Ahmaud Arbery: How common is it?
Ahmaud Arbery was killed by two white men in Georgia last April. Though the local authorities were aware of it, no charges were made. If not for Arbery's cousin, who brought the story to a newspaper, the death of Arbery would have gone unnoticed.
My question is: how common is this in Georgia? In the US? In the world? What factors make it more likely to happen?
My question is: how common is this in Georgia? In the US? In the world? What factors make it more likely to happen?
Comments (214)
The DA shut the police investigation down because she had a relationship with one of the suspects.
Yeah the father worked as a DA investigator for over 20 years and retired in 2019. Conflict of interest.
Do conflicts of interest apply to DA's? I assume they have assistants if they feel they can't be neutral.
Yep.
Are we talking about racism or nepotism/favoritism?
Favoritism, but then why did the DA think she could get away with ignoring a possible murder? Because the victim was black?
Would this happen where you live? If not, why not? If so, why so?
I don’t know. She was one of the shooter’s boss. But the DA rightfully recused herself. The other DA who recused himself thought the father/son were innocent, claiming citizens arrests were legal. The guys filming from the dash cam were also in hot pursuit of Aubrey, suspecting Him of burglary. But yeah it needs to be investigated by the DOJ because there are too many relationships there.
Maybe because she was favored by her superiors.
This constant insinuation that any time a white person and black person end up in a conflict that it has to be because of the racist white's fault, simply isn't warranted.
provided some interesting statistics here:
Quoting FBI Hate Crime Statistics
Here are the stats on the racial composition of the country:
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/IPE120218
Whites make up 75% to blacks 13%, yet blacks are 24% of the hate crimes. So it seems to me that blacks are the ones that have instigated more than their fair share of hate crimes when compared to the percent of the population. So it seems to me that you are more likely to meet a racist when meeting a black person than meeting a white person for the first time, not the other way around.
Was the black judge that sentenced the white woman to jail for simply trying to make a living for herself and her employees racist?
I agree. He did nothing wrong. I was just saying how his actions could be construed as worthy of investigation, which could account for the length of time it took to lay charges.
So if the victim had been a white man, you think the same events would have followed?
That there is favoritism within positions of power? Sure. Your skin color doesn't make a difference when someone's position of power is on the line. They will throw anyone under the bus to maintain their grip on power.
Just look at Joe Biden. He supported the right of women to be heard when it comes to sexual harassment/assault, but when his aspirations for power are threatened, he changes his tune.
Tim I read and respect a lot of what you post, but this is a doosey. I am a general contractor among other things and you have no basic right to enter a construction site at all. It's private property and your presence is a liability and you will happily sue the contractor when you drive a nail through your foot. And you will win. And my insurance won't cover it because I didn't keep you off. But you know very well and feel you have a right?
Quoting NOS4A2
Why do armed white men always feel their life is in immediate danger from unarmed black men? Do we really believe they were going to use there guns to turn them over to the police?
Yes. Most insurance requires it I believe. It does happen I agree. I've found people who have made it to the second floor and they weren't wearing shoes. That is when I object the most.
BTW, I like to check out construction sites, just to see how things get put together; how big/deep the basement is going to be; or walk around rail yards--just what did the inside of a caboose look like? The murdered man did this in broad daylight, (I gather).
Maybe he had to take a leak?
@HANOVER, how common are murders in Georgia, these days? Prosecution rates and success?
I'm not excusing or making lightweight of any of this. The murders and the prosecutors are very bad.
To borrow a phrase, "corruption is socially constructed"; it isn't just what a bad cop or bad DA does. It's also what the dominant society in that time and place is willing to put up with. Some communities (in all parts of the country) are at least somewhat willing to put up with some degree of official corruption--I'm thinking of Boston, Chicago, and Los Angeles which have displayed outstanding examples of corruption. Dig down and one finds examples of corruption (any of 31 flavors) in one's home town.
Citizen activism and vigilance are the antidotes to corruption; a working press also helps. More and more places have lost their local newspapers, which are a critical piece of community vigilance.
I live in Georgia, and, anecdotally speaking, it's pretty uncommon. I can't recall the last one actually. It's for that reason it makes the news.
My take on this is that it was a couple of redneck, racist vigilantes who heard there was a guy committing the high crime of misdemeanor trespass on a construction site and they decided to arm themselves and administer a citizen's arrest (wtf?) with a shot gun while another stood watch in the bed of the truck with a handgun. I'm sure the guy was up to no good, but the remedy isn't to go out and kill him.
They claimed there had been a number of break ins in the area, but I've heard there was only one break in the last month and it was of a gun that was stolen out of someone's car.
Why there was a one month cover-up is very problematic. They asked the mother of the deceased and she said she had accepted her son was killed in self-defense, which means she wasn't out looking to scream racism prior to seeing the video. She didn't think her son a saint, but she is now understandably upset.
Brunswick is a port town and I've always remembered as a kid driving through it on the way to the beaches with the paper mills that made the entire town stink to high hell. It's a poor south Georgia city, with a very wealthy class of haves (versus the have nots) that have their Summer homes on St. Simons Island and Sea Island.
You don't even need to leave your house to get shot by cops in America. Just being black will do the trick.
