And I say “No, no, no” to this Cincinnati Enquirer article on how Officer Ray Tensing, the UC cop that shot and killed Sam DuBose, is such a nice guy.
The son of a suburban firefighter, Ray Tensing followed in his father’s footsteps toward a career in public service.
Tensing was hellbent on becoming a cop, joining a police officer youth program while attending Colerain High School and eventually reaching the Ohio State Highway Patrol by his early 20s – if only for a day.
By many accounts, Tensing enjoyed his job and was good at it. Then it all went terribly wrong around dinnertime on July 19, when Tensing shot and killed an unarmed man while making a traffic stop in Mount Auburn.
Many who know the 25-year-old Tensing remain perplexed about what caused him to fire a bullet into Samuel DuBose’s head.
“I just want people to know this guy is not a monster,” said Kevin Coombs, who coached Tensing in baseball as a teenager. “That doesn’t mean he didn’t screw up, but this is not a cop out in L.A. stomping on Rodney King.”
No Captain Dickhead, you see Rodney King lived. There’s a difference. Samuel DuBose is dead. That’s pretty much worse in anyone’s book.
Jesus I hate the Enquirer and sometimes I really hate this town. Sometimes I’m painfully reminded why John Boehner hasn’t had a real challenge around the suburbs north of here in 25 years. There’s nothing “perplexing” about why Tensing blew DuBose’s head off, because he was a scared trumped-up bully with a gun who thought he was being disrespected and slaughtered a guy out of a combination of rage and fear.
As a teenager, Tensing received praise for his dedication to learning about law enforcement in the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Explorers Program.
After graduating from Colerain in 2008, Tensing attended Ohio State University before transferring to UC Clermont’s police academy. Tensing went on to receive his bachelor’s degree at the main UC campus, graduating with honors in spring 2012.
Tensing received satisfactory job reviews over a four-year career with the UC, Greenhills and Colerain Township police forces.
Still, Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters said Tensing “should have never been a police officer,” but has declined to elaborate on that claim beyond discussing the DuBose shooting.
“I don’t think this man has a clue what he’s talking about,” said Justin Shereen, who was in the Explorers Program with Tensing at Colerain and still occasionally hangs out with him. “Ray took his career very seriously. He was a great police officer.”
Except for the part where he murdered a black man in cold blood and then he and his fellow “great police officers” tried to cover it up, and would have gotten away with it without the body camera footage.
I need a drink and it’s not even noon.
[UPDATE] I need several drinks and it’s not even one PM.
Grand jury: NO INDICTMENT for two other @uofcincy officers in #RayTensing murder case. Ofcrs testified this week: pic.twitter.com/tH7tSgO6Y1
— Jody Barr (@JodyBarrFox19) July 31, 2015
To be fair, it reads like the two other cops are in effect backing up the events on the body camera footage now. No charges for them in order to testify against Tensing, maybe?
Gin & Tonic
Everybody woke up this morning all of a sudden.
chopper
as I told the wife last night, thank fuck for all these new body cam requirements. if there wasn’t footage this cop probably would have gotten off.
ruemara
For some strange reason, all (white) cops are good little angels; all black people are ravening monsters, seeking to kill good cops with their bare hands. Pintar los añgelitos negros, until enough people see us as good. More people feel for Cecil the Lion than Black Joe Blow.
Xboxershorts
I don’t see Tensing as a monster either. I see him as a product of the style of policing we allowed to take hold within society.
trollhattan
@chopper:
Local dead-tree paper heartily agrees.
Ultimately, both the public and the police will be safer when hothead, incompetent cops are out of a job.
J R in WV
And why haven’t we heard about the prosecution of the other cops who lied about what they saw at the scene?
They all were going to parrot whatever they heard the shooter say about the fear he felt for his life! How dangerous it was that he was being dragged, and what a miracle it was that he was able to pull his sidearm and make the shot while being dragged – NOT~!!!
They were all going to lie about the death of an innocent guy to protect themselves, so they all could resume being “good cops” until they got a chance to shoot another innocent guy.
So they should all be prosecuted for making false statements and obstructing an investigation, and fired for cause, not allowed to become gun carrying armored car guards, or armed crossing guards.
Hoping this will come to pass, not going to hold my breath.
Lavocat
What I find most despicable is this extraordinarily deferential culture we live within where the following almost ALWAYS occurs in these instances:
1) A non-white person (usually black male) is executed by a usually white male police officer;
2) The media IMMEDIATELY alerts us all to the criminal record or otherwise NEGATIVE character issues of the human being just brutally and wantonly murdered by the police – without any regard whatsoever to the particular facts of the instant murder;
3) The media IMMEDIATELY alerts us all to the outstanding community service &/or military valor (he’s a veteran/hero fer chrissakes!!!!!) or otherwise POSITIVE character issues of the human being WHO JUST BRUTALLY MURDERED AN INNOCENT HUMAN BEING UNDER COLOR OF LAW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!;
4) The political class collectively wrings its hands NOT over the inability of our society to rein in its outrageous authoritarian impulses but, rather, the purported inability of the collective minorities of the country not to be completely subservient to the law – no matter what the cost or demand – and the purported collective moral laxity of minorities in general.
