Floyd Case Verdict

[DevoHusker]

41 minutes ago, Guy Chamberlin said:

 

Where to begin?  I don't know about your middle school or high school, but what the Lincoln middle class white kids called partying and wilding was technically trespassing, vandalism, theft, and class one drug use and distribution. I remember many a fall night where the Lincoln police helicopter would fly overhead, tracking 50 of us with a spotlight as we wandered the neighborhood around Seacrest Field looking for trouble.

 

When the police showed up, you know what we did? We ran. Laughing. Because we were young and fast and knew the neighborhood.

 

 I don't know if expected sympathy from the justice system, but we got it. That's why it's worth switching perspectives here: imagine a group of teenage blacks roaming the streets of Lincoln, drunk and stoned, tossing grassbags and eggs, smashing mailboxes, knocking out streetlights with snowballs, vandalizing construction sites, etc., and facing virtually no consequences.

 

And of course we weren't a tiny minority of troubled class yahoos. Every popular girl shoplifted like crazy. Our biggest drug dealer is now a school superintendent in Kansas. My college roommate -- who I bailed out of jail when he tapped a police officer in the sternum while insisting we had the Constitutional right to play loud music in our own home -- is the vice-president of a large data analytics firm. I haven't egged a house in years.   

 

As white guys we could grow up and laugh at how stupid we were. As Black kids, we're dead or in jail. 

LPD has a helicopter?...

 

Kids have been doing what you and your friends were doing for years. Black and white kids. How many adolescent black kids did LPD kill back then...? Or now..?

[ZRod]

1 hour ago, knapplc said:

 

The Rittenhouse tweet just came along for the ride thanks to twitter. 

 

The main tweet, in which the guy swings his knife inches from the cop, is the one I'm asking about. Sure, lots of things are different. But that knife is less than a foot from the cop, swung with intent, and there's no bullet. 

 

It's a fair question to ask why. 

We know you're a smart guy. They're clearly very different situations. A civilains life is being immediately threatened by a person with a knife in one. The cop is the only target in the other.

[teachercd]

I can saw that I would be more likely to shoot a dude coming at me than a dude going at someone else.  

[Guy Chamberlin]

22 minutes ago, DevoHusker said:

LPD has a helicopter?...

 

Kids have been doing what you and your friends were doing for years. Black and white kids. How many adolescent black kids did LPD kill back then...? Or now..?

 

Why do you insist on missing the point?

 

I mean, I know why. I'm just hoping you can make an honest attempt to step out of yourself, imagine the two scenarios -- one with white kids, one with black kids -- and see if you can detect the unconscious bias that most of us have. It applies to years and years of police enforcement across every jurisdiction in America, and overlaps with the most recent and publicized cases being discussed. Suggesting that the example is invalid because the LPD didn't kill any black kids is really reaching, and suggesting that black kids aren't killed or imprisoned doing things white kids get away with is just plain wrong. 

[DevoHusker]

2 minutes ago, Guy Chamberlin said:

 

Why do you insist on missing the point?

 

I mean, I know why. I'm just hoping you can make an honest attempt to step out of yourself, imagine the two scenarios -- one with white kids, one with black kids -- and see if you can detect the unconscious bias that most of us have. It applies to years and years of police enforcement across every jurisdiction in America, and overlaps with the most recent and publicized cases being discussed. Suggesting that the example is invalid because the LPD didn't kill any black kids is really reaching, and suggesting that black kids aren't killed or imprisoned doing things white kids get away with is just plain wrong. 

You are the one who said if you had been black you would have been killed...?

[knapplc]

24 minutes ago, ZRod said:

We know you're a smart guy. They're clearly very different situations. A civilains life is being immediately threatened by a person with a knife in one. The cop is the only target in the other.

 

The cop's life is being immediately threatened in the second scenario. 

[Cdog923]

2 hours ago, teachercd said:

Yeah, I think he was painting houses or something.

 

And him and Harrison have also had very similar movie careers.  Ha

 

That's awful ballsy, comparing Crocodile Dundee to Han ****ing Solo. 

[DevoHusker]

@Guy ChamberlinI am not trying to bust your chops regarding your own view.

I just take exception to hyperbole, anecdotal at that, presented as fact regarding what outcome was inevitable. 

Empathy for POC is needed, of course, but not by way of something totally un-provable. 

[Guy Chamberlin]

9 minutes ago, DevoHusker said:

@Guy ChamberlinI am not trying to bust your chops regarding your own view.

I just take exception to hyperbole, anecdotal at that, presented as fact regarding what outcome was inevitable. 

Empathy for POC is needed, of course, but not by way of something totally un-provable. 

 

Please. I'm asking you sincerely. Imagine a scenario of suburban white kids wilding, trespassing, vandalizing and/or doing drugs. Then imagine a scenario of inner city black kids doing the exact same thing. Does one scenario instinctively alert or concern you more? Can you imagine the incidents being handled differently by police, or on news channels? It's an exercise in empathy, and that's where I was going with the original post. If you're not biased, you're a better man than me.

 

When I say my friends and I agree we would have been dead or in jail if we had been black, it's obviously not provable, or fact. But it sure as hell isn't hyperbole. And if you take away my particular anecdote, it actually is provable by incarceration and death statistics. Sometimes anecdotes help illustrate things. Perhaps that wasn't the case for you here. But it was an interesting revelation for my friends and me. 

