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African-American George Floyd's death has led to marches, demonstrations, acts of violence, and looting across the USA and in other parts of the world. Emotions are running high. We will not attempt to accuse or defend anyone here. Just attempt to lay out the information we have and offer it up for the community to discuss. Many comments about this incident have been posted to unrelated stories on this site. This is, therefore, an attempt to provide one place on SoylentNews where people are encouraged to discuss it. So as to not derail other stories on the site, I kindly ask you focus those comments here.
Wikipedia has a page about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_George_Floyd (permanent link to the page as it appeared at the time of writing):
On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, an African-American man, was killed in the Powderhorn community of Minneapolis, Minnesota. While Floyd was handcuffed and lying face down on a city street during an arrest, Derek Chauvin, a white American Minneapolis police officer, kept his knee on the right side of Floyd's neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds; according to the criminal complaint against Chauvin, 2 minutes and 53 seconds of that time occurred after Floyd became unresponsive.[3][4][5][6][7] Officers Tou Thao, J. Alexander Kueng, and Thomas K. Lane participated in Floyd's arrest, with Kueng holding Floyd's back, Lane holding his legs, and Thao looking on and preventing intervention by an onlooker as he stood nearby.[8]:6:24[9][10]
The arrest was made after Floyd was accused of using a counterfeit $20 bill at a market.[11] Police said Floyd physically resisted arrest.[12][13] Some media organizations commented that a security camera from a nearby business did not show Floyd resisting.[14][15] The criminal complaint filed later said that based on body camera footage, Floyd repeatedly said he couldn't breathe while standing outside the police car, resisted getting in the car and intentionally fell down.[16][17][18][19] Several bystanders recorded the event on their smartphones, with one video showing Floyd repeating "Please", "I can't breathe", "Mama", and "Don't kill me" being widely circulated on social media platforms and broadcast by the media.[20] While knee-to-neck restraints are allowed in Minnesota under certain circumstances, Chauvin's usage of the technique has been widely criticized by law enforcement experts as excessive.[21][22][23] All four officers were fired the day after the incident.[24]
[...] Charges: Third-degree murder (Chauvin) Second-degree manslaughter (Chauvin)
This has been extensively covered by the media. Some outlets attempt to put their own interpretations on their coverage with their selection of video footage and with their commentary. It is difficult to find a simple video of the incident. Here is one that has coverage from the time of initial encounter of the police the officers with George Floyd up through his being taken away by ambulance. The video is a composite of shots from a restaurant's surveillance camera (Dragon Wok), Officer body cam, and bystander cell phones. YouTube footage: Full George Floyd Available Footage (21:12). If anyone has more complete footage of the arrest, please mention it clearly (with a link) in the comments.
Lastly, this is a hard time for everybody. Pandemic. Lock-down. Unemployment. Fears. Please be mindful of others' circumstances when commenting. We are a community sprung from a time of challenge. Let us continue to be here for one-another during this difficult time. SoylentNews is People.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by epitaxial on Tuesday June 02 2020, @07:37PM (94 children)
I come here to get a break from current politics.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by donkeyhotay on Tuesday June 02 2020, @08:05PM (27 children)
I agree. This is a bad idea.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @08:27PM (3 children)
We're already discussing this extensively.
Three of the four most recent journal entries on the front page are about this:
https://soylentnews.org/~c0lo/journal/ [soylentnews.org]
https://soylentnews.org/~RandomFactor/journal/ [soylentnews.org]
https://soylentnews.org/~exaeta/journal/ [soylentnews.org]
And those journal entries have a combined total of 223 comments.
It seems like Soylentils want to discuss this. As that's the case, why are you against such discussion?
(Score: 2, Disagree) by janrinok on Wednesday June 03 2020, @08:00AM (2 children)
Because this site was created to discuss STEM topics predominantly. We recognise that some might want to discuss other things and, as you have already pointed out, it is already being discussed in 3 different journals. What does a 4th discussion add to the matter? Do we have to cover every black murder in the USA now? How about white murders? Or perhaps we should report every car/auto accident because there are often human casualties in those events too? The subject is being covered by every MSM outline in the USA and Europe, there are plenty of sources to get your information available to you. I don't think we should be one of them.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @09:33AM (1 child)
Fair enough.
That said, I agree with martyb's reasoning [soylentnews.org].
Since folks were not only discussing this in journals, but also posting off-topic comments in other stories as well, doesn't it make sense to have a place to put those comments that's not stepping on other discussions?
What's more, SN does cover things that newsworthy that aren't STEM related. The recent "COVID Roundup" stories or the flurry of stories about Notre Dame after the fire.
Besides, this has become much, much bigger than a dead black man in Minneapolis. Hundreds of thousands of people on at least three continents (in at least 120 locations in the US alone) are out in the streets demonstrating. The President of the United States ordered peacefully protesting Americans to be tear-gassed and bludgeoned. That same President has threatened to use the US military on Americans. There have been numerous incidents of police brutality and whole neighborhoods have been looted and burned.
I'd say that was pretty newsworthy and certainly worth it's own front page article all by itself. Given that folks were posting about it in unrelated stories, it seems a no-brainer to me. And since this topic currently has 205 (206 once I post this) comments, I'm glad all those comments weren't in other, unrelated stories.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday June 03 2020, @05:37PM
So why didn't they put those comments into the journals that were discussing that event? And creating another story does not remove those comments from all the other stories where they remain off-topic, thus spoiling any chance of discussing the subject topic intelligently.
So this isn't about a 'dead black man' - your comment suggests that it is about politics and the person you currently have as your leader. This is just another opportunity for the Ds and Rs to throw names at each other. Take your political name-calling somewhere else please. I don't particularly care which side you are on, you as a nation put him in the Whitehouse, you sort it out. How many times have black people been killed and their death has sparked riots and protests? And then tell us all why nothing has ever changed.
That is because the community we once had and the one we have now are very different. Nowadays there are a fair number of ACs who just want to discuss their own brand of politics, and they come here because they can do so anonymously and without being censored. That is not to say that description fits all ACs but certainly a good proportion of them. But how many of them are prepared to step up and help run this site?
One of the topics that we do discuss is "Careers and Education". There can be now doubt that Covid-19 has affected both careers and education for millions of people around the world. The same cannot be said, in my opinion, for another attack by the police on a black person in the USA. As serious as that attack is, and despite how abhorrent the action is to most people, it does not meet any of our usual STEM topics. Tell me again in a few months time when the protests have ended and the name of George Floyd doesn't feature in any of the newspapers. When things change then that will be a story worth publishing by this site.
Go back and count them. There were other stories published by our community regarding the bees in Notre Dame, or actions by the alt-right who were blaming Muslims for the fire. They were stories about bees and the alt-right.
Just my $0.02 worth.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @08:30PM (5 children)
I'd rather have a place for it to go, then spill all over into random articles. But then again, we've seen how well that thought went with other political topics.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Tuesday June 02 2020, @08:49PM (4 children)
Not sure if it's really their intent, but I think it's just going to stir things up, maybe a little like inciting a riot. They'll certainly get lots of comments in this discussion.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Wednesday June 03 2020, @07:56PM (2 children)
It's still about 42 comments away from the Hall of Fame [soylentnews.org]. 41 now...
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday June 03 2020, @09:56PM (1 child)
42, the answer to life, ... never mind. So here's the burning question: is it about quantity, or quality? I'd like to see stats on total mod points, and average score per comment, etc.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Thursday June 04 2020, @11:11AM
Would be nice to have both. On a submission like this, there's bound to be a mixture. The in depth analysis is good. The one liners that just refute someone's point with the same unsubstantiated counterpoint over and over again, we could probably do without. Then you have people like me stuffing it with these offtopic metaposts, partly so I can say look, it's just matched the bottom of the Most Active Stories on the Hall of Fame!
Now you're talkin'! I wouldn't mind whiling away a quiet afternoon running queries and plotting graphs on that database. That would actually be another way to rank the most and least popular discussions on the Hall of Fame, highest and lowest average score per comment. Although it might reflect more a change in audience and modding behavior over the life of SoylentNews, rather than a change in the quality of the articles or even the comments.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2020, @03:08PM
You blathering on, attacking other people while *falsely* claiming that they're attacking you won't help the quality of comments, Sergeant Pinback.
It's something to consider, regardless of the topic.
Cheers, friend!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by aristarchus on Tuesday June 02 2020, @08:33PM (12 children)
Nice try, martyb! This cannot but end in racist MAGA thugs crossing a street to tear gas priests to use their church for a photo op, or some thing like that.
(Score: 2) by martyb on Tuesday June 02 2020, @09:29PM (10 children)
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by aristarchus on Tuesday June 02 2020, @09:40PM (4 children)
Not just MAGA, MAGA Thugs! But, seriously, you were just asking for it. Now let me direct a horde of Anti Fascists in the general direction of SN. But, actually we do not need them, because Soylentils are creatures of extraordinary peace and justice, so the Trump supporting trolls will be dealt with appropriately. Even khallow has been making sense lately!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2020, @12:08AM (3 children)
So anti-fascists are anti-fascist because it's in the name, exactly like national socialists were socialists? The FBI are questioning people arrested in NYC about connections to Antifa, twitchy asshole time for these authoritarians pretending they're anarchists. [youtu.be]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2020, @12:29AM (2 children)
But finding none. [thenation.com] Interesting.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2020, @02:37AM (1 child)
Watch and learn [instagram.com]
Review Debord, you are watching theater. Antifa is not a hierarchical organization, it's vertically integrated like ISIS so it takes longer to map but the cells are there.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2020, @01:27AM
With the crucial distinction: Antifa does not exist. It is like Q, to QAnon. Or the Deep State, Trump's attempt to be more like Nixon and his Deep Throat. Or, the pron movie.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @10:06PM (4 children)
Well since that was the core message behind the POTUS's campaign I think it is fair.
How come I never see this tone trolling stuff against the conservative shitposters? Hmmmmmm, no sarcasm tags, suspeeshus.
(Score: 5, Touché) by SpockLogic on Tuesday June 02 2020, @10:40PM
The rotten core is full of MAGAts
MAGA = Morons are Governing America
Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
(Score: 3, Informative) by martyb on Wednesday June 03 2020, @02:27PM (2 children)
You want sarcasm tags? We've got sarcasm tags! Near the bottom of the comment entry form (the one you used to enter the above comment) appears this text:
For example, if you enter this text in your comment:
It is rendered as:
Similarly, if you enter this text in your comment:
That is rendered as:
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @06:07PM (1 child)
I was commenting on the lack of sarcasm tags in your post. Didn't seem like you'd be genuinely thankful for MAGA to be mentioned, bit of an odd statement.
I'm sure some other users appreciated your educational post though.
(Score: 2) by martyb on Wednesday June 03 2020, @06:30PM
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @01:15PM
MAGA = Making Anal Great Again. Significant that you bring this up.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by qzm on Wednesday June 03 2020, @03:52AM (3 children)
Since when did this become a political discussions site? Shouldnt we be actively working to avoid this?
There are plenty of other forums more suited.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday June 03 2020, @06:15AM
Since martyb and the admins and devs decided to toss some cheese into the rat pen, that's when. Squeak squeak! :)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by acid andy on Wednesday June 03 2020, @09:53AM
For me this is primarily an ethical issue. Politics just happens to be one of the main ways our civilizations influence and legislate on such issues. I'd much rather discuss such things with intelligent nerds with at least a passing understanding of the scientific method (even if they're refusing to apply it) than people on "forums more suited".
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @11:59PM
SoylentNews is People
Personally I'd prefer we didn't have politics although that's not realistic these days to the point where I'm following politics more than tech. You don't have to comment on political stories although this one and the resulting "protests" will be unavoidable for some time.
(Score: 4, Touché) by RS3 on Tuesday June 02 2020, @08:20PM
You must be new.
(Score: 5, Informative) by martyb on Tuesday June 02 2020, @08:23PM (4 children)
Agreed. But politics sometimes inserts its head, anyway. As stated in the very first paragraph:
Like it or not, those comments have been written and posted.
In many other stories.
You are not interested in this? Fine, I understand that. It is for that very reason that this story was posted. That there may be a better chance of on-topic comments in those other stories.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Tuesday June 02 2020, @09:20PM
come on - this is SN- no one reads TFA, and few read the whole of TFS.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @10:28PM (2 children)
Superb point and pragmatic action. gj Martyb.
Thank you for providing a 'chaff bin' for this to be swept into, so it won't corrupt other topics.
Also so that those of us who wish to converse about it, can, in the way that we prefer - the soylent threaded-topic way!
(Score: 2) by Fnord666 on Wednesday June 03 2020, @01:22PM (1 child)
If only it worked that way. Unfortunately that's not going to happen. In addition to this story, commenters will continue to add their random, off-topic "insights" into every other story posted over the next few weeks.
(Score: 1) by petecox on Wednesday June 03 2020, @01:38PM
'over the next few weeks'
Perhaps you mean the next few *months*; until Melbourne Cup Day when they hold the election.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @08:49PM (43 children)
Is murder really political?
