tvc184

I don’t think a Taser is deadly force but did the mayor use that as a reason for terminating officers and then in a different situation a couple of weeks later, use the opposite reasoning? Either you think it is or it isn’t but it shouldn’t be deadly force at 2pm but not at 7pm.

If Tyson said that, I agree with him. I believe aTaser is justification to use deadly force IF the person is in position to use it. Unless you are strung out on certain drugs, about 99.% of the time it was completely shut a person down. In a unanimous US Supreme Court decision in Graham v. Connor, they said that the use of force by officers must be viewed by what a reasonable officer in that situation would feel and not what someone may debate in a judge’s chambers several months later. They used the term “split second” decision and rejected the normal totality of circumstances standard. In that case the officers roughed to a completely innocent person who was having a medical crisis but it appeared as though he may have just robbed a store and was resisting. Even though the officers later found out the truth, that rare unanimous SC found in favor of the officers.

The folly of her statement, like in many such situations, is the claim that some minor crime shouldn’t end in a person’s death. That is the classic straw man. The police didn’t shoot him because he was sleeping in a drive-thru. That is silly. Sure, we can all agree that sleeping isn’t justification to be killed but that isn’t why he was shot. He was shot for attacking an officer and taking a weapon. Whether we agree on the use of force, he wasn’t shot for sleeping. That is an outright lie for political gain. We have seen the same kind of statements like for a person who the police were trying to arrest for misdemeanor marijuana. I was reading a case like that a few years ago. The guy reached for a gun and was shot. The article was titled, man shot for marijuana. No, he was shot reaching for a gun. It doesn’t matter why the police started talking to you, it is your actions that determine the use of force, not the reason for the interaction.

Yep. Bet they have their own private police force and aren’t living near CHAZ......

This is a tiny example of what is coming. The Seattle police chief made a statement that cover the takeover of one of their precincts by ANTIFA, their calls for violent crimes have tripled and they cannot respond. Here is part of that article... “Our calls for service have more than tripled,” she told reporters. “These are responses to emergency calls — rapes, robberies, and all sorts of violent acts that have been occurring in the area that we’re not able to get to.” [Hidden Content]

If anyone other than criminals want to do away with the police, they have a severe misunderstanding of what the police do. The people that would be devastated would likely be the people that are calling for their removal.

I agree, defunding makes no sense. Houston and San Diego just increased their police budgets, hopeful for improvements and training.

That is why I said it was political. Defund means to end funding or in other words, abolish. In politics, you can make up your own definitions.

Yep, like I said, the city no longer controls the police that patrol their streets. They will have the same number of cops .... they just won’t have control. Like the article said, 10% of the city residents are not black but the officers patrolling are 50% white and it causes the citizens concerns. Yep, the city abdicated that responsibility to the county. I am not sure when Camden went through this charge but I found their crime index through 2012 where they were up to 400% higher than the national average. So now they have cut that in almost half..... only 200+% higher than the average. My department started community policing in 1995. I guess Camden was a bit behind the times. As an example in this area, I believe Beaumont and Port Arthur police departments have a combined budget of about $70 million. So they both abolish their departments and refuse to pay the county. So now Jefferson County has to come up with $70M new dollars and find 400 new officers. Then an elected sheriff will dictate who patrols those cities and what rules they will have. Acceptable?

Defund is to take away all funding. In Minneapolis’ case, the city council voted to abolish the police department. They cannot however because it is in their city charter (equal to a city’s constitution) and it has to be voted in by the voters. Politically people are coming up with all kinds of definitions such as Reduced funding, restructuring, contracting out, etc. The entire thing is political. Cities have almost always run their police departments at the bare bones cost. It is tax payer’s money so that is understandable, except..... do you want untrained officers? Many, if not most, police departments use the state minimums for officers. I would guess that most police agencies have no firearms training programs. The Cadets fire about 500 rounds of ammo in the police academy in five days and in many departments an officer can put in 25 years and never again have training. It goes for other areas. The state mandates 20 hours of training per year but it can be in any topic. Then something happened and the cry is for either more training or defunding which oddly are complete opposites. Yes officers get certain types of training mandated, particularly early in their career. For the first 4 years or so they are supposed to take “Core” courses or other mandated classes that the state has deemed as necessary. These are crime scene, Spanish, domestic violence, arrest-search-seizure, deescalation (recently added) and so on A 15 year officer might not have had any updates in those in 13 years however. You get out of the academy, run through these mandated courses as quickly as possible and then finish the last 30 years of your career. Then something happens and I have many times seen people use the phrase (when it is beneficial to them) “highly trained officers”. These highly trained officers then...... Hmmmm..... I think the entire defund craze is nonsensical. They cannot get rid of the police any more then they can get rid of nurses.

