Riley24

Yeah, it tends to be that way. Our country more than others, because of our history.

An entire disenfranchised community with no opportunity, poor education, and decades of abuse and exploitation from law enforcement. There's never an excuse for violence like this, but we shouldn't act like this is coming out of nowhere. Hope everyone stays safe in MO.

I'm amazed that you're more concerned about how nice black people are to police officers, than how many black people are killed by police officers. Not everyone will be nice to cops, but that's part of their job. I could care less about how polite black people are to police. And its not about justifying someones emotions, because not everyone is rational or reasonable. People sometimes get pissed when they get pulled over, that's human nature. We can't control human nature. We can, however, control public officials who's job it is to deal with those people. Was Sandra Bland an undercover CIA agent? No one can know. Lets focus on what we do know, which is that this officer told multiple lies, which means everything he says in the tape should be questioned. And since we can see how visibly angry he is that she won't put out her cigarette, and how soon after her refusal does he order her to get out. What's puzzling is that even though we both know he's legally justified in ordering her out, you're still trying to defend him. Why?

Oh, so its ok if they beat or tase people to death? That's somehow better? Or if they let someone bounce around int he back of a transport van until their spine severs, that doesn't deserve to be mentioned? "We didn't shoot everyone that we killed" is not a great defense. The goal of the research isn't to show that link, its to show the reality across the country. We're not talking about whether or not cops are racist, we're talking about a nation-wide systemic issue regarding race and policing. Black suspects are killed disproportionately. Black people are arrested disproportionately for drug offences, and are stopped disproportionately during "Stop and Frisk" situations. We're not calling cops racist, we're simply connecting the dots. A woman on an elevator might clutch her purse when a black person gets on, what makes you so sure that police officers in historically racist regions won't reach for their weapon faster? "look these numbers match the point I'm trying to make" is called providing evidence. And I'm sure you would love to believe that there was a spike in black people beating the shit out of police officers, but there's no evidence that suggests that. In fact, police shootings continue to rise as violent crime drops. But maybe that's just me using numbers to match my point again. The problem is that in a lot of these situations, the suspect did not in any way pose an imminent threat, but a threat was falsely perceived by officers. Tamir Rice, John Crawford, Ricardo Diaz Zeferino. Empathy is the capacity to understand what someone else is feeling. When you watch people die and have no reaction, that's a little scary. You don't have to live through something yourself to have empathy for someone who is. You're aware that dead people can't talk, right? When there are gaps in scientific evidence, first-hand accounts are used to understand the bigger pictures. When people start shooting, the only ones that are left to tell the story of what happened are the survivors. Explaining Michael Brown's actions to make the case for an officer is not offering alternative solutions, its blaming the victim. When someone is gunned down in their driveway, they're not exactly around to explain why they didn't put down a screwdriver. And I get it, cops have a tough job. But if they continuously make split-second decisions with devastating results, it is well within our rights as Americans to demand them to be better. I fully understand the difficulty of split second decisions, but there's always a step too far. And when you watch unarmed person after unarmed person being gunned down in the street, its perfectly reasonable to examine police culture and training, because they definitely can contribute to an officer's willingness to kill.

Show me one bit of research that has shown that there is a sociological issue of black officers killing black suspects, and I'll be on this very forum discussing it passionately. You're completely missing the point. The problem is that officers, who tend to be white, are disproportionately killing back suspects, who tend to be unarmed. I've already shown you the evidence for that, and there's more online. Ok, so whats the standard? Because there is case after case of unarmed people being killed, and the shootings are considered justified, especially on this forum. So what's the standard? Either the standard is fairly strict, and departments all across the country are breaking the law and getting away with it, or the standard is fairly lax in which case there's a huge problem on our hands. Which is it? How can you possibly watch a video of four armed men gunning down unarmed people and not think they're at fault? Do you have any amount of empathy? Show me the laws that show clearly that that's OK, because that doesn't sound like America to me. Offering alternative solutions for the living aggressor is different than doing so for the dead victim. Dead people can't explain themselves. I get it, in the split second, it makes sense to shoot. But cops can't live every day in the split second. At some point, after however many hundreds or thousands of people are killed, we're going to have to re-think the way we let police gun people down in the streets. The current frequency with which it happens, especially with already disenfranchised communities, is sickening. I understand that there is a fine line between keeping us safe and keeping themselves safe, but they have to be better at walking it. We don't pay them to gun down mentally ill people with screwdrivers that call 911. Again, we can't live in the split second. That's not the way we do things here.

