Dallas Attack Leaves 5 Dead: Sniper Ambush of Police During Protest

[Ivan Seeking]

and possibly all of Dallas. Four officers are dead already.

Eleven Dallas law enforcement officers were shot, four fatally, on Thursday by what is believed to be two snipers who opened fire during a demonstration downtown over recent police shootings in Minnesota and Louisiana, the Dallas police chief said.

The snipers fired from an elevated positions on police officers minutes before 9 p.m. CT, according to Dallas Police Chief David Brown. He described the shootings as "ambush style."

...The suspect in the standoff with police "has told our negotiators that the end is coming, and he is going to hurt and kill more of us, meaning law enforcement, and that there are bombs all over the place in this garage and downtown," Brown said...

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/da...cross-u-s-over-police-shootings-black-n605686

I'm not surprised. Every black man I saw on TV today was obviously personally devastated by the events of the last couple of days; as if they have gone beyond anger to despair. It was striking and noticeable even in Obama. He looked so incredibly sad. But I saw this in everyone of color today. Some unstable person or someone on the edge was bound to lash out.

Correction, five dead.

Late edit: Another correction. I thought one of the suspects in custody had already indicated this is an attack in response to the killing of two black men by police, but we don't know that. I think they were referencing the protest march and I misunderstood.

 

[Borg]

I woke up this morning thinking about the black man who was killed in Minnesota by a police officer. I saw the video on the news last night and it really saddened me that he was essentially gunned down for a broken tail light. Then I saw this story. This is a really sad day in this country for both communities.

 

[jim hardy]

Yes Borg one has to wonder how it happened that the Minnesota policeman felt compelled to shoot.
In the video i watched, the victim's girlfriend says the man did exactly what he should have done -
-apprised the officer he was permitted and carrying-
then reached for his wallet
whereupon by her account
the officer said "don't move"
and started shooting when the victim commenced to raise his hands, presumably in the submissive gesture of showing his empty hands to the officer.

7:07 here, caution beginning is bloody
http://heavy.com/news/2016/07/falco...h-uncensored-shooting-youtube-shot-by-police/

What a profoundly sad mistake.

Sadder yet we have among us a vicious segment that enjoys murder and mayhem and is easily stirred to lawlessness.
I think they are being exploited.
....

Blue lives matter too.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Wow, they took the guy out with a robot bomb. I've never heard of that being done before.

 

[nsaspook]

This doesn't seem to be a chance event like the Minnesota policeman freaking out with a permit holder as this was well planned and executed unfortunately. The police used anti-terror tactics because of a fear of explosives on the subject but nothing was found so I would take the words of the killer to the police negotiators with a large grain of salt.

During an hourslong standoff after the attack, in which two civilians were also wounded, one suspect told police negotiators that “he was upset about Black Lives Matter,” the Dallas police chief, David O. Brown, said on Friday.

“He said he was upset about the recent police shootings,” Chief Brown said. “The suspect said he was upset at white people. The suspect stated he wanted to kill white people, especially white officers.”

The police killed that suspect using an explosive delivered by a robot, he said, and arrested three other people. The chief said the snipers had worked together, firing rifles from triangulated positions, some of them looking down from elevated posts in downtown buildings.
UPDATE:
It appears that the dead sniper, identified as Micah X. Johnson, 25, was the sole gunman, a senior law enforcement official said. Officials at first said that at least two snipers had carried out a coordinated ambush, firing rifles from triangulated positions, including from one or more elevated posts in downtown buildings.

Mr. Johnson, an Army veteran who lived in the Dallas area, apparently had no criminal record in Texas. Investigators have not turned up any evidence that he had ties to the Black Lives Matter movement or to political groups. The official said that Justice officials have reached out to the Pentagon to obtain Mr. Johnson’s military records.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/09/us/dallas-police-shooting.html?_r=0

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

We don't need ISIS to rip our own country apart. I'm afraid to say I don't know what the solution is here. There are some deep trenches being dug and decades of problems piling up. We need some peaceful civil revolutions, but can we come together to achieve them or are we just always going to battle.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

We don't need ISIS to rip our own country apart. I'm afraid to say I don't know what the solution is here. There are some deep trenches being dug and decades of problems piling up. We need some peaceful civil revolutions, but can we come together to achieve them or are we just always going to battle.

