police murder megathread

[Slander and/or Libel]

I don't think any logical person on here is going to argue that there are people in this country who have been systematically oppressed and discriminated against.

However, there is still absolutely no excuse for violence and looting. The systemic oppression of blacks in the south during the Civil Rights Era did not lead to the type of violence were see today from protestors. Everyone from the president to local leaders in the community has condemned this behavior and rightfully so.

Whether some on the left want to admit it or not, frustration is not a historical or logical justification for violence and non-violent protest remains the most effective means of civil disobedience.

Destroying your city does nothing for your cause.

"frustration is not a historical or logical justification for violence"

Frustration at what, exactly? This is worth clarifying. Because it's frustration at having violence visited upon them by the state, only to have the state absolve itself of culpability.

[Ebsy]

This kind of vicious lawlessness is why many people feel uncomfortable in urban areas

I wonder who feels more uncomfortable: the white people from the suburbs who come to watch the ball game, or the people who have to live in abject poverty, surrounded by crime and vice, and forced to send their children to terrible schools because the tax base fled when the real estate covenants were ruled unconstitutional.

[Slander and/or Libel]

This kind of vicious lawlessness is why many people feel uncomfortable in urban areas

Keep pretending you're not talking about race.

[rob in cal]

I wonder when we will find out the ethnicities of the police involved in Freddy Gray's arrest.  Since Baltimore has a significant black presence in its police force I'm wondering how likely it is that some of the police involved were black, and if this is so, whether letting that news out might help to defuse the racial aspects involved in the Baltimore disturbances.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Yes, why exactly should any of us be made to apologize or even feel remorse over these outbreaks of destruction? The simple fact is that large portions of America - particularly white America - simply don't understand the level of systemic poverty, discrimination and lack of opportunity that exists (and has existed for decades or more) in areas where this behavior typically arises. All too many people want to refer to these people as animals, when in reality, it is a response from them being treated like animals.

They're not looting because they want free stuff. They're not burning down buildings in "their community", because nothing in their so-called community belongs to them in the first place. When dealing with areas where a majority of fathers and young sons are being hauled off for responding to their institutionalized poverty in mostly non-violent but unconventional ways, where generation upon generation has found itself denied equal opportunity, where education truly lacks in structure - let alone at home - and where justice seemingly doesn't exist, these people lash out because it is all that releases the stress and all that sends a message. Nothing around them is truly indicative of a community. Nobody at any other time ever listens.

The only way things change, whether pacifists and non-violent propagandists like it or not, is through systematic agitation of the power structures that wish it would stay the same. Sometimes, that means action like what we're seeing. Drawing the venom out is necessary, because it's seeping all over the place under the surface anyway.

Of course, latte-loving white suburbia is going to frown and flex its big, lazy mouth through internet commentary that calls them "animals" and says "shoot them all on sight!", because they haven't the faintest clue nor care about what is truly going on in these places except when it is to indulge their worst stereotypes with 24/7 media coverage. How inconvenient it must be for and how much skin in the game must there be from all of these tough-on-crime suburbanites and rubes who watch from afar and prognosticate about entire groups of people and their motivations! If there was a God, then these sorts of people would be blessed with the same sort of unrest and injustice within their own little posh ecosystems. 

^^ the rioters are, essentially, acting in self-defence, pushing back against a system that has continuously been attacking them since birth.

I really don't understand how you're not a socialist.

[Reaganfan]

This kind of vicious lawlessness is why many people feel uncomfortable in urban areas

Keep pretending you're not talking about race.

It's a real thing. It's called white flight.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight

Then what happens are the cities begin closing businesses because people come less and less. Then the city loses money and revenue and can't afford city workers and cops, ect. It's quite sad.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

However, there is still absolutely no excuse for violence and looting.

Not even during the American Revolution?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

This kind of vicious lawlessness is why many people feel uncomfortable in urban areas

Keep pretending you're not talking about race.

It's a real thing. It's called white flight.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight

Then what happens are the cities begin closing businesses because people come less and less. Then the city loses money and revenue and can't afford city workers and cops, ect. It's quite sad.

Yes, I think all of us are well aware of white flight and the social consequences of white flight, Naso.

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

Yes, why exactly should any of us be made to apologize or even feel remorse over these outbreaks of destruction? The simple fact is that large portions of America - particularly white America - simply don't understand the level of systemic poverty, discrimination and lack of opportunity that exists (and has existed for decades or more) in areas where this behavior typically arises. All too many people want to refer to these people as animals, when in reality, it is a response from them being treated like animals.

They're not looting because they want free stuff. They're not burning down buildings in "their community", because nothing in their so-called community belongs to them in the first place. When dealing with areas where a majority of fathers and young sons are being hauled off for responding to their institutionalized poverty in mostly non-violent but unconventional ways, where generation upon generation has found itself denied equal opportunity, where education truly lacks in structure - let alone at home - and where justice seemingly doesn't exist, these people lash out because it is all that releases the stress and all that sends a message. Nothing around them is truly indicative of a community. Nobody at any other time ever listens.

The only way things change, whether pacifists and non-violent propagandists like it or not, is through systematic agitation of the power structures that wish it would stay the same. Sometimes, that means action like what we're seeing. Drawing the venom out is necessary, because it's seeping all over the place under the surface anyway.

