What a ridiculous leap. Six armed cops telling you take your hands out of your pocket is not some gestapo ordering you to sell out a Jew to the gas chambers.
How do you think it started? The welcomed the Nazi's with flowers in the beginning. You keep giving up your rights slowly and by the time you know it they'll be gone. Guess who said that.
Refusing to take your hands out of your pocket is not a "right." It's not even an unreasonable request, despite the context of the rest of the evening. You were honest earlier when you said it was about pride and you called me a boot licker. You wouldn't feel macho if you complied with the cops and that's your choice.
Nice, like 20 cops show up for this... they obviously had nothing better to do, they should cut that police force in half
Funny enough, even the cop who called for backup apparently cracked that these guys had nothing better to do. He repeatedly said he only asked for "one."
If that's true -- and I don't believe that for a second -- the race blaming can be a big lever to fix troubles with police abuse. If it isn't racism, it's a local PD matter, maybe a state matter if you have a Legislature or an AG that gives a crap. If it is racism, it's also a federal matter (of course, not Sessions' DOJ, but some future one) so you have one more tool to put PDs in line. I don't see how more pressure to change is going to get in the way of that change. If officers are exposed to civil liability, I don't know if you'll be able to hire anyone anymore. Now, one alternative could be that when the PD investigates the matter, they don't conclude that nothing was wrong. They make policy that disallows this behavior and fire cops for cause when they do it. And don't hire cops that were fired for abuse of power causes. For the victim, it's not a big benefit, but PDs can demonstrate to courts when they do get sued that they have policies, they take them seriously, and they actually terminate cops that do not follow them. Well this. Sterling makes mistakes in this encounter. But standards of behavior are different for Sterling and this cop. The public doesn't need to concern itself at all with what Sterling should have done. We're only concerned with whether the cop's behavior was appropriate given the situation and the actions of the suspect.
I think it is fair to criticize what Sterling did. There should be more respect between citizens and law enforcement. That makes for a more amicable encounter and a positive society. Cops certainly should be more professional, but they are human, too. If someone is a dick to you, you'd probably be a dick back to them. Respect goes both ways. That's not to excuse or justify the behavior of these cops. But we shouldn't excuse Brown from his actions that made it worse for himself.
Respectfully disagree. Cop is a professional, Sterling is an amateur. I expect the professional to perform his duties well no matter what dumbasses he encounters. If he encounters someone so belligerent that he has to use force, that's one thing, but encountering someone 'mouthy' is no excuse to lose your professionalism. Just like if Sterling and the officer were teammates in a basketball game. If the cop makes a bad pass, I'd still expect Sterling to catch anything catchable and convert. He's the one with the ability, the training, and the duty.
Yeah, not saying I'd kill other people. I'm saying I'll gladly take my hands out of my pocket, turn on my interior car lights, keep my hands where they can be seen, and follow verbal orders. I'm not going to instigate the cop just because "I'm a man". He had no right to taser Brown and whoever did that should be fired or whatever. I'm just saying, we should be preaching the fact that these guys have hard, dangerous jobs. Make it easy on them and 99% of the time, they'll make it easy on you, too. What you're preaching gets people killed.
I don't agree with this simply because one has all the power and the tool to kill legally. The cop should show more restraint unless they are physically threatened. Even if someone is mouthing off to you, those are just words, when a cop escalates the situation it usually ends violently. I get cops are human, they are free to mouth back at the civilian imo, but to call back up or threaten arrest is because someone's a dick to you, that's not right.
You can't pinpoint one aspect of the night and then say despite the context. The context is everything, this isn't an isolated incident but rather a pattern of continual behavior throughout the country. And it's perfectly reasonable for someone to put their hands in their pockets in January at 2am in Wisconsin especially when surrounded by six police officers. Did they think he was going to bust out a glock and cap them all and throw up gang signs? Fact is he should have written him a ticket and let him go on his way but he wanted to get back up so he could continue to harass this man.
You guys are way too sensitive to have a genuine discussion about what happened. The guy invaded the cops personal space and he refused to comply. These are red flags, people need to react with respect to authority. People now seem to want to test cops and can't follow simple orders because of their own views/agenda.
What you are saying is all true. And still when they told him to take his hands out of his pocket he should have
Which guys are that? It looks to me like most everybody wants to talk about what Sterling Brown should or should not have done, just like you.
