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Forums - Politics - The US Politics |OT|

KiigelHeart said:
Machiavellian said:

You do not need the news clip, as the police body cam video shows everything up to the moment of the shot and after the event.  I do not doubt the situation is tense and the perceived threat that the person has a gun is always prevalent within the US culture.  I watched the video probably a dozen times looking at the moment of the cop asking to see the kids hands to the moment of the shot.  There really was no delay. 

He asked to see the kids hands which the kid begins to raise them and then its done.  People stated he moved to fast, why did he turn around and a whole lot of stuff but the thing is the situation was stressful for both.  Logic doesn't always kick in those situations and especially for a kid 13 years old.  What I believe is that there were really not to many things the kid could have done where the cop doesn't shoot him since he shot so fast.  We know he did not see a gun first, we know that the kid never got his hands up.

The thing is, there are videos where people have been shot by cops where they give commands and they still shoot you.  This is why the distrust.  The words of a police within the US is trash because of the ones let free who abuse that power.  There is a video where a man got shot in a driveway because he raised his cell phone or another where he was said to have a gun but it was a cell phone.  Its these situations like this where the police have time and again shot unarmed people on fear and this one will be another.  Whether there was a gun or not, the end results is that it was not in the person hands when they were shot.  The cop did not say put your hands up nice and slow.

So the real problem is comes down to training.  There really isn't besides shoot to kill in the US.  6 months and you can be a cop while other nations it takes years.  Giving clear and direct directions where you are in control probably could prevent some of these types of deaths.

The real problem I see is people being ok that the result is always death and justifying it because their is the perceived threat.  I guess as long as it happens to those gansta then all is ok, until its not.

I mean, the news clip I posted shows the bodycam and a stillshot of a gun in kids hand. I can also post you a 11min clip with initial 911 calls and security cam footage if you wish. You can slow the bodycam part down yourself and see the gun. And understand the bodycam isn't actually recording through officers eyes. He even tells the kid to drop it.. I'd say had he not ran and the pick up the gun trying to hide it and raise his hand he most likely would still be breathing. But unfortunately as you said, logic doesn't always kick in.

I don't think people are ok the result is always death. I don't think even US cops are ok with that. Just look how many responses there are each year. How many arrests. How many armed or violent people arrested without result of death. 

About training.. it's a job you mostly learn by doing it. Training is important of course and you should regularly do it throughout your career but it only gets you so far. You can train for 10 years and still something unpredictable can happen in the first high-stress situation. Some people aren't cut out for the job and it might get unnoticed until it's too late. There's plenty of footage US cops doing outstanding job so I guess lack of training isn't a problem everywhere.

For example in Finland training is 2,5 years. But around half of it is training on duty with a senior officer. It's 10 months in academy and you're working as a younger officer. So you are basically a cop. And that 10 months includes basics of pre-trial investigation, Basic forensics stuff and so on, not just use of force situations. And there's actually very little taught about de-escalation and interactions with people, suspects and stuff. It's something you learn with experience anyway. 

Interesting, when I saw that news clip it jumps after the freeze frame of the gun to the kid putting his hands up and then the shot.  Actually you have to read the comments on videos like this to see that there are a lot of people who are actually very much ok with the outcome.  

Do cops do good, yes, that is not the question.  The question is when cops do bad, are they held responsible.  In the past it was always your word against the cop and basically you were done.  If you were a minority, especially in most southern states, well good luck.  The advent of bodycam and camera phones is what put these situations on notice.  The thing is when someone gets killed by the police its just a mistake and while this one is tragic its still was a mistake.  There are plenty of video of much worse cases as I described and those are the ones that do have video evidence.

As I stated, the job is stressful and because of that, not everyone is cut out to be a cop.  I am more than happy to pay more in my taxes for better salaries, training and equipment that helps police do their job and also not have that shoot first then let GOD sort it out mentality.



Around the Network

Derek Chauvin found guilty on all charges in George Floyd's murder. Sentencing to follow.

There's a relief. Now to wait and see how all the other awful killings in the news lately pan out.



TallSilhouette said:

Derek Chauvin found guilty on all charges in George Floyd's murder. Sentencing to follow.

There's a relief. Now to wait and see how all the other awful killings in the news lately pan out.

*shrugs* I guess we're supposed to be impressed by that, like look how far we've come, but seriously it really was the least our criminal justice system could do. And to think it only took last summer to make it happen. Congratulations us.

I mean seriously, what else could they do? Recalling last summer for just one second, can you even imagine what the consequences would've been if they had found him innocent? They had no choice! That's why even most of the cops went to bat against Chauvin. What else could they do if they wanted a metropolis left standing in this country? So of course they found him guilty! But what about all the other cases? Any reforms coming down the pipeline or was this it?

Whelp, at least it happened.


Jaicee said:
TallSilhouette said:

Derek Chauvin found guilty on all charges in George Floyd's murder. Sentencing to follow.