[ZRod]

3 hours ago, knapplc said:

 

The cop's life is being immediately threatened in the second scenario. 

But not a civilian's. Quite a bit different, I think we would agree?

 

Knife cop is a copy doing it right, because he's trained and confident.

 

Shooty cop did the best he could in a no win situation and I can't fault him, but I guess it begs some questions.

[knapplc]

2 hours ago, ZRod said:

But not a civilian's. Quite a bit different, I think we would agree?

 

Knife cop is a copy doing it right, because he's trained and confident.

 

Shooty cop did the best he could in a no win situation and I can't fault him, but I guess it begs some questions.

 

No, I don't agree at all. In fact, since it was THAT COP'S life that was threatened by the knife, one would think the natural reaction would be self defense.

[teachercd]

1 hour ago, knapplc said:

 

No, I don't agree at all. In fact, since it was THAT COP'S life that was threatened by the knife, one would think the natural reaction would be self defense.

I agree.

 

Personally, they both should have been shot, we all know that.

 

 

[ZRod]

1 hour ago, knapplc said:

 

No, I don't agree at all. In fact, since it was THAT COP'S life that was threatened by the knife, one would think the natural reaction would be self defense.

For you and I sure, but he's trained for that; and maybe even been in a similar situation before. He also has his baton out to counter the guy and protect himself.

[knapplc]

2 hours ago, ZRod said:

For you and I sure, but he's trained for that; and maybe even been in a similar situation before. He also has his baton out to counter the guy and protect himself.

 

Let's not pretend that cops are so altruistic that they would disregard their own life in favor of a knife-wielding attacker over the life of a complete stranger.

 

That's a lovely way of looking at life. It's not realistic in light of the pattern & practice of policing we've seen in the past several decades.

[Notre Dame Joe]

14 hours ago, teachercd said:

Something I just thought about, what would you have done if you were there, in person, with the floyd thing.

 

Filmed it?  Attempt to break it up? Yell?

 

I would have probably done nothing, I am a huge sissy.  There is no way I would have yelled or tried to break it up and I would have had no desire to film it.  

 

What about you guys?

 

Did you mean with the cops already leaning on GF?  

 

The law is already very harsh with things like self-defense and citizens' arrests.  The rights you think you have are loopholed to death to the point the stars have to align in your favor.  And that's without the cops there.  Obstructing a uniformed police officer?  fuggadaboudit. 

 

 

 

 

10 hours ago, Guy Chamberlin said:

 

Well on the one hand, regular people have to deal with people high on drugs and potentially violent all the time, and often don't call the police because it's a child, a spouse, or a friend. Unarmed social workers walk into high-risk situations every day, assess and de-escalate the situation, and call police only in the most urgent cases. In a majority of cases, the police do the right thing. But too many times, they don't. In the police shootings we're discussing, you have to ask yourself if the officer in question -- often backed by fellow officers -- is facing a life threatening situation when they use deadly force. Before facing any review within the criminal justice system, we have guys resisting arrest being executed. Turns out not all of these are resisting arrest scenarios, either. We also have Black men and women being held to a completely different standard, and that's really the issue here. And we do have entire police departments lying -- outright lying -- to protect their own, which has been SOP for as long as can be remembered, and few officers will deny it.

 

 It's not really an analogy I was making, just a legitimate source of frustration.

 

 

Where to begin?  I don't know about your middle school or high school, but what the Lincoln middle class white kids called partying and wilding was technically trespassing, vandalism, theft, and class one drug use and distribution. I remember many a fall night where the Lincoln police helicopter would fly overhead, tracking 50 of us with a spotlight as we wandered the neighborhood around Seacrest Field looking for trouble.

 

When the police showed up, you know what we did? We ran. Laughing. Because we were young and fast and knew the neighborhood.

 

 I don't know if expected sympathy from the justice system, but we got it. That's why it's worth switching perspectives here: imagine a group of teenage blacks roaming the streets of Lincoln, drunk and stoned, tossing grassbags and eggs, smashing mailboxes, knocking out streetlights with snowballs, vandalizing construction sites, etc., and facing virtually no consequences.

 

And of course we weren't a tiny minority of troubled class yahoos. Every popular girl shoplifted like crazy. Our biggest drug dealer is now a school superintendent in Kansas. My college roommate -- who I bailed out of jail when he tapped a police officer in the sternum while insisting we had the Constitutional right to play loud music in our own home -- is the vice-president of a large data analytics firm. I haven't egged a house in years.   

 

As white guys we could grow up and laugh at how stupid we were. As Black kids, we're dead or in jail. 

Regular people arrest people who are passing counterfeit bills?  Doubt it.  And most of these violent encounters that make the news consist of the suspect resisting arrest.  They wouldn't be deadly if the suspect consented to handcuffs and relied on his lawyer.

 

Which brings us to Lincoln shenanigans.  I have the image of cow tipping rascals cavorting through the cornfields.  You didn't address the part where the police catch you, which is the where the policing debate starts. I'll grant that the NE police would be faster and harder on a black group doing the same thing. But that doesn't mean we have police brutality until someone decides to fight the cops. 

 

For most of those shenanigans you should get a night in the cells.

 

 

 

9 hours ago, Cdog923 said:

 

That's awful ballsy, comparing Crocodile Dundee to Han ****ing Solo. 

Do you think Han acted in self-defense in the real version?