An inconvenient truth

Discussion in 'Ethics, Morality, & Justice' started by Photizo, Nov 29, 2014.

  1. Bells Staff Member

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    You did not reference any links.

    Remember Joe, you are the one who claimed he could disprove the point I made and supported with evidence. You are yet to do so. I'll give you a hint. For a police officer to be convicted of wrong doing is so rare, that it is extraordinary and requires extraordinary evidence. People have a hard time finding police officers guilty or even indicting them. And on the ridiculously rare occasions when they do, the sentence is non-existent to insultingly small and low.

    To put it into some perspective for you. Four police officers shot over 40 bullets at one man. He was unarmed, standing in the entrance of his building. His only crime was being black and holding a wallet in his hands. All four were acquitted. Eric Garner is a prime example of just how and why police officers are not indicted for killing unarmed black men, even on camera. The man was filmed being strangled to death on camera and no indictment for a police officer who has a history and a record of bad police practices against black people. Do you understand the point now?

    What happened with Wilson in not even facing a trial is not extraordinary. It is absolutely ordinary. Wilson could have had Brown lying down on the ground when he shot him in the head, and he would have more than likely gotten away with it. There is a precedent for that as well. You only have to look at the killing of Aiyana Jones, a 7 year old girl who was asleep on a couch and was shot in the top of her head, the bullet exited under her chin, by a police officer who stormed the wrong house. The officer who killed her walked away from it, scot-free. Even though he openly lied and falsely tried to blame the child's grandmother for the killing.

    Seconds after entering the house, where the grenade had caused Aiyana’s blanket to catch fire, Weekley fired one fatal shot. It went straight through the child’s head. Weekley said it was an accident and accused Jones of wrestling with his gun immediately as he entered the abode, causing the fatal shot.

    Jones was arrested, and though she was quickly released it was not before she and two other family members – Aiyana’s parents – had been forced to sit in their child’s blood for hours, Scott said
    .​

    The grandmother's fingerprints were nowhere on his gun. He had lied. She was on the other side of the couch when the child was killed.

    And he got away with it. But at least it made for good TV.

    So what happened with Wilson is nothing new. Nothing extraordinary. And no one expected that he would even get to trial. Brown could have been lying on the ground and Wilson would still have gotten away with it, just as Weekley got away with shooting a sleeping little girl and killing her. So your prancing around here crowing about how Wilson was exonerated is just that, you crowing about the status quo. Here are some more examples of "exoneration", if we are to apply your terminology across the board:

    Chicago Police Officer Gildardo Sierra will not face any criminal charges for the killing of an unarmed man, Cook County prosecutors announced Tuesday, despite video footage that showed Sierra standing over the victim, Flint Farmer, and shooting him multiple times. Prosecutors concluded that Sierra may have reasonably mistaken Farmer’s cell phone for a gun, and therefore was justified in firing off all 16 rounds in his gun at the unarmed man.

    Farmer was Sierra’s third shooting in six months, yet the officer remained on the job. The video showed Farmer lying on the ground bleeding as Sierra shot three bullets into his back. An autopsy later determined those three shots in his back were the fatal wounds.

    Sierra eventually admitted that he drank “multiple” beers before he went to work that night. However, the city waited more than five hours after the shooting to give him a breath test, so there was no way to tell if he was impaired during the shooting.

    The CPD also ruled Farmer’s shooting justified, though Superintendent Garry McCarthy later told the Chicago Tribune that Sierra should not have been allowed back on the street after the two previous shootings. McCarthy said the department had no way of tracking officers’ shooting records
    .
    [Source]​


