NBA playoff games all likely to be cancelled today

[julio]

Gotta love the blacks kill blacks so that means white people and cops should be able to kill them too argument

Yeah.

It's certainly true that most black homicides are committed by blacks. Most white homicides are committed by whites. Most Latinx homicides are committed by Latinxs.

Why? Most homicides are committed by family members or close friends. Ergo....

This isn't rocket science. And bringing up the "black on black" homicide rate in a discussion of disproportional police violence against blacks isn't rocket science either. It's a deliberate attempt to obscure an important truth by throwing up irrelevant and distracting information - an attempt to "change the subject."

If some stupid redneck from Bunghole, New Egypt throws out an argument like that, I can discount it as simple ignorance. If an attorney from greater New York City proffers it... I don't buy the ignorance excuse. This is a deliberate attempt to muddy up the discussion, and acknowledgement after the fact when called out doesn't change the fact that the purpose is to derail the discussion, to turn it away from the relevant issue and steer it into pointless side arguments that kill the important points.

[Lawman]

No, I don't excuse police misconduct against blacks by saying blacks kills more blacks then police do. I DO say blacks killing more blacks is, and should be treated as, a larger issue for the black then police misconduct against blacks.

[bigegypt0417]

It is a massive issue and there are people addressing it!

Open the google machine and do some research.

[andyb]

It is also ignoring the issue we are discussing now as a country which is the disproportionate use of force against Black Americans. Selective enforcement/structural racism - whatever you want to call it - enforcement is not the color blind utopia we would all want it to be. It is a complicated problem with no easy answers. Part of the reason there are no easy answers is that when the political arguments around the problem are designed to district and win votes and not designed to solve the problem.

Blaming black on black violence is a mere distraction unless you want to tackle the larger issues (poverty, guns, etc.) behind that. It just ignores the question of why Blacks are killed more than 2.5 times as often as Whites by the police.

[bkox]

In response to your one right wing study I give the gift of many.

The research is clear: White people are not more likely than Black people to be...

It found that Black people were killed at a rate higher than their proportion to the national population.

“Although Black people represented 12 percent of the population in the states we studied, they made up 25 percent of the deaths in police shootings,” Miller says.

By comparison, Miller says, white people represented 62 percent of the population—and made up 54 percent of the deaths in encounters with police.

“In those instances in which the victim appeared to pose a minimal-or-less threat to police, based on the data we had, Black people were three times as likely to be killed,

US police kill up to 6 times more black people than white people

Fact check: Police killed more unarmed Black men in 2019 than conservative...

What the data say about police brutality and racial bias — and which reforms...

By one estimate, Black men are 2.5 times more likely than white men to be killed by police during their lifetime1. And in another study, Black people who were fatally shot by police seemed to be twice as likely as white people to be unarmed

[el-pietro]

Perhaps if you don’t resist arrest you won’t be put in a position where you might be shot. It’s pretty simple.

Black guy resists arrest by walking to his car to check on his kids.. gets shot 5 times in the back.. and had no weapon on him

White boy shoots 3 people then walks down the middle of a public city street brandishing the assault rifle he used... and not a single cop questions him.

Seven times. They shot him seven times. He is currently handcuffed to his hospital bed.

[zambonir]

And, I'd argue the Freddie Gray case, that you reference above, is a poor example of highlighting systemic racism but a great example of poor police conduct. The mayor was a black female; the top two officials in the police department were black; the city council was majority black; the state attorney who brought the charges against six officers was black; three of the six charged officers were black; the judge before whom two officers tried their cases was black.

That is literally systemic racism. It is the system that is racist, not the individuals, and just because they happen to be Black doesn't mean they are bigger than the system (or have had time to effect real change). Especially in Baltimore! (Though Philadelphia, where a black mayor bombed his own citizens, is no prize either).

[Lawman]

Ridiculous. No reason to keep him cuffed to his bed.

