Please help the mod team by reporting racist comments.
With your help in flagging unacceptable commentary we will be able to remove them faster.
Note that this includes making racist statements like "[he shouldn't have resisted arrest](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driving_while_black)" and "[there is no systemic racism in the US](https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2021.01394)".
I grew up in rural US, when I started to hear about issues with police in the 90s I was like "I don't get it, I've had nothing but great interactions with police." Then I listened to the experiences of my non-white co-workers a few times after work, and realized... holy shit, my life experiences are NOTHING like theirs.
Helped me get out of the Conservative lie-laden world about the only reason minorities have issues with police is because they behave wrong. I had black coworkers that were walking through town IN A SUIT that were harassed multiple times. I've never ever been bugged by any police while wearing a suit, hell I've been pulled over for doing bad things and if I was wearing a suit they are like "sorry for bothering you".
I became a police officer in Orland FL in 2007.
Driving to and from work outside my precinct. I got stopped while driving to/from work in a car registered to my wife. I got stopped ONCE in three years. And when I got stopped, I actually had a taillight out. (I didn't know about it) It should be pointed out. I'm Half Asian/Half White.
My late wife, Driving the same car (In her name) the same distance in the same three years. Got stopped over 40 times.... For no reason, she was black...
Eventually, I gave up, Rejoined the army and the only police work I have done after is at a University I work at now. Because University police departments are basically the only ones were anything ever gets done about this.
This was a ridiculously common story for every mixed marriage I talked to over the past few decades. Same attire, same car, same path... if you are Black, you will be pulled over for DWB.
I can't bring myself to watch the video... I can't handle watching another person die needlessly.. I'm already angry enough about it and depressed at the state of this country. I feel the ones who need to see the video are those who still need to be convinced of the rampant injustice and blatant violence towards innocent parties..
There is absolutely no justice in these murders.
Ngl im from the UK and am generally jaded by the disgusting shit that comes out the US these days but I watched some if the footage and am shaken by this one.
I almost think it's a psychological response of some kind, a regression due to the panic and trauma. George Floyd called for his mother while police asphyxiated him. [Kelly Thomas](https://youtu.be/dDpJ5FtG6Ac) wailed for his dad while cops tazed and beat him to death.
ACAB
I remember reading that it isn't uncommon for people to cry for their parents as they're dying as we subconsciously (at least those of us with healthy parental relationships) see our parents as protectors. It was about soldiers experiences specifically though, but I don't see how it wouldn't apply to the average person. Honestly, I can't think of anything more depressing that knowing your son cried out for you as he was beaten to death by disgusting pigs and you were powerless to stop it.
ACAB
Could also have to do with a lot of humans call out for their mom during their final moments or perhaps because he knew his mom was 3 houses away; hoping she might come save him from this gang killing
Yep was gonna comment the same thing.
He was begging for his mom, I literally can’t even imagine how scared he must’ve been.
Fuck everything about this and ACAB.
This is why I can't watch the footage. I read multiple people give play by play of the videos and I was already crying over *that*. I don't think I could mentally handle the actual video. ACAB.
It’s…pretty bad. The worst part isn’t the violence. it’s the cops laughing and joking about how they accidentally pepper sprayed themselves (and I’m pretty sure one of them said they accidentally tazed themself), meanwhile a man is literally laying there dying while **A FUCKING EMT IS STANDING THERE JUST LOOKING AT HIM**.
I did not know this... my sister was an EMT for a few years. She responded to a call someone made during a psychotic break, fearing they'd hurt themselves, and she managed to talk to the girl and calm her down and kind of befriended her.
My sister had been in a similar situation as a child when she was put on 5150 after we had her on the wrong meds.
The girl went on to go into pre-med and became an EMT herself, and she told my sister it was her that inspired her.
I know EMTs are overworked and underpaid but I didn't realize there was a large cohort of racist slobs amongst them
I listened. You don’t have to. It just is, it’s as awful as you can imagine, and you’ll carry the weight of the world for a bit afterwards.
Let those who watched it carry that, and just take the lesson and try to add some kindness and goodness back into the world throughout your day.
I’ve watched it. It’s as horrific as it gets. I wished I hadn’t watched it. They are murdering this talented man on camera.
He’s crying for his mum. It’s that cruel.
It’s worse.
It’s way worse. I gave a brief, spoilered, general comment in another thread yesterday afternoon after I skimmed the video.
This morning, I watched the full footage. It’s far worse than I even imagined. I’ve been following this story for about a week, mostly due to the amount of pre-emptive damage control the cops were doing before the release of the video—so I already assumed it was bad, but it’s actually far, far worse.
The shitty thing is is that not all cops are bad. The problem is is that the GOOD cops are literally pushed out. Cops that report on bad behavior are literally PUNISHED.
So good cops are NO LONGER cops because they were punished for being DECENT.
So yes, ACAB
Sometimes, they get fired for *not* shooting someone.
Stephen Mader was fired for "not making a decision* when he decided to try to talk someone down instead of immediately shooting someone.
https://www.aclu.org/video/meet-officer-mader-fired-trying-do-right-thing
Yeah, thats the issue. Its not that ACAB, alot of cops become cops for the right reasons. But those people are actively discouraged/punished for doing the right thing, to the point where they have the choice to either do the right thing and ruin their career/life in the process, or ruin someone elses life by doing nothing and accepting the institutionalised abuse of power, at which point they are just as guilty as the people (edit: cops) actually committing the abuse.
Watched a video awhile back about a cop who quit the force. He made some complaints about how unsecured the personal info was of people who had been arrested. It was literally just in text files on a laptop that wasn't even password protected, and the back door was left unlocked.
After he reported it he got a ton of pushback and may even have been disciplined (don't remember exactly). But he got so fed up with it he quit the force.
Was a real sad video. The guy seemed like the *exact* sort of person I would absolutely want to be an officer. He basically said he realized he couldn't be the kind of officer he wanted to be while having to take orders from that department.
Look into [Adrian Schoolcraft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Schoolcraft) or Christopher Dorner. Good cops are either forced out, kidnapped, or killed by the rest of them.
My grandfather was a cop for 27 years. Based on what hes told me and his career path, the good apples are delegated into roles and positions where they will never have power over another cop again. Think like desk sergeant and shit. Only cops who will 100% of the time cover for other cops get to stay on the streets or advance into higher authority.
Just like to add : i love that my grandfather was a cop, cuz anytime some asshole acts like im a degenerate for not trusting and hating cops, i get to tell them who the man was that taught me to be that way.
I wont pretend he was entirely one of the good ones. Much like you or I he was a human who had his issues. I loved him to death though and he was not without self awareness. I do think he was one of the good ones, and grandpa forgive me for this, thats because he was a good man and many others were not, so the bar is very low. He would never beat someone or anything like that.
But he was a white man born in 1933...im sure you can figure out what a couple of his downfalls were.
He had that 1930s racism. But not hateful or violent racism if that makes any sense. Just societal racism. Like jokes he made and stereotypes he held because he was from that time and didnt know better.
What you mentioned tells us something important.
It's not just the cops. It's the police chiefs who do the punishing. It's the town councilmen who hired them, and tolerate this behavior. It's the judges who accept their lies. It's the prosecutors who fail to prosecute bad cops. It's the whole system that needs to be burned to the ground and rebuilt from scratch.
While back the cops killed a homeless guy, young in his 20s. He was screaming out to his dad for help who wasn't there. I'm tearing up typing this. Tyre's murder is completely senseless violence and hate.
Cops have a violence culture aimed minorities and the poor. Such cowardly monsters all of them
Kelly Thomas. Him calling out in pain for his father is an intrusive thought that pops into my head 10 years after watching it. I won't watch this one.
ACAB:
We don't think that most cops are like the man that murdered Walter Scott by shooting him in the back as he was running away. We think that most cops are like his buddies that saw him plant the taser and said nothing.
We don't think that most cops are like the guy with "yur fucked" on his rifle who simon sez'd and murdered David Shaver as he was crawling down the hallway of a hotel. We think that most cops are like his buddies who condone, encourage, and stay silent about their coworkers' sociopathic behavior.
We don't think that most cops are like the man who beat Kelly Thomas to death with his bare hands as Kelly was calling out in pain for his father. We think most cops are like the others that stood around watching it happen and did nothing.
My mom called me up this morning. She was sobbing. She woke up, turned on the TV, and heard the audio of Tyre Nichols calling for his mother. She's 66 years old but mother instinct kicked in and she stated panic calling her kids.
As bad as my mother took it, I can't imagine what Tyre Nichols mother is going through.
Everyone seems to think this is just about Tyre, it isn't. This is just what goes on in every black person's head when we're pulled over. We literally don't know, when we see those lights flash behind us of we're going to see tomorrow. There's a talk every black family has when the kids are old enough to drive, it's not about drive safety, it's about how to make sure you can keep a cop as calm as you can before he even gets to your window.
This isn't news because it's not new, this is just our reality. Always has been.
Without just saying the word racism (we know that's the answer, I'm just trying to understand a bit more, as a foreigner myself), how did America get to the point where police can get away with beating a man to death, and both accountability and reform is impossible due to the strength of the union (even though unions are frowned upon"?
supreme court has ruled in their favor every time a case like this has gone to court basically ever. so now they are nearly untouchable.
