halfback20

To add to this, I do not think people realize how small of a candidate pool there is for police officers. And that number is continuing to dwindle.... that is not good for anyone. The last thing anyone wants - aside from criminals - is a society of lawlessness.

There are good people who would make good police officers who are interested in the jobs, but won't do it for several reasons.

This "fake news" campaign is one of the most troubling trends I've seen in my life. This focus and belief that the news if full of misinformation and agendas in my opinion is making people less informed. And even worse, it's making it harder for people to see the truth. What people are calling fake news, is often not much more than "news we don't like" or agree with. And it's given a rise and voice to conspiracy theorists, and fringe news sources that are way more biased and much more fake than the "mainstream media" ever have been. And that in my opinion, is leading to the current wave of polarization that we are currently experiencing. And as people drop or stop watching more and more sources of "mainstream news", and our consumption of news goes down, the less aware we become as a society. Sometimes news is going to suck. Sometimes we are going to hear things we don't want to hear, and the people and institutions we believe in are on the wrong side of a news story. That doesn't make the news fake, nor does it mean theres an agenda beyond just the need to inform the public. And that's led us to discredit things like science, or not pay attention to issues that are right in our faces.

I disagree a little here. I have seen several things on the mainstream news that are flat out lies, and I'm capable enough to do my own research when I'm skeptical about something.

I certainly don't have the right answers and I have no clue how law enforcement hires their people but I'd find a way to do a better job of vetting during the hiring process, as well as doing some type of examination with the current workforce. It could go a long way. But it's not as simple as just saying that. Not sure the real way to do that.

 

At the end of the day, mistakes are still going to happen. I mean with the number of cops that there are x 365 days, something is bound to happen from time to time. No matter how well you vet, you'll also still have some occasionally be racist, have to big of a chip on their shoulders, and etc. I think all of this ends any type of rug that might have gotten pulled over to protect that officer.

 

I wish we'd never have to deal with this, but how any police officer thinks they can get away with anything inappropriate, knowing that everything is caught on camera these days, is just dumb at his point.

 

Holding them accountable immediately helps. But I think we still see a lot of the same stuff across the country if they announced his arrest and charge with first degree murder the same day. I'd be curious how that would've played out.

Many police departments put candidates through an application, written and physical test, psychological test, extensive background investigation, polygraph test etc. What else would you add?

I'll add some smaller departments probably don't do all of this, because they can't afford to.

Keep mocking. Keep deflecting. Keep denying.

 

Watch what happens.

I don't see any of that. But what are you insinuating is going to happen?

Did you see the video?

A retired police officer from St. Louis was murdered, apparently trying to stop some looting. There is video going around twitter showing him lying on the ground. It is hard to watch.

I moved all of the posts for the David McAtee shooting to a thread focusing on that.

I was confused for a second. I didn't remember starting a thread.

There's only one video.

There are two camera angles in one video. Posted on their YouTube page.

No they didn't.

 

They released a surveillance video from his property during the incident. It shows him with a pair of tongs in his hand as he's tending to his grill.

 

Nowhere does it show David McAtee shooting at police.

Must be watching different videos.

Louisville Police have released video showing David Mcatee shooting at police in the most recent incident a couple days ago.

Cincy police will start you at $17 an hour to deal with this.

They need to double that.

How constructive is it to continue saying "it's not that bad"?

Who said that?

I didn't. I said the numbers don't reflect what some people are saying.

To answer your questions, yes. The numbers are incredibly low. And yes, social media would have you believe it is open season for law enforcement against African Americans. I get that. It is nowhere near how it is perceived.

 

Where the rub is though, why do we accept this as collateral damage? It is kind of like the COVID-19 thing in that we are conditioned to believe there is a segment of the population which will die because of COVID-19, so we should not inconvenience everyone else to spare X amount of lives. And being 100 here, where I get nervous is that we are aiming for utopia... which we should be. But one bad apple can set back the conversation for years. Trying to say "it is just one bad apple" is not constructive dialogue, even if it is the truth.

