St. Louis Riots

[BanzaiCat]

On another note, I just saw this story that someone posted to FB. I hadn't heard of it and am frankly surprised the media is reporting a police officer in a positive light given the sh!tstorm of the last few mis-reported events.

Well worth a few minutes of your time to check out the video below about Officer Jeremy Henwood. He was a cop in San Diego and a Veteran Marine, having just returned home from two tours, only to be shot in the head in a parking lot outside a burger place, minutes after performing an act of kindness to a young man.

They failed to mention who shot this officer (Dejon Marquee White). The guy that killed him wasn't a criminal and didn't have a criminal history, but he left a 2-page suicide note behind and apparently wanted 'suicide by cop.' He got his wish, because the police shot him shortly after he killed Officer Henwood.

What a f$ckin' world.

Looks like the kid he bought food for will have a positive view of cops...frankly something the black community could use more of.

[JasonPratt]

The Media are no more a bunch of morons than the folks at McDonalds who create the menu items are morons. They just have no shame. Mainstream news is now a consumer product. If it sells then it ships, end of story.

You want fries with that?

Someone was saying upthread that we probably just haven't evolved far enough to do any better.

But this is evolution in action: whatever instinctive behaviors get food and make more babies, gets promoted, and the more efficiently gets promoted more. If that doesn't happen, under current circumstances, to result in what rational thinkers might regard as cultural progress, too bad.

I don't mean that this is a racial problem, by the way. It's a socio-cultural problem (which has its own strong evolutionary ripples) feeding on biological instincts of our species. It has nothing at all to do with ethics (despite cries for 'justice' -- that's just people saying whatever they think or feel will get the most effect under the circumstances, leeching on any actually established beliefs about justice), and little to do with rational behavior except in the most amorally pragmatic way: if it appeals to such-n-such instincts more effectively, then sell it, to get airtime for the people who pay our bills (the sponsors).

Whatever produces more power for the producer, that will be the temptation to act -- or to abuse if the action also happens to be correct and/or ethically just -- or to irrationally submit to non-rational pressures about. "Burn the b**** down!" etc.

Evolution is easy; it happens whether we want it to or not. Rationally seeking to fulfill fair-togetherness between persons (dikaiosunê in Greek) -- that's hard.

One is only natural. The other is quite literally the most fundamental and highest possible magic.

[airboy]

The Media are no more a bunch of morons than the folks at McDonalds who create the menu items are morons. They just have no shame. Mainstream news is now a consumer product. If it sells then it ships, end of story.

You want fries with that?

Good point, but my point is they're purposefully doing what is NOT right.

Case in point, this idiot that got himself choked to death in NYC. The morons are out protesting and shutting down the Westside Highway in Manhattan, causing gridlock for miles and miles, demanding 'justice.' Local news reported how protesters were 'seeking justice' because the police 'killed an unarmed African-American man' (their words exactly).

They completely failed to mention that this guy had been arrested 31 times previously. Thirty. Freakin'. One. Times. He knew the drill. You don't fight the cops, dammit. And the media failed to mention anything about why the cops were trying to subdue him. Just that they killed him. So it sounds as if the cops just chose some innocent black guy off the street and decided to kill him for the hell of it.

Opie and Jim's Sirius XM radio show are talking about this at length right now, since they're in Manhattan. On top of Ferguson, the media's handling of this is reprehensible and, in my opinion, borderline criminal.

Disagree in the Garner case.  Yes, Garner had been arressted 31 times previously for selling cigarettes without the huge NYC taxes.  Yes, he was selling cigarettes illegally again on the street.  But if you look at the story I link to, and view the video, Garner did not resist arrest or threaten the officer.  The officer used a choke hold - which is banned by the NYC Police Department.  Garner dies.

http://thefederalist.com/2014/12/03/hands-up-dont-choke-eric-garner-was-murdered-by-police-for-no-reason/

The Grand Jury not providing an Manslaughter inditement is inexplicable to me.  The degree of force used by the cop, the type of force used, and the lack of provocation to use deadly force were all uncalled for both by the suspect and the crime itself.

The Garner case will get a Federal inditement and probably a conviction.  Regretfully, US Attorney General Eric Holder has been so incompetent, so willing to overlook wrongdoing by the Federal Government (gun running & IRS), and such a race baiter (hinting Federal charges against George Zimmerman and in the St. Louis case) that his taking action here will be looked at through the lens of Holder's previous misdeeds.  But any competent US Attorney General would have an investigation and almost certainly bring a case in the Garner death.

To me, the inability of Eric Holder to differentiate between these three cases and act forcefully only when it is clear that Federal intervention is necessary - is yet another reason to dislike the guy.

But - look at the Garner video for yourself.  Many legal analysts who thought that Officer Wilson should not have been indited think that Garner's killer should have been indited.