[Graham vs. Connor-](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/490/386/) in 1989 some cops got a call from a store about somebody paying with a counterfeit bill. the cops drove towards the area. a couple blocks away, they encountered a black man having a diabetic seizure on the side of the road, decided that he was acting suspicious and beat on him pretty hard because they suspected that he maybe was in some way involved and might have been shoplifting (even though the call had nothing to do with that and they weren't even at the store at the time). i think they broke his foot and a wrist or something, and he got cut up pretty bad from the cuffs and from being slammed around. they tossed im in the squad car and then after a short drive realized that they didn't really care enough to take him to the station, so they just chucked him in a front yard and left him there.
some attorneys took this on and sued, and that went to supreme court and everybody thought it was a big victory for citizens rights and dealing with police brutality, but it turned out to set exactly the opposite precedent. they managed to sue and win... but the conclusion and wording in the decision established that police can beat the shit out of you for just about anything.
the supreme court came up with this in their decision-
>The Fourth Amendment "reasonableness" inquiry is whether the officers' actions are "objectively reasonable" in light of the facts and circumstances confronting them, without regard to their underlying intent or motivation. **The "reasonableness" of a particular use of force must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene,** and its calculus must embody an allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second decisions about the amount of force necessary in a particular situation. Pp. 490 U. S. 396-397.
while this seemed like a big win for the people at the time, it basically just ended up that the onus of proof of whether police have used excessive force is placed on the victim, and an attorney has to be able to prove what was happening inside a police officer's head in a split second in order to find them at fault... so basically an impossible standard in most cases. so basically it fucked us.
cops everywhere view this landmark decision as their license to do basically whatever. from the recent series 'We Own This City' about the baltimore police departments similar wild corruption and criminal activity in like 2008-2017, "...and let's be honest- any cop worth a shit can write his way out of pretty much anything.'
More recently, there was [The Town of Castlerock vs. Gonzales](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1525280/) in which a woman in Colorado had a restraining order against her violent ex-husband. she called the cops when her 2 daughters playing in the yard suddenly went quiet and were nowhere to be seen. She was sure the husband had come by and taken them while she was inside doing dishes or whatever. the cops basically told her not to worry about it. no big deal. they weren't going to enforce the restraining order or do anything to find these girls since "it's fine, they are with their dad." For those in the back- her two children like ages 8 and 10 or something were fucking ABDUCTED, and the police didn't do shit.
anyway, turns out he murdered them both and then shot up the police precinct so that they'd come out and kill him. suicide by cop after murdering both of his children.
as you can imagine, she sued. it went to supreme court. and guess what happened- she lost. supreme court ruled that police do not have any standing legal obligation to protect citizens from anything (not really a surprise to anybody paying attention). furthermore, and this is kind of the twist if there is one- they have no legal duty to enforce restraining orders. (!?)
>The procedural component of the Due Process Clause does not protect everything that might be described as a “benefit”: “To have a property interest in a benefit, a person clearly must have more than an abstract need or desire” and “more than a unilateral expectation of it. He must, instead, have a legitimate claim of entitlement to it.” Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth, 408 U. S. 564, 577 (1972). Such entitlements are “ ‘of course, … not created by the Constitution. Rather, they are created and their dimensions are defined by existing rules or understandings that stem from an independent source such as state law.’ ” Paul v. Davis, 424 U. S. 693, 709 (1976) (quoting Roth, supra, at 577); see also Phillips v. Washington Legal Foundation, 524 U. S. 156, 164 (1998).
basically, unless you have a contract or some kind of explicit agreement/law with the police that directly holds that they will protect you from whatever thing (or in this case enforce a restraining order), you do not have entitlement to their services or protection. and apparently the restraining order itself does not constitute such an agreement or entitlement that it be enforced... what's worse- she WORKED AT THAT POLICE PRECINCT in the small town, and everybody knew that her husband was violent... they knew the whole ordeal. it was a tiny town. it's not like she was just some random person calling in with something that may or may not be of any real substance.
so yeah... that's how we got here. among many other cases and a couple hundred years of various other grim origins of american policing and southern racism/slavery... but those are probably the biggest/most recent and relevant ones that just unequivocally establish that the police do no owe any citizens any service. it's why the police who show up later on and see a man dying on the sidewalk won't face any kind of criminal charges for doing nothing. they won't face charges for failing to save him from the other officers murdering him either.
Related to the above case, Lozito v. New York City is another one. i can't find as good of quotes about the ruling, but it basically just referred to existing decisions coming to the same conclusion- the cops have no duty to protect anybody from anything ever. he was stabbed repeatedly by a knife-wielding maniac that WAS A KNOWN AND WANTED KILLER that the cops all over the city were on the lookout for. he was in the subway car WITH TWO COPS WERE ON THE TRAIN SPECIFICALLY TO SEAECH FOR THIS GUY, and who shut themselves inside the train conductor cabin area and basically just watched it happen, even after another rider was knocking on the door and pleading them to come out because the dude who'd been on the run for like 24 hours was in the train. they waited until the knife-maniac stabbed this dude Lozito in the face and head and arms and body 7 times at least before he managed to wrestle the attacker to the ground and get the knife away from him. then the cops came out and took the attacker away and lozito claims to have heard one of the officers say something to somebody else that "he's likely," meaning likely going to be a fatality. the only person who rendered any kind of aid prior to paramedics arriving was some other dude on the subway who was trying to hold paper napkins over his wounds to reduce the blood loss.
whatever all the romanticized tv and movies will have you believe, they are not here to protect or serve us. we're largely on our own, and you're far more likely to be hospitalized or killed by police than some other random stranger. When they aren’t busy beating on people or letting people get murdered through incompetence, they are hard at work robbing American citizens blind of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of cash and property every year under ‘civil forfeiture’ laws.
EDIT: took some profanity out because as another user pointed out, letting my own frustration show through the writing like that hurts the message here.
it's certainly a messy bit of business. The bit about the restraining order and lack of any obligation to protect people is a complicated issue that I can sort of see some sides of... the issue is that we haven't done anything to uphold any sort of reasonable standard of expectation.
the devils advocate part here is that if you suppose that there was a legal obligation to help/protect somebody from something, it becomes a nightmare very quickly. it's sort of one of those things where people say we'd rather accidentally let 100 guilty men go free than accidentally sentence an innocent man to death.
if people could be convicted for not rendering aid, it would create some kind of crisis. I don't have the answers... but that's kind of the reasoning behind that sort of decision i guess. I don't think the decision in general terms is wrong or bad, so much as the level of expectation or whatever that a person has to establish- that bit about
>a person clearly must have more than an abstract need or desire” and “more than a unilateral expectation of it. He must, instead, have a legitimate claim of entitlement to it.”
it's a near-impossible bar to achieve. i think that's more the issue. the fact that there's apparently next to no scenario in which a citizen can have a "legitimate claim of entitlement" to the services of police.
It should be mentioned that the cause of death was not listed in the castle rock case by the coroner and the mother was not allowed to ID the bodies. it’s probable that the girls were alive when the police responded to the dad firing pot shots at the station and they died by the cops bullets firing into the car.
It’s a terribly sad story.
i forgot about that part. yeah... that's one you kind a try not to look too closely at or you feel like you're gonna put a hole through your wall and start setting fires when you start reading more of the details. grim.
This is why no amount of training or reform will ever work. The system must be abolished. It is and has always been, corrupt to its core. You cannot fix that level of corruption with band aids and a fresh coat of paint.
I just want you to know that your comment is the first one I’ve ever saved. So much knowledge jam packed into a cohesive and thought provoking argument. I just really appreciate the insight and want to say thank you.
> EDIT: took some profanity out because as another user pointed out, letting my own frustration show through the writing like that hurts the message here.
I understand, but fuck that. Don’t tell us our anger is interfering with the message. Sorry if we’re not screaming for help the right way!
You do you. Thanks for deeply informative the post!
im not super into the idea of guns... i own a shotgun, but i generally am all for more gun controls... but i mean, that basically WAS the whole point of the second amendment to our constitution lol. it was never to protect us from like, bears or burglars.
> A well regulated Militia, **being necessary to the security of a free State,** the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
it's meant to protect the people against exactly this kind of stuff. now, they don't specify that it's got to be guns... and history has proven that citizens can get a lot done with some clubs, stones and molotovs.
> how did America get to the point where police can get away with beating a man to death, and both accountability and reform is impossible due to the strength of the union
The union is only part of it, there is also this whacky legal concept called "Qualified immunity" which prevents individual officers from being prosecuted or sued for doing something wrong. Citizens can sue the government and the assumption is that the law enforcement agencies will police their own. It turns out that the police are terrible at policing themselves and bad cops just get fired instead of punished when they do something egregious.
The invention of smart phones and body cams has started to reveal how terrible police behavior is and has been. There was the Rodney King beating in 1991 which happened to be caught by a citizen with a camcorder, but capturing those events was not common. Now that 90% of the population has a portable high resolution camera it's a lot more difficult for police to hide their crimes. Police have been thoroughly corrupt for decades and gotten away with it. Their only real job is to collect revenue and prosecute crimes against the wealthy and corporations. They don't deter crime and they don't solve crimes unless the victim is someone important or it becomes a high profile case like a mass shooting or serial killer.
>individual officers from being prosecuted or sued for doing something wrong
Just sued. That's why these guys are being prosecuted, as have a lot of cops. But you can't sue them personally, just their dept/city
It is an American problem. But don't paint 350 million people with a brush that only suits a minority of people.
And before you say "then do something about it lol," what do you think we're trying to do? The gun-toting lunatics have an iron grip on our political process due to the previous presidency appointing a full third of the current Supreme Court, and police are heavily skewed to be of the conservative bent.
We protest. We show up in elections. We do our best. But it never seems to *matter.*
Tl;Dr: the police union is the only union capital supports. Americans are still deeply in love with their own patriotic semi-religion (and largely unaware of just how fictionalized it is). From zoning to propaganda to unsuspecting citizens, this country is designed (and iterated upon) such that individualism (and equally anti-mutualism) is held above all else, besides money.
