#AllLivesMatter

originally posted by: Kromlech
Criminals don't matter.

SO then citizens dont matter because they are citizens too right?

originally posted by: JalapenoPepper

originally posted by: MrNeo
It's economic.
Cops don't cruise Beverly Hills shooting at rich people no matter their color.
Cops hang out in the poorest neighborhoods because that's where the crime is because ummmmm - joblessness.
I'm from Hawaii, multi-racial and lived in two housing projects in Hawaii and at times even cops didn't come around until dead bodies needed taken care of or someone was laying in the street bleeding out.
I been in South Central. Same thing - no jobs - no hope - fugg it.
People, no matter the color will turn to illegal activities when they have no other means of support which leads to higher police presence and eventually their disdain.
My mom's side of the family is white - poor white - no privilege. Cops all over the place in these white neighborhoods because of meth houses and tweakers. Where else are cops gonna go?
All lives matter because in this very issues color really has little to do with it other than what the media and TPTB intend.

Poor white trailor trash get drunk, maybe smack their wife around a bit... They do not go out in mobs attacking people and robbing stores. Poor whites usually just deal with it, they don't go causing violence. They have a sense of community.



Jalapeno!

Whites actually do go around rioting and tearing up neighborhoods.....over sporting events. But the media never calls them thugs or even bears like you referred to black men as being the equivalence of. I see so many blanket statements being made it's unreal.

All live should matter, but they don't.

Try talking about abortion.

Get your name put on a waiting list for a new heart.

Be a disabled vet.

Try moving next door to a politician.

Try moving next door to Kim Kardashian.



Just an empty movement that lip-service is being paid to. Easy to tweet, doesn't take any effort.

Just imagine, if everyone who actually thought that "all lives mattered", fed a homeless family for one day.

originally posted by: Bone75
a reply to: theantediluvian

You do realize that you just made a compelling case that justifies the shooting don't you?

I guess that's what a person might believe if he were of the opinion that cops showing up on a scene and gunning a man down is justified by a phone call. What happened was effectively no different from swatting. The cops didn't even give John Crawford time to become aware of their presence, realize what was happening and comply. Why can't we just be honest? If it had been an elderly white woman, granny wouldn't have gotten shot on sight but because it was a young black man holding a pellet rifle, they took as gospel the details relayed from the call and were primed to shoot John Crawford. I'm not saying that either of the cops are "racists" or even that Ronald Ritchie is (though there was clear evidence in his Facebook posts of a definite bias) but what happened in that store shouldn't have happened and the fact that so many people are eager to act as though an innocent man being shot to death is just some tragic (and undestandable no less) accident (though, watch the Ritchie interview and you'll hear him say that Crawford got what he deserved), is evidence of exactly the kind of thinking that causes people to believe that #BlackLivesMatter is necessary.

The argument that I was making is that Ronald Ritchie and his wife had a high degree of culpability in the incident and of course, they weren't prosecuted.

a reply to: TorqueyThePig

In regards to the police response, it doesn't matter if he changed his story after the fact. The initial call was that a man was inside Wal-Mart with an "assault rifle." That is the only info the police had.

Are you saying the police should of known that the information they were receiving from dispatch, who received it from another person, wasn't accurate?

I'm sorry but is that all it takes to have somebody killed in this country? Call 911 and lie a little and the cops show up and gun an innocent man down? So does this mean that you're shifting from your earlier apologist strategy of blaming the victim or do you simply not care as long as long as its anybody else's fault but the cops or nobody's fault at all?

As for him raising the replica BB gun by the grip, I may be blind, but are you seriously going to say that from 00:35 on he is not doing so?

I can't speak to your blindness because of course, I can't see you. Similarly, nobody could have observed Crawford at the point you're referring to so unless these would be witnesses were remote viewers, I fail to see how they could have had any opinion about how he was holding the gun. So how is that section of video relevant?

As for him running back to the replica BB gun, I may be blind, but are you seriously going to say that he didn't at the 01:32-01:34 mark?

