Those US Police killers again!

[Stavros]

A police officer - I can't recall if he was from Baltimore or Arizona- with 30 odd years of experience was interviewed on Channel 4 News in the UK and made the point that there is a recruitment issue now with the US police and that in his view too many people who are not qualified are applying to join and being accepted by police services around the country. The problem is with the 'mental attitude' of the new recruits where the concept of 'public service' seems to clash with their own 'problem solving' initiatives...

[yodajazz]

I was having my car towed last night. After we went by a police vehicle with someone pulled over, we went on to talk about the police. He talked about an incident when he ran from the police when he was 17. But he must be 60, now, so were talking 40 years ago. He said an policeman stood on his knees, in an attempt to break them, saying that he would never run away from the police again. However another policeman inverned. Anyway the tow truck driver was white. So my point is that a certain brutal mentality has been going on maybe always. I have heard of the concept of police giving someone a 'rough ride', in the back of a police van, for extra punishment, as what may have been done with Freddie Gray. I could swear I saw this concept in some old movie, which would at least prove the idea was out there.

[Stavros]

Bleak, Yodajazz, and sounds all too true. Perhaps a man (indeed, a woman too) changes when he or she puts on a uniform?

[trish]

In the U.S. the animosity of police toward black men and women is not a new thing; and it continues on as is evidenced by the news making events of the present day. Several things, I think, have changed over the past few decades:
1. Carry laws make the job of the policeman on the beat more dangerous. Just a decade or so ago police organizations opposed carry.
2. Law and order politics has the effect of escalating the number of police and the armament of police forces. Larger forces require new hires.
3. New recruits often come from the ranks bullies who carried guns in their civilian lives and see their new job as a confirmation of their politics, their identity and their right to bully. I think this may in part account for the change in attitude of the police toward carry laws.
4. The persistent drive to reduce the role of government, eliminate social programs and the taxes required to support them, along with the Bush economic collapse of 2007 opened the way to civil forfeiture laws which the police (and the courts) use to to supplement their support in lieu of declining tax revenues. Ironically the drive to reduce government has the effect of empowering and encouraging the police to become more intrusive.
5. We now incarcerate, at great cost, a greater percentage of our population than any nation in the world. This is an indication of how much we value property more than freedom.

[martin48]

Just read this http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2...olice-analysis

Apologies for length.

