Recent Forum Topics › Forums › The Public House › Baton Rouge Police Fatal Shooting of Alton Sterling
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July 6, 2016 at 1:14 pm #48073
znModeratoroff the net from June Pulliam in Louisiana
I am proud that our governor is launching a probe into Alton Sterling’s death, but this fucking city, wow. Our police officers need to be held accountable for brutality, and they need more support and training to do a better job as well. This guy was just selling bootleg CDs outside of a convenience store, apparently with the permission of the owner. As a convicted felon who spent 5 years in jail for possession of marijuana, this was probably the only way he had to make a living for his family, as his chances of getting a more mainstream job were ruined by the felony conviction for a non-violent offense. And he was carrying a gun because he had been robbed recently; in this way, he is no different than the many citizens of our state who get conceal and carry licenses to protect themselves. According to what is known so far, the BRPD tried to arrest Sterling for selling the CDs outside of the store, although the store’s owner had no problem with him being there. Sterling resisted arrest and was tasered by the BRPD. When the tazer didn’t bring him down, the police shot Sterling multiple times in the chest and back. The officers’ body cameras had conveniently falled off of their chests, and so that evidence not surprisingly doesn’t show much of their actions. At least there is cell-phone footage shot by a witness to add some more information to this unfolding story.
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===An open carry law didn’t stop police from killing Alton Sterling.
http://www.vox.com/2016/7/6/12105380/alton-sterling-police-shooting-baton-rouge-louisiana
Warning: Graphic footage of a police shooting:
In the video showing the police shooting of Alton Sterling, the police officers’ stated reason for opening fire is clear: Sterling apparently had a gun. Even as two Baton Rouge, Louisiana, police officers held Sterling down, they apparently saw the gun as a grave enough threat to their lives — and they opened fire.
But Louisiana is an open carry and concealed carry state, meaning residents are legally allowed to carry firearms. So why was Sterling’s alleged possession of a firearm reason enough to shoot him?
In his last few minutes of life, Alton Sterling seemed completely immobile. Two Baton Rouge, Louisiana, police officers had pinned him to the floor, flat on his back. But even as Sterling seemed completely unable to move, one of the police officers yelled, “He’s got a gun!” Within seconds, an officer shot Sterling, who was still pinned to the ground by the cops. Sterling died of multiple gunshot wounds, according to an autopsy.
After a bystander released video of the shooting, people quickly protested in the area and voiced their anger on social media. Several people went to the convenience store where Sterling was shot, holding up “black lives matter” and “hands up, don’t shoot” signs, Maya Lau and Bryn Stole reported for the Advocate.
Sterling’s death is the latest in a long string of police shootings to lead to outrage, particularly from the Black Lives Matter and racial justice movements against racial disparities in the criminal justice system. To many critics, it is just another example of an issue that quickly rose to the national spotlight after the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014.
Two police officers shot Alton Sterling while he was seemingly pinned to the ground, unable to move
According to the Advocate, Baton Rouge police officers Blaine Salamoni and Howie Lake responded to a call at a convenience store around 12:35 am on Tuesday after receiving an anonymous tip that a man in a red shirt who was selling CDs had pointed a gun at someone. Sterling, a 37-year-old black man, matched part of the description: He sold CDs, and he was wearing a red shirt.
A short cellphone video captured by a bystander shows what happened next: Two police officers yelled at Sterling to get on the ground. The officers then pulled him to the ground, pinning Sterling on his back. An officer yelled, “He’s got a gun!” The video shows an officer holding down Sterling’s left arm, but Sterling’s right arm isn’t visible. One officer aimed his gun at Sterling’s chest — at what seems to be point-blank range. Within seconds, at least one officer opened fire. Sterling was pronounced dead shortly after.
Shop owner Abdullah Muflahi told the Advocate that the officers were “aggressive” from the start, and that Sterling was armed but was not holding his gun and didn’t have his hand near his pocket at the time of the shooting.
Both officers are on administrative leave, per Baton Rouge Police Department policy, and an investigation, led by the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, is underway. Both officers were reportedly wearing body cameras, and the police car had a dashboard camera as well.
Sterling had a criminal record. He was a sex offender, convicted of one count of carnal knowledge of a juvenile in 2000. He also was accused of several crimes in the 1990s, including aggravated battery, simple criminal damage to property, unauthorized entry, domestic abuse battery, possession of marijuana with the intent to distribute, and illegally carrying a weapon with a controlled dangerous substance. It’s unlikely police knew about his record.
But his previous convictions aren’t what’s relevant to the shooting; it’s whether he was holding and trying to use a gun at the time he was shot. The legal standard for use of force requires officers to reasonably perceive a threat at the moment of use of force.
Since Sterling was seemingly immobile in the video of the shooting, critics argue that he was not in fact a threat and the shooting is another example of excessive use of force against a black man.
Black people are much more likely to be killed by police than their white peers
An analysis of the available FBI data by Vox’s Dara Lind shows that US police kill black people at disproportionate rates: They accounted for 31 percent of police shooting victims in 2012, even though they made up just 13 percent of the US population. Although the data is incomplete, since it’s based on voluntary reports from police agencies around the country, it highlights the vast disparities in how police use force.
Black teens were 21 times as likely as white teens to be shot and killed by police between 2010 and 2012, according to a ProPublica analysis of the FBI data. ProPublica’s Ryan Gabrielson, Ryann Grochowski Jones, and Eric Sagara reported: “One way of appreciating that stark disparity, ProPublica’s analysis shows, is to calculate how many more whites over those three years would have had to have been killed for them to have been at equal risk. The number is jarring — 185, more than one per week.”
