Saturday, August 16, 2014
What's up with the Ferguson PD?
If you were a troglodyte the past week and just popped on the tube you'd swear there was a major terrorist attack in the community of Ferguson MO. OK so let's rap about race and the police again. Despite my recent post re the NYPD for me Eric Garner is not Sean Bell is not Michael Brown is not Amadou Diallo and why don't we throw in Tawana Brawley while we're at it. I approach these cases on a purely individual basis and you can make the case that maybe Sean Bell or his friend was driving his SUV towards the cops OR that yes maybe teen Michael Brown was tussling with a police officer in his squad car and went for his gun after strong-arming a convenience store. Look I get it but put these other cases together and start comparing and they all highlight even more at least for me that the Eric Garner case is the weakest in terms of the NYPD POV & PR. He wasn't running down the street half-naked waving a machete, he didn't have a gun or a device that resembled a gun or even took out a black wallet the way Amadou Diallo did in the Soundview section of the Bronx when four officers shot him to death. So for parts of the right-wing like the New York Post to unreservedly support the cops as a general rule is a huge socio/political mistake imo if the GOP wants to get serious about attracting the Black Vote and no Bo Dietl doesn't know more than the NYC ME. Missouri - well at least conservatives are starting to wake the hell up by criticizing the increasing militarization of our nation's police forces what with all that surplus army stuff the federal gov't doled out to them in years past. Actually you know something? conservatives all conservatives should start reading Twelve Years a Slave if they haven't already and watch the movie as it's obvious they have no interest in or never got the whole Black Experience. Lastly conservatives waste far too much time talking about Al Sharpton:)
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The police may have a use for surplus army stuff . IMO, the problem is that the methods clearly are different when arresting a white person and a black person. In the Missouri case, that force should have more black officers for starters. Then there is the whole sociological problem about rampant unemployment for young black males, the single home thing. In addition, the tendency of some to use mob protests as a convenient excuse to loot
ReplyDeleteand rob does not help their cause. There is a strong undercurrent of racism; in lily white Idaho, we hired a black guy, a college basketball player. He was harassed
daily and quit after a few weeks. It is complicated: my best chum in army officer training was a black kid, but I would be careful not to wander alone in some ghetto,
ya know?
For me I can almost unequivocally say what the NYPD did to Eric Garner was horrible and wrong from a legal standpoint and I don't paint with a broad brush in these cases. Getting back to Missouri I can honestly say when teens walk in the road it is horribly annoying to the driver and a cop is well within his rights to address this and oh btw PULL YOUR DRAWERS UP!
ReplyDeleteDrones: I guess the smaller versions are popular with hobby types. So much so, that they are getting into trouble. Out this way, they have been flying over the forest fires taking movies, probably hoping for youtube fame. But they have caused so much trouble for droptankers and helicopters that they had to pull them off the lines and the fires got worse. The authorities are asking them to keep their photo drones
ReplyDeleteaway from firefighters. (Presumably, they will go back to hovering outside the womens dorms at the colleges)
I'm rather surprised nobody's been taking aerial views of police brutality yet. It's a hobby sure (no not police brutality) but real estate companies are also largely to blame. Oh and P.I.s too catching wayward spouses.
ReplyDeleteOh there's been another sighting of the now extinct Eastern Mountain Lion up these parts this time in the village of Cold Spring NY. As usual the NYDEC is denying the charges.
ReplyDeleteSeems possible. They are extremely shy but sometimes leave footprints/scat. The dept biologists always make excuses, like big bobcat, large housecat, far ranging immigrant from the west, etc. Even when they have a body, they claim it was a solo animal and 'not a viable
ReplyDeletereproducing species. You could do a little detective work, take the trails where there are deer at 2AM and sit down under a bush with your camera. (keep an eye
out for the predatory NYPD species, though)
& watch out for them otters.
ReplyDeleteOr the official NY pet, the Pit Bull . That animal is banned in US Army and US Marine housing as well as the country of England. I am tired of PBull owners saying how wonderful they are, gentle
Deletecaring animals: a little Indian kid was torn up north of here, Odd thing about
Indians, they don't riot and loot when they get mad. The owner in this case got badly injured saving the kid and insisted his dog be shot on the spot by
tribal police.
I'm not thrilled about either but I'd worry alot more about a loose pit bull than a loose mountain lion.
DeleteIm sorry yall. It's been a rough time. I feel like there is a real reluctance on the part of a lot of the media and people in general to come out and admit that there is really and truly a race problem here. It's a fact that white folks just don't get treated the same by cops as black folks do. A white guy was recently arrested, assaulted the cops and actually broke one cop's hand, no shots fired. The white-people protest in support of the cop that killed Mike Brown? Barely a police presence. Meanwhile, reporters being arrested in McDonalds and Amnesty International creating a precedent by sending in observers to the United States for the first time. We keep wanting to say there's no race issues in America, we're post racial.. we are not. That's delusional. We are only half a heartbeat from Selma.
ReplyDeleteNow all the righties can say re Eric Garner is don't resist arrest, that's all they have to fall back on. That's not the issue. OF COURSE you should not resist arrest, the real issue is what should cops do when people do resist arrest? Pat Lynch sounds like he's running for office.
DeleteBut Saty wasn't Barack Obama supposed to be that post-racial guy? I mean he kind of bought into it too.
DeleteI'm a law and order guy. But a cop doesn't shoot a guy 7 times when he is walking away; Fergy, MO has some serious problems.
ReplyDelete& since the big story over here is the Eric Garner case I still can't wrap my head around a cop putting a guy black no less in this day and age into some kind of a chokehold for the "crime" of selling loosies and the NY Post going if you question this then you're part of the War on Cops.
DeleteConsidering the odd NYC penalties-
ReplyDelete"If a dog owner negligently permits his dog to bite a person, the dog previously was declared to be dangerous, and the injury is a "serious injury," the dog owner can be convicted of a misdemeanor ($1000 file and 90 days in jail). Agriculture & Markets Law, Section 121, subdivision 8.) A "serious injury" is one that causes death or presents the risk of death, or causes "serious or protracted" disfigurement, "protracted impairment of health or protracted loss or impairment of the function of any bodily organ." (as in "Ouch!)
On the other hand, selling a single cigarette:
"Tax-free "loosies" have been a bodega staple for decades in New York City. Although their sale is illegal and store owners risk fines up to $4,000 and the loss of their tobacco license"
Is it me, or is the Big Apple rotten to the core when it comes to law & enforcement?
What I don't get is where are all the usually anti-big-government conservatives on this one? No law on loosies no need to enforce.
DeleteI find it odd that selling loosies is against Federal law . Why should that be? Its bad enough that there is a 1500% tax on Prince Albert!
DeleteConservatives' reaction to the Garner case makes no sense. If he was undercutting the business of local bodega owners by selling loosies isn't that the free market?
Delete