Black Americans are more than twice as likely to be unarmed when killed during encounters with police as white people, according to a Guardian investigation which found 102 of 464 people killed so far this year in incidents with law enforcement officers were not carrying weapons.
An analysis of public records, local news reports and Guardian reporting found that 32% of black people killed by police in 2015 were unarmed, as were 25% of Hispanic and Latino people, compared with 15% of white people killed.
The findings emerged from a database filled by a five-month study of police fatalities in the US, which calculated that local and state police and federal law enforcement agencies are killing people at twice the rate calculated by the US government’s official public record of police homicides. The database names five people whose names have not been publicly released.
The Guardian’s statistics include deaths after the police use of a Taser, deaths caused by police vehicles and deaths following altercations in police custody, as well as those killed when officers open fire. They reveal that 29% of those killed by police, or 135 people, were black. Sixty-seven, or 14%, were Hispanic/Latino, and 234, or 50%, were white. In total, 102 people who died during encounters with law enforcement in 2015 were unarmed.
The figures illustrate how disproportionately black Americans, who make up just 13% of the country’s total population according to census data, are killed by police. Of the 464 people counted by the Guardian, an overwhelming majority – 95% – were male, with just 5% female.
Steven Hawkins, the executive director Amnesty International USA, described the racial imbalance as “startling”. Hawkins said: “The disparity speaks to something that needs to be examined, to get to the bottom of why you’re twice as likely to be shot if you’re an unarmed black male.”
Relatives of unarmed people killed by police in high-profile incidents during the past year – including Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tony Robinson and Walter Scott – described the Guardian project as a breakthrough in the national debate over the use of deadly force by law enforcement.
“Giving this kind of data to the public is a big thing,” said Erica Garner, whose father’s killing by police in New York City last year led to international protests. “Other incidents like murders and robberies are counted, so why not police-involved killings? With better records, we can look at what is happening and what might need to change.”
The initiative was also praised by a range of policing experts and by campaigners who are urging government authorities to make the official recording of fatalities mandatory for all 18,000 police departments and law enforcement agencies operating in the US.
“It’s troubling that we have no official data from the federal government,” said Laurie Robinson, the co-chair of Barack Obama’s task force on 21st-century policing. “I think it’s very helpful, in light of that fact, to have this kind of research undertaken.”
Beginning on Monday, the Guardian is publishing The Counted, a comprehensive interactive database monitoring all police killings in the US through 16 data points including age, location, gender, ethnicity, whether the person killed was armed and which policing agency was responsible.
The Counted logs the precise location of each fatal incident, providing what is the most detailed map of police killings ever published. California, America’s most populous state, has the highest total with 74 fatalities so far this year.
However, an analysis of location data shows that Oklahoma, where 22 people have died through encounters with law enforcement, is the state with the highest rate of fatal incidents per person in 2015, at one fatality per 175,000 people over five months.
Over the weekend, Nehemiah Fischer, a 35-year-old pastor, was shot dead by an Oklahoma state trooper after getting into a fight when told to evacuate his truck in rising flood waters south of Tulsa. Police have said Fischer had a firearm but have not explained whether he was armed during the confrontation.
The database, which will combine Guardian reporting with verified crowdsourced information, has logged 464 police killings for the first five months of 2015. The US government’s record, which is run by the FBI, counted 461 “justifiable homicides” by law enforcement in all of 2013, the latest year for which official data is available.
The vast majority of deaths recorded – 408 – were caused by gunshot. Of the 27 deaths that occurred after a Taser was deployed by law enforcement, all but one involved an unarmed person.
On Sunday, Richard Davis, an unarmed black 50-year-old, died after being shocked with a Taser by police in Rochester, New York. Davis was said by authorities to have run from his truck towards officers with clenched fists after being told to put his hands up following a crash. Relatives said he was a veteran of the US marines.
The Guardian has also identified 14 officer-involved deaths following altercations in custody. The total includes Freddie Gray, the 25-year-old resident of Baltimore whose death from a broken neck sustained in a police van led to protests, rioting and the indictment of six city police officers.
Another 12 people died following collisions with law enforcement vehicles. The family of Bernard Moore, who was 62, are calling for the criminal prosecution of an officer who fatally struck Moore with his squad car in Atlanta, allegedly while speeding without emergency lights or sirens on.
By logging each law enforcement agency involved in the 464 deaths, the Guardian can also now report that the Los Angeles police department, the country’s third largest local police department, has been involved in the highest number of deaths of any local department. This year, 10 people have died in encounters with LAPD officers, of whom five were unarmed.
The Oklahoma City police department and the Los Angeles sheriff’s office were both involved in five deaths, two individuals in both of these jurisdictions being unarmed.
High-profile cases in Los Angeles, like the death of unarmed Charly “Africa” Keunang, shot dead by LAPD officers on 1 March in the city’s homeless district of Skid Row, garnered national attention.
But cases like those of Sergio Navas, an unarmed Hispanic man shot dead by LAPD officers in the same month as Keunang, after police said he stole a vehicle and was chased down, have had less media scrutiny. Navas’s family have launched an excessive force lawsuit against the LAPD and accused them of a covering up the circumstances of the 35-year-old’s death.
The Guardian has also monitored whether mental health issues were identified, either by family members, friends or police following each fatal encounter. In total 26% of people killed by police exhibited some sort of mental illness, with at least 29 cases identified where the person killed was suicidal.
For example, Monique Deckard, a black woman with a long history of mental illness, was shot and killed by police officers in Anaheim, California, after she was accused of stabbing a woman at a laundromat and allegedly charging at officers. Her family had called police just hours before the attack, warning that they could not get in contact with her and that she might be trying to find a gun.
The average age of a person killed by police in 2015 was 37, but The Counted identifies a huge diversity in the ages of those killed.
The oldest, 87-year-old Louis Becker, was killed during a collision with a New York state trooper patrol car in upstate New York. Eighty-two-year-old Richard “Buddy” Weaver was killed by Oklahoma City police after he allegedly raised a machete at an officer who opened fire; neighbors later described Weaver as having schizophrenia.
The three youngest people identified were all 16 years old. A’donte Washington, a black American, was shot dead by Millbrook police officers in Alabama on 23 February during an alleged burglary after the teenager was described as pointing a weapon at arriving officers. His family have questioned the police narrative, while the city mayor described the shooting as “110% justified”.
A week earlier, on 14 February, Jason Hendrix, a white 16-year-old was shot dead in a gunfight by Baltimore County police after the teenager murdered his mother, father and sister in Corbin, Kentucky, and drove to Maryland, where he is reported to have opened fire on an officer after a car chase. Six returned fire and killed him.
A month later, on 19 March, black 16-year-old Kendre Alston was shot dead by a deputy of the Jacksonville sheriff’s office in Florida. Police claimed Alston fled from a stolen car and brandished a weapon at the pursuing official who then opened fire. Deneane Campbell, Alston’s mother, claimed in an interview two weeks later she had not been given any further details by police.
Some relatives of people killed by police said they had been unaware of the dearth of publicly available information on police-involved fatalities until their family became affected. Anthony Scott, whose brother Walter was shot dead in April by police officer Michael Slager in North Charleston, South Carolina, said the lack of public information “came as a surprise”.
“I was not informed, I was not aware, I just had an idea these situations were happening in the United States,” Scott told the Guardian. “The public need to know what is happening and be made more informed. With them being more informed they would be able to react differently, in a positive way, to make changes, to make sure some of these things don’t happen again.”

