Cops kill yet another black guy for probably no reason

[Donal]

If you can point to a post where someone said cops were psychos, then you should have addressed that post. Is there even such a post here?

The OP accuses the cops of shooting the kid for no reason. And several others agree.

Wouldn't you consider shooting someone for no reason psycotic behavior?

Besides, it's as if taking "psycho" out of my statement improves other peoples' strawmen any.

Why haven't you been calling out their fallacies?

 

[Rufo]

The OP accuses the cops of shooting the kid for no reason. And several others agree.

Wouldn't you consider shooting someone for no reason psycotic behavior?

Besides, it's as if taking "psycho" out of my statement improves other peoples' strawmen any.

Why haven't you been calling out their fallacies?

This misunderstanding seems to persist. No one is arguing that the cops shot the driver out of psychotic behavior.

Any doubts about what the OP is accusing anyone of should be cleared by post #5:

True that the cops probably did have a reason, that reason likely being panic at the sight of a black guy in a moving vehicle at a scene of heightened activity (the brawl). I suppose perhaps I should have said "no VALID reason."
[...]

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I'll repeat: No police officer has fired a weapon in the line of duty in the municipality in twenty years. All of the police involved in the shooting were veterans with at least five years of experience.

Given those facts, and the little else we know for certain, I find it hard to conclude that there has been a sudden attack of power madness at the Mount Pleasant Police Department.

I would look at the cop who fired first and see if he hasn't had escalating issues before drawing the conclusion you are drawing. It seems incongruent to have a very conservative to shoot police department have this kind of scenario being their first shooting. It would not surprise me to find that a single officer was at the initiation of the shooting and the others reacted to that. But it would surprise me to find the kid in this case really tried to run down the cops and caused the events to unfold.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

The OP accuses the cops of shooting the kid for no reason. And several others agree.

Wouldn't you consider shooting someone for no reason psycotic behavior?

Besides, it's as if taking "psycho" out of my statement improves other peoples' strawmen any.

Why haven't you been calling out their fallacies?

No, I would not consider that psychotic behavior. I don't consider bullies to be psychotic, for example. I don't consider cops who believe everyone should cower in their presence to be psychotic either.

Strawman: claiming your opponent made an argument they did not make in order to attack your made up argument instead of the real argument your opponent made. A "fallacy" is not by itself, a strawman.

Feel free to explain or point out which other straw men you are referring to.

 

[Uncayimmy]

I fail to see a distinction between 'knocked onto' and 'ended up on'.

Your failure to see the distinction does not mean that one is not there. The term "ended up" implies that there is a sequence of events between Event A and Ended Up. For example, "I met this chick at a bar, and we ended up in the back seat of cop car" as opposed to "I met this chick at a bar, we both had a lot to drink, I grabbed her boob, she told me to stop, I called her a bitch, we got into a fight, somebody called the cops, and they shoved us in the back of the patrol car."

Maybe in backwards twisted world.

I've been through this kind of stuff with you before where you refused to see what actual pictures were showing, so I'm not going to spend a lot of time explaining to you how this works. Suffice it to say that when I stand with my hip against the mirror on either my car or my wife's car, my other hip is well past the windshield and parallel to the hood of the car. It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure out where my body would end up

Oh my word. What a contorted version of events one needs to imagine this bizarre scenario. He's hit by the mirror so he jumps toward the car's hood?

He jumps backwards to avoid being hit but gets hit anyway. In the process he ends up on the hood. You were never a teenage boy, so you probably never had your friends try to hit you with a car. It's fun.

It's absurd!

Only because you want it to be, just like you want the victim to be a great guy because he was on a football team.

 

[Loss Leader]

You were never a teenage boy, so you probably never had your friends try to hit you with a car.

I'm not exactly a fan of UY. I don't follow him on Twitter, or anything. And the whole discussion of the "physics" of how a cop ended up on the hood of a car is insanely premature, given the very little information we have. However, I have to agree 100% with the statement that young men spend an inordinate amount of time trying to hit each other with cars.

If any man here has not ridden on the hood of a moving car for some distance, come forward.

And I will hit you with my car.

 

[Grizzly Adams]

Get your bigoted crap out of here. This is supposed to be a sensible discussion.

But the bigoted crap started in the OP...

 

[Grizzly Adams]

When you see these caught-on-tape cops beating some poor sot, it almost always involves someone who wasn't subservient enough for the cops' liking and those cops are now out of control from not being obeyed.

Yeah, those power-drunk cops really get their panties in a bind when you don't obey their silly little show-of-power commands like "drop the knife" or "stop beating that little old lady."

What pricks!

 

[BobTheDonkey]

Maybe, but at least that bigotry is on topic. I think this an interesting case that warrants a serious discussion. I'm a little ambivalent about it myself but the information we have seems to suggest the shooting was unwarranted. Anyway, Architect's hang-ups with the U.S. is simliar to Travis's hang-ups with women. I didn't want him to hijack another thread with his drivel.

See, here's the thing...

At what point, while an Officer is hanging onto your hood, does one continue to drive forward? At what point in the process of hitting at least one more Officer (possibly a 3rd) should one realize: "whoops, that must be the accelerator"?

 

[Slimething]

Why can't JREF members wait until all the facts are in before making a conclusion?

Like any population, we also have memebers who aren't happy unless they're outraged.

