Yeah, my first thought was that defunding the police was idiotic until someone explained what they meant, which isn't just to slash the department's budget.

What they mean is for example, instead of having the police arrest homeless people, reinvest money in homeless shelters. When a mentally ill person is wandering around without meds, instead of calling the police, have a trained medical unit whose job is to deal with that.

The police are called in to do all sorts of things they really shouldn't be doing, so the idea is to put money into those things, resulting in a smaller police force that really just deals with crime.

It doesn't mean leavethings as they are, with less money, which we all agree would be dumb.

"When a mentally ill person is wandering around without meds, instead of calling the police, have a trained medical unit whose job is to deal with that."

This helps illustrate just how damned far from the street most softheaded people are: all you need is ONE mental case turning violent - which happens - and you have to get police anyway.

"Trained medical unit"? You mean, more people dressed just like cops to deal with people acting just like criminals in most cases? What, do you think the mentally ill come with a sign, "Don't arrest me for breaking and entering, I'm mentally ill!"? Jeepers, just watch ANY episode of LivePD - that's what cops do, they call EMS!

You're going to find out what "self-defense" means, and the lesson isn't going to be fun.

This shit happens when you treat a case where a guy dies of heart failure from being beat up as common.

It's like the argument on here about treating a violent plane passenger according to policy (that one's also nicely illustrative of the wholly hypothetical nature of some person's assertions - you'll see who).

The 57 officers in Buffalo resigned from the Emergency Response Team, not from the force.

The officers who left the ERT said they did so because they felt they had no legal protection from the city in doing their jobs. The PBA originally reported it as a show of support for the suspended officers. The officers say that is not why they left the ERT.

"I don't understand why the union said it's a thing of solidarity. I think it sends the wrong message that 'we're backing our own', and that's not the case," one of the officers said.

"We quit because our union said [they] aren't legally backing us anymore. So, why would we stand on a line for the city with no legal backing if something [were to] happen? Has nothing to do with us supporting," said a second officer.

The PBA had sent out an email stating:

In light of this, in order to maintain the sound financial structure of the PBA it will be my opinion the PBA NOT to pay for any ERT or SWAT members legal defense related to these protests going forward. This Admin in conjunction with DA John Flynn and or JP Kennedy could put a serious dent in the PBA's funds.

This is what we can expect if we completely destroy qualified immunity. No one will be willing to volunteer for the rigorous jobs anymore and everybody will stick to "working the contract."
__________________________________________________

There is some speculation that the old man who was injured may have set the police up. He was asked many times to leave the area and refused. He has a history of being an activist - not always a "peaceful protester" as has been reported.

Even so, it's difficult to dismiss images of the police pushing a 75-year-old man to the ground. Them's some bad optics there, BPD.
__________________________________________________

As for the Minneapolis police stabbing tires, I have no idea what that was about.
__________________________________________________

When a mentally ill person is wandering around without meds, instead of calling the police, have a trained medical unit whose job is to deal with that. ~ NicoleK at June 9, 2020 12:39 AM

And when that mentally-ill person is a violent psychotic with a weapon?

Most cities have paramedics and EMT units, but they won't go into a situation until the scene is secured. Who secures that scene? The police.

I've said for years that we're asking the police to do too many things for which they're not trained. But defunding the police force so we can create these fantasy teams of single-situation responders is not the answer.

A 911 call about a man with a knife threatening passersby could be a mentally-ill person off his meds, it could be a person high on drugs, or it could be something else. How does 911 route that call? Who goes into evaluate?

That said, far too many police officers are of the "shoot first and ask questions later" mindset. Perhaps part of the problem stems from officers no longer "walking a beat," but sitting in their patrol cars and viewing the world as "us and them." The officers don't get to know their neighborhoods and the people in them - and those people don't get to know the friendly neighborhood police officer, the police become "them."

Patrol cars allow police officers to have a better reach, to back each other up, and to respond to crime faster and better equipped. But they do isolate officers from the public.

One caveat, is that having police officers "walk a beat" will require more officers (and probably a lowering of standards to admit more to the academy), not defunding the department.

That said, perhaps a new system is in order. But before we decide to dismantle the entire system, let's give some thought to what could, and should, replace it.

