Originally Posted By ecdc By "someone," I mean a black man, and by "shooting," I mean murder. RIP John Crawford. You deserved so much better, and I wish my despair at our willingness to so quickly execute black men could bring you back.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder Come on, ecdc, there's just a bit more to this one than that. <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/24/us/ohio-walmart-death/index.html?hpt=hp_t2">http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/24/...pt=hp_t2</a> He was walking around a Wal Mart pointing an air rifle at people and refused to put it down when police requested. The air rifle is a pretty realistic looking gun. A grand jury reviewed everything and refused to indict the police. Now the feds will be looking at it.
Originally Posted By SuperDry I could tell just from the topic summary that this would be a hyperbole-rich thread. <<< It's Legal to Shoot ... a black man, and by "shooting," I mean murder >>> It NEVER is legal to murder someone. Murder by its very meaning is the unlawful taking of a life.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 Without audio on that video, it's awfully hard to judge. All I've read is that police told him to drop the weapon. Is that account coming from the police alone? From other witnesses at the store as well? Maybe there's an account detailing that, but I haven't seen it yet. How did they order him to drop the weapon? How many times? If he was talking on his cell phone, did he even realize they were talking to him, or was he at least momentarily oblivious? How much time elapsed between the "drop your weapon" and the shooting? Another wrinkle is that Ohio is an open-carry state. We've all seen the videos of "open carry advocates" carrying actual rifles into stores trying to make some sort of point. Mostly they're white. Mostly, police are not even called. So what did Crawford do to constitute the idea that he was "pointing it at people?" In the only video I've seen, that's far from clear. Maybe he did - I don't know. But would a white guy have gotten a "pass?" Either from the police or from other store patrons who wouldn't have called 911 to begin with? Interesting article: <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.theroot.com/articles/politics/2014/08/john_crawford_shooting_open_carry_for_whites_open_season_on_blacks.html">http://www.theroot.com/article...cks.html</a> "Ohio is an “open carry” state. So even if Crawford were carrying a real, fully loaded rifle, why would that raise any alarms? How could that possibly be a reason to kill him?" Again, much would hinge on the whole "pointing it at people" thing... I haven't seen that so far but maybe witnesses did (?) "Which brings me back to John Crawford. He was holding a toy gun in the store that sold it, and even if he were holding an honest-to-goodness rifle loaded with real bullets, he was well within his Ohioan rights to do so. Who was he threatening? We’ve seen open-carry activists all over the country walk around in public and visit major chain stores without so much as a police scolding, let alone a confrontation with police or an actual shooting. " (snip) " The difference is simple, and it’s the difference in almost every case of police violence perpetrated on innocent citizens. He was black. Many African Americans and Latinos alike see these open-carry folks like the ones above and think, “Hey, if white people are walking around with guns like that, maybe I need to ... ” I know I have. But as soon as we think it, we scoff, laugh or smirk to ourselves because we know what the outcome would be if we expected the same treatment. This isn’t just a what-if scenario. This is not conjecture. Consider this 2012 incident at an Ohio gas station: A white man entered a store openly carrying his weapon. Police confronted him. No weapons were drawn, and there were no commands to give up the gun, just a stern conversation. He was asked to provide identification, but he refused and was then arrested ... and then released. Alive. The charges were eventually dropped, and he is now suing the police department for $3.6 million. I wish John Crawford could file a suit. Another example: A woman was at a bus stop waiting for her child to come home from school but was approached by an officer who saw her weapon (watch the harrowing confrontation here). No yelling, no commands to get down. In fact, the officer gives her advice and even goes so far as to say he doesn’t want to dissuade her from carrying because he’s an advocate for it. She’s as healthy as she was when she got to the bus stop, free to pick up her child and return home. I wish John Crawford could have a normal day with his kids. I chose these two examples because they took place in Riverside and Dayton, Ohio, respectively. John Crawford was killed in Beavercreek, which is a suburb of Dayton and just a few miles from Riverside."
Originally Posted By ecdc >>He was walking around a Wal Mart pointing an air rifle at people and refused to put it down when police requested.<< That was the original story, but then the 911 caller changed his tale. He said Crawford in fact wasn't walking around pointing the gun at people. So now we have people saying the 911 caller is to blame. But again, at what point does police training come into play? It's not a risk-free job? Why are they shooting people like this? Watch the video. They shot and killed him with stunning speed. They killed him like he wasn't even a person, but like he was a wild animal. It's appalling, regardless of what some grand jury says.
