Minneapolis PD Suffocate Unarmed Black Man Who Later Dies in Hospital

[Azure]

Originally Posted by jayswin

Yep, Azure is a textbook example of why they should have used a better word.

Maybe you'll understand what it means when it becomes obvious that simply trying to reduce spending, allocate resources differently, improve resources for training, etc, etc will be met with the 'defund means defund' response.

Just because the majority of people simply want the police to do better and have the proper resources and training to do their job in the best way possible doesn't mean that there isn't a segment of the population out there right now dominating the headlines by demanding that the police literally need to be defunded.

I mean you had a 'police free' zone in Seattle that was there for weeks and the media thought it was a great idea. High placed politicians stood there and talked of how great things were working.

But hey, keep telling yourself that cooler heads will prevail. I mean I hope they do, but IMO things are just gonna keep getting worse.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Crown Royal

This is a poster that the other day defended cops running over protesters, they know exactly what is meant but are manipulating things to change the conversation away from what matters.

Interesting how you got that out of what I said, but have absolutely nothing to say about the other 'poster' who said the cop should have gotten out and shot the guy who jumped on the car.

I never said the cop was justified. I simply asked what the cop SHOULD have done and all I was told was 'he shouldn't have!@!!#$@#$!', because it is easy to throw stones when you're sitting in the crowd making judgement calls about a situation you have little understanding about. In your case, that applies to a lot of things.

No cop is ever right in running over, shooting or inflicting harm on another person. There is a reason an officer involved shooting is such a big deal, and rightly so. It SHOULD be taken seriously. But because of people like yourself who basically have little to no understanding, in fact just go with no understanding of the situation, or what cops deal with, you simply make a judgement call one way, and refuse to acknowledge that in every confrontation, there are two sides. And often times, both sides could be wrong. In this case, both sides were wrong.

If you're going to trump up your stance in this debate, at least call things evenly. But of course you won't, because your angle is obvious.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Yup, also the same poster who attributed the looting to Anti-fa (and when people said "yeah, probably in part" said "Oh it must be so hard to admit left-wing anarchists are the problem!"), said the police brutality wasn't against peaceful protestors, said the protests which remain primarily peaceful are no longer about the issue but just about wrecking stuff, blamed the media for reporting on police brutality and "making the situation worse," and, despite being explained what "defund" means in this context with people admitting the term is a poor one, continues to define it only by the dictionary.

At a certain point, it's pretty clear what this poster's intentions are. Not one post focused on the issue being protested that I can see. Just post after post blaming the media, focusing on any act of violence from protestors, and excusing clear abuses by police as "what else could they do?"

Originally Posted by wittynickname

"many" of the protests are not turning violent. At this point rarely are the protests violent, most of them are extremely peaceful, but you wouldn't know that because peaceful protests get zero attention. The media doesn't care about peaceful protests. Which makes one wonder how effective they actually are at getting anything done.

Also, as you may remember, but of course won't acknowledge because its fun to pick and choose what to 'pin' on someone, my entire point was that there is a certain 'group' of protesters out there that simply want to wreck stuff and are hijacking the protests to do that. Antifa, Poor Boys, or whatever other 'group' you want to pin it on.

And they did, the media ran with it. Headlines talked about the violent parts of the protests, and like witty said, the other 95% of the protests that were peaceful were simply ignored. At least by the mainstream media.

Is that hard to acknowledge? That the media is going for destruction and terror because they know it sells clicks?

It really isn't.

But nice post.

[PsYcNeT]

Lmao if you think Antifa, as an organized collective, actually exists.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Azure

Also, as you may remember, but of course won't acknowledge because its fun to pick and choose what to 'pin' on someone, my entire point was that there is a certain 'group' of protesters out there that simply want to wreck stuff and are hijacking the protests to do that. Antifa, Poor Boys, or whatever other 'group' you want to pin it on.

And they did, the media ran with it. Headlines talked about the violent parts of the protests, and like witty said, the other 95% of the protests that were peaceful were simply ignored. At least by the mainstream media.

Is that hard to acknowledge? That the media is going for destruction and terror because they know it sells clicks?

It really isn't.

But nice post.

Sure, what does reporting on police brutality/police attacking peaceful protestors have to do with Anti-fa? Why lump the two together?