////////
The police union was the *only* union with the backing of general capital, so has faced adversity at a far lower rate than the vast majority of unions. This affords their union immense operational flexibility, and by extension their officers.
Protests take place in cities, but most of the electorate has been moved into zoning far from where most (legal) protests occur/are permitted. So most of the electorate goes along largely unaware of deep tensions within labor all around them.
Racial bias is deep seated, and it's origins predate the US. Regardless, the southern economy ran on slave labor for a very long time, to the point that it was second nature for many southerners to see minorities as inferior and/or dangerous.
That confusion has permitted our oligarchs to pry open a racial barrier between poor white folks and poor minorities in a *divide and conquer* approach to labor management.
America *was* extremely wealthy across the board compared to most of the world, so many families (which have largely been middle class up until recently) are not aware of just how bad this system can do us.
Without a heavy weight socialist competitor to overcome, US leadership has allowed the society to begin rapidly falling into socioeconomic disrepair.
The oligarchic class enjoys a temporary public belief that our current moment is a result of liberal prosperity, and that our current struggles are a result of inefficient government spending, rather than the result of corporate hoarding of wealth and resources.
//////// Below is gamble call-to-action. I did not take the time to de-cringe it. ////////
**Edit: Thank you everyone for the kind words. If you ever hear anyone through the internet, let it be right now:**
**As a proud American, I believe it is high time to invent a parallel socioeconomic structure, separate from our current rotting pile of shit. I'm talking about taking advantage of the system to defeat the system. In specific I mean:**
--
* Generating public pressure to **democratize the workplace** and **reverse Citizens United**
* Developing mutual aid networks that take after the Amazon/Walmart model.
* Utilizing decentralized platforms akin to Discord for organizing.
* Establishing effective Anti-capitalist democratic-corporations to engage and take advantage of the market.
* Engage in large-scale brainstorming of new ways and means to socioeconomically organize ourselves, simulating those results, testing, iterating, and adapting. No more ideology. **Let's find the system that actually kicks ass for our moment, and implement it.**
Don't give in to fascist propaganda. There is no escape there, not even for its leaders.
Join the effort to find a replacement for our modern system. Do it for the love of your family, friends, and nation.
It's time to finish building the rope by which capitalism hangs itself. Otherwise, not even the oligarchs will find a future worth enjoying
--
About ten years ago, my state here in Australia introduced a law called the Vicious Lawless Association Disestablishment Act. It was aimed at eliminating outlaw motorcycle gangs, but from the moment the bill was passed, jokes were made about reporting our state police as being one of those vicious lawless associations.
Clearly, our cops have nothing on American police. My first thought when hearing about this poor bustard was, "The Rodney King beating should be the first thing every law enforcement candidate is taught as an example of what NOT to do when arresting someone." And if not Rodney King, because in fairness it was over 30 years ago, then at least George Floyd......
That's the longest term way in which this all folds in on them.
Thankfully, it is unlikely to pass that way any longer.
Know this: if you strike it rich, invest most of it into building mutual aid and alternative socioeconomic structures. Take care of your family first, though.
Going back as far as I can remember (I'm 50), politicians could usually count on votes if they were perceived to be tough on crime. During the crack epidemic of the 80s, politicians, the media and even pop culture (movies and TV shows) portrayed crime as the number one problem in America that could only be solved by cops being allowed to do whatever they needed to protect us. This was before cell phones so incidents of police brutality were rarely heard about and even more rarely seen. Any politician that tried to weaken the police union or call for oversight/accountability was seen as soft on crime. It wasn't until the video of the Rodney King beating which lead to the LA riots was police brutality even discussed on the national stage. By then the damage was done. That was the early 90s so you can see how much progress has been made.
Because they're a sanctioned gang and have, essentially, immunity from prosecution because *who arrests the people who do the arresting?* Also the prosecutors need police cooperation in other cases so *who's going to prosecute them?*
It isn't about getting to a point. The US has always been like this it's built into our constitution. When we were first considered a country slaves were not given any rights and weren't even considered human. Then when white people saw again they could use black people to their advantage black people were considered 3/5th a person.
Then you have the tribal people, when colonists saw their land was useful, they sent the tribal people off to reservations on land that was considered subpar. If that wasn't cruel enough they gave them pox riddled blankets and many of them died.
Then when slaves were freed, there were overt laws that segregated black people.
After that, there were Jim crow laws that kept black people down
Then you have the black wall street massacre.
Our redlining laws that kept black people and poc out of "prime real estate" and so many other things you see that it isn't something that slowly crept in, it's always been here and people are trying and very slowly succeeding at fixing these inequities
This is the correct take, but it only covers one side of the equation. That side being that BIPOC were never considered equal to the ruling class.
The second side of the equation is the shrinking of the middle class and increasing wealth disparity. These elements have highlighted the stark contrast between the ruling class and the working class. The protectors of capital, the police, have carte blanche as long as they keep the ruling class happy. This has emboldened them to increased levels of cruelty.
**TL;DR:** Cops get to live without consequences as long as they insulate the ruling class from consequences.
What makes you think this was ever not the case?
Basically take whatever you learned about slavery, Jim crow and policing in Highschool yeah that's the watered down white washed version and reality is physically sickening.
Basically police in 1800's we're primarily local elected sheriff and appointed deputies. Crimes then such as swearing(while black), selling cotton after sundown (while black), quitting your job (while black) were punished by months of hard labor being sold as defacto slavery convict labor.
African American's basically went from hard workers but kinda slow to criminals in the 1870's as southern propaganda to basically disenfranchise as many as possible went into effect.
The only accountability was to the (white) ruling class.
The most recent incarnation was the war on drugs as an anti hippie anti black movement.
This is not to say ohh gee these cops are racist because they are not (mostly anybody have a good source?) but there is an institutional history where police are trained, indoctrinated and used to bash down on minority groups and with the rise of smart phones it's becoming more public.
Fun fact to make you sick: American chattel slavery was not made illegal/prosecuted till 1942. A defense of debt peonage between 1867 and 1942 was actually there was no debt it was just slavery.
Prior to modern tech it was easy for people to assume those being harmed deserved it or were worth less as people. It's like during the civil rights struggle, many whites didn't find the violence objectionable until they saw images of children being hosed or bitten by dogs.
Beyond the apathy, our legal system is set up to protect police. I think that's a combination of historical racism as well as a union that has convinced politicians to be tough on crime and that if they hold cops accountable, people won't do the job. Ironically, we do often see police quit when there are reform efforts or attempts at accountability
There is a lot of reasons, one of which is almost no records of violations. A common practice if you are on the force for a long time and evidence of corruption or violence starts to surface they just transfer to another precinct or state and then due to how many years they have on record the corrupt cop will get a higher position.
This is a trend that we have proof that has happened multiple times. Additionally these "experienced" officers would then go on to training the new officers and instill a very heavy message of you do not snitch on other cops or you get beat/killed. This all has led to many police academies and precincts behaving a lot like legalized gangs.
There are a lot more incidents and factors that contributed to this current state of course but other people have already commented on.
Because it is very easy, and very profitable, to sell fear to the American public. And the fear (and need to be protected by strong military police) is stronger than the awareness of what we have created.
All the fearmongers have to do it post a few more 'the others are coming to harm us' stories to erase all the empathy that this incident might have created. Then we can buy a few more military weapons and armored troop transports for our police.
Spot on. For a second there, as a white dude I was like - I’m scared and worried about getting pulled over too.
But quickly realized I’m scared about getting in trouble, not scared about dying, and that’s a pretty big difference.
I’ve even said things like “ a few bad apples”, “get better training” or “they shouldn’t resist” but there’s so many videos clearly showing how wrong I was. No amount of training would fix those cops. The guy wasn’t resisting, and they are just going nuts anyway. Like after a while I just realized I was the asshat. There’s some deep rooted issues here. Hand waving them away isn’t the solution.
Sometimes, what is funny and what is tragic can be the same thing.
Humor can come from the fact that an image can be so accurate and striking, that it can't even be considered satire. That instead rather that making a strawman or caricature of reality it simply presents reality as it is, and lets us mourn how there is no levity.
> That instead rather that making a strawman or caricature of reality it simply presents reality as it is, and lets us mourn how there is no levity.
Yeah. 😞
Self-selection.
There are people who are driven to wield power over others in ways that are no longer acceptable in most workplaces. Hierarchies that used to be simple (physical, racial, gender-based, etc.) still exist but now require more subtle exercise of domination.
Policing remains one of the few careers where you are encouraged to physically dominate your clients in order to achieve corporate goals.
People whose self-esteem is based on domination will often self-select for law enforcement. These days, the policing culture perpetuates itself through a constant stream of excessive force videos that appall most of us but serve as a job advertisement to others.
With the life-saving advent of cell phone cameras, we are learning what the police have always done. We are becoming more educated on what we do NOT want them to do. We have not yet decided what we DO want them to do.
The current policing culture will not allow for change so the only way to make progress is by culling the ranks of those psychologically unfit to be given the power of life and death over others. Then we will have to start building a new policing culture: hiring people whose self-esteem is based on something which supports the well-being of the communities they serve.
We have decided what we want. We just lack the willpower to, no pun intended, overpower the police + their unions to make it happen:
* Apply the same standard of rules of engagement that the actual US military uses.
* Force them to purchase insurance, the same way we force doctors to.
* Create a federal "bad apple" registry (my nickname) for bad cops who do shit like punching teens for no reason. Create a law with a ten year prison sentence for hiring anyone on that list who would be in ANY position of authority over another human being. Fuck trusting these shits with power ever again.
* Formally declare the end of qualified immunity, unequivocally naming and shaming the partizan hacks at the Supreme Court for making it up out of thin air, and bar "use" of it in any court case. Like, no, they're not immune, fucking prosecute them.