Watch the video again. You'll see one officer pop up in the aisle with the gun and Crawford drops and crawls quickly to the end of the aisle and was probably looking around the corner just as the other officer comes around to the other end of that adjacent aisle and he decides in this split second to run the other way.

I don't think it had anything to do with the pellet rifle. What possible reason would he have had for trying to retrieve a pellet gun at the point let alone one without any pellets in it? Does he appear to reach for it? No.

So yeah, I'm going to seriously say that he didn't go back for the gun. The real question you should be asking is why you think that it makes sense that he was? Here's a man that wasn't committing any crime, wasn't doing anything wrong, didn't have any reason to get into a confrontation with the police, had no history of violence, wasn't mentally deranged, etc.

Why do YOU, who should be able to consider the facts objectively, knowing all of the above, think that John Crawford was going back for the gun? (your statement: "Crawford ran back to the gun in what looks like an attempt to grab it")

a reply to: beezzer

I think you're missing the sentiment behind #BlackLivesMatter. Perhaps it would have been more clear if the hashtag/movement was #BlackLivesMatterToo or #BlackLivesMatterAlso?

a reply to: theantediluvian

i didnt justify his death at all.
i just wanted to post the vid to show you didnt tell the truth about it.

you said he didnt even raise the damn thing above his waist when in fact he did.
that was my point.
people around or no. he was dicking around with it.

next time tell the truth

a reply to: theantediluvian

When did lives get categorized?

I tell ya, it's the "fluffy kitten" syndrome.

(awww, who doesn't like fluffy kittens!)

Either all lives matter, or they don't.

Does a rapists life matter?

I'm put into enough boxes by society as it is.

Why do we need more categories?

a reply to: theantediluvian
Would it be too much to ask you to put yourself in the COPS shoes for a minute?

They get a call about a man acting erratically with a gun, and when they arrive on the scene, there is indeed a man swinging a gun (not holding it loosely as you put it).

Then after shooting the dude the first time and disarming him, he appears (from the cops point of view) to go back for the weapon.

Regardless of whether that's what he was doing or not, that's what the cops saw. They don't have the benefit of dissecting surveillance footage in the moment like you do afterwards.

a reply to: Bone75

Regardless of whether that's what he was doing or not, that's what the cops saw. They don't have the benefit of dissecting surveillance footage in the moment like you do afterwards.

Absolutely. Earlier while watching the video over and over, like instant replay for a disputed call in sports, my new sig 'hit me'.

This is life, not some game.

a reply to: theantediluvian

The kid freaking charged back towards the gun and the officers and when the final shots hit him he was less than 5 feet from the officer. Had it been me and all I had know was what dispatch told me I'd have shot him too. You seem to just been one of those stubborn people who can't accept when they're wrong. It's flat out obvious there was just cause for that officer to shoot. In fact in more than half of the latest cases I've seen video for that BLM have picked up in their cause have been just shootings...not all however there are some that were over the line. In the adrenaline filled moment when the line gets drawn in the sand...you either act or get acted upon...not many of us here know that feeling and I don't think many of us would fair too well if we were thrust into a situation like that.

All that aside these movements only serve to divide us more...its blatantly obvious. Just look at the latest videos of these BLM rallies...multiple racist actions and a kid tries to gun down cops in the street filled with the very same black lives they say matter so much. Anyone that can't see that just doesn't want to.

a reply to: Bone75

They get a call about a man acting erratically with a gun, and when they arrive on the scene, there is indeed a man swinging a gun (not holding it loosely as you put it).

Swinging? Oh FFS, are we really going to play semantics games?

08:26:54:29ish - cops turn corner, triggering doors to open.
08:26:57:08ish - gun is already on ground
08:26:57:20ish - John Crawford is on his belly crawling for cover
08:27:00:00ish - Officer #1 is moving down aisle previously occupied by Crawford, officer #2 is moving to second aisle
08:27:00:26ish - John Crawford comes back into original aisle
08:27:02:03ish - John Crawford is collapsing

During this entire sequence of events, the end of the barrel moves approximately what? 18 inches? One time. So NO COP SAW HIM "SWINGING" IT. Therefore how could it possibly be a factor? Anything to blame the victim.

