When starting a thread, I almost never open up with an opinion because I don't like having any impact on how the discussion plays out... but if this video is as it appears to be, it's cold blooded attempted murder.
Maybe something threatening was said. I'm open. I want more details. But this video looks like bad, bad news.
Fast forward to 1 minute mark. - (
New Window )
It was an "unarmed" black man shot by a white officer (the taser was fired by a black officer). The past half year, we've been subjected to the Media showing the deceased in a football uniform from years ago while the officer is always shown in a mugshot. Initial reports had the man putting his hands up when the officers arrived. It wasn't until the trial that we saw the dashcam footage that showed his ignoring commands and running straight for the officer who shot him.
The verdict was a hung jury 8-4 in favor of the officer. The last few weeks, we've had to listen to the victim's family continually get in front of the cameras to say that their innocent son was murdered in cold blood and how justice won't be served until there is a conviction.
And the Media doesn't do much to refute that storyline.
It kind of looks that way to me as well, but I think he's actually responding to being shot -- the sound of the shot would take a split second or two to reach the person filming it.
What he did previous to this is immaterial, that includes the alleged crime and previous resisting. At the time of the shooting he was surrendering.
The shooting was unjustified....it's open and shut.
What he did previous to this is immaterial, that includes the alleged crime and previous resisting. At the time of the shooting he was surrendering.
The shooting was unjustified....it's open and shut.
Based on just this video- yep, doesn't look justified regardless of if he had a knife in his hand. Even the worst scumbags deserve their day in court. AFAIK, unless you're an imminent threat to the officers or others (which the video shows he wasn't at the time of the shooting-hands up and not advancing), lethal force isn't warranted.
Of course my opinion may change as more information comes out.
And no report of a knife being recovered.
Even while I was watching this video, as bad as the shooting looked I thought maybe I missed something. However, when I saw them mishandling the body, assuming he was even dead at that point clinched it for me:
This was an execution, pure and simple.
Without cameras POLICE WILL LIE to protect themselves and each other. They will withhold information, plant weapons and tamper with evidence, especially if the person in question is dead.
The public is subject to propaganda tactics, the strongest of which is the criminalization angle. Using codewords such as "thug" "rap sheet" "troubled" "angry" etc., makes the "victim" less than human and turns a subset of the population vocalize their assent to the outcome.
In Americas history, every immigrant group has been subject to this media castigation which is used to justify the tough law enforcement stances of the communities policing the immigrant population. It happened to the Irish, Italians, Jews, Poles etc.
However, because of skin color mostly, most other immigrant groups can effectively assimilate themselves into the mainstream. Blacks can't ever do that so they are effectively stuck visually as a criminalized underclass deserving of brutal police tactics to keep them in line.
Life is hard enough without being upon SIGHT being saddled with expectations of ignorance, lack of education, bad speech, over sexuality, muscular athleticism, minstrel show talent and worst of criminality.
From shop vendors locking you out and following you around, to women who grab their purses more tightly as you enter an elevator or shifting uncomfortably. You have to disarm everyone around you perpetually in order to be normal.
Imagine the psychological and emotional toll of living like that your entire life... school, work, play or just driving or walking down the street. I've seen it and experienced it first hand and as a way of life it sucks.
Usual suspects indeed.
It was an "unarmed" black man shot by a white officer (the taser was fired by a black officer). The past half year, we've been subjected to the Media showing the deceased in a football uniform from years ago while the officer is always shown in a mugshot. Initial reports had the man putting his hands up when the officers arrived. It wasn't until the trial that we saw the dashcam footage that showed his ignoring commands and running straight for the officer who shot him.
The verdict was a hung jury 8-4 in favor of the officer. The last few weeks, we've had to listen to the victim's family continually get in front of the cameras to say that their innocent son was murdered in cold blood and how justice won't be served until there is a conviction.
And the Media doesn't do much to refute that storyline.
I remembered this incident, so I googled it. I didn't find a report that said that the guy in the car crash was drinking or smoking pot all day (not really sure what smoking pot in the daytime has to do with a crash in the morning, anyway).
Didn't find the whole "pounding at the door thing" in an article either. Just saw he went to a door.
Also, the only article I found said that the dashcam did nothing to clear up the stark contrasts between the two accounts.
I did see that the state decided not to put the case onto a second trial after a juror told them "if you get 12 people in here, it will always be divided".
I specifically left out Asians out of my statement because they are different case. Although they did suffer through considerable bias and maybe even racism in America (detainment camps out west for Japanese, relegation of Chinatowns etch) the benefits that Asians have had are two fold.