    How about the case of Kelly Thomas.. Beaten to death by police. They were "exonerated", even after watching the video of police beating him to death. By around 9 minutes and 40 seconds in the video, he stopped calling for help. By the 11th minute of the video, one police officer asks if he is breathing.. By around 12 minutes and 45 seconds into the video, they start discussing how they saw his arm snap while they were beating him up after they ask him if he can move his arm. Thomas remains unresponsive.. At around 14 minutes into the video, one officer is heard telling his colleagues to make sure they check their equipment for the victim's blood and to make sure they "clean it". 15 minutes into the video, they discuss how they should wipe his face, you know, so it looks better. Because his face had been beaten to a pulp. After 16 minutes, another officer can be heard asking his colleagues if they have their "reps", their representatives, as they try and clean Thomas to try to remove the marks from the beating they gave him. When the paramedics lift him onto a gurney after after 18 minutes into the video, you can see the large puddle of blood left on the ground. That is how much they beat him. Earlier on in the video, one officer can be heard joking about how he had broken up the Thomas' face.

    In July 2011, the Fullerton cops came upon the 37-year-old schizophrenic taking some letters out of a trashcan and started beating him with a taser and a baton. The entire encounter was caught on a nearby security camera. The recording shows Ramos putting on a pair of latex gloves and telling Thomas, “See these fists? They’re getting ready to fuck you up.” As the officers hit him, Thomas begged for help and called out for his father. Cicinelli arrived later, tasing Thomas with a stun gun and then struck him across the face with it hard enough to break several bones. “I just probably smashed his face to hell,” he says on the video. Thomas went unconscious and died five days later. Ramos and Cicinelli were fired about a year after the assault.


    They were "exonerated". You can watch the whole video, from start to end. A warning though. It is harrowing and violent footage, as it always is watching someone be beaten to death.

    "Exoneration's" are common in police shootings and beatings.

    While stories of police brutality are all too common, accused officers rarely face a courtroom, let alone prison time. Even video footage isn’t a guarantee the offender will face consequences; in one case from November, a Chicago cop was caught on tape standing over an unarmed man and shooting at him 16 times, but was never charged with a crime. In another creative twist, New York City prosecutors recentlycharged an unarmed mentally ill man with assault because police shot several bystanders while aiming for him.​


    And I haven't even touched on the "exoneration's" of the men miraculously manage to shoot themselves in the chest or the head while being handcuffed with their hands behind their backs, after being searched twice, in the back of police cars.

    As I said Joe, you are simply crowing about the status quo. The outcome for Wilson was preordained and ordinary. No one expected anything differently because to do so would have been to expect the extraordinary.
     
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  3. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    This is one of the weird things about Joe's argument. He sees it. He knows it's happening. He's clinging to statutory outcomes to protect injustice. And he seems to have very little problem contributing to racism on this occasion. I just can't figure out why.

    The way it works in the U.S. can be illustrated in part by an analogy. The insurance company I worked for once upon a time was a division that worked with the high risk pool; we called it "select markets". Policy books included professionals with frequent malpractice claims, disused buildings, and high risk home policies including floodplain. On one occasion I sat stunned at the file I was looking at, a list of over five thousand malpractice claims against a dentist; there is a reason many complain about frivolous lawsuits. To wit, you go to the dentist to have a damaged tooth extracted, get a prescription for Viocdin, get home, and realize you're taking a pill because your jaw hurts, so you sue the dentist. We had a few like that, and strangely our adjusters backed them to the hilt.

    Pretty much any police officer, by analogy, will do something to get sued over the course of an arrest. As with the sore jaws, whether those claims have legitimacy is its own question. As a society, we have decided it is reasonable to keep our cops on the beat and out of constant depositions. And, to be certain, it makes sense.

    But one side effect―and at some point this seems to become the purpose of such laws―is that the police now have such immunity that even when you catch them perjuring an incident report and manipulating the physical evidence to support that perjury, they are still immune from prosecution.

    That happened in Seattle, as I've noted in this thread.

    But it's not exactly unheard of. Indeed, one would have a hard time arguing that it is "rare". Police officers can lie in good faith.

    Still, though, is this really what we intended?

    Parsing the difference is easy enough as a philosophical proposition; it takes a bit longer to do in practice. But the result we got from DoJ, that Wilson will not be prosecuted, is exactly on schedule. This is a statutory outcome. The other side of that is the systemic problems, which the Justice Department has also noted in terms that are anything but unclear.

