Jogging in Georgia while black.

[pgwenthold]

We recently had an extension built. The builders made sure that the job site was well fenced off when they weren't on site because of liability issues.

Good for them.

But so what?

No one has denied that it happens. What people have "denied" is the claim that no one will wander on to a construction site because, inter alia, it is fenced off.

We have plenty of examples of people participating in this thread who have said they have done it and that the site wasn't fenced off. So that means that claims that Arbery wandering around the construction site are nefarious because no one does it and the sites are fenced off are unfounded. It doesn't matter what is customarily done in Ireland or Australia or wherever else the builder chooses to fence the construction site.

It's not a universal practice, so there is no basis for asserting it must be this or that.

Pointless strawman is pointless.

 

[Thermal]

As a thought experiment, let's speculate. What would have happened had Arbery been a proper subservient black man and acquiesced to his pursuers demand to be illegally detained?

How would that shake out? He might still be alive. Then again, I very much doubt that once Arbery stopped, this self-appointed anti-theft squad would let him leave. They're carrying firearms, and once he realized they intended to interrogate him about a crime or otherwise arrest him, he may well have tried to leave and still ended up dead after a violent scuffle.

Then again, maybe he's especially servile, a real Georgia ideal of the black specimen, and he simply accepts this amateur arrest without resistance. What happens then?

I'm guessing these local cops, that were so keen to sweep a racist murder under the rug, would probably side with our amateur cops. Arbery would likely be questioned, perhaps cited or even arrested for the minor trespass. Almost certainly no charges would be leveled against our 3 men who committed the crime of false imprisonment. Arbery would have learned, affirmed by the local police, that black men ought not go near white neighborhoods without good reason and that whenever petty crime occurs, the local goon squad will respond by rounding up errant black people to put to the question.

So yes, if Arbery had simply allowed his liberty to be violated by these three men, he might still be alive.

If we're imaging hypotheticals, I prefer the one were Arbery manages to wrestle the shotgun from the younger McMichael, and in turn kills both the younger and elder with their own weapon in an act of righteous self defense. I imagine the police arriving while the piss soaked Roddie is held at gunpoint and Arbery hands him over to the police for arrest. Hard to imagine this happening in Georgia, but a guy can dream.

I got a better one.

The McMicheals and Roddy go after Arbery in their pick em up trucks. Arbery stops and says "Can I help you boys?"

"Hey was you all a-stealing from my neighbors domicile? We know how your kind is"

"Bitch, I suggest you go crawl back under the rock y'all slithered out from."

"Well it's a-lucky fer you we lives in a sensible no-carry State and have no option but to waggle our pudgy fingers with our jowls a-quiverin".

*Arbery resumes his jog. Fat racists shuffle feet*

Indeed, a man can dream.

 

[Cavemonster]

We recently had an extension built. The builders made sure that the job site was well fenced off when they weren't on site because of liability issues.

I expect that this varies by country and region.
Construction sites in off hours were my favorite childhood playgrounds.

From my own experience and what I gather from this thread, sites are heavily fenced off many places outside the US.

Within the US, I've lived in the North and the South, and in both, I generally saw fenced off sites in cities (but not always residential sites) and generally unfenced sites in residential construction in the suburbs.

Unless my memory is playing tricks with me, I also remember my parents being pretty cavalier about traipsing through other people's houses under construction when they were designing their own and looking for inspiration.

I myself haven't gone into an unoccupied construction zone as an adult, and probably wouldn't.

This is all to say that, like many things, it varies enough that I'm not going to judge what's normal or acceptable in this particular case by what's common in my own life. I have zero idea whether walking through a construction site in this neighborhood in question should be considered terribly transgressive or not. The McMicheals seemed to think it was, but they're not showing stellar judgement and objectivity in all areas.

 

[dirtywick]

As a thought experiment, let's speculate. What would have happened had Arbery been a proper subservient black man and acquiesced to his pursuers demand to be illegally detained?

How would that shake out? He might still be alive. Then again, I very much doubt that once Arbery stopped, this self-appointed anti-theft squad would let him leave. They're carrying firearms, and once he realized they intended to interrogate him about a crime or otherwise arrest him, he may well have tried to leave and still ended up dead after a violent scuffle.

Then again, maybe he's especially servile, a real Georgia ideal of the black specimen, and he simply accepts this amateur arrest without resistance. What happens then?

I'm guessing these local cops, that were so keen to sweep a racist murder under the rug, would probably side with our amateur cops. Arbery would likely be questioned, perhaps cited or even arrested for the minor trespass. Almost certainly no charges would be leveled against our 3 men who committed the crime of false imprisonment. Arbery would have learned, affirmed by the local police, that black men ought not go near white neighborhoods without good reason and that whenever petty crime occurs, the local goon squad will respond by rounding up errant black people to put to the question.

