Eric Garner

[Stu]

Here's more. 91% of whites killed by police are killed by white cops. 68% of non-whites were killed by a white cop. If you take all the numbers and smash them together, white police officers are responsible for killing 46% of the non-whites. So who is responsible for the other 54%?

I think we need to look at the percentage of Catholics on the police force (just kidding)

It is not a question of the ethnicity of the police, it is the generally accepted notion that Blacks and Latino males are dangerous.

 

[Skarekrow]

This sums it up pretty well….

10 Ways the System Is Rigged to Protect Cops Who Kill

Obstacles to accountability exist at every stage of seeking justice.
​

As passions and protests flared on the streets of New York City following a Staten Island grand jury’s decision Wednesday not to indict the white NYC police officer whose chokehold and rough arrest killed Eric Garner, an unarmed black man, a key question emerges: why is the justice system so biased against holding abusive officers accountable?

The answer is both simple and complex.
On the simple side, the system is substantially rigged in favor of letting officers off the hook for using excessive force in the line of duty–especially if they say they needed to protect themselves.

On the complex side are how the various stages of the process tilt toward covering up what abusive police have done, as well as biases built into the legal system that shield police from prosecution.

The evidence presented to the Staten Island grand jury has not yet been released.
It soon may be, but what is so disturbing is that the incident was caught on video, allowing the public to watch a police squad act with impunity as they arrested Garner for the minor crime of selling cigarettes.

Let’s walk though 10 ways the system is predisposed to let NYPD Officer Daniel Panteleo off the hook, just as Darren Wilson, the white Ferguson police officer who shot and killed another unarmed black man, Michael Brown, last week escaped charges by a local grand jury.

1. There is a double standard for charging citizens and police.

Everybody knows that police are authorized to use force in ways civilians are not. But if a civilian shoots a person outside his car window–as was the case in Ferguson–you can bet that shooter would be arrested, charged and have to defend his actions in court, David Rudovsky, a civil rights attorney and author on police misconduct told Vox.com. But that is not the case when cops are the shooters, he said, because “police are investigating their own.”

2. This inherent conflict of interest is all over the Garner case.

If you watch the July 20 video by Tiasha Allen posted on the New York Times website, you see Garner after he is placed on the sidewalk, face-down, hands tied behind his back. A dozen NYPD officers mill around and act as if nothing is unusual or wrong. Forget that this video shows a dying man’s final hour, and that the NYC medical examiner concluded the chokehold and leaving him on the sidewalk face-down killed him. Look at the cops: this team of officers would include many likely witnesses called before the Staten Island grand jury. “It’s often the police department that is charged with investigating a particular incident, deciding who’s telling the truth, who used force first, and so on and so forth,” Rudovsky said, explaining the first of many conflicts of interest.

3. Then comes the legal framework that protects cops.

This is how the law is layered to protect rogue cops. It starts at the very top, as the Nation pointed out, because the standard in a 1985 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that tried to restrict when cops could use deadly force has been twisted by police to defend each other. The court held that deadly force can be used when a police officer “has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others.” In 1989, the Court tried to be more specific by saying there had to be an immediate threat to their safety or to others. “But in actual courtroom practice, ‘objective reasonableness’ [standard] has become nearly impossible to tell apart from the subjective snap judgments of panic-fueled police officers,” the Nation said, explaining the loophole. “American courts universally defer to the law enforcement officer’s own personal assessment of the threat at the time.”

4. Recent Supreme Court decisions only make this worse.

Recent rulings by the Roberts Court has tilted the balance further in favor of rogue cops. In one case where cops shot and killed a speeding driver and a passenger, they held that was not “excessive force” that would violated the victims' constitutional rights. In another case, they sided with a prosecutor who withheld evidence and kept the wrong man on death row for 14 years. These were just some examples of recent cases cited by Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the School of Law at the University of California, Irvine, in a New York Times commentary. “How many more deaths and how many more riots will it take before the Supreme Court changes course?” he concluded, linking these cases to the Ferguson grand jury.

