How to prevent a Trayvon/Ferguson incident?

Philosophy Forums Society, Government, and Economics
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Ucc, you still seem to be saying that because the case was no billed that the guy didn’t do anything wrong.

I’ve personally been no billed twice by a grand jury, and 100% of the time in those cases, I did something wrong.

Whether or not there is evidence that suits the legal system’s requirements doesn’t necessarily have to bear on our ability to see the truth of the matter. I mean…do you think that OJ Simpson killed his wife? He was acquitted by a jury, but everyone knows that he did it. What about the innocence project? There’s a widespread legacy of legal decisions being handled in ways that ended up not discovering the truth or serving justice.

I don’t know why you want it to be about politics so badly.

Fear as a chemical response?

You really don’t think that a trained officer would have enough control of the situation to not have to fire 12 rounds?

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You know, a semiautomatic will spit out 12 rounds in about 6 sec. Blind fear could cause a panic pulling of that trigger, a young inexperienced cop by their self could or would be ignorant enough.
Still it goes back to training.

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Kris, I have 4 semi automatic weapons in my apartment right now. If I fire 12 rounds in 6 seconds, then I’m a madman who isn’t even really aiming.

I guess that makes sense, since his hit rate was exactly 50%.

Half the bullets this guy fired on the street in that neighborhood with all those people around didn’t hit his intended target.

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Exactly, to hit your target all the time that way, takes alot of practice. He was pulling the trigger, knee jerk way, not a deliberate calculating way. It took hours of practice, alot of money for bullets for me to hit near the bullseye with my 9mil. Just a guess but, few people involved in all of this, understand this point or even know it, thankyou Hollywood ( sarcasm)

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Plus, most guns that cops carry, like glocks and sigs have trigger pull weights of over 5lbs. Glocks are 5.5lbs from the factory, and the lightest aftermarket trigger you can put in is 3.5lbs. No one accidentally pulls 5lbs with their finger 12 times.

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Adrenaline

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I wonder why he couldn’t have driven away when the kid reached into his car. I mean the gas pedal was right there, he was behind the wheel.

Let’s not think about it in terms of who had what rights or who had which privileges, but let’s look at it from the perspective of a person who’s afraid for their life, behind the wheel of a car, and ends up out of the car shooting 12 times in the street.

I mean, I know the cop doesn’t legally have to back down, but a person who is scared for their life, about to be killed by an unarmed 18 year old fat ass…it would seem to me might consider throwing that bitch in drive and getting outta there. Maybe come back and find the kid later with some backup. Something…anything… I just don’t see how this guy could be both afraid for his life, and make no attempt to escape but instead get out of the car to confront the person who was making him fear for his life.

Shit just seems crazy as hell.

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Training perhaps. Or ego. Or both. Fear, ego, lack of training and experience all create a bomb.
He may have thought to leave but, then he would be a coward and called one… his mind would have warred. Adrenaline and all the above helps to make dangerous decisions , idiotic ones.

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Well, if that’s the case, then I don’t see how him wearing a badge makes him any less of a murderer.

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Well, I agree to a point. But, Someone told him he could handle such a situation. Someone he trusted and looked up to as the authority. Who is more culpable? There is a very good argument that he too is a victim of this incident.

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The kind that motivates you to completely ignore the issue of race baiters setting a city on fire because it's more important for you to go on talking about racism, despite it being revealed that racism had likely nothing to do with the matter discussed in this thread.

If you say some of those things, I’ll probably notice.

No, you are two people doing the same thing.  I mean, I didn't goad or manipulate you into immediately declaring "This is about more than Ferguson" and posting news stories about racism in general the moment you discovered the Ferguson case was laughed out of court.  That's just a thing you did, and it makes it appear as though 'fighting racism' is more important to you than reality. Which is dangerous. How is it dangerous? It set Ferguson on fire, for example.

And you still refuse to discuss it.

In case that sounds circular, let me paint a picture- The question is how to prevent a Ferguson incident. My answer is ‘stop being crazy, irrational people who leap to conclusions about race, and stop listening to race baiters who are manipulating you for advertising revenues and donations’. You scoff. The court finds what it finds- in short, that there is no racial issue here, nothing to prosecute. You immediately shift gears to ‘racism in general’ and how we can ‘use Ferguson to make a broader point’ irrespective of the facts.
So, the next time something bad happens to a black person, and the media tries to lynch a white person for it, what will have changed? Fuck all, because you and Mr.R and countless others seem determined not to learn from Ferguson.
That’s why your reaction is important.