I get it that the POTUS has been trying to use the mass response to this tragedy to rile up his base. But, for the rest of the country (and the world, for that matter), murder is a tragedy. And, regular abuses of power, including murder, by law enforcement is an outrage. That this abuse of power occurs without consequences is criminal. No politics here. Just a demand that rule of law be enforced upon the enforcers.
I can't fathom what a person who thinks being anti-murder is "political", is thinking.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Tuesday June 02 2020, @09:51PM (14 children)
I don't think it is so much about
POUTSPOTUS.I think it is about institutionalized racism in [some] police departments. Acceptance of it by partners, other officers, supervisors and maybe the police chief or mayor. Unwillingness to address it.
How long ago was the Rodney King beating? March 3, 1991. And the trial? And aftermath of riots?
Did we learn anything? Did we fix anything?
Then other cases. For years. Stop and frisk. And more. Baltimore. Chicago.
Not so long ago August 10, 2014. Ferguson Missouri. Did we learn anything? Did we fix anything? More recently black men being shot in the back. Another black man shot because he reached in his car to produce ID when the cop asked for ID.
The only thing that has changed is cell phone cameras everywhere. Now more than ever police treat citizens like the enemy. It it telling that police use the term "civilians" like they are an occupation army. They don't say citizens like the 1966 Batman. Holy Dark Emitting Diodes Batman!
Similarly, remember the Columbine Colorado school shooting? They said "never again" would this happen. How many school shooting or shooters since then? Have we actually done anything about it?
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Immerman on Tuesday June 02 2020, @11:06PM (3 children)
Honestly, even aside from the institutionalized racism, my complaint is that cops can, and regularly do, literally get away with murder. And other crimes even more frequently. Black people suffer the worst of it, but whites aren't exactly safe either.
We need to bring accountability to all those who abuse their power under color of law, regardless of the color of the victim. All the anti-racist policy and training in the world isn't going to do a damned bit of good so long as there's institutionalized immunity for cops.
Hold cops accountable for their gross abuses in general, and tackling racist abuses will be a matter of making sure abusing minorities doesn't get "overlooked", rather than a mostly futile effort to get cops help accountable in particular situations.
(Score: 2) by qzm on Wednesday June 03 2020, @03:54AM (2 children)
You mean like charging with with murder perhaps?
Do you feel the same about charging those murdering people trying to protect their livelyhoods right now?
How about those inciting looting and violence? Do you not feel personal property should be protected by said police?
You know, two wrongs and all.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @04:17AM
Where did gp say anything about not holding *everyone* accountable?
He, correctly, pointed out that certain folks (the police) who have *not* been held accountable for their actions in the past, should be.
Anything else is just your imagination.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday June 04 2020, @04:24AM
Charging is good. Uncommon, but good.
Conviction and sentencing that matches the severity of their crime is better. And woefully rare.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday June 03 2020, @01:07PM (8 children)
Police kill more white people than black people [statista.com]. Many are not aware of that, because the media doesn't report it, and politicians don't mention it. Why don't they? I have watched many clips online of rioters beating white people senseless or to death because they're white. The media hasn't reported that. Why not? The increasingly strident and open institutional racism against white people is alarming; the categorical condemnation of all white people as racist or malign sits in a pantheon of bigotry next to those who hate Jews because they're Jews, Muslims because they're Muslims, and so on.
Police violence against civilians, all of us, has been a problem for years. George W. Bush thought it would be a good idea to transfer military weapons and equipment to police departments across America. They then have been using that against civilians. They have been using it disproportionately against poor communities because they can get away with it; they would never get away with those tactics in Westchester, NY (ultra-wealthy area north of New York City).
There is an additional complication in that police unions and the "Thin Blue Line"/Omerta make it difficult to weed bad apples out of the force. The cop in question in the George Floyd murder had been written up over and over.
Lastly, the President and Congress really don't have the ability to do much about it under our federal system. They don't hire and fire police, municipalities do. And these incidents keep happening in big cities that are invariably controlled by Democrats, the ones who constantly claim that they're the good guys when it comes to matters of racism. Minneapolis is a Blue Town in a Blue State. New York City is a Blue Town in a Blue State. So, either that tells us that they're the racists, because they are directly responsible for those police departments, or it indicates that racism is not what's going on.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 5, Informative) by TheRaven on Wednesday June 03 2020, @02:04PM (3 children)
The media does report it, frequently, but they normalise their data. Let's look at last year's data from that chart. A total of 802 people with recorded ethnicity were killed by the police:
Now, let's compare those numbers to the total population of the USA:
So, black people make up 12.7% of the population, but 29% of the people who are killed by police. If you are black, you are more than twice as likely to be killed by police.
Comparing the absolute numbers and ignoring the distribution tells me that you are either really bad at statistics or you're intentionally misusing statistics for racist reasons. Which is it?
sudo mod me up
(Score: 3, Touché) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday June 03 2020, @04:26PM (2 children)
Clearly you're not bothered that twice as many white people are killed by cops as are black people. Is it because you think the white people are all guilty and bad, while all the black people are all innocent and good? Are you really bad at statistics or are you intentionally misusing statistics for racist reasons?
I'm making this point for a reason, because to support your unstated premise, that the cops are arresting (or attempting to arrest and unlawfully killing suspects) black people disproportionately because they are racist, you have to ignore the other statistics that black people commit crimes at a higher rate than white people. You are picking and choosing which statistics you trust, and which you discount. I am pretty sure you're going to immediately declare that the statistics you don't like are racist, too.
I said what I said because I have been seeing clips of the anchors of major news networks declaring that white people are categorically racist. I have been watching them say things that would instantly get them fired if they said the same of Jews, or LGBT people, or any other group. It's bigoted, and wrong.
The cops should not be killing any suspects no matter what color they are. Their job is to arrest them and bring them to the courts, not to summarily execute them.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday June 03 2020, @05:17PM
Well, they shouldn't be using excessive force. Which is exactly what they did in the George Floyd case. They should definitely be using deadly force, in certain situations. Not when dealing with an unruly suspect, who might have used a fake $20 bill to buy cigarettes. Is counterfeit currency even that big of a problem nowadays? The officers in question had a serious lapse in judgment, if they weren't actually trying to kill him.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2020, @03:46PM
You're *deliberately* taking the numbers out of context. Non-hispanic whites make up ~61% of the US population. Blacks make up ~13% of the population. [wikipedia.org]
If there's no bias among cops, whites should be ~4.5 times *more* likely to be killed by police than blacks. If ~2,450 whites were killed by cops (source: https://www.statista.com/chart/21857/people-killed-in-police-shootings-in-the-us/ [statista.com] ), you'd expect that ~550 blacks would be killed by cops.
Except that since 2015, ~4600 people have been killed by cops in the US. OF those, ~2450 were white and ~1300 were black.
Given the differences in population between blacks and whites, that means that blacks are more than twice as likely to be killed by cops than whites.
Why don't you go walk over to the other side of Grand Army Plaza and try running this bullshit on those folks? Or even better, the other side of Prospect Park. They'll love you over on Eastern Parkway!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @06:08PM
This is not an accident. Who controls the media? The history books? The financial systems of many nations of the world? This is about White slavery and genocide that started a long time ago. Bolshevik Revolution, Holodomor, WW1, WW2.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Thursday June 04 2020, @04:46AM (2 children)
How about instead of fighting about who gets screwed worse, we pull together and agitate for cops to start getting charged (and convicted!) of assault and murder no matter what color their victims? Then *everybody* wins.
As for the numbers - sure, more white people get killed, and black people are something like 3x more likely to get killed (and a lot more likely to be assaulted too).
As for the federal government not being able to do anything about it - here's the best idea I've heard on how to do it practically overnight via Executive Order: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M71z6K7IkjU [youtube.com]
TD;DR version: Establish an independent civilian oversight organization that investigates complaints of cops using excessive force, and their department's response. Any time an officer gets off easy, his department loses all access to federal funding, military-hardware, etc.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday June 04 2020, @02:03PM (1 child)
Police departments should not have military hardware. That is a big part of the problem: it leads the cops to think they should be playing soldier, fighting civilians.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday June 04 2020, @02:16PM
I agree. But so long as we're offering it, attaching some really heavy strings is a good way to make sure it's not being abused. And after a while departments might even realize that it's kind of pointless getting the hardware if they don't get to abuse it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2020, @09:23AM
I've been reading the reddit threads on this the past few days, as well as twitter and a lot of conservative types are asking 'Where is the sympathy for white men murdered by police.'
Check out /r/2020PoliceBrutality and /r/PoliceBrutality Both of which make mention of murdered white men, black men, and native americans, as well as the mentally ill. What we see looking into these cases is no long term changes, most of the officers back on the force, and institutionalized incompetence on the parts of the law enforcement leadership leading to the deaths of individuals, many of which weren't considered clear and immediate threats (ie no weapons and no actually aggressive actions towards cops.) Our Military Police have a higher standard of engagement than our Civilan Law Enforcement do. OUR SOLDIERS have a higher burden of proof with foreign civilians, even among groups that might be utilizing asymmetric warefare using disguised assets. But our civilian cops are getting away with it, often with backpay and few or no effects on their advancement. Even of the ones who are permanently discharged from their positions at a particuar department, around 1/4 to 1/2 of them are later found working at another police department with a new list of complaints or official actions against them. And yet they just keep working. That should tell you something about the systemic issues in American law enforcement, as well as the responses of some members of the community who think this behavior is appropriate. Maybe if they were treated the same way by law enforcement we could see how they felt about that treatment afterwards.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Tuesday June 02 2020, @10:05PM (18 children)
There's something like 96-98% agreement that the officers' acts where horrific and that policing needs to change.
I doubt there's as much support for destroying the neighborhoods and livelihoods of people who agree with the protestors and who also had nothing at all to do with what happened to Floyd.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @10:34PM (17 children)
I agree. In fact, looting/rioting has been roundly criticized by pretty much everyone. Including the protestors. In fact, there have repeated instances of legitimate protestors *stopping* the criminals who are trying to take advantage of the cover of night, the protests and the fact that most folks are staying at home trying to limit the spread of Coronavirus.
What's more, video and other independent reporting makes it clear that those engaged in violence/looting are *not* the same folks who are protesting peacefully. Those who do engage in violence and looting need to be prosecuted for their crimes.
However, that does *not* mean that those peacefully exercising their First Amendment rights should be stopped from doing so.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @11:48PM (16 children)
Yeah, the cops are using the rioters as an excuse to brutalize countless innocent people. In some cases, cops are marching down the street and demanding people who are standing on their own property to get in their houses and shooting projectiles at them if they don't. Anyone remotely libertarian should be screaming about this rampant authoritarianism, as it's yet more evidence that the entire system needs to be reformed from the ground-up.
(Score: 5, Informative) by hemocyanin on Wednesday June 03 2020, @01:03AM (9 children)
For reference, the videos mentioned above can be seen here:
Protestors, some antifa moron, "Take His Ass": https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1267335981092478981 [twitter.com]
People standing on their porch being subjected to police state: https://streamable.com/u2jzoo [streamable.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by captain normal on Wednesday June 03 2020, @01:50AM (7 children)
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/31/us/george-floyd-protests-white-supremacists-antifa.html [nytimes.com]
When life isn't going right, go left.
(Score: 1) by hemocyanin on Wednesday June 03 2020, @07:33AM (6 children)
NYT? *eyeroll*
The Pacific NW has seen what antifa and antifa-adjacent can do very clearly between Portland where they are a constant darling of the press and local government despite causing seven figures in damage during the tantrum of the 2016 election. https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2016/11/pearl_district_ne_portland_wak.html [oregonlive.com] There's also the whole Evergreen College Brett Weinstein debacle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5Wny9TstEM&list=PLRdayXEOwuMG9DG66Bvx6YbUnhw-buS5K [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Wednesday June 03 2020, @07:04PM (5 children)
Oregon Live ? You Tube? *eyeroll*
Where is there evidence that the damage in the Portland rioting was caused by Antifa and not by far right militants? Certainly not in either of your links.
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2020/06/george-floyd-protests-vehicle-attacks-police-trucks-cars/612487/?srnd=premium [citylab.com]
When life isn't going right, go left.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2020, @12:18AM (3 children)
Antifa are far right militants.
(Score: 1) by hemocyanin on Thursday June 04 2020, @02:08AM (2 children)
They just won't admit it.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2020, @04:08AM (1 child)
You are so far off base. Antifa has no organization, but fighting fascist violence with violence is not hypocritical in the slightest. Anyone who is engaging in fascist activities is not Antifa.
The absolute worst condemnation of Antifa so far is throwing milkshakes with concrete in them, but given the evidence that is either complete bullshit or the concrete was the least concrete substance ever.
So, worst offense by "antifa" is an attack that gave someone a mark under their eye. Compared to police attacks on peaceful protesters resulting in multiple 4+ inch bruises on people that is child's play. Compared to actual far right terrorists bombing clinics and murdering people I think your priorities are fucked.
