Let's examine that.
One of the criticisms of the Muslim community, post 9/11, was that Muslims needed to police themselves, that they needed to do something about the radicals amongst them. The exact same criticism can be leveled at the police. They are not only not interested in getting rid of the bad apples in their ranks, they actively protect them.
If other cops are not denouncing the rotten apples, if they are protecting them, then they are complicit. The stain of being a bad cop is on them.
if they are not denouncing acts of police thuggery, then they are part of the problem.
The "blue wall of silence" exists to protect bad cops. It is maintained by cops who probably think that they are good people.
But they are not. Every cop who sees another officer manhandle someone unnecessarily, who stands by while brutality is committed, who prevents even their own from aiding a person hurt by a brutal cop, is complicit in police brutality, in police terror.
"A few bad apples"... horseshit. Those bad apples have spoiled the entire barrel.
(This, from four years ago).
14 comments:
If you have 10 cops who heedlessly abuse the citizens they are paid to protect, and 1,000 cops who don't, but also don't do anything about the 10 who do, you have 1,010 bad cops.
I read something this morning wondering whether George Floyd would still be alive if some of the officers involved had been female. Don't know what I think about that, as I have been poorly treated by a corrupt female OPD officer, although it was a long time ago.
-Doug in Sugar Pine
A fair statement.
Bad cops exist.
Having said that, let us not forget that Mr. Floyd wasn't entirely innocent here either.
Cops are hired to hold criminals in check.
Mr Floyd had a criminal history.
He apparently did something that made 4 cops pile on him to hold him down.
It is odd that we have surveillance video of Mr Floyd being led from the drivers side of the car, and we have the cell phone video of the cops holding him down just before he died. (and depending on the autopsy report, he didn't die from asphyxia....and he was able to get enough air tell the cops, loudly, that "I can't breathe") but we haven't been shown the intervening video. Why is it that that portion of the video is hidden from us?
You make the unverifiable assumption that Mr Floyd was innocent in all of this, and the cops chose to kill him because they are bad cops....and he didn't struggle or resist arrest. I am under the impression that you have training as an attorney. Would these assumptions stand in court? Seems to me that you are assuming facts not in evidence.
But you are correct about the cops protecting bad cops. That needs to stop.
Why couldn’t we see what caused four cops to pile on an old man? Short of brandishing a weapon, I can’t see any reason to do so. And this isn’t the only such incident,, just the most egregious of a misuse of police power.
Most people are throwing the bullshit flag on the first autopsy. The one done by the city hireling. That was pretty much an excuse to exonerate the four cops and to head-off any backlash. Kinda like the excuse from the Buffalo police that the old man "tripped and fell". We've all seen the video. And from all reports I've seen, they already had Floyd in a car. The 'missing' video would show what, exactly? How they gently asked him to step out of the vehicle and lie down on the ground? Or if they dragged him out of the car and forced him to the ground?
Let's try an experiment B.
You lie on the ground, with someone putting their knee into your neck. Two others holding your legs. And add a fourth to put additional pressure on your mid-section. Now, let's see you not move or resist those four individuals as you try to get enough oxygen to survive. Think you can do it? For nearly nine minutes? I dunno, maybe you are tough enough.
Good Luck.
Dale
Explain to me. B, what would justify proning out Mr. Floyd on a hard surface in handcuffs (known to cause risk of suffocation) and then kneeling on his neck for over eight minutes.
This was a murder. Have the decency to acknowledge that much.
That logic fits in this subdomain and maybe others
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AXyeKbw3tU
Please, B., explain how Floyd was not innocent? Had the police conducted a forensic investigation and reviewed the video evident to establish if Floyd actually passed a supposedly fake $20? What we have is the statement of a store clerk and the presumption of innocence. Detain Floyd, OK...but how you do that influences how people react, and we saw what they were doing, there was no presumption of innocence there, he was, in the cops minds, guilty, period.