Seriously, WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THIS FUCKING COUNTRY!!!???
Comrade Dread
And aside from deciding to be Hitler’s BFF, starting WW2, and brutally suppressing his political opponents, Mussolini was a pretty good head of state.
TG Chicago
I disagree with Zandar about this story. I absolutely find it newsworthy that people will still defend this cop in public on the record after what’s come out.
I think this is a legit case of “they report; you decide”. Some people might read this stuff and say “This proves that Tensing must’ve been in the right”. I think more people (at least folks who have seen the video) will read it and say “Wow, what an amazing amount of delusion and willful blindness.”
Belafon
@J R in WV: Yesterday, I heard they were suspended. Not sure of any new details.
batgirl
@J R in WV:
I heard in the news that an investigation has begun into the other two officers who corroborated Tensing’s story.
kindness
It’s drink-thirty somewhere.
tgif
Paul in KY
@J R in WV: Hope this happens. Think about how many criminal cops have got off, due to their buds testilying.
Frank McCormick
Perhaps the problem that so many think of a “bigot” or a “racist” as the main character from a Universal horror movie. You don’t have to be a “monster” to do something monstrous!
gian
@ruemara:
People get to upset about animals than say the theatre shootings. About the only people thing that gets people as angry is kids left in cars.
Punchy
Larry Whitmore did a fantastic skit yesterday parodying the fact that Tensing was a half-mile off campus when he pulled this guy over. His point was to ask why a campus cop should be doing such policing so far off their jusidiction.
I know on a city campus like UC it’s hard to always delineate where the campus starts and stops, but half-mile is pretty far off your turf. Methinks he wanted to play Real Cop that day and didn’t give a shit that the UC campus border ended 10 blocks the other way…
the Conster
@chopper:
Yet, with body camera running still shot an unarmed guy in the head, and who’s to say he won’t get away with it, still.
Bobby Thomson
@Lavocat: what’s interesting is seeing people instinctively moving to that script to try to defend Cedric’s killer, even though it results in epic fail.
Another Holocene Human
This guy was fucking obsessed with being a cop and used that gun and badge to murder a citizen in cold blood.
And the fucking paper thinks it’s laudatory.
Bull frigging shit.
(Also, I couldn’t care less what “Coach” thinks about all this.)
Russ
Nice guy cop goes astray. ” Hang around a barber shop long enough, and you’ll get a haircut “.
Frankensteinbeck
@Lavocat:
Racism. This is what racism looks like. It’s hardly ever ‘Death to the negros!’ It’s more… well, this. Suspect the victim, excuse the murderer, deflect attention, not as a deliberate tactic but because the death of a black man just doesn’t feel as important as a white man’s fear.
Knowbody
Such confidence here that Tensing is guilty.
Such ambivalence over whether a jury (given all the facts in the case )will agree.
Body cameras didn’t save DuBose’s life and they represent a massive breach of privacy of the citizenry they are supposed to protect.
But we’re so sure that cameras worn by government officers and used to monitor us will be used for good.
dogwood
@the Conster:
I think it’s highly unlikely he will be convicted. The question remains, if he is acquitted will he return to law enforcement?
Belafon
@Knowbody:
When out in public, there’s no privacy. Not sure where you’re getting that from.
As for used for good, when cameras started entering the south in the 1950s showing the brutality of Jim Crow, it didn’t immediately end the violence (some of it’s still going on, as we’ve seen here). But it did start the process. This will require more government work to get it right, but the cameras are having an impact.
I also think I figured out who you are. I’m not sure why, David Brooks, you think you need to comment on Balloon Juice. I’m not even going to offer you a welcome.
the Conster
@dogwood:
Deter seems pretty convinced, and is pretty convincing, but I wouldn’t bet any of my money on a conviction.
Paul in KY
@Punchy: The cops know exactly where the line is. At UK, the cops do have jurisdiction on some major streets that border the campus.
Kathleen
@Punchy: My understanding is that UC cops can patrol up to a mile from campus in a capacity of making sure students are safe. They are not supposed to engage in traffic stops. I heard yesterday (not confirmed) that UC cops will no longer patrol at all off campus.
And I agree with Zandar. I local media suck, except for City Beat and for local news WLWT channel 5.
Paul in KY
@Knowbody: Come on, you can do better than that! Seems you have already checked out from Friday-trollin.
lowercase steve
I bet his lawyer is going to go with the, “I thought I was reaching for my tazer” defense that worked for the BART cop a few years ago.
I expect guilty of a lesser included charge (involuntary manslaughter) if Ohio allows this and a hung jury if not. I doubt we’ll see a murder conviction.
chopper
@the Conster:
he’s a hell of a lot less likely to get away with it than he would have without there being footage of the incident. without footage it would have been his word vs the dead guy’s.
having footage isn’t some perfect scenario for accountability, just ask eric garner’s family. but without footage this douchebag would probably have never been indicted. he’d probably be on paid leave for a week and then back to work.
the Conster
O’Malley has just released a very comprehensive, substantive reform agenda for police violence: body cams, special prosecutors, ending of civil asset forfeiture, decriminalize marijuana, national use of force standard, mandate reporting of police killings and strengthen civilian oversight, end manadatory minimums, end solitary confinement, and several other things. Good for him.
