The Two Sides Of This Cop Coin. Why We Have This Mess. We Need To be Honest.

Simply put, there is both a THUG culture on the streets, and a THUG culture behind the badge. No side is innocent. Nobody can claim the other is at fault.

1) How many videos have we seen where cops have violated a citizen's Rights? White, Black, or whomever? These events are DAILY in America and the ones we see are the only ones that have video evidence.

2) The FBI does NOT have an auditing agency to report deaths FROM cops to citizens. They rely on self reporting. Therefor we have no actual data to go by to see if there is a problem. No actual numbers to cite. You would think in 2014 that someone would have developed a system of audits...but alas...nope.

3) Cops get off in such cases of abuse in such improbable numbers, it's almost a joke to prosecute them for anything criminally... outside of their pensions. There are ZERO special Prosecutors for cops in 2014. Cop cases go to local Grand Juries with no oversight or audit of evidence and the covering up of evidence. The room for corruption is HUGE.

4) GOOD cops don't narc on BAD cops...but expect us to 'see something...say something". If good cops had a better "whistleblower" system, the twisted ones with mental and aggression issues can be weeded out, and relations with cops can maybe have a chance at improvement. The GOOD cops are doing society a grave disservice by standing "with their Brothers" at any cost. This will bite them is the rear.

5) Cops were wearing "I can breathe" T-Shirts mocking the death of Garner...does not help and incites people and shows disrespect for citizens that have WRONGFULLY died at the hands of cops (As opposed to Mike Brown)

6) Do you think daily videos of them violating rights of citizens helps? Like punching 12 year olds in the face for no reason? Or maybe choking people while cuffed? Or killing unarmed homeless people in the back? Or maybe bloodying the face of mentally ill men for no reason, causing their death? Or maybe bashing women's faces in the police station...later to be discovered by surveillance cameras?

Or maybe cops shoving people off bikes and injuring them for fun? Or maybe cops slapping a kid in the face on camera for the kid asserting his right to no searching of his vehicle for a LEGALLY bought gun??

We've all see videos...by the dozens. It's enough

On the other side:

1) We have a culture of Mike Browns and such who have no respect for law and actually try and harm LEO officers.

2) Which leads to people like Al Sharpton, MSNBC, Jesse Jackson, Lamont Hill, CNN, MEDIA, De Blasio, Holder, even our own President...giving into the race baiting and inflaming the situations and stepping on the side of aggressors (Mike Brown) and creating a victim culture...all the way up to our PRESIDENT.

3) We've had protestors which call for the death of cops...and a Mayor who is out of his league "De Blasio", who shouldn't have been voted into office, and who has offended his police force...which will become even MORE hostile now.

The Media, especially, loves to foment the anger of the low info uneducated voters. They have a major hand in all of this.

All in all, both sides of this coin need to be looked at. A 'Conservative" can speak out against bad cops and should be able to. A "Liberal" can support cops...this issue is not so Black & White (pun intended) and there are many sides to this.

I happen to personally think that while police do have a rough job, there is no excuse for taking stress out on citizens. I run a business and it's very stressful. I don't punch people in the face because I've had a bad day. If you can't act right as a cop, you're in the wrong line of work. And I believe cops should get MORE punishment than 'citizens' because they know better.

Adversely, Black youth, especially 'inner city' or "urban" youth, along with young children in general...have been trained to live their lives in chaos and that all 'authority' be damned.

I think you've done a pretty good job of airing the dirty laundry of both sides of this debate.

On one hand we have a large, uniformed culture of unaccountable people who are armed, their position often placing them above the law. This has to stop. Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, and John Crawford should not ever occur again.

In the middle we have laws that are simply creating crime out of thin air. Everything from the war on drugs to taxes on tobacco. At the end of the day reducing state control over the people, what they put in their bodies, and what they consume needs to be reduced or eliminated.

On the other side of the current debate is a largely unrecognized thug culture. When thugs act like thugs they tend to end up dead like thugs, or in prison. As well they should. No community should exalt their criminal elements in the manner in which Mike Brown was.

originally posted by: BatheInTheFountain
1) We have a culture of Mike Browns and such who have no respect for law and actually try and harm LEO officers.

In order to get respect you must give respect. The police do not live by there oath To Protect and Serve.

This happened to me last week: I was at Walmart and two police officers were standing at the entrance (in uniform) collecting money for the Salvation Army. While they were ringing their little bells they were saying merry Christmas, I walked by and made eye contact with one and said merry Christmas, the officer gave me a go to hell look and turned his head and said merry Christmas real loud in a general direction. It made me real angry, I will have no respect for the police until they show respect..

I also think that the government is trying it's best to ferment racial hatred and strife,
from the top down,
in order to divide the country,
gain votes and raise money for what was a dying cause (racism),

until the complicit media got involved in helping ferment trouble.

