unixknight

One of Baltimore's Finest is going to jail for 6 months for assaulting a man on the street. http://photographyisnotacrime.com/2015/05/baltimore-police-officer-will-serve-six-months-for-beating-caught-on-video/ Not that this happened during the riots... but it's this kind of thing that makes tension between the BPD and the people of the city a problem that ultimately exploded with the protests and rioting. From a related article: “Much like the public, I was shocked,” said Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony W. Batts. “I’m outraged. I’m disgusted by what I saw by an employee of the Baltimore Police Department. Nothing that I saw on that video is defensible, nor should it be defensible. And most importantly it’s unacceptable and will not be tolerated within this organization.” "Me and the male got into a physical altercation due to me being in fear of my safety and I received a punch to the body." -Officer Cosom "In fear of my safety" now being the expected get-out-of-trouble-free card for cops who cross the line. Good thing there was a camera on him or that hogwash would have remained the official story.

This is the statement released by the defense attorney for Mr. Webster, the Dover cop who kicked the guy in the face: “Tom Webster is innocent of this allegation.“Tom Webster was defending us from a noted gang member (Bloods) and armed robber at the time of the apprehension of Lateef Dickerson.“Tom is not guilty of any criminal offense and we look forward to an impartial Kent County Jury acquitting him.” Link I'm stunned the lawyer would even try that hogwash... "[he] was defending us from a noted gang member..." Oh man that's almost as funny as the biting story from a few posts ago... The guy had surrendered, was complying with the order to get on the ground, was making no aggressive moves of any kind, and by the way: He was acquitted of all charges so he wasn't even doing anything wrong when they stopped him, but this officer found it necessary to kick him in the face to defend us from... an innocent guy who had already surrendered. That he'd say that at all is something I find telling, in a way. He's trying to cast Webster as a hero so people will be sympathetic. Sadly, it'll probably work.

If it is, we'll all go to Hell together. I'll be driving the bus. This one ain't gettin' old for a while...

The thing is, for minor infractions, like selling loose cigarettes or speeding, the penalty is generally a simple fine. Hitting someone in the wallet is an effective punishment. This is what baffles me about the Garner case.

I know what you're getting at there. I'm only saying that, in the context of our little discussion here, you don't have to worry about anyone thinking the cops literally, intentionally, choked Mr. Garner to death for selling cigarettes. It is true that there are people out on the interwebz who are deliberately trying to inflame the discussion by casting the cops (in both cases as well as others) as bloodthirsty racist monsters and all that nonsense, and to the extent that you're referring to that stuff, you're right to make the distinction. However, I'd just hope that, since we're all friends here, a little benefit of the doubt is on the table :)

Brother, I get what you're saying, I see it from your point of view, and I'm asking you to take a moment to see it from mine. There is just no reason why someone committing a crime so minor as selling cigarettes (which, IMHO shouldn't even be a crime but whatever...) should be dead as a direct result of contact with the police over it. We have agreed that they didn't go in with the intent to kill him, and we've agreed that he didn't deserve to die, so that covers the salient aspects. The point I'm making here is that the police escalated the level of the confrontation to the point where a life was lost. Mr. Garner did not escalate it, the police did. As a direct result of that escalation, a man is dead. Period. Now, I don't know if you were unaware or if it's a typo in your post, but the situation where Mr. Garner died after selling cigarettes in New York City is an entirely separate incident from Mr. Gray being killed after doing nothing in Baltimore. The incident with Mr. Garner was certainly a factor in increasing the frustration felt by the protesters in Baltimore, but they are separate incidents that we're talking about here. Your post seems to overlap the two. Back to the situation with Mr. Garner. He was selling single cigarettes. Yes, the cops didn't show up and blow him away for selling cigarettes. WE GET IT, BRAH. You've made your point on that and the horse is quite dead, I assure you. Nobody has even disputed that point. What we're saying is that the NYPD needlessly escalated the level of force, over an extremely minor infraction, to the point where a man died. So from where I'm sitting, he was killed over selling cigarettes. Whether that was the intent of the cops on the scene or not, he died because he was selling cigarettes. So if we're arguing the question of "He died over selling cigarettes" being equivalent to "he was killed for selling cigarettes" well that's an argument of semantics. Yes, the two sentences do have differing implications, but I assure you, we are all adults here and we know the difference. I believe both LP and I have been sufficiently clear on acknowledging that difference.

