Author Topic: Police militarization in the US, and its consequences  (Read 25045 times)

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Offline Aardwolf

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Re: Police militarization in the US, and its consequences
I'm blind, what part of what image indicates something is a paintball gun?

 

Offline Dragon

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Re: Police militarization in the US, and its consequences
On far right, there's a gun with a distinctive, paintball-style magazine on top. They're used as a less-lethal weapon for firing tear gas balls and the like.
I don't see how this picture was taken out of context since the topic is about militarization of police, and will show off the militarizing of police. Dude with the paintball gun makes me think sadist perhaps since he's the only one with a paintball gun. I'm back btw.
You're taking my quote out of context. I was saying that this went went beyond "militarized police" and into "paramilitary thugs". The_E was trying to use this as an example against police using military equipment, but it was a somewhat fallacious argument, because in this case, there are so many other things wrong with this situation that I think it's not really a representative case. Ferguson PD didn't go rogue because it had military equipment, nor is the equipment they had (dunno from where, perhaps from SWAT teams and/or actual military) anything any reasonable policeman would want to use. I was saying that the picture posted didn't so much show police militarization as police who are trying to act like marines and not like police.

 

Offline pecenipicek

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Re: Police militarization in the US, and its consequences
I'm blind, what part of what image indicates something is a paintball gun?
last guy on the right note the ball holder
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Offline Aardwolf

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Re: Police militarization in the US, and its consequences
Oh. Ha, I was wondering wtf that was.

 

Offline jr2

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Re: Police militarization in the US, and its consequences

6:28 is of interest.

HOWEVER, does not change situation much as they still reacted badly IMHO.

But does go to show why cameras for the police are an EXCELLENT idea. In this case, review recording, publish recording, problem solved.



Quote
#1 How’d he get from there to there?
#2 Because he ran, the police was still in the truck – cause he was like over the truck
{crosstalk}
#2 But him and the police was both in the truck, then he ran – the police got out and ran after him
{crosstalk}
#2 Then the next thing I know he doubled back toward him cus – the police had his gun drawn already on him –
#1. Oh, the police got his gun
#2 The police kept dumpin on him, and I’m thinking the police kept missing – he like – be like – but he kept coming toward him
{crosstalk}
#2 Police fired shots – the next thing I know – the police was missing
#1 The Police?
#2 The Police shot him
#1 Police?
#2 The next thing I know … I’m thinking … the dude started running … (garbled something about “he took it from him”)


 

Offline Bobboau

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Re: Police militarization in the US, and its consequences
if anyone wants to know why americans are so hell bent on keeping their guns, let us keep in mind what our cops are like.
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Offline Ghostavo

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Re: Police militarization in the US, and its consequences
Because pointing a gun at a police officer is surely the best course of action...
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Offline Bobboau

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Re: Police militarization in the US, and its consequences
I was speaking of the genesis of the desire, not the efficacy of it. and I was not trying to start a gun control argument in a thread not about gun control, so let's leave it as a joke and talk about why the police are racist and trigger happy.
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Offline Dragon

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Re: Police militarization in the US, and its consequences
I think that racism is the underlying cause here. Trigger happyness just results from them thinking about black people as not being "proper citizens", or so to speak. None of this would've happened if the police didn't think themselves better than people they were assigned to protect. Unfortunately, they do, and this is the result. Racism is a though problem, mostly because it's hard to tell actual prejudice from a myriad things that are not caused by skin color or anything like that (but since they happen to someone colored, they still call it racist). I've seen cases where attempts to regulate racism ended with certain people playing "the race card" to actually get preferential treatment, which isn't good, either (and indeed, it encourages actual racism). Something needs to be done, but I have no idea what it'd be.

 

Offline jr2

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Re: Police militarization in the US, and its consequences
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/08/18/us/michael-brown-autopsy-shows-he-was-shot-at-least-6-times.html

Read the entire article, you get slants both ways (against the cop and for).


From what I've seen it is possible the cop was just doing his job, but now no one will be likely to believe that because of the way the department handled the aftermath of the protests.

