billsfan1959

Are you seriously taking this stance? Have you read any of his previous posts in which he has condemned Chauvin and his actions? Even if you haven't, accusing him of justifying Chauvin's behavior from that post is ridiculous. However, you are welcome to your opinions, no matter how ridiculous I think they are. I'll let DR defend himself.

I'm sure he can answer for himself; however, in reading the post, I believe he was saying that the fact that Chauvin had a history of complaints is a valid point, but there could be other motives for Chauvin's actions regarding Floyd. He certainly wasn't defending or justifying what happened, just talking about a possible motivations. Honestly, you can't arrive where you are at from that post.

How in the world did you arrive at these conlusions from his post? He didn't defend Chauvin or justify his actions. That is not what his post said. Actually, I have not seen one post from anyone that even comes close to defending Chauvin or what happened.

C'mon, Tibs, we've had this discussion about the complex ways in which the violent crime rate in black communities impacts the interactions between law enforcement officers and the people in those communities. I am not going to go into it again. I just want to ask you a few questions: 1) Do you think all of the citizens, or even a majority of the citizens, in those poor, violent crime ridden communities engage in some kind of criminal activity? 2) If not, then why haven't they allowed decades and centuries of racism to to cause them to "behave badly" and behave in criminal ways? 3) If the majority of those ctizens are honest, decent men and women and it is a minority of citizens committing criminal acts, specifically the violent crimes, shouldn't that minority of citizens be held responsible and accountable for those acts, and, yes, take most of the blame for what they do, rather than blame it on something other than their own free will? 4) Even if their violent criminal behavior could be completely blamed on decades and centuries of racism, don't you think we still need to recognize they are, in fact, violent criminals, regardless of the reasons why, and they still have to be dealt with?

I think that is a great question that should be posed to the Democratic Police Chief, Democratic County Attorney, Democratic City Council members, Democratic Mayor, Democratic Governor, or Democratic Attorney General - particularly since they had already had 2-3 high profile unjustified killings by Officers from that department in te last few years.

I think they should be. There are two real systemic problems, not only in policing, but across all government agencies: Rewarding mediocrity and an inability to get rid of employees who can't even reach that low standard of performance. We have allowed it to reach a point where it is almost impossible to get rid of the bad apples.

Democratic leadership at its finest. They probably never would have been in this position in Chicago if they would have defunded the police years ago....

I don't have a problem with that. I would love to see the Dems support the same thing with the Teacher's Union... Camden is no beacon of "transformative thinking." They essentially increased the police force by 56%.The violent crime rate fell from 2012-2014 and has remained fairly constant since then. However, that violent crime rate is awful.

- When Camden "reconceptualized" their police force, the PRIMARY change they made was to increase the number of officers by 56% - Community policing has been going on in communities across this country for years - Most officers on the street across the country are in their regular uniforms, not riot gear - Officers have always been "trained to use handguns and handcuffs only as tools of last resort" - The crime rate across the country has been decreasing for years - This is a chart of the violent crime rate per 100,000 people for Camden, from 2012-2017 (the year the article speaks of): https://www.nj.com/camden/2018/01/camdens_2017_murder_rate_was_the_lowest_in_decades.html - They stayed fairly steady from 2014 - 2017. 2018- 2019, while not on the chart, are in the same range. - They talk about how the number of murders dropped; however, they failed to mention that the murder rate is still much higher than the national average. - They talk about how the violent crime rate has dropped; however, they failed to mention that the violent crime rate is the highest of any city in NJ and almost 4 times the national average For example, the violent crime rate, per 100,000 people: Camden US 2012 1992 388 2013 1950 379 2014 1550 372 2015 1520 384 2016 1571 397 2017 1467 394 Your chance of being a victim of a violent crime in Camden has been, and remains, higher than most places in this country. The article references Camden's standing on NeighborhoodScout’s Most Dangerous Cities, which is a website ranking the dangerousness of cities over 25,000 people. Here is Camden's rankings for 2012-2020 2012 5 2013 2 2014 3 2015 1 2016 2 2017 4 2018 4 2019 8 2020 10 (projected)

Apparently, only police unions

Yeah, I really don't know why they would request all cameras be turned off before approaching. It is that kind of thing that just begs for scrutiny and suspicion. It really is difficult to get a definitive view on that video regarding the gun in the left pocket. I believe there was a bulge in the front left pocket. Beyond that, I didn't find any evidence that the other officers were untruthful in any way when they provided their statements. Just understanding what is involved regarding evidence collection, submission and laboratory analyses, and the number of people involved in that process, my assessment is the gun was in his pocket. I hope that entire video exists. But, again, that really has no bearing, to me, when I evaluate the legitimacy of the shooting. My assessment could change if I was able to read the entire case file and saw something I am not aware of at this point. But as it stands, I did not see anything that justified the shooting. I wish the family the best in their civl suit.