I get what you're saying, but I think at this point you're arguing semantics... Which I also understand because it's important to be clear, but consider this... When the police make contact with a person, especially when there are several officers, as was the case with Mr. Garner, the potential exists for things to become deadly. The cops are the ones with guns, training, numbers, and (usually) body armor in addition to "nonlethal" equipment like pepper spray, tasers, etc. Given that, they chose to stop Mr. Garner, with all of that deadly force behind them. Doesn't that strike you as overkill when considering the crime here was selling loose cigarettes? This is exactly why the police don't normally enforce that ordinance. It would be like the cops coming to place you under arrest because you built a fence in your yard that extends onto a public easement. Illegal, but not enforced by police. So it was an inappropriate level of force sent to deal with the incident. Things got haywire for whatever reason, but ultimately it all comes down to the selling of cigarettes. Mr. Garner is dead over the selling of loose cigarettes. Now, as I said, I appreciate your desire to be clear, but I would also hope you'd be equally enthusiastic about pushing for clarity when people arguing form the other side use inflammatory statements, like calling guys like Freddie Gray a "criminal" or a "thug" as a way to minimize his humanity when discussing his untimely death and trying to absolve the Baltimore police of responsibility.

Except that LP hit the nail on the head. The only reason... LITERALLY the only reason Garner was stopped was for selling cigarettes. And he was dead a few minutes later. Resisting arrest? Please. He wasn't being combative, he had no weapon, he made no attempt to flee. Yet the officers pounced on him like they'd caught Osama Bin Laden himself and were vying for a million dollar bounty. The police reaction was utterly excessive. Full stop. They even violated their own departmental policy by using that particular hold on him. I was reading about this and it turns out the law against selling loose cigarettes is NOT typically enforced by police, but is more of a regulatory thing. What's baffling to many analysts of the incident is why they stopped Mr. Garner in the first place over something so believably minor. What most likely happened is some local business, whose sales of cigarettes were being hurt by this activity, instigated police involvement by applying pressure somewhere. So yes, he was killed for selling cigarettes. Was that the intent of the officers? Of course it wasn't and nobody, including LP, has said otherwise. Nevertheless there was gross negligence on the part of officers who normally wouldn't have even been involved. The whole situation stinks and there were no consequences for the men who caused Garner's death. People see this, and then feign surprise when people in places like Baltimore riot over another death for ridiculous causes.

A couple of problems with The Sun article being discussed in that link. "She charged Freddie Gray’s arresting officers with “false imprisonment” because she said the knife that Gray had on him was legal. In fact, as The Sun reported, the Police Task Force found it to be illegal after all. " This is circular logic. If the police screwed up on the nature of the knife in the first place, I'm not sure how a police task force is suddenly more credible than the prosecutor. Also, The cops didn't go after Freddie Gray because he had a knife. They found that AFTER they ran him down. "And she has created a new expectation in the city: that police officers who arrest without what she considers to be probable cause (a subjective standard) are subject not just to civil action (the current norm) but criminal action. Mere mistakes, or judgments exercised under duress, can land them in the pokey." Well, no. These officers were charged because their actions directly caused the death of a man who wasn't even committing a crime. If all they had done was make a false arrest, then this WOULD have remained in the civil arena. The entire mentality behind this article seems to think the fact that these cops KILLED an innocent man is irrelevant and so the article itself amounts to little more than a red herring.

I wish everybody already believed that. Elsewhere (not in this forum) I have seen people defending Slager... More people than you'd think honestly believe that if a suspect runs from a cop, the officer has not only the right but the duty to shoot them down. Remember the classic, almost meme level line from back in the day? We heard it in lots of crime TV shows. "Stop, or I'll shoot!" Fiction? Of course... but it did leave plenty of impressionable people with the idea that this sort of thing was legal and justifiable.

The problem is accountability. The cop who killed Mr. Garner suffered - ZERO - consequences, even though everyone acknowledges that he used a hold technique that was forbidden by department policy for this very reason. As I mentioned earlier... Does anyone believe that Mr. Slager would be facing murder charges if there had NOT been a video of him killing Mr. Scott?

So... if I'm murdered while doing something illegal, I forfeit my status as the victim of the murder? Well sure, it's a matter of perception, but if you've got someone in a headlock and they're prone on the ground, or if they're running away, or if they're severely injured, claims of imminent danger don't hold up well to scrutiny. I'm not sure what you mean about people of different cultures having different perceptions. Are you suggesting the cops' perception of imminent danger is different form that of an inner city youth?

No, we do what we've already done; decide that the use of a deadly weapon is ONLY justified when someone's life is in imminent danger. If a suspect is running away and the only thing that will stop him is shooting him... then he gets away. That's how it works. How desensitized a culture we are where people will say it's better to kill someone and end their life than to risk the possibility that they might escape, especially if they haven't even committed a violent crime. This isn't war.

