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Bark louder, little dog.

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Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

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That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

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Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

No one could have predicted…

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

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Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Criminal Justice / Shitty Cops / The Worst Person In The World

The Worst Person In The World

by | 70 Comments

This post is in: 

Think of this as a bookend to John’s post below.  This isn’t a problem of a few bad apples.  Police violence against people of color occurs within a culture of contempt for people of color.  How else to explain the head of the Chicago  [errr…] Cleveland* police union’s decision to rub yet more salt in the wounds of Tamir Rice’s family:

Cleveland Police Patrolman Association President Steve Loomis issued a statement on Monday afternoon saying that “something positive must come from this tragic loss.”

“We can only hope the Rice family and their attorneys will use a portion of this settlement to help educate the youth of Cleveland in the dangers associated with the mishandling of both real and facsimile firearms,” Loomis said in the statement.

Yo!  Officer Loomis.  There was some definite mishandling of firearms in the context of Rice’s death.  All of it by your cops.

Master_of_the_Karlsruhe_Passion_001

How about you take some of that taxpayer cash that pays your salary and use it to acquire a very rusty farm implement.

Which you can then use upon your nether regions.

Sideways.

Seriously.  How much of a stone racist asshole do you have to be to insist, again, that it is the Black kid’s fault that he interrupted a bullet with his body?  How much of just a miserable human being do you have to be to choose this day and this vicious line of attack to add to the pain Tamir Rice’s family will never leave behind?

I can’t even.

There is a personal cruelty here that is contemptible.  A civilized society would spit on the street whenever Mr. Loomis passes by.

*Because all those midwestern “C” cities sound alike when you’re so pissed off you can’t see.

Image:  Master of the Karlsruhe Passion, Capture of Jesus Christ, c. 1450.

 

Reader Interactions

70Comments

  3. 3.

    Mnemosyne

    IIRC, the air gun didn’t even belong to Rice, because his mother didn’t want him playing with guns. He borrowed it from a friend. So, um, what exactly was the Rice family supposed to fucking do, prevent their son from having friends?

  4. 4.

    JCJ

    Horrible.

    head of the Chicago police union

    Although the head of the Chicago police union is also scum, I believe it was the Cleveland police union head that said this.

    ETA: no idea why that second block quote is there

  6. 6.

    Quaker in a Basement

    Cleveland police union. Not Chicago.

    And I hope Loomis will use part of his salary to buy a freakin’ clue.

  7. 7.

    BR

    Still seems important to me that in each of these settlements we should push for reforms that take the settlement money out of overtime and bonuses for police brass in the department. The taxpayers shouldn’t suffer reduced services just because the police dept can’t get its act together.

    Edit: and any other perks they get like take home cars, etc.

  8. 8.

    LAO

    I’m too lazy to employ Google tonight but it’s my recollection that the shooter should never have been hired by the Cleveland PD (he’d been let go by some other smaller department with psych issues?). My biggest problem with the police union is, will there never be a officer involved shooting that they won’t defend. Because this shooting was indefensible. I would pay good money to turn back time and choose not to watch the execution of a child.

  10. 10.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Tom, I think you mean Cleveland, not Chicago.

    (Not that Chicago doesn’t deserve to be called out too.)

    ETA: As a whole bunch of people noted before I commented.

  11. 11.

    Mike J

    What really pisses me off about this is all the people who have said the cop did nothing wrong while at the same time complaining that schools don’t let kids play with toy guns on the playground.

  13. 13.

    ConfirmationBiasIsAFemaleDog

    I have watched close personal friends bury two of their children. I can’t even bring myself to mention those kids’ names around them. I don’t know what the hell could be wrong with a person that he’d drag parents through that pain again. If anything is going to help the most radical voices in this debate it is the callous behavior of police and their representatives. It’s hard to argue police aren’t racist and unaccountable when the union leadership they select is racist and unaccountable.

  14. 14.

    Lyrebird

    There is a Justice for Tamir fundraising site here:
    https://www.youcaring.com/samaria-rice-494325

    Does anyone have other organizations they might recommend chipping in to, not that it brings Tamir or Trayvon or (the young black man murdered by the white man who did not like his music) back, but to support the statement that their lives did TOO matter…?

  15. 15.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @LAO: Union membership pays dues to their union, the union defends them(right or wrong). It’s what pisses alot of people off about unions in general and has for years.

    ETA: That said, this union president should take Tom’s suggested use of a rusty farm implement.

  16. 16.

    ? Martin

    @Mnemosyne:

    So, um, what exactly was the Rice family supposed to fucking do, prevent their son from having friends?

    Considering the cities that had ordinances calling groups of 4 or more teenagers a ‘gang’ (coincidentally, never 4 white kids) and allowing police to break them up, then yes, preventing him from having friends was always part of the plan.

  18. 18.

    ConfirmationBiasIsAFemaleDog

    @LAO: That is the leadership police choose for their unions. They also refuse to police their own ranks. Loomis is what they want.

  19. 19.

    SFAW

    @Mnemosyne:

    So, um, what exactly was the Rice family supposed to fucking do, prevent their son from having friends?

    No, prevent him from being black, since that probably has a higher correlation to police-induced lead poisoning.

  23. 23.

    scav

    “Take all that money we gave you for utterly not doing anything wrong, and use it to explain to everyone what your dead kid did to deserve our shooting him. Now thank us for not charging you for the bullets and the dry-cleaning the blood on our uniforms. Love, your Friendly Boys in Blue.”

  25. 25.

    max

    Seriously. How much of a stone racist asshole do you have to be to insist, again, that it is the Black kid’s fault that he interrupted a bullet with his body? How much of just a miserable human being do you have to be to choose this day and this vicious line of attack to add to the pain Tamir Rice’s family will never leave behind?