    Joe's argument honors and even celebrates the statutory outcome, presuming that because the law has come to this outcome, this outcome must necessarily be right.

    Let us then consider another analogy: Tax law.

    In the constant back and forth between political factions, one common refrain we hear has to do with corporate taxes. People hear that G.E. made so many billions in profit and not only paid no taxes but got taxpayer money back from the federal government, and they are disgusted or even outraged.

    But why? This is a statutory outcome. By, say, Joe's argument, G.E.'s tax bill is not only fair but laudable. This is the law, therefore it is just.

    Few would swallow that when it comes to their pocketbook.

    When it comes to human life, though? When there is a body lying in the street?

    Well, we see what comes.

    It is, in the end, a matter of priorities. Your money or your life? We see how people answer, especially when the life at stake is someone else's.

    Most days, that a law is a law means nothing other than the fact that it is the law. But when it comes to killing black people? Well, yeah, now people want to invest "justice" in an act they would otherwise call "murder". It's a statutory outcome, after all, and can only be just.
     
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  5. Trooper Secular Sanity Valued Senior Member

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    So, let me get this straight. You hate police officers because they shoot people unnecessarily? Is there any chance that your assumption of this widespread excessive force is exaggerated?

    I wonder how many times officers could have legally used deadly force but did not.
     
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  7. pjdude1219 The biscuit has risen Valued Senior Member

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    your delusional. how can you have repeatedly pointed out something when this is the first time its been mentioned and your first time responding to it. no joe as has its been this entire thread your either lying or misrepresting the facts to defend racists.he wants to talk because as is stated in the deposition that the prosecuter misrepresented the law to the grand jury and than publicly lied about the views of the grand jury. which is why he wishes to talk. I've read his deposition. you are just repeating lies.


    http://news.yahoo.com/ferguson-pros...-to-discuss-darren-wilson-case-202149357.html

    says the guy misrepresenting the facts. your defending a police department that destroyed forensic evidence repeatedly lied about the facts made the extraornariry claim that a grand jury in which the prosecuter acted as a defense attorney was conducted properly and than have the balls to claim other people are misrepresenting the facts. i'm done with your lying racist ass.
     
  8. pjdude1219 The biscuit has risen Valued Senior Member

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  9. Photizo Ambassador/Envoy Valued Senior Member

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    Because the circumstances/dynamics that led to the fatal confrontation are also ordinary. When those become extraordinary, then peace will be ordinary. Resolving this is humanly impossible because the humans involved possess qualities that are unchangeably inherently antagonistic to one another. The only hope is Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace. He alone possesses the qualities and traits needed...add Jesus to both sides of the equation and the problem is solved.
     
  10. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    I suggest you do your homework before you post.

    If I have misrepresented as you claim, then it should be easy to for you to prove, so prove it.

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  11. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    The usual shot count for the Ferguson incident was 12, 6 of which hit Brown: two from the car with one hit, ten more in two bursts (iirc six and four with a three second gap, according to the audio recording analysis) at the kill site, of which five hit including the last three.

    Although it is mildly reassuring to see you misrepresent other people's posting, and then respond with insult rather than argument to them as well, the issues you are avoiding remain.

    Racial bigotry and its influences are not a theoretical or hypothetical conspiracy, in the US. They are immediate and urgent concerns in the course of ordinary life and everyday police department behavior across the entire country, and dramatically in the case of places like Ferguson.

    Juries and grand juries are different entities, with much different roles in the US system of justice. You cannot confuse them, as you continue to do. Grand juries do not try cases, hear cross examination, hear competing explanations, determine fact, etc etc etc. They do not make findings of guilt or innocence. They do not exonerate. They are not capable of any of these things. Only trial juries can do these things.

    The ones making dubious claims and tampering with evidence, or otherwise rendered suspect by physical circumstance, should be indicted. The ones proven guilty of crime should be convicted.

