Oluwatoyin ‘Toyin’ Salau, Missing Black Lives Matter Activist, Found Dead

[GreyICE]

No one thinks that police should be able to get away with murdering black people. It's just that BLM believes that self-defense shootings (e.g. Darren Wilson shooting Michael Brown) are murder.

Basically, BLM believes that if someone wants to use deadly or incapacitating force to resist arrest, the police should let them go.

Why is it that people can't seem to find a middle ground between "let them go without punishment" and "murder them"? Why are those our choices? Is this how you approach everything? "Well Timmy, you cheated on the math test. I could let you get away with it. OR I COULD SHOOT YOU! Now class, don't cheat, or you'll end up dead like Timmy."

Like good god it's not even a failure of imagination, it's a failure of everything.

What did Philandro Castile do to deserve his murder? Daniel Shaver? Amadou Diallo? Sean Bell? Walter Scott? Freddie Grey? And why oh why do the police get away with it? Because I could go on, and on, and on. It took a video of a cop actually planting a weapon on Walter Scott's body to get him arrested. How many times have cops planted a weapon and there not been any video? How many "justified shootings" were unarmed people who had guns planted on them after the fact? It's not zero.

See the problem is that people don't think that the police planting evidence, murdering people, inflicting violence, and otherwise being nothing better than a gang with uniforms is a big deal. People don't think that 75% of the police in Minneapolis voting a white supremacist as head of the union is a big deal (the Minneapolis PD is 79% white).

And that's not fucking okay.

[Darth Wedgius]

Why oh why must you lie?

Bob Kroll isn't a white supremacist. Bob Kroll is in a group that also includes people displaying white supremacist symbols.

Antifa attacked a Jewish man because they said he looked like a Nazi. So Antifa is all anti-Semitic, right?

[GreyICE]

Bob Kroll was also sued for creating a hostile work environment because he was wearing a white supremacist symbol back in 2007.

But I suppose wearing white supremacist symbols and hanging out with white supremacists could mean... oh come on Darth. Even for you this is flailing about.

[Darth Wedgius]

Allegedly it was a "white power" badge. Is "black power" a call for black supremacy?

[GreyICE]

Allegedly it was a "white power" badge. Is "black power" a call for black supremacy?

Wow, the good faith in this comment. The good faith here.

Oh no, how could I think a man with a "white power" badge was a white supremacist? That's so unfair of me!

You know what? I'm completely comfortable calling a man who wears a "White power" patch, joined a motorcycle gang that proudly displays the Nazi Eagle, called a black teenager n*****r, called a fellow police officer racial slurs, and has 20 use of force complaints against him "a violent white supremacist". If you're not, bully for you, fuck off.

[G-Man]

Why is it that people can't seem to find a middle ground between "let them go without punishment" and "murder them"? Why are those our choices? Is this how you approach everything? "Well Timmy, you cheated on the math test. I could let you get away with it. OR I COULD SHOOT YOU! Now class, don't cheat, or you'll end up dead like Timmy."

Like good god it's not even a failure of imagination, it's a failure of everything.

You are the one who cannot find a middle ground between "all police shootings are justified" and "all police shootings are unjustified." Neither does BLM, which is why I scorn them.

If, when confronted with the cheating, Timmy's response is to start whaling on his teacher with his fists and keeps pounding her once she is on the ground (and Timmy is a 200-pound muscle-bound football player), then shooting him might make sense.

What did Philandro Castile do to deserve his murder? Daniel Shaver? Amadou Diallo? Sean Bell? Walter Scott? Freddie Grey? And why oh why do the police get away with it? Because I could go on, and on, and on. It took a video of a cop actually planting a weapon on Walter Scott's body to get him arrested. How many times have cops planted a weapon and there not been any video? How many "justified shootings" were unarmed people who had guns planted on them after the fact? It's not zero.

The issue is that broadly, there are three types of shootings/killings. (1) Justified, (2) situations where police make a split-second decision that goes wrong , and (3) situations where the police are deliberately abusive.

Reducing (2) requires, I would think, better psychological testing to weed out people who are not good under pressure, and better training. Reducing (3) requires more police accountability as well as weeding out bad officers and reforming policies that condone or even prescribe abusive behavior.

See the problem is that people don't think that the police planting evidence, murdering people, inflicting violence, and otherwise being nothing better than a gang with uniforms is a big deal. People don't think that 75% of the police in Minneapolis voting a white supremacist as head of the union is a big deal (the Minneapolis PD is 79% white).

The problem is that BLM basically went to the wall with the "hands up don't shoot" lie about Michael Brown. They also condemn the shooters of Rayshard Brooks, who tried to subdue him non-fatally and only shot him once he stole a taser and fired it at them.

I am all for de-escalation, and police should not make a matter worse by aggressiveness and yelling when the person being encountered is not threatening (e.g. Daniel Shaver, who was trying to comply but was confused; or the old homeless guy in that video going around, who was rude and defiant but who did not seem to be posing a threat). However, if the person being arrested or detained chooses to escalate, at a certain point they must be responded to.

All of the suggestions as to how the police should have handled Mr. Brooks amount to, in effect, they should have let him run away with a taser in his hand, or they should not have arrested him in the first place for drunk driving.

