<p>Well, it can be, actually as we have seen. Do people really think the police are just going to give up when the criminal doesn’t feel like being arrested tonight? Amazing.</p>
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<p>People are very aware of how dangerous it is out there for cops. Unfortunately there are too many cases to list of citizens obeying the cops, and yet they wound up dead. The fact remains Deblasio has a Black child, and unfortunately his child is not immune from mistreatment. If Black cops are claiming mistreatment when they are out of uniform, how do you think the rest of us might fare?</p>
<p>Somehow, when we encounter cops, it should not instantly go from zero to ten! Case in point the poor young man who was stopped and the officer asked him to get his license, when he reached for his license, the cop started shooting. These escalations have to stop!</p>
<p>@partyof5, the quote in #1601 that you attributed to cobart was posted by someone else. Cobart was merely responding to it in #1598.</p>
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<p>No it is not a crime but it is stupid. And, like other stupid but legal behavior, it can have negative unintended consequences. Jaywalking is not a capital crime but it can get you killed. Confronting a drunk and belligerent bar patron is not a criminal offense but it can fast track you to the ER.</p>
<p>There was a great ad many years ago about defensive driving… the tag line was …you can be right, dead right.</p>
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<p>If continuing pursuit of a criminal suspect puts public safety at serious jeopardy, some jurisdictions do have policies of ordering police officers to cease pursuit. </p>
<p>This is one reason why if continuing pursuit by car of a suspect places the public safety at substantial risk due to factors such as high speed in residential neighborhoods, some jurisdictions have policies for police to cease pursuit and to use different means of apprehending the suspect which don’t put public safety in nearly as much jeopardy. </p>
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Are you saying that resisting arrest IS sometimes a capitol crime in the sense that you can end up dead if you resist? That implies that the cop is accuser, judge and jury. Is that a good thing? We should all obey a cop without question because we may end up dead if we don’t? Where do we live?</p>
<p>I am white, upper middle class and I had family members involved in situations that were, in part, due to police misconduct in THREE different instances. Three. Cops lying, cops planting evidence, cops granting favors to connected suspects, cops abusing their power to settle a personal beef. Mind you, I do not have a family full of criminals. Two of the situations were individuals being in the wrong place at the wrong time and one was a case of police falsifying a report in order to settle a beef with an individual who was with my family member. This stuff goes on ALL THE TIME. It happens in small towns, big cities and everywhere in between. </p>
<p>What about the police who pull over young women on a trumped up violations and then molest them or make a deal with them to avoid prosecution? Should we all obey them no matter what the situation is?</p>
<p>No. of course that’s not what I’m saying. There are bad cops. And, all of these situations are different. My problem is with the theme that cops are randomly killing black kids which started in Ferguson and was untrue in Ferguson. The premise is false. And, in any incident once force starts escalating anything can happen and it can end tragically. But, that is very different from accusing a cop of racially-motivated murder after a deadly force incident or implying that an entire police force is inherently racist because they heavily police the areas that are plagued by a high rate of violent crime.</p>
<p>Is it possible, in your mind, Marie, that the cop in the Garner case and perhaps the cop in the Brown case were, in some way, driven by racism? Even a little bit? I don’t think I (and I think this is true of lots of us here) believe that either of these cops set out to murder black men. But I do believe that racism played a role in the encounters from the beginning. In your mind, do you concede that? I don’t think we will ever know for sure because, well, there will be no trials.
It is very hard to argue with black parents who have experienced racial profiling, prejudice and fear. They fear for their children because they have experiences or know of others who have experienced scary situations. To say it doesn’t exist discounts the experiences of a large group of people. The mayor of NY acknowledged what is true to him. Shame on him for acknowledging that the emperor has no clothes.</p>
<p>[Cop</a> Who Shot Man in Missouri Did Not Have Body Cam Activated](<a href=“http://kticradio.com/abc_national/cop-who-shot-man-in-missouri-did-not-have-body-cam-activated-abcid35161633/]Cop”>http://kticradio.com/abc_national/cop-who-shot-man-in-missouri-did-not-have-body-cam-activated-abcid35161633/)</p>
<p>Wonder why not?</p>
<p>Marie, you keep referring to a “surge” in this kind of incident, or that it “started in Ferguson.” (#1607) I’m sorry, but there is nothing new about this – except that a lot of whites are suddenly paying attention.</p>
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<p>Actually, this theme has been known and discussed within the Black community and some other communities* long before Ferguson. </p>
<p>The only folks who believe this started with Ferguson are those in deep denial, didn’t really learn much from US history, or those who are heavily sheltered due to environment and/or by their own volition. </p>
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<li>Some Hispanic communities have had similar issues with LEOs.<br></li>
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<p>Marie - the young man who was shot last night did appear to have pulled a gun with intent when looking at the video. What I object to is calling the guy who ran his “cohort in crime”. Unless there is new information there was no crime. They were walking across the parking lot of the gas station when the police cruiser pulled up in front of them and the officer got out and questioned them it appears. Obviously, if it went down how it looks on the video the guy pulled out a gun. So far as we know his friend didn’t and didn’t do anything wrong to warrant being stopped and questioned. </p>
<p>It’s too bad that the officer wasn’t’ wearing the body camera that he’d been issued.</p>
<p>It was a shoplifting call.</p>
<p>Somewhat off-thread but nevertheless an example of bias that might ordinarily seem trivial but in truth indicates that the protagonist doesn’t realize the depths of his own indifference to real discrimination; Rush Limbaugh.
<a href=“http://insidemovies.ew.com/2014/12/23/rush-limbaugh-idris-elba/”>http://insidemovies.ew.com/2014/12/23/rush-limbaugh-idris-elba/</a></p>
<p>"But that’s not who James Bond is and I know it’s racist to probably point this out.” Rush Limbaugh</p>
<p>Ummm. Yup. It’s racist!
What an idiot. Maybe he doesn’t know that unlike Barack and Michelle Obama, James Bond is a fictitious character.</p>
<p>marie, are you still in high school? </p>
<p>The report that I read aid that it was a routine check that brought the officer to the parking lot - that may have been updated.
The video shows the guys kind of hanging out on the walkway out front for a bit then they head across the lot towards the woman with the stroller and what appears to be a child. The officer pulls in directly in the path of both of them. </p>
<p>“County police spokesman Sgt. Brian Schellman says a Berkeley police officer was conducting a routine business check at a gas station around 11:15 p.m. Tuesday when he saw two men and approached them.
Schellman says one of the men pulled a handgun and pointed it at the officer. The officer fired several shots, striking and fatally wounding the man. Schellman says that the second person fled and that the deceased man’s handgun has been recovered.”</p>
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<p>The difference, of course, is that the deaths we’re talking about come at the hands of supposedly trained, professional law enforcement officers. Or are you saying that we should have no higher standards for cops than we do for negligent drivers and drunken brawlers? </p>
<p>I am saying if one behaves in a stupid manner sometimes bad things happen. Dead is dead, whether at the hands of a driver (where if you’re jaywalking YOU are the negligent one) or by resisting arrest (again, you’re own negligence). Arguably neither the driver nor the cop set out that day to kill you, but your behavior contributed directly to your own demise (independent of either the drivers or cops culpability). I’m saying it is smarter to act smart and increase you’re chances of being able to do something dumb the next day if you wish. Maybe some just have a greater self preservation instinct than others.</p>