 

Offline Dragon

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Re: Police militarization in the US, and its consequences
Looks like four of those six shots hit him, but had comparatively little chance of killing him on the spot. However, I have a hard time believing that after 4 shots, he'd still be putting up resistance. It would seem that the officer first went for body shots, but hit way to the left, then (thinking it didn't work, as it is sometimes the case), went for the head instead. Perhaps he was stressed by being assaulted (a fair assumption) and he acted too fast to notice the guy was surrendering. Those situations happen fast, if there indeed was an assault (as he claims), then I could see anyone doing this. He'd have to pause to readjust his aim, so he still shouldn't have fired the two last shots, though. While it's a general rule with guns that you always shot to kill, a police officer should keep his eyes out for the signs of surrender.
Still, not grappling with a cop is common sense, especially if the violation was minor jaywalking. Though if it was the cop who grappled the guy first, then it'd be a much worse case. They're not supposed to do that in first place, especially if we're talking jaywalking.

However, that matters relatively little in light of all that happened. It could have ended with the case being investigated, the cop punished according to what exactly did he do, and that'd be the end of it. Instead, the PD chose to suppress the information people have full rights to, equivocate and muddle the case, as well as act like they were already 100% certain who was guilty. That was the real problem here, just how exactly the first shooting happened is somewhat irrelevant compared to things they've done later.

 

Offline deathfun

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Re: Police militarization in the US, and its consequences
This thread makes me wonder if in reality, you guys hired PMCs for peace keeping

"No"

 

Offline Dragon

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Re: Police militarization in the US, and its consequences
Given how they dressed, how they acted and how were they doing at keeping peace, I'm inclined to agree with you. :)

 

Offline Bobboau

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Re: Police militarization in the US, and its consequences
apparently one of the shots entered and exited his arm a few times. like you would expect to happen if it was fired along the length of his arm. like if he had reflexively put his arm up to block an attack.
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Offline karajorma

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Re: Police militarization in the US, and its consequences
On the other hand, the witness claims he was shot in the back and obviously wasn't. Not that I'd immediately discount the rest of the witness' statement based on that, if you're running away from someone shooting at you, you wouldn't notice what your friend was doing when he was shot.
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Offline Beskargam

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Re: Police militarization in the US, and its consequences
Odd. NPR says that the forensics supports the position that he was running away

 

Offline Mr. Vega

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Re: Police militarization in the US, and its consequences
Police should have no problem with being filmed. If they're doing nothing wrong, they've got nothing to be afraid of.

"People should have no problem with being filmed.  If they're doing nothing wrong, they've got nothing to be afraid of."  I feel like I've heard this argument somewhere before...

Look, I support police bodycams.  I support them because they are shown in case studies to reduce the level of behaviour used against police, reduce the amount of force exercised by police, improve accountability, and document evidence.  I think they're an excellent tool.

I also recognize that people - police included - have inherent privacy interests that cameras by their very nature invade, and therefore there is some reluctance to adopt them.  I think the benefits outweigh the privacy concerns, but the "if you've done nothing wrong then" argument is completely unacceptable everywhere it's used.  That's presumption of guilt on a circumstantial basis - you don't have to justify wanting privacy, you have to be justified in measures that reduce it.
For an individual to have the legal powers of a police officer and the normal right to privacy of citizens without said legal powers get is to give said person the ability to violate the rights of others with impunity. With this as the perfect case in point. Can you seriously not grasp this? I'll spare the line about great power and responsibility.
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Offline Scotty

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Re: Police militarization in the US, and its consequences
Mr. Vega, you're arguing against a straw man of your own creation reinforced by MP-Ryan's poor specificity and wording.

He is absolutely in favor of police bodycams.  That is literally in his post.

"They should have nothing to hide" is a ****ing godawful ****ty reason to justify it.  That's his complaint.

We now return to your thread in progress.

 

Offline Mr. Vega

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Re: Police militarization in the US, and its consequences
Mr. Vega, you're arguing against a straw man of your own creation reinforced by MP-Ryan's poor specificity and wording.

He is absolutely in favor of police bodycams.  That is literally in his post.

"They should have nothing to hide" is a ****ing godawful ****ty reason to justify it.  That's his complaint.

We now return to your thread in progress.
The power of a policeman can be extremely tempting to abuse and so in return the policemen surrenders some of his rights to privacy. It's a "if you have a special authority that could otherwise allow you to get away with doing wrong, there should be a price  to pay for that in privacy" argument.
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Re: Police militarization in the US, and its consequences
That is a different argument from the "If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" one, though.