It's not simply a few bad cops. What I posted was a small sample of recent examples, if you care to educate yourself you could look into the matter. This has been going on for decades, centuries, and cops are very rarely charged or convicted or even fired in cases where they are clearly at fault.
You'll have to quote where I said it's okay for anyone to commit crimes. What I (and many others) are after is for the rule of law to run its course. If someone commits a crime, they should be arrested, brought to court/trial, and convicted if found guilty. When cops use excessive force to kill suspected criminals, it circumvents the entire criminal justice system. The police should not have the power to be judge, jury, and executioner. It's odd that this is seen as a controversial opinion.
And yet there was no reason for the police to shoot him, let alone 7 times in the back. There are many levels of action the police can take to subdue a suspect beyond pulling on a t-shirt, and short of emptying a magazine into their back, especially when there are multiple officers on the scene to deal with any threat. For instance, physically restrain him, which should have been easy given the superiority of numbers the officers had, or deploy pepper spray. Or shoot a warning shot. Or shoot his tires out if they were concerned he would flee in the vehicle and cause anyone harm.
They tried to tase him, that didn't work, so the officer gave up and shot him 7 times in the back. Even if we were to agree that using a firearm was the best course of action, shooting the man 7 times was completely unnecessary, and at best, criminally negligent.
Too often police discharge their firearms as the end-all-be-all solution to problems. We need to talk about better training for our police, about de-escalation. These situations will not improve until we start to take them seriously.
When discussing an individual event, it makes sense to talk about blame for individuals. However, People are not upset by and are not protesting a singular event. This is about a historic trend of events, about the actions of groups, about systemic problems. If you allow yourself to think of it in its greater context, you may begin to understand.
Originally Posted by: earthquake
You keep saying there was no reason to shoot him.
They tried non lethal force and it didn’t stop him. Why can’t you put the blame on the criminal for a change? Is he not responsible for what happened to him? All he had to do is what the cops told him to do! And had they wrestled him to the ground, do you not think it went through the cops mind that if they did that they would get sued, lose their jobs and end up being vilified?
You know, like what happens every time a black man resists arrest and ends up beaten? People like you want to take away all power from the police, then scream when someone ends up dead or injured.
When you start holding criminals responsible for their own actions, then I’ll take you seriously.
You say that when someone commits a crime it should go through the judicial system. And it WOULD if the criminals would not fight the cops when they are trying to arrest them.
The cops did not “give up” when the taser didn’t stop the guy. It only took a couple of seconds to end up in a deadly encounter. Once again, 100% caused by the criminal resisting arrest.
Had he complied with the cops, he would have had his day in court. Whose fault is it that he got shot? Not the police. He brought it on himself by his own actions. If you can’t see that, you are purposely ignoring the truth. Had a white man done the same thing, it would have ended the same way.
If you act like a jackass when the cops confront you, chances are it won’t end pretty for you. Put the blame on the idiot, not on the police.
The guy saw they had their guns pulled, yet he himself chose to ignore that. Who’s the fool????
If a cop pulled a gun on me, I’d do what he said, PERIOD!
But I’m a stupid white guy.
Having dark skin shouldn’t give you a free pass to act like an idiot.
There are consequences to your actions. His consequences were that he’s now paralyzed from the waist down.
Had he not resisted, he’d still be able to walk.