For starters, don't kill people pulled over for a broken tail light. I know as well as anyone how dangerous the inner cities can be and the cops have a very tough job. But I can also completely understand why black men feel they are being hunted like animals. Since the advent of mobile phones we are seeing first hand what blacks have been claiming for decades.

Did you notice that when the guy in MN was shot, he laid there and died while the cops offered comfort to the cop who shot him! There wasn't even an attempt to give aid.

Yesterday, Don Lemon, on CNN, was talking about his days in Atlanta working for CNN as a late-night anchor. His mother always wanted him to check in with her when he got home for fear that he might be pulled over by the cops and killed. A black man driving a Mercedes late at night is in their minds a sitting duck for law enforcement. Well, actually his point was that social status doesn't matter. All that matters is his color.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

For starters, don't kill people pulled over for a broken tail light.

So they had a policy to kill people for tail lights? We should end that yes. Joking aside, how do you get rid of bad cops? Were there warning signs for these cops? In my city there is a cop shortage. How to supply without rushing cops through training?

 

[jim hardy]

Not having been there
but having watched the video posted by his girlfriend , linked up above,

he was shot for
stating he had a gun,
reaching down out of the officer's sight,
then raising his hands after being told "dont move"
watch the video and tell me if I'm wrongDid he have the gun in his hand ? She didn't say.

The cop should have not fired if the man didn't have his gun in his hand .

fair enough ?

 

[PeroK]

Whatever the specific circumstances, speaking as a white European, I would be terrified of the police if I were a black American. Black American males appear to be living in a country where police officers feel empowered to shoot them dead at the least provocation. I can't imagine what that must feel like: law enforcement not to protect you as a citizen, but to threaten and intimidate you at every turn, and potentially shoot you dead without warning.

 

[nsaspook]

The cop should have not fired if the man didn't have his gun in his hand .

fair enough ?

Agree but that case stinks to the high moon of an panic over-reaction to innocent compliance. I don't like the fact we are overloading cases with difference facts into one large police shooting blacks generic object. I see very little police linkage directly related to racial attitudes between cases other than the fact the victim is black.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shootings/

Another case of seeing a gun that wasn't there in a stop.


http://www.usnews.com/news/us/artic...leads-guilty-in-shooting-of-unarmed-black-man

 

[PeroK]

Agree but that case stinks to the high moon of an panic over-reaction to innocent compliance.

Another case of seeing a gun that wasn't there in a stop.


http://www.usnews.com/news/us/artic...leads-guilty-in-shooting-of-unarmed-black-man

The most chilling aspect of this is that, after shooting the man, the officer says with grotesque insouciance "seatbelt violation". On a gas station forecourt? It's just any excuse to stop a black man and point a gun at him.

 

[PeroK]

Not having been there
but having watched the video posted by his girlfriend , linked up above,

he was shot for
stating he had a gun,
reaching down out of the officer's sight,
then raising his hands after being told "dont move"
watch the video and tell me if I'm wrongDid he have the gun in his hand ? She didn't say.

The cop should have not fired if the man didn't have his gun in his hand .

fair enough ?

Black citizens should not be subject to a bizarre game of life and death, where someone points a gun at them and if they do or say the wrong thing they get shot. If a policeman pointed a gun at me and said "don't move", I might well put my hands up. That's not a crime worthy of the instant death penalty.

I wouldn't want to play that game: do exactly as the officer says or get shot.

 

[russ_watters]

Black American males appear to be living in a country where police officers feel empowered to shoot them dead at the least provocation.

That perception is real, but is the perception a reality? Or, rather, is the issue as bad as people think or getting worse? I don't know and nobody else does either because police departments aren't required to keep and report such statistics. But what definitely has changed since 1991 when Rodney King was videotaped getting beaten, sparking the worst race riots since the 1960s, is that video cameras and the capability of sharing videos with the world are more common.

