Law Enforcement Reform Thread (formerly Defund the Police) (1 Viewer)

[First Time Poster]

So I got busy the other day with the intention to revisit this topic and answer some of the responses put forward but I realized the thread was deleted. But, I felt we had good dialogue happening before I left so I wanted to restart the topic to get the conversation going again. We started some dialogue about it on the liberal board but I feel this topic transcends party lines so I'm making a MCB thread. Post #2, or my next post, is the post I made on the liberal board when asked to elaborate how I felt.

 

[SaintForLife]

Perhaps that's why the board guidelines suggest fleshing out a post and not posting basically naked links/tweets.

I look forward to you making that same comment to someone you don't disagree with. Otherwise it rings hollow as being partisan.

 

[efil4]

It's almost like you are ignoring my post where I said "I do believe there does need to be police reform and blacks are unfairly targeted by police."

I never said the media was reporting it too much, but they definitely don't give the proper context. I don't agree with the overall premise if this article, but it did contain some statistics that give some context.

This charge of systemic police bias was wrong during the Obama years and remains so today. However sickening the video of Floyd’s arrest, it isn’t representative of the 375 million annual contacts that police officers have with civilians. A solid body of evidence finds no structural bias in the criminal-justice system with regard to arrests, prosecution or sentencing. Crime and suspect behavior, not race, determine most police actions.

In 2019 police officers fatally shot 1,004 people, most of whom were armed or otherwise dangerous. African-Americans were about a quarter of those killed by cops last year (235), a ratio that has remained stable since 2015. That share of black victims is less than what the black crime rate would predict, since police shootings are a function of how often officers encounter armed and violent suspects. In 2018, the latest year for which such data have been published, African-Americans made up 53% of known homicide offenders in the U.S. and commit about 60% of robberies, though they are 13% of the population.

The police fatally shot nine unarmed blacks and 19 unarmed whites in 2019, according to a Washington Post database, down from 38 and 32, respectively, in 2015. The Post defines “unarmed” broadly to include such cases as a suspect in Newark, N.J., who had a loaded handgun in his car during a police chase. In 2018 there were 7,407 black homicide victims. Assuming a comparable number of victims last year, those nine unarmed black victims of police shootings represent 0.1% of all African-Americans killed in 2019. By contrast, a police officer is 18½ times more likely to be killed by a black male than an unarmed black male is to be killed by a police officer.

On Memorial Day weekend in Chicago alone, 10 African-Americans were killed in drive-by shootings. Such routine violence has continued—a 72-year-old Chicago man shot in the face on May 29 by a gunman who fired about a dozen shots into a residence; two 19-year-old women on the South Side shot to death as they sat in a parked car a few hours earlier; a 16-year-old boy fatally stabbed with his own knife that same day. This past weekend, 80 Chicagoans were shot in drive-by shootings, 21 fatally, the victims overwhelmingly black. Police shootings are not the reason that blacks die of homicide at eight times the rate of whites and Hispanics combined; criminal violence is.

The latest in a series of studies undercutting the claim of systemic police bias was published in August 2019 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers found that the more frequently officers encounter violent suspects from any given racial group, the greater the chance that a member of that group will be fatally shot by a police officer. There is “no significant evidence of antiblack disparity in the likelihood of being fatally shot by police,” they concluded.

A 2015 Justice Department analysis of the Philadelphia Police Department found that white police officers were less likely than black or Hispanic officers to shoot unarmed black suspects. Research by Harvard economist Roland G. Fryer Jr. also found no evidence of racial discrimination in shootings. Any evidence to the contrary fails to take into account crime rates and civilian behavior before and during interactions with police.

Opinion | The Myth of Systemic Police Racism

Hold officers accountable who use excessive force. But there’s no evidence of widespread racial bias.

www-wsj-com.cdn.ampproject.org

you act like this is some sort of MIT research...its an OPINION piece - says so right in the HEADER. lol

I would implore you to read more in-depth research articles and studies and no opinion pieces cobbled together to fit a bias.

did you take a moment to research the author? May wanna do that too.

 

[CoolBrees]

Honest question. Did you bother to look at who wrote that opinion article.

Heather McDonald is far from an expert on systemic racism. That is being kind.

No her opinion shouldn’t matter, she’s a B level actress and has no relevance to the discussion.