This one?: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/black-woman-shot-killed-after-kentucky-police-entered-her-home-n1205651
Basically, cops stormed into the house of a black woman - an EMT - during a 'no knock' raid and shot her dead - the cops had the wrong address. The lawyer representing this case is the same as the lawyer in Arbery's case.
This is what I'm talking about - the unwarranted insinuation of racism whenever a conflict occurs between people who's skin color happens to be different. This is another category error (act of stupidity) - in thinking that the cause of the conflict always has something to do with the difference of skin color.
Of course when it happens to pretty white women, the chances of conviction go up, magically up. Also helps if the cop in question has a name like Mohamed Noor.
The article says that it is young black men. Race is only a third of the description. The other two being age and sex. So how does it follow that it can only be racism is the cause of all these deaths? If it were racism, then age and sex wouldn't seem to matter, would it?
You're statements say nothing about me, because your making a category error - an ad hominem - but says a lot about how you can't handle logical arguments that contradict your interpretation of the data you've provided. This is how delusional people behave.
Funny guy!
Show me the quote you are referring to from which this line of thinking would follow. I just don't see it, so you must be assuming more than what I have said, just as SLX assumes more than what the data they provided is showing.
Now here's the problem. Arbery runs from the construction site behind the pickup truck and then he circles around and grabs the shotgun of the guy on the ground. They then wrestle over the gun and Arbery gets shot by the shotgun, not by the sniper in the truck bed.
Driving around with a shotgun and playing policeman isn't illegal. In fact, citizen arrests are legal. Is it complete dumbassery to walk the streets with a shotgun in search of prowlers? Of course. But, if what is shown to have happened is that there was a gun shot motivated by someone coming after a legally armed person, you've got a very different question.
Notes to self: Don't chase suspects with shotguns and don't grab at someone's shotgun. We all get that. But the question turns to whether there was an illegal act committed by the shooters, not whether people are stupid and not whether they're racist.
I'd say the same thing if a white guy were grabbing at a black person's gun too, but I acknowledge that the race issue clouds this whole analysis.
Shouldn't that have been investigated? The DA decided not to.
As a Black, native New Yorker, now living in Georgia (formerly resident of Arizona, Minnesota, Washington DC, Virginia & California), I've observed since coming of age in the 1970s that summary executions (i.e. lynchings, or murders-with-impunity) of unarmed Black men, women & children are TOO COMMON in Georgia as well as in the US as whole. Centuries of structural inequalities and institutionalized racial discrimination make what amounts to customary-normative 'domestic white terrorism' a (seemingly) intractable, clear and present danger, not only to American Blacks, but to all of our fellow citizens of color. The current pandemic exposes - as the HIV scourge of the 1980s, etc had exposed - these US Constitution-established, legalized civic & social pathologies.
The cover up was fucked up. There's now a new DA assigned who has no political connections to the area, so we'll expect all avenues to be explored.
The numbers don't support this claim. More whites are killed by blacks than are blacks killed by whites and more blacks are killed by blacks than either. https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-09-29/race-and-homicide-in-america-by-the-numbers
Don't get me wrong, as there is something particularly heinous of any murder that is motivated by race (and that number we don't know). I liken this to the 9/11 deaths. Those number of deaths pale in comparison to the number of Americans killing Americans, but what makes it heinous is that the attack is seen as an attack on America, a value system, a way of life, and an identity. I completely agree that race based murderers deserve a special place in hell and that their murders carry the added weight of terrorism, but I disagree that it's pandemic, common, or a true existential threat.
This was hard not to notice from the get-go (for me). Statistics show that blacks contract coronavirus at a higher rate, but once in the ICU things even out. I'm not sure what that means.
Reckon that about sums it up.
Yep. Dumb white liberty freaks can literally take over government buildings while armed with assault rifles and the police do nothing. A black guy with a foil wrapped sandwich on the other hand, immediate threat, gun him down.
The sandwich shooting: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/oct/09/st-louis-police-officer-shoots-dead-black-teenager-off-duty
The ballistics test showed the unarmed man fired several rounds at the officer.
The famous Woolworth sit ins in the 60s by those fighting for liberty did result in some arrests - of white counterprotestors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greensboro_sit-ins
Is the unnuanced view just easier, so you take it?
Racism is crushing, horrible, and evil. You don't better understand it than me and your sense of compassion is not more advanced than mine. But you're seeing it as the cause of any bad thing that comes the way of any minority is just blind bias.
I wasn't referring to any specific shooting.
Quoting Hanover
Relevance?
Quoting Hanover
Quote me where I claimed that. Or even mentioned you.
Quoting Hanover
Quote me where I claimed that.
This is getting boring. There is nothing at all of substance in your post.
Anyhow, do you believe armed militia groups should be allowed to take over government buildings? Let's try that with Black Lives Matter and see what happens.
Not very hard to spot the difference, really:
Does this happen in Australia?
So a bit more subtlety is involved, usually in the form of police ineptitude.
Ms Dhu was one.
From the inquest:
The core issue, though, is that she was imprisoned for fine defaulting.
Taya Day is a more recent case of public drunkenness. Note that a white woman picked up for the same offence on the same day got a lift home. Odd, that.
You were referring to a hypothetical shooting?Quoting Baden
If my post were irrelevant, then why spend several more posts responding to it?Quoting Baden
And yet the next several posts of yours express your disbelief that I'd say what I said as if I'm missing your sense of conscience.Quoting Baden
And you've pointed out irrelevant distinctions, as you could expect I'm likely capable of recognizing the distinctions you've pointed out without your pointing them out.