[trish]

Thanks you Guardian, for doing the research that the Congress and the NRA has effectively blocked in the U.S.; and thank you Martin for making us aware of the report.

“Giving this kind of data to the public is a big thing,” said Erica Garner, whose father’s killing by police in New York City last year led to international protests. “Other incidents like murders and robberies are counted, so why not police-involved killings? With better records, we can look at what is happening and what might need to change.”
The initiative was also praised by a range of policing experts and by campaigners who are urging government authorities to make the official recording of fatalities mandatory for all 18,000 police departments and law enforcement agencies operating in the US.
“It’s troubling that we have no official data from the federal government,” said Laurie Robinson, the co-chair of Barack Obama’s task force on 21st-century policing. “I think it’s very helpful, in light of that fact, to have this kind of research undertaken.”

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/cdc-ban...ry?id=18909347

http://www.salon.com/2012/07/25/the_...n_gun_science/

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2012/12/gun_violence_research_nra_and_congress_blocked_gun _control_studies_at_cdc.html

[martin48]

You're my kind of girl, Trish

Thanks you Guardian, for doing the research that the Congress and the NRA has effectively blocked in the U.S.; and thank you Martin for making us aware of the report.

[buttslinger]

I value the input of the brothas and sistas here, and don't aim to hurt their feelings, but I think putting your own words in print is kind of like when the camera light goes on and you start to perform for the camera.
I am happy to trash my Caucasian grit redneck KKK cousins, why can't black folks trash their "snitches get stitches" home boys?
I am happy to voice my displeasure of that segment of the US population known as WHITE TRASH, how come when I trash that segment of the population known as N*GGERS, I'm a racist?

The Police should be allowed to do their job without being shot at or smashed up in a high speed chase. No law says you have to respect the Police. But there is a law that says you have to do what they tell you to do. Fight it in court if your civil rights are stomped on.