There's a relief. Now to wait and see how all the other awful killings in the news lately pan out.

*shrugs* I guess we're supposed to be impressed by that, like look how far we've come, but seriously it really was the least our criminal justice system could do. And to think it only took last summer to make it happen. Congratulations us.

I mean seriously, what else could they do? Recalling last summer for just one second, can you even imagine what the consequences would've been if they had found him innocent? They had no choice! That's why even most of the cops went to bat against Chauvin. What else could they do if they wanted a metropolis left standing in this country? So of course they found him guilty! But what about all the other cases? Any reforms coming down the pipeline or was this it?

Whelp, at least it happened.

If you want reform you have to fight for it.  Nothing is given if you want change.  This will definitely be it if people go back home and believe that the skirmish was the battle.  Real change takes dedication and a prolonged fight, not the quick hitters set to appease the mob and send them home.  Yes, Chauvin was the sacrifice but you really cannot moan about the result if nothing comes next if you do not have a plan.

If you want to know what will happen next, well that depend on US.  You can definitely believe the Police isn't looking for reform so the people have to demand it.  Nothing short of that will move the needle and the expectations should be this will not be an easy fight but one that will take dedication and perseverance.  



Owned.

How much you want to bet Ben would be saying justice was served if they let a murderer cop go free yet again? Which thankfully didn't happen this time.

Last edited by KManX89 - on 22 April 2021

Around the Network

Russia announced that it will pull back its troops from the Ukraine border by May 1st.

What is Putin trying to prove? What does he want? Another piece of Ukraine? All of Ukraine? He must not be appeased.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1gWECYYOSo

Please Watch/Share this video so it gets shown in Hollywood.

KManX89 said:

Owned.

How much you want to bet Ben would be saying justice was served if they let a murderer cop go free yet again? Which thankfully didn't happen this time.

Regardless of your opinion on the case, this just shows that Ben Shapiro is just fundamentally very stupid. The two possible outcomes are direct logical negations; guilty or not guilty. It is literally impossible to think they are both just outcomes. 

He only looks smart when he's arguing with college freshman.  



JWeinCom said:
KManX89 said:

Owned.

How much you want to bet Ben would be saying justice was served if they let a murderer cop go free yet again? Which thankfully didn't happen this time.

Regardless of your opinion on the case, this just shows that Ben Shapiro is just fundamentally very stupid. The two possible outcomes are direct logical negations; guilty or not guilty. It is literally impossible to think they are both just outcomes. 

He only looks smart when he's arguing with college freshman.  

I honestly wonder how folks like Ben Shapiro, Tomi Lahren, Alex Jones, and Tucker Carlson muster up the brainpower to breathe most days. They're just so fundamentally stupid and ignorant on so many levels that they're either fake or being purposefully disingenuous to stoke the fires under their equally primitive fanbase. and since, at least with Ben Shapiro, I know they're not actually stupid (They're well educated and have a history of self-awareness and perception). which means they're actively malicious and therefore evil. 

How anyone falls for their nonsense is baffling to me. 



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PS5, Switch, XSX

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JWeinCom said:
KManX89 said:

Owned.

How much you want to bet Ben would be saying justice was served if they let a murderer cop go free yet again? Which thankfully didn't happen this time.

Regardless of your opinion on the case, this just shows that Ben Shapiro is just fundamentally very stupid. The two possible outcomes are direct logical negations; guilty or not guilty. It is literally impossible to think they are both just outcomes. 

He only looks smart when he's arguing with college freshman.  

Justice does not, and has NEVER simply meant "fair trial", I know the last thing I hear from my conservative friends decades later was justice was served in the OJ case.

https://thelawdictionary.org/miscarriage-of-justice/

What is MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE?

Returning an unfair verdict based on the evidence presented as a legal justice failure.

So no, Chauvin walking free would NOT have been justice, fair trial or no.



Whelp, it's been 100 days of style since Joe Biden became president. Throughout my lifetime, the press has held the passage of 100 days as a significant milestone after which it is time to reflect on how the new administration is doing so far. So let us do that.

...*shrugs* Fine by me. Reflection over.