As to your point that nonviolent protests end in violence disproportionately by race, you have no evidence of that unless you go back many decades, and even then not always.
Quoting Baden
Are we now talking about a real event or a hypothetical one? I hypothesize the same result as if they were white.
But we're making no headway now, so back to the OP. With all the video evidence we have, do you convict for murder or not? If the races reversed, do you convict? If they're all the same race, do you convict?
I answer I'm not sure yet for all those questions.
You don't seriously doubt that racism was involved.
The question was whether you'd convict, not whether they were racist. If a racist is having his shotgun wrestled from him, does that change his right to fire it?
I was giving a generic example, obviously. You're working hard to be confused here.
Quoting Hanover
I questioned the relevance of one comparison in your post and emphasized that with further examples pointing to its absurdity.
Quoting Hanover
You've inserted "conscience" in there. The comparison is absurd. I haven't made a judgement on why you would make such an absurd comparison. Awaiting your explanantion.
Quoting Hanover
You think if Black Lives Matter protesters armed with assault rifles took over government buildings, the police would ignore them and the President would congratulate them? Again, that's absurd.
Quoting Hanover
Nobody here can say for sure whether there should be a conviction of murder until all the evidence has come out. I very much doubt though, along with Banno, that these guys would be hunting down a white jogger and I find the idea that anyone can legally be accosted by armed buffoons simply because they trespassed on a construction site a further symptom of America's diseased notions of liberty.
https://www.wdkx.com/black-militia-patrols-home-of-suspect-accused-of-killing-georgia-jogger/
Good, I hope they take over some government buildings.
That's not the question in the OP. That question went to asking how many cases there are that are simply not bought to wider attention. Hence the link to Aboriginal deaths in custody, which remain high despite considerable public scrutiny.
Quoting Hanover
Why the fuck are white 'mercan folk so scared that they grab their guns and chase coloured folk around the streets? Why the fuck do they even feel a need for guns?
Seems to me there's much deeper cultural issues here than just racism.
Anyway, my question to you: Do you doubt that racism was involved?
Do you think you have an absolute right to wave your shotgun in someone's face? It seems to me that wrestling a shotgun from someone who is threatening you with it is justified self-defence and may be your only chance of staying alive. So, no, he didn't deserve to be shot. The vigilantes should not have been there.
I think guns act as a substitute for some American's lack of power over their own lives. They're weak, confused, and somebody out there (probably a brown dude or at least not of their ilk) is doing it to them.
But you are the expert on definitions.
There was no law being enforced, the man killed was an innocent runner. It's not a crime to run.
Perhaps. But 'mercans behave in different ways to folk from other, even superficially similar, countries.
I think the myth of the self-made individual, that puts the blame for lack of success on lack of effort and even on lack of moral fortitude has a large part to play. Hence a failed family has to prove their strength and hence worth to those around them.
The most important thing in this thread is that we decide if, or if not, these poor foolish bastards were vigilantes.
Yes, in the US there's an unusual amount of social stigma attached to not being a "success" (i.e. not being rich) but there's also an unusual amount of social capital to be had by toting a big gun (in some circles). The latter being considered somewhat compensatory for the former.
There is no evidence that Arbery was even on the referenced construction site, just a mysterious, unidentified 911 caller speaking about a black man running form the site. Arbery was known to run that route. Sounds like a setup to me.
But fuck all that minutia. Two white guys chased and shoot a black guy, and it was covered up.
There's your issue.
Prolly right. Let's stereotype while trying to figure out why people stereotype.
I saw a clip of that video, the person doesn't even look like the runner, not wearing the same clothes. But I believe it was from a different day, and nothing was stolen anyway.
That's the problem with the vigilante excuse, there's no records of any crimes having been committed.
Ah.
I hadn't considered it an excuse.
A proposed excuse for premeditated murder, I think.
I said "some" for a reason. I'm guessing something like that may have applied in this case. Although there are other less charitable explanations that are also plausible.
That's not what happened. But, hypothetically, no.Quoting Baden
This is a legal question, not a moral one. They.were not in violation of the law to be there. They were there because they were racist morons. So, the question is whether a racist moron is in violation of the law when someone tries to wrestle his loaded shotgun from him and the guy gets shot? I say not if he has reason to believe the cuckoo wrestler man intended less than a kind gesture after he got the gun in his possession.
https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/nitv-news/article/2019/05/01/briggs-skewers-white-privilege-life-incredible
Yeah, but who cares what psychoanalytic musings you arrive at? It's not like it's based on anything. We Americans are as varied as the next bunch, just better.
According to the video, it is. They threatened him with a shotgun when he was doing nothing other than jogging through the neighbourhood.
Quoting Hanover
So by law you are allowed to threaten someone with a gun and then shoot them when they try to defend themselves? Why? You've initiated the confrontation. Why should they not be allowed to defend themselves?
Banno, I presume. As he asked me the question, originally. Why can't you keep up? Pay attention!
Sure seemed like it, but we don't convict people for being pieces of shit. If we did, few would avoid conviction.
Sorry to interrupt your convo with the gentleman from down under. Carry on.
See, here's how it works, when posters ask me questions, I answer them (usually). You can ask me questions too, but you're not required to care about their questions.