WSJ should be ashamed to publish that as some sort of real opinion

 

[SaintForLife]

you act like this is some sort of MIT research...its an OPINION piece - says so right in the HEADER. lol

I would implore you to read more in-depth research articles and studies and no opinion pieces cobbled together to fit a bias.

did you take a moment to research the author? May wanna do that too.

Yeah I'm aware that it's opinion piece. I stated that I didn't agree with the premise of the article and that I was posting it for the statistics for some context about how widespread the police killings are.

 

[efil4]

Yeah I'm aware that it's opinion piece. I stated that I didn't agree with the premise of the article and that I was posting it for the statistics for some context about how widespread the police killings are.

What do you mean for the statistics? You mean you were looking to show how many races OTHER than black were also killed by police?

 

[SaintForLife]

Honest question. Did you bother to look at who wrote that opinion article.

Heather McDonald is far from an expert on systemic racism. That is being kind.

No her opinion shouldn’t matter, she’s a B level actress and has no relevance to the discussion.

WSJ should be ashamed to publish that as some sort of real opinion

You have the wrong Heather McDonald. She's not an actress.

 

[efil4]

You have the wrong Heather McDonald. She's not an actress.

its Heather Mac Donald.

 

[CoolBrees]

Mea culpa.
In this instance I am glad I was wrong. This Mac Donald, though certainly opinionated, has written on the subject. It seemed below WSJ to publish something so odd.

 

[efil4]

Mea culpa.
In this instance I am glad I was wrong. This Mac Donald, though certainly opinionated, has written on the subject. It seemed below WSJ to publish something so odd.

She has won 11 awards for her writings.

8 of them from law enforcement agencies.

Yeah, no bias there lol

 

[Ayo]

I am familiar with her work. And I give her no objective credence and always assume there’s an angle that I need to be mindful of.

this was from something I posted couple years ago

it's Heather MacDonald, from the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. You shouldn't be surprised. Close ties to Giuliani. Brought us the work behind the welfare "reform" of 96. Broken windows program. Defended the Patriot Act, apparently. Critical of (much needed) sentencing reform.

She's a real.... piece of work.

 

[GMRfellowtraveller]

I did see a CNN article about it, but I'm curious if it will receive the same amount of media attention as other mass shootings. The shooting included a police officer being shot who is struggling for her life so I doubt it will receive the wall to wall coverage of other mass shootings. Which thread should I have posted it in?

Dunno, what thread are you most interested in detailing?

 

[First Time Poster]

Yeah I'm aware that it's opinion piece. I stated that I didn't agree with the premise of the article and that I was posting it for the statistics for some context about how widespread the police killings are.

Let me help you out with what they are trying to explain to you by giving you a personal experience.

So, earlier this week, one of my college friends (black man) calls me. I could tell in his voice he sounded upset so immediately I asked was it his brother. For clarity, his brother was hospitalized last week for serious health issues and while hospitalized he tested positive for Covid. So, already, I'm thinking, oh crap, this isn't good.

He says no, its not his brother, he's doing better, and then he bursts into tears. Whoa! I've never seen/heard this dude cry before. I'm like bro what's going on?! So, long story short, since his brother tested positive and he had been in proximity to him they advised he should get tested. In his town, they recently changed testing sites and he wasn't familiar with where the new place is at. So, he's driving to the site and he unknowingly makes a wrong turn and ends up on a one-way street.

When he realizes it, he pulls off to the side to quickly glance at his navigation so he can turn around and correct course. He said the street was empty. Before he can adjust, an officer rushes up behind him. He says the officer very aggressively starts berating him for being on the one-way incorrectly, telling him how he could kill someone and then asking what he is doing and where he is going, all the while swearing and using escalating quips like "tell me why I shouldn't arrest your dumbass right now?!"

When the officer finally allows him to speak and explain himself, he said he realized he had one shot to attempt to de-escalate the situation himself. So he lowered his voice, calmed his tone, told the officer that he is just trying to find the testing site, explained about his brother, and essentially started pleading and begging the officer for help with directions.

He said the officer took a step back, sighed like he was annoyed, and told him how to get there. He said he held out his elbow for a Covid handshake and told the officer thank you very much to which the officer responded, "just get your arse off this one way and get to where you are going please."