Regardless of whether that's what he was doing or not, that's what the cops saw. They don't have the benefit of dissecting surveillance footage in the moment like you do afterwards.

Yeah that sounds great but imagine it was you or yours that was bleeding out on the ground? I wonder if you'd be so gracious then?


a reply to: DenyObfuscation

Absolutely. Earlier while watching the video over and over, like instant replay for a disputed call in sports, my new sig 'hit me'.

This is life, not some game.

Yea you're right, it was real life and a man died and according to what I'm reading in several of these responses, a common thought seems to be "oh well." Except some of us don't feel that way about it. Some of us are tired of cops who are trained to operate as if they're an occupying military force in a hostile foreign country, amped up with irrational fear, with their triggers half pulled from the jump.

That said, I still put a large chunk of the blame with Ronald and April Ritchie and their lying or irrational behavior or however you want to put it.

What about Tamir Rice killed 3 months later? Another 911 call, another replica and cops rolling in at high speed and one of them shooting this 12 year-old before the vehicle had even come to a stop? Then standing around and not even administering first aid while this child bleeds on the ground?

What about 13 year-old Andy Lopez who was killed a year prior in California? A kid with another airsoft replica in an abandoned lot. Cops roll up on him and within 2 seconds of their arrival, he's shot dead. Just like in the cases of Tamir Rice or John Crawford, here's a person with a replica and his back turned when the cops show up, yell something and then start blasting.

The fact of the matter is in these high adrenaline situations where split second decisions are being made, the cops are sizing up the victims and subconsciously making judgments about the victims and their intentions. They're conditioned by society to view some people as inherently more dangerous (males, minorities, people dressed a certain way, etc) and they're trained by law enforcement agencies to maintain an unreasonable high level of fear of the citizenry.

However you want to ascribe fault or if you don't find any fault in anyone's actions at all, the simple fact remains that innocent people died and cops pulled the triggers. I don't have all the answers but I can tell you if the s# was happening in my neighborhood, something would be done about it and it wouldn't take a hashtag or any protests to make it happen.

a reply to: theantediluvian

Yea you're right, it was real life and a man died and according to what I'm reading in several of these responses, a common thought seems to be "oh well." Except some of us don't feel that way about it.

And I'm one that doesn't think ''Oh well''. I watched it over and over. OVER AND OVER I WATCHED A MAN GET SHOT AND KILLED. DON'T YOU DARE TRY TO PAINT ME AS SOMEONE WHO THINKS "OH WELL" ABOUT IT.

I didn't cause this. The officer did not cause this. As much as it sucks, this ultimately falls on the victim due to his own actions. Unintended consequences. It sucks, but it is what it is.

a reply to: RickyD

Charged? Oh boy. Now he's charging, like a crazed bull al a Michael Brown.

You seem to just been one of those stubborn people who can't accept when they're wrong.

Wrong about what? It seems to me that in each of the three cases I mentioned, the cops were wrong — wrong about the victims and wrong about the nature of the situation and that if they weren't so quick to shoot, these people would still be alive. I mean get real. What makes these shootings "justified" legally is the cops claims to have shouted some command or another and then perceiving that a gun was being reached or about to be pointed in their direction.

If the cops just showed up and didn't say a word and shot these people, would they still be justified? Absolutely not. If I roll up on you with your back turned and yell a command at you, how long do you think it would take for you to realize what was going on? God forbid you should instinctively turn to see what's going on. These people don't even have a chance to comply. So how is that effectively any different than saying nothing at all? What happened to training officers to maintain their distance and use cover? Could it be that because they know that they'll be legally justified, they opt instead to shoot first and ask questions later?

Keep in mind, these few incidents involve split second judgments and victims holding pellet guns/airsoft replicas. What about somebody like Walter Scott shot in the back as he's running with a taser dropped by his body after the fact? What about Samuel DuBose who was basically executed for turning on his ignition?

