4 Officers Shot Dead By Snipers, 7 Wounded in Dallas Protest Against Police Violence

[Silver]

Guns.

/

[Minimalist]

1st white guy, doesn't point a gun at a police officer, he didn't actually commit any crime.

Disturbing the peace is a crime. And on the scale of things at least as serious as a broken tail light.

John Crawford was holding a bb gun when the cops blew him away.  He did not fire it nor point it at anyone as far as I can see from the video.  But, WTF, huh?  Close enough for cop work?


As far as the third white guy goes, I suggest you watch the video which they thoughtfully included.

The 8th white guy merely pointed his gun at firemen. 

Legally, that is called "Menacing."

But again, minor compared to having an expired license plate tag, right?

[Minimalist]

BTW, speaking of menacing.

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/07/trump-su...-massacre/

Trump supporter who waved gun at Black Lives Matter rally came armed for a massacre

Michael Strickland, the right-wing agitator and Trump supporter seen in this video brandishing a gun at a peaceful Black Lives Matter rally, has been charged with two class A felonies after being arrested and initially released Friday morning on his own recognizance without bail.

[Silver]

Guns are bad, as I have already stated.

In a country, not the world, that appreciates gun to such an extent, it should become apparent to the intelligent mind that guns are bad due to how much damage they cause.

Unfortunately, we are not living in a country with intelligent people.

[paulpablo]

1st white guy, doesn't point a gun at a police officer, he didn't actually commit any crime.

Disturbing the peace is a crime. And on the scale of things at least as serious as a broken tail light.

John Crawford was holding a bb gun when the cops blew him away.  He did not fire it nor point it at anyone as far as I can see from the video.  But, WTF, huh?  Close enough for cop work?


As far as the third white guy goes, I suggest you watch the video which they thoughtfully included.

The 8th white guy merely pointed his gun at firemen. 

Legally, that is called "Menacing."

But again, minor compared to having an expired license plate tag, right?

I didn't see the video for the 3rd white guy.  He pointed a gun at the police and he was shot. I imagine that's happened to a black person before however in this case technically raw story was accurate it seems although I was under the impression that the police didn't react at all just because he was white, when they clearly did as the white person was shot and he was just lucky enough to live.

Yes the 8th white person does point his gun at unarmed firemen and not at police like the article says.

the first white person possibly was violating several crimes actually but still not pointing the gun at the police like the article says.

[Athene]

By and large, UNARMED black males are seemingly shot by law enforcement for the crime of being "big-edy and black-edy". It appears to be the primary, and often the only "threat" in many of these incidents. "Black people scare me" is not an acceptable reason for a police officer, or anyone for that matter, to employ lethal force. 

Any decent human being should be able accept that at face value, yet here we listening to the same disgusting rationalizations, blame-shifting, and monotonous tune of "Well, he should've done this" and "He shouldn't have done that". 

It's fucking sickening.  

I have no doubt these are some of the same people who will become notably outraged, driven to tears, and move Heaven and Earth to see that justice is served to anyone who hurts a goddamned animal.

[Silver]

When the cops get locked up, we rest easy.

[SteelCurtain]

Being a black man in the south, I'll take my experience over any rationalization for police attitudes towards POC.

America is not Europe. It is hard to appreciate the racial divide here if you haven't experienced it first hand. I have the added benefit of being light skinned (my mother is white), so not only am I brown, but if the right level of bigotry is applied, I look like any brown person you have a bias against. If I'm in Florida, I look Cuban or Dominican. If I am in Southern California, I look Mexican. If I'm in the South, I look like one of them there A-Rabs. Or black.

I used to drive an Audi, and I got pulled over with my white friend in the car. My right blinker needed to be reset and was doing the super fast blink, and the cop pulled me over. I was asked whose car I was driving. I had a service weapon pulled on me for reaching into my glove compartment without asking for permission. I lived in Tennessee for exactly two weeks at that point. My white friend has lived here for almost his entire life, has been pulled over a bunch, and has never been treated like that.

Now one data point does not make a trend, but if you think race relations in America between police and black people are in any way okay, you're being intentionally blind. I know for a fact that the vast majority of police are great people and great policemen. I think their training and accountability has been hijacked for so long that they are not equipped to handle mental illness, and the self tightening screw of people afraid for their lives because some police will not hesitate to shoot you if you are brown.

Police should be community oriented. They need to be trained to deal with mental illness and drug use/side effects. They need to be trained to de-escalate before using their service weapon. They need to be accountable, and they need to be held accountable. Body cameras need to be mandatory. Profit motive needs to be taken out of citations. Personality evaluations need to be done before allowing someone to be an officer to uncover personalities that have a huge potential for causing issues. This stuff works in large cities, and even better in small cities. Take Los Angeles and Las Vegas for example.

[Minimalist]

If the fucking cops are that scared of tail lights they should be trained to ignore them.

[thool]

It would be nice if our country had a leader that could get through all the politics and do something about the problems. I'm not talking about "thoughts and prayers" which are reactive and ineffective, but tangible actions that make a difference. Put aside the flowery speeches, the quivering lower lip, and the calculated pauses...get the American people stirred up in such a way that they vote away the dead wood that is holding our country back. We have a lot of messed up crap here that needs to be fixed.