Since no one knows whether the problem of police shooting blacks has gotten worse, no one knows if there is any legitimacy to the anti-police/white movement sweeping America these past 7 years. But ultimately, it doesn't matter anyway. Such things are built on perceptions, not realities. So they can only be fixed by changing perceptions. They also can only be directed by the government from one side of the issue (the police side)...though perceptions can at least be influenced on the other side. Here's some things that can be done:

1. Mandate reporting of police shootings at the federal level and analyze/study them. This will help ground perceptions in reality and pinpoint areas of concern.
2. Mandate body cameras and community relations training for police. Make better rules for inter-department discipline and stress management. For example, make rotations from a beat to a desk a normal thing, without a stigma, to cool officers down after stresses.
3. National leadership must take a reconciliatory posture instead of acting to widen the divide. Don't take sides -- or better yet, take both sides...but wait long enough to make sure you have the facts right before opening your mouth and putting your foot in it. Obama, specifically is a big part of the problem...though his role in worsening the tensions ends in 6 months.

What would be nice, but isn't something the government could have any impact on (except for Obama*, but he won't):
4. Change inner-city black culture to where it produces a higher fraction of upstanding citizens and a lower fraction of criminals and wards of the state.

At least doing #1-3 can help soften perceptions and have an impact on the racial strife. The larger of the two sides of the problem though, is something people have to choose to fix for themselves.

*As I've said before, but will amplify: the failed promise of being post-racial will likely be one of Obama's primary legacies.

 

[jim hardy]

If a policeman pointed a gun at me and said "don't move", I might well put my hands up. That's not a crime worthy of the instant death penalty.

I wouldn't want to play that game: do exactly as the officer says or get shot.

Speaking as a US white guy

When a policeman approaches me, how is he to know whether he's walking up to Mr Rogers or Machine Gun Kelly?

Policemen MUST be in control of an encounter on the street. It's their job and they are trained for it.
So i make sure my demeanor is one of co-operation
and i make sure my hands are where he can see them
as much out of respect for the risky job he does
as respect for the sidearm he carries.

If there's abuse of police power the place to redress it is in the courtroom where I and the police are equals .
Because out on the street we aren't equals. I'm outgunned.

I'm not saying there aren't some bad cops or there aren't mistakes made, as in nsaspook's video
just that cops are people in a dangerous vocation .

If a policeman pointed a gun at me and said "don't move", I might well put my hands up. That's not a crime worthy of the instant death penalty.

put yourself in his shoes for a moment and think about what you just said -
i too would put my hands up, slowly and with palms open so he could see i was not a threat. If his gun is drawn he already feels threatened and i'd better be doing what i can to defuse the situation.
That's just common sense . When dealing with any kind of lethal power, be it electricity or a police gun pointed at you, you don't tempt fate . You move deliberately and contemplate the result of every move you're about to make.

old jim

 

[nsaspook]

Speaking as a US white guy
When a policeman approaches me, how is he to know whether he's walking up to Mr Rogers or Machine Gun Kelly?

Realistically your Violence Risk Assessment (threat) score would be much lower than a young black male in a car with a busted tail-light and a possible gun.

 

[Tobias Funke]

Since no one knows whether the problem of police shooting blacks has gotten worse, no one knows if there is any legitimacy to the anti-police/white movement sweeping America these past 7 years. But ultimately, it doesn't matter anyway. Such things are built on perceptions, not realities.

There's no "anti-white movement sweeping America" and such a movement could never be legitimate under any circumstances. There's an anti-police corruption/misbehavior movement, which you seem to legitimately believe is equivalent*, and it is in fact based on reality (see the results of the Ferguson investigation).

If the "few rotten apples" defense can be applied to the police, it can be applied to the BLM movement as well. Even more so, since there's no criterion for using a hashtag and claiming to represent a group.

*I think it's safe to say that most of the more vocal detractors of police protesters are white and there's a correlation with racism as well, so maybe that's coloring your own perception.

 

[Averagesupernova]

When someone has a gun on you your intentions may be to cooperate but the truth is you will be preoccupied with that gun and there will be moves you will make without realizing it. To me this is insane. If an officer cannot do their job any better than this they simply need to get out.

 

[russ_watters]

There's no "anti-white movement sweeping America" and such a movement could never be legitimate under any circumstances. There's an anti-police corruption/misbehavior movement, which you seem to legitimately believe is equivalent*...

