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Unarmed Man in His Backyard Shot From Behind 7 Times By Cops
The World Socialist Web Site reports
On Friday [March 30], the results of an independent autopsy requested by Stephon Clark's family were released to the public, confirming that police shot the unarmed 22-year-old African-American man seven times in the back and side amid a volley of gunfire in his grandparents' backyard.
The incident began when two police officers responding to a report of someone breaking car windows confronted Clark on March 18. Body camera footage shows that, without identifying themselves, police demanded Clark put his hands up and chased him into his grandparents' backyard. At that point, one of the officers yelled "Gun!" and the two fired 20 shots at Clark, who was holding his cell phone in one hand.
The officers, identified as Terrence Mercadel and Jared Robinet, stood pointing their guns at Clark's corpse for several minutes until backup arrived, then handcuffed his body and made a perfunctory attempt to resuscitate Clark before pronouncing him dead. The officers then turned off their microphones for several minutes, presumably to get their stories straight off the record.
Autopsy results released by a private medical examiner hired by the family's attorney show that [the bullets of] Mercadel and Robinet [hit] Clark a total of eight times. Dr. Bennet Omalu's analysis found that Clark was shot four times in the lower back, twice in the neck, once under an armpit, and once in the front of his thigh.
"You could reasonably conclude that he received seven gunshot wounds from his back", Dr. Omalu told a press conference Friday adding that any one of those would have been fatal on its own. The doctor described extensive damage to Clark's body from the torrent of bullets, which resulted in a collapsed lung and a shattered vertebra.
Dr. Omalu also told reporters that Clark did not die immediately from his injuries but lived another three to 10 minutes after he was shot. He noted that, while it is impossible to say whether Clark would have survived had he received medical attention sooner, "every minute you wait decreases probability of survival." According to video released by the Sacramento Police Department, six minutes elapsed between the firing of the final bullet and the time CPR was administered to Clark's dead body.
The results further discredit the police narrative that Mercadel and Robinet believed Clark posed a danger to their safety and was moving in a menacing manner toward the officers when they gunned him down. In a statement, Clark family attorney Benjamin Crump wrote: "These findings from the independent autopsy contradict the police narrative that we've been told. This independent autopsy affirms that Stephon was not a threat to police and was slain in another senseless police killing under increasingly questionable circumstances."
Body Cam Video of Alton Sterling Killing Released; Officer Sacked
The videos, released Friday as Baton Rouge's police chief announced the firing of the white officer who shot Sterling six times, came days after the state attorney general declined to bring criminal charges against the two officers involved in the incident.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 03 2018, @03:39PM (17 children)
Capitalism always evolves into a system of centralized power.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 03 2018, @03:55PM (3 children)
Typically corporations come with things called "competitors". If Facebook prevented everyone in my geographic radius from using competing social media networks via the use of an armed gang, your comparison of corporate power to government power would be a good analogy. The difference is one has the possibility of yielding to market demands, while the other uses the monopolization of violence to supress the market. A system of government in which corporations and government are unified is not called capitalism, it's called Fascism. They're not the same thing, and the latter is the one that we actually live under.
Regardless, I'm not an anarcho-capitalist and never argued for that system of government. What I said is that police brutality has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with capitalism. Zero. Large corporations are not paying the police to kill black people via an auction system. And I'm not sure if you realize this, but police brutality actually exists in non-capitalist countries as well, and usually to a much greater extent. Try Venezuela for one, I know you guys call it "state capitalism" or whatever oxymoron now, but 15 years ago it was your socialist utopia of tomorrow.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday April 03 2018, @11:19PM (2 children)
Typically corporations come with things called "competitors".
Except when they buy up all the competitors to give themselves monopoly power, (or a nice cosy duopoly).
This is the ultimate end game of capitalism and it looks like something the US is embracing with open arms.
I do agree with your Fascism bit though. It looks to me like Benito Mussolini's writings are widely studied in Washington.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 03 2018, @11:23PM (1 child)
At least such a monopoly grows into existence by providing an explicitly profitable, relatively voluntary service to society.
This stands in contrast to a government, which grows its monopoly into existence through violent imposition.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday April 09 2018, @04:59PM
Monopolies are mostly illegal now, but back when they were really coming to the fore, the source of monopolies wasn't, as you seem to think, superior product offerings at superior prices.
- Railroad monopolies usually came about by bribing legislators to get the necessary land grants. They became profitable by price gouging the people that would now have to rely on those rail lines to get themselves or their goods anywhere. Think something along the lines of "Well, Farmer Bob, I'm sorry you feel that way about the cost to ship your crop to Des Moines, but you do want to sell your crop at all this year, right? And I'd hate to, when I was back in Des Moines, tell your bank how you aren't dedicated to making your payments this year."
- Bell, Edison, and many others were monopolies due to patent protection of their key technology. And back in the day, there was no requirement that they offer licensing arrangements.
- The key technique in forming Standard Oil was "dumping": When Rockefeller was up against a competitor, his standard maneuver was to drop the price of oil-related products below the cost to produce them, and once the competitor was driven out of business the price would then be jacked back up enough to cover his losses and then some.
- US Steel was the result of Carnegie getting the backing of JP Morgan while his competitors couldn't.