Y'all weren't actually responding to questions. Y'all were just sitting in an echo chamber hearing your own voices bounce out of each other's mouths.
Could an answer to my last question to you bounce out of your mouth, perchance? Why is it illegal for me to defend myself against someone threatening me with a gun by taking that gun from them? Or why is it legal for them to shoot me for doing so?
Nice imagery! You do have a way with words.
Sometimes gotta take a compliment from who'll ever give it
That didn't look like self defense to me. You think he was in reasonable fear for his life at the time he ran around the truck toward the gun? I'd say his fear of death likely increased with each step toward the end of the barrel.
Yep. We can ponder about what leads to their excremental nature. I'm thinking that's what @frank was looking for in his OP. How come these turdish folk almost got away with murder?
You don't? What's your theory then? He felt in no danger but decided to risk death on the off chance he could get to murder these two guys?
Anyway, answer the question.If he was in fear of his life, could he legally defend himself or not?
Well, according to Hanover, it's apparently fine to threaten people with guns and then blow them away when they try to neutralize the threat. I would say that's a bit of a problem with the law right there.
Of course he could. I think he was pissed and kamikazed toward the shotgun. That's what it looked like to me.
Is this what it's going to come down to in the court? Whether or not he was a kamikaze?
That's not the way it looked, so I don't know why you say this. He came toward the threat that was not being waved at him.
That's why I'm thinking there must be some deeper stuff going on.
'cause if he had turned and run the other way, it would all have been alright...
So it's all his fault.
I can't make out what the point you are making might be.
You're telling me you know from the video that a gun wasn't waved at him? Please share the link to the video that shows that. I've said in the last couple of posts he was "threatened" with a gun. It's clear they had guns and they were using them to try to stop him, which involves "threat" (otherwise why would he stop?). Whether or not they actually waved the gun or pointed it at him before he tried to grab it is not discernible from the video I've seen.
You do realize that you're now arguing for the controversial "stand your ground" law instead of the law you must retreat if possible
But Georgia does have a stand your ground law, so you've arrived at your defense. I still maintain that he didn't stand his ground but that he pursued a guy with a gun in the street, but that's my interpretation of the evidence, not the law.
Your interpretation of this is that Arbery pursued a guy with a gun in the street and so was legally shot or not? (On the basis of the evidence you've seen. What is your call?)
Again, you must have evidence I don't. Because the video I've seen does not show what you claim it shows (i.e. that they did not threaten him with a gun but he instead threatened them).
That is, there was an abject failure of the legal and judicial systems.
And the question in the OP is, how widespread is such failure?
There's the philosophically and ethically significant issue.
But if we talk about that we'll be accused of not being American enough to contribute. Which is a recurring theme lately.
Quoting Hanover
A throw away line, doubtless. However 'mercans seem to feel obligated to make such assertions, and this despite all evidence being to the contrary. What might once have been waived off as quaint self-congratulation might now be seen as defensive self-delusion.
As opposed to the Celtic self-depreciation inherited by my country.
The overwhelming majority of murders are "same race" killings - Whites kill Whites & Blacks kill Blacks. And even when Blacks kill more Whites than Whites kill Blacks, White perps clearly do so with impunity and are Profiled, Arrested, Prosecuted & Convicted far less often than Black perps. Especially in the south, a legacy of jim crow, etc ...
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-3.xls
Is motivation not a factor in criminal law in the US? Malice aforethought and stuff? In the UK being a piece of shit is the difference between murder and manslaughter.
Either way, it doesnt look premeditated. Manslaughter?
Second degree murder.
The wrong of racism is that it fails to account for the humanity of a target group, but also their individuality. The racist assumes all blacks are lazy. Should we assume in return that all whites are racist?
You make 2 comments: (1) whites are prosecuted less, and (2) it's due to racism. Neither comment is addressed by the cite.
My comment was that whites were killed at higher rates by blacks than blacks by whites. Why do you state that is not the result of racisn, but you do if reversed?
Motive.is distinct from intent, and intent must be proved, but not motive. If I kill my wife because she cheated on me, that's my motive and the jury can consider that, but all that is required is that you show I intended to kill her, even if you can't prove my motive was that she cheated on me.
But yes, if you can show intent and you can show the imotivation was to kill all the blacks (or some deeper motivation) that would be evidence of a more deliberate intent and greater depravity, which world result in a higher level of crime and more severe penalty.
My point was if the evidence shows lack of intent due to self defense, his motivation for being there becomes irrelevant. Assiming (and I will) he was there because he's an idiot racist motivated to make a citizen's arrest, he's not guilty of murder unless he had the intent to murder, absent a legal defense (I.e. self defense).
The question is whether he assaulted him with a weapon. Carrying a gun is not an assault, which is why the allegation by Baden he was "waving the gun in his face" isn't a quibble, but is a critical distinction.
So, if the article said that "black people" and it showed data that blacks of both sexes and all age groups were being rounded up, then yes you would certainly have good evidence that racism is systematic. However, that isn't what the data shows. What is it about young black men that distinguishes them from the behavior of black women, black children, or black elderly?
Misrepresentation. I clarified that that from the video we can't actually know that he literally "waved a gun in his face'.
Quoting Baden
But it's fairly obvious he threatened him with a gun. I also asked you to clarify your position in several follow up posts. E.g. You claim the gun wasn't waved at him.