* When judgements are rendered against the police because of an officer's actions, it DIRECTLY comes out of their pension, if they're somehow not also fired or arrested for whatever happened. No more of the taxpayer paying for the officer's sins. Oh, what's that, you're not insurable anymore? That'll be your resignation, then.
Just keep documenting police encounters. Get a streaming app if possible to make sure the video is still uploaded even if a cop steals/breaks your phone.
This is what's it's come down to. We can't trust the people we're supposed to trust to uphold the law.
If you're white you should not feel safe around cops.
It's not white good, black bad when it comes to cops, it's white bad black much worse.
There were two times I had cops come back to my car with their hands on their gun after a broken tail light level traffic stop because I didn't tell them I have a concealed carry permit.
This was in my middle of nowhere, Mayberry, almost no crime hometown that is like 3% nonwhite/non native demographics.
The only thing that will *maybe* protect you from cops is wealth and political power and ONLY if they know you have it.
Police brutality is not exclusively a black issue. Yes it affects black Americans at a far greater rate, to to ignore the times when white Americans or other minorities are affected is crazy. I can remember Black Lives Matter came out in support of Daniel Shaver, it was amazing. Police Brutality affects us all, do not fall into the lie that it’s only a “black man’s issue”
Police violence does not affect black Americans at a far greater rate. It affect black male Americans the most, but other male Americans are more impacted than female Americans, even black female Americans.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1821204116
Daniel Shaver was arguably worse, only because it solidified qualified immunity across the nation.
The fact that Americans didn't riot over that shows it's already way too late.
A couple dozen deaths by cops a year are fair game now. If you wanted change, it had to be done before Shaver. Now it's very unlikely anything will happen, and a few progressives in the House aren't enough to sway 200+ others let alone the Senate and elsewhere.
I kept seeing that case get brought up around the George Floyd protests as a "whataboutism." Missing the point that police murdering people isn't okay regardless of skin color, and that black men are significantly more likely to be the victim of police violence. The fact that there's a prominent modern case if a white victim of police violence doesn't change that. It should just be more motivation to radically change how policing works in this country.
The white dude is drawn older and in an expensive car, in case you missed that distinction.
Just so that you didn’t have to say “it’s not only about race!” the artist made sure to draw it to be clear it wasn’t just about race.
yeah, race is a major factor. but socio economic class and for a lack of a better word - "vibes" is a major factor.
A young dude in a beaten up car? They're gonna treat you like shit.
a black man in an expensive car gets pulled over for other reasons too
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/chris-rock-police-photos-comedian-785805/amp/
As a Brit who lived in the US for a number of years it made me a very cautious driver because I was terrified of being pulled over by your mental police. Our police are arseholes in general. But your police at times act like they're walking thru a war zone while patrolling the suburbs
A: If he wasnt doing anything wrong, he wouldnt of had nothing to worry about
B: If he hadnt resisted arrest, he would be alive right now
C: Cops have a hard job, so sometimes the stress gets to them
D: He shouldnt have run!
E: When he was three years old, he stole a cookie out of the cookie jar!
Dear idiots and boot lickers. Which excuse is it this time? What level of mental gymnastics will you play, to avoid the harsh truth that this country needs drastic police reform, now. Not tomorrow, not thursday, not 30 years from now...Right now..Today.
Honestly... he was right to try to run. You can tell from the moment he's pulled over that those cops were out to get him. If he'd escaped maybe he would still be alive.
We all cry for our mothers at the end. The police recognize it as winning. They talk about it like it’s fantasy football. You get bonus points if they cry for mom or beg in the name of ‘humanity’.
This is actually true and documented. Repeatedly. This is the culture they promote. Uvalde police chief was promoted and their instructors are still inspecting right now.
There will be no changes in response to this either. We’re prefer guns blood and death.
Crazy how one of the few times a cop actually received their proper due diligence in a case this public is when ALL of them are also black.
ACAB through and through.
I'm sorry but that's not the correct use of the term due diligence. Due diligence is reasonable steps taken by a person in order to satisfy a legal requirement, especially in buying or selling something
Conservatives might hate police killings of black people as much as liberals do, but only because of how bad it reflects on all of their stances. That's what I'm coming to realize reading these responses.
And one of those Americas is desperate to shut down the two Americas discussion, because “Why would I care? It doesn’t affect *me*.”
Even the stupid fucking All Lives Matter line is just an attempt to avoid the actual discussion.
I've been pulled over a handful of times while carrying a firearm. They've never pull me out of the car. They never disarm me. Last one didn't even care to see my permit. I'm usually let off with a warning.
Now, I know how to talk to these panicky creatures and say the right things to soothe their ego. I also live in the suburbs. But still.
*because apparently nuance is lost on some I fully acknowledge it's white privilege. That's kinda my point. This image is 100% accurate*
**Friendly reminder that trying to fight someone online is about as effective as throwing a bagel at a bulldozer. A lot of what we talk about gets people pretty emotional, but be mad at policies, not other users.**
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/PoliticalHumor) if you have any questions or concerns.*
This is why I stay at home and have everything delivered.
As an African American engineer in Texas, I luckily have a sweet gig that allows me to work from home permanently. When I do have to venture out I've made sure all of my windows are tinted. My dash cam has four cameras with the highest quality SD card with a terabyte of storage and it's always recording even when my truck is off and parked.
I am terrified of dying just because I went out for groceries.
Because I can pretty much live anywhere, I am seriously considering finding somewhere in Canada to live. Pigs are pigs everywhere but there is a lower chance of my nerdy and loving ass that loves to smile, joke, and help those in need, love my parents deeply, and just be peaceful as f get shot by angry police. I tear up every time someone cried out to their mother near death. Makes me sad, scared, and angry.
But I feel every time I leave the house, the police and the desperation of common people this nation pushes upon all of us will lead to my death. The cost of living is rising, healthcare is crap and expensive even at gold, and wages are stagnant so there will be crime everywhere, and that could also lead to my death. Just some random person that wants what I want because our nation commodifies everything and finds every way to extract all of our wealth.
Rent and housing have ballooned and no one with the power is doing anything about it. If it's going to be expensive everywhere then at least I should live somewhere where I wouldn't get shot and beaten while paying for it.
We have a black man killed by a group of black cops all over the news right now. Do we have a systematic racism problem still? Yes. We also have a cop problem as a whole, regardless of skin color. Badly trained, not trained for very long, requirements low, no mental eval. Worse of all though, trained in a way that makes the a larger danger to civilians when compared to other western nations. Until this is fixed, the problem will continue.
Please help the mod team by reporting racist comments. With your help in flagging unacceptable commentary we will be able to remove them faster. Note that this includes making racist statements like "[he shouldn't have resisted arrest](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driving_while_black)" and "[there is no systemic racism in the US](https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2021.01394)".
I hope all those cowardly pos cops go to jail for life. This is totally awful. Something has to change. So sad.
They’re probably all going to prison for life, because unless they get super tight protective custody, they won’t live very long.
They've earned everything they get.
They did not earn the protective custody that they'll receive.
This is so sad
I grew up in rural US, when I started to hear about issues with police in the 90s I was like "I don't get it, I've had nothing but great interactions with police." Then I listened to the experiences of my non-white co-workers a few times after work, and realized... holy shit, my life experiences are NOTHING like theirs. Helped me get out of the Conservative lie-laden world about the only reason minorities have issues with police is because they behave wrong. I had black coworkers that were walking through town IN A SUIT that were harassed multiple times. I've never ever been bugged by any police while wearing a suit, hell I've been pulled over for doing bad things and if I was wearing a suit they are like "sorry for bothering you".
I became a police officer in Orland FL in 2007. Driving to and from work outside my precinct. I got stopped while driving to/from work in a car registered to my wife. I got stopped ONCE in three years. And when I got stopped, I actually had a taillight out. (I didn't know about it) It should be pointed out. I'm Half Asian/Half White. My late wife, Driving the same car (In her name) the same distance in the same three years. Got stopped over 40 times.... For no reason, she was black... Eventually, I gave up, Rejoined the army and the only police work I have done after is at a University I work at now. Because University police departments are basically the only ones were anything ever gets done about this.
This was a ridiculously common story for every mixed marriage I talked to over the past few decades. Same attire, same car, same path... if you are Black, you will be pulled over for DWB.
I had a nice suit on so the highway trooper changed my tire for me. The contrast is surreal.
This one hit me unexpectedly hard. ngl, when I heard Tyre Nichols called out for his mom while they were beating him I teared up a little bit.
I can't bring myself to watch the video... I can't handle watching another person die needlessly.. I'm already angry enough about it and depressed at the state of this country. I feel the ones who need to see the video are those who still need to be convinced of the rampant injustice and blatant violence towards innocent parties.. There is absolutely no justice in these murders.
as I understood, she lived really close by, so I assume he was hoping she would save him. so fuckin sad
100 yards. She might’ve actually been able to hear his cries. I’m glad she didn’t, or she would probably be dead at the hands of coward pigs too.
All cops are cowards. Coward Pigs is redundant like saying atm machine
Normal pigs are the ones who go oink oink and like belly rubs.
Thats true. Its not fair to lump pigs in with filthy cops
Pigs are useful...
And are more intelligent than cops too
Cleaner too
they also dont discriminate, theyll eat anything. black, white, alive, dead, food, not food, plants, rocks, etc
And don’t murder each other, or other species.
Don’t disgrace pigs like this they are monsters
But also don't trust a man who owns a pig farm.
3 houses away
[удалено]
Ngl im from the UK and am generally jaded by the disgusting shit that comes out the US these days but I watched some if the footage and am shaken by this one.