Okay, it's not really over, but I think that sums up my feelings, and probably those of most Americans, pretty well right now. If not massively so, Biden is nonetheless a popular president so far. In the current moving average of polls, he's above water by 11 points (53.1% approve, while 42.1% disapprove). He's faring worse than Obama was at this same point in his presidency so far in popularity, but unsurprisingly better than Trump was. (Trump was already underwater by this point.) It kinda makes sense when you watch Fox News try and complain these days. Their gripes are occasionally substantive, but more often strike one as kind of desperate. Like I glimpsed at a Fox program last night where the headline was "Biden's Covid Extremism Killing Small Business" for example. In reality, the economy grew at an annualized rate of 6.4% this last quarter, employers added 916,000 jobs in March alone, the average American's income rose 21.1% in March for the biggest single-month gain since records thereon were first kept in 1959, and even the previous administration's precious, precious stock market has reached all-time highs, all mostly due to the successful vaccine rollout this administration has overseen (we've become a world leader in Covid vaccination, with the majority of our adult population having already received at least one shot) and injection of a new wave of stimulus (which Republicans opposed and voted against!) into the economy. Compare this to where we were at the start of the year, in the waning days of the last administration, facing down the largest and worst Covid surge yet (almost 300,000 new cases being added a day at some points!), with the economy beginning to slow down and stagnate again as a result, a joke of an initial "warp speed" vaccine rollout that saw the virus spread much faster than shots, and the aura of the events of January 6th hanging heavy in the air. You really want to go back to that; to what we had before this administration took over the reins? Really? Anyone? Any sane and sober person? Most people don't. That's probably why the majority of Americans approve not only of Biden's job performance overall, but also more specifically of Biden's handling of the economy according to the aforementioned moving average of polls, and why an even larger 63% majority approve of his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

It's tough being a partisan conservative these days. You find yourself tasked with opposing peace (the new administration has set out to bring the last U.S. troops home from Afghanistan this year and restored previously fraying diplomatic ties with our allies), rapidly expanding prosperity, and public health. How to do this in a way that will resonate with the average American? I don't think you really can.

You saw that desperation on full display in Tim Scott's official Republican rebuttal to President Biden's "not" State of the Union address Wednesday evening; that certain grasping at stuff to object to. In reality, every viewer survey has found that Biden's speech, with its heavy focus on bread-and-butter, kitchen table issues, was overwhelmingly popular. (71% of CNN viewers approved of the overall contents, for example, as did 85% of those surveyed by CBS and YouGov, and so on and so on). Frankly, of course they did! Biden had shit to boast about and proposed to the American people $4 trillion in more stuff and told them they won't have to pay for it! What other public response was to be expected, outrage? It's tough being a Republican these days. Which is probably why not so many people still are. Seriously, the Democrats now enjoy a 9-point advantage in voter identification over the GOP, which is notably a wider advantage than the more usual 4 to 6 point gap.

Biden is hardly without his faults though. Only a minority of the public approves of his immigration policies, for example, and I particularly object to the White House's attempts to conceal the squalid conditions in our migrant holding facilities; the absolutely packed cages for children and so forth. And people here know about some of my other policy concerns around women's rights and what I feel was a missed best opportunity to raise the federal minimum wage. These are important issues to me as a woman who has had the misfortune of landing in spaces like a shelter for battered women and a women's jail before (for example) and is tasked with living on $9.40 an hour. If not for stimulus checks I've received since the onset of Covid, I'd still be living well below the poverty line right now, and will likely wind up back in that place by next year. These concerns pale though compared to the benefits of living under the current administration so far. For example, the main issue women's shelters have faced in the last year is an increased backlog from the lockdown period that saw a major increase in domestic violence result from people being stuck at home with abusive partners. Likewise, the unchecked spread of Covid-19 in the prison system has been by far the biggest safety concern for inmates. Therefore, defeating the coronavirus -- which is something that wasn't exactly going to happen under Trump -- is the paramount priority in my mind even for women-specific spaces.

Is it possible for the Republicans to stage a comeback from where they are now and win back one or both chambers of Congress next year? Yup! The GOP came back from a deeper hole in party affiliation at this same point in 2009 to win what became known as the tea party wave election in the fall of 2010, for instance, and also came back from a deeper hole in party affiliation at this same point in 1993 to win the 1994 midterm elections by a considerable margin. The party out of power, matter-of-factly, almost always at least makes gains in midterm election cycles. I can think of lots of ways that same thing could happen this time around as well. The easiest way I can think of would be for the Democrats not to pass either the Jobs Plan or the Families Plan in any form between now and the fall of next year (since all of the provisions in the Rescue Plan, the recent Covid relief package, are temporary and expire in time for the 2022 midterms (unlike the minimum wage provision that got stripped from the bill, which was a permanent provision they could've actually run on)!) and also take what's really started to become their natural anti-free speech side of this upcoming, high profile case -- the biggest student speech case in half a century -- to land before the Supreme Court in the meanwhile; the side that tries to draw a straight line from swearing on the internet to crime and illegal activity. Just as an example of what the path to a Democratic defeat might look like. It would be historically unusual if the Republicans didn't at least gain a few Congressional seats next year. But then it's also historically unusual for a sitting president to be defeated in a re-election bid and that happened last year. (Yes, it did Republicans; quit denying it!) Unusual things happen too. And from where things are sitting right now, at this moment, there's just not that much to complain about. I'm pretty contented with the current administration overall so far. It's been a good start.

Last edited by Jaicee - on 01 May 2021