So they are burning and looting in Baltimore tonight

I agree with you that the Baltimore Mayor and Police Commissioner share huge responsibility for what happened. I don't blame the rank-and-file police. They have already been painted as murderous racists bent on killing young black men by an unholy alliance of the media and their own superiors. Any use of force against violent street-thugs was effectively ruled out before anything had even started. The police were apparently just ordered to stand by and watch the riot, as the Mayor told the cameras that she had tried to give "space" to those who wanted to "destroy", and expressed her opinion that "peaceful" protests can sometimes result in property damage.

Today she is denying that she said those things, which are on video, and insisting that the media is 'twisting' her words. But I'm willing to bet that it accurately reflects what was being said in City Hall and the kind of orders that police were given.

I expect that many Baltimore police were totally demoralized last night, thinking "Fuck this, if this is the kind of city that the rulers of Baltimore want, then they can watch it burn. I'm not risking injury and my police pension to try to stop arson and looting, if my own superiors don't have my back."

Then the media and the so-called social "scientists" will 'discover' that black neighborhoods have fewer stores, amenities and jobs than other neighborhoods and call that evidence of "racism".

It doesn't. The looted and burned businesses are targets of opportunity, very tempting to the kind of young men who are used to getting what they want by force and intimidation.

The National Guard are all for show. They are a military force, probably with experience in places like Afghanistan. They fight wars, they aren't trained riot police. I guess that calling them out for riots is supposed to show that the government is taking resolute action, suggesting that the rulers are prepared to employ military force against the rioters.

Except that everyone already knows that they aren't. Those National Guardsmen have doubtless been given very stringent rules of engagement and are forbidden to discharge their weapons except in the most dire circumstances. So if the Baltimore police were bad, just standing around watching arson and looting take place without intervening, expect the Guard to be twice as bad. Don't expect them to shoot looters or even make arrests. They are just there in hopes that they will look scary and intimidating.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Better to have more enforcement personnel than fewer during a riot. Even if the Guard did not fire their being at the riot would have calmed down allot of people and probably would have not ended up with a riot like they did.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

He broke his own neck?

OK. By that logic, I wonder if any cops will kill themselves by going into a riot they shouldn't have? If so - foolish cops.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

My guess is that the cops were trying to take this guy into custody and he was fighting with them. One of the cops likely had his arm around the guy's neck, with his elbow under his chin. Then the guy stumbled.

That scenario is far more plausible and likely than the bizarrely paranoid conspiracy-theory allegation that police intentionally broke his neck merely because he was young, black and male.

 

Google the practice of "nickle rides". That's the kind of shit that has to end. There is no justice when cops can sentence people to violence WHILE THEY ARE ALREADY IN CUSTODY.

 

Googling "nickel rides" hasn't improved your understanding of them. So why should it improve mine? Do you have evidence "cops" sentence people to violence? Ahh, no you don't. You don't know any more than I with respect to this incident. The fact is you nor I know how this young man suffered his fatal injuries. But here is the difference between you and I. I require evidence in order reach a conclusion. You do not.

The fact is injustice, and even more so, alleged injustice as in this case doesn't excuse more injustice and more violence as is the case in Baltimore. How this young man's injuries were inflicted remains an unanswered question for the public. Whereas you have probably never seen a paddy wagon outside of a picture or a video, I have. And it's difficult to see how a rough ride would inflict those kinds of injuries. In any case, this young man was in police custody and the police force had an obligation to protect his health and wellbeing. Obviously, they failed in that regard. And the story police have told thus far doesn't add up. The facts don't add up, something is missing. And given the number of investigations, I think the missing pieces will eventually become evident. But until they do, it is very premature to be rendering convictions. You risk egg on your face yet again.

And in any case, alleged injustice does not justify further injustice. If you believe that, you should go to Mother Russia.

 

I don't pretend to be a court of law, I'm trying to help people understand how, when there is no legal course of action that is effective in generally mitigating unnecessary police violence, people will lash out at whatever is around. It's certainly possible that the police did nothing wrong in this particular case, but pubic opinion isn't shaped by one case. It's shaped by a lifetime of experience that most white people know very little about.

 

There are many good citizens who are concerned about how police have handled these situations. Those good people are not looting, assaulting, and burning buildings nor do they approve of such behavior. There is legal recourse. Police departments are being sued and will pay for their malfeasance if they are found guilty and they will have to face their community at the ballot box. And if police are found to have violated the law, they are prosecuted. A police officer was recently arrested and will be tried for killing a man. That is justice, but justice needs evidence and reason. There is legal recourse for perceived transgressions.

President Obama spoke on this issue earlier today. And as usual, President Obama was spot on. There are larger issues afoot here and they need to be addressed. But like President Obama, I don't see those things happening with this Congress.

Our inner city youth need opportunities other than working in the drug trade. They need better education. They need better role models. We need to improve our infrastructure. There is a problem in our inner cities that goes far deeper than alleged police misconduct.

 

The people should be addressing this in the public forum like when the city council meets. Many people should cram the meeting hall to display their anger where it would do the best, not the worst , for their cause.

 

That could explain either the broken back or the broken neck or being sent into a coma, but only one of these three.
Also, I would not call six cops, working together on one guy, a Conspiracy - but that seems to be what was "going down."

 

Yes there is this ONE case BECAUSE, the whole world has seen the video of the officers firing his full six shots in to the man's back while he was running away.

His crime, was to have a car with a burnt out tail light. Unknown to the officer who killed him at the time of the killing was fact that he was a few months behind on child support payments. I think that child can ever expect to get them now. It is sad that his car was parked in front of an auto parts supply store, when he bolted from it, for unknown reasons. - Possibly he had stopped there to buy a new tail light. I guess the officer was too busy and could not wait to see if that was the case.