Personally, I'm of the opinion that there should be even more coverage of more of these cases of unarmed people of all races and genders dying in encounters with the police but as long as the people dying are by a wide margin disproportionately black, I'm not going to fault those who seek to bring particular attention to this aspect of the greater issue.

All that aside these movements only serve to divide us more...its blatantly obvious. Just look at the latest videos of these BLM rallies...multiple racist actions and a kid tries to gun down cops in the street filled with the very same black lives they say matter so much. Anyone that can't see that just doesn't want to.

Just look at what? Videos of jackasses and self-important attention whores behaving badly? By this point there have been thousands of protests/rallies/etc with millions of people organized by or attended by people under the banner of "#blacklivesmatter." What is it they say about police? "The vast majority of... blah blah are decent blah blah..." Nobody but the people in those videos can reasonably be expected to answer for what they do or say in a video nor should it instantly delegitimize everyone else or invalidate their concerns.

I really love what my original post has become. Utter silliness.

You guys have proven to me that I am surrounded by knuckle dragging idiots who suckle at the teat of socially conscious PC'ness.

I said ALL LIVES MATTER. You can try to say "#BlackLivesMatter is all inclusive"...but the simple truth is, it is not.

This is my last post to this thread. Read it, and think.

#AllLivesMatter.

a reply to: DenyObfuscation

As much as it sucks, this ultimately falls on the victim due to his own actions.

It couldn't have anything at all to do with police training or societal conditioning? These things are perfect and/or immutable? It couldn't have anything to do with irrational fear that has people calling 911 and giving wildly inaccurate accounts that lead cops to enter situations with expectations of confronting lethal force?

What about all the incidents that don't even involve the perception of potentially life-or-death decisions?

Why can't we all agree that innocent people dying is bad, acknowledge that one group in particular is disproportionately affected (even if you factor in for crime by offender's race statistics) by a factor of like 3 to 1 and then research and enact proactive changes?

Doesn't that seem a much more reasonable course of action than blaming the victims and throwing up our hands?

a reply to: theantediluvian

It couldn't have anything at all to do with police training or societal conditioning?

Yeah, caus societal conditioning makes it where people DONT know its stupid to flash a gun around at cops......Really?



.....how seriously screwed up does your thinking have to be, to side with the guy acting like an idiot with a firearm and then goes at cops and gets shot.....

What kind of mental gymnastics .......or maybe its your societal conditioning not to know whats clearly self evidennt you know like (point a gun at cops get shot)

Seriously the world is upside down....................

Or...youre

a reply to: theantediluvian

I never said Crawford's intention was to run back to the replica gun and grab it.

What I said was, it appeared that he was running back towards the gun. Probably, like you said because he saw officer #2 on the other side of the aisle.

However, from officer #1's perspective it appeared that he was going back towards the gun.

Go ahead and keep attacking me (and other posters) by saying we don't care about what happened to Crawford. I clearly feel this incident was a tragedy. I also stated that I feel extremely bad for Crawford's family and that he lost his life.

That said, his actions majorly contributed to his death.

You don't believe Crawford played a role in the incident and that is fine.

We are entitled to our opinions. Although, the difference between you and I is the fact that I won't attack you for yours.

a reply to: theantediluvian

It couldn't have anything at all to do with police training or societal conditioning?

This case was caused by the actions of the victim.

You can put down your toy gun and badge, get out there on the force and show us how it's done. Tip: There's no rewind button out there.

I have, and will, blame the officer when I believe the officer was wrong. Not this time.

a reply to: ManBehindTheMask

What are you even responding to with this garbage? None of the incidents I referenced had anything to do with a "guy acting like an idiot with a firearm and then goes at cops and gets shot" or even "flashing a gun at cops."

Somehow you manage by the end of your completely out of touch with reality post to conclude that somebody "pointed a gun at cops." Do you actually read before you start typing or do you just have an emotion and then proceed to tap out a bunch of nonsense on your keyboard?