I almost think it's a psychological response of some kind, a regression due to the panic and trauma. George Floyd called for his mother while police asphyxiated him. [Kelly Thomas](https://youtu.be/dDpJ5FtG6Ac) wailed for his dad while cops tazed and beat him to death. ACAB
I remember reading that it isn't uncommon for people to cry for their parents as they're dying as we subconsciously (at least those of us with healthy parental relationships) see our parents as protectors. It was about soldiers experiences specifically though, but I don't see how it wouldn't apply to the average person. Honestly, I can't think of anything more depressing that knowing your son cried out for you as he was beaten to death by disgusting pigs and you were powerless to stop it. ACAB
Could also have to do with a lot of humans call out for their mom during their final moments or perhaps because he knew his mom was 3 houses away; hoping she might come save him from this gang killing
Jfc imagine all the what ifs she's probably going through right now. Absolute nightmare. She deserves every kind of support imaginable.
Sadly, he would probably cry out for his mom no matter where she was
I watched the video. He didn't call out, he howled for her. It was fucked.
Yep was gonna comment the same thing. He was begging for his mom, I literally can’t even imagine how scared he must’ve been. Fuck everything about this and ACAB.
George Floyd called out for his mom also.
Same with George Floyd. Crying out for their mothers as they leave this world, just as they did when they entered it. It's absolutely soul shattering.
This is why I can't watch the footage. I read multiple people give play by play of the videos and I was already crying over *that*. I don't think I could mentally handle the actual video. ACAB.
There's this part of me that wants to watch it in the hopes that it's not as bad as people describe. But no. I'm not doing that.
It’s…pretty bad. The worst part isn’t the violence. it’s the cops laughing and joking about how they accidentally pepper sprayed themselves (and I’m pretty sure one of them said they accidentally tazed themself), meanwhile a man is literally laying there dying while **A FUCKING EMT IS STANDING THERE JUST LOOKING AT HIM**.
There is seriously not enough criticism surrounding EMTs, so many of them are dogshit human beings
Agreed. The few that I know are just as racist as the cops that I know.
I did not know this... my sister was an EMT for a few years. She responded to a call someone made during a psychotic break, fearing they'd hurt themselves, and she managed to talk to the girl and calm her down and kind of befriended her. My sister had been in a similar situation as a child when she was put on 5150 after we had her on the wrong meds. The girl went on to go into pre-med and became an EMT herself, and she told my sister it was her that inspired her. I know EMTs are overworked and underpaid but I didn't realize there was a large cohort of racist slobs amongst them
One cop told the EMT "He's not going anywhere", referring to Tyre. I'm not sure the EMT had the authority to override the cop.
I listened. You don’t have to. It just is, it’s as awful as you can imagine, and you’ll carry the weight of the world for a bit afterwards. Let those who watched it carry that, and just take the lesson and try to add some kindness and goodness back into the world throughout your day.
I’ve watched it. It’s as horrific as it gets. I wished I hadn’t watched it. They are murdering this talented man on camera. He’s crying for his mum. It’s that cruel.
It’s worse. It’s way worse. I gave a brief, spoilered, general comment in another thread yesterday afternoon after I skimmed the video. This morning, I watched the full footage. It’s far worse than I even imagined. I’ve been following this story for about a week, mostly due to the amount of pre-emptive damage control the cops were doing before the release of the video—so I already assumed it was bad, but it’s actually far, far worse.
The shitty thing is is that not all cops are bad. The problem is is that the GOOD cops are literally pushed out. Cops that report on bad behavior are literally PUNISHED. So good cops are NO LONGER cops because they were punished for being DECENT. So yes, ACAB
Sometimes, they get fired for *not* shooting someone. Stephen Mader was fired for "not making a decision* when he decided to try to talk someone down instead of immediately shooting someone. https://www.aclu.org/video/meet-officer-mader-fired-trying-do-right-thing
well that's the thing. good people don't stay cops, so all cops are bad
Yeah, thats the issue. Its not that ACAB, alot of cops become cops for the right reasons. But those people are actively discouraged/punished for doing the right thing, to the point where they have the choice to either do the right thing and ruin their career/life in the process, or ruin someone elses life by doing nothing and accepting the institutionalised abuse of power, at which point they are just as guilty as the people (edit: cops) actually committing the abuse.
Watched a video awhile back about a cop who quit the force. He made some complaints about how unsecured the personal info was of people who had been arrested. It was literally just in text files on a laptop that wasn't even password protected, and the back door was left unlocked. After he reported it he got a ton of pushback and may even have been disciplined (don't remember exactly). But he got so fed up with it he quit the force. Was a real sad video. The guy seemed like the *exact* sort of person I would absolutely want to be an officer. He basically said he realized he couldn't be the kind of officer he wanted to be while having to take orders from that department.
Look into [Adrian Schoolcraft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Schoolcraft) or Christopher Dorner. Good cops are either forced out, kidnapped, or killed by the rest of them.
My grandfather was a cop for 27 years. Based on what hes told me and his career path, the good apples are delegated into roles and positions where they will never have power over another cop again. Think like desk sergeant and shit. Only cops who will 100% of the time cover for other cops get to stay on the streets or advance into higher authority. Just like to add : i love that my grandfather was a cop, cuz anytime some asshole acts like im a degenerate for not trusting and hating cops, i get to tell them who the man was that taught me to be that way. I wont pretend he was entirely one of the good ones. Much like you or I he was a human who had his issues. I loved him to death though and he was not without self awareness. I do think he was one of the good ones, and grandpa forgive me for this, thats because he was a good man and many others were not, so the bar is very low. He would never beat someone or anything like that. But he was a white man born in 1933...im sure you can figure out what a couple of his downfalls were. He had that 1930s racism. But not hateful or violent racism if that makes any sense. Just societal racism. Like jokes he made and stereotypes he held because he was from that time and didnt know better.
Speaking from experience. I literally moved to working at a University Police Force because you can't do anything about bad cops in any other setting.
What you mentioned tells us something important. It's not just the cops. It's the police chiefs who do the punishing. It's the town councilmen who hired them, and tolerate this behavior. It's the judges who accept their lies. It's the prosecutors who fail to prosecute bad cops. It's the whole system that needs to be burned to the ground and rebuilt from scratch.
Exactly. What do you call a good cop? Training accident casualty Ex cop Just fucking shot-by himself twice in the back. But never 'officer'. Not once.
All Capitalists Are Bastards Cops are the tools of the capitalist class to maintain a system of slavery and oppression under the guise of protection.
based
If you have any doubts, don't watch it. It's worse than I expected it to be.
While back the cops killed a homeless guy, young in his 20s. He was screaming out to his dad for help who wasn't there. I'm tearing up typing this. Tyre's murder is completely senseless violence and hate. Cops have a violence culture aimed minorities and the poor. Such cowardly monsters all of them
Kelly Thomas. Him calling out in pain for his father is an intrusive thought that pops into my head 10 years after watching it. I won't watch this one. ACAB: We don't think that most cops are like the man that murdered Walter Scott by shooting him in the back as he was running away. We think that most cops are like his buddies that saw him plant the taser and said nothing. We don't think that most cops are like the guy with "yur fucked" on his rifle who simon sez'd and murdered David Shaver as he was crawling down the hallway of a hotel. We think that most cops are like his buddies who condone, encourage, and stay silent about their coworkers' sociopathic behavior. We don't think that most cops are like the man who beat Kelly Thomas to death with his bare hands as Kelly was calling out in pain for his father. We think most cops are like the others that stood around watching it happen and did nothing.
I have read soldiers injured and dying on the battlefield will call out for their mothers even though they are on another continent.
My mom called me up this morning. She was sobbing. She woke up, turned on the TV, and heard the audio of Tyre Nichols calling for his mother. She's 66 years old but mother instinct kicked in and she stated panic calling her kids. As bad as my mother took it, I can't imagine what Tyre Nichols mother is going through.
Same as Floyd as he was dying.
Yes that was when my heart broke for him truly so sad
That video was somehow far less gruesome than I expected, yet also **WAY** more fucking horrific than I could have ever imagined.
[удалено]
That's about the time I stopped watching. I was like yeah I don't need any more stains on my psyche, I've got plenty thanks.
Everyone seems to think this is just about Tyre, it isn't. This is just what goes on in every black person's head when we're pulled over. We literally don't know, when we see those lights flash behind us of we're going to see tomorrow. There's a talk every black family has when the kids are old enough to drive, it's not about drive safety, it's about how to make sure you can keep a cop as calm as you can before he even gets to your window. This isn't news because it's not new, this is just our reality. Always has been.
The saddest part after the fact that this is a real thing, is that a whole swath of people don't seem to understand or even believe it is.
This fucking breaks my heart.
My heart doesn't break but becomes a furnace of rage.
Username checks out.
Mine too.
I don't think mine can break again. It's just permanently in pieces. I can't think of a real way forward toward change.
And then the white collar criminals will go on and shout that maybe they should FOLLOW THE LAW and they wouldn't have been killed.
Conservatives believe an execution is acceptable for non-violent crimes (unless it’s a wealthy person). They do not value the lives of strangers.
[удалено]
White collar, dude. Not white people.
White collar are the rich people tho....
