Undercover cops show up to serve a warrant on someone else, encounter a man who we now know had a TBI recently, don’t do one damned thing to de-escalate the situation, and then shoot him dead for no reason in front of his family. And shit is about to blow up if this becomes widely seen:
@MSNBC ther was NO items on ground BOTH items com out at same time whtv they r came frm cop #KeithLamontScott pic.twitter.com/jo3ZwuszDs
— Katie K #JillNotHill (@KightKatie) September 23, 2016
This stinks. We have a serious policing problem in this country.
germy
So many shootings it’s difficult to keep up.
The window was closed.
Lyrebird
Thank you JGC.
Saw the RawStory article and came over here hoping for some relevant thread.
…
moment of silence observed,
now let’s PLEASE DO SOMETHING!
Could we have Camp David retreat with, like, Mrs. Castile (Philando’s mom), his fiancee, the mom of the Baton Rouge murder victim, the Dallas Chief of Police, Loretta Lynch, and Obama?
ETA: left out Mrs. Scott bc it’s too damn soon.
Fair Economist
So the Charlotte PD was at least tampering with evidence, and everybody up to at least the police chief is involved in a conspiracy to cover it up.
SiubhanDuinne
Hillary is right. This is unbearable.
SP
Black medical gloves?
aimai
This fucking world. this FUCKING world. That poor woman! I can’t believe this fucking shit.
Anoniminous
Yup and it’s not going to change in the foreseeable future. A subset of the police are psychopathic killers and those who aren’t don’t care.
karen marie
@germy: Her acquittal is baked in – “she was in fear.” That’s all the jury needs to hear — and it’s the fucking PROSECUTOR telling them that. There ain’t no justice, and there won’t be for a long, long time. I don’t know what it’s going to take for justice to exist in this country but I despair that it will be in my lifetime or ever.
hovercraft
@SiubhanDuinne:
Unbearable, and yet it must be borne. We must keep fighting till our sons and daughters are as free to move around this country as everyone else.
Miss Bianca
I can’t watch these things. I can’t listen to one more plea from one more woman for some asshole cop not to shoot her husband or her boyfriend. I admire the courage and presence of mind these women have in recording the event. Maybe I owe it to them to bear witness….but I cannot bear to see the evidence of one more black person’s life snuffed out by some LEO. It’s like a snuff movie to me. I just…don’t know what to do with this stuff.
D58826
Interesting discussion on MSNBC. They ran the wife’s video and stopped at certain points. Early in the video there was nothing on the ground. Later in the video several objects appear on the ground. What are those objects and how did they get there? Would not be the first time the cops planted evidence to CYA.
Patricia Kayden
@Miss Bianca: I can’t watch them either. But I looked up TMI and figured out that it stands for “Traumatic Brain Injury” which he suffered in a motorcycle accident.
What an awful way to die. You’re sitting in your car waiting for your child to come home and here come the killer cops. Then you get shot down for absolutely no reason and the cops don’t even want to release their videos because it would “inflame” people as if your death isn’t enough to inflame us.
Kryptik
@Anoniminous:
Lets be fair. There are some who care. The problem is that the top-down culture within the police departments will regularly punish those who don’t “play ball” and quickly turn them into ex-cops in some way. And that’s the big problem: there’s an institutional rot that starts from the top that either encourages this or sweeps everything under the rug to both justify their own positions and keeps the subordinates in line. It’s a bunch of organized, officially-sanctioned crime rackets either working under the surface of legitimate institutions or cannibalizing them from the inside. And far too often, they either encourage the good cops to look the other way or to look for another job, under the pretense of the ‘thin blue line’ and ‘brotherhood’.
piratedan
what I find to be extremely troubling is, if its scared white people (an assumption, I could be very wrong here) buying all of the guns because of
A) Obama!
B) Tyranny!
C) Freedoms!
D) all of the above
why is it that LEO’s, who apparently are in fear 24/7 while on the job are shooting black people when white people are the ones with the guns?
Patricia Kayden
@D58826: Katie K’s tweet strongly suggests that the cops dropped objects on the ground to justify the shooting. The Justice Department needs to be involved with this investigation since those NC police are garbage.
JR in WV
That’s pretty horrific. Those people – the cops – have something seriously wrong with them, and someone in charge needs to do something strong about it.
As far as I can see we have terrorists among us, camouflaged as real Americans, dressed like us, but not believing in America. They’re called cops, and they shoot people for no reason, anytime they decide they need to. Totally back each other up no matter what. They let the bad cops among them drag all the good cops down to their level.
Way more people killed by the police than by the ISIS, around here. 990 last year, 707+ so far this year, according to the WaPost.
Maybe the Feds need to start taking these cops away to their Cuban vacation place and getting confessions about the truth of these killings. Treat these cops like the criminal terrorists they are, separated from one another the moment a gun goes off, interrogated for 6 months, until they all look guilty as sin.
After a few hundred go down, maybe this shit would stop.
D58826
@Kryptik: Saw an article the other day that proves your point. A cop, ex-Marine, responded to a call of man with a gun. He was in the process of talking the man down. His backup arrived, jumped out of their cars and opened fire, killing the man. The ex-marine cop was fired for ‘putting a police officer in danger’ by not being the first to shoot. THe victim was surprise surprise black
bystander
I was so surprised by the number of police organizations that endorsed Trump. (No emojis with the revamp, I notice.)
Arm The Homeless
Brazen ass mutha’fuckas, just tossin’out shit into their own crime scene. You gotta wonder whether the city knew this video existed, before they started giving their blatant lies about, “Crazed negro had a gun!!”