I'm glad, but just remember that that's your perspective. We're all confined to our own perspective. There's a lot of discussion to be had about the struggles of being black in America, and I'm glad you haven't experienced them. But other people have, and that's what they're (literally) in the streets about. But about the video, I'm curious, were they actually black panthers? I didn't get that from the video.

I think this is more of a cultural observation than a legitimate suggestion, guys. Its a ridiculous suggestion, and I think its supposed to be. I think there's something to be said about strengthening community ties, but obviously not by "color-coding cops".

Mental illness and firearms are a deadly combo. Hope they're able to figure out why this happened, and stay safe of course.

It is brought up because that's the reality. Why is it that the news doesn't report shootings of Chinese people as such? Because Chinese people are not disproportionately shot, and Chinese communities are not making accusations of racially-charged police violence. Our society has moved past overlooking the race issue, and that's a good thing. Institutional racism didn't end with the Civil Rights movement, and that issue is exemplified in police shootings. They include the race of the victim because Black Americans are disproportionately shot by police, especially when unarmed. That is a fact, and here are the numbers. http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/01/black-americans-killed-by-police-analysis What makes a shooting of an African American significant isn't whether or not the officer shot the suspect because he was black, its whether or not the situation would have unfolded in the same way if the suspect was white. This is what I've been talking about, a systemic problem. It doesn't fault all or even most officers. A trend can occur without indicting a million officers. The debate about police violence shouldn't start before acknowledging that fact, it need to start after. When the news reports the race of the victim, its not "race-baiting" or "pushing a narrative", its reporting on a situation using information that we already know to be true. Look, if there was no research or statistics to show the issue that I've been talking about, I wouldn't be so defensive of the news. Journalism is a very flawed industry and I could write a 10 page rant on all of the things they do wrong, but this isn't one of them. Ignoring the race is ignoring the issue, and that's not what good journalism does. That is why I am saying that the training might be at fault, since as you said, you revert to your training when you are in a high-stress situation. In my opinion, the problem is how we define "justified". It seems like the only criteria is that the officer has to think that a threat exists. Am I wrong? Just look at all the cases that we've been looking at. Not talking about the nation-wide scope of the issue, just these handful of cases where we actually have video evidence. Its definitely a trend. I think the sample case that the FBI offered as an example of a justified shooting was something like "An officer pulls up to the scene of a bank robbery, and the robber opens fire on the officer. The officer shoots back and kills the robber." That's nowhere near the situation in the cases we're looking at, but yet we still consider them justified. Why? If the suspect isn't a clear and imminent threat, why can an officer end his life? How is it that in other countries, suspects sometimes present a clear and imminent threat to officers but aren't killed? That's the only other option if the officers are not willing to take any further risk. Why aren't you faulting them for not shooting? Wouldn't you rather have them continue to shout orders until they manage to get the kids on the ground so they can handcuff them? The difference between a weapon and a common household maintenance tool is intent. The mentally-ill man in the screwdriver case likely didn't understand who the police were or why they were there, and he likely didn't understand the officers when they ordered him to put the screwdriver down. It is unfair to assume that he kept the screwdriver in his hand to use as a weapon. When dealing with mentally ill suspects, officers shouldn't go so fast to lethal force. That's all I'm saying. I've seen cases where police have shot unarmed naked people, and people that threw a rock at them. The threshold for lethal force seems to be small.

