Some ridiculous thing have been going on in the past day or so, and they all involve police and race, I'm sure everyone knows about Alton Sterling.

WARNING: ADULT LANGUAGE MAY BE USED
https://youtu.be/lRL2r87VdHk

Cops also swarmed a sick Muslim man who was here for Medical treatment.

https://youtu.be/uyChTNBktm8

And then killed another innocent Black Man. 

https://youtu.be/f8iPhkzlQFo

Opinions anyone?

Thats....just shocking why did they do that instead of putting him for questioning? I think that was unfair on the man on both of them. I hope that the family of these men will be able to be ok from this. But sadly I feel it will take time for them to adjust. Has the police force become more bad to do their jobs now? I...just dunno what else to say to do with this....

I'm going to go a bit off topic with this, but I'm gonna rant.

This is why people think the police are all terrible. They're really not, the vast majority do their job and do amazing deeds every day. But that's not what the media shows.
Why? Views.

What gets more attention? "Local cop does his job well", or "Evil corrupted cops attack Muslim man"? Obviously the latter. However, the latter is something that barely happens, while the former is something that happens every day. But since the latter gets more attention, it's broadcasted in favor of the other one. People see the latter instead of the former, and they start to think that every cop is evil, and corrupted, because of the feat of one bad apple.

Are there bad cops who abuse their power? Yes, i'm not saying there aren't. However they're vastly outweighed by cops who actually do their job correctly.

By spreading this type of things around, it does good, as it shows the bad things these cops have done and should be punished for. However at the same time it perpetuates the idea that every police officer is terrible, which just hammers that idea in everyone's head, thereby giving the police force a bad reputation, which is not good, since they are the ones who protect and uphold the law.

On the topic on hand, it's really quite the tragedy. These people are not who should be police officers, much less anyone in hold of power.

pennylessz : I clicked away because I was just way too disgusted with it.

I know most police do their job well, but there are also sadly a noticeable amount of bad cops.


I can only imagine what they must've gone through.

Also quite disgusted by the people that called the police because he ''looked too muslim''

The reaction when Alton Sterling's son broke down crying in tears because the POLICE who are supposed to PROTECT THE PUBLIC END UP KILLING INNOCENT PEOPLE INSTEAD. Sorry for the high amount of caps, but this is unforgivable. In the video where the Falcon Heights shooting was at, you could hear the cop's voice after he shot the man. You could tell his tone was basically saying, "I screwed up bad." Heck yeah you did you..ugh..

This angers me to no extent if you haven't noticed already. I hope these cops get a long prison sentence and get fired permanently. This is so freaking stupid. 15 year old son, my age, breaking down in tears because he watched the video of his innocent father getting murdered by the police. Screw this. Not all police officers are bad, but the news from the last couple of days has really freaking disappointed me. What is wrong with people. Think twice before you make someone a cop.

As for the first one (alton sterling) I'm going to just throw it out there, we missed probably half of what was going on. As with what happened in the Zimmerman Trial, we didn't get the full story for a very long time. More than likely, he was being aggressive beforehand, and he was obviously trying to get up during the video, and it looks to me that he may have been reaching for a firearm. I've been in a confrontation with the police, and it's common sense to be passive, respectful, and let them do what they're going to do. You have to consider that these officers don't have the option to hesitate. If they hesitate, 9/10 times they're going to have a beautiful funeral and a widow. When someone resists arrest, said person should expect to be shot. Not only that, but an officer's job is not to be passive, but to escalate before their suspect does. This one is perfectly justifiable.

As for the Muslim man, no, they didn't swarm him for being to Muslim. They were called in and told there was a potential terrorist. What do you think they're going to do, ask nicely if he has a suicide vest or car bomb? No. They're going to arrest him, take him in for questioning, and make sure that he isn't, in fact, a terrorist. The fault here is on the people who made the call, not the police.

As for the third one, I really don't know alot about the story, but I can say this. "So, uh, for example. Black teens are shot and killed at a rate of twenty one times more than white teens."

This is race baiting and misleading. Do you know why black teens are shot twenty one times more than white teens? Hint, it's not the police. Check out Chicago. More than sixty people were shot on memorial day weekend. Sound like racism? No, no it wasn't. That was black-on-black crime. I don't understand how that's so easily overlooked. I'm sure the police might've shot a few people that weekend, but with all that chaos going on, I don't blame them one bit.

On the other hand, I do think that this particular shooting was a mistake by the officer, and he should be discharged and subsequently charged with murder. Whether or not he ends up in prison/the table is up to the jury. Now, I don't want to give any solid opinion here, as I don't know much about this one, so...yeah. That's my two cents.