Whata fuckin’disgrace
rdldot
@D58826: @Patricia Kayden: In the second closeup video It looks like the cop to the left is the one that is tossing things on the ground. I looks like he has both hands going through something. From a distance I thought the one object looked like a gun, but close up it doesn’t to me. It looks like paper to me, but it’s dark in the video.
hovercraft
It really pisses me off when the apologists tell me that the police have a very dangerous job, and they just want to go home to their families st the end of the day. That’s all everyone wants, and last time I checked no one held a gun to your head and forced you to become a police officer, they chose to serve. Our kids don’t chose to be black, and yet they are labeled as suspects, they are presumed guilty of something until they can prove their innocence. This has got to stop, as so many black families are asking ourselves, what are we supposed to tell our kids now? Hands up doesn’t work, moving slowly and deliberately doesn’t work, following ‘orders’ doesn’t work. What do I tell my 10 year old to do if he encounters the police, he’s already big for his age, what do I tell stop him from becoming the next Tamir Rice, he’s a high functioning autistic kid, what if he’s having a bad day, what happens then? This is too much. Knowing this has been happening forever doesn’t make watching these videos any easier, if anything it makes it harder, you imagine it’s someone you love. This is fear that none of us have signed up for.
cynthia ackerman
Pretty sure the items dropped on the ground are exam gloves, dropped by the black officer mid-frame. It looks like the guy on the right reaches into a pocket and hands the gloves (out of frame) to black officer at 2:00, who then drops some. By 2:13, red-shirt has reached down and picked up the dropped gloves and handed them to black officer, who then discards the two which everyone seems to think is tampered evidence. Try watching the YouTube clip at 0.25 speed full screen.
Villago Delenda Est
@germy: We know this because of the blood spatters on the window.
Marianne19
@Miss Bianca: I just had to leave the room because my husband was watching this. It makes me so sad and angry.
geg6
Wow. No wonder they don’t want to release the dash and body cam video.
Mrs. Scott is a fucking rock. I can’t imagine what it took for her to handle that so well. I don’t know what I’d do. Charlotte PD is no better than Cleveland or Chicago or Baltmore or Ferguson PDs. They should all be fired. Every fucking one of them. Because the ones who aren’t involved in this type of shit definitely know who is involved, who is the bad seed and they don’t ever speak up or out. Which makes them no better. So they are all bad cops. All of them.
Miss Bianca
@D58826: I hope to hell that now ex-cop sues the shit out of that police force. But the jury would probably find for the defendants. But still, the man would have a powerful case. I mean…EX-MARINE? You gonna seriously try to maintain that *that* guy wouldn’t know what he was doing in a face-off situation?
JR in WV
And maybe I’m just too angry, because treating the cops as bad as the cops treat us is bad too.
randy khan
I wonder when cops will start to realize that people carry around these handheld devices that allow them to make videos.
I don’t know how much difference it will make in any decision about whether to prosecute the police involved or in getting a conviction, but it sure makes me think that the reason the police chief isn’t releasing the official video is that it does not show what the police want it to show.
TriassicSands
“Most cops are OK…” is rapidly becoming a very questionable proposition. Can we trust the police at all? Sure, some are honest, but when pushed to cover for each other, are the bonds of fellow police officers stronger than individual integrity?
@germy:
It appears that too many police officers are simply too afraid to do their jobs responsibly. It really looks like this officer — Shelby — was so freaked out that she may have pulled the trigger without even being aware of what she was doing. That would be incompetence of the highest order.
@Anoniminous:
I think a bigger problem may be that we have too many police officers who are not psychologically competent to do their job. I doubt if Shelby is a “psychopathic killer,” but it sure looks like she was in way over her head, taking home a paycheck for a job she was utterly unequipped to handle. Is that a crime? When you kill someone unnecessarily, I’d have to say yes.
Villago Delenda Est
@JR in WV: I’m not seeing many ways to alter behavior without cops who fuck up at least spending time in jail for fucking up.
This shit is serious. Basic law and order is breaking down because those who are supposed to be on the front line of maintaining it are actively taking dumps on it, and getting away with it.
The Ancient Randonnuer
You can see the object appear in the wife’s video. Start at 1:55 where nothing is on the ground just to the left of the feet of the black cop. Now watch wife pan slightly to the left then when she moves it back to the right the object is on the ground just to the left side of the cop. I have no idea what it is but it is suspicious.
Mnemosyne
I would send that video to my cousin-in-law the cop, but I can tell you how the conversation would go:
Him: “We can’t pre-judge without the facts, but the cops on the scene say he pulled a gun on them.”
Me: “That’s not what this video shows.”
Him: “Why are you pre-judging before all the facts are in?!? I’m ending this conversation.”
He literally can’t picture a situation where the cops are dishonest or lie. Ever.
Villago Delenda Est
@randy khan: The solution is OBVIOUS; ban the devices that record cops fucking up.
Miss Bianca
@Patricia Kayden: I’ve been in a bad bike accident and had a TBI – just the grace of God that it wasn’t a debilitating TBI – just a coma So the thought that this poor man had to suffer all that, live thru’ it, and then have it become a factor in his death after the fact…it’s just insult to original injury.
Patricia Kayden
@rdldot: With everyone speculating as to what those cops dropped on the ground, this may force the PD to actually release their videos which may provide a clearer account of what exactly happened.
@hovercraft: The only thing that may change this “shoot first” police practice is for police officers to start going to jail for killing when there is no clear threat of danger. Otherwise, we’re going to have “I feared for my life” as the ultimate get-out-of-even-being-fricking-charged excuse for gunning down Black men. Additionally, civilian oversight for police shootings is a must since PDs shouldn’t be able to exonerate their own who engage in serious misconduct.
D58826
AH our esteemed Governor Pat McCorrution is speaking. It’s outrageous the media has not talked about the flooding on the eastern part of the state. Will be pleading for money from Obama before long. According to McCorruption It’s vitally important that the national audience be made aware of the floods. Look I feel sorry for the people affected by the floods but floods are an act of god and there isn’t anything we can do about it. But what happened in Charlotte is human driven. Now he is talking about the performance of the supermen in the police/national guard. This is as bad as Trump’s hotel news conference last week.
Kylroy
@hovercraft: In terms of “dangerous job”, cops are in less than half as much danger as construction workers (in terms of injuries/fatalities per hours worked). Yet nobody takes this to mean we should never question a contractor and put all our faith in the “thin yellow line” that stands between us all and homelessness.
randy khan
@Villago Delenda Est:
I don’t disagree, but it would be a nice start if they would at least lose their jobs, which doesn’t happen in all too many cases.
