All-purpose news and politics thread: Two Steps Beyond!

[Kid A]

A crew member from the Cops TV show was accidentally shot by one of the police he was filming. Apparently it was all a terrible mistake - they thought he was an unarmed black teenager.

Disgusting.

[Surtur]

So we have this story:

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/...cident-n191636

Little girl at a gun range accidentally kills the instructor. Everyone keeps saying it was an accident, which it was. They say it wasn't the girls fault, which it wasn't. They say the instructor was at fault too, which he was. One thing though..what kind of parents take their 9 yr. old little girl to a god damn gun range and allow her to shoot an uzi? I don't care if the instructor was God himself and you had a guarantee nobody would get shot..why the **** does this little kid need to use an uzi? Answer me that. This should of never happened for two reasons: the instructor should of been paying better attention and..the little girl should of never been there in the first place.

[Mr. Mastermind]

Is anyone else shocked that Fox News hasn't brought up Rotherham yet? It would be a story where they would actually be right on.

[JediMindTrick]

Except remember how Travon snuck up on poor Georgie out of the shadows like "You're gonna die tonight, ************", wrestled him to the ground, and pounded his head against the pavement forcing the use deadly force. He was violent and out of control, afterall, it had to be done.

That was Zimmerman's story and the reason the legal verdict was correct is there was nothing to counter it. I don't believe Zimmerman's story as I tend to think the most likely thing was that Zimmerman grabbed onto Martin with the intent of detaining him until cops arrived. Martin naturally didn't like some wacko stranger grabbing him and either then pushed or punched Zimmerman away - either way it would have been a justifiable use of force by Martin. The fight went on from there and Zimmerman was losing so he shot Martin. Morally I think Zimmerman is guilty of voluntary manslaughter but legally he isn't.

Regardless its not even remotely similar to the Michael Brown case.

[JediMindTrick]

Don't forget he was black and scary. Now a cop can shoot any black guy if he's scared of black people, right?

Maybe if you're planning on being a cop you should reconsider if you're deathly afraid of black people.

Race baiting like yours is always conducive to a discussion.

Also generalized insinuations that all cops are racist based on the perceived actions of a few, and in some cases correct, is widely hypocritical coming from anyone who believes cops profile blacks. And FYI its not so much that cops profile minorities as it is that cops via policy and actual crime tend to focus their efforts in poverty areas and minorities tend to dominate those areas. Look at ANY CITY n the US regardless of racial demographics and you'll find the high crime areas to be the low income areas. So police end up in those areas the most. When you have a city like most where those low income areas are dominated by minorities you naturally end up with the appearance that cops are going after minorities when in reality is the crime that poverty breeds. Not all poor people are criminals but most criminals are poor. No one can credibly deny that there isn't a strong correlation (not causation) between poverty and race due to reasons that stretch back hundreds of years.

[JediMindTrick]

The cop didn't even fill out an incident report, so we have not seen or heard the cops account.

OF COURSE HE DIDN'T. The people who keep making this a big deal have NO CLUE about anything in regards to the law or criminal justice.

This is a homicide investigation. The investigation will determine if it was a justifiable homicide or not but you NEVER have the homicide suspect fill out a police report. Oh you take his statement many times in interviews but you don't have him fill out a police report. That report is for the ones doing the investigation. Seriously, you and others think it would have been better for Darren Wilson to go write a police report instead of being sat down in front of trained investigators and on camera being interviewed? Furthermore from a legal standpoint forcing Wilson to write an incident report on something he might be prosecuted on would likely be a violation of both his Miranda and Garrity rights. I doubt many if any of you know what Garrity rights are as they only apply to law enforcement - basically officers accused of crime are in a catch 22 in that if they invoke their constitutional right to silence they can be fired for it by their employer who is the government aka punished for exercising their rights - as such Garrity is a way to force officer's to talk if they invoke Miranda - basically it says that anything the officer says after Garrity can't be used criminally against them but can be used administratively to fire or discipline them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garrity_warning Basically how it works is that if Wilson had refused to talk in this case, aka invoked Miranda, he would have then been read Garrity at which point if he still refused to talk the department could fire him for the just the refusal to talk. It may still not prompt a disclosure but it gives police depts a way to get rid of officers like this. None of this happened in the Wilson case, I'm just pointing out though that these issues would have come up if he'd been forced to do anything.