Hemocyanin, you need to reevaluate your life choices.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2020, @04:36AM
That's what they'd like you to believe. In reality, it has central figures, much like the Anonymous hacktivists did. The government is monitoring their communications and looking for an excuse to round them all up.
(Score: 1) by hemocyanin on Thursday June 04 2020, @02:11AM
When a local newspaper gets us into a war in the Middle East, I'll roll my eyes at them too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @06:26AM
"Light 'em up!" == a totally normal response for someone who is legally complying with your curfew order.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday June 03 2020, @01:13PM (3 children)
Let's consider that on the street, masses of people are not wearing different color t-shirts to signal that they're there for peaceful protest or looting or violence. You look at a crowd of people holding signs, and then somewhere, just past the front ranks, somebody starts throwing molotov cocktails. Others jump out and beat an old couple to death and then melt back into the crowd.
As the police, what do you do then, just let it continue that way?
Of course not. You clear the street.
Peaceful protest is absolutely protected under law. Violence and looting are not. It sucks that criminals (practiced, or imminent) use the cover of lawful activity to commit crimes, but when they do the police must clear the street. The burden of suppressing the lawful exercise of free speech is then on the criminals, not on the police.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @06:12PM
So making it easy for cops to assault and arrest innocent people is preferred?
Hopefully one day you'll realize that such attitudes are why protests and riots keep happening. People don't like injustice, cops should have body cam footage that someone is actually breaking the law in order to arrest them.
"But that's haaaard" whines the old white boomer :|
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2020, @03:53AM (1 child)
You need to read the history of unions. You're absolutely incorrect, and everyone stating that protesting is protected, is a little full of shit.
It's been forgotten through time, but there were peaceful protests for the 10-hour day (predated the 8-hour day movement). "Police", or law enforcement that also moonlighted for rich interests (Railroad Robbin' Barons), murdered women and children in the street to send a message. This is a fact in our history.
The "Coal Police" were very much a real thing, and union members back then risked being "disappeared" by them if they became too effective.
A large number of protests in this country have been about working conditions and the middle class being treated like "human capital stock". Chicago police in particular are known for brutal moonlighting. Read up on this history, because in many cases it was paid agitators or police in disguise that started the violence in the first place. Either that, or it was the police that started shooting.
The NLRB itself was created to take the teeth out of protesting, legally. In exchange for mandatory participation by the owners/managers, many forms of protest were made illegal. Talk to the unions in San Fransisco about the police getting into it with dock workers protesting.
In the last week, there has been evidence of police starting the violence. So the real truth of is that not all riots were purely caused by the rioters, especially when it's a "riot" that developed from a protest situation and not the wrong sports team winning with football hooligans tearing up the place.
Peaceful protestors, and the press covering them, are routinely abused by law enforcement. Put on buses without bathrooms, locked in handcuffs for 18 hours, not fed. You know, being mistreated and deeply abused by hate filled officers. I say hate filled, because I don't know how decent humans treat other humans like that. Perhaps there are popular behavioral experiments that could explain police behavior? Just perhaps.
No, the "police" have always been against us. They have always ostensibly served at our pleasure, but the truth is, they're just paid enforcers and murderers for the 1 percent. It has ALWAYS been the police against protestors, which is just another way of saying that has always been police against the working man and unions. The police are the buffer between the poor, the middle class, and the upper classes.
Only difference here for black people specifically is perhaps the playing field and conditions. War on drugs instead of a factory, material deprivation, programs targeted against minorities. Black people have poor working conditions, wage theft, and all the standard union refrains, IN ADDITION TO, the systemic racism they must deal with. Unfortunately, as MLK said, the riot is the language of the unheard. Black protestors have been pushed into a corner for a long damn time, and it's too easy to demonize and deflect because of a small percentage of looters and criminal opportunists. Not to mention many interests on the ground with their own agendas trying to take advantage of the situation
Your point about white people being the majority abused by police is somewhat correct, and it's not reported enough, but it also doesn't matter. It is happening to black people many times more than it is happening to white people, and it is not commensurate with the percentage of the whole. What's worse, is that white people seem to not want to believe this. Even with video, it seems that the only cases that matter are when the victim is black. I don't find that a coincidence, but a concerted effort to continue to divide us.
That's because one of the best men this country has ever seen, tirelessly worked on behalf of the unions and the workers, because he knew the SECRET. Before the Civil War started, this man would speak at union gatherings and conventions about how the "negro must be embraced as our brother, and brought into the unions". If white and black people ever came together? If they became organized and unified in a union of brothers and sisters seeking common goals?
The power in this country would shit themselves in abject fucking terror. Black people have to deal with a lot more shit, and for a long damn time. It's about time the dam burst, and I can only hope that a critical mass of multi-ethnic multi-racial people will organize to tear the whole system down.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday June 05 2020, @01:46PM
When riots break out, what do you want to happen? Do you want them to destroy the stores you need? Do you want them to burn your home to the ground, drag you and your family out and beat you to death on your front lawn? You want the police and national guard to stand down then?
Well, I'll tell you what you get if you do that: real civil war. If the government abdicates its responsibility to maintain law and order, citizens will do it themselves. They will make mistakes, because they are not trained for chaotic situations. Innocent people will die. That will stoke more anger, and pretty soon the streets run with blood. How well do you think that works out for people who are 13% of the population as they start a race war against the people who are 73% of the population?
There comes a point at which there's no turning back from that eventuality. We've been heading toward that point for 30 years, and are very close now.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @07:09PM (1 child)
yes, this incident and many other are directly or indirectly due to the unconstitutional (criminal) drug war and it's offspring the Prison Industrial Complex, militarized police, etc. Whites need to quit being passive aggressive with their laws and votes, be honest with themselves and just decide if they want to live in a multicultural society or not. If not, organize, buy land in one area, buy people out who don't fit the mold, and take that area over politically. Don't enforce fed laws locally and repel/disappear invading feds or other invaders after fair warning.
This country is lost as a white nation, at least for now. Either get used to being the scapegoat and a second class citizen, per the Bolshevik cultural marxists' agenda, as the shell of the powerhouse you built is captured by ingrates incapable of sustaining it long term, or get busy building a defensible racial homeland! There could be a region for black nationalists (southeast), a region for "viva la raza" folk (southwest), a region for people who think they want to live in a multicultural society, etc. Perhaps under a mutual protection/anti-aggression pact/confederacy.
Also, just the proposal of an amicable, peaceful split is probably cultural relativism on my part, as none of these freeloaders will let Whites leave peacefully. They will do anything to stop Whites from having a safe prosperous country free from intervention and manipulation. Just look at what they did to Germany for trying to kick the Jew saboteurs and interlopers out and rebuild their country. Just a continuation of WW1. They killed millions and then sent in their conquered red horde to rape the remaining civilian women and children. That's what this is all about. Just look at what the media and complicit whore corps are doing with TV in general. If you can't see the writing on the wall, you're fucking blind.
Super wealthy Jews like Rothchild and race traitor internationalist banksters/captains of industry, using reality TV stars like Trump to keep the dumb White funding and supporting their own destruction, while the machine for White Genocide is built. Learn about real history if you think this is crazy talk. Why do you think the Jews in congress and big tech are panicking to censor the internet? People are finding out everything they have been taught about history, religion, rights/law and economics is a (largely Jew) lie; that's why.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2020, @06:40AM
Right on my white brother!
I don't care that there's more genetic "diversity" between "white folks" than between various ethnic groups.
Murder, violence and oppression are just fine as long as it's us superior white folks doing the murder, violence and oppression.
Kill the Jew! Kill the Nigger!
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Tuesday June 02 2020, @11:54PM (4 children)
It's really simple: They agree with killing the person in question. The closest most people who think this way get to openly expressing their agreement is a sense of "Guy got killed by a cop? He musta done something!" Usually the reason for that agreement is, in the US at least, either a belief in racism or authoritarianism. Not that any racists or authoritarianists will admit it.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @02:20AM (3 children)
Well, I have to admit that I used to think that if some random guy got killed by a cop that he must have done something wrong. Sure, I understood that there were some rogue cops out there, but I guess I wanted to believe that they were the exception and not the rule. I think that what has played a big role in changing my thinking is that we now have so much video evidence that it becomes near impossible to avoid the obvious, that we have a serious chronic problem here.
I used to think that maybe blacks were exaggerating the problem. Now I'm beginning to think that maybe they weren't being alarmist enough in their denunciations.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Wednesday June 03 2020, @02:44PM (2 children)
I would read that as your younger self being somewhat authoritarian in outlook, e.g. assuming that because a cop says one thing and a civilian says something else, the cop is necessarily in the right. That's usually not your fault: A lot of kids get taught to obey authority figures (parents, teachers, cops, bosses, commanding officers, etc) before they're old enough to know any better.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2020, @09:45AM
Community figures.
Priests, schoolteachers, etc are taught as being 'good' people, rather than teaching us/our children to only trust them within the confines of very specific duties that are part of their job (splashing you with holy water or leading you in prayer, being in a public classroom to teach you, o rpulling you into the hallway to have a discussion about your conduct, but in neither positions case taken into an isolated office away from other people where you can't yell.)
Most of us are brought up with overtly evil boogeymen and groups of 'good guys' who are beyond reproach, because even when they do bad things it's for good reasons, when in reality the 'good guys' just have better optics, and sometimes the 'bad guys' are actually doing something that is optically bad, morally ambiguous, but cannot be argued against full given the circumstances and reasons for their stance (think about some of the ecoterrorist types in 60s-80s cinema, who were obviously evil, and yet were working on or utilizing 'green' technologies which would have improved the world, but for reasons outside their control could not.) There is a lot of optics, indoctrination, and might makes right forcing intellectually stunted masses to obey and conform, rather than to question and reproach or correct.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Friday June 05 2020, @10:24AM
I very much agree and a further epiphany for me in adulthood was that even when you reach a point where you tell yourself you know better about these authority figures, even to the point of telling yourself they're more likely corrupt than not, it's likely you still have subconscious biases based on that childhood mental model your brain formed for these people. The realization that they're all regular guys and gals, in many cases less competent and probably just as out of their depth as you or I would be in their roles, and often highly flawed or pathological, is quite profound. From there you can come to a similar realization about corporations and their products and services, that beneath all the marketing and PR, they're just a load of regular guys too, very often with no real clue what they're doing.
Undoubtedly the sharing of information on the internet is helping to pull the masks off these figures, but it can't instantly fix people's mental models. Many people with never see beyond their own subconscious biases.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 5, Informative) by ilPapa on Wednesday June 03 2020, @01:40AM (3 children)
When it's murder by someone who has been given license to kill by the power structure and the victim is a traditionally oppressed class, you're goddamn right it's political.
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @04:50AM
Yeap - add in the fact that this isn't the first time it has happened and nothing meaningful have been done in prior events to move toward resolving it.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @07:16PM (1 child)
fuck the seditious police, but you can shove your "traditionally oppressed class" cultural marxist propaganda up your ass.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2020, @03:54PM
Ignorant of history [nytimes.com], I see. Good show.
I'm not sure how much more of a "traditionally oppressed class" that African Americans could be:
1. 250 years of chattel slavery;
2. 100 more years of legally sanctioned discrimination;
3. Another 50 years of semi-sanctioned discrimination.
What does a group need to do to be considered "oppressed?" Be wiped out entirely? Geez Louise!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @10:26PM (2 children)
I think that when there is a major world topic that you wish to avoid you should just not click on the headline, nor comment. Just skip it.
On the other hand, many of the rest of us are geeks and nerds that are interested in how technology and society interact. For us, the dissemination patterns of information - check out https://twitter.com/n_waters89/status/1267496777730621440 [twitter.com] and consider how impossible this would've been in 1990 - and technology's mediation of dissemination is interesting in and of itself.
The fact that it's an important topic anyways also has bearing.
I would expect and welcome similar coverage here if eg. India, Russia, or China were experiencing this degree of civil unrest.
Some of us are political or history nerds and geeks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @10:32PM (1 child)
Actually, a knee to the neck is pretty low-tech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @04:06AM
but bellingcat's work here - showing systematic police-on-press violence in the last two days - qualitatively needs the internet
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @11:45PM (5 children)
Then don't read/comment on the political articles. Pretty simple.
(Score: 1, Troll) by janrinok on Wednesday June 03 2020, @08:04AM (4 children)
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @09:58AM (2 children)
So, now do I understand correctly that not only do you not read TFA, not only do you not read TFS, but now you don't even bother reading THE FUCKING TITLE at the top of the page?!? What the hell is the matter with you? My God!!! You have the greatest technology the world has ever seen at your fingertips but it all goes to waste because you have apparently forgotten how to read!
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Wednesday June 03 2020, @10:18AM (1 child)
He appears not to be able to read titles, TFAs, TFSs, but is doomed to read the comments.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Wednesday June 03 2020, @02:59PM
That sounds like Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
As c0lo would say, (grin).
