Black men and the police

http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/08/19/im-a-cop-if-you-dont-want-to-get-hurt-dont-challenge-me/

Here's a video of a recent incident that made national news:



From what I can see and hear it appears that the cop who broke the window and tased the passenger overreacted, but's it's just plain stupid to give cops lip and not follow their instructions. The woman saying she was afraid for her life or the life of the passenger doesn't stand up to anything that can be seen or heard in the video. If cops ask you for your ID and you start reaching into a bookbag, they are going to at least put their hand on their weapon, and drawing it from its holster doesn't seem crazy. There is no indication in the video or in the reporting on the incident that any of the cops were pointing or waving the gun, or in anyway threatening the people in the car with it. I'm pretty confident if I was in that car and acted the same way as the passenger, with that particular cop, I would have gotten tased too.

I haven't read all of the articles on the fatal St Louis shooting, but from what I have read it appears the only question to be answered is why the cop fired his weapon as many times as he did (the report I read indicates 17 times). If, as is being reported, the person killed, fired at the cop, then I really don't think it matter how many times the cop fired back. According to the ME, the person killed was hit 7 to 8 times which means the cop was either a lousy shot or his target was moving around a lot.

We've discussed this elsewhere, but cops don't shoot to wound, they shoot to stop and to stop seriously. They are trained to shoot at the center of the chest which should stop someone and will probably kill them too, but if it's stupid to give a cop lip and not follow his instructions, it's worse than stupid to fire a gun at one. It doesn't matter how old the guy was or that his gun jammed. The latter was lucky for the cop, but he would have been stupid to rely on the gun no longer working. I think it's safe to assume that the guy was trying to get it to work after it jammed.

Unfortunately this incident coming so soon after the Ferguson shooting was bound to draw the attention of the media and the ire of the black community. An investigation has to be completed, but right now it seems a lot clearer than it is with the Ferguson shooting, that the cop fired in self-defense.

Much is being made of two prior shootings by St Louis cops, also very close in time to the Fergusen shooting, but from what I've read about them, there doesn't seem to be anything suspicious. Again, the timing is just horrible.

I did see some film of cops making there way through a crowd of angry protesters in St Louis and from what I saw, there are some people in that crowd who are lucky they didn't get shot. In the middle of a very tense situation and where the cops were outnumbered at least 10 to 1 by the crowd, the cop I saw demonstrated remarkable restraint when someone in the crowd grabbed him and pulled at him. All cops aren't trigger happy jerks.

Unfortunately, every incident now involving cops and African-Americans is going to draw a whole lot of attention, and make a lot of people angry. It would be best if everyone allowed the investigations that follow these incidents to be completed before they jump to conclusions, but there's not much chance of that.

A lot like when a black racist periodically gets bad service in a store or restaurant he tends to be sure that racism is afoot when the truth often is that all of us are periodically getting bad service at this location. The next line is sniffing " but you just dont understand the black experience" to which I say " I certainly dont give a **** because I am me, I want to be me not some other person, and even if I wanted to I can not get the 911 in detail of the inner life of everyone I meet. Talk to me about rights violations if you want to continue to complain of being a victim, I will get your side and the side of the accused and then I will get back to you.

WHAT???? The offender shot at the police THREE times? ONLY 3? And the officer killed him???
This is a CLEAR CUT case of accessive force on the part of the officer...I mean come on, the dirt bag only shot 3 times and he didnt even hit the cop. The cop should have know this asshole was a bad shot and therefore shouldnt have returned fire. He should have peppered sprayed him for sure. What is this world coming to? I bet that cop was racist and just wanted to kill some black guy...yeah thats it I betcha.

NAIL ON THE HEAD.


I call it FELONY STUPID. If a cop has a gun trained on you and is attempting to arrest you and you do ANYTHING other than getting on the ground....YOU"RE A DUMB ASS. Why? Cause if the officer is wrong, you will be alive to SUE. When you're dead there aint no where to spend it.

October 7, 2014, 4:13 PM

A federal lawsuit accuses Hammond police of "malice" and "reckless indifference" when they smashed a car window and used a Taser on a passenger during a traffic stop last month..

But Hammond police, in a two-page rebuttal, said they resorted to force only after the passenger repeatedly refused to leave the car and kept reaching toward the back seat, prompting fears he may have had a weapon.

Neither the police statement nor the lawsuit say a gun was found in the car.


Statement from the Hammond Police DepartmentRead the story >

The incident happened around 3:30 p.m. on Sept. 24 when Lisa Mahone was pulled over as she drove with a friend, Jamal Jones, and her two children, 7 and 14, according to the lawsuit filed Monday in Indiana.

The officer told Mahone, 47, she was stopped for not wearing her seatbelt and asked for her driver's license. The officer also asked to see Jones' identification, according to both police and the lawsuit.

Mahone produced her license, but Jones told the officer he had been ticketed for not paying his insurance and did not have his license, the lawsuit states.

Jones claims the officer drew his gun "for no reason" after Jones retrieved the ticket from his backpack and "offered the ticket to the officer."

But police say Jones refused to hand over the ticket. "(Jones) refused to lower the window more than a small amount, then told the officer that 'he was not going to do (the officer’s) job' and for him to get a piece of paper," police said in their statement. "The first officer then called for back-up after asking (Jones) several more times to provide his name."

Family cellphone video shows Hammond police officers breaking the car window and using a Taser on Jamal Jones during a traffic stop.

As the back-up officer arrived, "the first officer saw the passenger inside the vehicle drop his left hand behind the center console. . .Fearing for officer safety, the first officer ordered the passenger to show his hands and then repeatedly asked him to exit the vehicle," according to the statement.

