The latest homicide at the hands of police can’t be tolerated

[gift]

3. Require community involvement from police officers so they know the districts and the individuals they are policing. This will encourage empathy and understanding;

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/10/the-police-are-still-out-of-control-112160

Agree with all of them, but going to highlight this one. Really integrating with the communities they serve would change everything. Not easy, but necessary.

I like #6 too, there need to be independent boards to oversee the police. There is way too much conflict of interest when a local DA has to prosecute a local cop. And based off evidence gathered by other local cops.

Yes, police cannot police themselves. Even those that might do a just and fair job should not have to be put in that difficult position. The ones that do not act justly should not be allowed to be in that position.

[bucknersrevenge]

I know it's controversial, but he overall population would likely be better off with many fewer but higher quality police officers. When we invest power in certain people, it is appropriate for the standards to be higher.


This would be my basic proposal off the top of my head (first draft, might adjust as needed):

- All fatalities go through a citizen review board at the State level, made up of 50% executive appointed experts and 50% elected citizen advisors. If in the standard process, criminal charges against the officer are not filed, this review board determines if it should be kicked back to the department for internal discipline or go to trial by jury.
- Within the police force firearms should be restricted to a smaller percentage of more experienced and respected officers with better training. Vast majority of policing does not need firearms.
- No chasing suspects solo
- No firing on suspects running away unless it is confirmed they have already fired shots themselves (and thus are immediate danger to public).
- No arresting or subduing suspects solo unless a civilian's (not the cop's) life is imminently in danger or if the cop's life is in danger AND there is no reasonable avenue for the cop to retreat.
- No asking a person to leave their vehicle when the officer is solo. If that important, wait for backup.
- Annual review of all cops records, and automatic termination of employment if involved in any white supremacist organizations. Major problem; even beyond individually racist individuals it promotes us vs them fraternity and code of silence and acceptance for bad cops.
- If cameras are not on, Cop's statements about resisting arrest, arrest process, etc, are inadmissable in court.
- Get rid of all those "qualified immunity" standards. Cops are civilian citizens entrusted with a specific role. Have some standards and consequences.
- Cat's out of the bag, but I would love to see decommissioning of all the military surplus stuff that has trickled into police offices. Unnecessary, and ends up heightening situations and cop behavior.

Some of these are good ideas, others maybe not so practical.  But this is the type of dialogue that will actually help.  People holding those in positions of authority to a high standard and clearly outlining what the standard should be.

We can talk all we want about underlying causes, but most of those will never change, and certainly will not change simply by mandating it. We can put in place safeguards against abuse of power, however.

On this, I agree. You can't change a behavior unless you change the emotion or the value underlining the behavior. You can't get law enforcement to treat people of color better until you undo the narrative projected onto people of color. This is why far more education is needed during the recruitment and training of law enforcement. I LOVE the idea of community service in the area they patrol becoming a part of the role of law enforcement. And I like the idea of periodic professional development and training along with psychological counseling also being a periodic mandatory part of the job.

[arctic 3.0]

You are right, it can’t be tolerated.
But what are we going to do about it?

Serious justice system reform to end the criminalization of skin tone and poverty?

Reducing guns on the streets so police don’t feel like any encounter with the public could end up getting them shot?

Significant investment in education and anti poverty programs to reduce economic disparity?

Since these kind of initiatives are roundly dismissed as radical/socialist/liberal by the people in charge (and their faithful media arm) I suspect not much will happen.

Turning this into talking points to meet an agenda just lets reasonable people dismiss this as another trumped up issue to feed liberal outrage.

Each case is fact specific.  Here, an officer kneeled on the neck of a dying (and then dead) man for several minutes while his partner flexed for the crowd.  That’s got nothing to do with your agenda, though.

We have an absolute incapacity to address these issues.
That is not going to change unless we name what is preventing us from fixing this.

Those things have nothing to do with this.

There’s no indication that this was a gun crime or that officers were scared about guns.  The victim wasn’t targeted because he was black, but rather because he in all likelihood was a criminal.  Billions and billions have been invested into the educational system.

And, using these red herrings just leads others to come back with their own talking points.

It’s why Black Lives Matter is unsuccessful in gaining mainstream acceptance.  For every Eric Garner, protestors equally support a thug like Michael Brown.

Just focus on the incident.  It’s okay to pick and choose, giving both police and suspect a fair look.  Here, even assuming the worst, a resisting criminal was appropriately placed in handcuffs, and then was essentially killed through indifference to human life as an officer kneeled on the neck of a passed out, handcuffed man for several minutes.

The cops failed.  The managers who promoted kneeling on somebody’s neck failed.  The chiefs who don’t hold their men accountable and who tolerate the thin blue line failed.  Focus on individuals, and come down hard on officers who cross the line hard EVERY SINGLE TIME.

Arguing that skin tone is criminalized is not only inaccurate, but it’s counterproductive.  The vast, vast majority of criminals are incarcerated because they are in fact guilty.  Making the majority of criminals into victims will never win public sympathy.

Geez Louis Roy, have you not reviewed or studied the distribution of the prison population, deaths inflected by police, stop and frisks, and more broken down by race?

By pointing only to individual cases and not looking for larger trends it becomes impossible to detect and the remedy larger social problems.

This ^
It is, obviously, a systemic problem.
As long as we look at only the individual cases we can avoid acknowledging the extent of the problem.

[Roy H.]

You are right, it can’t be tolerated.
But what are we going to do about it?

Serious justice system reform to end the criminalization of skin tone and poverty?