But then people are all screaming "coverup" because the investigators aren't releasing all the details. Tell me in what serious criminal investigation has anything ever been released early on except via leak and statements by non police entities involved aka witnesses. There is nothing unusual about this investigation in terms of what has been released thus far. Police and prosecutors ALWAYS wait til charges are filed or not filed to release the full reports - at that point they are legally required to disclose any and all evidence and reports to the defense. Releasing it ahead of time would be like a football coach emailing his playbook and game plan to the opposing team a week before the game.

[Shawn Hopkins]

He wasn't unarmed. He was 6'4" and 300 lbs.

Bullshit. I'm a big guy, should I go down and register myself as a weapon? It might impress girls, I guess.

[Darrell D.]

Race baiting like yours is always conducive to a discussion.

Also generalized insinuations that all cops are racist based on the perceived actions of a few, and in some cases correct, is widely hypocritical coming from anyone who believes cops profile blacks.

Oh, the IRONY.
And, yeah, using the 'not all cops' defense is akin to saying 'not all men'...it's a piss-poor deflection.

[Darrell D.]

OF COURSE HE DIDN'T. The people who keep making this a big deal have NO CLUE about anything in regards to the law or criminal justice.

This is a homicide investigation. The investigation will determine if it was a justifiable homicide or not but you NEVER have the homicide suspect fill out a police report. Oh you take his statement many times in interviews but you don't have him fill out a police report. That report is for the ones doing the investigation. Seriously, you and others think it would have been better for Darren Wilson to go write a police report instead of being sat down in front of trained investigators and on camera being interviewed? Furthermore from a legal standpoint forcing Wilson to write an incident report on something he might be prosecuted on would likely be a violation of both his Miranda and Garrity rights. I doubt many if any of you know what Garrity rights are as they only apply to law enforcement - basically officers accused of crime are in a catch 22 in that if they invoke their constitutional right to silence they can be fired for it by their employer who is the government aka punished for exercising their rights - as such Garrity is a way to force officer's to talk if they invoke Miranda - basically it says that anything the officer says after Garrity can't be used criminally against them but can be used administratively to fire or discipline them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garrity_warning Basically how it works is that if Wilson had refused to talk in this case, aka invoked Miranda, he would have then been read Garrity at which point if he still refused to talk the department could fire him for the just the refusal to talk. It may still not prompt a disclosure but it gives police depts a way to get rid of officers like this. None of this happened in the Wilson case, I'm just pointing out though that these issues would have come up if he'd been forced to do anything.

But then people are all screaming "coverup" because the investigators aren't releasing all the details. Tell me in what serious criminal investigation has anything ever been released early on except via leak and statements by non police entities involved aka witnesses. There is nothing unusual about this investigation in terms of what has been released thus far. Police and prosecutors ALWAYS wait til charges are filed or not filed to release the full reports - at that point they are legally required to disclose any and all evidence and reports to the defense. Releasing it ahead of time would be like a football coach emailing his playbook and game plan to the opposing team a week before the game.

I get the distinct impression that you have NO idea of the history of Ferguson regarding race relations, or even the history of oppression of minorities by police departments then, and NOW.
There is a reason that they herd minorities into ghettos and strip funding away and keep the area impoverished. There's a reason that those areas have a heavy police presence, and school systems are woefully underfunded.
There are reasons.
But, to one that doesn't listen, there is no use.

[Tendrin]

I get the distinct impression that you have NO idea of the history of Ferguson regarding race relations, or even the history of oppression of minorities by police departments then, and NOW.
There is a reason that they herd minorities into ghettos and strip funding away and keep the area impoverished. There's a reason that those areas have a heavy police presence, and school systems are woefully underfunded.
There are reasons.
But, to one that doesn't listen, there is no use.

It's almost like he wants to wave his hands in front of everyone's faces and say, "These are not the racists you're looking for."