Ruckus
@Knowbody:
Body cameras are a privacy issue?
What about the privacy of breathing?
What about the privacy of not getting your fucking head blown away?
What about the privacy of not living in an authoritarian state?
Privacy? What about the privacy of the cop who can’t go around harassing and murdering people, shouldn’t he be able to do that in privacy? While getting paid to be a public servant, protecting us, from assholes, one’s like his fellow officers who murder, lie and get away with it.
Douchebag.
Knowbody
@Belafon: Given the examples in this article, do you honestly believe it will be difficult to convince one person on a jury of twelve that Tensing feared for his life and fired his weapon as a result?
If body cameras are not preventing police officers from killing people, and they’re not increasing convictions of officers who do, then what are they for, other than to be used against citizens?
Please tell me how they will prevent police killing people next time, how they will be held accountable next time, how we should trust in the system next time, how we should accept being monitored next time, how the government will behave next time.
Ruckus
@Belafon:
It’s known asshole not knowbody.
the Conster
@batgirl:
Prosecutor is not going to seek charges against those cops, according to twitter, so lying cops can lie.
dogwood
@the Conster:
Saw where Deter pretty much told the police union to go fuck themselves. Said he didn’t care about their past endorcement and couldn’t care less if they go after him in the future.
Knowbody
@Ruckus: Congratulations! You have come to the correct realization that America is a violent police state, and that body cameras will not solve the problem.
It’s not me you need to be angry with.
What the fuck is our government doing about it other than perpetuating a system that both of us agree is broken?
Just Some Fuckhead
Who among us hasn’t inexplicably murdered someone and then tried to cover it up with the help of a couple of buddies? Let’s not rush to judgment.
EBT
@ lowercase steve the proccescutor gave an alternate charge of willful manslaughter as a back up to the murder charge if the jury thinks that is too harsh.
White Trash Liberal
@the Conster:
That’s straight up awesome. I hope the other candidates come out just as strong or strongera end embed this into the platform.
The post civil rights era has been a redirect into law and order tough on urban crime theatrics that has worn away the ability to live in a community without either dying or getting a lifetime stigma guaranteeing a life of poverty.
Add in reforming the credit system, drug rehabilitation funding, and getting rid of felony checks for those who served their time.
Ruckus
@the Conster:
I wonder if he might be waiting for the trial. If the cop is found guilty then the lies will really be lies, which until proven, they legally might not be considered as. Of course there may be a time constraint on charging them so it may not help. Or it is possible that there is no real law in OH to prosecute them for. I’d doubt that but it is possible.
bupalos
For folks looking for reform I think this is counterproductive.
We should actually accept that Tensing is a relatively good, well-trained cop, which by all accounts he was outside of this supposedly one-off incident. I think the focus should be on the later part of that. The point is that the system makes this happen, not “bad” cops. Tensing isn’t any different, and this stop probably wasn’t that much different from a lot of other ones we could find around the country. What was different is that there is video evidence. We don’t need to weed out the “bad” cops. We need consistent and transparent oversight, and more laws that protect the rights and safety of those being detained.
Bobby B.
We’ve accepted that law enforcement can steal and kill. The news stories are really zoo exhibits of how we’re learning to sleep at night.
Ruckus
@Knowbody:
Yes but you are still an asshole. You’ve proven that on several occasions.
So once again, Fuck off asshole.
chopper
@lowercase steve:
the indictment came down pretty quick. his best shot is to accept a lesser charge than murder unless he has a pretty damn good lawyer. and even if he’s acquitted i doubt he’ll be doing any police work for a long-ass time.
most of all, the family has a pretty good civil suit here. if the university is smart they’ll settle, likely for a pretty huge chunk of money. enough to rationalize making a few changes.
the Conster
@White Trash Liberal:
Yes, I’m starting to pay more attention to O’Malley’s statements. He’s got a lot of baggage from Baltimore, but, he’s working hard to change that perception.
White Trash Liberal
@Knowbody:
Here’s some fucking magic beans. Go plant them and climb the sprouted bean stalk to liberaltopia where your wish list gets special treatment.
In the meanwhile, this body cam footage resulted in a charge. There can be justice that likely would have zero chance without it. That’s a fucking start.
Troll.
Hal
I, whaaa, huh? How is shooting someone in the head better? What a bizarre statement.
White Trash Liberal
This cop sounds so sweet. Too bad he violatedprocedure by reaching into the car for no good reason, then panicked and shot a man who should have gotten a citation.
A man who should have got a citation instead gets a funeral. But the cop is just too precious for words. Barf.
Laertes
@Knowbody:
The suggestion that body cameras are a privacy issue for the public is pure concentroll.
Speaking as a member of the public? Put the fucking cameras on the fucking cops. My privacy is important, but proper oversight of the police is more important. It’s abundantly clear that these cameras are necessary. I haven’t yet heard one strong and honest argument against their mandatory widespread use. I don’t suppose you’ve got one?
Xboxershorts
@White Trash Liberal: Real True Justice would be Sam DuBose driving home after receiving a warning about the front license plate.
