we have a drunk tank. We need to take you there until someone can pick you up because we cannot leave you here with access to a vehicle. You might kill someone and/or yourself.

Brooks was a human being. As such he had a fight or flight response. A lot of people intellectually don't consider this and expect a person to comply because if it was them they wouldn't worry about being murdered in that situation. But there has been more than a few situations where I've seen the black suspect over react (which I'm not excusing overreactions) because in that moment they are afraid for their lives. That fear doesn't have to be rational because cops use the same fear to justify their shootings. But they are the ones who have to be trained. They are the ones being paid to respond rationally. They are the ones who should be less sensitive to dangerous situations, not more. So we have to temper our expectations when talking about suspects who have heard and seen other suspects in same or similar circumstances, even minor offences, wind up dead, not because of what they did was so terrible, but because the cop decided their lives weren't worth a chase on foot. I remember when TV shows used to have these investigative scenes about whether or not the suspect's back was turned to the officer because he wasn't allowed to shoot them in retreat.

Again... it looks dumb but when you don't know what's going to happen next you might feel like you have a split second to act in order to save your life.

This article, in my opinion, is a must read.

https://medium.com/@OfcrACab/confessions-of-a-former-bastard-cop-bb14d17bc759


This is a confession. Once you read this article you will probably understand what black people fear much more clearly. I wont give further commentary on it unless someone reading it wants to discuss finer points.

My question is why does only black people being killed by cop's come to light but not white people ? I heard of an incident that an innocent white man was smothered to death in the exact same way George died about four months prior the George incident , so why hasn't people rioted over that ? Or protested over that ? The answer I think is the far left just wants to cause trouble and blame the so called racists in America including our prez Donald Trump .

Well, I disagree that the far left just wants to cause trouble and blame racists, but can I know you reasoning?

Police reform which would hopefully include de-escalation and rules of engagement with the use of fire arms as a last resort as well as psych evaluations for police officers will likely benefit everyone. No one should be murdered by a peace officer.

Further, there are instances in which police officers are used when social workers, psychiatric emergency response teams, and other mental health workers could be used

Well first most of them say we don't need guns because we have the police , then they say the police needs to go . So I think there plan is once one of them gets into office and all guns are gone besides the military then we can't revolt to a corrupt government . They blame everything on guns but honestly if everyone had a firearm arm at all times then no one would be stupid enough to do a mass shooting , provided that everyone takes a phsyc test before being able to have one . The reason why I blame the far left on the matter is because they are the ones calling for such things . If George could say something about the riots I agree with his brother that he would want it to be peaceful . So if they ain't doing it according to how the person they are rallied for then who are they doing it for ? My answer is the far left who wants to cause panic so they can take advantage of people being even more divided and antifa who orchestrates these violent "protests" .

Lots to unpack here, let's start by asking "whom do you mean when you say "far left"?