Damien
I hate to Godwin this thread on a beautiful fall day, but I’m re-reading the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich right now (fantastic book, btw, it’s my fourth time through), and it’s rattling to see the parallels. The Nazi party infiltrated the police early on, allowing the SA to run freehand in violence while cracking down on the undesirable elements. Of course it started out with Communists and the other types that polite German society already barely tolerated in the first place, and then a few years in: Kristallnacht.
It feels like this country always has the genetics for fascism baked in, but good people strived for the more perfect union of all, and now we’re facing down the prospect that all elements are aligned for an abject surrender of our wearying mantel to the easy slavery of a dictator.
hovercraft
@randy khan:
When they start actually start getting charged and convicted for these killings. As long as they know they can just plead “fear” they will continue to kill with impunity. We need national laws dictating when lethal force is warranted.
Lyrebird
@hovercraft: Seeing Sweet Honey in the Rock sing “We Who Believe In Freedom Cannot Rest” live was an amazing moment… may I carry it forward.
hovercraft
@Villago Delenda Est:
Which is what the logical next step in NC new law to make it illegal to release body or dash cam footage.
Patricia Kayden
@randy khan:
Ding ding ding ding ding.
That’s exactly what it is. If it exonerated their officers, they’d have already released it. They’re going to force a grieving family to take them to court and pay lawyers to get a video of their family member being gunned down.
Kylroy
@Villago Delenda Est: The same people who fume at virtually any public servant being coddled for gross incompetence have no problem with cops being wholly shielded from consequences for a fatal inability to do their job.
I don’t bother arguing this in terms of justice with police defenders anymore, they clearly have no interest in it. But few of them are comfortable explaining why bad teachers should be fired but bad cops should be celebrated.
Phylllis
@hovercraft: There’s a local woman with two special needs kids who has started a program called ‘Know My Face’, introducing her children to local law enforcement as well as working to provide LEO’s with training about dealing with special needs kids. I admire her, but I also think it’s damn backwards that she has to go to them, instead of law enforcement making the effort to learn and understand on their own.
Felonius Monk
@D58826: What did you expect from Art Pope’s Rent_An_Asshole?
D58826
OH for f*****K sake, the problem in Charlotte is being caused by outside agitators from out of state in order to cause anarchy and destroy America. This clown hasn’t moved past 1956 when the civil rights marchers were always outside agitators. It was irresponsible for the media to interview people who though a cop might have shot that civilian because Pat knows that a cop would not do something like that. He is also listing how much all of this is costing. But lets face the reality in large parts of America it was
and flooded tobacco fields are much more important.
Knight of Nothing
Horrifying. Shaking and in tears after watching that.
Brachiator
@Villago Delenda Est:
Rachel Maddow was reporting that in NC, a law may soon take effect which will suppress the public revelation of police cam videos.
randy khan
@Villago Delenda Est:
I believe that has been the position taken by many cops. I know people have been arrested for recording encounters between police and citizens, and their devices confiscated. Generally, in the end those arrests are thrown out, but the in terrorem effect is still real.
Betty Cracker
What if the cops’ prime directive changed from “enforce immediate compliance” to “deescalate”?
D58826
@Felonius Monk: Yep I know.
Patricia Kayden
@D58826: How many people were killed in the floods in the eastern shores? Why would that take precedence to an unarmed, disabled Black man being gunned down by the people we pay to serve and protect us or the protests which followed that killing? McCrory seems desperate to change the subject. Dying for November 8th when his behind is voted out of office.
randy khan
@hovercraft:
To be clear, I want them charged and convicted, too. But one reason that they shoot with impunity is that being “cleared” means they can keep their jobs. If there were any meaningful likelihood of some kind of negative impact, there would be at least some incentive to think before shooting.
germy
One (of the many) reasons I don’t follow the sports ball
john b
@Brachiator:
It comes into effect Oct. 1. It seems like they’re trying to slow-walk the release of these videos until they can hide behind that law (which was very unpopular when it was passed earlier this year).
ETA: This is the first day that I actually feel fearful about safety, living a ten minute walk from the center of these recent protests.
Patricia Kayden
@germy:
His “apology” is hilarious and basically consists of “I grew up in Baltimore with Negroes so I couldn’t be racist”. My eyes cannot roll hard enough.
Pogonip
@TriassicSands: She should not have had her finger on the trigger unless she was ready to kill. In my opinion an accidental discharge means you are not (yet) qualified to be armed. I’ve been handling weapons for 30 years and I’ve never had one, because I do not touch the trigger unless I am ready to kill something. This ain’t rocket science. Officer Shelby was scared and rightly so (traffic stops are the most dangerous part of their job), but if she’d been properly trained she could not have shot the guy when she was startled because she would not have been pointing the gun at him with her finger on the trigger unless she had made a conscious decision to kill him. (Such a decision generally has to be made in a split second, and sometimes it’s wrong, but it IS a decision, not an accident.)
Mnemosyne
@Betty Cracker:
I honestly think that would help prevent a whole lot of these incidents. Many of them seem to happen because the person the cop is dealing with is someone who is unable to immediately obey orders — like, say, Mr. Scott with his TBI — and the cop freaks out and kills that person as a threat.
Adam had a link a few nights ago about the guy who’s THE most popular police trainer being a total fraud with a “degree” from a diploma mill, but I can’t find it from my phone.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
Here’s what happens in America if you threaten people with deadly force and you’re white. Linky.
NorthLeft12
As a sidebar to these executions, that are not successfully prosecuted [if at all], I don’t understand how these cops are able to retain their jobs after admitting that they were scared shitless. Their emotional response and their actions because of it should completely disqualify them from ever being police officers who would carry a weapon and have any contact with the public.
Perhaps they could be file clerks, but they should never be allowed near firearms again. Is that so hard to figure out?
Betty Cracker
@Patricia Kayden: They suspended him without pay. Good. I’m sure he’s already screeching about free speech, ignorant, as most wingnuts are, that the First Amendment protects him from the government suppressing his speech, not from suffering the consequences of opening his big fat racist yap.