The body camera did nothing to bring real justice to Sam DuBose.
It might bring justice to the killer of Sam DuBose. But that is not the same as justice FOR Sam DuBose.
Stop training our cops to be distrustful trigger happy bullies and we’ll see the cop killings drop dramatically.
singfoom
@bupalos: In the end Tensing made the decision to pull that trigger. Your point that the system is bad is true and it contributed to this situation, but in the end, he as a human being decided that he needed to shoot DuBose.
That’s on him. If you’ve ever handled firearms, the first rule is you don’t point it somewhere you don’t intend to shoot. He pulled and fired. The system perhaps set him up to have a certain viewpoint that made that more likely, but I’m all for personal responsibility when it comes to one human being killing another.
Now, I think you can simultaneously say Tensing was a bad officer based on his actions AND that the system needs overall reform. Every single LEO in this country needs to be retrained with an emphasis on situational de-escalation. That needs to be taught in all police academies and it needs to be stressed continuously during both education and employment as a LEO that the citizens are NOT enemies. Unfortunately the warrior cop thing / up arming has brought about this and is not something that will turn around overnight.
Body cameras are not a panacea. They won’t stop every wrong a LEO can do to a citizen, but they’ll help. As I said before, this won’t be a quick process, but we as a society need police. And we need police that protect us instead of killing people. Psychological exams should weed out bullies and sadists from even coming close to having a badge and a gun.
It can be done, there just needs to be enough will to do it. Given the visibility of this issue I hope it will continue to build.
Ruckus
@chopper:
Not sure about that cost is high enough to make changes. Several places have paid enough money out in suits or to avoid suits that changes should already have begun to happen. Few if any are apparent. And the police unions and some legislators fight those changes and fight them hard. Money will either have to be on orders of magnitude higher or more public opinions will have to change.
And even then places like Ferguson will be a problem until the way the cops are funded in those areas changes. You might see superficial changes but without financial changes, once the heat is off they will go right back to what pays the local government best.
? Martin
The problem with everyone carrying a gun is that everyone is now capable of making absolutely massive mistakes, which causes our society to have to grade on a curve. Killing someone is no longer the worst possible act because its become so common that we can’t cope with the sheer volume of ‘such a nice guys’ that would need to be locked up for 30-life, which should include every parent that leaves a gun where a kid can reach it.
And the more you grade on a curve, the less risky hauling a gun to the movie theater, or leaving it on a coffee table seems.
Maybe there should be a floating tax on ammunition. Take the total cost of incarceration and pain and suffering damages and healthcare to victims due to guns, sum it up, divide by the amount of ammunition bought annually, and apply that as a tax on ammunition for the next year. We’ll call it the Rock Taxpayer Relief Act.
singfoom
@Ruckus: They need to make a federal law that removes the immunity from the individual or pulls the money from police pensions instead of the municipality / county for those kind of suits.
If every cops pension took a hit when they got hit with a settlement over a wrongful death suit, you can bet that the police would do a good job of policing themselves.
Patricia Kayden
@J R in WV: I hope the other lying cops are charged too. They shouldn’t get away with support a trumped up story to get off their colleague.
Paul in KY
@bupalos: He’s bad (IMO) because he stopped for a chickenshit reason, then shot the guy & lied about it. I don’t think all cops are bad & there are many that just wouldn’t have shot him, period (or pulled him over to begin with).
gvg
You know, video evidence hasn’t yet caused a miraculous reform and some cops have got off that I don’t think should have but as a voting citizen watching the cumulative effect of ALL these videos is impacting me and how I will in the future be judging all kinds of candidates for lots of offices….if things die down and ….for a long time there are no new incidents its possible this will die down on public awareness (except for black Americans probably)
If any ONE of these incident videos had come out, it really would not have become a public issue. But the number of them, and the commonality, and the ease some of the cops got off….thats really a problem. The timing for this issue is building I would say and my impression is I am not the only person thinking about the larger picture that didn’t really before.
Video IS making an impact, it’s just not doing it every single time for that incident. Its more the whole picture we have is changing.
Any white person who assumes that we aren’t also in danger from cops out of control is a fool. We don’t get as much of course but corruption like that spreads out.
WereBear
Exactly.
This is what happens when we let Republican thinking do our thinking.
? Martin
@Ruckus: I suspect if you made it illegal for police to be direct revenue generating entities, things would start to change pretty fast. All of that warrant/ticket collection should have to go at least one jurisdiction upward (local -> state, state -> fed, etc.) Right now, the suits are just operational costs against an otherwise profitable business. That’s not a deterrent.
Duke of Clay
Check out the concept “the banality of evil” from Hannah Arendt. No, Tensing is not a “monster” or a demon — he’s a person who murdered a man in cold blood and then tried to cover it up. That is evil.
? Martin
@singfoom:
States would just bail out the pensions. Even die-hard Republicans go to bat for police unions/pensions.
Zandar
And this from the Hamiton Co. Prosecutor’s Office: no charges against the other two officers who originally corroborated Tensing’s story.