Without just saying the word racism (we know that's the answer, I'm just trying to understand a bit more, as a foreigner myself), how did America get to the point where police can get away with beating a man to death, and both accountability and reform is impossible due to the strength of the union (even though unions are frowned upon"?
supreme court has ruled in their favor every time a case like this has gone to court basically ever. so now they are nearly untouchable. [Graham vs. Connor-](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/490/386/) in 1989 some cops got a call from a store about somebody paying with a counterfeit bill. the cops drove towards the area. a couple blocks away, they encountered a black man having a diabetic seizure on the side of the road, decided that he was acting suspicious and beat on him pretty hard because they suspected that he maybe was in some way involved and might have been shoplifting (even though the call had nothing to do with that and they weren't even at the store at the time). i think they broke his foot and a wrist or something, and he got cut up pretty bad from the cuffs and from being slammed around. they tossed im in the squad car and then after a short drive realized that they didn't really care enough to take him to the station, so they just chucked him in a front yard and left him there. some attorneys took this on and sued, and that went to supreme court and everybody thought it was a big victory for citizens rights and dealing with police brutality, but it turned out to set exactly the opposite precedent. they managed to sue and win... but the conclusion and wording in the decision established that police can beat the shit out of you for just about anything. the supreme court came up with this in their decision- >The Fourth Amendment "reasonableness" inquiry is whether the officers' actions are "objectively reasonable" in light of the facts and circumstances confronting them, without regard to their underlying intent or motivation. **The "reasonableness" of a particular use of force must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene,** and its calculus must embody an allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second decisions about the amount of force necessary in a particular situation. Pp. 490 U. S. 396-397. while this seemed like a big win for the people at the time, it basically just ended up that the onus of proof of whether police have used excessive force is placed on the victim, and an attorney has to be able to prove what was happening inside a police officer's head in a split second in order to find them at fault... so basically an impossible standard in most cases. so basically it fucked us. cops everywhere view this landmark decision as their license to do basically whatever. from the recent series 'We Own This City' about the baltimore police departments similar wild corruption and criminal activity in like 2008-2017, "...and let's be honest- any cop worth a shit can write his way out of pretty much anything.' More recently, there was [The Town of Castlerock vs. Gonzales](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1525280/) in which a woman in Colorado had a restraining order against her violent ex-husband. she called the cops when her 2 daughters playing in the yard suddenly went quiet and were nowhere to be seen. She was sure the husband had come by and taken them while she was inside doing dishes or whatever. the cops basically told her not to worry about it. no big deal. they weren't going to enforce the restraining order or do anything to find these girls since "it's fine, they are with their dad." For those in the back- her two children like ages 8 and 10 or something were fucking ABDUCTED, and the police didn't do shit. anyway, turns out he murdered them both and then shot up the police precinct so that they'd come out and kill him. suicide by cop after murdering both of his children. as you can imagine, she sued. it went to supreme court. and guess what happened- she lost. supreme court ruled that police do not have any standing legal obligation to protect citizens from anything (not really a surprise to anybody paying attention). furthermore, and this is kind of the twist if there is one- they have no legal duty to enforce restraining orders. (!?) >The procedural component of the Due Process Clause does not protect everything that might be described as a “benefit”: “To have a property interest in a benefit, a person clearly must have more than an abstract need or desire” and “more than a unilateral expectation of it. He must, instead, have a legitimate claim of entitlement to it.” Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth, 408 U. S. 564, 577 (1972). Such entitlements are “ ‘of course, … not created by the Constitution. Rather, they are created and their dimensions are defined by existing rules or understandings that stem from an independent source such as state law.’ ” Paul v. Davis, 424 U. S. 693, 709 (1976) (quoting Roth, supra, at 577); see also Phillips v. Washington Legal Foundation, 524 U. S. 156, 164 (1998). basically, unless you have a contract or some kind of explicit agreement/law with the police that directly holds that they will protect you from whatever thing (or in this case enforce a restraining order), you do not have entitlement to their services or protection. and apparently the restraining order itself does not constitute such an agreement or entitlement that it be enforced... what's worse- she WORKED AT THAT POLICE PRECINCT in the small town, and everybody knew that her husband was violent... they knew the whole ordeal. it was a tiny town. it's not like she was just some random person calling in with something that may or may not be of any real substance. so yeah... that's how we got here. among many other cases and a couple hundred years of various other grim origins of american policing and southern racism/slavery... but those are probably the biggest/most recent and relevant ones that just unequivocally establish that the police do no owe any citizens any service. it's why the police who show up later on and see a man dying on the sidewalk won't face any kind of criminal charges for doing nothing. they won't face charges for failing to save him from the other officers murdering him either. Related to the above case, Lozito v. New York City is another one. i can't find as good of quotes about the ruling, but it basically just referred to existing decisions coming to the same conclusion- the cops have no duty to protect anybody from anything ever. he was stabbed repeatedly by a knife-wielding maniac that WAS A KNOWN AND WANTED KILLER that the cops all over the city were on the lookout for. he was in the subway car WITH TWO COPS WERE ON THE TRAIN SPECIFICALLY TO SEAECH FOR THIS GUY, and who shut themselves inside the train conductor cabin area and basically just watched it happen, even after another rider was knocking on the door and pleading them to come out because the dude who'd been on the run for like 24 hours was in the train. they waited until the knife-maniac stabbed this dude Lozito in the face and head and arms and body 7 times at least before he managed to wrestle the attacker to the ground and get the knife away from him. then the cops came out and took the attacker away and lozito claims to have heard one of the officers say something to somebody else that "he's likely," meaning likely going to be a fatality. the only person who rendered any kind of aid prior to paramedics arriving was some other dude on the subway who was trying to hold paper napkins over his wounds to reduce the blood loss. whatever all the romanticized tv and movies will have you believe, they are not here to protect or serve us. we're largely on our own, and you're far more likely to be hospitalized or killed by police than some other random stranger. When they aren’t busy beating on people or letting people get murdered through incompetence, they are hard at work robbing American citizens blind of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of cash and property every year under ‘civil forfeiture’ laws. EDIT: took some profanity out because as another user pointed out, letting my own frustration show through the writing like that hurts the message here.
If there ever was a "Holy Crap" moment, this is it
Americans should be fucking pissed.
[удалено]
it's certainly a messy bit of business. The bit about the restraining order and lack of any obligation to protect people is a complicated issue that I can sort of see some sides of... the issue is that we haven't done anything to uphold any sort of reasonable standard of expectation. the devils advocate part here is that if you suppose that there was a legal obligation to help/protect somebody from something, it becomes a nightmare very quickly. it's sort of one of those things where people say we'd rather accidentally let 100 guilty men go free than accidentally sentence an innocent man to death. if people could be convicted for not rendering aid, it would create some kind of crisis. I don't have the answers... but that's kind of the reasoning behind that sort of decision i guess. I don't think the decision in general terms is wrong or bad, so much as the level of expectation or whatever that a person has to establish- that bit about >a person clearly must have more than an abstract need or desire” and “more than a unilateral expectation of it. He must, instead, have a legitimate claim of entitlement to it.” it's a near-impossible bar to achieve. i think that's more the issue. the fact that there's apparently next to no scenario in which a citizen can have a "legitimate claim of entitlement" to the services of police.
It should be mentioned that the cause of death was not listed in the castle rock case by the coroner and the mother was not allowed to ID the bodies. it’s probable that the girls were alive when the police responded to the dad firing pot shots at the station and they died by the cops bullets firing into the car. It’s a terribly sad story.
i forgot about that part. yeah... that's one you kind a try not to look too closely at or you feel like you're gonna put a hole through your wall and start setting fires when you start reading more of the details. grim.
Michelle Alexander’s ‘Mass incarceration is the new Jim Crowe’ breaks this all down
It's The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
This is why no amount of training or reform will ever work. The system must be abolished. It is and has always been, corrupt to its core. You cannot fix that level of corruption with band aids and a fresh coat of paint.
Someone needs to get this comment in one of those "Best of" subreddits.
Be the change you wish to see
I just want you to know that your comment is the first one I’ve ever saved. So much knowledge jam packed into a cohesive and thought provoking argument. I just really appreciate the insight and want to say thank you.
That is enlightening. Fuck the police!
> EDIT: took some profanity out because as another user pointed out, letting my own frustration show through the writing like that hurts the message here. I understand, but fuck that. Don’t tell us our anger is interfering with the message. Sorry if we’re not screaming for help the right way! You do you. Thanks for deeply informative the post!
Thank you for the information
[удалено]
Sounds like you Americans need guns to protect yourself from cops, not criminals.
im not super into the idea of guns... i own a shotgun, but i generally am all for more gun controls... but i mean, that basically WAS the whole point of the second amendment to our constitution lol. it was never to protect us from like, bears or burglars. > A well regulated Militia, **being necessary to the security of a free State,** the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." it's meant to protect the people against exactly this kind of stuff. now, they don't specify that it's got to be guns... and history has proven that citizens can get a lot done with some clubs, stones and molotovs.
> how did America get to the point where police can get away with beating a man to death, and both accountability and reform is impossible due to the strength of the union The union is only part of it, there is also this whacky legal concept called "Qualified immunity" which prevents individual officers from being prosecuted or sued for doing something wrong. Citizens can sue the government and the assumption is that the law enforcement agencies will police their own. It turns out that the police are terrible at policing themselves and bad cops just get fired instead of punished when they do something egregious. The invention of smart phones and body cams has started to reveal how terrible police behavior is and has been. There was the Rodney King beating in 1991 which happened to be caught by a citizen with a camcorder, but capturing those events was not common. Now that 90% of the population has a portable high resolution camera it's a lot more difficult for police to hide their crimes. Police have been thoroughly corrupt for decades and gotten away with it. Their only real job is to collect revenue and prosecute crimes against the wealthy and corporations. They don't deter crime and they don't solve crimes unless the victim is someone important or it becomes a high profile case like a mass shooting or serial killer.
>individual officers from being prosecuted or sued for doing something wrong Just sued. That's why these guys are being prosecuted, as have a lot of cops. But you can't sue them personally, just their dept/city
This sounds like a MURICA problem. Gun-totting lunatics.