1. They come from respected active cultures which while colonized weren't enslaved. Slavery was much more than simple corporal larceny; the institution of racism erased any sense of belonging to greater humanity. Cultures, names, family ties genealogies were systematically and purposely erased so that the only bond was to the captor.
Imagine the impact of waking up belonging to someone who can do with your life and your families lives whatever they wanted through force of law (US Constriction even).
The civil war was fought to preserve an economic model based on enslavement for the continued production of rawer materials... much of the rollback of the Reconstruction era was done by creating fear in the American population that newly freed individuals have no culture, no couth no learning are dumb, lazy and criminal.
At the same time any attempt to be normal was met with laws criminalizing black equality.. his lasted at least 100 years and was ingrained in the American institutions, laws and society. Black is bad, lazy, criminal and dumb...
Asians did not have to overcome that as the high cultures of Asia were considered relatively equal to European society. Chinese, Japanese ,Korean, Indian cultures all had elements to be revered, so descendants of those cultures couldn't be but so bad...
Meanwhile in Africa - "wild", "dark", "uncivilized" Africa... blacks are supposed to connect to what? The pyramids? Since the 1700s a movement amongst European archaeologists sought to find any other rationale for the construction of the pyramids other than Black Africans.
Where else is that culture which Euro-Americans could point to say African Americans come from high civilization and culture? The rise of language, writing, astronomy, law, civil management... all the records were either destroyed stolen or never existed.
Secondly, the historicity of trade between Europe and Asia is well documented. So being able to understand Asian culture and goals was not only easy for Europeans but fundamental to European growth through the dark, Middle Renaissance and explorer Ages. There is a romanticism about Asia steeped in mysticism and exotic fantasy that humanizes Asians more that those of African descent. So when Asian show scholastic and quantitative aptitude, Americans do not find it out of the ordinary. In fact an Indian scoring perfect quant on the GMAT is seen as passe...
So the amount of cultural bias and baggage to overcome is a magnitude lower for Asians than African Americans.
Link - ( New Window )
Quote:
Arby’s earned itself a new mortal enemy after initiating beef with a Florida police officer. The fast food restaurant, archenemy of Jon Stewart, reportedly refused service to an uniformed Pembroke Pines police officer on Tuesday evening for being a police officer.
Link - ( New Window )
It's obviously idiotic to refuse service to a cop, let alone anyone IMO.
But the blame for the current climate does not fall squarely on the shoulders of social media or the media in general. We can't absolve the legal system of blame. These things don't exist in a vacuum, and the way our justice system and law enforcement has operated has had a MUCH larger hand in creating the current atmosphere than simply social media... can't just use social media as a scapegoat.
FMiC, I want to come back to the Charlotte case for a minute. I'm not trying to call you out or anything, I just want to state that your post has seemingly far more bias than any of the news reports I've read online regarding the recent decisions surrounding the case. I never saw anything about marijuana, or the insinuation that the guy was in a drunk driving crash, didn't see that he was banging on the door in a threatening manner either. I did see that he moved towards the cops, but didn't see that he charged them. I also read that the cop was so bad that the driver had to crawl out from underneath the car. I wouldn't be surprised if he was disoriented, injured, concussed, or not in the right frame of mind.
But the biggest thing that popped to mind about your post is that you implied the dashcam proved the cops to be correct. I haven't found an article that states that. The articles I've found simply say that the dashcam didn't corroborate either sides version of the events.
I don't know why you put "unarmed" in quotes either. He was unarmed. There's no quotation marks needed.
Part of me doesn't doubt that the officer may have actually feared for his life. But think about the underlying implication... late at night, black man knocking on a door, moving towards me = fear for my life, pull the trigger.
That speaks volumes about the problem itself.
Maybe I'm wrong. I only spent like 20 minutes Googling news articles about the case It just seems that you presented it in a very specific light to prove a very specific point.
Initially, the city charged the officer for the shooting before reviewing all the facts and they settled a $2.5M lawsuit with the victim's family before the criminal case went to trial. Subsequantly, the Chief of Police resigned for personal reasons, though many believe it is because of this case.
Leading up to the trial, the victim was always referred to as a former football player (at Florida A&M) and shown in his jersey. Initially the news made it sound like he had a minor car accident and went to a house for help and almost made it seem like the police happened upon him.
