Discussion for article #244163
It’s time to fire the Keystone Cops.
I have lived in Chicago for 35 years and up until a couple of years ago, I was proud to say that I lived in this city. Now, when I travel, if someone asks me from where I hail, I say, “The Midwest” and hope (s)he doesn’t press it further. Who want to be from Chiraq?
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Time for someone to clean house of these lawless, trigger-happy thugs that call themselves cops.
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The question that needs to be asked in these cases, and with Tamir Rice and so many others is, “Would the police have fired if the person they were firing at was white?”
When an incident is broken down into milliseconds, as happened with Tayvon Martin and now with Tamir Rice, it’s possible to find justification for the shooting. But that takes the essential question out of it–was the killing set in motion by the color of the victim’s skin?
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A positive here comes in the form of lawyering-up-early and filing of suits-- by both families.
It seems they are both getting out in front of the PD’s framing of the narrative and leaking advantageous details to the MSM.
jw1
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“”“Adam says police appear to have checked a security video on a house across the street from where Saturday’s shooting occurred”""
That would be the same Police Department that checked the BK video in the Laquan McDonald shooting. The same Cops that deleted the critical video?
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Lawsuits may actually be the answer to this practice of shooting first and asking questions later. Clearly, human decency is not enough to change this practice. Perhaps this will. Apologists for the status quo will criticize families for the lawsuit, but they criticize them for everything else imaginable. When insurance companies refuse to insure cities, when mayors and chiefs of police are named as well as the shooter, things will change.
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In the Trevon Martin case…that was murder. Premeditated. In the Tamir Rice case it was recklessness and incompetence that got the kid killed. I’d leave, for now, the Black v White shoot or not shoot thing out of it. If you get in the proximity of a Cop you are in danger. They are allowed to make fatal mistakes. They can kill you even if your conduct has all been innocent. In the cases of Tamir or Freddie Gray no crime was witnessed by any Cop. Neither were breaking the law. But Cops assessed the “situations” surrounding those innocent people in a way that led to their death. Cops can do that. So if you are in the proximity of a Cop, conducting yourself lawfully you can die. No harm done.
I am a 65 year old white male. No one’s going to stop and frisk me or ask me what I’m doing in the neighborhood. No goody two shoes is going to call the cops on me if I go out for an evening walk. So my chances of coming into the proximity of a keyed up Cop are much less than if I was Black. I think I could get shot by a loser Cop too but I’m not likely to come in front of one. I’m sure as hell not likely to get shot by a Zimmerman or a Ferguson Cop under the same circumstances others did. If you are in the presence of a new order warrior Cop you are in deep shit. Anyone is but a Black person is more likely, even if doing nothing wrong, to be in front of that Cop than a White person. And because of that more likely to be shot. Not shot because you were Black. But in a situation in which shooting is likely because you are Black.
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I’ve lived in both Chicago and one of its wealthy suburbs. Knowing what I know about both, it’s very hard for me to imagine a cop from the latter opening fire on a teen with a baseball bat. S/he would have tried to talk to him first, for as long as it took to calm him down. At that point, it would be up to the father as to whether charges were filed.
If the autopsies show the two in this situation were shot from 20 ft., this looks like the same sort of scenario as the McDonald case. The Cook County attorney’s office better be thorough but swift on this one.
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But I wonder if the police apologists understand that the money to pay for these insurance policies come from all taxpayers? So in essence we all are complicit.
I don’t trust the police version of events here.
I just don’t.
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Having seen the Tamir Rice video several times the conduct of the police in that shooting is outright murder. They pulled up very close to the kid and the cop shot the kid withing 1-2 seconds of opening the passenger car door much less getting out of the car. The cops went into that incident fully intending to shoot. That’s my take from the video.
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Righto.
Law suits are not the answer. Chicago has been dealing with law suits for years. From about 2004 to 2014, the city paid out about $50,000,000 a year to settle suits and complaints. Think about this- the city just raised taxes to cover about $500M in Police and Fire pensions, and is begging the state to help it cover another $500M in teacher pensions. If the city would have dealt with it’s policing problem way back when, it would be in much better shape today.
The problem with policing isn’t new- John Burge and his crew were torturing and beating confessions out of people for many years. Burge went to jail for 4 years for lying to the Feds, not for torture, and none of the officers that did the beating and torturing were ever punished. The local media has completely forgotten about Homan Square and problems with IPRA.
I say people should continue to sue, but more importantly, should vote out politicians that are too afraid to fix the policing problem. The first to go should be Anita Alvarez. She said she wouldn’t resign, and is daring the voters to vote her out this March. Trust me, I’m going to vote against her.
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We won’t hear what happened from the Police until they firm up their cover story.
I can guarantee you two things:
- The investigation will not be complete, swift, or transparent.
- No fault by the Police will be found.
Here’s a fact. If the “investigation” of this incident is handled by the CPD the same old ending will result - no charge filed against either of the responding officers. Let’s open a discussion on whether an outside party, perhaps a group dispatched from a PD in another state, should carry out the investigation. Meanwhile, a questionable shooting should count against promotions. A questionable shooting, particularly when no perpetrator firearm is involved, should result in immediate desk duty and loss of overtime opportunities. There must be a faster, administrative way to stop the cowboy mentality pervading PDs in the USA. I once watched as 7 New York City police officers surrounded a man with a knife (later determined to be off his meds) from 42nd Street, Times Square and down Broadway towards Herald Square. None of the cops was within arm’s length of the individual. As he moved closer to Herald Square it was determined to open fire on the perpetrator since he “would likely pose a threat to civilians in the Herald Square area.” At no time was there an actual threat to life or limb of any living person, except the perp who was summarily executed by multiple cops shooting. All cops were praised for their performance on the job. Within the year, the Eric Garner chokehold strangling to death also occurred. And all of it followed the George Zimmerman killing of Trayvon Martin where Zimmerman wasn’t even a cop! But it gave anyone in uniform a license to kill black people. For the record, I am caucasian and incensed to fury by the repetition of this same scenario week after week, and now it seems day after day. ENOUGH!