Reducing guns on the streets so police don’t feel like any encounter with the public could end up getting them shot?

Significant investment in education and anti poverty programs to reduce economic disparity?

Since these kind of initiatives are roundly dismissed as radical/socialist/liberal by the people in charge (and their faithful media arm) I suspect not much will happen.

Turning this into talking points to meet an agenda just lets reasonable people dismiss this as another trumped up issue to feed liberal outrage.

Each case is fact specific.  Here, an officer kneeled on the neck of a dying (and then dead) man for several minutes while his partner flexed for the crowd.  That’s got nothing to do with your agenda, though.

We have an absolute incapacity to address these issues.
That is not going to change unless we name what is preventing us from fixing this.

Those things have nothing to do with this.

There’s no indication that this was a gun crime or that officers were scared about guns.  The victim wasn’t targeted because he was black, but rather because he in all likelihood was a criminal.  Billions and billions have been invested into the educational system.

And, using these red herrings just leads others to come back with their own talking points.

It’s why Black Lives Matter is unsuccessful in gaining mainstream acceptance.  For every Eric Garner, protestors equally support a thug like Michael Brown.

Just focus on the incident.  It’s okay to pick and choose, giving both police and suspect a fair look.  Here, even assuming the worst, a resisting criminal was appropriately placed in handcuffs, and then was essentially killed through indifference to human life as an officer kneeled on the neck of a passed out, handcuffed man for several minutes.

The cops failed.  The managers who promoted kneeling on somebody’s neck failed.  The chiefs who don’t hold their men accountable and who tolerate the thin blue line failed.  Focus on individuals, and come down hard on officers who cross the line hard EVERY SINGLE TIME.

Arguing that skin tone is criminalized is not only inaccurate, but it’s counterproductive.  The vast, vast majority of criminals are incarcerated because they are in fact guilty.  Making the majority of criminals into victims will never win public sympathy.

Geez Louis Roy, have you not reviewed or studied the distribution of the prison population, deaths inflected by police, stop and frisks, and more broken down by race?

By pointing only to individual cases and not looking for larger trends it becomes impossible to detect and the remedy larger social problems.

In terms of shootings, more whites get shot per criminal interaction than blacks.  I know it’s not politically correct, but the reason that more blacks are in prison in general is because they commit more crimes, including more violent crimes.  55% of the murders, roughly 10% of the population for instance.

Not every person killed by police is a tragedy. Not every case has anything to do with race. This case, though, should not have happened, which is where my focus is.

[arctic 3.0]

You are right, it can’t be tolerated.
But what are we going to do about it?

Serious justice system reform to end the criminalization of skin tone and poverty?

Reducing guns on the streets so police don’t feel like any encounter with the public could end up getting them shot?

Significant investment in education and anti poverty programs to reduce economic disparity?

Since these kind of initiatives are roundly dismissed as radical/socialist/liberal by the people in charge (and their faithful media arm) I suspect not much will happen.

Turning this into talking points to meet an agenda just lets reasonable people dismiss this as another trumped up issue to feed liberal outrage.

Each case is fact specific.  Here, an officer kneeled on the neck of a dying (and then dead) man for several minutes while his partner flexed for the crowd.  That’s got nothing to do with your agenda, though.

We have an absolute incapacity to address these issues.
That is not going to change unless we name what is preventing us from fixing this.

Those things have nothing to do with this.

There’s no indication that this was a gun crime or that officers were scared about guns.  The victim wasn’t targeted because he was black, but rather because he in all likelihood was a criminal.  Billions and billions have been invested into the educational system.

And, using these red herrings just leads others to come back with their own talking points.

It’s why Black Lives Matter is unsuccessful in gaining mainstream acceptance.  For every Eric Garner, protestors equally support a thug like Michael Brown.

Just focus on the incident.  It’s okay to pick and choose, giving both police and suspect a fair look.  Here, even assuming the worst, a resisting criminal was appropriately placed in handcuffs, and then was essentially killed through indifference to human life as an officer kneeled on the neck of a passed out, handcuffed man for several minutes.

The cops failed.  The managers who promoted kneeling on somebody’s neck failed.  The chiefs who don’t hold their men accountable and who tolerate the thin blue line failed.  Focus on individuals, and come down hard on officers who cross the line hard EVERY SINGLE TIME.

Arguing that skin tone is criminalized is not only inaccurate, but it’s counterproductive.  The vast, vast majority of criminals are incarcerated because they are in fact guilty.  Making the majority of criminals into victims will never win public sympathy.

Geez Louis Roy, have you not reviewed or studied the distribution of the prison population, deaths inflected by police, stop and frisks, and more broken down by race?

By pointing only to individual cases and not looking for larger trends it becomes impossible to detect and the remedy larger social problems.

In terms of shootings, more whites get shot per criminal interaction than blacks.  I know it’s not politically correct, but the reason that more blacks are in prison in general is because they commit more crimes, including more violent crimes.  55% of the murders, roughly 10% of the population for instance.

Not every person killed by police is a tragedy. Not every case has anything to do with race. This case, though, should not have happened, which is where my focus is.

Come on Roy, that is so disingenuous.
You quote raw numbers as if the population of both groups were equal.

As a percentage of population Black people are far more likely to get killed by police than white people.

https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/08/police-officer-shootings-gun-violence-racial-bias-crime-data/595528/
https://www.pnas.org/content/116/34/16793

[Roy H.]

You are right, it can’t be tolerated.
But what are we going to do about it?

Serious justice system reform to end the criminalization of skin tone and poverty?