Pogonip
@randy khan: I don’t know about that, the decision to kill is not generally thoughtfully pondered. You have to decide Yes or No in a second or fractions thereof.
Pogonip
@Phylllis: When we move to a new town I make darn sure the cops know my kid and that he’s harmless.
D58826
Just a few other items. Tailgunner Ted is endorsing Trump. US intelligence has information on meetings between a key Trump aide and top Russian leaders.
hovercraft
@Lyrebird:
Here’s the video.
@Kylroy:
True, and it always bothers me when they are discussing the dangers of being a police officer, they never point out that the numbers of police officers being killed on the job is way down from where they used to be, which is a good thing. Unfortunately we don’t know if the same is true for civilians killed by police, they can’t even be bothered to keep track, like these deaths are unimportant stats. How about we start with that basic stat, tell us how many people you’re killing every year. They have to be held accountable just like the rest of us. We need to know how many people die in police custody, no matter the circumstances. Earlier this week the death of a prisoner who died of dehydration in Trump’s favorite black sheriffs (Dave Johnson’s) jail, was ruled a homicide. He was of course black and mentally ill, but how the hell does that happen in America in 2016?
MomSense
@geg6:
She had no choice but to handle it well and video tape it. She is alive because she handled it well.
? Martin
What’s going to make their lives even harder is that the Gov was being accused of supporting that law in order to cover up police crimes. He signed it after this event and before this video came out. And this video now serves as evidence that yup, that’s exactly why they signed it. I don’t think the actual motivation for the law or the timing of the signing is that clear, but there’s no fucking way now that you can defend against it.
Pogonip
@NorthLeft12: I don’t think they should be punished for honesty. Have you ever gone through one of those pop-up courses where bad guys and good citizens pop up at random? Even that’s scary.
Trollhattan
@Pogonip:
There are no firearm accidents. There’s only firearm misuse.
Calouste
@germy: The Mariners have suspended him for the rest of the season. Of course, with the Mariners, that’s only a week and a half to go.
Neldob
LA Times, I think it was, did an article on how fired cops just get a job at another police department. Power corrupts, but isn’t it up to the city councils to make sure the people they hire are solid? So many police departments seem rotten to the core. Police training seems lacking too.
Also this- LAPD Convinces LA Times To Fire Editorial Cartoonist, Ted Rall (from 2015)
hovercraft
@D58826:
Unfortunately he’s reading from the same script as everyone in authority where there has been violence after these killings.
Betty Cracker
@Mnemosyne: I’ve talked to law enforcement folks I know about this topic (black, brown and white, FWIW), and to a person, their mindset is “just obey the officer’s orders, and you won’t get hurt.”
But like you said, maybe the person can’t — like a possible TBI victim KL Scott, or an autistic man who was needlessly killed by the cops here in FL a few years back. And even if it’s not a matter of impairment, refusing to immediately obey a policeman shouldn’t be a fucking capital crime!
Deescalation should be the objective and the standard by which cops are judged for promotions, etc. I truly believe that would change things — that and extensive training to root out implicit bias.
Pogonip
@Betty Cracker: It used to be that way in most jurisdictions. Should be again.
OGLiberal
@germy: I know she’s white but if she were a dude, no arrest would have happened, regardless of the video.
? Martin
@MomSense: Yeah, I think we learned that lesson very powerfully with Diamond Phillips. It’s increasingly clear that how you function as a black person in this country is in many circumstances completely unrecognizable to white people. We’ve always been told it, we just never got to see it very often in live video.
MFA
@Pogonip
“Officer Shelby was scared and rightly so (traffic stops are the most dangerous part of their job)…”
It was not a traffic stop. It was a stranded motorist. The only reason she was scared was because he was a big black guy. Where I’m from, we call that ‘Racism’.
Homicide. And if OK has a hate crime statue, she should be charged under it, too.
Humdog
@germy: Mariners suspended him from play for the rest of the season. He has been injured, but the Mariners did hold him accountable.
randy khan
@Pogonip:
I might go along with the idea that it’s partly a matter of training, but by the same token the thought process in many of these cases appears to be “I might be threatened by this person and shouldn’t take even the slightest chance about it, so I’m shooting.” Apropos of your earlier comment about not putting your finger on the trigger unless you’re planning to kill, it appears that a lot of police officers put their fingers on the trigger much too soon.
scav
@Betty Cracker: A lot of whining about lost cultures and tradition! (lamentations over my granpappy’s granpappy’s father was a cop and you dishonor his service by objecting to me roughing up bad-guys with his chosen choke-hold and fire hose!) flavored strongly with “where’s the fun in that” subtext? Bible-thumping invoking “Spare the Rod and Spoil the Child!” Endless ads about how This Country was WON! by squinty-eyed strong-jawed Sheriffs taking the Law into their Own Hands with a mano-a-mano Shootout! and Winning the Girl in the Third Reel blah blah blah.
Had to chortle when Mariners’ back up pitcher’s defense was that the statements were reactionary
SiubhanDuinne
@Neldob:
Well, there I have to agree with the LAPD. Ted Rall is possibly the shittiest cartoonist in the country.
? Martin
@OGLiberal: I don’t think you can infer that. South Carolina has been notable in arresting officers in similar circumstances. Meanwhile here in CA, it’s pretty rare. Consider the Dallas police behavior to protests compared even what you saw in Charlotte (which was pretty restrained compared to Ferguson). I think there’s enormous variability in this across the country in police behavior in ways that aren’t predictable along red/blue lines, etc.
Tenar Darell
Did anyone post this Remember their name yet? I saw it on Twitter. It’s stark and meaningful and horrible and I can’t stop thinking about it.
Alex
aren’t those just a pair of gloves?
Botsplainer
When the throwdown piece is examined, I’m guessing that like a miracle, there will be no prints.
hovercraft
@randy khan:
One assumes that a non Dead Scalia would throw that shit out, the police do not have the right to conduct their duties which are by definition in private, they are performing public duties, and the public should have the right to observe and record them.
@Phylllis:
Our police department has a program where they come into the schools, but it’s not enough, what if someone is new. There are just too many scenarios where something could go wrong. William is not violent or anything, but sometimes when he gets really frustrated he cannot control himself, and that’s what scares me.