What you put in quotes is misquoted -- you edited out the "police" part, and it is critical. It is anti-police first (which is why I listed it first) and anti-white second.

...and it is in fact based on reality (see the results of the Ferguson investigation).

That's a poor choice of a justification given that the Justice Department investigation was completely separate from the incident that sparked it and the BLM protest movement. The BLM movement was based largely on lies about what happened in the incident, particularly the "hands-up, don't shoot" lie. Moreover, the Justice Department only focused on the half of the issue that the Obama administration recognizes.

If the "few rotten apples" defense can be applied to the police, it can be applied to the BLM movement as well.

I certainly did not apply that defense, which should be obvious since the first three of the four systemic actions I recommended were systemic actions toward police as a whole. But I would be delighted if this were accepted as a "few rotten apples" issue since if it was, the BLM movement wouldn't exist and we wouldn't be having this conversation. But we're having this conversation because the BLM movement believes this is a systemic problem with the [white] police. Frankly, I'm fine either way, but only if it is applied consistently: if you want to say that there is a systemic problem with the way police deal with blacks, fine. But also acknowledge there is a systemic problem in the urban black communities with how they deal with police (not to mention each other). And deal with both. Right now, half of the issue is being ignored, and that goes all the way to Obama, per his speeches over the past two days, not to mention his speeches over the past 7 years.

*I think it's safe to say that most of the more vocal detractors of police protesters are white and there's a correlation with racism as well, so maybe that's coloring your own perception.

I'd like to think you didn't just call me a racist, but I'm having trouble finding another way to read that.

 

[russ_watters]

A good excerpt from a book on the anti-police movement, posted yesterday but written months ago:
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/07/08/war-on-cops-big-lie-anti-cop-left-turns-lethal.html

 

[PeroK]

put yourself in his shoes for a moment and think about what you just said -
i too would put my hands up, slowly and with palms open so he could see i was not a threat. If his gun is drawn he already feels threatened and i'd better be doing what i can to defuse the situation.
That's just common sense . When dealing with any kind of lethal power, be it electricity or a police gun pointed at you, you don't tempt fate . You move deliberately and contemplate the result of every move you're about to make.

old jim

That may be true. But such a society is not one I would ever want to live in. Here are some stats:

Fatal police shootings in England and Wales (population about 56 million):

http://www.inquest.org.uk/statistics/fatal-police-shootings

Total: 60 since 1990 (average of about 2 per year)

In the USA (2015):

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shootings/

That's 990 in a single year.

British Police officers killed in the line of duty (since 1900):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_British_police_officers_killed_in_the_line_of_duty

It's about 275 (killed feloniously) in 116 years.

And in the USA:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_police_officers_killed_in_the_line_of_duty

"According to the FBI, from 1980–2014, an average of 64 law enforcement officers have been feloniously killed per year."

Also, perhaps not unrelated, the prison population of the USA is 737 per 100,000, compared to 148 in England and Wales. That's 5 times as many people locked up.

Relative to the UK, the USA seems to be a society at war with itself, with an extreme level of crime and violence. The USA and the UK should be comparable societies in these respects. From the above stats: if you are a US citizen (white or black) you are 100 times more likely than a UK citizen to be killed by a police officer. That is shocking, however you look at it.

 

[russ_watters]

That may be true. But such a society is not one I would ever want to live in...

Relative to the UK, the USA seems to be a society at war with itself, with an extreme level of crime and violence. The USA and the UK should be comparable societies in these respects. From the above stats: if you are a US citizen (white or black) you are 100 times more likely than a UK citizen to be killed by a police officer. That is shocking, however you look at it.

Even though you posted the stats, you're over-blowing the risk by quite a bit. Gun violence (except suicide related) is not even among the top 10 causes of death in the US. It is not and should not be a significant day-to-day concern for most Americans.

 

[PeroK]

Even though you posted the stats, you're over-blowing the risk by quite a bit. Gun violence (except suicide related) is not even among the top 10 causes of death. It is not and should not be a significant day-to-day concern for most Americans.

To a European, that is an astonishing point of view! In the UK, police officers (even occasionally) opening fire on unarmed citizens would be totally unacceptable. Even one incident would come under national scrutiny and spark a review of policy. And any police officer killed in the line of duty would be national news for days.