Quoting Hanover
Where's your evidence for that? It appears you just made it up. Also, here you acknowledge a threat. So I think we agree that an unarmed black man was threatened with a gun by a racist and tried to neutralize that threat by removing the gun. Now tell me why that means it was his fault that he got shot and not the racist's with the gun?
Threatening someone with a gun is brandishment. It's illegal, right?
So you're asking me to consider the possibility that this ex-cop just always carries a rifle around wherever he goes. He goes to Piggly Wiggly for some chicken salad, he takes his rifle.
It seems more likely that he took his weapon out because he wanted to threaten someone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intimidation
You're trying to impart legal significance to "brandishment," a term not used in the Georgia statute of aggravated assault. An assault is threatening to do imminent harm and it's aggravated if with a deadly weapon. Carrying a gun is not a assault. Threatening is. That's the question for the jury. It's a fact question (as opposed to a legal one) they'll have to decide by looking at the evidence and considering whatever defenses are brought up.
Some questions. Answer, ignore, or ridicule as you see fit:
If Arbery could have avoided the altercation, do you believe he was required to, or do you believe he had the right to stand his ground?
Do you believe If Arbery was not threatened by the gun, but just went to grab it because he was pissed off at Billy bad ass with his gun, do you think the shooter should still be prosecuted?
Do you believe Arbery is guilty of trespassing even if he didn't steal anything and even if others entered that site without permission from time to time?
Do you think hate is a protected right and should not add to or subtract from the seriousness of a crime?
The perps lied in their statements to police about the killing. Attempted cover-up is circumstantial evidence of consciousness of guilt. I'm not attributing anything to the perps sans what is already reported about the circumstances of the killing and the context within which the local authorities initially failed and then were very slow to respond.
My outlook flips this script: racism asserts the "superhumanity" - superiority, thus supremacy - by a "race"-color-ethnic In-Group over the mere humanity of a "race"-color-ethnic Out-Group; in other words, idolatrous self-deification by demonizing - scapegoating - the other. "The wrong" is the banal inhumanity of ego-fantasy (i.e. rabid tribalism).
Strawman. Of course not. But it's a fact that all nonwhites (in North America? and in Eurasia?) suffer daily from threats from and/or exercises of de facto systemic racism which apparently most whites fail to actively oppose while they benefit from its historical, or institutional, legacies as well as by, in many cases, being functionaries of its 'policing powers'. Do you dispute that?
"Levelling" can be either one. You deflate me to raise yourself, or inflate yourself relative to my baseline. Either one is an attempt to compensate.
I don't think either is the reason the DA in Georgia thought she could get away with ignoring a violent death. I think it's because she thinks of blacks as powerless. Power came in the form if a journalist looking for a story. The journalist said that as he gathered facts, he knew the story would be explosive.
Is it explosive because only blacks are concerned about it? If that were true, none of us would know the name Arbery.
I just wanted his name spoken, btw.
Quoting 180 Proof
I don't. I believe bitterness is a prison, though. I think there's a way to escape it that has to do with a kind of spirituality. Do you know what i mean?
Depends on presence, relative level, and direction of threat. E.g. If I have a gun and the other guy doesn't but is threatening me, I'm in considerably less danger than if he had one, and I should be obligated to avoid/de-escalate a potentially lethal altercation if reasonably possible. If the tables are turned (the case with Arbery), I should be free to do whatever is most effective in defending myself. (I don't know the ins and outs of stand your ground laws btw, so I'm not commenting specifically on them.)
Quoting Hanover
If someone who is unthreateningly open-carrying is attacked and has reasonable justification to believe that shooting the attacker is the only effective means of self-defence, that option should be legally available to them. That doesn't imply they should have an unqualified right to shoot dead anyone who tries to take their gun even if they believe them to be a threat. As per my previous answer, the level of threat and the opportunity to neutralize it or deescalate the situation short of deadly force would need to be examined. In this case, I believe Billy bad ass was must have been more of a threat to Arbery than vice versa, in which case, yes, he should be prosecuted. It's not absolutely inconceivable he wasn't more of a threat. But that seems to me at least to be very implausible.
Quoting Hanover
I don't know if he's technically guilty of trespassing. My claim was he did nothing wrong, which he didn't. The owner of the property confirmed that. We can be technically guilty of jaywalking when we cross a road with no cars around, but who cares?
Quoting Hanover
I'm pro hate-crime legislation whereby it's not hate per se that's outlawed but its violent expression against minorities. That's an important distinction, which your question obscures. Racists can go hate themselves into pretzels for all I care. That is, I accept their right to stew in corners over perceived/imagined grievances should be protected.
:shade: :up:
Quoting frank
:point:
Well, i believe it's being nonwhite, born raised living & dying, in a "prison" of White Privilege (i.e. structural inequalities policed by systemic, institutionalized anti-nonwhite discrimination) that reinforces and normalizes "bitterness".
Lived experience, frank.
Surviving daily micro-struggles for some dignity & peace of mind.
Too many of us nonwhite citizens are PTSD'd by the operations (& operatives) of this racist Panopticon.
[i]"I don't wanna live in the park (live in the park);
Can't trust no shadows after dark (shadows after dark), yeah-eh!
So, my friend,
I wish that you could see,
Like a bird in the tree,
the prisoners must be free, yeah!"[/i] ~BMW
No. I really don't.
