<p>let’s think the other way around. There many people, black, white and what you have in between, walking on street every day. You see them on TV show “COPS”. Why most of them did not get shoot? </p>
<p>For officer Wilson, he has worked on the same streets for years. Why he just shoot to kill one person in all that if he is a racist who want to kill somebody?</p>
<p>I have been stopped by police before. You do exactly what they instruct you to do, speak when only been asked to, and here I am. </p>
<p>Is there bad cops, I am sure so. But there will be typically a pattern of behavior and a history. </p>
My problem with that is that surviving the situation does not improve the situation, and is dependent on the idea that a given person can follow that information consistently and without error. If you want to give advice on surviving, it has to be a short term expectation accompanied by active efforts to eliminate the need for survival tactics.</p>
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I expect them to tell the difference between a person out to commit a crime and a kid playing. </p>
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There are a lot of things I would like, but a technological solution that makes everyone happy exists at this time only in fiction. And bringing those ideas into reality will be a LONG way off.</p>
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I do not think that being aggressive, hiding your hands, or reaching for something is ever a good idea if you are in a situation where the police might reasonably be taking aggressive action of their own. But I also do not think that the police can possibly be either effective or useful if every interaction with them has to be based on the idea that you, the innocent civilian, can get shot if you are anything but a doormat. I don’t think “appearing threatening” has any real meaning. More importantly, I do not think that tolerating illegal actions by the police, even when directed at you, does any good. And if you are not standing up for your rights, how can you expect anyone else to?</p>
<p>"My problem with that is that surviving the situation does not improve the situation, and is dependent on the idea that a given person can follow that information consistently and without error. My problem with that is that surviving the situation does not improve the situation, and is dependent on the idea that a given person can follow that information consistently and without error. If you want to give advice on surviving, it has to be a short term expectation accompanied by active efforts to eliminate the need for survival tactics.</p>
<p>If you don’t survive the situation, the rest doesn’t matter much. The first thing you need to do is survive, then deal with the other issues. So I think we agree on this: “If you want to give advice on surviving, it has to be a short term expectation accompanied by active efforts to eliminate the need for survival tactics.”</p>
<p>“More importantly, I do not think that tolerating illegal actions by the police, even when directed at you, does any good. And if you are not standing up for your rights, how can you expect anyone else to?”</p>
<p>I don’t think we should tolerate illegal actions by police, and I think we should stand up for our rights. However, the time to do it is not while a potentially nervous cop has a gun pointed at your head.</p>
<p>You think that defines a police state, wait until the FBI kicks down your door in full SWAT gear at 6:00am while you, your wife and child are sleeping, and confiscates your computer equipment because they erroneously think your father in law is connected to a criminal enterprise.</p>
<p>That happened to a friend of mine, and apparently happens more often than you would think. </p>
Which is really just a more extreme example of what I already said about the police violating your rights and endangering your life.</p>
<p>A saw an article a few months ago that said more and more police departments were removing “and protect” from their mottos - police see their priorities as (1) protecting themselves and (2) finding criminals (even if that means creating them). Protecting people is no longer on the list, and by and large we are allowing that to happen… because we see the real danger as being to “other people”, because we think we are in a safe demographic, or because we think we know how to be safe. It’s like all that advice for avoiding rape - it can make things a little safer, but often just gets in the way of the real actions that would actually deter and stop rapists, instead of just redirecting them.</p>
<p>Saintfan, that video of the shooting of the Native American wood carver by the cop 4 seconds after he was told to “put the knife down” was the most chilling thing I’ve seen in a long time. A person who was obviously using a wood carving knife to carve wood was deemed such an imminent threat to public safety that he had to be shot down like a rabid dog because he took more than 4 seconds to respond to a voice that came from behind him? Having no confirmation that that voice was even directed at him personally? Or a visual to guide him to the understanding that he was being addressed by an officer of the law (not having eyes in the back of ones head and all)? Or even having the ability to clearly hear what was being shouted at one’s turned back on a heavily trafficed road? What person with not the slightest intent to harm anyone would think, my desire to carve this piece of wood with this knife is an offense worthy of my execution? </p>