BLM's position amounts to opposing policing, rather than demanding better policing, which is why I view it with a jaundiced eye.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

We don't have the death penalty as a punishment for drunk driving, or for assault, or for most crimes that people are arrested for when the police kill them. That's because the power of life or death isn't supposed to belong to one man in our legal system. It, theoretically, rests with a judge, AND a jury, because we've decided that societal institutions and burden of proof and the like should be involved before you end a man's life. That's why BLM uses the term "extrajudicial execution", because when a police man shoots a person, that's the most generous interpretation of what it is.
And somehow they manage to keep not killing people who were clear and present dangers to human life. See how gently Dylan Roof, a man in body armor who had murdered multiple people and still had a gun, was treated, verses somebody who MIGHT hurt somebody else?

I also think you are being too narrow with your categories. There's more area between split-second honest mistake and deliberate abuse. That's why we talk about institutional problems with the police, because in this case "Following your training" means shoot first so you don't have to ask questions later. Do you remember the thread about the lawyer who literally gave seminars to police telling them to shoot first? And you have the case of people who shoot in response to a perceived threat level, but for various reasons do not accurately gauge threats, so that Dylan Roof is a person you can reason with and talk down but some random drunk guy is a bomb about to go off.

None of this is helped by the fact that the most egregious, obviously malicious violations routinely go unpunished. Remember the guys who shot Breanna Taylor in her sleep are still not even charged with anything, while the man who tried to defend her from them is? Remember that it took weeks of protesting and rights in all fifty states to get them to even arrest a cop who dug his heel into the neck of a man until the life ceased for no good reason at all? This is what happens when you have video evidence AND national media attention AND a lot of political will. Put yourself in the shoes of somebody who likes like Breanna Taylor. Ask yourself how many killings like that happen without ANYONE protesting, or anyone noticing a problem with the police report, or anyone recording it with a cell phone.

[Dragon Ball Fan]

I'd once again, there have been extremists in Black Lives Matter as I've said before. it's good that problems with the police are being addressed but who's addressing the extremism on the other side? I'm not crying white genocide nor do I think white people are going to become slaves to non whites but I'm wondering if white people will be come marginalized in some way, no matter how small that way may be.

[G-Man]

We don't have the death penalty as a punishment for drunk driving, or for assault, or for most crimes that people are arrested for when the police kill them.

These people were not shot because they drove drunk, assaulted someone, or for those other crimes. They were shot because they tried to kill or disable a cop while resisting arrest. And that is not a punishment, it is self-defense.

Also it ought to be noted that the cops did not shoot these people to stop them from fleeing. They shot them when they tried to threaten the officer in the process of fleeing or resisting arrest.

And somehow they manage to keep not killing people who were clear and present dangers to human life. See how gently Dylan Roof, a man in body armor who had murdered multiple people and still had a gun, was treated, verses somebody who MIGHT hurt somebody else?

Did he resist arrest? Did he threaten the cops who arrested him?

I also think you are being too narrow with your categories. There's more area between split-second honest mistake and deliberate abuse. That's why we talk about institutional problems with the police, because in this case "Following your training" means shoot first so you don't have to ask questions later. Do you remember the thread about the lawyer who literally gave seminars to police telling them to shoot first? And you have the case of people who shoot in response to a perceived threat level, but for various reasons do not accurately gauge threats, so that Dylan Roof is a person you can reason with and talk down but some random drunk guy is a bomb about to go off.

Agreed that police policies and procedures ought to be improved.

But police do need to be able to use some level of force to subdue suspects. And if it is assumed that deadly force is never justified, you will wind up setting a precedent that an arrestee who resists violently enough will get let go to avoid the possibility of deadly force.

[GreyICE]

But police do need to be able to use some level of force to subdue suspects. And if it is assumed that deadly force is never justified, you will wind up setting a precedent that an arrestee who resists violently enough will get let go to avoid the possibility of deadly force.

Deadly force should be the final option, and police should practice de-escalation. Escalation is to make the situation more dangerous. You don't think someone is obeying you, so you draw a gun. You yell another command and it isn't obeyed, so you shoot the gun. Escalation policing.

De-escalation tactics are to make the situation less tense, and less dangerous. Here, I'll give you a great example:

youtu.be/9mzPj_IaMzY


youtu.be/8-bi3aREzJ4

Again, cops elsewhere in the world train for this. They train to make the situation less dangerous, and minimize all violence. Here's an article and video about the training: https://www.policeone.com/use-of-force/articles/video-uk-cops-teach-american-police-de-escalation-tactics-xTMqYT8HFFiXq37C/

Police in the US are constantly trained to be aggressive. They're trained that non-compliance = resisting, and that as soon as someone resists, you have to escalate force. They respond to any force with more force. They aggressively close with suspects, rather than assess the situation.

The entire idea of de-escalation policing could literally be summarized as 'take your time and talk.' Look for ways to de-escalate the situation. Use numbers, use vehicles, surround and contain, but don't approach, talk them down. See above how it works?

Police in the US are "aggressively approach and shoot." Because they're trained to shoot aggressively, they frequently kill people for no reason. They shoot children, they shoot autistic people, they shoot people who are no threat to them whatsoever. They create dangerous situations, and then escalate them. -