The cop who shot Rayshard Brooks at a Wendy’s in Atlanta was charged with felony murder today. If you’ve read about the case, Brooks, who was shot in the back, had gotten a Taser from one of the officers.
The cops knew who he was, they knew he was drunk, and they knew what he had in his hand was essentially a useless piece of plastic. Yet one of them shot him in the back. There was no justification to kill him even if he had a loaded Taser, but this is just an open-and-shut case of murder.
It may be an important detail that the DA in Atlanta is facing a runoff election against an opponent with a 2:1 fundraising advantage.
(via LGM — they just had a fundraiser and I chipped in, you can, too.)
John Bolton Tells All – Maybe
jeffreyw
Fuck Trump
Chetan Murthy
My God, indeed. The things that are visited upon people who don’t deserve it. The things. The unspeakable things.
Sxjames
Maybe, just maybe, attitudes are beginning to change.
One can hope
Elizabelle
I’m glad to see the felony charges.
In Richmond, VA, our police chief was fired yesterday. Big issue with teargassing protesters a few nights before. Mayor Levar Stoney was pointed in saying he would conduct a nationwide search for a new chief.
It is a culture issue, with many police departments, and chip chip chip away.
debbie
I know cops are blaming this on Brooks’s panicking. NPR reported that they think Brooks panicked because the officer forgot to advise him he was being arrested and just started handcuffing him.
TaMara (HFG)
And said, after he shot him, “I got him”
Then they fucking stood on him. Stood on him.
Barbara
@Elizabelle: I know people don’t want the link, but the NYT reported this morning on the prevalence of the use of tear gas on peaceful protesters. It was a good article about how tear gas has been deployed in the past, how police seem to be using it as a first response when it hasn’t previously, and includes a quote about police departments trying to gaslight the public by referring to pepper spray as something other than tear gas.
Barbara
@debbie: “Let’s shoot people if they panic” doesn’t inspire confidence.
laura
A semi- repeat from downstairs: Rayshard Brooks fell asleep in a drive thru. Not a crime. He’d spent most of Saturday preparing for a birthday for his young daughter – and was murdered on video. No one in his family will ever get over this. Not all the money in the world, not any prison sentence for his murderer and accomplice will ever undo the lasting damage, the pain, the sorrow.
This same method of murder occurred in Solano County -between Sacramento and the Bay Area. A young man fell asleep in the drive through. A young Rap artist -He’d performed at a show and was likely headed home after a bite. The cops were called. They saw him asleep. They…..shot him to death right through his windshield. No charges. Justified because ……just because.
His name was Willie McCoy. He was shot 25 times.
hueyplong
Amazing how consistently the cops in all these cases, when caught red-handed, keep insisting on changing their stories to different excuses that are equally contradicted by the video evidence that the entire country can see.
It’s such an infuriating arrogance.
MomSense
@TaMara (HFG):
Monsters.
Krope, the Formerly Dope
Obviously a threat to the police officers, what if he had a chance to unleash his deadly dream powers?
Can’t these people at least try to be public servants and not Judge Dredd LARPers?
VOR
I think it is the training. Police are told they have to be in command, they have to dominate every situation, so they get frustrated when someone doesn’t instantly obey. They aren’t taught to negotiate or de-escalate, they are told to order in a loud voice. Letting someone steal a piece of equipment and run off with it would be a defiance of their authority so it is an offense which cannot be tolerated.
Marcopolo
Did you read the article you linked about the run-off election? The current DA is facing these accusations (Howard is the current DA who is bringing the charges):
I don’t think any of us should be jumping in to throw this guy campaign contributions. Just because he is doing the right thing here doesn’t mean he is the best candidate for the position
Edited because upon rereading your post I guess you were saying contribute to LGM, not the DA in the election. My bad for not having the best reading comprehension. :)
Krope, the Formerly Dope
I wonder about how he handled other similar cases too. Is he doing this now out of principle or to try to get community support?
