Another Senseless Death of a Black Man: Why Did It Take So Long to Launch Probe?

[blackforest]

You can’t include people who have never been in trouble with the police in such a stat.

The data is gathered from here. https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/ They compile every known police encounter and look for statistical trends. Police encounters aren’t the same thing as crimes. Nobody is a criminal without a conviction. I’m not sure what you mean by “in trouble,” but just because somebody calls the police, it doesn’t mean that a criminal is involved. Nearly 3 times more of these encounters end in violence for African-Americans than white people.

 

[babochka]

“Atrocious”: Police Killed Elijah McClain in 2019. Why Did It Take Colorado So Long to Launch Probe? | Democracy Now!

Please do not reply if you are unwilling to watch the video or read the transcript. Replies like, “I’m not bothering because it’s from Democracy Now” do not provide anything substantive to this conversation.

Why do you think it took so long for this case to surface? Why do you think these officers haven’t yet been convicted?

I was heartbroken when I heard this story. I don’t know how much race did or didn’t play into the outcome of this case, but I have an autistic teenager. I do not know if Elijah had autism, but he sounds like someone who definitely marched to the beat of a different drummer and had difficulty because of it. As my son transitions from looking like a kid to a man, I do have concerns about any possible future interactions with the police. Unless the police were specifically trained and experienced in recognizing the signs of autism and de-escalation techniques specific to autism, I fear it would not go well.

 

[babochka]

The suspect resisted arrest and seemed very agitated and at times rambled incoherently. Several officers mentioned that it appeared he was on drugs. It should be noted that the officers seem calm and called for back up straight away which speaks against any intention to hurt the suspect.

All of these tragedies seem to involve the resisting of arrest and i think one thing that needs to change is the education to teach people that they must respect the authority of police.

Why did an arrest occur when no crime was committed?

A man called 911 and said that there was a guy acting weird with the ski mask on. He said he didn’t know if it was a problem or not. So, the police checked it out and there was a guy with a ski mask on acting weird. Why does this result in an attempt to arrest the guy? Why did they grab him at the all? Talk with him, maybe follow him home. But why even give the opportunity to resistant arrest by attempting to arrest?

 

[babochka]

Oh please, don’t twist things.

The number one cause of deaths of black people in the USA is black on black violence. How often do you see this talked about in the public sphere?

Is this accurate? Greater than heart disease, stroke or cancer?

 

[silentwitness]

Why did an arrest occur when no crime was committed?

A man called 911 and said that there was a guy acting weird with the ski mask on. He said he didn’t know if it was a problem or not. So, the police checked it out and there was a guy with a ski mask on acting weird. Why does this result in an attempt to arrest the guy? Why did they grab him at the all? Talk with him, maybe follow him home. But why even give the opportunity to resistant arrest by attempting to arrest?

Yes they are all the questions that should be asked.

The initial call by the Hispanic teenager was more of a cautionary call. From watching the full videos it appears that information was not sufficiently passed on to the officers who arrived at the scene. That communication process should be looked at to see if it can be improved.

It appears that when police arrived at the scene to investigate, their suspicions were aroused because the guy was on drugs and not making much sense. This hindered their ability to assess the situation. It is understandable that the officers in that situation would wish to keep the man there until they could work out what or if anything was wrong.

Unfortunately it looked like the man was not going to comply and so then it turned physical.

If i am stopped outside my premises by police i would stop and go through the process. I might not be happy but i would accept that the police have to be satisfied that there is not a problem. If i was on drugs and not complying i would expect to be physically restrained.

 

[babochka]

If i am stopped outside my premises by police i would stop and go through the process.

So would I. I can tell you with near certainty that my autistic son would not. He would not be capable. I was able to recognize potential signs of autism just from reading a single article about this young man. The police officers involved ought to have the training and experience to recognize these signs and to modify their approach to the encounter the signs of autistim are present.

 

[silentwitness]

So would I. I can tell you with near certainty that my autistic son would not. He would not be capable. I was able to recognize potential signs of autism just from reading a single article about this young man. The police officers involved ought to have the training and experience to recognize these signs and to modify their approach to the encounter the signs are present.

Yes i think that makes a lot of sense. It might also explain why the initial caller thought the man was acting in a strange fashion.

Perhaps if the police had recognised the situation they could have allowed the man to his feet and tried to speak in a calming and re-assuring manner and perhaps tried to get family members on the scene as quickly as possible.

Police have a certain culture which i assume is there to protect themselves and i can sympathise that they are not knowing ahead of time if they need protection or not. It is a culture that is foreign to most of us and probably a lot more foreign (and dangerous) to a person with autism.