5. Rogue cops are more common than you think.

If you look at the video of Eric Garner’s arrest and death on July 17, what you see are cops who consider their actions routine. If you look at the Twitter feed for the National Police Misconduct Reporting Project, you will see a long line of misdeeds, some stupid and some savage. Police drive drunk and hit firetrucks and other cars; cops arrest teenage girls and force them to have sex; cops falsify search warrant requests. And many of these officers are not going to face criminal charges.

6. Cops cover up other cops' misdeeds, including killings.

The week, the Wall Street Journalhad an investigative report that documented how hundreds of police killings are not reported to federal law enforcement agencies. This blue wall of impunity keeps a lid on police misconduct and prevents elected politicians from seeing the extent of the nationwide problem of excessive and abusive policing. It’s a complete double standard, Jeffrey Fagan, a law professor at Columbia University, told the Journal. “When cops are killed, there is a very careful account and there’s a national database,” he said. “Why not the other side of the ledger?”

7. Then comes the grand jury process, with its biases.

There’s the frequent lack of independent witnesses, and a wall of silence from officers who “don’t want to be a rat,” AtlantaBlackStar.com reported, quoting Tim Lynch of the National Police Misconduct Newsfeed Daily Recap. Prosecutors are reluctant to go after cops, because they need to work with the same departments for their other cases. And local jurors are reluctant to indict local officers from the departments they might be forced to call if they are in a jam.

8. The result is police indictments are very rare.

It would be incorrect to say that rogue police officers never get indicted. But as the investigative website fivethirtyeight.com reported, “Allegations of police misconduct rarely result in charges.” Between 2005 and 2011, there were 664 gun-related officer arrests, but only 31 were for murder and nonnegligent manslaughter when a cop was on duty. That’s about four a year. In contrast, in 2010, about a quarter of the 6,613 misconduct complaints were for excessive force. The overall pattern here confirms that cops largely evade accountablity for abusive actions.

9. Ocasionally, a cop will face murder charges.

It can happen, as was the case in the central Virginia town of Culpepper, where an officer lost it when he confronted a driver in a school parking lot, got into an argument, and shot and killed the woman, saying she closed her car window on his arm and started to drive away. In that case, the officer’s mother, who worked at the police department, tried to destroy evidence. A special grand jury met for a month before deciding to press charges. He was suspended, charged with murder, and jailed while awaiting trial. But this case is an exception, according to the statistics and analysis on fivethirtyeight.com.

10. The Eric Garner case is not closed, but the odds are long.

On Wednesday, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand asked the Justice Department to open a civil rights investigation into Garner’s death, saying the grand jury decision not to indict the NYPD officer who killed him was “shocking.” U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced later in the day that the Department would do so, just as it has in Ferguson.

But with the entire incident filmed on video, allowing anyone to see what happened between the NYPD and Garner on July 17, it is impossible not to conclude that the justice system is institutionally biased in favor of abusive policing and officers using excessive and sometimes lethal force.

Whether or not Garner’s killer will face any individual responsibility remains an open question.
But as the public watches what unfolds in coming days in the case, you can be sure there will be little attention focused on reversing the institutional biases that protect rogue cops.

Steven Rosenfeld covers national political issues for AlterNet, including America's retirement crisis, democracy and voting rights, and campaigns and elections. He is the author of "Count My Vote: A Citizen's Guide to Voting" (AlterNet Books, 2008).

 

[Faye]

It looks like murder to me (warning: video is graphic). The officer used a chokehold, which is expressively forbidden by the NYPD itself because of it being a potentially lethal move.

Considering that income inequality between whites and blacks in the U.S. today is worse than it was in apartheid South Africa, and also considering how many police departments in this country are overly brutal, I doubt that the situation will improve anytime soon and these sorts of incidents will continue.

 

[Eventhorizon]

We should hold everyone accountable yes.
The issue is systemic because there are clearly those who are still very racist…and there are those who are black and just as racist…I am not saying that accountability all around isn’t a much needed thing in this country.