WaterGirl
This is awful beyond words. Fuck these cops who act like rabid dogs.
Those tweets are confusing. I feel like I need an Agatha Christie list of characters to know what’s going on here.
What did I miss about the DA that makes us think the other candidate for DA would be better?Ah Paul Howard currently faces three civil lawsuits from female employees past and present alleging harassment and the GBI is investigating Howard for use of a nonprofit to supplement his salary.
rikyrah
debbie
@TaMara (HFG):
I didn’t watch the video. He literally stood on the body? Jesus.
Benw
Black lives matter!
gwangung
@VOR: No, the thing is that these two assholes WENT THROUGH NINE HOURS OF DE-ESCALATION TRAINING IN APRIL.
It’s the culture. Burn the whole thing down.
debbie
@Barbara:
The mayor here outlawed the use of tear gas and pepper spray on peaceful protesters through an executive order. To be honest, I’d be surprised if cops obeyed it.
kindness
Far too many cops get kicks out of killing minorities. Something is wrong in their heads. Take the Milwaukee case where the cop kneeled on a prone compliant handcuffed suspect for almost 9 minutes. He was sending a message, he wasn’t doing it to control the subject. He knew he was being taped and he kept doing it. These cops are putting their twisted egos in front of being a good cop and doing the job right.
Elizabelle
An interesting article from 2015 by Seth Stoughton. Harvard Law Review.
Law Enforcement’s “Warrior” Problem
No apparent paywall. Seth Stoughton is interviewed from time to time on NPR and other outlets. He was a police officer in Tallahassee, FL for five years, then law school at UVa, and now a law prof at the U of South Carolina School of Law in Columbia. Really interesting guy.
Those who are on Twitter might want to follow him. He’s been on this issue for years.
piratedan
saw a Facebook post the other day from a ICU nurse that essentially stated, they’re trained to subdue agitated and often violent patients (and sometimes relatives) and manage to do so without the use of guns and tasers and without killing those that need to be restrained. Unsure why the police can’t be trained to do the same.
rikyrah
WaterGirl
Who is the fundraiser for? The current DA, who is under investigation? Or the former deputy that is running against him?
(Question answered: It’s a fundraiser for LGM.)
Gravenstone
Someone (maybe John) suggested shortly after the video of the shooting came out that the cop was embarrassed at being disarmed and decided that he was going to make the victim pay. Nothing we’ve learned since really runs counter to that assessment. Cop gets pissed, cop goes out of control and kills a man. All on fucking camera.
There needs to be a very large number of former police officers when all is said and done. Far too many are showing they lack the temperament, the judgment or the self control needed for the job.
Baud
@WaterGirl: LGM blog.
germy
Is it time for periodic testing for steroids? Like once a week before they’re allowed to start their workday?
Yutsano
@rikyrah: It gets worse. It most likely would have passed if the missing councilman had been there.
debbie
@rikyrah:
“Was that a nerve?” I believe so, sir!
WaterGirl
@Baud: The way it was written, it seemed like there was a fundraiser for one of the DA candidates. Thanks for clarifying that.
The implication in the sentence above that, though, seemed to be that we should kick in some money for the candidate who is at a financial disadvantage. But that seems to be the current DA who is under investigation for other issues.
Do I have that backwards, too?
Just Chuck
@piratedan: I suspect you mean an ER nurse. Patients in the ICU tend to be pretty compliant :)
Yutsano
@debbie: Who else needed a cigarette after that?
debbie
@germy:
It has to be mandatory testing for steroids and whatever else they could be taking to get so amped up.
germy
@debbie: Has to be more than just coffee and donuts.
debbie
@Yutsano:
I can only imagine what Gaetz said that caused that exchange. //
Baud
OT. Great headline.
Redshift
@Barbara:
I don’t have the link handy, but I saw posted on twitter the work of a criminal justice scholar about how police violence is significantly higher at police misconduct/police reform protests than at other kinds of protests. Not exactly a surprise, but it’s useful to know it can be backed up by actual statistics.
