Meanwhile, in Atlanta...
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@Aqua-Letifer said in Meanwhile, in Atlanta...:
@Horace said in Meanwhile, in Atlanta...:
@George-K said in Meanwhile, in Atlanta...:
@jon-nyc said in Meanwhile, in Atlanta...:
They torched the Wendy’s.
Apparently because someone at Wendy's called the cops about Brooks.
Now it makes sense, right?
no doubt one of of those privileged white people who work at Wendy's.
I have personally never had any bad run-ins with the police. And due to the people I know in my life, I don't know of any bad personal stories about police confrontations that have come from direct acquaintances. I even know some police officers personally. So I have a much stronger emotional reaction to stories like these, because the narrative being offered doesn't fit my lifetime of personal experience. And that's a hell of a lot more important than allegedly legitimate stories that come from a different set of life experiences than my own.
There's absolutely no underlying problem with policing in America, and every story of police brutality is just a rare exception that's blown way out of proportion. The REAL problem is every story that (1) makes the national news and (2) doesn't fit my own mental map of reality. I hate that stuff. The riots and the bullshit stories of police brutality are the things we as a country need to focus on because I personally empathize with that more.
Further, the protesters and the rioters are all the same people and they're all bad because they aren't my group. Nevermind that independent review boards and police unions have gotten really bad officers off the hook countless times, admitting that might make it sound like I'm conceding that the bad people know better than I do. And the fact that officers are overworked and overwhelmed doesn't make me as angry as people burning buildings down, so I'm going to focus on what's the most emotionally accessible to me.
You are on safer ground and perhaps on to something when you say police brutality in general. Normally you would be on very thin ice if you said police targeting blacks except that the media will never ever look at the real data. Do yourself a favor and take a sincere look at what the data says.
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@Horace said in Meanwhile, in Atlanta...:
Down with bad cops, I am behind you on that Aqua. By all means let's do something about them. Well, not by "all" means. Let's stop short of disbanding them or making it nearly impossible for them to do their jobs.
Sometimes it's not bad cops, just ones who are past a breaking point, or have a lack of training, or something else that causes an error in judgment.
My basic point is that to Community A in America, the real issue is racism and police brutality, because they live in communities in which poverty is rampant and police relations suck. And, when they try to get the rest of America to understand this, a lot of it falls on deaf ears because Community B has absolutely no experience or understanding about this. Rioting and cops getting assaulted or killed makes no difference.
For Community B, it's flipped. All they see are the riots and the false stories about police brutality and racism. The real stories of police screwing up and the problems that exist in areas with income inequality make very little if any emotional hit.
Both have an incredibly biased view of reality because that's been a feature of human tribes since forever. You see what you aim at and you miss everything else.
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@Aqua-Letifer said in Meanwhile, in Atlanta...:
@Horace said in Meanwhile, in Atlanta...:
Down with bad cops, I am behind you on that Aqua. By all means let's do something about them. Well, not by "all" means. Let's stop short of disbanding them or making it nearly impossible for them to do their jobs.
Sometimes it's not bad cops, just ones who are past a breaking point, or have a lack of training, or something else that causes an error in judgment.
My basic point is that to Community A in America, the real issue is racism and police brutality, because they live in communities in which poverty is rampant and police relations suck. And, when they try to get the rest of America to understand this, a lot of it falls on deaf ears because Community B has absolutely no experience or understanding about this. Rioting and cops getting assaulted or killed makes no difference.
For Community B, it's flipped. All they see are the riots and the false stories about police brutality and racism. The real stories of police screwing up and the problems that exist in areas with income inequality make very little if any emotional hit.
Both have an incredibly biased view of reality because that's been a feature of human tribes since forever. You see what you aim at and you miss everything else.
To the extent that we try to minimize those things while realizing that we're working with hardware which is not designed to minimize those things, I agree. The issue, as I've zeroed in on it in my time, comes down to righteousness and its ability to diminish our willingness to care anymore whether we're being tribal. Righteous tribes are good tribes to belong to. The fact that they carry with them all the irrational tribal thought is just an acceptable price one pays to be on the right side of history.
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@Loki said in Meanwhile, in Atlanta...:
You are on safer ground and perhaps on to something when you say police brutality in general. Normally you would be on very thin ice if you said police targeting blacks except that the media will never ever look at the real data. Do yourself a favor and take a sincere look at what the data says.
I've already done that, and I've said here many, many times that the racism conclusion couldn't be more wrong. But on the surface of things, if I tried to respect the other side's perspective, I can very easily see how one could conclude that. A whole lot of poor communities in America are black. A whole lot of communities with terrible police relations are black. How in the hell could this not be racism?
It isn't (not overall), but I understand where the conclusion comes from. It's the same shitty critical thinking that concludes melanin content makes you more prone to committing crimes because a higher proportion of blacks are incarcerated.
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@Catseye3 said in Meanwhile, in Atlanta...:
Speaking of police review boards . . . things may have changed on this, but I always thought that cops had to go through internal review and disciplinary hearings and what-all before they were either fired or exonerated. But this cop was fired the very next day, no review, no nothing?
And his partner is put on administrative duty? For what? And by the way, where was he during all this?
And the police chief quits the day after that?
The police review boards have been a joke. There is an absolute shit ton of coverup that happens with those. We have seen more than one case where the review board finds nothing untoward occurred, then the bodycam video goes public proving otherwise. They aren't very fair or independent...