[airboy]

National Review (quite right wing) discussion of the case.  It really strains to find an explantion of why there was no inditement for Manslaughter.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/393933/staten-island-decision-andrew-c-mccarthy

[BanzaiCat]

Disagree in the Garner case.  Yes, Garner had been arressted 31 times previously for selling cigarettes without the huge NYC taxes.  Yes, he was selling cigarettes illegally again on the street.  But if you look at the story I link to, and view the video, Garner did not resist arrest or threaten the officer.  The officer used a choke hold - which is banned by the NYC Police Department.  Garner dies.

http://thefederalist.com/2014/12/03/hands-up-dont-choke-eric-garner-was-murdered-by-police-for-no-reason/

I admit I was not aware of that, airboy. Thanks for posting it and shedding further light on this.

Though, regardless of whether or not you are guilty of something, fighting the cops or resisting them - again, even if you are innocent - is a dumb choice to make. You do what they say, say 'yes sir' or 'no sir,' and don't resist. Period. Had he willingly allowed the officers to cuff him, he might be alive right now. You don't let your emotions get the better of you when dealing with cops. Mr. Garner should have been aware of that given the length of his rap sheet.

From the video, it's pretty clear that he did resist two officer's attempts to handcuff him, so I'm not sure why you're saying he did not resist arrest. (Perhaps I'm not perceiving it right, but that's the way it looks to me.) Technically, if you refuse to comply, even for a second, you're resisting arrest. (I'm saying this based on things I learned 24 years ago in Criminal Justice, so I could be wrong about Missouri law regarding this.) I don't like that the one officer immediately put him into a chokehold - I think he escalated the situation very quickly for no reason and some level/calm heads on both sides might have brought this to a less violent end.

Regardless, and I know it's not a very popular sentiment, but if you don't commit crimes in the first place, you're not going to get the attention of police. They don't just show up out of the blue - someone had to have called them to deal with Mr. Garner, correct? Or is that not right?

Some people may not think it is that simple, but for me it does boil down to obeying the law, and not breaking it. Then you don't come into contact with cops, and you don't get shot or strangled to death when you don't comply with their orders.

I am not saying they both deserved to die - it's terrible they did, but they made choices to get where things went. The cops in Garner's case I think have more culpability in his death than the officer in Ferguson, but again, it boils down to not running afoul of the law, regardless of the situation.

[airboy]

Disagree in the Garner case.  Yes, Garner had been arressted 31 times previously for selling cigarettes without the huge NYC taxes.  Yes, he was selling cigarettes illegally again on the street.  But if you look at the story I link to, and view the video, Garner did not resist arrest or threaten the officer.  The officer used a choke hold - which is banned by the NYC Police Department.  Garner dies.

http://thefederalist.com/2014/12/03/hands-up-dont-choke-eric-garner-was-murdered-by-police-for-no-reason/

I admit I was not aware of that, airboy. Thanks for posting it and shedding further light on this.

Though, regardless of whether or not you are guilty of something, fighting the cops or resisting them - again, even if you are innocent - is a dumb choice to make. You do what they say, say 'yes sir' or 'no sir,' and don't resist. Period. Had he willingly allowed the officers to cuff him, he might be alive right now. You don't let your emotions get the better of you when dealing with cops. Mr. Garner should have been aware of that given the length of his rap sheet.

From the video, it's pretty clear that he did resist two officer's attempts to handcuff him, so I'm not sure why you're saying he did not resist arrest. (Perhaps I'm not perceiving it right, but that's the way it looks to me.) Technically, if you refuse to comply, even for a second, you're resisting arrest. (I'm saying this based on things I learned 24 years ago in Criminal Justice, so I could be wrong about Missouri law regarding this.) I don't like that the one officer immediately put him into a chokehold - I think he escalated the situation very quickly for no reason and some level/calm heads on both sides might have brought this to a less violent end.

Regardless, and I know it's not a very popular sentiment, but if you don't commit crimes in the first place, you're not going to get the attention of police. They don't just show up out of the blue - someone had to have called them to deal with Mr. Garner, correct? Or is that not right?

Some people may not think it is that simple, but for me it does boil down to obeying the law, and not breaking it. Then you don't come into contact with cops, and you don't get shot or strangled to death when you don't comply with their orders.

I am not saying they both deserved to die - it's terrible they did, but they made choices to get where things went. The cops in Garner's case I think have more culpability in his death than the officer in Ferguson, but again, it boils down to not running afoul of the law, regardless of the situation.

I agree with you that not cooperating with the police is dumb.  Garner waved his hands around trying to avoid getting cuffed, but he did not assault or threaten the officers.

If you are doing crime, or hanging around criminals, the odds of very bad things happening to you greatly increase.  Make bad choices and you suffer the consequences.