Your generalization referred to Sandra Bland and "most people". Perhaps you forgot to specify, but that seemed fairly clear to me. The problem is that there is a history of black communities being mistreated by police, so when Sandra Bland starts off being agitated, she's not unjustified in feeling that way. It is the officer's responsibility to maintain order during in an interaction and not endanger himself or the suspect needlessly. If he had given her a ticket for merging into a lane without signalling to get out of the way of a police car, she would've been on her way to her new job and would've complained to her co-workers about the asshole cop that pulled her over. It is entirely the officer's fault for letting the situation get out of hand, and you shouldn't be defending him or his actions, no matter what your opinion on police is. You can clearly tell with how quickly and bluntly he said it that he was pissed off that she didn't put out her cigarette. Come on, you can tell. It honestly seems like you're making up hypothetical situations that even the officer hasn't reported, and offering them as explanations. We DO know what his behavior and choices were, and what he reported to his superiors.

This isn't a thread about the killing of Michael Brown. If we keep bringing up different cases the thread will go on forever. I would be happy to talk about this in a thread dedicated to the topic. No one is saying every officer is racist. And I didn't ask for the legal definition, I asked for the standard that police use in reality. Unless you think all police use the legal definitions, which would be laughable. So if the reasons for not tasing or tackling him are legitimate, then what were the other options? No matter what other options I bring up, I'm getting the feeling that you're going to tell me why they're not legitimate. So lets hear it from you. If you're not saying shooting was the only option, then what were the other options? But he didn't have a hammer, or a sharpened toothbrush, or a screwdriver. Those can be weapons when a suspect is approaching them with one of them in their hands, which is not even close to the situation that the officers were put in. So whats the legal standard for killing someone on the street, and how is gunning someone down for taking off his hat (when there are other unarmed suspects behind him), able to fit into that legal definition?

You're right, not every single American across the country cares about the complexity of case law. But he could have at least made an effort to diffuse the situation by being more up-front with her. And funny that you feel comfortable making generalizations about Americans as a whole, but not about police officers. In this sitaution, do you think that the officer gave two shits about case law? Or is he just a bully with a badge? Yes, he was allowed to ask her to get out of the car. He could have at least made an effort to diffuse the situation, but he never even tried that. He made her more and more agitated. He caused this entire situation to unfold, he could have just a rational human being and given her the ticket (or the warning he apparently was going to give). But her real crime was disrespecting a police officer. The officer made the choice to knowingly escalate the situation for no reason other than to harass her, because he was mad she didn't put out her cigarette. Law enforcement has to be better than that. But its clear that he asked her to step out because she said no to putting out her cigarette, so why? What was he going to do with her out of the car? Put her in cuffs for not putting out her cigarette? And the facts have a bias. He lied multiple times in his account of what happened, either in the 10 or 50 minute version.

Because Penn. v. Mimms is not a case people care about until a cop violently attacks someone in their car. How is it that a case that started after police ordered a suspect out to find a gun is distorted into giving a Texas State Trooper the legal ability to attack a woman in her car for standing up to him? Instead of diffusing the situation, he escalated it. If he had explained to her the apparent extent of his power in a traffic stop instead of threatening to "light her up", the entire situation may have been avoided. If I was in the majority of Americans that have never heard of Penn. v. Mimms, I would be absolutely terrified that a state trooper is lunging into my car, grabbing me, and threatening me. I have no idea how I would react. I may try to call my lawyer or record him, both of which he chose to prevent her from doing. Look beyond the simplicity of the legal ruling of Penn. v. Mimms. It is incredibly easy to brush your hands and say "wellin the context of a supreme court case regarding a completely different situation, he legally didn't do anything wrong so that's that.". Do me a favor and approach this story as a human being. There is plenty of more nuance to it than just whether or not he could ask her to get out of the car. -She had the right to smoke in her car (funny that you don't seem at all concerned with the legality of the rest of his actions). -The officer offered no reason for asking her to get out of the car, either in the official report or to her at the time -The officer is clearly emotional and in a poor state of mind -The officer is reactionary, and escalates the situation -The officer's emotions lead him to endanger his suspect and himself by lunging into her car -He never told her what she was under arrest for, leading her to believe she was being arrested for a failure to signal (after being forced into another lane by the same officer's alleged wreckless driving). You say that officers don't ell suspects why they're being arrested because it might enrage them, but the opposite happened in this case. It was the officer's refusal to answer the question that agitated her, as it would anyone. It begs the question, did the officer even know at the time why he was arresting her? Then when she's out of the car and calm, he still does not answer the question, he corrals her around with a taser even though she is not resisting physically. Watch the video again, the whole version. You could write a novel about all of the officer's misconduct and lies that he told. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49_wNH9OiYA