But I have to agree with those who say the cards are stacked against them…because some people really do run the gambit of shit from the day their were born.
I know that doesn’t count for everyone…but there clearly are another set of rules and laws that they live under in the US. Just as we live under a separate set of laws from that of the famous…and they even under those who are bankers…all live under smaller and smaller sets of rules.
There IS a conflict of interest having the private prison complex making huge profits for maximum incarceration.
That is fucking wrong.

Alas…you know my ultimate opinion that this nation is going to crash and burn really well fairly soon.
I don’t think anything will really get changed until after that time.

You bring up an excellent point. We are kind of treading new ground here. It may be that humans cannot live together in such high numbers and it may be this thats driving much of the conflict at a more base level.

Rome fell. America will too at some point. Its sad to think about because while not perfect I still believe its the best country in the world. If we cant make it, who can?
Perhaps change is bred into human nature though. Kind of the same reason evolution works...

 

[Skarekrow]

You bring up an excellent point. We are kind of treading new ground here. It may be that humans cannot live together in such high numbers and it may be this thats driving much of the conflict at a more base level.

Rome fell. America will too at some point. Its sad to think about because while not perfect I still believe its the best country in the world. If we cant make it, who can?
Perhaps change is bred into human nature though. Kind of the same reason evolution works...

I don’t know if we can make it…I think those in power will violently stamp out any real threat to them…we will see it soon.

On another note…
This is how the media would cover the Eric Garner Grand jury if it happened in another country…it’s an enlightening read.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_worl...over_the_decision_not_to_indict_a_police.html

 

[muir]

Racism exists in society and in the police force but if people focus only on the racism issue then they are going to miss the bigger issue

The emerging danger here is the creation of a POLICE STATE

Part of this is the MILITARISATION of the police

Another aspect of this is the judicial protection of police wrongdoing

In a years time people will be talking about the emerging police state not racism because the abuse of power by the el-ites will be recognised by people of all ethnicities to be EVERYONES problem

Video cameras for police is not the answer as they will be used as a new form of state spying on the citizenry

The solution here is to reign in the power of the state (and the corporations that now control the state) and to increase the power of the people...nothing else will do

 

[ZcM4xzkjgzCjytBc]

Racism exists in society and in the police force but if people focus only on the racism issue then they are going to miss the bigger issue

The emerging danger here is the creation of a POLICE STATE

Part of this is the MILITARISATION of the police

Another aspect of this is the judicial protection of police wrongdoing

In a years time people will be talking about the emerging police state not racism because the abuse of power by the el-ites will be recognised by people of all ethnicities to be EVERYONES problem

Video cameras for police is not the answer as they will be used as a new form of state spying on the citizenry

The solution here is to reign in the power of the state (and the corporations that now control the state) and to increase the power of the people...nothing else will do

I was going to include this in my initial post regarding how nothing will change because there are people in the government who want this police state to happen.

Plenty of people think the NSA is over reaching, abusing its power, and raping the constitution. And look where all our opposition to this has gotten us: NOWHERE. They're still doing everything they have been, and more.

 

[cvp12gh5]

Racism exists in society and in the police force but if people focus only on the racism issue then they are going to miss the bigger issue

The emerging danger here is the creation of a POLICE STATE

Part of this is the MILITARISATION of the police

Another aspect of this is the judicial protection of police wrongdoing

In a years time people will be talking about the emerging police state not racism because the abuse of power by the el-ites will be recognised by people of all ethnicities to be EVERYONES problem

Video cameras for police is not the answer as they will be used as a new form of state spying on the citizenry

The solution here is to reign in the power of the state (and the corporations that now control the state) and to increase the power of the people...nothing else will do

And why would the state want to spy on random people? A police officer with a camera attached to him would be recording the people he comes in contact with. Maybe the person serving him his coffee/donut, a gas station clerk, someone doing something illegal...I don't see how the first two would help, but I bet the last one would make a difference. I'm okay with that.

