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Post by theevan on Dec 2, 2015 12:48:03 GMT -5
Jeff, the universe is surely fucked up. Because I agree with you. Number three looks like the safe bet. I think 2 is possible. I wouldn't bet on it. But it's possible. The $5 Mil is good deal for the city considering the evidence. (If the video was not for public release). I heard the kid was in foster care almost all his life. His momma couldn't raise him. Daddy left within a couple years. The family has had very little to do with the kid. Now they get a $5Mil windfall. WOO HOOMy biggest gripe is that the police are the ones that police themselves. There's no independent body that does this. It all falls under the Top Cop. Therefore he has a conflict of interest. Do I protect my men/women? Or do I throw them under the bus? And how are they going to listen to me if I'm the hammer? Most all government operations have a system of checks and balances. There has been no independent checks on policing. The rash of new cameras/videos shows that the system has not ever been working as it should. Those are good points, Marshall, though I might quibble with you about checks and balances. Agencies like IRS, EPA and OSHA seem to run by their own rules and throw due process to the wind. Not sure how it is in Chicago, but many forces (perhaps most)lack transparency because of union rules.Public interest isn't really part of the union ethos. Protecting their own is...
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Post by Marshall on Dec 2, 2015 12:58:18 GMT -5
That is true, Evan. There's a local NPR story where a reporter has created a database of official complaints against officers. Almost all official complaints get dismissed for some reason or other. And union rules state that complaints that are dismissed get expunged from the officer's record. When it comes to promotions and reviews, union rules won't let the supervisors see the old dismissed records. Now the reporter is starting an independent data base. It's public information and should be available somewhere. Turns out the cop in the Laquan McDonald case has had something like 20 complaints against him in the past. But they all got dismissed, so they don't show up anywhere on his official record.
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Post by fauxmaha on Dec 2, 2015 13:15:25 GMT -5
Most all government operations have a system of checks and balances. That's a good one, right there!!! Wait. Were you serious?
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Post by patrick on Dec 2, 2015 14:51:58 GMT -5
A martyr. They had the cop in Woodstock, Illinois that had been gunned down by three criminals. (Were they supposed to be black criminals? I don't remember.) Anyway, that all fell apart after the autopsy and investigation were revealed. Turned out the cop was crooked and had committed suicide rather than face public disclosure of his misdeeds. To make things worse, he staged the suicide to make it look like a murder, launching a widespread manhunt and eventually the Blue Lives Matter movement. Actually, And James O'Keefe, the con man who created the fraudulent "Acorn" videos from a few years ago, has been caught paying people to go to BLM rallies and shout things like "Let's kill some cops" so that BLM can be blamed for assaults on cops. Now the latest thing seems to be the statistical evidence showing that most blacks are killed at the hands of other blacks. It is their new response to BLM. After all, they reason, if blacks don't care about black lives, why should we? The problem with the black on black killings is that they are unrelated to BLM. The one has nothing to do with the other. I always wonder why, when we discuss the killing of Blacks by cops, someone ALWAYS brings this up. They are unrelated statistics. What point is being made? Mostly, it dismisses the killing by cops as insignificant while subtly slandering the entire Black community by implying that, really, Blacks are killers too. Do we accept this logic in other situations? When a teacher gets arrested for having sex with underage students, do we dismiss it airily by pointing out that lots of teenagers are having sex with each other, so teachers getting in on the action is insignificant? Of course not. The difference between Black on Black crime and cop on Black crime is that an individual can escape Black on Black crime. Most of those are between people who know each other. Blacks who work hard, do well in school, get good jobs and move the the suburbs have little to fear from Black on Black crime (other than the usual family violence that spans races). But you can't escape cop killings, no matter what you do. No matter where you go, you're always viewed first as Black. In fact, moving to a White environment simply makes you stand out and attracts notice. Affluent Blacks simply driving down the street in a nice car get pulled over because a cop doesn't believe that the car isn't stolen. The Disproportionate Risks of Driving While BlackProfessionally successful Blacks aren't even safe in their own homes. My white neighbor thought I was breaking into my own apartment. Nineteen cops showed up.
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Post by theevan on Dec 2, 2015 15:56:15 GMT -5
The stats are related tangentially. The "red" crime zones of most any city are majority-black inner city neighborhoods. I think cops can become jaded because of this, regardless the race of the cop.
I'd bet the unions don't want body cams. I think body cams would go a long way to moderating police behavior.