The lawsuit says Jones refused to leave the car "because he feared the officers would harm him."

Around this time, Mahone shifted the car into gear and began moving until officers warned her that a "stop strip" had been placed in front of her car and would puncture her tires.


It is quite obvious that this family was not a threat, so either these police officers are absolutely incompetent in their judgement and frighten much too easily, or they are power hungry racists. Either way, they don't belong on the job.

Mahone told the officers they were on the way to Stroger Hospital in Chicago to visit her sick mother. In a video recorded by Mahone's 14-year-old son, she can be heard calling the Hammond police department to explain the situation.

"Just give me a ticket for no seatbelt so I can go to the hospital because the doctor called me to tell me to come in because my mom is about to pass away," Mahone said as officers continued to ask Jones to get out of the car, according to the video.

One officer tells Jones if he does not step out of the car, they will "have to open the door for [him]." Jones nods and, after a few moments, one officer breaks the window with a club and uses a Taser on Jones, the video shows.

Officers pull Jones out of the car as Mahone's 7-year-old daughter can be heard in the backseat crying. The lawsuit says shards of glass hit the the girl and the boy in the back seat.

Police said the officers took the action "fearing the occupants of the vehicle may have possessed a weapon, and seeing the passenger repeatedly reach towards the rear seats of the vehicle."

According to the lawsuit and the police statement, Jones was arrested and issued citations for resisting law enforcement and refusal to aid an officer. Mahone was cited for not wearing her seatbelt and was allowed to leave.


The lawsuit accuses Hammond police of excessive force, battery and false arrest, saying the officers' actions "were taken intentionally with malice, willfulness, and reckless indifference to the rights and safety of plaintiffs."

But police, in their statement, said officers "who make legal traffic stops are allowed to ask passengers inside of a stopped vehicle for identification and to request that they exit a stopped vehicle for the officer’s safety without a requirement of reasonable suspicion.

"When the passenger displayed movements inside of the stopped vehicle that included placing his hand in places where the officer could not see, officers’ concerns for their safety were heightened," it added.

Hammond police said an officer also recorded the incident.


What the video doesnt show is that the officers were trying to get the occupant out of the car for THIRTEEN minutes.

Hello, Snood, are you still reading? even as I reply to hawkeye -

People of whatever color confront police for many reasons, including being blotto on some drug, guilty of something, all the way to being innocently at a place and trying to argue.

Blacks are routinely questioned more than at least one other group (whites) about their existence at some place and are well tired of it. Sometimes that stopping is abrupt and lethal, and the killing appears over the top in many situations, to a lot of us. I can see it being justified some times, but not at the level it has been. (I'm also no fan of shoot to kill, but that is another question.)

I'm not a listener to rap or even hip hop (which I probably would understand some), but my niece does, and I listen to her, and one of the world's now best artists does uses the music as part of his art, the rhythm - Chris Ofili.

I'm biased re rap and hip hop, not re the stories therein, but from the early misogyny I heard. Plus, my tastes are off on other music.

On Chris Ofili, he got famous fast in the U.S. with the Rudolf Giuliani shutdown of an art exhibit of his at the New Museum in Brooklyn, actually shut down the museum, a fair while ago now. He had made a painting of a madonna partly in elephant dung, wanting a black madonna.
This had a basis - his parent are african (Nigeria), he was raised catholic In England, and he had, when he got some stable money from his art, traveled around Africa. He has a history as an altar boy.. he had brought elephant dung in his suitcase back from Africa as a painting substance.

Anyway, I never began to understand him until I read one article about he and a successful african architect, David Adjaye, remodeling some place as his studio in east London. That article was a while ago. The one that tells me much more about him is this one -

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/06/unknown-6

The thing is, this guy, whose paintings sell for a couple of million and are much more interesting than I had guessed from the first bru ha ha, could be dropped dead on the street for being in the wrong place.

He's pretty sharp but is still in the warp because of his skin.

Police are not trained to shoot to kill...they employ deadly force to stop the threat.

But shooting to kill is not shooting to kill.

Uh...is that a question or statement?
If you need an explanation of my comment just ask, because apparently you just dont get it.

I've read for years about shoot to kill. Surely none shoot for elbows.

Or do some?

I'll explain.
Police are not taught to shoot to kill but rather to stop the threat and to keep shooting until the threat ceases. They are taught to aim for the largest target, i.e., "center mass" or the thoracic cavity. "Shooting to wound" i.e., targeting an arm or leg is problematic on 2 levels.
First, when a person (officer) is experiencing "fight or flight" there is a massive dump of adrenaline into the bloodstream. This affects the shooter in negative ways such as eyesight and motor functions. In essence, a normally good shot will suffer inaccuracies on smaller targets. A miss to the arm may end up killing an innocent bystander.
Second if the officer does end up hitting an arm or leg, that means the offender can STILL SHOOT BACK.
A gun shot to the thoracic cavity has a better chance of causing a central nervous system shut down so that the offender would be rendered unconscious. Yes death can result...but not always. Case in point: Larry Flint was shot point blank in the chest with a.44 magnum and is still alive today.

I get all that.

It is overused, especially in some areas.

Ex and I had a friend who was a dep sheriff. I am not against a well run police department.

Shooting to kill some miserable asshole or confused person or innocent person arguing is not a good idea.

At the least, tacky.


It also breeds distrust and hate.

Not all cops are bad. Fortunately, there are cameras everywhere to document the bad apples.

I'm very grateful to live in a country where the police aren't routinely armed.

this is not a bad apple problem, it is a bad systems problem. The cops are the states thugs, and when the state does not restrain them we the citizens suffer just as sure as night follows day.