There were plenty of inconsistencies with all of the witnesses, a quick google search can find a lot of articles outlining them. There were a lot of things wrong in that process and I'm not exactly sure how well the justice system faired under that historic amount of public scrutiny. So are you willing to acknowledge that there are police officers all across the country that rough up or harass black teenagers because they "fit the profile"? Black communties from LA to NYC have been complaining about similar treatment, that's what made the Zimmerman case so high-profile, its not a grand coincidence. Police officers have admitted to it, and it was practically legalized with Stop and Frisk in NYC. You say they "usually have reasonable suspicion", but what counts as reasonable suspicion now-a-days in America? Not by what police officers are taught, but what they do in reality in those neighborhoods. Are you seriously saying that the only choice these officers had was to gun the person down? I person takes off his hat, and that's the only logical thing left to do? Shoot first, ask questions later. Don't wait until you see a gun, or even something that looks like a gun. If you're scared enough, kill the person. It scares me that you don't see how insane that is. If fidgeting gets you killed in America, what won't? How could you possibly have gotten the idea that I'm implying that police shouldn't shoot back when being shot at? None of the suspects we've been talking about have been armed (apart from a common household maintenance tool). None of them have had guns on them or even near them, let alone firing at officers. Everyone can agree that return fire is justified, but I can show you countless cases where that wasn't the case. We're talking about someone who was shot for taking off their hat by three armed officers that were so paranoid about weapons that they couldn't distinguish the difference between taking off a hat or reaching for a gun. My standard for a justified shooting is when a suspect presents an immediate lethal danger to an officer. What's yours? Because apparently ours differ.

But yet you can't point to a single case where you've doubted the officer's version of events. See where I'm coming from? I'm not making you look like anything. And when some of the witnesses disagreed with the officer's account (in the Ferguson case lets say), I'm sure you would dismiss their claims in favor of a witness that did back up the officer's story. I've seen people do that 100 times, am I wrong for lumping you in with that crowd? Zimmerman also believed Martin to be a robbery suspect. Again, not making you look like anything, but would you have the same criticisms of Zimmerman if he was a plain-clothed police officer? Still, I would rather the DEA have armored IED resistant vehicles than my town of 3,800 people. No system of accountability is ever perfect, but there doesn't mean that there shouldn't be one, or that the current one is the best way of doing it. That's anti-progress. I know I said its best to leave personal experience out of it, but have you ever had 4 guns pointed at you with bright lights and people yelling things? I'm guessing not, and neither have I. Normal people aren't trained for that situation. There's no telling how someone will react. And maybe if he keeps fidgeting with his hands, tase him. We'd probably still be arguing about that but at least he would still be alive. And if his hands are at his head as he's taking off his hat, maybe take a little bit of a risk and tackle him with the three other officers covering you. I know that being a cop is a tough and dangerous job, but it is not too much to ask for to try other avenues other than shooting. Why is it that officers have every right to shoot you for something they think might possibly be happening, but you don't have the right to not get shot for not reacting perfectly to having four guns pointed at you? That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.

He is clearly not in the right state of mind. Yes, he put himself in danger by lunging into the car like that. Remember how the Batlimore officers said they didn't fasten Freddie Grey's seat belt because they would have had to reach past him in a narrow space, and even though he was in cuffs, he could still bite them. How does police training allow for those BPD officers to be justified in not fastening his seatbelt, but also justify an officer lunging head first into a car with an un-detained suspect? I can't be the only one that sees that gap in logic. And about him not including his reason for asking her to get out of the car in the first place, he easily could have went up to the passenger side to avoid traffic. He asks her to put out her cigarette, and she says no (which she has every right to), and he says "Well, you can step on out now". In his voice, you can hear how angry he is. So he asked her to step out of the car because she was being disrespectful (also not a crime). Can't you see that the entire interaction shifted when she didn't get out of the car? But since his state of mind was wrong before that, it was really his anger that fueled the rest of the interaction. Using the vagueness of Penn. vs Mimms, this officer was able to needlessly take out his anger and frustration on someone for being disrespectful to him. I found this on reddit, its worth a quote. The officer had three choices when she refused to put out her cigarette. "1) acknowledge her rights to smoke and proceed to issue the warning, 2) explain the reason for his polite request and ask her nicely again and leaving the right entirely to her, 3) yank her out of the car and treat her like a dog that won't stop pissing on the rug." You're right, its still ongoing. If she showed the deputies that she was a suicidal risk, and they did nothing to keep her safe, that could be very bad. Checking "no" after they said she told her she had attempted suicide in the past doesn't add up. I hope all of it can be cleared up in an investigation.

