It's Unconstitutional for the Police to Kill People

[Rhondazvous]

No, it doesn't go down on record as an official execution. But I'm speaking de facto.

No, you weren't. You were ascribing intent to them:

They are deciding that the law will not suffice.

And I doubt this, in the vast majority of cases.

I’m not talking about some vague “vast majority of case.” I’m talking about actually cases reported and videotaped. People who are trying to show the police that they are unarmed and not a threat in any way. These are people who have not broken any law that warrants a death penalty, but the police kill them anyway.

People are being shot and nobody cares about their intent.

[Thumpalumpacus]

No, you weren't. You were ascribing intent to them:


And I doubt this, in the vast majority of cases.

I’m not talking about some vague “vast majority of case.” I’m talking about actually cases reported and videotaped. People who are trying to show the police that they are unarmed and not a threat in any way. These are people who have not broken any law that warrants a death penalty, but the police kill them anyway.

People are being shot and nobody cares about their intent.

You cared enough to ascribe it. Perhaps it was your wording that was vague?

[Rhondazvous]

I think the solution is to start recruiting police from inside the community.

Keith Scott was murdered by a black cop.  The problem is not black v white but rather black v blue.  The cop mentality is the problem.

I agree.

I’m not trying to make this a Black vs. White thing. That would be easy to do because these shootings happen most often in predominantly Black urban communities. I have yet to hear of a Black cop shooting a White man, talking about I thought he had a gun, and have the judge dismiss it as justifiable homicide. I don’t want that to happen. I want the shooting to stop.

[Rhondazvous]

I’m not talking about some vague “vast majority of case.” I’m talking about actually cases reported and videotaped. People who are trying to show the police that they are unarmed and not a threat in any way.  These are people who have not broken any law that warrants a death penalty, but the police kill them anyway.  

People are being shot and nobody cares about their intent.

You cared enough to ascribe it. Perhaps it was your wording that was vague?

I'm talking about actions. I was very clear about precisely what actions I'm referring to and the circumstances under which those actions were taken.

[paulpablo]

I think the solution is to start recruiting police from inside the community.

Keith Scott was murdered by a black cop.  The problem is not black v white but rather black v blue.  The cop mentality is the problem.

You don't know what happened in that situation at all.  So to say you know this black cop commited a murder is just an assumption.

You can watch youtube videos that say the white cop shot Keith, witnesses say he had his hands up while a white cop shot him, the video shows him with his hands down.

Other people are saying Keith didn't have a gun so it was set up others are saying he had a gun and it was in an ankle holster so it was a set up.

One thing that's definitely for certain though when you have a situation where a black cop shoots a black person in a place that has a black police chief in a country with a black president is that it's definitely the fault of the white devil.

[Minimalist]

You don't know what happened in that situation at all.  So to say you know this black cop commited a murder is just an assumption.

I saw the tape.  You can too if you want to.  The cops claimed he made a threatening gesture with a gun.  I saw a man get out of a car and could not tell if he had anything in his hands because his arms were down at this side.  He backed away from his car and in seconds was murdered without ever raising his arms or making any kind of gesture. 

What the cops say - and this happens consistently - is not supported by the video evidence.

If there is no apparent reason to shoot - and remember that none of the other cops fired which to my mind means they saw nothing which would give them an excuse to start firing off their shiny guns - it is murder.

I can't help it if you don't like it but do not try to tell me what I saw on that video.

[Rev. Rye]

Nobody seems to realize that when the police shoot a person, the police is acting as judge, jury and executioner, depriving the person of life without due process of law.

Due process of law is supposed to consist of a trial and conviction by jury.

The police know they can’t charge a person with having a gun in a state where it’s legal to carry a gun.  By killing the person they are not doing their job of enforcing the law. They are deciding that the law will not suffice.

They don't claim to execute people in the name of the law.  The claim is self defence.  That's if there is a claim, some officers just say they don't know why they did it and so on, I mean there's lots of situations but I don't think many claim to be doing it in the name of the law as part of an execution.

My sentiments exactly, except there's one crucial point: they tend to have a remarkably lenient definition of self-defense.

You see, what to do about instances of people getting shot by the police, especially when the victims aren't actually a threat is extremely complicated.

I can remember watching a film a while back called Over the Edge. It's a damn fine film, but one crucial plot point has a local police officer killing a local youth (played by Matt Dillon in his first role) who pointed an unloaded pistol at him. Needless to say, this is roundly condemned, although he does raise a good point: there is no way he could tell for sure that the gun wasn't loaded unless he examined it himself [and even then, there's always a possibility that he could have missed something]. The fact that something like that is inevitable.

Of course, from a sufficient distance (and presumably with a combination of experience and a somewhat deranged mind), virtually anything can be mistaken for a gun, and in such circumstances, potentially lethal force can seem like potential self-defense. And given that, to police who are likely to have to deal with a lot of criminals, especially with a disporportionately high number of poor black people, virtually anything they do can be seen as threatening (even/especially if it's not), and, if something bad happens, well, I've never heard of a cop getting anything worse than a firing from any violence they commit on the job.

However, that said, if that is taken away from them, it can be extremely difficult to do their job well, if, for instance, some Charles Whitman-type is actually causing problems and the only thing to do is take him out. Fun fact: in countries like the UK (except in Northern Ireland), the vast majority of police officers don't carry guns. Can you imagine a policy like this working in America?

So, basically, we have so many factors: a right to self-defense on the cops' part, an alarmingly lenient interpretation of that same right on the judges' (and cops') part, life-or-death situations being far more difficult to distinguish from harmless experiences than one might have expected, institutional racism meaning enough minorities are still criminals that even the law-abiding ones get punished for it for being caught doing things as innocuous as holding a toy train, and countries like America being such a fountain of lunacy that we simply cannot count on police to do their jobs to the best of their abilities if they don't reserve the right to kill anyone they see (or at least can spin) as a threat to themselves.

Is it any wonder why three years after the founding of Black Lives Matter, and almost five after the shooting of Trayvon Martin, there still hasn't any  actual progress in this area?

[Minimalist]

http://www.salon.com/2016/09/21/why-are-...lly-human/

Why are cops OK with killing black people? Because American history teaches that we aren’t fully human

Cops dehumanize African Americans in order to administer an oppressive system — and that makes it easy to kill us

[abaris]

Nobody seems to realize that when the police shoot a person, the police is acting as judge, jury and executioner, depriving the person of life without due process of law.

You know, I hope you aren't serious. We've got a thread running with the usual suspects defending the police at all costs. That's one extreme. This would be the other. If someone draws a weapon on them or if there's a clear and present danger, they're entitled to defend themselves just like any other person. They're also tasked with protecting society.

So, please, can we keep that discussion on a less embarrassing level. The fact that they overstep their borders quite a lot these days doesn't mean that violence isn't justified or unconstitutional even.

[Minimalist]

Please check out Post #7, carefully.