White Trash Liberal
@Duke of Clay:
The banality digs even deeper when the local media tries to add a hagiographic varnish in order to defend policing as an institution.
singfoom
@? Martin: Well, it’s worth a try. There’s no incentive right now for the police to make sure each other don’t pull shit. I’m sure there are multiple ways to change the incentives. Perhaps requiring the police union to fund a legal fund and pull the money out of there.
Your point regarding people supporting police unions (even when they hate EVERY other union) is well taken, but there’s got to be a way to change the incentives here.
Cacti
My least favorite defense for a killer:
“Just think of all those people he didn’t kill.”
singfoom
@Zandar: This is why we can’t have nice things. They fucking LIED about a man’s death. Is that not perjury?
Xboxershorts
In the meantime:
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/07/sc-cop-killed-teen-with-two-shots-to-the-back-during-weed-bust-and-didnt-even-report-it-attorney/
White kid shot in the back by undercover cop during marijuana sting…dead.
It’s this fucking drug war crap.
END THIS FUCKING DRUG WAR
J R in WV
@J R in WV:
So they were honest AFTER they saw the video?
Not cool, not good at all. Should be an example made, tell the truth before you see the video, or go down. We need cops to tell the truth even if there isn’t a body-cam, or cell cam.
Look at the folks in North Charleston, SC. They were wrapping up the black man goes mad, attacks armed and dangerous cop with bare hands story. Testimony from all the cops was, the victim was hostile and dangerous, about to attack the cop who shot him 5 or 6 times in the back.
But then the cell phone video comes along, and suddenly, oh my, I made a mistake in my testimony!!!
No dirtbag, you lied about a murder, and you need to be prosecuted for that.
If I lie to a cop, they’ll put me away, and confiscate all the property I worked hard for. But if a cop lies until the video shows up, no big deal, paid vacation during the “investigation”?
NO, not gonna work for me.
WereBear
To me, the fact he did this knowing his body cam was recording the whole thing speaks whole libraries about the training and attitudes that makes for “good cops.”
Another Holocene Human
@lowercase steve: That was sick.
Another Holocene Human
@the Conster: Maybe Hilary can appoint him to run FBI. God knows he can’t do any worse than the last two decades of shitty leadership.
Another Holocene Human
Wait … Larry Wilmore just said that UC cops aren’t allowed to carry Tasers.
Think about that for a minute. (And no Fruitvale defense this time.)
burnspbesq
@the Conster:
Except that they stopped lying when they were put under oath in front of the grand jury. And the incident reports aren’t executed under penalty of perjury.
If you want them indicted for obstruction of justice, feel free to explain how you plan to prove every element of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt in front of a mostly white jury.
bupalos
@Paul in KY: That’s fine as far as it goes. What I really mean is that I don’t think that this situation was created by putting a particularly bad or ill-trained or mendacious cop into it, and can’t be solved by trying to get all of the particularly bad or ill-trained or mendacious cops off the beat. That’s how Deters is acting, like this is just an anomaly of a person that “never should have been a cop.”
When you’ve got a system that itself devalues and massively over-punishes a particular group, you’d have to staff it with angels for this not to happen.I’d much rather see this particular cop get off lighter (like maybe 10 years) and the system itself get slammed (independent oversight, laws that give motorists more rights, cameras (that police cannot review without independent oversight), less regressive traffic penalties…) Because I don’t think this guy is likely any more defective than the next. It’s just an attitude thing and a numbers thing.
mai naem mobile
Tensing looked scared shitless at the court hearing. He just looked like he was hoping he was in some kind of Twilight Zone episode and everything was going to be okay once he woke up from it.
Laertes
@WereBear:
Or it suggests that he expected that body camera evidence unfavorable to cops would be quietly destroyed.
WereBear
@bupalos: Excellent points. Sky high financial penalties for small traffic offenses makes drivers panic and do stupid things, too.
Another Holocene Human
@bupalos:
What do you mean, “by all accounts”? I’ve seen no evidence he was a good cop. Frankly, when somebody says “campus police” I’m immediately suspicious because in my experience their hiring and retention standards are just plain lower than municipal forces.
From the newspaper puff piece apparently he dreamed of being a statie. Well, he isn’t a statie. Wonder why. Don’t you?
Cacti
@singfoom:
It’s worse than that. It’s likely perjury, falsification, and conspiracy.
bupalos
@Paul in KY: Yeah, I’m not arguing he’s particularly good. I just think this kind of situation can and does happen without particularly “bad” cops being involved at all. I think stress+boredom+racism/classism+irritation+power+lack of oversight, multiplied x number of times = y number of egreious fuckups. And the best way to reduce y is not to try and find better people.
? Martin
@J R in WV:
Eyewitness accounts are effectively useless. It’s difficult to ascribe motive in these cases. I’m not suggesting that police don’t lie, but its nearly impossible to differentiate in some of these cases.
shell
@Lavocat: What I find bizarre is, and its even in this article, the mention of Tensing quitting the State Police after one day and but no explanation or question why.
Belafon
I’m going to be charitable and say that they probably just copied what the other guy said. Which means they should be reprimanded and demoted to picking up garbage.
I’m going to be cynical and say that the people on the grand jury decided that one person being punished is enough. No, no it isn’t.