But there is a wrong way, and it includes lunging into a car, screaming like a maniac, and violently attacking someone. Being partly responsible isn't the same as being appointed blame. Maybe check in on her from time to time, and make sure she doesn't have anything that she can harm herself with, both of which they apparently did not do. (Or also maybe don't throw someone in jail for a dumb situation that they didn't react perfectly to). You might be thinking "there's no way they could have known", but as you said, she allegedly told a jailer that she was previously suicidal. If he thought she was a danger inside the car, he would have included that in the report. Call it what it is, he was on a power trip and was clearly not in the right state of mind. That definitely plays a factor here. Its a lot more nuanced than "Well, he had the right to arrest her so nothing else matters".

Thats the benefit of being the only one left alive in an encounter - you can tell any story you like. Don't you think its possible that officers over-exaggerate a threat in a testimony? Out of how many "reaching for my gun" stories, was the suspect actually reaching for his gun? You take the officer's word for it, unless there's overwhelming evidence not to. I doubt you would think an officer is guilty if witness testimonies The definition of putting words in someone's mouth is saying that they said something that they didn't. If a problem exists, its systemic, which would mean that instructors could be partly responsible for creating the violent culture that exists. I'll use the Gardena case as an example. The officers gunned someone down because they saw his hands move in a way that could possibly indicate reaching for a gun. It turned out, he was completely innocent and unarmed, and was the one who called the police. Shoot first, ask questions later. They are trained to always put their safety ahead of who they're serving. There is a middleground between officer safety and suspect safety, and all of this cases show that we haven't found it yet. Ok, so lets say Zimmerman was an actual police officer. What in your mind makes him a racist piece of shit? As much as I would love to get into Stand Your Ground and the Castle Doctrine, I'll refrain. Another topic for another day. DEA and US Marshals by nature have higher-profile cases. The US Marshals almost exclusively track down and transport the countries more dangerous criminals, and the DEA are have a wider net of responsibility than local departments. In terms of military equipment...why does a town with 1,000 residents need an IED resistant vehicle? I 100% understand why federal agencies have that need. Also, if I'm not mistaken, federal agencies have oversight committees. Whether or not they're effective is questionable. When it comes to cracking down on local law enforcement misconduct, federal agencies have proven to be the most effective. We can play with hypotheticals and slippy slopes all we want, but that's the reality. Well I'm sorry if it offends you, but you haven't shared your qualifications and there's no reason for you to. I can easily make up person stories about how I was abused by police officers, which is why it is best to leave personal experience out of an anonymous internet conversation. I'm not implying that you're lying, its just that lying is easy on the internet. Yes, it is "at some point". They didn't see a gun, they didn't even think they saw a gun. They saw someone move their hands in the general area where somone might keep a gun, if they had one, which they didn't have any reason to think he did. If he had reached quickly into a jacket or something of the sort, that would be a different story. It is "at some point" because the suspects slow and vague movements somewhat resembled that of reaching for a weapon. So he wasn't an imminent threat. Also, a taser isn't completely effective against an armed suspect, but would I be wrong in thinking that it would be effective on someone who has nothing in either hand? So I'll add that to the rationale."Well, I can't really tell if you're a threat, you might be someone that stole a bicycle in this area, and you might be a danger at some point so I'm going to kill you just in case". Is that a justified shooting? Turned out he wasn't a robbery suspect, but they didn't let him live long enough for him to explain that. Also, if I'm not mistaken, they weren't looking for an armed suspect, they were looking for a bicycle thief. Watch the video again. He made no sudden movements, he just took off his hat. You never know how you're going to react when you have 4 guns pointed at you. You may think to take off your hat to show respect or show that you're not hiding anything. Maybe that's not the perfect way to react, but it shouldn't be the last thing you ever do on planet Earth.