If you haven't noticed, there are some crazy ass people living in the u.s. that engage in some pretty horrific crimes. The training is in response to a need. They have a right to know how to protect themselves when going into dangerous situations.

 

[Korg]

Racism is to this topic as headaches are to brain tumors.

It's not that it doesn't exist, it's that people are missing the primary cause (socioeconomics). Which is unfortunate as it necessarily prevents solidarity between groups who have a mutual cause (preventing statist bullshit and abuse of power).

 

[muir]

I was going to include this in my initial post regarding how nothing will change because there are people in the government who want this police state to happen.

Plenty of people think the NSA is over reaching, abusing its power, and raping the constitution. And look where all our opposition to this has gotten us: NOWHERE. They're still doing everything they have been, and more.

Yeah we are building upto a climax

Keep an eye on the global economy too

When you step back from it all and take in the big picture we're heading for some interesting times

The public are up in arms and upset about many things including police brutality, corporate and political corruption and the economy but they need to start recognising that all these things are part of the same animal...and yes the NSA is all part of that too

The powers that be might try to drive wedges between people along for example ethnic lines or religious lines and we all need to be savy enough to ignore that and to start realising that we are all in this together and that the el-ites are sitting on all of us

When we all finally grasp this and come together as one force, we'll be unstoppable

We have some way to go before that though

 

[Eventhorizon]

A question. Do you think it more the person going into police work or the person created by police work that is more apt to "lose it" and kill someone because of it? Is it more that power corrupts or a psychological disorder of the individual in the first place?

 

[muir]

And why would the state want to spy on random people?

The people behind the state are power freaks which is why they are already spying on everyone. The NSA is hoovering up ALL of your phone calls, texts and emails

They are putting CCTV cameras everywhere and they want them in lightposts in the street

This is what 'total-itarianism' means...it means TOTAL control over EVERY aspect of your life

They want to know where you are and what you are doing at all times and you can bet that is what they are working towards

They are creating a 'smart' grid to monitor energy usage and they are building what has been called the 'internet of things' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_of_Things) where microchips will be in all your household appliances including your fridge and toaster and it will all be gathering information about you; modern phones and laptops are built with spytech inside them

There's that saying 'power corrupts' but power attracts the corrupt; when you have people in power you can be sure they were drawn to it because they are corrupt. Checks and balances are supposed to prevent that but those have been removed

This is why its a bad idea allowing small numbers of people to have all the power; this is why its a good idea to decentralise power down to the people and away from the state

A police officer with a camera attached to him would be recording the people he comes in contact with. Maybe the person serving him his coffee/donut, a gas station clerk, someone doing something illegal...I don't see how the first two would help, but I bet the last one would make a difference. I'm okay with that.

I don;t see why the state has a right to film me as i legally go about my business

if you look at all the scandals relating to police corruption and government corruption it should be clear to any level headed person that the people who need to be watched right now are those in power

If you haven't noticed, there are some crazy ass people living in the u.s. that engage in some pretty horrific crimes.

Yes they're called 'the government'

Just ask the people of the middle east, afghanistan, pakisthan and south and central america and they'll tell you that your government are mass murderers

The training is in response to a need. They have a right to know how to protect themselves when going into dangerous situations.

That cop who jumped that guy from behind with no provocation and then choked him to death even though his hand was out free showing he was not resisting was NOT going into a dangerous situation

It was the cops who were dangerous not the civilians

And concerning 'training' the cop used a technique that is banned because it can kill people

Here's footage that might be showing cops starting fires in fergusson:

[video=youtube;Q_nX_F1QWLI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_nX_F1QWLI[/video]

 

[muir]

Police beat, tazer then shoot a man over 20 times over a stop and search

http://12160.info/page/police-beat-taser-and-shoot-man-23-times-killing-him-for-walking-

[h=1]Police Beat, Taser, and Shoot Man 23 Times, Killing Him for Walking Down the Street[/h]