BLACK TEENS WERE 21 TIMES AS LIKELY AS WHITE TEENS TO BE SHOT AND KILLED BY POLICE BETWEEN 2010 AND 2012
There have been several high-profile police killings since 2014 involving black suspects. In Baltimore, six police officers were indicted for the death of Freddie Gray while in police custody. In North Charleston, South Carolina, Michael Slager was charged with murder and fired from the police department after shooting Walter Scott, who was fleeing and unarmed at the time. In Ferguson, Darren Wilson killed unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown. In New York City, NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo killed Eric Garner by putting the unarmed 43-year-old black man in a chokehold.
One possible explanation for the racial disparities: subconscious biases. Studies show that officers are quicker to shoot black suspects in video game simulations. Josh Correll, a University of Colorado Boulder psychology professor who conducted the research, said it’s possible the bias could lead to even more skewed outcomes in the field. “In the very situation in which [officers] most need their training,” he said, “we have some reason to believe that their training will be most likely to fail them.”
Part of the solution to this type of bias is better training that helps cops acknowledge and deal with their potential subconscious prejudices. But critics also argue that more accountability could help deter future brutality or excessive use of force, since it would make it clear that there are consequences to the misuse and abuse of police powers. Yet right now, lax legal standards make it difficult to legally punish individual police officers for use of force, even when it might be excessive.
Police only have to reasonably perceive a threat to justify shooting
Legally, what most matters in these shootings is whether police officers reasonably believed that their lives were in danger, not whether the shooting victim actually posed a threat.
In the 1980s, a pair of Supreme Court decisions — Tennessee v. Garner and Graham v. Connor — set up a framework for determining when deadly force by cops is reasonable.
Constitutionally, “police officers are allowed to shoot under two circumstances,” David Klinger, a University of Missouri St. Louis professor who studies use of force, told Vox’s Dara Lind. The first circumstance is “to protect their life or the life of another innocent party” — what departments call the “defense-of-life” standard. The second circumstance is to prevent a suspect from escaping, but only if the officer has probable cause to think the suspect poses a dangerous threat to others.
The logic behind the second circumstance, Klinger said, comes from a Supreme Court decision called Tennessee v. Garner. That case involved a pair of police officers who shot a 15-year-old boy as he fled from a burglary. (He’d stolen $10 and a purse from a house.) The court ruled that cops couldn’t shoot every felon who tried to escape. But, as Klinger said, “they basically say that the job of a cop is to protect people from violence, and if you’ve got a violent person who’s fleeing, you can shoot them to stop their flight.”
THE KEY TO BOTH OF THE LEGAL STANDARDS IS THAT IT DOESN’T MATTER WHETHER THERE IS AN ACTUAL THREAT WHEN FORCE IS USED
The key to both of the legal standards — defense of life and fleeing a violent felony — is that it doesn’t matter whether there is an actual threat when force is used. Instead, what matters is the officer’s “objectively reasonable” belief that there is a threat.
That standard comes from the other Supreme Court case that guides use-of-force decisions: Graham v. Connor. This was a civil lawsuit brought by a man who’d survived his encounter with police officers, but who’d been treated roughly, had his face shoved into the hood of a car, and broken his foot — all while he was suffering a diabetic attack. The court didn’t rule on whether the officers’ treatment of him had been justified, but it did say that the officers couldn’t justify their conduct just based on whether their intentions were good. They had to demonstrate that their actions were “objectively reasonable,” given the circumstances and compared to what other police officers might do.
What’s “objectively reasonable” changes as the circumstances change. “One can’t just say, ‘Because I could use deadly force 10 seconds ago, that means I can use deadly force again now,” Walter Katz, a California attorney who specializes in oversight of law enforcement agencies, said.
In general, officers are given lot of legal latitude to use force without fear of punishment. The intention behind these legal standards is to give police officers leeway to make split-second decisions to protect themselves and bystanders. And although critics argue that these legal standards give law enforcement a license to kill innocent or unarmed people, police officers say they are essential to their safety.
For some critics, the question isn’t what’s legally justified but rather what’s preventable. “We have to get beyond what is legal and start focusing on what is preventable. Most are preventable,” Ronald Davis, a former police chief who heads the Justice Department’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, told the Washington Post. Police “need to stop chasing down suspects, hopping fences, and landing on top of someone with a gun,” he added. “When they do that, they have no choice but to shoot.”
Police are very rarely prosecuted for shootings — and not just because the law allows them wide latitude to use force on the job. Sometimes the investigations fall onto the same police department the officer is from, which creates major conflicts of interest. Other times the only available evidence comes from eyewitnesses, who may not be as trustworthy in the public eye as a police officer.
“There is a tendency to believe an officer over a civilian, in terms of credibility,” David Rudovsky, a civil rights lawyer who co-wrote Prosecuting Misconduct: Law and Litigation, told Vox’s Amanda Taub. “And when an officer is on trial, reasonable doubt has a lot of bite. A prosecutor needs a very strong case before a jury will say that somebody who we generally trust to protect us has so seriously crossed the line as to be subject to a conviction.”
If police are charged, they’re very rarely convicted. The National Police Misconduct Reporting Project analyzed 3,238 criminal cases against police officers from April 2009 through December 2010. They found that only 33 percent were convicted, and only 36 percent of officers who were convicted ended up serving prison sentences. Both of those are about half the rate at which members of the public are convicted or incarcerated.
The statistics suggest that it would be a truly rare situation if the officer who shot and killed Sterling were convicted of a crime. But the family does have the advantage of video footage, which persuaded prosecutors before to press charges for the police shootings of Samuel DuBose in Cincinnati, Walter Scott in North Charleston, South Carolina, and Laquan McDonald in Chicago.
July 6, 2016 at 2:23 pm #48085znModeratorThis story fits a lot of topics we’ve been discussing.
I would really like to know what someone else thinks, if anyone is up for that.
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July 6, 2016 at 6:57 pm #48097
InvaderRamModeratorwhat a tough tough situation.
for what it’s worth i don’t think these cops are necessarily bad or racist per se. i don’t think they intentionally killed this guy. or maybe they did in this case but i’m not sure it is necessarily true in every case. that paragraph explaining how cops shoot black suspects more often in game situations and how there might some subconscious bias going on. that makes a lot of sense to me. whether we like it or not we have stereotypes hammered into our brains on a daily basis. and what does that say about our society as a whole? i don’t think we are as enlightened as we would like to believe. now maybe some of these cops were consciously racist and intended to harm. that’s certainly very possible. but i also think the former is true in other cases.
also i’m glad i’m not a cop. my wife’s friend’s dad was a sheriff, and he saw so many screwed up things in his life that he’s now permanently on tranquilizers just so he can get through the day. i think there needs to be stringent policies on psychological evaluations of these cops. are they being put on the streets when they are unable to perform their duties effectively putting lives in danger?
in the end when you’re a cop you’re given a tremendous amount of power. and i think because of that you need to be held to a higher level of responsibility. the law enforcement officer’s relationship to a citizen is not an equal one and it seems like maybe they are being given too much leeway. being given that kind of power and that kind of freedom can be dangerous. we need to make sure they are fit to perform their duties effectively.
but again. and this may not be a popular opinion but i sympathize with a lot of these cops. it’s a tough job. not the racist abusive ones. they need to pay for their crimes. but the good ones. they perform a job i never could.
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This reply was modified 8 years, 4 months ago by
InvaderRam.
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This reply was modified 8 years, 4 months ago by InvaderRam.
July 7, 2016 at 1:10 am #48126InvaderRamModeratorhttp://www.cnn.com/2015/11/29/us/criminal-justice-racism-cnn-kff-poll/index.html
Terms such as “driving while black” and “walking while black” have been coined, with studies showing that blacks are pulled over, questioned or arrested by police at a disproportionately higher rate than white Americans.
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This reply was modified 8 years, 4 months ago by InvaderRam.
July 7, 2016 at 7:56 am #48137
bnwBlockedHow very sad. Two things Sterling did wrong according to what I read above. First, don’t resist arrest. Not complying immediately can be interpreted as resisting arrest. Common sense dictates that you comply and not escalate the situation. Second, immediately inform the officer that you are carrying a firearm. This is taught over and over in carry class. You have to do so by law I suppose in most states but the reason is to not escalate the situation. If in a car hand the officer your carry permit with your drivers license.
The upside to being a Rams fan is heartbreak.
Sprinkles are for winners.
July 7, 2016 at 8:03 am #48141
Billy_TParticipantApparently, “conceal carry rights” only apply to white guys. And it’s yet one more case where the existence of a gun escalates an encounter into a deadly one. The mere existence.
Conceal carry should be illegal, and there is no Constitutional grounds to protect it. “Keep and bear arms” — if we ignore the militia context. Keep and bear. Not keep and hide.
But the main issue here looks like police racism, which comes from societal racism, which is helped along via endless denial of that racism by all too many white people.
July 7, 2016 at 8:28 am #48144znModeratoroff the net from Richard Hoffman
left: kkk militant with rifle over his shoulder threatens anti-racist protester by reaching for his pistol, cops didn’t even arrest him.
right: Alton Sterling is incapable of remaining still while being crushed by two officers, cops execute him.
July 7, 2016 at 4:41 pm #48187znModeratorJuly 7, 2016 at 6:12 pm #48188InvaderRamModeratorHow very sad. Two things Sterling did wrong according to what I read above. First, don’t resist arrest. Not complying immediately can be interpreted as resisting arrest. Common sense dictates that you comply and not escalate the situation. Second, immediately inform the officer that you are carrying a firearm. This is taught over and over in carry class. You have to do so by law I suppose in most states but the reason is to not escalate the situation. If in a car hand the officer your carry permit with your drivers license.
tell that to philando. he did not resist arrest. he had his hands in the air. he informed the officer that he was carrying a firearm and had a conceal carry permit. he went to reach for his wallet after informing him of this, and the policeman still shot him.
it’s about more than that. there’s a reason black people are targeted more than white people. not just in killings. but arrests. getting pulled over for no apparent reason other than the fact that they are black.
i know law enforcement officers are under a great deal of stress. i empathize with the amount of shit they have to go through on a daily basis. but something has to change in the way do their job. innocent people are needlessly dying. and not just in cases where people are dying. cases where people are getting pulled over for no other reason than the color of their skin.
July 7, 2016 at 6:17 pm #48189
wvParticipanti know law enforcement officers are under a great deal of stress. i empathize with the amount of shit they have to go through on a daily basis. but something has to change in the way do their job…
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Do you think the wrong kind of ‘qualities’ are being sought after
by the folks that hire cops?Maybe the powers-that-hire have over-emphasized things like size and strength and military background and shooting ability, at the expense
of…oh…diplomacy, etc.w
vJuly 7, 2016 at 6:29 pm #48190InvaderRamModeratori know law enforcement officers are under a great deal of stress. i empathize with the amount of shit they have to go through on a daily basis. but something has to change in the way do their job…
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Do you think the wrong kind of ‘qualities’ are being sought after
by the folks that hire cops?Maybe the powers-that-hire have over-emphasized things like size and strength and military background and shooting ability, at the expense
of…oh…diplomacy, etc.w
vi think it’s a problem. nothing against people from the military, but my understanding is they are trained to follow orders. they’re not really trained in evaluating a situation and making decisions based on what they observe. so yeah. diplomacy would be very much a positive trait in an officer that is perhaps being overlooked. critical thinking would also be important.
but also. i’m wondering if psych evals need to be more stringent on these guys. being hypervigilant for that much time is going to fry one’s brain. they need to be evaluated for ptsd and appropriate measures need to be taken if they can’t perform their jobs adequately.
July 7, 2016 at 7:01 pm #48191InvaderRamModeratorhttp://emotionalsurvival.com/brotherhood_of_biochemistry.htm
Hypervigilance
Consider how the police role is developed in young cops. It begins with the manner in which law enforcement officers are required to view the world. If you take cops in Anytown, USA, and put them behind the wheel of a patrol unit, they are required to view the streets and the community from a different perspective than citizen drivers. Cops realize that “I better pay attention out here! I could get my butt kicked or get somebody else or myself killed if I’m not paying attention!” This reality forces young officers to take a different view of the world from civilians. When viewing the world while in this new work role, officers experience a new physiological sensation, an increase in alertness, an increased sensation of energy and aliveness. This new perceptual style goes beyond just “paying attention.” It includes looking, and watching sections of the community that other people would ignore or consider neutral. In the interest of their own safety, officers have to view all encounters as potentially lethal. This newfound perceptual style, with its emphasis on officer safety, carries with it a parallel physiological and psychological state. As mentioned previously, young officers feel increased sensations of energy, aliveness, and alertness. They find themselves becoming quick-witted in the presence of fellow street cops. Friendships develop quickly, and camaraderie is intensified among people with whom they share potential jeopardy. During the developmental years, young officers experience firsthand the physiological stress reaction, but it is not seen as a negative reaction. On duty, the associated sensation of physiological intensity is viewed as pleasant and enjoyable. They find their job so attractive that it is difficult to leave at the end of a shift. What is unwittingly taking place is that young officers are developing an on-duty style of hypervigilance. This style, though necessary for the survival of law enforcement officers, often leads to the long-term destruction of an effective personal life. Officers go on duty, experience increased energy, alertness, quick-wittedness, and camaraderie, and enjoy their tour. However, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Officers who experience an on-duty physiological “high” find that when they get off duty and return home, this hypervigilant reaction stops, as they literally plunge into the opposite reactions of detachment, exhaustion, apathy, and isolation. Thus officers experience the police stress reaction, an emotional ride on a biological roller coaster.The “biological” roller coaster describes the extreme psycho physiological swings that police officers experience on a daily basis. One can assume that average citizens live on a more even keel, but police officers are denied this stability. Because of the degree of emotional intensity of law enforcement, the increased sensations of alertness required while on duty, followed by reactions of an equal magnitude in the opposite directions while off duty the police officer’s life is characterized by the extremes of highs and lows. This pendulum-like swing occurs daily. Going to work initiates an increased sensation of involvement, energy, and alertness, coming home, a sensation of apathy, detachment and boredom. The biological reason this roller coaster takes place lies in the autonomic nervous system that controls all the body’s automatic processes: heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, and so on. The autonomic nervous system has two branches that act in tandem. Sympathetic branch alerts the body to potentially intense situations, causing increased alertness, awareness, and the “fight or flight reaction” (like taking a bunch of “uppers”). The Parasympathetic branch controls the body’s quiescent or peaceful counter-reactions (like bunch of “downers”). This biological roller coaster cycles daily for young officers in the first years of their careers as they polish police skills. It produces high-activity, highly involved police officers, but leaves them with under involved, apathetic personal lives. It can be said in no uncertain terms that the first victims of this biological roller coaster are not the officers themselves, but their families. The officers alternate between being “Heat Seekers” at work, where the more intense the call, the more they’re drawn to it, and being “couch potatoes at home. Once the police role is unplugged, there remains only a listless detachment from anything related to a personal life.
The “couch potato” phase of the biological roller coaster can be documented easily by interviewing police spouses during the first decade of the officer’s career. Although the faces and names change the stories remain almost identical.
“She’s different now that she’s a cop. We used to do so many things together, but now she gets off duty and I can’t even speak to her.”“He comes home from work, collapses on the couch, turns on the television set-I can talk to him for five minutes and he doesn’t even hear me.”
“You know, we drove 150 miles last weekend to go visit my mom and dad. I don’t think she said two words to me on the whole trip.”“We walk through the mall on his days off and he barely grunts to me, but then he sees two or three of his buddies working off-duty and you can’t shut him up-. ‘Hey, what happened last night? Did you guys arrest that asshole? I heard you come up on the air.”‘
As officers begin experiencing the biological roller-coaster ride, they begin heavily investing in the police role. Their family and personal relationships become thin, frazzled, and very fragile. The police spouse laments:“I don’t know how much longer I can keep this family together. He comes home angry every night: “Everybody on earth is an asshole.”‘
“I swear she’d rather be at work than at home. She starts getting ready for work two hours before she has to be there. Sometimes I think she’s married to the job and not to me.”
The police family begins reverberating with this biological roller-coaster
Police officers’ life-styles change drastically. These elevated sensations while on duty are necessary. Officers do not have the luxury of viewing the world as primarily peaceful and benign. Officers’ very existence depends on their being able to perceive situations from the perceptual set of hypervigilance. They must interpret aspects of their environment as potentially lethal that other members of society see as unimportant. Without hypervigilance, police officers would be seen as “not good cops.” However, the tragedy is that while law enforcement officers are trained to react during the upper phase of the biological roller coaster, there has been very little training done or education provided on how to adapt to or avoid the pitfalls of the bottom half of the ride. In the first decade of a police career, the valleys of the roller-coaster ride destroy the emotional support systems and the family support systems; -systems that will become increasingly important if officers are to survive the second half of a police career.…
The Lives of Cops
After approximately two years on the job, officers are riding this biological roller coaster daily and consider most of the outside world “assholes.” While these two reactions are going on, however, officers are typically doing-their job, have high on-site activity, are enjoying police work, and in many-ways, although still quite naive to the realities of the long-terms effects of a police career, could be experiencing the “golden years” of their own individual law enforcement career. They enjoy going to work, they are highly energized and enthusiastic, enjoy coworkers, and will state “I love my job.” This fragile lifestyle and paranoid way of perceiving the world will typically come crashing down on officers in the not too distant future. Officers find themselves staying away from home for longer and longer periods of time. If the shift ends at midnight, cops realize that once they walk through the doors of their house, the exhaustion, apathy, and bottom half of the roller coaster will hit them hard; unwittingly they spend more time away from home. Younger officers in smaller police departments find themselves going down to the department on their days off just to see what’s happening. The economic realities of police management can be quite exploitative of young cops’ over-invested, biological enthusiasm. Sometimes the hardest thing about managing young cops is not in getting them to come to work but in getting them to go home. Many small police departments actually could not exist without this over-investment by young officers and also by non-reimbursed reserve officers whose only payment is a ride on the biological roller coaster. These officers have over-learned the social perceptual style that comes with assuming a police role. The longer they are cops, the more they interact only with other cops, all learning to see the world in only one manner.Young officers continue to over-invest in their police role. For the first few years, this over-investment leads to an exciting, enjoyable, dynamic job. Very often, early in their police careers, officers not only isolate themselves from non-police friends, but also overindulge in their professional role by listening to scanners while off duty or on days off. One of the potential hazards of this over-identifying and over-investing in the police role is financial. From the beginning, cops learn the financial realities of a police career: “You’re never gonna get rich being a cop.” Off-duty work can be an extremely seductive lure for many police families. Officers can provide the necessities and a few extra luxuries of life by working an extra two or three shifts per week, either as security at the local shopping mall or doing point control for construction projects. Although the extra cash certainly helps, the additional time away from home spent in the police role continues the officers’ over-investment and leaves little time for them to develop competencies in other social roles and to build a personal life for themselves and their family.
This over-investment in the police role goes beyond justifiable pride in the profession. Officers begin linking their sense of self-worth to the police role in what at first glance appears to be a basically benign sense of pride. However, this creates an intense form of emotional vulnerability for average police officers. When you ask a group of cops who controls their police role, young cops often say, “I do.” The older, wiser cops respond, “I wish I did.
This link of self-worth to the police role creates a social dynamic that turns many enthusiastic, energized police officers into cynical, recalcitrant employees who resist administrative direction. As their police role is altered by external administrative authorities and the inevitable decline occurs, their sense of self-worth also takes a tumble. Police officers do not control their police role and must admit, upon reflection, that it is controlled by administrative authorities. Not until after the first several years of police work do the realities of this type of administrative control hit home. Then there is a “rude awakening.” This vulnerability is particularly salient to specialized police officers-the narcotics agent, canine officer, or detective in some special assignment
This psychological phenomena of having your sense of self-worth controlled by other individuals leads to very normal feelings of defensiveness and resistance. This linkage explains why police officers, after the first few years, may grow to resent administrative authority, mainly because they are so vulnerable to the changes that can take place in their police role. This resentment and resistance to administrative control leads to an occupational pseudo-paranoia, in which officers begin making such statements as: “I can handle the assholes on the street but I can’t handle the assholes in the administration.” Although the streets contain physical danger, the major psychological and emotional threat comes from those who control their police role, with its emotionally over-invested sense of self-worth.
July 7, 2016 at 7:05 pm #48194znModeratorFox News Turns To Infamous Racist For Perspective On Alton Sterling’s Death
Fox News Turns To Infamous Racist For Perspective On Alton Sterling’s Death
Former Los Angeles Police Department detective Mark Fuhrman, right, whose alleged racist past sparked outrage and helped acquit O.J. Simpson, stands in a Los Angeles Courtroom Wednesday, Oct. 2, 1996 with his attorney Darryl Mounger while listening to his sentencing for perjury.
On Wednesday, the world woke to a scene that is all too familiar in America: A black man, Alton Sterling, was shot and killed by the police (an alarm tragically repeated again on Thursday). A cellphone video shows Sterling pinned to the ground beneath two police officers when he is shot several times at point-blank range.
Protesters immediately gathered outside the convenience store where Sterling was killed. Outrage has mounted online; his death has been called a murder, an assassination, and a lynching. The Department of Justice announced that they would open a civil rights investigation into the case.
Fox News, meanwhile, invited on Mark Fuhrman, who first came to national attention when he was exposed as a blatant racist during the O.J. Simpson trial. Fuhrman argued that Sterling deserved his death.Follow
Megyn Kelly ✔ @megynkelly
Mark Fuhrman on #kellyfile: Man in deadly police shooting failed to comply with verbal commands given by police.
9:50 PM – 6 Jul 2016
128 128 Retweets 420 420 likes
“So they go there, and when you watch the escalation of force, first they verbalized, and he failed to comply with the verbal commands,” Fuhrman said. “They actually de-escalated the force that they could have used by tackling and then trying to grapple with the suspect.”
“Now, this man has to take responsibility that he did have a gun, and he conducted himself in some manner to draw attention to a citizen who called the police. And after that, the one officer, if this is the way it went down, one officer shot, one officer didn’t. When you hear, ‘He’s got a gun,’ if the other officer now uses deadly force, it’s because he believes that that gun is in the hand or is attempting to be put in the hand of the suspect.”
According to reports, a gun was retrieved from inside Sterling’s pocket. Video of the “altercation,” as the official police account called it, from two angles does not appear to show Sterling with a gun anywhere near his hands. Sterling reportedly started carrying a gun after a friend was mugged; Louisiana is an open carry state. The video also shows that the escalation from the police’s commands to violence happened within a matter of seconds.Megyn Kelly introduced Furhman as a “former LAPD homicide detective.” Fuhrman’s history, however, is far more complicated than that. He was one of the detectives who investigated the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, and his documented history of overt racism — and his perjury on the stand about that racism — is one of the primary reasons Simpson was acquitted.
In the 1995 trial, Fuhrman said on the stand at least four times that he hadn’t used a racial epithet to describe black people in the past decade. In response, the defense played a tape-recorded interview between Fuhrman and screenwriter Laura McKinney in which Fuhrman said “nigger” at least 40 times, along with a slew of racist stereotypes.
Another woman testified that Fuhrman called interracial marriage “disgusting” and said that he had told her “if I had my way I’d gather — all the niggers would be gathered together and burned.” In testimony ruled inadmissible, she also relayed that Fuhrman had said he kicked and beat black suspects to relieve tension.
In other testimony — relayed to the judge but not the jury — McKinney reveals records of Furhman spewing a whole host of racial epithets and stereotypes, saying he’s “pissed” at his partner because his partner follows the rules — “This job is not rules. This is a feeling. Fuck the rules; we’ll make them up later” — and advocating for officers shooting to kill and “shooting people in the back.”
Fuhrman has argued that his comments were taken out of context. He was convicted for perjury in 1996 and sentenced to three years of probation and a fine.
“It is important to understand that, as a result of these charges, this plea and this sentence, Mark Fuhrman is now a convicted felon and will forever be branded a liar,” California Attorney General Dan Lungren said at the time. “He is also now the ultimate impeachable witness–a convicted perjurer.”
Now, 20 years later, he’s a frequent guest on Fox News after incidents of racially-tinged police violence.
In 2015, Fuhrman defended the school officer who dragged and threw a high school girl across the room, arguing that the officer used “a minimal amount of force necessary to effect an arrest.”
When video emerged of the LAPD beating a black man in a “Rodney King-esque” incident, Fuhrman went on Sean Hannity’s show to excuse the officers’ behavior, arguing he didn’t know “what is going on with the verbalization,” and that it was inappropriate to criticize the LAPD.
After the death of Michael Brown, Fuhrman went on Kelly’s show to insist that he had “visualized” the events, and therefore knew that Wilson had legitimately feared for his life, almost lost consciousness, and was physically inferior Brown, who you just had to “look at” to know was a threat. In reality, the two men were of a similar height and weight, and images of Wilson show him with only a bruise.
In blaming Sterling for his own death, Fuhrman therefore falls into a familiar pattern. He’s a reliable mouthpiece excusing police brutality and racism. Giving Fuhrman a platform and a veneer of respectability despite his widely-documented history of racism, however, is more than just one isolated, objectionable guest choice by a major cable news network.
The ideas that Fuhrman parrots again and again — that those who die by police bullets are nearly always criminal, non-compliant, and thus deserve what they get — mimic a master narrative that creates a culture deadly to black Americans. Perpetuating this narrative is a convenient alternative to actually addressing the problem of police violence. It is essential to explaining away systematic police brutality against black men. And it makes it more likely that Americans will soon wake up to another Alton Sterling.July 7, 2016 at 7:12 pm #48195Billy_TParticipantFrom where I sit, no one should be a cop on the streets if he or she thinks shoot first, or feels instantly threatened by unarmed teens they are supposed to “protect and serve.” They shouldn’t be on the streets if they do as the cop did in the Michael Brown case . . . get out of his car, after Brown had walked away, go after him — while saying he felt in fear of his life — and shoot him down.
Wait in the car, call for backup. Or send other officers to Brown’s home if he must. But there is no reason or excuse to escalate the confrontation — especially when the cop says he fears for his life.
If a cop is too fearful to try to deescalate things with citizens, he’s too fearful to be on the streets with a badge and a gun. If the first thing he or she thinks about is self-preservation at all costs, he or she is in the wrong line of work.
So many cases now to look at, tragically. But the Laquan McDonald murder comes to mind. A teen with a knife, obviously having major issues. The cops could easily have gotten him off the streets without firing a shot. They have all kinds of tools at their disposal, and if they don’t feel competent to deal with it, if they can’t talk him down, call for backup. Nets, sprays, hell, tear gas, while causing a great deal of pain, is preferable to shooting someone to death. There is just no reason in 99% of these cases to jump straight to killing mode.
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This reply was modified 8 years, 4 months ago by
Billy_T.
July 7, 2016 at 7:51 pm #48197InvaderRamModeratorpolice are trained to always be on alert. everything. everyone is viewed as potentially lethal. they are on a emotional high during their job only to go on an emotional low when they come home. they feel isolated from people who can’t relate to the emotions and stress that they go through every day. and form bonds with those that do. they are trained to extinguish any potential threat. not to evaluate. not to deescalate. but to eliminate any potential threat. they are told their safety is paramount when it should be the citizens they were hired to protect.
combine that with prejudices that they already hold which come from society.
it’s a powder keg. something needs to change.
July 7, 2016 at 8:03 pm #48198bnwBlockedHow very sad. Two things Sterling did wrong according to what I read above. First, don’t resist arrest. Not complying immediately can be interpreted as resisting arrest. Common sense dictates that you comply and not escalate the situation. Second, immediately inform the officer that you are carrying a firearm. This is taught over and over in carry class. You have to do so by law I suppose in most states but the reason is to not escalate the situation. If in a car hand the officer your carry permit with your drivers license.
tell that to philando. he did not resist arrest. he had his hands in the air. he informed the officer that he was carrying a firearm and had a conceal carry permit. he went to reach for his wallet after informing him of this, and the policeman still shot him.
it’s about more than that. there’s a reason black people are targeted more than white people. not just in killings. but arrests. getting pulled over for no apparent reason other than the fact that they are black.
i know law enforcement officers are under a great deal of stress. i empathize with the amount of shit they have to go through on a daily basis. but something has to change in the way do their job. innocent people are needlessly dying. and not just in cases where people are dying. cases where people are getting pulled over for no other reason than the color of their skin.
I don’t know why they were pulled over. Perhaps a BOLO was out that the officer was looking into? Only the officer can say. I haven’t seen the beginning of the encounter but if true then the policeman has a lot of explaining to do.
Judging from what was said by the woman in the car as well as what the officer is heard saying apparently the victims hands were the issue. Always keep your hands in full view of the officer and move slowly away from your body. Make sure you know what the officer wants you to do with your hands. On the dashboard? On and behind your head? On the door window frame? Then there’s whatever the woman was doing that the officer had to account for too. So much of this is common sense.
I’ve heard police departments are getting training from Israeli security force personnel which I would think are at odds with what americans expect as law enforcement.
The upside to being a Rams fan is heartbreak.
Sprinkles are for winners.
July 7, 2016 at 8:08 pm #48199bnwBlockedi know law enforcement officers are under a great deal of stress. i empathize with the amount of shit they have to go through on a daily basis. but something has to change in the way do their job…
=============
Do you think the wrong kind of ‘qualities’ are being sought after
by the folks that hire cops?Maybe the powers-that-hire have over-emphasized things like size and strength and military background and shooting ability, at the expense
of…oh…diplomacy, etc.w
vI’d test the officers in question for illegal steroids use.
The upside to being a Rams fan is heartbreak.
Sprinkles are for winners.
July 7, 2016 at 9:02 pm #48206znModeratorI want to re-stress the obvious fact that both men were legally carrying firearms and both were killed for it.
July 7, 2016 at 9:25 pm #48207InvaderRamModeratorHow very sad. Two things Sterling did wrong according to what I read above. First, don’t resist arrest. Not complying immediately can be interpreted as resisting arrest. Common sense dictates that you comply and not escalate the situation. Second, immediately inform the officer that you are carrying a firearm. This is taught over and over in carry class. You have to do so by law I suppose in most states but the reason is to not escalate the situation. If in a car hand the officer your carry permit with your drivers license.
tell that to philando. he did not resist arrest. he had his hands in the air. he informed the officer that he was carrying a firearm and had a conceal carry permit. he went to reach for his wallet after informing him of this, and the policeman still shot him.
it’s about more than that. there’s a reason black people are targeted more than white people. not just in killings. but arrests. getting pulled over for no apparent reason other than the fact that they are black.
i know law enforcement officers are under a great deal of stress. i empathize with the amount of shit they have to go through on a daily basis. but something has to change in the way do their job. innocent people are needlessly dying. and not just in cases where people are dying. cases where people are getting pulled over for no other reason than the color of their skin.
I don’t know why they were pulled over. Perhaps a BOLO was out that the officer was looking into? Only the officer can say. I haven’t seen the beginning of the encounter but if true then the policeman has a lot of explaining to do.
Judging from what was said by the woman in the car as well as what the officer is heard saying apparently the victims hands were the issue. Always keep your hands in full view of the officer and move slowly away from your body. Make sure you know what the officer wants you to do with your hands. On the dashboard? On and behind your head? On the door window frame? Then there’s whatever the woman was doing that the officer had to account for too. So much of this is common sense.
I’ve heard police departments are getting training from Israeli security force personnel which I would think are at odds with what americans expect as law enforcement.
he was pulled over for a minor traffic violation. that’s it. the woman said he was following the officer’s orders to the t.
i think it’s highly possible this cop was suffering from ptsd. i also think that law enforcement needs to rethink their training. they serve and protect the citizens.
July 7, 2016 at 9:51 pm #48208bnwBlockedI want to re-stress the obvious fact that both men were legally carrying firearms and both were killed for it.
The one guy was a felon with multiple offenses including a sex offense. So if he was carrying my bet is that he was doing so illegally.
The upside to being a Rams fan is heartbreak.
Sprinkles are for winners.
July 7, 2016 at 9:55 pm #48209bnwBlockedHow very sad. Two things Sterling did wrong according to what I read above. First, don’t resist arrest. Not complying immediately can be interpreted as resisting arrest. Common sense dictates that you comply and not escalate the situation. Second, immediately inform the officer that you are carrying a firearm. This is taught over and over in carry class. You have to do so by law I suppose in most states but the reason is to not escalate the situation. If in a car hand the officer your carry permit with your drivers license.
tell that to philando. he did not resist arrest. he had his hands in the air. he informed the officer that he was carrying a firearm and had a conceal carry permit. he went to reach for his wallet after informing him of this, and the policeman still shot him.
it’s about more than that. there’s a reason black people are targeted more than white people. not just in killings. but arrests. getting pulled over for no apparent reason other than the fact that they are black.
i know law enforcement officers are under a great deal of stress. i empathize with the amount of shit they have to go through on a daily basis. but something has to change in the way do their job. innocent people are needlessly dying. and not just in cases where people are dying. cases where people are getting pulled over for no other reason than the color of their skin.
I don’t know why they were pulled over. Perhaps a BOLO was out that the officer was looking into? Only the officer can say. I haven’t seen the beginning of the encounter but if true then the policeman has a lot of explaining to do.
Judging from what was said by the woman in the car as well as what the officer is heard saying apparently the victims hands were the issue. Always keep your hands in full view of the officer and move slowly away from your body. Make sure you know what the officer wants you to do with your hands. On the dashboard? On and behind your head? On the door window frame? Then there’s whatever the woman was doing that the officer had to account for too. So much of this is common sense.