JR in WV
@Kylroy:
Well, here’s a plan: When you get hired in as a police officer, the first week of training is about when and how to use your gun. And you get told 50 times, if you shoot your gun, you can’t be a cop any more, ever, anywhere.
You have to figure out a way to resolve a situation that has gone south without using your gun to kill someone. If you can do that, after being trained to do that, you can be a cop your whole career. But if you shoot someone, the end. Not punishment, just a fact of employment.
If you’re a construction grunt, and you tear your shoulder up, you can’t do construction any more. You can’t lift the material and use the heavy tools. I’ve been there after two shoulder replacements. I can’t do it any more.
If you’re a peace officer (how much better name is that?) you can’t be using a gun with fatal results, ever. Because then you aren’t a peace officer. Along with the body cameras. Anyone involved with a shooting without bodycam footage, you’re done, the career is over, you need to be retrained into another non-LEO job.
Federal rules for using guns professionally. Use them, loose them.
Patricia Kayden
@Betty Cracker: According to the article I linked to it appears that he’s not appealing the suspension. I hope that means that he accepts responsibility for his remarks and doesn’t try to argue that his First Amendment rights are somehow being stifled by this suspension.
Or he could pull a Curt Schiller and go all the way alt-right.
Adam L Silverman
@rdldot: @cynthia ackerman: is right. They appear to be black nitrile gloves used to handle anything at a crime scene or when tending to a victim who is bleeding. The African American officer to Scott’s right was also fumbling with them and dropping them. This is not surprising given that one of the first things to go during an adrenaline dump, high stress situation is fine motor control making putting them on before touching the body, especially given it would be SOP before touching someone who is bleeding.
MFA
I hate to agree, but I do think Adam is right.– the objects dropped/tossed/thrown/planted are gloves.
On the other hand, that’s littering; so as a lawbreaker, that cop should be summarily shot.
Wapiti
@Villago Delenda Est:
Basic law and order has probably always been the state’s bully boys beating and killing the lower/lowest classes with impunity. It’s just captured on video now.
Yesterday(?) someone was floating around numbers of people killed by cops in the last few years vs. the number killed in the era of lynchings. I think those numbers of deaths during the lynching period are probably way off, if they don’t count the people killed by the cops of the era, or those executed legally by the state.
? Martin
@Adam L Silverman: That may be, but everyone has been pointing to those gloves as the gun Mr. Scott was presumably holding.
Bostonian
Mass Supreme has just ruled that a black man has a legitimate reason to run away from police on sight.
How long can it be until someone shoots a cop and claims that, based on the recent history of cops shooting at any damn thing darker than a paper bag, they were in fear for their life and the shooting was thus in self-defense?
Patricia Kayden
@Tenar Darell: That is haunting and painful. President Hillary Clinton will have to do what she can to address this life and death issue of police shooting down our fellow citizens. Like she has said, it is unbearable.
Pogonip
@randy khan: Not trained right. The instructor should pound into your head that touching the trigger when you’re not ready to kill is the unpardonable sin. Mine had everyone learn how to field strip and reassemble the gun first of all. While we were doing that he’d prowl around and frequently ask “What are you going to kill right now?”.Huh?–Nothing.”. “Then get your finger off that trigger!”
? Martin
@MFA: I thought we were hanging people now for littering and violations of internal email protocol.
MazeDancer
First saw the video from a link on Twitter where people were discussing the objects on the ground and when they appeared. Watching, in horror, as these 6 armed and vested men, alleged professionals, stormed one guy like a swat team in a drug raid.
My privileged self could not believe police attacked this way. Naively, I thought they were trained to not shoot first, to interact with goal of making sure violence doesn’t happen. Well, welcome to the real world for silly me.
p.a.
@Damien: Read the Richard J Evans 3rd Reich trilogy.
Adam L Silverman
@piratedan: Because of posts like this and the comments that accompany them:
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2016/09/dean-weingarten/charlotte-naacp-leader-supports-open-carry-second-amendment/
Also, the “expert” the original author references makes a categorical error in trying to debunk the WaPo reporting on police killings. Not surprising as that “expert” being cited is:
http://www.populartechnology.net/2013/10/who-is-willis-eschenbach.html
Mike in NC
Life in this country is starting to resemble those “Purge” movies, where murder is legal one night a year. With the difference that when it comes to cops, murder is legal 24/7.
catclub
@D58826:
Did anyone else suggest rubber gloves? They flew out as the officer was getting gloves to put on.
Patricia Kayden
@Wapiti: I believe that was JR in WV. It almost feels as if lynchings in the form of police shootings are now the norm. In both cases, the lynchers walk away scot-free.
@NorthLeft12:
Unfortunately, as someone pointed out above, police who engage in misconduct are simply moved to another police force. Doesn’t make a lick of sense.
D58826
Tail gunner Ted is saying that after searching his conscious (or was it searching for it) will vote for Trump
aimai
@Damien: It is a fantastic book. Another great book in this vein is The Arms of Krupp. Really gives you a parallax view of things.
Adam L Silverman
@D58826: Weirton, W VA:
http://www.post-gazette.com/local/region/2016/09/11/Weirton-fired-officer-who-did-not-fire-at-man-with-gun/stories/201609090080
sukabi
@Arm The Homeless: my guess is yes, they knew. This seems to be sop in a lot of cop shops. Why else would you have immediate support of cops actions in any and all situations. Sure there’s the “presumed innocent” part of the equation, but why does it ONLY seem to apply to leos and NOT the folks they interact with?
Patricia Kayden
@D58826: Voting for the man who called him “Lying Ted” and who made fun of his wife’s looks and mental illness in tweets. How nice and principled. Still waiting for Jebbie’s endorsement of Trump.
catclub
@Alex: That was what I figured.
p.a.
I don’t know how much it has happened to date, but a major driver in police culture change would be when minority cops break from the culture of silence. I’m not saying it hasn’t happened, just that I’m not aware of much, and it will have to be widespread. Shouldn’t be necessary for them to risk careers by breaking ranks, but the current situation must not continue, and cops admitting cops’ issues will have much more immediate effect than than actions that can be filed aside by racists saying “liberals don’t care about cops’ lives.” And that is always the usual suspects’ take on the issue.