[julio]

No, I don't excuse police misconduct against blacks by saying blacks kills more blacks then police do. I DO say blacks killing more blacks is, and should be treated as, a larger issue for the black then police misconduct against blacks.

It’s essentially the same issue as gun violence in America in general; the solution is to get rid of the guns. Now, that may be politically impossible, but I would argue that it’s delusional to think the problem can be solved any other way.

But, larger numbers or not, that is a different kind of problem than state violence against citizens...and disproportionate state violence against people of color is clearly occurring. Police forces are committing this violence — and they are doing this in our names. If we don’t denounce and resist this, we are complicit. Changing the subject, IMHO, is an act of complicity.

[teabag259]

Breonna Taylor situation is an entirely different scenario. Apples and oranges. Tamir Rice had a pellet gun and reached for it as the police pulled Up after receiving a call about an armed person at that location. I can tell you from experience that those pellet guns look exactly like a real gun. You can be 3 feet away and still not be able to tell the difference between a pellet gun and a real gun. While sad, Rice Put himself in that situation by reaching for what looks like a real gun. As a retired police officer I can tell you again from experience that you are not going to see a guy with a handgun in his waistband, watch him Reach for it, and allow him to pull it and point it at you...and then try to analyze whether it is a “real” gun or not. That’s simply not how it works. Those officers were rightfully acquitted because at the end the day officers want to go home to their families and they cannot allow suspects to draw down on them.

[allentown]

I think that is largely true, although I don't think Tamir Rice reached for his toy gun. I think he was playing with it the whole time. As I recall, the police officer shot him less than a minute from pulling up. This highlights a more serious situation than driving while black. As we saw in Kokomo, white adults, as well as the 17-year old shooter, can openly carry AR-15s on the streets of America (we saw this as well on the capitol grounds of multiple states during the Covid lockdown dispute), open carry laws seem to apply only to whites. The police are very welcoming towards them. Now imagine if black men were carrying the same AR-15s in Kokomo or while protesting on the capitol grounds of any state. Can you honestly tell me that they would be allowed to do that? That they wouldn't be shot? To me, these AR-15 toting protesters and 'militia helpers' are a greater threat to the peace, even compared to rioters and looters, and I take an extremely dim view of rioters and looters. But dozens of AR-15 toting protesters or 'helpers' during protests. I find that sickening. That whites can obviously get away with that, while I firmly believe that blacks could not, is to me conclusive evidence of systematic racism in policing.

[andyb]

Tamir Rice had a pellet gun and reached for it as the police pulled Up after receiving a call about an armed person at that location

The structural racism is what creates the call about a 12-year-old Black kid though. Do you seriously think police response would be the same if there were reports of a 12-year-old white kid shooting an AR-15 in his back yard? Structurally police treat a Black person (even kids) as more dangerous than a similar White person.

What the police did there may not have been a crime. The result could have been very different if they had better training though.

[julio]

While sad, Rice Put himself in that situation by reaching for what looks like a real gun.

I think this comment speaks for itself. I can't... there's nothing that I can add.

Well, just this, I guess. To the extent that teabag259's view represent those of many police officers, it kind of illustrates the problem we face. The outcome here was "sad," but it was, at the end of the day, the 12-year-old kid's "own fault" - in the minds of police officers. Doesn't matter that officers opened fire within a couple of seconds of arriving on the scene, or that officers appear to define any kind of motion at all as "reaching for a gun." So, if a police officer pops up at you out of nowhere, and screams at you - don't flinch, because that may be construed as "reaching for your gun," whether you have a gun or not, whether you were reaching for...anything, really, or not. Even if you're startled, scared, whatever; don't move a muscle, because the police officer is scared to death of the situation he is in, and he's quite possibly trigger-happy.

And of course, teabag259 just tried to elide the Breonna Taylor situation.

[Lawman]

It’s essentially the same issue as gun violence in America in general; the solution is to get rid of the guns. Now, that may be politically impossible, but I would argue that it’s delusional to think the problem can be solved any other way.