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @03:28PM
screech screeee diiiiii la bweereee
Sorry, not sure how to properly translate tiny violin to text.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday June 03 2020, @03:20AM
Enjoy your breaks, but don't make them too long. Sadly, we can't ignore society in order to spend yet more time on tech. I don't like politics, not least because I'm not good at it. I'm an introvert, and just don't care for it. I'm also a member of a class that inspires much jealousy and hatred: the geek and/or nerd. Makes it harder to win people over. But I have found the hard way that office politics cannot be reliably trumped by technical merit. I wish the school of engineering at the university had spent a little more than no time at all on these matters.
Moronic, hypocritic, gaslighting, cutthroat, treacherous bullshit artists who can barely wake up a hibernating computer and who have no sense of decency or team spirit, are everywhere among your fellow employees, desperately working every angle to keep those paychecks coming. You ignore them at your peril. Don't dismiss them as too stupid to be a threat, either. They may be total lusers, but ineptness at critical thinking does not automatically mean they can't run a successful con. They absolutely will frame you for something if that means you get fired instead of them, even if they will still be stuck and now in worse shape because they can no longer tap you for technical expertise. I haven't had to deal with those sorts being numerous enough to shape the social scene since high school, and I'd forgotten a lot of it.
Indeed, the past 3 years has been a long and painful reminder just what it's like to be among that element of society that is criminally oblivious to ethics, as well as scornful of facts and science. The whole nation was caught taking a collective break, otherwise many of the current political officeholders would never have obtained those offices.
(Score: 2, Troll) by janrinok on Wednesday June 03 2020, @07:54AM (3 children)
I agree 100%. This is not what this site was founded for.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by aristarchus on Wednesday June 03 2020, @08:44AM (1 child)
Repeating something does not make it true, janrinok! That was old Goebbel's technique of the Big Lie, recently adopted by USAian Park Police who did not fire any of that tear gas they used to drive the peaceful protesters away from their freedom of expression. Why to you constantly support Nazis, janrinok? Not a good look, and that Alt-right is so two year ago.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2020, @12:25AM
I don't think he supports the Nazi, white supremacist Antifa. I think you do.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @03:32PM
You're right, this site was founded so that a bunch of kosers could shitpost their racist nonsense without people like you bothering to even mod them down because "freedom of speech" yet articles like this discussing world changing politics are "not right."
Gross.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2020, @12:26AM
Your white privilege is showing.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday June 05 2020, @01:07AM
(Score: 0, Interesting) by XivLacuna on Tuesday June 02 2020, @07:42PM (150 children)
He was breathing air. Air must come from the lungs and get pushed through the larynx in order to make sounds. If you yell enough, you need to refill your lungs with air in order to continue yelling. Put light pressure on your throat and see how loud you can scream "I can't breathe!" Notice how your decibels go down.
It is a shame people can't tell the difference between being unable to breathe and a heart attack. The cop probably saw George's chest moving and assumed he was just lying. If George said "Yo brah I think I'm having a heart attack" he might still be around today.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @07:53PM (14 children)
Was wondering when this talking point would come up.
Autopsy report confirmed he died of asphyxiation, AKA he couldn't breathre. To explain how this seems to go against your "Air must come from the lungs and get pushed through the larynx in order to make sounds" I refer you to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asphyxia [wikipedia.org] where you can learn some science. You can die from asphyxiation yet still be getting some amount of air into the lungs, and due to his thrashing around, woops I MEAN RESISTING ARREST /s he likely was able to get snatches of breath in.
So you just blamed the victim of murder, good job (is what I imagine Trump would tell you).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @09:48PM (1 child)
No, the orange man would say that GP is the best commenter he's ever seen, that no one is better.
Then he'd say that GP was useless, that you never ever could get one sensible word from him.
Then he'd say he's never even heard of the guy.
Then he'd say the GP is part of a big democrat conspiracy to prevent him from becoming the one to rule them all.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @10:29PM
ONE RING TO RULE THEM ALL, ONE... woops nevermind, that's just a Happy Meal toy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @12:52AM (11 children)
Hi, European lurker here. Didn't the guy die because a heart attack? That's what I have read the autopsy concluded.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @01:37AM (9 children)
There are two autopsies, as can be seen here [wikipedia.org].
While both of them concluded it was a homicide, they gave very different reasons for the cause of death. They also disagreed as to underlying toxicology results and stresses put on different anatomy. The private autopsy was so different from the first, that they ended up changing the findings of the first one to be more in line with the second after it was released. The whole autopsy situation is screwed-up, as there is no way that both can be true at the same time. Now to editorialize, I find the second one more credible because it is more detailed and wasn't subsequently altered with corrections that changed some important conclusions and facts. But you are free to come to your own judgment.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Reziac on Wednesday June 03 2020, @02:11AM (6 children)
According to another report, Baden's "autopsy" consisted of viewing the tape; it was not hands-on.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @02:42AM
[citation needed]
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @02:48AM (4 children)
There. FTFY.
More info, which provides further support for GP's comment:
https://kttc.com/2020/06/01/family-autopsy-floyd-asphyxiated-by-sustained-pressure/ [kttc.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @03:41AM (3 children)
Original autopsy:
Second autopsy:
Updated autopsy:
Where did that "neck compression" come from? I thought you said earlier there were "no physical findings" that supported such a theory.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2020, @02:18AM
Full report says he was positive for SARS-CoV-2: Fentanyl, meth and COVID-19 with an underlying heart condition.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2020, @08:22AM (1 child)
Here is some more from the full autopsy report:
Still no sign of the neck injuries there.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Reziac on Friday June 05 2020, @12:29AM
Link to detailed official autopsy report:
https://www.hennepin.us/-/media/hennepinus/residents/public-safety/documents/Autopsy_2020-3700_Floyd.pdf [hennepin.us]
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @04:29PM (1 child)
A person can indeed have multiple causes of death, or indeterminate final cause of death with multiple contributing factors. You shoot, stab, bludgeon, and poison somebody else, and it's provable that you did all four, the cause of death selected won't matter so long as all of the cited cause is correct and supports the manner of death of homicide. (Homicide, suicide, accident, natural, undetermined).
Or, put another way to this case: All deaths occur because of cardiac arrest. What causes the cardiac arrest is important, but not as much as the manner of death and that the cause selected supports the manner. Because it's the manner which results in charges, if any. Lots of little nuances and the cause can be challenged or attacked. But whether the death was cardiac arrest from asphyxiation or hypoxia from suffocation won't matter all that much, so long as the knee was on the neck and the medical examiner supports that.
Or, another another way: The coroner determines the manner of death, the medical examiner determines the cause of death. (And they don't have to be the same person....)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @08:40PM
The "coroner" and "medical examiner" here were the same person. A person who said one thing, was called out by the second autopsy conducted by two highly reputable people in the profession, and then changed their story to add the obvious neck compression. Going from "no physical findings" to "complicating neck compression" is a huge step. And the difference is huge, especially in the impending lawsuit. Leaving it at just the two versions of what the first autopsy and its revision stated (and remember both were by the same person), what would you rather have said at a trial for your murder: "AC died of a heart attack and there is no evidence of being strangled" vs "AC died of a heart attack while being strangled"?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Tork on Wednesday June 03 2020, @06:14AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @08:01PM (10 children)
Next time assholes like you will claim that Floyd isn't dead at all, that it's just a big conspiracy by the "libruls" to hurt Trump's campain.
There was an officially released autopsy report. Floyd didn't die of a heart attack, he died of suffocation.
But I'm sure you'll claim that the autopsy report was falsified, that the forensic doctor who performed the autopsy was part of the conspiracy.
Sometimes I wonder if some people actually like to show the entire world how clueless they are...
(Score: 5, Touché) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 02 2020, @09:16PM (9 children)
Well, open display of cluelessness seems to be good enough to get you elected President, so....
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Tuesday June 02 2020, @09:54PM (8 children)
You know, "they" must be holding George Floyd in the basement of a Washington DC pizza shop.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 02 2020, @10:03PM
Swapped the corpse with a soldier from a training accident, whole thing was staged, MAGA!
/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @10:07PM (6 children)
They're getting him fitted for suits because he seems more lively and with-it than Biden.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @10:34PM (4 children)
The dead guy on "Weekend at Bernie's" was more with it than Biden.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday June 03 2020, @04:50PM (3 children)
Biden should win. His head can be hollowed out and replaced by electromagnetic actuators controlled by /dev/random.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Wednesday June 03 2020, @08:55PM (2 children)
In the meantime, please can we reroute all of Trump's output to /dev/null?
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday June 03 2020, @09:45PM (1 child)
Horrible idea: reroute all of Trumps output to the electro mechanical actuators in Biden's hollowed out head.
That way Trump can get more terms. For the good of the country. (omg)
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Wednesday June 03 2020, @11:42PM
That's the stuff of nightmares! It might make a profitable horror movie, though.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @10:39PM
Yeesh, tasteless "comedy" modded up? Hopefully it is the AC's own jizz sock account with the +mod.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Tuesday June 02 2020, @08:21PM (61 children)
If George were white, he would still be alive. (all other things being equal, skin color as the only parameter)
We wouldn't have this SN topic.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 02 2020, @08:25PM (30 children)
That's not entirely true. Minneapolis isn't Atlanta. White people get arrested too, and if the cop thinks you're a threat- need to be subdued, he's going to do the subduing for his own safety whether the perp is white, black, yellow, etc. Now, are cops more afraid of black perps and more likely to do some pro-active subduing? Sure, statistics don't lie, and skin color prejudice does drive fear, but fear is what's at the root of this more than anybody's skin color.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by sjames on Tuesday June 02 2020, @09:09PM (28 children)
The guy was laying on his belly with his wrists bound behind him. One cop holding his ankles, one kneeling on his neck. He wasn't going anywhere. He would also not be going anywhere had the cop shifted his weight down to the lower back where suffocation wouldn't be a risk.
When you continue "subduing" someone who is already subdued, it's a beat down.
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 02 2020, @09:12PM (27 children)
You're still factoring in rational thought on the part of the arrested.
People will try to break away and run until they physically cannot anymore, doesn't matter how hopeless the larger situation is - if they can get away in the moment, there are many who will try.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @09:20PM (19 children)
That may well be true. However, that wasn't what was happening here.
Floyd wasn't resisting, and the officers charged with his safety (since he was in custody, they were responsible for his safety) continued to block his airway long after he was unconscious/unresponsive.
Watch the video. It's horrifying. It takes a long time to asphyxiate someone and long before they die/are permanently injured, it's very clear what's going on. Those police officers saw what was happening and continued to assault an unconscious/unresponsive man bleeding from his nose until he was dead.
That's not restraining someone. That's intentional murder.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 02 2020, @09:40PM (18 children)
I don't doubt it's horrifying, cops screw up all the time. This is their job, day in and day out. Most of them don't think for a second about the medical well-being of their detained.
I hope they're charged, I hope they're convicted - if the past is anything to go by, a light sentence will result in more, and more severe, riots.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by DannyB on Tuesday June 02 2020, @09:57PM
See: Rodney King trial from 1991 beating and riots that followed. We ain't learned nothin' scents.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @09:57PM (14 children)
You miss the point. The cops didn't, as you say, "screw up." They *intentionally murdered* a human being in their custody.
Which is absolutely obvious from the video footage.
I know it's horrifying and I don't blame you if you'd prefer not to watch the murder of a handcuffed man by four armed thugs.
But you seem to be under the misapprehension that this was some kind of tragic accident. It was not. The actions of the police involved show clear intent to seriously harm/kill Mr. Floyd.
So, even it it is distasteful, I encourage you to watch the video -- which will disabuse you of any idea that this was anything other than the intentional murder of an unarmed, handcuffed and restrained human who could only eat pavement and plead for his life -- well, at least until he lost consciousness.
(Score: 3, Touché) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 02 2020, @10:34PM (13 children)
I seriously doubt the cops intended to kill him. Even without the riots, the paperwork is a major PITA.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @10:51PM (2 children)
Well, your doubts don't match the facts. Watch the video. It's right there.
And it's clear that everyone there knew what was happening (in fact, several bystanders said so explicitly), and the cop kept blocking Floyd's airway long after he lost consciousness.
I've encouraged you several times to watch the video to see for yourself. You apparently wish to ignore the facts in favor of your own prejudices and preconceived notions.
Watch the fucking video. Those cops made the conscious choice to seriously injure/kill Mr. Floyd. Full stop.
Any doubts you might have will be fully dispelled by *watching the video* [youtube.com].
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @04:12AM (1 child)
OK first off good job rebutting.
But take a step back. JoeMerchant is saying "these cops wouldn't have murdered, because of paperwork." As if doing paperwork outweighs a life. He won't watch the video. If he did he'd secretly rejoice. He doesn't value the right to life of other adult humans. He is possibly psychopathic, or possibly amoral, or so on. But there's no point engaging him. Flag his bad ideas for others but don't expect an honest willingness to learn and grow. Don't leave him alone with your child or wallet either.