Well let me ask you, if you were a reasonable officer, would you have handled the situation in the same way? Would have endangered yourself by lunging into the car screaming, grabbing hear, and threatening to "light her up", or was there a better way to handle that situation? And no, you're putting words in my mouth. I'm not pinning her death on them, I'm saying that the absolute best case scenario for the police is that all of their officers were 100% honest with investigators and in their reports, and that she was able to kill herself in police custody, which is still not an acceptable standard for law enforcement in America in my opinion. (Also, Pennsylvania v. Mimms states that an officer can order a suspect out of a car to prevent danger to the officer. Can you honestly tell me that the officer in this case was not on a power trip, but in fact ordered her out to prevent himself being harmed?)

Shouldn't that mean that they are held to a higher standard? Using taxpayer dollars, we give them guns and send them out onto the streets. I'm not saying that they should be treated as criminals as soon as they shoot someone, but obviously an officer's testimony is treated differently than a normal person's testimony, even if there is no scientific evidence to prove his account. Obviously they collect that information, but can honestly tell me that you have ever questioned an officer's testimony apart from a case as obvious as the Michael slager case? Have you ever seen a case that was ruled justified and thought "Huh, that's not right.". Have you ever seen a case where an officer said a suspect reached for his gun, and doubted it? If you don't, what makes you think (not all) but some investigators generally would? No, I don't. For someone who constantly claims others put words in your mouth, you're doing just that. Yes, policies and systemic problems (however large or small) exist nation-wide. If a systemic problem were to exist, it would exist in the psychology of nearly police officer, and in the training as well. If police are trained to not take risk, they would be more likely to shoot quicker. I don't think every cop is screwed up, but there's clearly a problem, otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation. I have always said, and will continue to say that the problem is a cultural one, and that affects the way police officers are trained. Obviously there's not an epidemic of killers becoming cops. But as I'm sure you would attest to, training plays a huge part in the ways that police officers handle a situation. Training is the difference between an average person and a police officer. So if we're seeing this many problems with police officers, it would be logical to conclude that the training may be to blame. The part of the topic that you seem to be missing is the fundamental difference between a systemic problem and the claim that all cops are bad. Interesting that you use the one case where it was not actually a police officer. Would you call a police officer a racist piece of shit if he did the same exact thing? I don't want to get into the Zimmerman case, because that's a dead horse. But I just found that interesting. If you want to stop defending people who's actions you despise, you can oppose the law that protects them. Defending someone's actions because they're technically legal is not compatible with hating what they do. It's not being objective, its being part of the problem. Part of challenging wrong-doing is having the courage to challenge the law that may very-well protect people that do wrong. Federal agencies aren't the ones causing the problems we're talking about. Shocking that you're suddenly so interested in government accountability in this hypothetical. If FBI agents went into neighborhoods and shot people this often, I would want more oversight over them as well. In the same way that I want oversight over the NSA after their unconstitutional programs were exposed. Accountability is not a slippery slope, its a cornerstone in any democracy. What part of "anonymous" do you not understand? I have no idea who you are. It doesn't matter what certifications you have, because there is no way of verifying that you're telling the truth, or that the documents you provide are actually yours. Welcome to the internet. So you think that "well, I can't really tell if you're a threat, you might be a danger at some point so I'm going to kill you just in case" is an acceptable standard for killing a human being? So my (and your) life hinges on whether or not a police officer thinks I'm dangerous?