This isn't about statistics. It's not about "white" cops killing black men. It's about our society not valuing, devaluing even, black life. Yall (average white Americans) still just don't get it. The severity of the issue. It's so much larger than not wanting a cop kneeling on my neck until I die. Why should my friend have to endure that kind of treatment? Why should I? That man grew up poor like I did. Poorer even. Attended under funded public schools like I did. Against the odds made great grades, went to college, has four degrees, including a doctorate. Is a filmmaker and a writer. No criminal record. Calling me on a random arse Tuesday, crying, a grown man reduced to tears, because he's tired. Tired of being treated like this. Tired of having to live like this. And for what? Turning down a one-way accidentally? For being black?

There is a scene in the movie "The Help" that always sticks with me. Aibileen starts telling the story of how her son died and she says, "Anniversary of his death comes every year, I can't breathe, but to yall it's just another day of bridge."



That's how I feel lately explaining the black experience in this country. There is this burden, this cloud, this shadow, this fear, this smothering weight that just follows you everywhere but for yall it's Tuesday. It started out as just Tuesday for my friend. It didn't end that way. Most days never do. My friend is stressed lately. What if he misspoke or spoke out of frustration, depression or anger? What if he was legally carrying? What if he had a record?

BLM is so much bigger than what people make it about. I'm tired. To live like this. But carry on, play bridge.

 

[V Chip]

I look forward to you making that same comment to someone you don't disagree with. Otherwise it rings hollow as being partisan.

If someone I agree with whines about someone else not knowing what they think about a subject/link/tweet when they basically just posted "how tragic" as their input, I'll definitely do it.

I don't actually know if I agree with you or disagree with you on the subject (besides it being tragic, which I do agree with) since you didn't make your thoughts known.

 

[Saintamaniac]

Let me help you out with what they are trying to explain to you by giving you a personal experience.

So, earlier this week, one of my college friends (black man) calls me. I could tell in his voice he sounded upset so immediately I asked was it his brother. For clarity, his brother was hospitalized last week for serious health issues and while hospitalized he tested positive for Covid. So, already, I'm thinking, oh crap, this isn't good.

He says no, its not his brother, he's doing better, and then he bursts into tears. Whoa! I've never seen/heard this dude cry before. I'm like bro what's going on?! So, long story short, since his brother tested positive and he had been in proximity to him they advised he should get tested. In his town, they recently changed testing sites and he wasn't familiar with where the new place is at. So, he's driving to the site and he unknowingly makes a wrong turn and ends up on a one-way street.

When he realizes it, he pulls off to the side to quickly glance at his navigation so he can turn around and correct course. He said the street was empty. Before he can adjust, an officer rushes up behind him. He says the officer very aggressively starts berating him for being on the one-way incorrectly, telling him how he could kill someone and then asking what he is doing and where he is going, all the while swearing and using escalating quips like "tell me why I shouldn't arrest your dumbass right now?!"

When the officer finally allows him to speak and explain himself, he said he realized he had one shot to attempt to de-escalate the situation himself. So he lowered his voice, calmed his tone, told the officer that he is just trying to find the testing site, explained about his brother, and essentially started pleading and begging the officer for help with directions.

He said the officer took a step back, sighed like he was annoyed, and told him how to get there. He said he held out his elbow for a Covid handshake and told the officer thank you very much to which the officer responded, "just get your arse off this one way and get to where you are going please."

This isn't about statistics. It's not about "white" cops killing black men. It's about our society not valuing, devaluing even, black life. Yall (average white Americans) still just don't get it. The severity of the issue. It's so much larger than not wanting a cop kneeling on my neck until I die. Why should my friend have to endure that kind of treatment? Why should I? That man grew up poor like I did. Poorer even. Attended under funded public schools like I did. Against the odds made great grades, went to college, has four degrees, including a doctorate. Is a filmmaker and a writer. No criminal record. Calling me on a random arse Tuesday, crying, a grown man reduced to tears, because he's tired. Tired of being treated like this. Tired of having to live like this. And for what? Turning down a one-way accidentally? For being black?

There is a scene in the movie "The Help" that always sticks with me. Aibileen starts telling the story of how her son died and she says, "Anniversary of his death comes every year, I can't breathe, but to yall it's just another day of bridge."



That's how I feel lately explaining the black experience in this country. There is this burden, this cloud, this shadow, this fear, this smothering weight that just follows you everywhere but for yall it's Tuesday. It started out as just Tuesday for my friend. It didn't end that way. Most days never do. My friend is stressed lately. What if he misspoke or spoke out of frustration, depression or anger? What if he was legally carrying? What if he had a record?

BLM is so much bigger than what people make it about. I'm tired. To live like this. But carry on, play bridge.