    And when policemen in physically dubious circumstances provide testimony in apparent conflict with the physical evidence, grand juries are presented with manipulated and unexamined evidence including extensive testimony from the accused not subject to cross-examination, and overall patterns of racial bigotry provide incontrovertible support for the existence of the issues apparently exemplified by some event and the behavior of authorities immersed in it,

    a lack of resolution of these matters is nothing to celebrate. Wilson will never be exonerated under these circumstances - if you think him blameless, that is nothing to celebrate.
     
  12. pjdude1219 The biscuit has risen Valued Senior Member

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    I have you delusional hack your incapable of acknowledging it
     
  13. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    Oh and how exactly have I misrepresented anything? That is a convenient copout to cover the fatuous nature of your posts.
    The discussion wasn’t about racial bigotry. It was about the Brown incident in Ferguson. You see, that is the problem with folks like you. You are conflating an instance where a police officer used deadly force to defend himself with racial bigotry. They are two very different issues. You and those like you are using this incident as a cause célèbre with Officer Wilson as the sacrificial lamb. And that isn't moral, nor is it legal.
    If your position is there is racial bigotry within the Ferguson Police Department or other police departments across the land, I would agree with you. But that isn’t the issue under discussion. If you want to punish Officer Wilson, then punish him for his crimes not the crimes of others. The problem is you and those like you are scapegoating Officer Wilson. As much as you find it abhorrent, Officer Wilson is entitled to “due process of law” just like everyone in this country.
    No shit Sherlock, I have been telling you that since the inception of this conversation. However, regardless of you claims, you keep conflating the grand jury with a criminal jury by applying the laws which apply to criminal juries the Ferguson grand jury. You have consistently complained the grand jury violated the law because it didn’t allow for cross examination of witnesses, among other things. So it is more than a little dishonest for to make that accusation.
    The only ones who have confused criminal juries with grand juries is you and your fellow Bells. I can understand Bells as she isn’t an American. But you, well that is another story. You and Bells have been bitching for weeks and months now because the Ferguson grand jury didn’t follow criminal jury protocols and laws and in your views should have found Officer Wilson guilty and charged him with murder.

    As I have repeatedly told you for some time now, grand juries are investigative bodies and their role was to determine if a crime had a occurred and if they find a crime had occurred, who should be accused (i.e. indicted). And in this case, they didn’t find a crime had occurred. Hence, they didn’t accuse Officer Wilson of any crime. They did exonerate Officer Wilson because they didn’t find any evidence to support charges against Officer Wilson.

    Exoneration isn’t a magical charm kept by a select few in safe. It isn’t a special power reserved for only criminal juries as you seem to think it is. Below is how Webster’s Dictionary defines the word “exoneration”.
    “to prove that someone is not guilty of a crime or responsible for a problem, bad situation, etc “ http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/exonerate

    Now show me anywhere in there does it say exoneration is a special power reserved for criminal juries?
    Didn’t you just tell me grand juries don’t cross examine witnesses? Maybe you need to go read what you just wrote. As has been explained to you many times before, cross examination isn’t needed in grand juries because unlike criminal juries, grand jurors directly cross examine witnesses. Grand juries are not adversarial as they would be in a criminal trial. They are investigative bodies investigating an alleged crime.

    Here is the bottom line; you cannot prove there was anything dubious. You cannot prove tampering of evidence. You cannot prove any of the many things you have alleged. Yeah, people who violate the law should be tried and held accountable. But there is no evidence Officer Wilson committed a crime or of any of the other things you have alleged.

    The Department of Justice has investigated the incident and found Officer Wilson’s actions were reasoned and justified. They didn’t find evidence of evidence tampering. Officer Brown’s testimony, the testimony multiple credible witness and the physical evidence are all NOT consistent with your allegations. There is no lack of resolution. The facts are very clear.
     
  14. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    That
    You have been challenged PJ. Where is your evidence, where are your proofs?
     
  15. Bells Staff Member

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    You were not participating in this thread from the start, or at least not actually reading what was being said.