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Wednesday June 03 2020, @04:36PM
We're speaking about the moral viewpoint of the cop who killed George Floyd not JoeMerchant. He would have acted differently, if he placed a high regard for Floyd's life relative to paperwork.
Also notice what was actually posted:
versus
There's not much actual disagreement here because we have the obvious option that cops intended to seriously injure not kill Floyd. (It's still murder BTW.) That would also fit with the fact that the cops were in front of witnesses, at least one of whom was videoing the actions. The consequences for blatant misconduct and assault apparently are mild in Minnesota, while the consequences for murder not so much.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday June 03 2020, @03:45AM (6 children)
I too have lived a sheltered life, and had difficulty believing certain things about the police. They did intend to hurt him, and pass it off as deserved. It wasn't an accident. Also, it wasn't an outlier. Cops give free rein to their bigotry and do extrajudicial punishing all the time to members of outsider groups. Been doing it for decades.
Videoing police at work, starting with Rodney King, has finally exposed all the abuse in ways that the cops can't deny, revealing them as liars who will plant weapons and just plain make things up. They tried to stop citizens from being allowed to make video recordings of them in public, and lost big on that one, so big that now the body cam has become standard equipment. They have to be watched all the time.
Police forces have more racist, sexist bigots than the general public. The kind of person inclined to bigotry finds police work attractive. Authoritarians love it, love the idea of being an authority figure. And if all that isn't bad enough, organizations such as the KKK actively encourage their members to become police officers. The police officer who places loyalty to groups such as the KKK above their duty as a police officer is known as a ghostskin.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @04:30AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qHmdjvUTaw [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday June 03 2020, @12:28PM
Agreed, on all points. Intent to kill? I do, honestly, believe that's a step beyond what happened - but, this is from the same perspective as all of the protests and riots: ignorance, incomplete information, video evidence.
Failure to use due care? Absolutely. Insufficient respect for life? To be sure. Intent? Only during early plea bargaining - if they try to prosecute for intent we may have a bigger riot when the jury fails to convict.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday June 03 2020, @12:32PM (3 children)
The KKK is real, and it still does things. In Gainesville, Florida 2006 they actively targeted Asian homes with red paint graffiti racial slurs in the middle of the night. That's a big step down from the beatings and killings they used to do 40-80 years earlier. There's a saying about Klan meetings today that I also believe to be true: they have more embedded undercover federal agents than they do genuine members.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday June 03 2020, @06:02PM (2 children)
Huh, thought it was only Africans that the KKK hates. But it figures they'd target Asians too. I suppose I should've known.
Might be useful to make a distinction between the sort of cop who likes to swagger about in a uniform, vs undercover ones. The latter have to be a lot savvier, or they would not be able to pull off an infiltration. The former give police forces everywhere a bad name.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday June 03 2020, @08:26PM
Black skin, slanty eyes, Muslim, Jews, even Catholics - basically anybody not just like them. Shortly after that incident our neighborhood made national television with the idiot pastor who decided to publicize his burning of a Quran on the anniversary of 9-11. He got warmed up by sending a 7 year old parishioner to school in an "Islam is of the Devil" T-shirt - county responded to that with mandatory school uniforms in public school. So glad we left that town.
Anyone who gets their swagger on while wearing a uniform is carrying more than a little insecurity (and fear).
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2020, @09:59AM
Certain white groups that don't fit their Aryan profile.
While they include Irish now, for many years the Irish were as hated as other groups for religious if not ethnic reasons. White supremacists will bolster there numbers with 'white enoughs' until they have purged the overtly non-whits, then begin culling their own herd, whether somewhat non-white or white but not the right white. It's the same thing as 'black pride' until you start looking at the factions based on tribalism or 'black enough' or 'too smart for dat nigga's own good'.
This is why people may need to band together along ethnic grounds to fight for a right, but should never TRUST the other members of said ethnic group, because just as often there is some further divide that will get you stabbed in the back. Tribalism in humans is real and the borders constantly change, no matter your race, religion, creed, or identity politics.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday June 03 2020, @06:18AM (2 children)
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday June 03 2020, @01:02PM (1 child)
I'm trying to understand the mindset of the protesters and the cops that are out there bashing each other: don't try to confuse me with facts.
Also: the video doesn't provide context, 360 coverage. I can show you videos, not deepfakes - just selected perspectives and clips, which will convince you of all sorts of things that aren't true at all.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday June 03 2020, @03:47PM
I'll give you a 6 for the mental gymnastics and a 6.5 at the sarcasm. Maybe practice more.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday June 03 2020, @12:08PM (1 child)
Ummmm, what? Like... paying cops for the job of screwing up day in and day out?
Even for a kink, that's a bit of extreme, dontcha think? (grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday June 03 2020, @12:58PM
Yeah, we've got some pretty extreme kinks in politics.
Thinking about my time in Miami - I lived in a neighborhood literally crawling with cops, "normal" people were a little too afraid to buy in there in the '80s, I bought in in the early '90s, by the 2000s it was turning back into a genuinely nice place. Anyway... we had one house on the edge of the neighborhood that was owned by a crack dealer - seriously bad dude, basically making fun of the city by having a better lawyer than they did and openly running his operation for well over 15 years. I went to a neighborhood meeting, live broadcast on cable, with city commissioners, lawyers, etc. and this guy openly threatened his neighbors with violence on camera - think of a small-time Trump with less of a filter, looked like a big Colonel Sanders, spoke with a Jamaican accent so thick you expected him to be black with dreadlocks, drove a Barney Purple Rolls Royce. So, to the kink: not only did the city never manage to stop him dealing crack from that house he owned - even with 30+ arrests per month on the property - in 2007 he ran for Mayor of Miami Beach and managed to get nearly 500 votes - 5% of the total.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by sjames on Tuesday June 02 2020, @10:06PM (2 children)
Nope, I'm factoring in physics. This guy wasn't Andre the Giant, he didn't have enough strength to get away. Then he was unconscious and a 4 year old could have held him.
In wrestling, it's called pinned (though you have to have them on their back for that. When pinned, wrestlers rarely stop struggling, but physics wins the day.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday June 03 2020, @12:47PM (1 child)
In police work, you're not in a controlled ring with mats, rules, and referees. They tend to stay on the safe side - their safe side - of controlling the situation.
Do they take it too far? Obviously. Do they need to change how situations like this are handled? Absolutely. Was this gratuitous violence with the intent to kill? I'd convict on gratuitous violence, but I bet there's 6/12 jurors in this country who wouldn't. Even I wouldn't convict on intent to kill - if the prosecution tries for that and fails, I'd say that's a mishandling of the case and the people who die in the ensuing riots when the verdicts come back "Not Guilty" are on the prosecution's head.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @06:16PM
Mmmmmm, tasty boots
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @10:35PM (2 children)
So what if he does? He's shackled. The cops know that if he tries he'll fail. There's no threat to him attempting beyond falling on his face and hurting himself. He's not going to bite a gun out of their holster and start hurting people. That incapacitation is why procedure had them shackle him. Afterwards he was zero true threat, and their training covers this scenario, where standard procedure is basically walk after the attempted escaper calmly until they fall, then help them up and back into processing. If they don't calm down then you just increase the number of restraints until they do.
They're trained in this. Your rationalization is incorrect. It doesn't matter what bad in the moment decisions George Floyd might have made; none of them would've resulted in anyone's harm but his own. Instead someone else killed him.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @03:35PM (1 child)
also, someone enlighten me: after getting handcuffs (and it seems ankle cuffs) why is everyone waiting around on the floor? waiting for the ordered pizza or box of donuts? i mean like .... waaaaat?
also, one cannot cuff a suspect to a policecar?
anyways, for me it looks like "enjoying punishment" of suspect and "superiority demonstration". evil evil all the way.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2020, @03:36PM
I've seen my black friend cuffed to the hood of a cop car and beaten, they took my cell phone first though. We weren't doing anything wrong - dropping off two friends after barbecuing. They were convinced he was selling me drugs though, and decided to beat him up for not "admitting" it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2020, @09:52AM
And put them around his legs. Or tie his shoelaces together. Either way you just stopped your criminal from getting away. Good luck getting your shoes off or untied while you're handcuffed behind your back before they can get back on top of you.
Added bonus: they still have their dignity as long as they walk slow and you don't rush them too much, because small footsteps won't risk tripping.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Wednesday June 03 2020, @10:46AM
Don't forget hatred.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @09:07PM (25 children)
I can't believe some people actually believe this.
Watch this [youtube.com] video and then come back to your comment. That is the body cam footage in the police murder of Daniel Shaver [wikipedia.org]. Nearly all of these incidents involves drugs (amphetamines/PCP/etc), resisting arrest, and so on. This one didn't. It was a drunk unarmed tourist in a hotel in Vegas laying prone on the ground when he was murdered. And not only was there no justice served but the officer who murdered him was granted medical retirement and a lifelong pension at age 26. He claimed he had PTSD after killing Daniel and the resultant media coverage.
Of course you've probably never heard about this case and there were certainly no riots or anything like that. Why? Because he was white.
There are lots of bad cops, and there probably always will be. One might ask why are American police so brutal and I think that's a good question, but one that also has a simple answer. A police officer sees a vehicle speeding. He pulls it over. Walks up to the window. The guy rolls the window down, puts 4 bullets in the officer, and drives away. The places where you see police brutality are the same places where you see large chunks of extremely dangerous criminals. The criminals harden the police and then the police end up turning into monsters. 'Back in the day' there was far worse racism in the US, yet police brutality was relatively speaking almost nonexistent. But that's also because the sort of violence we see today was also mostly nonexistent. And similarly you also see the same sort of police brutality in other nations with violent criminals even when they happen to be the same color.
After these riots expect to see exactly what happened after the LA riots: more police militarization and force. It's a reminder that the police forces today are really quite vulnerable. We only have about 300 police per 100,000 civilians. When significant numbers of folks start engaging in criminality, the police really can't do a whole heck of a lot.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 02 2020, @09:34PM (22 children)
You were on a roll, right up to:
Yes, racism was far worse in the past, I've watched the South East US make tremendous forward progress in racial equality over the last 45 years.
However: police brutality was relatively speaking almost never reported, not less common - if anything it was more common in the past before body cams, cell phone videos, YouTube sharing, etc. The sort of violence we see today was much MUCH worse back in the "Great" days of lead in the gasoline and God knows what all other drivers of brutal behavior were out there. 1987, coworker shows up to work Monday morning in an ankle cast - what happened? "Was just walkin' down by the planetarium with 4 friends Friday night, and there was these 7 black guys, we didn't have a chance." Just another Friday night, apparently - no police reports, just 12 people beating the shit out of each other on the spur of the moment.
Go back to the 1920s and you've got (lots of) towns like Gainesville [wikipedia.org] where the KKK wasn't slowed by the law, because the Sheriff, Mayor, and entire police force were members.
I was sent to LA for business in 1992, put in the University Hilton in South Central - things were quiet by the time I got there, but I was plenty spooked by the burnt out neighborhood I had to drive through. I was in Miami for the 1980 riots (we drove out that night, saw smoke and glow from the fires), and had family there in 1976. Even in 1991 in "Black Grove" people would throw stuff at my car as I drove through commuting from work, one even yelled "Honky" (pretty sure he was shit-faced drunk.)
The current nationwide riots are scary because they're not isolated the way so many local issues were in the past, but not surprising at all given the recent quarantine and evolution of social media into "one world, one community" - hell, they're even rioting in Canada. All told, even though the police brutality footage looks bad, and every bit of that is unacceptable behavior for the situation, it's not quite Kent State.
We're making progress - if we had to have this kind of setback, I'm glad it happened after 3 years of T(he)rump, instead of 7 years of Obama. I might even convince myself that Obama's (advisory team's) leadership would have defused this situation before it ever got to where it is today.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Wednesday June 03 2020, @12:00AM (1 child)
So far 3 people are dead, and many more are injured. So while it's not *quite* Kent State (which killed 4), it's pretty damn close. Just because those killings are spread out over a wide geographic area and over several days rather than 7 seconds doesn't make it not as bad.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday June 03 2020, @03:00AM
Something inherently difficult for people to wrap their heads around: there's a lot of damn people in this world. 4 dead in 7 seconds at one college war rally is a hell of a lot more violent than 3 dead spread over days of nationwide rioting. Hell, 3 of the protesters have likely died of natural causes by now given the numbers and timespan. The map here [nytimes.com] shows 120 protest sites, as of 2 days ago.
You can get on social media and get a dizzying array of video of people acting badly on both sides, provided with little context and presented for maximum effect by whoever is choosing to share and repost it. What you can't do is travel back to Alabama (or a half dozen similar states) in the 1960s and see all the beatings, killings, and non-prosecuted offences that went on during the civil rights protests back then.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Wednesday June 03 2020, @10:37AM
And the riots here in Montreal seem to follow the same pattern. Peaceful demonstrators, but afterward, when it gets dark, the vandals come out.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday June 03 2020, @03:07PM (18 children)
Obama launched a coordinated nation-wide crackdown with military force against Occupy Wall Street. That protest was protracted, and 100% peaceful. Why was he not crucified by the media? Where were the cries of, "Oh NOES, it's the end of democracy!!!"?