(also — assholes!)
Elizabelle
@Yutsano: That’s awful. Misses the vote because of an upper respiratory illness. ETA: I wish so much someone could have brought him in for the vote. It was that crucial.
One man testified that he had lost 5 family members to COVID. 90% of the hospitalized patients are African American.
From the first article:
Montgomery City Council votes down mask ordinance, sends doctors out in disgust
Yutsano
@debbie: @germy: I keep forgetting to mention this so thank you. This has been a huge issue for quite some time. And it’s a part of why these situations are so hard to come down from. Maybe that explains why the Tennessee National Guard can just lay their shields down and there’s peace but cops are amped up to jump in. We need to test them all and get them arrested for illegal drug use.
Krope, the Formerly Dope
The Fast and the Furious Part 2?
JWR
I wonder if Ewick, son of Ewick, is still “struggling to see why the officer should be disciplined.”
Pangloss
It’s not training.
Many studies have shown it’s not training. I have a lot of experience with cops (my father, my workplace for 7 years, friends, acquaintances, working in local government, familiarity with the hiring and training process, etc.) and I feel confident from anecdotal evidence that it’s not training.
It’s the culture. It’s the fact that the preferred pools from which police are drawn have been traditionally– and are even more so now– places where white supremacists recruit and thrive. It’s that police unions are mostly headed by people who are violently-oriented, who want to hide incrimination by association with white supremacist or white power or neo-Nazi groups because a growing chunk of their members need that protection, and it results in a vicious cycle. It’s the macho man and tough guy ethos that permeates the ranks, and the baggage that comes with the stereotypes that fit that image. It’s giving preference to former military, the fact that the forces are militarized and the nature of a lot of recent US military experience being accrued by supressing local occupied populations . It’s the fact that in promotions and other rewards, certain metrics are emphasized that not only don’t relate to de-escalation, they promote hostility (e.g. ticketing or arrest quotas, stop and frisk, etc.). Allowing cops to live outside of jurisdictions…. qualified immunity… etc.
“Training” is a nice CYA for administrators and mayors and local government. It’s not going to make a significant difference if the cops are white supremacists, racists, bullies, gun nuts, neo-Nazis, conspiracy theorists, etc. It won’t matter if all the misconduct is secret, if communications officers are lying in press releases while hoping no one had a camera recording, and if cops are allowed to get away with lying for others to cover crimes.
JWR
@Krope, the Formerly Dope:
Heh. That was my first thought, too.
Angela
@VOR: Nope. The cop in this case had just gone through an 8 hour de-escalation training.
Baud
@Pangloss: Perhaps it’s more accurate to say it can’t be training alone. It’s hard to imaging a situation in which good training isn’t helpful, even if it isn’t sufficient.
Fleeting Expletive
Trevor Noah did a terrific explication on 6-15 of the arrest of Rayshard Brooks, about the stupidity of armed cops sent to deal with a passed-out drunk. He or another late-night guy showed the full interaction where the cop was administering the field sobriety test. He was really, really overdoing it, the follow-my-finger exercise, and Raychard was “complying as if his life depended on it”, and it went on for many minutes. He probably made him follow his finger ten times. I believe that in those moments of looking into each other’s eyes the cop formulated the intent to kill that man, perceiving insolence in his deliberate compliance. That cop so wanted to bust his chops and couldn’t. Seems obvious that Brooks tore away from him when the handcuffs came out, probably perceiving that the mortal threat was right then upon him. What wretchedness.
Pangloss
@Baud: Training isn’t a bad thing, but it’s used the same way as “retraining the workforce” is offered as the key to ending high regional unemployment.
Omnes Omnibus
@Pangloss: Culture comes from the training. Not all of the training comes in a classroom. Stories told by senior colleagues are training. What your partner and the people in the locker room tell you about how things work in the “real world” is training.
Ksmiami
Disband the police and hire new ones from Canada.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ksmiami: Jesus, they’d put mayo on burgers. We may as well just hire Belgians.
