I never said being a cop isn’t dangerous, and I admire many who do that job. But when a country’s police are shooting its citizens over 1500 times a year while other advanced states see a rate of one or two or four annual shootings, clearly there is a problem that needs to be addressed. I have my hunches, but I don’t exactly know whether the solution or even the problem is systemic racism, more training, more evaluation before hiring, a shoot-first mentality, police unions, the proliferation of firearms in society, or maybe some or all of those; but we have to find out and make changes. Innocent people are dying. And even if a person isn’t innocent, a police officer is there to protect and serve, not act as an executioner .
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So the DA is fake news? Lol, ok
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Whether the numbers can decrease or not isn’t my point and I think policing can improve even beyond just shootings. However, if of that 1,500 people 1,460 of them were armed (and of the 40 unarmed at least a few are suicide by cop or were attacking the cop) it really does seem like there are limits to how much it can drop if the only thing we are changing is policing rather than other aspects of society. But mainly, I’m saying comparing to other developed countries just doesn’t work.
In the US we average nearly 2 guns per person. In Japan the average is something like 1 gun for every 500 people.
Being a cop here and there is a completely different beat.
Funny, not funny.
Both the left and the right here attack the police unions. Of course for completely different reasons.
Thank the good lord that they have me here.
First, I hear this term “union policy”. It is not “union policy”. It is either articles of collective bargaining agreements or state laws.
Laws and Agreements. Unions protect due process.
Due process, every decent person should want that.
Yes crooked with an agenda! Do your homework! He said brooks was jovial! Jovial but throwing haymakers causing concussion and shooting takers at law enforcement! I hope guys like you teach your children better because I don’t think color of skin would have saved this guy!
Um, ok.
I’m typically in a union myself and am supportive of them. Police unions are a different matter.
This assumption may not hold to be true with this DA. Many DAs will present an argument that is all in to convict the person they are trying to put away, but his story telling just didn’t come close to representing what was seen by all the videos.
The red flag really went off when a situation that has all been told by live video versus still pictures, the DA proclaims that the officer is kicking the victim with a still picture which any unbiased person couldn’t confirm that was the case and zero video. Then the officer’s attorney with anger proclaims the DA is lying and counters with video of his client assisting the victim and encouraging the victim to keep breathing as CPR is applied. It doesn’t add up.
Add in the excessive overcharging that all legal and law enforcement has confirmed that I’ve seen and this DA getting way ahead of the GBI investigation and it just doesn’t look good for this DA.
Considering the run off election this DA is facing and his own political legal issues and the red flags continue to appear.
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The kicking thing maybe. That is subjective based on the photo. He could get that wrong.
Saying “I got him” is something he heard. That would be a flat out lie and I just don’t see him doing that.
The not rendering aid was for a set amount of time. He didn’t say they never did it.
I’ve said he could be lying. It’s possible. I just don’t think that’s the most logical assumption here. We will find out eventually.
Thats fine. I do expect it all to come out over time. A lot of video and witnesses here and the GBI still have to conclude their investigation also.
A couple more things, the 2nd officer denies that he is a state witness in total contradiction to the DA’s claim. That is another point that doesn’t make DA look good.
Also, the 2nd officer’s lawyer claims he hit his head so hard during the fight that he endured a concussion and says they have medical doctor confirmation. The video of the fight shows as the victim rolled him over fast before breaking away, the officer’s head did throw back and hit the concrete hard. That concussion will play in the defense of his three charges.
Got to hear the entire context of the “got him” claim on the video and tone of voice. The video clip of providing medical aid and encouraging him to keep breathing is also compelling and shows state of mind.
I’m not surprised the other officer is doing that honestly.
In any event, I think murder is probably going too far. I’m not advocating for that. But we have to look at everything out there which wasn’t done early in the thread. I added some things and you did too. That’s all good and what should happen.
That said, I also think he killed this guy and didn’t have to. These kinds of things will continue to happen if we keep the mentality of just listen to the cop and you won’t die. There’s your solution. We have to do better than that.
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A better number would be how many were carrying a gun illegally or just used it in a violent crime. Otherwise that number shows that cops need a lot more training on how to deal with people who have weapons. As you provided, most people have guns and many states have open carry. Doesn’t mean cops should be able to just kill somebody because they see a gun and get scared. Seems like the 2nd amendment people would be pushing for police reform here as well. And a damn taser is no where close to a gun, a small pocket knife is more lethal than a taser.
The sad thing is Mexico police kill far fewer people than the US. If you think our police officers are in danger, I wouldn’t even know how to explain their danger levels. Our police suck at not using lethal force.
And, we had 1 taser vs. 2 guns and probably another taser in this situation. Yet the guy with the taser died. It seems there was another way (or dozen) to handle this situation.
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Sure the number is overinclusive but your criteria is also probably underinclusive.
If someone is committing a crime, resists arrest and has a weapon, whether the crime is violent or whether the criminal had a license to carry, it’s tough to put that on the cop when we already have 100 cops die in the line of duty each year as-is. I wasn’t trying to imply that every single one of those 1460 are justified and that number can probably come down some and we should strive for that. However, there’s no way it can get close to those other countries in that article if we otherwise want to have reasonably safe communities.
Mexico on a per capita basis has a little more than half our police shootings and you are right that being a cop there is infinitely more dangerous. However, the police forces also don’t enforce laws there to the extent we do, can be bribed by the cartel, etc.
If we could emulate Mexico and cut our police shootings in half from 1,500 to 750 but that meant our murder rate tripled to Mexico’s per capita so we went from 16,000 to 48,000 would that be better than our current system?
I’m all for improvement and saving more lives but improving significantly isn’t as easy as some make it out to be.
Also, for what it’s worth, unarmed police shootings have been dropping even though the total number of police shootings hasn’t dropped all that much since unarmed shootings make up a small percentage of the total. That drop is probably in part to the attention the BLM movement has brought.
Mexico is a 3rd world country and no I was not saying we should be anything like their police. Just pointing out that they have a known corruption issues in law enforcement, cartels control areas of that country, and gun battles between police/cartels are the norm, yet they still have fewer killings. They probably have very low numbers when looking at individuals and most likely zero for unarmed killings (the fact that only the cartels and police have guns is the reason for this).
I for sure never said improving would be easy. It will take decades of reform, better training, better procedures, and getting rid of many cops who shouldn’t be there. It will also take lowering the amount of racism in this country.
Don’t ever take a tazer to a gun fight 
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Why are police unions a different matter?