Another Holocene Human
@Hal: Translation: they called those LA cops racist. Don’t call my buddy racist.
bupalos
@Another Holocene Human:
“From the newspaper puff piece apparently he dreamed of being a statie. Well, he isn’t a statie. Wonder why. Don’t you?”
Not really. He’s 25 years old. I have no doubt he would have been a Statie at some point, if he hadn’t just made himself reservations at the Greybar Hotel.
Again, I just think the idea that these things happen because of “bad cops” is overdone. A good cop having a bad day can do it too. The incentives and punishments and oversight and pervasive cultural attitude are just all wrong.
gian
@WereBear:
Our citizens somehow think government services should come without taxes.
So fines which are targeted on the “other” bring in the revenue
West of the Cascades
@J R in WV: One of the other cop’s (Eric Weibel’s) written report seems honest at the time, not just after he saw the video. Read it carefully (http://www.wlwt.com/blob/view/-/34322560/data/3/-/lc30r5z/-/Incident-Report–Fatal-shooting-of-Samuel-Dubose-by-UC-officer.pdf) … Weibel is mostly reporting what Tensing told him, not anything that he (Weibel) observed first-hand. The only first-hand observation Weibel provides is that he (Weibel) “could see that the back of his [Tensing’s] pants and shirt looked as if it had been dragged over a rough surface” — the closest Weibel comes to backing up Tensing’s story. I’m not sure if I were on a grand jury that I would find this sufficient to say Weibel committed perjury.
But the other officer, Kidd, is quoted in Weibel’s report as saying that he (Kidd) “witnessed the Honda Accord drag Officer Tensing, and that he witnessed Officer Tensing fire a single shot.” If Kidd said that, he was lying, and probably should have been indicted.
bupalos
@WereBear:
Yeah one of the most unjust things we do in this country is have flat traffic penalties at levels that are totally inconsequential to people of means, but can be the difference between making and missing the mortgage or rent payment that gets them put out on the pavement to people without means. And that changes how each of those groups reacts to the possibility.
Lavocat
@Frankensteinbeck: I’ve often said to family and friends that IF I RAN THE WORLD (or at least my own media), shit would be 180 degrees different.
First, ANYONE killed by a cop would not only be presumed innocent but murdered in cold blood;
Second, THE MURDERED PERSON would ONLY be praised and lauded and characterized in positive ways REGARDLESS of ANY negative things they have EVER done in their lives;
Third, THE MURDERING COP would ONLY be criticized and his ENTIRE LIFE, inclusive of EVERY BAD THINGS HE/SHE EVER DID would be fair game and repeated over and over and over again; and
Fourth, ANYONE pointing out that MY way of doing things in reporting in this way would be an instant target to pillory in the mainstream media as being PRO-COP and ANTI-HUMAN RIGHTS.
Fuck ’em all.
If I were a black man, I would have been murdered a long time ago, because there is just NO WAY IN HELL I would not pick up a weapon and make my extreme anger and frustration with this broken system known.
Also, isn’t there a Dr. Seuss book called “If I Ran The World?” If there isn’t, there should be.
Lavocat
@dogwood: If this murdering racist is acquitted, I’m pretty sure that Cincinnati is going to burn. And, I will do everything in my power to get my ass there to WATCH IT BURN!
mai naem mobile
@bupalos: it all goes back to the GOP mantra of no new taxes,low taxes and tax cuts forevah! You get the cities stuck with not being able to make their expenses so you end up with.these stupid traffic/parking and other nuisance tickets to create a revenue stream.
raven
“If”
“Watch”
what fucking joke
Cacti
Now that this cop has been indicted, the first thing his lawyers will do is move for a change of venue to a white suburb, ex-urb, or rural area.
Because as we all know, only white juries are capable of giving accused cops a “fair trial”.
Cacti
@mai naem mobile:
My favorite overreach by the NYPD in reaction to their bad publicity was their decision to teach Bill De Blasio a lesson by not writing tickets…
Only to discover that no one was going to storm City Hall to demand the cops write them more tickets.
So they quietly went back to their revenue enhancement duties, lest the empty coffers put some of them out of jobs.
raven
I think that police official that was on the tube making all kinds of pronouncements about him will help him in a trial.
Ruckus
Lot of good points given here. And a couple not so great.
Our policing structure is not good. That it has to come down to a few good apples not to get shot, tazed, beaten for being a POC, that police shoot far more people in this country than others, that huge settlements do little to nothing to change the situation, that some areas the police collect huge sums as quasi tax collectors, that cops really do have the authority of the gallows and exercise it way too often……
The idea that we should live in an authoritarian society, wasn’t that what we were supposed to be fighting when we were fighting communism, or is that just a bad word that allows the MIC to profit?
We can’t look at this as a few bad cops. Maybe as a few good cops but not as only a few bad apples. And I don’t think we can look at it as all the cops fault either. We allowed this to happen, or didn’t stop it, even if we didn’t recognize that it was happening. It’s political, through and through. And it won’t be fixed by taking cops pensions, or better prosecutors or talking about it. It is the structure of our society, the racism, taxation by gun, the media, and yes evangelism, they all play a part. It is a good percentage of us, the citizens that not only allow this but encourage it.
