Ferguson

[Bjorn]

I really hope the jurors get ungagged, I'd love to hear their perspective on the process.

[tegan]

So for anyone who hasn't seen it yet, the Department of Justice has concluded their investigation of the Ferguson Police Department, and frankly the city would be better off with no police force at all than the one it has now. My favourite part is the guy who was resting in his parked car and got arrested on suspicion of pedophilia, for making a false claim (saying his name was "Mike" instead of Michael), for not wearing a seatbelt (in a parked car, mind), and with simultaneously having an expired license and not having a license (what).

 

So what happens now? This isn't the kind of shit you fix with a sensitivity training course. The entire thing is corrupt from top to bottom. The only feasibly effective solution is to fire and replace the city's entire police force and court system, and that's not likely to happen.

[mikemariano]

My favourite part is the guy who was resting in his parked car and got arrested on suspicion of pedophilia, for making a false claim (saying his name was "Mike" instead of Michael), for not wearing a seatbelt (in a parked car, mind), and with simultaneously having an expired license and not having a license (what).

 

Wow, I'm breaking the law right now!

[Dewar]

Probably a token firing of someone fairly high up in the police force, and on we go?

[Problem Machine]

So what happens now? This isn't the kind of shit you fix with a sensitivity training course. The entire thing is corrupt from top to bottom. The only feasibly effective solution is to fire and replace the city's entire police force and court system, and that's not likely to happen.

Isn't that basically what happened to the last police force Darren Wilson was on though?

[rohlfinator]

Probably a token firing of someone fairly high up in the police force, and on we go?

 

Looks like it -- a couple of firings of people who sent blatantly racist emails about the Obama family. Apparently racism only exists if you have it in writing, anything else can be handwaved away.

[Badfinger]

http://www.theonion.com/articles/justice-department-calls-on-ferguson-to-align-leve,38155/

 

The Onion somehow always manages to say things I can't quite manage to put words around.

[Gaizokubanou]

with simultaneously having an expired license and not having a license (what).

 

Here in New Jersey those two are one and the same, where expired license is same as not having one, but prosecutors just waive those away (recently got ticketed for no license, no registration and using private property to avoid traffic light and the first two got waived in court) if expiration wasn't that long ago and you got it renewed before the court meeting.  I wonder if it's different in that state to allow such bonkerous charges or did those guys just didn't give a damn about the laws they were charging the person with?

[Henroid]

So what happens now? This isn't the kind of shit you fix with a sensitivity training course. The entire thing is corrupt from top to bottom. The only feasibly effective solution is to fire and replace the city's entire police force and court system, and that's not likely to happen.

The Ferguson area will likely get folded into the regular St. Louis police department's jurisdiction.

[Gormongous]

The Ferguson area will likely get folded into the regular St. Louis police department's jurisdiction.

 

Is that really what's going to happen? I'd be really interested if it were. St. Louis city police are overstretched as it is, and Ferguson is physically removed from their jurisdiction. Wouldn't it be more likely for them to be folded into a larger municipality that they neighbor, like Hazelwood, Florissant, or even St. Charles?

[Henroid]

Is that really what's going to happen? I'd be really interested if it were. St. Louis city police are overstretched as it is, and Ferguson is physically removed from their jurisdiction. Wouldn't it be more likely for them to be folded into a larger municipality that they neighbor, like Hazelwood, Florissant, or even St. Charles?

I'm not familiar with the geography of the area so I should rephrase;

 

The neighboring biggest police department will get Ferguson added to its jurisdiction.

[Gormongous]

I'm not familiar with the geography of the area so I should rephrase;

 

The neighboring biggest police department will get Ferguson added to its jurisdiction.

 

Okay, that makes more sense. As far as municipal geography, "St. Louis" is more of a region than a city. There's the core city of St. Louis proper, which is relatively impoverished by the rich county municipalities that are happy to profit from its central location while contributing very little to its upkeep. Then there are the townships beyond that band of rich county land, which are inconvenienced if not also impoverished by the refusal of the counties to build any sort of infrastructure uniting the area that could be used to ferry the poor into their gated communities and downtown promenades. It might be a reasonable prosperous city if incorporated under a single administration that could balance the needs of rich and poor, but instead we have several dozen different cities, townships, and municipalities playing lobsters in a bucket. There's no doubt, whoever gets charged with taking over and fixing Ferguson PD, that nothing will change. No one has their ducks in a row, at least no one who'd let themselves get freighted with this. That's America, really! Or maybe the world.

[Henroid]

In the wake of the latest "white racist murders black person under the pretense of being a 'cop' " I'm starting to wonder if police forces should be Federalized (in part or in whole). Because seriously, the whole "good ol' boy" or "local constable that everyone loves!" shit are fucking fiction.