I think they were referring to people calling in and saying "My brother is off his meds and wandering around please find him", not people calling in and saying "There's a guy shooting an Uzi at Whole Foods"

It's like the argument on here about treating a violent plane passenger according to policy (that one's also nicely illustrative of the wholly hypothetical nature of some person's assertions - you'll see who). ~ Radwaste at June 9, 2020 4:31 AM

Remember, the police are the professionals who are trained in "...the proper protocols to restrain someone...."

Presumably, the police "...received proper training in how to restrain a violent passenger without having to put them in jeopardy of choking to death."

Um, yeah. How'd that "proper training" work out for Eric Garner and George Floyd?

What is interesting is how this issue has everyone on the left clamoring to disband unions.

I think they were referring to people calling in and saying "My brother is off his meds and wandering around please find him", not people calling in and saying "There's a guy shooting an Uzi at Whole Foods" ~ NicoleK at June 9, 2020 5:30 AM

So, this specialized team of medical responders would have street patrols that could be mobilized for the search?

If the police are called to search for someone's brother who is off his meds, they don't go in shooting. The narrative of the police as trigger-happy lunatics is mostly a left-wing fantasy. Thousands of lost people have been found and returned home by the police with no one getting killed or injured.

And if someone's brother off his meds is shooting an Uzi at Whole Foods? Would the police shooting him be treated as justifiable in this environment? Or would the police be excoriated for not calling in a psychiatric expert to talk him down, for killing yet another innocent person?

The narrative of violent racist officers casually killing innocent African-Americans just going about their daily business is a false one.

Let's not forget that George Floyd had a decade-long history of criminal behavior and drug abuse. He moved from Texas to Minnesota after serving a prison sentence in Texas for aggravated robbery, which involves the use of a weapon or injury of a victim. When the police rolled up on him in Minneapolis, it was to investigate a report he was attempting to pass counterfeit money. He had controlled substances in his system, fentanyl and methamphetamines.

While the 3rd Precinct in Minneapolis was not innocent in all this either, with a record of violence, abuse, and corruption, let's not pretend Floyd was a saint. It's a messed-up situation all around. But dismantling the MPD, as the city council is preparing to do, is not the answer.

You can defund the police, but I think no one will be happy what takes its place.

But let’s say these ultra-progressive municipal governments could get their wish and abolish the police in their cities entirely. What would happen? Inevitably, an armed group would emerge and impose a monopoly on the use of force.

If you want an idea of how that works, look to our southern neighbor, Mexico, where over the past decade endemically corrupt police departments in some areas have been supplanted by autodefensas, or local self-defense militias.

https://thefederalist.com/2020/06/09/if-you-want-to-know-what-disbanding-the-police-looks-like-look-at-mexico/

Wow, that is quite a stretch on the qualified immunity Conan. Here the police still have qualified immunity, they just won't get any of their legal bills paid by their union. I hope you realize this isn't a binary choice. You don't only get to chose between complete legal immunity when on the job or zero legal help from your employer.

This example with the police slashing tires is exactly why current 'qualified' immunity is a bad idea. Those officers knew they were committing a crime. And they had no concern with doing it in broad daylight and in uniform. They should be held personally responsible for their criminal acts. That is the only way the next time a mayor or police chief ask for his officers to commit blatantly illegal activities those officers will refuse to do so.

NicoleK, a message is what it is. If you have to say that isn't what I meant to say then you are communicating poorly and need to change your message. 'Defund the police' means what it means. Claiming otherwise is just a sign you are dishonest. Same with 'Black lives matter'. It is an inherently racist message. Adding one word isn't that difficult and plenty of people have pointed out how blatantly racist the phrase is. 'Blue lives matter too' is already out there. If the BLM people weren't racist they would have already change it to 'Black lives matter too'. Claims otherwise are dishonest.

Like this craptastic article:
https://www.bustle.com/articles/171457-how-to-argue-against-saying-all-lives-matter-because-this-has-got-to-stop
Line after line of lies and flawed logic.

The same applies to 'defund the police'. They should say what they mean or they are being dishonest.

I will say it is good you are hearing people talking about disbanding the unions. Public sector unions go corrupt very quickly. Conan's example of the union refusing to provide legal defense based on recent politics is just one of thousands of examples.

Expect more of this, in addition to the smaller businesses simply disappearing into bankruptcy.

