I saw a white man with a gun. I heard a policeman saying, "Place the weapon down on the ground, ple

Hey! I have a marvelous suggestion! Lets do away with all the police departments! No? Oh yeah that wouldn't work...to many criminals...hmmm lets see...I know! Lets go back to the days when there weren't any gangs and drug violence and arm the cops with a six shooter and make them carry only one bullet in their pocket. Or better yet no guns at all! Like in England! Oh, wait...but the gang bangers would still have Uzis and Aks and 9mms. And the English police now carry guns. Maybe we should require everyone over the age of 21 to serve 2 years as a police officer in their community. They would have to of course put their life on hold cause it would be a mandatory law...like the draft. Gee, I bet people wouldn't be so inclined to start sreaming to disarm the police then, huh?
You bleeding heart liberals slay me with your hand wringing over the police having more firepower than the criminals. Where is all the righteous indignation for all the black on black murders and the street drug and gang violence that kills a vastly larger number of people than the police do while doing their job protecting YOU. Any volunteers to go on a drug raid at a heavyily fortified drug house with criminals armed to the teeth with just your six shooter Barney?

CLUE: No police department in the US needs tanks.

Hyperbolic hand-waving that basically translates into "Nuh-uh!" There is a problem and it's growing. Ignore it if you prefer, but I choose not to.

We have established that many police are exceeding their authority and that they target black people. I think it would be most instructive now if we discovered the groups and individuals who are attempting to get the situation under control. Find out what the ordinary citizen can do to help.

http://www.copblock.org/

I don't care much for their reporting style, however. They also tend towards the hyperbolic. I'll see if I can find a group that's more level-headed.

Edit: I'm not vetting these, just passing them on:

http://filmthepolicepdx.com/

https://secure.accountableauthority.com/

Cop Block. An in your face group. We need all kinds to hit it from every angle.

Yeah, they're too over the top for me, too. On the other hand, the squeaky wheel and all that. If that's what it takes to get some nationwide attention, I could put up with it.

Ok I'll bite...which Department has a tank? Lets see your evidence. And if you are talking about merely an armored vehicle (a tank commonly has a cannon on it) 2 questions: would you want to respond to a barricaded hostage situation without one and should we also take the armored cars away from Wells Fargo?

Slippery slope fallacy.

Let me guess Chicken Little...We will become a police state and the police will wear swastikas and jack boots and drag innocent people out of their home in the dark of night and send them to a concentration camp.

I always hear the complaints but who do you call when there is trouble? Hey I know maybe we should require everyone to hire their own private police.

Who ya gonna call...GHOSTBUSTERS!

The real problem is not the criminals, really. The problem is allowing these people to go off into this lifestyle because they have nowhere to turn to, as the society that shapes us isn't in good shape itself. It's like a fat mother telling their child to be fat like her, because "it offends me when you want to be skinny", so yeah, the issue is not the RESULT - the issue is what LEAD TO THE RESULT. Why DO WE have criminals? Why DO WE NEED the police to protect us? When you really look at it, the police is the wall that separates us from the real truth as to why we have "criminals", who are people like us, that went down a consequential path forced or not. While the police are keeping people from rioting, which is keeping people from saying "hey, enough is enough", even if it's not for a GOOD CAUSE, the rioting is leading us to an INTERNAL CAUSE.

Strawman fallacy.

Except for the swastikas, that's pretty much what's happening now. OK, they're not concentration camps but county lockups ain't much better.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/police-militarization-110690.html
Curbing police militarization would be uphill battle

FBM, what are you inferring?

That's actually a misleading set of statistics, FBM. In some of those countries, e,g, Syria or China, prison populations are low because people get routinely executed without benefit of trial.

Not inferring anything. Just bringing data to the discussion. Opinions aren't usually very informative.

I think it's only misleading if you're trying to infer something from it. As bare numbers go, it looks legit to me.

Edit: Look at the huge difference between China's numbers and that of the US. Do you think China is executing that many people?

Data for what? As you can see above, someone had already poked holes in this inference you're alluding towards. Perhaps you should write, or forever hold your chaos.

Extension: in what way does saying "as far as bare numbers go" prove that you are right/wrong or that they are right/wrong?