Reducing guns on the streets so police don’t feel like any encounter with the public could end up getting them shot?

Significant investment in education and anti poverty programs to reduce economic disparity?

Since these kind of initiatives are roundly dismissed as radical/socialist/liberal by the people in charge (and their faithful media arm) I suspect not much will happen.

Turning this into talking points to meet an agenda just lets reasonable people dismiss this as another trumped up issue to feed liberal outrage.

Each case is fact specific.  Here, an officer kneeled on the neck of a dying (and then dead) man for several minutes while his partner flexed for the crowd.  That’s got nothing to do with your agenda, though.

We have an absolute incapacity to address these issues.
That is not going to change unless we name what is preventing us from fixing this.

Those things have nothing to do with this.

There’s no indication that this was a gun crime or that officers were scared about guns.  The victim wasn’t targeted because he was black, but rather because he in all likelihood was a criminal.  Billions and billions have been invested into the educational system.

And, using these red herrings just leads others to come back with their own talking points.

It’s why Black Lives Matter is unsuccessful in gaining mainstream acceptance.  For every Eric Garner, protestors equally support a thug like Michael Brown.

Just focus on the incident.  It’s okay to pick and choose, giving both police and suspect a fair look.  Here, even assuming the worst, a resisting criminal was appropriately placed in handcuffs, and then was essentially killed through indifference to human life as an officer kneeled on the neck of a passed out, handcuffed man for several minutes.

The cops failed.  The managers who promoted kneeling on somebody’s neck failed.  The chiefs who don’t hold their men accountable and who tolerate the thin blue line failed.  Focus on individuals, and come down hard on officers who cross the line hard EVERY SINGLE TIME.

Arguing that skin tone is criminalized is not only inaccurate, but it’s counterproductive.  The vast, vast majority of criminals are incarcerated because they are in fact guilty.  Making the majority of criminals into victims will never win public sympathy.

Geez Louis Roy, have you not reviewed or studied the distribution of the prison population, deaths inflected by police, stop and frisks, and more broken down by race?

By pointing only to individual cases and not looking for larger trends it becomes impossible to detect and the remedy larger social problems.

In terms of shootings, more whites get shot per criminal interaction than blacks.  I know it’s not politically correct, but the reason that more blacks are in prison in general is because they commit more crimes, including more violent crimes.  55% of the murders, roughly 10% of the population for instance.

Not every person killed by police is a tragedy. Not every case has anything to do with race. This case, though, should not have happened, which is where my focus is.

Come on Roy, that is so disingenuous.
You quote raw numbers as if the population of both groups were equal.

As a percentage of population Black people are far more likely to get killed by police than white people.

https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/08/police-officer-shootings-gun-violence-racial-bias-crime-data/595528/
https://www.pnas.org/content/116/34/16793

And by percentage of the population, blacks are far, far, far more likely to be involved in murders and other violent crimes.

That’s why it makes sense to normalize per criminal interactions.  If one group commits violent crimes at 5x the other, of course the first group will have more deadly interactions.

[arctic 3.0]

You are right, it can’t be tolerated.
But what are we going to do about it?

Serious justice system reform to end the criminalization of skin tone and poverty?

Reducing guns on the streets so police don’t feel like any encounter with the public could end up getting them shot?

Significant investment in education and anti poverty programs to reduce economic disparity?

Since these kind of initiatives are roundly dismissed as radical/socialist/liberal by the people in charge (and their faithful media arm) I suspect not much will happen.

Turning this into talking points to meet an agenda just lets reasonable people dismiss this as another trumped up issue to feed liberal outrage.

Each case is fact specific.  Here, an officer kneeled on the neck of a dying (and then dead) man for several minutes while his partner flexed for the crowd.  That’s got nothing to do with your agenda, though.

We have an absolute incapacity to address these issues.
That is not going to change unless we name what is preventing us from fixing this.

Those things have nothing to do with this.

There’s no indication that this was a gun crime or that officers were scared about guns.  The victim wasn’t targeted because he was black, but rather because he in all likelihood was a criminal.  Billions and billions have been invested into the educational system.

And, using these red herrings just leads others to come back with their own talking points.

It’s why Black Lives Matter is unsuccessful in gaining mainstream acceptance.  For every Eric Garner, protestors equally support a thug like Michael Brown.

Just focus on the incident.  It’s okay to pick and choose, giving both police and suspect a fair look.  Here, even assuming the worst, a resisting criminal was appropriately placed in handcuffs, and then was essentially killed through indifference to human life as an officer kneeled on the neck of a passed out, handcuffed man for several minutes.

The cops failed.  The managers who promoted kneeling on somebody’s neck failed.  The chiefs who don’t hold their men accountable and who tolerate the thin blue line failed.  Focus on individuals, and come down hard on officers who cross the line hard EVERY SINGLE TIME.

Arguing that skin tone is criminalized is not only inaccurate, but it’s counterproductive.  The vast, vast majority of criminals are incarcerated because they are in fact guilty.  Making the majority of criminals into victims will never win public sympathy.

Geez Louis Roy, have you not reviewed or studied the distribution of the prison population, deaths inflected by police, stop and frisks, and more broken down by race?

By pointing only to individual cases and not looking for larger trends it becomes impossible to detect and the remedy larger social problems.

In terms of shootings, more whites get shot per criminal interaction than blacks.  I know it’s not politically correct, but the reason that more blacks are in prison in general is because they commit more crimes, including more violent crimes.  55% of the murders, roughly 10% of the population for instance.

Not every person killed by police is a tragedy. Not every case has anything to do with race. This case, though, should not have happened, which is where my focus is.