Ksmiami
@Omnes Omnibus: True story, my old town in Michigan had a Canadian as Chief of Police and he focused his force on de-escalation and community involvement- it was heaven despite the Mayo
Redshift
@Pangloss: Yeah, better training is going to be necessary for whatever remains after we fix the main problems, but poor training isn’t the primary problem, so better training isn’t the primary solution.
We have to get the white supremacists out to have police departments that function for public safety. It’s not going to be easy; there may be no other way to do it than disbanding forces and making everyone reapply with thorough checks for that by an independent authority.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ksmiami: I remain skeptical.
Nora Lenderbee
@Barbara:
IWhen you find roaches in your kitchen, you grab the bug spray immediately and exterminate them. The police are treating the protestors like vermin.
Roger Moore
@gwangung:
Absolutely. The whole culture has been driven by the “law enforcement” ethos. It encourages the police to see everything they do as dealing with crime and criminals, even when they’re supposed to be helping someone in distress. It’s no coincidence that we see the police kill people during welfare checks; they wind up treating them no differently from hunting down a fugitive.
CarolPW
@Omnes Omnibus: Daughters of the American Revolution eligiable, probably Daughters of the Confederacy too (fuck them). Wagon train to California. No Canada, mayo on burgers. Actually, mayo on almost anything except most sweets.
ETA no Belgian either.
Omnes Omnibus
@CarolPW: You probably like clowns too.
CarolPW
@Omnes Omnibus: Not at all, hiss boo scary stuff.
ETA maybe they would be better with mayo.
Tony Jay
You just know that in an office building somewhere in DC a room has been set aside for a special taskforce of utterly souless bossgobblers to work out what their employers should do if they – really – lose this battle in the Kulturkampf and, with thousands of bad cops getting their licence to kill revoked, how they turn that basket of lemons into poisonous lemonade.
I predict a swathe of ‘grassroots’ organisations cropping up all over the country looking to recruit these angry wannabe brownshirts into an actual movement of political whining/violent reaction complete with star spangled uniforms and a metric shit-ton of seething, race-based resentment. Walking, talking examples of armed victimitude only too happy to make a buck posing as the ‘real’ Police-in-Exile wherever there’s a white community looking for protection from ‘Them’.
And the Media will love it with the salty, too-rough passion of a sailor with 5 spare minutes and a secret to keep.
Maybe some Democratic affiliated group should start thinking about how to counter that.
Martin
Driver drove into a protest in Portland last night. 3 injured.
One of the nice outcomes of all of this, which in and of itself would help reduce police violence, is eliminating the notion that roads are for the exclusive use of cars, and all others in the road (including cyclists) deserve to die. If we have the right to assemble, there needs to be a place to assemble beyond the 30″ allocated to us between the private property and the place where cars live, so the only place to assemble winds up being the car space. And that rule alone is a great opportunity for the police to issue citations for jaywalking, to force protestors to only use the sidewalks, thereby breaking up the ability to assemble, and cite protesters if they step on private property.
donnah
@Fleeting Expletive: I saw that and it set me on fire. That cop made him follow his moving finger back and forth, up and down for 15 MINUTES! He was baiting him and he deliberately tried to humiliate him.
Now we are a society who must always have a cell phone handy so we can capture wrongdoing by the police. It’s not a great standard to live by.
Princess
I’ve seen a lot of reporting that Mr. Brooks was drunk. Do we have any evidence for this other than the say-so of the cops who murdered him? Because the fact they made him follow the finger so many times makes it sound like they were trying to cook up something they didn’t have.
Ladyraxterinok
@Tony Jay:
I think it’s quite possible you may be right about angry fired cops being recruited for bully gangs of white supremacists
The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@Tony Jay: “And the Media will love it with the salty, too-rough passion of a sailor with 5 spare minutes and a secret to keep.”
Jesus God, man! That’s a disturbingly apt description of my visceral response to that sentence.