Of course, latte-loving white suburbia is going to frown and flex its big, lazy mouth through internet commentary that calls them "animals" and says "shoot them all on sight!", because they haven't the faintest clue nor care about what is truly going on in these places except when it is to indulge their worst stereotypes with 24/7 media coverage. How inconvenient it must be for and how much skin in the game must there be from all of these tough-on-crime suburbanites and rubes who watch from afar and prognosticate about entire groups of people and their motivations! If there was a God, then these sorts of people would be blessed with the same sort of unrest and injustice within their own little posh ecosystems. 

^^ the rioters are, essentially, acting in self-defence, pushing back against a system that has continuously been attacking them since birth.

I really don't understand how you're not a socialist.

i am…?

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

If this hasn't been mentioned yet, the current name du jour is the Baltimore Uprising.

[CountryClassSF]

If someone is rioting in my neighborhood, I don't care whether they are white, pink, or black. It has the same negative effects. No one is thinking about race except the radical left.

[CountryClassSF]

This kind of vicious lawlessness is why many people feel uncomfortable in urban areas

Keep pretending you're not talking about race.

It's a real thing. It's called white flight.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight

Then what happens are the cities begin closing businesses because people come less and less. Then the city loses money and revenue and can't afford city workers and cops, ect. It's quite sad.

Then they should do what they can to prevent it, i.e. stop giving stand down orders when rioters are destroying their own city.  When people have to live in fear, they're going to move if they are financially able. I've lived in cities pretty much my whole life, but sometimes I wonder why.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT FROM YOUR LOCAL MODERATOR: It is incredibly inappropriate to refer to rioters as "animals," especially given the racial implications of that word. Repeated use will be heavily infracted moving forward.

[The Free North]

See even Ray Lewis knows violence is wrong

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/baltimore-riots-ray-lewis-reaction-117420.html?ml=ri

[© tweed]

good article by Chris Hedges, interviewing T-Dubb-O of St Louis, MO.  this may answer the question of "what rioters want": it's a lot more complicated, and the problems run a lot deeper, than "stop police killing". 

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/rise_of_the_new_black_radicals_20150426

[© tweed]

meanwhile, the Agents of the State came to play ball tonight.  plenty of vids/pictures available of deployment of "less than lethal chemicals", there's a curfew, National Guard, State of Emergency, etc.

[© tweed]

Good for the rioters. Here's hoping this leads to substantive change

well, hopefully people "get more organized", and in trying to follow the underground blogs/social media I think they are.  

the larger point is, if there's enough 'agitation' out there to (figuratively) burn down a city every time a cop kills a black person with dubious justification, the state will have to react.  that reaction costs money, and makes politicians, especially the politicians like Obama and Rawlings-Blake, O'Malley and his Higher Aspirations, make difficult decisions... not that the most vile decision fazes Obama, if it ever did.

[© tweed]

http://www.nytimes.com/live/confrontation-in-baltimore/church-leaders-gang-members-meet/

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NYT is relying on its easy contacts in state & local govt, including police, and not seeking contacts with any of the black community groups (who aren't hard to find: Baltimore Bloc, Baltimore Algebra Project, Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle, KineticsLive, Baltimore United for Change would all be likely to give a quote or two if asked).

link

[TNF]

I have literally zero problem with the people of Baltimore rising up against those institutions which oppress, degrade, and exploit them. The fewer payday lenders there are in the world, the better.

[Famous Mortimer]

I don't believe violence is never justified (although I would have opposed the American revolution) but it's totally ineffective when the people you're rioting against are citing your violence as the reason for their oppressive actions. Totally counter-productive.

It's sad because the Baltimore case seems like the most unambiguous slam dunk of all the recent police brutality cases.

In Ferguson, there was conflicting testimony about who got violent first. In Staten Island, a strong case was made that the force was not intended to be deadly.

In Baltimore though, we have someone with catastrophic injuries who died in custody, who even the police admit didn't resist.

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

terrence kellum, an unarmed 20-year-old black man, has been murdered by an i.c.e. agent in detroit.

[bedstuy]

terrence kellum, an unarmed 20-year-old black man, has been murdered by an i.c.e. agent in detroit.

How do you know whether he was murdered?  That's really unfair to the officer who may have justifiably used deadly force based on the article. 

[All Along The Watchtower]

Why are we assuming that the media is being honest about how the Baltimore riots started?

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Eyewitnesses: The Baltimore Riots Didn't Start the Way You Think

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

terrence kellum, an unarmed 20-year-old black man, has been murdered by an i.c.e. agent in detroit.

How do you know whether he was murdered?  That's really unfair to the officer who may have justifiably used deadly force based on the article. 

1. because he was unarmed

2. because nobody with half a brain, at this point, should believe the mealy-mouthed formulation that the officer was "faced with a threat". we heard it after walter scott. we heard it after tamir rice.  police have no credibility on this kind of statement anymore.

[bedstuy]

terrence kellum, an unarmed 20-year-old black man, has been murdered by an i.c.e. agent in detroit.

How do you know whether he was murdered?  That's really unfair to the officer who may have justifiably used deadly force based on the article. 

1. because he was unarmed

2. because nobody with half a brain, at this point, should believe the mealy-mouthed formulation that the officer was "faced with a threat". we heard it after walter scott. we heard it after tamir rice.  police have no credibility on this kind of statement anymore.

That's ridiculous.  You can't just jump to conclusions like that.

And, I have to say that I find it very hypocritical that so many people are pro-gun here, but get shocked when people get shot.  If you want everyone to have a gun at all times, lots of people are going to get shot.  It's the price of freedom.