The division and racial problems can lead to a fantasy for socialists -
martial law and total government control. We are being duped.

The facts no one cares about:

Do you know how many blacks were killed by police by gunfire last year?” O’Reilly asked.

“Off the top of my head, I don’t,” Smiley replied.

“The number is 123,” O’Reilly said.

“Do you know how many whites were killed? 326.”

“There are 43 million-plus black Americans — 123 were killed by police gunfire,” he continued.

“There isn’t an epidemic of this. … But when it happens it’s extremely troubling.”

When a stunned Smiley asked O’Reilly if he really doesn’t see a “pattern” on the issue, the Fox News host replied, “I don’t because the statistics don’t say there’s a pattern.”

“Again, 123 deaths out of 43 million-plus is minuscule — every death is a tragedy, I’m with you,” he added.

“Three times as many whites are shot by police than blacks. I don’t think it’s hunting down blacks.”

www.theblaze.com... -statistics/

on average there were 96 cases of a white police officer killing a black person each year between 2006 and 2012, based on justifiable homicides reported to the FBI by local police.

www.motherjones.com...

The statistic no one cares to talk about, which is extremely important: Between 2500-3000 blacks are murdered each year in the US, of those approximately 90%+ are killed by other black people
rare.us...

Where is the outrage over this????

1% black people killed by police,
about 8% are killed by white people,
over 90% black people killed by other black people

When it comes to white people, of the average of 3000-3500 white people murdered each year
about the same percentage are killed by police,
about 8% are killed by black people
over 90%+ are killed by other white people

The real problem is PEOPLE in general, killing their own

That is the real and total truth of the matter!

The racism is trumped up,

and for I fear a sinister reason by those

whose goal is to enact liberal policies and institute

the Alinsky Model,

this division is outlined as part of the plan to turn the US into a socialist country

in Alinsky's book, which liberals in power worship like a bible.

a reply to: BatheInTheFountain

How many of those people can make a better life. Inequality isn't a black thing either. There's your #in problem.

I think we are made to function in a society where it is rare to see a face you do not have a name to associate with. Think for a moment; Community living, small towns, and villages. In this type of environment you are not allowed to hold positions of authority without qualifying. The problem I see with the world at large is exposure to so many people you can not identify.

333... 22... 1. FIRE away city folk.

There may well come a day of pay back. I really don't hope for it, but there are a lot of common folks ready to come out with torches and pitchforks.
If you are a good cop and are reading this, my advise would be to do the right thing if you are dealing with corrupt coworkers or quit and get another job.
When, and if, this camel's back breaks it is going to get ugly.

a reply to: grandmakdw

What your info (well, others' info that you reported on) tells the unbiased onlooker is that there is no race issue when it comes to killing (justifiable or otherwise), but that the statistics seem to say that it's a localized-culture thing--it's no secret that minorities tend to coalesce together in neighborhoods and communities (and white people, too, I suppose), and I'd be willing to bet that the majority of these killings occur within the same community that the killer lives.

I'm guessing this is why the percentage breakdown is so similar. I'd be willing to bet that racial motivation lies in a low single digit in the percentage on both sides.

a reply to: BatheInTheFountain

It can't be said enough. This whole debate traces back to the war on drugs. The war on drugs instituted institutionalized racism and we've been going strong with it ever since.

a reply to: BatheInTheFountain

The issue was created by Political Correctness and race baiting in the media.

It's simple you can't do the time don't do the crime. Old but relevant adage

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: BatheInTheFountain

It can't be said enough. This whole debate traces back to the war on drugs. The war on drugs instituted institutionalized racism and we've been going strong with it ever since.

I think it's more than time for us to pull a Rosa Parks with the drug laws.

originally posted by: mikell
It's simple you can't do the time don't do the crime. Old but relevant adage

It is our responsibility to defy corrupt laws.

a reply to: BatheInTheFountain


I like the Jon Stewart quote on the whole mess. He says: “You can truly grieve for every officer who’s been lost in the line of duty in this country, and still be troubled by cases of police overreach, those two ideas are not mutually exclusive. You can have great regard for law enforcement and still want them to be held to high standards.”

I openly admit my distrust of LEO - In my small town, lets just say my dad made quite a mess of the family name, so much so that I changed my last name so that I could pursue the career I wanted and still be close to home. My last name is quite well known by everyone in the county for what my dad and his "club" did. I don't believe that all cops are corrupt though and definitely don't believe that every single one of them is a racist. On the other hand, the cops in my area that I know, were all bullies in high school for the most part and I guess they lost that sense of power when they graduated and needed to find it elsewhere. Every "bully" or people considered to be bullies that I still know today is either a cop, in the military, or unemployed, without exception but I do not think this is always the case - I live in a very rural area with lots of small towns and little in the way of non professional industry.