Police Brutality and Militarized Law Enforcement
 

Aside from race and the Michael Brown incident, what are your thoughts on this?

Here are my thoughts, taken from another thread;

I don't understand why it is so important to so many whether or not Brown was a "thug". It is only relevant in this one particular case. The overarching issue is police brutality and the growing militarization of law enforcement.

And, it's about darn time THAT issue was brought into the public conscience.

If the Brown case is erroneous, so what? I'm just happy to see people raising awareness of the dangerous trend towards police (and others under SYG) becoming judge, jury and executioner.

Where does that sort of thing lead, folks?

Yes, people (including police officers) have a right to defend themselves. But we need to be very careful with this. It's easy to become jaded and start assuming every case is legitimate. It's also easy to let the desire for security turn into a nightmare.



I moved this here to separate it from the Brown/Wilson case as a standalone topic. Let's keep it that way, please.

Dave

I guess they are trying to establish precedent that shooting unarmed people of color is an OK thing to do.
Kinda like hunting down and killing Trayvon Martin less than 50 feet from his Dad's front door for walking while black is acceptable behavior.

So WTF ever happened to using Tasers anyway? They violate someone's civil rights or something? :rolleyes:


Carl

"We put our lives on the line every day, so we reserve the right to eliminate each and every threat". Is this acceptable in a civilized society? Think not unless you want to live under a quasi LE dictatorship.

Then there is the argument that if you don't commit a crime, none of this would happen to you. If you live in a utopian society, we will not need any law enforcement either would we? Laws are meant to be broken, they do get broken and why we have a justice system to mete out punishment.

There's obviously a problem.

And it's obviously widespread.

People don't get worked up like this over nothing.

I think the scrutiny and media exposure that these cases are now receiving is a good thing.

I think the police should back off law enforcement for young black men.

Particularly in Tom Joad's community.

Zero and David Duke walk off into the sunset, hand in hand.

If you can reasonably be conceived of putting another's life at risk by your actions?

Using potentially deadly force against anyone is "okay." (If you define "okay" as absolutely horrid but demanded by the obligation of being law enforcement trusted with maintaining public safety.)

Would that we did have a justice system, unfortunately it seems we only have a legal system.:rolleyes:

Well, what are you asking for Ike ? The whole message is to leave these black hoodlums who commit the violent crime from police scrutiny.

I think that is what they should get.

How is that going to work out and who is it going to hurt ?

Don't answer the question.

I'm thinking that anyone who leaps to support ever increasing militarization of LE and a legal system that rarely prosecutes the officer..............

Call me crazy, but that smells of impending tyrannical government more than Obamacare premiums ever will. My, my, how quickly the chameleons change color under the right conditions. Since Ferguson, all of the sudden all sorts of "freedom loving true patriots" want big government to crush the uppity peasants.

In loving sincerity,
Dave

I think that without armies of automatic weapon and RPG bearing government employees in MRAPs to protect them, all of the "real Americans" will do what they always do;

Pack up and run like hell.

Dave

It's a waste of time answering any of your lamebrained questions.

The police need to do their jobs and find ways to accomplish their jobs humanely. But enforcing the laws by targeting neighborhoods and the people in them who come from a history of 500 years of institutional racism, and not doing anything to correct the social situation, isn't going to correct anything.

Randy Newman was, and remains right:

We're rednecks...
We're rednecks...
We don't know our ass from a hole in the ground...
We're rednecks...
We're rednecks...
Keepin' the niggers down.