A Minneapolis manufacturing company has decided to leave the city, with the company's owner saying he can't trust public officials who allowed his plant to burn during the recent riots. The move will cost the city about 50 jobs.

"They don't care about my business," said Kris Wyrobek, president and owner of 7-Sigma Inc., which has operated since 1987 at 2843 26th Av. in south Minneapolis. "They didn't protect our people. We were all on our own."

https://www.startribune.com/manufacturer-that-burned-during-mpls-riots-plans-to-move-out-of-the-city/571104922/

Maybe this is what advocates of dismantling the police in Minneapolis are thinking will take the place of the police:

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/01/30/nyregion/00muslimpatrol1/merlin_149031423_13ba17b3-409c-406c-8d8d-67a1d41302d3-jumbo.jpg

Do away with no knock drug raids, and a lot of those qualified immunity problems go away.

The police are human. They are going to make mistakes. Body cams should prevent shit like slashing tires.

And public employee unions need to go. All of them.

But at the same time I am frankly sick of police departments prioritizing ticketing people for minor civil infractions over dealing with real crime. There should be no revenue incentives or any other kind of incentives for issuing tickets.

Most of these cities wanting to defund the police are going to be in a cash crunch sooner rather than later, Rioting isn’t going to help the situation with your tax base when you are already on the road to being Detroit. People are already leaving in droves. Those hipsters with the loft warehouse apartments are on their way to the burbs or even further.

“This example with the police slashing tires is exactly why current 'qualified' immunity is a bad idea. Those officers knew they were committing a crime. And they had no concern with doing it in broad daylight and in uniform. “

Qualified immunity *doesn’t now* and *never covered* deliberate criminal acts like this.

A very bad day in Chicago. Imagine there are no police, this becomes the average day.

The Rev. Michael Pfleger, a longtime crusader against gun violence who leads St. Sabina Church in Auburn Gresham, said it was “open season” last weekend in his neighborhood and others on the South and West sides.

“On Saturday and particularly Sunday, I heard people saying all over, ‘Hey, there’s no police anywhere, police ain’t doing nothing,’” Pfleger said.

“I sat and watched a store looted for over an hour,” he added. “No police came. I got in my car and drove around to some other places getting looted [and] didn’t see police anywhere.”

Mayor Lori Lightfoot said on May 31 alone, Chicago’s 911 emergency center received 65,000 calls for all types of service — 50,000 more than on a usual day.

https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2020/6/8/21281998/chicago-violence-murder-history-homicide-police-crime

...a cop pushing down an elderly protestor and leaving him lying there bleeding from his head on the pavement.

He was not "left there" on the sidewalk. "Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown, who was just as unnerved by the video as other spectators, nevertheless explained that police protocol maintains that only medically trained officers can provide assistance to injured persons. And the officers directly behind McCabe and Torgalski did provide that assistance."

But at the same time I am frankly sick of police departments prioritizing ticketing people for minor civil infractions over dealing with real crime. There should be no revenue incentives or any other kind of incentives for issuing tickets. ~ I R A Darth Aggie at June 9, 2020 6:55 AM

To be honest with you, I don't know if it's the police departments or the cities prioritizing minor crimes. Tickets are a major revenue source for many cities.

That was the main source of the frustration and anger in Ferguson. People got hit with traffic violation fines and, even if they successfully fought the ticket, they still had to pay "court costs" amounting to several times the original fine.

When Eric Garner was busted for selling "loosies," it was the DA's office that told the NYPD to crack down and arrest people for selling untaxed cigarettes. Otherwise, Garner would have been issued yet another summons (it wasn't his first rodeo) and told to leave the area.

When I was in college in the '80s, the town of Waldo, Florida desired to increase its revenue. The choices facing the town were to increase property taxes or increase the fines for speeding (the town was already well-known as a speed trap for college students in nearby Gainesville). The town's residents voted to increase the traffic fines, putting the burden of funding the town's services on someone else.

I once got a speeding ticket outside Hickory, North Carolina. The fine was $35 and the court costs were $180. Since I was living in California at the time, I opted to pay the full amount. The fine print on the ticket explained that if I successfully contested the ticket I'd still owe the $180.