Originally Posted By ecdc BTW, two people died during this incident. A woman running from the store died of a heart attack. The cops behavior in these cases is appalling, and the system is designed to let them get away, quite literally, with murder. This fire, ready, aim approach needs to stop.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder "The cops behavior in these cases is appalling, and the system is designed to let them get away, quite literally, with murder. This fire, ready, aim approach needs to stop." I'm sorry, but you're way off base with this one. When the police came upon Crawford what they knew, and even checked with dispatch to verify, is that he had just pointed the gun at two kids and had been pointing it at others. They were also told he was trying to load it. Whether or not that turned out to be true, and whether or not the 911 caller later changes his story, that was what they were told at the time. The police didn't have the luxury of knowing all that everyone knows now. In these situations, they HAVE to act instantly, they don't have the option of waiting to see what he does next or repeatedly ordering him to do something. A special prosecutor was appointed and did his due diligence. An an entire grand jury, not a couple of gold old boys, made the call not to indict. The special prosecutor expressly admitted this was a perfect storm of tragedy. Open carry or not, black or white or not, it isn't usual behavior to take a gun or pretend, realistic one and walk around with it like they used to do in the Old West. WalMart employees were in the process of notifying supervisors when the police arrived. The employees thought Crawford would at least "cause a panic" even if he meant no harm. Sadly, sometimes crap happens, and we have to live with the outcome.
Originally Posted By barboy3 Almost always in these encounters **MULTIPLE** police respond against a lone potential shooter..........why do police always make death shots. Why not target limbs just in case one is not a serious threat or has mental disorders. I guess it's more fun to kill instead of just incapacitating another.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 I wonder if the grand jury had audio along with that video. If so, I'd like to hear it. If not, I'm not sure how they were able to reach a conclusion. I don't think if I was on that grand jury that I could reach any sort of intelligent decision if all I had was the silent video from that link.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>Sadly, sometimes crap happens, and we have to live with the outcome.<< Sure. I don't expect cops or anyone else to be perfect. But this keeps happening. Young black men keep getting killed by cops. At some point, we need to accept that this is not just "crap happening." If this happened every once in a great while? Maybe. But it keeps happening. It will happen again, and again, and again. I firmly believe if John Crawford were white, this would've been a very different situation. I understand cops have to act instantly, but acting instantly doesn't always need to involve shooting someone to death.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox << I firmly believe if John Crawford were white, this would've been a very different situation.>> This. A million times over. Open carry is for whites only. At least in the eyes of the police.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder I have to tell you guys something. When I was catching shoplifters for a living, depending on what area I was working, inevitably we would find we were arresting the same type- if I was in Santa Ana, almost all hispanics. If I was in downtown San Diego, many white males, black males and female secretaries of all types. When I was in the Crenshaw/Culver City area, all blacks. In south Orange County, mostly white, we looked at their shoes. The condition of their shoes told us a lot. If a black guy walked into a lily white Orange County store, you better believe he got scrutinized if he also exhibited the behaviors we commonly saw from thieves. Did we profile? You better believe we did. Often, even though we were just retail security, our personal safety was at issue if we didn't. It's a fact of life. It will never go away. But did we care who we caught? Did we discriminate? If faced with a choice between white or black did we go black just because? The answers are no, no and no. We followed and caught those whose behavior told us they were going to steal That most of them ended up being minorities is not on us, but on them. I said it earlier- what fool carries a rifle out of the package around a store and not expect something to happen? If he wanted to buy one, select one in a package. At a minimum this guy should have expected an eventual confrontation of some sort with store personnel. That it ended up the way it did is not entirely on the police. Crawford owns some this, no question.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip Sorry, but on a percentage basis Blacks commit more crimes than whites. That is an indisputable fact. Now there are many reasons for this... poverty, lack of opportunity, discrimination, etc. But it is what it is.
Originally Posted By Yookeroo "In south Orange County, mostly white," So the shoppers getting the most scrutiny would be the white shoppers? "we looked at their shoes. The condition of their shoes told us a lot. If a black guy walked into a lily white Orange County store, you better believe he got scrutinized" Hmmmmm. "if he also exhibited the behaviors we commonly saw from thieves." Well, OK. Would the white shoppers who exhibited thieve-ish behavior also receive such scrutiny?
Originally Posted By Dabob2 "I said it earlier- what fool carries a rifle out of the package around a store and not expect something to happen?" I don't know - all those white guys who walked around with actual rifles in stores who fully expected that nothing would happen.., and were right? Now you could say they were fools, and I wouldn't disagree. You could say Crawford should have chosen a packaged rifle and I wouldn't disagree. But the fact is that no one even called 911 on those other guys.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>Sorry, but on a percentage basis Blacks commit more crimes than whites.<< Depends on the crime. I know that this totally interferes with the "America isn't a white supremacy culture and we really do want equality" narrative, but we are still really, really racist, and really, really horrible to black Americans: <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/09/30/white-people-are-more-likely-to-deal-drugs-but-black-people-are-more-likely-to-get-arrested-for-it/?tid=pm_business_pop">http://www.washingtonpost.com/...ness_pop</a> Hey, at least this happened today: <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/01/justice/michael-dunn-loud-music-verdict/index.html">http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/01/...dex.html</a>
Originally Posted By skinnerbox Michael Dunn's guilty verdict gives me hope that we can finally turn a corner on white racist a-holes going free for killing unarmed citizens of color.
Originally Posted By KongKongFuey Outside of dun being white and dude in car was black do you have any evidence that dun was racist and shot youth because he was black? Any real evidence or do you just make up as you move from story to story to story. Nif there was race motivader then why no hate crime charge? Why no civil right violation charge? Explain if you can : - D