It is relevant because the officer needlessly created a dangerous situation where he had to arrest someone, because of his own emotional and unbalanced reaction. It is not illegal to smoke inside of your car. At what point is a person too emotional and violently abusive to be a police officer? If he can't cite someone for improper signalling without causing the situation to get violent, how is he supposed to protect the community? I could care less about "well, legally he had the right to ask her to get out of her car"...so obviously the reasonable thing to do is lunge into the car screaming, draw your taser, beat her, threaten her, and then allegedly slam her head into the ground? Police have use of force policies, and maybe they should have escalation of force policies. I do not trust the police department under who's watch Sandra Bland died. So far, they've given no reason why we should trust them. Apparently Sandra Bland told a jailer that she tried to kill herself once before? Well, she's not around anymore to confirm that. Its on a document that someone else wrote and signed off on. If that's true, I think it still leaves them partly responsible for her death, since they knowingly left someone with a history of attempted suicide in a cell, unsupervised, with the tools necessary to kill herself. If her suicide was not so out of the blue as you claim, then they should have taken better precautions.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/12/walter-scott-shooting-officer-michael-slager-audio-recording Listen to the recording. The cops laughed about the adrenaline rush and he was sent home, the opposite of what happens when anyone else shoots someone. With my apparently brief knowledge of law enforcement, even I know that you're supposed to bring someone in as soon as possible so they don't have time to change their story. Obviously this is a high profile case, but if you should get anything from this, you should get that the criminal justice system does not treat everyone equally. A police officer will get the benefit of the doubt during an investigation, that's just a byproduct of being a police officer investigated by another police officer. If a police officer tells investigators that he thought the suspect was reaching for his gun, it no longer matters if he actually was reaching for it. That's the most common example, and I've seen it countless times over the years in low-profile cases. It's not a "cover-up", its the automatic benefit of the doubt that prevents LEOs from being investigated equally. It still seems to objective to be used. But everything is on the table, current police training should be scrutinized. I have the same amount of confidence in a professional instructor than I have in the officer in question. You realize you and I are the court of public opinion, right? I would be all for public legal education (Maybe under Bernie Sanders lol). But seriously, it does matter. People need to know what the laws are, but so do the police. But just because something is "technically legal" does not make it morally justifiable or right, and communities have always have a right to demand their government to be better. If people can't question their government for killing people, then there's no point in freedom of speech. Well, I would hope that the localized and heavily armed government agencies that can kill people are being regularly checked on by a federal agency. Federal investigation isn't perfect, but its the most effective at least in higher profile cases. And no, that doesn't mean putting every officer on trial. But if a department has significant racial disparities, the federal government should know. If officers are sending racist emails like in Ferguson, the federal government should know. And right now, local police departments aren't required to send shooting information to the FBI, so the federal government doesn't even know how many people are being killed. Reading the news is not the same thing as claiming you're someone that you're not, which is a very common occurrence on the internet. What ever happened to the "clear and present danger"? I'm honestly asking, when did "clear and present danger" become "well, I can't really tell if you're a threat, you might be a danger at some point so I'm going to kill you just in case"? That's exactly what happened in the Gardena case, lets call it what it is. They didn't know if he was a threat, but they killed him just in case. Oops, turned out they gunned down an innocent and unarmed person who called the police for help.

Whether or not it is arrest-able isn't the point. He didn't have to order her out of the car in the first place. Why have her step out of the car? He is clearly not in the right state of mind, so much so that its affecting how he's doing his job. Just from the video, you can tell this officer is a dangerous individual. Someone that becomes so angry that they lunge into a car and threaten to "light someone up" is not a peace officer, its someone on a power trip. Did you read what I had wrote? I said it doesn't make sense for her to kill herself at that time, since she was just about to be released and would've been on her way to her new job which she was reportedly very happy about. Except as belligerent as she was, Reese Witherspoon was not treated the same as Sandra Bland. Compare those two videos and you'll begin to see why people are afraid when they get pulled over.