I agree that focusing on only the worst of both "sides" is bad, we're on the same page. But I don't agree that neither should be reported on, or that reporting on police brutality makes our situation worse, or that the rioters/looters/wreckers were all left-wing anarchists, like you had claimed.

[corporatejay]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

Lmao if you think Antifa, as an organized collective, actually exists.

I just assumed they were like Anonymous, is that not accurate?

[Crown Royal]

Originally Posted by Azure

Interesting how you got that out of what I said, but have absolutely nothing to say about the other 'poster' who said the cop should have gotten out and shot the guy who jumped on the car.

I never said the cop was justified. I simply asked what the cop SHOULD have done and all I was told was 'he shouldn't have!@!!#$@#$!', because it is easy to throw stones when you're sitting in the crowd making judgement calls about a situation you have little understanding about. In your case, that applies to a lot of things.

No cop is ever right in running over, shooting or inflicting harm on another person. There is a reason an officer involved shooting is such a big deal, and rightly so. It SHOULD be taken seriously. But because of people like yourself who basically have little to no understanding, in fact just go with no understanding of the situation, or what cops deal with, you simply make a judgement call one way, and refuse to acknowledge that in every confrontation, there are two sides. And often times, both sides could be wrong. In this case, both sides were wrong.

If you're going to trump up your stance in this debate, at least call things evenly. But of course you won't, because your angle is obvious.

You're right my angle is obvious.

I WANT MY PEOPLE TO STOP BEING ####ING MURDERED.

I have defended certain police actions, I have even posted about good and bad experiences with police. I've both defended rioting and chastised looting. But yes, tell me that I don't call things evenly.

In this case I'm calling what I see, a bigot manipulating things to distract from the fact my people are being murdered in cold blood by police at an alarming rate.

Edit: To further add to this already terrible situation, the police are now assaulting people of other races, and the media covering the stories. We matter so little to them that they are willing to hurt anyone who wants to defend us.

As for the bold in your post there, I'd love to see that quote, because all I saw was you and another poster incorrectly inferring that opinion. Oh and back to me not calling things evenly, I called both you and that poster you were arguing with out for ignoring any good point made.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by Azure

Maybe you'll understand what it means when it becomes obvious that simply trying to reduce spending, allocate resources differently, improve resources for training, etc, etc will be met with the 'defund means defund' response.

Just because the majority of people simply want the police to do better and have the proper resources and training to do their job in the best way possible doesn't mean that there isn't a segment of the population out there right now dominating the headlines by demanding that the police literally need to be defunded.

I mean you had a 'police free' zone in Seattle that was there for weeks and the media thought it was a great idea. High placed politicians stood there and talked of how great things were working.

But hey, keep telling yourself that cooler heads will prevail. I mean I hope they do, but IMO things are just gonna keep getting worse.

The segment of the population dominating the headlines with statements about a group of people wanting to literally completely defund and abolish police is the exact group that wants everyone to purposely misunderstand the phrase, so that enough people get scared about what defunding the police means, and thus draw support for the "law and order" crowd. A bunch of people who know exactly what the protestors mean when they call for police defunding, but play dumb when talking on media outlets to make everyone feel afraid.

There are systems in the US that have been targeted for defunding for decades. Healthcare, education, social security, to name a few. No one bats an eye about that. In fact, they cheer for it.

[MBates]

I think there is a certain aspect of the push to rapidly 'defund the police' that relies on the concept that necessity is the mother of invention. The argument being the only way to get meaningful 're-tooling' or 'reform' of an excessive behemoth system is to stop paying for the excessive behemoth system and let the leadership figure out how to make it work after that.

As a society we get to decide how we are policed. For example, if we want to stop having fully automatic C-8 machine guns in the hands of Calgary Police Service officers then we can just stop buying them and sell the ones they have. Today. Then the tactical unit will have to re-define by tomorrow morning how it engages citizens without machine guns - by necessity. If you let them keep the machine guns and order them to redefine their weapons policies what change do you really expect?

It is not really surprising that those with entrenched systemic power and privilege will fight systemically to prevent change, and often will succeed...repeatedly. I will suggest that is what is going on here:

https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/co...hts-about-that

If we look at this from a systems perspective rather than just a police versus the rest of the system perspective, I think we’ll find there’s quite a bit of money — sufficient money and resources in the system already.