You didn’t answer my question about conservatives starting riots, or the reaction to the OJ trial, speaking of what ‘people’ tend to do. I know it makes you mad, and we run the risk of personal attacks, but your notions of “Let’s skip over the facts and talk about how terrible racism is some more” and “Both sides of equally guilty of anything the left gets called out on” are what caused Ferguson, and addressing them is the solution.

Let me put it in as simple and egalitarian a way as possible;

There are two problems in the US.   One of them is people doing racist things.  The other one is people pretending there is racism where there isn't, in order to stir up controversy for their own gain.   This is a thread about Ferguson.  You THOUGHT Ferguson was an example of the former, it turned out to  be an example of the latter.  So why are you refusing to discuss the problem that Ferguson actually turned out to be, in a thread about Ferguson?   Is there racism in the world? Sure, but that's not what caused THIS mess.   A reasonable response is not "WEll, fuck what actually happened, let's just talk about how bad racism is anyway".  If the goal of the thread is to prevent Ferguson, then it's time to talk about race-baiters, as that is what caused Ferguson.

Ideology is my rude guess; something is more important to you than reality. That is my uncalled for speculation that you should feel free to correct. So far all you’ve addressed it with is ‘how dare you’, more or less.

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If you’re right, then I’m sure there are tons of killers in prison who would love to be freed on those grounds.

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Ucc, I’m not talking about the people’s races at all. I’m talking about their height and weight and level of training and the kind of maturity that we expect from 18 year olds vs 28 year olds in society in general.

Why do you think everything is about race?

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Uccisore,

I did not post news stories that were focused on racism… I did not immediately shift gears into a larger point than Ferguson, the larger picture was what I was interested from the beginning. Look on page 2 of this thread. I have never wanted a white cop to be lynched…you really don’t get me.

I have no sympathy for the low life criminals who brought violence and damage to Ferguson and any other place. I’ve spoken against that numerous times, so your charges that “my ideology,” which you still won’t cite, leads to a welcoming atmosphere for such punks is bullshit.

Furthermore, I already explained that I am looking at the conditions of life in Ferguson that have led to the tension people in the community ALREADY had with the police force. I don’t imply that M. Brown’s or other crominals’ behavior is to be explained away by those conditions, but that it contributes to escalating situations where people can get killed (cops and citizens) over minor stuff.

The way this conversation is going is dumb and unproductive which is why I haven’t been replying to your every vitriol-fueled comment.

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dp

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Why are you looking at the tensions in the community in Ferguson when, as always with this sort of thing, the people organizing the protests and stirring up the tensions [i]aren't from Ferguson[/i]?  Was the black community under the tensions you imagine in Los Angeles during the Rodney King riots? Which communities' racial tensions were responsible for the Trayvon Martin fiasco, in which we had to make up a whole new race, the 'white latino', just to twist the 'white people attacking black people' narrative into applying?

  Nobody got killed over minor stuff in Ferguson, unless somebody was killed in the riots that I didn't hear about.  A violent criminal got killed for attacking a police officer and trying to take his gun away from him. That's basically the single most likely and fair circumstance in which one human being can kill another in this country. Even being caught fucking somebody else's wife doesn't rate as highly.  If you try to charge a cop and take his gun away from him, you're either stupid or you don't want to live anymore.   If it sounds crass, it's not. It's seriously important that you understand that what happened here was absolutely routine, by the book, and yawn-worthy [i]except that race-baiters made it otherwise.[/i]

The thing that happened in Ferguson is race baiters caused a riot of something that had nothing to do with race.  That's the thing that happened, that's the problem that needs to be addressed to keep "Ferguson" from happening again.  It was common sense BEFORE the hearings, and the hearings bare it out.  So if you aren't examining that, you aren't examining Ferguson; you're still examining a fantasy story the race baiters told about it.

Thinking that your ideology doesn’t contribute to the riots because you say “I denounce violence” is facile. Attributing the Ferguson riots to real racism instead of a scam encourages the violence by not calling out the people that caused it, and emboldening them to do it again next time.

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On what grounds?

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That they were somehow coerced to kill.

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By whom?

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Shit…does it matter? What’s the difference who’s coercing someone to do something horrible? As long as they were coerced then it’s not their fault right?