Sure, a guy is dead, but the REAL tragedy is taxes

Often you can get out of those tickets by claiming you shot and killed a state trooper in New Mexico.

I have had a number of dealings with the law in my life. Not to mention I fell in with the NJROTC crowd in high school and there were a lot of cop kids there. I get that cops are people, and I would say I probably side with them or understand their point of view because I am familiar with them. On the other hand i have seen how things work from the other side also, and there are problems. I should say this is the northeast type law enforcement. Some people say it is different down south, but as a trans person I would much rather deal with most any cop than the general populace in many areas. I am also white, and i clearly have a very different view of police than some of my other friends from different backgrounds.

I did not get a lot of speeding tickets as a kid, but I dealt with a lot of license suspensions for any number of reasons. It was mostly petty bullshit except whe crossing guard I supposedly ran over because he tried to get in my car. I stepped into the realm of familiarity with the world of felony at 30 and spent some time in jail. I generally take a laid back view. They are doing their jobs, and most cops wish things were better for the people they arrest, but people do wrong things, and they have a job to do. They have to maintain a certain level of command of the people around them which helps them to do their job, but they are still human beings. In a lot of cases I view the racism to be a part of the system rather than the police. Where do you look for crime? You look a lot in poor neighborhoods where the benefits outweigh the risk of loss. Due to our country's sorted past those areas are often loaded with black people. On top of that you have a human being who sees a certain color person doing wrong every day, and that colors their view.

When I finally went to jail for committing a crime I got a real wake up call. First off, this was jail, not prison. I should have been sent to prison. I had over 50 names, addresses, social security numbers, and credit records of people I hand picked out of NY and NYC cable subscribers because TWC just shows that info to every call center rep and tech support person. I was caught red handed, and though they wanted me to roll on some person they thought paid me for the identities there was not anyone to roll on because I did it on my own. They had me cold, and I had previous violations. I was sentenced to 4 months and served 3. They wanted me for hacking because I did know some things, but since TW gave me access they could not get me for that. Still, being an MCSE, familiar with computers and networking, and knowing the value of personal information they had me cleaning the warden's and other offices late at night with no supervision around the computers. I was in jail with people who had no family to back them up, but I did. There were guys in there for over a year for having a joint. One guy broke into a car and slept in it on a below freezing night(He did not even damage it) and was going off to real prison for it. There was a guy there who threw a brick through a window once a year just so they would toss him in jail for the winter. I did not see a lot of the heavy end of criminals while there. What I did see is a bunch of people in poor situations who got busted for stupid shit and got hammered on sentencing. I could not deny the reality of the situation that it really does make a difference to have the backing of family to help you over your mistakes. Bill O is right that family is important, but that family has to be strong themselves.

I have seen this stuff for myself. There is institutional racism that still oppresses a lot of people and there are people who continue to push it in a number of ways. Even if the cop who arrests a black person is not racist, the environment is. So the black person doesn't get a good lawyer or has a public defender. The jury and judge views them differently than a white person. They may be offending out of necessity. All of this leads to more problems for black people than white people even if the cops themselves are not racists. I was giving the cop who killed this guy the benefit of the doubt until his record came out.

CT cops can be real dicks. I got arrested for being punched in the face. Some guy did not like the way i was driving so he followed me to a light and hit my while I was in my car. We turned and chased him though danbury, but when he went against traffic on 84 I decided I would just get the cops involved since I had his plate. They called me in and the guy who assaulted me is in the lobby begging me not to press charges, and then the officer comes out and tells me they are arresting me. Seems the guy told them I gave him the finger as for why he chased me. It was one of the few times i treated a cop like an asshole. The guy had let me know he had been convicted of assault before and this was bad news for him, and i told the cop he is crazy because that guy would say anything to get out of the arrest.

I'll just say what I've always found to be true. There are F'ups in every profession. You can't condemn an entire professional community based on the actions of the bad ones.

I have noticed, however there has been no mention of Gilbert Collar in this thread. This is one of the reasons I just choose not to argue about any of this.

We could all just keep going round and round, but again, peoples minds are made up and the majority do not want to hear anything different.

Just for the hell of it, I believe the NYC cop was totally over reacting and used too much force.

I believe the St.Louis cop truly was in a scenario that called for his actions. In any event, both were tragic and I feel sorry for the families.

Who is Gilbert Collard?

Hey, sorry. Wandered off in search of ice cream. He was an unarmed white teen shot & killed by a black officer.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/gilbert-thomas-collar/

Vanilla ice cream, no doubt. That's what I just had.

Nope, chocolate chocolate chip!!!

I once claimed I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die.
Oh, and I shot the sherrif. They arrested me for shooting the deputy instead.

The media was all over that sto.....oh wait maybe not.
No peace! No justice! Burn this bitch down!
Preventable? Yes, don't take drugs and run around naked presenting a threat.
Hey, look at that - I didn't blame the cop. Now that wasn't so hard was it?