Calouste
I hope that when murdering cops like these are going to be on trial, there will be some serious digging into their social media and connections, because I wouldn’t be surprised if a significant number of them are outright white supremacists just looking for an excuse to murder a black man and get away with it.
terry chay
Also the DA is claiming there is no evidence he “turned to fire the taser.” He was just running away.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Elizabelle:
Constitutional rights don’t matter all that much when you’re dead.
Frankensteinbeck
The Atlanta PD are so furious that one of their own might face consequences for committing murder that the whole department has started an immediate strike.
John Revolta
@Frankensteinbeck: This’ll be interesting. I remember when the NYC cops had a sickout a few years back. Nothing happened. Eventually they all kinda slunk back.
JeanneT
@Frankensteinbeck: Ugh! That’s when the ‘just a few bad apples’ arguments fail utterly, IMO. A strike in support of an officer indicted for murder is a good argument for scrapping the current department and starting over.
Tony Jay
@Ladyraxterinok:
Its the kind of thing a fascist organisation skilled in manipulating a whole smorgasbord of cultural resentments would do, soooooo, yeah, I think they will.
Nice people arent they?
Another Scott
@Pangloss: Agreed.
(If their “training” is like so much of it elsewhere, watching some videos and answering a few questions isn’t enough to change a culture. Witness the problems that women continue to have just about everywhere.)
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
@Omnes Omnibus: Rightly so. Canadian law enforcement has a horrible reputation with first nations people.
Canadians aren’t immune – nobody is. Every police force needs to do better.
Cheers,
Scott.
Tony Jay
@The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion:
I find lots of beer helps me find my inner venter. Plus I’m currently rewatching Buffy, which is like basecamp alpha for lovers of extended wordplay rants
rp
George Orwell: I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys. He becomes a sort of hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalized figure of a sahib. For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life in trying to impress the “natives,” and so in every crisis he has got to do what the “natives” expect of him. He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it. I had got to shoot the elephant. I had committed myself to doing it when I sent for the rifle. A sahib has got to act like a sahib; he has got to appear resolute, to know his own mind and do definite things. To come all that way, rifle in hand, with two thousand people marching at my heels, and then to trail feebly away, having done nothing – no, that was impossible. The crowd would laugh at me. And my whole life, every white man’s life in the East, was one long struggle not to be laughed at.
Lapassionara
@rp: Yes. Thank you for posting that insight from Orwell. We are in a prison of our own making.
NoraLenderbee
@Frankensteinbeck: Time to do a Reagan and fire them all.
Calouste
@Frankensteinbeck: Any reliable link? All I see on the web is “rumors” that are being denied or rwnj websites like clownhall.
Aleta
Man with mental illness spent nearly 5 months in jail before body cam video revealed Garfield Heights officers beat, tased and mocked him. [Then falsely charged him and sent him to jail]
There’s a video, which took a long time to obtain. I started to watch it but turned it off almost immediately: TW for cruelty to the helpless.
Yutsano
@Calouste: I’m not seeing anything concrete, although the department is reporting higher than normal call-outs. It might be a situation in flux yet.
Ruckus
How many upper level cops came up through the ranks? 100%
How many chief of police are came up through the ranks? Close to or 100%
I’ve know 30 yr guys who are my age who are extremely glad to have gotten out, that it had been not all that great for decades but they see it far worse now. The type of training, the concepts of everyone is against them and trying to kill them. The acceptance of military type weapons as common civilian weapons. The acceptance of almost 20 yrs of continuous war in countries/cities where anyone can be an enemy and no one likes you there. The military weapons that police now have, to of course counter the ones the public has, and on and on. You can’t discount any of the changes over the last few decades. Cops were never on the side of the civilian population, they just weren’t as willing to kill them, to fight them when no one is fighting them in the first place. The overwhelming concept now is first strike, control at any cost, civilian lives be damned. It would be like the fire department is willing to put out the fire in the firehouse but every body else they would pour gas on the burning building. They are more important than the people they are paid to protect. That is the core issue.