 

[jim hardy]

..

QUOTE="Tobias Funke, post: 5516063, member: 137024"]There's no "anti-white movement sweeping America" and such a movement could never be legitimate under any circumstances.[/QUOTE]
That's wishful thinking.
Where do you live? What do you read?
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/new-black-panther-party

New Black Panther Party
The New Black Panther Party is a virulently racist and anti-Semitic organization whose leaders have encouraged violence against whites, Jews and law enforcement officers.

Founded in Dallas, the group today is especially active on the East Coast, from Boston to Jacksonville, Fla. The group portrays itself as a militant, modern-day expression of the black power movement (it frequently engages in armed protests of alleged police brutality and the like), but principals of the original Black Panther Party of the 1960s and 1970s— a militant, but non-racist, left-wing organization — have rejected the new Panthers as a "black racist hate group" and contested their hijacking of the Panther name and symbol.

In Its Own Words
"Our lessons talk about the bloodsuckers of the poor… . It's that old no-good Jew, that old imposter Jew, that old hooked-nose, bagel-eating, lox-eating, Johnny-come-lately, perpetrating-a-fraud, just-crawled-out-of-the-caves-and-hills-of-Europe, so-called damn Jew … and I feel everything I'm saying up here is kosher."
— Khalid Abdul Muhammad, one of the party's future leaders, Baltimore, Md., Feb. 19, 1994i'd quote more but it's too rough for present company. Note though ,SPLC is not to be dismissed as a tabloid . Take a look at who they are. jh

police were shot last night in Missouri and Tennessee

it's been brewing for a long time

somebody is stirring it
and it's been going on for some time now, this is a 2012 article by a respected writer( check his bio here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sowell )

http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell051512.php3

Jewish World Review May 15, 2012/ 23 Iyar, 5772

A Censored Race War?
(this is partial - it's worth reading jh)
By Thomas Sowell

...

What the authorities and the media seem determined to suppress is that the hoodlum elements in many ghettoes launch coordinated attacks on whites in public places. If there is anything worse than a one-sided race war, it is a two-sided race war, especially when one of the races outnumbers the other several times over.It may be understandable that some people want to head off such a catastrophe, either by not reporting the attacks in this race war, or not identifying the race of those attacking, or by insisting that the attacks were not racially motivated — even when the attackers themselves voice anti-white invective as they laugh at their bleeding victims.

Trying to keep the lid on is understandable. But a lot of pressure can build up under that lid. If and when that pressure leads to an explosion of white backlash, things could be a lot worse than if the truth had come out earlier, and steps taken by both black and white leaders to deal with the hoodlums and with those who inflame the hoodlums.

These latter would include not only race hustlers like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson but also lesser known people in the media, in educational institutions and elsewhere who hype grievances and make all the problems of blacks the fault of whites. Some of these people may think that they are doing a favor to blacks. But it is no favor to anyone who lags behind to turn their energies from the task of improving and advancing themselves to the task of lashing out at others.

...
Those who automatically say that the social pathology of the ghetto is due to poverty, discrimination and the like cannot explain why such pathology was far less prevalent in the 1950s, when poverty and discrimination were worse. But there were not nearly as many grievance mongers and race hustlers then.

it's worth reading the whole article, it's not very long...

If the "few rotten apples" defense can be applied to the police, it can be applied to the BLM movement as well. Even more so, since there's no criterion for using a hashtag and claiming to represent a group.

the anger is largely misdirected
http://www.dailywire.com/news/7264/5-statistics-you-need-know-about-cops-killing-aaron-bandler

2. More whites and Hispanics die from police homicides than blacks. According to MacDonald, 12 percent of white and Hispanic homicide deaths were due to police officers, while only four percent of black homicide deaths were the result of police officers.

4. Black and Hispanic police officers are more likely to fire a gun at blacks than white officers. This is according to a Department of Justice report in 2015 about the Philadelphia Police Department, and is further confirmed that by a study conducted University of Pennsylvania criminologist Gary Ridgeway in 2015 that determined black cops were 3.3 times more likely to fire a gun than other cops at a crime scene.

