skyhog obviously has bought in on the convenient lie that in absense of facts, it is all about racism. what a shame.
Its not all about racism, and I never said it was. But sorry, "Ghetto Thug" is a racist term. Calling "******" anything other than a racist term is insane.
The problem is not one of racism (although that is definitely a part), the problem is the amount of power afforded to men and women who are rarely held accountable for their life-changing (or ending) mistakes - mistakes that if made by anyone without a badge would likely lead to significant consequences.
Calling a situation where someone is afforded weeks before charges are filed in a pretty open and shut case a "rush judgment" really only underlines the point - if you or I had grabbed someone, stuffed them in the back of a van without cause (read: no valid reason to arrest), and they died, I guarantee you that we wouldn't be walking around as free men for weeks while the SA or DA debated whether to file charges, and I guarantee you even further that our bail would be set much higher.
A police officer should be treated as a normal citizen, afterall, that is all they are - citizens with a badge and a job to do. That they believe their job is much more dangerous than it is isn't an excuse to literally get away with murder, any more than a nuclear power operator randomly killing people would be.
In the point of the original post, breaking into a vacant building, where there were no victims, should not be a capitol offense. Once the mistake of shooting him occurred, certainly standing back and watching him cry for his mommy while they disallow his mother access shouldn't be considered acceptable.
In the point of Gray, telling a man who can't breathe that he doesn't need medical attention is depraved heart murder in and of itself, even without the van or the "rough ride." But then, throwing in the rough ride and the unsecured arrestee puts a fine point on the charge.
Lets go to a different case real quick - a man getting shot accidentally by an officer intending to use a Taser (Eric Harris). First off, accidentally shooting him would still warrant a murder charge if you or I had done it. You'd never see a legitimate defense being "Oops, I meant to hit him with a non-lethal weapon, but grabbed the wrong one!" Moreover, saying "**** your breath!" to a man who was just accidentally shot and knows he is going to die is just heartless. Who does that? The "brave and finest" of our defenders? I guarantee you that if I had accidentally taken someone's life, I would probably feel bad enough to avoid antagonizing him as he died.
Its easy to sit back, as an adult that doesn't and has never faced this stuff and say "meh, they're ghetto thugs so its just one less person to worry about." It is much harder when you find yourself in an unwinnable situation where an officer is intent to kill you, and no matter what you do, you are going to die. Stay there, and risk being shot because your cell phone looks like a gun. Run, and risk being shot because suddenly, merely running away from an officer is enough to justify deadly force.
And then top all that off with a very large contingent of people in the United States that will defend that officer's right to kill you by avoiding oversight that could make a difference because "it will make the officer's job harder." Sorry - it should be
hard to take a man's life. It should be even harder to justify why it was necessary. The moment we make it easy to do so is the moment we run into issues like we have today, where police don't even have to think twice about pulling the trigger.
