mace1229 said:

Thirty Bills Unpaid said:

oftenreading said:

Kind of hard to understand the logic in this one.

A young man (black, but I'm sure that's just a coincidence) is found guilty of felony murder and received a 30 year sentence for it, along with shorter concurrent sentences for theft and burglary. The interesting twist? He didn't kill anyone. One of the people he was with was shot dead by police, and Alabama law allows for a murder charge if someone is engaged in committing a crime with another person that leads to that person's death. Smith was 15 at the time but was tried as an adult, for a crime he didn't commit.

The officer who killed the other guy (Washington) was cleared of any wrongdoing. The convoluted logic seems to be that the officer who actually killed Washington was justified and thus not guilty of murder, but the guy with him, who didn't shoot anybody, is guilty of Washington's murder, even though he didn't get murdered because it was a justified shooting.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/lakeith-smith-adonte-washington-sentence-murder_us_5ac8df6de4b09d0a11943ba4

It's too hard to understand because there's no way to understand it.

I read this story (I was drawn to the 'rejected 25 years and got 65 years' headline thinking some idiot played his hand poorly). To boot... it's not as if they were dealing with a career criminal who the courts have grown weary of. This was a 15 year old stealing stuff with other kids.

It's obscene.

A lot of states have that law. If I rob a bank and hold people hostige, if people die in the rescue attempt I would be charged with murder. If you commit a crime and people die as a result, its murder.

mace1229 said:

Thirty Bills Unpaid said:

mace1229 said:

Thirty Bills Unpaid said:

oftenreading said:

Kind of hard to understand the logic in this one.

A young man (black, but I'm sure that's just a coincidence) is found guilty of felony murder and received a 30 year sentence for it, along with shorter concurrent sentences for theft and burglary. The interesting twist? He didn't kill anyone. One of the people he was with was shot dead by police, and Alabama law allows for a murder charge if someone is engaged in committing a crime with another person that leads to that person's death. Smith was 15 at the time but was tried as an adult, for a crime he didn't commit.

The officer who killed the other guy (Washington) was cleared of any wrongdoing. The convoluted logic seems to be that the officer who actually killed Washington was justified and thus not guilty of murder, but the guy with him, who didn't shoot anybody, is guilty of Washington's murder, even though he didn't get murdered because it was a justified shooting.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/lakeith-smith-adonte-washington-sentence-murder_us_5ac8df6de4b09d0a11943ba4

It's too hard to understand because there's no way to understand it.

I read this story (I was drawn to the 'rejected 25 years and got 65 years' headline thinking some idiot played his hand poorly). To boot... it's not as if they were dealing with a career criminal who the courts have grown weary of. This was a 15 year old stealing stuff with other kids.

It's obscene.

A lot of states have that law. If I rob a bank and hold people hostige, if people die in the rescue attempt I would be charged with murder. If you commit a crime and people die as a result, its murder.

Except in this case... there wasn't a murder.

According to the law, yes there was. Someone was killed during a burglary. The article states "both sides exchanged gunfire." I fail to see how he is not where he belongs.
Many states have a law, not just Alabama, where if someone is killed during your criminal activity you can (and should in my opinion) be charged with murder.
This article was no different than my example. If I rob a bank, and the FBI come to try and rescue people and they accidentally shoot innocent vitcims, I would be charged with that murder. Only difference was this victim was not "innocent," he was part of the crime. Makes no difference in my opinion. 

mace1229 said:

oftenreading said:

I think that the weight of evidence suggests that oftentimes, black people have every reason to think it might be worth trying to flee police in the US. It's not like it tends to work out all that well if they don't flee. 

I think that statement is part of the problem. Its sort of a domino effect. For every wrongful act we see, there's 1000 encounters that go without incident. But then young black men think exactly what you just said, so more and more begin to flea or resist arrest instead of just letting it play out without incident and it becomes a bigger problem. 
I'm not defending everything police every do, but to imply "it tends to not work out all that well" is also completely untrue. The encounters that end peacefully out number the violent ones 1000 to 1.
Before some of you jump down asking for stats and links, I dont have one that gives that exact figure. But with 600,000 police emplyed, about half working the streets, thats 300,000 cops. At any given time about a 1/4 are out there on the street. Each one encounters dozens of people a day, so literally millions of people each day encounter police. And how many end violently due to race? The odds are still greatly in your favor to just cooperate. 

oftenreading said:

Kind of hard to understand the logic in this one.