So yes, if Arbery had simply allowed his liberty to be violated by these three men, he might still be alive.

If we're imaging hypotheticals, I prefer the one were Arbery manages to wrestle the shotgun from the younger McMichael, and in turn kills both the younger and elder with their own weapon in an act of righteous self defense. I imagine the police arriving while the piss soaked Roddie is held at gunpoint and Arbery hands him over to the police for arrest. Hard to imagine this happening in Georgia, but a guy can dream.

I find it to be a pointless thought exercise though. He tried running, he tried hiding, he tried fighting back. He may be alive if had done some things differently, but no matter what he had done his fate was really up to the three men in the trucks with the guns. Just as it was the way it actually happened.

 

[dirtywick]

I expect that this varies by country and region.
Construction sites in off hours were my favorite childhood playgrounds.

From my own experience and what I gather from this thread, sites are heavily fenced off many places outside the US.

Within the US, I've lived in the North and the South, and in both, I generally saw fenced off sites in cities (but not always residential sites) and generally unfenced sites in residential construction in the suburbs.

Unless my memory is playing tricks with me, I also remember my parents being pretty cavalier about traipsing through other people's houses under construction when they were designing their own and looking for inspiration.

I myself haven't gone into an unoccupied construction zone as an adult, and probably wouldn't.

This is all to say that, like many things, it varies enough that I'm not going to judge what's normal or acceptable in this particular case by what's common in my own life. I have zero idea whether walking through a construction site in this neighborhood in question should be considered terribly transgressive or not. The McMicheals seemed to think it was, but they're not showing stellar judgement and objectivity in all areas.

I also played in construction sites as a kid. We used to climb the gravel piles and pull the stakes out and use them as swords.

 

[cmikes]

I've passed several large suburban housing sites in Dublin, I've never seen one in recent years (i.e. twenty or so) that wasn't fenced off. Perhaps for one-off sites in the country, but I doubt even that.
Fascinating cultural difference.

Yeah, I'm thinking maybe it's a regional thing. In my area, not every single construction project is fenced off, although most of them are. But it would be very unusual to see anyone just "poking around" one and they would most likely have the police called on them.

Hopefully they wouldn't be attacked and shot over it, though.

 

[lobosrul5]

Yeah, I'm thinking maybe it's a regional thing. In my area, not every single construction project is fenced off, although most of them are. But it would be very unusual to see anyone just "poking around" one and they would most likely have the police called on them.

Hopefully they wouldn't be attacked and shot over it, though.

Commercial and industrial properties are generally fenced off here. I can't ever remember seeing a house under construction that was fenced off, and that's what this was, right? If a jogger or walker just stopped by and was looking around I can't even fathom the police being called. I'm sure the 911 operator would say something like call the non-emergency line ya dumbass, you know theres actual rampant crime here. And maybe a PSA (police service aide) might poke on over in an hour or two. OTOH if its teenagers drinking and causing damage, or you see someone ripping stuff off that would be different.

 

[Andy_Ross]

I also played in construction sites as a kid. We used to climb the gravel piles and pull the stakes out and use them as swords.

We used to search around for forgotten packets of cigarettes.

 

[Meadmaker]

I find it to be a pointless thought exercise though.

Well, yes.

When the next "Worst Case Scenario" book comes out, we could debate it as a party game.

 

[Trebuchet]

We used to search around for forgotten packets of cigarettes.

Apparently the builders when and where I was a kid were more careful. We just collected bent nails we might be able straighten out.

 

[Thermal]

Well, yes.

When the next "Worst Case Scenario" book comes out, we could debate it as a party game.

I'll do Worst Case Scenario for mentioning an unrepresentative mile time

 

[smartcooky]

There aren't two viewpoints here, there's a continuum. Towards one end, there's "Three white men in trucks chased down a black man on foot and killed him with no legal justification." Towards the other end there's "The black guy brought all this on himself so he deserved to die." Somewhere in the middle there's "Yes it was murder but here are all the things he could have done differently and maybe they wouldn't have killed him." apologism and dog-whistling!

Personally, for the sake of my own moral sense, I'd rather stay at, or close to, the first end of the continuum.

FTFY Dave

 

[smartcooky]

To be honest, I was rather surprised when so many posters said that they routinely wander around construction sites. Where I live, every construction site I've seen is fenced and locked, so that random passers-by without hard hats and safety boots can't enter the site and wander unchecked. If I did enter through an unlocked gate I'd be spotted and immediately ejected by the construction workers.