People tend to see the police as the source of this inequity, but it's the city, county, and state governments who are instigating "court costs" and exempting the governments from paying them if a ticket is successfully contested. The police work for the city, county, and state governments - and it's those governments that determine what enforcement the police should prioritize.

However, while it seems a tad authoritarian for police to crack down on "minor civil infractions," it was Guiliani's "broken windows" policing - busting the squeegee men and the graffiti artists - which proved that ignoring quality of life crimes breeds a disdain for the law and that cracking down on them can improve the overall quality of life for everyone. Heavy graffiti is usually the first indication that an area is sketchy.

Yglesias is loathsome a filth-beast, more animal than man. If he tells you the sun is coming up tomorrow morning, but extra candles tonight.

"I once got a speeding ticket outside Hickory, North Carolina. The fine was $35 and the court costs were $180. Since I was living in California at the time, I opted to pay the full amount. The fine print on the ticket explained that if I successfully contested the ticket I'd still owe the $180."

If you get a ticket in Georgia on I-95, you will find that if you make the FIRST court appearance - the only one on the ticket - it is a preliminary hearing to set a second date, which few can afford. Thieves in office throughout Georgia found this perfectly legal means to make sure they GET MONEY.

Wow, that is quite a stretch on the qualified immunity Conan. Here the police still have qualified immunity, they just won't get any of their legal bills paid by their union. I hope you realize this isn't a binary choice. You don't only get to chose between complete legal immunity when on the job or zero legal help from your employer. ~ Ben at June 9, 2020 6:33 AM

Notice, Ben, I said "completely" - as in doing away with it entirely. If an officer is working as an agent of the government, enforcing the government's laws, that officer should be protected from personal liability in the execution of his duty.

Since part of a criminal's standard tactics to dispute the charges against him is to accuse the police of misconduct, forcing a police officer to personally pay his legal bills for each accusation would bankrupt every officer on the force and clog the courts with nuisance lawsuits. Hence, qualified immunity, with an emphasis that should be on the "qualified," not on the "immunity."

The police ostensibly exist to protect the rights of individuals. Officers who willfully violate those rights should be personally punished, not protected. One of those rights is the presumption of innocence. Treatment like that dished out to George Floyd does not begin with the presumption of innocence.

In this case, the mayor and the PBA announced they would not cover the legal expenses of any officer accused of misconduct during the protests. What do you think the protestors, looters, and rioters will make of that? Can you see a host of lawsuits being filed with the intent of financially ruining as many officers as possible - i.e., defunding the police by alternate means?

This example with the police slashing tires is exactly why current 'qualified' immunity is a bad idea. Those officers knew they were committing a crime. And they had no concern with doing it in broad daylight and in uniform. They should be held personally responsible for their criminal acts. ~ Ben at June 9, 2020 6:33 AM

I'd agree with that. Slashing tires without the intent of slowing a criminal's escape is vindictive and not within the purview of enforcing the law or protecting individuals' rights. One of the rights the police exist specifically to protect is the right to petition the government for redress of grievances (i.e., to peacefully protest).

However, while it seems a tad authoritarian for police to crack down on "minor civil infractions," it was Guiliani's "broken windows" policing - busting the squeegee men and the graffiti artists - which proved that ignoring quality of life crimes breeds a disdain for the law and that cracking down on them can improve the overall quality of life for everyone. Heavy graffiti is usually the first indication that an area is sketchy.

Conan the Grammarian at June 9, 2020 7:37 AM

I draw a real distinction between administrative non crimes like driving five miles over the speed limit and defacing either public or private property with graffiti and breaking windows.

We probably need a different term than 'minor infractions'. Speed traps are not about public safety at all. They are solely intended to tax outside groups. Unfortunately I don't know of a good way to correct such behavior. When states get enough complaints they crack down on cities, but when cities are harassing politically disfavored and vulnerable people who live in their own borders there isn't a high power to turn to. The best solution I have is for fines to be handed over to an uninvolved third party. That eliminates the profit motive conflict of interest. But I fully recognize that often third party entities become second and first party groups when you are talking about revenue sources like this.

"Qualified immunity *doesn’t now* and *never covered* deliberate criminal acts like this." ~Isab

As I understand the current Supreme Court rulings, it often does. The requirement of strict precedence makes any new criminal activity all but unprosecutable. Which is why I would like to see Harlow v. Fitzgerald overturned or modified. If an act is clearly illegal you shouldn't need precedence to convict. A clear read of the law should be enough.