In the trial (and I'm sure I can find references to this), the reason the police came is because he pounded on a woman's door at 3AM. Her testimony said that she feared for herself and her child as the man became more aggressive in trying to get in, so she called 911. When the police arrived, initial reports had him complying with the police and having his hands up. The dashcam video shows officers ordering him to freeze. He advances, gets hits by a taser but keeps running and then he goes out of the frame as he confronts the officer that fatally shot him. Because it doesn't show the finality, the dashcam video isn't conclusive, but what it did do was contradict the Media-told events prior to the case. The officer who fired the taser claims that the victim yelled "Shoot me", but that is not able to be confirmed or heard in the video.
What the case really highlighted was how it was portrayed in the Media vs. how it actually happened. The State has concluded that because the trial resulted in an 8-4 hung jury in favor of the officer and taht the evidence to get a conviction isn't good enough that they would not retry the case.
I'll see what other inofrmation I can find as the attached article is biased as it is coming from the officer's defense team. Many points are valid, but it is biased.
here is an excerpt:
Wes Kerrick Defense Team Response - ( New Window )
911 Call - ( New Window )
During cross-examination by prosecutor Adren Harris, Little was shown the dashcam video of the incident. In it, the red dots from Little's Taser lights are visible, but there's nothing on the audio portion to suggest that Ferrell asked the officer to shoot him.
Little says he gave Ferrell the command to stop, but that wasn't heard on the dashcam video, either.
shooting article - ( New Window )
Yeah, sounds like he's just looking for help. Home alarm going off, dude is screaming in the background, repeatedly kicking the door.
Poor woman with her kids in the house crying on the phone.
Give me a FUCKING break.
'This confirms everything we've been saying since the day that Jonathan was killed: That this was an All-American guy who gave a friend a ride home and was just trying to get home himself when he had a car accident. And when he was runs to the officer for help, the officer shoots him 10 times,' Chestnut told The Associated Press.
This was the narrative the public was given for almost a year. The victim was often referred to as a former college football player and an "All-American" guy.
We're screwed as a society if we give another inch to any of this horseshit.
Then we'll see how sympathetic you are to their plight.
In court, Ferrell's girlfriend testified that he had been smoking pot that afternoon and went to a friend's house. The friend then testified that they hung out that night having "a few beers".
The narrative is that a man politely knocks on a door at 3AM and the police are called simply because he was black. This was the narrative we all were given until the court case. Why didn't anyone report on the 911 call prior? It sure would've painted a different picture.
Man "knocked on door" - ( New Window )
Now, you're away on business. That's your wife on the phone. Your kid/s are upstairs in the house.
How much sympathy do you have for that guy, now?
And that goes all the way back to my original point on this thread.
I wonder how that woman would have reacted if he actually came "knocking" on the door like he did.
This is part of the issue with drawing conclusions without the facts. Without knowing the contents of the 911 call - it is easy to assume a man was simply asking for help and white fear is what drove the police to be called and white fear is what drove the officer to kill him.
Knowing the facts, that becomes a false narrative.
Most of these facts didn't come out until a trial despite there being a 911 call that the Media could have obtained as well as the dashcam footage.
Then we'll see how sympathetic you are to their plight.
Wait a second. I'm supposed to feel unsympathetic to the dead guy, who died younger than me, who wasn't committing a crime (that I've read of), because of this 911 call?
So this woman is scared, so this "clown" needed to die.
I just read the transcript. The woman said he kicked down the door. So logically, I guess this guy deserves no sympathy and should have been shot.
also not sure what the cop excerpt is supposed to prove. You posted a cops testimony that the guy said SHOOT ME that's uncorroborated. That testimony is supposed to prove what? It's the cop's testimony. Why am I to automatically believe that?
Britt, what the fuck is the heinous action that you can PROVE that made this guy a "clown" who deserved to die?
I'm not even passing judgement on this. All I said was that FMiC's post seeemed to have a hell of a lot more bias in it than the articles I read online.
But somehow it turns into another discussion of "hey, this is why this unarmed black guy deserved to get shot by the police".
I can't even compute how that 911 call is supposed to make me feel like it's okay that this guy got shot and killed.
Quote:
where the woman claims he is trying to kick down her door 911 Call - ( New Window )
Yeah, sounds like he's just looking for help. Home alarm going off, dude is screaming in the background, repeatedly kicking the door.
Poor woman with her kids in the house crying on the phone.
Give me a FUCKING break.
Wait, so he wasn't looking for help? So what was he doing? Trying to rob the fucking house?
Hey, I just crashed my car, let me go and try and break into a house just for the fuck of it.