Come on Roy, that is so disingenuous.
You quote raw numbers as if the population of both groups were equal.

As a percentage of population Black people are far more likely to get killed by police than white people.

https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/08/police-officer-shootings-gun-violence-racial-bias-crime-data/595528/
https://www.pnas.org/content/116/34/16793

And by percentage of the population, blacks are far, far, far more likely to be involved in murders and other violent crimes.

That’s why it makes sense to normalize per criminal interactions.  If one group commits violent crimes at 5x the other, of course the first group will have more deadly interactions.

What you describe highlights the systemic nature of the problem.

https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/un-report-on-racial-disparities/

In case you are too busy to click the link...

“Such broad statistics mask the racial disparity that pervades the U.S. criminal justice system, and for African Americans in particular. African Americans are more likely than white Americans to be arrested; once arrested, they are more likely to be convicted; and once convicted, and they are more likely to experience lengthy prison sentences. African-American adults are 5.9 times as likely to be incarcerated than whites and Hispanics are 3.1 times as likely.4) As of 2001, one of every three black boys born in that year could expect to go to prison in his lifetime, as could one of every six Latinos—compared to one of every seventeen white boys.5) Racial and ethnic disparities among women are less substantial than among men but remain prevalent.6)

The source of such disparities is deeper and more systemic than explicit racial discrimination. The United States in effect operates two distinct criminal justice systems: one for wealthy people and another for poor people and people of color. The wealthy can access a vigorous adversary system replete with constitutional protections for defendants. Yet the experiences of poor and minority defendants within the criminal justice system often differ substantially from that model due to a number of factors, each of which contributes to the overrepresentation of such individuals in the system.

These double standards are not, of course, explicit; on the face of it, the criminal law is color-blind and class-blind. But in a sense, this only makes the problem worse. The rhetoric of the criminal justice system sends the message that our society carefully protects everyone’s constitutional rights, but in practice the rules assure that law enforcement prerogatives will generally prevail over the rights of minorities and the poor. By affording criminal suspects substantial constitutional rights in theory, the Supreme Court validates the results of the criminal justice system as fair. That formal fairness obscures the systemic concerns that ought to be raised by the fact that the prison population is overwhelmingly poor and disproportionately black.7”

[Roy H.]

You are right, it can’t be tolerated.
But what are we going to do about it?

Serious justice system reform to end the criminalization of skin tone and poverty?

Reducing guns on the streets so police don’t feel like any encounter with the public could end up getting them shot?

Significant investment in education and anti poverty programs to reduce economic disparity?

Since these kind of initiatives are roundly dismissed as radical/socialist/liberal by the people in charge (and their faithful media arm) I suspect not much will happen.

Turning this into talking points to meet an agenda just lets reasonable people dismiss this as another trumped up issue to feed liberal outrage.

Each case is fact specific.  Here, an officer kneeled on the neck of a dying (and then dead) man for several minutes while his partner flexed for the crowd.  That’s got nothing to do with your agenda, though.

We have an absolute incapacity to address these issues.
That is not going to change unless we name what is preventing us from fixing this.

Those things have nothing to do with this.

There’s no indication that this was a gun crime or that officers were scared about guns.  The victim wasn’t targeted because he was black, but rather because he in all likelihood was a criminal.  Billions and billions have been invested into the educational system.

And, using these red herrings just leads others to come back with their own talking points.

It’s why Black Lives Matter is unsuccessful in gaining mainstream acceptance.  For every Eric Garner, protestors equally support a thug like Michael Brown.

Just focus on the incident.  It’s okay to pick and choose, giving both police and suspect a fair look.  Here, even assuming the worst, a resisting criminal was appropriately placed in handcuffs, and then was essentially killed through indifference to human life as an officer kneeled on the neck of a passed out, handcuffed man for several minutes.

The cops failed.  The managers who promoted kneeling on somebody’s neck failed.  The chiefs who don’t hold their men accountable and who tolerate the thin blue line failed.  Focus on individuals, and come down hard on officers who cross the line hard EVERY SINGLE TIME.

Arguing that skin tone is criminalized is not only inaccurate, but it’s counterproductive.  The vast, vast majority of criminals are incarcerated because they are in fact guilty.  Making the majority of criminals into victims will never win public sympathy.

Geez Louis Roy, have you not reviewed or studied the distribution of the prison population, deaths inflected by police, stop and frisks, and more broken down by race?

By pointing only to individual cases and not looking for larger trends it becomes impossible to detect and the remedy larger social problems.

In terms of shootings, more whites get shot per criminal interaction than blacks.  I know it’s not politically correct, but the reason that more blacks are in prison in general is because they commit more crimes, including more violent crimes.  55% of the murders, roughly 10% of the population for instance.

Not every person killed by police is a tragedy. Not every case has anything to do with race. This case, though, should not have happened, which is where my focus is.

Come on Roy, that is so disingenuous.
You quote raw numbers as if the population of both groups were equal.

As a percentage of population Black people are far more likely to get killed by police than white people.

https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/08/police-officer-shootings-gun-violence-racial-bias-crime-data/595528/
https://www.pnas.org/content/116/34/16793

And by percentage of the population, blacks are far, far, far more likely to be involved in murders and other violent crimes.

That’s why it makes sense to normalize per criminal interactions.  If one group commits violent crimes at 5x the other, of course the first group will have more deadly interactions.

What you describe highlights the systemic nature of the problem.

https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/un-report-on-racial-disparities/

In case you are too busy to click the link...