I’ve heard police departments are getting training from Israeli security force personnel which I would think are at odds with what americans expect as law enforcement.
he was pulled over for a minor traffic violation. that’s it. the woman said he was following the officer’s orders to the t.
i think it’s highly possible this cop was suffering from ptsd. i also think that law enforcement needs to rethink their training. they serve and protect the citizens.
Too early to know. But we do know they do not protect. That was settled by the US Supreme Court some time ago.
The upside to being a Rams fan is heartbreak.
Sprinkles are for winners.
July 7, 2016 at 10:24 pm #48211znModeratorI want to re-stress the obvious fact that both men were legally carrying firearms and both were killed for it.
The one guy was a felon with multiple offenses including a sex offense. So if he was carrying my bet is that he was doing so illegally.
First, someone’s history makes no bloody difference in how they ought to be treated by law enforcement, at least in terms of whether they bloody shoot him on the spot when he was clearly not resisting. And besides the officers had no idea who he was or what he had done when they first encountered him. Also, you are repeating sources on that “sex offense” bit but your sources are conning you. His conviction as a “sex offense” was having sex with an underage 17 year old. That was in the year 2000. You’re right about the legality of the weapon. I stand corrected on that. Sterling’s family said he was on probation at the time and was not allowed to carry a gun. The guy who owned the store he was selling CDs in front of said Sterling began carrying the gun recently after his friend was mugged. He had been doing that (selling CDs there) for 6 years. So I see it as another story where arming yourself to prevent crime just causes more trouble.
July 7, 2016 at 11:06 pm #48213InvaderRamModeratorToo early to know. But we do know they do not protect. That was settled by the US Supreme Court some time ago.
well it should be their function.
July 7, 2016 at 11:10 pm #48214July 8, 2016 at 3:43 am #48220bnwBlockedI want to re-stress the obvious fact that both men were legally carrying firearms and both were killed for it.
The one guy was a felon with multiple offenses including a sex offense. So if he was carrying my bet is that he was doing so illegally.
First, someone’s history makes no bloody difference in how they ought to be treated by law enforcement, at least in terms of whether they bloody shoot him on the spot when he was clearly not resisting. And besides the officers had no idea who he was or what he had done when they first encountered him.
Not true. Police were responding to a report of a guy brandishing a gun.
The upside to being a Rams fan is heartbreak.
Sprinkles are for winners.
July 8, 2016 at 12:01 pm #48239znModeratorI want to re-stress the obvious fact that both men were legally carrying firearms and both were killed for it.
The one guy was a felon with multiple offenses including a sex offense. So if he was carrying my bet is that he was doing so illegally.
First, someone’s history makes no bloody difference in how they ought to be treated by law enforcement, at least in terms of whether they bloody shoot him on the spot when he was clearly not resisting. And besides the officers had no idea who he was or what he had done when they first encountered him.
Not true. Police were responding to a report of a guy brandishing a gun.
Which, according to the guy who owns the store he was selling in front of, was false. Kind of like saying he was convicted of a “sex offense.”
And none of which justifies shooting the man.
July 8, 2016 at 12:45 pm #48250bnwBlockedI want to re-stress the obvious fact that both men were legally carrying firearms and both were killed for it.
The one guy was a felon with multiple offenses including a sex offense. So if he was carrying my bet is that he was doing so illegally.
First, someone’s history makes no bloody difference in how they ought to be treated by law enforcement, at least in terms of whether they bloody shoot him on the spot when he was clearly not resisting. And besides the officers had no idea who he was or what he had done when they first encountered him.
Not true. Police were responding to a report of a guy brandishing a gun.
Which, according to the guy who owns the store he was selling in front of, was false. Kind of like saying he was convicted of a “sex offense.”
And none of which justifies shooting the man.
It may well have been false but the officers responded under that assumption and found the guy at the scene matching the call and the guy did have a gun. Don’t resist arrest. That is the simple lesson.
The upside to being a Rams fan is heartbreak.
Sprinkles are for winners.
July 8, 2016 at 1:08 pm #48251znModeratorIt may well have been false but the officers responded under that assumption and found the guy at the scene matching the call and the guy did have a gun. Don’t resist arrest. That is the simple lesson.
The officers shot a guy they had pinned on the ground.
There is no narrative that can excuse that.
And near as we know he didn’t resist. I see a guy pinned on the ground getting shot in the chest. I don’t feel the need to make excuses for that. It should never happen.
How about “don’t shoot guys you have pinned on the ground.”
I am not very tolerant of excuse making for that.
July 8, 2016 at 2:26 pm #48263bnwBlockedIt may well have been false but the officers responded under that assumption and found the guy at the scene matching the call and the guy did have a gun. Don’t resist arrest. That is the simple lesson.
The officers shot a guy they had pinned on the ground.
There is no narrative that can excuse that.
And near as we know he didn’t resist. I see a guy pinned on the ground getting shot in the chest. I don’t feel the need to make excuses for that. It should never happen.
How about “don’t shoot guys you have pinned on the ground.”
I am not very tolerant of excuse making for that.
No excuses. DON’T RESIST ARREST! The guy was resisting arrest from the very beginning. He was not following their instructions. Even when on the ground he kept struggling . What that video doesn’t show is his hands. And this in the context of the officers having been alerted to his having a gun! DON’T RESIST ARREST!
The upside to being a Rams fan is heartbreak.
Sprinkles are for winners.
July 8, 2016 at 5:15 pm #48273wvParticipantDON’T RESIST ARREST!
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Well do you think the Rightwing Oregon militants should have
put down their guns and not-resisted as long as they did?w
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