5. Blacks are more likely to kill cops than be killed by cops. This is according to FBI data, which also found that 40 percent of cop killers are black. According to MacDonald, the police officer is 18.5 times more likely to be killed by a black than a cop killing an unarmed black person.

see also http://www.nationalreview.com/article/362030/early-skirmishes-race-war-thomas-sowell
excerpted, once again, but worth reading the whole thing ( it's short enough)

Officials and media aren’t being honest about the violence. One of the reasons for being glad to be as old as I am is that I may be spared living to see a race war in America. Race wars are often wars in which nobody wins and everybody ends up much worse off than they were before. Initial skirmishes in that race war have already begun, and have in fact been going on for some years. But public officials pretend that it is not happening, and the mainstream media seldom publish it at all, except in ways that conceal what is really taking place.
............
Refuting requires thought, which has largely been replaced by fashionable buzzwords and catchphrases when it comes to discussions of race. Thought is long overdue. So is honesty.

i don't think i have the answer.
But it's surely not "Look reality square in the eye and deny it."

old jim

 

[jim hardy]

Black American males appear to be living in a country where police officers feel empowered to shoot them dead at the least provocation.

Ask yourself
Who benefits by painting that picture ?

 

[jack action]

To a European, that is an astonishing point of view! In the UK, police officers (even occasionally) opening fire on unarmed citizens would be totally unacceptable. Even one incident would come under national scrutiny and spark a review of policy. And any police officer killed in the line of duty would be national news for days.

I «liked» your post but I feel I must quote it as well, such that the Americans reading this site could understand how much they are the exception in this case. The unjustified fear they live on and the thought that carrying a gun is the best protection they have always amazes me. The more they seek «protection», the more they feed their fear of others. It is just crazy for civilized people to witness that.

 

[Tobias Funke]

What you put in quotes is misquoted -- you edited out the "police" part, and it is critical. It is anti-police first (which is why I listed it first) and anti-white second.

Emphasis mine. So once again, you claim that there's an anti-white movement sweeping America. It doesn't matter if you think it's secondary to something else or if I didn't chose to focus on the first thing you said. Unless you meant "anti-white police" and not "anti-police and anti-white," I don't see how you can have a problem with my quote.

That's a poor choice of a justification given that the Justice Department investigation was completely separate from the incident that sparked it and the BLM protest movement. The BLM movement was based largely on lies about what happened in the incident, particularly the "hands-up, don't shoot" lie. Moreover, the Justice Department only focused on the half of the issue that the Obama administration recognizes.

No, it's a perfect example because it shows systemic corruption within the police force and legal system. It shows that you're dead wrong when you say BLM concerns aren't based on reality.

But we're having this conversation because the BLM movement believes this is a systemic problem with the [white] police.

And there is, although I don't know how much they specifically place the blame on white police instead of police and the courts in general. You just keep denying that there is a problem even though the evidence is there.

Frankly, I'm fine either way, but only if it is applied consistently: if you want to say that there is a systemic problem with the way police deal with blacks, fine. But also acknowledge there is a systemic problem in the urban black communities with how they deal with police (not to mention each other). And deal with both. Right now, half of the issue is being ignored, and that goes all the way to Obama, per his speeches over the past two days, not to mention his speeches over the past 7 years.

The issue isn't being ignored, it's just not the issue that BLM specifically focuses on. They don't focus on air quality in China or childhood leukemia either. Granted, those are less related to BLM than the two things you mention, but I don't think it's fundamentally different: you can't criticize a group for focusing mainly on one legitimate problem and not something else you think they should. It's also a little disingenuous of you to claim that the larger part of the problem is that urban black people just need to learn how to behave better, in the face of evidence that they (and rural blacks) are systematically discriminated against by those in power.

I'd like to think you didn't just call me a racist, but I'm having trouble finding another way to read that.

I didn't call you a racist. I wouldn't be shocked to find that there's a correlation between the bluelivesmatter people and racism, though. I wouldn't be surprised to find a correlation with bluelivesmatter and white people either, so in that sense BLM is against police/legal corruption, which puts them against a lot of white racists, which is the only way I can conceivably spin BLM to be anti-white. I don't think anyone on this site will have trouble realizing that that's not claiming that all critics of BLM are racists, just like my claim that black people are discriminated against doesn't mean every single one is repressed by every single person in power. I'm talking about large population sizes where general trends are observable.

