Police Brutality

*covers his eyes*

Jesus, that's a pretty sick irony the poor kid
Spike

yeah, theres two type of police brutaility though - the genuine ones, who need dumping in the deepest, darkest jail you can find, and the ones who get accused while engaged in self defence.

take the case today where those cops beat that black guy with batons, people are calling it police brutality when they were ones attacked and were simply defending themselves.

the problem with the former is they tend to get away with it, and the latter get to take the heat unfairly.

ecky, how many times do you have to hit someone in the head before it stops being "self defense"?

I heard today someone describe the Cincy beating as being handled with standard police procedure - and thought, "Yeah, for beating a black man to death."

Is this thread like deja vu all over again?

http://www.nbc4.com/news/2672416/detail.html

I have mixed feelings about police. I don't like anybody nudging in on my life, but when I had to call them about something recently, the guys who came were gentlemen. Of course, I'm a young white woman & get treated differently.

The guy in Cinci wasn't beat in the head, and they're not sure he sustained blows in places other than the shoulders and limbs.

I agree we need watchful eyes on the cops. There are unspeakable acts of cruelty going on out there, even once in custody. Here in Charlotte, there was a big deal last year with the Sheriff's department and inmates at the city/county jail. They refused a diabetic inmate his insulin - now he's blind, beat many others, and walked away from fights between inmates, and on and on. It's unjustifiable, but what we can't afford to do is keep up this attitude of "all cops are pigs." People just seem to assume the worst, before the facts are even in. Nobody takes time to educate themselves about the incidents before they pass judgement. Anybody know what that's called? Spell it with me now...P-R-E-D-J-U-D-I-C-E. That sucks for everyone, because everybody is anti-cop, and now the cops feel like everyone is against them, putting them on edge and making bad situations even more likely.

if you're talking about the cincinatti case, iirc he wasnt batted over the head - they were aiming at the pressure points lower on the body, i'm reliably informed this is sp for cops since you can bring someone down without splitting their skull open.

what you had here was a 350lb guy violently assaulting an officer, what do you expect? theres other cases like this what ends in a burial for the cop, sadly neither the press or ther NAACP are terribly interested in those.

you want police brutality? see rodney king and darrell gates - this wasnt it, this was officers defending themselves.

and you might want to remember the guy was found to be on PCP, takes an elephant gun to get their attention, never mind behave.

EDIT: i might also add the police were only called after he'd attacked the EMT - this wasnt racial, this wasn't police brutaility, this was an idiot on a dust rage attacking people who were trying to help him.

[Edited on Dec 02, 2003 by ecky]

get the facts before you judge.

So far.....we have the tape taken by a camera on the police cruiser. The tape shows the 400 lb. man become violent towards police. The police officers attempt to subdue the man. The two officers who arrived on the scene called for backup because they could not subdue the man on their own.

The tape shows the police officers striking the man in his extremeties. I did not see them strike him on the face or head. The hamilton county coroner said the man had bruises on his legs and buttock, but no injuries to his internal organs.

It was later found that the man had cocaine and PCP in his system.

Based on the available facts, it looks to me like a very unfortunate incident of a man being under the influence of drugs, mixed with the man getting violent with police officers. It is unfortunate that the man died, but this is NOT a case of racial bias. The police, as of yet, do not appear to have gone outside the scope of their authority to use physical force to subdue a suspect.

[Edited on Dec 02, 2003 by Cash]

Yeah you are a young , white woman who was most assuredly behaving yourself accordingly.

I suppose you would have been treated differently if you were a 400lb. violently dusted -out scumbag, who had already assaulted two policemen and put one in a headlock....

Rodney King got what he deserved...another dusted -out asshole who leads cops on a 110 mph carchase and refuses to use the pea brain god gave him when told to get the fuck on the ground by a bunch of LAPD. Continues to resist arrest, and gets his ass kicked for attempting to grab one of the officers and refusing their calls to just stay on the fucking ground

I'm going to take the more unpopular side, not from a sense of trying to stir up trouble, but because I think we've weeded natural selection out of the system and I think that's a bad thing.

The short version: Somebody takes drugs, does something illegal, gets belligerent to the cops, then Fuck. Them.

Am I saying cops don't step over the line?

Of course not. But when the media starts reporting the hundreds and hundreds of violence free arrests and incidences by the police every single hour of every single day, then I'll put some weight into an occasional fat, doped up idiot getting his stupid ass beat and happening to die 'cause he had a fat defective heart. Boo hoo.

Am I saying that no cops are racist?

Of course not. But when the media starts reporting about the hundreds and hundreds of cops that work the inner city, outer reaches, small towns, and whatnot, every single day, without violence, then I'll pay attention when a known felon, that happens to be black, gets his dumb ass shot trying to run away.

The police don't instigate dick. Get crazed on drugs, break the law, point something that might be a gun, or swing something that might be a bat, then fuck off; the bed was made, go lie in it.

Drunk or high? Too bad. Unless Jesus Christ came down and shoved a bong down your throat and made you inhale, a choice was made to get high and you are now responsible for any actions while in said state. Ditto for being drunk. Worried about getting beaten by mistake 'cause you're drunk? Don't drink.

When a cop tells someone to lie down, fucking drop.

All this bullshit about it being the cops fault because some drunk or stoned asshole would have been 'better handled' by the good citizens of whatever Burger King or bar he stumbled out of...? Fuck that.

The Police are not responsible for whether or not you are innocent.

It is their job to give orders and our job to obey them. Period. Don't see many news clips of a guy lying down when told, then suffering a beating for five minutes afterward. Let the lawyers work out whether you were harrassed.

On a calmer note, yes, police have made mistakes. When we start holding people up to a higher standard, we better start paying them more money and stop trying to blame our fucked-up life on 'the way they treated me'.

End rant!

PS for Silentium and forgive me if this was brought up before, but (though I haven't seen the tape), I don't think they hit him in the head.

From CNN

That means no head truama and not enough force to do anything but bruise some fat.

[Edited on Dec 02, 2003 by Mqx]

http://suicidegirls.com/boards/Current+Events/28590/

much as i agree with some of your sentiments, this i definately disagree with!

its the job of the police to uphold the law - 'serve and protect' anyone? - not to give orders. we don't live a police state, we don't live in a dictatorship, they serve us not the other way around.

You know I'm not advocating having the cops walk around and bark orders at people walking down the street, right? It's about context. IF the cops have determined you have done something bad; then in order to protect (uphold the law), when they tell you to drop, you should drop.

i hereby cite you for excessive use of commas.

This guy evidently died of a heart attack brought on by the drugs he was under the influence of and probably exacerbated a good deal by the red-ass beatdown he got. That said, he was a criminal, he was endangering others lives, he fought back, he's dead. I'll not shed a tear for him tonight.

I think it's curious that so many people have taken the "shame on police" stance. I'm not belittling it by any means, I'm just positively in wonder at how quickly and universally the tides turn. It's interesting also, that not unlike the infamous "Shark Attack Summer" most people are more than happy to emphasize the negative 10% (that's an estimation on my part) rather than look at positve 90. It just doesn't make for good copy, I guess.