They went there with the intent of killing him. He apprehended that and so he was desperate. His only hope was to disarm.
Quoting Hanover
There was no crime committed, therefore no citizen's arrest to be made. He was not there to make a citizen's arrest. He was there with the intent of killing that man.
You'll acknowledge that is your assessment. Others may assess differently.
Of course. I just thought I'd add my two cents worth.
Murder accomplice arrested -
https://www.npr.org/2020/05/21/860593300/georgia-authorities-arrest-third-man-in-ahmaud-arbery-killing
"How common?"
:point: A badge. A gun. A "local" prosecutor ...
I heard a local Democratic Party spokeswoman speak. She said there are people digging into the records of people who are up for election to local positions, and they always need more volunteers to get the information out and to basically keep the consciousness of the problem awake and alert when the headlines move on to the next problem.
And Breonna Taylor, shot by Louisville policemen in her own home.
Arbery update
The latest dispatch from the frontlines of activist-voter resistance to [InfoWars-Newsmax-Fox Noise / MAGA / QAnon] WHITE GRIEVANCE RACIAL HATRED :point:
https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/17/us/metro-atlanta-shootings-wednesday/index.html
More blood on DJT's tiny hands ...
[quote=tr45h, (tweets) from 2020] [i]China Virus
Kung Flu
The Wuhan Virus
Chinese Plague[/i]
We are making tremendous progress with this horrible disease that was sent over by China. China will pay a big price for what they did to the world and to us.[/quote]
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/covid-19-has-led-to-an-uptick-in-anti-asian-racism/
:mask:
In Murica, it ain't a "crime" (yet) to hate the haters ... :victory:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-60482214
Saw that today. :pray: :victory:
I can't remember the last time when police officers anywhere in the US were both fired and indicted in less than a month for killing an unarmed black man on camera. Especially down in Dixie. :brow:
https://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/da-5-memphis-cops-all-responsible-for-tyre-nichols-death/JHDAGHQ2ANH2FJ7426GOH7FYUU/
Yep
I have seen the video where the cops beat this defenceless young man. Police officers reported that they pulled Tyre Nichols out of the car because of a "reckless driving" but is obvious that is a filthy lie. Five policemen (full armed and equipped) against a normal citizen is one of the most filthiest acts I ever seen for a long time.
It is not important if the police officers are black. As many protesters have so wisely said: They put on a blue uniform and forgot they were Black! It is not about of white or black when their blood is blue.
Police officers have always been the dogs of prey for the state and government.
Imagine a village of 100 people, 50 are Christians and 50 are Muslims. Of the 50 Muslims, 20 are criminals and of the 50 Christians, 30 are criminals.
You're a cop.
Scenario 1
You see a Muslim. What goes through your mind?
The probability that the Muslim is a criminal = [math]\frac{20}{50} = 40\%[/math]
Scenario 2
You see a Christian. What now?
The probability that the Christian is a criminal = [math]\frac{30}{50} = 60\%[/math]
So you, as a cop, are fully justified to exercise extra caution when you see a Christian when compared to a Muslim.
It seems that you (the cop) are being completely rational and the math above is proof of that. However, this increases the odds that you'll be (falsely) charged with discrimination and brutality against Christians (the extra caution may manifest as excessive force).
:up:
The big problem here is that the cops tend to not act rational at all. This is why they abuse and charge people discriminatory.
I'm trying to understand/investigate the logic behind what people call racial profiling which to my reckoning is probabilistic/statistical. We use the same reasoning as cops do every day in our lives e.g. most teenagers like to dance and so if I meet a teenager, it's likely that s/he likes to get jiggy with it.
To be honest Smith, I think not... some tend to reasoning more than others.
But my argument from probability does explain the apparent racism in the police force. We can take this further (using mathemagic) and check if police-related death rates among blacks fall within the expected range given the crime rates in the black community.
My intention is not to trivialize the suffering of any community, but to zero in on, identify, the real problem e.g. high crime rates vis-à-vis African Americans. Misdiagnosis of an illness is only going to delay and make less effective the treatment.
But what I tried to explain is the big problem of brutality among police officers. It is not about calculating or using statistics on "police and death rates". This formula only would show you that effectively police department is racist and abusive with minorities. It is a fact.
Furthermore, the problem is more complex because the police officers tend to have a weird sense of "authority" in each town and they think (incorrectly) that they are over the rest. The problem starts here, in the sense of power and authority.
Quoting javi2541997
:100:
Math is nonsense? :chin:
I understand, but to me we've got the wrong end of the stick mon ami.
Imagine a police force that thinks falsely that this is the case. Their prejudicial behaviour will mean that Muslims are lightly policed and Christians are heavily policed. That obviously results in skewed statistics that reinforce and justify the prejudice. Imagine this going on for generation after generation until becomes a universally accepted truth amongst Christians and Muslims and even atheist philosophers. Imagine folks conforming to the stereotypes they are brought up with. Imagine folks rationalising racism in all seriousness on a philosophical website and folks completely agreeing with them.
Well, I'm not saying the situation as it stands isn't due to past injustices (slavery has cast a long shadow). What I am saying though is African Americans need to pull up their socks, of course with state assistance as is due to them, proportionate to the wrongs done to them.