 

[Astronuc]

Remember Lorne Ahrens, Michael Krol, Patrick Zamarripa, Michael Smith and Dallas transit officer Brent Thompson
https://www.yahoo.com/news/dallas-shooting-victims-000000375.html

 

[PeroK]

Ask yourself
Who benefits by painting that picture ?

No one benefits from the violence. Everyone loses: the police have a dangerous job and many citizens must fear, rather than respect, the police. We had a worse problem in Northern Ireland where there was thought to be a police "shoot-to-kill" policy against Republicans. But, those troubles were eventually resolved in the late 1990's.

Indeed, denial of the extent to which the Irish Catholic population was being oppressed by the almost-exclusively Irish Protestant police force was a major stumbling block to progress. Part of the resolution was, in fact, to replace the RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary) with the Police Service of Northern Ireland. So hated was the RUC by Irish Catholics.

If, as successive British Governments had done, this issue of police violence against Catholics had been ignored (or even supported as a punishment for IRA violence), then the troubles would not have ended and we'd still have violence on both sides today.

Whether police violence is a priority problem for the USA is not something that is affected by what I think or say. It's up to you as Americans to decide. But, what you cannot determine is the extent to which the actions of your police officers are a massive shock to many of us over here. We are just not used to police officers shooting people. Right or wrong, don't imagine for one moment that we aren't horrified by it.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

So they had a policy to kill people for tail lights? We should end that yes. Joking aside, how do you get rid of bad cops? Were there warning signs for these cops? In my city there is a cop shortage. How to supply without rushing cops through training?

Note that this is the second time in less than a year that a black person was pulled over for a tail light, who was apparently NO threat, and ended up dead. I think the problem goes to culture as much as anything. Based on the video of the man killed in MN, the cop probably panicked. And he probably panicked because the man he pulled over is black. He was likely primed to fear black men and that's why he panicked. This in turn is probably from a lack of exposure to normal black people. He only sees the criminals. This all speaks to getting the beat officers back on the street so they can get to know the community. Cops and the public have become them and us in part because the cops are no longer a part of the community they are allegedly protecting.

To me the biggest need is body cams that can't be turned off and won't fall off during an encounter.

Remember the young black man who was unarmed and not dangerous, but was shot in the back when trying to run? That happens when the cop sees him as an animal instead of a person. And that is the core of the problem.

We've have had a few cops in my family and they are ALL racists in the extreme - not people I like. When the one died, we found an armory of illegal weapons in his house. His daughter said he used those weapons on the job. And he always carried a personal pistol that could be used and not traced. No doubt as bad as things are, in the old days they were far worse for blacks. And we had no way to know what really happened. Now we do, sometimes.

I also believe many of our problems today are a direct consequence of the war on drugs. It eventually became a war on our cities and naturally led to war-like mentalities. .

 

[jim hardy]

I think the problem goes to culture as much as anything. Based on the video of the man killed in MN, the cop probably panicked. And he probably panicked because the man he pulled over is black. He was likely primed to fear black men and that's why he panicked. This in turn is probably from a lack of exposure to normal black people. He only sees the criminals. This all speaks to getting the beat officers back on the street so they can get to know the community. Cops and the public have become them and us in part because the cops are no longer a part of the community they are allegedly protecting.

Nice post.

My take on the video is that unfortunate black man tried to comply in what he thought was a good way - how snappy and quick he went in after his license and produced it,
moving so quickly the nervous officer didn't see what was in his outstetched hands

another awful series of mistakes

I agree with your "culture" observation
Do you think maybe something so simple as ending municipal use of pecadilloes like broken taillight lens for a revenue stream could be of help ?
Had the officer said " You really oughta glue up that lens before it falls out. Do you know how much money the city makes from tickets for this chicken-poop stuff ? "
what would have happened ?
But he has a quota to make.
That's why i get nervous whenever a police car pulls in behind me : "When's last time i checked all my bulbs back there ? "

And that seems strange to me because i have two retired cops in my family. Good ones !
old jim

 

[MarneMath]

4. Change inner-city black culture to where it produces a higher fraction of upstanding citizens and a lower fraction of criminals and wards of the state.