<p>And the way at least 7 responding police officers formed a phalanx, guns drawn, while they approached an unmoving, bullet riddled body lying face down on the sidewalk, as if this poor soul still posed some sort of imminent threat with his wood carving knife, which now lies more than a foot away…And finally, to hear one of the officers tell the shooter, “You did the right thing.”…Well, there aren’t even words. I could feel the blood running out of my face the as I watched this. The sorrow I felt over the utter disregard shown for this man’s life is enough to follow me into my dreams tonight. And this cop will not be held culpable for this man’s murder? And that’s exactly was it was—murder!</p>
<p>A disturbing number of these videos where cops shoot black or brown males follow the same pattern: the cops approach with guns drawn, scream at the soon-to-be victim for one or two or ten seconds, then shoot to kill. </p>
<p>The same thing happened with the Cleveland 12-year-old murder, the Walmart bb gun murder, the Native American wood carver murder, the mentally ill guy in St. Louis that the cops gunned down: the cops screamed for a tiny length of time, then killed the person in cold blood. </p>
<p>Normal people who are going about their business playing or shopping or crossing the street, and mentally ill people, don’t respond immediately to someone suddenly out of the blue screaming at them. If I was shopping or playing or crossing the street and there was screaming, I wouldn’t immediately realize I was the one being screamed at. </p>
<p>Isn’t anyone upset about the number of white men who are killed by the cops, at something like three times the number of black men? Are we only upset when people of color are killed, or should we be upset when anyone is killed unjustly?</p>
<p>When you bring me a pattern of police officers gunning down white people for no reason other than their whiteness, then I will be upset about that too. And I’m already upset about no-knock warrants.</p>
<p>Nobody’s videoing the white guys and nobody is writing headlines about the white guys being white and killed by cops but busdriver is correct about the numbers. Blacks are disproportionally killed by cops more often because of population percentage but in raw numbers it’s far more white guys being shot to death by cop. Most white people I think just shrug and are grateful the police got the bad guy instead of feeling like they as a group are under attack.</p>
<p>Cops are wondering what they’re supposed to do when a criminal resists arrest. Business cards have been suggested. The bad guys can just give them a call when they’re ready to be arrested. </p>
<p>I wonder how many police officers have gunned down people purely because of the color of their skin. Or if it is purely an accusation, no matter what the person may have done or have threatened, it must be because of racism, no matter what. Of course, there are abuses of power, overreactions, no matter the color of the victim. But white guys unjustly killed by police rarely make the news.</p>
<p>I think cameras and non lethal weapons would really help.</p>
<p>Exactly, Cardinal Fang. But what’s scarey in all this is the absolute certainty some “law and order” types possess that people assaulted or wrongfully executed by “Officers of The Law” must have “had it coming”, certainly if they are members of a racial minority. But, wait until the inevitable demographics shift places them in the unenviable position of being “the new racial minority”; An unfamiliar and troubling sense of vulnerability, and the feeling that they are no longer privileged with being judged on an individual basis, but seen as part and parcel of a demographic prone to a “predictable pathology”…When their children are viewed the way many black and brown children are viewed, and treated with the same disdain and condescension…Then understanding will break like light over the dawn horizon. But then, they won’t be “thugs” burning and looting local businesses, but rather “freedom fighters” rallying around the conviction that “The Tree of Liberty must now be watered with the blood of Patriots and Tyrants”, and that they must reclaim by any means necessary the “birthright of liberty” bequeathed to them by " The Original Founding Fathers". They’ll make Middle Eastern Jihad seem like school yard skirmishes, and the unrest in Ferguson seem like a sandbox temper tantrum. </p>
<p>That’s disturbing. Are you saying that when Caucasians realize they are a minority, they will exterminate people at a rate greater than the Islamic terrorists who are executing people as fast as they can? I must have misunderstood, because that’s pretty psychotic.</p>