needtosay wrote:

I think that very often the what we see on video is misleading especially when they are from bystanders videoing the incident.  So much is not shown on them.  While I do believej there are bad cops out there I do think that many times he cops are justified in the actions they take. I just a  video of the lates incident. The cop pulled he teenage boy over for a minor thing. The kid was uncooperative from the get go and wouldn't produce his drivers license.  Long story short the whole thing escalated and the kid ended up attacking the cop and the kid ended up dead. The cop shot him.  For some reason so many believe that they don't have foillow the officers orders and they argue and become compbative.  If people would just get out of that way of thinking so  many of these incidents would be avoided.  If they just follow the officers directives and just be cooperative these situations wouldn't escalate and these people wouldn't end up shot . If that kid had cooperated he would have walked away with at most a ticket that night and at the least a warning. Very sad. 

Hi need,

I just composed a response to you that somehow vanished! Perhaps I hit a wrong key and somehow managed to delete it. In any case here are my thoughts;

Video from bystanders is very effective but not as effective as the police officers's body cam. First, police officers are not murderers. No officer goes out in the field wishing to shoot anyone, armed or unarmed. And while they are unlikely to defend it quite as loudly during a time of national langst like now, people who work in law enforcement know they are legally vested with the authority to detain suspects, an authority that must sometimes be enforced. 

In the overwhelming majority of cases it is not the cops, but the people they stop, who can prevent detentions from turning into tragedies. Sometimes no amount of persuasion or warnings work on a belligerent person and that is when cops need to use force, the result can be tragic.

Even though it might sound harsh or impolitic, here is the bottom line: if you don't want to get shot, tased, pepper-sprayed, struck with a baton or thrown to the ground, do what the officer tells you to do. Don't argue, call names, don't tell the officer he/she cannot stop you and never aggressively walk towards the officer. Most field stops are completed in minutes. How difficult is it to cooperate for that long?

Last edited by Braveone99 (10/19/2015 5:05 pm)

There is so much to say here, I'm not sure where to start. Let's see if I can get through it all.

First, until today, I had never heard of or seen a picture of James Blake. I agree he is easy on the eyes, even if he is not nearly as good looking as Shemar Moore, my personal favorite of the young, black, male persuasion. Second, if the officer didn't know who he was either, I can in all honesty understand that as this particular athlete obviously is not the household name of say Serena or Venus Williams.
Third, regardless of notoriety, had the officer approached Mr. Blake in a commanding fashion, identified himself and attempted to question the "suspect" of a non dangerous offense of identity thief and credit card fraud, in a manner in accordance with the offense, we wouldn't be having any conversation about this in the first place. The fact that he felt the need to "throw down" a person of interest, in such a manner is at the very least, unnecessary and at worst, reprehensible.

I, for one am not in any way shape or form against PD or SO, doing their sorely unappreciated jobs to the best of their abilities. I applaud the numerous citizens that have been standing guard around our "Men in Blue" at gas stations and convenience stores, so that these officers can do simple, everyday tasks without having to constantly look over their shoulders to see who might be gunning for them. It speaks volumes for how far we, as a community, have come in seeing the right and wrong of current events. What I want to see more of are the articles and videos of officers doing right by the communities in which they serve. My favorite videos to date are the one where the officer "stops" the 7 year old in her small electric car to give her a "ticket", which the child found out could be redeemed at the local ice cream shop, for her compliance with all the local regulations of off road vehicles and safety of our youth on side of the road situations. The other was the appearance of several officers, lights and sirens blaring, making a requested appearance at a 4 year old's birthday party. She was way beyond tickled, as were all the children that got to crawl around in the three police cars and interact with their police officers. These are the kinds of stories we don't see often enough. 