The officer shouldn't have been fired, but both should have been put on leave at least through the inquiry, plus there should be some rebuke for allowing the guy to get the taser in the first place. The Police Chief choosing to fall on her sword?
Whatever... -
@Aqua-Letifer said in Meanwhile, in Atlanta...:
@Loki said in Meanwhile, in Atlanta...:
You are on safer ground and perhaps on to something when you say police brutality in general. Normally you would be on very thin ice if you said police targeting blacks except that the media will never ever look at the real data. Do yourself a favor and take a sincere look at what the data says.
I've already done that, and I've said here many, many times that the racism conclusion couldn't be more wrong. But on the surface of things, if I tried to respect the other side's perspective, I can very easily see how one could conclude that. A whole lot of poor communities in America are black. A whole lot of communities with terrible police relations are black. How in the hell could this not be racism?
It is well within normal human parameters for someone who was born into cultural ideas that they are targeted and oppressed because racism, to attribute the constant succession of resistance in life to the fact that they are targeted and oppressed.
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@Horace Well there's that. But even if you aren't spoonfed the oppression story growing up, a lot of black communities just have a ton more shit to wade through than white communities. I think the reasons for that are incredibly complicated, but the more you're stressed out, the harder it is to be willing to be wrong about how you see things. So, racism.
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@Catseye3 said in Meanwhile, in Atlanta...:
Maybe more can be learned elsewhere and I'm not finding it, but what seems to be known is that Brooks was asleep (passed out) in the drive-through, two cops came and gave him a sobriety test, which he failed. So at that point at least, he was in police custody. Then a drunk man appropriates a taser from one of the cops and takes off running, then turns and threatens the chasing cop with the taser, and the cop shoots him.
Doesn't it seem like there are parts of this story that don't quite hang together?
I'm not trying to build a case here. If what we know is what happened, then so be it. It just occurs to me that from what we know, either Brooks was an unusually alert drunk or the cops were half asleep.
I've seen lots of guys that could hold a conversation so drunk they staggered. If you watch the video, the cops kept asking him questions and he lied right and left. It's a routine DUI stop with a cooperative subject.
Cooperative right to the point when the cops started to cuff him and put him in the cruiser. Then, all hell broke loose.
If the guy would have even just ran, he would not have been shot. It would have been a nasty chase, and most likely ended in a tazing.
No...cops are trained, see the weapon, shoot the person. It's a split-second decision, predicated on being tried by 12 or carried by 6. And any cop wants to go home at the end of his shift. That's why, if you are ever involved in a righteous defense, put the weapon on the ground or preferably back in the holster.
Do not point a weapon at a cop.
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"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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@George-K said in Meanwhile, in Atlanta...:
And despite the training, the police officer was fired. I’ll bet you that the police union will be over this in a heartbeat.
The firing was strictly politics. Pander to the mob, keep the lid on...
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This happens 5 weeks ago? You never hear about it.
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@George-K said in Meanwhile, in Atlanta...:
And despite the training, the police officer was fired. I’ll bet you that the police union will be over this in a heartbeat.
And should be. What you have here is a man who has already fought and stole an officer's non-lethal weapon and apparently would not drop it and comply. So your options are either to shoot him or to approach, taking the chance then that he will taze you and THEN steal your gun. You have every reason to believe this guy will, given the opportunity, use deadly force. I don't see how the cops really had a choice.
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@Mik said in Meanwhile, in Atlanta...:
@George-K said in Meanwhile, in Atlanta...:
And despite the training, the police officer was fired. I’ll bet you that the police union will be over this in a heartbeat.
And should be. What yo have here is a man who has already fought and stole an officer's non-lethal weapon and apparently would not drop it and comply. So your options are either to shoot him or to approach, taking the chance then that he will taze you and THEN steal your gun. You have every reason to believe this guy will, given the opportunity, use deadly force. I don't see how the cops really had a choice.
So other people will judge his free will choices without taking into consideration his will to live, they only see that no matter what the question is, the answer is racism.
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We have, thanks to all the ass kissing that's been going on, created a situation that no matter what crime a black man is committing, if you try to stop him you'll lose your job, and if you end up having to defend yourself the other blacks along with the nut job white contingent will burn and sack the city.
It's past time to thin the herd.
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It will be interesting to watch the media suppress all stories of "woulda never happened if the police could have done their jobs". I imagine such anecdotes will be plentiful, but of course pop culture will do what it can to keep them from going viral.
Who I worry most about is the ultra-compassionate people who are behind the call to disarm and defund police. Their emotions are at peril if they ever hear of tragic anecdotes which were the result of these policies they were so strongly in favor of.
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@Loki said in Meanwhile, in Atlanta...:
@89th said in Meanwhile, in Atlanta...:
A man fighting cops, stealing their taser, running away and turning and pointing the taser at the cops...gee, what do you think would happen if YOU did that, black or white or any color?
Did you watch the video George posted?
Yup. I stand by my analysis. The dude was wasted (couldn’t even remember he said he drank margaritas even though he told the cop 2 minutes earlier). He made a fateful decision to fight the cop, steal his weapon (taser), run and point it at the cop and shoot it. The cop had a millisecond to respond and likely relied on his training to pull his weapon and fire. If the dude was white, this wouldn’t even be a story. Heck, it would be used for future police trainings.