Oh, and BTW, what happened to the condemnations of protests because of coronavirus that they hurled at the people protesting in Virginia against restrictions of the Second Amendment? Why has that suddenly vanished from the Narrative? Coronavirus is still a thing, but suddenly it's OK to protest in the middle of a pandemic because the talking heads agree with the reasons for the protest?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday June 03 2020, @03:16PM (5 children)
I believe it was covered extensively in the media. While I disapproved of the crackdown, it was clearly effective at keeping the economy rolling and preserving the status quo.
I think one of the major differences with Occupy Wall Street was that the protest was allowed to run until both the protesters and the public were weary of it, instead of the "sudden, swift and sure crackdown" which is just Authoritarian delusion in terms of what people actually respond to.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday June 03 2020, @04:14PM (4 children)
It was not extensively covered. It was covered in passing for the two days it happened, and universally in approving terms. They didn't even get upset when the cops killed a guy by shooting him point blank with a tear gas canister.
If Occupy Wall Street had been burning buildings, breaking into the banks and stealing everything, and beating people to death with 2x4s Obama would have acted immediately. They weren't. 100% peaceful.
There is no time limit to the first amendment. There is no caveat that says you can express your opinion "until the public is weary of it." Obama had no right to do what he did, but everybody gave him a pass because he was cool (tm).
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday June 03 2020, @04:24PM
That's the law. Every single U.S. citizen breaks multiple laws every day.
The caveat is: what are people actually going to do? what's really going to happen? and, which laws should we call for enforcement of vs. which laws should be ignored to obtain an outcome that everybody is happier with. If somebody feels a law has been ignored that they think shouldn't have been, that's what the courts are for - file suit and demand enforcement.
Occupy Wall Street has faded in memory quite a bit, but as I recall - it was turning into a situation where the protesters were going to be facing health challenges due to the weather / exposure, etc. The whole thing ran for longer than COVID-19 has been going so far. The gas canister episode certainly could have been handled better, probably by both sides, but these things happen when people dig in and disagree. Hopefully the current round of protests will bring some measure of reform to how excessive force is both defined and enforced in domestic police activity.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 03 2020, @05:04PM (2 children)
What First Amendment right was violated? The First Amendment doesn't grant you the right to camp in public spaces indefinitely. What happened with OWS was selective enforcement of law. As long as the protests further Obama's interests, they were allowed to continue. When that ceased to be the case, they were disbanded.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday June 04 2020, @03:04PM (1 child)
The First Amendment does not say, "Sure, go ahead and assemble and protest in an afternoon, then go away so we can ignore you." If we follow your logic then Rosa Parks had no right to defy segregation by sitting in the wrong part of the bus. It's preposterous. Occupy Wall Street had a list of demands that were ignored, so they persisted. They were not staying there out of homelessness.
I agree with you about how cynical Obama was about it.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday June 04 2020, @10:41PM
Who is "we"? And last I checked, a right to protest doesn't mean a right to not be ignored.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Wednesday June 03 2020, @03:27PM (11 children)
It's not OK, but for the majority that feel the protests are important, I think they believe it's for the greater good. We could argue over how many might die additionally from COVID versus at the hands of cops, but consider that if the chance is taken to reform the system for the better, the positive effects could last for centuries. It's also about liberty which some people believe is worth dying for, or at least risking one's life.
A good number of the protesters are wearing masks, so a fairer objection would be to say that they all should be wearing them--subject to availability, of course.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday June 03 2020, @04:08PM (10 children)
In other words, they get to protest in defiance of coronavirus lockdowns because their opinions and goals are that important, but other people don't get to protest because their opinions and goals are not important.
Me, I think the lockdowns are tolitarian bullshit and everyone should exercise their first amendment rights by flipping the government the bird and protesting anyway.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Wednesday June 03 2020, @04:29PM (8 children)
I liked my wording better. It's about what people consider is for the greater good. IMNSHO the Second Amendment itself is not for the greater good, because I believe unrestricted gun ownership (and consequent use) takes away more liberty than it creates.
I don't really share that view, but then I would have hoped that everyone that could would isolate themselves voluntarily to cut down the spread of this disease.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday June 04 2020, @03:10PM (7 children)
The point is, they thought it was vitally important for the greater good. It is not up to you to decide that it's not. You don't get to decide whose opinions are valid, and which are not. Every man has the right to speak his mind. You might think his opinion is stupid or laughable or appalling, but you don't get to stop him. That also means he doesn't get to stop you from saying what you want.
Too many schools have stopped teaching civics. After this nonsense, the whole country needs a double dose.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Touché) by acid andy on Thursday June 04 2020, @03:24PM (1 child)
I can decide whatever I like. If I was acting on those decisions in a way that impinged on the rights of others, you'd have a point. Otherwise it's basically thoughtcrime.
You wrote:
and:
Please explain if the act of hurling condemnations is covered by the right every man has to speak his mind? If not, why not?
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday June 04 2020, @03:56PM
Sure. The difference is, Gov. Northam of Virginia tried to ban the protests. That's the government trying to strip Virginians of their First Amendment rights. He can condemn them all he wants to, but he went beyond words to actions. What it means for those who condemned those protests and not these last is that they're stinking hypocrites.
The Virginians have the right to protest Northam's violations of their 2A rights. Michiganders have the right to protest Gov. Whitmer's lockdowns. People upset about George Floyd's death have the right to protest that.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Thursday June 04 2020, @03:47PM (4 children)
Agreed but I thought the implication was that it would be authorities enforcing a lockdown that might stop a protest, rather than a citizen expressing their disapproval of said protest.
I respect your view that the COVID-19 lockdown shouldn't exist but personally disagree with it.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday June 04 2020, @04:02PM (3 children)
And that's the crux right there. The tension between disagreements is the lifeblood of democracy. Most people suppose unanimity is what democracy means, that that is the goal, but that scares the crap out of me. The worst crimes in history have been committed by people who were 100% sure they needed to commit them.
Unfortunately the confusion about sending the national guard into these cities has arisen because the media and many politicians have willfully misconstrued that action as an attempt to quell protests. It is not. Protests are fine, but looting, arson, assault, and the other flavors of mob violence are not. The first must be protected, the latter must be stopped with the National Guard (if the police cannot).
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2020, @04:13PM (2 children)
Even though DeBlasio is certainly not the sharpest knife in the drawer and the heavy-handed tactics of the NYPD require serious investigation and prosecution for abuses, I happen to agree with him about not bringing in the National Guard.
Why? Because, as he said, they don't know our neighborhoods, they don't have de-escalation training (despite the issues with the NYPD, things could have gotten much, much worse), and the idea of soldiers with fully automatic weapons trained to *kill* their adversaries roaming the streets is a recipe for disaster.
Feel free to disagree, but let's put a couple dozen of those guys on *your* block for a couple weeks and see how you like it. Definitely don't break curfew or they might just shoot you dead.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2020, @10:42PM (1 child)
Cmdr. Adama: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnZ53lPPsF0 [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2020, @09:48PM
Whether it be Lorne Greene or Edward James Olmos, I had to endure that horrible crap once -- I'm certainly not going to do so again.
If you have something useful to say, then say it. I'm not going to watch garbage just because you're inarticulate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @07:10PM
I give my city mayor the bird for this stupid ass curfew. At least under the COVID-19 lockdown I was legally allowed to take my dog outside for a run when the sun sets and the weather is bearable.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @05:14AM
Police is 16th on this list of 25 dangerous jobs. The contractor who wired up your new garbage disposer, the mechanics who keep the buses in your town running, even coaches are more likely to be injured / die on the job than cops. That police work is much more dangerous than other vocations is a lie that cops perpetuate to try to justify high wages and very generous retirement packages. It is also used to justify them being armed to the teeth, and retroactively excuse their violent over reactions than lead to 3 deaths by police per day in the US.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/01/24/most-dangerous-jobs-25-most-risky-jobs-in-america/41040903/ [usatoday.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2020, @10:03AM
for days now, and it was a somewhat big deal for a week or two back when it happened. The cop got punished but of course people forgot about it afterwards and he got slipped back on so they could put him on disability since they secretly approved of his behavior.
The same has been true in dozens if not hundreds of cases. The only exceptions are when officers step across the thin blue line to call out members of the law enforcement community for misconduct, and quickly find out how corrupt their precinct or department really is. Go read Chris Dorner's manifesto. he laid this all out years ago and most of the conduct he called out then is what we're seeing on video today.
(Score: 2, Informative) by hemocyanin on Tuesday June 02 2020, @10:10PM
We could speculate he'd be alive if he was white, but that speculation might simply confirm biases: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_c-E_i8Q5G0 [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by qzm on Wednesday June 03 2020, @03:58AM (2 children)
Really?
More whites are killed by cops each year than blacks (as you would expect from population stats, but just saying it happens).
If he was white though, we should be unlikely to have heard of it, and there would not be riots going on..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @08:16AM (1 child)
Case in point, Tony Timpa?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @08:55AM
They don't understand the concept of "per capita."
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 02 2020, @08:22PM (44 children)
I haven't followed too closely, was it a little cop with his knee on the neck?
There are all kinds of training surrounding safe restraint, etc. but - in the field, if you do something and it works... I wouldn't be surprised if the knee to the neck is something this cop has done in the past, possibly many times, telling himself that it's safe because yeah: if he can scream he can breathe - and besides, the last guys didn't die and I didn't get hurt doing it, so....
In Miami some 25 years or so ago, the cops handcuffed a guy to the back of a squad car, with the engine running - left him there for I don't know how long, but he expired - permanently. Again, this was probably an "effective" technique they used to get people to settle down in the past, encourage cooperation - harmless, right?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by martyb on Tuesday June 02 2020, @08:30PM (23 children)
From the reports I've seen, there was one officer restraining his legs, another restraining his torso/back, all while this officer had his neck on George's neck.
The knee-on-neck is clearly visible in the linked video. (The two other officers being hidden behind the police vehicle.)
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 5, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 02 2020, @08:44PM (20 children)
For reference, my 125lb 17 year old son (with severe Autism) cut his foot on some glass and we went to the ER. He was cooperative right up to the point where the needle came out for the stitches - wasn't having any of that - but the doc on duty told us he needed stitches an alternative like cyanoacrylate wouldn't hold up on the bottom of the foot and we'd have continued bleeding. So... after 6 hours, various sedatives, and many attempts they eventually dosed him with ketamine, twice, and had no fewer than 8 people holding him down to get the stitches in his foot. Even with that, the stitches were a bit uneven, but they were effective, and months later there's not even a scar.
If all you want to do is subdue someone with unrestrained force, one little cop with a billy club can knock out a bigger perp.
If you want to restrain somebody who is stubbornly resisting, without injuring them, you need a lot more bodies on your side.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Informative) by Booga1 on Tuesday June 02 2020, @08:51PM (13 children)
Knocking someone out cleanly and safely with a blow to the head is Hollywood stuff.
In real life it can result in failure to knock the person out, concussion, traumatic brain injury, permanent disability, and death. Let's not go there.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Tuesday June 02 2020, @08:55PM (8 children)
All that, and possibly piss them off to extreme fear/rage and you're in much bigger trouble. Pepper spray sometimes works, and sometimes you've got a very angry animal wanting to kill you.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 02 2020, @09:42PM (7 children)
I'm shocked at the quantity of pepper spray being used... do they have a stockpile that's about to expire or what?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 02 2020, @10:00PM
It's in the name. The stuff literally grows on bushes and there's a lot of bushes.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday June 03 2020, @01:04PM (5 children)
I just read somewhere, and I guess I shouldn't be surprised, that there are already conspiracy theories that the govt. or illumanati or whoever runs the world had this all planned out. Floating around social media there are images and videos of piles of bricks, for example, supposedly planted in strategic locations for the rioters to use. I can't imagine why, what would be the purpose... I have more important things to think about, and do... back to fixin' stuff.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday June 03 2020, @01:49PM (4 children)
Well that's clearly Illuminiati/Freemasons doing ;-)
In college (1980s) I was recruited for some kind of secret society vaguely touted to be related to the Illuminati - I declined at the point where they said: "If you go any further there's no turning back." Seemed like a clear choice to me: I'll pass, thanks. Anyway, in the teaser they talked about creation of chaos as the opportunity for change, the opportunity to gain power during chaotic change, etc. On the one hand, it sounded like a bunch of B.S., on the other hand, the guy recruiting me was a foster child from a poor-ish foster family and "the organization" fronted tens of thousands of dollars for him to go to a private university to study political science, and possibly to try to recruit me.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday June 03 2020, @02:44PM (3 children)
I think you're on to something. I would've thought bricks too obvious, but maybe the Freemasons posited that people would think it too obvious and blame the illumanati? And don't discount the Mafia. They killed JFK... wasn't it because he was messing around with Marilyn too much? And what about Sirhan Sirhan? Talk about contrived persons. They didn't have enough time to come up with a 2nd name. Or they thought people would be so distracted by the stutter name that it would throw them off the trail. Kind of like a magician creating distraction. And how do we know you did not join that society? Maybe it was just DND people? How did you put that many bricks everywhere? Maybe the looters put the bricks there to confound everyone else. If we could get the looters to build something with the bricks it'd blow everyone's minds, but we could blame it on coronavirus, which somehow plays into the whole plan but we haven't pieced it all together yet.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday June 03 2020, @03:11PM (1 child)
Random actors is the simpler explanation, and therefore the more likely.