The numbers are very low and have been decreasing significantly since 2015. Some people want everyone to believe its getting worse and that is not true according to statistics.

How is it constructive to mislead people and in some cases outright lie about police killing unarmed civilians?

Is the number higher than zero?

Is anyone, in any profession, perfect? No. Can things improve? Yes. Is it as bad as some would have you believe? Not even close.

Has anyone actually researched the numbers on how many unarmed people are killed by police every year? Recent years?

My nephew lives in downtown Minneapolis. He has been posting Facebook live videos as he participates in the protests. On the first couple of days, the videos were powerful and uplifting, to see the sea of humanity, passionately gathering together.

But now it is starting to turn ugly. Sunday’s video showed people marching down the on ramp to the freeway, but a line of police officers stood across the bottom of the ramp, preventing the protesters from getting on the freeway. The protesters were getting closer and closer to the police barricade. The police began to roll tear gas canisters towards the crowds so they would back from the freeway.

In my observation, at that point, it was no longer peaceful. It was people being careless and stupid, trying to start an altercation with the Minneapolis police officers.

It hasn't been peaceful in Minnesota for a few days from what I've seen.

I don't know if they has enough time to deploy more deadly weaponry.

I saw the video. It's awful. Hope they caught the person.

Group of cops just got run over by a SUV in Buffalo. Cops had nonlethal weapons and no real way to defend themselves. These are crazy times.

If they were completely unarmed/ only carrying less lethal that's a failure of leadership.

Gonna be a while til the others receiving charges, but the probably will. Right?

No way to know on how fast charges will come but I wouldn't be surprised to see federal charges for all of them.

Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin charged with third-degree murder - Minnesota Reformer

The criminal complaint is here.

Information from the medical examiner is inside the complaint.

At worst, the officer was attempting to further terrorism. At best, he's on a power trip & was out of control. I think the terrorism argument is really, really difficult to prove. I wouldn't want to have to prove it.

I think we would need to know Minnesota's legal definition of terrorism first. I'd say that would be very difficult to prove in court.

Good. He deserves the maximum sentence in my opinion. What he did was horrible and cruel. My guess is federal charges will follow at the very least for him, maybe all 4 officers.

You're right, I accidentally edited out two important words when I posted that. I was referring to people "like them" who are irresponsible gun owners. Like them are the two words I accidentally left out, I'm all for gun rights in general.

 

But to put what I meant to say into perspective with a DUI driver killing a family while drunk and driving, they would lose their right to drive as well.

Right, but the DUI driver wouldn't cause everyone to lose their rights. That was my point. I get what you mean now though.

Georgia only has one Murder charge and two manslaughter charges available.

 

In Georgia Murder is mandatory life at the least, then life without parole and then the death penalty.

That's one thing people don't think about. Laws are different everywhere.

I don't see how they can prove that he was trying to rob the house, from any videos I've seen at least. The only thing going for them is that he tried to disarm the son which eventuality shot him. But I'm not sure that will work either unless they have a really good attorney and paralegals that can dig up more information on AA. The assumption of him committing a crime or attempting to at a later date isn't going to work imo. That said I'm not up on Georgia's laws and don't know anything about their court system, but I could see it being dropped down to aggregated manslaughter or whatever they call that down there.

 

Unfortunately that will likely happen even though I feel like AA was killed in cold blood myself. If there is ever a reason for people not being allowed to own guns, this father son combo fits the bill.

I don't see the logic of saying these two are an example of why people shouldn't be able to own guns. That's like saying a DUI driver who crashes and kills a family in another car is an example of why people shouldn't be allowed to drive.

They messed up, not me.

Fwiw, I think they will try some kind of self defense argument. I don't think it will work.

Absolutely.

 

Just don't act confused when I point out that you purposely avoided the question.

I answered the question, you just didn't like the answer.