I have a problem with this statement, and probably highlights the subtle racism that (some) non-minorities have towards minorities. Perhaps, black "inner-city culture" isn't the problem. Perhaps, there are other dynamics that led to higher crime rates in the city, like lack of education, lack of employment, or subtle racism like your statement. I don't know, but I'm sure there are a myriad of other reasons why crime rates to be high instead of black "inner-city culture." Perhaps the fact that cops may view "inner city black culture" as criminal (as you do) that they enforce the laws much more harshly and aggressively, which tends to lead to more arrest of young black males.

I know that you'll probably come back here and claim you're not racist, and I don't believe that you are. I know that you'll probably come here and try to justify your point, which is your right. Nevertheless, it's also part of your white privilege to be able to downcast an entire group of people's culture and think that that's ok. In reality, it's not.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Do you think maybe something so simple as ending municipal use of pecadilloes like broken taillight lens for a revenue stream could be of help ?
Had the officer said " You really oughta glue up that lens before it falls out. Do you know how much money the city makes from tickets for this chicken-poop stuff ? "
what would have happened ?

I don't know. That revenue is much of what pays for the police departments! But traffic stops are or were claimed to be one of the most dangerous things a cop has to do because each situation is a complete unknown. I don't like the fact that once pulled over, cops use that as an excuse to further interrogate someone if they seem suspicious. It wouldn't bother me so much if cops didn't have implicit biases but they do. In effect, they can harass someone with no probable cause or reason to be suspicious. If that person starts to get hostile or simply gets confused, or if somehow the signals get crosses, as we have seen, the cop may be quick to kill them, especially if they're black.

In the one case where the black woman was killed, somehow the cop allowed a harmless situation to escalate, mostly because he was being abusive. If you have an abusive cop and an abusive person of interest, you seem to have a recipe for disaster. But no matter how mouthy or uncooperative someone might be, there is no way a person who is not a threat should ever end up dead for a minor traffic stop. In my view, this is where cops who are control freaks are dangerous. Not all cops are control freaks but it isn't hard to see why a control freak would want to be a cop. They are after power. Unfortunately, I would bet that registers as a positive in psychological screening - a real take charge type of person.

 

[StatGuy2000]

I would echo what both Ivan Seeking and MarneMath have stated in this thread. When people talk about the "inner-city black culture", the implicit (or even explicit)assumption is that higher crime rates are due to some implicit "cultural" trait among African Americans, when in actual fact there are myriad factors such as lack of education and employment opportunities, combined with subtle (or even overt) racism from the broader society have allowed such a "culture" to develop.

This is not unique to the US. In Canada, neighbourhoods in cities with a high proportion of First Nations people (the native peoples of Canada), along with many First Nations reserves, often report higher crime relates. In addition, First Nations people are disproportionately represented within the Canadian prison population (native or aboriginal peoples compose 4% of Canada's population, but about 23.2% of the Canadian federal inmate population).

http://www.oci-bec.gc.ca/cnt/rpt/oth-aut/oth-aut20121022info-eng.aspx

A similar situation has been reported in New Zealand among its native Maori population and in Australia for its native Aboriginal population.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Perhaps the fact that cops may view "inner city black culture" as criminal (as you do) that they enforce the laws much more harshly and aggressively, which tends to lead to more arrest of young black males.

The ACLU has an absurdly comprehensive new report tracking marijuana possession arrests for blacks and whites at the national, state and county level. Sure enough, they find that black and white people use marijuana at roughly the same rates...

Similarly, the vast majority of counties arrest blacks at a higher rate than whites, with some having a disparity of greater than 10 to 1:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ackwhite-marijuana-arrest-gap-in-nine-charts/

I'm highly libertarian on this one: In my view, ending the war on all drugs [complete decriminalization] is the single most significant step we can take to end the cycle of violence and to some extent, poverty. The war on drugs is what funds the most dangerous gangs and organized crime, including MS13 and the Mexican cartels. The war on drugs is what pays for the weapons and lures young men into illegal and seemingly lucrative lifestyles. And that is what has turned the cities into war zones, It's all about the money.