Adam L Silverman
@Damien: We are an aging revolutionary state and society. Aging revolutionary states and societies often become reactionaries in the attempt to maintain consolidation of the revolution.
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: OT: Did you get me response to your comment in the previous thread?
Adam L Silverman
@Brachiator: It takes effect on 1 October 2016.
Honus
@Kryptik: This. Ask John Cole about the Weirton (just a few minutes from Bethany) police officer that was fired for NOT shooting a guy. He was trying to talk him down when two other officers showed up and shot the guy dead. The police chief fired the officer for not killing the man right away. The suspect did have gun. It wasn’t loaded. He was trying to commit suicide by cop.
MJS
@D58826: So Ted is endorsing the guy who said Ted’s father was involved in the assassination of JFK and who brought Ted’s wife’s mental health issue into the campaign. Ted’s quite the guy, isn’t he?
scav
@D58826: I’m not entirely sure that man could find either his conscious(ness) or his conscience after prolonged search. Not that either would either likely contribute much to his decisions or actions if located.
Adam L Silverman
@Mnemosyne: http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/crime_and_courts/expert-in-deadly-force-training-criticized-for-record-on-police/article_20a0f770-c507-5312-90b4-dc5d291a377b.html
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/canada-warned-about-controversial-police-shooting-expert-1.1374682
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/us/training-officers-to-shoot-first-and-he-will-answer-questions-later.html
Adam L Silverman
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap: That guy has a history of showing up at these things, making threats, and trying to get the demonstrators to attack him so that he can “stand his ground”. Charles Johnson at LGF has covered this guy extensively.
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/46129_Update_on_Gateway_Pundit_Writer_Arrested_in_Oregon-_Jim_Hoft_Finally_Responds
This time he’s going to do some prison time and he’s going to loose his right to keep and bear arms. He’s been charged with two felony counts of unlawful use of a firearm. They were added after the misdemeanor counts that are mentioned in the original article.
http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2016/07/man_accused_of_pulling_gun_on.html
Formerly disgruntled Clinton supporter
@Patricia Kayden: kinda like molester Priests getting moved around…
piratedan
@Adam L Silverman: tyvm for the stats
as for the people on that site and the commentary…. I’ll just refrain form making any statement.
Pogonip
@Adam L Silverman: That’s an interesting point. I must ponder it.
Adam L Silverman
@MFA: Why do you hate to agree? Are you trying for a high negativity score in M4’s commenter matrix?
Aleta
(If I’ve read the charts at The Counted website right)
791 people have been killed by police in the US so far in 2016. The number in each race/ethnic group, adjusted to per million in each population, is:
5.49 Native American
4.86 Black
2.3 Hispanic/Latino
1.95 White
.72 Asian/Pacific Islander
North Carolina, 26 deaths total so far, ranks 6th highest among all states for total deaths by police killing, and 26th highest per capita,
The interactive charts at this site let you look at information for your state about police killings, and filter it for race, age, unarmed, death in custody, etc.
jurassicpork
At 2:14 in, you can plainly see the cop in the red shirt planting evidence, or what’s known in police parlance as a “throwdown.” And the brazen cocksucker even knew the man’s wife was filming him.
And that’s why the police chief just as brazenly refuses to release the dashcam video, because it’s of the cruiser on the left pointed right at that cop literally planting evidence.
Adam L Silverman
@Pogonip: We don’t normally think about or discuss the US this way. Most people don’t discuss any place this way, but in some of my analytical work for the Army/DOD it is an important point to raise and explain when trying to understand states and societies that we are concerned about.
dave
@Villago Delenda Est:
This won’t be a popular opinion but I think that any attempt to criminalize police conduct in these situations is actually going to make progress harder. I understand (and share) the impulse, but I don’t think it is pragmatic to push for more criminalization.
I think the majority of the public, and even the very best cops will never be sympathetic to a legal regime which could cost police officers their freedom because they made a bad (even terrible) split second judgment.
On the other hand, if we opened up police departments to civil liability on a straight negligence (think malpractice) basis I think that would be more likely to result in police officers (and departments) getting on board with the sorts of training and reforms that need to take place to actually prevent these killings. We would be treating police like we treat doctors. Unethical cops and departments will be less likely to cover for each other’s bad acts when the consequences of disclosure are limited to the cops loss of his job and the department’s loss of money. I would also be ok with opening up police chiefs and department heads to personal civil liability in the event that they fail to adequately train their employees on deescalation and that failure leads to a death.
I would still retain criminal liability for cops that fire on any individual without having an objectively reasonable fear for their safety at the time they fired.
Bobby Thomson
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap: or this
Original Lee
TLDR, but I thought this should be reassuring to those of us worried that the nation only supported one investigative reporter at a time:
Russian payments to Trump.
Tenar Darell
@Pogonip: ETA – your comment reminded me of a statistic…
Somewhere I read a statistic that the majority of deaths of police are by cars hitting them during traffic stops. Turns out that it’s a majority in 15/20 years based on a particular dataset.
Mnemosyne
@? Martin:
This. I’ve seen that same image on police sites as PROOF POSITIVE! that Mr. Scott had a gun.
sukabi
@D58826: think it was because drumpf said he could either be on the supreme court or atty gen.
Power over principles or country.
sukabi
@@Betty Cracker: @Patricia Kayden:
His “apology” was written by his agent.
Gotta stop the guy from turning over the gravy train.
At least thats how it was reported on local news last night…They made a point to say His Agent sent in the apology.
nonynony
@dave:
The problem with that model is that a hospital that refuses to do anything about malpractice problems will go out of business because they won’t be able to afford malpractice insurance. There isn’t an unlimited pool of money there, so someone will fire the director, fire the bad doctors and work to get staff on board who can afford malpractice insurance again. There’s some incentive to put an end to the situation (and even there the number of bad doctors who continue to be supported by their peers is shocking).