    This discussion started with the premise of racial bigotry.

    Did you miss post #7, where Nutter discusses how blacks are less intelligent than whites? And how blacks are not equal to whites? By post 51, the OP decided to crash and trash by trying to once again discuss what he believes is the lesser evolved blacks against the more supreme whites. And on and on it went.

    The Ferguson Police Department is reeking of racial bigotry. It is so bad they could end up shutting it down completely. This is the atmosphere that police exist in and work in and it has been found that the main victims of their bigotry are minorities in Ferguson. This was the atmosphere that Wilson operated in. Photizo and his ilk simply talked up to what Ferguson put into practice. It is akin to someone complaining that the discussion is not about stars because he wants to discuss the sun.
     
  16. Photizo Ambassador/Envoy Valued Senior Member

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    I'm sick of you and your ilk lying and misrepresenting the facts.

    That post was presented in order to dispel the myth of white supremacism by posting an article evidencing precisely that i.e. it's a myth with respect to white supremacy holding sway over the country. You promote the myth.

    Negro fatigue--on the part of people who by and large have no quarrel with blacks--is NOT evidence of, nor is it correct to equate that with white supremacy.

    Police are on the front lines continually dealing with the Michael Brown's of this world and HIS ilk. It is no surprize that pent up frustration erupts in behaviors that might otherwise not happen. There isn't a person alive who doesn't understand this. You don't put your life on the line for people day and night and then be continually disrespected, provoked, and assaulted by those same people without negative consequences over time. On top of that, scum use the force of government to pound you further into the ground while simultaneously fanning the flames of discontent and division adding only more stress to your job by making it all the more dangerous.

    Try and figure out what this says about you and your ilk: "Everything is pure to those whose hearts are pure. But nothing is pure to those who are corrupt and unbelieving, because their minds and consciences are corrupted." Got it?

    Joe has done an outstanding job of exposing you and your ilk as the frauds you are.
     
    Last edited: Mar 10, 2015
  17. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Easiest way to realize that it's time to stop reading a post and consider it flamebait - the term "you and your ilk." It indicates that the poster has no objectives other than stereotyping.
     
  18. Bells Staff Member

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    "Negro fatigue"?

    Let me guess, this is you not having a quarrel with blacks?

    Or is that you trying to dispel the "myth of white supremacism"?

    How about when you said:

    How about when you started pining for separation of whites and blacks?

    Tell me something Photizo, what did you think of the DoJ report on Ferguson's Police Department and the evidence of entrenched racism against black that exists within the Department? Do you think it is acceptable behaviour on the part of the Ferguson Police Department? Or unacceptable behaviour?

    Do you understand that when people are continuously unfairly targeted because of their colour, that there comes a point in time where the pressure of that anger builds up and up where they will take to the streets and protest.

    You are correct, the Ferguson Police Department and others like them, are charged with law enforcement. What they are not charged with is enrichment practices built solely on racist and bigoted practices that results in their being enriched because of their bigoted and racist practices.

    Respect is earned. And when a police department goes out of its way to destroy any and all respect they may have garnered from the community by acting like racist bigots and using their badge and their position of power to do so, then they become dysfunctional, because they stop serving the community and instead expect the community to serve them.
     
  19. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    It was you, not other people, who described an allusion to the pattern of racial bigotry apparently visible in the Ferguson event and aftermath (as well as your posting, and the media coverage generally) as a "conspiracy theory".

    Meanwhile, the notion that police officers using "deadly force to defend themselves" and racial bigotry are two very different issues is a happy one, which unfortunately is indefensibly naive in the US. Someday, maybe, the use of deadly force by the police and racial bigotry will be unrelated and "very different issues" - we can hope.
    Never. Not once. Specifically and explicitly and clearly, I have refused to do that.

    In addition, I have rejected that specific characteristic of your posting, which you project unto others, using quotes exemplifying your confusion in this matter.
    I have never, not once, even mentioned any violation of any law by the Ferguson grand jury. I have held the Ferguson grand jury not only law-abiding but ethically blameless throughout. The lack of cross examination in grand jury hearings is a perfectly legal circumstance I have referred to several times as a normal and obviously significant feature of grand jury hearings. What is wrong with you?