> Unfortunately I don't know
> of a good way to correct
> such behavior.

Well, DAMMIT, Ben… We were counting on you!

Fair enough on my shoddy reading Conan. But the only people I've seen stumping for completely revoking qualified immunity without replacing it with some other similar scheme are the same people seriously trying to completely defund the police. At which time your point is moot. They want all the police gone.

As I understand the current Supreme Court rulings, it often does. The requirement of strict precedence makes any new criminal activity all but unprosecutable. Which is why I would like to see Harlow v. Fitzgerald overturned or modified. If an act is clearly illegal you shouldn't need precedence to convict. A clear read of the law should be enough.

Ben at June 9, 2020 8:25 AM

I’m afraid I am going to need a citation here so I can read this supposed Supreme Court ruling myself.

Journalists these days can’t be trusted to tell you what the case was actually decided on.

And Union procedures and requirements are quite different from qualified immunity.

If you have ever tried to go after *anyone* with a civil suit, even small claims court, be aware, it is not a piece of cake, and often not worth the time or trouble.

Wikipedia has the short version. I'm not sure about getting something you would be happy with. I'm an engineer and you are a lawyer. You are able to read and place in context the actual court documents far better than I can.

Another wrinkle is the best I can tell Harlow v. Fitzgerald only applies to federal qualified immunity. State level qualified immunity which would apply to city police is under a different body of law that will depend on the state statute and precedents.

As for the union and civil suit stuff I fully agree.

Fun fact—10,000 sworn-in officers jn LAPD and the majority are Latino.

Is the South China Morning Post a Xi-owned subsidiary of the CCP? looks like it might be some sort of in-between, not wholly independent, but allowed some flexibility.

China has mobilised thousands of paratroopers, armoured vehicles and equipment in a military drill, saying they could be deployed “within hours” to the border with India in the Himalayas, where tensions have again flared.

The soldiers and armoured vehicles were transported from the central province of Hubei to an unspecified location in China’s northwest plateau, thousands of kilometres away, in “just a few hours”, according to state media reports over the weekend.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3088093/china-mobilises-thousands-troops-armoured-vehicles-near-border

Dammit. Wrong section.

Fun fact—10,000 sworn-in officers jn LAPD and the majority are Latino.

Ah, but how many of them are white latinos?

Back to NicoleK's statement my first thought was that defunding the police was idiotic until someone explained what they meant. I posted Althouse's take in the linkies section about how this language is unclear, and if you mean something else, don't use defund.

Then I saw another tweet that indicates to me that the selection of unclear language is purposeful.

To the BLM crowd: yeah, defund the police.
To the liberal middle class and up: not really defund the police, don't believe our lying lips.

They're speaking out of both sides of their mouth, with forked tongue.

"To the BLM crowd: yeah, defund the police.
To the liberal middle class and up: not really defund the police, don't believe our lying lips."
***
Yeah, my cousin posted something from NPR on Facebook this morning claiming that "defund" doesn't really mean "defund."
***
Although, if the cities want to take a chunk of funding from the police equipment budget and put it into mental hospitals that house the seriously and/or violently mentally ill long-term, I might be in favor of that.
***
All the cops in my little town do is write tickets. They don't even bust the known meth houses. If something bad goes down, it's the sheriff's department that shows up. Our police chief just got run out of town, and a few months ago the Texas Rangers busted our only K9 officer for illegal searches. (He didn't realize the person he was illegally searching, and then signalled the dog to alert on, was an off-duty ranger...) A "self-funding" police department has the wrong incentives. I'd be willing to pay more in taxes to fund the department, but nobody here wants to pay for anything.
***
Know the song about Luckenbach? Years ago, Willie Nelson stopped having his annual Fourth of July picnic there because the local law enforcement was trying to self-fund for the entire year off of the money they made ticketing people at that event.

Baltimore, a look back at the aftermath of Freddie Gray, published March 12, 2019.

The city agreed to a “consent decree” with the federal government, a set of policing reforms that would be enforced by a federal judge. When an independent monitoring team was selected to oversee the decree, Guy was hired as its community liaison. This was where she wanted to be: at the forefront of the effort to make her city a better place.

But in the years that followed, Baltimore, by most standards, became a worse place. In 2017, it recorded 342 murders — its highest per-capita rate ever, more than double Chicago’s, far higher than any other city of 500,000 or more residents and, astonishingly, a larger absolute number of killings than in New York, a city 14 times as populous. Other elected officials, from the governor to the mayor to the state’s attorney, struggled to respond to the rise in disorder, leaving residents with the unsettling feeling that there was no one in charge. With every passing year, it was getting harder to see what gains, exactly, were delivered by the uprising.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/12/magazine/baltimore-tragedy-crime.html

for whatever it is worth; when I watch the video of the 75-year old being "pushed to the ground" what I see is some jerk who is told by the police to back up or leave the area and chooses not to.

So, what should the cops do then? say, "well that's okay YOU can stay"?

No, they pushed him back. Watch closely and you will see that he trips because his heel got caught on the sidewalk. It wasn't that hard of a push.

He is nothing more than a professional agitator who thought he was immune to obeying the police; that makes him nothing more than a self-entitled jerk.

As for Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, and the latest criminal that leftists are holding up as some sort of "martyr for the cause" - they are fucking criminals! They started fights, or crime, with the cops and lost.

Boo hoo. You cannot claim police brutality if you started something and refused to be placed under arrest. That's a threat to the cop. What should he do? Let you go?

And this cry of "I can't breathe!" Nope, anyone who works within law enforcement knows that criminals are all scam artists. They are often claiming some sort of injury so the cop eases up; just to have the criminal turn around to hit harder or go for his gun.

As for this cry of "systemic racism" - that's a whole lot of BS too.

Ben, when it comes to those white people who hang signs saying "All Lives Matter," I wouldn't be too surprised if the real thinking pattern is:

"I don't care when poor unarmed white people get killed by cops - they MUST have done something to warrant it, which is why we don't even try very hard to record such killings on our phones. So why the hell do black people raise such a fuss when THEIR unarmed people get killed by cops?"

I.e. "Most Lives Don't Matter."

Charles, as I hinted in the other thread, I've yet to hear a reason why a cop can't straddle a handcuffed man instead of kneeling on his neck. Even if it had been for just sixty seconds, there's more than one reason why that could be fatal, and I'm not talking about drugs.

Do you know any of them Lenona? Or are you just slandering people? Any proof to back up your claim?

...I've yet to hear a reason why a cop can't straddle a handcuffed man instead of kneeling on his neck. ~ Lenona at June 10, 2020 12:55 AM

Ever sat on your younger brother during roughhousing? Straddling someone leaves them enough leverage to push upward and try to dislodge you.

While I agree that Chauvin's actions were excessive use of force, most of the suggested gentler means of restraint assume cooperation on the part of Floyd, which was not in evidence.

“Ever sat on your younger brother during roughhousing? Straddling someone leaves them enough leverage to push upward and try to dislodge you.”

The demise of high school wrestling as an event to attend (rather than spending your evening glued to in home entertainment) has left a lot of otherwise sensible people with no knowledge of the basic mechanics of restraint and control.

There are certain life lessons being rapidly erased from common knowledge dues to the demise of small town life with no internet, no free long distance calling, and three channels on a black and white TV.

Conan said:
Ever sat on your younger brother during roughhousing?

Ever tried to fight off someone while handcuffed? (Why do I need to mention that again?)

And where do you buy handcuffs for a ten-year-old?

Also, if it's against the rules for a cop to draw his gun so he can stand back while ordering a handcuffed suspect to stay on the ground, maybe that rule needs to change. Again, since there were other officers present, they could have put leg shackles on him too. Once that was done, I can't imagine what need there would be for any dangerous restraint. Two or three of them could then have lifted him and out him in the cruiser.

Ben, all I'm saying is, for all the conservatives' academic claims that an individual unarmed black man is no more likely to get killed by police than an unarmed white man (including cases where the man was running AWAY, such as Walter Scott), even Fox News can't seem to come up with many examples of white victims caught on camera. So that suggests that either those conservatives don't care enough to TRY to get other people to capture it on camera - or they know it would be too hard to do, compared to finding footage of black victims.

I agreed that Chauvin's actions were excessive use of force (why do I need to mention that again?). Not having been there, or handcuffed anyone who didn't request it first, I don't know what kind of resistance a handcuffed violent criminal can put up.

That said, police handcuffs are generally designed to limit the ability of the handcuffed to put up a fight. So, kneeling on his neck seems extreme and unnecessary.

As I mentioned before, the MPD 3rd Precinct was a known for excessive force and corruption.

Lenona, I have not in any way condoned or endorsed Chauvin's actions.

Lenona; Straddling a violent criminal instead of putting your body weight on him to hold him down can, and too often is deadly - for the cop.

Until any of us have to deal with these violent thugs as part of our job I will NOT judge them unless asked to in a court of law.

As I said too many of these criminals are scam artists - if the cop does let up because "I can't breathe" is said by the violent criminal the cop could, and often does, end up dead.

And, most unjust of all, is that many of these cases are tried in the "court of public opinion" instead of being dealt with fairly in a proper court of law. The "no justice, no peace" crowd has seen to that.

Charles, I take it this is another example of a troublesome word that's practically (but not quite) a homonym. I hadn't realized that.

That is, when I said "straddle," I DID mean putting practically all of his body weight on Floyd - but only on his back. As in, sitting down, not standing. But, it turns out the word can mean both.

Again, I haven't heard any cop - or conservative - give a reason as to why that wasn't feasible.

Again, I haven't heard any cop - or conservative - give a reason as to why that wasn't feasible.

Lenona at June 10, 2020 7:54 PM

Why do you think the mechanics and physics of restraining someone is a liberal/conservative issue?

You don’t control a snake, a cow, a horse, a dog a cat or a person unless you control their head.

And if you don’t control their head, someone resisting arrest will very likely be spitting on you, and biting you.

(By the way George Floyd had Covid, as well as drugs in his system)

Hypothetically do you think Police should have to endure someone who has AIDS, Covid 19 or hepatitis spitting on them and biting them as well as punching and kicking or should they be allowed to hold someone in a position to prevent that?

And if you don’t control their head, someone resisting arrest will very likely be spitting on you, and biting you.
______________________________________

Again, I don't see how that would happen once he was handcuffed and flat on the ground and being sat on. (If I must spell things out, Chauvin could have sat on his shoulder blades, facing the same way as Floyd, and then arched his knees so that even spit wouldn't easily have met his pants.) If they'd put leg shackles on him AFTER that, it would have been all the harder for him to kick or even stand up. At any rate, the other cops clearly needed to do something so that Chauvin wouldn't have had an excuse to kneel on his neck for more than one minute.
__________________________________

Hypothetically do you think Police should have to endure someone who has AIDS, Covid 19 or hepatitis spitting on them and biting them as well as punching and kicking or should they be allowed to hold someone in a position to prevent that?
____________________________

See what I just wrote.

See what I just wrote.

Lenona at June 11, 2020 7:48 PM

Lenona, were you perchance raised without either a brother or a dad?

I ask, because you seem to have absolutely zero experience with the strength of the average American male, let alone a 250 pound one who is hopped up on drugs.

This leads you to make assumptions about what can (or should) be done, that are simply not based in reality.

.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/06/just_like_that_gun_control_support_and_covid19_died_this_week.html

"So that suggests that either those conservatives don't care enough to TRY to get other people to capture it on camera - or they know it would be too hard to do, compared to finding footage of black victims." ~Lenona

So you haven't seriously looked for any of this. Bad cops are everywhere. We had a white girl shoved under her car and lower half stripped on the side of the road here in Houston by a cop. Didn't make the news.

You are projecting your own racist thoughts onto others. You carelessly slander people you politically disagree with. It is a vile habit and this is hardly the only time you have done so.

Didn't make the news.
______________________________

I'm talking about white people who were KILLED by cops, as I made clear. Again, if videos of such killings were easy to come by, Fox News would likely post them.

Most of the time, how can you compare bad cops who don't kill to bad cops who do?

And Isab, my younger brother was significantly smaller anyway, and rough housing was generally discouraged in our family. Even so, I was always ready, willing, and able to tackle boys in school who were even bigger than I was, so I didn't get bullied.

Again, you don't seem to have the confidence to say that a handcuffed man, per se - even a big one - could really fight back efficiently. Or to offer detailed proof of that.

Unless, maybe, Fox News doesn't want to admit that the police ever kill ANYONE unnecessarily?