That is my experience too. Liability alone tends to ensure sites deter unauthorised visitors.

Probably true, but ultimately irrelevant.... IMO, its a dead issue. You can say all you want about what you have seen at building sites where you are, but the site in question was NOT fenced off and/or locked up in any way... there weren't even any "Keep Out" or "No Trespassing" signs. There is video evidence of multiple people other than Arbery entering and leaving the site at all hours of the day and night.

There are also multiple posters here who have confessed to entering house build sites without authority.

 

[cmikes]

Probably true, but ultimately irrelevant.... IMO, its a dead issue. You can say all you want about what you have seen at building sites where you are, but the site in question was NOT fenced off and/or locked up in any way... there weren't even any "Keep Out" or "No Trespassing" signs. There is video evidence of multiple people other than Arbery entering and leaving the site at all hours of the day and night.

There are also multiple posters here who have confessed to entering house build sites without authority.

You're right, it's irrelevant, but thread drift and derails are a thing, especially in a thread like this where almost everyone agrees with the main thrust of the thread "look at what ******** these murderers are", the one exception being a poster who is an out and proud racist.

If people weren't getting bogged down in the minutia of "Well, what you do in that situation?" or "Is there anything that Aubery could have done to save himself?" or "Just "poking around" a construction site, that's weird." this would be an one page thread with maybe an update when the murderers are sentenced to the rest of their lives in prison, hopefully.

 

[cmikes]

Commercial and industrial properties are generally fenced off here. I can't ever remember seeing a house under construction that was fenced off, and that's what this was, right? If a jogger or walker just stopped by and was looking around I can't even fathom the police being called. I'm sure the 911 operator would say something like call the non-emergency line ya dumbass, you know theres actual rampant crime here. And maybe a PSA (police service aide) might poke on over in an hour or two. OTOH if its teenagers drinking and causing damage, or you see someone ripping stuff off that would be different.

I think it's because of the rampant crime that police would most likely be called in my area. My home state of West Virginia has had a huge drug problem in recent years and people stealing pretty much anything that's not nailed down from anywhere they can to support their drug habits has been a significant local problem. I think anyone observing people at a construction site that they didn't seem to belong at would immediately assume the trespassers were there to be stealing something.

Not a construction site, but we had a local case last summer where a lot of outbuildings and sheds in the area were being broken into and tools disappearing. It turned out to be a homeless man from the area, he was caught when he started pawning the stuff instead of just selling it to people around the area and the police were able to locate his hobo camp in the woods after talking to the pawn shop and found a huge cache of tools and equipment that he hadn't sold yet.

 

[arthwollipot]

So your "will absolutely be fenced" is complete nonsense. Stop talking about things you don't know about.

I thought it was pretty clear that I was referring specifically and directly about my own observations in my area.

 

[arthwollipot]

Probably true, but ultimately irrelevant.... IMO, its a dead issue. You can say all you want about what you have seen at building sites where you are, but the site in question was NOT fenced off and/or locked up in any way... there weren't even any "Keep Out" or "No Trespassing" signs. There is video evidence of multiple people other than Arbery entering and leaving the site at all hours of the day and night.

Yes, this whole thing has been a derail, for which I apologise.

 

[dirtywick]

I think it's because of the rampant crime that police would most likely be called in my area. My home state of West Virginia has had a huge drug problem in recent years and people stealing pretty much anything that's not nailed down from anywhere they can to support their drug habits has been a significant local problem. I think anyone observing people at a construction site that they didn't seem to belong at would immediately assume the trespassers were there to be stealing something.

Not a construction site, but we had a local case last summer where a lot of outbuildings and sheds in the area were being broken into and tools disappearing. It turned out to be a homeless man from the area, he was caught when he started pawning the stuff instead of just selling it to people around the area and the police were able to locate his hobo camp in the woods after talking to the pawn shop and found a huge cache of tools and equipment that he hadn't sold yet.

The work sites are usually cleared out by the end of the day at open sites, and I doubt that even locked and fenced sites people don't secure their tools when they're not around. When contractors do work at the facility I work in, they secure their tools before they leave for the day, and this is in a building.
Nobody wants their expensive tools stolen.

 

[Babbylonian]

Simply put, after I note such people doing so on multiple threads, I stop giving them the benefit of the doubt as to their intentions. I assume quit a few others do the same, and adjust their responses accordingly.

You assume correctly.

 

[smartcooky]

Simply put, after I note such people doing so on multiple threads, I stop giving them the benefit of the doubt as to their intentions. I assume quit a few others do the same, and adjust their responses accordingly.

There are several participants in this thread for whom I haven't given the benefit of the doubt for some time! They will know who they are!