Secret societies do exist... they do have some measure of influence, but IMO modern technology / global connectivity is a strong headwind for them, and they've probably historically overstated their actual influence in order to try to grow their influence in the present/future.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday June 03 2020, @03:52PM
(spooky music playing) We'll probably never know...
But seriously, yes, I agree 100%.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @04:28PM
JFK was killed because he was planning to nationalize the Federal Reserve. If you really want to get rid of Trump, convince him that he had a great idea to nationalize the Fed. Someone will take care of that for you.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 02 2020, @09:10PM
Yep - the mob "pros" back in prohibition days got pretty reliable results with lead saps to the back of the head, but they didn't care at all whether the guy who got knocked out ever woke up, nor what condition he woke up in.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday June 03 2020, @04:54PM (2 children)
I don't think you're really disagreeing with what Joe Merchant said, other than "take out" instead of "knock out" would have been the better choice. A sap or a blackjack may be even more effective, and back in the day cops and prison guards carried them as well.
Not disagreeing with you at all, either - such tactics are not permissible and we don't have to go any further.
Joe Merchant's point, I think, was that there's a big difference between trying to incapacitate someone and restraining someone.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by Booga1 on Wednesday June 03 2020, @06:05PM (1 child)
I basically came to the same conclusion after re-reading that statement shortly after I left my comment. My initial reading of that line was that he was suggesting cops should be whacking people upside the head as a "preferred" method of gaining control of a suspect.
I realized that wasn't the point he was trying to make when he left his response. Tone doesn't always come through in text and I definitely missed it this time. Still, I didn't feel like replying to myself and both of you have made it clearer for other readers. Thanks.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday June 04 2020, @12:42AM
I guess I know people who do think that, or at least talk like they think like that... certainly doesn't seem to be the kind of thing a rational person would want, but then I don't believe that rational people should walk around with easy lethal force on their hip either.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday June 02 2020, @09:50PM (3 children)
Of course, putting in stitches requires more control of movement than tossing someone into the back of a cop car and closing the door.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 02 2020, @10:00PM (2 children)
Thus: 8 orderlies + 2 doses of ketamine.
Still, when they started with only 4 and one dose of ketamine, he almost got off the bed with them all holding him.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday June 02 2020, @10:15PM
Probably because he wasn't handcuffed and flipped onto his stomach.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @10:18PM
We get it, people can be hard to restrain.
Are you perhaps suggesting one of the orderlies should have gotten on the bed and held a knee to your son's throat? Or are there perhaps better ways to restrain someone that doesn't involve imminent danger of bodily injury and/or death?
You need to stop arguing this point as it is irrelevant to this murder.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @05:11AM
The guy was handcuffed early on, before the cop started kneeling on the guys neck. He was sitting on the sidewalk for some time before a cop tried and had trouble getting him into the car, but I saw no violence on his. The guy was still cuffed. There is no way that any kind of choke hold was justified at all, much less standing on his neck for eight or nine minutes. He could barely get the words out "I can't breathe", and the cop, half smiling, just knelt there, choking off circulation to his brain by collapsing the carotid artery, until the guy stopped moving. After watching the videos it's inexplicable that the cops did this for any reason other than a premeditated decision to kill him.
(Score: 2) by martyb on Wednesday June 03 2020, @06:25PM
I can't imagine how hard that must have been to witness. I'm glad that it, ultimately, things worked out well for your son!
As for his resistance, sounds about like me at that age. I weighed about the same, but there was not one ounce of fat on me either. I'd think nothing of going out and splitting wood for an hour with a splitting maul. I was on the swim team and would swim the better part of a mile at each day's practice. I was not one to start a fight, but I sure was a wild one when I was threatened; I could squirm out of most any hold. Sadly, bullies saw me as an easy mark, so I had plenty of practice at evading their efforts.
From TFS:
I watched the entire linked video. I would not condone that being done to anyone, especially after Floyd became unresponsive; they could easily have put him in the police car at that point. The police released the hold only after the ambulance came and the EMTs took him away.
Were those doctors doing that to your son?
How long would you stand idly by and not intervene?
Especially after he becoming unresponsive?
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Tuesday June 02 2020, @08:53PM (1 child)
And I think George was handcuffed behind his back (?).
(Score: 2) by martyb on Wednesday June 03 2020, @02:34PM
Good point. From what I have seen and read, that is correct.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Wednesday June 03 2020, @12:02AM (19 children)
The Minneapolis police handbooks specifically ban the technique that he was using, because there's a substantial risk of killing the suspect. The cop in question had every reason to know what he was doing - if not the training manual, the guy telling him he couldn't breathe and the onlookers telling him that the suspect couldn't breathe.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @02:58AM
I imagine that the blood coming from Floyd's nose, Floyd becoming unresponsive/unconscious, and repeated pleas from onlookers that not only couldn't he breathe, but that he was, in fact, no longer breathing, were pretty good indicators that something was horribly wrong as well.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday June 03 2020, @03:14AM (17 children)
Some people are better suited to the job than others - a lot of adrenaline involved, a lot of relief when you get (no disrespect intended to the deceased) on top of a situation. Does he deserve to go down for manslaughter, absolutely. Claiming this was pre-meditated, or even intentional murder is taking it past the point of reality IMO. Sloppy cops, screwed up, shouldn't be on the street, definitely should be routine procedure to handle this as a punishable offense.
1998-ish, cop in my neighborhood shot a junkie in the back, 3am. Investigated by 30 squad cars from 3 different jurisdictions for 8+ hours (happened in the City of Miami, "suspect" dropped in the front yard of a Miami Dade SWAT officer, shot fired by his neighbor a City of North Miami Cop). Junkie was bad news, pain in the ass boyfriend of a woman across the street, going to end up hurting people sooner or later, but certainly didn't deserve to die. Shooter cop got 30 days off with pay and a stern warning to not do stuff like that anymore before being returned to duty - it's wrong - it was wrong then - it's wrong now - and it happens every day somewhere in the country. If you want to compare the 3 protesters killed so far to the number of people wrongfully killed by cops in a given normal week - it's on the same order of magnitude, or less.
Sadly, all the newspaper editorials, peaceful protests, appeals to politicians, lawsuits, etc. filed over the decades haven't moved the needle much since Rodney King. Maybe this is what it takes? Or maybe this will make it worse for a while but ultimately drive political reform of the police. Hard to know, always changing - the future is. /y
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @03:36AM (15 children)
No. Just no.
This was completely different than a shooting.
That piece of shit choked Floyd for nearly ten minutes. He heard Floyd's cries for help. He saw the blood coming out of Floyd's nose.
He was in close contact with Floyd as he slipped into unconsciousness -- which was obvious to people standing ten feet away.
He kept his knee on Floyd's neck long after Floyd was unconscious.
That cop had every opportunity *not* to kill George Floyd. And as he watched Floyd die, he continued to exert deadly force.
When you shoot someone, that's (or at least can be) a split second decision. The cop who *murdered* George Floyd squeezed the life out of him over almost ten minutes.
There was no imminent threat to the officer. He could see exactly what he was doing and the effect it had on Floyd.
And as he saw Floyd coming closer and closer to permanent injury/death, he consciously chose to continue to kill him.
You have repeatedly ignored the facts of this case. At first, I thought you were just misinformed. But I'm beginning to suspect that you're deliberately attempting to minimize the responsibility of that murderous scum. I wonder why?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @08:51AM
I guess Joe M is a cop himself. You know, semper fi and all that. Without the actual honor code.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday June 03 2020, @01:36PM (13 children)
Why do so many people write this way online? JoeM was stating some facts, like them or not, believe them or not. I don't see how you can conflate the facts with JoeM's person, and then attack him, based on your asinine assumptions and illogic. Argue the facts and ideas, but you're not bolstering your argument by ad hominem. You're looking like a desperate fool. That you're AC kind of makes my point.
Years ago I was privy to some inside (actual) facts about the Exxon Valdez disaster. I happened to know one of the attorneys in the case who is a relative of some very close friends. We chatted a bit about the case, and he told me that what you hear in the news media is so very far off from reality. The case was actively in court so he was measuring his words, but he told me enough detail, and these were actual facts from the investigation, that it changed my life. Never again have I gotten all riled up because of what I hear/read in the news. Ever hear the quote: "never let the truth get in the way of a good story"??? When you read / hear news, caveat emptor, okay? News comes with no Warranty of Fitness For A Particular Purpose. If _everyone_ alive would learn that wisdom, the world would be much more pleasant place, and we could all put more time, money, and energy into solving real problems like disease, hunger, pollution, energy, etc.
The news media just wants to sell news. They're all in competition and clamor for $ and "top stories" and "breaking news". My TV stations keep interrupting shows (that I'm not watching anyway) with "BREAKING NEWS" and it's just some govt. idiot blathering.
Look, there's no question that the cop killed Floyd and will go to prison. As far as how long, as I commented elsewhere, proving cop's state of mind and intent will be very difficult. Study law a bit. Everyone has a right to be considered innocent until proven guilty in court.
The Floyd case is just a tipping-point. I personally believe that cops and all in govt. need to be held to a higher standard of conduct. However, as my lawyer brother explained years ago when he was in law school, generally govt. has to protect itself. Interesting philosophically, if you think about it. If govt. doesn't protect itself, it will crumble into anarchy.
Ironically, imho, allowing cops to kill people and get away with it is causing anarchy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @03:32PM (7 children)
But I didn't hear/read it in the news. I watched the surveillance and bystander video and came to my own conclusions. Everything I said is verifiable and correct.
But don't believe *me* either. Watch the video.
Or are you claiming that the video has been altered or manipulated?
I said:
How is that an ad hominem attack? Or any sort of attack for that matter?
Or is it just that if I disagree, then it's an attack?
Are you going to accuse me of "attacking" you now?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @03:39PM (2 children)
Quite interesting the slant I keep seeing from the staff and more prolific posters.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @03:48PM
And what, exactly was the "vitriol" I spewed? Go ahead. Amuse me.
Even better, what might that slant be? That ought to be good. Do tell.
As for lecturing from "long time users", the one in question specializes in getting butthurt when someone disagrees with them. The funniest part is that in getting all butthurt, he does all the things he claims his target is doing. it's rather sad, actually.
But hey, it takes all kinds and I try not to judge.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @03:55PM
I heartily disagree. With the exception of Eth (who we mostly just mod down unless he's posting sober -- which is scarier, but usually a bit more coherent), each and every one of those users gets "lectured" by long term users pretty much every day.
Hell, that may be SN's most popular sport. And when Azuma or Ari get going, they really let 'em have it!
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday June 03 2020, @05:11PM (3 children)
I'm sorry, I stand corrected. That video shows EVERYTHING there is to know about the situation.
Look, I've said and written many times that I agree- the video shows the cop completely disregarding Floyd's well-being and very life itself. It's OBVIOUS, right?
You're ranting at me as if I'm in defense of the cop. I've said for 30+ years that cops are out of control in the US.
Cop must go to prison. The question is, for how long? And much more importantly, what's causing this? What was the backstory in this case, including the culture in the police world? Maybe they watch too many cop shows? Maybe too much bravado? I'm just as angry as all the protesters (not looters / arsonists) about police brutality and that nothing seems to be changing.
This is why I hate AC and would disable it if I was admin. There's at least 1 of you, and I suspect it's YOU, who has no LOGIC in their head. You take a piece of something and extrapolate it to the whole thing. Not enough of a psychologist to diagnose you, but ego is part of it.
This is a waste of time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2020, @03:12AM
I said:
That's a 'rant'? Please.
On the other hand, *you* said:
Compare the two:
I didn't call you any names. I gave you specific details about where my information came from and encouraged you to use that information to draw your own conclusions, as I did. Not one word that I wrote was derogatory of you or anyone else.
*You* called *me* asinine, a "desperate fool" and falsely claimed that I'm engaging in ad hominem aytacks.
The above isn't an attack either. I merely placed our respective statements next to each other and made some observations.
If you disagree with those observations, I'd love to hear your argument.
What's more Joe Merchant said:
The first statement isn't a fact -- It's an opinion -- which doesn't match the facts. I *never* said this was premeditated. In fact, I said *several times* in several different posts that premeditation was completely unlikely. I did say it was intentional.. That's absolutely clear from the video. Although I suppose some might disagree. But either way, that's opinion, not fact.