A police organization that refuses to do anything about police malpractice will just spend the taxpayers’ money paying off lawsuits. So there’s no incentive to change because the political will to change doesn’t exist. And citizens who put up with bad cops will blame the victims for their lawsuits not the bad cops for killing people in the first place.
Something’s got to change, but I don’t think civil penalties will do much about it because the economics of the situation don’t support them.
Original Lee
@hovercraft: My friend’s younger son is exactly like that, although he has gotten better control as he as gotten older. He’s biracial (black/Korean) and a standout football player being recruited by many schools. His mom (my friend’s wife) is a very short, very round lady and they do not at all look related. They recently tried to fly to an interview and ended up getting put off the plane because he got so upset at the way they were treating his mom. (They were giving her grief about her need to sit on the aisle – they had booked seats across from each other but her seat reservation got screwed up and they were treating her like she was an idiot because her English is heavily accented.) We cannot have Upset Big Black Dude on a plane, nope.
TriassicSands
@Pogonip:
I don’t think her shooting was “accidental.” I think she may have been so frightened that she was not able to follow her police training. Being frightened is one thing (rational), but being so frightened you can’t act responsibly is not an accident and Shelby should stand trial.
Barb2
Another as of racism – the magical black man – not human but a monster who can get up with a fatal wound. Too often white cops are sent to police areas that are predominately people of color, without out any cultural awareness training. It is amazing how many white folk have never ecountered different cultures, different races (I know there is no such thing as races.
The wife who recorded the death of her husband. Wow! Brave woman, so strong and yet she knowledge of the murder victim was ignored. “He doesn’t have a gun.” She said repeatedly.
Over kill of a black man – typical of the magical black monster myth.
sukabi
@Patricia Kayden: so on the same day another Seahawks player demanded a review of police procedures in all 50 states, state Attorney General setting up a meeting to discuss.
Growing support among all sports teams, professional and hs around here… Mariner jackass is in the minority.
Aleta
Personally I hope that making towns and smaller cities spend a lot of taxpayer money on court cases (even though outcomes remain manipulated and biased), will help convince indifferent but money-loving residents to care about their police hiring practices, training, and supervision.
I plan to ask my local PD how much time and money is spent on training impulse and reflex control, deescalation, testing for stress and anger management, and understanding the responses of mentally and physically impaired people. And whether or how often drug tests are done for steroids and overuse of stimulants.
Also
–Darryl Pinckney
debbie
@aimai:
I’ve listened to the audio. It absolutely turns my stomach.
This is so similar to Amadou Diallo (NYC mid-90s), which shows that absolutely nothing has changed.
There are so many at fault here, but I choose to blame the good cops who choose to remain silent about the bad cops.
Another Scott
@cynthia ackerman:
As others have also said, that makes sense.
There’s a frame or so where one could imagine that one of them is a gun due to the “L” shape, but they’re too flat on the ground (compare the height to the cop’s shoes). And a gun would have bounced when it hit the ground.
It’s easy to get caught-up in quick interpretations of what a video shows, but it’s almost always better to be careful before feeling certain.
Cheers,
Scott.
(Formerly ImNotSureWho… + apostrophe)
Damien
@Adam L Silverman:
Interesting point re: aging revolutionary country. Counterpoint, it feels like the WWII somewhat reset the clock, where there was a threat to be dealt with that rallied us to a cause (simplifying, obviously). Given the rivening of interests since then, is it possible that instead of an aging revolutionary state, we might fall into a unique category of aging warrior state?
What I mean by this is that there is obviously a major external threat that we should be addressing in climate change, but it isn’t necessarily military in solution; instead we are constantly bombarded by calls for military action here, there, everywhere. But they’re made by the aging and comfortable, who are desperately trying to wring every ounce of gold out of the world before they go.
Whether that tracks with your study, I’d be curious to know, and also whether you think that the passing of the current guard will open the door to changes, or if the system will have ossified.
Aleta
Personally I hope that making towns and smaller cities spend a lot of taxpayer money on court cases (even though outcomes remain manipulated and biased) will help convince indifferent but money-loving residents to care about their police hiring practices, training and supervision.
I plan to ask my PD how much time and money are spent training impulse and reflex control and deescalation, testing stress and anger management, and understanding responses of mentally and physically impaired people. And whether and how often they test for steroids and overuse of stimulants,
I keep quoting from an article Darryl Pinckney wrote a month or two ago, because it’s so concise.
cynthia ackerman
@jurassicpork:
Try watching full-screen, not on a phone, and slowed to 0.25 speed.
Watch the black officer from around 1:58. The guy in the red is out of frame, but he’s handing something to black officer. Then you see black officer attempting to put an exam glove on his right hand and he drops a wad of gloves by his left foot. Then he goes out of frame. Next the wad on the ground is gone and guy in red just handed black officer something, presumably the wad which was by black officer’s left foot. Then black officer, not guy in red, drops the two objects closer to red guy while black officer is now putting a glove on his left hand, about 2:13.
Red guy originally hands more than one pair of gloves, and the two on the ground at the end of the segment are discards. If you’ve ever worked emergency scenes, this is pretty typical — both carrying a wad of gloves (more than one pair), and difficulty putting them on, especially if hands are sweaty, and not being careful about what and where you discard distracting items.
None of which excuses shooting this person, just to say focusing on those two dropped items, either as proof Mr. Scott was carrying a weapon or that the cops planted evidence, is almost certainly an error.
Adam L Silverman
@Another Scott: Its also possible that the white officer to Scott’s left handed the gloves to the African American officer to his right, who then used them to move the gun that Scott is alleged to have been holding. This would be done so as not to get prints on the gun that weren’t Scott’s/contaminate it as evidence. He then, once he had the gloves handed it and the gloves holding it to the officer in the red shirt who then placed them in the foreground to Scott’s right. This is the sequence that is missing in Mrs. Scott’s video and can’t be deduced from the still released yesterday from another bystander’s phone. I still think it all just looks like black nitrile gloves used for evidence handling, but I can’t be sure based on the video above.