Martinsburg, Virginia – This week, the family of a Virginia man who was killed by police is filing for an appeal in their lawsuit against the city, which was railroaded out of court last year after the incident occurred.
In the aftermath of this case, it was discovered that police not only shot an innocent man 23 times while he was surrounded by a half dozen officers, but also that those officers attempted to plant evidence, tamper with the crime scene, make false statements and stage a massive cover up for a murder.
On March 13, 2013, Wayne A. Jones was walking down the street, directly next to the sidewalk, on the side of the road. He was approached by a police officer who began to interrogate him about how he was walking.
Jones responded by telling the officer that he was trying to “reach a distance.” Before he was able to explain what that meant, the officer began getting aggressive with him, and began to ask if he was carrying any weapons or drugs. Knowing that he had a pair of scissors in his pocket, Jones asked the officer, “what is a weapon?”

for more info click ont he link above

[video=youtube;NHEN6WpjLl0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHEN6WpjLl0[/video]

 

[muir]

A question. Do you think it more the person going into police work or the person created by police work that is more apt to "lose it" and kill someone because of it? Is it more that power corrupts or a psychological disorder of the individual in the first place?

I think there are a number of factors in play

There will be plenty of decent folk who seek to become police and then there will be some nasty power trippers and corrupt types that will seek to become police officers

The recruitment process should weed out the sociopaths unless of course the state is looking to hire sociopaths and is using psychomettric testing to achieve that so that they can make the police into a bludgeon to use against the public

Think of the gestapo...what kind of people would the gestapo recruit do you think to help quell the populations of countries they were militarily occupying?

So if the corporations have taken over the US government and have the country under occupation what kind of people do you think they would recruit to enforce their police state?

Then ongoing monitoring on the job should weed out the trouble makers unless of course they are protected by the system for example by not being punished for wrongdoing

Then there is the culture that can be created within an organisation and there is the training and policies that can be put in place

Aggressive policy combined with aggressive training which dehumanises the public is going to then have a knock on effect on how cops behave arpound the public

Then if a harsh culture is created of a 'them and us' attitude where the public are seen as an enemy to be dominated and controlled then that too will have a knock on effect on front line police behaviour towards the public

The book 'jarhead' (written by an ex-marine) was about the militarised culture within the marines and how it messes with the heads of young men who then struggle to adapt to civilian life because they have been conditioned to behave in a brutal way within a brutal culture

So a combination of all the above factors is going to harm relations between the police and the public and i'd say its coming form the top down because the corporatocracy is hodling your country under occupation

 

[Skarekrow]

 

[Stu]

A question. Do you think it more the person going into police work or the person created by police work that is more apt to "lose it" and kill someone because of it? Is it more that power corrupts or a psychological disorder of the individual in the first place?

Most of the cops I have known possess fairly sharp and inquisitive minds along with an imposing physicality. It is the nature of the job that demands these two elements. I once saw a local cop subdue two men on a dark street. He did not draw a weapon and just moved aggressively when the two announced that they were not going to cooperate. (they were probably not guilty of anything more than being a bit drunk and overly obstinate but when a cop asks you questions on a dark street and your only response is "i didn't do anything, leave me alone" you should expect trouble.)

For a cop to "loose it" it would be the result of what they initially brought to the job themselves combined with the training and the culture of the job. If the particular force has an unspoken policy of harsh physical retribution for any personally threatening behaviour then over reaction is to be expected.

IMO the vast majority of Police start out wanting a career that is demanding physically and mentally, holds value to society and pays with financial security.

I think the various Police Forces in the US have a range of training and psychological support given to their officers.
We as taxpayers demand a lot for the dollars we allocate and perhaps should be spending a lot more on expert psychological counseling then we do on armoured vehicles. If you look at the rates of alcohol, drug use and divorce of officers you can see the signs of severe strain.

But the racism element actually pervades society. Black and Latino males are being harshly punished at the kindergarten and preschool levels even before hitting elementary, middle and high school. Why should we expect cops to have a different subconscious ethno-centric world view than the rest of us?

While I for one welcome the Federal oversight of those Police Forces with questionable records as regards to their use of force. We all must realize that real and lasting change only comes once society at large begins to think differently.