I'm calling to my assistance statistical data to make the case that racial profiling is, though lamentable, justified. Let the numbers do the talking - any statistician will come to the same conclusion as me. Our pressing concern, our real task, is to take appropriate action to break the correlation between being black and being a criminal.
It seems that the crisis we're facing today is a direct consequence of historical racism (slavery) but itself is not racism.
Yes. I know what you are doing because it has been going on for generations. It is a racist justification, akin to the racist justification for mortgage zoning.
Prejudice produces injustice.This has been known for long enough that the depiction of justice personified has a blindfold. But Agent Smith and the police do not care about justice so much as they care about their own interest.
You must not misconstrue my words though this is likely given this issue is close to many people's hearts.
Your words are very clear and you claim is very common.
Nothing sells like outrage, and people love the feeling of indignation, especially when it makes them feel absolved of all blame. We've seen this during covid, the Ukraine war, climate, and race politics are no exception to that.
Si, si señor, the feelings, they swell up and you know what happens next. Somebody has to sit down, pore through the data, analyze it, and present to us their findings. Racism is a serious charge (it has the potential to destabilize the entire nation) and so, we must be certain if it exists in the police force (our guardians). We can't simply look at individual incidents where innocent black lives were lost. We have to also prove that they're statistically disproportionate/inexplicable to/by other relevant data (race-based crime rates for example). I'm especially concerned by blame-deflection (from historical racism/slavery to an especially vulnerable group given the nature of their job, the men in blue). Perhaps we can treat police violence as some kinda surrogate marker for historical racism - the black and crime correlation would've never materialized if blacks had been treated fairly from the start.
One crucial point that hasta be made pronto (@180 Proof) is that race maybe the wrong parameter to focus on i.e. (this is extremely likely) it may actually be poverty that drives people to crime and not some kinda racial defect. Since there are more poor blacks than poor any-other-race [blame falls squarely on the shoulders of historical racism (slavery)], blacks will dominate the crime statistics, creating the illusion (maya's a bitch) that blacks are (more likely to be) criminals. Some other socioeconomic factor, not necessarily poverty, may be at play.
They have a reputation for being unnecessarily belligerent. They know they can get away with it if the victim is black. If you have dark skin, you'll immediately wonder if you're going to survive an encounter with police. Young men don't realize that running is the worst thing you can do. You have to feed their egos and say "yes sir, no sir" because it's a matter of life and death.
You're right that covering this issue over completely with the word "racism" is obscuring part of the problem.
Policemen believe that they are over you. Whenever they enter in the corps and wear an uniform they tend to be abusive. It is true that this work (being a police officer) is dangerous. Nonetheless, is a big paradox that we need to be defended from them instead of being protected by. I always considered police institutions just the heavy, abusive, violent arm of the politician. They are their personal soldiers.
Ok... and how that's related to the abusive behaviour of police officers? I think you are mixing up the problems.
And so, the accusation is quickly made, yet takes ages to refute.
Quoting Agent Smith
I think that is too simplistic.
The accumulation of intergenerational intellectual and physical wealth is a process that may take centuries, and that is under the best of circumstances.
For reasons that I cannot fully explain, most of the African continent has lagged behind in this regard when compared to places like Europe and the Far-East (China, Japan, etc.).
There was already very little intergenerational wealth build-up on most of the African continent, and slavery further damaged what little there was, basically starting the process anew in the Americas for those who were shipped there under slavery. That is only some 150 years ago. For reference, the colonists and their descendants easily had close to two millenia of heritage.
Without some numbers to go with that claim, I'm not buyin' it.
This is shocking. The violence and thuggery from public officials. More shocking that this keeps happening. Over and over and over...
Jail for the assailants, of course. But also accountability higher up too. The five officers did the crime. But those in charge of them created conditions for this to happen.
A gang of young inexperienced fully armed police patrolling at night driving unmarked vehicles in a unit called “SCORPION”? WTF were the supervisors thinking? Criminal negligence at best. Murder accessory is more accurate. This crime goes higher than the officers.
:up:
It is criminal organization, indeed. Those police officers are just a small part of a filthy and corrupt institution which thinks can act without any control.
But hey, according to @Agent Smith, the problem is on African American's shoulders not the brutality and violence of the cops :roll:
True.
Do people whose skin is brown or black need to have a helmet in their car to wear in the event of being stopped by the police? Just to hopefully prevent brain damage from clubs? How do you protect yourself from such attacks? If you lock your doors, that’s probably an invitation for the police to start shooting. Unbelievable.
I hope this is the last time this happens. I fear that is only wishful thinking. Maybe the next time police brutality happens, if the victim is white, female, or famous... maybe that will truly get everyone in an overdue righteous uproar.
Bad cops, bad cops... whatcha gonna do
Whatcha gonna do, when they come for... YOU?!
(to paraphrase the theme song from a show that made arrests of black people into entertainment. Not surprisingly, it was initially on the Fox network. New episodes are still being aired.)
:up: ...+falsely generalised to a social interest.
