“Reacting to the presence of a gun” could mean, the policeman saw the gun or that Castile had mentioned a gun.
The girlfriend said there was a gun in the car, I believe. But where? If it was in the glove box, then the officer likely overreacted. If it was in his lap, then a closer call.
“None of us will be fooled” seems to indicate you’ve made up your mind before all the evidence is known.
@TatinG, Facebook did not take the video down (except briefly the first day). I can’t post a direct link to facebook here, but at facebook dot com, it’s /FightingforBlack/videos/269200286778799/ You can still watch it there and elsewhere. The only thing I see on his lap is his seatbelt. (It’s obvious that the image is reversed for at least part of the facebook video, because the steering wheel looks like it’s on the righthand side of the car.)
I’m not wading through 18 pages so I’m just going to leave links here that people can take or leave. This is what BLM and similar movements are fighting.
Just ONE example of a very popular misconception that has been thoroughly debunked by data (real data, not conspiracy theories) and yet still remains pervasive:
White kids are far more likely to use and sell hard drugs than Black kids and yet they’re still incarcerated at much higher rates:
http://www.medicaldaily.com/juvenile-delinquency-incarceration-rates-substance-abuse-hard-drugs-378346
http://www.csdp.org/publicservice/kids.htm
Or another: Black nonresident fathers are actually more likely to be cooperative and co-parent with their children’s mothers than White fathers. And there is no statistical difference in the time spent with children. In other words, the trope of the absent Black father is just bull.
http://crcw.princeton.edu/workingpapers/WP14-07-FF.pdf
There has already been links demonstrating that Blacks are disproportionately likely to be shot and killed by cops.
There is good information out there about what BLM is and what they are fighting. Of course, if one’s news source is Drudge Report, one will never have their paradigms challenged and thus falsehoods will continue to be perpetuated.
It’s not like white people don’t get profiled either. Since anecdotes are the key here, my dad got pulled over multiple times over a few weeks because he fit the description for someone police were searching for.
Peddling cigs or CDs is more likely to happen outside, in public (as were the case with Sterling and the man who was choked to death), while running an AirBNB account can be done from the privacy of one’s home.
Cops can see you and approach you in public; they need a warrant to search your home.
So no, not directly comparable, IMO.
(The overall point would be: Committing some crimes in public is probably far more likely to get a person arrested than doing those same illegal things at home.)
Maybe so but it still puts higher numbers of criminals in the black column and lower ones in the white column.
And, as romani noted, even when committing the same crime (using and selling hard drugs), there are different rates of incarceration.
And as for cigarette brands - they are like a little sociology experiment. Back in the '80s when I worked in a drugstore it was mainly black people who came in for Newports. Older black men preferred Salem. Really old white people liked Chesterfields, youngish white women liked Virginia Slims, young white people liked Marlboro lights, and skinny white guys with tattoos liked Camel no-filters. It tracks with however they are marketed and has nothing to do with crime – except apparently to give bad police work another bogus reason to pull someone over.
But let’s say you’re right, @TatinG. Let’s say for the sake of argument there was a gun on or even near his lap – I thought a lot of people here were all in favor of open carry! – and he was reaching for his wallet in his back pocket, following instructions. If he had a permit for the gun, what right did the cop have to shoot him? What was he supposed to do, exactly, not to get killed? Put his hands up and freeze and get his ID out all at the same time?
From Ms. Reynolds’s words in the transcript:
Again, let’s say he had a pistol “on him.” For which he had a permit. And the cop stopped him because of his “wide set nose.” What was he supposed to do if a panicky cop was giving him contradictory instructions?
And it turns out they did NOT have a busted tail light.
The officer is heard off camera cursing several times. As someone said earlier, he knows he screwed up big time. The whole tape is on NPR’s site.
It’s rational behaviour for cops to be more nervous interacting on the streets with young black males than, say, with elderly asian females. It wasn’t a korean grandma who robbed me on the street and held a handgun to my head.
TatinG, I actually appreciate your efforts not to pre-judge. Not to jump on any bandwagon, or resist the court of public opinion. And while right now what’s known about the Minnesota killing doesn’t look good for the officer, it’s possible that some mitigating information will come to light.
But.
This isn’t an isolated incident. This horrible killing came in the wake of a whole series of recently videotaped murders of black men. These videos prove something people of color have been accusing police of for a long time. It’s now not unreasonable to assume that there have likely been many other killings of black men in particular - killings that went undocumented and therefore unpublicized.
And then there are the official reactions to these killings. How many officers get indicted? How many get convicted and serve time? Since Rodney King, how many times have police gotten away with near-murder or actual murder?
This is what BLM is reacting to. This is what that angry and troubled young ex-soldier in Dallas was reacting to.
Not one incident. A history of incidents.
At some point, we have to acknowledge the awful truth. People of color - African American men in particular - face risks white America largely doesn’t. These risks often end in their deaths.
And in the land of “all men are created equal” this isn’t right. And it’s deeply troubling to all of us who care about this country, its stability and its people.
This is relevant how? Are you seriously excusing racial profiling and police incompetence that leads to black men dying because once upon a time, a black man held a gun to upur head? Get real.
The amount of denial on this thread is unbelievable. @partyof5 is right, some people will always defend the police, safe in the knowledge that they have to committ truly extreme acts to be shot dead by law enforcement.
http://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/news/a61047/nakia-jones-video-alton-sterling-police-brutality/
Quote from Nakia Jones, a police officer. At least one person on these threads has already posted her you tube video. Romani?
It seems to me she really nailed it in the portion I highlighted. Some just aren’t suited for the job.
Beyond anything else that happened in that horrific tragedy, I don’t believe someone shooting into a car containing a child is suited to the job. Regardless of anything else, even if they believed the couple were bank robbers, those policemen should have walked away when they saw the child. imho.
Where I live and work where there is such a thing as the Public Safety Card.
@alh I posted her video on the other thread. I couldn’t agree more about shooting into the car with a child, but that just proves my point. Our lives don’t matter beginning at an early age.
Unlike you, both Jesse Jackson & I have the intellectual honesty to acknowledge the uncomfortable truth about the demographics of violent crime statistics
Jackson once stated:
“There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps… then turn around and see somebody white and feel relieved.”
@GMTplus7 And I, unlike you, don’t judge people by the color of their skin, because I know white people are very capable of committing heinous crimes.
You know what we call having a negative opinion of people because of their skin color?
Racism.
As mentioned upthread, these statistics tend to be
skewed and unreliable and have many favtors behind them. But God forbid you let go of your preconcieved prejudices towards black people.
Better apply some of your “intellectual honesty” into looking inwards, and see why you think black people are more “dangerous” than white people.
“@TatinG, doesn’t this make you question the media sources you apparently use?”
The Conservative Treehouse? Really?
http://www.snopes.com/philando-castile-was-not-wanted-for-armed-robbery/
“@zobroward – please tell us you’re joking. You don’t really expect anyone here to take information from The Daily Wire seriously…” ummm…
what is the issue ???is what they reported wrong? or the reality is just not something you want to accept? I get it when an inconvenient truth is the truth just attack the source.(never check it and when you find out it is true accept it .so either refute it and if you can not maybe just maybe adjust your biases/ beliefs to better reflect reality.)
snopes is no more legit than the conservative tree house… which by the way often does amazing in depth work on stories.
snopes is a self proclaimed go to source. it has a very political bias which has been discussed on CC in the past.it is not a source for the final word it is a political outlet. *( yes they have other things like is a dogs mouth cleaner than a human mouth) but in the political sphere they are just like msnbc or other tabloids of that mindset.
so to try and refute tatinG’s source with another political source does not really have any value.