I got pulled when I was young twice under "suspicious " circumstances.  Once when weaving at 1:00am (I was coming off a double shift and was exhausted and heading home to sleep) and once in a 1968 Pontiac Catalina with 7 people in the car with a burned out tail light.  In both cases, I was polite and cooperative and did not even get a ticket.  O yeah, I also talked my self out of getting arrested for shooting off fireworks in a State where they are illegal.  Again, really polite and no serious trouble (and my Dad thought all of these situations were funny - especially the fireworks one).

But given all of this, I do not understand a failure to indite in the Garner case for anything.  I think that the Feds will file charges.

[LongBlade]

+1 with Airboy.

The talking heads last night predicted a rather unfortunate future.

There sees to be no rational explanation as to why the officer wasn't charged in this case. The circumstances were about as petty as they come - the criminal  was selling cigarillos for a dollar. That's what he was busted for.

Setting aside whether sending three officers to bust up such a nefarious crime ring is a good use of resources, a lethal choke hold was not warranted.

What's worse is the fact that, due to a prohibition on double jeopardy, the only recourse is to retry him on civil rights charges. Whatever else happened in this case it clearly was not a racially-motivated incident. By attempting to charge him as such it will inject race into an unfortunate incident which had none.

The narrative in the media is then likely to become one of racially charged attacks on a minority when, in reality, 99.9% of cops are good and are attempting to help the community (as Banzai's post above illustrates).

None of this is going to help cool things off. It is, in fact, a sad state of affairs that may see further problems ahead.  :(

[BanzaiCat]

But given all of this, I do not understand a failure to indite in the Garner case for anything.  I think that the Feds will file charges.

Given this fact, I am inclined to agree with you. Once the guy was on the ground there's no reason to keep the chokehold up.

One thing more I will interject: a lot of police get EMT training. I was a paramedic for years, so I speak from experience - when you deal with someone that might need medical help, the first thing we were taught were ABCs - Airway being the first and most important. The first thing you do is talk to them and see if they can respond/talk. If they can talk, they have a valid airway and can breathe, and you move on in your assessment. When Garner was saying "I can't breathe," he could breathe. You can't talk when your airway is closed off.

I'm not making an excuse for the cop - just saying, if these cops had EMT training and heard Garner saying he couldn't breathe, they were probably thinking 'whatever, I can hear you talking, you're fine,' and that might have been a reason why they maintained the chokehold/pressure.

[bayonetbrant]

Federal civil rights charges are HARD to stick.  You have to prove that the victim's civil rights were knowingly - and intentionally - violated.  It's not enough to say that someone was deprived of their civil rights, but that the goal of the police action was designed with the purpose of depriving the victim of his civil rights.

That's going to be near-impossible to prove in Ferguson.
It might be easier in the NYC case, but even there the burden of proof is pretty high.

[bayonetbrant]

A very interesting, and quite frankly hard-to-argue-with, perspective on the NYC ruling

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/12/what-if-eric-garner-had-been-white/383420/

[LongBlade]

A very interesting, and quite frankly hard-to-argue-with, perspective on the NYC ruling

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/12/what-if-eric-garner-had-been-white/383420/

I'm not sure I agree - cigarette taxes are a low priority to, say, the 4th amendment violations taking place by the NSA, along with violations on separation of powers. And then there's the debilitating and growing levels of national debt.

Should I go on?

There are *much* bigger fish to fry right now than the unjustified death of some guy hustling cigarillos. In all likelihood - especially given the yawning treatment of unjustly murdered white victims (have there been any reports recently? We wouldn't know - it doesn't make the news.) I'd say we'd have never heard of this guy and life would move on for everyone outside his immediate family.

[LongBlade]

Federal civil rights charges are HARD to stick.  You have to prove that the victim's civil rights were knowingly - and intentionally - violated.  It's not enough to say that someone was deprived of their civil rights, but that the goal of the police action was designed with the purpose of depriving the victim of his civil rights.

I agree.

And that's the problem.

Because there is likely to be no civil rights violation proved (proven? I have trouble with the conjugation here.) in NYC, the black community will have their hopes raised (by filing the charges) only to see them dashed by an "unjust" system which found them unfounded (sorry for the double whatevz).

It does not bode well.

[BanzaiCat]

In all likelihood - especially given the yawning treatment of unjustly murdered white victims (have there been any reports recently? We wouldn't know - it doesn't make the news.)

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/2-men-plotted-kill-ferguson-officials-bomb-arch-reports-article-1.2025860

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/12/03/where-outrage-st-louis-bosnian-community-sees-hammer-murder-as-hate-crime/

The mainstream media reaction to both (or actually, the lack thereof) is astounding and maddening.

[GDS_Starfury]

Kill whitey!

[BanzaiCat]

Yeah pretty much.