Discussion: The Role The Police Played In Sparking The Baltimore Violence

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Discussion for article #235812

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Thanks, TPM, for getting the story right. This is exactly what happened. The other part of the story is the number of students who did not participate. Thousands of students stayed in place or made their way home as best they could. Let’s hope that the NYT will follow suit and report the truth.

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If any of you subscribe to the Nixle service you may have seen this come across the screen as a ‘blue alert’ on the 27th. Nixle normally does things like alert the public to road closures, weather issues, silver alerts or Amber alerts. It is usually quite useful. To see this (http://local.nixle.com/alert/5402846/) come across as a nationwide blue alert was very strange.

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I agree this is an important story to post. We have an epidemic of out of control police who no longer respect the public they are paid to serve. I wonder how much the misuse of terror alerts and other attitudes saying no legal or due process would stand in the way of executing terrorists hasn’t contributed to the general sense of lawlessness on the part of police. After all, if a pentagon flack can order the death of an American on video, why wouldn’t the cops assume due process is a thing of the past. We haven’t criminalized the war on terror. The war on terror has criminalized us.

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Hank Stuever, media critic for the WaPo, gives an excellent critique of everything wrong (and right) with CNN’s reporting of the Baltimore riots.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/tv/is-cnn-as-bad-as-everyone-thinks-it-is-yes--and-no/2015/04/28/31ffac20-ede2-11e4-8666-a1d756d0218e_story.html

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In the past couple of decades the police in some areas have transitioned from “protect and serve” to protect wealthy peoples stuff and to use lethal force against people that are not an imminent threat." Someone who is trained in using a gun has the option to severely wound someone who tries to escape but it seems that the first response when someone they are trying to apprehend breaks loose and runs away from them is to kill them. Someone who is running away from the police is not an imminent threat to the police so why must lethal force be used? What happened to letting the person have their day in court? Our legal system is broken if police now have the authority to execute someone just for resisting arrest.

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Black people live under a “Police State in America”. “First they came for me, then they will come for you”.

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I live in Baltimore. This is the explanation that I have been hearing locally.Unfortunately, not on mainstream media or even local news.

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The Dept of Justice should investigate this phenomenon. The Baltimore Police yelled fire in the theater and disrupted the city services, commerce that cost millions in damage. The Police and Police Unions are the new Mafia. They have the same no “Snitch Policy” as street gangs.

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Welcome to America! Police departments all over the country have a long history of conducting this type of provocation. And of course, Obama, the chief executive for white ruling America, condemned the so-called rioters.

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“…the story…”

Excellent.