[Merus]

I don't know if placing the cops in the hands of the organisation that gave Native Americans smallpox and continues to racially profile people to determine if they're a terrorist threat is really the best way to combat endemic racism in the police force.

 

Also I'm pretty sure black Americans have been saying that the police force is racist and can't be trusted for about thirty years now, and it's only now that white America has started to take them seriously. The reason it appears to be a major fire is because, well, it's been burning for decades and everyone kept ignoring it.

[tegan]

So in an exciting new development in the neverending cavalcade of bullshit, yet another white officer murdered yet another black man, this time by confusing his gun with his taser. What makes it extra fun this time around is that the officer in question hasn't been a police officer since he left the force after a year almost five decades ago. He's just some rich guy who makes generous donations to the local police and, in exchange, they let him tag along and play cop, because that's apparently a thing that you can do in America, because why the fuck not?

[Henroid]

So in an exciting new development in the neverending cavalcade of bullshit, yet another white officer murdered yet another black man, this time by confusing his gun with his taser. What makes it extra fun this time around is that the officer in question hasn't been a police officer since he left the force after a year almost five decades ago. He's just some rich guy who makes generous donations to the local police and, in exchange, they let him tag along and play cop, because that's apparently a thing that you can do in America, because why the fuck not?

The audio is atrocious. He's like, "Oh whoops, sorry."

 

Also since that news broke it was discovered that the police department officials were under orders to falsify the guy's training and certifications.

[Griddlelol]

I'm confused, I assumed tasers replaced guns. Isn't the whole point that you don't need a deadly weapon if you have one that's capable of incapacitation at range with only a small chance of killing?

[Problem Machine]

Nope, kept in two separate holsters. This is the second case I know of, doing absolutely zero research, of a fatality caused by the officer confusing one for the other. The other case I know of happened in Oakland while I was living there and had a movie made about it.

[mikemariano]

I'm confused, I assumed tasers replaced guns. Isn't the whole point that you don't need a deadly weapon if you have one that's capable of incapacitation at range with only a small chance of killing?

 

More Americans should read—then re-read—this sentence.

[Reyturner]

I'm confused, I assumed tasers replaced guns. Isn't the whole point that you don't need a deadly weapon if you have one that's capable of incapacitation at range with only a small chance of killing?

The point of tasers is for punishing belligerent suspects with something that doesn't leave a mark and is classified as "safe". In practice, at least, if not in policy.

[pkirkner]

The point of tasers is for punishing belligerent suspects with something that doesn't leave a mark and is classified as "safe". In practice, at least, if not in policy.

 

With as broad a definition of "belligerent" as possible.

[BobbyBesar]

Please, you expect me to believe that a tazer can stop a negro hopped up on cocaine out to rape white women?*

 

 

*This was, essentially, a real argument back in early 1900s, and was part of the reason the NYPD decided to increase the caliber of their service weapons.

 

 “Murder and Insanity Increasing Among Lower Class Blacks Because They Have Taken to ‘Sniffing’ Since Deprived by Whiskey Prohibition.”:

[Cocaine] produces several other conditions that make the “fiend” a peculiarily dangerous criminal. One of these conditions is a temporary immunity to shock — a resistance to the “knock down,” effects of fatal wounds. Bullets fired into vital parts that would drop a sane man in his tracks, fail to check the “fiend.”

[Gaizokubanou]

I'm confused, I assumed tasers replaced guns. Isn't the whole point that you don't need a deadly weapon if you have one that's capable of incapacitation at range with only a small chance of killing?

 

That would be the case for great majority of the cases (where suspect is not armed with a gun (mostly due to tasers lacking multi firing option in case of a miss (unless tasers got new development recently?))).  But it is America where legal civilian gun distribution is quite high so sigh :/

 

Still, officers ought to be trained that the default reflex is the taser, not the gun.

[Henroid]

Nope, kept in two separate holsters. This is the second case I know of, doing absolutely zero research, of a fatality caused by the officer confusing one for the other. The other case I know of happened in Oakland while I was living there and had a movie made about it.

At the time of Oscar Grant's murder, I was freaking out when I didn't know the victim's name because I knew a lot of people still living in the area and I'm no stranger to the Oakland PD's bullshit. But even then, it really made me cry. Like the brazen wrongness of it... just... fuck. And it was right there on people's phones.

 

I didn't know a film was made about this. I just checked out the highlight scene from it. I knew it would be dramatized for film's sake, but as far as accuracy for what appeared to happen on the many cameras recording the actual shooting, it was really good and not crushed with overwhelming bullshit film-making antics. Which I appreciate.

[Henroid]

Seeing some choice things about the unrest in Baltimore: