Discussion for article #236174
Reposting without comment a reaction to this story posted in my local backwater Pennsyltuckian newspaper:
onceaprouddemocrat • 6 hours ago
They’re here. The terrorist in the middle east told their followers
to start attacking this country. They already have started. Once again,
black people have attacked and killed police officers in this country.
This is the latest trend. If someone black gets stopped by the police,
they assault or attack the officers. While not all black people have
become the criminals these ones are, it is a sure bet that all black
people will be judged as dangerous by the police officers after this
latest attack. Why do these black people think they have the right to
assault and even kill police officers? Listen to what the mouth pieces
for the black community have been saying. If they had their way, their
would be no police officers. Or, if their were police, they would not
have any guns. They claim then the evil racist police could not go
around killing the innocent black people. In reality, they would be able
to ride rough shod over everyone if the police had no guns, because
they would still have theirs. Black crime against police officers has
to stop. If it doesn’t, their very well may be a race war starting, and
those who are stirring up the trouble among the black community, want
just such a thing to happen.
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Reposting such thinly veiled racism is as good as endorsing it.
Why?
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Where did all the cop-haters go? Sure got quiet around here.
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Who hasn’t been stopped by a policeman who seems to have a grudge or suspicious manner? I have, not in every stop, but definitely several times in my 50 years of driving. Who hasn’t read numerous stories of policemen and policewomen shot and killed during what should be a routine traffic stop? Incidents like this reveal the reality of daily threat that even routine police work can have. If we are sincere about reforming police-citizen interactions, we need to acknowledge the humanity of and the realities faced by law officers day-to-day. If racism has infected policing in our towns and cities, its because racism still exists in the communities the police represent. Simply blaming police is insufficient. We all need to improve our understanding.
RIP
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It needs an answer or an explanation
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The statements to the effect of “see what you cop haters have caused” is what Republicans have turned discussion into over the last few years. “You are with us or against us,period”. You either fully support cops or you fully hate cops. Bullshit.
All cops are putting their lives on the line each day because of their career choice, and I fully respect that and want them to go home to their families safe every day. Every day.
That does not mean that abuses by police, crimes by police, brutality by police are not happening. They are, and there is a distinct lack of accountability. The people responsible for these crimes are diminishing and damaging the efforts of their brethren.
I want what I think we all want, a safe society, a place our families and friends can coexist with others and prosper. Law enforcement is critical to that. How that happens… we start to differ on.
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True. But, who’s making that statement here? What does that have to do with this thread?
I’ve never expressed cop-hating sentiments, just regret that relations between citizens and police have deteriorated so badly and that so many on both sides of the divide suffer for it. I’m no sociologist so I can’t contribute more than that.
Agreed.
It’s a really complex set of problems. It is not as simple as some like to make it. There are real serious and persistent systemic shortcomings/flaws in the justice system - not limited to the police either. But there are also a lot of good cops out there doing their best in one of the most stressful professions there is. And, if there is to be a solution, or progress, it’s going to require a multi-faceted approach that incorporates law-enforcement and police officers as part of the solution, not simply as the enemy.
It does? Seems pretty clear to me.
I was at church with my mom, did you have an intelligent comment or point you’d like someone to respond to?
Precisely. And so, upon considering the sentiments expressed by the post I offered above, do you think that enough people have the appreciation for the nuance the situation demands? I contend that this isn’t a singular spectacularly misinformed individual, but representative of the overwhelming majority of whites, not just in my area, but over vast swaths of territory in the country. This is merely one piece of evidence of how deeply these people feel fear.
No, not remotely enough - on either side.
I would suggest it is a significant minority, not the majority. But neither of us know for sure.
Feel free to join in with one of your own at any point.
Both sides do that. I continually see posts on here immediately siding against the police that turned out to be 100% wrong. Atlanta shooting, Wilson/Brown, the SC home invasion, etc. So BOTH sides do the “stupid”.
Each case has it’s own set of circumstances. One needs to wait for evidence before making knee jerk comments taking sides. Oh, conservatives are far more guilty of the “cops are always right” stuff, but if you don’t think there is a “f**k the police no matter what” attitude from a lot of people on the left, you are just not paying attention. I see it on here all the time. BOTH sides need to cut the knee jerk stupidity.
Take a look at crime stats. There are tens of thousands of violent criminals who get arrested. You never see much of that on the news. A few cops screw up, and they do, and it’s a national headline, and in many cases just because they killed someone and it was justified, it’s still a national headline until the truth comes out, and even then people won’t accept it, they’d rather believe some blog.
So yes, bad cops have to go. But people need to stop the knee jerk idiocy of taking sides on both the right and the left.
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"For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man.
But we have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to get beyond these rather difficult times.
My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He once wrote: “Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”
What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black."
Bobby Kennedy
Way too easy to get a gun in this country. A shame that police were killed as a result. But I find that my sympathy is less these days, mainly due to the barrage of police brutality and corruption brought forth by phone cameras and social media.
Note: one of the cops who was gunned down was black; I see no grounds for characterizing this as racially-motivated violence.
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If this is an “open-and-shut” case and the killers are plainly guilty, they should be tried, convicted, and their sentences carried out (I take it that means executed) swiftly. As much as I am anti-capital punishment, and as much as I tend to distrust the police, this case needs to be used to balance to some degree the anti-cop sentiment that’s been building. It’s a political football whether we like it or not, and this course of action makes the best use of it as such.