bullets13

yes sir. I'm now in the background portion of the hiring phase at PAPD. Still need some stuff to happen to get on. Probably 50/50 right now that I get hired, which are pretty good odds considering how many have been rejected.

It's a lot easier to throw good officers under the bus this way.

Which would make sense, seeing as they deal with criminals all day, some of whom no doubt dislike them.

I agree. Seeing as that's not going to change, it's time for conservatives to bite the bullet and take more moderate stances on social issues if they want a chance to implement their fiscal policies.

They've been portrayed as heroes. Which is a shame. A robber and suspected murderer who tried to take a cop's gun gets a plaque in his honor, and a drug dealer becomes the rallying cry for a major city. That's a big time problem to me.

I went to a Christian college, where we were also held to a higher standard. Just as he has the right to spew inappropriate things on his twitter, the private institution he attends has the right to punish him for it. He's fortunate that he got some strong support, or he'd still be facing some serious discipline.

You repeatedly use the term "shove" in this thread. Not only did he not even come close to shoving her, the only resembling a shove in the entire video was the action she took towards him later. You're trying too hard to find something to be upset about when it's simply not there. If you want to find something to be upset about, how about finding some outrage over the insanely bloated salary she received from your tax dollars while not performing her job, all the while creating derision and divisiveness in our community.

"Uppity" is a word that was often used before my time. Does it mean, rude, disrespectful, argumentative, and combative?

As far as I can tell, he must have feared for his life. This was a split second decision, and nothing in the interaction leading up to the shooting would indicate that he was irritated with the man he shot, or that he held any racial animosity. While I am open to debate on whether he was correct to be afraid for his life, I don't see any other explanation. This is a far cry from getting pissed off at a guy who tusseled with you and then ran off and shooting him 8 times in the back. This was a panicked, reflexive decision.

The problem is real. It's also overblown by the media to the point that it's leading to a bigger problem. Out of the millions of arrests and hundreds of millions of citizen contacts a year, you get maybe a couple of cases where the police flat out murder someone. But it gets so blown up by the media, it would appear that this is something that happens daily, or at least weekly. That's not the case. But now you get crap like Mike Brown, who was deservedly shot, Eric Garder, who died of a heart attack while resisting arrest, and Sandra Bland, who hung herself after being rightfully arrested being made martyrs and victims, when in fact they all brought legal police action onto themselves. The guy that got shot in the back? He was murdered, and his killer was charged. This cop has been charged, although the case is not as clear cut. Charges were brought in the Baltimore case. When police act outside of their legal rights as police officers, they are generally charged. but here's the bigger problem I was talking about: because of the misguided belief that cops are routinely going around killing black folks for no reason, we're seeing more people running from the cops, disobeying lawful orders from cops, and disrespecting cops. And if you increase those three things, where you have more cops put in situations where they have to deal with belligerent and disrespectful people, you'll see more videos of officers losing their cool and overreacting. You'll also have more situations like this case where officers are fearful for their lives (in some instances incorrectly) due to a suspect's behavior, and more people, some undeserving, will be killed.

This is a pretty good description of what those who are rallying around Sandra Bland are doing, don't you think?

It has nothing to do with what I hope to see. In the seconds before and after the shot is fired it looks like the body cam is going through a washing machine. I'm having a hard time how y'all are getting a clear understanding of exactly what happened. As TVC stated, if the car was moving and the officer was partially in the car, he was within his right to shoot. That's why I stated that I would like to see the dashcam from his cruiser, which would likely show a much steadier view of exactly what happened.

I'm with hippy on this one. I could not tell from the video if the cop shot before or after the car started moving. I can't speak to his frame of mind. I do know that up until he shot, he was very respectful, showing no signs of racism or attitude, and the driver was being evasive and was clearly about to run. I have no doubt that when he fired the officer felt like he was in danger. The question is whether or not his feeling was justified. I'd like to see the dashcam video from his patrol car. If it shows the car start to move with him in the window then he's justified. If not, I'm not sure how the law will handle it. As for the statement the other officer made, even if this was completely unjustified, from some unknown distance he saw the officer shoot, the car start rolling, and the officer fall away from the moving vehicle in probably less than a second. I wouldn't doubt at all that he believed what he told authorities. The question is whether or not what he thought he saw was correct or not. Again, I would love to see some dashcam video.

That's happened to me just about every time I've been pulled over as well. That's police officers doing their jobs. Maybe I'm crazy, but I like the idea of police taking the opportunity during a traffic stop to do a little rudimentary investigative work to determine if the person they're pulling over is committing some other crime, as opposed to just sending them on their way.