Chief Neufeld, apparently on a PR push to save the CPS budget, wants us to conclude (because he says) that 'the system' already has all the money and resources it needs and we should be examining other parts of the system, not police, for the solution to the problem citizens have with how they are being policed.

This is accompanied by the suggestion that all we need is yet another grandiose study with all stakeholders; yes that's what we need! Years and years of study. With no action. If we do not have a perfect solution best do nothing at all for fear of what change might bring:

The chief supported a June 29 letter from commission chair Bonita Croft to Alberta Justice Minister Doug Schweitzer, calling for a summit on policing with all imaginable stakeholders to, in part, modernize the Police Act by defining the role of police, improving officer training and accountability structures, as well as looking at the role of other agencies in delivering services to citizens in need.

And all of it is attached to this oddly perplexingly difficult definition problem that everyone who opposes meaningful and timely policing reform seem to very easily identify as a major roadblock to any action:

When it comes to defunding the police, Neufeld says it’s crucial to understand what the other party’s definition of defunding is.

“For some this is about diverting money, for some this is about dismantling police, for others it’s about disarming the police, so it’s important in these discussions to find out where on the continuum individuals are,” he said.

“The deputy chiefs and I had a really good conversation with a community group (Monday) where one of the people said something that I thought was quite profound: ‘We don’t need to defund, we need to define.’

This is precisely how supporters of the status quo can maintain the status quo. Kill the momentum. Kill the movement. Ensure that nobody strikes while the iron is hot.

The Alberta government already spent millions of dollars on a policing public inquiry when defence lawyer groups persisted in demanding accountability for why CPS apparently did nothing following a judicial finding that CPS officers gave false testimony about their use of force in the R v Arkinstall matter.

The Arkinstall Inquiry Report bears the title "A Call for Change in Alberta’s Approach to Police Oversight" and explicitly recommended a full legislative review of the Police Act after an essentially unanimous call for same from all stakeholders. This review was commenced by the government of the day. Consultations took place, with conference facilities and agendas and stakeholder submissions. All the makings of a 'summit'.

And then the process just kind of went silent.

The momentum was gone. The controversy of the Arkinstall matter a distant memory. Maybe we don't really need a new Police Act to control police misconduct do we?

Nobody really even noticed or asked why there was no progress on the police accountability reforms. That is until protests including calls to defund the police gained traction:

https://globalnews.ca/news/7040939/a...-use-of-force/

He said the UCP government “has been actively working towards further Police Act modernization” and will now be “expediting its current work” but would not provide a timeline.

Trust us, we are expediting...we just won't say within what decade, or century.

Chief Mark Neufeld was a key witness in the Arkinstall Inquiry. He knew that what happened in Arkinstall was wrong as soon as he saw it. He didn't need a summit. He was then head of operations for ASIRT and testified to using the A & W test for police accountability. Loosely paraphrased, if Chief Neufeld walks into a local A & W and tells the folks there a story of how a police misconduct complaint was handled and they think it sounds bad or corrupt or unjust - then it is by definition not good enough.

Why is that type of test not workable now I wonder? Why do we need a long delayed and costly summit to examine the minutiae before we act?

The Arkinstall arrest was in 2008. The Inquiry Report in 2018. Nearly two years later and the government has done nothing to enact the list of systemic legislative changes to police accountability that the Inquiry recommended.

Status quo.

There is no question that defunding police budgets will have consequences. Some may even prove bad and need to be reversed. If you sell off the C-8 then CPS officers will not have the ability to fire 5.56 NATO rounds at a rate of 750-950 per second at a suspect in the streets and homes of Calgary. Is that bad? Some will think so. Many will not.

https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/...-frontline-use

I am not convinced that entire segments of police services should be shuttered overnight. And we absolutely need the police to fulfill core policing functions. But I am also willing to accept that in order to shake loose from a policing model that is increasingly resulting in criminal charges and convictions of police officers, and violent deaths and injuries to citizens (where it seems obvious other alternatives were available) we may need to invoke the mother of invention.

[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by MBates

I think ...

Grand slam

[Crown Royal]

Got pulled over again tonight, patted down. It's the same every time, there was magically a crime in the area by someone who fit my description.

My crime? Picking up drunk friends to get them home safely.

With everything going on I was scared out of my ####ing mind. Got home and cried out of relief. #### the police, #### anyone who has the nerve to defend then.

As an aside, my wife is amazing. Somehow she still makes me feel lucky at times like this.