Also relevant is that most of the major industries in the US have at some point in their history taken advantage of violent imposition, by privately hired security guards, "detectives" (e.g. Pinkertons and Baldwin-Felts), and other guns for hire, and/or the aid of their buddies in the police forces and military. And that isn't solely a historical phenomenon: For instance, the people sending dogs after the people protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline were private security paid for by the construction company.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 03 2018, @05:59PM (2 children)
... I want to live in a world that isn't based on theft.
I oppose anti-capitalism, because I don't want to live in a world that is based on theft.
It's unlikely I'll ever be a millionaire, or even particularly wealthy.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Thexalon on Tuesday April 03 2018, @11:26PM (1 child)
The core idea of anti-capitalist thought is that capitalism is also based on theft. Specifically, it involves the appropriation of the fruits of labor by people who didn't do the work.
Consider the following scenario: Acme Agriculture, Inc buys up a bunch of farmland and farming equipment, and hires Bob to farm it. Bob does his job, grows and harvests $450,000 worth of crops. Bob is reasonably well-paid and gets $150,000 for his efforts, while Acme keeps the remaining $300,000. This is all perfectly legal under current law in most capitalist nations.
The capitalist interpretation of what happened goes something like this: "Acme supplied necessary capital, and thus created $300K worth of value for their shareholders and $450K worth of goods that weren't there before. We should make sure they all keep the fruits of their labors to keep everyone motivated to . What a good thing!"
The anti-capitalist interpretation of what happened goes something like this: "Acme didn't do any farming, all they did was move some numbers around in a computer database and shuffle some sheets of paper. Therefor, it was Bob, not Acme, that created basically all of the $450K worth of value, and therefor Bob was effectively robbed by Acme of 2/3 of the value of his work. What a terrible thing!"
There are further defenses on both sides of this (e.g. "Bob agreed to the arrangement" "But Bob's alternative to this agreement involved him starving"). But what it boils down to, as one quip put it: "Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's the other way around."
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 05 2018, @12:15AM
In your scenario, how much did the farm land and equipment and seed and water and property taxes cost? Then, what rate of return does the $300,000 operating income represent? And then how do you account for the seasons when crops fail? Or equipment breaks down. Or some other random loss of revenue?
If the capital to buy the land and equipment was borrowed and crops fail, then Acme still has to repay the loan with interest or go bankrupt. If Acme had sufficient cash on hand so as to not require leverage, then there's opportunity cost of maybe investing the money elsewhere instead that does not involve the risk of corp failure and consequently does not involve feeding the world.
Likely that operating profit is a reasonable rate of return, considering the risk.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday April 03 2018, @07:58PM (9 children)
I've been trying to explain that to this dipshit for months now, maybe over a year. He, and this is almost certainly a he, refuses to understand. It's not that he can't understand, it's that he won't. We ought to just ignore this asshole, maybe downmod him to oblivion. We need a -2 mod status that has severe negative effects on IP-address karma...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday April 03 2018, @08:19PM (8 children)
Maybe just stick to ignoring. What's the harm?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 03 2018, @08:38PM (7 children)
Dissent is frightening to anyone whose position is fragile.
That's why Azuma enjoys both a karma bonus and the power of downmodding, while Azuma's opponent sticks to being an unempowered Anonymous Coward.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday April 03 2018, @08:45PM (6 children)
I *am* dissent here, idiot. This place is becoming an alt-right cesspool. Besides which, there's principled dissent, and then there's...that idiocy, which is the equivalent of floating a Baby Ruth bar in the pool for shiggles. It's really low signal-to-noise ratio. Your post is even lower, by the way.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 03 2018, @09:05PM (5 children)
Azuma, screaming at the rightists
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday April 03 2018, @09:57PM (4 children)
Well, no one listened when I was quiet and demure and nice, so "screaming" (v: whenever a woman makes a sound above a whisper) it is. If you can't take the heat, leave the kitchen. Besides which, dangerous, poisonous bullshit deserves "screaming at" at the very least.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 03 2018, @10:16PM
Stop being trolled, just a single message to call out the dipshit and then be done with it.
(Score: 2) by archfeld on Wednesday April 04 2018, @06:23AM (2 children)
Don't make the mistake of labeling and generalizing everyone or all things. I for one disagree many times with your opinions but I also appreciate the time and logic you put into expressing them. We all need to be exposed to differing opinions and chains of thought. I refuse to allow myself to classify anyone as all 'left or right' because at the core we are all unique and living in an echo chamber is bad for anyone...
The free and unfettered exchange of ideas and opinions is a requirement for any sort of 'democracy' to survive let alone thrive.
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday April 04 2018, @07:51PM (1 child)
You are correct, but don't fall into the trap of assuming that every single opinion is of equal value. Opinions are valuable in proportion to how well they mesh with observable reality, and very often (especially on the "right"), the "opinions" put forth are engineered propaganda, not something the supposed opinion-holder actually comprehends in its entirety.
This is why I never call for outright censorship *and* why I go all guns blazing on something that's stupid and dangerous. If sunlight is the best disinfectant, consider me a walking solar flare dispenser.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by archfeld on Wednesday April 04 2018, @08:09PM
My mother is also that girl she warned me about. Keep on blazing sunshine :)
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge