Goodnight Baltimore!

Beer Baron wrote:

ronholm wrote: I just don't see going after police officers, or pressuring police forces as the best solution to this particular problem. If they weren't finding trouble, bad attitudes, and other nonsense, they would find something else to do.

I think a lot of people point their fingers at the police officers as the racist bad guys. I think there is the occasional bad apple, but that they're pretty rare. Most police officers are just doing their best faith effort to execute the law as they are directed to. I see a major issue with policies and practices that are racist, although not necessarily intentionally so. Things like, the war on drugs and cracking down hard on "quality of life" crimes. The police don't necessarily want to do these things, but they are required to. It ends up leading to frustrating run ins between police and poor, urban, black men that leave both parties unhappy with the other. As far as both are concerned, they aren't doing anything that bad, but they have to have this E36 M3ty, tense interaction where neither one knows if they're going to be dealing with one of the rare bad apples who's going to pull out a gun and shoot them. Similarly rewarding cops for making minor busts during random stops. Reward cops for how many arrests they can make, and they'll end up finding ways to make more arrests. The cops aren't making those policies, just doing what the system has set up for them to do. We need to be looking at the leadership and policy makers and changing what policies they set that end up leading to all the negative interactions we're seeing.

I can't really, nor do I wish to disagree with what you have said here. I would never wish to work against what you are talking about I just think the real solution comes with people lining their priorities with something different. I don't think "stopping police profiling" as a goal would ever net the desired result.

I think we are being more civil around here because decent people on both sides understand we seem to share common goals and only seem to differ on how to get there.

That being said.. Let me not disagree, but add some perspective. My wife works in administration at out county jail. She also does jail Audits for the AJA. As part of her job she hears all of the disciplinary hearings and acts as a Judge of sorts for extrajudicial punishment in the jail.. I.E. sending guys to Segregation (solitary) or whatever, for beating up a guard.. smearing E36 M3 on the walls.. whatever..

Just last week one of these hearings turned into a real criminal charge when the dude whipped his stuff out and... just started right in on himself during the hearing.

There is simply a whole different world which most people don't understand. The questions of "why would Gray intentionally hurt himself, that is crazy"! yes... yes... it is... and it could be one of the least crazy things those officers deal with during the week.

Baltimore's police force isn't 'corrupt, their ELECTED leadership is.... this sort of screwed up stuff is nearly always top down.... But I'll stop there before I flounder the thread with partisan commentary.

Last time I was in Baltimore, I stayed at a nice hotel close to Camden, went to the aquarium, and had some bomb crab cakes. That's what I remember about Baltimore. Don't remember seeing a ton of cops, or a ton of thugs, no more so than I see on my way to work.

So...

What's going to happen if the police are all wearing body cams and it turns out that most these "innocent people who did nothing wrong" are actually the scumbags that the police officer thought they were?

I'm not saying that the cops haven't stepped over the line a time or two.

What if it doesn't change anything?

Will we get an apology from all the folks hating on the cops and wanting to lynch them?

I don't think so.

ronholm wrote: In reply to Datsun1500: Driving while black is a very real thing. The trouble is Police officers who pull over Black guys, especially young black guys aren't doing most of the time (anymore) because of racism, but instead because they are 'rewarded' more often than not with uncovering whatever criminal offenses far more often than they would if they were randomly stopping white guys. They studied this pretty carefully in my county's Policing force. They found officers did 'randomly' stop black guys more often, but they also found the 'worst' offenders were the black and minority officers. In fact most white guys were far BETTER than the black officers about it. Then again around here most of the Black officers work in the nicer parts of town. They like the job, but don't want to be in the hood all the damn time. On the other side there is far larger percentage of White officers who WANT to work in the rougher parts of town because they see their job as a real opportunity to help people. I just don't see going after police officers, or pressuring police forces as the best solution to this particular problem. If they weren't finding trouble, bad attitudes, and other nonsense, they would find something else to do. Yup mentioned on the last page that he did grow up in the 'ghetto'. He must then certainly know that MOST of his peers haven't made their life into what he enjoys. I suspect his move out of the ghetto was accompanied with a near complete change in friends. People that lift him up instead of holding each other down. I am a nut.. a bit rude and insensitive sometimes... So not to break from who I am I just think if you want to stop profiling of this sort the best way is to make damn certain there is little to no reason for LEO's to be profiling.. Right now this ISN'T the case. Picking on the Cops Just isn't a solution. (of which I have had my own problems in my youth... noting that I was harassed plently of times when i wasn't doing anything wrong at that very moment )

I for one, would really like a link to this "study." What county was this with all the altruistic white officers and all the self obsessed (admittedly my own interpretation) black officers?

Trans_Maro wrote: So... What's going to happen if the police are all wearing body cams and it turns out that most these "innocent people who did nothing wrong" are actually the scumbags that the police officer thought they were? I'm not saying that the cops haven't stepped over the line a time or two. What if it doesn't change anything? Will we get an apology from all the folks hating on the cops and wanting to lynch them? I don't think so.

Or, what if it means officers change their behavior because they know that the camera is on?

Trans_Maro wrote: So... What's going to happen if the police are all wearing body cams and it turns out that most these "innocent people who did nothing wrong" are actually the scumbags that the police officer thought they were? I'm not saying that the cops haven't stepped over the line a time or two. What if it doesn't change anything? Will we get an apology from all the folks hating on the cops and wanting to lynch them? I don't think so.

People forgot the show cops has been on since forever and people been acting a fool at cops since forever. I think the cams might be a reminder.

In reply to Mitchell:

If it makes the bad cops change their behaviour, wouldn't that be a win too?

Like I said, there are some bad cops and they have stepped over the line, more than once. I'm also sure that the majority of cops out there are decent human beings just trying to do their jobs. Just like most people are basically good, decent human beings.

I'm sure that there are a good amount of cops who are very tired of putting up with bullE36 M3 from stupid people as well.

How would you feel if you caught someone doing something that was illegal and damn near every time they have some bullE36 M3 story that they expect you to believe as to why it wasn't their fault.

I know a guy who is on house arrest because he was renting a room in a house that was used as a grow-op. He tried to tell the cops that he had no idea it was happening. How stupid do people think the police really are?

He got upset with me when I didn't buy into his story. A friend of mine is a cop and like he says "When you bust a whorehouse, you take the piano player too".

I have never had a bad experience with a cop, even when I've been caught doing something monumentally stupid.

I am white and generally not an shiny happy person to them so that probably changes the circumstances a lot.

Eh, being white doesn't make you 100% immune, though to be fair, the last bad cop I had had probably never seen a black guy in the wild and I was a young punk, so lowest common denominator. But generally speaking, I find not acting like an asshat helps.

In reply to ronholm:

Fortunately my friends from my childhood are my friends now. Most of them are more successful than I. A few are young minds in DC with the intentions of refreshing our lovely government. My friends and I lived in the ghetto but we didn't live ghetto. Just poor as berkeley!

In reply to ronholm:

The issue of Crazy Things police deal with is another one. There are a lot of people out there with mental health issues. The police end up dealing with them, and the police are not mental health professionals. That highlights the issue of improved training and resources for dealing with people with mental health problems. I'd rather see those people get proactive mental health care than prison. It's less expensive in the long run. I'm also personally invested because I have a family member with mental health issues that has had serious run-ins with police. Fortunately she's an older, short, white woman, so they just dragged her off to a mental institution after she got in her car and tried to run over a cop.

In terms of cracking down on quality of life stuff, I was more referring to instances like the guy who died in police custody in Baltimore, and the guy who died in police custody in New York for selling loose cigarettes.

Yes, there are some really bad people out there. I want the police to have the time, energy, and other resources to deal with those, rather than focusing on busting black kids with a dime bag.

yupididit wrote: In reply to ronholm: Fortunately my friends from my childhood are my friends now. Most of them are more successful than I. A few are young minds in DC with the intentions of refreshing our lovely government. My friends and I lived in the ghetto but we didn't live ghetto. Just poor as berkeley!

Awesome!

Beer Baron wrote: In terms of cracking down on quality of life stuff, I was more referring to instances like the guy who died in police custody in Baltimore, and the guy who died in police custody in New York for selling loose cigarettes. Yes, there are some really bad people out there. I want the police to have the time, energy, and other resources to deal with those, rather than focusing on busting black kids with a dime bag.

Both of the guys you refer to were professional criminals.

mad_machine wrote: I am going to say that most police forces are not that bad.. but Baltimore is the exception. It has paid out millions in the past year in settlements for excessive force.. They have run rampant for too long and this was the straw that broke the camel's back.

So has NYC, Denver, LA, etc. Actually per capita Baltimore is on the low end of the scale as far as settlement payments.

mattm wrote: I for one, would really like a link to this "study." What county was this with all the altruistic white officers and all the self obsessed (admittedly my own interpretation) black officers?

I'll see what I can come up with which I can share here. I would encourage you to spend some time getting to know your local law enforcement, I can almost assure you the same thing will be found in your town.

Even in the Jail, where inmates are segregated by race in order to help cut down on gang and other violence, the deputies overseeing the cell blocks often are given the duty because of their race, and that usually means the black deputies work the black cell blocks less than the white deputies.

Of course there are various reasons to mix it up... but still

Black inmates are HARD on "white black guys". They all be like "uncles in the house" or something like that

z31maniac wrote:

mad_machine wrote: I am going to say that most police forces are not that bad.. but Baltimore is the exception. It has paid out millions in the past year in settlements for excessive force.. They have run rampant for too long and this was the straw that broke the camel's back.

So has NYC, Denver, LA, etc. Actually per capita Baltimore is on the low end of the scale as far as settlement payments.

And that means nothing anyway in terms of what is real abuse. It means lawyers have figured out how the game the system 'better'. Most of the guys you are going to arrest are going to sit in jail and figure out how to sue the county for something.

Now liberals are teaching them cops are abusive.. So they are actively looking for the appearance of that situation.

Beer Baron wrote:

ronholm wrote: I just don't see going after police officers, or pressuring police forces as the best solution to this particular problem. If they weren't finding trouble, bad attitudes, and other nonsense, they would find something else to do.

We need to be looking at the leadership and policy makers and changing what policies they set that end up leading to all the negative interactions we're seeing.

The concept of policing is inherently negative. I see nothing wrong with what the police are being requested to do. The very fact that you bring up the war on drugs shows 1) your bias and 2) what I refer to as "reverse racism"

The war on drugs should not affect anyone any differently. If it affects a certain culture or race more, that is a very "look in the mirror" moment.

As with most things in life, a lot of these problems would be solved if the people complaining about it did something for themselves. Leave the ghettos, leave their E36 M3 stains of friends/families, move someplace with work, work two part-time jobs, get an education (its laughably easy in this day and age to get student loans) and stop being a deadbeat.

These life lessons actually apply to everyone, everywhere. If someone isn't practicing them, I have very little empathy for them. And when they start to complain, slash fire hoses, and cause millions of dollars in property damage, I most certainly do hope a violent, shiny happy person of a person like that has policing policies applied to them that lands them on jail.

ronholm wrote:

Beer Baron wrote: In terms of cracking down on quality of life stuff, I was more referring to instances like the guy who died in police custody in Baltimore, and the guy who died in police custody in New York for selling loose cigarettes. Yes, there are some really bad people out there. I want the police to have the time, energy, and other resources to deal with those, rather than focusing on busting black kids with a dime bag.

Both of the guys you refer to were professional criminals.

The outcome of both those events weren't necessary.

There are other criminals that lived to have their opportunity to prove their innocence in court (a completely separate issue . . . may be).

Brutality is not a suitable or reasonable response to making eye contact with a LEO or selling loose cigarettes. Does it really matter if the person had prior arrests and/or convictions? In some ways, yes . . . for these events, no . . . . IMHO.

HiTempguy wrote: As with most things in life, a lot of these problems would be solved if the people complaining about it did something for themselves. Leave the ghettos, leave their E36 M3 stains of friends/families, move someplace with work, work two part-time jobs, get an education (its laughably easy in this day and age to get student loans) and stop being a deadbeat. These life lessons actually apply to everyone, everywhere. If someone isn't practicing them, I have very little empathy for them. And when they start to complain, slash fire hoses, and cause millions of dollars in property damage, I most certainly do hope a violent, shiny happy person of a person like that has policing policies applied to them that lands them on jail.

One positive trait that I wouldn't have if I'd grown up in capitalism's nurturing 1st-world womb instead of being passed through its digestive system is that I know better than to tell people to just pull themselves up by the bootstraps. "Let them move and retrain and sever all their relationships"...oh, and eat cake too, right? It's a horribly dismissive attitude that nonchalantly and ignorantly takes a quick glance at a world of problems from so high up that they're hardly visible, and simply glosses them over with a mile-thick coat.

This is one of those things that probably requires first-hand experience, although it's the most expensive lesson you could ever learn.

But we're not in a E36 M3hole country.

We're in the 1st world.

Where there are social programs designed to help people do exactly that and they still refuse because they're "keeping it real".

We see it all the time with the natives up here in Canada. They have plenty of options that other people don't but they won't make use of them.

Sorry, I don't have any pity for someone who refuses to even make an attempt at bettering their situation.

Trans_Maro wrote: But we're not in a E36 M3hole country. We're in the 1st world. Where there are social programs designed to help people do exactly that and they still refuse because they're "keeping it real". We see it all the time with the natives up here in Canada. They have plenty of options that other people don't but they won't make use of them. Sorry, I don't have any pity for someone who refuses to even make an attempt at bettering their situation.

I get what you're saying, but it's unrelated to being killed while in police custody.

I have a really hard time believing a viewpoint which amounts to a localized Just World Fallacy.

A fact, yes, but presented through the lens of survivorship bias. It's also a fact that you could go to the closest convenience store right now and buy a winning lottery ticket - many people have done it!

Yup hit the nail on head when he said they lived in the ghetto and not ghetto.

When you live in the ghetto, pulling yourself out is MUCH easier when the opportunity or drive exist. When you live ghetto, it's effectively the weight of values (good and bad), mindset, systemicbeliefs passed down for years that hold some people back from moving. It could be something as simpe as FAMILY (the thing usually held to high regard) connections that keep a lot of people in a locale.

But some say, "Well Strike, you made it out the ghetto . . . Why are your relatives stuck??" They aren't stuck . . . Once you experience something uncomfortable, you may retreat to somewhere comfortable. That's what they did. In some cases they see it's MUCH worst outside the circle and decide to say inside (frying pan to fire). Some just prefer to suffer an "evil" they know vs. face an unknown evil.

Think about it . . . If they are being profiled and stymied by systemic abuse in their current situations, and then hear about cats like Yup, myself, and others . . . They start to think . . . "If they are going through the same E36 M3 out there, I made as well stay here . . ."

Example . . . Granny and Grandpops left us some land and homes. Staying in the ghetto in a free house and dealing with bullE36 M3 issues is much more comforting than pulling up bootstraps, venturing out to same bullE36 M3 with no failover/retreat plan, and have worry about all the other adult things we need to. I have relatives that work those two jobs and are enrolled in school, but still can't get ahead . . . Telling them to pull up bootstraps is the equivalent of slapping them in the face . . . .

GRMH swung in the right direction . . . Sometimes it's a giant lottery.

GameboyRMH wrote: A fact, yes, but presented through the lens of survivorship bias. It's also a fact that you could go to the closest convenience store right now and buy a winning lottery ticket - many people have done it!

Explain to me why these people can't better themselves? Please do that, instead of talking down to us like you're opinion and viewpoint is better than ours, because from my perspective, you are advocating that we need to "nurture" these people into being responsible adults who actually give a E36 M3.

As I've said, hand UP, not hand OUT. There is nothing stopping these people except themselves, and if they do not have that desire, there is NOTHING we can do about it as their rights give them the option to be poor and miserable. Its the cost of freedom.

Strike_Zero wrote: Yup hit the nail on head when he said they lived in the ghetto and not ghetto. When you live in the ghetto, pulling yourself out is MUCH easier when the opportunity or drive exist. When you live ghetto, it's effectively the weight of values (good and bad), mindset, systemicbeliefs passed down for years that hold some people back from moving. It could be something as simpe as FAMILY (the thing usually held to high regard) connections that keep a lot of people in a locale. But some say, "Well Strike, you made it out the ghetto . . . Why are your relatives stuck??" They aren't stuck . . . Once you experience something uncomfortable, you may retreat to somewhere comfortable. That's what they did. In some cases they see it's MUCH worst outside the circle and decide to say inside (frying pan to fire). Some just prefer to suffer an "evil" they know vs. face an unknown evil. Think about it . . . If they are being profiled and stymied by systemic abuse in their current situations, and then hear about cats like Yup, myself, and others . . . They start to think . . . "If they are going through the same E36 M3 out there, I made as well stay here . . ." Example . . . Granny and Grandpops left us some land and homes. Staying in the ghetto in a free house and dealing with bullE36 M3 issues is much more comforting than pulling up bootstraps, venturing out to same bullE36 M3 with no failover/retreat plan, and have worry about all the other adult things we need to. I have relatives that work those two jobs and are enrolled in school, but still can't get ahead . . . Telling them to pull up bootstraps is the equivalent of slapping them in the face . . . . GRMH swung in the right direction . . . Sometimes it's a giant lottery.

Wow Yes! Exactly!

It's also hard to go back and try to pull your family/friends out of such situations for the exact same reason. I was raised by my mother and my mother only. And she was always smart with her little money and knew how to get a lot out of not much. She grew up decently well and the only reason we ended up in the ghetto when I was young is because she had an accident that kept her from working then when she recovered she got a job. After that, my little brother got diagnosed with cancer at the age of 2 and her job let her go because she could never be there. So she had to figure out how to use welfare to pay for everything we needed as well as driving almost an hour one way to CHKD for my little brother treatment. Once my little brother health started getting better my mom started working part time and taking classes at the community college while still taking him to the hospital and raising all 3 of us. She could've easily been caught in the cycle of being dependent on the system. But, she did little baby steps that all equaled up to making something out of a E36 M3ty life. She never ever let us feel as if that life was all there is and that its permanent. Always had a way to provide what we needed and better our situation in the smallest ways. My friends mothers were also great mothers who were in E36 M3ty or even E36 M3tier situations. Some couldn't deal with it very well and they got stuck in the cycle. Fear of leaving or the simple lack of hope that there's anyway out. There are those hoodrats who like to live off of help and rather not make things better, but to trap themselves. But, if you grew up like that then you'll see a lot of people don't tolerate them even in the ghetto. It's a mentality that I cant honestly understand, why some people want to be there.

I do understand why people just say, "pull yourself out, move, work, go to school, etc". They're ignorant of the struggle. Some can change their life some cant. My wife grew up rich, traveling the world, going to private schools, seemingly unlimited money. She used to be ignorant of the issue and how it's not so easy. But, now she see's how things really are in life. Easy to talk the talk when you haven't walked the walk.