Police Contributing to Positive Race Relations. Again

Ahem....http://wordforge.net/index.php?thre...ive-race-relations-again.110200/#post-2859885

You need a lesson in more engaging thread titles!

Hitting a person with a round from a firearm is nowhere nearly as easy as people think which is one reason police often fire multiple rounds

What?

A trained SWAT officer can't hit a non-moving target from a few feet away without a hail of bullets?

I guess he went to the Dayton school of firearms training.

Yeah, but he was first, so the merged thread retains his lame title.

I make no claim whatsoever to being a good shot. One reason I prefer a shotgun.

He must've taken the "how best to get yourself fired" course.

Thankfully, the police of Austin, Texas have helpfully explained why shit like this happens: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry...as-school-teacher_us_57914ce1e4b0bdddc4d3e66b

After a female schoolteacher is violently wrestled from her car and thrown to the ground for "taking too long to cooperate with the officers" and "possibly going for a weapon" and, of course, being black in Austin TX, she's later told by a different cop that people are afraid of blacks because of "violent tendencies, and I want you to think about that".

Luckily the Austin police authorities are tripping over themselves to apologize for this, much like dozens of suspects have "tripped over themselves" whilst being put into cells or the backs of police trucks.

I call BS. If you can't fire your gun effectively you shouldn't be a cop at all.

I mean seriously even without practicing a lot I can hit a beer can from 20 yards 80% of the time with a 38. I'm a civilian. He was/is a cop. Higher standards please.

And someone up thread said he had a shotgun(?). Should have done better.

I'm not even getting into the actual story as its been addressed already.

#puplivesmatter

Shut-up.

The officer was close enough. He's using a rifle that he had to qualify with. He shouldn't have missed.

What I did see on the news earlier was a good idea that police should carry binoculars. Having one would have given an officer a good view of what the autistic guy was carrying and may have avoided this whole mess.

The circumstances make it almost certain this was not a deliberate shot at the black man. People seem in a hurry to overlook that bit of nuance to fit this to the cops-vs-blacks template.

A lot of people are going to read "Cop shoots black man laying down with hands up" and think that's all there is to this situation. But it's not and the details matter.

And the details in this case back the narrative that cops are badly trained. They didn't stop and analyse the situation, where an obviously cooperative man was telling them there was no threat, and instead came in with an "us or them" mindset and opened fire. This is the thread running through all of these events - the cops see the public (especially the black public) as the enemy, not the folk they are meant to protect.

Once again: two targets, both on the ground, not moving and the cop has worse aim than a slighy better than average Stormtrooper and hits the black guy who's a considerable distance away from the autistic guy who, I might add, isn't doing anything worth shooting at either.

This isn't Micheal Brown allegedly charging at a cop. They were stationary targets.

Let's put aside that the guy was black. What did the autistic guy do to deserve firing upon or any excessive force?

Even without race, this is police brutality at its finest. This is also why many people here find you to be an idealogue that kisses ass to cops. I'm willing to concede there's a possibility this wasn't about race. But with all the stories in the news and our history, who would blame people for thinking it was? Can you not see THAT part?

That's the other part that has gone under the radar: shootings of pets and children in raids/warrents and in many cases, the address was incorrect or outdated.

I don't know if he did anything. I haven't seen the shooting, but I'm fully prepared to accept that there was no justifiable reason for this cop to fire.

My interpretation of the facts is that the shooting was not deliberate or, if it was, it was not deliberately against the black man. My presumption is that is was either accidental or the result of panic.

More like police incompetence at its finest.

If this cop was being brutal, he really sucks at it.

I do for cops only what we should all do--particularly in matters that are politically charged--and that is to look at the facts and determine what happened. Whatever narratives you embrace, you have to judge each situation based on the facts of that situation. Reasoning that begins "We all know that cops often..." is bad reasoning.

Possible? Other than the officer being white and the injured man being black, what evidence is there that this had *anything* to do with race?

Can you not see that jumping to conclusions--particularly in situations involving race relations--is very dangerous?

For being such a hippie-dippie city, Austin has by far the worst police department of any of the major cities in this state. A friend of my daughters' got his ass beat for essentially jaywalking last year and I witnessed some of APD's confrontational, dick behavior when I worked SXSW this past Spring.

They need a major cultural change in that department.

I don't think the cop shot the guy because he's black. Much like the case in Minnesota, I think the cop just plain fucked the dog and deserves to be fired.

If I was the victim, I'd sue the fuck out of that cop.

Again, you're fitting a belief about what you think is generally true to this particular case.

You do not--cannot--know what prompted the officer in this case to shoot, nor what his mindset with regard to black people is, no matter how much you think you know about cops in general.

Your "thread" is not evidence. It is a pattern you see to which individual situations have no obligations to conform.

Fair enough.

After all, neither did he.

This "each man is an island" stuff is a noble enough sentiment, where it not for the fact we know that islands can have bridges, tunnels or shiplanes built between them, and that such construction projects in the US have had a very consistent clay used in their cement.

You're still justifying judging an individual based on things apart from what can be shown to be true for that individual. That's pretty much the definition of unjust.

Actually, I'm justifying having this cop's behaviour fully investigated, which is something that usually doesn't happen in these cases due to DAs needing the support of the cops.



If you seriously thought I was arguing for anyone to not receive due process, I'd invite you to review my entire posting history. And to select the nearest two-by-four and proceed to fuck yourself with it.

Thank you! It takes somebody who lives where guns are not very common to beg the obvious question. You are right - no fucking way anybody who has ever spent time shooting the weapon that they carry (which should be mandatory) would miss a stationary target at a close distance. And a hail of bullets in this case would never be required. A large, stationary unarmed target - I wish I would have to engage such a target when I carried a weapon as part of my job. There is something seriously wrong with this cop. If we had somebody this fucked up in any military unit I ever served in the boss would take their weapon and have them evaluated at first opportunity. And if (big if) the cop actually didn't know why he hit the dude that had his hands in the air he needs to get fired immediately. Not everyone is cut out to serve - it's a fact of life.