[Scroopy Noopers]

Originally Posted by Crown Royal

Got pulled over again tonight, patted down. It's the same every time, there was magically a crime in the area by someone who fit my description.

My crime? Picking up drunk friends to get them home safely.

With everything going on I was scared out of my ####ing mind. Got home and cried out of relief. #### the police, #### anyone who has the nerve to defend then,.

Patted down!? For real? Where is this?

Sorry to hear that... ####.

[Crown Royal]

Originally Posted by Scroopy Noopers

Patted down!? For real? Where is this?

Sorry to hear that... ####.

I had just dropped a friend off in Stirling, which is just off highway 3 about 25 minutes SE of Lethbridge. I hadn't made it back onto the highway yet.

Rural Alberta is rampant with neo-Nazi groups, I have no doubt they are in the RCMP too.

edit: and thank you

[Scroopy Noopers]

Originally Posted by Crown Royal

I had just dropped a friend off in Stirling, which is just off highway 3 about 25 minutes SE of Lethbridge. I hadn't made it back onto the highway yet.

Rural Alberta is rampant with neo-Nazi groups, I have no doubt they are in the RCMP too.

edit: and thank you

Let’s pretend for a second that cops killing black people isn’t a problem in NA.

You get pulled over, for matching the description of someone who committed a crime in the area, asked to exit your vehicle, and get patted down.... that is absolutely ####ing insane to me. I cannot imagine a situation (aside from a national manhunt for a spree killer or something of that level) where I would be pulled over while following the rules, and patted down. Spoiled due to skin colour, I know that firmly now.

[Crown Royal]

Originally Posted by Scroopy Noopers

Let’s pretend for a second that cops killing black people isn’t a problem in NA.

You get pulled over, for matching the description of someone who committed a crime in the area, asked to exit your vehicle, and get patted down.... that is absolutely ####ing insane to me. I cannot imagine a situation (aside from a national manhunt for a spree killer or something of that level) where I would be pulled over while following the rules, and patted down. Spoiled due to skin colour, I know that firmly now.

And sadly, in this area, I know Aboriginal People have it even worse. Wouldn't shock me for a second if we found out "starlight tours" were happening here too.

[OMG!WTF!]

Originally Posted by Crown Royal

Got pulled over again tonight, patted down. It's the same every time, there was magically a crime in the area by someone who fit my description.

My crime? Picking up drunk friends to get them home safely.

With everything going on I was scared out of my ####ing mind. Got home and cried out of relief. #### the police, #### anyone who has the nerve to defend then.

As an aside, my wife is amazing. Somehow she still makes me feel lucky at times like this.

Record it next time. Amazing how things go when it's on the record. It also might be a way to follow up and find out if there actually was a crime in the area. (I know there wasn't)

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by Scroopy Noopers

Let’s pretend for a second that cops killing black people isn’t a problem in NA.

You get pulled over, for matching the description of someone who committed a crime in the area, asked to exit your vehicle, and get patted down.... that is absolutely ####ing insane to me. I cannot imagine a situation (aside from a national manhunt for a spree killer or something of that level) where I would be pulled over while following the rules, and patted down. Spoiled due to skin colour, I know that firmly now.

Remarkably there are still people, including some posters on this forum, who outright deny that white privilege exists.

[Hemi-Cuda]

This is why "Defund the Police" is the phrase that people are latching onto. Reform doesn't work, cops will never change unless the entire system is ripped up from under them and rebuilt

[Scroopy Noopers]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Remarkably there are still people, including some posters on this forum, who outright deny that white privilege exists.

I understand why this is said, but I don’t necessarily agree with this term either though. It just creates more division. Some people’s lives are horrible despite skin colour.

Edit: just to expand on this thought: we had good discussion about why “Black Lives Matter” is used, and why protesting it with “All Lives Matter” was unnecessary and inflammatory. For about a month there, a house near me had a sign in the window that read “Black Lives > White Feelings”.... I thought, okay is it really necessary to deliberately turn “Black Lives Matter” into an inflammatory divisive message? And of course lives are more important that feelings... what is the point of this? Why not show support with a “Black Lives Matter” poster in the window? For context, the entire household is white. Fighting existing division with divisive language seems counterintuitive to me.

[Fuzz]

I don't know how you can argue it doesn't exist. It's right there. In black and white.