I also think that there must be a better way to restrain people other than pinning them to the ground and waiting for chemicals to be injected. For many people, for various reasons this process seems to put a lot of physical and/or mental stress on them.

 

[Odilon]

The story might be correct, but one must be aware of the source however and “Democracy Now” is a completely leftist bent program.

 

[Polak]

I should have specified, I meant deaths directly caused by another human being.

Nearly 3 times more of these encounters end in violence for African-Americans than white people.

That’s just it though, I don’t think they are comparing only black and white ‘police encounters’ and getting the ‘3 times as many’ number from that. The 3 times as many, or 2.5 times as many figure is thrown around a lot and it’s taken from the US population.

Those arguing this point keep suggesting that because the white population is fives times greater than the black population in the USA, but ‘only’ twice as many white people are killed by police as black people, black people are therefore 2.5 times more likely to be killed by police. As I said, it’s a misleading statistic because you should not be including people who have had no encounters with the police in it.

 

[blackforest]

and it’s taken from the US population

should not be including people who have had no encounters with the police in it.

Could you link me to evidence of their methodology, i.e. where they’re getting their population sample, please? As long as the sampling of different races comes from the same population, (e.g. involved in police encounter, uninvolved, etc.), then their methodology is accurate.

 

[Polak]

I don’t know the specific methodology used here but I know the whole ‘black people are 2.5 or 3 times more likely to be killed by police’ theory, comes from the methodology I mentioned. Since it is repeated here, I would assume the same methodology is being used.

 

[blackforest]

Since it is repeated here, I would assume the same methodology is being used.

I think for the sake of fair debate, there should be a little more evidence than just assumptions.

 

[Polak]

Well do you even know the methodology used by your sources? It seems a bit presumptuous to use data from ‘police encounters’. How can that possibly be accurate? The ‘Mapping Police Violence’ website uses media articles as their evidence. Many ‘police encounters’ (whatever is meant by that) that didn’t result in an arrest may not have even been recorded anywhere and we wouldn’t know about them.

 

[blackforest]

You made the original claim about their methodology, so the burden of proof is on you.

 

[Polak]

Not really? I am saying what type of methodology their conclusion seems to derive form, but I don’t believe they explain their methodology very well. Since you are using them as a source, you could explain it to me?

 

[blackforest]

I am saying what type of methodology their conclusion seems to derive form, but I don’t believe they explain their methodology very well.

Then you probably shouldn’t assert the claim that they are:

including people who have had no encounters with the police in it.

Respectfully, I’m trying to get you to dig deeper and question the usual conservative talking points.

 

[Polak]

Funny, since I believe you were the one getting frustrated when people were calling for proof, or saying what you present isn’t proof or evidence of racism. Now you’re saying I shouldn’t be asserting a claim, when you have been quite happy to brand the US police force as racist with no real evidence.

 

[blackforest]

to brand the US police force as racist with no real evidence.

I actually never called them racist. That’s you misrepresenting me. I said that racism is a reasonable hypothesis. A hypothesis is not a claim.

Rather than sparring with me, you could have been investigating your claim. It takes about 30 seconds on mappingpoliceviolence.org to come up with this:

This information has been meticulously sourced from the three largest, most comprehensive and impartial crowdsourced databases on police killings in the country: FatalEncounters.org, the U.S. Police Shootings Database and KilledbyPolice.net.

We’ve also done extensive original research to further improve the quality and completeness of the data; searching social media, obituaries, criminal records databases, police reports and other sources to identify the race of 90 percent of all victims in the database.

Unless you can prove that the police are randomly shooting innocent white people, there is no basis for your claim that the sample includes white people who didn’t “get into trouble.”

 

[Socrates92]

Can I assume every topic that you have not mentioned so far is proof that you don’t care about it at all?

If there is a topic that you are curious about, I would suggest specifically asking Polak’s opinion, as he did with blackforest, rather than jumping to conclusions.

 

[Polak]

Respectfully, I’m trying to get you to dig deeper and question the usual conservative talking points.

Oh please, don’t give me the ‘conservative talking points’ line. I could just as easily accuse you of going with right-wing talking points.

Unless you can prove that the police are randomly shooting innocent white people

Not randomly in the sense they are seeking out white people to kill for no reason, but yes they have shot innocent white people. Can you prove they are randomly shooting innocent black people for absolutely no reason whatsoever?

Yes ‘Mapping Police Violence’ (sound like a neutral website to you? ) name their sources as meticulous. of course they do. Give me a break. Their ‘meticulous sources’ simply go through media stories. That’s their proof.

I have already made my argument about this in a different thread and don’t feel like going over it again. My sources there were the Washington Post database on police shootings and the FBI website. Those two together showed there was no disproportionate killing of black people by the police.