Obviously the woman is scared and crying, but that has absolutely NO bearing on whether or not this guy deserved to die. It can appeal to your emotion all you want but whether or not this woman is crying is totally irrelevant.
She has every right to be scared shitless. She did the right thing for herself by calling the police. Still doesn't mean jack shit regarding whether he should have died.
Out of curiosity, I wonder if any reports have indicated how many police were on the scene.
Now, you're away on business. That's your wife on the phone. Your kid/s are upstairs in the house.
How much sympathy do you have for that guy, now?
And that goes all the way back to my original point on this thread.
Please connect what this woman's 911 call has to do with sympathy for the guy who was shot dead by the police after a car accident, while unarmed and not doing anything illegal.
This woman's 911 call somehow makes you lack sympathy for the dead man? What the fuck? It's like your fishing and looking for reasons to convince yourself that it's okay that this dude was killed.
In court, Ferrell's girlfriend testified that he had been smoking pot that afternoon and went to a friend's house. The friend then testified that they hung out that night having "a few beers".
So smoking weed and drinking "a few beers" somehow turned into the implication that he was driving around drunk or inebriated when he crashed his car...
Also, smoking pot in the afternoon has exactly a 0% affect on you 12 hours later, so it's completely irrelevant
I'm not even sure what I'm trying to defend here. I don't even know what position I'm trying to argue.
As I think it through, the only two things I'm contending here is:
1) FMiC's post had a fair bit of slant to it, so I don't think the fact that the media didn't report it the way he posted about it is fair criticism.
2) There is nothing that proves this guy deserves to die... ESPECIALLY that fucking 911 call.
I think the 911 call isn't to be used as evidence that somebody deserves to die - it is evidence that the police are most likely not looking for a car crash victim, but rather a possible break-in suspect at 3AM.
The car accident was never called in or reported.
The difference in those two scenarios means that the police are going to be looking at a suspect differently.
Hey, my position is that killing a guy with 10 shots is overkill and that training among all police in this country needs to get better from a scene recognition standpoint, but what this case also highlighted is how the Media's initial reporting of stories affects how people perceive this situation.
Frankly, if I've just had 911 called on me at 3AM and I charge an officer, I'd expect one possible outcome to be serious injury or death. I think the jury saw it that way as well.
Be as incredulous as you fucking like.
I'm not the one trying to turn a dead guy into a villain based on a 911 call.
"Did you hear how scared that lady is? How could you have sympathy for someone who caused a woman to be so scared!!!"
That's pretty much what you just said. No crime, no weapon, but he scared the woman, so why have sympathy for the dead guy?
What an unbelievable reaction. How can you not be aware that you are looking for reasons to believe this guy should have died?
I am not sympathetic to this particular "victim's" plight because of the way he conducted himself.
What are you going to do about beyond bitch on a message board and perpetuate a culture that at best gets an innocent cop not served at a restaurant, and at worse gets innocent cops executed.
Nothing.
He died because he:
1) Had actions that resulted in 911 involving the police
2) Failed to comply when the police arrived
3) Charged at an officer leading to the deadly shooting
There are a number of ways this could have been avoided, including the officer not using deadly force. Ultimately, a jury had a majority belief that he should have been acquitted.
after reading this board on almost any social issue it's obviously a microcosm of society.
I think the 911 call isn't to be used as evidence that somebody deserves to die - it is evidence that the police are most likely not looking for a car crash victim, but rather a possible break-in suspect at 3AM.
The car accident was never called in or reported.
The difference in those two scenarios means that the police are going to be looking at a suspect differently.
Hey, my position is that killing a guy with 10 shots is overkill and that training among all police in this country needs to get better from a scene recognition standpoint, but what this case also highlighted is how the Media's initial reporting of stories affects how people perceive this situation.
Frankly, if I've just had 911 called on me at 3AM and I charge an officer, I'd expect one possible outcome to be serious injury or death. I think the jury saw it that way as well.
Yeah, that's a fair point, and definitely is something that makes me reconsider a post I made earlier in this thread (the one about how the initial reaction of the police was indicative of a larger problem... they were looking for a possible burglar, so it makes sense they'd come out aggressively).
Having said that, if there's 3 trained cops with guns, and 1 guy, unarmed, who has already been tased, why was shooting him 10 times the next logical course of action?
One thing I am also curious about is how serious his injuries from the car crash were. On one hand, I think that's a huge variable in understanding how the situation went down. On the other hand, it's probably somewhat irrelevant as I don't think this guy should have been shot to begin with. That doesn't mean the cops need to be convicted of a crime... it just means that this guy didn't need to be shot. I don't see where there's any proof that he posed a mortal threat to the police,.