The second statement is also opinion. Again, people may disagree, but it's not a fact. A fact is something verifiable, like your blood type, your birthday, etc. As is the third.
So. You call opinion facts.
You then say I'm engaging in ad hominem attacks. Please, do define an 'ad hominem' attack for us and provide the specific text of my comment that fits the bill. Good luck with that.
You then claim I'm ranting at you? Hmm...let's see now:
Rant (n):
Please do help us understand how explaining how I obtained information and drew my own conclusions, then suggesting that you not even trust what I'm saying and see for yourself, is "ranting."
I didn't call *anyone* names. I didn't make defamatory remarks. I didn't even use strong language.
Look a the definition of 'rant' above. Your comments to me are much more like that definition than *anything* I said.
For reasons that will be obvious from this [youtu.be], I'm going to call you Pinback from now on.
Have a good night, Pinback. I sincerely hope you and your family are safe and healthy. Am I allowed to say that? Or is that a 'rant' or an 'attack'?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2020, @03:18PM
No Sergeant Pinback [youtu.be]. You hate AC posts because you can't mod-bomb ACs when you get butthurt because someone disagrees with you.
Maybe if you ask NCommander real nicely, he'll sell you the site. You could totally make this site exactly what you want it to be then.
Although, given your history, you'd likely end up the only active user, once you've driven everyone else away.
You go girlfriend!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2020, @10:15AM
We don't need another authoritarian asshole place like that. Slashdot already jumped that shark. Anonymous Cowards are nice for a lot of fucking reasons (some of us don't like logging in, others don't want all our comments correlated by the government, etc.)
If you think having AC turned off is a good idea, then you DON'T BELONG HERE.
Good riddance you fucking pro-authoritarian fascist.
Now if TMB comes out in support of disabling ACs, then we might need to have a different discussion. @TheMightyBuzzard; Care to comment?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by deimtee on Wednesday June 03 2020, @04:36PM (4 children)
The cop didn't look that stressed out. He just cheerfully choked a guy for nearly nine minutes. That's plenty of time to consider what he was doing. Try it, get a stopwatch and kneel on a cushion for 9 minutes. I pretty much guarantee you'll get bored and wonder what the hell you're doing long before you get to 9 minutes.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday June 03 2020, @05:15PM (3 children)
Deimtee, I completely agree with you, and never wrote anything in contradiction. Your post suggests otherwise. Not sure what you're trying to say, but you might be so angry about the situation, as am I, that you're ready to pounce on anyone who you misunderstand, even when we agree with you. Don't alienate people who are on your side. I've said for more than 30 years that cops are out of control in the USA, and worse, it's been noticed, and _nothing_ substantive done about it. They seem to be getting worse and worse.
That cop will go to prison, and probably won't live long unless they somehow build a new prison just for cops.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Wednesday June 03 2020, @07:31PM (1 child)
I think that was meant to be a reply to the guy arguing that it was the same as a split second decision to pull a trigger. Apologies.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday June 03 2020, @10:02PM
Thank you and you're quite forgiven, and I'm humbled to even write that. I'm slowly and finally getting on to the whole culture here, and sometimes my writing style is sharper than who I am. Fairly strong in logic, fairly weak in expressing myself. But yes, I agree, and it makes sense. There are so many sides to this situation. I hear more charges are leveled against the main cop, and the 3 others for "abetting". Sadly investigations often take weeks, months, years. Not sure why- seems like more focus could speed things along. Some investigations take so long that key witnesses die (sometimes murdered) and the criminal gets away with murder. I don't know which is more convoluted- IT or legal system...
Thanks again!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2020, @03:24AM
You might want to take your own advice. That's just a suggestion.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Thexalon on Wednesday June 03 2020, @05:48PM
The cop in question was kneeling on a guy who is on the ground, handcuffed, had shown no signs of resistance at any point during the encounter, choking on his own blood. The cop's demeanor was completely calm and casual, like someone who was walking their dog. He had 3 friends standing around, ready, able, and by all appearances willing to help him in case of any opposition. That's not the image of someone whose adrenaline and fight-or-flight-or-freeze response has gotten the best of them. That's the behavior of the kind of guy who will kill a man at 4 and at 5 will be drinking at the pub talking about the latest sports game like nothing happened.
And you can't reasonably argue it was an accident, either: What he was doing was specifically banned by his department. He had 10 minutes to stop doing what he was doing. He was being informed by both his victim and onlookers that he was killing the guy. There was zero risk to himself had he stopped. And yet he kept doing what he was doing.
Yes, and that's why there are people in the streets protesting. You just began to notice the point, congratulations. Just because it happens every day doesn't make it OK.
And the fact is that the response from the cops has been to beat, gas, and in a few cases kill people who in most cases have broken no laws. If that doesn't prove the point the protesters are making, I'm not sure what will.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 4, Informative) by sjames on Tuesday June 02 2020, @09:04PM (7 children)
On the other hand, "can't breathe" often means respiratory distress that isn't full arrest. If the cop hadn't used excessive force, even after the subject lost consciousness, he would also still be alive. It isn't unknown for people to continue trying to communicate until they pass out when a lung collapses.
A common principle in law is that if you assault someone, you are responsible for all of the harm done, even if the victim's underlying condition makes that harm much greater than you anticipated.
I say that as someone who once went to the hospital with respiratory distress. I was able to tell them I couldn't catch my breath. It wasn't a heart attack.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @10:45PM (6 children)
The term of art is "the soft skull argument." It's called that after the exemplar: if someone has a bone density reducing disease, and they are punched with enough force to be only a mild blow to anyone else, but it caves their skull in and kills them, the assault is no less heinous because of the vulnerability.
Societies without this standard in law would have problems with eg. it being more legally permissible to kill grandpa or a young child than a young athelete.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday June 03 2020, @02:28AM (5 children)
>if someone has a bone density reducing disease, and they are punched with enough force to be only a mild blow to anyone else, but it caves their skull in and kills them, the assault is no less heinous because of the vulnerability.
Is this disease a real thing? Or just a hypothetical made up for the legal principle?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @03:05AM
DDG is your friend:
https://www.britannica.com/browse/Bone-Diseases [britannica.com]
There are one or two that fit the bill, but there are plenty of other bone disorders that can weaken bones to make such a scenario plausible too.
And you're welcome.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @03:31AM
Older women with osteoporosis are literally the textbook examples for the eggshell skull doctrine.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday June 03 2020, @02:18PM (1 child)
Absolutely real. Look at boxing / various condoned fighting. Usually people get punched in the head dozens of times. Sometimes people die.
You could have a brain aneurysm (very weak spot in blood vessel) ready to pop. One bump and the person dies, or maybe worse, suffers permanent brain damage that would appear like a stroke.
Or someone could have a clot ready to break loose and one punch could loosen it and cause embolism (heart, lungs, brain, liver, kidneys, etc.) and the person's in dire straits.
Not sure how I feel about the legal philosophy though...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @05:49PM
Or second impact syndrome [wikipedia.org]. Or, hit repeatedly enough and one might get a brain bleed that wasn't aneurysm based. Or CTE.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @05:43PM
Osteogenesis imperfecta [wikipedia.org], type 16 especially, among others. (Latin way of saying less than perfect bone generation, but it is in a category of it's own.) Osteoporosis as well to some degree, though not really skull specific. The other possibility is fontanels (cranial suture lines) that fail to close and ossify, allowing a staving in of the skull bone.
Now, has anyone actually been a victim of that, I dunno. And I don't think it matters, because standards of duty and negligence usually only accounts for reasonable and prudent behavior, not exceptional cases. A professional does not have to foresee all possible consequences and problems, only reasonable ones. None of that excuses the behavior here and I am NOT trying to justify it - I am condemning it because no reasonable and prudent police officer should ever apply pressure to someone's neck. It is reasonable to assume an officer should know that pressure on the neck can cause tracheal closure, carotid artery occlusion (FAR more dangerous), and the potential of spinal injury.
But that a few people may have a particular weakness is not an argument. Let's say someone is allergic to peppers or capsaicin. Spices, for example, or animal studies [nih.gov]. I mean anaphylactic reaction allergic - it's hard to grade when something is intentionally an irritant and positioning may be a factor. That a very few might have those reactions does not mean police cannot use it as a tool. Not on peaceful protestors, but as an alternative to even more invasive interventions. Because the standard of duty generally permits that.
(Score: 5, Informative) by RamiK on Tuesday June 02 2020, @09:34PM
I'm no coroner and don't play one on TV, but:
1. Cardiac arrhythmias and asphyxia often follow even in healthy people as the heart races to pump as much oxygen as possible in cases where the airways are blocked so if he had a heart attack, it was still the direct result of the suffocation.
2. The reason executions by hangings were stopped was exactly because if a person managed to survive their neck snapping in the drop due to some technical mishap, they'd slowly suffocate for many minutes grunting and even screaming as the neck muscles slowly lost tension and the airways gradually closed. And that's their own bodyweight fully pressing against their neck rather than just half the weight of the officer as they move around. There's a few well known anecdotes about this happening in these sorts of stories: https://theweek.com/articles/459934/6-people-who-survived-executions [theweek.com]
compiling...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @11:26PM
(Score: 2) by ilPapa on Wednesday June 03 2020, @01:42AM
What kind of a scumbag do you have to be to make the "It's George Floyd's fault that he wasn't healthy enough to strangle" argument?
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @04:33AM (2 children)
Wow. I don't know if you're being intentional or not, but arguing over semantics is really glossing over the bigger issue. Whether the dude died of asphyxiation or heart attack or just the smelly bunghole of the cop - fact is watching the video there plenty of opportunities for the cops to restrain the guy without the necessary risks of that particular position they ultimately decided to employ.
Its similar to the shit ass cops we have here in Australia where they shoot someone pulling out a small knife after a long standoff where they could have brought in lots of other less lethal options to subdue the prep, like tasers, water sprays, canines, gas and crowd control equipments, etc.
The use of unnecessary force by authorities is the issue here, there's likely others like racial prejudices in the US but I'm not American nor live there so can't comment. Long gone are the days where the authorities give people benefit of the doubt and are you friendly neighborhood watchmen. Now its violence first, questions later and the people have to "respect" their authority like cattle. Its not just in the US.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday June 03 2020, @06:28PM (1 child)
It may be the shared customs and traditions have lead to the present state of affairs. Both Australia and the US inherited a lot from Britain. The whole idea of a police force is as an adversarial group whose first duty is to stop crime, and catch criminals. It may be the wrong approach. People are complicated, and not so easily divided into criminals and honest citizens. By using the strictest reading of the law, practically every adult is a criminal, at the least guilty of one of speeding, littering, trespassing, piracy (of data), playing music too loudly, disturbing the peace, etc. Can you swear that you have never in your life so much as accidentally dropped and lost a candy wrapper somewhere outside, perhaps at a park? Lot of police take that attitude, that everyone is a criminal. They are helped into that attitude merely by being organized and tasked with fighting crime.
They are prone to self-interested moves such as advocating for the criminalization of behavior that may be different and weird, but not harmful to others. Anslinger was the head of the federal agency tasked with enforcing the prohibition of alcohol, when Prohibition was repealed in the US. What did Anslinger do about it? He was thought an honest, upstanding person. But he saw that the agency that he headed might not be needed anymore, and he acted to save his and his underlings jobs by smearing marijuana as a dangerous drug. It worked. The War on Drugs has been an abysmal failure, but it gave those drug enforcers work to do.
In contrast, traditional societies such as the Aboriginies and Native Americans I guess don't have a professional police force.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2020, @04:17PM
Non-agrarian traditional societies were generally communal in structure, with marriage and blood ties occasionally bringing groups together for common cause, but more often than not they fought among each other. Often these groups would be taken over by neighboring feudal civilizations that had strong central leadership that could field armies (think of all those civilizations that just disappear from history, totally assimilated - the Celts, many of the North and South American native groups (how much integration actually happened relative to disease/genocide is a big question too).
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Wednesday June 03 2020, @05:10PM
I can't believe we have to tell cops this, but I can believe randos on the Internet need to be educated.
You don't need 100% loss of breath to die. Below a certain percentage (I don't know what it is, exactly), you have enough O2 to do some things, but you're on your way out unless they take the pressure off. Apparently, one of those things you can still do is talk. That would have some evolutionary advantage--allowing you to warn your fellow creatures with your dying gasps.
Sadly, we know this by empirical data. You can say things with your dying breath. It's fact. It's there, staring right at you.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 03 2020, @06:39PM
What was the point of that observation?
A common symptom of both is being unable to breathe.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @07:26PM
I have very little sympathy for dumb ass hood rats, but right is still right. Legislators can't be allowed to have cops violate basic constitutional rights via "drugs" laws. This kind of BS is what happens. I don't give a shit how he died. The dumb pigs should have had him in the car a long time ago. The fact is, they drag the encounter out on purpose, lecture, twist wrists, clamp handcuffs extra tight, etc. to try to get people to give any reaction so they can use more pain compliance techniques they have been taught. They are petty, cowardly, seditious scum.