 

[Weak Kitten]

Like any population, we also have memebers who aren't happy unless they're outraged.

Rage, RAGE!!!!

Ah, I feel better now

 

[Travis]

Why are we discounting the possibility that the kid actually was trying to run over some cops? Because he was a college student? How does that figure?

 

[Modified]

I work with the police. They are for the most part, well meaning people. But I've also seen their tendency to be on a power trip. Some, but not all, cops fail to understand that respect for their authority is not some absolute condition they have a right to demand of every individual in every situation.

My friend's crime was that he smiled at them. They apparently took that to be cockiness, slammed him to the pavement, and took turns giving him running kicks, breaking several of his ribs, all the while shouting "Stop resisting!" for the benefit of their personal audio recorders. He was smiling because he was confused, having no idea why he was pulled over and ordered out of the car. They thought they had caught a thief, but they had caught a guy who was moving his own furniture.

 

[Donal]

Screw it, let me throw in my own unfounded speculation.

The cops shot the kid because they all bet on New Haven, Pace's opponent Saturday.

Given what we know, that makes as much sense as some of the other theories being thrown around in this thread.

 

[Ysidro]

Yeah, those power-drunk cops really get their panties in a bind when you don't obey their silly little show-of-power commands like "drop the knife" or "stop beating that little old lady."

What pricks!

That straw man will look good in my yard for Halloween! Thanks.

 

[Finn McR]

Wow, there's a lot of vitriol on both (or more) sides. I don't mind the fact that my local police are armed with both probably lethal (firearms) and probably non-lethal (e.g. taser) weapons. The whole, "STOP!, ... or I'll shout 'STOP' again!," joke just seems to have too much resonance with this one brought up to think that individuals have a right to resist criminal aggression (on their own, without waiting 20 minutes for the proper authorities to arrive). By the same token, those public servants who are supposed to help keep public order (and some are *****, no doubt) need a reasonably equivalent kit to keep on par with the expected ruffians.

Who knows, maybe I am lucky to have only neutral dealings with law enforcement; but I am glad that we have some, and not none. Because what would the outcome of no law enforcement be? As soon as you have a suggestion for law enforcement that does not allow of individual human failures, you will be ruler of vast empires.

 

[Finn McR]

Huh, sixty posts and still I did not know that some epithets ("curse words") are automatically redacted with asterix... what a noob!

 

[Grizzly Adams]

That straw man will look good in my yard for Halloween! Thanks.

I'm just going to go ahead and assume you didn't read the quote to which I was responding, on the grounds that I'm also assuming you're not an imbecile.

 

[BobTheDonkey]

Wow, there's a lot of vitriol on both (or more) sides. I don't mind the fact that my local police are armed with both probably lethal (firearms) and probably non-lethal (e.g. taser) weapons. The whole, "STOP!, ... or I'll shout 'STOP' again!," joke just seems to have too much resonance with this one brought up to think that individuals have a right to resist criminal aggression (on their own, without waiting 20 minutes for the proper authorities to arrive). By the same token, those public servants who are supposed to help keep public order (and some are *****, no doubt) need a reasonably equivalent kit to keep on par with the expected ruffians.

Who knows, maybe I am lucky to have only neutral dealings with law enforcement; but I am glad that we have some, and not none. Because what would the outcome of no law enforcement be? As soon as you have a suggestion for law enforcement that does not allow of individual human failures, you will be ruler of vast empires.

(this is actually somewhat local to me - as in, it's in the local papers because it happened within 20-30mi of where I live)

Being as an Officer was reportedly hanging onto the hood (who cares if it's the one that rapped on the window or another (I think it's another, news report wasn't clear)) and another about to be hit - how can anyone make the claim that the Officers use of force was inappropriate?

The kid in the driver's seat was endangering lives of Officers (and bystanders - his view was definitely obstructed) with a lethal weapon (yes, a vehicle is considered a lethal weapon).

At what point in time can you guys denouncing the Officers actions claim that this kid was not at fault here? Because Officers rapped on his window, so he was just trying to move the car? Really. He was just trying to move the car to a legal parking space - with an Officer on the hood? Really. You're really going to defend that preposterous position? Good luck, I think you'll need it.

Or is the argument that lethal force (real bullets from real handguns) should not have been used? And what, let the kid take off down the road with an Officer clinging to the hood? Let the kid run over another Officer or two or three as he attempted to clear the parking lot? Tazer through the window?

 

[SonOfLaertes]

FWIW, a friend of mine in high school was involved in a very similiar incident. He was an honor student, and a soccer star at our high school. He was parked in the parking lot of the high school at a football game; occupants in the back seat were cutting out a few lines of coke when a police officer rapped on the window. My friends horrified reaction was to put the car in drive and haul a** away. The cop was not hit by the car, and no one else was around, but of course he radiod for help and my friend was pulled over a few miles from the incident - minus any illegal substances which had been jettisoned. They were arrested (I think - maybe just taken in to the station, its been decades) but got off. His explanation was that he didn't recognize the officer as a cop - there had been trouble between the two schools (fights, brawls) at the football games and his alibi was "fear of being attacked". I think he had friends at the station as well, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if "good, well-behaved, honor student" type kids like my friend didn't panic precisely because they had so much to lose by being busted for recreational drug use.