“One of the problems with such lines of questioning in cases like these is that it shows misplaced prioritization in examining cases like these and provides effective cover for those who feel cops are always justified in shooting suspects…especially Black and racial minority suspects even when video evidence and witness testimony clearly show the shooting was unjustified.”
No. I asked a question. Because I was still gathering information. It doesn’t show “misplaced prioritization” to ask questions, and I am not “providing cover” for those who feel cops are always justified in shooting suspects. It appears, on the basis of the info so far, that this wasn’t justified, and neither was the Philando Castile shooting. Take a breath before accusing people, ok?
Oh dear, I did watch the one in Minnesota. Good lord, that woman has so much strength and presence of mind. It was very clear that she was speaking respectfully to the officer. I would not have had the presence of mind to calmly record the proceedings. And to think there was a little girl in the car too. So awful.
What is disturbing to me is that if he had been selling CDs there for six years, it seems he would be known to the police already just for being a part of the neighborhood.
“I am reminded of post where someone said that they trusted any cop’s ability to know when to shoot and when not to, but they couldn’t say the same of any average citizen.”
Again, you think there’s a “gotcha” in the statement but there really isn’t.
Let’s think this one through. Obviously these police officers made mistakes and were too quick to unleash their guns in circumstances where it wasn’t necessary. And they were trained, work in pairs, can radio for backup, and have other means of subduing “bad people” at their disposal (such as handcuffs). They’re still supposed to keep the peace, even if they aren’t perfect.
So, if I feel that there’s room for improvement in how some police officers respond to situations, and that some of them are too trigger-happy where they needn’t be – why would I feel better knowing that Joe Everyday Citizen, who isn’t trained, and could be a freakin’ nut case, is carrying a gun?
This is why people need to take courses in statistics.
Further, when you break down the data further, disturbing trends emerge. For example, in absolute numbers (not even taking into account proportionality based on population distribution), more Blacks were killed when unarmed than Whites.
I am so sad today I can hardly function. But I want to share my personal story that changed the way I viewed the world forever.
A couple caveats first. I am caucasian married to a caucasian. I believe most police officers are honorable people doing a difficult, dangerous job.
When I was nearly 9 months pregnant with my first child H and I were eating lunch at a Burger King in the southwest suburbs of Chicago. At the other side of the seating area there was a black couple, about our age (30) with the cutest little toddler in a high chair. I kept looking over at them because the little girl was so darn cute and I was besotted by all things baby at that point in time.
A white teenager came into the restaurant closely followed by another white teen shouting at him. As they walked through the seating area voices got louder and then fists started flying. Soon they were bumping into tables. Another teen came in and joined the fight. It was frightening. We stayed glued to our seats as did the couple across the way. The police arrived in force and as soon as they heard the sirens the teenagers stopped fighting and tried to act natural. We decided to try to leave while things seemed relatively calm. The other couple apparently had the same thought and they left the restaurant ahead of us with the man holding that sweet little girl. There were about 6 cop cars outside. As we exited we saw the police grab the man in front of us, pin him to the wall and pull his baby from his arms. The mom starts wailing and screaming, “Give me my baby” Another cop turns on her and pins her to the wall as well. The cop with the baby, who is also screaming at this point takes her and puts her alone into the back seat of a police car and closes the door and comes back to join the others. Both parents are shouting. The cops are shouting. Everyone is totally ignoring us. H goes up to a cop who is watching all this and tries to tell him what really happened. “These guys had nothing to do with the fight. I can show you the guys inside who were fighting.” The cop tells him to shut up. H persists. Cop ignores him. H persists. Cop looks at him, looks pointedly at very pregnant me and says, “Sir, I’d take your wife and go home before you get yourself into trouble.”
We went home. We called the police department and tried to get someone to take our statement. No one would speak to us. We called the local press, they weren’t interested. To this day I have no idea what happened to that family.
Here’s a post on my FB feed which underscores the internal biases many…especially Whites have about Black and other racial minorities as shown in the above post which factor into unjustified shootings and excessive force against Black and other racial minorities by LEOs:
He also posted the following post and in response to several White posters who say he’s making “too big a deal about racism/race” in discussing incidents like these:
It’s not even college-level statistics, romani, it’s just basic math here.
Using the link, whites were ~50% of all killings and blacks were ~25% of all killings. (Rounded a bit just to make the math easier.)
If whites are 60% of the pop and blacks are 12% of the pop, then their indexes are 83 and 208.
This is the relevant number to look at.
It is deliberately disingenuous to say “twice as many whites as blacks were killed” without accounting for the percent of the population they are. It’s what happens when you have people with agendas. It is as transparent as if I were to note that twice as many Californians as Vermonters were killed by something – it’s transparently obvious that it’s out of whack because there are so few Vermonters compared to Californians.
@mom23travelers thanks for sharing, we are always assumed guilty. It reminds me of the pool party incident in Texas last year, when cops came on the scene, all the black kids were ordered down, while the white kids were milling around.
I dont know what else to tell my son. We have the "talk"at an early age.
I was in tears listening to Castilos mom being interviewed today. She said said he did everything by the book, good job, permit for gun, she said they never taught them police were the enemy, and look where it got him.
To add insult to injury, the passenger in the most recent shooting was treated like a criminal. She just watched her boyfriend get shot in front of her child, and yet they treat her like she committed a crime, all in front of her child. The poor kid will be scarred for life.
My D, who is biracial, came to me this morning with tears in her eyes and said that her first reaction, upon hearing about both shootings was “the usual” anger. Then it struck her that this has happened so often that she had a “usual” reaction and that crushed her. She leaves for college in a month, where her plan is to major in education and only teach in low-income, minority schools so as to be at least one safe person for kids of color as they face the world. “But what good is it going to do,” she asked me, “when they still have to go out there? I’m scared for ‘my boys’ (the kids she is teaching her in summer internship). I feel like there is no hope.”
@mom23travelers when D was a baby, my husband and I were managers of the small apartment building we lived in. This was in an almost entirely white part of Seattle. One weekend morning the daughter of the owner who lived in the studio, was being beaten by her boyfriend and H called the police, then went out to wait for them to point them to the right apartment. When they pulled up, they questioned HIM, asking who he had been beating that morning. We consider him lucky to have not been shot. When the lease was up we moved ourselves to a more diverse area of the city and never looked back.
@sseamom I have never met a person of color who didn’t have a story like this to tell to some degree or another. And that is what I want white people to know. This kind of thing is everywhere and happens all the time. Just because you don’t see it personally and don’t approve of it doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.
There is a video of the girlfriend now circulating. They treated her like s&^* at the precinct. No waters, no calls, they took all her stuff, phone, groceries, etc. They sent her to the wrong hospital. She says they comforted the officer onsite, an placed her in the back of the cruiser. I am so sad.
I watched the Minnesota video (streamed by the girlfriend) finally and now I’m even angrier and more disgusted than I was before… and I didn’t think that was possible.
The man was dying, bleeding out in the car. He was NOT A THREAT. The cop didn’t pull him out of the car and attempt to stop the bleeding. He watched him bleed out while he still had a gun pointed at him. I cannot imagine how depraved of a human being (and I use that term loosely) you have to be to just watch someone bleed out in front of you knowing damn well you can help. Could the cop have saved him? Maybe, maybe not, but the fact that he didn’t even TRY shows you everything you need to know about that individual.
This stuff isn’t happening more frequently, it is just coming to the light thanks to the prolifetation of technology. Makes me sick just imagining how many lifes were destroyed by authority figures who wrote “perp was reaching for gun” to justify murder. And people wonder why there is mistrust in the black community towards the police.