Yeah this. As I mentioned a while back we do it to separate ourselves from the danger. "I won't be in a motorcycle accident because I ride very carefully." "I won't get raped because I never walk around alone." "I won't have to worry about police brutality because I obey the law." By acting like the victims caused their own problems, we give ourselves the illusion that we have enough control to never become victims. I agree too, and it's an extension of the illusion above. "Freddie Gray would be alive today if he hadn't run." "Eric Garner would be alive today if he hadn't been selling cigarettes." "Walter Scott would be alive today if he paid his child support..." and then proceed to defend the people who actually killed these men... ...yes, there really are people who believe Slager did no wrong in gunning down Mr. Scott. And it's easy to do that. It means no cop will ever kill you, or any of the good people you associate with. No worries, it's someone else's problem.. someone else who brought it on themselves. Remember back in the good ol' days when a cop would shoot someone and the rationale was "He had a gun." And it was usually true. Later, we became more permissive. "It LOOKED like he had a gun" became sufficient to absolve an officer of blame. Now, it's good enough if he just claims "I was in fear for my life." There will always be those who rush to defend the cop, and look down at those who rush to blame the cop, as if somehow they weren't just as biased and unable to look objectively at it. (Yes, in fairness, that goes both ways.) The riots in Baltimore happened because our society is much too tolerant of people, especially black people, being gunned down by cops... followed by apologists who say the victim had it coming. As if selling drugs, failing to pay child support or selling cigarettes was reason enough for them to die. This is why I said early in the thread that we saw this coming.

I think what Night is trying to say is that if someone needs the Church to help them by paying their electric bill, that frees up funds from their paycheck to buy cigarettes, when they may possibly have been able to pay that particular bill themselves if they didn't smoke.

Funny how their tax dollars have to support only those things that are friendly to them, but my tax dollars are still being taken to fund Planned Parenthood.

Not gonna comment on whether I think the marriage should proceed or not, because I don't know enough about the situation to even form an opinion, let alone be confident enough to say what should happen. But I did want to toss in a 2 cent thought... People are reacting here to one side of the story. Frankly, in reading between the lines I'm rather sympathetic to the boyfriend. I can understand completely why he'd be frustrated and sensitive. He's trying to look forward to his wedding to a woman he loves, and he probably feels like a yo-yo... Up and down, up and down... Wedding's, on, wedding's off wedding's on, wedding's off. I'd probably have a short fuse too at this point. I bet he wakes up every morning dreading the possibility that today, the wedding will be called off yet again, and he'll have to play the patient, longsuffering fiancee' who must, at this point, feel like if she really wanted to be with him this problem wouldn't keep popping up. If I were in his shoes, I'd probably have at least postponed the wedding if not canceled it outright just because by now his emotions must be worn thin. I mean, think about it. He heard the news about his horrible illness and stayed with her and continued loving her. Does that entitle him to be loved back? Well no it doesn't, but some part of him must be feeling a little under appreciated here. I dunno that's all I've go really... Just sad to see people joining the bandwagon that characterized him as an antisocial abuser. Remember, folks... We've only heard one side.

I've seen people do all sorts of things during Sacrament meeting, like reading novels, doodling, snoozing, reading Scripture, reading Dungeons & Dragons sourcebooks, reading E-books... It seems to me that singling out mobile devices is a little odd unless the use of the device is disruptive to others. I would think if the issue is that the youth aren't paying enough attention, then it's better to address that generically, and let the mobile device issue attend to itself.

Dr. Ben Carson, Neurosurgeon says: The type of severe spinal injury suffered by Freddie Gray "requires a great deal of direct pressure to that area," meaning, "there is a high likelihood that direct trauma occurred," the presidential prospect wrote on Facebook Friday. "It would be almost impossible to acquire such an injury by simply rolling around in a van, regardless of how violently," he wrote Friday on Facebook. "Let us hope that whoever inflicted said trauma did not intend to yield such an outcome." Link

If there were one, big shadowy worldwide conspiracy, the state of the world today leads me to believe such conspirators are almost comically incompetent.

That's true, but I keep reading stories about greater and greater restrictions placed on them... So I can't help but wonder how much longer they'll be there.

Wow that's pretty cool. I never knew such a thing existed either. No doubt there are those who don't like the idea if they see it as mixing church and state... but bleh. If it helps, it's a good thing.

Great, now I'm going to Hell because I laughed at that...

There'll always be people out there calling for that. I'm talking about within this thread :)

Again, nobody here has been calling for railroading. And... if it were up to you, who would do the investigation? Meanwhile, I found an interesting article talking about how on average, violent crime in America is down yet incidents of police shooting people is up. Kinda leads me to scratch my head when I hear apologists talking about how cops need all this military equipment to do their job.