Unfortunately, the lame stream media seems to highly enjoy fostering anomosity between the citizens and the police, though for the life of me, I just don't see what they get out of doing that.
As far as the issue of racial profiling, I have heard stories of several more widely known black entertainers being "pulled over" and harrassed by various law enforcement agencies in several different states, not the least of which were all big ticket names in their own right, such as Laurence Fishburne, Samuel L. Jackson, Blare Underwood, and Tiger Woods, just to name a few. These guys should have been recognized long before any possible confrontation could have taken place, but the fact that they were all stopped for being black men in white neighborhoods in really nice cars, just seemed to send up red flags to PD for some reason. So if a guy who has been identified, even falsely, by a so-called witness, that the officer doesn't recognize as a celebrity gets "man handled" for being in the wrong place at the wrong time and just happens to be black, I'd say it is an unfortunate sign of the times. It's not right, it's not fair but scant little in life ever is. And the beat goes on.

MamaSqu wrote:

There is so much to say here, I'm not sure where to start. Let's see if I can get through it all.

First, until today, I had never heard of or seen a picture of James Blake. I agree he is easy on the eyes, even if he is not nearly as good looking as Shemar Moore, my personal favorite of the young, black, male persuasion. Second, if the officer didn't know who he was either, I can in all honesty understand that as this particular athlete obviously is not the household name of say Serena or Venus Williams.
Third, regardless of notoriety, had the officer approached Mr. Blake in a commanding fashion, identified himself and attempted to question the "suspect" of a non dangerous offense of identity thief and credit card fraud, in a manner in accordance with the offense, we wouldn't be having any conversation about this in the first place. The fact that he felt the need to "throw down" a person of interest, in such a manner is at the very least, unnecessary and at worst, reprehensible.

I, for one am not in any way shape or form against PD or SO, doing their sorely unappreciated jobs to the best of their abilities. I applaud the numerous citizens that have been standing guard around our "Men in Blue" at gas stations and convenience stores, so that these officers can do simple, everyday tasks without having to constantly look over their shoulders to see who might be gunning for them. It speaks volumes for how far we, as a community, have come in seeing the right and wrong of current events. What I want to see more of are the articles and videos of officers doing right by the communities in which they serve. My favorite videos to date are the one where the officer "stops" the 7 year old in her small electric car to give her a "ticket", which the child found out could be redeemed at the local ice cream shop, for her compliance with all the local regulations of off road vehicles and safety of our youth on side of the road situations. The other was the appearance of several officers, lights and sirens blaring, making a requested appearance at a 4 year old's birthday party. She was way beyond tickled, as were all the children that got to crawl around in the three police cars and interact with their police officers. These are the kinds of stories we don't see often enough. 

Unfortunately, the lame stream media seems to highly enjoy fostering anomosity between the citizens and the police, though for the life of me, I just don't see what they get out of doing that.
As far as the issue of racial profiling, I have heard stories of several more widely known black entertainers being "pulled over" and harrassed by various law enforcement agencies in several different states, not the least of which were all big ticket names in their own right, such as Laurence Fishburne, Samuel L. Jackson, Blare Underwood, and Tiger Woods, just to name a few. These guys should have been recognized long before any possible confrontation could have taken place, but the fact that they were all stopped for being black men in white neighborhoods in really nice cars, just seemed to send up red flags to PD for some reason. So if a guy who has been identified, even falsely, by a so-called witness, that the officer doesn't recognize as a celebrity gets "man handled" for being in the wrong place at the wrong time and just happens to be black, I'd say it is an unfortunate sign of the times. It's not right, it's not fair but scant little in life ever is. And the beat goes on.

Hello MamaSqu,

First, thanks for posting so eloquently. 

I agree, minorities are still 'more' likely to get pulled over or targeted by police in many communities regardless of community race relations. In a perfect world all races would be treated the same by police, but the numbers show we are still not living in a perfect world.The discriminatory police treatment of blacks remains one of the hardest perennials in American life. 

In recent years the protests against this behaviour have taken the form of movements to reform police practices and change the nature of police training, as well as the composition of the police forces themselves. The fact is this problem will not get better by itself. All must work to change this situation and be more focused on promoting community policing, removing officers with patterns of racial abuse and officers who are abusive period. 

As important is the need to create a beneficial relationship between communities and police. Moreover, it's important to always keep in mind that police officers do very tough jobs with very little recognition, and the majority of them succeed in helping to keep us all safer. We need a true national movement on this issue if we're going to eliminate the scourge of unnecessary forms of abusive policing.

Last edited by Braveone99 (10/24/2015 3:16 pm)