A young man (black, but I'm sure that's just a coincidence) is found guilty of felony murder and received a 30 year sentence for it, along with shorter concurrent sentences for theft and burglary. The interesting twist? He didn't kill anyone. One of the people he was with was shot dead by police, and Alabama law allows for a murder charge if someone is engaged in committing a crime with another person that leads to that person's death. Smith was 15 at the time but was tried as an adult, for a crime he didn't commit.

The officer who killed the other guy (Washington) was cleared of any wrongdoing. The convoluted logic seems to be that the officer who actually killed Washington was justified and thus not guilty of murder, but the guy with him, who didn't shoot anybody, is guilty of Washington's murder, even though he didn't get murdered because it was a justified shooting.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/lakeith-smith-adonte-washington-sentence-murder_us_5ac8df6de4b09d0a11943ba4

mace1229 said:

I don't think anyone should be hassled without cause. My point was with literally millions of police interactions every day, the media and anti-cop crowd would have you believe if you are black you are more likely to get hassled, beat or shot than not. That is simply not true, the statistics prove it.

mace1229 said:

OnWis97 said:

mace1229 said:

I don't think anyone should be hassled without cause. My point was with literally millions of police interactions every day, the media and anti-cop crowd would have you believe if you are black you are more likely to get hassled, beat or shot than not. That is simply not true, the statistics prove it.

You are right.  Statistically, there's no way that is true.  But what if we amend the sentence: if you are black you are more likely to get hassled, beat or shot than not if you are white.

I would agree with that.
I think it can be explained (not necessarily justified, but explained without calling cops racist).
Can we agree that there is more crime in among blacks? That is a commonly accepted statistic. That accounts for some, but not all of the difference.
Some of it is bad cops and improper training. But I think there is another, more common reason.

It is my personal belief that as a result of that difference in crime, cops can be more likely to be cautious/suspicious of blacks. Also Picture all of protesters who shouted out things like "only good cop is a dead cop," and all the ambushes on cops the last few years. The majority of those have been black, have they not? To expect cops to go into those neighborhoods and not be impacted by that is unlikely (again, not justified, just human nature to be affected by that.).
Because the above is true, it leads people to exaggerate that truth.  People do believe the original form of my statement that you amended, that they are better or safer by not cooperating. This false belief puts everyone in more danger.
Not to mention that the relation between police and the black communities is probably the worst, that would also lead to higher tensions and resisting that would escalate more quickly and lead to altercations that would otherwise not have occurred. 
I guess my point is there are so many more obvious conclusions to jump to before you get to cops are racist that so many have claimed. 

mace1229 said:

dignin said:

mace1229 said:

OnWis97 said:

mace1229 said:

I don't think anyone should be hassled without cause. My point was with literally millions of police interactions every day, the media and anti-cop crowd would have you believe if you are black you are more likely to get hassled, beat or shot than not. That is simply not true, the statistics prove it.

You are right.  Statistically, there's no way that is true.  But what if we amend the sentence: if you are black you are more likely to get hassled, beat or shot than not if you are white.

I would agree with that.
I think it can be explained (not necessarily justified, but explained without calling cops racist).
Can we agree that there is more crime in among blacks? That is a commonly accepted statistic. That accounts for some, but not all of the difference.
Some of it is bad cops and improper training. But I think there is another, more common reason.

It is my personal belief that as a result of that difference in crime, cops can be more likely to be cautious/suspicious of blacks. Also Picture all of protesters who shouted out things like "only good cop is a dead cop," and all the ambushes on cops the last few years. The majority of those have been black, have they not? To expect cops to go into those neighborhoods and not be impacted by that is unlikely (again, not justified, just human nature to be affected by that.).
Because the above is true, it leads people to exaggerate that truth.  People do believe the original form of my statement that you amended, that they are better or safer by not cooperating. This false belief puts everyone in more danger.
Not to mention that the relation between police and the black communities is probably the worst, that would also lead to higher tensions and resisting that would escalate more quickly and lead to altercations that would otherwise not have occurred. 
I guess my point is there are so many more obvious conclusions to jump to before you get to cops are racist that so many have claimed. 