Adam L Silverman
@Damien: WW II caused an interference in the socio-cultural interaction data in the US. This is the thing that Putnam refused to understand, then when I watched someone explain it to him he huffed, puffed, and two weeks later wrote it up in Newsweek as his idea. Prior to WW II the vast majority of people in the US were born, raised, lived, and died all close to the same place. While the Depression caused greater geographic dislocation/relocation, it was really WW II that made the major change. WW II with people meeting people from all over, the GI Bill allowing people to go to college that wouldn’t have previously been able to, relocating to work in you buddy’s (from the war) dad’s factory or business, and the need for the veterans to remain engaged with each other because of what they’d seen and been through, all caused a surge in social interactions. So civic clubs and movements and organizations popped up everywhere. Affiliation with organized religion shot up (historically only 10% of the US population was formally “churched” or a member of a specific house of worship). What we’ve been watching, and what it took my former boss’s wife – a gerontologist who had a long time series of data she was working with – to explain to Putnam, is that what we’ve seen since the 1950s is the long, slow return to the historical American norm. And that norm is: we’re not joiners. We don’t like other people, including our neighbors. We don’t want to belong to communities. We just want to be left alone.
MFA
Actually, I like to agree with you, Adam; you’re a smart guy and it makes me feel smarter when I agree.
I should have been clearer in my earlier post: I wish that the video showed, without question, that the police planted a gun. I am disappointed to find that they planted gloves. ;-)
Adam L Silverman
@MFA: No worries, was just teasing you in light of M4s analysis of all of us based on our comments.
It’ll be interesting to see how this video squares with the different body camera and dash camera footage. It will definitely raise pressure on CMPD and the City of Charlotte to release it. Especially if they want to defuse the situation.
Seth Owen
@Pogonip: Except it wasn’t a traffic stop. It was a disabled vehicle. I doubt aiding motorists whose car has broken down results in many officer fatalities except from being hit by other cars.
One of the things that is extremely puzzling about this and something I hav seen zero official discussion about or explanation for is why she pulled out her gun in the very first place. Why was Crutcher being held at gunpoint?
StringOnAStick
@Damien: I’ve been trying to find that book at used book stores, it is just too long to read as a library book, thanks for reminding me that I need to try a little harder. I read his Berlin Diary last spring and just read In The Garden of Beasts about our nontypical ambassador in Berlin before WWII broke out: the parallels in that book chilled me as well.
Exit 135
@rdldot: Gloves. Tactical – Urban Response – Assault Shock Troops wear shooting gloves. They are necessary to serve a warrant in broad daylight when there is an expectation of children being present.
jurassicpork
“The Evidence Farm“. How I singlehandedly proved evidence was planted at the site of the murder of Keith Scott.
PIGL
@Kryptik: Edited to remove extreme and over the top comment which I would regret. And anyway, I mostly agree with you. The departments where such things happen are hopelessly corrupt.
PIGL
@Villago Delenda Est: You start by imposing chain of command. When sergeants get fired for the crimes of their subordinates, and chiefs get fired for the negligence of theirs, you’ll start to see some action. But really, I think, enture departments have to be disbanded, and for that to happen, municipal charters need to be revoked, county offices need to be put under state control, and so upwards. Only top down solutions will work in many cases, I feel.
PIGL
@Kylroy: The explanation for this mystery: Bad cops have boots really worth licking. Bad teachers, not so much. Look no further.
Damien
@Adam L Silverman: I see what you’re saying, but I wonder if it’s a combination of that with the newfangled ability to curate our own grey zone to an enormous extent previously unthinkable. Because the divide between rural and urban, liberal and conservative has never been greater in modern history, and yet it’s entirely possible to reach out and interact with almost anyone at any time. We are more likely to encounter the worst in our neighbors, which reinforces our dislike, which sequesters us even more. The grey zone becomes much starker from that perspective
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
I wonder if we wouldn’t be better off if every police department just declared war on Black people in America. Then at least, they’d have to follow the Geneva Conventions, and while I could be wrong, it seems like the military is better about prosecuting people who kill harmless civilians for no reason. It sounds savage, but, shit. Things are so bad now that this almost makes sense to me in a senseless, Alice in Wonderland kind of way.
PIGL
@Pogonip: When you say “when we move to a new town”, how often do you do that, and what is the largest new town you have ever moved to? The smallest? Do you bring kindly constable Murphy and his stout, apple-pie baking wife a fucking christmas cake when you visit? I bet they really appreciate it.
Ruckus
@Kryptik:
Have a buddy, retired 10 yrs ago from CHP after 30 yrs. He told me he was more than glad to retire as starting now about 20 yrs ago the hiring had changed and while there had always been a level of authority, following orders and the thick blue line it had gotten out of hand. And by the time he had finished his 30, most of the patrol was people hired since the whole thing had changed from protect and serve (OK that one always cracked me up, a lot of them didn’t believe it decades ago and for sure most don’t believe it now) to Rule #1 Cops are always right. Rule #2, see rule number one.
As many have pointed out and as my buddy stated, the rot started at the top and isn’t getting any better. It may help to convict a few officers, but the likelihood of that happening is as we have seen, pretty small. Any change has to start at the top but unfortunately the next people in line aren’t any better. Until enough of our politicians become less authoritarian pants pissers to make this change in the law, nothing will change. We have seen in some locals that the top is not accepting of shoot now, shoot first, shoot often but these seem to be few and far between.
Older
@Alex: I saw black surgical gloves for the first time yesterday, in a local store. I was all “what the hell is that!!??” But my husband (a former CNA) has apparently seen them before. So they are a thing.
Older
@Exit 135: Why does the presence of children make gloves necessary to serve a warrant?
Cat48
These fucking killings affect me physically for days. ,My stomach churns and today after this film, hearing the wife has brought me to tears. Two disabled men in one week. No justice, no empathy, nothing. Obama has tried to work with the mayors who are less partisan, and some of them are trying to reform, but FOP won’t budge on anything. They hate the body cams. That’s about the only reform forced on them so far. There is a bipartisan justice reform bill in the House Ryan won’t bring up. We have to get the Senate so the Court will be more liberal.
wendy
@bystander: Of course! He wants nationwide stop and frisk. It’s unconstitutional you say? Who cares! He’ll change the constitution.