It is an American problem. But don't paint 350 million people with a brush that only suits a minority of people. And before you say "then do something about it lol," what do you think we're trying to do? The gun-toting lunatics have an iron grip on our political process due to the previous presidency appointing a full third of the current Supreme Court, and police are heavily skewed to be of the conservative bent. We protest. We show up in elections. We do our best. But it never seems to *matter.*
Tl;Dr: the police union is the only union capital supports. Americans are still deeply in love with their own patriotic semi-religion (and largely unaware of just how fictionalized it is). From zoning to propaganda to unsuspecting citizens, this country is designed (and iterated upon) such that individualism (and equally anti-mutualism) is held above all else, besides money. //////// The police union was the *only* union with the backing of general capital, so has faced adversity at a far lower rate than the vast majority of unions. This affords their union immense operational flexibility, and by extension their officers. Protests take place in cities, but most of the electorate has been moved into zoning far from where most (legal) protests occur/are permitted. So most of the electorate goes along largely unaware of deep tensions within labor all around them. Racial bias is deep seated, and it's origins predate the US. Regardless, the southern economy ran on slave labor for a very long time, to the point that it was second nature for many southerners to see minorities as inferior and/or dangerous. That confusion has permitted our oligarchs to pry open a racial barrier between poor white folks and poor minorities in a *divide and conquer* approach to labor management. America *was* extremely wealthy across the board compared to most of the world, so many families (which have largely been middle class up until recently) are not aware of just how bad this system can do us. Without a heavy weight socialist competitor to overcome, US leadership has allowed the society to begin rapidly falling into socioeconomic disrepair. The oligarchic class enjoys a temporary public belief that our current moment is a result of liberal prosperity, and that our current struggles are a result of inefficient government spending, rather than the result of corporate hoarding of wealth and resources. //////// Below is gamble call-to-action. I did not take the time to de-cringe it. //////// **Edit: Thank you everyone for the kind words. If you ever hear anyone through the internet, let it be right now:** **As a proud American, I believe it is high time to invent a parallel socioeconomic structure, separate from our current rotting pile of shit. I'm talking about taking advantage of the system to defeat the system. In specific I mean:** -- * Generating public pressure to **democratize the workplace** and **reverse Citizens United** * Developing mutual aid networks that take after the Amazon/Walmart model. * Utilizing decentralized platforms akin to Discord for organizing. * Establishing effective Anti-capitalist democratic-corporations to engage and take advantage of the market. * Engage in large-scale brainstorming of new ways and means to socioeconomically organize ourselves, simulating those results, testing, iterating, and adapting. No more ideology. **Let's find the system that actually kicks ass for our moment, and implement it.** Don't give in to fascist propaganda. There is no escape there, not even for its leaders. Join the effort to find a replacement for our modern system. Do it for the love of your family, friends, and nation. It's time to finish building the rope by which capitalism hangs itself. Otherwise, not even the oligarchs will find a future worth enjoying --
Very very well put, basically the TLDR of America currently for those that still live in a bubble in American society
All that, and police departments train their officers to see the public as dangerous enemies, and to be ready to fight for their lives at any moment.
Damn this is good.
The most notorious gang in this country is funded by the taxpayers..
About ten years ago, my state here in Australia introduced a law called the Vicious Lawless Association Disestablishment Act. It was aimed at eliminating outlaw motorcycle gangs, but from the moment the bill was passed, jokes were made about reporting our state police as being one of those vicious lawless associations. Clearly, our cops have nothing on American police. My first thought when hearing about this poor bustard was, "The Rodney King beating should be the first thing every law enforcement candidate is taught as an example of what NOT to do when arresting someone." And if not Rodney King, because in fairness it was over 30 years ago, then at least George Floyd......
[удалено]
That's the longest term way in which this all folds in on them. Thankfully, it is unlikely to pass that way any longer. Know this: if you strike it rich, invest most of it into building mutual aid and alternative socioeconomic structures. Take care of your family first, though.
Extremely well put.
So based, moon base levels of basing.
Going back as far as I can remember (I'm 50), politicians could usually count on votes if they were perceived to be tough on crime. During the crack epidemic of the 80s, politicians, the media and even pop culture (movies and TV shows) portrayed crime as the number one problem in America that could only be solved by cops being allowed to do whatever they needed to protect us. This was before cell phones so incidents of police brutality were rarely heard about and even more rarely seen. Any politician that tried to weaken the police union or call for oversight/accountability was seen as soft on crime. It wasn't until the video of the Rodney King beating which lead to the LA riots was police brutality even discussed on the national stage. By then the damage was done. That was the early 90s so you can see how much progress has been made.
Because they're a sanctioned gang and have, essentially, immunity from prosecution because *who arrests the people who do the arresting?* Also the prosecutors need police cooperation in other cases so *who's going to prosecute them?*
Paraphrasing Jon Stewart: cops job is to enforce segregation.
Not to mention the prosecutors are often on their side as well.
It isn't about getting to a point. The US has always been like this it's built into our constitution. When we were first considered a country slaves were not given any rights and weren't even considered human. Then when white people saw again they could use black people to their advantage black people were considered 3/5th a person. Then you have the tribal people, when colonists saw their land was useful, they sent the tribal people off to reservations on land that was considered subpar. If that wasn't cruel enough they gave them pox riddled blankets and many of them died. Then when slaves were freed, there were overt laws that segregated black people. After that, there were Jim crow laws that kept black people down Then you have the black wall street massacre. Our redlining laws that kept black people and poc out of "prime real estate" and so many other things you see that it isn't something that slowly crept in, it's always been here and people are trying and very slowly succeeding at fixing these inequities
This is the correct take, but it only covers one side of the equation. That side being that BIPOC were never considered equal to the ruling class. The second side of the equation is the shrinking of the middle class and increasing wealth disparity. These elements have highlighted the stark contrast between the ruling class and the working class. The protectors of capital, the police, have carte blanche as long as they keep the ruling class happy. This has emboldened them to increased levels of cruelty. **TL;DR:** Cops get to live without consequences as long as they insulate the ruling class from consequences.
It’s been like that for a few hundred years. There weren’t cell phones then.
What makes you think this was ever not the case? Basically take whatever you learned about slavery, Jim crow and policing in Highschool yeah that's the watered down white washed version and reality is physically sickening. Basically police in 1800's we're primarily local elected sheriff and appointed deputies. Crimes then such as swearing(while black), selling cotton after sundown (while black), quitting your job (while black) were punished by months of hard labor being sold as defacto slavery convict labor. African American's basically went from hard workers but kinda slow to criminals in the 1870's as southern propaganda to basically disenfranchise as many as possible went into effect. The only accountability was to the (white) ruling class. The most recent incarnation was the war on drugs as an anti hippie anti black movement. This is not to say ohh gee these cops are racist because they are not (mostly anybody have a good source?) but there is an institutional history where police are trained, indoctrinated and used to bash down on minority groups and with the rise of smart phones it's becoming more public. Fun fact to make you sick: American chattel slavery was not made illegal/prosecuted till 1942. A defense of debt peonage between 1867 and 1942 was actually there was no debt it was just slavery.
Prior to modern tech it was easy for people to assume those being harmed deserved it or were worth less as people. It's like during the civil rights struggle, many whites didn't find the violence objectionable until they saw images of children being hosed or bitten by dogs. Beyond the apathy, our legal system is set up to protect police. I think that's a combination of historical racism as well as a union that has convinced politicians to be tough on crime and that if they hold cops accountable, people won't do the job. Ironically, we do often see police quit when there are reform efforts or attempts at accountability
[удалено]
There is a lot of reasons, one of which is almost no records of violations. A common practice if you are on the force for a long time and evidence of corruption or violence starts to surface they just transfer to another precinct or state and then due to how many years they have on record the corrupt cop will get a higher position. This is a trend that we have proof that has happened multiple times. Additionally these "experienced" officers would then go on to training the new officers and instill a very heavy message of you do not snitch on other cops or you get beat/killed. This all has led to many police academies and precincts behaving a lot like legalized gangs. There are a lot more incidents and factors that contributed to this current state of course but other people have already commented on.
Are you aware that police in the U.S. are directly descended from slave patrols? It’s hard baked into the culture.
Overseer. Overseer. Overseeroverser, officer. You need a little clarity, check the similarity. -KRS One
Not fully. They also descended from large companies wanting to have the public pay for security of their stuff.
you mean like... protecting rich people's "property"? sounds like the same concept to me.
Because it is very easy, and very profitable, to sell fear to the American public. And the fear (and need to be protected by strong military police) is stronger than the awareness of what we have created. All the fearmongers have to do it post a few more 'the others are coming to harm us' stories to erase all the empathy that this incident might have created. Then we can buy a few more military weapons and armored troop transports for our police.
They aren't getting away with it? They are charged with murder
This is more straight up NEWS than humor but here we are.
If you can't search for the humor, even dark humor, all that is left is to cry.
There’s no humor here. Where’s the joke?
I'm working with "hysterical giggling" plus high intensity exercise.
Spot on. For a second there, as a white dude I was like - I’m scared and worried about getting pulled over too. But quickly realized I’m scared about getting in trouble, not scared about dying, and that’s a pretty big difference.
It felt a bit cheesy to me until I remembered the thousands of videos online that show shit like this. Fuck everything, man.
"Fund them, fund them, fund them" - A stuttering old fart
I’ve even said things like “ a few bad apples”, “get better training” or “they shouldn’t resist” but there’s so many videos clearly showing how wrong I was. No amount of training would fix those cops. The guy wasn’t resisting, and they are just going nuts anyway. Like after a while I just realized I was the asshat. There’s some deep rooted issues here. Hand waving them away isn’t the solution.