And there is the biggest problem here, the police having a double standard for a white suspect and a brown/black suspect. When the police stop and search brown/black motorists at over twice the rate of white motorists, but find less than half the criminal violations, what does that tell you? An intelligent cop would start searching more white folks cars. I’ve never been stopped for a light out, a block coworker has been stopped several times. The last time the cop told him his license plate light was out, he pull away and turned into the 7-11 less than a block away, got out and looked. The light was fine, and the cop driving by snapped his head forward when Willie looked over at him.
Another coworker is stopped on average once a month, and has never gotten a ticket. I drive the same stretch, in a cheaper vehicle, at the same time of day, and have been stopped once, and ticketed, in three years. It’s heartbreaking listening to the things he has had to teach his sons, things I’ve never needed to know.
B obviously believes in the Looking-Glass rule of justice: Sentence first, verdict afterwards.
Floyd was intoxicated at the time of arrest (and death) Fentanyl and Amphetamines.
Again, WHY did 4 cops choose to hold him down?
In the video I saw, his neck was not "crushed to the pavement" by the knee (which was, at the time, a standard and acceptable method of subduing and controlling a subject). He was able to gain enough air to shout that he "can't breathe".
I strongly doubt that either autopsy is unbiased. The smart thing to have done would have been to get another medical examiner from another jurisdiction, preferably black, to do an autopsy.
And why haven't we seen the intervening minutes of video? Could be they would explain a lot.
I will support Manslaughter. Aggravated homicide maybe. But unless the video shows that Mr Floyd did not struggle or attempt to flee, and the cops just piled on him with no reason, I can't support Murder. There had to be a reason he was proned out on the ground and held there. Probably why the Media hasn't shown the rest of the intervening video.
As for the original charge that he was passing fake $20 bills, I have no evidence one way or another.
It's not apples and oranges, either. Cops are accused of racism because they stop and arrest black people at a higher rate. Stops? Maybe. The data from the studies on that is sketchy both ways. Depends on what you want to believe. I could buy that part. Arrest? Yes, 'cause a greater number of African American have "issues" that the cops can arrest them for....Warrants, unpaid fines, smell of pot in the car, alcohol, "failure to appear", bench warrants, that sort of thing. Then the cops get accused of racism because they do their job. Odd how those segments of our society that DON't have those issues don't get arrested. White folks that have those same issues get treated the same way as black people with those issues. If they fight they get dealt with accordingly, just like black people....But they do so at a lower rate (ask any cop who fights arrest the most). Funny how that works. No issues, you get pulled over and checked out and go on your way. It is irritating, but not a death sentence. If yer clean, you don't get arrested...generally no matter what your race. If yer dirty, you Do get a trip to the pokey. If you fight to avoid arrest, well, that ends badly most of the time.....bruises or worse. Odd how that works.
And I get a lot of my data about arrests and how races act from Gary, Indiana and Hammond and nearby metro area cops that I shoot with. Some black, some white. Odd how they agree. All of them. Cops have their own institutional issues, many of which are cultural. They DO need to police their own ranks. As I tell them, "Y'all wear the same uniform, I can't tell which of you is good and which is bad. Your uniform gets the respect the people who wear it earn".
Flame away. I'm done wit this thread.
Your lack of humanity is appalling. That is all.
B., tell that equal treatment shot to the SMU professor who was politely approached by two Officers after passing a fake $20. Compare his treatment to that of Mr. Flynn, he has and found it very unequal. Your own comments betray the way the system is stacked against a black male...”more and so forth. My God man, have you been to a youth soccer match recently? All those Yeti tumblers the soccer moms are holding are full of wine, but alcohol is a black issue?
Dearest Glenda, perhaps because more men are stopped for looking suspicious than women? Ditto on the elderly versus the young. As for “defunding”, you simply don’t understand what the call is for. It’s for stopping the militarization of the police.
Let me ask a basic question. if you are holding a person down, are told that they have no pulse, and then prevent attempts to roll the individual over and revive them for over three minutes (all recorded on audio), what is the correct charge?
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