It's part of police culture. Either you're unwilling to see it or you're just not going to. It doesn't meant that cops literally cover up wrong-doing, but of course they will take the word of the officer over the word of the victim. That's the problem, when the police police themselves, they lose a certain amount of objectivity. Well then the case is almost useless, because reasonable is completely objective. If an officer deems his safety more important than the life of an unarmed suspect, he may shoot him ten times in the chest for violently resisting arrest. In that case, it throws all use of force policies out the window and inserts basic human judgement, which is often self-preserving. An officer that doesn't have to shoot but chooses to because it is safer for him can be defined as reasonable. You may think that would be reasonable, but does that make the shooting justified? See the issue? The problem is that people don't trust the system, and they may have a reason not to. The Zimmerman case and the Wilson case both had mass public outrage, and in the court of public opinion, justice wasn't found. Remember when we all watched the Rodney King video, and the officers were cleared of wrong-doing? (See: LA Riots). So telling consumers of media that "X amount of shootings are justified" will do nothing to contrast, because we are starting to question the qualifications for a justified shooting. And yes, maybe unjustified police shootings are a low percentage, but again, the court of public opinion has to have a voice in what qualifies as a justified shooting, because we're all potential victims. You or I could be pulled over and gun down in our cars because the officer mistook reaching for the license and registration as reaching for a gun, and a court may find that justified. Right now, we don't need "contrast" on national news, because we're still figuring out what the colors are. A year ago, Ferguson was a town probably none of us had ever heard of. We could have lived our whole lives never having heard of Ferguson, Missouri. But every day, people in that town were living a different reality, where they feared being pulled over for reasons other than a ticket. They were exploited and hated by the people that swore to protect them. How many other "Fergusons" exist in the country? Since we had never heard of Ferguson until the Michael Brown case, it is logical to conclude that there are more towns like Ferguson. I don't know how many, but I'm sure there's more. Also, we wouldn't have the DOJ report had it not been for the protesting, the mass outrage, and the 24/7 coverage. It would've probably just been another justified shooting on the books. And those departments are not the extent of the problem. Racism is deeply internal bias. If a police officer is racist, openly or subconsciously, it very well could affect everything he does on the job. Who he pulls over, how he treats people, and how quick he may be to go to lethal force are all things that could be affected by this hypothetical officer's internal bias. Racist cops exist. Certainly not all or most, but definitely some. If someone has that bias, I don't see how they can be an effective police officer. I would absolutely be in favor of the DOJ weeding through every department across the country. I was making a point. Real life experience means nothing on an anonymous internet forum. Apparently it meant so to you, since you repeatedly shut down my points because I am not an LEO. I didn't ask you. I stated my opinion and you mocked me for not having law enforcement experience....from which I concluded you disagreed with what I had to say. Was I wrong to make that assumption? So if the officers could have positioned themselves better, why not include that in the training? Or if its already in the training, why not emphasize? Or why not train to not shoot if you can't see what the suspect is doing? I've already voiced my dissatisfaction with Graham v Connor, because shooting someone that is taking off their hat does not seem reasonable.

So what was she under arrest for? She was pulled over for improper signalling, was a little rude to the officer, was asked to get out of the car, refused, forcibly removed, threatened to be tased, allegedly physically harmed by the officer, and then charged with resisting arrest. But what was she under arrest for? Being asked to get out of the car is not an arrest. Yes, an officer may have the legal right to ask a suspect to get out of his/her car, but you can't resist an arrest that was never being made in the first place. Whether or not refusing to get out of a car is an arrest-able offense is questionable, I'm sure you'll pull up a court case but the simple fact remains: the officer didn't have to handle the situation like this. He could have just handed her a ticket and sent her on her way, but instead let himself become enraged at the fact that she was disrespectful and not complying with pointless requests and escalated the situation from there. Not only that, but he needlessly endangered himself and escalated the situation by lunging into the car shouting "I WILL LIGHT YOU UP". It is abundantly clear that he wasn't in a good state of mind. Do you remember the Supreme Court case that said you have to judge it from the officer's perspective? Well, he's a rookie officer. It is logical to conclude, based on how he handled the situation, that he was insecure about his authority, and that is why he reacted violently when it was challenged by Bland. You can hear it in his voice when he asks her to get out of the car, his voice is shaking with how angry he is. A lot of people have a history of battling depression, that doesn't mean that they would pull a 180 and commit suicide at a time like this. Couple that with the mysteriously edited tape released by the sheriff's department, and it makes sense for this to be treated as a homicide investigation. And I'm not calling the officer racist, I never did. But we all know that this doesn't happen to powerful people. People with power pick on people with no power, that's human nature. It doesn't happen in every case, but you can't tell me he would've treated a Wall Street banker in a Bentley like this. He would've been sued or suspended, because the banker has more power than him.