“Such broad statistics mask the racial disparity that pervades the U.S. criminal justice system, and for African Americans in particular. African Americans are more likely than white Americans to be arrested; once arrested, they are more likely to be convicted; and once convicted, and they are more likely to experience lengthy prison sentences. African-American adults are 5.9 times as likely to be incarcerated than whites and Hispanics are 3.1 times as likely.4) As of 2001, one of every three black boys born in that year could expect to go to prison in his lifetime, as could one of every six Latinos—compared to one of every seventeen white boys.5) Racial and ethnic disparities among women are less substantial than among men but remain prevalent.6)

The source of such disparities is deeper and more systemic than explicit racial discrimination. The United States in effect operates two distinct criminal justice systems: one for wealthy people and another for poor people and people of color. The wealthy can access a vigorous adversary system replete with constitutional protections for defendants. Yet the experiences of poor and minority defendants within the criminal justice system often differ substantially from that model due to a number of factors, each of which contributes to the overrepresentation of such individuals in the system.

These double standards are not, of course, explicit; on the face of it, the criminal law is color-blind and class-blind. But in a sense, this only makes the problem worse. The rhetoric of the criminal justice system sends the message that our society carefully protects everyone’s constitutional rights, but in practice the rules assure that law enforcement prerogatives will generally prevail over the rights of minorities and the poor. By affording criminal suspects substantial constitutional rights in theory, the Supreme Court validates the results of the criminal justice system as fair. That formal fairness obscures the systemic concerns that ought to be raised by the fact that the prison population is overwhelmingly poor and disproportionately black.7”

Does any of that suggest that blacks do not commit violent crimes at a much higher rate? 

I do think that things like sentences for similarly situated people should be looked at, etc.   But, the vast, overwhelming majority of people sitting in prison are because they committed a felony and plead guilty to it in the face of clear evidence.

[arctic 3.0]

You are right, it can’t be tolerated.
But what are we going to do about it?

Serious justice system reform to end the criminalization of skin tone and poverty?

Reducing guns on the streets so police don’t feel like any encounter with the public could end up getting them shot?

Significant investment in education and anti poverty programs to reduce economic disparity?

Since these kind of initiatives are roundly dismissed as radical/socialist/liberal by the people in charge (and their faithful media arm) I suspect not much will happen.

Turning this into talking points to meet an agenda just lets reasonable people dismiss this as another trumped up issue to feed liberal outrage.

Each case is fact specific.  Here, an officer kneeled on the neck of a dying (and then dead) man for several minutes while his partner flexed for the crowd.  That’s got nothing to do with your agenda, though.

We have an absolute incapacity to address these issues.
That is not going to change unless we name what is preventing us from fixing this.

Those things have nothing to do with this.

There’s no indication that this was a gun crime or that officers were scared about guns.  The victim wasn’t targeted because he was black, but rather because he in all likelihood was a criminal.  Billions and billions have been invested into the educational system.

And, using these red herrings just leads others to come back with their own talking points.

It’s why Black Lives Matter is unsuccessful in gaining mainstream acceptance.  For every Eric Garner, protestors equally support a thug like Michael Brown.

Just focus on the incident.  It’s okay to pick and choose, giving both police and suspect a fair look.  Here, even assuming the worst, a resisting criminal was appropriately placed in handcuffs, and then was essentially killed through indifference to human life as an officer kneeled on the neck of a passed out, handcuffed man for several minutes.

The cops failed.  The managers who promoted kneeling on somebody’s neck failed.  The chiefs who don’t hold their men accountable and who tolerate the thin blue line failed.  Focus on individuals, and come down hard on officers who cross the line hard EVERY SINGLE TIME.

Arguing that skin tone is criminalized is not only inaccurate, but it’s counterproductive.  The vast, vast majority of criminals are incarcerated because they are in fact guilty.  Making the majority of criminals into victims will never win public sympathy.

Geez Louis Roy, have you not reviewed or studied the distribution of the prison population, deaths inflected by police, stop and frisks, and more broken down by race?

By pointing only to individual cases and not looking for larger trends it becomes impossible to detect and the remedy larger social problems.

In terms of shootings, more whites get shot per criminal interaction than blacks.  I know it’s not politically correct, but the reason that more blacks are in prison in general is because they commit more crimes, including more violent crimes.  55% of the murders, roughly 10% of the population for instance.

Not every person killed by police is a tragedy. Not every case has anything to do with race. This case, though, should not have happened, which is where my focus is.

Come on Roy, that is so disingenuous.
You quote raw numbers as if the population of both groups were equal.

As a percentage of population Black people are far more likely to get killed by police than white people.

https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/08/police-officer-shootings-gun-violence-racial-bias-crime-data/595528/
https://www.pnas.org/content/116/34/16793

And by percentage of the population, blacks are far, far, far more likely to be involved in murders and other violent crimes.

That’s why it makes sense to normalize per criminal interactions.  If one group commits violent crimes at 5x the other, of course the first group will have more deadly interactions.

What you describe highlights the systemic nature of the problem.

https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/un-report-on-racial-disparities/

In case you are too busy to click the link...