[Shawn Hopkins]

One thread that keeps turning up is that we should assume that even though the Ferguson department is corrupt, maybe Wilson was some shining light of it and above it all. Not especially likely since Wilson was part of a previous police force that was disbanded for the same racial problems in Jennings.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation...390_story.html

[Double 0]

I'm not going to wade through all that nonsense. Instead, here's some quick facts about the Ferguson and St. Louis PD's handling of the situation:

They didn't file an incident report, which is normally done in 24 hours. Which is done when you are, for instance, savagely attacked.

St. Louis PD got their asses sued by the ACLU due to the Sunshine Law, and lost. This wouldn't happen if they were handling things properly.

The incident report they did write up after that screw up forgot to add the many witnesses as well as a write up for the narrative section.

They've lied about the reliability of the witnesses supporting Wilson's story, about the Wilson's damages, hell even about the OTHER black guy killed by police. They said he had his knife overhand ready to strike. Video tape showed that that was a lie. The list of lies Ferguson and St. Louis PD have been caught with is too long for me to list.


But let me get to the kicker: good ol' not racist Darren Wilson...


Mr. Wilson learned a lot on how to be a police officer at a corrupt department stock full of corruption and racism. And apparently didn't do much about it.

What [Darren Wilson] found in Jennings, however, was a mainly white department mired in controversy and notorious for its fraught relationship with residents, especially the African American majority. It was not an ideal place to learn how to police. Officials say Wilson kept a clean record without any disciplinary action.

After going through the police academy, Wilson landed a job in 2009 as a rookie officer in Jennings, a small, struggling city of 14,000 where 89 percent of the residents were African American and poverty rates were high. At the time, the 45-employee police unit had one or two black members on the force, said Allan Stichnote, a white Jennings City Council member.

Racial tension was endemic in Jennings, said Rodney Epps, an African American city council member.

“You’re dealing with white cops, and they don’t know how to address black people,” Epps said. “The straw that broke the camel’s back, an officer shot at a female. She was stopped for a traffic violation. She had a child in the back [of the] car and was probably worried about getting locked up. And this officer chased her down Highway 70, past city limits, and took a shot at her. Just ridiculous.”

Police faced a series of lawsuits for using unnecessary force, Stichnote said. One black resident, Cassandra Fuller, sued the department claiming a white Jennings police officer beat her in June 2009 on her own porch after she made a joke. A car had smashed into her van, which was parked in front of her home, and she called police. The responding officer asked her to move the van. “It don’t run. You can take it home with you if you want,” she answered. She said the officer became enraged, threw her off the porch, knocked her to the ground and kicked her in the stomach.

The department paid Fuller a confidential sum to settle the case, she said.

“It’s like a horror story in my mind. I never thought a police officer would pull me off my porch and beat me to the ground, for just laughing,” Fuller said in an interview.

The Jennings department also had a corruption problem. A joint federal and local investigation discovered that a lieutenant had been accepting federal funds for drunken-driving checks that never happened.

All the problems became too much for the city council to bear, and in March 2011 the council voted 6-to-1 to shut down the department and hire St. Louis County to run its police services, putting Lt. Jeff Fuesting in charge as commander.

[Double 0]

One thread that keeps turning up is that we should assume that even though the Ferguson department is corrupt, maybe Wilson was some shining light of it and above it all. Not especially likely since Wilson was part of a previous police force that was disbanded for the same racial problems in Jennings.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation...390_story.html

Haha, you found the same link I did around the same time!

Seriously, the "these guys are corrupt with a history of racially biased aggression" point has been hammered down so hard in this case that ignoring it says more about you than anything else at this point.

And does anyone REALLY think Wilson was the one "good cop" in an entire department filled with corruption? That he somehow went away from it without any potential issues despite apparently not challenging ANY of these very clear problems?

To me, he seems to be a "protect the badge" type, through and through. And in a corrupt PD, or multiple ones, that's a very bad thing.

[The S0/\/\@7ic Si/\/\[]Dl370n]

One thing that puzzles me about both the John Crawford and Kametra Brown incidents.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't both Ohio and Texas open-carry states?

If so, why would the police have to be called in for the allegedly "suspicious" people carrying guns in the first place?

[Shawn Hopkins]

One thing that puzzles me about both the John Crawford and Kametra Brown incidents.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't both Ohio and Texas open-carry states?

If so, why would the police have to be called in for the allegedly "suspicious" people carrying guns in the first place?

I mean, you know the reason.