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The cops were grossly incompetent, out of shape, spent 10 minutes panting after a 1 minute sprint, managed to mace themselves twice and then took it out on him by beating him to death. Every single one of them had at least 50 pounds on him, but somehow three of them couldn't manage to restrain him. And all he did was try to struggle and flee. The other cops who didn't beat him to death were joking about it later. One of them in the first interaction is hoping that they "beat his ass", and those cops are still on the force and not one of the 5 who are going to be seeing charges.
This wasn't a mistake, or emotions, this is training and group mentality. Cops in this country are just gang thugs.
And focusing entirely on race is missing the point. The race of a cop is 'cop'. And while black people disproportionately are on the wrong side of this, Daniel Shaver and Ryan Whitaker show it isn't exclusive.
> Cops in this country are just gang thugs.
Even worse: they have the law on their side.
It's also scary to think of the number of incidents like this that go unreported and unseen only because they don't result in death.
No idea if it's even possible fix this issue though... it would probably have to involve having more stringent aptitude tests, psychological evaluations, training (and a complete rewrite of that training), and subsequently higher pay, and this would have to happen in every state and in opposition to police unions.
The police actually fought for the right to discriminate against those with high IQ.
What does it say when law enforcement can act this badly knowing they’re on video? Nuts
Emotions get the better of people. It happens all the time. What they needed was a superior commander to come in and order them to stop. This was the lesson learned with Rodney King in Los angeles so many years ago. It's a true shame that the same mistakes get repeated over and over again.
Not like this.
If you are mad at somebody at work and you hit them a little bit that is egregious and completely unacceptable behavior that should end your career and is an actual crime. Even just hitting somebody a little bit is wildly off base for ordinary and healthy human interaction when angry.
Beating somebody to death is many levels of escalation beyond that. You don't need a superior to tell you not to do that. I am extremely confident that there will be exactly zero situations in my entire life where I am so angry at somebody that I even want to beat them this badly, let alone actually act on it.
This is about police institutionally seeing the populace as inhuman worms who deserve to suffer. This is not about emotions running wild.
> If you are mad at somebody at work and you hit them a little bit that is egregious and completely unacceptable behavior
The difference is that under no circumstances does an office job require violent interaction where as for a police officer, their job does sometimes require violent interaction. And in that sense, what these officers did is even worse and should be punished worse than if an office worker used the same violence: we empower police officers to use violence to intervene when necessary. We give them weapons and leeway to use force. To take advantage of that power could arguably be considered worse that if a civilian does it.
A police officer's job only very rarely requires a violent interaction. A reckless driving stop doesn't require that. Even a suspect fleeing from the police doesn't require that. The only time a violent interaction is required is if somebody is actively and imminently threatening other people.
I absolutely agree with you that we grant absolutely immense power to the police and they must use it with the most extreme possible care. Instead, we've created a system where cops see regular people as enemies to be crushed and where they can solve every one of their problems with extreme violence.
Tyre was viciously beaten to death for running, for aggravating the cops.
> Emotions get the better of people.
It's culture. Everyone has "emotions" but, at least in my country, police officers don't regular beat/choke/shoot hundreds of people to death each year.
Most countries (of which I am aware) have similar issues, in proportion to their population, and its diversity. What makes the USA stand out is that it has a large population, high level of cultural/economic diversity, and very sensationalistic, highly funded media.
This is just untrue.
US Population: 331.9 million (2021)
UK Population: 67.33 million (2021)
In 2021 ( in the USofA ), there were 1,055 fatal police shootings, and in 2020 there were 1,020 fatal shootings. [1]
Est UK Police Killings ~~ 67.33 / 331.9 * 1020 = 206.9 per annum.
21 Annual deaths during or following police contact (in the UK) 2020-21 [2]
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-de...
[2] https://www.policeconduct.gov.uk/research-and-learning/stati...
If it takes a superior officer telling 5 others to stop beating someone who poses no threat to anyone we’re way too far gone.
If an employee at a store steals a bunch of merchandise do you say “what was needed was a supervisor to come in and order them to stop”? No, it’s understood that stealing is bad and employees shouldn’t do it.
For some reason some folks think cops are like feral dogs and should not have any moral compass of their own or be held to any particular moral standards. It’s a ridiculous take.
>It's a true shame that the same mistakes get repeated over and over again.
When the same mistakes get repeated over and over again like this, and get defended by the system, they aren't mistakes, they're policy.
It's this. The only reason why they're not getting away with this murder is because they got filmed in such an unambiguous way that barely anyone can defend their actions. There is no 'remaining context' or 'he was asking for it' wriggle room for neither the police organizations or their defenders.
The fact that it wasn't just one cop but an entire group of them should also indicate that this isn't just one guy going rogue. It's a systemic problem.
If we can't train police officers without turning them into rabid attack dogs that need to be leashed at all times, then you've just made the best argument that I've ever heard of for abolishing the police. Try to guess again.
Law enforcement is one of, if not the most, riskiest professions in the world - moreso than loggers, fishermen and even pilots. The stress that comes with that job is unpalatable - we should be saluting our community's law enforcement rather than scrutinizing them. Try to guess again.