No, they would not. It doesn’t work like that. They have age requirements, different standards, different academies, different laws and so on. You can’t just transfer to another agency. I saw a guy on a Facebook forum (when they thought that Minneapolis was about to lay off all officers) say that there was no big deal because that state and county would just take their place. Okay, Minneapolis loses 800 officers. So the state has 800 troopers sitting around waiting for something to do? Nope.... I looked up MN state police and they have only 591 troopers in the entire state. Do they could completely strip the entire state and cover just over half of ONE city? The county had very few actual street cops but mostlt runs the county jail (which is pretty much the standard). ...,,and again, that is one city. The federal government has completely different laws. They enforce the US Code and state/county/local police enforce their state Penal Code... which are all different. It would be like if all doctors quit, couldn’t veterinary assistants take their place? They are both in medical fields. Then.... let’s assume that you could simply have the state police hire all local officers immediately and forget all of the stuff I just mentioned. You would have the exact same officers patrolling the exact same streets but now the city council who is mad at then would have no control at all over them. All that would do is to stop their own authority and have another government have complete control over the same area that you used to control. To say this isn’t well thought out (by people calling for it) might be the understatement of all time.

BPD is a civil service agency That means that there are legal practices that must be adhered to for hiring, discipline and promotions It is intended for fairness and to get the good ol’ boy system out of the police department. Examples are promotions must be done by test score after all officers have had the books for the test listed for at least 90 days and at least a 30 day notice of the test, All tests must be done at the same time and location (no secret tests) and each candidate has 5 days to file appeals of test questions. Hiring must also be done by test scores in order with all candidates tested at the same time and location. Civil Service mandated rules can be changed locally only by a collective bargaining contract if the city and union agree during negotiations. If I remember correctly Beaumont changed the hiring state law by contract. They changed from the state mandated hiring the highest score first to a 3 tier hiring system. A minority (Black or Hispanic), a female and the a white person (or something similar). I guess by that system there could have hired a Black female, any female and then a white female since a female could be in multiple categories. But... I wasn’t working for them so.... I just remember the case. Also if I remember correctly, a White male (who I believe had a brother working for BPD) scored high enough to get hired (“maybe” even #1 on the test) but he was not hired because..... there were not enough candidates that passed on the first two lists. Like maybe they hired a Black officer but no female candidate passed everything so no “second” tier. They could not get to the qualified third tier so the White candidate who passed everything could not be hired because he was White male. Or so my fading memory goes. I “heard” that he settled or was awarded by a jury, 6 figures and BPD changed their discriminatory hiring practice immediately. I may not have all of the details correct but think I am pretty close. I an fairly certain they had a tier system by race and sex and it cost them...

Systematic is a buzz word right now. Every complaint is a systematic problem. I heard Joe Biden today saying something else was systematic Systematic: Involving a system or plan. So the claims of systematic racism, most in larger cities, is a claim that the city officials are sanctioning and condoning the racism. In Baltimore,MD where there were riots after Freddie Gray’s death, was it systematic racism that caused it? The mayor, police chief, driver of the police van where Gray died, the main suspect (van driver) and the judge hearing the cases were all the same race as Gray. So was it a conspiracy by all of them to do away with Gray’s civil rights? In southeast Texas, we have Port Arthur where the entire city council, the mayor, the municipal court judge, the city manager, the city attorney and the police Chief are all of the same race. As the definition of systematic says, it is planned as part if the system. So when people are protesting locally, are they saying that the systematic racism is these leaders?

Yes.

They don’t need any more laws to initiate a contact. I would bet 1 out of 2,000 (or less) contacts is for tint.

It is what it is. There are a few outright exemptions. Speeding, parking in fire lanes, handicap spots, driving on shoulder, etc.

His window tint was not illegal. Law enforcement vehicles are exempt from that law.

Yep

I never much considered racism up until now. I thought it was a vigilante trying to take the law into his own hands. I loon at these things in black and white and I am not taking about race. I read and teach the law and frequently read laws from other states. I try to avoid the emotional side and simple ask, what evidence do we know about and then compare that to the law. Every time new information is released, I reevaluate my opinion. On another forum I posted on l before this one, I called it Murder based on what I read and saw and on reading GA law. That was before any arrests were made. That was subject to change with new information. All of the new information kept my original opinion in place.

I have never heard of using a knee to the head or neck as a means of controlling a person. I am not saying in a fight you won’t use any means available up to deadly force if necessary but as a trained technique of control, I have never heard of it and in my 37th year.

I don’t think the knee got him in much trouble for a minute or so. Several minutes after Floyd had quit moving? Animosity or not......

Fight with him 3 minutes after he was unconscious... in handcuffs... with at least 4 other cops with him?

This was your post on the opening comment on this thread.... “Once again, the narrative has turned to the epidemic of unarmed young black men being gunned down by racists. I've gotta cry foul on this one”. I believe that we have recently learned that the video guy actually used his pickup to help cut Arbery off so was directly involved in the incident. Then the video guy gave a statement that has McMichael calling Arbery the ultimate racial slur AFTER killing him. Then McMichael tells the police that he didn’t know if Arbery stole anything but basically he looked suspicious. McMichael’s justification to the police was that he had a “gut feeling”. The third post in the thread I pretty much called it BS. I think that I will stick with my original stance. Perhaps the most troubling thing is that the local DA almost saw nothing with investigating. I saw enough from behind an iPhone screen. Things that make you go hmmmmm.....

Yeah but you equate s civil rights organizations with not having the best interest of all students but dismiss an NRA member as not a factor. Every time there is a school shooting, the NRA catches grief of putting too much pressure on lawmakers to maje guns to easy to access. No matter how you look at it, many people blame the NRA rightly or wrongly for shootings. You are doing the same for the NAACP.

If a board member is a member of the NRA, is that a conflict of interest and is he against stopping gun violence in schools?