Ongoing U.S Police Brutality and Corruption Discussion Thread

Cleveland:

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-and-city-cleveland-agree-reform-division-police-after-finding-pattern-or

This can't be shared or liked enough.

http://pitchfork.com/thepitch/582-we-are-all-accountable/

That is great

I know, right? This has bothered me about music in general for a while now.

Because I'm the only non-Black person in my anti-street harassment org I've thought about the question of whether my presence was making it unsafe for other women, applying the comparison of how we feel relieved w/r/t our anti-harassment work when men aren't in the room. Back during the series of bell hooks discussions with various other WoC, she said something like "We're not here to feel safe, we're here to be uncomfortable for the sake of change," and I cautiously worked on that principle. And my lead organizers let me know that I was welcome and part of the group and shouldn't leave, which I valued immensely bc I was questioning whether I shd stay.

I would cautiously advance that it's situational? And as a white person it's important to ask yrself, Am I doing this because it's effective or bc it makes me feel good? And act accordingly.

Very nicely put, in orbit. Thank you for that.

Otoh I do follow a lot of WoC thinkers on twitter, for inst, who react v badly to white people either quoting them or @-ing them or adding their own thoughts when retweeting links and so on. No one tactic is going to make everyone happy.

as a white person it's important to ask yrself, Am I doing this because it's effective or bc it makes me feel good? And act accordingly.

so good, thank you

There's a fundraiser for Tamir Rice's family to cover the costs of burying their child, if anyone is moved to throw in. Shaun King, an activist and, I guess it's fair to say, citizen journalist who's been covering Ferguson extensively is putting this out on twitter asking people to help--just so you know where it's coming from.

http://www.youcaring.com/memorial-fundraiser/help-the-family-of-tamir-rice/273407

Is the Boss an ineffective voice of protest? Or does the media pay too much attention to angry white guys?

http://bit.ly/15SUI0G

stop trolling this thread.

thank you for that link, io

Pitchfork article kinda dovetails with what I think about the nba.. Donald Sterling said some fucked up shit, the players mobilized ferociously on social media, etc and got him kicked out. Why dont they use their clout to push harder on more important things? Prob bc its controversial and the NBA would freak the fuck out because $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

I'm not trolling, I genuinely care about this issue and I have a personal stake in it, which I care not to discuss.

Perhaps you misunderstand me. I mean - are pundits exaggerating about how many angry reactionary white guys there are - are they legitimating a viewpoint by paying too much attention to it?

on the plus side

Matty T: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-police-in-america-are-becoming-illegitimate-20141205?page=2

Man, fvck this:

"In Andrew's case, police thought the sight of two black men standing in front of a project tower at 1 a.m. was suspicious and stopped them. In reality, Andrew was listening to music on headphones with a friend on his way home after a long shift driving a casino shuttle. When he balked at being stopped, just like Garner balked, cops wrote him up for "obstructing" a street completely empty of pedestrians, and the court demanded 50 bucks for his crime.

This policy of constantly badgering people for trifles generates bloodcurdling anger in "hot spot" neighborhoods with industrial efficiency. And then something like the Garner case happens and it all comes into relief. Six armed police officers tackling and killing a man for selling a 75-cent cigarette."

that's a great piece

yeah.

This is the crooked math that's going to crash American law enforcement if policies aren't changed.

Our entire country is being debased, devalued and destroyed by "crooked math," from asshole cops to dickheads obstinately trying to overturn "Obamacare"/Obama himself. It breaks my heart.

I said this on the Ferguson thread, but I am so glad Taibbi is back at RS

just forwarded that to everyone in my address book

^^

THIS

me too. and right at just the right time.

bbbbut lagoon hates him

zzzzz

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/hollywood-highland-shooting-report-284945511.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Middle of crowded street, two cops unload clips because "we thought he had a knife."

One woman said a man ran into a McDonald's shouting that police shot his friend, who sometimes "liked to wave a knife to scare tourists."

well THAT'S not gonna get much sympathy

These numbers are upsetting: http://www.vox.com/2014/12/6/7342241/police-abuse-resisting

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/crimewatch/police-report-tulsa-officer-fatally-shoots-daughter-s-boyfriend/article_c99c71e0-c77a-5c55-8b6a-30ca3a4f0b84.html

what a bizarre story there.

well THAT'S not gonna get much sympathy

― j., Saturday, December 6, 2014 2:30 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

come on, though. they shot a man who was not threatening them because they had reason to believe he had a knife. said knife, when they did find it & tweeted out an image of, turned out to be a pocket knife, swiss-army style. which they didn't even see when he was shot, which he was shot in the street for suspicion of having.

The burden of the perfect victim suggests that only impeccable résumés may qualify for protection under the law and the support of the community.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/black-america-and-the-burden-of-the-perfect-victim/2014/08/22/30318ec2-27d1-11e4-958c-268a320a60ce_story.html

yes, i am aware.

hope that wasn't condescending--just an important point to make i think.

People of color must take care always to be a credit to their race. It's right there in the rule book.

http://www.wnyc.org/story/can-the-nypd-spot-the-abusive-cop/
The eye-popping statistic here is that in 51.5k NYC cases of stated "resisting arrest" since 2009, 5% of cops account for 40% of the charges and 15% account for 72% of the same charges.

CCRB Records show that 40 percent of the 35,000 officers on the force today have never been the subject of a citizen complaint. Another 20 percent have only one. Yet about a thousand cops have 10 or more complaints. One has been able to rack up 51.

grim lol

http://gapersblock.com/merge/archives/2014/12/06/i-couldnt-believe-what-i-was-hearing/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/12/06/i-was-a-st-louis-cop-my-peers-were-racist-and-violent-and-theres-only-one-fix/

@JamilSmith
Officer Loehmann not only shot Tamir Rice, but per his mom, handcuffed his 14-year-old sister at the scene while her brother lay dying.

Rice said that when she got to the park where her son was shot, she found her 14-year-old daughter, who was also at the park that afternoon playing, handcuffed in the back of a police car. When Rice later reunited with her daughter, the young girl said police officers tackled and handcuffed her once she saw her younger brother lying on the ground, bleeding.

When Samaria arrived and saw her youngest child shot and her daughter in the back of a police car, police officers warned her that if she didn’t calm down, she’d be placed in the police vehicle as well.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/maryanngeorgantopoulos/tamir-rices-mother-wants-conviction-for-officers-involved-in?bftw

rally at the nets game in BK tonight

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/12/07/horrible-missouri-bar-offered-michael-brown-six-shots-special/

ugh

ffs

http://www.addictinginfo.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/mugshots8.jpg

I sarcastically hope that bar burns to the ground.

The specific history of police forces varied in all American cities, but since they were facing similar problems in repressing urban workers and the poor, they all tended to converge on similar institutional solutions. The Southern experience also reinforces the point that was already clear in the North: Anti-Black racism was built into American police work from the very first day.

A long consideration of the history of the police: http://worxintheory.wordpress.com/2014/12/07/origins-of-the-police/

http://gawker.com/unarmed-people-of-color-killed-by-police-1999-2014-1666672349

Was just reading that. I've had to absent myself from Facebook recently, because a very, very good friend of mine, who I've known for 25 years and was best man at my wedding, is a cop. He's been in law enforcement his entire adult life, and is the chief of police in a small--ish Ohio city known for its annual twins convention. And even though he should know better, he's very "Thin Blue Line" and closing ranks and all that. The day after the Garner grand jury announcement he posted, "I feel like I'm being painted with a very broad brush," and I feel like a complete coward for not commenting, amongst all his cop friends, "IMAGINE HOW BLACK PEOPLE FEEL."

We were out together at a bar the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and another of his friends, a firefighter, was there as well. They were watching the Ferguson coverage on TV, and his friend referred to the protestors as "imbeciles." My friend praised the prosecutor for "coming to exactly the right decision and laying out logically and exactly how and why." Again, I wanted to say, "If the county prosecutor treated a case your office sent him like this prosecutor did this case you'd be outraged." But I didn't.

I guess I am part of the problem.

it sounds to me like at some point you want to make your feelings clear to your cop friend, so it's harder for him to think it's "them" "persecuting" him.