“Such broad statistics mask the racial disparity that pervades the U.S. criminal justice system, and for African Americans in particular. African Americans are more likely than white Americans to be arrested; once arrested, they are more likely to be convicted; and once convicted, and they are more likely to experience lengthy prison sentences. African-American adults are 5.9 times as likely to be incarcerated than whites and Hispanics are 3.1 times as likely.4) As of 2001, one of every three black boys born in that year could expect to go to prison in his lifetime, as could one of every six Latinos—compared to one of every seventeen white boys.5) Racial and ethnic disparities among women are less substantial than among men but remain prevalent.6)

The source of such disparities is deeper and more systemic than explicit racial discrimination. The United States in effect operates two distinct criminal justice systems: one for wealthy people and another for poor people and people of color. The wealthy can access a vigorous adversary system replete with constitutional protections for defendants. Yet the experiences of poor and minority defendants within the criminal justice system often differ substantially from that model due to a number of factors, each of which contributes to the overrepresentation of such individuals in the system.

These double standards are not, of course, explicit; on the face of it, the criminal law is color-blind and class-blind. But in a sense, this only makes the problem worse. The rhetoric of the criminal justice system sends the message that our society carefully protects everyone’s constitutional rights, but in practice the rules assure that law enforcement prerogatives will generally prevail over the rights of minorities and the poor. By affording criminal suspects substantial constitutional rights in theory, the Supreme Court validates the results of the criminal justice system as fair. That formal fairness obscures the systemic concerns that ought to be raised by the fact that the prison population is overwhelmingly poor and disproportionately black.7”

Does any of that suggest that blacks do not commit violent crimes at a much higher rate? 

I do think that things like sentences for similarly situated people should be looked at, etc.   But, the vast, overwhelming majority of people sitting in prison are because they committed a felony and plead guilty to it in the face of clear evidence.

Or plead guilty because they lack adequate legal representation.

[Roy H.]

You are right, it can’t be tolerated.
But what are we going to do about it?

Serious justice system reform to end the criminalization of skin tone and poverty?

Reducing guns on the streets so police don’t feel like any encounter with the public could end up getting them shot?

Significant investment in education and anti poverty programs to reduce economic disparity?

Since these kind of initiatives are roundly dismissed as radical/socialist/liberal by the people in charge (and their faithful media arm) I suspect not much will happen.

Turning this into talking points to meet an agenda just lets reasonable people dismiss this as another trumped up issue to feed liberal outrage.

Each case is fact specific.  Here, an officer kneeled on the neck of a dying (and then dead) man for several minutes while his partner flexed for the crowd.  That’s got nothing to do with your agenda, though.

We have an absolute incapacity to address these issues.
That is not going to change unless we name what is preventing us from fixing this.

Those things have nothing to do with this.

There’s no indication that this was a gun crime or that officers were scared about guns.  The victim wasn’t targeted because he was black, but rather because he in all likelihood was a criminal.  Billions and billions have been invested into the educational system.

And, using these red herrings just leads others to come back with their own talking points.

It’s why Black Lives Matter is unsuccessful in gaining mainstream acceptance.  For every Eric Garner, protestors equally support a thug like Michael Brown.

Just focus on the incident.  It’s okay to pick and choose, giving both police and suspect a fair look.  Here, even assuming the worst, a resisting criminal was appropriately placed in handcuffs, and then was essentially killed through indifference to human life as an officer kneeled on the neck of a passed out, handcuffed man for several minutes.

The cops failed.  The managers who promoted kneeling on somebody’s neck failed.  The chiefs who don’t hold their men accountable and who tolerate the thin blue line failed.  Focus on individuals, and come down hard on officers who cross the line hard EVERY SINGLE TIME.

Arguing that skin tone is criminalized is not only inaccurate, but it’s counterproductive.  The vast, vast majority of criminals are incarcerated because they are in fact guilty.  Making the majority of criminals into victims will never win public sympathy.

Geez Louis Roy, have you not reviewed or studied the distribution of the prison population, deaths inflected by police, stop and frisks, and more broken down by race?

By pointing only to individual cases and not looking for larger trends it becomes impossible to detect and the remedy larger social problems.

In terms of shootings, more whites get shot per criminal interaction than blacks.  I know it’s not politically correct, but the reason that more blacks are in prison in general is because they commit more crimes, including more violent crimes.  55% of the murders, roughly 10% of the population for instance.

Not every person killed by police is a tragedy. Not every case has anything to do with race. This case, though, should not have happened, which is where my focus is.

Come on Roy, that is so disingenuous.
You quote raw numbers as if the population of both groups were equal.

As a percentage of population Black people are far more likely to get killed by police than white people.

https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/08/police-officer-shootings-gun-violence-racial-bias-crime-data/595528/
https://www.pnas.org/content/116/34/16793

And by percentage of the population, blacks are far, far, far more likely to be involved in murders and other violent crimes.

That’s why it makes sense to normalize per criminal interactions.  If one group commits violent crimes at 5x the other, of course the first group will have more deadly interactions.

What you describe highlights the systemic nature of the problem.

https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/un-report-on-racial-disparities/

In case you are too busy to click the link...

“Such broad statistics mask the racial disparity that pervades the U.S. criminal justice system, and for African Americans in particular. African Americans are more likely than white Americans to be arrested; once arrested, they are more likely to be convicted; and once convicted, and they are more likely to experience lengthy prison sentences. African-American adults are 5.9 times as likely to be incarcerated than whites and Hispanics are 3.1 times as likely.4) As of 2001, one of every three black boys born in that year could expect to go to prison in his lifetime, as could one of every six Latinos—compared to one of every seventeen white boys.5) Racial and ethnic disparities among women are less substantial than among men but remain prevalent.6)

The source of such disparities is deeper and more systemic than explicit racial discrimination. The United States in effect operates two distinct criminal justice systems: one for wealthy people and another for poor people and people of color. The wealthy can access a vigorous adversary system replete with constitutional protections for defendants. Yet the experiences of poor and minority defendants within the criminal justice system often differ substantially from that model due to a number of factors, each of which contributes to the overrepresentation of such individuals in the system.

