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Post by Chesapeake on May 28, 2020 13:19:22 GMT -5
I saw a piece of reporting that George Floyd resisted getting into the squad car after being arrested and handcuffed. Which leads me to think (if true) that the officer resorted to a tactic that is pretty common among police departments, in my experience early in my career as a police reporter: to punish detainees for that kind of resistance, also to take the fight out of them so they'll be more cooperative. I obviously don't know if that's what happened here, but in any case the video makes clear this officer took an already questionable tactic way beyond the bounds of good judgment, with tragic results. The video brought tears to my eyes, as it did many others. That kind of thing just doesn't tend to happen unless the culture in a police department condones or encourages it. Those officers need to be punished to the max, for sure, but I suspect the whole department needs some serious retraining.
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Post by Russell Letson on May 28, 2020 13:35:13 GMT -5
The Minneapolis police, despite recent earnest attempts by more or less reform-minded chiefs and mayors, have a long history of bullying and abusive behavior, with the city repeatedly making substantial settlement payouts to victims. I recall one officer who was retained despite being the cause of multiple such incidents. (Bill might remember the cop--he wound up in news stories with some regularity.) A central part of the problem, as usual, is the police union, which never seems to hold its members responsible no matter how egregious the behavior, and generally manages to get disciplinary firings and suspensions reversed. It seems to be a deeply rooted problem.
On the other hand, the spasms of violence--looting, arson, and so far one murder--that form the response of the (I'm guessing mostly young male portion) of the African-American community are as pathological as a toxic police culture. There's an irony in angry black men trashing small, often immigrant- and minority-owned businesses along Lake Street.
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Post by billhammond on May 28, 2020 13:39:31 GMT -5
The Minneapolis police, despite recent earnest attempts by more or less reform-minded chiefs and mayors, have a long history of bullying and abusive behavior, with the city repeatedly making substantial settlement payouts to victims. I recall one officer who was retained despite being the cause of multiple such incidents. (Bill might remember the cop--he wound up in news stories with some regularity.) A central part of the problem, as usual, is the police union, which never seems to hold its members responsible no matter how egregious the behavior, and generally manages to get disciplinary firings and suspensions reversed. It seems to be a deeply rooted problem. www.startribune.com/two-more-minneapolis-officers-fired-for-unspecified-misconduct/506462842/
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Post by Hobson on May 28, 2020 13:46:47 GMT -5
Based on the video, there is no possible explanation for treating someone like that. Having never been black, I can only imagine what seeing this kind of treatment over and over does to your attitude. But I also don't see how vandalizing and looting does anything but reinforce prejudice and in some cases cause stores to leave the neighborhood. Even harder to understand are riots in LA over something that the Minneapolis police force did. Maybe pent up anger magnified by the pandemic lock down, resulting unemployment, and general loss of control over one's own destiny.
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Post by Russell Letson on May 28, 2020 13:50:00 GMT -5
That's one example, but the cop story I'm half-remembering goes back at least to the 1990s--I recall that the guy liked to beat up on patrons in the gay/sleaze-bar section of downtown. He was notorious, at least in the pages of the free papers.
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Post by Marshall on May 28, 2020 14:46:50 GMT -5
Without modern cellphones, Floyd would just be a statistic and the cops would chuckling about it in a bar somewhere.
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Post by james on May 28, 2020 17:46:36 GMT -5
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Post by billhammond on May 28, 2020 17:54:49 GMT -5
Well, James, I trust you realize how horrendously incomplete that story is, but I still predict that it and others of its ilk will doom the senator from any VP likelihood. The fact that she did not elect to prosecute X number of cases does not equate to the evidence in those cases supporting prosecution.
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Post by james on May 28, 2020 18:40:41 GMT -5
I guess it is a bit short on detail. The firewalled, embedded Washington Post links no longer indulge my stingy curiosity.
Edit - deleted cookies and sneaked into WP link. I dare say that article barely scratches the surface either. Braved the comments too, (shudder) for an intemperate and unreliable sense of what some readers felt.
I figured Warren was looking quite likely for VP pick. That probably won't happen then. All too thread-drifty. Sorry.
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Post by billhammond on May 28, 2020 18:49:11 GMT -5
Meanwhile, I just scooted over to my neighborhood Cub Foods store for a few things, and it's locked up tighter than a drum due to civil unrest at some of its other stores. Target has also locked up all 14 Twin Cities stores. I have enough food for two or three days, but other than that it looks like I am at the mercy of restaurant pickup/delivery, assuming they all stay open.
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Post by Cornflake on May 28, 2020 19:48:25 GMT -5
A friend's husband is a Scottsdale policeman. He's a Tongan but gets called a n----- at times. Good guy. His view is that they are taught not to do what that cop did precisely because of what happened here.
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Post by t-bob on May 28, 2020 20:37:58 GMT -5
There's a snarky humor video with Chris Rock about policeman/black men. It is crude and a chuckle.
In Minneapolis, it was a terrible chaos. 😢
I will find it the infinite internet. "Billion billion billion" by Carl Sagan
"How to not your ass kicked by the Police"
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Post by xyrn on May 28, 2020 21:45:49 GMT -5
I have friends that live within a half mile of Monday's murder scene, and the subsequent riots.
Firstly, the technique was completely wrong. It's supposed to be shin on back, not knee on neck, and ONLY until the subject is cuffed, then they are to be rolled to their side if not put in a seated position.
Regardless of the alleged crime, the threat (a supposedly resistant subject) was neutralized and so deadly force was not justified.
This is a horrible situation, and the cities (Mpls AND St.Paul) are burning right now.
I understand not rushing to charge and potentially overcharge, but until the four cops are arrested the riots will continue.
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Post by epaul on May 28, 2020 22:24:53 GMT -5
Not that it will help, her VP chances are now cooked, but from the Star Tribune, a less eager for blood telling:
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Post by millring on May 29, 2020 7:02:11 GMT -5
So, unless Klobuchar prosecuted cops, regardless of their guilt or innocence, she caused the death of George Floyd?
Talk about your butterfly wings.
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Post by epaul on May 29, 2020 9:18:09 GMT -5
Politics. Calling it like I see it, not how I want it. Good news for Trump. Also how I see it, not how I want it.
Nothing is how I want it. Nothing.
Well, except my life, that's pretty darn good. But, other than that ...
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Post by coachdoc on May 29, 2020 9:53:52 GMT -5
So who sez our society is too stable to have a revolution?
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Post by brucemacneill on May 29, 2020 10:01:56 GMT -5
"In the office of the President the dead is done the troops are sent There's really not much choice you see it looks to us like anarchy and then the tanks go rolling in to patch things up the best they can There is no time to hesitate, the dead is done the dues can wait"
Gordon Lightfoot "Black day in July" which was about Detroit of course but history can repeat.
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Post by Don Clark on May 29, 2020 10:16:23 GMT -5
Plain and simple.....this sucks.
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Post by aquaduct on May 29, 2020 10:23:27 GMT -5
"In the office of the President the dead is done the troops are sent There's really not much choice you see it looks to us like anarchy and then the tanks go rolling in to patch things up the best they can There is no time to hesitate, the dead is done the dues can wait" Gordon Lightfoot "Black day in July" which was about Detroit of course but history can repeat. We moved to Detroit that summer. Left Salt Lake City. Holed up in a Holiday Inn on Michigan Avenue for a couple months while Detroit burned. 2 adults and 4 kids under 6. Had no idea where we were in relation to the actual riots. One of my earliest memories and still pretty vivid some 50 years on.
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