If you really want to enact change, you can't just ask for it, you have to make it happen. Freedom isn't free.
The USA doesn't put our undesirables in gas chambers, we put them on Indian Reservations, or give them minimum wage jobs so they can chase the carrot on the stick but never really get anywhere. The instances of gunning down young black males actually falls into the small percentage of "shit happens" type stuff. If you live in a neighborhood where co-operating with the po-lice is taboo, do you really expect any resect from the police, white or black? To me, it almost seems like when a black person becomes realistic, they lose their black street cred, or something, they turn into TOMs.

To make a long story short, black people must melt into a racist society to destroy racism. Good luck with that. You can be replaced by a Mexican!!!!

[martin48]

Well, I suppose he didn't actually shoot the 14 year old girl.

Sorry but you need to get a grip of this, America



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-33048176

[yodajazz]

I value the input of the brothas and sistas here, and don't aim to hurt their feelings, but I think putting your own words in print is kind of like when the camera light goes on and you start to perform for the camera.
I am happy to trash my Caucasian grit redneck KKK cousins, why can't black folks trash their "snitches get stitches" home boys?
I am happy to voice my displeasure of that segment of the US population known as WHITE TRASH, how come when I trash that segment of the population known as N*GGERS, I'm a racist?

The Police should be allowed to do their job without being shot at or smashed up in a high speed chase. No law says you have to respect the Police. But there is a law that says you have to do what they tell you to do. Fight it in court if your civil rights are stomped on.

If you really want to enact change, you can't just ask for it, you have to make it happen. Freedom isn't free.
The USA doesn't put our undesirables in gas chambers, we put them on Indian Reservations, or give them minimum wage jobs so they can chase the carrot on the stick but never really get anywhere. The instances of gunning down young black males actually falls into the small percentage of "shit happens" type stuff. If you live in a neighborhood where co-operating with the po-lice is taboo, do you really expect any resect from the police, white or black? To me, it almost seems like when a black person becomes realistic, they lose their black street cred, or something, they turn into TOMs.

To make a long story short, black people must melt into a racist society to destroy racism. Good luck with that. You can be replaced by a Mexican!!!!

You don't seem like a bad person, and I agree with you, to an extent. However, there are some larger social realities at work here. Police have become an occupying force, in poor communities, and the enforcement arm of racist tendencies. There are so many examples, but let's look at the incident in the previous post. Apparently a bunch of Black kids went to a pool party, in a predominantly White community. The police were called. One woman went out and insulted the teens told them to go back to their 'Section 8 housing'. Apparently a teen spoke back to her. The woman's actions could have led to an escalated anger incidents. Of course nothing at all was said to her, apparently. But, what was the duty of the police? Seems to me, that it should have been to clear the area. I don't understand why they were detaining and handcuffing Black teens for running away from the area? I didn't hear of any crimes being committed. And throwing the the 14 girl, by her hair, who had committed no crime, itself could have provoked a violent response, itself. Nowadays, they have the universal excuse, of suspecting drug activity. Guess what, a calm, well dressed person, obeying the law, fits certain drug courier profiles. It is not a crime to drive slowly, except when you drive through a poor neighborhood, that police define as a 'high crime area' the police consider that probable cause to stop you, and ask for ID. They might even ask to search your vehicle. In a community in Louisiana, a large Black man arrested for sagging his pants, was tasered to death in custody, a couple of years ago. Recently, there was an incident of the police throwing a 9 month pregnant woman down on her stomach, for refusing to give her name, which was her legal right, after arguing with a White woman over a parking space. Black are even being beat down in the womb! Seems to me, they could have gotten her vehicle plates, since she was driving. If she had broken any law, it would have been covered by a fine, anyway. I remember this one comedy show episode years ago, where the theme was, how hormonal this late pregnancy woman was. She did end up in a jail cell, with two other women who were in their late pregnancy stages. It was funny then.