    And each and every time you asserted that, you were wrong. You have been corrected on that literally dozens of times by several different people.

    Grand juries evaluate quality of evidence, they do not determine matters of fact - in particular, they do not determine guilt or innocence. Neither do they determine "who should be indicted" - they determine whether of not the specific accused person(s) presented to them by the State's lawyers should be indicted.

    It's not "reserved" for criminal juries, it's sometimes available to them. It is denied to grand juries, in the part where it says "prove that someone is not guilty". Grand juries are incapable of doing that, and do not attempt it. Grand juries cannot exonerate, because they do not try the case, or argue it in public.

    As has been pointed out to you several times, grand juries are incapable of cross examining witnesses. They are made up of ordinary people. They have none of the training, none of the expertise, and none of the opportunity for preparation required.
     
    Last edited: Mar 10, 2015
  20. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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  21. pjdude1219 The biscuit has risen Valued Senior Member

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    oh fuck your challenge. you refuse to defend your implied belief that most grand juries are conducted improperly. when you actually start providing proof how a prosecuter acting like a defense attorney constitues a legit grand jury I'm considering answering your delusional and self serving demands until than your just another partisan racist hack.
     
  22. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    Mine is the second post in this thread. The OP didn’t start out with a racist bent. But it quickly deteriorated into one, and that is unfortunate. I didn’t participate in that discussion because it was pretty pathetic and it wasn’t relevant to the OP.

    That may be, but that isn’t reason to make Officer Wilson a scapegoat. The Ferguson Police Department was quite obviously poorly managed. There is plenty of blame to pass around for Ferguson. The community should have not let the department sink to such a low level. The mayor, city council, county supervisors, and the police department all have some responsibility for the sad state of the Ferguson Police Department. The important thing is to fix it and not create more victims.

    To Photizo’s point on police, he does have a point. Having worked on the streets of Oakland, CA for 8 years, I know what it is like. My partner grew up and lived in the Oakland. He was a very good man. I loved the work. But after a time it wears on you. People are constantly trying to game you and you are constantly at risk. I’ll give you an example.

    On occasion, I would dispatch ambulances and my partner would work with someone else while I dispatched. On this particular evening that was the case. One evening while I worked the dispatch board, I received a call. A woman was reported as being in the throes of an epileptic fit. There was nothing unusual about it; we got calls like it all the time. It was routine.
    My partner arrived on scene in just under 5 minutes. A few minutes after his arrival on scene, he reported to me on the radio he was being shot at. I called the police and police officers were quickly dispatched. I told other ambulances to stay away from the scene until the police had secured the scene. No one was killed, thank God. But it was tough; when I got off the board that night my legs were quivering. I have never been that scared before or since.
    Ambulance personnel don’t carry guns. I never wanted to carry one. I always thought I could talk myself out of most anything and it worked. And I always had the police whom I could call and they did have guns.

    The next day I learned what happened. The woman (patient) was faking a seizure. In the 8 years I worked as an EMT in Oakland, as many as half the emergency calls I received were people faking an illness for one reason or another. Her husband was drunk. The house was crowded and children were present. This woman’s husband became upset because my partner and his partner that evening took too long in his view. It was about 3 minutes on scene before he shooting started. Her husband got out his shot gun and started shooting, first at my partner and then everything and everyone else. My partner barricaded the bedroom door and shielded the patient on the floor. His partner that evening wanted to jump out the window and run. Fortunately my partner was able to dissuade her because that would have put her directly in the path of the gunman. People in the house ran outside and the gunman followed leaving my partner, his partner that evening, and the patient alone. Fortunately the police were able to secure the area and the gunman safely and no one got hurt that evening. But it could just as easily ended in bloodshed.