Wrong!! You shot the sheriff ,but you did not kill the deputy....

More like burn this story down. Which, btw is pretty messed up in its own right.

Paul may have a point, but that's an entirely separate discussion, and opportunistic and sleazy on his part to hijack the discussion and make it about taxation. My sympathy for cigarettes is particularly low. Many developed world governments tax them heavily, and their doing so is not particularly controversial.


Sent from my iPhone while driving

Meh- I not looking for sympathy. Perhaps a bit of recognition that dumping all of the huge tax increases on cigarettes, isn't going to work in the long run. Less and less people smoke, so where are those big taxes going to be shifted to? I mean we can make a list of things that Government deems unhealthy. That's all ; }

As I think I posted early in the thread, a sin tax should go toward prevention and treatment programs. As people stop smoking, the diminishing revenue would be fine, since less would have to be spent on such programs anyway.

True AND a wonderful idea. Except the Government is used to the extra revenue. And the Government doesn't let go of revenue, they replace that income somehow.

Look at Prohibition, they lost all the tax they had been collecting on alcohol. Hello income tax. And oooh, double helloooo when alcohol is back.

Maybe I'm a cynic, but coffee is bad for us, soda, etc. I foresee an ugly precedent.

There are two main types of choke hold. One that cuts off the air and one that cuts off blood flow.

I've been trained in doing blood flow choke holds. The air choke holds are banned where I work.

I've been choked and I've choked people. Blood chokes.

He's right however. I've seen plenty of people come into jail and their only charge is resisting arrest.

What I would have done......

A human being is like a tripod with three legs. What happens to a tripod when you take out one leg? It falls over. Now obviously a human doesn't have three legs. The third leg is an imaginary leg that is controlled by your equilibrium. Your balance controls in your brain are sending big and small signals to your body in order to keep you standing on two feet.

The weakest part in the human tripod is this imaginary third leg however if you take out one of the real legs the person will still fall.

So if I was the "99" cop instead of the choke hold I would have grabbed his right arm while kicking him in the back of the knee. Not kick him hard enough to break the knee but just enough force to cause the leg to bend. While I'm doing that I'm also pulling downward on his arm helping him to fall to the ground. Once on the ground everyone does what they need to and he's cuffed. No need for a choke hold. Nor any need for them to stagger around in the video before bringing him down like they did in the video. If he still dies well you can't blame it on a non-existent choke hold.

Remember this is what I would do. I'm not saying everyone in law enforcement should do it my way.

I'd recommend people get this book: http://www.amazon.com/Defensive-Tactics-Control-Techniques-Warrior/dp/1880336995

You can see why police do certain things or are trained the way they are. It's also good for you personally so if you're involved in a fight you can end the fight as fast as possible with as little damage as possible to both sides.

Edit: About the book.... there are a lot of Defensive Tactics books out there. This is just one that I've read and I personally think it's decent enough for even a non-law enforcement person to understand as IMHO it does a good job with text and pictures explaining what the moves are.

The problem there is that the money that is gained from these sin taxes are used for everything other then prevention and treatment programs.

In fact part of the reason taxes are so high on cigarettes is that the states that got money in the big tobacco lawsuits blew all that money on other things then smoking prevention before they even got their hands on it.

Too true Zombie!

Agreed, also mentioned by me up thread is that the settlement turned the states in to majority share holders with big tobacco companies.

#waroncars

Of course! That's what I was saying. Everybody bans air chokes because they either don't work at all or they work too well, with fatal/crippling results. There's no need for them. You get more bang for your buck from a blood choke anyway.

Very much so. Aikido and the very closely related arts associated with Ninjutsu (spare me the ninja jokes okay? let's not derail a good thread by going down THAT road) that are built around disrupting an attacker's balance and using an attacker's energy to your advantage. The problem with most martial "arts" is that they are actually sports oriented and employ arbitrary rules that are designed to create a level playing field for contestants. The result is that practitioners are trained to go against other practitioners of similar body composition and, in the case of Karate, Judo, Tae Kwon Do, etc similar skill and experience levels. If you look at it from the outside the problems start when you've got someone who's bigger, stronger, faster, more experienced and just plain meaner than you are. That's not to say that experts in those arts can't train people effectively, but it is a higher hill to climb.

But I have this..... Sorry, I love Ninja Cats! They're everywhere [emoji79]

Which is stupid if there was never a lawful charge they were being arrested on to begin with.

The problem comes in that people just can't act right around the police. They get stupid and argumentative.

If the cop is wrong then you file a complaint. Even sue if you have too. Arguing with the officer on the scene achieves nothing but a possible arrest.

Yeah, you're just supposed to know you're dealing with a steroided pinky-dick with daddy issues that some numbnuts paper pusher slapped a badge on, and handed live ammo to.
Use some common sense, people.

Common sense is what Zombie said. Save your argument for where it - might - do some good.