These are the worst kind of cases. To me, it really has to be clearly evident, to any reasonable person, that somebody fleeing poses an imminent danger before deadly force is used. Honestly, there are not that many situations where that could be legitimately articulated.

It's a good question. Yes, I have seen incidents where deadly force was used that did not appear to be supported by the evidence. I was never personally involved with any; however, I did investigate several and was aware of others. I will also say that it is difficult, or at least has been historically speaking, to get an officer charged and, in particular, convicted without clear convincing evidence. I believe there are a lot of reasons for that and it would be a long discussion for another time. There are some attorneys on this site that could offer some good insight here. The point is, there is often a different standard when it comes to convicting officers and I believe that creates problems from different perspectives. As far as how rare or frequent? I guess I would qualify this with a couple of points. There are literally 50 million + interactions, per year, between law enforcement and citizens over the age of 16. In addition to that, there are approximately 10 million + arrests in this country per year and over 1/2 million of those are for violent crime. So, I would say that officer involved shootings in general are rare, based on the sheer number of contacts and arrests. Unjustified shootings are even more rare. Unfortunately, when we see an instance in which someone is unjustly killed, how rare it is does not diminish the tragedy of it. When it happens to a black citizen, it then takes on the magnitude of an entire history of what the black race has gone through in this country. It is completely understandable when it does. The subsequent attention given to these instances give the impression they happen at a frequent rate, which they don't. But, they do happen more than anyone would like. I think if calm, rational voices could be at the center of an honest discussion, I think real progress could be made.

I agree 100% that bringing up the socioeconic standards of poor communities would be incredibly helpful in al kinds of ways, including crime. I believe that black communities have been pawns and victims of politicians on both sides and also from self-appointed black leaders in this country. It's disgraceful. However, like I said in another post, we can feel all the empathy and sympathy in the world for how these communities arrived at the condition they are in, yet we have to acknowledge the reality and what those conditions are. One of those realities is that there is an extraordinary amount of violent crime. It is an important variable in the interaction between law enforcement and the black communities.

Most shooting situations are very fluid and decisions are often made incredibly fast. That is one of the reasons officers train so much - so that they, hopefully, it becomes "second nature" to them and they react accordingly in stressful situations. I don't believe any officers are trained to shoot fleeing suspects. In order to use deadly force, an officer has to be able to articulate an "imminent" threat, such as, "he raised his weapon, pointed it at me, and I believed he was going to shoot me." There are situations where deadly force can be used on a fleeing suspect; however, I believe that the officer still has to articulate an "imminent" danger to others.

I do a light coating of olive oil and literally cover it with lemon/pepper seasoning. I grill the salmon filets at 400, turning them over 4 times (every four minutes for a total of 8 minutes on each side). My wife and I both like our salmon cooked well.