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Post by Marshall on Dec 2, 2015 16:43:46 GMT -5
Most all government operations have a system of checks and balances. That's a good one, right there!!! Wait. Were you serious? mostly
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Post by Fingerplucked on Dec 2, 2015 16:54:31 GMT -5
The "red" crime zones of most any city are majority-black inner city neighborhoods. I think cops can become jaded because of this, regardless the race of the cop. I'd have to agree with you. I think the violence comes more from the economic stratification than anything racial, but I can understand cops seeing high crime rates in black neighborhoods day after day having an effect on their views. I used to deliver pizzas for Pizza Hut part time. I wasn't there for the minimum wage pay. I showed up for tips, which could be pretty good on a busy night. People who stiffed me on a tip used to piss me off. After a while I started keeping a log of addresses that stiffed me. I'd take the delivery orders home with me at the end of a shift. Those that had not tipped me or tipped me less than a dollar were marked with an X. I'd log those into my computer log, sort them by address, then take the printout with me for my next shift. Before delivering an order I'd check my log. If a delivery was on the list, that particular order was delivered last, assuming there were multiple orders. Sometimes I took the pizza out of the heater bag and opened the box on the way, just to make sure the pizza was nice and cool. In those cases I usually cautioned the customer to be careful, because "it might be hot." Other times I'd jam the pizza on its end, forcing all the pizza to one side, then hand it to the customer so that they were getting a badly balanced pizza box with the heavy end away from them. More times than not the pizza box would flip out of their hand when they tried to grab it. I got pretty good at not laughing out loud. And I started forming ideas of racial tipping habits. Whites were unpredictable. Nice neighborhoods did not mean nice tips, and there was a tendency toward the exact opposite. Hispanics by far were the most generous race. I loved Hispanics. (I called them all Mexicans at the time.) And Arabs were the cheapest, stingiest race on the planet. (I called them all Indians at the time.) Arabs did not tip. A dollar or two from an Arab was a big surprise. Most of them gave no tip at all and stood there fully expecting me to make change for the 39 cents. (I learned after my first night that offering to give change back was a mistake.) And not that it affected me one way or the other, but Arabs also wanted free stuff. I'd give them a half dozen packets of red pepper and they'd stare at me waiting to see if I'd give them even more. (I'm not sure what benefit there is to a huge stockpile of red pepper packets, but if you want to find a pantry full of red pepper packets, visit an Arab.) The point is, I can understand how racial profiling happens. If you leave people to their own devices, it's almost inevitable. I don't think Pizza Hut is having a national crisis, though, because Pizza Hut is not shooting people. In fact, at the time I was there, there was no other driver keeping track of who tipped them and who didn't. But even the worst among us, which would have been me, was only cooling and jostling pizzas. There was no violence. There was no threat to anyone. Nor was I under oath to protect my customers. Cops are different and have to be held to a higher standard. They can not be left to their own devices. They can not dole out justice based on their own perceptions, experiences and prejudices. And they can not bypass the judicial system, executing suspects because they feel righteous. We need a system and training that counteracts tendencies to stereotype and treat people differently based on those stereotypes. In Chicago and other areas across the country it's becoming obvious that we don't have systems to counteract those tendencies. Instead, what we have is a system that above all protects cops who go too far.
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Post by Fingerplucked on Dec 2, 2015 17:05:28 GMT -5
I forgot about blacks on tipping, and since this is the BLM thread: Blacks were right behind Mexicans. They were generous, but not as much as Mexicans. They still tended to tip better than whites.
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Post by theevan on Dec 2, 2015 17:41:15 GMT -5
Southerners are, in the main, excellent tippers.
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Post by Fingerplucked on Dec 2, 2015 21:03:10 GMT -5
Southerners are, in the main, excellent tippers. Then you're going to get your pizza right-side-up and piping hot.
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Post by james on Dec 4, 2015 21:30:04 GMT -5
I am capable of understanding plenty. I am capable of understanding how oblivious you are to your personal prejudices. That you think that an anti-racist position is self-affirming moral preening is not surprising. Tell you what. Just call me a racist, add an entry by my name in your journal, and go back to stalking my wife on Facebook. Wind your neck in.
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Post by james on Dec 5, 2015 0:03:25 GMT -5
As Fauxmaha has blocked personal messages I'll have to address him here.
Don't call me a stalker Fauxmaha. I will not ignore libel.
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Post by james on Dec 6, 2015 21:23:04 GMT -5
No apology? No 'walking back' what you said? A single word would work.
Edit - Fauxmaha, you have to decide if you stand sure of your libel of me or not.
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Post by Marshall on Dec 7, 2015 8:14:18 GMT -5
James. You carry this too far. I've met Jeff on many occasions. He's a good, decent, and fun loving family man. He's been in my house. I don't agree with him politically on a lot of things. But I mostly appreciate hearing his view on things. I enjoy his friendship.
And that's the point. This is a family of sorts. Many of us go through great effort and travel to get together to become real, (to use the velveteen rabbit analogy). Not every one has the ability to do that, of course. Some distances and constraints are insurmountable. But my point is, this is a family. And there's no place for vitriol. Most of us have learned to back off in the escalating cycles of political argument. Taking it to that level never changes anyone's mind.
Jeff is a witty man. And he relishes a good discussion. Like I said, i don't always agree with him. But I take it that his lack of response to your recent challenges are his way of stepping back from the fray out of respect for the family and friendship of this forum. I suggest you back off as well.
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Post by epaul on Dec 7, 2015 13:11:29 GMT -5
And dragging his wife into whatever argument or insult you were intent on was weird: unfair, uncalled for, out of bounds, not cricket, low blow.
Not suggesting you're the Lone Ranger in this regard, but, if you don't like a comment, consider what precipitated it. Barroom tiffs blow up... and they need to blow over... or they fester. Attempting to figure out who started what and when would require shoveling through more crap than a shovel can handle. Drop grudges, water off the duck, clear history, begin each day anew.
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