Given the recent frequency of terror attacks, it's understandable that people would be spooked by a guy dressed like that, to some extent, and there's no reason it shouldn't have been investigated. However, that it a really, really huge jump to conclusions and a severe over reaction... And, I mean... You'd think in this day and age, most police forces in larger, Muslim populated cities would have at least one Arabic translator for such occasions. How else are you going to question foreign travelers...?

It's also understandable that they're spooked pretty easily by the possibility of being blown away by a perp, but these guys obviously don't do very well under pressure..... The Police academies really, REALLY need to raise their standards....

Titan127 : Alton was being held on the ground by two police officers, with their vests on, and fully trained.
He moved his arm and instead of grabbing it, killing him was apparently the answer, I don't think that's the right choice. Also I'm not sure how you would feel if you were suddenly tackled by police when you were going in for an operation, if that happened to me, and I found out they were spooked by my race, I still wouldn't find it justified, most Muslims are in fact not terrorists.
The U.S is close enough to a police State as it is, we don't need our Police acting like they're Soldiers in Iraq, the police are there to keep the peace, but jumping to quick conclusions more often than not disrupts it, and harms individuals related to those injured or killed.

I understand that, but in that situation, like I said, it's common sense to not move and simply let them cuff you. The police aren't going to mess around with potential gunmen, they're going to eliminate the threat before it appears, and that makes perfect sense to me. When he moved his arm, the only assumption that could be made was that he's going for his gun. Have you ever tried to hold someone down like that? Because it's incredibly difficult to keep them from squirming enough that, in this scenario, he could've pulled a gun, bent his wrist up, and fired.

As for the muslim, again, I admit that it was a mistake, but not by the police. When a call is made about a potential terrorist, what else are you going to do? Walk up and ask, only to here a car bomb go off in the distance to the tune of "Allahu-Akbar"? No, you're going to eliminate the threat as quickly and efficiently as possible.The mistake here was made on the part of those who called the police, because again, you have to jump to quick conclusions. That's what they're trained to do, because if they don't, they'll be killed in the line of duty. And I'll take 99.99 percent of police officers over some thug who gets shot when he was innocent this time, a thug with a criminal record, probable drug abuse, and probably causes enough trouble as it is.

If these police officers weren't "jumping to quick conclusions," I like to call it quick decision making, the stories would not be about police brutality, but about dozens of police officers being killed every month.  As for the police state thing, that's absolutely ludicrous. You obviously haven't heard of actual police states, such as Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, Fascist Italy, or modern North Korea. Our police officers establish and maintain order, they do not rule over us with an iron fist. I find it sickening that so many people will give those men and women so much heat and crap about things that were bound to happen because sometimes life happens, when most of tose people wouldn't so much as step foot in the neighborhoods that these officers have to patrol. Think about what they have to do every day of their lives, and tell me that they can afford to casually stroll into the location of a suspected terrorist, or take the risk of being shot. 

I will just say one thing about this...and I'm sorry for the parties involved, but I will pray for their families. But the bottom line is, stuff happens ( and I don't mean "stuff" either ). If this kind of police "brutality" didn't exist, who knows what could happen.

Its unfortunate that you run into these evil cops sometimes ( and there aren't that many around ) but if you do what the cop tells you to do, you will be fine. That should be enough to say for anyone, in any race.

Titan127 : As it turns out Alton's hands were completely empty, and he wasn't pinned by just 2 officers, but 3.
He also didn't have a license to conceal, he wasn't allowed to because he was on probation.
The gun was inches from his chest, but honestly, they yelled he has a gun and there's a picture of him clearly with his hands free, something isn't right about that.

Anyway,soon enough the police will confirm whether or not he had a gun, I still have no idea how you could justify that horrific video, I mean police have tazers for a reason, and go through combat training for a reason.

pennylessz: I understand that Alton's hands were completely empty, but you're missing my point. He was more than likely going for his gun and it's relatively easy to fire one from the pocket. And, to add onto that, the police confirmed that he did, in fact, have a gun. The fact that he was on probation only furthers my point, really. They have to make quick decisions, and while he wasn't holding a gun at that moment, he could've been going for one, because he knew full well that if he was on probation and they found a gun on him, he was back in prison for years. 

And like I said, even if it was a mistake, if the police didn't make quick decisions like they do, then instead of hearing couple guys that maybe shouldn't have died every month (and in most cases the officers were more than in the right), we'd be hearing about at least a half dozen cops being killed every month, if not significantly more. Tying the police's hands will only result in more crime, more police deaths, and absolute anarchy in places like Ferguson. Not to mention increased fatalities of the group of people who are being killed besides, as they won't have anyone holding them back from wreaking havoc on the streets.