Hey Motorin', sorry for not immediately responding. I needed to watch the video and I also read through a report on the shooting that I found at: https://da.lacounty.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/JSID_OIS_05_2019_Ross.pdf I will preface my response with the following: I don't like to provide an assessment of a crime without having the ability to review the entire case file and all related evidence. I have no idea if the extraneous information being provided alongside the videos is accurate or not. After watching the video and reading the report, without any other information I would say the following: 1. I believe Kenneth Ross was involved in the shooting for which the police were chasing him. a. He was identified at the scene and literally pointed out, by a witness, to a police officer as Mr. Ross was running from the scene. Another officer, Officer Colon sees him on the corner and you see him take off running as Officer Colon follows in her vehicle. b. In the video, when they approach Mr. Ross, after he was shot, there is a point where it is pointed out that there is no gun in his left pocket. c. In the report, it was reported that a gun was found in Mr. Ross' front left pocket, a 9mm semiautomatic. d. As I said in the video they say there is no gun. However, the close-up they show is of the back of the shorts, implying because there is no "bulge" there can be no weapon. But, as the video continues and as they are handcuffing him, you can see that there does appear to be a "bulge" in the shorts on the left side. When they role him over, whoever edited the video put the text right over the left pocket area. Then, the video cuts off, even though they stated the camera ran the entire time. I would like to see the video unedited. c. A bullet, a bullet fragment, and 8 shell casings recovered from the original shooting scene were matched with the handgun police say they recovered from the body. Based on the above, I do believe Mr. Ross was involved in a shooting and a handgun was recovered from his pocket. 2. I didn't see anything on any of the videos that suggested to me that Officers Colon and Medeiros ever acted outside of protocol. When Officer Medeiros arrives on his motorcycle, he has his handgun drawn, because he is responding to the pursuit of a shooting suspect believed to be armed. As he begins chasing the suspect, he places his gun in the holster and pulls out his taser. This tells me he did not think the suspect had a weapon in his hand. 3. Officer Robbins arrives and sees the suspect running. He gets out and immediately trains his rifle on the suspect and yells for him to stop or he'll shoot. Mr. Ross continues running behind a small utility building and out the other side, at which point Officer Robbins fires two shots and kills Mr. Ross. 4. Based soley off the video, I would have a hard time justifying Officer Robbins' use of deadly force. He stated that he believed the suspect "looked" toward him and "cocked his arm," prompting Offficer Robbins to believe Mr. Ross was "about to draw down and shoot me." It is hard to see Mr. Ross' movements clearly in this video and it is difficult to judge actual distances between people. I would like to have all of the videos to review in their entirety and crime scene sketches/diagrams to determine distances. However, based on what I saw, it looked like Mr. Ross was continuing to run away from all the officers, including Officer Robbins. Based soley on this video, I do not believe Mr. Ross posed an iminent threat to Officer Robbins and do not believe the shooting was justified and believe he should have been charged. I will say that I think whoever put this video together was not being honest about the weapon. With that said, it doesn't change the fact that I do not believe Officer Robbins was justified in shooting Mr. Ross and should have been charged. I do see how people can look at a incident like this and feel the problem is systemic. There is no doubt that incidents like this do occur. People are human beings and sometimes fail to do the right thing. I also believe that each and every incident of violence, by the police or anyone else, should be evaluated based on the facts specific to that incident. Incidents like this will always occur. It is an unfortunate aspect of our society that we literally have law enforcement officers and civilians armed and interacting with one another in emotionally charged situations. I believe in looking at new and innovative ways of improving law enforcement. I also believe the vast majority of law enforcement officers truly are trying to do the right thing and are not represented by the bad apples or those who engage in willful ignorance. Just as I do not think those violent offenders in black communities represent the vast majority of the citizens in those communites. I don't know if this answers your questions. Feel free to follow up.

Hilarious. Setting aside the ridiculousness of the post on its face, perhaps the funniest part is that the far left folks are the only ones with good intentions

I was actually thinking of grilling some salmon and roasting some vegetables.

Before defunding or dismantling the police, maybe we should try a different approach by shifting police resources form the highest violent crime areas, which are always in the poorest neighborhoods, to the middle and upper class suburbs?

I love when people like Pelosi try to distance themselves from the very extremism they foster (for political self preservation), while, at the same time, trying not lose the vote of those very same extremists. Such dishonesty. The very essence of what is wrong in Washington and why I detest so many politicians....

I won't disagree that there are too many guns out there in the hands of criminals. I'm not really sure how that can be eliminated when 90% of firearms used in crimes are illegally possessed. There are strict gun laws on the books and the strictest laws are in the areas with highest gun violence. All of that aside, Tibs, there are much deeper issues at play here regarding the extraordinarily high violent crime rate in black communities. I think real solutions to many of the underlying problems have been igored because of partisan politics on both sides. Yet, even that is separate from the issue of dealing with the extreme levels of violence. You can have all of the empathy and sympathy in the world for how those communities arrived at the state they are now in, particularly regarding violent crime; however, you still have to deal with the reality of what exists. Law enforcement is the front line for that. It doesn't excuse any unjustified use of aggression or force by the police. It also shouldn't be ignored as a contributing factor to the manner in which law enforcement interacts with the community. Complex issues, my friend

During that same five year period, 2015-2020, blacks murdered in this country were 7039, 7881, 7851, 7407, and 7400. Over 35,000 black citizens murdered in that span. Approx 95% were murdered by other black citizens. There is something wrong with that. Of those 35,000+ that were murdered, 1164 (3.1%) were killed by police. Approx 50 were unarmed

Good post. I believe in a reasonable, open, honest, fact based approach to problem solving. It begins with accurately defining the problem, which we cannot begin to do until we stop looking at things in simple, dichotomous ways. Issues are actually pretty complex and everyone, regardless of position on the issues, carries around his or her own degree of responsibility and culpability. Unfortunately, in the current environment, if the statements you made in your post and the statements I made in this post were uttered by a public figure, there would be immediate calls for him or her to recant, apologize, and to suffer real consequences to his or her life/profession. The shaming and silencing of reasonable voices is nauseating. There have been entire anti-bullying campaigns in this country built around the exact behaviors we are witnessing. Progress is always a difficult thing when the narratives are controlled by the extremes.

We are at a point right now where reasonable voices are being shamed or bullied into silence or conformity....