Physically, he seemed fine, but one has to wonder if disorientation or mentally there was an effect.
I don't know if that ever came out.
They are trained that if a taser has no apparent effect on stopping a person, deadly force can be used if there is an immediate threat.
Again - that's why I say training needs to be reviewed. I'd rather see people subdued instead of killed. Also, because of the darkness, it could not be known if he had a weapon on him. There might have been an assumption that if he was openly trying to break into a house, he probably was armed - that point was made at trial.
He died because he:
1) Had actions that resulted in 911 involving the police
2) Failed to comply when the police arrived
3) Charged at an officer leading to the deadly shooting
There are a number of ways this could have been avoided, including the officer not using deadly force. Ultimately, a jury had a majority belief that he should have been acquitted.
It's not about a white cop wanting a black guy dead. That's not how it works, it's not so cut and dry. It's about a white cop probably factoring in this guy's race into his assessment of how much of a threat he posed.
This is what the CNN article states happened on the dashcam:
Someone shouts, "Get on the ground!" three times, and shots are heard.
There's no command for the dead guy to stay still. If he moves away from the officers, he's trying to get away. He walks toward them, and they raise a taser.
I just watched the dashcam video. Seems the other car had the dashcam off, but some of the incident is still visible. He's walking pretty calmly towards the police, then begins to run. At that point, they take out their gun and shoot him.
That's the thing that gets me... he's moving towards the police. And the police construed this as "he's going to try to take my gun".
The statement.... "IF he got into a tussle with him, he MAY have tried to take one of our guns" is a pretty weak ass excuse to put 10 bullets in someone. That's two variables in one sentence that equated into an unarmed dead guy.
Physically, he seemed fine, but one has to wonder if disorientation or mentally there was an effect.
I don't know if that ever came out.
Yeah I just watched the video and honestly he doesn't look that badly hurt.
As I rewatch the video, I wonder:
1) why do people put themselves in bad situations by making stupid decisions like running? Did something cause him to run? did he see a taser raised, think it was a gun, and try to GTFO?
2) why do these cops have to fire two separate rounds of fire?
When I watch that video, I do not see the mortal danger posted to police that caused them to have to kill this guy.
The training is definitely a good point. People have spoken about the insular, bunker mentality that are in some police stations. I wonder if training can mitigate some of that, but truth be told, I have absolutely no idea.
It's just a very glum realization to think that there isn't really a crime this guy could have even be charged with (I guess kicking a door), but somehow he ends up dead because he scared the cops.
And this goes back to what I was saying about race. It's not about white cops looking to kill black people outright. But I don't think it's beyond reason to say that this guy's size and race probably played into the threat assessment of him, which probably lead to the officers "fearing for their life" (still dubious, IMO..you may have struggled with him and during that struggle he may have taken your gun?)...which lead to him getting shot.
People who try to deduce these things, on both sides, into singular statements such as "white cops looking to kill black guys" or "don't be a criminal / don't surprise cops or you deserve to get shot" are doing the entire discussion a disservice by trying to boil down a complicated issue and oversimplifying it.
The following statement is obviously not 100% true, but is true enough that it is a big part of this problem: cops perceive black people as bigger threats than white people, and black people have zero trust that the police are actually there to help them, or won't do something to harm them.
The jury also considered the fact that even though the deceased was shot ten times, he still made it to the officer enough to tackle him in a ditch and ended up dead on top of him. The officer did have a fat lip and abrasions to his head
The jury also considered the fact that even though the deceased was shot ten times, he still made it to the officer enough to tackle him in a ditch and ended up dead on top of him. The officer did have a fat lip and abrasions to his head
Regarding your first paragraph, that's exactly my point. I have always maintained that this isn't an issue solely about white cops and black citizens. It's about police interactions with society in general, particularly minorities, and particularly black people.
In terms of your second paragraph, well yeah, I'm not surprised that after being shot 10 times the guy may have tried to fight back and end up dead on the cop. I don't feel the dashcam video shows any indication that this guy was trying to fight three cops and take their guns and murder them, and I don't think any of his behavior up to that point indicates that this dude was going to try and fight and murder 3 cops.
And yeah, lastly, that 911 call does absolutely NOTHING to remove the sympathy I have for this dead guy who shouldn't be dead... and if the 911 call somehow makes someone think it's okay that this guy died.... then the people who feel that way are just looking for an excuse to justify this shooting.