Ella in New Mexico
I keep seeing the same terrible scenario replay in all these cop killings. Individuals with absolutely no tools to deal with the public being given the power to kill anyone they deem a threat.
Even if he wasn’t a monster, he clearly had shitty training and must have been operating in a culture that rationalizes lethal force for all perceived threats. Plus, he obviously was so scared just doing an everyday traffic stop he probably wet his diaper before he even walked up to the car–his adrenaline pumping literally froze his frontal lobe pause button so his twitchy trigger finger acted before thinking. But where did that whole mindset really start? Not just at that scene.
Too little attention is being paid to the individual cops that commit these killings and not enough on the lack of qualifications for applicants, inadequate education and training of LEO’s, and the widespread paranoid mindset of our police forces in America.
BR
Dumb question — a friend is debating with his family and friends about policing, and the standard response he gets is “the police deserve our support, without them the murder rate in Baltimore is skyrocketing” and other usual right-wing nonsense. What’s a good way of getting through (or at least shutting up) a right-winger spouting that sort of stuff?
(I don’t debate right wingers on this stuff ever so I have no idea. I gave him lots of factual arguments, but I know that makes no difference.)
Tommy
@raven: I was kind of stunned by how direct the DA was. It seems to me that was refreshing. But I wonder if being that blunt might not be a positive for his trial.
scav
Ah, it’s all OK then. Coach! says it’s all just a little whoops! No biggie, no prob. What’s a little splattered brains over a minor traffic violation when we’re talking a little boy’s dream of policing?!
Another Holocene Human
@gvg: The casualness with which they execute Black people on the street is what gets me. I knew it was going on, but I guess I imagined something different. And now I’ve seen it.
Pie Happens (opiejeanne)
@Another Holocene Human: It’s not just black people. In Seattle it was a NA crossing the street.
http://www.colorlines.com/articles/seattle-cop-resigns-after-native-american-mans-killing-ruled-unjustified
Belafon
@BR: Why Baltimore and not, say, Montpelier? And would they be OK with a cop shooting their kid in the head if he attempted to drive away from a stop?
For the most part, it’s kind of hard to argue with people whose livelihoods depend on ignoring the advantages of their skin color.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tommy: Why would you say that?
evodevo
@mai naem mobile: I would be too, if I had f&*ked up as badly as he did – he’s looking at 10-20 in a for-profit prison system where most of the inmates are minority. Good luck living long if you aren’t kept in solitary the whole time.
Tommy
@Omnes Omnibus: The whole innocent until proven guilty. Now given the DA is bringing charges so they think they have a case. Kind of the point of their office. But I can see how a defense attorney will say their client was rail roaded and never had a chance.
BR
@Belafon:
He’s in the suburbs in Maryland, which is probably why Baltimore is the point of discussion — the Baltimore PD has been sort of not doing their job lately (I guess in protest?).
Yeah, I agree it’s probably not possible to get them to see it. I wonder though if there’s a nice way of shutting him down through mockery…
boatboy_srq
@Lavocat: I think a lot of the Reichwing freakout over recent events stems from the cold impersonal videos that very clearly give the lie to all the various knee-jerk reactions. The stopped person didn’t really do anything wrong; the cop obviously behaved like a jerk; it’s all there in the footage and they can’t handle that. Reichwing lizard brains just can’t grok that their illusions are not real, and that the nice police officer would do a thing like that (or that the scary blah person would be just minding his/her own business until the “nice police officer” went b#tsh!t on him/her for no reason). They cannot handle it when their illusions are punctured so thoroughly.
evodevo
@shell: Yeah. That. Ohio State Police (also known as “flying tire salesmen” after the logo that used to b e on their cars) aren’t very discriminating, but something must have tipped them off, or someone suggested that he wasn’t Statie material and he should get out quick. I’d like to be a fly on the wall when that resignation was handed in.
Another Holocene Human
@bupalos: Well, for the record I reject your argument. I don’t think it’s training. You can train for a lot of things but you can’t train out a personality disorder. They’re ingrained. You weed those fuckers out at hiring and probation. You also create an environment–and this is the one point where we agree–where their behavior is not tolerated. But even so, environment will not stop a truly motivated criminal mind. Even good PDs have had rapists and murderers in their ranks. But in today’s environment of shoddy hiring and personnel practices (giving good evals and recs to people “asked to resign” for being terrible, just for one awful example), of militarization and permissiveness towards confrontation and police brutality, yes, you get people doing shit they never would have done in a different environment.
But training and even prosecution will never do the job that hiring and firing must do.
Not only do we have the wrong culture, we’re hiring the wrong people, and the cop management is gutless, feckless, and incompetent.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: What did you think?
Another Holocene Human
@Pie Happens (opiejeanne): Too right, I should have said POC. Native Americans get killed by police at horrific rates.
gelfling545
@Knowbody: In what way would absence of a camera have improved this situation? Apparently some people would rather have nothing if they can’t have everything immediately. I personally welcome any steps taken toward a more just system. Police knowing that they can and will be prosecuted is a beginning.
scav
@Another Holocene Human: Also, the casualness of the whole not bothering with medical attention when dealing with suspects or vicems, the lying about events and evidence, even with video and photographic evidence to the contrary, the todder-like canned defenses trotted out, the fact that they bloody keep doing it despite knowing people are playing closer attention. That all speaks to some engrained, systematic culture and mindset of their being somehow above the law and the only part of the justice system that matters.