Crime prevention that's conceptualised in purely instrumental terms--low crime is good (+ points), high crime is bad ( - points)--with social incubators of crime being either wilfully or resignedly ignored, clearly leads to socially destructive practices (e.g. profiling / harassment / over-policing) being justified and encouraged. The methods superficially work (Look! Number down!) but seeing as the underlying social disease is not only left unchecked but exacerbated (community alienation increases), the only way they can continue to be seen to work is through an ever-widening schism between the image of enforcement (protection, service, justice etc) and its practice (bullying, contempt, injustice etc.) which collapses in these events where the practice becomes so extreme it returns to and threatens to become the image, and only then is endangered by the refusal of the image to identify with it. But the solution always seems to protect the image by focusing on methods of disidentification that allow the cycle to repeat, rather than realizing there's nothing in the mirror. The image has no substance because justice is not unidimensional or ungrounded. There is no justice without social justice. There is no social justice without structural change. And there is no structural change without ideological change. >>Prejudice produces injustice.
That is the truth but not the whole truth - I made it a point to mention the legacy of slavery (impoverishment over generations, combined with residual racism).
It appears to me that one ought to be equally cautious because the religious denomination has yet to prove itself to be any sort of mitigating factor in the criminality. It’s too arbitrary of a distinction.
Yes yes and yes. :100:
Which makes one dizzy contemplating the work to be done... assuming that a large enough percentage of people agree in general, which doesn’t even seem to be the case... YET.
Must keep chipping away. It’s all too much. I need some CBD. And need to watch The Lord of the Rings again to convince myself that tiny Hobbits can overcome an army of demons.
It is a point which opaques the main issue: Police abusive behaviour. The police officers who beaten up that young boy are black too. So, as I explained before, following the views of other members and protesters, the problem is the colour blue, police departments. Five armed and equipped men against one person is filthy as hell... It is not even justified. More than a crime is a shame on an institution that is there to supposedly protect you.
Community A, Time 1: 50% of Crime is by members of X subgroup; 50% of Crime is by members of Y subgroup.
X subgroup is socially dominant, so police find it easier to concentrate on Y subgroup, over-policing and alienating them (exacerbating social conditions for crime in Y subgroup).
Community A, Time 2: 45% of crime is by members of X subgroup; 55% of Crime is by members of Y subgroup.
Police now have a justification for profiling and even more over-policing of members of Y subgroup (the stats back it up!) which they pursue with gusto (further alienating Y subgroup and exacerbating the social conditions for crime therein)
Community A, Time 3: 35% of crime is by members of X subgroup; 65% of crime is by members of Y subgroup.
The police are not allowed to come out and say it but it's pretty clear these Y subgroup guys are genetically predisposed to crime; extreme methods are probably necessary to keep them under control--which the police pursue enthusiastically (Y subgroup is now so alienated, generalised violent resistance against the police seems justified).
Time 4: Do we still have a recognizable Community A?
Don't just do the maths AS. Think about where the maths came from.
:pray:
Quoting 0 thru 9
:lol:
My coworkers have analyzed the cops' post beating discussion and discerned that this was a case of mistaken identity. They were looking for someone else and after they've beaten Tyree, they discover that the real suspect had been detained elsewhere, so they all start telling lies about what just happened (for the benefit of their body cams which were turned off during the beating.) They don't know that the traffic cam shows exactly what happened and it's just plain murder.
:up:
Indeed.
It's you who seems not to have read me. We may agree on that part, but this is the specific point that un took you up on and I also think is problematic. It's not so much an objection to your politics but to your reasoning.
Quoting Agent Smith
If racial profiling is contributing to the numbers then letting the numbers do the talking is part of the problem. It's bad enough ignoring the cause to treat only the symptoms; it's worse to aggravate the cause and use the symptoms as a justification for further aggravation. You're sterilizing the concept of racial profiling here by simplifying the context to exclude factors relevant to its employment, i.e. its integration into the causal system of (social) disease and symptom its supposed to address.
The numbers do add up but don't they? Nevertheless, you make a good point - the benefits (probably) outweigh the harms if we bring racial profiling to an end. Also, it's, as I mentioned, probably an artefact of the real problem to wit, poverty as caused/perpetuated by historical racism.
[quote=A. Einstein]Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.[/quote]
:shade: :up:
More cameras would help. Without the videos, the police in this incident could have claimed and gotten any with nearly anything. Like they have thousands of times before. Transparency... whether the police or anyone else like it or not. And rigorous drug testing for police, especially for substances that would make them more aggressive, like steroids and uppers / meth.
Speaking of steroids, I have an unsubstantiated theory that many police officers are former football players (high school or college). Perhaps they still have that warlike, violent, homophobic, misogynistic attitude of “smash them before they can do anything to you”. And it’s possible that they are suffering from the lingering effects of concussions, which can increase violent behavior. Just a guess... (and that’s not even getting deep into the American culture of increasingly extreme violence. Just look at a UFC “sporting event” to see the situation in a bloody nutshell).
I see two things happening that would illicit some negative reaction from the cops. Nichols runs away and he doesn't seem to want to bend his arm behind his back. Running away is resolved by chasing him but instead of forcing his arms behind his back - for which they're trained (https://www.policemag.com/366760/handcuffing-suspects-3-techniques?photo=425438) they proceed to beat him to death while he poses no threat. They're fucking scum.
A popular theory is they were looking for a drug dealer and mistook Nichols for that person. Otherwise, you're right that cops don't usually randomly stop people, turn off their body cams and kill them for no reason.
If these cops had been white, that's what people would have said, that it was just racism. The fact that they're all black highlights the dire need we have for police reform and the weight of the federal government to make it happen. House Democrats are going to try again to do something about it, we'll see if Republicans block it, again