Sounds about right. There seems to be an underlying belief by many police that they have some right to mete out their own perceived justice— human nature not curbed by training or supervising or even body cams
Oh no, there is training. Specifically there are courses that tell police that every interaction may be their last and they should be ready to shoot anyone immediately.
https://vimeo.com/cityofmemphis <- if you want to skip the wp article
strange behavior all around... the pelosi video was weird too heck, so was the dance hall confrontation and the mushroom farmer arrest... please 2023, give us some inspiration
https://vimeo.com/cityofmemphis/videos
Above not complete
Theme of 2023 seems to be: deja vu
What pelosi video are you talking about?
The attack on Paul Pelosi. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESGOyq9nG3w
Just remember:
Professional police, as a concept, had to be shoehorned into the Western legal system. It's not the default mode. It was introduced in this form as a way to subsidize the capture of fugitive slaves, because slavery was simply not profitable without violent help from the state.
And before you point to things like the London Metropolitan Police Service to suggest that professional police were a natural and widespread evolution, common to common-law democracies, remember that Robert Peel, partly in response to criticisms that professional police weren't fit for a slavery-free society, wrote the patrolman's instructions in part because he was concerned about the slave-patrol-into-police lineage.
This USA traditionally had elected Sheriffs, who served the courts rather than the prosecution, and who had no extra powers or arms granted them (in other words, they were tasked with catching fugitives by court order, although everyone can participate in that activity at their choosing).
Especially now, in the information age, when everyone can gather high-quality evidence using the tools in their pocket, and call for community help at a moment's notice, the benefits to continuing this experiment of having slave patrols in our communities are very near zero.
Let's get serious about the next stage in our society - one that is free from police, and which thus allows the many good people who become police officers because they want to help others to actually do that, free from obligations to maintain an unjust world order.
More context: The police who killed Tyre Nichols were Black. But they might still have been driven by racism - https://edition.cnn.com/2023/01/27/opinions/tyre-nichols-mem...
I think it’s possibly well known but not fully understood that many black men do not value the lives of other black men.
Do you mean they value them less than they value the lives of white men?
I could see where that is coming from. Here in Mexico there's some sort of idea that people from outside Mexico, particularly Anericans or Canadians are "better" in some way just because... and it's a sentiment a lot of people IB the country share. Along with clasism.
I'm pretty white for a Mexican, and it boils my blood when I'm treated different than say, someone from Mayan descent in s restaurant. Shit, for all u know ge is more Mexican than me. My 23andMe says I'm of 50% portuguese Genes .
>A grand jury returned indictments Thursday against Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills Jr., Emmitt Martin III, Justin Smith and Tadarrius Bean
Are these guys all black? I could watch the video on WP but I couldn't scroll down because of the paywall. The CNN article didn't even show the perpetrators faces which made me assume they were all white cops.
https://cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuter... <- the former officers involved
All 5 officers who were fired were black.
> The CNN article didn't even show the perpetrators faces which made me assume they were all white cops.
Why would you make that assumption?
I don't understand the use of that level of force for a traffic stop. That being said most of those stories of people unlawfully killed by the police have in common that they started with resisting arrest which is not a great idea in the first place, it invites the use of more force and the suspicion by the police that they are facing a criminal, and that's when the fuckups happen.
He didn’t resist arrest, he was trying to comply with impossible orders.
They then immediately escalated to pepper spraying him, except they screwed up and got themselves instead (which enraged them). They also Tazered him and scared him badly enough he stopped attempting to comply and instead ran for his life.
I haven’t watched the videos, but from commentary I understand he repeatedly tries to de-escalate the situation and is bewildered at how angry the cops are at him. Police department has subsequently said there wasn’t even a valid reason to pull him over.
Does police brutality have a good chance of affecting a case in such a way where it could potentially be thrown out.
I saw a video recently of an incident where the police caught a murderer but then proceeded to kick the hell out of him while he was already down and no longer a threat while their police helicopter recorded the whole thing. Come to find out it was originated because the guy had killed a cop, but I was curious if there was a chance he’d walk free because people in position of authority can’t keep their emotions in check.
If this is the first thought you felt the need to share after watching a helpless man crying for his mother being relentlessly beaten to death then you really need to re-evaluate your values and keep them to yourself in the meantime.
And before you reply that you’re “just sharing practical advice”, no what you’re actually doing is immediately taking the focus off of the police’s actions and putting blame onto the victim, and somehow making the discussion about his actions and what he did wrong. Not to mention reducing plain-as-day murder to simply a “fuckup”.
I would say a “fuckup” is I overslept my job interview not I killed another human being.
A "fuckup" is pushing to prod without code review or accidentally swapping sugar for salt in a recipe.
Beating a man to death is not a fuckup. That's a choice that was made over and over by the cops each time he was struck.
Police are professionals not wild animals. Their job involves taking people into custody, some of whom may be resisting. If they can’t accomplish that without killing the suspect they are not qualified.
Breonna Taylor was sleeping.