Belafon
@BR: The only reason my mom votes Democrat is because of Reagain. She’s your standard racist – she has black friends and coworkers, but all the rest off the blacks are dangerous – and so I tried to tie the struggles of blacks to those of women. Totall went over her head.
Tommy
@gelfling545: Yes. What I find so telling is without the video this wouldn’t have ever happened. Meaning an arrest of the officer. The two other officers that showed up backed up their fellow officer 110%. I like to think I am loyal to my fellow co-workers but not if you kill or abuse somebody.
Lavocat
@boatboy_srq: The greatest thing that can happen to the American electorate is the passage of time, as we all become a browner nation. When whites are, at best, in a plurality, watch how quickly and substantively shit is going to change.
And, as a white person, while I am hopeful for the “browner future”, I am ashamed at the fact that current white culture, at least in part, clearly does not give a damn.
Or, as I like to tell the older Republican members of my family: America will become a better place … when you all die off.
trollhattan
@evodevo:
There are usually psych screenings and while proto-cops typically (IIUC) try for larger departments with better contracts and opportunities for advancement first, many are weeded out and migrate to ever smaller and more rural (i.e., less wealthy and undermanaged) departments until they find work. This is why I’m at my most cautious with rural county sheriffs.
BR
@Belafon:
That’s kind of disturbing, but I guess it’s not uncommon… Oh well.
Ohio Mom
@mai naem mobile: Yes, Tensing looked completely petrified standing there in his horizontal striped outfit. It’s clear he’s been in over his head for years now, maybe even his whole, life and now he knows he’s about to drown. He is one poor shmuck.
On another note, as a daily subscriber to The Enquirer, I often say one is LESS informed after reading it than before. It’s good for things like updates on road closings, announcements about the opening and closing of restaurants, and that sort of thing, but I am very careful about how I read the actual news articles.
So for example, if it is an article about what is happening in the local schools, I’ll read that because I am already moderately informed and won’t fall for any of the rubbish that they are sure to include. But if it is a topic I know nothing about, I’m very careful about what I take away because I have no way of judging the veracity of anything that was included in the article.
I often imagine this is what living in the old Soviet Union and having to rely on the Tass for news was like.
trollhattan
@gelfling545:
For one thing, we’d all be talking about Trump and that lion-killing douche as though this had never occurred. (Troll didn’t even have a point to make, but evidently had a minimum number of word things to post today. We need moar, better trolls. Just not LGM Jenny.)
AnonPhenom
All the pleas for the public to ‘please, please, please understand that police officers are just human beings trying their very, very, very best to do a very, very, very difficult job’ might be a little more convincing if it were not obvious that they will never do anything to clean up their own house without being forced to. Ever.
Need a clue Chief? Start here.
Betty Cracker
Another video has surfaced of the same cop harassing motorists for no good reason. [Buzzfeed]
gelfling545
@Lavocat: It’s If I Ran the Zoo which, if you think about it, is close.
Tommy
@AnonPhenom: It appears he shot a man in the head because he didn’t have a license plate and put his hand on the door of his car. I can be pretty forgiving of a lot of stuff but nothing here.
Kay
@bupalos:
I don’t know why they’re pointing to Police Explorers, though. It doesn’t mean anything at all. They direct traffic at community events, and even that is under supervision. It just isn’t a measure of his skill as a police officer. 99% of them here don’t become police officers because they’re just filling in the “volunteer” line on their college app. It used to be under the Boy Scouts although I don’t know if it still is.
Including that as a testimonial makes me doubt the whole thing. It’s like defending on child abuse by saying you had a babysitting job in high school. “Obviously I was committed and highly skilled with children”.
WereBear
Considering how incredibly resistant some people are to any kind of change, they make it sadly so.
Over the weekend I was reading firsthand accounts of how people respond to hyphenated last names when a couple marries. One person mentioned how much flak they got thirty years ago… and they were followed up with people talking about how it created serious problems for them… last year.
@trollhattan: This sort of problem is also what those tests and evaluations are supposed to weed out: bullies and psychopaths.
Of course, to some people, that’s what they think they want in a LEO.
singfoom
@Betty Cracker: It looks like Tensing, but he never identifies himself. An infuriating video to watch. He clearly wanted to get the passenger out of the car so he could arrest him for “resisting arrest” or something. No reason to do that since the reason they stopped was about the car and they should have dealt with the driver. Ridiculous.
Total asshole OBEY ME OR ELSE mindset behavior. People with that kind of attitude shouldn’t be police.
coin operated
@burnspbesq:
Ain’t that a fine double standard. They use the hell out of those incident reports to coerce admissions of guilt.
ruemara
@Knowbody: just in case no one directed you, fuck off and die.
Tree With Water
@J R in WV: @Lavocat: You could as well say the world could scarcely be in much worse shape come the day the current generations ALL die off. I like your phrasing better, too, but there it is..