Care to answer my previous question?

You’re asking how I came up with the millions of encounters? I didn’t answer it because I don’t know how to. Its widely reported how many cops are out there, I didn’t think it needed an explanation. It’s common knowledge and basic math to get to the number I quoted you. It’s usually reported about 600,000 police in the country. Police departments report about 1/3 to 1/4 are “street cops.” The only stat that isn’t regularly reported and common knowledge is how many of those report to work every day, but based on scheduling I’d guess about half hit the street at some point during the day. So you’re looking at about 75,000 cops on the conservative estimate on the street every single day. Depending on what you consider police interacting with others that can range from a few dozen a day to literally hundreds. If you count just who a cop speaks to filing out reports and writing tickets it’s a dozen or two on a slow day. If you count everyone he sees and makes a decision to stop for not signaling, speeding, and countless other potential reasons to start an interactions it is literally hundreds of opportunities each cop has every day. Let’s go with the low conservative number of just a dozen. That’s still about a million people who interact with a cop every day. 
Now out of those million daily interactions, how many result in harassment or worse? Very, very few in comparison.

dignin said:

mace1229 said:

dignin said:

mace1229 said:

OnWis97 said:

mace1229 said:

I don't think anyone should be hassled without cause. My point was with literally millions of police interactions every day, the media and anti-cop crowd would have you believe if you are black you are more likely to get hassled, beat or shot than not. That is simply not true, the statistics prove it.

You are right.  Statistically, there's no way that is true.  But what if we amend the sentence: if you are black you are more likely to get hassled, beat or shot than not if you are white.

I would agree with that.
I think it can be explained (not necessarily justified, but explained without calling cops racist).
Can we agree that there is more crime in among blacks? That is a commonly accepted statistic. That accounts for some, but not all of the difference.
Some of it is bad cops and improper training. But I think there is another, more common reason.

It is my personal belief that as a result of that difference in crime, cops can be more likely to be cautious/suspicious of blacks. Also Picture all of protesters who shouted out things like "only good cop is a dead cop," and all the ambushes on cops the last few years. The majority of those have been black, have they not? To expect cops to go into those neighborhoods and not be impacted by that is unlikely (again, not justified, just human nature to be affected by that.).
Because the above is true, it leads people to exaggerate that truth.  People do believe the original form of my statement that you amended, that they are better or safer by not cooperating. This false belief puts everyone in more danger.
Not to mention that the relation between police and the black communities is probably the worst, that would also lead to higher tensions and resisting that would escalate more quickly and lead to altercations that would otherwise not have occurred. 
I guess my point is there are so many more obvious conclusions to jump to before you get to cops are racist that so many have claimed. 

Care to answer my previous question?

You’re asking how I came up with the millions of encounters? I didn’t answer it because I don’t know how to. Its widely reported how many cops are out there, I didn’t think it needed an explanation. It’s common knowledge and basic math to get to the number I quoted you. It’s usually reported about 600,000 police in the country. Police departments report about 1/3 to 1/4 are “street cops.” The only stat that isn’t regularly reported and common knowledge is how many of those report to work every day, but based on scheduling I’d guess about half hit the street at some point during the day. So you’re looking at about 75,000 cops on the conservative estimate on the street every single day. Depending on what you consider police interacting with others that can range from a few dozen a day to literally hundreds. If you count just who a cop speaks to filing out reports and writing tickets it’s a dozen or two on a slow day. If you count everyone he sees and makes a decision to stop for not signaling, speeding, and countless other potential reasons to start an interactions it is literally hundreds of opportunities each cop has every day. Let’s go with the low conservative number of just a dozen. That’s still about a million people who interact with a cop every day. 
Now out of those million daily interactions, how many result in harassment or worse? Very, very few in comparison.

That's not what I asked for.

I quoted the part where you said "My point was with literally millions of police interactions every day, the media and anti-cop crowd would have you believe if you are black you are more likely to get hassled, beat or shot than not. That is simply not true, the statistics prove it". 

I would like to see those statistics.

Cop won’t be charged in “swatting” death of Kansas man

Victim’s family is “devastated” by the decision, their lawyer says.