 

[Eventhorizon]

[MENTION=1939]Stu[/MENTION] I agree with or at least can see logical thinking in most of what you have said. I think a lot of average people overlook what an officer deals with on a daily basis. Although geography does play a role, dealing with the dregs of society day in and day out is undoubtedly stressful to say the least. I have had encounters with what I think of as bad cops. Nothing where I was assaulted by any off them but where in my mind they had a different agenda then to serve and protect. I have two cop friends as well and both are excellent people you would want to know if you could.
So I see a combination of a justice system that favors officers unreasonably. Stand in a court of law and the officers word will always be taken over yours. What exactly makes them more trustworthy? They are human as well. I dont agree with it of course.
I think police need to make a lot more than they do for doing what they do. However I also think much emphasis needs to be placed on keeping potentially mentally unstable people out of a position where they can singularly do great harm to others. I would agree with your assessment of more psychological support and add monitoring.
As for black and Hispanic kids being punished in schools? I did not see that when I was in school many many years ago. I cant imagine its gotten worse but as I say coastal areas are generally more progressive anyway.

Oh I wanted to add... I think most of general society does not see a person when they see a cop. They just see a "cop" much like when driving down the road when you see a car or a motorcycle thats what you see. You dont think of there as being a person inside. I think this is exceptionally damaging to relations with law enforcement or people in general for that matter.

 

[Stu]

[h=4]Chana Joffe[/h]Thompson likes numbers. He enjoys being in close proximity to Microsoft Excel. And this is exactly the kind of assignment he does not like, because there are not consistent numbers on discipline in schools. Every school is different, every district, every state.And then, Michael Thompson learned about Texas. Texas, somewhat miraculously, had followed every single public school student from seventh grade through graduation-- the seventh graders of 2000, 2001, 2002. And they had documented everything-- report cards, if the kid was poor, Asian, switched schools, gotten in trouble, followed them all the way through graduation.
So Thomson could ask the researchers in College Station at Texas A&M, how many white kids were suspended? For what? How many times? Which schools?

[h=4]Michael Thompson[/h]I was just-- all these numbers. The image I have is these guys in Texas A&M with white lab coats. We would joke that all the lights would dim in College Station each time they would run an analysis of this thing, because it was such a massive data set.

[h=4]Chana Joffe[/h]The lab coats peered down at a million students' lives-- the schools they attended, how they did, when they got in trouble. And they determined that African American and Hispanic students were twice as likely to receive an out-of-school suspension than their white peers for their first offense. When they looked at African American boys in Texas, 83% were suspended at least once. And usually, they were suspended a lot more than once. That includes anything a school calls suspension.
But still, take 10 black boys, two of them made it through middle and high school without being suspended. And what kind of infractions were they getting suspended for? Most of the time, these were not for big things, like hitting a teacher or bringing a weapon to school. They were for things like disrespect, insubordination, willful defiance, the kind of incident that often begins when an angry kid won't take his hat off.

OK, and one more striking thing you can see in the Texas numbers-- kids who were suspended were much more likely to be arrested outside of school, three times as likely to come into contact with the juvenile justice system.

Listen here http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/538/is-this-working

 

[Eventhorizon]

[MENTION=1939]Stu[/MENTION] Interesting but as with all things I take it with a grain of salt. People see the things they want to see, skew the numbers so they add weight to what they want the results to be. Im not saying that has happened here only that theres no real way to know.

I hate to bring what sounds like politics into it but its well known the school system is one of the most liberal minded and infiltrated establishments in America now. Teachers preaching hate of America, "Thanksgiving and establishment of America was a bad thing because of what we did to the indians" etc. No one can win at a sport, you are all winners even if you didnt play. Dont get me started on common core.
The kids in question, is there any corolation to the ethnicity of the teachers involved?

 

[Stu]

Being liberal minded does not free you from racism, i think that is the subtle point here. Underneath it all teachers are just as racist as cops, they just don't carry guns (yet).