Measures of gun control would certainly be a huge help. But, we also have to do a better of job of providing educational and job opportunities to inner city kids - black, brown, and white - to stem the violence.

But, larger numbers or not, that is a different kind of problem than state violence against citizens...and disproportionate state violence against people of color is clearly occurring. Police forces are committing this violence — and they are doing this in our names. If we don’t denounce and resist this, we are complicit. Changing the subject, IMHO, is an act of complicity.

Denounce it? Yes, where warranted. But, also be clear that not every act of a police shooting a black person warrants the outrage.

[Lawman]

To me, these AR-15 toting protesters and 'militia helpers' are a greater threat to the peace, even compared to rioters and looters, and I take an extremely dim view of rioters and looters. But dozens of AR-15 toting protesters or 'helpers' during protests. I find that sickening. That whites can obviously get away with that, while I firmly believe that blacks could not, is to me conclusive evidence of systematic racism in policing.

Agreed. No one should be carrying AR-15s to protests and militia helpers are the exact opposite of what's needed to calm any situation down.

[allentown]

Who here has even suggested that every police shooting of a black person warrants outrage? That doesn't take away from the fact that other shootings do rightly demand outrage. It is not just improper shootings of black and brown men and boys. All too often we read of a mentally unstable person being shot and killed by police after his family calls for help. Often the person is white. Seldom has a gun. Sometimes has a kitchen knife or something like garden shears -- weapons which can be dealt with by shooting somebody having a mental health episode.

[teabag259]

Correct. You can’t. Because unfortunately that’s exactly what happened. A 12 year old with a gun can kill you just as easily as a 22 year old with a gun. Obviously you feel that police officers should accept being fired upon before defending themselves. It’s that sort of fantasyland armchair policing that has helped lead us all into this nationwide problem. Officers cannot and are not to Be expected to further risk their life when encountering an armed person...regardless of that suspects age.

It is Sad that Rice was killed. He was young but unfortunately he made a mistake. And it cost him his life. Based on your response you believe that officers should’ve just walked up to him while he had a handgun and tried to talk to him. That is utter nonsense. When you respond to an armed person call you are on high alert because somebody in the community has called 911 Because they believe they saw someone with a weapon. The kid had a gun in his waistband and reached for it. The officers really had no choice. They have the desire to go home to their families. If the kid had put his hands up when the officers exited the vehicle he would be alive today. So yes in this unfortunate incident Rice was responsible for the outcome.

The rest of your diatribe about trigger-happy frightened officers is ridiculous leftist hyperbole and not even worth addressing.

And I did not avoid the Taylor situation. I simply stated that The circumstances there are entirely different than the current topic at hand.

[andyb]

Because they believe they saw someone with a weapon. The kid had a gun in his waistband and reached for it. The officers really had no choice.

There are always choices. The police clearly could have handled things better. They might have seen it was a 12-year-old kid who was not threatening anyone else and approached slowly and with more caution and identified themselves.

By your logic, why did the police not shoot all the armed militia members in Kenosha? They were clearly as threatening as this 12-year-old was. Is it because their training and caution suddenly kicks in when it is not a Black kid with a gun?

There were a series of tragic errors in the Tamir Rice incident. It is hard to argue that structural racism is not a huge part of why he ended up dead and the Kenosha militia did not.

[teabag259]

Again Rice/Kenosha is an entirely different scenario. Rice was a singular isolated incident on a random day.

I in no way believe that Militia members should’ve been out there At all , let alone with weapons. And while the individuals who were killed and shot each caused their own demise/injuries by chasing and assaulting an individual who was armed I do believe that the kid with the weapon should not have been there in the first place. It was asking for trouble. But this delves deeper into issues that come from local and state governments. The riots and the ensuing militias that showed up all occurred due to failures of the local and state government.

[bigegypt0417]

the "kid" was illegally carrying a gun...he was the actual one breaking the law and then killed 2 people. He was 17 and carrying a weapon.

If he isn't breaking the law, no one dies.