    But that kind of stuff happened all the time. There were times when I’d arrive on scene and there would be a woman “running” around the room and screaming, “I can’t breathe” and everyone in the room would be drunk and in hysterics. That’s a very dangerous place to be in. But I have been there numerous times. I have seen all kinds of trauma. I have seen a woman raped, and beaten so badly her eyeballs had been knocked out of her head and the guy who did it was a 17 year old juvenile. I have seen a young teenager stabbed to death while riding his bike and stopped at a stop light. The perpetrator hung around in the crowd and watched us attend to him. I spoke with him when we first arrived. The guy was just inches away from us while we attended to his victim. He could easily have stabbed me and my partner. Eventually, after years of this, I began having disturbing dreams. I guess now they would call it Post Traumatic Stress. It was time for me to leave. I left. It’s easy to sit back in your arm chair and render judgments. It’s quite another to live that life style. Much of the stuff I had trained for in the Navy, I experienced on the streets of Oakland.

    I benefited greatly by working with Wilfrey (my partner). He grew up in the neighborhood. He cared about the community and the people who lived there, but even Wilfrey had his limits. Wifrey was damn good man. In his off hours he worked with kids in the community. He wanted to ensure kids got an opportunity to better themselves. Working with Wilfrey taught me the value of diversity – something the Ferguson Police Department doesn’t have. And that is very unfortunate. Yeah, there are some bad apples out there. But there are many more good apples. Working the streets as a police officer or as an EMT you mostly see the bad apples and sometimes policemen forget there are many more good apples than bad out there. None of that justifies racism. None of that justifies criminal behavior. The Ferguson Police Department obviously has a problem and some people need to be dismissed and the department probably needs to be dissolved. Our people who work the streets, the police officers, firemen, and EMTs need to be reminded sometimes that the good apples outnumber the bad. But they shouldn’t scapegoated either.
     
    Last edited: Mar 10, 2015
  23. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    Funny, I don't recall seeing any evidence Officer Wilson was a bigot. I think you are exhibiting bigotry when you call others bigots without any evidence whatsoever.

    AND YOU THINK THAT MAKES SENSE?

    LOL, so you were just kidding about all that nonsense with respect to the grand jury? You know, your last post.

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    I suggest you read your last post. Do you not know what you post, or are just that divorced from reality?

    And each and every time you asserted that, you were wrong. You have been corrected on that literally dozens of times by several different people.

    Ok, you were doing ok until you got to the "Neither do they determine who should be indicted" part. Are you that deluded that you don't know what you have written? You have just contradicted yourself yet again. In one sentence you say grand juries do not determine who should be indicted and in the next sentence you say they do. The state's lawyers do not tell grand juries whom they can and cannot indict. Grand juries are free to indict whomever they please. You have better go back to Wikipedia.

    Show me where is your evidence grand juries can only indict people presented to them by the state. You don't have it because it doesn't exist. In some states grand juries can investigate whomever and whatever they want. In others they are limited to hearing cases presented to them by the state. But that doesn't mean they can only indict people sanctioned by the state. This gets back to your persistent inability to understand the function of a grand jury.

    You might want to read the below definition of the word "indict", though I doubt it will help you.

    indict. (of a grand jury) to bring a formal accusation against, as a means of bringing to trial: The grand jury indicted him for murder. to charge with an offense or crime; accuse of wrongdoing; castigate; criticize:It's not "reserved" for criminal juries, it's sometimes available to them. It is denied to grand juries, in the part where it says "prove that someone is not guilty". Grand juries are incapable of doing that, and do not attempt it. Grand juries cannot exonerate, because they do not try the case, or argue it in public. https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=indict

    Then why do you keep complaining as recently as your last post, about the lack of a cross examination in the grand jury? You know Ice, you keep contradicting yourself so frequently it makes conversation with you a waste of time. As you have been told numerous times and in response to your criticism that a proper cross examination hadn't occurred in Ferguson grand jury, grand jurors are allowed to directly examine and question witnesses like a defense attorney would do in a criminal jury trial. That effectively nullifies your argument to the contrary.
     

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