These double standards are not, of course, explicit; on the face of it, the criminal law is color-blind and class-blind. But in a sense, this only makes the problem worse. The rhetoric of the criminal justice system sends the message that our society carefully protects everyone’s constitutional rights, but in practice the rules assure that law enforcement prerogatives will generally prevail over the rights of minorities and the poor. By affording criminal suspects substantial constitutional rights in theory, the Supreme Court validates the results of the criminal justice system as fair. That formal fairness obscures the systemic concerns that ought to be raised by the fact that the prison population is overwhelmingly poor and disproportionately black.7”

Does any of that suggest that blacks do not commit violent crimes at a much higher rate? 

I do think that things like sentences for similarly situated people should be looked at, etc.   But, the vast, overwhelming majority of people sitting in prison are because they committed a felony and plead guilty to it in the face of clear evidence.

Or plead guilty because they lack adequate legal representation.

It’s much rarer than you seem to think.  The vast majority of people who are arrested for crimes are guilty, and that guilt is supported by evidence.

And, there are plenty of poor whites out there, too.

[arctic 3.0]

You are right, it can’t be tolerated.
But what are we going to do about it?

Serious justice system reform to end the criminalization of skin tone and poverty?

Reducing guns on the streets so police don’t feel like any encounter with the public could end up getting them shot?

Significant investment in education and anti poverty programs to reduce economic disparity?

Since these kind of initiatives are roundly dismissed as radical/socialist/liberal by the people in charge (and their faithful media arm) I suspect not much will happen.

Turning this into talking points to meet an agenda just lets reasonable people dismiss this as another trumped up issue to feed liberal outrage.

Each case is fact specific.  Here, an officer kneeled on the neck of a dying (and then dead) man for several minutes while his partner flexed for the crowd.  That’s got nothing to do with your agenda, though.

We have an absolute incapacity to address these issues.
That is not going to change unless we name what is preventing us from fixing this.

Those things have nothing to do with this.

There’s no indication that this was a gun crime or that officers were scared about guns.  The victim wasn’t targeted because he was black, but rather because he in all likelihood was a criminal.  Billions and billions have been invested into the educational system.

And, using these red herrings just leads others to come back with their own talking points.

It’s why Black Lives Matter is unsuccessful in gaining mainstream acceptance.  For every Eric Garner, protestors equally support a thug like Michael Brown.

Just focus on the incident.  It’s okay to pick and choose, giving both police and suspect a fair look.  Here, even assuming the worst, a resisting criminal was appropriately placed in handcuffs, and then was essentially killed through indifference to human life as an officer kneeled on the neck of a passed out, handcuffed man for several minutes.

The cops failed.  The managers who promoted kneeling on somebody’s neck failed.  The chiefs who don’t hold their men accountable and who tolerate the thin blue line failed.  Focus on individuals, and come down hard on officers who cross the line hard EVERY SINGLE TIME.

Arguing that skin tone is criminalized is not only inaccurate, but it’s counterproductive.  The vast, vast majority of criminals are incarcerated because they are in fact guilty.  Making the majority of criminals into victims will never win public sympathy.

Geez Louis Roy, have you not reviewed or studied the distribution of the prison population, deaths inflected by police, stop and frisks, and more broken down by race?

By pointing only to individual cases and not looking for larger trends it becomes impossible to detect and the remedy larger social problems.

In terms of shootings, more whites get shot per criminal interaction than blacks.  I know it’s not politically correct, but the reason that more blacks are in prison in general is because they commit more crimes, including more violent crimes.  55% of the murders, roughly 10% of the population for instance.

Not every person killed by police is a tragedy. Not every case has anything to do with race. This case, though, should not have happened, which is where my focus is.

Come on Roy, that is so disingenuous.
You quote raw numbers as if the population of both groups were equal.

As a percentage of population Black people are far more likely to get killed by police than white people.

https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/08/police-officer-shootings-gun-violence-racial-bias-crime-data/595528/
https://www.pnas.org/content/116/34/16793

And by percentage of the population, blacks are far, far, far more likely to be involved in murders and other violent crimes.

That’s why it makes sense to normalize per criminal interactions.  If one group commits violent crimes at 5x the other, of course the first group will have more deadly interactions.

What you describe highlights the systemic nature of the problem.

https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/un-report-on-racial-disparities/

In case you are too busy to click the link...

“Such broad statistics mask the racial disparity that pervades the U.S. criminal justice system, and for African Americans in particular. African Americans are more likely than white Americans to be arrested; once arrested, they are more likely to be convicted; and once convicted, and they are more likely to experience lengthy prison sentences. African-American adults are 5.9 times as likely to be incarcerated than whites and Hispanics are 3.1 times as likely.4) As of 2001, one of every three black boys born in that year could expect to go to prison in his lifetime, as could one of every six Latinos—compared to one of every seventeen white boys.5) Racial and ethnic disparities among women are less substantial than among men but remain prevalent.6)

The source of such disparities is deeper and more systemic than explicit racial discrimination. The United States in effect operates two distinct criminal justice systems: one for wealthy people and another for poor people and people of color. The wealthy can access a vigorous adversary system replete with constitutional protections for defendants. Yet the experiences of poor and minority defendants within the criminal justice system often differ substantially from that model due to a number of factors, each of which contributes to the overrepresentation of such individuals in the system.