While you're correct that she had the right to not put out the cigarette, what people keep failing to realize is that he had the right to arrest her the second he witnessed her commit that traffic infraction. So while she did not have to put it out, if that was the last straw in the steady stream of disrespect she was throwing his way that led him to decide to arrest her instead of letting her off with a warning or a ticket, then that's her fault, not his. If an officer isn't going to arrest someone but decides to because of their poor attitude and disrespectfulness, that's on the citizen, not the officer. If the citizen then throws a fit and kicks the officer because they don't like the fact that he's arresting them on a legitimate charge, the new charges they earn are on them as well.

I think the media is the biggest problem in race relations right now. Look at the Michael Brown case. He was made a martyr by the media, while the officer who shot him was simultaneously tried and convicted in the news for "killing an unarmed black man.". Now it's been irrefutably proven that the shooting was completely justified. This barely even registered in the news. A racist killer cop gets page views, while a cop just doing his job does not. Every time a questionable (or not) shooting happens now, ferguson is brought up. it's been proven that A) Mike Brown was a criminal who had just minutes earlier committed a felony B ) he attacked an officer and tried to take his gun and C) charged the officer again after already having been shot. Even though all of these are proven facts, the media still portrays him as a victim of racial violence, to the point that he's GETTING A STATUE in his honor. How does this happen? A felon attacks a cop immediately after committing a robbery and is shot and killed, and his hometown gives him a statue? The media, that's how. One of the most divisive events in decades was completely misrepresented by the media or it wouldn't have been divisive at all. It's also led to more divisive coverage. Sandra Bland should not be news. Eric Gardener should not have been news. When police are crucified in the media for doing their jobs, and especially when the media puts racial spin on it, it's incredibly divisive. There are literally less than a handful of police killings a year where police act outside of the law and kill a black person, despite there being tens or even hundreds of millions of police interactions with black citizens a year. And those officers are generally indicted, tried , and convicted. And while any such killing is unacceptable, the media has led many to believe that police violence perpetrated by white cops on black citizens is not only commonplace, which is inaccurate, but is the biggest problem that blacks face today, which is laughable. The media is solely responsible for this, as well as the polarized view points surrounding these cases, which have set back race relations tremendously.

Can't photoshop out 3 days worth of decomposition from her autopsy.

And had she been respectful, that's exactly what would've happened.

Her overall attitude in general led to the escalation of the situation. When you're pulled over for something that could land you in a jail cell, it's probably best to be polite, such as putting out your cigarette so you're not blowing smoke in the officer's face while he's got his face down in your window.

Until the media quits making martyrs out of criminals, we're going to continue to see asinine behavior from citizens in situations like this. And even though police are held to higher standards than the general public, that does not mean they deserve all the blame when they lose their cool in a situation that someone else instigated. Bland's family is probably about to get a million bucks because their daughter was a total A-hole during a traffic stop, a trooper responded to her rudeness with rudeness of his own, and then she killed herself 3 days later. How does that make any sense? All of this because of public outrage generated by a non-story being made into a sensation in a media climate where police misdeeds (both real and imagined) are the quickest way to get Internet traffic and tv audiences.

Not sure what there would be to edit at that point, especially if the audio is rolling.

People now claiming the video was edited. I would assume that the camera had some sort of malfunction, as I find it hard to believe that they would edit it so obviously and release it.

It ABSOLUTELY has nothing to do with her death, unless we find out that the trooper went to the jail and suffocated her with a plastic bag.

Looks like she was belligerent with the officers, possibly assaulted one of them, and resisted arrest. During that time, one of the officers did something that got him in trouble, perhaps overreacting to her being a jackass. People seem to think that it's completely acceptable to disrespect, disregard, or disobey officers, and then blame those officers for overreacting to this (in very rare instances). While this reaction is not acceptable, both parties are culpable. That being said, the Internet is having a hard time separating two different incidents. The prevailing theory seems to be that she was completely innocent, arrested without cause, and then murdered in her cell 3 days later for unknown reasons. I don't think I need to explain the holes in this narrative. As best I can tell, she had a chip on her shoulders when it came to police, got belligerent when pulled over for an arrestable defense, made a cop lose his cool a little (leading to his reprimand), and was put in jail legitimately. There are cameras outside her cell that reportedly show nobody entering/leaving her cell during the time of her death that have been turned over to the FBI. I'm not sure what sounds so fishy about someone with a history of PTSD and depression killing themselves while sitting in jail on a felony charge that will likely lose them their new dream job before it even started, but with the media's new habit of indicting law enforcement it would certainly appear that many folks are taking the bait.

I teach 3-year-olds. You better believe the full moon does something.