That's why I can justify that video. And before you really start to get after those policemen, please, their names will be given out, and dozens of people are going to come for them and their families, just as has happened before, people who were their friends or family, because that's the group of people that most of these guys hang around and participate in criminal actions regularly with. Street trash. Obviously there are exceptions like Falcon Heights, but for Alton Sterling, at least, he was an idiot for resisting, and he died because he had a gun on him when he tried to get away.

I am going to agree with maguc on this one. This absolutely is an issue but I think we're also ignoring the good cops and assuming all cops are bad. I mean, look at the page Cop Block on Facebook. They basically want a genocide of all cops, it's absolutely disgusting to look at. It's sad how much more attention the bad gets than the good, and that's not even exclusive to the police issue. The media is always just straight depressing.

Best wishes to the families involved however, this should have never happened.

Alright! We've got some new information that's come up now, and it's actually pretty important.

Alton Sterling, you said that he may or may not have had a gun, and that they should've used a tazer on him. He was, in fact, tazed, but he's a big guy, so it didn't affect him in the slightest, and it's been confirmed that he did, in fact, have a firearm on him when he was killed. It's also relatively easy to fire one from one's pocket, if you remember. Otherwise, he was on probation, which I think I said, after being behind bars for five years? Why? Because he was a child molester. Now if anyone's upset with that absolute scum being dead, then there's something going on in their head. He should've been hanged, not jailed.

As for the shooting in St. Paul, it turns out that the guy was a suspect for an armed robbery, and that's why he was pulled over, because his vehicle matched the description, and that's why he went for his gun. In the video, the officer in question clearly says "I told him to get his hands off it." 

And the woman seems very, very calm for the situation, if you listen to her, which is really, really weird. Her boyfriend just got shot, and her voice sounds like someone's complaining to her about something that doesn't matter at all.

So, while at first I did, in fact, believe that the St. Paul shooting was a horrible mistake on the officer's part, again, the police pull through, and are still the good guys that we all grew up being taught that they are. 

Titan127 :

Actually, I learned something new in Principles of Law class last year. There's this easy-to-understand graph that tells officers how to react to what situation. I can't seem to find it at the moment, but let's put it this way. If the suspect is being passive, willfully accepting the handcuffs, then the cop should have no reason to be aggressive or use any kind of force, since they are on the same level. If you go a level higher, and the suspect is sort of back talking, then the officer has the option to use force to an extent. No weapons, though. Go a few levels higher, the suspect attacks with his hands, without a weapon, the officer has an option to defend himself without a weapon, but they can use a taser if they must. Now, if the suspect has a firearm and is actually trying to hurt you, officers can use excessive force if they want to. It's a really great graph because it illustrates that to arrest suspects, officers can easily be on the same "level" as the suspect. It's kind of confusing at first and I'm not really good at explaining things well. Apologies if this is confusing. 

Lexatom : I'll have to try and find this graph, but I think I understand what you're saying. You see though, both suspects were armed, and both went for a gun, (Alton Sterling had a gun in his right pocket, which he reached for before being shot, and the other guy was going for his because he was a suspect in an armed robbery) so I think that qualifies as "excessive force."

I'm actually really impressed that you can list all of that off the top of your head though, since you said you couldn't find the graph. Is Principles of Law a college or high school course? Because my high school doesn't offer it and it sounds like something I'd be interested in taking, honestly.

Titan127 :

Well, that was the Freshman course for high school.

Once school starts again I'm going into Criminal Justice I which is basically the same thing but different topics and particularly for Sophomores. And thanks! I have to memorize a lot of the things I learn in there since I hope to become a prosecuting attorney. Sorry for going off-topic, by the way.

I'm going to have to be one of those people who defend the police here. I understand some of them are bad people, but just hear me out here.

Obviously there are going to be police who do bad things, but how is this any different than how Muslims are portrayed by the media? The only incidents that get any coverage are when something bad happens, so the entire religion / police force are then vilified. Just because a few of them do something that people think are horrible, doesn't mean they are all bad people. I don't understand why people can't apply the same logic to police as they do for other groups in this world? But then again, I guess a lot of people don't think that far into it, or just want to point the finger and blame someone (or rather a group as a whole instead of the individuals) when things go wrong. 

Don't get me wrong, I have my fair share of experience being treated harshly by the police. I've been arrested, thrown out of my car while sleeping in it and then them jumping on top of me to put cuffs on, as well as being pulled over about 50 + times or so. I know all too well, how police conduct themselves, and most are good people who just have to deal with a lot of crap all the time.

I'm just saying, just because some commit heinous acts, they're not all bad people.