I almost hate to read your posts like this because I know it's going to be something that either I've experienced or somebody I know have experienced. This is not your first such example trying to relay what you and I live on a daily basis. The people here are not dumb. There are some here who read your experiences and cringe because they try to put themselves in the same situation and understand how you feel.

There are others who blow it off as one-off situations or situations that happen so rarely that it's not really worth paying attention to it. That group has no interest in putting themselves in your situation for the simple fact that they are not you and that it is fine with them. They are fine as long as what you experience continues to stay with you and others like you.

 

[Farb]

Let me help you out with what they are trying to explain to you by giving you a personal experience.

So, earlier this week, one of my college friends (black man) calls me. I could tell in his voice he sounded upset so immediately I asked was it his brother. For clarity, his brother was hospitalized last week for serious health issues and while hospitalized he tested positive for Covid. So, already, I'm thinking, oh crap, this isn't good.

He says no, its not his brother, he's doing better, and then he bursts into tears. Whoa! I've never seen/heard this dude cry before. I'm like bro what's going on?! So, long story short, since his brother tested positive and he had been in proximity to him they advised he should get tested. In his town, they recently changed testing sites and he wasn't familiar with where the new place is at. So, he's driving to the site and he unknowingly makes a wrong turn and ends up on a one-way street.

When he realizes it, he pulls off to the side to quickly glance at his navigation so he can turn around and correct course. He said the street was empty. Before he can adjust, an officer rushes up behind him. He says the officer very aggressively starts berating him for being on the one-way incorrectly, telling him how he could kill someone and then asking what he is doing and where he is going, all the while swearing and using escalating quips like "tell me why I shouldn't arrest your dumbass right now?!"

When the officer finally allows him to speak and explain himself, he said he realized he had one shot to attempt to de-escalate the situation himself. So he lowered his voice, calmed his tone, told the officer that he is just trying to find the testing site, explained about his brother, and essentially started pleading and begging the officer for help with directions.

He said the officer took a step back, sighed like he was annoyed, and told him how to get there. He said he held out his elbow for a Covid handshake and told the officer thank you very much to which the officer responded, "just get your arse off this one way and get to where you are going please."

This isn't about statistics. It's not about "white" cops killing black men. It's about our society not valuing, devaluing even, black life. Yall (average white Americans) still just don't get it. The severity of the issue. It's so much larger than not wanting a cop kneeling on my neck until I die. Why should my friend have to endure that kind of treatment? Why should I? That man grew up poor like I did. Poorer even. Attended under funded public schools like I did. Against the odds made great grades, went to college, has four degrees, including a doctorate. Is a filmmaker and a writer. No criminal record. Calling me on a random arse Tuesday, crying, a grown man reduced to tears, because he's tired. Tired of being treated like this. Tired of having to live like this. And for what? Turning down a one-way accidentally? For being black?

There is a scene in the movie "The Help" that always sticks with me. Aibileen starts telling the story of how her son died and she says, "Anniversary of his death comes every year, I can't breathe, but to yall it's just another day of bridge."



That's how I feel lately explaining the black experience in this country. There is this burden, this cloud, this shadow, this fear, this smothering weight that just follows you everywhere but for yall it's Tuesday. It started out as just Tuesday for my friend. It didn't end that way. Most days never do. My friend is stressed lately. What if he misspoke or spoke out of frustration, depression or anger? What if he was legally carrying? What if he had a record?

BLM is so much bigger than what people make it about. I'm tired. To live like this. But carry on, play bridge.

Just out of curiosity, how old is your friend? You said he was your college friend so I would imagine he is your age. He was that upset becasue a cop was rude to him becasue he was breaking a traffic law? He met an ahole. I meet several of them every day. They come in all colors.

 

[brandon]

Just out of curiosity, how old is your friend? You said he was your college friend so I would imagine he is your age. He was that upset becasue a cop was rude to him becasue he was breaking a traffic law? He met an ahole. I meet several of them every day. They come in all colors.

Do those aholes you meet have a gun and a penchant for killing you if you're an ahole back?

 

[Farb]

Do those aholes you meet have a gun and a penchant for killing you if you're an ahole back?

Yes, I have met ahole cops before as well.

 

[SFIDC3]

Do those aholes you meet have a gun and a penchant for killing you if you're an ahole back?

You can't put yourself in someone else's shoes (or just have some empathy) if you deny that differences actually exist....