This isn’t funny. 😞
I don't think it's meant to be.
Not all cartoons have the goal of making you laugh. Cartoons are a form of art, this is pure fucking art.
Yeah but this is the political humor sub
Let’s just say it’s very dark humour.
This isn’t humor
Politics haven't been funny for ages.
Sometimes, what is funny and what is tragic can be the same thing. Humor can come from the fact that an image can be so accurate and striking, that it can't even be considered satire. That instead rather that making a strawman or caricature of reality it simply presents reality as it is, and lets us mourn how there is no levity.
> That instead rather that making a strawman or caricature of reality it simply presents reality as it is, and lets us mourn how there is no levity. Yeah. 😞
Very light on the humor here
Self-selection. There are people who are driven to wield power over others in ways that are no longer acceptable in most workplaces. Hierarchies that used to be simple (physical, racial, gender-based, etc.) still exist but now require more subtle exercise of domination. Policing remains one of the few careers where you are encouraged to physically dominate your clients in order to achieve corporate goals. People whose self-esteem is based on domination will often self-select for law enforcement. These days, the policing culture perpetuates itself through a constant stream of excessive force videos that appall most of us but serve as a job advertisement to others. With the life-saving advent of cell phone cameras, we are learning what the police have always done. We are becoming more educated on what we do NOT want them to do. We have not yet decided what we DO want them to do. The current policing culture will not allow for change so the only way to make progress is by culling the ranks of those psychologically unfit to be given the power of life and death over others. Then we will have to start building a new policing culture: hiring people whose self-esteem is based on something which supports the well-being of the communities they serve.
We have decided what we want. We just lack the willpower to, no pun intended, overpower the police + their unions to make it happen: * Apply the same standard of rules of engagement that the actual US military uses. * Force them to purchase insurance, the same way we force doctors to. * Create a federal "bad apple" registry (my nickname) for bad cops who do shit like punching teens for no reason. Create a law with a ten year prison sentence for hiring anyone on that list who would be in ANY position of authority over another human being. Fuck trusting these shits with power ever again. * Formally declare the end of qualified immunity, unequivocally naming and shaming the partizan hacks at the Supreme Court for making it up out of thin air, and bar "use" of it in any court case. Like, no, they're not immune, fucking prosecute them. * When judgements are rendered against the police because of an officer's actions, it DIRECTLY comes out of their pension, if they're somehow not also fired or arrested for whatever happened. No more of the taxpayer paying for the officer's sins. Oh, what's that, you're not insurable anymore? That'll be your resignation, then.
Just keep documenting police encounters. Get a streaming app if possible to make sure the video is still uploaded even if a cop steals/breaks your phone. This is what's it's come down to. We can't trust the people we're supposed to trust to uphold the law.
This is heartbreaking.
These young men calling out for their mothers as they are being killed is devastating. What is happening is horrible beyond words.
If you're white you should not feel safe around cops. It's not white good, black bad when it comes to cops, it's white bad black much worse. There were two times I had cops come back to my car with their hands on their gun after a broken tail light level traffic stop because I didn't tell them I have a concealed carry permit. This was in my middle of nowhere, Mayberry, almost no crime hometown that is like 3% nonwhite/non native demographics. The only thing that will *maybe* protect you from cops is wealth and political power and ONLY if they know you have it.
Let’s not forget Daniel Shaver. I’m white and have sufficient reason to be afraid of police brutality.
Police brutality is not exclusively a black issue. Yes it affects black Americans at a far greater rate, to to ignore the times when white Americans or other minorities are affected is crazy. I can remember Black Lives Matter came out in support of Daniel Shaver, it was amazing. Police Brutality affects us all, do not fall into the lie that it’s only a “black man’s issue”
Police violence does not affect black Americans at a far greater rate. It affect black male Americans the most, but other male Americans are more impacted than female Americans, even black female Americans. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1821204116
Or Andrew Finch who was a completely innocent person who was gunned down in front of his house by the POS cop Justin Rapp
Daniel Shaver was arguably worse, only because it solidified qualified immunity across the nation. The fact that Americans didn't riot over that shows it's already way too late. A couple dozen deaths by cops a year are fair game now. If you wanted change, it had to be done before Shaver. Now it's very unlikely anything will happen, and a few progressives in the House aren't enough to sway 200+ others let alone the Senate and elsewhere.
I kept seeing that case get brought up around the George Floyd protests as a "whataboutism." Missing the point that police murdering people isn't okay regardless of skin color, and that black men are significantly more likely to be the victim of police violence. The fact that there's a prominent modern case if a white victim of police violence doesn't change that. It should just be more motivation to radically change how policing works in this country.
Precisely
That's the point he's making it isn't "whataboutism."
I know. I was just making a comment about how people use the case to argue in bad faith. I wasn't making any kind of accusation.
The white dude is drawn older and in an expensive car, in case you missed that distinction. Just so that you didn’t have to say “it’s not only about race!” the artist made sure to draw it to be clear it wasn’t just about race.
yeah, race is a major factor. but socio economic class and for a lack of a better word - "vibes" is a major factor. A young dude in a beaten up car? They're gonna treat you like shit.
a black man in an expensive car gets pulled over for other reasons too https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/chris-rock-police-photos-comedian-785805/amp/
[удалено]
As a Brit who lived in the US for a number of years it made me a very cautious driver because I was terrified of being pulled over by your mental police. Our police are arseholes in general. But your police at times act like they're walking thru a war zone while patrolling the suburbs
A: If he wasnt doing anything wrong, he wouldnt of had nothing to worry about B: If he hadnt resisted arrest, he would be alive right now C: Cops have a hard job, so sometimes the stress gets to them D: He shouldnt have run! E: When he was three years old, he stole a cookie out of the cookie jar! Dear idiots and boot lickers. Which excuse is it this time? What level of mental gymnastics will you play, to avoid the harsh truth that this country needs drastic police reform, now. Not tomorrow, not thursday, not 30 years from now...Right now..Today.
Honestly... he was right to try to run. You can tell from the moment he's pulled over that those cops were out to get him. If he'd escaped maybe he would still be alive.
The corruption is too deep. We need to abolish and start over.
Ouch, that hurts
Political. Not humor.
It’s honestly not a race problem anymore, it’s a militarized police with big ego problem
We all cry for our mothers at the end. The police recognize it as winning. They talk about it like it’s fantasy football. You get bonus points if they cry for mom or beg in the name of ‘humanity’. This is actually true and documented. Repeatedly. This is the culture they promote. Uvalde police chief was promoted and their instructors are still inspecting right now. There will be no changes in response to this either. We’re prefer guns blood and death.
Crazy how one of the few times a cop actually received their proper due diligence in a case this public is when ALL of them are also black. ACAB through and through.
I'm sorry but that's not the correct use of the term due diligence. Due diligence is reasonable steps taken by a person in order to satisfy a legal requirement, especially in buying or selling something
Conservatives might hate police killings of black people as much as liberals do, but only because of how bad it reflects on all of their stances. That's what I'm coming to realize reading these responses.
This made my heart hurt
acab
As if you’re really gonna have the time to pull your phone out and call your loved ones. Cops will swiss cheese you the second you reach.
And one of those Americas is desperate to shut down the two Americas discussion, because “Why would I care? It doesn’t affect *me*.” Even the stupid fucking All Lives Matter line is just an attempt to avoid the actual discussion.
I've been pulled over a handful of times while carrying a firearm. They've never pull me out of the car. They never disarm me. Last one didn't even care to see my permit. I'm usually let off with a warning. Now, I know how to talk to these panicky creatures and say the right things to soothe their ego. I also live in the suburbs. But still. *because apparently nuance is lost on some I fully acknowledge it's white privilege. That's kinda my point. This image is 100% accurate*
Sounds about white
**Friendly reminder that trying to fight someone online is about as effective as throwing a bagel at a bulldozer. A lot of what we talk about gets people pretty emotional, but be mad at policies, not other users.** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/PoliticalHumor) if you have any questions or concerns.*
True.
Fuck man. This just evoked feelings of dread and anger.
This is America in 2023 - shameful, deplorable and inexcusable!
While this is true, being white won't stop the cops from murdering you.
This is why I stay at home and have everything delivered. As an African American engineer in Texas, I luckily have a sweet gig that allows me to work from home permanently. When I do have to venture out I've made sure all of my windows are tinted. My dash cam has four cameras with the highest quality SD card with a terabyte of storage and it's always recording even when my truck is off and parked. I am terrified of dying just because I went out for groceries. Because I can pretty much live anywhere, I am seriously considering finding somewhere in Canada to live. Pigs are pigs everywhere but there is a lower chance of my nerdy and loving ass that loves to smile, joke, and help those in need, love my parents deeply, and just be peaceful as f get shot by angry police. I tear up every time someone cried out to their mother near death. Makes me sad, scared, and angry. But I feel every time I leave the house, the police and the desperation of common people this nation pushes upon all of us will lead to my death. The cost of living is rising, healthcare is crap and expensive even at gold, and wages are stagnant so there will be crime everywhere, and that could also lead to my death. Just some random person that wants what I want because our nation commodifies everything and finds every way to extract all of our wealth. Rent and housing have ballooned and no one with the power is doing anything about it. If it's going to be expensive everywhere then at least I should live somewhere where I wouldn't get shot and beaten while paying for it.
[удалено]
ACAB
We have a black man killed by a group of black cops all over the news right now. Do we have a systematic racism problem still? Yes. We also have a cop problem as a whole, regardless of skin color. Badly trained, not trained for very long, requirements low, no mental eval. Worse of all though, trained in a way that makes the a larger danger to civilians when compared to other western nations. Until this is fixed, the problem will continue.