    Fault? It rather sounds like he thinks the kid got away with using a toy gun in park by getting himself shot.

    max
    [‘In fact, I suspect he like to dig the kid up and charge him with resisting arrest or something.’]

  26. 26.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Mnemosyne: Actually, that’s what I’m getting at; where defending the union member is everything, including pissing on the family of the victim. I’ve seen it happen over and over again, and it doesn’t help with the general public’s perception of unions in general.

  28. 28.

    NorthLeft12

    These judgements where the party that pays out millions of dollars but does not admit fault make me sick. The most important thing I learned from being a Christian is to admit fault, ask for forgiveness, and atone in some way for the sin/mistake.
    Perhaps that might just prove that the US government/society/legal system is not based on Christian principles. Not that those clueless right wing nuts will ever admit it.

  31. 31.

    LAO

    @NorthLeft12:

    Perhaps that might just prove that the US government/society/legal system is not based on Christian principles.

    It’s not based on Christian principles.

  32. 32.

    The Dangerman

    Hold on. Timeout.

    …in the dangers associated with the mishandling of both real and facsimile firearms…

    While this shooting is basically indefensible, I do think we need to remember this “facsimile” had its orange tip removed. That is “mishandling”, no?

  33. 33.

    NorthLeft12

    BTW, if there are any policemen reading these comments…it is douchebaggy statements like the head of the police union made that result in even lower levels of respect for officers everywhere.

    And also, why do the victims have to give up any of their settlement to do that? What is it with privileged white people and their attitude wrt legal settlements? Like those victims somehow won the effing lottery and have to do something “good” with it to prove that they are good people? Screw him. Really.

  37. 37.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @efgoldman: No, for the same reason you can’t sue the federal government because you don’t like your money being used to support wars or social programs. The answer is voting.

  39. 39.

    JMG

    Of all people, Calvin Coolidge showed how to deal with police unions. Take all sorts of actions to provoke a strike, then break the strike. I assume Cleveland has a Democratic mayor and government. Start targeting the police union asshole for everything this side of littering and maybe even that. Then when he freaks out, tell the membership any job action equals you have no job.

  40. 40.

    BR

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Someone needs to get it added to the BLM platform — something that says that police brass need to have skin in the game, so they need to combine the pool of money for their perks/bonus/overtime with the pool of money used to pay settlements from police misbehavior anywhere in their ranks. Just as a CEO shouldn’t get a multimillion dollar bonus when the business tanks (though I know it happens anyway), a police chief shouldn’t get a bunch of perks in a year where the officers have violated the community’s civil rights and had to pay out huge sums.

  42. 42.

    The Ancient Randonneur

    We’ve got to get rid of law enforcement unions. People who can take your liberty or your life should not have collective bargaining rights. Why should law enforcement be treated differently than the military?

  45. 45.

    hovercraft

    So my link got lost somewhere.
    As far as this dickhead is concerned I think these police unions need to remember that their members sign up for one of the more dangerous professions voluntarily. You must exercise caution in the course of doing your job, but that does not extend to being afraid of every big black scary man/boy you see (yes I exaggerate). This bullshit about they “felt threatened” has to stop. I know that I find alot of things scary, but I’m not a cop. I expect every cop to want to go home every day, but they also have to accept the risk inherent in their choice of career.
    The number of cops killed in the line of duty has dropped precipitously, but the numbers of deaths caused by cops is still too high.

  47. 47.

    Amaranthine RBG

    Seriously. How much of a stone racist asshole do you have to be to insist, again, that it is the Black kid’s fault that he interrupted a bullet with his body?

    Wow, so the cops just shot this kid for no reason? That’s outrageous.

  49. 49.

    hovercraft

    I don’t want to see more cops get killed, but some of them need to stop being so godamn twitchy. Stop take a breath, 2 seconds is awful.

  53. 53.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Amaranthine RBG: @BillinGlendaleCA: @rikyrah: Ohio is an open carry state. That means someone could legally stand in a park with a gun in his hand. Even if Rice had a real gun, there was no evidence that he was violating any law. The cop saw a black kid with a gun and shot him without a second thought.

  54. 54.

    Amaranthine RBG

    @Omnes Omnibus: So there was just some kid in the park not doing anything suggesting a threat and the police rolled up and shot him? That’s outrageous. There should be criminal charges, not just some civil settlement.

  58. 58.

    The Ancient Randonneur

    @Omnes Omnibus: Yes they should be different. But that doesn’t change the fact that both organization are granted special powers. That alone should disqualify them from having collective bargaining rights. Police unions, racist policing tactics and unequal enforcement are a toxic mix.

  59. 59.

    hovercraft

    @BR:
    Yes I know, I’ve seen the stats, but the union always makes this claim. I’m trying to make the point that as it is considered a dangerous profession it does actually involve taking some risk.

  60. 60.

    Linnaeus

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    Union membership pays dues to their union, the union defends them(right or wrong). It’s what pisses alot of people off about unions in general and has for years.

    To be fair, a lot of those people don’t understand the process or why it is done.

  62. 62.

    Summer

    He’s got a supportive audience, judging by the comments on Cleveland.com. I think my soul has been a little destroyed tonight reading them.

  64. 64.

    scav

    There’s defending all individual cops’ actions, indiscriminately, versus defending the overall reputation of cops, which should, over the long haul, improve cop-citizen relations. It was entirely possible for this union representative to keep his gob shut on this particular occasion. This was entirely gratuitous bullshit on his part; if police as a whole have any interest in the PR end of their union representation, they could generally do better than the ones that have granted the official union megaphones.

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