Much of the world has also seen six cops kill a black man in NYC by strangulation of him - his crime was selling boot-legged cigarettes, one at a time, I think to others who were poor, like him. I saw that video several times, here in Sao Paulo, too. Little wonder ISS recruits so many so easily. The Chinese, considered "people of color" in Africa are winning fast the competition for influence there with the US for the same reason. As Pogo, swamp's sage, said: "We have met the enemy. - And he is us."
The grand jury in the NYC killing decided no need for court trial as also happened in Fergusson and everywhere else I know of when the dead body has black skin.

 

There is no such "they", no such community of bad black people acting out of a sense that their looting and burning is "justified". There are, and always are, the good people that comprise the actual community at issue, who are without enough power in part because the police have been undermining them for generations.

In New York City recently and obviously, and in other places quite often, the police have reacted to criticism of their behavior by allowing thugs and hoodlums unimpeded access to these critics and their neighborhoods, homes, businesses, persons. This is a common feature and tactic of oppressive police setups, visible - say - almost universally throughout the US in police handling of the gay community and the black community and other such targets.

It's a symptom, a characteristic of setups in which the police in general - not just one or two bad apples - are corrupted in some major, institutionalized way. The police police these communities in opposition to them, rather than on their behalf.

And so we see the language of these threads, in which the "they" of the entire community and the "they" of the entire police force are simply assumed to be in some kind of conflict, as the "sides" of an issue. Notice that the police and the community are not presumed to be the one side, so that the rotten apple cops join the criminals on the street in forming the other side.

Notice this, for example:

Just last night, that is, the Baltimore police became suddenly alienated and demoralized. Before that, in the runup to this mess, they were fine. It's the city government's fault that these competent, non-racist, and unprovoking officers were not set to the job of quelling this riot by their normal and well-reputed calm assertion of law and their universally respected careful use of calculated, limited, justified force against young black men.

 

Agreed. And cops should not be murdering people. That will do more to get cops killed in the long run than anything else. Both need to be fixed.

 

He had a broken neck associated with damage to his larynx and subsequently fell into a coma. I suppose the one easily could have caused the other. I don't know of any separate broken back.

If the guy was fighting the police, it probably took several officers to subdue him. If a suspect is combative, cops aren't typically going to stand by while one officer tries to engage him in an equal fight. They will rush to assist, as they should.

 

But not so in the 1960s when I lead the successful effort to integrate the restaurants of Baltimore one summer, taking a break from my Ph. D. studies. Leaders of two prior summers failed as they used moral arguments - I used economic damage to the restaurants instead. I have several posts on this.*

I want to praise the Baltimore police force Baltimore had back then. Our sit-ins were loud and simultaneous in up to 25 restaurants, so stressed their response capacity / rate. Even when they did arrive, a waitress had to read a long "posted notice" written for blocking trespassing on farms, things about repair of fences cut etc. before the police would order us to leave. Some of the waitresses were poorly educated, so we had to help her do that reading at the more difficult words - It was all reduced to a ritual but when we left, the police were only one keeping watch on our picket line outside.

I was glad there was at least one. Once a man in unseasonal overcoat came close to me, and pulled it back exposing the pistol in his belt. - That did scare me. Once a frail old lady tried to beat me with her cane, but I could easily catch it before it contacted my body or head. - I was afraid then too, but for her, not me, she was not very stable in her angry state without that cane's tip on the ground. The police were always absolutely proper - following the law and we did too as the Baltimore Afro-American newspaper did not want any more legal expenses - they had two cases of arrested demonstrators, who had refused to leave when asked by the police, already in the courts. We knew our right and exercised them to the fullest - the restaurant got very few new customers while we were there or out side. On a good Sunday, we could costs them $25,000 in lost business - soon their association did a 180 degree turn and joined us in asking the MD legislator to make discrimination by skin color illegal which they promptly did so I could return to my Ph. D. efforts.

*See more in detail here: http://www.sciforums.com/threads/declare-war-for-solar-energy.94250/page-3#post-2305667

 

Not if normal medical care was given - procedure is called a tracheostomy. An injury to the larynx almost never completely blocks air flow. Probably you would not even lose consciousness if not struggling, at least not for more than an hour - certainly not fall into a irreversible coma, I think as your struggling would stop with loss of consciousness. Lets wait for the medical exam of his brain - I bet it is damaged too, by multiple head blows - perhaps by kicks, one of which was forceful enough to break his neck.

 

Except you have no evidence of any of that. All we know at this point is that while in police custody this young man suffered the following "when Freddie arrived at the hospital he had three broken vertebrae, his spinal cord was severed 80 percent, his voice box damaged, and his brain was swollen.", per the Daily Kos. As a former EMT who has seen a lot of trauma working in a very violent metropolitan area, that is a lot of trauma. It takes a lot of force to nearly sever the spinal cord. I don't see how Mr. Grey could sustain that much damage in just a rough ride. Something is missing, because this just doesn't add up. Police owe the public and explanation backed by evidence and they do bear some culpability wither they directly or indirectly caused Mr. Grey's wounds. Mr. Grey was in their custody when his wounds were inflicted.

I think it wise to wait until the investigation is completed before folks jump to conclusions.

 

Severe facial trauma is frequently a reason for a tracheotomy. Traches (tracheotomies) are done to restore an airway. It sounds like, based on what has been released thus far, Mr. Grey suffered significant head and neck trauma which impaired his airway. Brain swelling alone or an impaired airway alone could have severely damaged his brain resulting in a coma and brain death.

 

Yeah, it's that little thing called evidence.

That isn't this case. No one has said our system of justice is perfect. I doubt if such a thing exists on Earth. But there is one thing I do know, hysteria isn't justice.