These double standards are not, of course, explicit; on the face of it, the criminal law is color-blind and class-blind. But in a sense, this only makes the problem worse. The rhetoric of the criminal justice system sends the message that our society carefully protects everyone’s constitutional rights, but in practice the rules assure that law enforcement prerogatives will generally prevail over the rights of minorities and the poor. By affording criminal suspects substantial constitutional rights in theory, the Supreme Court validates the results of the criminal justice system as fair. That formal fairness obscures the systemic concerns that ought to be raised by the fact that the prison population is overwhelmingly poor and disproportionately black.7”

Does any of that suggest that blacks do not commit violent crimes at a much higher rate? 

I do think that things like sentences for similarly situated people should be looked at, etc.   But, the vast, overwhelming majority of people sitting in prison are because they committed a felony and plead guilty to it in the face of clear evidence.

Or plead guilty because they lack adequate legal representation.

It’s much rarer than you seem to think.  The vast majority of people who are arrested for crimes are guilty, and that guilt is supported by evidence.

And, there are plenty of poor whites out there, too.

Yep, plenty of poor whites, people of all races get the short end of the stick. But, no, the criminal justice system in this country is two tiered.
On system for folks with the means to defend themselves another system for the poor folk. This system is a machine designed to efficiently process as many cases as possible on the tightest budget possible.

Tell me, if it isn’t systemic racism in law enforcement and lack of access to competent legal representation, what do you think is the reason black people are convicted of crimes at a far higher rate than other groups?

[Roy H.]

Tell me, if it isn’t systemic racism in law enforcement and lack of access to competent legal representation, what do you think is the reason black people are convicted of crimes at a far higher rate than other groups?

I’m not sure what you’re asking.  Can you clarify?

Are you saying that blacks who are charged are convicted at a significantly higher rate?  I’d be interested to see any data on that, because I’d be surprised if that were true.  Perhaps certain groups get access to pretrial Diversion, etc.

Or are blacks that go to trial more often convicted?  Again, no idea on the data.  I saw one study that showed that all-white juries convict blacks at a 15% higher rate than white defendants, but that blacks are actually put on juries at a higher rate than whites, and that juries with even one black actually convict whites at a higher percentage than blacks.

Or, are you asking a simpler question, why do more blacks have a criminal record?  For that one, I do have an answer:  blacks commit proportionally a lot more violent crimes.

[liam]

"When white Americans who live in a "stand your ground" state make self-defense claims in situations involving a black person's death, 36 percent are ruled justifiable homicides, Robert Spitzer, a professor of political science at the State University of New York, Cortland, said. When the situation is reversed and black Americans make self-defense claims in cases involving dead white people in these same states, just 3 percent see those deaths ruled justifiable homicides. That's the pattern in more than a decade of data."


https://www.yahoo.com/news/arbery-case-exemplifies-abuse-stand-163337629.html

[Roy H.]

"When white Americans who live in a "stand your ground" state make self-defense claims in situations involving a black person's death, 36 percent are ruled justifiable homicides, Robert Spitzer, a professor of political science at the State University of New York, Cortland, said. When the situation is reversed and black Americans make self-defense claims in cases involving dead white people in these same states, just 3 percent see those deaths ruled justifiable homicides. That's the pattern in more than a decade of data."


https://www.yahoo.com/news/arbery-case-exemplifies-abuse-stand-163337629.html

I’d be interested in seeing the raw data.  This analysis finds the opposite:

https://www.usccr.gov/pubs/2020/04-06-Stand-Your-Ground.pdf

[liam]

"When white Americans who live in a "stand your ground" state make self-defense claims in situations involving a black person's death, 36 percent are ruled justifiable homicides, Robert Spitzer, a professor of political science at the State University of New York, Cortland, said. When the situation is reversed and black Americans make self-defense claims in cases involving dead white people in these same states, just 3 percent see those deaths ruled justifiable homicides. That's the pattern in more than a decade of data."


https://www.yahoo.com/news/arbery-case-exemplifies-abuse-stand-163337629.html

I’d be interested in seeing the raw data.  This analysis finds the opposite:

https://www.usccr.gov/pubs/2020/04-06-Stand-Your-Ground.pdf

This certainly interesting:

"A different 2014 study by Albert McCormick buttressed many of these findings. 40
 In examining
over 300 SYG cases in Florida, despite the claims by the NRA that Stand Your Ground was to
protect law-abiding citizens,41 the study found that over 50% of the claimants (those asserting the
defense) had criminal records, and almost one-third had criminal backgrounds involving at least
one violent offense.
Indeed, the McCormick study showed that the “triggering event” precipitating the incident for
which SYG was claimed was not, as proponents argued, a fear of violence.42
 Instead, in 69% of
the cases, the most likely incident trigger was an argument or dispute that then escalated to threat
or violence. Defense against forcible felonies only comprised 27% of the triggering events.43
 In
other words, SYG laws have been used to protect the use of violence or deadly force for nearly
70% of confrontations that did not begin as a forcible felony or threatening act. Rather, they help
escalate a dispute into an incident with deadly consequences."

and this:

"In homicides where the shooter is black and the victim is white, those are
ruled to be justified 1.2 percent of the time. In cases where the shooter is
white and the victim is black those are ruled to be justified 11.2 percent of
the time. Ten times more likely if the shooter is white and the victim is
black, than if the shooter is black and the victim is white.81
In fact, despite the fact that a racial disparity already existed in justified
shootings, i.e., if the shooter was white and victim black it was ruled to be
justified 9.5% of the time, and the inverse was 1.1%., the disparity grows
when Stand Your Ground is enacted"